The Way Between the Worlds

FIVE

Hrype and I found a sheltered spot to spend the night. I had a hundred questions I was desperate to ask, but I knew I must leave him in peace until he was ready to speak to me. He had promised to tell me as soon as he knew the truth, and I knew he would. What I didn’t know, of course, was how long it would take him to find the truth out. We built a small fire, for the sky was clear and the night was growing chill, and he made us a hot, spicy drink. He shared his food with me, for I had finished mine, and then we settled down to sleep.

I was warm enough, for our camp was beneath a bank where brambles grew thickly and we were out of the light wind that gusted intermittently. So much had happened that day that I forgot to be afraid to fall asleep. My reward was to be sent such a fearsome nightmare that I woke sweating and sobbing with fear. As I came up into consciousness, I saw that strange, wild landscape with the low hills, and the ruins with the grave-like hollow. For an instant I thought I saw a huge bull come roaring up out of the ground, his eyes wild with anger and fear, his nostrils flaring. I heard the words again. This time, they were slightly different; they said: where are you? I need you!

Even while I was still suffering from the horrors induced by my dream, part of my mind was recognizing that, if the summoning voice was still calling out to me, it couldn’t have been Elfritha’s.

I dropped my face into my hands and wept.

Hrype tended me in a distant sort of way. He seemed to perceive without my telling him that I’d had a bad dream. Knowing him, he’d probably had a quick look inside my mind and seen the images for himself. He poked up the fire and made me another drink, and I guess it must have contained a mild sleeping draught, for I knew no more until I woke to thin daylight.

Hrype had gone. So efficiently had he covered his tracks that he’d left no sign of which path he’d set off on. In fact, had I not seen him beside me in the night, I wouldn’t have known he’d been there at all.

I did not waste any time wondering where he’d gone and what he was up to. Hrype is a mystery, and such is the sense of deep power that emanates from him that you question him at your peril. He is, I honestly believe, a good man, although in truth good and evil are not really terms that you apply to someone like him.

He had left me food and drink, so I sat there and made myself finish everything before I got up. I was still feeling disturbed, for the dream had shaken me. When I felt I was as fully restored as I was going to be, I rolled up my blanket, packed up my belongings, straightened my clothes and my hair and put on my coif. Then, ready to face the day, I set off.

I had been thinking hard as I ate my breakfast. Father Clement, according to Hrype, had set himself the task of eradicating the old ways. It would be an uphill struggle, I knew. Laws were always being passed — no one is to dress the wells; nobody must worship false idols in the form of the old gods; the singing of charms and the wearing of tokens and amulets is not allowed; and many more — and the sheer number of these prohibitions showed the strength of the ancient traditions and how much faith the populace had in them. People took the sensible view that what had worked for their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on was good enough for them. They might be happy to attend church and worship the Lord Jesus and his awesome father, but when trouble came, as it invariably did, in the form of sick children, barren wives, fields that did not produce crops and animals that failed to thrive, the people placed their trust in the old beliefs, and who could blame them?

This Father Clement would keep his eyes and his ears constantly open for what he would see as the devil’s work. He was the priest of Chatteris Abbey, where you’d imagine there would be little in the way of heretical murmuring. Among the nuns, that was. .

Suddenly, I knew why Hrype had been so careful not to let the two of us go into the abbey in our normal guises. It had been for his own sake, of course, for he was pursuing Father Clement and would not wish to be recognized. But it had been just as much, if not more, for my sake: I visited my sister whenever it was permitted, and we always talked non-stop for the duration of our allotted time. She would tell me about her life in the abbey — which, incidentally, she loved, or had done till her best friend was murdered — and then I’d answer all her eager questions concerning the family, the village and my healing work with Edild. And, on my last visit, I revealed to her some of the milder topics on which I was receiving instruction from Hrype and Gurdyman.

I would have trusted Elfritha with my life, and I did not suspect for an instant that she would have told her priest what her younger sister was up to. But what if someone had overheard? Usually, we walked together out of doors in the cloister when I visited, but the last time it had been very wet and we’d sat with the other nuns and their visitors in the parlour. It was unlikely but, I had to admit, possible that our quiet words had attracted the attention of someone else — a nun or one of the relatives — and that, in an excess of religious zeal, they had told Father Clement.

