The Way Between the Worlds

TWO

The spring day was overcast but mild, and I made good time. On the road out of Cambridge, a young ginger-haired lad driving a cart loaded with logs stopped and gave me a lift, offering to take me as far as Wicken. There he would go straight on for Ely and I’d set off to the north-east, to Aelf Fen. He was inclined to be flirtatious, obviously wondering if a quick fumble behind a hedge might be his reward, but I put on my most demure demeanour and told him I was going to visit my sister in her nunnery. When I got down, I felt bit guilty and gave him half the meal I’d packed for myself. He seemed happy enough with that instead and gave me a cheery wave as he clicked to his horse and drove off.

When I reached the village, to my great joy the first person I saw was my father. He is an eel fisher, and he was busy on a channel that was full of water after the spring rains. On seeing me, he leapt right over the slowly sliding, green water and embraced me, breaking off almost instantly to look anxiously into my face.

‘Is anything wrong?’ he asked. ‘You are well? You’re not in any trouble?’

‘I am fine, Father!’ I said, laughing. ‘I’m very well, working hard but enjoying it, and as far as I know not in trouble of any kind.’

He let out his breath in a phew sound. Then, grinning, he said, ‘Don’t know why I should assume the worst, just because you’ve come home on an unexpected visit. I’m right glad to see you, Lassair.’ He hugged me again, this time bestowing the gentle kiss on my forehead which he has been doing ever since I can remember.

I felt bad that I hadn’t told him straight away about the dreams and the summoning voice. In that moment of reunion, I just wanted to enjoy being with my beloved father, without spoiling it with matters of so dark a nature. ‘Is all well with you?’ I asked him.

‘Aye, as you’ll observe, it’s a good season for the likes of me.’ He indicated his lidded wicker basket, and I could see through the gaps in the weave that it was full of writhing eels. ‘After the cold and the endless rain last autumn, and that terrible storm we had at the equinox, it’s a great relief to have good catches again.’ He grinned. ‘The eels kept themselves safely tucked up deep down in the mud, but they’re emerging now that spring’s here and there’s a bit of warmth in the air.’

‘And everyone else? How are they all?’

‘Your mother’s well, praise the good Lord, and the family too.’ For a moment his face clouded. ‘That is to say, Alvela’s been poorly again.’ Alvela is my father’s sister, Edild’s twin, and she lives up in the Breckland with her flint knapper son Morcar. Alvela is one of those women poorly equipped to deal with life’s hardships, and she frequently suffers from bouts of ill health.

Had the summons come from her? Was it she who had put those urgent words into my mind?

‘Is she very sick?’ I asked. Sick enough to send out that desperate plea? I added silently.

But my father smiled. ‘No, child, she’s not. She’s had a congestion of the lungs and was finding it hard to get her breath, but Edild’s gone up to Breckland to care for her and she’ll soon be on the mend.’

Oh. Not Alvela, then.

‘Come on.’ He bent down and slung the leather handles of his basket over his strong shoulder. ‘We’ll get on home, and you shall see for yourself that the rest of them are thriving.’

My mother greeted me with her usual loving smile, apparently unsurprised to see me. I wondered if that could mean it had been she who summoned me, and I was about to ask her when she said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Lassair, there’s something I’ve been planning to ask of you when next I saw you.’

So it had been my mother! Feeling the relief flooding through me, I said with a smile, ‘Well, you managed to get your message through to me!’

Her face went blank. ‘My message?’

I knew I was wrong. Just to make quite sure, I said, trying to speak lightly, ‘You haven’t been calling out to me, then? Saying, come here, I need you?’

My mother gave me quite a stern look. ‘Now why,’ she said, ‘would I do that? Silly lass, you’re far too far away in Cambridge to hear me, even if I shouted at the top of my voice!’

I forget, sometimes, how very literal my mother is.

