Music of the Distant Stars

NINE

Sibert and I slipped quietly back into Aelf Fen in the early evening. We took great care to make sure nobody spotted us, although in fact there wasn’t a soul watching out because almost all the village had gone to the churchyard to witness the burial of Ida’s body.

We hurried along after the last stragglers, panted up the slight rise to the church and found a place on the edge of the silent crowd. The priest was just finishing his prayers for the dead girl’s soul, and at his feet the linen-shrouded corpse lay in the freshly-dug grave. It was a beautiful evening, and the westering sun was casting long shadows from the stumpy trees around the graveyard, illuminating the watchful faces with a soft, golden light. Somewhere nearby a chaffinch was singing, the fluting notes ending in a repetitive little phrase that seemed to say, too young to die!

Immediately behind the priest, on the highest ground, stood Lord Gilbert and Lady Emma, their heads bent. Lady Emma’s lips moved as she added her own pleas to those of the priest. Lady Claude stood beside her, very pale, her mouth compressed as if to hold back the tears. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her eyelids were puffy. I felt a stab of compassion for her; it did not look as if my sleeping draughts were helping very much. On the far side of Lord Gilbert and a little behind him, Sir Alain de Villequier stared out over the assembled villagers. I noticed that Lady Claude kept shooting him anxious little glances, and I was touched that she seemed to be trying to draw strength from him. Perhaps, despite those terrible embroidered panels and her tight features that spoke eloquently of rigid self-control, there was a chance that their marriage would be happy. .

I thought back to Brandon, going over everything that Sibert and I had learned. Was Alberic here, watching as the body of the girl he loved was buried miles from her home? Suddenly filled with the conviction that he was, I copied Sir Alain and began scanning the crowd for an unfamiliar face, only to realize pretty quickly that it was an impossible task, for there were dozens of strangers present. I guessed everyone who had a friend or relative in Aelf Fen had heard of the mysterious death of a young seamstress and come hurrying over to witness the burial. Part of me wanted to shout at them, tell them to get back where they belonged and not be so ghoulish. Then, reflecting on how rarely anything at all exciting happened in most people’s dull and monotonous lives, I relented. After all, they weren’t doing any harm. Villagers and outsiders alike were standing listening respectfully to the priest’s endless prayers, and one or two even had tears on their faces. As for Ida, if any part of what had made up the living girl was present and watching the proceedings, then she would surely be gratified that so many had come to see her off.

Still, the presence of so many strangers meant that Alberic could very well be here among us and no one would know.

I wondered if Sir Alain was also searching the faces for the stranger that might be Alberic and feeling similarly frustrated. Then I realized that, unless he, too, had heard the invisible singer, followed the trail of Ida’s life back to her village and found out about her lover — which was unlikely because if he had, our informant would have told us — he didn’t know of Alberic’s existence. Just as I was wondering if I ought to tell him, something else occurred to me. If Sir Alain wasn’t looking out for Alberic, who was he hoping to see in the crowd?

The answer came quickly: Derman.

Oh, oh, but it was just what poor, simple Derman would do! He must surely be in torment, hiding away from his sister, his home and everything that made up security for him in a cruel world. If somehow he had managed to find out that they were burying the girl he had loved this evening, then he would undoubtedly have been drawn back to say his farewell to her, no matter the danger to himself if he were to be spotted and apprehended. Did he even understand that there was danger to him? He must have done, I reasoned, for why else had he run away?

I let my eyes wander along the rows of silent people. Derman is big and bulky — I suspect he is very strong — and quite hard to overlook. I saw my parents, standing with Edild on the edge of the crowd. Squeak and Haward were with them, standing either side of Zarina. I thought suddenly that the two of them looked defensive; Haward had his arm round her waist. But there was no sign of Derman.

The priest had finished at last, and the gravediggers were starting to heap earth down on top of the shrouded body. I did not want to watch. I grabbed Sibert’s hand, said, ‘Come on!’ and, hurrying through the villagers and the strangers as they milled about on the track and began to think about turning for home, caught up with my family. I reached out to grab Haward’s arm — he was nearest — and he spun round, his face angry and his hand clenched in a fist.

