The Way Between the Worlds

by Alys Clare

  ‘You are, I imagine, just speculating on a possibility, which we are to treat as a hypothesis rather than an attempt at the truth,’ Hrype said, his voice kind.

  I wasn’t sure if I was, but I nodded anyway. ‘Or perhaps they were both involved in somebody else being killed,’ I went on, my imagination coming to life again, ‘and it became too dangerous to let them live.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Hrype.

  ‘Herleva was killed just a few days ago,’ I went on, ‘and Gurdyman thinks the man in the fen died within the last few months. It couldn’t have been any longer because the honeysuckle used to bind him was still quite fresh.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Hrype repeated.

  I was thinking very hard. There was something, some relevant fact, right on the edge of my mind, and I just couldn’t pin it down. I ordered my thoughts, summarizing what I knew.

  Who? I asked myself. Answer: a chatty little nun and a middle-aged man.

  When? One within a week or so; one within a few months.

  Where? One on the island of Chatteris, over on the western side of the fens; one over on the eastern side, in the maze of channels that wind through the marshes to the north of Aelf Fen and up towards Lynn and, eventually, the sea.

  Then I knew what it was that had been niggling at me, trying to catch my attention.

  ‘Hrype?’ I said softly.

  He turned to look down at me, his strange silvery eyes catching the gleam of the slowly falling sun. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I think there is a connection between them.’ I was speaking too quickly, breathless in my excitement, and I made myself slow down. ‘The dead man was found in the water over towards the fens’ eastern margin, above where the two rivers flow down from the higher ground and below Lynn,’ I said.

  ‘What of it?’ He spoke quite sharply, but there was a faint smile on his face. He knew already, I was sure, what I was going to say; it would not have surprised me if he did, for he is adept at reading other people’s thoughts, and what was on my mind just then must have been shouting out at him.

  ‘Herleva came from over that way,’ I said, despite everything smiling back at him. ‘I spoke to an old Chatteris woman who sells cheese to the nuns. She told me Herleva was from up beyond Lynn. She and the dead man might have known each other!’

  ‘And they might not,’ I thought I heard him mutter. He took my hand and patted it. ‘That’s a start, I suppose,’ he said kindly. He could have added, even if it’s not much, but he didn’t.

  We went on standing there. In time, we saw a boat approaching, and the ferryman agreed to take us across. I sat down in the stern, wrapping my shawl tightly round me against the chill air rising off the water.

  My brief excitement had leaked out of me, and now I felt even lower than before. Hrype was right to be dismissive; so what if Herleva’s home was roughly in the same area as the place where the man in the fen had died? It really didn’t amount to very much and barely qualified for Hrype’s it’s a start.

  And there was so much more I had to worry about. There we were, moving steadily across the misty water, and my poor sister lay deadly sick on the other side. Was she still alive? Again, I sent a tentative thought in her direction, and this time I received no reply at all. I buried my face in my shawl; I did not want Hrype to see my tears.

  There was Rollo, too. I no longer heard his summoning voice in my dreams, and in my waking mind I knew, with no room for doubt, that something had happened to him. He had called to me for help, and I had failed him. Now he was gone: out of my head, out of my life, out, perhaps, of this world.

  The sky was darkening as the sun finally set. All around the little boat, the water was dark and sinister, no glimmer of light on its black depths. Despair took hold of me, and for a dreadful moment I was tempted to give up on the horrible struggle of my life and throw myself into the fen’s cold embrace.

  Then there was a gentle bump as the boat came alongside the little quay. The ferryman jumped out to make his craft secure, and Hrype climbed ashore after him. He turned back to me.

  He said, so softly that I hardly heard him, ‘Nobody is dead yet, Lassair.’ And he held out his hand.

  If he was telling me my dearest sister was still alive, that was, of course, something to rejoice over, although if she was as sick as we had been told, life could turn to death in the blink of an eye.

