Alys Clare - Out of the Dawn Light

Baudouin stepped forward. ‘How are we to judge which story is the lie and which the truth?’ he cried. ‘This girl is a well-known liar and nothing she says can be trusted!’

Lord Gilbert was staring hard at me. ‘Answer the question,’ he ordered.

I was thrown into panic. What question? Mutely I shook my head.

Lord Gilbert shot a glance at Baudouin and then said to me, ‘How are we to tell when you are lying and when you are telling the truth?’

‘I’m telling the truth now !’ I cried. ‘Oh, you must believe me!’

Again Lord Gilbert turned to the man on his right and I heard them muttering. My aunt’s name was mentioned. If I could, I must save Edild from the ignominy of standing in Lord Gilbert’s hall and admitting she had lied for me. I said, ‘There is something more!’

Lord Gilbert turned his head and stared at me again. So, I am sure, did everyone else in the hall. ‘Well?’ he said coldly.

Out of all of them, I was most aware — most afraid — of Baudouin and his witness. I made myself turn slightly so that I could not see them. Then I steadied myself and said, ‘Sibert and Romain had a fight. That much is true, for Sibert and I had taken — er, Sibert and I had something that Romain badly wanted. Sibert and I left Drakelow — that’s on the coast south of Dunwich — ahead of Romain, but very soon he followed after us. He caught up with us in a clearing just south of the road that leads due west from the coast and he attacked Sibert. He had a knife and Sibert was unarmed and he’s not much of a fighter at the best of times — sorry, Sibert, but you’re not — and so I sort of sided with him — Sibert, I mean — because I thought Romain was going to kill him and I yelled, “Sibert, get your knee up,” and he did and he caught Romain between the legs and he went down and that’s how we left him, writhing in agony, but you see he was lying on his back !’ I finished triumphantly, talking a much needed breath.

There was a deadly hush. Then Lord Gilbert said, ‘So?’

‘Don’t you understand?’ How could he be so stupid! ‘Romain was lying on his back yet that man’ — it was my turn to point and I swung my arm round and aimed my forefinger at Baudouin’s witness — ‘that man claims he saw Sibert strike Romain on the back of his head! Well, he can’t have done, because the back of Romain’s head was on the ground, so if he says that’s what happened then he was too far away to see clearly and so how can he be so sure it was Sibert?’

Now I had their attention. Lord Gilbert was no longer looking at me as if I were something smelly on his shoe and the man on his right was whispering urgently in his ear, his eyes on me. Several of the other men were also murmuring amongst themselves.

Eventually Lord Gilbert held up a hand for silence. ‘You have made a valid point,’ he began, ‘and we-’

Then I was shoved out of the way — so violently that I fell — and Baudouin shouted furiously, ‘She cannot possibly know how Romain was positioned, whether he was standing, sitting, lying on his back or his front, because she wasn’t there ! This is another of her fluent, convincing lies, my lord, gentlemen, and you must open your eyes and see it for what it is!’

Several of the men, Lord Gilbert included, clearly did not care for Baudouin’s tone, and indeed he had stopped only just short of insulting them. There was more muttering — a great deal more — then at last Lord Gilbert straightened up and addressed the hall.

‘We have here a simple case of two conflicting accounts and it is our duty to decide which describes the true version,’ he declared. ‘Either Baudouin de la Flèche’s man is telling the truth, and I must here remind you all that Baudouin himself vouches for the man, or else this girl’s account is the true one. What is your name?’ he demanded impatiently, leaning down towards me.

‘Lassair,’ I said.

‘Lassair,’ he repeated. ‘So, who are we to believe, the witness Sagar or the girl Lassair? We must now-’

Baudouin spoke up, his voice loud and confident. ‘Forgive me, my lord,’ he said, ‘but there is a method by which this can be decided once and for all.’ He shot a glance at me and I felt as if a lump of ice was being run down my back. I knew then that this was what I had foreseen in that awful moment when I had recognized him as my enemy. I did not know what he was about to say but I knew it was going to be terrible.

‘What is this method you refer to?’ Lord Gilbert asked. ‘Speak up, let’s hear it!’

I waited, trembling, my heart thumping so high up in my chest that it felt as if it was stopping me from breathing.

Baudouin smiled at me, a cold smile full of malice. Then, turning back to Lord Gilbert, he said smoothly, ‘We are faced, as you so eloquently say, my lord, with a choice: which of two people is telling the truth. We are all, I believe, inclined to believe Sagar here, who saw with his own eyes the murder of my poor nephew, a boy I have nurtured and cared for most of his young life and who was to inherit my manor of Drakelow. We have been told the frightful details — I will not repeat them — and Sagar presented himself as witness to this foul deed of his own free will. Against him we have this girl, this liar ’ — he spat the word with sudden fierce venom — ‘who would have us believe her falsehoods.’

There was a pause, so full of drama that the air hummed. Then Baudouin cried, ‘Let her be tested, my lord! Let the truth of what she says be tried in the old, reliable way!’

Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Lord Gilbert cleared his throat and said, ‘By — er, by what means would you have us test her, Baudouin?’

‘Let her face trial by ordeal,’ he answered instantly. He shot me a fierce look. ‘If she persists against all reason in making us believe this tale of hers, put her to the test! Build a fire pit, my lord, and challenge her to walk barefoot across the red-hot coals.’ He laughed. He actually laughed. ‘ Then we shall see who speaks the truth!’

I heard the words — fire pit. . red-hot coals. . barefoot — and at first they made no sense. I shook my head in perplexity.

Then the blessed incomprehension cleared and I knew what he was going to make me do.

The nausea rose up uncontrollably and I threw up my breakfast on the floor of Lord Gilbert’s hall.

I fled. I was aware of shouting. Some of the men were outraged and I heard one of them cry out, ‘But she’s only a child!’ Another protested vehemently, ‘He has no right to ask this!’ As I raced down the length of the hall Lord Gilbert’s voice rose loud above the hubbub, declaring that I had until tomorrow to consider Baudouin’s challenge.

He started to say that if I refused, Sibert would be taken out and hanged from the gibbet at the crossroads but I could not bear to listen. Instinctively my hands flew up to cover my ears and I did not hear any more.

There was a small crowd outside the big doors that opened into the hall and suddenly Hrype’s face was right in front of me, so taut with tension that I barely recognized him. He too was talking, hurling urgent words at me, but I did not stay to hear them. I shook my head, elbowed the avidly curious villagers out of the way and raced down the steps, across the courtyard and out on to the track.

I didn’t know where I was going. I only knew that I had to get away and be quite alone. I had to think. I had to look deep into myself to see if I had the courage to attempt this frightful, ghastly thing that might just possibly save Sibert’s life.

I ran and ran until my heaving chest and the crippling stitch in my side caused me at last to stop. I bent over, hands on my knees, panting and gasping for breath. As I began to recover, I straightened up, looked around and saw that I was right out on the far side of the villagers’ strips of land, on the edge of a ridge of slightly higher ground where the soil is dryer. There was a band of willows and gratefully I sank down in their welcome shade on to the warm, friendly earth.