Then he saw it was me. ‘Oh. Hello, Lassair.’ He called out to my father and asked him to take his place at Zarina’s side. Then, his hands on Sibert’s and my shoulders drawing us close, he jerked his head in the direction of the slowly-dispersing crowd of villagers and said quietly, ‘They’ve t-taken against Zarina. They say her brother’s a k-k-killer and ought to be hanged for what he did.’

‘But they don’t know yet that he did anything!’ I protested.

‘Hush!’ Haward glanced around hastily to see if anyone had heard, but the people closest to us were muttering avidly about the priest, his prayers and likely span of the dead girl’s sojourn in purgatory. ‘You know what they’re l-like,’ he said bitterly. ‘Derman was seen near the island — ’ I thought it very restrained of him not to add that it was I who had seen him there — ‘and now he’s run away. As well as that he’s simple, and he and Zarina are strangers, and it all adds up to his guilt.’

‘They’ve been here since Lammas last year!’ I said. ‘They’re not strangers any more.’

Haward sighed. ‘Yes, they are. And they’re different.’ He did not need to elaborate; I knew what he meant. Dropping his voice, he muttered, ‘We’ve got to find Derman and warn him. If he returns to the village they’ll very likely take him out and st-st-string him up.’

I imagined the scene. A group of strong village men, stirred to violence by gossip and righteousness, setting out to avenge a girl they hadn’t even known, when their real motive was to hound the outsider, the man who was different, and be rid of him once and for all. Poor Derman. Poor Zarina — she must be terrified.

‘Still no sign of him?’ Sibert was asking.

Haward shook his head. ‘No. Sir Alain has organized search p-parties — most of the village men and b-boys were summoned — and they’ve been out most of the d-day. Nobody’s reported anything that might lead to Derman.’

With the image of a local gang bent on murder still vivid in my mind, I wondered if somebody had seen something but, preferring village justice to Sir Alain’s kind, had kept quiet. Would this man, whoever he was, even now be spreading the word to the others? Wait for darkness, then we’ll creep out of the village and I’ll lead you to him. We’ll show him how we deal with murderers!

It was horrible. It was also all too easy to imagine. I looked ahead to where Zarina walked between Squeak and my father, her head up, her back straight, her eyes fixed on some object in the distance. I thought I heard the sound of angry bees buzzing and, as I looked around, I could see the villagers getting their heads together, murmuring and shooting furtive glances at the woman they would shun because she was the sister of a simpleton who they had decided was a murderer.

It just wasn’t fair.

‘I’ll go and sit with her for a while,’ I said, overcome with the urge to give her my support. ‘She won’t want to be alone with just old Berta for company.’ The washerwoman Zarina lodged with was highly likely to be first in the line of those denouncing Derman, for all that he’d lived under her roof and uncomplainingly done far more than his share of the rough and heavy work.

‘Zarina won’t be alone,’ Haward said, giving me a quick smile. ‘She’s coming home with us.’

Yes, it was typical of my parents to have asked her. It might be unseemly for a single girl to sleep in the same room as the man who wanted to marry her, but then there would be three other people present. ‘But I’d be really pleased if you’d t-talk to her,’ Haward added. ‘You remember what I asked you to do?’

He’d asked if I’d try to judge how Zarina would feel if Derman didn’t come back, and all I’d done so far was have one brief conversation with her. ‘Yes, of course,’ I said. I thought quickly. ‘I’ll go to her now and offer to go back to her house with her to help her collect what she needs for the night.’

Sibert suppressed a snort of laughter and said, ‘Very subtle, Lassair. I’m sure she’ll never guess you’re trying to get her on her own.’

Haward glanced at him and said coolly, ‘Lassair’s doing her b-best and I’m grateful.’ My brother doesn’t really understand my relationship with Sibert.

‘It’s all right,’ I whispered to my brother. Then I hurried on to catch up with Zarina.

