Out of the Dawn Light

FIVE

I was good at making up creditable fictions but, although I say it myself, the tale I wove for Goda was convincing even by my standards. I knew that if I were to cite anybody who might at some point be asked to verify my story, then it had better be someone I trusted not to let me down. The obvious person, since we already shared quite a lot of secrets, was my aunt Edild.

She is, as I have said, a herbalist and a healer. She is honest and good and always does her best to help people. If they are very poor and in desperate need, sometimes she does not charge them, merely saying that one day when she was in need, they can do something for her. Those days never seem to come.

Times, however, were changing. Churches, abbeys and monasteries were springing up all over the place and the black-clad priests seemed to be multiplying fast. Not that I had any complaints about that. The vast majority of the people were poor and the men of the Church gave them much-needed support when they were desperate. Most of them did, that is; there were exceptions. However, the problem was that some of the priests apparently believed that sickness and injury happened to people who had in some way offended God and therefore they should be made to suffer, or at least have their pain helped only by God’s own men. Edild and I did not see it quite like that and we helped all who came asking, without first enquiring whether we should let them suffer a while for the good of their soul before we did so. Furthermore, women like my aunt always aroused suspicion because they were different. Edild, typical of her kind, was unmarried, dependent on no man for the food on her table or the roof over her head. She was clever and could read and write (I once heard a priest say that a literate woman was an abomination in the eyes of God, although he was talking in general and not about Edild). And people — particularly priests — were deeply suspicious of the old ways. The God whom they worshipped, to the ruthless exclusion of any other, did not allow people to believe in the old deities or the spirits that inhabited the streams, the trees and the very stones of the earth. Edild’s methods, in their eyes, were very close to sorcery.

It had always seemed quite natural and logical, therefore, that much of what I learned from my aunt must not be spoken of outside the four walls of her snug little house. She could depend on me to be diplomatic and she knew, I hoped, that I would lie to protect her if I had to. I was as sure as I could be that she would do the same for me.

On the morning after my night-time meeting with Romain and Sibert, Goda woke from a long and profound sleep — so profound that she did not appear to have moved at all throughout the night — in a surprisingly good mood. All things are relative, and for my sister a good mood meant that she didn’t shout at me because a refreshing drink wasn’t ready for her the instant she awoke or hurl the mug at me if the drink wasn’t precisely to her liking. Still, to have her glare at me in silence was an improvement on her usual torrent of abuse.

I took advantage of the fact that she had slept so late and told her that first thing that morning, just after Cerdic had left for work, a messenger had come from Aelf Fen to summon me because Edild needed me urgently.

‘What does she want you for?’ demanded Goda.

Modestly I cast down my eyes. ‘Several people have been injured in an accident and she needs another pair of hands to treat them all.’

Goda looked at me with her mouth turned down in a sarcastic scowl. ‘She must be desperate if she wants a clumsy, ham-fisted oaf like you to tend the wounded,’ she observed. Then, prurient curiosity getting the better of her as I had known it would: ‘What sort of accident?’

‘There was a heavily loaded hay cart being drawn back to the lord’s yard and lots of people were riding on it,’ I said in a hushed tone. ‘Many more were walking along beside it and then something startled the horse — they think it may have been stung by a hornet — and somehow it put its offside feet over the edge of the ditch and before anyone could do anything the cart went over.’

‘Were many people hurt?’ Goda asked.

‘Oh, yes. Broken arms, collarbones, concussion, bad bruising. Some of the injured,’ I added, ‘were small children.’

Even Goda could not ignore the necessity to offer all possible aid to a hurt child, could she?

‘It sounds bad,’ she muttered, frowning.

It was bad. It happened just as I had described it, but it had happened more than a week ago and Edild had managed perfectly well on her own. I was told the news by the tinker who visited Icklingham. He usually went to Aelf Fen as his previous call and, knowing I came from there, often brought titbits of gossip.

One of my cardinal rules is if you’re going to lie, make it as close to the truth as you can. In this instance, all I was altering was the timing.

‘Yes, awful,’ I agreed. ‘I don’t really want to go but I think I should,’ I added, frowning to express my pretended reluctance. ‘Apparently a man’s got a bone actually sticking through the flesh of his leg and Edild needs me to help her push and pull till the bones go back into their proper position, which means we’ll have to-’

Goda had gone quite pale. ‘Yes, yes, enough!’ she said abruptly. Then, after a moment, ‘How long will you be gone?’

