Out of the Dawn Light

FOURTEEN

In the morning I was up and quietly preparing to go out before my mother, my granny or Edild could try to stop me. We had talked late into the night, at first with Hrype and then, once he had gone home to the unenviable task of trying to comfort Sibert’s poor mother, among ourselves.

I had slept for a while but not long. My dreams had been deeply troubling and when I opened my eyes in the pre-dawn darkness and knew I would not sleep again, my waking thoughts were no more reassuring.

I knew what I had to do and I did not want to do it. I was very scared, for one thing, and as well as that I was nervous because I was about to make myself do something I would not normally have considered in a hundred years.

I had not said much more during the long discussions last night but I had listened very carefully, especially to a certain question posed by my father and answered by Hrype. This morning, as a consequence, I knew not only what I had to do but where I must go to attempt it. The how I would leave to what I hoped would prove a benevolent providence; having no clear idea yet, I prayed that inspiration would strike at the appropriate moment.

I did not want to do this at all. The problem was that I didn’t see I had any choice.

My mother was surprised to notice, on waking, that I was pulling my boots on. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked, brushing back her long plait. She wears her lovely strawberry blond hair like this for sleeping.

Her voice disturbed Edild, who had been asleep by the hearth. She propped herself up on one elbow and watched me, waiting for my reply.

‘Back to Goda’s,’ I said shortly.

My mother looked very surprised, as well she might as she would, I’m sure, have expected me to use the drama of Sibert as an excuse to stay in Aelf Fen as long as possible and certainly for today. ‘I think you should stay here and have a restful day,’ she said, sounding worried. ‘You were quite ill yesterday and we were anxious at how pale you were.’ She turned to her sister-in-law. ‘Don’t you agree, Edild?’

I met my aunt’s eyes and sent her a pleading look. She seemed to understand — really, I was asking a great deal of her just then — and said, after a moment’s consideration, ‘She looks better this morning. I believe that a walk in the fresh air followed by the resumption of her duties will be better for her than staying here and brooding.’

The voice of authority had spoken and my mother seemed to accept it. ‘Very well,’ she said, not sounding entirely happy. ‘But if you feel at all unwell, Lassair, you are to come home. Do you hear me?’

‘Yes, Mother.’

She muttered something under her breath, something about Goda having to get off her fat backside and manage without me, and I realized then just how disturbed my mother was, for in the normal way she never runs down one of her children in front of the others. Not even Goda.

Before either of them could say anything else — or, even worse, before my father could awake and get the chance to weigh in to the discussion — I said a swift goodbye to Edild and my mother and slipped out of the house.

Baudouin de la Flèche disliked having to stay under another man’s roof but, as he frequently and sourly reminded himself, he ought to have thought of that before he joined Bishop Odo’s rebels and by that action found himself on the losing side with his manor taken away from him. Its loss had followed the defeat at Rochester with breathtaking speed and he was still reeling from the blow. He had quit Drakelow with the clothes he wore, his knife, his sword, a saddlebag of provisions and one of hastily packed spare linen and his horse. Everything else in the house, the tower, the outbuildings and the whole estate was now under the care of the king’s representative.

Baudouin tried not to think about that.

There was plenty to distract his thoughts, although the labyrinthine cast of mind of Baudouin de la Flèche meant that some of his deepest, darkest thoughts and deeds were sometimes all but hidden even from himself. He was a man who acted with ruthless decisiveness and, if he did not actually regret things that he had done, he was on occasion faced with consequences that proved challenging to surmount.

Now was such a time, although he believed that already the way was becoming clearer. The boy was in captivity and the treasure was restored to its rightful owner. Or very soon it would be. .

Baudouin heard footsteps coming along the passage into the hall and, with some difficulty, composed his features into a smile of welcome.

The stranger’s roof under which he had slept the previous night was that of Gilbert de Caudebec. Gilbert’s father Ralf had fought with William the Conqueror and, having proved himself an efficient administrator rather than a ruthless and inspired soldier, his reward had been not one of the castles deemed crucial to the Conqueror’s defence of his new realm but the relative backwater of a small manor on the edge of the Fens known as Lakehall. There Ralf de Caudebec had settled quite happily, in due course marrying an English heiress, Alftruda, who gave him a son, Gilbert, and two daughters. On Ralf’s death Alftruda had gone to live with the elder of her daughters, leaving Lakehall to Gilbert and his young wife Emma.

