Alys Clare - Music of the Distant Stars

‘Sir Alain is to be wed?’ I asked.

‘He is. The young lady’s father was long a bedridden invalid, and died some years ago, but it has always been her mother whose opinion really counts, for it is she who holds the strings of the purse.’ He paused. ‘The mother is a very wealthy woman.’

He frowned, apparently gathering his thoughts, and neither Edild nor I interrupted. ‘Alma de Caudebec, the young lady’s grandmother, married a great Norman baron, Bastien de St Claire. He was awarded a grand estate in the Thetford Forest, close to the place where in ages past the ancestors mined for flint. Alma bore her baron a single child — a daughter, Claritia — who wed Gaspard de Sees, the younger son of another, much less prominent, Norman family; their earthly comfort was dramatically heightened by the add-ition of her wealth, but they remain socially insignificant. Claritia and her husband had two children, both girls. Our Sir Alain’s family have much need of money, and I would guess that it was made plain to him from boyhood that he must marry wealth. A match was arranged between him and Claritia’s elder daughter, Genevieve, and negotiations were well advanced when the girl fell into a fainting fit from which she has never fully recovered.’

I glanced at Edild and met her eyes. I imagined that, like me, she was going through her medical knowledge — in her case, so much greater than mine — to see if she could hazard a guess as to what had caused this fit and why its effects should persist.

‘Fortunately for both families,’ Hrype went on, ‘each of whom has their reasons for desiring the match, there is another, younger, sister. She-’

‘Why do the girl’s family want this marriage with a man who is far from rich?’ I put in.

Hrype raised an eyebrow. ‘Because they want the de Villequier name,’ he said. ‘They have discovered that wealth is not enough. When it is in the hands of a name not recognized by the great magnates of the land, it buys material goods, but not position.’

‘So he comes from a famous family?’ I persisted.

‘He does. The name resonates through Norman halls of power.’ I would have liked to know more and was poised to ask another question when Hrype, who seemed to read my mind, shot me a glowering look and I subsided. ‘There was still a problem to be surmounted, however,’ he said, ‘because the younger daughter is very, very devout and had set her heart on entering a convent and dedicating her life and her body to the service of God. When her mother told her that she could not have her dearest wish and instead was to marry Alain de Villequier, she, too, fell into a faint, although in her case recovery was somewhat swifter. She tried everything she could think of, even going as far as shaving her head and adopting the habit of a nun, but her mother was adamant.’

I felt a surge of sympathy for this poor girl. I am quite interested in the Christian religion, and I appreciate how people love the charismatic, compassionate, suffering figure of their saviour, but I cannot imagine dedicating my life to him at the cost of everything that normally lies in wait for a woman. Earthly love, a husband, children. My sister Elfritha is a nun, in the convent at Chatteris. I know that she is blissfully happy, despite the hardships of the life. I also know it is not for me. However, to want with all your soul to be a nun and be forced into marriage instead would, I imagined, be as bad as wanting to marry and being shut up in a convent.

‘In the end the girl bowed to her mother’s wishes,’ Hrype was saying, ‘although they say that the concession was partly starved, partly beaten out of her.’ He frowned. ‘Claritia has, apparently, a heavy hand.’

‘Where is she now?’ I asked. ‘Have they locked her up in a high tower in case she runs away?’

Hrype smiled. ‘No. She has given her word at the altar that she will marry Alain de Villequier, and her word is good enough. She is, as I have said, very devout. She will not break an oath sworn before God.’

It was, I thought, cunning of her mother to have made the girl swear her oath in church. It was devious, somehow, to use the strength of the girl’s feelings against her. I decided I really did not like the sound of this Claritia.

Hrype was speaking. To my amazement I heard the word Lakehall.

‘ What ?’ I demanded. ‘What’s that about Lakehall?’

‘It is where the lady is staying,’ Hrype said. ‘She lodges with her kinsman Lord Gilbert.’

Of course! I’d thought fleetingly when Hrype had mentioned the name of the young lady’s grandmother that it was somehow familiar. ‘So Lord Gilbert’s grandfather and the girl’s grandmother were brother and sister,’ I said slowly, working it out, ‘making her and Lord Gilbert second cousins.’

‘Yes,’ Hrype agreed. ‘With his future wife living for the moment at Lakehall, where she is staying prior to the wedding to allow her to become acquainted with her husband, all the more reason for Sir Alain to be given the task of investigating the death of the young seamstress.’

Information had been coming too fast. I held up my hands, muttering, ‘Wait, wait!’ It did not take me long; I just had to bring together two strands of the story, which I had thought ran separately. ‘So Sir Alain is to wed Lady Claude,’ I said, ‘for she is the woman you’ve been speaking of — the wealthy heiress who wanted to be a nun, but has to marry because her mother wants the power of an ancient and revered family name.’ Hrype began to answer, but I hadn’t finished. ‘Lady Claude has come here to meet Sir Alain, and it’s her seamstress, Ida, who accompanied her to Lakehall to help her sew her trousseau, who has been killed.’

Hrype waited with exaggerated patience to see if I was going to say more. When it became clear that I wasn’t, he said, ‘Well done, Lassair.’ There was a definite note of irony in his voice.

Edild had not spoken for some time. She had sat there absorbing Hrype’s story and only now did she stir. ‘You are well-informed, Hrype,’ she observed.

‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘how do you come to know all this?’

He took one of Edild’s hands in both of his, gently caressing the back of it with his long fingers. Then he turned to look at me. ‘I heard several weeks ago of Sir Alain de Villequier’s appointment,’ he replied, ‘and I thought that, since he would come to be a prominent figure in the vicinity, I ought to discover what I could about the man. I went to see a good friend of mine who lives in Cambridge.’ He glanced at me, a flash of mischief in his eyes. ‘Gurdyman is a wizard, Lassair. He has the power to stare into the scrying glass and divine the secrets of men’s lives and hearts.’

I did not know whether to believe him. The idea of a magical wizard living in the urban sophistication of Cambridge was somehow hard to accept but, on the other hand, Hrype certainly did know some very odd people. .

‘Have pity on her, Hrype,’ Edild murmured.

He grinned, suddenly looking much younger and almost carefree. ‘Very well. Gurdyman is in truth a sage, a wise man who spends his days hunched up over ancient manuscripts, trying to winkle out the wisdom of the past. He is also very astute and, for a man of such an academic temperament, surprisingly well informed about the doings of the great and the good of our land. The de Villequier family’s history is well known to him, as is that of the de Caudebecs.’

I wondered why a Cambridge sage had been prompted to learn so much about a bunch of Normans. Hrype answered my question, even though I had not spoken it aloud.

‘I was not entirely in jest when I said Gurdyman was a wizard,’ he said softly. ‘He is profoundly wise in the Old Ways and therefore potentially an object of interest to our new masters. It always pays, young Lassair, to know your enemy. Gurdyman’s knowledge of the Normans is probably as great as that of King William himself.’