Alys Clare - Out of the Dawn Light

Yes, I knew I had been rash in agreeing to be a part of Romain’s mission. But I also knew that, given how I felt about him, there had never been the slightest chance whatsoever that I would refuse.

I made a soft pillow out of Elfritha’s shawl, put it on top of my small pack and, my fatigue catching up with me despite my tense excitement, went to sleep.

As darkness fell, Romain and Sibert made their careful way to the place where they had arranged to meet the girl. Romain was rigid with tension and the long wait for the relative safety of night had all but undone him. He and Sibert had slept in the clearing on the fringe of Icklingham — not that Romain had managed more than a light doze, and that had been interrupted by frightening, anxious dreams — and in the morning Sibert had gone foraging, returning with a pail of milk, rye bread and a large linen-wrapped package that turned out to be a spice loaf. Sibert admitted he had filched it from the remains of last night’s feast. Someone, Romain thought wryly, would be missing a carefully set-aside treat.

He had passed the daylight hours in obsessively checking through his plans. On occasions he came very close to panic. What did he think he was doing? Not only had he embarked on this brash, foolish errand but he had compounded the folly by involving two other people, one little more than a child and the other a youth whose introspective silences seemed, to the increasingly nervous Romain, nothing short of ominous.

But I cannot do this without them! he reasoned with himself. Sibert knew more than any living man concerning this thing they sought and Romain needed his instinctive awareness of both its nature and that of the man who made it. In addition, Sibert was familiar with the area that they must search and, equally important, the long and potentially hazardous journey across the higher ground to the coast. Sibert, as Romain well knew, had made the trip several times, although not recently. It was unlikely that anyone in Aelf Fen was aware just how often, since he had grown towards manhood, Sibert had managed to slip away and brood over what he had lost. Or, to be strictly accurate, what had been lost to him, since he had had no more of a hand in his own dispossession than Romain had in his.

It is indeed as I have insisted to him, Romain thought. We are natural allies, both of us heirs robbed of our inheritance.

But he did not allow himself to pursue that thought. It would only serve to increase his apprehension.

Instead he thought about the girl. What was her name? Lassair. He must try to remember it. He was well aware she liked him. He had deliberately flirted with her, although in a far more innocent manner than he would have adopted had she been a few years older and his intention had been serious. But it would do no harm to foster in her the belief that there might be a happy future for the two of them together once she had performed the service which, according to Sibert, she was uniquely qualified to provide.

Oh dear God, he prayed with sudden fervour, please let Sibert be right.

The long day had at last come to its end. Trust me, Romain thought ruefully as he and Sibert had at last left the clearing, to select Midsummer Day to embark on my great enterprise. But then, of course, the selection had not been up to him. It had been determined by events far away to the south where a castle in Kent had endured a horrible siege and in the end fallen to the king. Even Romain had not expected that retribution would have followed with such amazing speed. But the king, so they said, was very, very angry.

Now they were approaching the meeting place. Romain had the sudden conviction that the skinny girl would not be there; she too, he reasoned, had had the whole day to reflect on what she had agreed to do and surely, surely , she would have seen how stupidly risky it was and would now be safely tucked up inside her fat sister’s house, quite out of his reach.

She was not. She was sitting huddled under the hedge, a small pack beside her, a very pretty woollen shawl wrapped tightly around her arms and crossed over her flat chest.

Romain put what he hoped was a captivating and vaguely suggestive smile on his face. ‘Lassair,’ he said softly, pleased with himself for having brought her name to mind when he needed it, ‘how pleased I am to see you. I hope you have not grown chilly, sitting there?’

He sensed Sibert, just behind him, draw breath as if to say something; apparently he changed his mind. Lassair looked up and Romain saw the bright moonlight reflected in her wide eyes. Pretty eyes, he thought absently, of some light colour that he could not determine. Blue, probably, or perhaps green, to go with that copper-coloured hair. She might, he allowed, be attractive one day. For now she was just a child, and a boyish one at that.

But he must not let her know his opinion of her. Reaching out a hand, he helped her to her feet. ‘We must get going,’ he said. ‘Sibert will lead us, for of us all he is most familiar with the route.’

‘But-’ she began, surprise evident in her face. She stared at Sibert. ‘He lives in Aelf Fen,’ she whispered, puzzled. ‘How does he come by such knowledge?’

Sibert looked at her for a moment. Then he said, ‘There’s a great deal that neither you nor anyone else in the village knows about me.’

He turned and strode away. After a short pause, first Lassair and then Romain fell into step behind him.

Romain made them march for all of the dark hours. Not that there was any need of coercion, for if anything they were better walkers than he and, despite the fact that both were slim and lightly built, it soon became obvious that their stamina exceeded his. He had contemplated bringing his horse on this mission but there hadn’t appeared to be much point; he would have been the only one mounted and they would have had to proceed at a human walking pace. However, as the night went on and his feet in their smart boots began to ache and grow hot with the prickle of incipient blisters, he wished fervently that he had ridden after all. Well, it was too late now.

The short night came to an end and in the east, over where the still-distant sea must lie, the sky lightened from the first shoots of brightness to a glorious rosy-pink dawn. They went on for perhaps another mile, looking for a suitable place to rest and sleep. Romain went to walk beside Sibert and asked in a quiet voice, ‘We seem to have covered quite a distance. Do you know where we are?’

Sibert shot him a glance. His face was pale and set although whether from fatigue or fear, Romain did not like to ask. ‘We’ve not done badly,’ the youth said. ‘We were following the Lark River south-eastwards for several miles out of Icklingham, then we turned due east and went round St Edmundsbury to the north.’

‘Yes,’ Romain said. They had agreed beforehand that it was wise to avoid towns and settlements wherever possible.

‘We’d climbed a good bit by then, up out of the valley, and we struck out over the heathland. We gave Ixworth Abbey a wide berth — that’s where we stopped for a wet and a bite to eat — and since then we’ve done maybe another five miles, going due east.’ He pointed ahead to the dawn light as if to verify what he had just said.

‘Sixteen miles,’ said Romain slowly. ‘How much further?’

‘Thirty miles, maybe.’ Sibert shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘How long does the journey usually take you?’

Sibert glanced at him, his expression hard to read. ‘I can do from Aelf Fen to the coast in three marches,’ he said neutrally. ‘But I’m well used to walking.’

‘Of course you are,’ Romain said, putting a careful note of admiration in his tone. ‘But for the three of us, how soon can we reach our destination?’