The plump and easy-going Gilbert showed no more flair as a fighting man than his father but, unlike Ralf, he was not a particularly talented administrator either; probably the shrewdest thing he had ever done was to appoint a hard-working and highly efficient reeve. The estate that Gilbert controlled on the king’s behalf was a mixture of arable land on the higher, drier ground and waterlogged marsh out in the Fens. Happily for Gilbert, the people of the latter seemed content to carry on the way they had always done, back through the long decades and centuries before the Conquest, and that suited him very well.

He was rarely called upon to fulfil his judicial role, which suited him too, but now trouble had come and lodged itself right in his own house. He found it hard to meet the dark eyes of his guest, for the man seemed all but unhinged by his nephew’s death. The dead young man was also his guest’s heir, Gilbert thought astutely, and we Normans set a great store on having a suitable male heir to inherit from us, so that the loss of such a man would indeed be a heavy blow. Yes, he thought with a sigh. Trouble was here all right, and he was uncomfortably aware that he must step forward to deal with it.

Now, on this bright summer morning when he would far rather have stayed in his own chamber with his pretty wife and the enchanting baby boy with whom she had recently presented him, he had been forced to rise, dress and go into his hall to entertain Baudouin de la Flèche.

Baudouin stood up smartly as Gilbert strode into the hall and they exchanged polite greetings. When Baudouin deemed there had been enough pleasantries, he said quite curtly, ‘So, Gilbert, have you come to a decision concerning the crown?’ He almost said my crown but that could have been seen as provocative.

Gilbert did not immediately answer, instead walking over to the open door of the wide hall and gazing out for a few moments over the peaceful scene outside. Gentle country sounds floated up: the quacking of ducks on the pond just beyond the courtyard; the barking of a dog; light voices and laughter as two young maidservants enjoyed a gossip; the rhythmic sound of someone sweeping muck and old straw out of a stable. Ah, he thought, with a soft sigh. If only these small, pleasurable, everyday matters were to be the sum of my concerns this day. Then he turned to face his guest.

Even before Gilbert had said a word, Baudouin’s heart sank, for he knew from the fat man’s uncharacteristically solemn expression what he was going to say. Gilbert was weak — Baudouin had detected that after a very short acquaintance — and, like all weak men, he could on occasion stick with stubborn tenacity to some small point which, among the minutiae of everyday occurrence, for some reason presented itself as a matter of principle.

It was Baudouin’s misfortune that the point on which Gilbert had stuck was the ownership of the crown.

Go on, you moon-faced fool, Baudouin thought bitterly as he waited for Gilbert’s judgement. You don’t care in the least who ends up with these particular spoils and it would make no difference to you if you said now, Here, Baudouin, take your treasure, with my blessing.

Gilbert frowned, as if what he was about to say pained him, and then repeated what he had said the previous day. ‘It would certainly seem, my dear Baudouin,’ he began pompously, ‘that the right of title to this precious object is yours, for nobody is disputing that it was found on the shore at Drakelow. I understand that there is some confusion over precisely where it was found, which raises the question of the ancient and inalienable right of the king to anything found between high and low water, but I do not think we need bother overmuch about that if you assure me it was found on Drakelow land.’

‘As I do,’ Baudouin said firmly. He did not even flinch as he spoke the lie.

‘However,’ Gilbert added, his voice dropping to a new level of portentousness, ‘unfortunately Drakelow is not at present in your hands, although we all hope that this will prove but a temporary state of affairs, as indeed it surely will if the king opts for leniency.’

He won’t opt for anything of the sort, Baudouin thought, unless I persuade him, and I can’t do that without my crown. He stared at Gilbert, fighting to keep his despair and his fury out of his eyes.

When he was reasonably sure that he could speak without his voice giving him away, he said, ‘And what of the boy?’

