The Way Between the Worlds

ELEVEN

My heart sank lower and lower as Hrype and I climbed the gentle slope up from the quayside at Chatteris to the abbey. I felt like lying down and howling, but that would not have done anyone any good. There was, however, a chance that if I managed to pull myself together, I might, as an apprentice healer, be able to help in the care of my sister.

I pulled myself together.

Something occurred to me which, had I not been so self-pityingly miserable, I might have thought to ask before. ‘Hrype?’ I said.

He looked at me kindly. ‘What is it, Lassair?’

‘How did you know that Elfritha was ill? Did someone from the abbey come to the village?’

‘Yes. They were directed to your parents’ house, and your mother very sensibly sent them on to Edild. Your mother is praying, every minute she can spare,’ he added gently, ‘but she knew full well that if someone was to be spared by Lord Gilbert to come and care for your sister, it had far better be Edild.’

I nodded. I could picture my poor mother, torn between the sense of asking Edild to go, and the longing of her heart to run to her sick daughter there and then.

‘And Edild told you, so you came here too,’ I said.

There was a slight pause.

‘She did,’ Hrype said eventually, ‘although not in quite the sense that you mean.’

‘But-’ I began, at first unable to understand in what other sense my words could be taken. I looked at him, and the expression in his strange eyes was enigmatic.

I understood. ‘You weren’t in Aelf Fen when the messenger came from the nuns, were you?’ I whispered.

He shook his head, a faint, private smile hovering on his lips. ‘No.’

‘Where were you?’

‘I was — a long way away.’

‘Then how did you know?’

His eyes met mine. ‘I heard her.’ He pointed to his head. ‘In here.’ Now his hand moved to hover over his heart. ‘And, more imperatively, in here.’

Yes. Hrype and my aunt loved each other, but probably only three people in the world were in on the secret, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone. As far as everyone else was aware, Hrype shared his home with his late brother’s widow and her son. Only five people knew that Sibert was actually Hrype’s son, the fourth and fifth being Edild and Sibert himself. He had only found out a year and a half ago, and, no matter how I hinted, he would never speak to me concerning his feelings about this devastating revelation.

Sibert’s mother Froya would not survive without Hrype, and all the village understood that. She had never got over the traumatic events of her past, and she depended on her brother-in-law for just about everything. They had been lovers just once, when both were in despair, and Sibert had been the result.

All the time Froya was alive, Hrype was bound by everything he held sacred to honour his responsibilities towards her. He might dream of leaving her to go and live with Edild, where his heart undoubtedly had already preceded him, but he would never do so.

It had been my privilege to witness Edild and Hrype together on a few occasions when they were away from the ever-open eyes of the Aelf Fen villagers. It was both a joy and an ache to watch them.

Yes. It came as no surprise to me now to learn that some mystical communication between them had allowed Edild to summon him when her need for him was suddenly so great. When word had come from Chatteris that Elfritha was very sick and perhaps dying, the sudden pressure on Edild to hurry away to the abbey and try to save her, bearing all the hopes and anxieties of my parents and my siblings, must have been vast. No wonder she had silently cried out for the man she loved.

He was still watching me, a slightly quizzical look on his handsome face that bore the dignity of ancient kings. He was, I realized, checking to see if I had understood. I gave him a quick smile and nodded — just at that moment, I could find nothing to say — and he murmured, ‘Good.’ Then he braced his shoulders and strode on up the long rise to the abbey.

When we were still some distance away and out of sight of anyone watching from the settlement or the abbey, we paused, stepped off the road into a small copse of willow trees and resumed our old man and daughter guises. It was Hrype’s idea — I had, in truth, been far too preoccupied with thoughts of my sister to think about the dangers that might or might not be posed by a fanatical priest to a cunning man and an apprentice healer, but Hrype was clearly taking no chances. When we were ready, he looked me over with critical eyes and then gave a curt nod.

We went on, at a much slower, more painful gait, Hrype bowed over and shuffling as if every step hurt, to the abbey. There were a few people moving around in the forecourt, and I looked out for my cheese-seller woman. She did not seem to be there. Hrype was at the gates and already knocking with his staff.