  He could not be speaking of Rollo. He didn’t know Rollo was in danger; nobody did except Gurdyman and me, and I was all but sure now that the danger, whatever it was, had overcome him.

  I thought about it for a couple of heartbeats. Go on? Give up? Then I took Hrype’s hand, jumped out of the boat and on to the Chatteris quay.

  TEN

  Rollo was attacked when he was in sight of the great sea that lies off the east coast of Britain. He had made his way steadily and swiftly, usually keeping the Wall in sight over to his left. As well as providing a clear aid to going in the right direction – due east towards the coast – he had discovered that what tracks and roads there were in that lonely and largely deserted country were better maintained near to the Wall.

  They laid an ambush for him. The sun was setting in the west behind him, for he had been encouraged by the sea’s proximity into travelling on later than usual. Darkness was rapidly descending. He was approaching a place where the road ran down into a shallow valley, on each side of which were stands of ancient trees. Up there in the north country, spring was late in coming and the trees were only just showing the first signs of leaf. Rollo would not have thought that the stark trunks and all but bare branches could have provided places of concealment for even one man, let alone four.

  It was his horse who first sensed danger. Named as she was for an entity with supernatural powers, perhaps elements of a particularly keen awareness had rubbed off on the mare. As she bore Rollo down into the valley, she must have heard, seen or even smelt something which, wise horse that she was, she knew ought not to be there.

  She had been going along at a smart trot, affected by her master’s mood and as keen as he to reach the coast and turn south. Suddenly, she stopped, so abruptly that Rollo was almost unseated.

  ‘Strega?’ he said softly. ‘What’s the matter?’

  The horse, of course, could not answer. She gave a soft whicker, and a shudder ran under the skin of her shoulder. A variety of possibilities ran like fire through Rollo’s mind: was she exhausted? Had she picked up a stone in her foot? Was she throwing up lame?

  He was about to dismount and check her over when at last, and far too late, he finally took in the topography of the place where Strega had so abruptly stopped. His heart pounding, he looked on down the road and saw the stands of skeletal trees on either side. Somebody made a small movement just as he was staring at the trees on his right.

  He pressed his heels into the mare’s sides and said to her urgently, ‘On, Strega, on!’ Still she hesitated. He leaned forward on to her neck and said, as close to her ear as he could, ‘Yes, I know, I’ve seen them. Now go!’

  She needed no further urging. Just as abruptly as she had stopped, she started to move again, her sturdy strength taking her from standing to a full gallop in moments. Her speed took the ambushers by surprise, and it was only when they had been flying down the track for some moments that Rollo heard the whoops and yells of the men who had lain in wait as they left their hiding places and raced after him.

  He knew quite soon that two were no threat, for they were mounted on old, broken ponies whose laboured breathing was audible across the rapidly increasing distance between them and Rollo. Soon his swift glances over both shoulders told him that it was now between him and the two remaining men.

  He knew what he would have done in their position. The track went on through the valley in a wide curve to the right, and the shortest distance to the far end was to cut across the curve. While the land inside the curve did not look secure enough for Rollo to risk it – what would happen if he floundered in a patch of boggy ground or if Strega fa
iled to clear the fast-flowing stream that rushed through the valley? – he would, had he been one of the pursuing pair, have taken that chance and hastened to cut his quarry off as he hurried along the road.

  He heard a shouted conversation between the two men, although they spoke in a language he did not understand. He was pretty sure what they were saying, however, and very shortly afterwards, he saw with dismay that his assumption was right. One man remained right behind him; his horse was perhaps not quite as swift as Strega, but it was close. The second man cracked his fist down hard on his horse’s rump, yelled something in a high, wild voice and, with a fierce tug on the reins that had his horse jerking its head in pain, plunged down off the track and across the green grass of the valley.

  Rollo’s years of experience had taught him not to waste time worrying about things that might not happen. The second man was now some distance away, and Rollo would deal with him when the time came. For now, the man behind him was alone.