‘There again,’ Gilbert said regretfully, ‘although I do indeed sympathize most sincerely with your loss, I fear I cannot accede to your demand that he be immediately hanged.’ Some tiny portion of the emotions that seethed and boiled through Baudouin must have been visible, for Gilbert took a step back and said in a placatory tone, ‘Oh, I am sure that it will come to that in the end, for you have a witness who has given a clear statement that he saw Sibert attack your poor late nephew, and of course your word on this is more than enough.’

Then do it! Baudouin raged silently. Take the damned impudent youth out and string him up!

‘However,’ Gilbert went on — and Baudouin had reluctantly to admire his surprising refusal to be browbeaten — ‘I do feel that it is necessary that I instigate some further enquiries, both here and at Drakelow. I must-’ He broke off, frowning, and Baudouin guessed that he had little idea how to go about his self-appointed task. ‘I shall speak to the youth this morning,’ he said instead. ‘He was distraught last night when the guards put him in the lock-up but after a night’s sleep he may be more approachable. I shall-’

He was interrupted by voices coming from the courtyard; the male tones of a couple of grooms and the lighter but far more insistent voice of a girl. Gilbert strode over to the doorway and, from the top of the stone steps, looked down at the scene below; Baudouin hurried after him.

The grooms were remonstrating with a thin copper-haired girl who wore a shabby woollen tunic and, tied around her waist, a rather beautiful shawl. She was demanding admittance to the lord’s house and the two grooms were telling her to go away although, Baudouin observed, not in such polite terms.

‘I will see him!’ she insisted, wresting her arm out of the grip of the younger of the grooms and kicking out at his shins for good measure. He skipped neatly out of reach. ‘It’s my right,’ she added, ‘my father’s one of his tenants and he’s a good tenant, he fulfils all his obligations and what’s more he’s an eel-catcher and he sees to it that the lord gets the best of the catch!’

‘Ah,’ Gilbert murmured, and Baudouin saw him smile.

‘You know this girl?’ he demanded.

‘No, but I know her father.’ Gilbert was rubbing his round belly. ‘She’s right, he does bring me fine eels. His name’s Wymond and he lives with his family out at Aelf Fen.’ His eyes rounded. ‘Where your young man comes from!’ He turned to Baudouin, amazed.

So, Baudouin thought. This is the girl. He stared more closely and, as she edged closer, he realized that he had seen her before. She it was who had stared at him so belligerently over the heads of the crowd when he accused the boy of murder.

‘You should not allow her to push her way in,’ he said. ‘There is a proper procedure if a tenant has a matter to discuss with the lord of the manor, and bursting in on your privacy is not it.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ Gilbert said mildly. ‘She’s here now and what’s more she’s putting up quite a fight.’ He chuckled. ‘I like a bit of spirit in a girl.’ He beckoned to the grooms, calling out an order. ‘I may as well see what she wants now she’s here.’

Baudouin could have told him what she wanted. Filled with sudden apprehension — what, after all, could a slip of a girl do against a man like him? — he stepped back into the shadows and waited to hear what she would say.

I was glad that the grooms had been so offensive (especially the younger one, who had the cheek to call me a scrawny little cat and then told me to go away, only not in those terms) because they made me angry and being angry was a far better way to go up the steps and face Gilbert de Caudebec than being terrified, which was what I’d been before I encountered the grooms.

He led me across his enormous hall — it was awe-inspiring and my whole house could have fitted inside about three if not four times — and invited me to sit down on a wooden seat, long enough for about half a dozen people, with a straight back and carved dragons or something on its front legs. He waited till I had done so and then sat down in a huge chair opposite me. I stared wide-eyed — I couldn’t help it — and a succession of vivid images flooded my mind. A flagged floor — no damp beaten earth and smelly, soggy rushes here; a huge wooden chest, elaborately carved with an intertwining design of flowers and imaginary beasts; a huge pewter tray on which stood a jug and several goblets; and, as a softening, human touch, a baby’s silver rattle attached to a coral teat. Stop it, I commanded myself. You’re not here to make an inventory of Lord Gilbert’s hall.

As I entered the hall I’d had the strong sense that there was someone else there but, peering round as well as I could without making it too obvious, I could see nobody. There were some beautiful hangings embroidered in rich red, brown and gold wool at the end of the hall that I guessed concealed the door to the kitchens, so maybe whoever it was had gone out that way.