If that was true, then I could be in danger.

As I walked along the quayside towards the abbey and the settlement around it, I wondered what would happen if I was right and Father Clement really was eager to find me. The problem was that to many churchmen, anyone whose religious beliefs differed in the smallest degree from their own was guilty of heresy. Once someone had set him or herself apart in this way, other accusations often followed. When life was cruel, it was natural to want to put the blame on someone, and sooner or later the cry would go up that the misfortune had happened because a witch had uttered a curse. Much of Edild’s and my work as healers consisted of providing charms and remedies for people who believed they had been cursed. Neither of us truly believed this was possible, but Edild’s view was that to prescribe a ‘magic’ rabbit’s foot or a mild herbal concoction would do no harm. Quite the opposite, in fact; we usually found that the cure was effective simply because the patient believed it would be.

We were on the fringes of Christian society, my aunt and I. So, come to think of it, were Gurdyman and Hrype, but they were inconspicuous compared to a pair of village healers, and, anyway, I reckoned they could both look after themselves. My fear, when I made myself face it, was that I would be the subject of Father Clement’s attention simply because, although I dutifully went to church from time to time, I also practised what he would call pagan rites. If he was as fanatical as Hrype believed, then undoubtedly he would see me as a heretic. At best, I might have to do several years’ penance. At worst — and I knew there were precedents — I could be put to death.

The sensible thing would be to quietly get off the island and go back to Aelf Fen or Gurdyman’s house, then avoid Chatteris Abbey until either the fire went out of Father Clement’s belly or he went away again. Don’t think I wasn’t tempted: of course I was. But I knew that if I slunk away, the dreams would go on tormenting me and, for all that I now knew it wasn’t Elfritha’s, that voice would give me no peace. I could not for the life of me see how my night terrors could be connected with the murder of a novice nun, but I knew as well as I knew my own name that they were. Instinct again, but, as I have said, I was learning that my instincts were almost always accurate.

Having made up my mind, I felt better. The first thing I must do, I decided, was to find out as much as I could about the late Sister Herleva. Discovering where she came from, and whatever it was about her that had driven someone to kill her, would be a good start. The obvious person to speak to was her best friend, my sister, but Elfritha was the one person I couldn’t seek out, for if I did so someone would probably remember who I was and I could be putting myself in danger. I would try not to enter the abbey at all, I thought; instead, I would keep my eyes open for some local person — a tradesman, a craftsman — who had dealings with the nuns without being of the community. If I was lucky, encouraging this person to talk would be the easy part. Murders were a rare occurrence, especially in abbeys, and this one would be the talk of the area for weeks, probably months, to come.

I went back to my hiding place under the alders, made myself comfortable and waited.

Presently, a fat, red-cheeked countrywoman puffed in through the abbey gates, two large half-barrels suspended from a wooden yoke that rested on her broad shoulders. I stood up to see better and saw that each barrel contained what looked like small, round cheeses, each wrapped in white cloth. My hungry stomach gave a growl at the thought of a fresh, tasty cheese, and as I reached in my leather satchel to find coins, I realized I had the perfect excuse to catch the old woman’s attention.

She stayed for quite some time inside the abbey. I hoped she was busy gossiping. When she emerged, I slipped out from the trees and followed. I waited until she was some distance down the track that led to the settlement to the east of the abbey, then increased my pace and caught up with her.

She was happy to sell me a cheese, putting down her burden to rest as she did so. She perched her ample buttocks on the bank beside the track, and I sat down beside her. Not wasting a moment, I said, ‘I hear there’s been a murder at the abbey.’

As soon as she turned to me, eyes wide in wonder and an expression on her face that told me she was just dying to tell the latest news to somebody, I knew I’d chosen well. ‘Yes, my dearie, so there has!’ she began. ‘It’s one of the novices, a pretty, plump, chatty little thing, quite my favourite because whenever she was on kitchen duty when I delivered my cheeses, she always gave me a drink and a crust to help me on my way. She and her friend, they were about the only ones who had time for a weary old soul like me.’ Her face fell momentarily. I did not believe her, for Elfritha had many good friends among the nuns, both novices and the fully professed, and I was quite sure most of them would have had the charity to give their cheese woman some refreshment.

