The Way Between the Worlds

SEVENTEEN

Rollo and I had drifted eastwards to find our shelter under the pine trees, and now we set off back towards the fens. We seemed to be on a different track from the one I’d come out on, although it was difficult to tell, for there were many barely-visible animal trails leading along the ridges that had built up like frozen waves behind the foreshore. We veered slightly inland, and presently emerged on to a proper road, simultaneously dragged out of our magical solitude and back into the world of living men and women.

The road was busy with traffic of every kind, from single pedestrians, most of them carrying loads of varying weights and sizes, to huge, overloaded ox carts lumbering along right on the crown of the road and holding everyone up. After only perhaps a quarter of a mile, we came to a crossroads, where another track ran roughly north-south and intersected with the one we were on, going east-west.

As soon as I set foot on the track that came up out of the south, I knew it for what it was. Involuntarily, I stopped, quite unable to go on.

Rollo, beside me, spun round to look at me, his face full of concern. ‘What is it?’ His voice was so low that nobody but I could have heard.

I shook my head, incapable of putting into words the huge emotions that were coursing through me. He took hold of my arm and led me to the side of the road; by pure chance, the place where we sat down on the grassy bank beside the crossroads happened to be on the east-west stretch rather than the north-south. Immediately, the fierce sensations abated and I was able to speak.

‘The road coming up from the south is a greenway,’ I said, my voice rather shaky. I knew he would not know what that meant, so I made myself go on. ‘It’s difficult to explain, but there are certain tracks which have always been used: some for reasons of practicality, perhaps because they run along higher ground and so keep relatively dry; some because they are power paths which link places where the forces in the earth are particularly strong. I can-’ No: that would be too boastful. ‘The paths emit a sort of vibration — ’ it was the best word I could think of, yet it did not begin to describe the extraordinary feeling that had so recently fizzed and sparkled up through me — ‘and some people can sense it.’

He nodded. ‘And you are one of these people.’

‘I’m only-’

‘No time to be coy, Lassair,’ he said with a grin. ‘Don’t forget, I’ve already seen what you can do with a concealed path across a bog.’ I knew what he meant, although I could have argued with his description. ‘These greenways,’ he went on, ‘link particular places, you said?’

‘Yes.’ It seemed that he would not be content with the brief explanation, so I thought quickly for a way to elaborate that would not involve being there all day. ‘Our ancestors have always lived in these lands,’ I began, ‘or so we are led to believe. Our bards trace the lineage back to the days of the gods, and legends tell of a time long, long ago when men were given the gift of fire and taught how to use metals. In those days the spirits still walked the earth, teaching mankind and encouraging them always to question, always to explore, to push back the boundaries of darkness and superstition so that they could see the pure light. In return, mankind honoured the spirits, making sacred spaces where they were worshipped and where sacrifices were made. These holy sites are long gone, but their power was so strong that they have left an echo.’

‘Which people like you can sense,’ he said softly.

‘I — yes.’ It was not really a time for false modesty. I was about to go on, but a glance at his expression suggested he had something very important on his mind: his dark eyes were full of light, and he looked as if his entire being had suddenly been lifted up.

‘That place at the end of the path,’ he said, ‘where I was about to die and where you found me. Is there one of these sacred places anywhere near it?’

‘There is,’ I whispered, although there was nobody anywhere near enough to have overheard, and those who were passing by were far too intent on their own troubles. ‘There once was an ancient wooden circle, in the centre of which stood an upturned oak stump, its splayed roots open to the sky.’

And I went on to tell him, as briefly as I could, about the dream I’d had which had led me to him.

When I had finished there was a long silence. After a while he reached out and took my hand. I had no idea what he felt about magic; on the one hand he was a Norman, and the Normans were not renowned for being sympathetic to the old ways. On the other hand, the strange abilities with which I’d been bestowed had saved his life.

When at long last he spoke, it was not at all what I was expecting.