My baby brother Leir came up to me, his arms opening in a silent plea to be lifted up and cuddled, and I readily obliged, burying my face in his silky fair hair. I shouldn’t really refer to him as a baby any more, for he is five years old now and, as my protesting arms were informing me, growing into a well-built and strong boy. ‘Did you summon me, little brother?’ I whispered to him.

He gave me a soggy kiss and said, echoing my mother, ‘Silly lass!’

I put him down.

The long working day was drawing to its close now and presently there came the sound of footsteps outside. The door opened and my other brothers came in, the elder one, Haward, with an arm around his wife’s expanding waist, the younger, Squeak, trotting behind but pushing them out of the way when he saw I was there. He rushed at me and, in a thirteen-year-old’s version of Leir’s greeting, flung his arms round me and swirled me round in a circle. He, too, was growing strong.

They all asked what I was doing home, and I found ways to ask all three if they had any reason for wanting to see me. Squeak looked puzzled as he answered, and merely said, very sweetly, ‘I always want to see you, Lassair. I miss you when you’re away.’

Haward, with a glance at his wife, said that they’d needed advice from Edild a couple of weeks ago because Zarina had fallen and they’d feared for the baby, although all was well. Zarina took my hand and said, ‘I’d have been just as happy to consult you, Lassair, but you weren’t here,’ which I thought was very nice of her.

As we all sat down to the evening meal, I remembered that my mother had said she had something to raise with me. ‘You didn’t tell me what you were planning to ask me,’ I reminded her.

‘Didn’t I?’ Her smooth-skinned, plump-cheeked face creased briefly into a frown. ‘No, I didn’t. It was just that I thought, next time you were here, you might tell us a story. It’s half a year now since Granny Cordeilla died, and we haven’t had a tale since.’ She looked at me worriedly. ‘It’s not too soon?’

Slowly, I shook my head. I had known since Granny died that sooner or later this moment would come, for she had passed on to me the role of the family’s bard, the one whose job it is to memorize the family bloodline and to learn all the tales in its long history, retelling them regularly so that nobody forgets who they are and who their ancestors were. Granny knew perfectly well that, of all her children and grandchildren, I was the one with the God-given facility to remember the stories. She knew, too, that I loved them and that repeating them whenever I was asked would be no hardship.

‘It’s not too soon, Mother,’ I said to her with a smile. ‘I’ll tell you what: if I am excused clearing up the platters and mugs, washing them and tidying them away, I’ll tell you all a story this very night.’

I went to stand outside in the warm spring night. Inside the house, the family were busy arranging seating for us all, and I knew the best place for the storyteller, beside the fire, would be reserved for me. My mother had promised to prepare a cot for me; although I lived with Edild now, and could easily have slipped across the village to sleep there that night, Edild was away and I would be alone. Normally, I would not have minded in the least, but just then I feared my powerful dreams. If I found myself back in that nightmare landscape of mist and blood and I was all by myself, I was not sure how I would endure it. When my mother had said why don’t you sleep here tonight? I had willingly accepted. But now, in the immediate future, there was a very important task ahead of me. I turned my mind to storytelling.

I don’t know what prompted my choice of tale. Granny Cordeilla once said that the story chooses the teller, and that if you open your mind and simply wait, the spirits of the ancestors will prompt you. I composed myself, closed my eyes, shut off the constant steam of my thoughts and filled my mind with the intention of making my parents, my brothers and my sister-in-law happy with a good story. For a while nothing happened, and then, with a smile, I knew which story I was going to tell.

‘I tell my tale in honour of my grandmother and predecessor,’ I began, looking round at the circle of faces in the firelight, ‘for it concerns her namesake, the first Cordeilla, child of Lir the Magical and his wife Essa.’ I glanced at my mother with a secret smile, for her name too is Essa. ‘Now last born to Essa and Lir were twin girls, and their names were Cordeilla and Feithfailge. They were identical in every way, born of one flesh divided and one soul that was shared between two. Cordeilla was the elder, but only by a matter of moments, and it was said that the babies were born with their little fingers entwined.’

