Alys Clare - The Way Between the Worlds

The poor girl. She must have realized what was happening, and her fear had brought that violent reaction in her guts. I found myself hoping fervently that the blow to her head had knocked her unconscious, so that there had been no awareness of the knife in her throat that took her life. If her assailant had hit her hard enough, it probably would have done. She might even have been dead before the cut; it depended on how much blood had come out of the wound. Edild had taught me that living bodies spurt blood from wounds, whereas it only seeps from someone whose heart has ceased to beat.

But I was thinking like a healer, not as a loving sister. Elfritha, beside me, was trembling with distress, and I hadn’t even offered her a word of comfort. I took hold of her hand. It was very cold, so I wrapped her in my arms, trying to soothe and reassure her with my body warmth.

Glancing at Hrype, I saw that he was frowning, apparently deep in thought. Elfritha went to speak again, but I touched her cheek and, when she looked at me, shook my head. Hrype does not like to be interrupted when he is thinking.

After what seemed like a very long time, he nodded and said, ‘Very interesting.’ He added something else, which could have been: it is as I thought .

But whatever he thought, he wasn’t going to share it with us. When this became clear, Elfritha — who, unlike me, is not used to his ways — looked indignant. ‘Is that all you have to say?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ Hrype replied. ‘Come, we must get back. You should return to the abbey before anyone misses you.’

Elfritha picked up her bunch of water pepper and — side by side, with Hrype silently following — we went back along the quay. We saw her as far as the abbey gates, where she and I said our farewells. ‘We are holding a vigil for Herleva,’ she said, ‘and I doubt I shall be able to see you again.’

‘I understand, I’ll come back when-’

But Hrype, his expression abruptly sharpening, interrupted. ‘The dead girl is not yet buried?’

‘No. Father Clement is away and will not be here until the morning. He’s our new priest; he was appointed back in the late autumn, just before Christmas. He sent word that he was fully occupied elsewhere but was praying earnestly for the dead sister and all of us.’

Father Clement. I memorized the name. I was going to make some comment — to ask what sort of a man he was, whether he would be able to reassure and solace the nuns with his presence — but I happened to glance at Hrype. And his expression alarmed me, for it was dark with menace.

Then I realized. Father Clement was Hrype’s fanatic of the new religion.

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.