Alys Clare - Land of the Silver Dragon

My mother gave him a swift, impatient look. She is a woman who always keeps both feet firmly on the ground. If anyone had the temerity to ask her opinion on some question broadly to do with the realm of gods and spirits, she would brush the question aside with some sort of dismissive comment, such as, ‘I know what I believe and that’s good enough for me.’ She does not waste her time pondering unanswerable questions, and has little patience with those who do.

I thought I knew what my father was thinking. I often do. ‘The giant intruder has exhausted the places where the living members of our family could have hidden whatever it is he’s searching for,’ I said quietly, just to my father. ‘You’re thinking, too, that he’s been driven to looking in the graves of our dead?’ It was just what I’d concluded the previous day.

‘I am,’ he agreed softly. He smiled grimly. ‘Just as well he doesn’t know about the island, isn’t it?’

I nodded. It was, of course, because it would have been dreadful if, like the relatives of the disturbed dead in the churchyard, we’d been faced with the desecration of a loved one’s grave. Had it happened, it would in any case have been all for nothing.

I saw my granny in her grave and I knew there was nothing buried with her except for some of her most treasured possessions and a scattering of flowers. By now the flowers would be turned to dust, and the few simple personal objects had already been worn down by a lifetime’s hard use when they went into the ground. A bone comb, beautifully carved but with half its teeth missing. A prettily crafted drinking cup, mended at least twice. A soft woolly shawl, much darned. There was surely nothing in the grave with Granny that anyone else would take such extreme steps to retrieve.

I reached out and took my father’s hand. He had loved his mother dearly. I was so glad, for all of us but especially for him, that her eternal sleep had not been interrupted.

I worked hard all day with Edild, my thoughts fully occupied so that there was little time for wondering whether my father would relent and let me return to sleeping at my aunt’s house. When I did briefly dwell on it, it occurred to me that perhaps he wasn’t only thinking of me. If, as it seemed, it was my father’s children who were the objects of the giant intruder’s search, then my presence in Edild’s house might also put her in danger. Edild, I knew, was under Hrype’s protection, but I very much doubted that anyone else was aware of it.

Spring was getting into its stride. The worst of the various weather-related sicknesses was over, and soon I should start thinking about returning to my studies with Gurdyman. A part of me longed to be back with him in the twisty-turny house in Cambridge, engrossed in the fascinating things he was teaching me and with the lively, vibrant town all around me. But such thoughts seemed disloyal to my family, especially under the current circumstances, so I tried to suppress them.

We were just clearing up for the day when there came the sound of running footsteps on the path leading up to the door. There was a perfunctory knock, then the door was flung open and my cousin Morcar burst into the house.

There was no need for even the swiftest glance at his poor, haggard face to know that something terrible had happened. Distress radiated out of him, reaching me with such force that I staggered back. Edild ran to him, took his hands in hers and, on a huge sob, he cried, ‘My mother’s dead!’

Instinctively, Morcar had come first to Edild, his mother Alvela’s twin. But Alvela had had other siblings, and one of them was my father. Even as Edild led Morcar over to the bench beside the hearth and gently persuaded him to sit, I gathered up my shawl and ran across the village to my family home. By the time Morcar was ready to tell us what had happened, he had the meagre comfort of his uncle’s, his aunt’s and his cousin’s presence while he related his tale.

‘I’d been working on a job some way from home,’ he began. Morcar is a flint knapper. His and Alvela’s neat little house is up in the Breckland. ‘I finished off this morning, sooner than I’d reckoned, and I headed home with coins in my purse, hoping to surprise Mother.’ Tears filled his eyes. ‘She was lying there, amid the wreck of all the bits and bobs she’d cared for so well. They didn’t amount to much, but she loved them.’ He buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with sobs. He is by nature a reserved, taciturn man, and to see him torn apart by his grief was hard to bear. Alvela had doted on him, and I had always assumed he’d found her fussing something of a trial. Watching him now it was clear that, even were that true, he’d loved her deeply.

He raised his wet face and looked at my father, then at Edild. ‘Whoever broke in beat her, very badly,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘Her poor face was …’ But he couldn’t bring himself to tell us. He waved a hand vaguely in my father’s direction, shaking his head in anguish.

‘Never mind that now,’ Edild said gently. ‘Do not distress yourself further by making yourself think of it.’

‘But why did they hurt her?’ Morcar asked, his brow creased in a perplexed frown. ‘She was a small woman, and not strong. Once he’d broken in, he could have taken all he wanted and she wouldn’t have been able to stop him.’

‘ He? ’ my father asked.

Morcar glanced at him. ‘Yes. Great big fellow, bearded, built like an ox.’

‘Somebody saw him? Edild demanded.

‘Yes, yes, a couple of our neighbours had heard the commotion and gone to see what was up. The man ran off just as they arrived.’ He paused. ‘They found Mother lying there, but it was too late to help her. She was already dead.’ He dropped his face into his hands again.

I saw my father and my aunt exchange a glance. Then my father looked at me. I understood. ‘It’s as if her killer had been trying to make her tell him something,’ I whispered, the words barely more than a breath.

My father heard. His expression grim, he nodded.

Morcar must have heard, too. Perhaps — probably — he had already arrived at the same conclusion. ‘I don’t know what he thought she could tell him!’ he cried, tears running down his face. ‘If he was after some treasure, some object of value, that he believed we had hidden away in our house, he had been wrongly informed. And now she’s dead.’

We fell silent. In Edild’s warm, fragrant little house, the heart-rending sound of a grown man’s weeping was the only thing to break the silence.

My poor father was quite clearly torn between staying with Edild and me while we tended Morcar — well, it was Edild who patiently went on trying to calm and comfort him, while I set about making a remedy to dull the agony of his shock and grief — and returning to protect his family home. In the end, perhaps frustrated by his indecision, Edild said firmly, ‘Go home to your wife and your sons, Wymond. You should send word to Ordic and Alwyn, who must be informed of our sister’s death.’

My father looked at her uncertainly for a moment. Then, his face working, he said, ‘Goda wounded, old Utta dead, Elfritha’s dormitory searched and two nuns hurt, my family’s home — where Lassair is temporarily living — ransacked, and now this — poor Alvela. It’s the women ,’ he added in a low, furious voice. ‘My daughters, and now my sister.’ He took a deep breath. ‘What sort of a man attacks women? What is worth finding, for which he’ll kill so casually and thoughtlessly?’ His eyes, normally warm with affection and humour, were suddenly cold as ice. There was, I realized, another side to my father; one that an enemy would do well to fear.

I think it was Edild’s remark about informing Ordic and Alwyn that finally persuaded my father to leave. Although the third-born son, he is the acknowledged head of the siblings, probably because he’s both the wisest and the biggest of the brothers. He got up to go, leaning over Edild and muttering something I did not catch. She looked up at him with a smile, made a soft reply and nodded towards the door. She murmured something that sounded like a reassurance. Whatever she said seemed to convince him.