Out of the Dawn Light

TWENTY-ONE

Sibert and I set out while it was still dark and for the third time I embarked on a long journey far from the safety of my home.

Hrype promised to reassure my parents but I knew they would be so very worried about me. They must have hoped that I’d had enough of excitement for the time being, as indeed I had. Returning to Drakelow was the last thing I wanted to do and, glancing at Sibert as the dawn light steadily grew stronger, I thought he probably felt the same.

We were lucky this time in that we got a lift from a garrulous carter eager for somebody — anybody — to talk to, and he picked us up just south of St Edmundsbury and took us all the way to the place where our track branched off the road south-east to the coast at Dunwich. Despite the nervous tension and the underlying fear, both of us managed to sleep, although I don’t suppose even that stopped the carter’s chatter.

Rested and well-fed as we were — the carter had shared his food with us and, thanks to Hrype, who it became clear was much better at putting together travelling rations than Sibert, we were provided with a generous pack — we made good time on the last leg of our journey. We arrived at Drakelow in the late afternoon and stood side by side on the top of the low cliff staring out at the crumbling timbers of the sea sanctuary, just becoming visible above the outgoing tide.

‘I think,’ Sibert said thoughtfully, ‘it’s even more damaged than it was last time we were here.’

I agreed. ‘The sea is reclaiming it.’ I felt strange; sort of dreamy. ‘Soon it’ll all be gone and there will be nothing left to mark where it was.’

‘Then we’d better hurry up and put the crown back,’ Sibert replied. ‘It’ll be safe then.’

He was right. Although I’d have given anything not to have to do this task, I realized that we could only be free to go home once we’d steeled ourselves and completed it.

We decided to wait until twilight. It did not seem likely that there was anyone around to see us but you never knew. We settled in a hollow on the top of the cliff and ate quite a lot of Hrype’s supplies. Then Sibert had a doze and I sat watching the waves. The tide had turned and was coming in again but I reckoned we still had plenty of time to get out to the sea sanctuary and bury the crown.

When it was growing dark I packed up our belongings and roused Sibert. We clambered down the cliff and struck out across the pebbly sand.

There were puddles on the foreshore and as we splashed along they struck chilly on my skin. The air, too, felt colder than it ought to have done for a summer’s night. I looked up and saw a bank of cloud blowing up out of the dark eastern sky, slowly and inexorably blanking out the bright stars. A mist was rolling in on the silvery surface of the sea. I felt suddenly afraid and instinctively I moved closer to Sibert. He glanced at me and I saw my apprehension reflected in his face. He clutched at the crown in its bag at his waist and said gruffly, ‘Come on. The sooner we’ve done it, the sooner we can be safely back on dry land.’

Back on dry land. Yes, how much I wanted that. How alien, by comparison, was this mysteriously threatening watery world whose margins we trod.

We were holding hands. I don’t know which of us made the move, but all at once Sibert’s strong, warm hand was clutching mine and I was so glad. The mist had crept up to our feet now. It was as if some element of the sea were stealthily extending its reach to draw us in, grasping for us with thin, silver fingers. I glanced down at the strange sight of my legs appearing to end just above my ankles.

All at once the wrecked posts of the sea sanctuary rose up right in front of us.

We stopped. Then Sibert squared his shoulders and said, ‘We must put it back exactly where we found it. Can you recall the place?’

I could. Even in the growing darkness, with the mist blotting out all firm outlines, my instincts were leading me right to the spot. It was as if the crown’s power had left a trace of itself down there in the sand beneath the ancient wood. For someone like me it was as easy to read as a candle in a window on a moonless night.

‘This way.’

Confidently I stepped forward into the circle. Then, crouching down, my skirt flapping into a pool of sea water, I started to scoop out the sand. Sibert placed the crown carefully down beside one of the timbers and then began to help me and quite soon we had made a significant hollow. Sibert sat back on his heels, brushed his hair off his sweaty forehead — it was hot work digging the hard, wet sand — and said, ‘It’s not deep enough yet. I think we ought to-’

Something big and black rushed up out of the darkness and buffeted into him, knocking him over. I screamed, for in that first horrified shock I thought it was some nightmare creature out of the sea. Then I heard the sound of fists on flesh. Someone grunted. Someone cried out in pain.

Struggling, locked together, the two shadowy shapes were now out on the far side of the sanctuary and I could hear their feet splashing about in the water. I rushed after them, panicking, trying to make out which one was Sibert, and as I watched, my thoughts flying wildly from one rescue plan to the next, each of them equally futile, I saw the shorter, stockier shadow raise its arm and with a sickening crack, land a heavy punch right on the point of the tall, slim shadow’s chin.

Sibert went down.

He stayed down, for the other shadow was sitting on his head and his head was under the water.