‘Oh, quite some time, I’m afraid,’ I said, my frown deepening as if I hated the very thought. ‘Perhaps as long as a week? There will be such a lot to do. You have to be so careful to keep flesh wounds clean, you see, especially in summer, what with the flies and-’

‘All right!’ bellowed my sister. She shifted in the bed and a smell of stale sweat wafted out, accompanied by the sharper stench of urine. ‘You’d better get me cleaned up if you’re going away. Then you can fetch the midwife for me — she’ll have to look after me till you get back.’

For a moment I stood unmoving, quite taken aback at how easy it had been. Then I saw Goda flap her hand about and I realized she was searching for something to throw at me. I spun on my heel and hurried away to heat up the water and find the wash cloth.

The sooner I was out of the house, the better. Goda clearly didn’t know yet about my forbidden excursion last night. If she had noticed my pallor and the dark circles that must surely be under my eyes — very unlikely, as the only person whose well-being concerned her was herself — she did not comment. By the time she found out what I’d been up to, I wanted to be well away from Icklingham. That morning, my sister received the swiftest, most obliging attention I had ever given her.

Even that failed to make her smile.

I had arranged to meet Romain and Sibert as dusk fell, under a spinney of beech trees that stood beside the road that led east out of Icklingham. I hurried through the rest of my appointed tasks for Goda and then, as befitted someone on an urgent healing mission, I set off north-westwards on the road to Aelf Fen.

I walked through the neat strips of land for a couple of miles or more. Many people were out that fine morning tending their land and several of them straightened up as I passed to smile and nod a greeting. One of Goda’s neighbours was trying to turn his plough at the end of a field, cursing and swearing because the shoe was deep in a rut. He looked up, saw me and, smiling wryly, apologized for his language. Returning his smile, I hurried on. I crossed a stream and passed through a narrow belt of woodland where, I noticed, several of the villagers had left wrapped bundles of food for the midday meal in the shade of the trees. On the other side of the copse there was a patch of rough ground where a few goats were tethered. I looked around carefully but could see nobody watching me. I walked quickly across the wiry grass. Then, sure that at last I was out of sight of interested eyes, I doubled back and, keeping to the cover of trees and hedgerows, made my way to the meeting point. It was just after noon; I had several hours to wait.

Crouching there deep in my hiding place with nothing to do but think was the last thing I wanted as it gave me the chance to reflect on my decision. With hindsight, it seemed to me that I had been incredibly reckless. Romain and Sibert had told me next to nothing about this extraordinary mission and I had no idea where we were going, other than to the coast, or why, except that I was to help them search for something. Did this thing belong to one of them and was it something they had carelessly lost? Or — and this seemed far more likely — was it someone else’s property that they were plotting to steal? Surely that was right, or why else was this whole business shadowed so deeply in secrecy? Why else were we forced to travel by night?

Yet again I reminded myself that if we were caught we would find ourselves in very serious trouble. For one thing, people just didn’t set off across the country unless they really had to and even then, as Romain had implied and I very well knew, people of our lowly status could not go anywhere unless the lord of the manor said they could. There was also the ticklish question of theft, a crime which carried the most severe penalty of death by hanging if you were lucky or by some longer drawn-out and, invariably, extremely painful alternative process if you were not.

I forced my mind away from that dreadful thought and made myself try to be more positive. We might not be caught. And how often did a girl like me get the chance to do something risky and exciting?

Then, my spirits rising as excitement once again coursed through me, I reflected that I had been recruited because I had a particular talent for finding what was lost or hidden. Therefore this object, whatever it was, could hardly be in some great lord’s manor house, because that surely did not count as lost. No; it seemed far more likely that the object was something Romain and Sibert knew about but of whose precise location they were unaware. What had Romain said, exactly? I strained my memory to bring his words to mind. I know the rough location where the search must be carried out and Sibert knows about the object of the search. Yes. It appeared I was right. It also sounded, I thought optimistically, as if this object were hidden out in the wilds, where the possibility of being apprehended and accused of theft would be unlikely.

In this way I persuaded myself that I had made the right decision.

Thinking about what Romain had said had brought his face vividly to mind. I saw the wide smile, the well-cut, glossy hair, the expensive clothes under the worn and shabby travelling cloak which had certainly seen better days and which, I realized, he must be wearing to disguise the fact that he came from a stratum of society that could afford to spend a lot of money on good clothes.

