Alys Clare - The Way Between the Worlds

‘Halloa!’ the voice cried. Hrype saw a tall, spare man in his middle years standing on the shore just above the water line. ‘Go over to your left — ’ the man waved the appropriate arm vigorously in case his visitor did not know his right from his left — ‘and you’ll find the ground slopes up more gently.’

Hrype did as he was bid, soon finding himself climbing up out of the water on to the soil of Crowland island. His feet were filthy with black, slimy, clinging mud. They were also so cold that he could not feel them. He appeared to have cut his right heel; he saw a line of blood snaking out through the foul mud.

The man hurried to meet him. ‘That looks nasty,’ he observed, studying Hrype’s foot. ‘Come along with me to what is left of our infirmary, and I’ll see if I can find something to bathe it with.’

Hrype followed him up the shore. He looked around, noticing the remains of the church and the buildings that had formed the sides of the cloister beside it. Judging by one that had survived the flames, they appeared to have been made of timber, with wattle infill and reed-thatched roofs. No wonder the abbey had burned so thoroughly.

The thin man led him to a makeshift hut that stood within the outlines of what had been a bigger building, rectangular in shape. ‘We’ve put everything we salvaged in here,’ he said, ducking his head and leading the way inside the little hut, which was crowded with sacks and crates and had a small fire burning in a central hearth. ‘It’s not much, but at least it keeps the rain off. Now-’ He stared around, his eyes alighting on a small three-legged stool. ‘Sit there, and I’ll wash and tend your foot.’

Hrype sank down on to the stool, watching as the man moved around him, fetching a bowl, filling it from the iron vessel suspended over the hearth and adding some drops from a small bottle made of green glass. Then he rolled up his sleeves, hitched up his robe and knelt before Hrype.

‘Our infirmarer is not here,’ he said as he bathed Hrype’s wounded heel, ‘since, like most of my monks, he has been sent to be useful in another abbey until this one is up and running again.’ The my monks was a clue, and Hrype was prepared for what the man said next. ‘I am Ingulphus,’ he said, looking up and smiling, ‘and I am abbot here.’

‘I heard about the fire,’ Hrype remarked. If he began with some general comments, he thought, then it might be easier to pose the question he’d come to ask without raising suspicion.

Ingulphus made a sound of despair. ‘I am not surprised. We lost so much. All our buildings burned, including our library, with its precious manuscripts and the experimental model Brother Luke had been working on, with which he hoped to demonstrate the movements of the planets in their spheres.’

‘How did the fire start?’ Hrype asked. ‘Was it a raid?’

‘No, no, it wasn’t,’ the abbot replied. ‘In a way, that would have been easier to bear, since it would have been outside our control. No; a plumber was working in the church tower. A moment’s carelessness, and you see the result all around you.’ He sighed, returning to Hrype’s foot and rinsing it carefully, then applying some drops of whatever it was in the little green bottle.

For a few moments Hrype felt as if someone had set fire to his foot. He cried out, and Ingulphus grinned.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have warned you, I suppose, but I always feel that if I’m going to experience pain, I’d rather not be warned, since then you suffer twice, once from the anticipation, once from the pain itself.’

He put another couple of drops into the cut, and this time the pain was less acute. ‘What is that?’ Hrype asked.

The abbot looked up. ‘I have no idea. Our herbalist makes it, and it is his sovereign remedy for cleaning cuts. Now, a dressing, to keep the wound clean — ’ he worked as he spoke, his busy, capable hands wrapping and tying the strip of clean linen — ‘and you can put your boot back on.’ He looked at Hrype’s other foot and, after only a brief hesitation, washed that as well.

‘Thank you,’ Hrype said gravely when he had finished.

The abbot grinned. ‘That’s all right. It seemed a shame for you to have one nice clean foot and one filthy one. Now, why not tell me who you are and why you are here? I thought, when I first spied you coming across the water, that you were one of my monks returning, but I soon saw my mistake.’

‘Are you here alone, then?’ Hrype asked.

‘No, four of the brethren are with me.’ He grimaced. ‘The four strongest, for our work just now consists mainly of tearing down the ruins and clearing the ground so that the new build can begin.’

The four strongest, Hrype reflected. They would not necessarily be the four brightest, and he thought he understood the abbot’s rueful expression. ‘Is there not work elsewhere for you too, My Lord Abbot, more suited to your abilities?’

Ingulphus smiled. ‘This is my abbey,’ he said simply. ‘It is up to me to rebuild it.’ His smile widened. ‘It is often acknowledged among us here that we have a very comfortable life compared with our founder, for our blessed Guthlac clad himself in crude skins, his daily fare was no more than a morsel of barley bread and a cup of muddy water, and he bore his ague and marsh fever without complaint. Men say the island was the haunt of terrifying creatures, demons and vengeful spirits, yet Guthlac prevailed. Perhaps it is no bad thing for we who dwell here two hundred years later to experience the hardships our founder encountered and to celebrate his stout courage, which has enabled his successors to begin again each time our settlement has been destroyed. We shall not fail him now.’

He had finished tidying away the bowl and the wash cloths, and now, straightening up and turning to face Hrype, he said mildly, ‘You still haven’t told me why you are here.’

The mildness was, Hrype decided, deceptive. The abbot was an astute, brave man and, with such as he, the best thing — perhaps the only thing — was to tell the truth.

‘You had a priest here by the name of Father Clement,’ he said.

If the abbot was surprised at the remark, he did not show it. ‘Yes, indeed. He was our confessor until the fire and, like my monks, he was sent elsewhere afterwards. The five of us here go over to Thorney for confession,’ he added, ‘for it would be a waste of Father Clement’s talents to have him tend to the spiritual welfare of so small a group.’ He studied Hrype intently. ‘Did you hope to find Father Clement here? If so — ’ he answered the question before Hrype had a chance to — ‘then I am afraid you have had a wasted journey, for he now ministers to the nuns at Chatteris, although we hope very much that he will be permitted to return to us soon, once we are a proper community again, because he-’

‘My Lord Abbot,’ Hrype interrupted, as gently as he could, ‘I am very sorry to tell you this, but I fear that Father Clement is dead.’

The abbot’s lean face paled. ‘ Dead ?’ he said in a whisper. ‘But how? He was not an old man, and I would have said he was fit, and he-’

‘If the body has been correctly identified, and I fear that it has, then Father Clement was murdered,’ Hrype said.

The abbot’s eyes closed, and his lips moved in silent prayer. Then he stopped, his eyes flew open and he glared at Hrype. ‘This cannot be true,’ he said angrily, ‘for I have had word that Father Clement is safe at Chatteris!’

‘The man there is not Father Clement,’ Hrype said. ‘My guess is that this impostor took his place, although why he should do so, I cannot say. Yet,’ he added softly to himself.

The abbot studied him intently. Then, apparently detecting something in his visitor that inclined him to trust him, he said, ‘You wish to ask, I dare say, when I last saw Father Clement, and where he was bound when he left here.’