Berta was still out somewhere muttering with her cronies, so Zarina and I had the little house to ourselves. I watched as she made a desultory attempt to gather a few belongings together, then she slumped down on her cot and put her hands over her face. I went to sit beside her, unsure whether or nor to put my arms round her. I wanted to, but there’s something a little distant about Zarina.

I said after a while, ‘It must be a good sign that they haven’t managed to find him yet.’

She murmured something that might have been an assent.

‘There have been heaps of people searching,’ I plunged on, ‘and if Derman has avoided them, then he must have found a good place to hide. Perhaps he’ll-’

She uncovered her face and spun round, halting my well-intentioned words. ‘And just what do you think he’ll be doing out there in this hiding place?’ she demanded.

‘Er — well, he’ll have built a shelter,’ I improvised, ‘and maybe he thought to take food and drink with him, and perhaps even a blanket, and-’

‘Lassair, Derman hasn’t the first idea how to take care of himself,’ Zarina said heavily. ‘He ran away with only the clothes he stood up in. I checked, and his spare shirt and hose are still in the lean-to, with his blanket and his cloak. As for food and drink, if I don’t put it before him he doesn’t eat.’

‘Couldn’t he forage?’ I suggested hopelessly.

She laughed harshly. ‘What do you think?’

No. He couldn’t.

Derman had been gone for at least two days. If the search party or the village gang didn’t find him soon, it would be too late.

Zarina must be thinking the same thing. Surely it would not shock her if I put it into words? Very tentatively I said, ‘How long could he survive?’

She shrugged. ‘Six days, a week, maybe. Thirst would drive him to find water, although whether he’d know to make sure it was clean enough to drink, I couldn’t say.’

I nodded. I knew very well what I wanted to ask her, but I could not find the words. To me — probably to everyone else — Derman just seemed a burden, a big, shambling adult with the body, the strength and the natural urges of a man but the intelligence of a child, and a pretty odd and dim-witted child at that. I viewed the prospect of his dying out there in the wild as something very regrettable, but if it happened — through nobody’s fault but his own, he being the one who had chosen to run away — it would remove the obstacle to her wedding with my brother that Zarina saw as insurmountable. What I was overlooking was the possibility that she might love him.

I said carefully, ‘If he doesn’t return, it may of course mean he’s got right away from the area — which is why the search parties can’t find him — and perhaps someone has taken him in.’

She looked at me, her golden-green eyes unreadable. ‘Why would anyone do that?’

‘There are good people out there,’ I replied, then, warming to my theme, I plunged on. ‘There are monasteries and convents full of holy men and women whose duty it is to look after the needy and the helpless. There are lots of hard-working people who would be pleased of an extra pair of hands to help them on the land, or even in the home, and Derman’s very strong, isn’t he?’

She sighed, a faint smile on her face. As if she found my speculations about charitable nuns and monks and farmers desperate for hearty workmen too foolish to comment on, she said dreamily, ‘He was in a strongman act. When we were with the travelling entertainers, that’s what Derman’s job was.’

It was the first time she had ever spoken to me about her past. I said encouragingly, ‘What exactly did he do?’

Her smile broadened. ‘Not very much. He was always hard to teach, and he found it virtually impossible to remember anything very detailed. He’d stand with his legs apart and his arms out straight by his sides, then these other men would climb up his body and stand on him, and then more would stand on them till they’d made a mountain of men. Finally, one by one, starting from the top, they’d all leap off again, turning and twisting as they fell and landing in a circle all round him.’

I remembered. I’d seen the act at the fair when Zarina and her brother had first blown into our lives. It had been most impressive. The seven men who had just jumped down started turning tumbles and flips, then after a while seven girls had run out to join them. The girls had been dressed in extraordinary garments: tight little velvet bodices and layers of floaty fabric that formed their skirts, with their legs and feet bare. Their long hair had been loose, bound only with strands of ribbon plaited into it. They had tumbled and turned with the men, running round in a circle in the opposite direction, then they had formed into pairs — seven men dancing with seven girls — and their movements had speeded up till they’d been a brightly-coloured blur. I still couldn’t believe some of the things those men and girls had done. I’d never known the human body could bend like that.