‘Before we go any further,’ he said — in itself a lovely remark because it suggested we would go on together — ‘I should tell you that, while my father was born into a powerful Norman family, he refused to marry the suitable but dull daughter of his father’s best friend who had been selected for him. Instead he chose my mother — they never bothered to get married — and she is a dark-haired, black-eyed woman of the south, fiery and fierce, and the peasants of Sicily fear her because they say she is a strega.’ A shadow passed over his face, and for a moment he looked grief-stricken. ‘Strega means witch,’ he said huskily. ‘My mare was called Strega.’

Then I understood the sorrow. Before we left our shelter in the pine trees, we had said a blessing for his lost horse. I had seen his face wet with tears, and loved him the more.

I felt the sharp edge of his grief retreat a little, and the respite allowed me to reflect on what he had just told me. So his mother was a witch, was she? That answered quite a lot of questions I’d been storing up about him. .

One of us had to reassert the impatient present, and it was him. ‘So this old road led up to the wooden circle?’ he said.

‘They do say so,’ I agreed. ‘It’s claimed that it was built by the southern invaders when they needed to be able to move their armies around quickly — after the Great Revolt — but we know there was a greenway there long before that. There’s nowhere else it could lead to except the shrine of the crossing place.’

‘The crossing place,’ he repeated, almost to himself. I knew there was no need to explain; he already understood. Then, so abruptly that it took me by surprise, he stood up, pulled me up after him and said, ‘This is a crossroads, and where you find them you usually also find an inn, so let’s go and seek it out.’

He kept his promise and treated me to the biggest meal I’d ever eaten. It was probably breakfast, because although we seemed to have been awake for ages, it was still early. There was another promise he had made — to explain what he was doing — and he had not yet honoured that one. I was prepared to wait, for a while at least.

We were sitting at a long table, sharing it with other hungry travellers. One of them mentioned the weather — in a group of strangers flung together, someone usually does — and after a few grumbles about it being too wet, too cold, too hot and not hot enough, an old man next to Rollo leaned closer into the group and said, ‘No more storms like that one back at Michaelmas,’ and a sudden silence fell.

It was Rollo who broke it. ‘I heard tell of that storm,’ he said, an awed note in his voice. ‘Many men died, or so it was said.’

‘Many men is right,’ another man agreed. Wide-eyed, he added, ‘Bodies washed up all along the shore, there were! Made you scared to venture out of your door, for fear of what you’d find waiting for you.’

‘That weren’t no normal storm,’ another old man put in. I saw the sudden sharp attention in Rollo’s eyes, as if this were somehow of crucial interest. ‘I’ve lived on this coast all my life,’ the old man went on, ‘and I’ve never seen a force like that. Straight out of the north it came, like a snow spirit whipping up a vast team of wolves and driving them ahead of it. Water built up like a wall, and down it fell on everything and everyone in its way. And cold!’ He paused, rheumy old blue eyes wide for dramatic effect. ‘There’s never been cold like that, I’m telling you; it bit clear through to the bone. Those poor bastards in the sea didn’t stand a chance. They’d have frozen to death even before the waters rushed in and drowned them.’

Poor bastards. I wondered why he had called them that. He seemed sympathetic for the terrible way they had died, and I concluded that the disparaging term was just his usual habit.

‘There was wreckage and all!’ a new, excited voice put in. ‘All sorts of goods washed up on the shore, and we — ouch!’

The abrupt cessation of his remark suggested strongly that somebody had kicked him, very hard, to stop him blabbing to a couple of outsiders how the locals had helped themselves to the bounty that the storm had so kindly provided.

‘What happened to the bodies?’ Rollo asked after an awkward few moments.

‘They were taken away and buried up at Frythe,’ the first speaker said.

‘Where’s that?’

‘Up on the coast road.’ The man waved an arm roughly towards the north and the sea.

‘They came from the water,’ the very old man said in a wavering voice. ‘Seemed only right to lay them to rest close as possible to the place they were lost.’

