Alys Clare - Music of the Distant Stars

A sudden horrible suspicion bloomed in the corner of my mind, waxing fast until it was all I could see. I turned to my mother and read the same awful thought in her eyes. I clung to her and whispered, ‘What should we do?’

She held me close, her strong arms around me. I could feel her trembling. Then she said, ‘You told me you are to go with Edild to lay out the body.’

I nodded. ‘Yes. I should be going — Edild will be wanting to set out soon.’

My mother held me at arm’s length, staring intently into my face, her light-blue eyes fierce with purpose. ‘If it’s as we fear, then someone will have seen him,’ she said. Suddenly, she was strong, her concern for her family overriding her dread. ‘Don’t say anything — don’t admit you know who he is, and whatever you do, don’t tell them.’

‘No, no, I won’t,’ I promised.

‘Keep your wits about you,’ my mother went on. ‘Listen carefully; try to detect the slightest finger of suspicion pointing in his direction. If they do think he-’ But she could not go on. Mutely shaking her head, she let me go.

I wanted more than anything to go straight to the house where Zarina lodged and ask to speak to Derman, then make him tell me where he had been before I’d found him. To ask him what he had done. I resisted the urge. I walked quickly back to Edild’s house, and shortly afterwards we set out for Lakehall.

As we walked I sensed my aunt’s eyes on me. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

I nodded. Much as I love my aunt, I always feel restored by a visit to my parents’ home. I looked up and caught Edild’s swift assessing look. Although she made no comment, I felt her support. The task ahead was going to be a severe test for an apprentice healer but, with my aunt watching over me, I knew I could do it.

They were expecting us up at the hall. Bermund was waiting, and without a word he led us across the courtyard and around the side of the manor house, along a narrow passage between outbuildings and up to the door of a small lean-to set against the rear wall of the kitchen. The kitchen door was ajar, and I could smell food cooking. There were voices engaged in light conversation. I heard a burst of laughter, quickly suppressed as if whoever it was had just remembered there was a dead body on the other side of the wall.

Bermund opened the door of the lean-to and ushered us in. ‘It’s cool here,’ he said shortly. There was no need of further explanation. ‘When you’re done, send one of them to find me.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the voices in the kitchen. ‘I’ll bring the coffin on the cart and take her to the church crypt.’

He had, I noticed, said take her , where many people, referring to a body, would have said take it . Bermund too, it appeared, was not without feelings for Ida.

It was strange, I mused, how we who had never known Ida in life were building up such a clear picture of her through the emotions, words and actions of those who had.

Edild stepped up to the body, laid out on a trestle table. ‘Thank you,’ she said gravely, turning to Bermund.

He nodded, spun round and left the room, closing the door after him.

My aunt and I set about our task.

We made her look lovely, not that it was hard to do. Her face was expressionless, like some stone effigy, but her handsome, regular features somehow retained a vestige of her living essence. We removed her garments and washed her, and I noticed how tenderly Edild bathed the rounded belly and the full breasts. I thought Ida had been about four months pregnant, for the swelling in her womb was not very pronounced. I had observed how sometimes a woman’s breasts fill out dramatically before she even suspects she is carrying a child, and this seemed to have been the case with the dead girl.

‘It is midsummer,’ Edild murmured, ‘and I judge that this child was conceived in February, perhaps early in March.’

I would have to find out if Ida had been here at Lakehall then. Before I could stop myself, other questions began racing through my mind. If she had, was she already the object of Derman’s hopeless love? Had he seen her, desired her, waylaid her and forced himself on her? Oh, but such a thing was abhorrent, and surely Ida would have protested, shouted out at her rape, demanded that justice be served on her attacker? But perhaps she had understood he could not help it and had taken pity on him, not wanting to make his miserable life any worse. Oh, but what of the infant she carried? Would it have grown up like its poor, pathetic father and been a child all its life? Ida, oh, Ida, what did you think? How could you bear to-

My concentration had lapsed with my wild thoughts, and I dropped a bottle of lavender oil. Quick as a flash Edild’s hand shot out and caught it. She looked me straight in the eye and said sharply, ‘You are no use to me like this, Lassair. I know this is not easy for you, but if you cannot pull yourself together, I shall send you home.’

My aunt is very rarely cross with me. The fact that I had richly earned the reprimand made me feel even worse.

We worked side by side in silence until we had finished our task. Edild wrapped the last length of the shroud around Ida’s head, covering the glossy, curly hair. Then she bent down, whispered something I did not hear and kissed the stone-cold brow. She eased the end of the white cloth across the dead face, tucking the end in securely. I had packed up the oils, perfumes, wash cloths and towels that we had used into Edild’s leather bag and now she held out her hand for it. I gave it to her. She smiled at me and said, ‘You have done well.’

Then we stepped outside into the sunshine.

We had been summoned to see the lord and lady before we left. Vowing not to allow my emotions to get the better of me again, I followed Edild’s straight back into the hall. Lord Gilbert and Lady Emma sat on one side of the great hearth. Opposite them sat another woman, younger than Lady Emma, whom I guessed must be Lady Claude. Edild had stopped and was standing before the lord and lady. Invited to speak, she said that Ida’s body was now freshly enshrouded and ready for burial. I noticed she did not mention the pregnancy. Perhaps, like me, she had decided that if Ida had not revealed her secret, then neither should we.

I slipped into her shadow, from where I felt it was safe to study Lady Claude de Sees.

I thought she was a few years older than me, perhaps in her early twenties, although her uncompromising appearance made her age hard to determine. I recalled what Hrype had said, that she had wished to become a nun. A woman with such a vocation would naturally not have wasted her own or anyone else’s time making the best of herself while she searched for a husband. Looking at her, I realized that she was clad as if she had achieved her ambition, for her gown, although beautifully made of soft silk that had a sheen on it only found in the costliest fabric, was of unrelieved black. Around her face she wore a tightly-fitting headdress not unlike those worn by the nuns of Chatteris. It covered her forehead down to just above her eyebrows and curved round either side of her face, joining at the jaw with the wimple around her throat. She wore a heavy, jewelled crucifix around her neck, the cross hanging over her flat chest.

She was pale and the skin of her face was coarse; even from where I stood I could see enlarged pores in the flesh either side of her longish nose. Her eyes were light and the lashes all but invisible. Her mouth was small and, although she was young still, already small lines radiated out from her upper lip, almost as if someone had once sewn it to the lower one.

So this was the woman who was to marry Alain de Villequier. Fleetingly, I wondered if he would have agreed to the match if he had set eyes on her beforehand, no matter how much his family needed her wealth, but I did my best to suppress the unkind thought. I wished him joy of her. I wished them joy of each other.