Zarina had been one of the dancing girls. They had all been pretty, but she was the prettiest. I don’t know what life with a troupe of travelling entertainers had been like, but Zarina had given it up because she’d fallen in love with my brother.

Where had she and Derman come from? Who were their parents, and what had happened to them? Had they also been entertainers, and the rest of the troupe had taken in the orphaned brother and sister when they died?

Now might be my chance to find out.

‘Were your parents entertainers too?’ I asked, trying to keep my tone casual.

‘Dear Lord, no,’ she said. I thought she shuddered, but she might just have been chilly. It was decidedly cool, now that the sun had set. ‘No. My father was a nobleman.’

‘A — nobleman?’ And she was contemplating marrying my brother!

As if she had read my thoughts, she said, ‘He was neither very rich nor very important, but the title was an old one.’

‘Was he — is your family Norman?’

She burst out laughing. ‘No, Lassair. Neither are we Saxon.’ She regarded me, and there was still lively amusement in her eyes. ‘I was born a long way from here,’ she said. ‘In a country where a woman’s position is even lowlier than it is here. Where a man can give his daughter to a villain, a dullard or an octogenarian, even if it is so much against her will that she would rather die.’

A man can do that here, I thought, but I did not speak. I did not want to interrupt her.

‘My father wanted me to marry his oldest friend,’ she said, so quietly that I strained to hear. ‘If you can call it a friendship, when one man makes a loan to another and then demands it must be settled, and the only thing the debtor possesses that his creditor wants is his own daughter.’

‘So. . your father used you to pay his debt?’

‘He tried to,’ Zarina said with spirit. ‘I would not have it. In a barbarous, lawless region, my father’s friend was famous for his cruelty. He liked to arrange spectacles in which men he’d had arrested on imaginary charges were given the chance of fighting for their freedom. He’d have them let out into animal cages, two prisoners to a cage, then they’d be armed with swords, knives, clubs, anything, and at the end the one on his feet over the dead body of the other would be set free. Only, one of Haglar’s men would be sent to fetch him back and he’d be quietly beheaded. Haglar liked beheading people,’ she added. ‘They say he beheaded his first wife because she bore him two daughters.’

I realized I was sitting there with my mouth open, and quickly shut it. ‘And this Haglar hoped you would bear him a son?’

Zarina made an impatient sound. ‘There was little chance of that, for his other two wives had no more luck. Mind you, Haglar had an illegitimate son by one of the hundreds of women he’d seduced or raped, and this son did not want his father to have a son born in wedlock, so it’s very likely the baby born to the third wife was suffocated. It wasn’t even a boy,’ she said in a whisper. ‘He didn’t stop to make sure.’

In her dreadful tale, that seemed the worst atrocity of all. ‘So you ran away,’ I said.

She nodded. ‘I did. I’d seen the entertainers in the town square, and I knew they never stayed anywhere very long. I thought that if I could hide in one of their wagons until we were far away, then I might be able to convince them I could be useful to them and they’d let me stay. They seemed like friendly people, and I’d always been a good dancer.’

‘And there was Derman,’ I said.

‘Derman?’

‘Yes! They must have seen the potential in your brother. Being so big and strong, he’d have been very useful to them, and I bet they quickly realized it.’

‘Yes, yes,’ she said. ‘They did.’

‘Did he understand that you could never go back?’ I asked. ‘Did he appreciate why you had to leave?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said slowly. ‘All I can tell you is that from the time I joined the troupe, Derman looked after me. We had hard times, and we faced danger. Not just things like fierce storms, flooding, desperate hunger and extremes of heat and cold, all of which you learn to take in your stride when you’re on the road.’

‘What other danger do you mean?’ I had an idea I already knew.