After a few moments the small side gate opened an inch or two, and a nun looked out. It was not the big, hatchet-faced woman who had admitted us before. This one was thin and pale and looked harassed. ‘Yes?’ she said impatiently.

Hrype nudged me. ‘We’re friends of the novice Elfritha, who we’re told is very sick,’ I said, my voice shaking despite my efforts to control it. Now that we were there at the abbey, my anxiety was pressing on me so hard that it was all I could do not to throw myself on the ground and start wailing.

On hearing my sister’s name, a transformation came over the sharp-featured face of the nun. Her eyes softened, and she reached out and took my hand. ‘Come in,’ she said, opening the gate more widely and ushering us through. ‘I will take you to her straight away.’

‘Is she — she’s not-?’ I could not get the question out.

The nun was still holding my hand, and now she gave it a squeeze. ‘She still lives,’ she said. ‘We are praying for her every hour, and our infirmary nuns are doing what they can to help the healer who has come to tend her. She is from Elfritha’s village, so you probably know her.’

I did not know whether or not to say that Edild was my aunt. I sent out a silent question to Hrype, but received no answer. I decided to keep silent. My instinct was to trust this kind nun, but, on the other hand, Hrype and I had just taken some precious time to disguise ourselves, and if we revealed our true identities, our efforts would have been for nothing.

The nun had been hurrying us along, and we had now reached a long, low building across the cloister from the big church. The nun opened the door and led us inside. It was clearly the infirmary, and rows of simple cots lined the walls on each side, about a third of them containing patients. The nun strode down the long room and, at the far end, turned down a little corridor that led off to the right. There was a door in the wall in front of us, which was partly open and led to the cloister. She strode on, coming after a few paces to another, smaller room. Its door was ajar, and the window set high in the wall was open. There was a faint scent of lavender mixed with the tang of rosemary, and I guessed that my aunt had been busy with her precious oils.

Neither open door and window nor sweet perfumes could do much against the stench. Even before I dared risk a glance at my sister, I knew from the smell that she was very, very ill. Anyone expelling that much from their body — from their suffering, heaving stomach and their constantly voiding bowels — must surely be in the last extremities of life.

I stepped inside the little room and looked down at the figure on the bed. Before I could prevent it, a gasp of horrified pity escaped me. My aunt, on her knees beside the low cot, turned round sharply and gave me a frown. One of Edild’s maxims is: never to do or say anything to let a patient know how ill they are. Although my exclamation hardly counted as actually saying anything, she was quite right to admonish me.

I swept down beside her and knelt over Elfritha.

My sister had her eyes closed. They seemed to have sunk in her head, and the eyeballs stood out very round behind the pale, almost translucent lids. Her cheeks looked strangely flat, as if her face were falling in. Her skin was as white as the sheet on which she lay, and her short hair, swept back from her forehead, was soaked in sweat. She appeared to be wearing a thin shift, and that too was soaking, sticking to her body. A sheet was pulled up over her breasts, but I could see her neck, throat and shoulders. The bones stood out stark under the flesh; already, she looked more like a skeleton than a living woman.

I made myself take a few calming breaths. When I was sure I could trust my voice, I turned to my aunt and said, ‘How is she?’

Edild shrugged. ‘She is as you see her,’ she said shortly. You’re a healer, she seemed to be implying. What do you think?

Anyone who did not know my aunt might be forgiven for judging her as detached and unfeeling, considering it was her niece who lay dying on the bed. But I did know her, rather well. I was all too aware that it was her habit to adopt a chilly demeanour at the very times when her heart and her emotions threatened to force her sobbing to her knees.

I put out a hand and gently laid it on my sister’s hot forehead. It might have been my imagination, but I thought she moved, just a tiny amount, as if in response. ‘She is very hot,’ I said. ‘She has sweated a great deal, and her body must be desperate for water.’

‘It is,’ Edild agreed. ‘Yet whenever she takes a decent mouthful, she vomits it up again almost instantly, thereby losing more than she has absorbed.’

That was even worse than I had thought. ‘Oh, but then how-?’