Frythe. I committed to name to memory. Glancing at Rollo, I knew he had done too.

We stayed chatting to our fellow diners for a while longer, talking about everything except the storm. Then Rollo got up, saying we had to be on our way. It might have been just my imagination, but I don’t think the men were sorry to see us go.

Frythe turned out to be a small village set to the west of the road as it drove on towards the sea. There was an open space with a pond, a row of mean-looking dwellings, one or two bigger houses and some hovels. There was also a dilapidated inn and a church, beside which was a graveyard enclosed within a stone wall set with flints. Rollo and I went to look, and straight away we saw several lines of raw new graves. Not one had any flower or token to indicate there was someone who cared about the dead body lying down there in the earth.

The sacristan was over by the church, busy sweeping the path leading up to the iron-studded wooden door. He had a barrow beside him on which lay a heavy spade; perhaps his next job was to dig another grave. It was clear that he had seen us, and presently he put down his broom and came to pass the time of day.

‘There are a lot of fresh graves,’ Rollo remarked once we had exchanged greetings and the sacristan had observed that it was warm for the time of year. ‘Are they all casualties of the September storm?’

‘Every one,’ the sacristan said heavily. ‘Most of them pulled dead out of the sea and strangers to us, but there’s quite a few of our own too, caught up in the floods and drowned or struck by lightning. Three of them struck, there were!’ His eyes were round with amazement. ‘Three! And I’ve only heard tell of one other, and I’ve always doubted that tale because it was my cousin’s husband that told me, and he’s famous for exaggerating a story when it suits him.’

I was getting a clearer picture of this storm. To the image of huge seas and an icy north wind, I now added thunder and lightning. Which was very strange, as the weather lore I had learned ever since I was a child suggested you did not normally have thunderstorms with a very cold northerly wind.

‘There were drowned horses, too,’ the sacristan was saying. ‘They disappeared very quickly, I can tell you.’ He put a finger to the side of his nose. ‘People are hungry, and there’s good meat on a freshly-dead horse.’ He fell silent, clearly thinking back. ‘Some of the creatures made it to shore, mind,’ he went on. ‘Seems horses swim better than men.’

‘What else came ashore?’ Rollo asked. I was not deceived by the light tone; this question was, for some reason, important.

‘Oooh, let me see, now.’ The sacristan frowned. ‘Sacks of supplies — good food and drink it had been, before it was all spoiled by the salt water, although much of the bacon and preserved meat found good homes, it being salty already, as it were.’ He chuckled at his own small wit. ‘There were crates of fighting gear, too. Arrows, bows, flints and steels, stuff like that.’ He shrugged. ‘Being a man of God, I don’t know about those things,’ he added piously.

Rollo was staring down at the long lines of graves, but I did not think he was seeing them. His attention was far away.

The time was ripe, I decided, for him to tell me what this was all about. I said a courteous farewell to the sacristan, wished him good luck with his day’s toil and, taking Rollo firmly by the arm, led the way out of the graveyard and back to the road. When we were safely away from the village and sufficiently out in the open to be able to spot anyone approaching, I stopped, selected a low, grassy bank beside the track and sat down, pulling Rollo down beside me. I dug in my leather satchel for my flask of Edild’s special restorative for travellers, offering him a sip and taking one myself. I think he already knew why we had stopped, for there was a wry smile on his face.

I looked at him and said, ‘Now, if you please, explain to me what we’re doing here.’

Rollo had already gone through it in his mind and had a fair idea of how he would tell her all that she so richly deserved to know. Consequently, he was able to start speaking almost immediately.

‘I had no idea, when this whole business started, where it would lead,’ he said. ‘It began, I suppose, at the beginning of last year. The king was off in Normandy, and it was feared that the Scots in the north would take advantage of his absence and organize an invasion into English lands.’

