Alys Clare: Out of the Dawn Light

Even as he spun round to face me, triumph written all over him, I knew who he was. Baudouin de la Flèche cried out in a voice that was hardly human, ‘This treasure is not going back under the waves! I claim it, and with it I shall win back Drakelow!’

‘You’ve killed Sibert!’ I sobbed. ‘You’ve taken a young man’s life, purely for your own selfish reason!’

He laughed. ‘His life means nothing! I have killed before and I shall do so again.’

In an instant of shock and horror I thought I knew what he meant. No. No. I shook my head in denial, for if I was right it was a dreadful, abnormal act. I must be wrong — I must be. .

Now Sibert was dead too — I dared not think about that — and I knew I was going have to fight his killer.

He stood quite still and I heard him laugh again. It was as if he were daring me to speak, to tell him what I was thinking. He actually said, ‘Go on, then!’ and I knew my horrified conclusion was the right one.

I’ve never been one to turn down a challenge.

‘You killed Romain,’ I said. ‘There was no murderer other than you, and you bribed Sagar to say it was Sibert.’ I shook my head. ‘Romain was your nephew and your heir. Why? ’

‘Romain was a hot-headed fool.’ He spat out the words. ‘I went to such trouble to make him think he had found out about the crown by himself, when all along it was I who had arranged it so that he just happened to meet the one man who had the necessary information.’

‘Why didn’t you take it yourself?’ I cried. ‘Were you scared of it?’ I knew it was foolhardy but I could not resist the jibe.

He made a sort of growling sound and raised his fist, so that for a moment I thought he was going to hit me. I flinched.

He regained control. He said very coldly, ‘You forget, girl. That madman Roger might have been able to provide a rough location for the crown but nobody was going to find it without help. Sibert’s help, and yours.’

‘Then why did you not seek us out as Romain did?’ I flashed back.

Something in him seemed to snap. ‘ Because I could not approach it! ’ he screamed. Then, his struggle for calm very evident, ‘Even if you and Sibert had led me right up to it, I could not have taken it from its hiding place.’ He glanced down at the crown, lying at his feet, and I thought I saw a long shudder go through him. ‘It all but overwhelms me when I am close to it,’ he added, half to himself, ‘and here, where its power is far, far stronger and when, before you came, no human hand had touched it for centuries, I knew it would be reluctant to let me near.’ He breathed deeply for a few moments. Watching him intently, I saw some fierce struggle within him, as if even now, with his prize at his feet, a part of him was desperate simply to run away.

With a visible effort, he stood his ground.

‘I let Romain think he was acting alone but I was watching him all along,’ he said. ‘I saw the three of you, splashing around out here and letting yourselves get caught by the incoming tide. I saw you fail , curse you. Then I slipped away.’ He spat into the small waves running over his feet.

‘When I returned in the early morning, you and the boy had gone and you had taken the crown, and Romain had set off after you. I followed him. He had let you get away and I had to find him. But both of us failed. He managed to catch you up and he attacked that pale, spindly boy, but somehow you and he managed to fight back and you laid Romain on his back, writhing in agony.’ I shut my eyes tightly for a moment. It was an image I could not bear to dwell on. ‘Sibert still had the crown,’ Baudouin said bitterly. ‘I had to think of another way of getting it back.’

‘So you killed your nephew and made out that Sibert was a thief and a murderer.’ How callous and cold-hearted he was!

‘I did,’ he agreed. ‘Nobody was meant to doubt my word, and when that fat fool Gilbert insisted on hearing what my witness had to say, I had to pay Sagar to provide the information.’

I was still having trouble accepting that Baudouin had killed his own nephew. ‘But Romain was your heir!’ I said. ‘You were going to all this trouble to win back Drakelow, but what was the point if nobody would come after you to inherit it?’

‘Oh, don’t you worry, somebody will,’ he said roughly. ‘Congratulate me, girl, for I am to be married. For some time I have my eye on the plump and comely daughter of my neighbouring lord, and she has consented to be my wife. She comes from a line of wide-hipped and fertile sisters who all have families of their own, so she will undoubtedly start filling Drakelow’s nursery within nine months of our wedding.’

Was this true? Or was it the product of a mind slowly being pressured to implosion? I did not know.

The sea was sucking and pushing at my feet and I was very cold. I was cold on the inside, too, for I kept hearing the echo of his words: I have killed before and I shall do so again.

He had just confessed to me that he was a murderer. He had killed Romain and I had just seen him drown Sibert. Oh, Sibert!

I knew that he would not allow me to live.

Without thinking I flung myself sideways out of the circle of crumbling timber posts. I had some idea of running around the perimeter and turning for the shore, where if I outran Baudouin I might be able to hide. I was small and light on my feet and I really thought I had a chance. It was better, anyway, than standing there dumbly and waiting for him to kill me.

I flew round the circle. One post, two posts, then a big wave came galloping in behind me and launched itself at my legs. I stumbled and almost fell, but recovered and ran on, my lungs on fire and the muscles in my legs crying out their pain as I forced a way through the water swirling around the sanctuary. I could see the shore line ahead of me — it looked so far away — and I leapt forward towards it.

He caught me around the knees, launching himself at me so that we both fell into the water. Then he was on top of me, his boot or his fist on the back of my head. My face was under the water and I summoned what was left of my strength to try to jerk it up.

I twisted and wriggled and managed to get my nose above the surface. I sniffed in air but the waves were stronger now, sending up a lot of spray, and I felt the cold bite of sea water as it invaded my nostrils and slid down the back of my throat. I choked and coughed but I was under the water again and it was not the life-saving air that I took in but the swirling, savage water.

I held my breath. I could feel my desperate heart hammering in my chest and blackness was gathering on the edge of my vision. I’m dying, I thought. My mother and father will be so sad. .

Suddenly the murderous pressure was off me.

My head shot up out of the water and I took in a huge gulp of air. There was water in my nose, my mouth, my throat, and I coughed, gagged and coughed some more, then I vomited up a great gout of frothy brine. I was on fire. I had never known that salt water burns like flame.

I was on hands and knees, the tide now racing up the shore and threatening to push me back under the water. You have to stand up, I told myself.

Very shakily and unsteadily I did.

Sibert was standing beside the upturned tree stump. Well, he wasn’t exactly standing, he was sort of hunched over it.

I splashed over to him.

‘Are you alive?’ I asked. It was a stupid question, but then I had just seen him drowned.

He neither answered nor turned. He was, I noticed, peculiarly intent and the muscles of his slim back bulged out under his soaking wet tunic. .

The water around his knees thrashed and boiled. Then it was still, then it splashed up again.