Alys Clare - Out of the Dawn Light

He fought down the nausea and went on staring.

It seemed to him that there was something black creeping out from under the trees. He blinked and it vanished.

‘Where are you?’ he sobbed again. ‘Show yourself!’ Whatever horror lurked there out of the deep past, it would be better to face it, to see what it was.

Wouldn’t it?

He thought he smelt the sea. Oh, dear God, what was it? Some dread magic conjured up by the sorcerers of old? Some projection of their vast, unearthly power, disguised as the terrible dragon whose roar gave Drakelow its name?

‘Help me,’ he whimpered. ‘Oh, God, help me!’

They — it — had come for the stolen treasure. He knew it. He was the thief, for all that he did not have the crown. Dark, frightful and all-knowing powers such as these, whatever they were, knew who was to blame.

They blamed him.

And they had come for him. They had followed him stealthily all the way from the sea and now they would take him.

With a moan of pure terror, Romain sank to his knees. Holding up his clasped hands as if in prayer, he wept. ‘Spare me!’ he begged. ‘Oh, spare me!’

There was a whistling noise, as if something heavy was flying through the air. The pain burst with unbelievable, agonizing force inside Romain’s head and then the dark took him.

In the morning I entertained my grumpy and by now all but immobile sister to a lively account of my week back in Aelf Fen. She didn’t seem particularly interested but all the same I elaborated and embroidered my tale, describing this person’s concussion, that person’s severe bruising and how I had helped Edild reduce a fracture. In the end Goda shouted at me to shut my mouth, get on with cleaning the house and then fetch her something to eat.

Meekly I did as I was told. The house certainly needed cleaning and it looked as if whoever had been keeping an eye on my sister during my absence — probably the village midwife — had contented herself with the briefest of visits and done no more than make sure Goda was still alive and not giving birth. As I worked I continued to volunteer further details about life back in Aelf Fen until Goda lost her temper and threw a wooden platter at me. Advanced pregnancy had, however, weakened her aim and the platter’s trajectory was feeble. I ducked it with the ease of long practice.

I decided it would do no harm to describe my fictitious stay in Aelf Fen to Cerdic, too. I wanted to make sure that if ever anyone accused me of having journeyed all the way to the coast south of Dunwich where I assisted in the theft of a gold crown, at least two people would protest that I couldn’t possibly have done because I was staying with and helping my aunt Edild. I reminded myself that if the day ever came when more verification was called for, I must enlist Edild’s help too so that she supported my story as well.

I was, however, quietly confident that no such day would ever come.

It came two days later.

I had been occupied in the mammoth and complicated task of changing the rough and worn sheets on Goda’s bed. The task was well overdue and exhausting right from the start, when I had to help her to get up and sit on the bench by the hearth. Immediately she began to harangue me for not working fast enough. The bed was horrible and I won’t describe exactly in what way. I stripped it, put the straw mattress outside the door and gave it a vigorous beating. Then I sponged down the sacking that covered it, opened one end and stuffed in some fresh sprigs of pennyroyal to discourage the fleas. I took the sheets down to the stream and plunged them into the water, then picked up Goda’s block of lye-and-tallow soap and began rubbing it into the worst of the stains.

I had the sheets washed, rinsed and spread out on gorse bushes to dry when I heard the sound of horses’ hooves. Looking up, my heart beating fast in alarm, I saw three of the lord’s men riding into the village. They were bareheaded — clearly not expecting the least sign of trouble in a small village full of humble people minding their own business — and their surcoats were maroon and bore a device in black. Even if they weren’t expecting trouble, all the same each of them had a sword at his side.

They went to my sister’s house and I knew they had come for me. They went inside, stayed for a short while, then one of them came hurrying out again, leapt on to his horse and rode away. Was he going to check on my story?

I cursed myself. Why hadn’t I gone on to Aelf Fen with Sibert that night and spoken to Edild? She would back me up, I knew it, but she could not if she didn’t know I needed her to! Oh, what an idiot I had been.

I waited, holding my breath.

I heard my sister screech, ‘ Lassair! Come here!’

I went.

I had left her sitting on the bench in nothing but her shift, stretched impossibly tight across her swollen belly and none too clean. I had intended to see to her once the sheets were drying, and for now she was sweaty, smelly and greasy-faced, her hair hanging in sticky rats’ tails and so dulled by dirt that its bright carroty-red colour was totally hidden. I felt a stab of sympathy for her, as this was no condition in which any woman would wish to greet two well-dressed, important men.

The sympathy was short-lived. ‘What have you done?’ she yelled at me as I stepped through the door. ‘You’re in for a beating, my girl, bringing shame to an honest household, and I’ll-’

One of the men — the elder of the two — held up an imperious hand and my sister fell silent, her mouth left hanging open.

‘You are Lassair?’ he asked.

I tried to read his expression but his face was bland and gave nothing away.

‘I am.’

‘Your sister here tells us you have recently been at Aelf Fen.’

‘Yes, that’s right. I was staying with my aunt, her name’s Edild and she’s a healer, and we were-’

Again he held up his hand. ‘So I am given to understand. I have sent one of my company to verify the truth of what you say.’

I said nothing. Across the miles that separated us, I was concentrating on feverishly willing Edild to back me up.

‘You are required to come with us to Aelf Fen,’ he stated baldly.

To my own village? Why? I wondered frantically. If as I suspected all this flurry of activity was because they’d found the crown, then why did I have to go to Aelf Fen when the act of theft had been at Drakelow? But then I thought, ah, yes, but the crown is with Sibert, and he’s at Aelf Fen.

I almost blurted out the question that they must have known I was desperate to ask. But somehow I managed to hold it back. I was innocent, I reminded myself firmly. I had been nowhere near Drakelow but closeted with my aunt Edild, helping her in her healing work. Innocent people did not demand anxiously why they were wanted. Confident that it could be for no sinister purpose, they simply smiled and said, very well.

Which was exactly what I did.

They were obviously in a hurry because they were not content to go at my walking pace. Instead the younger man swung up into the saddle of his great chestnut horse and, bending down and catching me under the arms, lifted me up and sat me down in front of him. Then both men put spurs to their mounts and we were off, cantering smartly in the direction of Aelf Fen.

All the way there I was thinking about Sibert.

How could I help him? If they suspected what he — we — had done, how could I defend him? Perhaps he, like me, had prepared a good story and, if what I dreaded had happened and they had accused him of stealing the crown, he would be able to hold his head high and offer proof that he had been nowhere near Dunwich.

Then it would be Romain’s word — for surely it could only be he who had brought the accusations — against Sibert’s and mine. Two against one, but the trouble was that the one was a rich Norman lord’s son. A rich lord, however, I reminded myself, who had just fallen so far out of favour with the king that his manor, his lands and his property had been seized.