Alys Clare - Music of the Distant Stars

There were many questions I wanted to ask Sibert. The revelation that Hrype was not his uncle but his father had hit him very hard; he had attacked Hrype when he’d first found out. He was still living with Hrype and Froya, his perpetually pale and anxious-looking mother, and I would have sworn that neither Hrype nor Sibert had told Froya that her son now knew the truth about his parentage. It was, of course, none of my business, but that did not stop me burning to ask Sibert about the mood between the three of them.

‘I saw Hrype the other day,’ I said as we trudged along. ‘He-’

Sibert sighed. ‘Lassair, I know what you’re working up to asking. Don’t waste your time. I’m not going to tell you anything.’

Oh. ‘But are you all right?’ I persisted. ‘Have you and Hrype-’

‘ Enough .’

I had rarely heard my friend speak so harshly. An angry flush had spread up his neck and over his face. I realized he meant what he said.

We walked on in a hurt silence — well, I felt hurt — for a while. Then Sibert spoke, and his voice sounded so normal that you’d never have thought he’d been so furiously vehement only a short while ago. ‘We’re on the Icknield Way,’ he said. ‘They say it’s one of the oldest tracks in the land.’

‘Oh.’ I did my best to make the short syllable sound disinterested.

Sibert chuckled. Reaching for my hand, he gave it a swing. ‘Don’t get huffy, Lassair,’ he said. ‘I agreed to come on this ridiculous search with you to keep you out of mischief, and you ought to be grateful.’

‘You didn’t need much persuading,’ I observed.

‘Maybe not, but neither of us will enjoy the day if you’re sulking.’

‘I’m not sulking!’

‘Yes, you are.’

‘I’m not!’

‘Are.’

We carried on like that for a while. Then he nudged me, I nudged him back harder and we both started laughing.

Brandon was a very small village of about ten or a dozen little dwellings. The wide acres of Thetford Forest stretched away on the horizon, and I thought that somewhere out there was the grand baronial home of Claude’s kin, where sooner or later she would no doubt be returning with her new husband.

Our business was not with the great men and women of power who lived in vast castles and manor houses, however. We were there to ask about a little seamstress who someone had impregnated and someone had killed. In my own mind, I was quite sure that the two men were one and the same.

The door to one of the cottages was open, and a man stood there looking at us. He wore a heavy leather apron, and there were shards and chips of flint on the ground at his feet, radiating in an arc from the wooden stool where he must sit to work. He said, not unpleasantly, ‘What do you want?’

There was no point in prevaricating. ‘We come from a village near a place called Lakehall, on the fen edge,’ I said.

If he had heard of it he gave no sign. ‘And?’

‘Lady Claude is at present staying there. Her family home is at Heathlands, I understand?’

‘What’s it to you?’ Now he was frowning slightly, but in puzzlement, I thought, not suspicion.

‘She took a young girl with her, by the name of Ida, and-’

The man’s face fell. ‘Ida’s dead,’ he said baldly. ‘They sent word. We were all truly sad to hear it. She was a grand lass.’

‘Has she family here?’ I asked. I had in mind, I think, to seek them out and perhaps say a few consoling words, although what those words might be, considering how she had died, I did not know.

‘She was an orphan,’ the man said. ‘Used to live with her old father, just the two of them, but he took sick and died, two years back. Ida did her best, poor love, and she had a neat hand with a needle, but we’re poor people hereabouts, we can’t afford new clothes and our women folk do their own mending. We all tried to help her a bit but, like I say, we’re poor.’ There was no need for further explanations. Ida had indeed been much liked, as I’d always thought, and it must have been hard for her neighbours not to have been able to do more for her.

‘Then she came to the notice of them up at Heathlands,’ the man continued, jerking his head in the direction of the surrounding forest, ‘and before we knew what was happening she’d packed up her few belongings, the Lord’s man had come and closed up her little house and she’d gone to live at the manor.’

‘Was she happy there?’ I asked.

‘Happy? Who worries about happy, as long as you’ve a roof over your head and food in your belly?’ the man demanded.

He was right. King William’s rule had not eased the hardships faced daily by most of his more lowly subjects. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said humbly. ‘It’s just that I saw her body, you see, and I felt I’d have liked her. She had a face that looked as if it smiled a lot.’

The man relented. ‘You’re right there,’ he said. ‘I reckon you’d have warmed to her, lass. Everyone else did, and not a few loved her.’

My attention came into sharp focus. What was he saying?

While I was still framing a tactful question, Sibert spoke up. ‘Pretty girls always attract followers,’ he remarked, giving our new acquaintance a man-to-man glance.

‘Aye, so they do, and Ida was no exception,’ he agreed. ‘Not that she was easy, I’m not suggesting that,’ he added quickly, frowning at us as if we’d questioned Ida’s morals. ‘No, no, she kept herself pure and decent. She was always kindly, don’t mistake me, but when a young lad had his head turned because she smiled at him and started making a bit of a nuisance of himself, she had a sweet way of gently letting him know he was sniffing round the wrong bitch.’ Instantly, his face coloured and he said, ‘Sorry, I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have said that. There’s no need to be crude, especially about a girl like Ida.’ We waited while he remembered what he’d been saying. ‘No, like I said, she never encouraged any of them. Treated them more like brothers than potential lovers, I’d have said. It was no fault of hers if they loved her.’ He dropped his head, eyes on the ground. ‘If he loved her,’ he said in a whisper.

I could have corrected him and told him he was wrong about Ida keeping herself pure. But there was no point; let the poor girl keep her good name. I was far more interested in this he that the man spoke of.

‘There was someone in particular who had fallen for her?’ I asked. I wanted to know so badly, but I was afraid that if I pushed too hard he would get suspicious, clam up and shut the door on us.

By good fortune, however, Sibert and I seemed to have encountered the village gossip, which was probably why he’d been working outside his house in the first place: so that he could catch the attention of anyone who passed by and exchange a word or two with them. Several more than two, in our case.

The man leaned towards us, elbow resting on the top rail of the simple fence that ran round his yard. ‘It’s a sad tale,’ he said, ‘but if you knew Ida and have taken the trouble to seek out those who used to be her neighbours, then I reckon you’ve a right to hear it.’ I hadn’t known Ida, and Sibert and I had had no intention of seeking out her former neighbours except to find out the identity of the man who had been her lover, but this was no time to be pedantic.

‘Please tell us,’ I said.

The man gazed out along the narrow, rutted track that wound between the houses. ‘We are few who live here,’ he began, ‘and we work hard. Flint knapping’s a special skill. Most of us learned it from our fathers, and they learned from their fathers.’ I knew a little about the life of a knapper because of my cousin Morcar, and I nodded. ‘There’s not much other work hereabouts, and that’s a fact,’ the man added lugubriously, ‘and, like I say, most of us have a struggle supporting ourselves and our families. Still, us in Brandon have a rare bit of good fortune because we’ve got our own minstrel. Well, of course he’s not really, he’s a knapper like the rest of us, only he plays that little harp of his like one of the Lord God’s angels, and whenever we have the least excuse for a bit of fun, out he comes with a tune and a song. Sometimes it’s something he’s written himself, and sometimes he’ll smile and agree to play one of the old tunes so we can all join in.’ A reminiscent smile spread across his face, revealing three crooked teeth and a lot of gaps.