He was a rich man. By my standards and those of my family, he was incredibly rich. He had talked at length to me on our first meeting. Now he had sought me out, danced with me, been on the point of kissing me (my fertile imagination had already taken a firm hold on that scene at the feast) and he had asked for my help. A man like him had appealed to a girl like me, so very far beneath him, because I had a unique talent (silently I spared a moment to bless Sibert, for surely it had been he who had told Romain of my gift). I was virtually certain that I could bend this promising situation to my own advantage and have Romain falling in love with me before our week in close proximity was out. How grateful he would be when I found his treasure for him! In my mind’s eye I saw him fall on his knees at my feet, take my hands in his and cover them with sweet little kisses. ‘Lassair,’ he would say, ‘my clever, precious girl, you have made one dream come true and now I beg that you will indulge my second wish by agreeing to become my wife.’

Yes, I knew I had been rash in agreeing to be a part of Romain’s mission. But I also knew that, given how I felt about him, there had never been the slightest chance whatsoever that I would refuse.

I made a soft pillow out of Elfritha’s shawl, put it on top of my small pack and, my fatigue catching up with me despite my tense excitement, went to sleep.

As darkness fell, Romain and Sibert made their careful way to the place where they had arranged to meet the girl. Romain was rigid with tension and the long wait for the relative safety of night had all but undone him. He and Sibert had slept in the clearing on the fringe of Icklingham — not that Romain had managed more than a light doze, and that had been interrupted by frightening, anxious dreams — and in the morning Sibert had gone foraging, returning with a pail of milk, rye bread and a large linen-wrapped package that turned out to be a spice loaf. Sibert admitted he had filched it from the remains of last night’s feast. Someone, Romain thought wryly, would be missing a carefully set-aside treat.

He had passed the daylight hours in obsessively checking through his plans. On occasions he came very close to panic. What did he think he was doing? Not only had he embarked on this brash, foolish errand but he had compounded the folly by involving two other people, one little more than a child and the other a youth whose introspective silences seemed, to the increasingly nervous Romain, nothing short of ominous.

But I cannot do this without them! he reasoned with himself. Sibert knew more than any living man concerning this thing they sought and Romain needed his instinctive awareness of both its nature and that of the man who made it. In addition, Sibert was familiar with the area that they must search and, equally important, the long and potentially hazardous journey across the higher ground to the coast. Sibert, as Romain well knew, had made the trip several times, although not recently. It was unlikely that anyone in Aelf Fen was aware just how often, since he had grown towards manhood, Sibert had managed to slip away and brood over what he had lost. Or, to be strictly accurate, what had been lost to him, since he had had no more of a hand in his own dispossession than Romain had in his.

It is indeed as I have insisted to him, Romain thought. We are natural allies, both of us heirs robbed of our inheritance.

But he did not allow himself to pursue that thought. It would only serve to increase his apprehension.

Instead he thought about the girl. What was her name? Lassair. He must try to remember it. He was well aware she liked him. He had deliberately flirted with her, although in a far more innocent manner than he would have adopted had she been a few years older and his intention had been serious. But it would do no harm to foster in her the belief that there might be a happy future for the two of them together once she had performed the service which, according to Sibert, she was uniquely qualified to provide.

Oh dear God, he prayed with sudden fervour, please let Sibert be right.

The long day had at last come to its end. Trust me, Romain thought ruefully as he and Sibert had at last left the clearing, to select Midsummer Day to embark on my great enterprise. But then, of course, the selection had not been up to him. It had been determined by events far away to the south where a castle in Kent had endured a horrible siege and in the end fallen to the king. Even Romain had not expected that retribution would have followed with such amazing speed. But the king, so they said, was very, very angry.

Now they were approaching the meeting place. Romain had the sudden conviction that the skinny girl would not be there; she too, he reasoned, had had the whole day to reflect on what she had agreed to do and surely, surely, she would have seen how stupidly risky it was and would now be safely tucked up inside her fat sister’s house, quite out of his reach.

She was not. She was sitting huddled under the hedge, a small pack beside her, a very pretty woollen shawl wrapped tightly around her arms and crossed over her flat chest.

Romain put what he hoped was a captivating and vaguely suggestive smile on his face. ‘Lassair,’ he said softly, pleased with himself for having brought her name to mind when he needed it, ‘how pleased I am to see you. I hope you have not grown chilly, sitting there?’

He sensed Sibert, just behind him, draw breath as if to say something; apparently he changed his mind. Lassair looked up and Romain saw the bright moonlight reflected in her wide eyes. Pretty eyes, he thought absently, of some light colour that he could not determine. Blue, probably, or perhaps green, to go with that copper-coloured hair. She might, he allowed, be attractive one day. For now she was just a child, and a boyish one at that.