  Rollo pulled Strega up, drew his sword and spun round. The man had less secure a control of his mount, and it seemed, in addition, that Rollo’s unexpected move had taken him unawares. Leaning back in the saddle in what appeared to be a hopeless attempt to slow his horse’s pace, he kept on riding, straight at Rollo, a long, wickedly pointed knife in one hand and a shorter stabbing knife between his teeth. His dark eyes blazed with blood lust; he was going in for the kill.

  As the man drew level, Rollo nudged Strega with his knee to make her step aside. There was little need even to swing his sword – he could simply have held it out – but he swung it anyway.

  The man’s head was sliced from his shoulders, and it bounced away across the springy turf. The body remained upright in the saddle for some ten or twelve paces, and then the horse – perhaps aware of a sudden lack of control, perhaps simply alarmed at the smell of blood – abruptly swerved, gave a couple of bucks and threw the headless body to the ground. Then it gave a shrill whinny and, turning, galloped away, back along the track towards the last of the sunlight.

  Rollo gathered Strega’s reins, spoke some quiet words to her and then urged her on down the track. He could hear shouts and blood-curdling yells from the two men behind him – much closer now – and Strega needed no spurred heels to tell her she had to hurry. Rollo made himself concentrate on the ambusher who was attempting to head him off, realizing with a feeling of sick dread that the man was well over halfway across the valley and going fast.

  It was going to be a race.

  Rollo had the advantage of firm ground, but his pursuer had a lot less further to go. Rollo went through the options that would be open to him when the two of them came face to face. None was very attractive. None gave him better than fifty-fifty odds.

  As he and Strega flew down the track, he was already calculating. He must get to the interception point first, for then, even if he did not have time to evade his pursuer, at least it would be he who selected the staging of the fight between them. He watched the other man, and it seemed to Rollo that his opponent’s lead was slowly being eroded.

  Had he hit wet ground? Was that bright green grass not as firm beneath his horse’s hooves as he had hoped?

  The man and his horse were approaching the stream that hurried through the valley. The track remained on higher ground and avoided it, but anyone cutting across the valley would have to ford it, wade through it or jump over it at some point. Rollo watched as the man looked frantically to his right and his left, trying to decide where best to cross.

  From the vantage point of the higher ground, Rollo could have advised him. The obvious place was a stretch of water that looked shallow, for it was broken up by what appeared to be stones and boulders on the stream bed. To someone on the same level, it probably looked like a man-made ford.

  Rollo could see that it was not; the obvious place was the one spot to avoid.

  He couldn’t be sure, but his guess was that it was deep water. What looked at first glance to be stones set in the shallows were the tips of rocks, perhaps the height of a man or more, for the water there was dark, deep and fast-running.

  The man appeared to make up his mind. Expecting a firm-bottomed ford where the water would reach his horse’s hocks at most, he spurred his mount on and raced for the stream. The horse tried to swerve, to slow down, to turn away from the danger it could see, but the man drove it on relentlessly, using spurred heels, whip and fists. The horse crashed into the deep water, gave a scream of fear and was swept over on its side and washed away downstream, taking the man with it.

  Rollo heard more shouts and cries of dismay from behind him. He risked a quick look and saw that one of the remaining pair was kneeling over the headless body – he appeared to be retching – while the other was setting off recklessly fast across the valley in pursuit of his drowning comrade. Rollo nudged Strega with his heels, and she took off.

  It was not until much later that Rollo gave any real thought as to who his attackers had been. He and Strega had gone as hard and as fast as they could for the coast, only making the briefest of stops. The mare seemed as eager to press on as he was, and she pushed herself to the limits.

  They rode down towards the great port at the mouth of the Tyne long after darkness had fallen. They were both exhausted, and Strega was soaked in sweat. Rollo knew it was no use trying to get into the town, for curfew would have sealed it long ago. He did not want to advertise his presence by banging on the town gates, alerting the watchman and demanding entry.

