Alys Clare - Out of the Dawn Light

No. I was willing to swear that Sibert had not murdered Romain on the course of that journey. It was possible that Romain had followed him back to Aelf Fen and Sibert had slain him then, but surely Froya and Hrype would be able to prove that he didn’t because he lived with them and they would know his movements.

Unless, of course, he had actually managed to evade them and he had gone out and killed Romain. .

Romain was dead.

I had been so busy rushing in my mind to Sibert’s defence that I had barely taken in that stark, horrible, heartbreaking fact.

Romain was dead. With him went my happy daydream of him discovering how I had helped Sibert take the crown and so saved Romain from its deadly threat, and coming to Aelf Fen to rescue me from my village life and marry me, turning me at a stroke from peasant into lady. Drakelow would, of course, have been restored to him (how this would be achieved without the crown I had not quite worked out) and we would live in blissful happiness for the rest of our days.

But he was dead.

Despite what I had done, that shadow had still found him and death had claimed him, just as my granny had predicted. I risked a quick peep to see if she was still sitting there watching me. She was. Knowing Granny, even if she hadn’t seen the quick flutter of my eyelids she would still be well aware that I wasn’t really asleep. I didn’t think I could bear to talk to her just then. She had warned me, months ago, and I ought to have taken more notice. Instead I had thought I knew better. I had believed in my overconfident faith in myself that I could outwit death when it had put its mark on someone. What a fool I had been, for now I had lost him.

Soundlessly, secretly, I wept.

When I finished weeping, I had a thought. If Sibert did not kill Romain — and I was quite sure he did not — then who did?

I was not allowed to get up. Had it not been for my grief over Romain and my gnawing, constant anxiety over Sibert, I would have relished the chance to lie there in comfort while my family ministered to me. While I needed to be looked after — and clearly they all thought I did — Edild had taken up temporary residence and, because there was so little room, my brother Haward was going to sleep in her house, taking Squeak with him. He’s a kind man, my brother, and he did not complain at all about being cast out of his home for my sake.

Later that day, when darkness was falling and all was quiet, Hrype came to our house. I was sitting up by then, propped up on a pillow and regularly sipping the concoctions that Edild prepared. They had tried to make me eat but my stomach was tying itself in knots and I knew I would be sick if I did.

Hrype accepted a place beside Granny on the bench by the hearth and as he sat down he stared at me. I made myself stare back. He is, I suppose you would say, quite a handsome man, always giving the impression that he takes care of himself. His hair is long, dark blond, parted in the middle and hanging glossy and smooth down to his shoulders. His eyes are light — grey, I would say — and the bones of his face are graceful, almost kingly — he has high cheekbones and a proud nose. He rarely smiles. He was for sure not smiling now.

I tried to read what was in his eyes but his skills are so far above mine that he knew I was searching and blocked himself off. Edild might have penetrated him a little way but she did not even appear to be trying, instead looking after him solicitously as if he had been taken ill. In a way, he had; he looked grief-stricken and he was white with shock.

He did not waste any time. As soon as we were settled, my parents opposite Hrype, Edild and Elfritha on low stools and the baby asleep in his cradle, he said, ‘They have taken Sibert away and he is in prison. They say he will face trial but Baudouin de la Flèche speaks of dragging him out and hanging him.’

There was a horrified silence. Then my father said, ‘What happened? I mean,’ he corrected himself hurriedly, ‘what does Baudouin claim happened?’

Hrype was watching me. It made me feel very uncomfortable. He said, ‘He claims that Sibert stole the crown from its hiding place at his manor of Drakelow.’ I almost protested that it wasn’t his manor any longer but then I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to know that. I wasn’t supposed to have been anywhere near the place, never mind knowing who it did or did not belong to. ‘Then he set off to make his way secretly home to Aelf Fen.’ He paused. ‘Baudouin suspects that Sibert was not alone.’ Again those strange silvery eyes with their unreadable expression glanced against me. ‘He claims that his nephew Romain knew of the theft and pursued Sibert with the intention of reclaiming the stolen crown. He says that, worried for his nephew’s safety, he set out to look for him. He encountered men searching for him , bringing the awful news that Romain was dead and offering to take him to the place where he had been slain. He says that he has a witness to the moment when Romain caught up with Sibert and this person saw with his own eyes how Sibert doubled back on his tracks and so came upon Romain from behind.’ Then Baudouin’s witness has identified the wrong man, I thought fiercely, for Sibert did no such thing. ‘It is claimed that Sibert leapt out on Romain, taking him by surprise, and hit him very hard on the back of the head with a heavy branch. The witness heard the crunch of the shattering bones and Romain fell dead to the ground. Sibert ran away.’ He stopped abruptly, wiping his hands over his face several times.

After a while my father spoke, very hesitantly expressing what I was thinking. ‘Er — if this is true,’ he said, ‘if we are meant to believe that there is a fragment of truth in it, then, as soon as Baudouin learned from the witness what had just happened, why did he not immediately set off after Sibert — er, after the assailant, and catch him? He had just been told that his nephew had been brutally slain, yet he would have us believe he did nothing to apprehend the killer? He is a big, strong man,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘and surely he could have outrun a slight youth like Sibert.’ He thought some more. ‘He’d surely have had a horse,’ he added.

Hrype looked at him intently and then said neutrally, ‘He says he was preoccupied with looking after Romain.’

‘But he’d been told that Romain was dead when he fell! If Baudouin knew that, surely he realized there was nothing he could do and much the better course of action was to catch the killer!’ My father sounded quite cross, as if such irrational behaviour were more than any decent man should be asked to believe.

My mother gave a quiet sound of distress. Putting a hand on my father’s arm, she murmured, ‘He was grieving and surely not himself, Wymond. The poor man had just been led to where his nephew lay dead and was that very moment bending over the body.’

My father grunted something.

Hrype was still looking at him. I saw him give a very small smile of approval. ‘I thought precisely the same thing as you,’ he said. ‘It is what, indeed, I tried to say to the men who are holding Sibert.’

‘How is he?’ my mother asked softly. Now it was she to whom I was grateful, for I longed to ask the same question.

‘He — has suffered a profound humiliation and a severe shock,’ Hrype said. ‘He does not believe, however, that he is guilty of theft and he knows he is not guilty of murder. I hope,’ he said with a sigh, ‘that these firm beliefs may sustain him in his time of trial.’

‘He’s going to be tried?’ I asked. I had not really wanted to draw Hrype’s attention to me — any more than it was already there, for all the time he was engaged in talking to my parents I sensed that a part of him was probing me — but I could not hold back the question.