But he must not let her know his opinion of her. Reaching out a hand, he helped her to her feet. ‘We must get going,’ he said. ‘Sibert will lead us, for of us all he is most familiar with the route.’

‘But-’ she began, surprise evident in her face. She stared at Sibert. ‘He lives in Aelf Fen,’ she whispered, puzzled. ‘How does he come by such knowledge?’

Sibert looked at her for a moment. Then he said, ‘There’s a great deal that neither you nor anyone else in the village knows about me.’

He turned and strode away. After a short pause, first Lassair and then Romain fell into step behind him.

Romain made them march for all of the dark hours. Not that there was any need of coercion, for if anything they were better walkers than he and, despite the fact that both were slim and lightly built, it soon became obvious that their stamina exceeded his. He had contemplated bringing his horse on this mission but there hadn’t appeared to be much point; he would have been the only one mounted and they would have had to proceed at a human walking pace. However, as the night went on and his feet in their smart boots began to ache and grow hot with the prickle of incipient blisters, he wished fervently that he had ridden after all. Well, it was too late now.

The short night came to an end and in the east, over where the still-distant sea must lie, the sky lightened from the first shoots of brightness to a glorious rosy-pink dawn. They went on for perhaps another mile, looking for a suitable place to rest and sleep. Romain went to walk beside Sibert and asked in a quiet voice, ‘We seem to have covered quite a distance. Do you know where we are?’

Sibert shot him a glance. His face was pale and set although whether from fatigue or fear, Romain did not like to ask. ‘We’ve not done badly,’ the youth said. ‘We were following the Lark River south-eastwards for several miles out of Icklingham, then we turned due east and went round St Edmundsbury to the north.’

‘Yes,’ Romain said. They had agreed beforehand that it was wise to avoid towns and settlements wherever possible.

‘We’d climbed a good bit by then, up out of the valley, and we struck out over the heathland. We gave Ixworth Abbey a wide berth — that’s where we stopped for a wet and a bite to eat — and since then we’ve done maybe another five miles, going due east.’ He pointed ahead to the dawn light as if to verify what he had just said.

‘Sixteen miles,’ said Romain slowly. ‘How much further?’

‘Thirty miles, maybe.’ Sibert shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘How long does the journey usually take you?’

Sibert glanced at him, his expression hard to read. ‘I can do from Aelf Fen to the coast in three marches,’ he said neutrally. ‘But I’m well used to walking.’

‘Of course you are,’ Romain said, putting a careful note of admiration in his tone. ‘But for the three of us, how soon can we reach our destination?’

Sibert looked at Lassair, who was standing on the track behind them staring from one to the other. ‘Two more marches,’ he said. ‘We should eat and rest now, sleep up for the heat of the day. If it’s as quiet around here as it appears to be’ — Romain, staring round, could see no sign of any habitation amid the heathland, and the narrow path was rough and showed little signs of heavy use — ‘then I reckon we’d be safe to set out again in the early afternoon. Another rest soon after dark, then we’ll proceed to the coast.’

It sounded an ambitious plan but Romain, driven hard by his desperate impatience to get on with the mission, thought it was not impossible. He turned to Lassair and said courteously, ‘Could you manage that, do you think?’

‘Of course,’ she said, raising her chin and staring levelly at him.

Ah, a burst of pride, he thought. Well, that’s all to the good as it means she’ll be reluctant to moan when she gets tired.

‘Very well.’ He unslung the leather satchel he wore over his shoulder and gratefully dropped it to the ground. ‘We’ll stop and refresh ourselves.’

They found a dell among the heather that offered protection from curious eyes and also from any wind that might spring up. Sibert unpacked the food and handed round a flask of small beer, from which they all drank deeply. The beer was good, sweetened with honey and lightly spiced with rosemary and mint. Romain hoped Sibert had more of it in his pack. They each ate a slice of the spice bread and Sibert gave out apples, small and wrinkled with long storage but still sweet. Then one by one they made themselves comfortable and Romain watched as the other two went to sleep. Sibert lay quite still on his back, his head on his pack and his hands folded on his chest. Had it not been for the rise and fall of his belly, he might have been dead.

Romain, wondering where that morbid thought had come from, dismissed it. He looked over at the girl, curled up in a ball like a young animal and wrapped snugly in her shawl. Her copper hair reflected the light of the waxing sun and he noticed the fine texture of her pale skin. Suddenly her eyes shot open — they were grey-green, he noticed, with very clear whites and an indigo ring around the iris — and he felt guilty for having been caught staring at her.

She gave him a small and tentative smile which, in an older woman, might have been read as invitation.

He turned away.