I heard a soft gasp from Zarina, sitting curled up against Haward, one hand on her swelling belly. I calculated swiftly: I had recognized that she was pregnant late last summer, not long after her wedding to my brother, and I reckoned she had a month or so to go until the birth of her son. I knew the child was a boy, although I would not have dreamt of telling her so.

‘Now Cordeilla had a secret strength that her sister did not share,’ I went on, ‘and, although she always lay right beside Feithfailge, her mouth to her sister’s as if she was breathing some of her power into her sibling’s frail body, Feithfailge did not thrive and she died soon after her birth.’

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Haward hug Zarina, and he whispered something, smiling reassuringly. I caught his eye and he gave me a quick frown, as if to say fine choice of tale this is for a pregnant woman to hear!

I wanted to reassure him, but that was not my role. When I was acting as bard, I was no longer his younger sister. The ancestors were with me, in me, and their demands overrode any niceties. One day, I promised myself, I would explain that to him.

‘Although Cordeilla was still only a tiny baby — ’ I picked up my tale — ‘nevertheless she grieved for her twin and would not be comforted, until Essa wrapped her up in her dead sister’s blanket and laid her on the spot where Feithfailge lay buried. A change came over Cordeilla, and it was said by the Wise Women that she absorbed her dead sister’s essence from out of the ground, thus comforting herself; ever after, Cordeilla was both twins, the dead Feithfailge and the living Cordeilla, and it was said that she lived her life for both of them.’

Little Leir opened his mouth to say something — probably to ask a question, for these matters would be hard for a child to understand — but my father put his hand softly on his son’s head and gently shushed him. ‘Lassair is bard tonight,’ I heard him whisper, ‘and not the sister who you treat with the familiarity of family.’

My father recognized the role I had adopted, then. But he was the son of one of one of the greatest bards of recent times, so he would.

‘Cordeilla was the Weaver of Spells,’ I went on, ‘and her son Beretun became a cunning man of wide renown, whose pupil Yorath fell in love with him, for all that he was more than twenty years older, and she wed him and was ever after known as Yorath the Young Wife. Their second son Ailsi was twice wed. His first wife was Alainma the Lovely, and she was as beautiful as any of her northern ancestors, with long golden hair, eyes light blue like the dawn sky and a loving smile that she bestowed on all those that she loved. She gave birth to a child, but it died, and Alainma died with it. Ailsi’s grief was terrible, and he lived alone for twenty-one years, rejecting every appeal by his family for him to abandon his solitude and go back to live among his kin.’

Again, I saw Haward hug Zarina close to him. I saw the glint of tears on her face. My tale was sad, I knew, but so were all the old stories. Death was always close, as it always will be.

‘Ailsi grew thin and bitter in his solitude, and his family gave up trying to help him, for all they got for their pains was a curse and a harsh cry of leave me alone! His sister Alma stopped arranging for comely and suitable women to pass by his lonely house, for he was not to be tempted out of his sorrow, no matter how fair, rich or shapely the woman. And then one day Alma had an idea: supposing she could somehow make Ailsi laugh, might that not break the icy tomb in which he had sealed himself?

‘Now Alma had a new friend, an heiress of considerable means who, orphaned and alone, had recently moved into the village. Her name was Livilda, she was tall and gauche, she had a face like an amiable horse and she only had one leg.’

There was a giggle, swiftly stifled, from Leir, as presumably he imagined what a horse-faced woman with one leg would look like.

‘But Livilda had a great gift: she could make people laugh. Alma’s life had not been without sorrow and, as she grew old, she suffered greatly from pains in her joints, but Livilda could always cheer her up. She would imitate one of the village characters or she would recount some small happening in her day’s round, often making herself the butt of her humour, ridiculing all her defects from her protuberant eyes and her long nose to her single leg.’

