Alys Clare - Mist Over the Water

The village had grown up around the church and the green. Rows of small, dark houses huddled close to each other as if for security from the wide, flat land all around. I smelt bread and my nose led me to a baker, busy extracting fresh loaves from his oven. I wished him good day and asked where I might find the carpenter’s house.

He wiped his sweaty face with the back of his wrist and gave me a grin. ‘Which one?’ he asked.

Oh. ‘Er — the carpenter I’m looking for has a son of about fifteen,’ I said, embarrassed. I hadn’t prepared for the possibility that there would be more than one carpenter in the village, which was pretty stupid of me.

To my relief the baker was nodding. ‘I know who you mean now,’ he said. ‘Young Gewis is about that age and he’s Edulf’s son and Edulf was a carpenter, only Edulf died. . ooh, let me see, now.’ He paused, a thoughtful frown creasing his cheerful face. ‘Three, four years back? Four, I’d say.’ He nodded, as if agreeing with his own estimate.

Gewis’s father was dead. I hadn’t prepared for that, either. Perhaps it was the wrong family; there was an easy way to find out. ‘Gewis lives in the village?’

‘Aye, that he does.’

I cursed silently. ‘And he’s here now?’ I would have to look elsewhere for my pale youth’s family.

The baker scratched his head. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t reckon I’ve seen him for a few days.’ His frown deepened. ‘A couple of weeks, maybe. .’ My hopes shot up again. ‘His mother’ll be at home,’ the baker went on, and my optimism rose even more. ‘I saw her yesterday evening. She bought a flax-seed loaf and we spoke about whether there’d be more rain before nightfall, and she said-’

‘Where would I find her?’ I tried to cushion my interruption with a smile.

‘Now that I can tell you,’ the baker said helpfully, taking my arm and drawing me so that together we were looking along the street. ‘Go up to the end of the row, past the church and round Norman’s Corner, then head on down that row and you’ll come to four cottages all together. Asfrior’s is the third one.’

Asfrior. Edulf. Gewis. I memorized the names. ‘Thank you,’ I said to the baker, ‘you’ve been very helpful.’

He beamed at me. ‘I like to be of assistance to a pretty maid.’ He reached out a swift hand and pinched my bottom.

I spun around and hurried away.

As I made my way to the quartet of cottages I planned what I would say. I would tell the pale youth’s mother that I had come from Ely and was concerned about her son, worried in case he was in the monastery against his will. I’d say we had talked, her son and I, and that I’d sensed he was uneasy. If she, too, were worried about him, this would surely give her the chance to reveal her anxiety to me in the hope that I might be able to help.

I approached the four cottages. They were well kept, the walls and roofs in good repair, and smoke spiralled up out of the reed thatch of three of them. I went up to the third one and tapped on the door. There was no answer so I tried again, harder this time. I was just about to call out when the door of the cottage on the far side opened, and a short, plump woman of almost my granny’s age emerged on to her immaculately swept step. She wore a gown of some dark-brown shade, over which she had tied a voluminous apron. She wore a neat, white headdress; her face was round and red; and her small, dark eyes bright with interest.

‘If you’re after Asfrior, she’s not at home,’ she said.

‘Oh.’ The disappointment was crushing; somehow I had not thought for a moment that I would find nobody at home. ‘Do you know where she is?’

‘Gone to market, I expect,’ the old woman replied promptly. ‘I heard her very early, getting ready. Heard voices, see, and then a bit of a bustling about; then the door closed and all went quiet.’

‘When do you think she’ll be back?’ If she had set out so early, perhaps she would have finished whatever business had taken her to market and even now be on her way home.

The old woman was staring out up the road. ‘I’d have thought she’d be here by now,’ she said, a slight frown creasing her already lined brow.

I was struck with the alarming thought that maybe Asfrior had not gone to market at all but to Ely. How ironic — how annoying — it would be if I’d come all this way to find her and she’d gone to the very place I’d just left. ‘I’m sure she won’t be long,’ the old woman was saying. Then she added, ‘Want to come inside and have a warm and a bite to eat? You look as if you could do with it.’ She was eyeing me, taking in my thin body.

‘I’d love to,’ I said. Never mind her prurient interest in my skinny body; she had just offered me comforts that I hadn’t expected until I got back to Ely.

She led the way inside. Her cottage was tiny, much of the space taken up by a bed against the far wall. A fire burned brightly in the hearth, and I caught the savoury smell of whatever was bubbling in the pot suspended over it. The old woman pushed forward a stool, told me to sit down, take my boots off and warm my feet, and while I did so she fetched two wooden bowls and ladled out generous portions of barley broth. She fetched a loaf and tore off two chunks of bread.

I fell on the food, and my old woman did not speak until I had finished. Watching as I wiped my bowl with the last of the bread, she said, ‘Coleman bakes a good loaf. If he could only keep his hands to his craft, and not let them wander all over pretty girls’ bottoms, he would be perfect.’

I smiled. ‘It was he who directed me here.’

‘Did he pinch your bottom?’

‘He did.’

The old woman cackled. Then, while I, too, was still chuckling, she said in a very different tone, ‘What do you want with Asfrior?’

I sensed she cared about her neighbour and was protective of her. I said quickly, ‘I mean her no harm. I heard that she had lost her husband and-’ I was floundering, for I did not want to touch on the highly sensitive matter of the pale youth — Gewis — and his mystifying secret unless I had no choice.

Fortunately, the old woman appeared to be convinced that I had no malicious intent towards her neighbour. ‘She’s not done well since her man died,’ she said.

‘How did he die?’ I asked. It might be relevant.

‘He was quite a bit older than Asfrior,’ the old woman said with a shake of her head. ‘Twenty years or so, I’d say, and when the lad was born some took Edulf for his grandfather. Asfrior weren’t much more than a girl, see.’

‘They were happy?’

‘That they were, or as happy as Edulf would ever be. He loved his young wife and his babe, no doubt of that, but he were ever a melancholy man, sad, brooding, as if something was eating at him.’

I thought about that. Could this something be related to the deadly secret? ‘Did he ever hint at what it might be?’ I asked tentatively.

The old woman slowly shook her head. ‘No, I can’t say that he did. There were hints that something had happened to his father — that’d be Gewis’s grandfather — and I once heard a whisper that he — the grandfather — had suffered some terrible fate. As for Edulf himself, though, I never knew what ailed him.’ Then the sharp eyes met mine. ‘Didn’t stop me speculating though.’

‘And what did you conclude?’

‘Didn’t like the life he led,’ she answered promptly. ‘Resented the hardships. Seemed to think he deserved better.’ Edulf, clearly, had got up her nose with his attitude. ‘Instead of appreciating what he had — good, hard-working wife, pretty little child, plenty of jobs to get on with and a fair reputation as an honest craftsman, for all that he didn’t have much flair — he sat around moping and complaining.’