‘Haglar sent men after me,’ she said tonelessly. ‘He had one of my maids tortured till she told him what I’d been planning. Fortunately for me, although not for her, I didn’t tell her the truth. But they burst into my father’s house and searched my rooms, and when they found I’d taken only my jewels and none of my rich and costly garments, one of the men guessed where I was. He came alone. I guess he thought I’d be no trouble and he could claim all the glory from having brought me back. Haglar would have been very generous, I’m sure. But he never got the chance to discover how generous because Derman killed him and hid his body where it would never be found.’ She was staring at me, eyes wide with the drama of her tale. ‘He put it in a-’

She stopped. Just like that, in the middle of a sentence.

My mind was reeling. She had escaped from a ghastly future, and her brother had gone with her. He had protected her, to the extent of killing for her. He had hidden the body in a. . In a grave? Was that what Zarina had been about to say? And, having come up with such an unexpectedly good idea — for who would think to look for a body in someone else’s grave? — had Derman then employed it again when he had killed Ida?

It sounded horribly likely.

In the same moment that I accepted Derman might very well be guilty, I understood why his sister could not abandon him. He had give up so much for her, even if he did not realize it. Whether or not she loved him — and I still wasn’t sure — she owed him so much. She owed him her life.

I no longer cared if she would shy away from me. I reached out and took both her hands in mine, moving so close to her that our hips touched. ‘Zarina, we must find Derman and bring him back,’ I said urgently. ‘He must stand trial, but if he is innocent — ’ oh, I hoped I was wrong and that he wasn’t a killer — ‘he’ll be freed, and then when you marry Haward — ’ she made as if to speak, but I wouldn’t let her — ‘you and Derman will both go to live in my parents’ house till Haward builds you one of your own.’

She snatched her hands away and turned on me, all the soft gold gone from her eyes, leaving them glittering green and hard as emeralds. ‘I cannot marry Haward!’ she cried.

‘But he loves you! You love him!’

She emitted a great sound of fierce anger and frustration. ‘Love!’ she echoed. ‘You think it is all that matters!’

I didn’t understand. ‘I know you are bound to Derman and cannot forsake him, but my mother and my father will not try to make you! It won’t be easy, naturally, especially at first while everyone’s getting used to-’

Zarina had had enough. She leapt up from her cot and began flinging her few possessions into an old leather bag. ‘I cannot marry Haward,’ she repeated.

I, too, had reached the end of my rope. ‘I want to see my brother happy!’ I shouted. ‘You can make him happy, Zarina, I know you can because I-’ I almost said because I’ve seen it in the runes, but I remembered just in time that such things were secret. ‘I appreciate that you care for Derman,’ I went on more calmly, ‘but he’s not the only person to consider. I care for Haward, and I refuse to see his chance of happiness with you taken away from him because you are-’

‘I am?’ She rounded on me. ‘I am what?’ She screamed at the top of her voice, a great aaaaagh that tore out of her. ‘You do not know what I am!’ she cried. Then, pausing to draw breath: ‘You know nothing about me!’

It was very late.

The man lurking on the edge of the village watched as the last lights were extinguished. He waited a little longer and then, keeping to the shadows, crept along the track and up the path that sloped up to the church. The melody of his song ran through his head as he walked. He would sing it soon.

He went straight to the new grave. He knew exactly where it was. He had not dared go too close earlier, while they were burying her, instead keeping to the back of the crowd, his hood drawn up around his face.

He had heard the prayers. He had listened to the villagers as they muttered together. They spoke of him, that shambling, drooling simpleton. There were search parties out hunting for him, and many of the villagers believed they should take matters into their own hands. The singer agreed with them, although he would be the one meting out the richly-deserved punishment. You killed her, he thought. You put her body in the grave on the island. I know you did, for I saw you do it. I saw you there, although I did not know until later what you were doing. You left her there, my beautiful Ida, then you ran away and sobbed because you knew you had done wrong and would be made to pay the price.

Now, standing over her as she lay dead in the ground, his love, his loss and his grief welled up uncontrollably. He closed his eyes, opened his mouth and softly, sweetly, heartbreakingly, he began to sing.