I could hear Leir wriggling, and I knew the question he was burning to ask. ‘I expect,’ I said, ‘you’re all wondering what happened to the other leg? Well, I’ll tell you: Livilda was sitting in church one day when she was a little girl and there was a great tremor in the earth, so violent that the church walls began to crack. Everyone rushed outside, and only just in time, for the cracks grew wider and wider and, before everyone’s horrified eyes, the walls began to sway and huge stones tumbled to the ground. Now Livilda had been naughty and disobeyed her mother; she had a new kitten and she had smuggled it into church with her, hidden in her pocket. Now, horrified, she realized the kitten had escaped. With no thought for herself, she raced back inside the church, found the kitten crouched in a corner and swept it up. She was almost outside again when a huge stone fell on her, trapping her leg and crushing it beyond repair. The village healer gave her a sedative and sent her to sleep, and when Livilda woke up, she had one leg and a neat stump.’

A very soft voice — Leir’s, I thought — whispered, ‘What happened to the kitten?’

‘Both Livilda and the kitten made a good recovery,’ I went on. ‘Now, to return to Ailsi, Alma decided to take Livilda to meet her lonely brother. At first he tried to bar the door to them, but he caught sight of Livilda doing her impression of a heron, standing on one leg and darting its beak into the water after fish, and something very strange happened, something that he hadn’t experienced for twenty-one years: he began to laugh. To begin with, it sounded like the creaking of an old door that needs its hinges oiled, but then, as he began to remember what laughter felt like, the sounds became free and joyful. He ran outside, caught hold of his loyal sister with one hand and grasped Livilda’s shoulder with the other. “You look like a horse and you move like a deformed chicken,” he said to her, “but you have just worked a miracle. You are many years younger than me, for I am an old man now, and you probably have a husband; if not, will you consider marrying me?”?’

I looked round at my audience. Six pairs of eyes were fixed on me and, behind them, I saw the small, upright figure of my granny, siting in mid-air in the place where her little cot used to stand. She gave me a nod of encouragement and mouthed, go on, then! Don’t keep them in suspense!

I gave her a grateful look and said, ‘Livilda had never been called a worker of miracles before and it rather tickled her fancy, so she told Ailsi she didn’t have a husband and would marry him, adding that, because he was indeed so old, they’d better not waste any time. They were married within a month and, to put the crown on their unexpected happiness, Livilda gave birth to three healthy children, all with the right number of legs.’

I paused. Tempting as it was to go on with Livilda’s tale — she’s always been one of my favourite ancestors — there was another strand to the tapestry of our history that I wanted to finish with. ‘Now I will return,’ I said, altering my tone so as to sound less frivolous, ‘to Luanmaisi, most powerful of Wise Women, who was sister to Alma and Ailsi. She walked with the spirits — ’ there was a soft exclamation from Zarina — ‘and they taught her their ways, taking her between the worlds to encounter beings of other realms. It is the great mystery of our bloodline that we know not how, when or where she died, although it was said among the wise that she left this world and did not return. What is known is that she disappeared into the mists of the fenland one autumn day, just after the equinox celebrations, and that later she bore a daughter, Lassair the Sorceress, child of the Fire and the Air.’ Like me, I thought, but I did not say it aloud. ‘We do not know what became of Lassair either, for her thread of the tale is shrouded in mystery and we do not even know who fathered her. It was, however, strongly believed,’ I added, lowering my voice to a whisper, ‘that she was half-aelven.’ There was another gasp; in fact, several gasps. I glanced across at Granny’s corner and she shook her head, mouthing: enough, now. Always leave them wanting more.

Thanking her with a small bow, I straightened up, looked round my audience and said, ‘As to what might have happened to Lassair the Sorceress, and what did happen to the children of her uncle Ailsi and his one-legged wife. . I shall tell you another time.’

There was a gratifying chorus of groans and one or two comments pleading for more, but I shook my head. I saw Granny silently clap her hands, smiling her approval, and then she gently faded away.

All in all, I thought that my foray into storytelling hadn’t gone too badly.