Alys Clare - Mist Over the Water

He did not know where Froya and Edmer had gone, and for some time he did not try to find them. He had done all he could for his brother, and Froya would nurse him as well as Hrype could have done; perhaps it was better to leave them be.

But he could not fight his own deep self. By night he dreamed of them; by day his inner eye saw them. Edmer was dying and Froya. .

Even now he could not bear to think of it.

He had given in to what his heart commanded. He had crept from the ruined barn where he’d been camping and, by the light of a bright young moon, he’d lit the special fire, entered the trance state and humbly asked the spirits to show him the way. Two days later he’d arrived at Aelf Fen.

It was exactly as the vision had shown him. Edmer died a week later, his head in his wife’s lap and his hand in Hrype’s. He whispered a hoarse blessing, and then his spirit flew away.

Froya’s child was born in the depths of the harsh winter that followed. The birth was hard and the labour long; Sibert came into the world yelling his protest.

Sibert .

Wearily, Hrype opened his eyes. It was deep night, dark and profoundly still. Sometimes, when he had suffered the parade of scenes from the past as it scoured across his mind and finally relinquished him, he managed to sleep afterwards. It would not be so tonight. Sibert had not returned from Ely, and Hrype was very afraid he knew why. Morcar was safely ensconced in Edild’s little house, and thanks to both Lassair, who had administered the original treatment, and now Edild herself, he was quickly recovering. Sibert had brought him home, rowing him across the flooded fenland in a leaking old boat, but he had set off back to Ely as soon as he had handed Morcar over. Hrype had not even seen him; Edild had reported calmly that Sibert was anxious to return to Lassair, busy keeping up the pretence that her patient was still on the island, just as Hrype had done before her, so that those who wanted to kill him would not realize he had gone.

Hrype could not protest. Sibert and Lassair were acting courageously and sensibly, and on the face of it there could be no argument with their chosen course of action.

Only Hrype knew there was more to it. His own instincts had told him why Sibert wanted to stay on the Isle of Ely. To confirm it, he had looked into the scrying ball and seen into Sibert’s mind. There was confusion there, as well as anger. Above all there was determination. Hrype had at last cast the runes, and then he’d seen everything.

He will not come home , Hrype thought. Not until he knows . He sighed, for he knew what he must do and he did not want to do it. Froya’s mood was already low and troubled, and if he, too, went away he knew she would descend into the melancholia that so often afflicted her. But there was no choice; Sibert’s course was set and the runes said he would not divert from it.

The only thing that Hrype could do was make sure he was there when the inevitable happened. He might not survive — he recalled Sibert’s anger, to which he had been a reluctant witness — but he would have to take that chance.

He lay in the dark and formulated his plans. When dawn began to send a paler light into the eastern sky, he was already up. His pack stood ready by the door, and he sat by the hearth waiting for Froya to wake up. She opened her eyes and looked right at him. She knew. He watched as her face crumpled and tears overflowed down her pale cheeks. But she did not try to stop him.

I tried to think. I was still shaking with fear, for now that I thought about it I realized that I had surely just seen an apparition. Had it truly been there, with its face of horror and the long streaks of blood down its white shroud? Or had I picked up the pale youth’s terror and seen what he believed he had seen? Either way, the thing in the old church had been an abomination, and I felt as if I were disturbed in some frightful way right to my very roots.

As if that were not bad enough, the four broad, thickset monks who had come looking for the pale monk had seen me. They could not but have noticed that the boy and I had our heads together and were whispering; would they jump to the conclusion that he had imparted to me the essence of the dread secret that lay at the heart of this mystery, and would he then be able to persuade them that he hadn’t? Our encounter had been brief, but even in that short time I had sensed that he was honest and decent. I was sure he would do his best to protect me, even. .

No. It was no good. I was suddenly convinced that it was the pale boy himself who was the secret. Even if he had not uttered a word, I knew he was in there and the four monks now knew that. They had tried to kill Morcar, and they had killed two men they mistook for Morcar, merely because he had witnessed the pale youth being smuggled inside the abbey. What were my chances now that I had seen him in there?

My fear escalated, and without any conscious effort I found I was running, my satchel bouncing on my hip, the skirts of my robe and my cloak threatening to trip me. I gathered them up and ran for my life.

I fled across the marketplace and into the maze of narrow, ill-lit streets opening off it. It was late now, fully dark, and there were few people about. I ran on, panting, a stitch in my side. The houses thinned and petered out; I found myself on the edge of a rain-soaked stretch of open space that sloped gently down to the water. There was a shelter of some sort at the water’s edge, and I hurried down to it; it was a wash house. There was nobody within — people don’t do their laundry late in the evening — and I went inside and slumped on to the stone bench that ran along its rear wall.

My heartbeat gradually slowed. I took deep breaths and, as the sweat cooled on my body, clutched my cloak tightly around me, pulling the hood over my head.

The hood. . With a stab of profound relief, I thought of something. It wasn’t much but it gave me a glimmer of hope. I had gone inside the abbey as a nun, wimpled and veiled like a Benedictine. I had been wearing my disguise when the four monks approached. With any luck, they would not have realized that the nun whispering to their pale boy was the healer who had tended the man they attacked.

With any luck.

I closed my eyes, concentrated so hard that it made my head throb and summoned my guardian. He came quickly — I’m sure he had been with me all evening — and I sensed the tip of his cool nose push into my hot hand. In my mind I saw him, his luxuriant red coat glowing in the starlight, his deep, dark eyes quietly watching me. It was strange because just for an instant I thought I saw the shadowy shape of another animal standing behind him. It was a silver wolf; Edild’s spirit animal.

Already comforted by the reassuring presence of Fox, now I smiled in the still night, for I knew my aunt was thinking about me and her thought was so powerful that her guardian had materialized in the dark place where I was.

Slowly, I reached up and took off the wimple, folding it neatly and stowing it in my satchel. I unwound the tight bun — I had drawn my hair back so severely that the skin of my forehead felt unnaturally stretched — and shook my head, feeling my long hair swing around my neck and shoulders. I sat quite still, composing myself and putting my essence back into my true self. Then, recalling all that Edild had taught me about invisibility — which actually is no such thing, just a way of blending into the background so that nobody notices you — I got to my feet and set off up the alley and back into the town.

I kept to the shadows until I reached the market square. I had to cross it to reach the alley where our little house was and I knew that, if unfriendly eyes were looking out for me, then what I must not do was appear furtive. I slid along right in front of the houses that bordered the square, keeping under the overhanging roofs, walking steadily but not hurrying. I am a healer who has been called out to tend a patient, I repeated to myself. I have laboured long and I am tired, so that my feet drag a little. I stumbled, quickly righting myself. I am heading for my home and a well-deserved rest. I let out a little sigh, which turned into a yawn.