Alys Clare - Out of the Dawn Light

Then I heard stealthy footsteps. I stiffened in alarm and felt for the small knife I carry in a sheath on my belt. Not that it would have helped me much against an assailant, as it’s only as long as my hand and I would need a very lucky stab to reach a man’s vitals, but nevertheless holding its horn hilt gave me a tiny bit of confidence.

The footfalls were coming nearer.

Should I wake the men? Oh, but if I did and whoever was out there heard me, then he’d know where we were, whereas now there was a slim chance that he was out on his own business and not concerned with us.

I lay in an agony of indecision, the sweat of fear breaking out all over my body.

Moving very slowly, I turned my head to locate Sibert, asleep on my left. He wasn’t there. And as I realized who those terror-inducing footsteps belonged to, he crept into our little hideout and lay down under his cloak.

I was furious with him for scaring me so badly, which was not entirely reasonable as he had probably got up to pass water and that was nothing to do with me. But it happens like that, I find; when something deeply frightens or disturbs us, we need someone to put the blame on.

I was still fuming when Sibert spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘Lassair? Are you awake?’

Several possible replies flashed through my head. In the end I just hissed back, ‘Yes.’

He rolled closer. ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said, right in my ear and tickling me with his warm breath. I noticed that he smelt powerfully of onions, but then undoubtedly I did too. ‘Will you come out there with me’ — I sensed movement as he jerked his head — ‘so we don’t wake Romain?’

It was rather nice to be needed. I nodded, but of course he couldn’t see, so I whispered, ‘All right.’

He crawled away and, wrapping myself in my shawl, I followed. When we were out of our sleeping place we both stood up and on silent feet tiptoed fifty paces or so into the breeze. I was very aware of the sound of the sea. Sibert stopped and, taking my hand, led me to a shallow indentation in the ground where, as we sat down, we were sheltered from the wind.

‘Are we near the sea?’ I asked in a low voice.

‘Yes. I’ve been to look and it’s only a short walk away. There’s a cliff, then the shore and the sea.’

‘A cliff.’ The night was pitch black! ‘Sibert, wasn’t it foolhardy to go wandering along cliffs on a dark night?’ Then I remembered that he knew this area. ‘But I suppose you’re well aware how the land lies.’ He didn’t answer. ‘Aren’t you?’

He turned to me. His head was a darker patch in the darkness but I caught the glint of his eyes. ‘That’s just it. I thought so, but- Oh, Lassair, it’s changed! What has happened here? What have they done?’

I watched as he dropped his face in his hands. I felt his body shake and wondered if he were silently weeping.

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What’s changed?’

‘Everything!’ he said in a suppressed wail. ‘The house is quite different, and the fields and the woods, and it’s as if some sorcerer has put an evil enchantment on it!’

I was already feeling decidedly uneasy. There was no need to bring sorcerers and enchantments into it. ‘Well, of course the house has changed,’ I said in my no-nonsense tone. ‘The one we saw yesterday was built by the Normans, and they have a way of stamping their mark on a place, probably to make sure the rest of us know who’s in charge. So you-’

‘Lassair, listen!’ he interrupted. ‘Yes, I know all that! But the manor and castle we saw — the place Romain said was Drakelow — isn’t. When the de la Flèches were given the estate, of course they weren’t going to live in the hall my forefathers built, but they left it standing and built their new castle close beside it. They used my ancestral home as a grain store,’ he added bitterly.

Yes, I reflected. That sounded like the incomers. They won, they invaded, they built their castles and, not content with that, rubbed the faces of the vanquished in the dirt by demeaning their former treasured homes.

I brought myself back to the moment. ‘You said you were last here two years ago?’

‘Yes. A little more — I made the journey just before the Easter feast.’

‘And at that time Drakelow was as you remembered it?’

‘ Yes. ’

‘Yet now it’s changed.’ He did not even bother to reply to that, and I didn’t blame him. ‘Were you out there wandering about just now to try to make sense of it?’ I asked, filled with sympathy.

‘I wasn’t walking for the good of my health.’

I could hear that he was smiling and I hoped it was an indication that his mood was lifting a little. ‘It’s a very dark night, Sibert,’ I said gently. ‘Wouldn’t it be better if we waited till morning?’

‘Of course it would,’ he said, impatient suddenly. ‘But you forget, I think, what I shall be called on to do tomorrow.’

‘I — oh! ’

He was right. I had forgotten. Poor, poor Sibert. We had reached our destination and in the morning Romain would undoubtedly demand that he begin on his appointed task. Sibert must find the general location of the treasure we had come to find and then I must use my dowsing powers and pinpoint its hiding place.

And Sibert had lost his bearings because an enchanter had broken up the familiar landscape into little pieces and set them down again in a new pattern.

‘Perhaps,’ I ventured when the silence became unbearable, ‘it’ll look better by daylight.’

He actually laughed. ‘Good old Lassair, ever the optimist,’ he remarked.

‘I’m sure it will!’ I said urgently. ‘It must!’

‘Maybe.’ He didn’t sound at all confident.

I couldn’t speak for him but I felt wide awake and I was sure I would not sleep if we returned to our shelter. ‘Tell me about Drakelow,’ I said. ‘It was your father’s house, I know, but obviously, from what you say, he didn’t build it, did he?’

‘Oh, no. It’s been in my family for — oh, generations.’

‘Will you tell me?’

‘Yes.’ He settled himself more comfortably and, I noticed, closer to me so that our arms and shoulders touched. It was probably just for warmth. ‘My ancestors came from the Baltic, where the lands of the Swedish homeland were threatened by a series of years that brought flooding to the coastal plain. There wasn’t room any more for everyone and they needed a new place to live, so they joined in the movement westwards, to Britain, where many of their people were going.’

‘How many generations back?’ I asked. ‘Your grandfather? His father?’

‘Oh, long before that. It was five hundred years ago.’

‘How do you know?’ I demanded.

‘You have your grandmother Cordeilla to memorize and guard your family history. Well, we have our bards too.’

‘Yes, but who told you?’

He hesitated. Then he said, ‘Hrype.’

‘Your uncle the cunning man,’ I said without thinking; Hrype is a bit scary and people in Aelf Fen usually refrain from voicing their suspicions concerning exactly what he is.

‘Yes,’ Sibert agreed. ‘He’s my father’s brother.’

‘Your father’s brother!’ I was very surprised. Although I couldn’t recall that anyone had ever actually said so, I — and everyone else in Aelf Fen — had assumed that Hrype was Froya’s brother, and had come to support his sister when she lost her husband.

‘You think you know the story, I’m sure,’ Sibert said dryly, ‘but since we’re here in the lands of my forefathers, concerning ourselves deeply with their deeds, perhaps I ought to tell you the true version.’

‘I’m listening.’

He hesitated, as if gathering his thoughts. Then he began to speak. ‘They came from the coast that borders the Baltic Sea on its eastern side, near a place where the great funeral mounds of the early kings rise up. They were important people, for they knew how to make the things that the kings craved. Hrype is not the first magician in my line, and his forebears had the skill of transferring their power into metal, so that the finished artefact was an object of power.’ Awestruck, I murmured an assent; I had heard tell of such things. ‘The men who led the people into the new lands had need of such aids, for the migration was perilous and they knew they would not only have to fight others who also coveted the lands but, in addition, there would be resistance from those who already inhabited the places they were intent on taking over.’