I leapt on to the man’s back, pummelling at him with both hands, then when that failed, trying to reach round to stick my fingers in his eyes, up his nostrils or into the corners of his mouth. His broad shoulders felt like iron and he brushed me off, taking no more notice of me than a bull does of a gnat. He was gasping, groaning with effort, for Sibert must have sensed death coming for him and he was thrashing about like a landed fish.

I gathered myself and leapt on him again, punching harder, screaming, shouting. Sibert was dying right before my eyes and I had to save him.

Then two things happened. Sibert stopped struggling, then the man threw himself backwards and I was flung off him into the deepening water.

I leapt up again, hampered by my soaking-wet skirts, and flew at the inert shape that was Sibert. I tried to raise his head up out of the waves that were now running powerfully up the shore, but savagely the man kicked me away. I fell again, and this time I hit my forehead very hard on one of the timbers of the sanctuary. I shook my head, stunned, and bursts of brilliant light exploded behind my eyes.

The man pushed Sibert deep under the water and held him there. Then he splashed across the sea sanctuary until he stood over the crown, still lying on the sand where Sibert had put it.

Even as he spun round to face me, triumph written all over him, I knew who he was. Baudouin de la Flèche cried out in a voice that was hardly human, ‘This treasure is not going back under the waves! I claim it, and with it I shall win back Drakelow!’

‘You’ve killed Sibert!’ I sobbed. ‘You’ve taken a young man’s life, purely for your own selfish reason!’

He laughed. ‘His life means nothing! I have killed before and I shall do so again.’

In an instant of shock and horror I thought I knew what he meant. No. No. I shook my head in denial, for if I was right it was a dreadful, abnormal act. I must be wrong — I must be. .

Now Sibert was dead too — I dared not think about that — and I knew I was going have to fight his killer.

He stood quite still and I heard him laugh again. It was as if he were daring me to speak, to tell him what I was thinking. He actually said, ‘Go on, then!’ and I knew my horrified conclusion was the right one.

I’ve never been one to turn down a challenge.

‘You killed Romain,’ I said. ‘There was no murderer other than you, and you bribed Sagar to say it was Sibert.’ I shook my head. ‘Romain was your nephew and your heir. Why?’

‘Romain was a hot-headed fool.’ He spat out the words. ‘I went to such trouble to make him think he had found out about the crown by himself, when all along it was I who had arranged it so that he just happened to meet the one man who had the necessary information.’

‘Why didn’t you take it yourself?’ I cried. ‘Were you scared of it?’ I knew it was foolhardy but I could not resist the jibe.

He made a sort of growling sound and raised his fist, so that for a moment I thought he was going to hit me. I flinched.

He regained control. He said very coldly, ‘You forget, girl. That madman Roger might have been able to provide a rough location for the crown but nobody was going to find it without help. Sibert’s help, and yours.’

‘Then why did you not seek us out as Romain did?’ I flashed back.

Something in him seemed to snap. ‘Because I could not approach it!’ he screamed. Then, his struggle for calm very evident, ‘Even if you and Sibert had led me right up to it, I could not have taken it from its hiding place.’ He glanced down at the crown, lying at his feet, and I thought I saw a long shudder go through him. ‘It all but overwhelms me when I am close to it,’ he added, half to himself, ‘and here, where its power is far, far stronger and when, before you came, no human hand had touched it for centuries, I knew it would be reluctant to let me near.’ He breathed deeply for a few moments. Watching him intently, I saw some fierce struggle within him, as if even now, with his prize at his feet, a part of him was desperate simply to run away.

With a visible effort, he stood his ground.

‘I let Romain think he was acting alone but I was watching him all along,’ he said. ‘I saw the three of you, splashing around out here and letting yourselves get caught by the incoming tide. I saw you fail, curse you. Then I slipped away.’ He spat into the small waves running over his feet.

‘When I returned in the early morning, you and the boy had gone and you had taken the crown, and Romain had set off after you. I followed him. He had let you get away and I had to find him. But both of us failed. He managed to catch you up and he attacked that pale, spindly boy, but somehow you and he managed to fight back and you laid Romain on his back, writhing in agony.’ I shut my eyes tightly for a moment. It was an image I could not bear to dwell on. ‘Sibert still had the crown,’ Baudouin said bitterly. ‘I had to think of another way of getting it back.’

‘So you killed your nephew and made out that Sibert was a thief and a murderer.’ How callous and cold-hearted he was!

‘I did,’ he agreed. ‘Nobody was meant to doubt my word, and when that fat fool Gilbert insisted on hearing what my witness had to say, I had to pay Sagar to provide the information.’

I was still having trouble accepting that Baudouin had killed his own nephew. ‘But Romain was your heir!’ I said. ‘You were going to all this trouble to win back Drakelow, but what was the point if nobody would come after you to inherit it?’

