Alys Clare - Mist Over the Water

‘It’s not the ghost I’m afraid of.’ It was — of course it was — but I wasn’t going to admit it. ‘There’s something else.’ Briefly, I explained to Sibert what I had realized while he was in the abbey. ‘The killers must surely suspect that Morcar told us what he saw, and they’ll come for us. Morcar’s safe now, but you and I will be as helpless as chicks when the fox breaks into the henhouse.’

‘I can fight!’ Sibert protested, stung.

‘Four, maybe five of them?’ That was what Morcar had said.

Sibert frowned. ‘Hmm.’

Sensing a breach in his defences, I pushed on. ‘We needed to pretend I was still here looking after Morcar only for as long as it took you to get him to safety,’ I pointed out. ‘You managed that, and now he’s tucked up snugly in Aelf Fen, and you must admit it’s very unlikely the killers will find him.’

‘I went over the water,’ Sibert said musingly. ‘I left no trail for even the most expert tracker to pick up.’

‘There you are then!’ I exclaimed. ‘Morcar’s perfectly safe. It’s you and I who are in danger now.’

‘Yes,’ he said, still in that thoughtful way. Then he spun round, looked straight into my eyes and said, ‘You can go if you want. I’m staying here.’

I sighed in exasperation. ‘Sibert, why ? It’s dangerous, you’ve just admitted that, and you said yourself that the pale monk hasn’t been harmed, so maybe Morcar was wrong and the boy isn’t-’

‘It’s nothing to do with the pale boy.’

Surprised, I said, ‘What then?’

A half-smile twitched at his mouth. ‘Don’t you know? You touched on it when we were on our way here.’

Then I understood.

I tried to recall exactly what he had said. I’ve always wanted to go to the island. There’s something strange about the story of what happened to my father .

His father, poor Edmer, fatally wounded in the Ely rebellion. Yes, of course. There had always been another, deeper motive behind Sibert’s eagerness to accompany me on my mercy mission. I let my shoulders slump. Against the huge attraction of delving into a mystery from the past, what chance did my fears for our safety have?

I straightened up and turned to him. ‘Come on then.’

He was already smiling. ‘Where are we going?’

‘ You won’t leave till you’ve done all you can to unearth what you need to know, and I won’t leave without you, so the sooner we start, the sooner we can go home.’

It was past noon, however, and I was very hungry; Sibert was too, and he needed more than the heel of bread I’d thrust at him when I’d returned to find him waiting. I set about preparing a meal, and while I worked I recalled all that I knew of Sibert’s recent family history.

His father Edmer, Hrype’s brother, had fought with Sibert’s grandfather under King Harold at Hastings. After the defeat, in which the grandfather had died, the family had lost their estate of Drakelow, on the coast near Dunwich. Hrype had taken his and Edmer’s mother, Fritha, and fled to the Black Fen, where eventually Edmer found them. Old men spoke with pride of the network of spies and informers that had operated all over the fens after Harold’s defeat as men loyal to him tried to regroup after the disaster; it was thrilling to think of how such secretive men had strived so hard to protect each other. Edmer, Hrype and Fritha had then made their way to the Isle of Ely, where Edmer wished to join the Saxon resistance under Hereward — although Hrype warned him repeatedly that this act would cost him dear.

Edmer, however, would not — and did not — listen. Not only was he suffering from the profound mental wound of having fought and lost, and from being forced to watch his father die in the battle, but in addition he had a new wife: Froya. She had been Hrype’s pupil, and Edmer had fallen in love with her the moment he set eyes on her. Edmer fought for revenge, for the pride of the Saxons and for the future, for now that he had a wife he knew that he might also have a son. The rebellion was the first step to the recovery of Drakelow, the family estate, and Edmer did not hesitate.

He took a Norman arrow in the thigh, and the wound became infected. Hrype did his best, with Froya right beside him fighting for her man, but they had to watch helplessly as Edmer’s life force began to fade. It was too much for his poor mother; Fritha had been gravely traumatized by the defeat and the loss of her home, and in the course of the flight across the fens she had suffered a seizure that left her partly paralysed. Her son’s wound was too much. She turned her face to the wall and quietly died.

Hrype amputated his brother’s leg. As soon as he was well enough to travel, they found a mount and got him away, leaving Hrype behind pretending that he was still nursing his sick brother. Froya fled to Aelf Fen, but the safety of its sanctuary came too late for Edmer; he succumbed to his hurts and died in his wife’s arms. Her son, my friend Sibert, was born a few months later. The only kin he had ever known were his mother and his father’s brother.

It was no surprise, really, that he was so very keen to find out more.

We set out in the early afternoon. Once again Sibert arranged his scarf so that it hid his head and brow. I fastened my white cap over my braided hair and, for good measure, pulled up the hood of my dark cloak to cover it. Without actually saying so, both Sibert and I realized that if we were going to go about asking possibly awkward questions about the recent past, when Saxons had rebelled against the Norman invaders, then it would be best to do so as anonymously as we could. If it were to be discovered that two young people had been too curious, we did not want the trail to lead back to us.

‘Where do you plan to go first?’ I said softly to Sibert as we hurried up the alleyway.

He grinned briefly. ‘Where do the gossips gather?’

‘In the alehouse,’ I answered promptly.

‘Quite so. There’s an alehouse on the marketplace, and it’s usually busy. We’ll start there.’

I was content to follow his lead. It appeared that he had given some thought to his investigation, and I agreed with him that this was a good initial step. As we emerged from the alley into the market square we were all at once in a crowd, and I kept close behind Sibert as he shouldered a way through the throng. The alehouse was over in a far corner, the bundle of branches that marked it out now ragged and almost bare of leaves. It was a long, low building that occupied the entire corner of the square. A wide entrance opened on to a short corridor with rooms opening off on either side. It was clear from the noise which was the tap room.

Sibert got mugs of weak beer for us and then stood looking around, a slight frown making a crease between his eyebrows. Then he nodded over to the left and, following the line of his gaze, I noticed a group of half a dozen old men sitting on crude benches on either side of an upturned barrel. Old they might be but several pairs of keen eyes looked out with lively interest on the comings and goings all around them.

I edged my way over to the group. One of the benches had a little space and, with a smile, I asked its two occupants if they would move up so that I could sit down.

‘Aye, right gladly, my pretty maid,’ said the nearest old man, baring his gums and two remaining teeth in a smile. He shuffled his skinny bottom along the bench and patted the shiny wood in invitation. ‘You perch here beside me and. . oh.’ He had just caught sight of Sibert, a few paces behind me and now preparing to squeeze in beside me.

Sibert’s presence did not deter his flirtatious advances for long. Soon he had his scrawny hand on my knee, only removing it to pinch my cheek as he commented on my ‘rosy little face’. I bore it with a smile. For one thing, if I did not discourage him it might make him and his friends more receptive to Sibert’s questions. For another, I didn’t really mind.