‘I am feeding her tiny amounts at a time,’ Edild interrupted. ‘Watch.’

I moved aside to let her take my place by the bed. Edild took a cup of cold water — I could see how cold it was, for it had formed beads of moisture on the outside of the cup, and I guessed that a concerned nun had just drawn it from some deep well that was their water supply — and dipped a small spoon into it. Very gently, she put the spoon against Elfritha’s slightly open mouth and let one tiny drop fall on to the lower lip. After a moment, the tip of Elfritha’s tongue emerged to lick it away. I wanted her to do it again immediately, over and over until my sister had taken in a decent amount, but Edild sensed my impatience and, turning to me, shook her head.

‘We must not hurry,’ she whispered. A very sweet smile swiftly crossed her face, there and gone again in the blink of an eye. ‘I do know how you feel,’ she added.

I watched as Edild put two more minuscule drops of water on Elfritha’s lip. I fought my desire to grab the cup from her and do it faster, faster. Slowly, I felt the anxiety leave me, until I knelt at Edild’s side, quite calm.

Then she handed me the cup and told me to carry on.

Intent as I was on my sister, I was aware of Edild’s movements only on the edge of my attention. She went to stand beside Hrype, and he put his arms around her. She leaned against him — or, to be exact, she seemed to collapse into him — and for a little while he just held her, as if he were putting some of his formidable strength into her. Then, with a little smile just for him that went straight to my heart, she disengaged herself and stood away from him. I heard them muttering, and it appeared from what I picked up that she was describing the course of Elfritha’s sickness.

‘Is it some disease from which others too are suffering?’ Hrype asked.

‘No,’ my aunt replied. ‘It is possible that more of the nuns may succumb, but Elfritha has been sick for two days now, and I would have expected somebody else to be already unwell, were this something that is going to affect many.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Hrype muttered.

I was concentrating so hard on putting the smallest possible droplet of water on to my sister’s lip that I missed what Edild said next. Hrype spoke, the low rumble of his deep voice a soft and sort of hypnotic sound. But then one word leapt put at me, and all at once I was fully alert.

Edild must have sensed my involuntary movement. She crouched down beside me, waiting as I administered another drop of water.

‘How many has she taken?’

I knew she would ask and had been carefully counting. ‘Seven.’

Edith nodded. ‘Well done,’ she whispered. ‘That’s enough. Now we wait.’

I did not need to ask what we’d be waiting for.

I stood up, putting the cup and the spoon down on the little table beside the bed. Straightening up, I was met with the disconcerting sight of two pairs of eyes, green and silvery-grey, watching me with the intensity of a hawk eyeing the mouse that will be its supper.

I collected my thoughts, for I knew what they were about to tell me.

‘Someone tried to poison her, didn’t they?’ I said.

Instantly, they both shushed me, stepping closer so that the three of us stood in a tight triangle. ‘We think so,’ Hrype agreed.

I paused, again thinking rapidly. ‘Have we a sample of the vomit?’

Edild’s mouth turned down in a grimace. ‘Not of what she brought up at the outset. Since I have been here, it has mainly been watery bile.’

The product of a stomach that had emptied itself, I reflected.

I had a sudden thought. ‘What of her garments?’ I asked eagerly. ‘If the sickness came on her abruptly, might she not have been sick down herself?’

Edild glanced at Hrype, then back at me. ‘Surely someone would have washed her clothes by now?’ There was doubt in her tone.

I made the offer before either of them could ask me. ‘I’ll go and find out.’

I realized quite quickly that the nuns must be in their church, saying one of the daily offices, for the abbey was all but deserted. Two lay nuns sat at either end of the infirmary, and one nodded to me as I emerged from the short passage outside Elfritha’s room. Rather than go down the length of the long room, I used the door that opened directly on to the cloister. I paused to look around, gazing out over the abbey and listening. There was another stout lay sister on duty at the gate, and from somewhere close at hand I could hear voices, a man and a woman’s.

