Alys Clare - The Way Between the Worlds

Those three had had no reason to wish him harm. They could not have known who he was, and he had done them no wrong. But that was before he had killed Hawksclaw and two of the brigand’s men sent to ambush him. Now he had blood on his hands. Was either Hawksclaw or one of the other dead men under the protection of some powerful crone with malice in her heart? Was she even now standing up there where the hills ended, sending down her furious curse to land on him like some evil black crow, dogging his footsteps until finally he ran out of strength and succumbed?

He realized he was sitting stock-still on Strega’s back, eyes fixed on the figure on the hillside. With a huge effort he made himself look away, and immediately the sense of dread diminished. It was as if he had been standing under a lowering, chilling cloud, which had suddenly moved away to allow the blessed heat of the sun to reach him.

He knew he should instantly ride on, as fast as he could, and put some distance between himself and that sinister figure. But the temptation was too strong. Turning to face her once more, he yelled as loudly as he could, ‘I do not fear you! You have no power over me!’

It might have been his imagination, but as he hastened away down the road, he thought he heard a scream of fury come flying after him.

Once the sun had fully risen and the bright daylight had banished the shadows, he stopped at a decent-looking inn beside the road. He dismounted and led Strega under a low arch into the yard, where he paid a lad handsomely to rub her down, feed and water her and then groom her. He also told the lad to do what he could with the saddle and bridle, which needed a good wash. Then he went inside the inn and ordered the largest breakfast the innkeeper could provide. While it was being prepared, he paid for hot water and towels and set about cleaning himself up.

He shaved, untangled his darkened hair, hacked most of it off with his knife and, liberally using the coarse lye soap, washed it several times, restoring its natural fair colour. He washed his body next, thoroughly ridding himself of lice, and he bundled up the old garments he had been wearing and gave them to the innkeeper to burn. He dressed in clean linen — and what a luxury it was — and a tunic of fine wool, from which he had managed to get out most of the creases by hanging it up in the steam from the lavish hot water in which he was bathing. His good cloak, unrolled from his pack, lay ready on the bench beside him. He had even cleaned the layers of mud from his boots, and the chestnut-coloured leather shone again.

When he sat down to his meal, he suspected he was barely recognizable from the filthy creature who had first walked in. The food was plain but abundant, and by the time he was ready to leave the inn, he felt like a new man.

As he rode the long route south, he tried not to dwell on those he had left behind who sought revenge. He did not allow himself to believe the danger was past: it was not and probably would never be. People had long memories, and, as he had once heard the king say, there was nothing else to do in the border country except pursue blood feuds and plan the next bout of rape, pillage and murder.

He told himself that he had increased his chances by changing his appearance and by keeping off the best-known and most commonly used tracks. Sometimes he barely saw a soul all day. It was lonely — he longed for company, even that of some fellow traveller with whom he had nothing at all in common — but the loneliness kept him safe.

Or so he hoped.

At length he came to the wide estuary of the Humber river. He and the mare were both exhausted. They had travelled perhaps a hundred and fifty miles since turning south, and the cold winter they had left behind in the country around the Wall had turned into a mild spring. They had covered at least five miles every day, and sometimes, when the roads were flat and straight, as much as thirty. Now both of them needed a rest. Rollo, in addition, needed some time in which to think about the next phase of his mission. Its appeal had lessened with each day and every mile that had taken him closer to it, but he knew there was no avoiding it. In his heart he knew that he feared what he had to do. He did not like feeling afraid.

He had been born into a family of tough fighters: men who had gone to the hot southern lands to carve out a kingdom for themselves. His father was a Norman knight, and his mother was equally fierce and fiery. From a young age, Rollo had been taught that the way to deal with fear was to stare it in the eye and shame it into submission. He wondered, with a wry private smile, just how well that advice was going to stand up as he set about carrying out the alarming and strange task his king had entrusted to him.

He found a place to stay — an inn in a small village a few miles inland, on the northern shore of the estuary — and made his plans. He needed more information, and he needed to find the right people to ask. He knew what sort of people they would be and where to find them. He thought as far ahead as he could — as he dared — and then he gave in to his fatigue and went to bed, where in warmth, comfort and peace, he slept dreamlessly from mid-afternoon of one day to mid-morning of the next. Then he rose, bathed, ate, settled his account with the innkeeper and went to fetch Strega from the stables. She was as well rested and restored as he was, and together they set off on the last and most perilous leg of their long journey.

The rumour that had so concerned the king spoke of a specific location, although it had not been given a name. Its description, the king had hoped, would be enough to identify it, once Rollo was in the vicinity. The location was on the coast and, now that Rollo had reached the right area, he made the decision to proceed by water. He found a long quayside on the river’s north shore, where ships of varying sizes were tied up. Others were arriving and departing and, as far as the eye could see, traders were busy. Rollo approached the captains of several vessels and eventually found one who was going in the direction Rollo wanted and was willing to take a paying passenger and his horse. The captain spat in his hand and the two of them shook on the deal, then coins changed hands and Rollo and his horse went aboard.

The ship sailed on the evening tide. She was a coastal vessel, not all that big, and usually plied along the east coast from the Humber to the Thames. Her crew were mainly old hands who had served with their captain for years. They knew their profession well and, to Rollo’s relief, most of them seemed willing to enliven the monotony of their daily life by chatting to a stranger.

On the morning of the first day out, as the ship commenced her voyage around the wide bulge of Lincolnshire, Rollo got into conversation with the mate and the lad who, as his shadow, was learning his job. The two were uncle and nephew, alone in the world except for each other. The lad’s parents — the mate’s late sister and her husband — had died with the rest of her family and most of her village in the floods of the previous autumn. Rollo would not have pressed them to speak of such a recent tragedy, but both man and boy seemed willing, even eager, to do so. Perhaps, he mused, they were trying to get the grief out of their minds by talking about it.

‘You’ve never seen seas like it,’ said the mate, eyes full of horror as he thought back. ‘The wind came howling down out of the north like some furious ice demon, and the waves rose up like — like — well, higher than the highest tree.’

Any man other than one from East Anglia, Rollo reflected, would have said higher than a mountain , but there weren’t any mountains in the fenland.

‘The tides were real high and all,’ put in the lad, ‘and what with the hurricane blowing and the sea pushing up with the swell of the tide, the water didn’t have anywhere else to go, so it flooded over the low-lying land.’