‘Now, who are you and why do you wish to see me?’ Lord Gilbert asked, kindly enough.

I studied him, trying to obtain a sense of him. I saw a fat man of perhaps twenty-five whose face smiled readily and, to judge from the lines around his hazel eyes, frequently. He slumped rather than sat in his chair and his rich velvet tunic had small greasy stains down the front. He likes his food, I thought, and his girth suggests self-indulgence.

I was probably far too hasty in deciding that I could manage Gilbert de Caudebec, but the sudden confidence gave me the ability to speak.

‘I understand that my friend Sibert is imprisoned here,’ I began. I knew he was; Hrype had told us so last night. ‘He is charged with the theft of a gold crown from a place called Drakelow and the murder of a man called Romain de la Flèche.’ I had to press my lips together for a moment as I said his name. His loss was still very raw. ‘I have come,’ I hurried on, ‘to protest his innocence.’ I hoped that was the right phrase. ‘He did not kill Romain.’

‘Indeed?’ said Lord Gilbert. ‘And how can you be so sure?’

‘Because he was with me,’ I said firmly.

‘I see.’ Lord Gilbert went on looking at me, smiling vaguely, and I sensed he was playing for time while he thought how to respond.

‘He was!’ I insisted when he still did not speak. ‘We went to Drakelow together — well, Romain was the leader, I suppose, since it was all his idea, but we-’ I realized I was entering difficult territory. I had been about to say that Sibert and I had parted company from Romain after we’d found the crown, but since that was a lot to admit straight away and I’d very likely live to regret my frankness, I held back. ‘We came back together, just Sibert and me,’ I finished feebly. ‘But I know he didn’t kill Romain,’ I went on, trying to make my voice sound firm and confident, ‘because Romain was killed six days ago and Sibert was with me then. I will speak for him,’ I finished, in what I hoped was a dignified tone.

‘You will speak for him,’ Lord Gilbert mused. ‘Yes indeed, he said that you would. He too tells this tale of the two of you journeying to Drakelow, finding the crown and returning with it, he to Aelf Fen, you to your sister’s house at Icklingham.’

‘He tells it because that’s exactly what happened!’ My cool, authoritative voice seemed to have flown away and I was screeching like a seagull. But Lord Gilbert was frightening me; I sensed that he did not believe me and I have learned to trust my senses. ‘I was with Sibert all the time and he didn’t kill anybody!’

Lord Gilbert’s suspicious expression softened and I thought for one wonderful moment that I had convinced him. Then he said, quite kindly, ‘But you are lying, aren’t you?’

‘No!’ I leapt up, stamping my foot for emphasis.

Lord Gilbert actually chuckled. ‘As I observed, didn’t I? A spirited girl!’ he said over his shoulder.

I knew there had been someone else in the room! I cursed myself for not having tried harder to see if I was right. My skin prickling with apprehension, I stared into the shadows at the back of the hall where I had supposed that the hanging concealed a door. Slowly, as if he was reluctant to show himself, a man walked forward into the light.

I stared at him and his intense dark eyes under their strongly marked brows stared right back. The lines of his face were pronounced and he had deeply etched grey circles under his eyes. His mouth was no more than a thin, hard line. He was, I reminded myself as I tried not to recoil, a man in mourning, for he had just lost his nephew and his heir.

It was Baudouin de la Flèche.

My fear came racing back, multiplied a hundredfold. It had been scary enough nerving myself to face Gilbert de Caudebec, and I knew his reputation as a benevolent lord who did not harry and bully his peasants and his tenants like many Normans did. Baudouin de la Flèche was a very different matter; I had no logical reason to be so frightened of him but I was. I tried to tell myself that his fearsome expression was undoubtedly the result of his grief — some people, especially men, adopt anger as a way of dealing with the pain — but it did little to reassure me. As I stood there forcing my knees to hold firm and stop shaking, commanding myself not to do as I longed to and turn and flee, I knew he brought with him danger. Terrible danger.