‘What was her name?’ I asked, although of course I already know.

‘Sister Herleva,’ the woman said. ‘She was from over beyond Lynn way, from some place up on the coast. She hadn’t been with the nuns long — let me see, I reckon it was last summer she came, maybe autumn. It’s — it was taking her a while to settle down to convent ways, and I did wonder if she’d stay. They don’t let them take their vows, you know,’ she added confidingly, leaning towards me, ‘if they don’t think they’re ready. Sometimes they never are and then they go out again.’ She smiled in a self-congratulatory way. ‘I know a lot about nuns, me. I’ve been taking my cheeses to Chatteris Abbey these thirty years, and not much gets past me.’

‘No, I’m sure it doesn’t.’ Flattery seemed a good idea. ‘They say her throat was cut,’ I said, dropping my voice to an intimate whisper.

The cheese seller put her mouth close to my ear. ‘She was hit on the head and her neck was slit from ear to ear,’ she whispered back. She looked swiftly up and down the track, but there was nobody in sight. ‘There’s something else,’ she hissed. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this. No one’s supposed to know, not even the nuns themselves, but I had to visit the herbalist on account of she wanted some of my sage and I overheard her talking to the abbess.’ She paused, undoubtedly for dramatic effect, then said, ‘Poor little Herleva was poisoned!’

I remembered Elfritha mentioning the pool of vomit. I’d thought perhaps Herleva had been sick because of her terror. But poison! How extraordinary, that she’d been poisoned, then hit on the head, then had her throat cut. Had the poison not been sufficiently potent and the blow to the head not hard enough? Poor little Herleva, indeed. Somebody had been utterly determined that she should die, even if it took three attempts.

‘Surely she was very young, for someone to hate her so much?’ I said, opening my eyes wide and trying to sound naive.

The cheese seller patted my hand kindly. ‘Oh, there’s reasons enough to kill a person other than hatred,’ she said, ‘as I fear you’ll come to understand, my dearie, before you’re much older.’

‘But what could they possibly be?’ I asked, genuinely wanting an answer. Herleva was young, kind, gossipy and a novice nun. Why would any of those things make anyone want to kill her?

The old woman shook her head. ‘No use asking me, dearie. I came to realize years ago that the ways of this wicked world are beyond my comprehension.’

She levered herself to her feet and raised her yoke back on to her shoulders, wincing as she did so. ‘The lass would have been poor, so it can’t have been theft that made someone do for her. Nor love, come to that, since the nuns are chaste, or meant to be!’ She laughed shortly. ‘Your guess is as good as mine, dearie. Now, I must be getting on my way, or I won’t be done afore dark.’

I stood up too. ‘I hear there’s a new priest here,’ I said. I was interested to see if the woman would have an opinion on him, and I wasn’t disappointed.

‘Him!’ She spat on the ground. ‘Yes, we’ve a new priest all right. I don’t know how he is with those nuns, but I can tell you, dearie, he’s as tough as they come with the likes of us. Hard as rock, he is. Rigid in his ways, with no time for excuses and explanations. A sin’s a sin, and that’s that.’ She leaned closer, dropping her voice. ‘We don’t much like him, I can tell you that. He’s got no heart, see. Like my son says, he wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.’ She nodded, as if to emphasize her words.

‘I see.’

‘Don’t tell anyone I said that,’ she added, her face suddenly anxious.

I patted her broad arm. ‘Of course I won’t.’ On impulse I reached in my satchel and took out a small pot of Edild’s remedy for stiff muscles. ‘Use some of this on your shoulders before you go to bed tonight,’ I said, pressing it into her hand. ‘It’ll help the pain.’

She looked at it, then up at me, giving me a kind but almost toothless smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘It’s good to know there’s some fine, Christian folk left in this wicked world.’

Then she waddled away.

