Alys Clare: Land of the Silver Dragon

Then, of all people, little Leir spoke up. ‘We’ve got Lassair’s stories,’ he said. ‘I like Lassair’s stories.’ He grinned up at me, his sweet face still round and babyish. He’s growing tall, and sometimes I forget he’s only six.

My mother grabbed her baby boy and settled him on her lap. ‘Lassair’s tales, eh, Leir?’ He nodded solemnly. ‘You reckon they’re a treasure?’

Leir nodded again. ‘They’re our family treasure,’ he said.

It was a lovely thing to say. Had he not looked so comfortable on our mother’s capacious lap, I’d have grabbed him and given him a hug.

Squeak, further disgusted by all the sentiment flying around, made another being-sick noise and muttered, ‘I’d rather have a sword.’

Squeak is thirteen. From both his own and everyone else’s viewpoint, it’s a ghastly age for a boy.

I had hoped that, since our house had now received the attentions of the giant intruder and presumably he’d finished with us, I might be allowed to return to Edild’s. I remarked in an offhand way, over breakfast in the morning, that I’d probably stay with my aunt that night, hoping my father would just say all right, then .

He didn’t. He stopped eating, fixed me with a penetrating stare and said, ‘One more night with us, Lassair.’

I was about to protest, but then his expression softened and he added, ‘Please?’

I’ve always found it very hard to disobey my father, especially when I know that to do so would mean hurting or disappointing him. Meekly I nodded. ‘Very well.’

Edild and I had a hectic morning. Spring might be on its way, but nobody had told the elements, and the raw day was one of misty rain blown on a spiteful easterly wind. By midday we had treated so many people for the usual phlegmy cough that afflicts fenland people — it’s the perpetual damp that causes it — that we had run out of Edild’s expectorant medicine. I knew then how I would be spending the remainder of the day: in assembling all the ingredients and preparing them so that Edild could work her magic on them and turn them into a healing elixir.

On the shelves where we store our ingredients I found most of what I needed. We were having to rely on dried herbs, which in the main lack the potency of fresh-picked plants. Nothing much was growing yet; another reason why we were all longing for spring.

One element was missing. Recently Edild had passed on to me an unlikely piece of medicinal lore, which she herself had been taught by a very old woman who claimed she was from Viking stock. In the far north, the old woman said, the people used a special lichen to treat chest ailments; a lichen that was the food of a deer that lived in the snowy wastes where little else grew. This lichen did not grow in the fens, but Edild had discovered a similar moss-like substance thriving in the thin soil beneath the line of pine trees away over on the fen edge. After experimenting on herself, she found that it was very good at bringing up catarrh from the lungs and throat, and she had taken to including it in her remedy.

The jar in which we kept it was empty.

With a sigh — for the misty rain had grown heavier — I collected my shawl, put on my boots and, wrapping myself up tightly, set out on the mile-long trudge to the water.

The weather was so foul that I didn’t concentrate on anything much beyond staying on my feet against the force of the rising easterly wind. I was soaked to the skin within a few paces of leaving the house, and my attention was focused on images of how good it would be to get back to the fireside and start drying out.

All of which explains why it was not until I’d gathered my lichens and was well on the way back that I realized what I ought to have spotted straight away: somebody was watching me.

I did as I’ve been taught, and gave no indication that I knew of the unseen watcher’s presence. I carried on without breaking stride, thinking all the time what I must do to keep myself safe.

I should never have gone out alone! It was so easy to be wise after the event, and, indeed, who could I have asked to come with me? Everyone was out working, either on their own behalf or on Lord Gilbert’s land. People like us didn’t sit around in our houses all day waiting for someone to invite us out for a walk.

My mind was racing, going through possibilities. I didn’t dare stop and look around; it still seemed best to go on pretending I didn’t know anyone was there.

But he was there, all right. And I was afraid.

Given what had so recently been happening within my family, fear was quickly turning to terror.

With a huge effort, I brought myself under control. I had decided what to do.

I’d gone out to the south of the village, down beneath where the bulge that is Aelf Fen sticks out into the watery marshland. Between the road and the shore there’s a line of pine trees, their roots in the band of sandy soil that meanders along for half a mile or so before petering out. The lichen grows in the shadow of the trees.

Lord Gilbert’s manor, Lakehall, was some way off up to my right, and between it and the village was the church. I would pretend that, on my way home, I was stopping to kneel by a relative’s grave and pay my respects. With any luck, my pursuer would be deterred by the proximity of the church, and the possibility of goodly, decent people within, and slip away. As soon as I sensed he had gone, I could leave the graveyard by the side gate and hurry across the higher ground to Edild’s house.

That was the plan.

I reached the graveyard and, choosing a random mound, knelt on the wet grass and pretended to pray. Peeping between my hands, pressed against my face, I looked all around.

There was nobody there.

I made myself go on kneeling, keeping very still, and with all my senses I tested to see if I still felt I was being watched. After a long, cold, shivery moment, I realized I was alone. He’d gone.

Slowly I got up, picking up my small sack of lichen.

It was then that I noticed.

Somebody had disturbed the graves over beneath the stumpy trees on the far side of the churchyard. They were the most recent graves, of those villagers who had died within the last couple of years or so. Aghast at such desecration, all thoughts of my unseen pursuer flew out of my head and I raced across the sodden ground as if it was my job to grab a spade and instantly start repairing the damage.

I slid, panting, to a halt beside the first of the ruined grave mounds. Staring down into the muddy hole — the incessant rain had already made large puddles in the earth — I was horrified to see the yellow-white of human bone. Leg bones, ribs arching up like a cage, a domed skull and blank, unseeing eye sockets. I stumbled on to the next grave. This one was worse, for it was more recent and, in places where the shroud had torn or been chewed by rodents, I could make out putrefying flesh. As if in a ghastly daze, I moved on to look at the rest.

In all, seven graves had been violated. Seven of my fellow villagers lay exposed in death, and I had known every one. In age, they ranged from the very old to the newborn, and that grave — of a tiny boy who had come into the world too soon and survived only for three days — was the most poignant of all.

I could not leave them like that. Wiping my hands over my face, wet with both rain and tears, I silently promised the dead that they would soon be decently buried once more and, at last tearing my eyes away and turning my back, I hurried off to find the priest.

Father Augustine was in his little house, adjacent to the church. He was alone. The house smelled of onions and cabbage, and I guessed he had just eaten. I blurted out my news, and the expression in his face suggested he was as horrified as I was.