I slipped back into the shadows of the cloister and wondered how I was going to find the laundry. It would have to be close to a water source, I reasoned, and I recalled having seen a little stream running along the western edge of the enclosing walls, where the abbey was closest to the surrounding fen. I turned in that direction and presently saw a small hut, its door propped open to reveal big tubs and a small hearth over which a large pot was suspended, presumably where water was heated. On a rough frame behind the hut, a load of washing was drying in the last rays of the setting sun.

I checked quickly, but there was nobody watching. I looked at the items on the frame, and most of them appeared to be bedlinen. I crept inside the hut.

There was a big pile of dirty clothes awaiting the laundress’s attention. The pot above the hearth was full of cold water, and kindling had been set ready. The nun in charge must have been intending to do a wash when she returned after the office.

I fell on the bundle of clothing, searching for my sister’s habit. I thought I was going to be disappointed, for almost all of the garments were light in colour — novices’ white linen veils, several under-shifts — but then I saw something black rolled up tightly underneath them. I reached for it, my fingers finding the coarse cloth of a nun’s habit. I drew it out from the pile, and even as I unrolled it I knew I had found what I was searching for: I could tell by the smell.

My beloved sister had been sick all over the front of her habit. Smoothing out the fabric so that I could inspect what was spread over it, I held it to the light coming in through the open door.

My heart seemed to lurch in my chest, and I smothered a gasp.

Among the sticky, smelly mess, I could clearly make out pale berries and those dark, distorted rye seeds.

I had seen enough — more than enough, for I was feeling pretty queasy myself, my fear and anxiety adding to the unpleasant atmosphere inside the little hut. I rolled up the habit again and pushed it back underneath the shifts and the veils, careful to make it look as much as possible as it had done before I disturbed it. I peered out through the doorway, checking to make sure there was still nobody watching, then I gathered up my skirts and hurried back to the infirmary.

Back in Elfritha’s room, I found my aunt busy changing the soiled bedlinen, helped by two of the infirmary nuns. I did not at first see Hrype; looking round for him, I spotted him standing behind the door. I had already noticed what a master he was in the art of appearing invisible, and I doubted very much if either of the nuns, preoccupied as they were, had realized he was there.

Edild was too busy to stop and talk to me, so I met Hrype’s eyes and inclined my head very slightly towards the doorway. He understood instantly. As I crept back outside, once more using the door that was closest to Elfritha’s little room, I knew without looking that he was right behind me.

We found a place in the far corner of the cloister, where we sat down on a low wall. The cloister was deserted, and we positioned ourselves so that we could see anyone coming. It was evening now and beginning to grow dark. I checked that there were no doorways in which people could lurk and listen to our conversation.

I had a final quick look round, then I told him, as succinctly as I could, what Gurdyman had found in the stomach of the dead man in the fen. I was on the point of describing how Gurdyman and I had speculated that Herleva had also been given the same poison, but there was no need because, being Hrype, he had already worked it out.

‘And the little nun — your sister’s friend — she, too, had vomited,’ he said.

‘We’ve no way of knowing what it was that poisoned Herleva,’ I went on. ‘But I am pretty sure that Elfritha was given the same fatal gruel that the man in the fen ate.’

‘Not fatal yet,’ Hrype put in swiftly.

I ached for reassurance. Could he give it? I knew he had ways of seeing through the mist into the future. ‘Will she live?’ I asked in a small voice.

He turned to meet my eyes. ‘I do not know, Lassair,’ he said. ‘Your aunt has not said, and she is the healer, not me.’

‘Couldn’t you-’ I began. I dropped my head, unable to go on.

‘Could I ask the runes?’ he supplied. ‘Is that what you would ask, child?’ Mutely, I nodded.

There was quite a long pause. Then he said, ‘I could, yes, and they would give an answer. But they do not lie, and they tell truths that often cause terrible pain, for sometimes to know of a dreadful event before it happens is to suffer it many times over rather than just once.’

‘Then you do think she’s going to die.’

‘No,’ he said very firmly. ‘I said I do not know. Nobody does, Lassair. All we can do is look after her to the best of our ability.’ His mouth creased up in a very small smile. ‘By we, I mean, of course, you and your aunt.’ He reached for my hand, clasping it for a moment and then letting it go. ‘Nobody could have better care,’ he added softly.