It was time for me to leave Chatteris. So thoroughly was my curiosity aroused that if I stayed, I knew I might be tempted to throw caution to the winds and try to go into the abbey and seek out Elfritha. She had been Herleva’s friend. She would know, if anyone did, the secret reason why the poor little novice had died. She might not realize she knew, but I could, I was sure, winkle the information out of her if I asked the right questions.

No, I must not even think of going into the abbey.

My footsteps had taken me back along the track that led to the gates, but I made myself turn aside and return to the alder grove. I sat down on the grass, eyes fixed on the abbey before me. Herleva had died in there, her body left behind the stables. Was there any point in going to inspect the place? The body had long been removed, and no doubt the blood and the vomit had been cleaned away, so the answer to that was no.

Nevertheless, I just didn’t seem able to tear myself away.

I heard voices from the direction of the quay. Turning to look, I saw a big, lithe, broad-shouldered man dressed in black, accompanied by a short, round little man in the coarse wool habit of a monk. The tall man was quite young; perhaps only twelve or fifteen years older than I was. He walked with an athletic stride, his shoulders flung back and his back straight. There was a sense of power about him that did not come solely from his physical presence.

He was almost at the abbey gates now. I drew further back into the shadows and stared at him. His face was tanned, as if he spent much time out of doors, and rather lean, the jaw square. The mouth was wide and mobile, the light eyes set deep beneath thick, fair brows. His hair — also fair, with coppery highlights — was worn long and looked very clean, and his robe was newly laundered.

I realized what a very handsome man he was.

He was talking to his fat companion. Straining my ears, I tried to make out the words.

‘.?.?. should arrange to bury her as soon as we can, Brother Paul, for the weather grows warm.’

‘They will miss her, sweet child that she was,’ panted the monk, who was having to hurry to keep pace with the tall man’s long strides.

‘They will indeed.’

‘Shall you — er, I don’t like to make suggestions, but shall you mention after the service her kind nature and how everyone really liked her, her being so gossipy and friendly and all?’

‘Oh, I think so,’ the tall man said with a sad smile. ‘Frivolous characteristics, perhaps, in one who believed she had heard God’s call to enter his service as a nun, but then the poor child did not really have any gifts that the Lord would truly value.’

I supposed that he was right, strictly speaking, but it seemed unkind, especially considering how poor Herleva had met her death. Perhaps there was little use for her light-hearted sort of cheerfulness within the walls of a convent, although on my visits to Elfritha I had always been surprised at how much laughter the nuns seemed to share. Herleva probably would never have been a senior nun, perhaps not even a very good one, but the world was a sorry place for most of its inhabitants and it seemed to me that this tall, black-clad man was being unnecessarily harsh in his judgement of the dead girl. He must-

Then I knew who he was.

I would have realized sooner, I’m sure, had I not been preoccupied with my thoughts about Herleva. For one thing he was dressed in black and accompanied by a monk; for another, the monk had referred to what he was going to say about Herleva.

I crept to the very edge of my hiding place, intent on getting a better look at him. He had his back turned, for he was speaking to the hatchet-faced nun who had opened the door to Hrype and me the previous day. Now she was bowing to her visitor, straightening up to stand back and usher him inside with a wave of her arm.

The monk scurried in first, the tall man following.

Just as he was about to move out of sight behind the abbey’s high walls, he turned.

I knew he could not have seen me, for instantly I drew right back, crouching low to the ground so that I was entirely hidden behind the lush spring undergrowth. He did not see me, I repeated silently. I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t help myself: I summoned my fledgling power and sent out a feeler in the tall man’s direction.

In return I got such a violent shock that it threw me flat on my back. Terrified that he had heard the thump as I fell, I got to my knees and parted the leaves to peer down at the abbey. To my vast relief, he had gone inside and the gate was closing behind him.

Hrype had said he was a powerful man. If I had ever doubted it, I did so no longer. I had felt that fathomless, light gaze turn in my direction, and for the blink of an eye it had felt as if searing beams of white-hot light had raked over me.

Whatever his beliefs, whatever he was, Father Clement was a man to be reckoned with.

A man, I was forced to admit, to be feared.