Alys Clare - Music of the Distant Stars

I could stride away in the sunshine of a lovely day. William, poor man, had to shut himself up in the frowsty darkness with a very old woman. I asked the spirits to support him and give him the strength he needed.

William’s house was on the far side of the village, near the spot where the road diverges and paths strike off towards Breckland to the north-east and Thetford to the east. Instead of returning along the bend of the track that runs through the village, I cut due south across the higher ground that lies to the east so as to approach Edild’s house from the back. The land was much drier up here above the marshes, but even so it did not yield much. There was some pasture, cropped close by the nibbling teeth of Lord Gilbert’s sheep, and an area of strips was under the plough. As I walked I nodded to some of the villagers working away there on the upland. There were never very many of them. Most of the labour force of the village was down on the fen cutting reeds and sedge and carving out peat for fuel. It was hard work; few men or women in Aelf Fen made old bones.

Directly ahead of me was an ancient oak tree, a rare enough specimen in our area for it to be a landmark, and indeed I had been using it as a marker, for when I reached it I would turn right and come out behind Edild’s house. I was preoccupied, thinking that William’s mother was probably the village’s oldest inhabitant and wondering just how old she was, when I sensed movement among the thick foliage of the oak and, almost simultaneously, someone dropped out of its lower branches and called out to me.

It was Alberic.

‘What do you-’ I began, before he shushed me violently and beckoned to me to join him in the huge tree’s deep shadow. ‘What are you doing here?’ I hissed as I approached him.

‘Is he dead?’ he whispered urgently. ‘I couldn’t help it — I saw him there by her grave, and I went wild.’ The words were tumbling out of him. ‘He seduced her and made her pregnant, and all the time he knew perfectly well he was going to wed that whey-faced woman who would far rather be a nun, but I didn’t mean to kill him, and I shouldn’t have hit him like I did! He-’

I put my hand on his arm, trying to quieten him. ‘Sir Alain is alive,’ I said clearly and calmly. ‘My aunt is a healer, and she has tended him.’

I watched as Alberic absorbed the news. Then, predictably, he said, ‘Does he know who hit him?’

‘He heard you singing,’ I replied. ‘Besides, it is, I think, fairly obvious.’

The dread and the terrible anxiety seemed to leach out of him, and he slumped against the broad, accommodating trunk of the oak, sliding down until his buttocks rested on the ground. ‘I shouldn’t have done it,’ he muttered. ‘I’m not a violent man.’

I sat down beside him. ‘Why don’t you tell me about it?’ I suggested.

Alberic slowly shook his head, but not in denial. ‘I don’t think there’s much to tell,’ he said. ‘I attacked him, right enough. He was kneeling by her grave with his back to me. I’d been sitting there all night, singing my song to her, and I think it was all too much.’ A sob broke out of him. ‘I knew he’d always had an eye for Ida, but I didn’t really think anything of it because, from what I’d seen of him, he was like that with all the pretty girls. Funny thing is, they must all have realized the sort of man he was, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. They all liked him.’ He shook his head again as if in puzzlement at the incomprehensible ways of the world.

I pitied him. Married to a jealous and possessive dragon of a woman, the one ray of light in his wretched life had been a girl whom he did not dare approach and with whom all he could share was the occasional song. What a contrast with Alain de Villequier who, as I had observed myself, did indeed have a way with women. .

‘They were that discreet, it didn’t even occur to me there was anything going on between them,’ Alberic said sadly. He glanced at me. ‘I–I thought better of Ida,’ he said, shamefaced. ‘I believed she was too good, too pure, to give herself to a man betrothed to another woman. But then, what do I know?’ he added bitterly.

‘When did you find out?’ I felt hugely sorry for him. Yes, he had just attacked a man and left him for dead, but I was beginning to understand what had driven him to it.

‘When I came here to Aelf Fen to seek her out,’ he replied. ‘I discovered that Lakehall was nearby, and I reckoned I’d be able to live rough, it being summer and the weather good, while I found her and told her I was now free.’ He laughed shortly. ‘Fat lot of good that did me, I can tell you. She looked at me out of those lovely eyes of hers and said she was honoured by my affection for her, but she loved another. When I pressed her, when I told her about my tidy little cottage and the decent living I make with my flint-working and the music and that, she said she was very sorry, but she could never be mine.’ He paused, and I saw tears in his eyes. ‘I went on at her, demanding to know who the other man was, and in the end she took pity on me and told me she was carrying this other feller’s child.’

‘She didn’t mention Sir Alain?’

He smiled grimly. ‘No. But now she’d told me there was someone else, I thought back, and I saw what I should have seen all along. She loved him all right. I knew then it was hopeless.’

I reached for his hand, then, pitching my voice so he would realize it wasn’t a serious suggestion, said, ‘You didn’t kill her in a fit of jealousy?’ I already knew the answer.

‘No,’ he said, his gentle face full of emotion. ‘I had to face up to the fact I had lost her, but I knew I just had to let her go. I loved her. It was not in me to take her life because she did not love me. I told her I wished her well, and in my heart I made myself believe it.’

That was true love indeed, I thought, that a man would place a woman’s happiness so far above his own, even though she would enjoy it with someone else.

‘I believe I know who put her in my Granny’s grave,’ I said. ‘I believe it was Derman.’ I explained my theory.

‘Derman?’ Alberic said when I had finished.

I explained about Derman too.

‘Didn’t know about him ,’ Alberic muttered. ‘Someone else who couldn’t keep their eyes off my Ida.’

I was just thinking that, unless he was a very good liar, it didn’t look as if Alberic had killed Derman, when he spoke again. ‘Reckon I know who you mean, though,’ he said. ‘Big, awkward sort of feller, large head, big, floppy mouth.’

‘That was Derman, yes.’

‘Hmm.’ I waited. ‘Saw him talking to a woman,’ Alberic went on after a while. ‘Or, I should say, she was talking to him , standing there in front of him wagging her finger at him, giving him a right ticking-off.’

I stiffened. ‘What did this woman look like?’

‘She was a right looker. Black hair with a bluish sheen, lovely golden skin, and she moved like a dancer.’

Zarina.

‘And where did you see this exchange between her and Derman?’

‘Down one of the tracks that leads out to the fen edge. I reckon they thought they were alone out there — it’s a desolate spot.’

There spoke a man who didn’t live in the fens, I thought. I pictured the scene. I imagined Derman returning from some hopeless mission to spy on Ida. Perhaps she had been out collecting the wild flowers she had reproduced so beautifully and faithfully in her embroidery on Lady Claude’s bed sheets, and he had followed her. I pictured Zarina, angry because he’d been neglecting his duties and she’d had to do all the hard work. I heard Zarina’s furious, scolding voice in my head: Leave her alone! She’s no good for you!