Alys Clare - The Way Between the Worlds

Then I heard a clear, authoritative voice that I recognized. I didn’t understand the words, for they appeared to be in the same language that the foreign sailors spoke. But I knew the tone: it was Gurdyman. He was addressing a tall, broad, fair-haired and bare-chested giant of a man who appeared to be the squat tub’s captain.

I hurried to join them. Gurdyman posed a question, to which the captain replied with a great gush of words, waving his hands about and gesturing to his boat, his crew and the dead body. Gurdyman waited until he paused for breath — which was a long time, as the man apparently had huge lungs — and then asked another question. The man nodded vigorously, pointing back up river to the north-east.

I nudged Gurdyman. ‘What’s happened? What’s he saying?’

Gurdyman turned to me, frowning. ‘In a moment, Lassair. First we must summon the sheriff.’

I was quite surprised. Gurdyman does not have a very great opinion of our town sheriff, suspecting him, as do many of the townspeople, of taking the common pasture and using it for himself. Prowling wolf, filthy swine and dog without shame are some of the more polite epithets applied to our sheriff. But I thought I knew why Gurdyman was even now sending a lad off to find him. There was a dead body in the water beneath the quay, and all business, commerce and trade would come to a halt until someone in authority did something about it.

Gurdyman took my hand and led me right up to the edge of the quay. Together we looked down at the body. It was floating, face upwards, just behind the boat, to which it seemed to be attacked by a length of rope. The eyes were shut and the jaws clamped together. The skin looked slightly tanned, a bit like leather, and from what I could see the body was naked.

‘You don’t really think the crew killed him and slung him over the side, do you?’ I whispered.

Gurdyman shook his head. ‘I am sure they did no such thing. The captain tells me they got lost in the fens last night — a fog sprang up, apparently, as so often it does at dusk — and they missed the main channel. They went too far over to the east and got caught up in a narrow channel in the peat workings. They had to turn round and the boat’s stern was stuck in the bank. It took quite a lot of effort, apparently, to push them free.’

I would have thought that the blond-haired giant could have poled the boat along single-handed, but did not say so. ‘Do you think the body became attached then, when they were stuck in the peat?’

Gurdyman did not speak for some moments. I had the sense that his thoughts were far away.

‘Gurdyman?’ I prompted. ‘Was the body in the peat?’ It would account for the tanned appearance of the skin. We have a lot of peat around us at Aelf Fen, and we know the effect that the brown water can have on anything immersed in it for any length of time.

He turned to me. ‘Hmm?’

I was about to repeat the question, but we were interrupted by a loud cry of ‘Make way, there! Make way for the sheriff!’ And, with an advance guard of two armed soldiers and a rearguard of three more, the puffed-up, gaudily-dressed figure of Cambridge’s sheriff made his way along the quay.

I melted away into the crowd and watched. The tall, blond captain towered above the sheriff, but, even so, there was no doubting who was in charge out there. A crafty fox our man might be, but he had something about him. He seemed to expect it as his right to have Gurdyman translate for him, and, indeed, Gurdyman did not seem to mind. In fact, he appeared quite determined to be included in whatever process of the law was being enacted.

The body had, at last, been dragged out of the water. It was indeed naked, and the general assumption that it was male proved correct. I was used to male bodies by now, through my work as a healer, and I looked with some interest and without embarrassment at the dead man.

He had been in early middle age, I guessed; medium height, spare build bordering on skinny, long limbs. His wet hair trailed down on to his shoulders, swept back from the face. Both the hair on his head and his body were dark, stained slightly reddish by the peaty water. Long ropes hung down from his wrists and ankles, and I thought I saw something wound around his neck; perhaps it was one of those ropes that had become caught on the boat and dragged him out of his resting place. Had he been hanged, I wondered? Had they bound him and strung him up, cutting him down once he was dead and throwing him into the fen?

Gurdyman grabbed my hand. ‘Come, child.’ We fell into step behind the small procession, which consisted of the sheriff and his guards, now carrying the corpse between them, and the captain of the squat tub.

‘Where are we going?’ I hissed.

‘The sheriff wants to know how, when and where this man died,’ Gurdyman whispered back. ‘If a crime has been committed in his area of jurisdiction, he’ll have to investigate it.’

‘How’s he going to find out?’

He smiled. ‘Well, I thought a couple of people who, in their different ways, know something about the human body might be able to help him, so I’ve just volunteered you and me.’

We were in a low-ceilinged, stone-walled room under the big building to which the sheriff had taken us. It was quite similar to Gurdyman’s crypt, although neither as clean, tidy nor sweet-smelling. The body had been laid on a big oak table, and Gurdyman and I had been left alone with it.

Gurdyman rolled back his sleeves and nodded to me to join him at the table. I, too, pushed back my sleeves, glad that I’d braided my hair and covered it with a coif that morning, as I always did when I was working. There’s nothing more disgusting than discovering your hair has been dipping in something smelly, whether it’s a bowl of pungent oil or a pot of some sick patient’s piss.

I stared at the dead man. Then I watched Gurdyman as, slowly and unhurriedly, he went over every inch of the body. ‘A strong man,’ he mused, ‘perhaps a little on the thin side. His muscles are well developed; I’d say he was used to walking big distances.’ He leaned over the corpse’s head and deftly lifted an eyelid. ‘Dark eyes. Aged perhaps in the mid-thirties; possibly a little younger. Uncircumcised.’ He paused and raised the corpse’s right shoulder a little way above the table, leaning across the body to repeat the process with the left shoulder. He leaned closer, studying the flesh. ‘Look, Lassair,’ he murmured.

I looked. I made out faint marks, almost like a pattern etched into the skin. ‘Is it a tattoo?’

‘No, I don’t believe it is,’ Gurdyman answered. ‘I think he’s had a whipping.’

A whipping. My mind filled with the sort of images I didn’t really want to see. It was time to change the subject. .

‘How did he die?’ I asked.

Gurdyman put gentle fingers to the rope around the neck. As he began carefully to remove it — there was an intricate knot beneath the left ear — he made a soft exclamation. ‘Look,’ he repeated.

He was indicating a cut, about the length of my little finger and quite deep.

‘This incision would have severed the vessel that bears blood up to the head,’ he said. ‘Death would have followed swiftly.’

‘But I thought he’d been hanged,’ I protested.

Gurdyman was slowly unwinding the rope from around the throat. I saw now that it was not in fact rope, but a length of plaited leather. ‘This is a garrotte,’ he said. ‘It is used to break the neck, like this.’ He mimed throwing the rope around a neck and then rapidly pulling it tight, one end crossed over the other, with a sort of jerk. Then, horribly, he raised the head and wobbled it around. It was clear even to me that the neck was broken. ‘The knot would serve simply to hold the rope in place,’ he added vaguely. Again, I had the impression he was thinking about something else.