Alys Clare - Mist Over the Water

‘No,’ Rollo interrupted. ‘Forgive me, but I would prefer to avoid a confrontation if possible.’

‘I understand,’ murmured the monk. ‘I have another suggestion.’

‘Yes?’

‘There is one place in the abbey that is uniquely special to the supporters of the House of Wessex, and my guess is that Lord Edmund will go there before the night is very old.’

Rollo had already surmised as much, but it was tactful to let Brother Mark believe it was his own contribution. ‘Where is this place?’ he asked. ‘Why is it important?’

He listened as Brother Mark explained.

Rollo had been waiting for a long time. He was aware that Brother Mark was close by, regularly emerging from wherever he was passing the time to check whether Lord Edmund had arrived. Then the bell tolled to summon the monks to the last office of the day, and Rollo knew he was alone.

Lord Edmund had evidently been waiting for this moment. As Rollo watched, he materialized out of the gloom on the far side of the site of the new church and, slowly and unhurriedly as if he were in a procession, walked to the place where the ruins of the ancient wall marked where the Saxon church had once stood. He knelt before it, closed his eyes and began to pray.

Rollo watched him. He was reluctant to disturb a man at his devotions and, in any case, there appeared to be no urgency. The mutter of Lord Edmund’s words rose and fell on the still air, forming a rhythm that was almost hypnotic. Rollo felt entranced, as if he were falling under some spell, and for a moment he thought he saw a white form emerge from the ancient wall. He rubbed his eyes and the illusion vanished.

Enough , he thought. He walked forward, steadily closing the gap between himself and Lord Edmund. When he was a couple of paces away, Lord Edmund looked up.

‘The boy has gone,’ Rollo said. ‘He will not come back, nor will he suffer himself to be your figurehead, for he knows that you killed his mother.’

‘I?’ Lord Edmund feigned innocence.

‘Men acting on your orders,’ Rollo amended. ‘It amounts to the same thing.’

Lord Edmund got up from his knees with a groan. ‘I regret the necessity for her death,’ he said. ‘It was, however, unavoidable. You must know, Norman spy, how the success of a plan depends so often on not releasing information too soon, and, knowing that the healer girl was on her way to visit Gewis’s mother, I feared that she would discover what must remain secret.’

The healer girl . Rollo felt fear clutch at his heart. ‘She has gone,’ he said dismissively. Desperate to turn Lord Edmund’s attention from Lassair, he went on quickly, ‘You have lost your last throw of the die, my lord, and-’

But Lord Edmund was not to be distracted. ‘She has gone on meddling,’ he said, anger darkening his face. ‘I should have disposed of her as soon as I knew of her existence and, by God, I wish I had. I am old enough and experienced enough to know that people are not always as they seem and even one such as she, small and insignificant, can bring the threat of ruin to a careful plan. She came here to this sacred spot in the guise of a nun, and she met Gewis. I am told they spoke together. I do not know what the lad told her but I feared the worst. Now he has gone, and it is in my mind that he did not escape alone. Friendless as he is but for her outside the abbey, it is, is it not, logical to suppose she is involved in his flight?’

Treating the question as rhetorical, Rollo did not answer. His fear increased. Lord Edmund knew so much. He had but to reach out his hand for Lassair, and if his clutching fingers found her he would not rest until he had found out what he wished so much to know. .

Frantic now, it took all this strength to keep his face impassive. The stakes ran high. To break Lord Edmund’s dangerous focus on Lassair, he must risk his most powerful gambit. ‘Of course,’ he said laconically, ‘it is by no means certain that the boy Gewis is who you think he is. The fifteen years of his life have been spent in obscurity in a village on the fen edge. Where is the proof of his illustrious ancestry?’

Lord Edmund’s face had gone purple. ‘He was kept in obscurity because that was where we wished him to be!’ he snarled. ‘Nothing happened in that place, nothing , that was not relayed to us. We have watched over him since his birth, and we know who he is!’ His voice had risen to a shout, and he was panting from exertion.

Rollo raised an eyebrow. ‘And your proof?’ he persisted.

He thought Lord Edmund was going to puff up until he burst. He struggled for control, and then said in a strangled voice, ‘We know who his father was, and who in turn fathered him. The family resemblance is unmistakable. There can be no doubt whatsoever.’

‘Ah.’ At last they were approaching the crucial point. Rollo had already been told of this by the king but he wanted to hear it from Lord Edmund. ‘You speak of that pale hair, white skin and almost colourless eyes,’ he mused.

‘I do!’ Lord Edmund cried. ‘King Edward the Confessor had the look and so did his brother.’

The rumour that reached the king was right then, Rollo thought. No wonder William had not been able to put it from his mind. ‘They say the brother died unmarried and childless,’ he said. He was gratified to hear how calm he sounded, as if this vitally important matter were of only passing interest.

Clearly, it was far more than that to Lord Edmund. ‘Do you not know the story?’ he demanded, the light of fanaticism in is eyes.

‘Remind me,’ said Rollo.

Lord Edmund took several deep breaths, then he raised his eyes as if searching inspiration from the heavens and began. ‘Our great king, Aethelred, left many sons, but fate decreed that, out of those born to his first wife, only one followed him as king. His marriage to Emma of Normandy produced two sons, Edward, later King Edward the Confessor, and Alfred Aethling, and in early childhood the boys were educated here at Ely, where the monks grew to love and honour them. But later, for their own safety, the boys were sent as children to the land of their mother, for in England the House of Wessex was gravely threatened. For many years the Danish kings ruled, and they would have killed the young princes to remove the possibility that either would ever be proclaimed king. The Danes were ruthless rulers.’

He sighed. ‘When Queen Emma was widowed, King Cnut took her as wife but, always aware of those who would take his throne from him, he ordered the deaths of the surviving sons of Aethelred; still Edward and Alfred could not return. After Cnut’s death, his son Harold, known as Harefoot, became king and for the first time the sons of Aethelred and Emma saw the glimmer of a hope that England might once more welcome them.’ He sighed again, this time putting up a hand to knead his brow as if remembering old pain.

‘Edward, later crowned king, was wise and, sensing danger even before danger threatened, turned around and left the shores of England behind him, not to return for five years. Alfred Aethling was more trusting and, when the great Earl Godwin went to meet him and offered his hospitality in his fine house at Guildford, the young man accepted readily. Godwin gave every indication of being a good friend and a loyal supporter, offering to swear his allegiance to Alfred and the House of Wessex.’ A sound broke from him that was almost a sob. ‘Poor Alfred, our own prince! Godwin betrayed him, for he was in league with Harold Harefoot. Every last man in Alfred’s entourage was savagely butchered, and, even as their blood ran in the streets, Godwin’s men mutilated Alfred.’

The tale was abhorrent, Rollo thought. To take a man into your house, to have him sit at your table to eat your meat and drink your wine, to offer him your loyalty while all the time you plot his death; these actions went against a code so ancient and so venerated that it should be inviolate.