It was kind of him, but really undeserved. I would only be doing what Edild told me; if Elfritha survived, it would be thanks to my aunt.

We were quiet for some time. It was pleasantly warm in our corner out of the wind, and I thought fleetingly how lovely it would be to curl up in my shawl and go to sleep.

Hrype’s voice broke the spell.

‘Why should someone try to kill Elfritha?’ he asked.

My eyelids had been drooping, and I had been sitting slumped against the warm stone of the wall behind me. Now I sat up, rubbed the drowsiness away and forced myself to think. I’d had a theory, hadn’t I? Last time Hrype and I had visited the abbey, I’d worked it all out. I composed my thoughts and, when I was ready, began to speak.

‘There was one thing that occurred to me,’ I said. Hrype’s sudden intent gaze told me I had his full attention. ‘When we came here the first time, you insisted that we adopt the guises of an old man and his daughter, and I realized you wanted to hide our true identities from somebody. I wondered who it was, and why you didn’t want them to recognize us.’

He went: ‘Hrmph,’ and I knew he was thinking. Then he said, ‘What did you decide?’

‘That you believed the abbey was dangerous to us. To me, especially, because the new fanatical priest you spoke about — Father Clement — might have learned that I’d spoken to Elfritha concerning. . well, concerning my healing, which he probably would regard as pagan, sinful, the devil’s work. Oh, I don’t know,’ I exclaimed in sudden frustration, ‘I don’t really understand.’

‘You are quite right,’ Hrype said, coming to my rescue. ‘A man such as Father Clement believes there is but one true path to salvation. It is very straight, very narrow, the walls on either side are very high and there is no alternative way. He would view you as a sorcerer, a witch, and a practitioner of magic. And, worst of all, you’re also a woman.’ He gave me an ironic smile. ‘Doubly damned, I’m afraid.’

I barely recognized myself from his description, other than the bit about being a woman. ‘I don’t do magic,’ I whispered.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘No? Then the stories I’ve heard about a certain young healer who can dowse for hidden paths and lost objects must be untrue.’

‘That’s different,’ I began. ‘That’s just something I can do. .’ I stopped.

He grinned. ‘There you are, then. It’s magic, to someone as narrow-minded as Father Clement.’

There was a pause while I thought about that. Then I said, ‘Do you think I’m right? Do you think Herleva and Elfritha were poisoned because they’d been whispering about forbidden things?’ My words were hurting me, but I had to finish. ‘Things I’d told Elfritha, that she’d passed on to her best friend?’

Oh, if that were true, if those two innocent young women had been harmed because of something I had done, then how was I going to live with myself? Nevertheless, I was convinced I was right. They’d sat in a corner somewhere, white-veiled heads close together, and Elfritha had told her friend all about the wonderful, thrilling, magical things her little sister got up to. Someone had overheard; somehow the conversation had reached the attention of a powerful figure in the abbey. And this person had killed Herleva, dressing her death up as a sacrifice to the spirits of the place, and then they had tried to poison my sister.

Although I shied away from the thought, I knew who I suspected, and there seemed no room in my mind for any other possibilities. But was I right? Could such evil have been perpetrated by the person I suspected?

I had to ask.

‘Hrype?’ I whispered. He turned to look at me, his face unreadable. ‘Hrype, could Father Clement be so fanatical that he would murder two young nuns, simply because they had spoken of forbidden matters?’ Even as I spoke the words, I found myself denying them. Surely no man of God could have done something so brutal, even a fanatic like Father Clement.

The instant denial that I’d been hoping for did not come. Instead, after a long pause, Hrype said, ‘Father Clement is strict, blinkered and powerful. His own beliefs are so strong that he truly thinks his is the only path to certain redemption. He is, I feel, hard on others because he sincerely wants them to come to his god and, when they die, be permitted to spend eternity in paradise. Everything he does — and, as I told you before, he is as tough on himself as on his flock — is with that aim in mind.’

‘But would he kill?’ I persisted.