‘Oh, don’t you worry, somebody will,’ he said roughly. ‘Congratulate me, girl, for I am to be married. For some time I have my eye on the plump and comely daughter of my neighbouring lord, and she has consented to be my wife. She comes from a line of wide-hipped and fertile sisters who all have families of their own, so she will undoubtedly start filling Drakelow’s nursery within nine months of our wedding.’

Was this true? Or was it the product of a mind slowly being pressured to implosion? I did not know.

The sea was sucking and pushing at my feet and I was very cold. I was cold on the inside, too, for I kept hearing the echo of his words: I have killed before and I shall do so again.

He had just confessed to me that he was a murderer. He had killed Romain and I had just seen him drown Sibert. Oh, Sibert!

I knew that he would not allow me to live.

Without thinking I flung myself sideways out of the circle of crumbling timber posts. I had some idea of running around the perimeter and turning for the shore, where if I outran Baudouin I might be able to hide. I was small and light on my feet and I really thought I had a chance. It was better, anyway, than standing there dumbly and waiting for him to kill me.

I flew round the circle. One post, two posts, then a big wave came galloping in behind me and launched itself at my legs. I stumbled and almost fell, but recovered and ran on, my lungs on fire and the muscles in my legs crying out their pain as I forced a way through the water swirling around the sanctuary. I could see the shore line ahead of me — it looked so far away — and I leapt forward towards it.

He caught me around the knees, launching himself at me so that we both fell into the water. Then he was on top of me, his boot or his fist on the back of my head. My face was under the water and I summoned what was left of my strength to try to jerk it up.

I twisted and wriggled and managed to get my nose above the surface. I sniffed in air but the waves were stronger now, sending up a lot of spray, and I felt the cold bite of sea water as it invaded my nostrils and slid down the back of my throat. I choked and coughed but I was under the water again and it was not the life-saving air that I took in but the swirling, savage water.

I held my breath. I could feel my desperate heart hammering in my chest and blackness was gathering on the edge of my vision. I’m dying, I thought. My mother and father will be so sad. .

Suddenly the murderous pressure was off me.

My head shot up out of the water and I took in a huge gulp of air. There was water in my nose, my mouth, my throat, and I coughed, gagged and coughed some more, then I vomited up a great gout of frothy brine. I was on fire. I had never known that salt water burns like flame.

I was on hands and knees, the tide now racing up the shore and threatening to push me back under the water. You have to stand up, I told myself.

Very shakily and unsteadily I did.

Sibert was standing beside the upturned tree stump. Well, he wasn’t exactly standing, he was sort of hunched over it.

I splashed over to him.

‘Are you alive?’ I asked. It was a stupid question, but then I had just seen him drowned.

He neither answered nor turned. He was, I noticed, peculiarly intent and the muscles of his slim back bulged out under his soaking wet tunic. .

The water around his knees thrashed and boiled. Then it was still, then it splashed up again.

The next time the movement ceased it did not start again.

After what seemed a very long time, Sibert said, ‘He’s dead.’

I nodded. ‘Yes.’ I felt strangely unreal, as if this were a dream.

‘He would have killed you,’ Sibert went on. ‘I had to stop him.’

‘Yes,’ I said again. Then, belatedly, ‘Thank you.’

‘That’s all right. You saved me, now I’ve saved you.’

‘Yes.’ I was puzzled. For one thing, I’d thought Sibert was dead. For another, how had he managed to overcome a fierce, strong man like Baudouin? ‘What happened, Sibert?’

‘I took him by surprise,’ Sibert said proudly. ‘He wasn’t expecting an attack.’

‘No, you were dead,’ I agreed.

‘I was lucky,’ he went on modestly. ‘When I leapt on him he fell against the buried tree bole and, as you’ll no doubt have noticed, there are several places on it where branches were once cut off, leaving downward-pointing stumps. I managed to hook his belt on to one of them and after that I just had to push down on him to make sure he didn’t manage to release himself.’

‘What are we going to do?’ I whispered. Shock was affecting me badly. I was shivering so hard that my teeth rattled and I very much wanted to cry.

Sibert took one last look at the dark shape under the water and then left it. He came over to me and put his arm round me. ‘We’re going ashore to dry off and rest. We’ll wait till the tide turns and then we’ll come back here, unhook Baudouin’s body and let the sea take it. Then we’ll go home.’

It sounded wonderful. But we had come here to do a job and if we didn’t succeed, Hrype would send us straight back again. The very idea made me weep. ‘What about the crown?’

He hugged me. Reaching out for my hand, he put it against the bag that was once more hanging at his waist. ‘The crown is safe,’ he said. ‘When we’ve dealt with Baudouin, we’ll put it back.’

I hardly recognized this new and masterful Sibert. Perhaps saving my life and killing my would-be murderer had at long last changed him from a boy into a man. It was going to take some getting used to but, I thought as, cold and weary, we waded ashore, I thought I might grow to like it.