Alys Clare: Blood of the South

Breasts … That reminded me. I shifted the baby in my arms – he was winding up to cry, and already giving increasingly heart-rending little whimpers – and said, ‘My lady, your son needs to be fed.’

She looked at me as if I was simple. ‘He was fed before we left the boat.’

‘I’m sure he was.’ I held on to my temper. ‘But now he’s hungry again.’

She looked around, as if hoping that whoever it was that normally cared for her child might appear out of the wood panelling. ‘Oh,’ she said.

Chevestrier came to stand beside me. ‘I don’t suppose you know of a wet-nurse?’ he asked quietly. There was a note of desperate optimism in his voice.

I smiled at him. ‘I do.’

‘Thank the Lord,’ he muttered. ‘Do you think she’s likely to be available?’

I handed the baby over to him. After a moment’s hesitation – he had much more of an idea how to hold a child than the baby’s mother – he laid the increasingly noisy little bundle gently down on the bed.

‘I’ll go and find out,’ I said.

I located the wet-nurse – a lovely, strong, sensible girl called Mattie, with three strapping young boys of her own and a delicate little daughter at the breast – and she was happy to provide her services for the lady in the inn. Understanding that her new charge was probably extremely hungry by now, she came straight away. I introduced her to Chevestrier and the veiled woman, and instantly she bent down to the baby, already unlacing her gown. Then I turned and left.

Chevestrier, clearly not wishing to witness the intimacy of breastfeeding, hurried out after me. ‘Thank you for your help,’ he said.

I smiled. ‘It was more for the baby’s sake than hers.’

He smiled back. ‘Quite.’ Then he gave me a salute and strode away.

I had forgotten all about Gurdyman. When I got back to his wonderfully well-hidden house – you have to fiddle your way through the lanes behind the market square, doubling back on yourself, and when I first went to live there, it took me many attempts till I could do it without thinking – it was to find him already installed in his sunny little courtyard, waiting for me to tell him my side of the morning’s events. ‘I saw you go into the inn,’ he said, ‘and then hurry off to fetch Mattie.’

‘Yes, she’s just got herself another mouth to feed,’ I replied. ‘And her new mistress ought to be able to pay her well. You saw her, no doubt.’ It wasn’t even a question.

‘Yes, I did.’ Gurdyman paused. I thought he was going to say more, but he didn’t. Instead he asked why she had been attacked, and what had occurred up at the castle, and, once I had told him, he appeared to be satisfied and allowed the conversation to lapse, closing his eyes and enjoying the soft warmth of the sun.

‘She’s heading for the fens,’ I said.

‘Oh, really?’ Gurdyman seemed only mildly interested.

‘She’s looking for kin there.’

‘Well, now!’

I knew him in this mood: he didn’t want to discuss it, and nothing I could say would make him. ‘Do you know of Chevestrier?’ I asked instead.

Gurdyman opened his eyes. ‘Jack Chevestrier is a better man by far than his master the sheriff,’ he pronounced.

I smiled. ‘Ah, but that could be said of virtually every man in Cambridge.’

Gurdyman acknowledged the truth of that. ‘He is decent, honest and, as far as I am aware, capable,’ he said after a moment. ‘Norman blood, but he can’t help that. Picot, of course, takes advantage of his man’s efficiency, leaving him to do twice as much work as he should while Picot busies himself acquiring wealth and possessions to which he is not entitled.’

‘You’d think Jack Chevestrier would notice, and do something to stop him,’ I said.

Gurdyman shot me a look. ‘No doubt he does, and, in time, he probably will.’

‘But-’

‘Enough, Lassair.’ Gurdyman quite often does that: brings a topic to an abrupt end because he wants to raise another one. ‘Now, go down to the crypt and bring me the little bundle wrapped in a piece of sacking that you will find on the end of my workbench.’

I did as he bade me, returning to put the parcel in his hands. He held it for a few moments – it seemed to me he was testing his reaction to it, which was, on the face of it, unlikely – then, to my surprise, he looked up and said, ‘It arrived this morning. I collected it on the quayside from my merchant friend. Open it. It’s for you.’

I unwrapped the sacking, revealing a lump of bright blue stone, about the size of the top joint of my thumb. I held it up to the light, and the sunshine caught golden glints among the blue. It was very beautiful: the colour was a distillation of summer skies in the late evening.

‘Do you know what it is?’ Gurdyman asked.

‘I believe it’s lapis lazuli.’

‘It is indeed. Do you recall where it comes from?’

I remembered a morning when we pored over his map, and he pointed out a land that seemed impossibly far away to the east; on the edge of a huge range of mountains which, according to Gurdyman, scraped against the sky. ‘It comes out of the east,’ I said dreamily. ‘Men hack it out of the ground, and they sell it to the traders who travel the vast distances of the Silk Road.’

‘And what do we use it for?’ Gurdyman prompted.

‘It is used by painters to make the costly shade known as ultramarine.’

‘Yes.’ He hesitated, looking at the blue stone that I still held in my hand. ‘There is another use to which it is put. Since you are not an artist, Lassair, it is this second use that I had in mind when I ordered your stone.’

I felt a shiver of apprehension. Gurdyman’s voice had altered subtly. I was afraid of what he was going to say.

He nodded, as if he had picked up my fear. ‘Do not worry,’ he said softly. ‘I will be beside you. We shall experiment together.’ There was a pause. ‘But not now,’ he said in his normal tone. ‘Put the lapis away, child, and fetch us something to eat.’

In the course of the next day, nothing more was said about the piece of lapis lazuli. Gurdyman keeps a sack stuffed with odd bits of fabric down in the crypt, and I selected a piece of silk and sewed a tiny bag to hang from my belt, in which to keep my stone. Gurdyman said I should keep it close, so that it picked up my essence.

Late that evening, after I had gone up to my little attic above the kitchen, I heard Gurdyman step softly along the passage to the door. I detected a faint rumble of voices, both of them male. Very few people know where Gurdyman lives; he likes it that way, being reclusive by nature and frequently engaged on tasks that are better unwitnessed. One man, however, comes quite often.

I slipped out of bed, grabbed the lovely shawl which my sister Elfritha made for me years ago and, wrapping myself in it, went down the ladder and into the kitchen. Following the faint sound of the voices, I padded down the passage, then turned to descend the steps that lead to Gurdyman’s crypt.

I would not have dreamt of spying on Gurdyman and his night visitor. Apart from such an action being ill-mannered towards the man who houses and teaches me, it would also have been extremely dangerous, especially if the guest was who I thought he was. So, without stopping to think, I jumped down the second flight of steps and burst into the crypt with a cheery, ‘It’s me, Lassair! I heard voices.’

The two men standing by the workbench turned to stare at me. Gurdyman’s face wore a mild smile, as if my uninvited presence was a bit of a nuisance but nothing worse. The other man, even now throwing back the deep hood of his heavy, dark cloak, glared at me out of silvery eyes narrowed in irritation.

‘Hello, Hrype,’ I said timidly.