He studied her face. She was clearly listening intently, but he could not read her expression; it was almost as if she had deliberately arranged her features so as to give nothing away. She knew of his involvement with the Norman ruling power; he had told her of his allegiances when they first met. He had remarked lightly then that he would pass on a comment of hers to the king, and she had laughed, thinking he was joking. One day — one day quite soon — he would have to enlighten her. He was fearful, though. She had told him that her family were Saxon, and that the Norman rule was inimical to them — and that was putting it mildly. He was afraid that, once she knew how close he was to the king, she might discover she could not — no. He would not let himself even think it.

‘The king needed people up on the border country to keep watch for signs of any advance by the Scots,’ he ploughed on. ‘If anything should happen, William needed to know about it as soon as possible, and word would be sent to him via the chain of messengers that he has set up all over the land. It’s amazing,’ he added, ‘how fast a message can travel, for each man covers only a short distance and so his horse is fresh and fast.’ But he was digressing. ‘The king was right to be apprehensive, for in early summer last year, King Malcolm led his forces into England, pushing down south of the Forth river and penetrating deep into English-held territory. As soon as the Scots king’s intention became clear, the message to the king was initiated and sent on its journey over all the long miles from England’s northern border to Normandy.’

‘So King William came rushing back to defend his territory.’ Her tone was neutral; he had no idea what she was thinking.

‘Yes. He crossed back to England in August, bringing his army with him, and immediately set about organizing his forces for the expedition into the north. He was, they say, quietly furious at the thought of King Malcolm and his men encamped on English soil, apparently doing nothing but waiting for him to get up there and face them.’ He paused, gathering his words. ‘King William elected to send his great force north in two different ways: one army going overland; one sent by sea, up the east coast to the Scottish border.’

Watching her closely, he saw a sudden flare of excitement in her eyes. She understands, he thought.

‘The king was riding at the head of his land-army, and in due course he met King Malcolm, and peace, of a sort, was negotiated between them. King Malcolm agreed to swear allegiance to King William, and in return William undertook to restore to Malcolm the towns he had held under the rule of William’s father, the Conqueror, and in addition pay him twelve marks every year.’

‘A far more advantageous arrangement for King William than for King Malcolm,’ she remarked, ‘for William not only achieved his purpose of getting the Scots king out of England, but he also gained him as a vassal. King Malcolm left the confrontation only with a couple of promises.’

Astute of her, he reflected, to have instantly seen to the heart of the matter. ‘King William returned south,’ he went on, ‘but not without first making some further arrangements regarding the border.’ He paused, for what he was about to tell her was confidential. Should he go on? His head said no, but his heart and all his senses were full of her. She had just saved his life; did that not give her the right to share some of his secrets?

‘King William is very aware that last year’s treaty with the Scottish king was an insubstantial thing,’ he went on, speaking fast before he could change his mind. ‘In the long term, the solution is to fortify the border lands, and before he can set about doing that, he needs to know the number and the quality of those forces that may be ranged against him. He therefore placed eyes and ears-’

‘Spies,’ she put in coolly.

‘Very well. He put spies, then, in the border lands which he plans to take later this year.’ The king would have long since received Rollo’s information concerning Carlisle, and doubtless he was already sending his conquering forces up to the north-west, if not riding with them himself. But there was no need to say so.

He paused, seeing again the body of Hawksclaw lying across the bed of animal furs, efficiently dispatched even while he slept. He glanced at Lassair. He had killed Hawksclaw; he had killed other men. Did she know these deep things about him? Did her remarkable powers enable her to see into his heart and understand who and what he was?

But that, too, was something from which he shied away.

He made himself go on.

‘The king had a second task for me,’ he began. He was reluctant to speak, and the words had to be forced out. Even back when William had first issued the orders, Rollo had been wary. Now that he knew so much more, wariness had given way to dread.

‘I said just now that, in order to counter King Malcolm’s advance, King William sent half of his army by sea. They perished, almost to the last man, their ships hit by a storm of unbelievable violence that struck somewhere off the east coast.’

She gave a soft gasp. He waited, but she did not speak.