Hrype looked at me, smiling. ‘No, Lassair.’ He hesitated, then went on, ‘He is the priest of the Chatteris nuns, responsible for their spiritual welfare, and, up to a point, he would be prepared to impose much hardship and even suffering, in the form of penance, if he thought he would thereby bring an errant soul to his god.’ He leaned closer to me, the smile gone. ‘But murder is a sin, a deadly sin, and a priest such as Father Clement would no more consider it than fly off over the fens. He is no killer, Lassair. Be assured of that.’

It was both a relief, because the thought of my sister and her friend being poisoned by a man they trusted was so dreadful, and a disappointment, because if Father Clement wasn’t responsible, who was?

We sat there a little while longer, and then, without speaking a word, at the same moment we stood up and set off back to the infirmary.

It was dark in the little room where my sister lay, the only light coming from a tallow lamp set beside the bed. Edild sat beside her patient, watching her closely, from time to time letting another drop or two of cold water fall on the cracked lips. Hrype wrapped himself up in his cloak and lay down in the corner behind the door. Once more, if I hadn’t known he was there, I’d never have guessed, so thoroughly did he seem to melt into the background.

There was no sound in the room. I felt my eyelids drooping and once or twice had to jerk myself awake from a light doze. I realized how tired I was; it had been such a long day. . Then, as is the way when you’re exhausted, all at once I was deeply asleep, lost in some worrying, muddled dream in which I had to find my way through shivering sands where one wrong footstep would drag me down to a horrible death. The thick, viscous mud was actually flowing into my mouth when once more I was kicked back into wakefulness.

The relief of finding it had only been a dream was short-lived. There were low voices in the infirmary: the soft, whispery tones of a nun, and a man’s rumbling mutter.

There was, as far as I knew, only one man who could be in the abbey infirmary in the middle of the night.

Hrype had clearly realized the same thing. He was already on his feet, a deeper shade in the shadowy corner, and even as I watched, he slipped out through the partly-open door. There was a brief gust of cold night air, and I guessed he had gone out through the door that led on to the cloister.

My aunt sat for a moment staring at the place where he had apparently vanished. Then she turned to me, and I saw the relief in her eyes.

I heard footsteps: Father Clement was completing his rounds with a visit to the sick novice. There was just enough time to pull my shawl up over my head, concealing my face, and lie down with my eyes closed. I made myself take some deep, calming breaths. If I was going to be convincing in my pretence of being asleep, I would have to sound right. I tried out a small snore. It sounded authentic. I did another one, soon getting into a rhythm.

I sensed someone walk into the little room. I opened one eye and, through the fringe of my shawl, I looked at the man who stood not an arm’s length in front of me.

It was the man I’d seen before, although at a greater distance. I studied his slim, broad-shouldered physique as he towered above me. In the dim light, it was hard to make out his features, but the light eyes seemed to glitter with intelligence. Again, I sensed his great power. Again, I feared him.

‘How is she?’ His voice was soft, very deep, and sent shivers through me.

‘She is much the same,’ Edild replied quietly. I noticed that she did not look up at him, but kept her eyes on her patient.

Father Clement murmured something — it could have been a prayer. I risked another quick glance and saw that he was staring down intently at Elfritha’s still body.

After a few moments of silent contemplation, he slipped away as cat-footed as he had come.

Presently, Hrype came back. Edild looked up at him. ‘Is it safe for you?’ she asked anxiously.

‘Yes. He has gone.’

Hrype came to crouch beside me. I struggled to sit up. ‘You don’t want Father Clement to see you, do you?’ I whispered. ‘That’s why you’ve been insisting we disguise ourselves when we come to the abbey. It’s not for my sake but yours.’

‘It’s for both our sakes, Lassair,’ he whispered back. ‘It’s best that he doesn’t know too much about you either.’

I thought about that. Then I asked, ‘Why don’t you want him to recognize you? What happened when you met him at Crowland?’

Hrype smiled thinly. ‘He accused me of witchcraft. He saw me — well, never mind about that. Enough to say that I was careless enough to let him witness something he shouldn’t have done. He was frightened, and his reaction was to accuse me of one of the worst crimes he could think of.’

I waited, but it became clear he wasn’t going to tell me any more.