  There was a sort of temporary camp beside the road leading into the port, where others who had also arrived after curfew huddled against the wooden walls waiting for dawn. There were rough shelters to keep off the wet, and a surly-looking man was doing brisk business selling hay and straw. Rollo found a place out of the keen wind that was blowing in off the sea and, dismounting, swung his packs off his horse’s back and set about tending to her. She was still sweating, and he had to spend some time rubbing her down with handfuls of straw, speaking soothingly to her as he did so, before she would settle.

  When he was satisfied that he had done the best he could for her, he tethered her, sat down close beside her and wrapped himself in his cloak and blanket. He took some food out of his pack, washing it down with water. He was almost at the end of his supplies.

  Who were they? The question sprang at him as soon as he had swallowed his last mouthful. Were they opportunist thieves who habitually haunted that stretch of the track, waiting to pounce on solitary travellers and rob them? It was possible, even likely.

  But Rollo didn’t believe it. The men who had lain in wait for him had been out to kill him. He knew it as well as he knew his own name. The man he had beheaded had almost succeeded, and he would have done so had Rollo not been mounted on such an intelligent horse. He reached out a hand and touched Strega’s leg, and she gave a gentle whicker in reply, stretching down her head and putting her soft lips to his ear, blowing gently.

  Why would a quartet of men lie in wait for him and try to kill him? The answer was obvious. Rollo pictured the faces of the four men slowly and carefully, one by one, and it seemed to him that the features of at least one of them, if not two, were familiar. He had seen both men – or he was almost sure he had – at Hawksclaw’s stronghold.

  Weary, he lay down and turned on his side, trying to get comfortable on the cold, hard ground. Maybe he was wrong – it was quite possible, he thought with sudden bitterness, that the wild men of the border lands were inbred and all resembled one another. Nevertheless, there had been four of them waiting for him, and, although one was definitely dead and a second probably drowned, that left two. Two men, who clearly wanted him dead. Whether or not they were out to avenge Hawksclaw was not really relevant.

  In the morning, he told himself as he gave in to his fatigue and allowed himself to drop towards sleep, my horse and I will get away from here, as fast as we can.

  He was up and away as dawn broke. He did not venture within the town’s walls, for the fewer
people who might see him and remember his face, the better. He knew he must send word to the king as soon as possible regarding the mission in Carlisle, but he still felt threatened by his pursuers. He knew a good man – very discreet, very efficient – who could normally be found in a small port at the mouth of the Tees river. He would seek him out and entrust the message to him.

  He followed the track around the settlement, then at last, with infinite relief, he hit the coast and turned south.

  Something made him stop and turn around. Behind the town, inland where the ground rose up towards the moor and the desolate heathland, somebody was watching him. The figure was some way away, and alone. As he watched, it raised an arm and pointed straight at him.

  He knew who it was, and also that it was probably a woman. He had seen several of her kind in the border country. The locals called them witches and feared them deeply. They were nothing like the witches of Rollo’s birth country; they were pure evil. He had come across a trio of them in a little dell close to the Wall. They were all grey-haired, wrinkled, dressed in ragged remnants and wild-looking; one of them had a huge wart on her cheek. They were huddled, muttering, around an ancient black cauldron set on a hearth, from which issued a steam so foul-smelling that, even at a distance of some twenty paces, the fumes made him retch and brought tears to his eyes. He had hurried away. He knew they had seen him, but he did not fear pursuit, since he was mounted and they were not. Unless, of course, the rumours were true and they could fly.

  Those three had had no reason to wish him harm. They could not have known who he was, and he had done them no wrong. But that was before he had killed Hawksclaw and two of the brigand’s men sent to ambush him. Now he had blood on his hands. Was either Hawksclaw or one of the other dead men under the protection of some powerful crone with malice in her heart? Was she even now standing up there where the hills ended, sending down her furious curse to land on him like some evil black crow, dogging his footsteps until finally he ran out of strength and succumbed?