So he went on: ‘William has ears and eyes throughout his land. He is a man who always needs to know what is happening, even in the far, forgotten corners of his realm, and he has organized a highly efficient network of men and women who are well paid to keep him informed.’ She nodded; perhaps she had heard tell of such people. ‘Someone came to him with a whisper overheard, a rumour, the merest suspicion, yet for some reason its effect on the king was powerfully strong.’ He fell silent, recalling vividly how the king had looked and sounded as he conveyed to Rollo what he had learned. He felt again the shiver of dread that the king’s words had caused.

‘What did the whisper say?’ Lassair asked quietly.

He met her eyes. You know, don’t you? he said silently. She made no response.

He took a deep breath that sounded more like a sigh. ‘The rumour said that the storm which wiped out the ship-army was no natural storm, but a magical one, raised by a tempestarius.’

He sensed a sudden tension in her, and for a moment she did not speak. Then she repeated the word. ‘A tempestarius?’

‘It means a storm-raiser.’ He lifted an eyebrow, half expecting her to say: oh, yes, I know all about them. She didn’t. ‘There are many ancient tales about such people, or so the king’s informant assured him. Some tell of a magical land of clouds called Magonia, where the inhabitants sail the skies in ships made of storm clouds. They are in league with the tempestarii — the storm-raisers — and when the violence of the weather reaches its peak, the Magonians fly down to earth and raid the farms of anything they can carry away.’

Her expression suggested she thought the story a little far-fetched. ‘I’ve never heard of anyone — even the greatest magicians — being able to carry off a herd of cows inside a cloud,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t sound very likely.’

‘That’s just what the king said,’ he murmured.

‘But there are certainly shamans and sorcerers who can control the weather, or it’s said that there are,’ she went on, frowning as she thought. ‘The men who teach me have told me of such people.’ Her eyes met his, and he saw that she was deeply troubled. ‘But this is high magic,’ she said, ‘and far beyond anything I have ever encountered.’ She gave a sudden violent shiver, so strong that it set her entire body shuddering.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘I was remembering the place where I found you,’ she said, so quietly that he had to strain to hear. ‘It was a place under an evil spell; there was no doubting it. Someone had put a powerful enchantment on it, and usually that’s done to keep people away from something that has to be kept secret.’ Now she turned to face him, eyes blazing. ‘Supposing the rumour was right and a storm-raiser did create the tempest that drowned the ship-army. They perished just off the coast, right here. Out where the shore gives way to the sea there was once a place of power, built by the people who in ancient times held sway in this land. Its power will still be there, and someone capable of raising such a storm would know that.’ She paused, fear and excitement competing in her expression. ‘He stood out there, right on the site of the circle at the crossing place, and invoked all the force of its long existence to help him. He cast his spell, and the ships and the men were lost. Then, because he did not want anyone to know what he had done, he set an enchantment on the place to stop the curious venturing out on to the salt marsh to investigate.’

There was a light in her face, and he sensed she was being inspired by some power outside herself. ‘He knew you would come,’ she said, and her voice sounded dreamy, distant; unlike her normal one. ‘He’s been aware of you, questing after him, and he set the trap for you and your horse, meaning to draw you on and on, out across the shaking ground, until you both succumbed.’ Tears were streaming down her face. ‘You lost your poor mare, whom you loved. He got her, but — but. .’

He opened his arms to her, and she fell against him. He cradled her against his chest, dropping kisses on her soft hair. He wanted to weep with her, for the loss of Strega was raw and pained him constantly.

After a while, he felt able to finish what she had tried to say. ‘But he did not get me,’ he whispered.

He took her face between his hands, gently turning her so that she looked up at him. Then he bent his head and kissed her lips.

‘Thanks to you, my sweeting, he did not get me,’ he repeated.

She drew away from him a little, eyes fixed on his. Then, as if the talk of narrowly-avoided death had made her more vitally alive, she in her turn took hold of his face and kissed him back.

His kiss had been tentative, gentle.

Hers, however, was neither.