He smiled, a ghastly expression that I detected had not a jot of sincerity in it. Then he said — and his light, cheerful tone, like his smile, was so incongruous and so clearly forced that I was amazed Lord Gilbert did not spin round to stare at him — ‘You did indeed, Gilbert, and spirited barely describes our young visitor adequately.’ He moved closer, and I forced myself to stand firm. ‘I would say also that it is very brave, for a little village girl to stride into her lord’s hall and contradict him so forcefully!’ He laughed, a short ha! which sounded unpractised, as if he did not do it very often. ‘But sadly,’ he went on, his face falling in mock sympathy, ‘we already know the truth.’ He turned to Lord Gilbert. ‘Is that not so?’

‘Yes, yes!’ Lord Gilbert beamed. ‘The young man, Sibert, tried to make us believe this highly imaginative tale, of you accompanying him and Romain de la Flèche to Drakelow, and even as he did so we all doubted that he was telling the truth.’ He broke off, looking at me closely. ‘How old are you, child?’

‘Fourteen.’ My midsummer birthday seemed months ago.

‘Fourteen,’ Lord Gilbert echoed. ‘But you look so much younger, like a little girl who has yet to bloom into womanhood and still needs the security and protection of her family.’

I seethed with silent fury. If only he knew, fat, condescending pig that he was!

‘Little village girls do not go on illicit, unauthorized journeys half across the country,’ Lord Gilbert stated flatly, and there was a worrying note of finality in his voice. ‘In addition,’ he added, smiling at me, ‘as soon as Sibert made this claim — that you were with him all the time and would vouch for the fact that he committed no murder — I sent men to find you, as you know, but also to question your kin.’

Oh, no! I had caught myself in my own trap! I had lied so convincingly that everyone had believed me.

‘Your sister and her husband repeated the account you gave of your week of absence from their house,’ Lord Gilbert went on, ‘in such detail that there can be no doubt they were telling a true story. In addition, my men spoke to your aunt, with whom you were staying, and she verified the fact that you never left her house.’ He eyed me with sudden interest. ‘You are skilled as a healer, I am told?’

He stared at me expectantly and I had to answer. ‘I’m learning,’ I admitted grudgingly.

‘Good, good,’ said Lord Gilbert. ‘I must remember that. I have a pretty young wife and an adorable baby son, did you know that?’

‘Er-’

He did not wait for me to answer. ‘They are in fine health at present,’ he said, smiling happily, ‘but my wife will be reassured to know we have a young healer close at hand in case of need.’

He was patronizing me and I hated it. If he or this wife of his had wanted a healer they’d have sent for Edild, not me. He was being kind because he was sorry for me. I’d come on a silly, childish mission to try to save my friend by spinning a ridiculous yarn than nobody in their right minds would credit, and he had dismissed me out of hand. Now he was trying to comfort me. In a minute he’d be offering me a sugar cake, as if I were an infant who had fallen over and banged her head.

If my fury and my shame had not been so violent, I might have realized that it was actually quite decent of him. Many lords would, I am sure, have sent me packing with a scolding and possibly a thrashing to remind me not to tell lies.

Perhaps he did not wish to jeopardize the eel supply.

Baudouin had been silent during this hopeless exchange with Lord Gilbert. He had circled me — I had sensed his presence behind me and had found it deeply unnerving, my skin crawling in response to his proximity — and now he went to stand beside Lord Gilbert’s chair. I looked at him. He — or more likely one of Lord Gilbert’s servants — had brushed down his dusty tunic and polished his boots, and now he could be seen for the wealthy, powerful man that he was. Observing my eyes on him, he smiled faintly, as if to say, look well, child. Admit you stand no chance against me.

He wants justice, I thought. He is in desperate need of somebody to blame for Romain’s death and he will settle for Sibert. He will not rest till Sibert hangs for the murder of Romain.

I quaked under his black stare but I made myself hold his glance. You might once have been rich and important, I said to him silently, but that time has gone, for you have lost your manor. I don’t know why you claim that Sibert killed your nephew but there has to be a reason and I shall find out what it is and save my friend.

I don’t know if he perceived my thought. If he did, he made no visible sign. But then I felt a horrible sensation — it was if a wave of heat from a huge, uncontrolled fire had just hit me. I flinched and his smile twisted until it was a look of pure evil.

I suspected, for all I hoped it was not so, that I had just made an enemy.