by Alys Clare
Then I noticed his hands. They were quite large, the fingers long and strong-looking.
I had an idea that I knew who he was. Why not ask him? If I was right, then perhaps he would take comfort in speaking to the person who had found Ida’s body. I could tell him I’d found her in a sacred spot – well, it was sacred to my family, although possibly an outsider would prefer to have her lie where she now lay buried – and say that death would have been swift.
My instinct to give comfort overcame my diffidence. I moved forward and lightly touched him on the shoulder.
He spun round, his eyes wide with surprise and fear. Instantly, I said, ‘It’s all right! I mean you no harm – you’re Alberic, aren’t you?’
His face had been pale already, but now it went ashen. He tried to speak – then, when no words emerged, he wet his thin lips and said in a horrified whisper, ‘How did you know?’
I knelt down beside him. ‘We went to Brandon,’ I said, careful to keep my tone even and soothing. ‘My friend Sibert and I, that is. We knew that’s where Ida came from, and we wanted to find out more about her.’
His eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Why?’
‘Because she died here, and we did not wish her to be buried like a stranger,’ I improvised. I certainly wasn’t about to say, Because she was pregnant and we wanted to find out whose child she carried; not when the likely father was right beside me. He might not know she’d been pregnant, and if I told him it would double his grief.
He had returned his gaze to the hump of earth over the grave. He stretched out his hand and stroked it as if he were trying to touch the dead girl beneath. ‘She was so lovely,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘I’ve loved her since she was a lass. I wanted to marry her, you know,’ he added conversationally. ‘But I couldn’t, for I was already wed. I kept my love to myself, for Ida meant far too much to me for me to dishonour her by forcing my attentions on her when I was bound to another.’ I studied him. I had just caught him telling a lie, yet there was no sign of that in his demeanour. I am usually quite good at detecting when people are lying. Squeak, for example, looks me straight in the eyes and widens his own alarmingly, and my sister Goda always sounds even gruffer than usual. I’ve noticed other symptoms too, such as hesitation and overemphasis of whatever falsehood people would have you believe.
This man, this Alberic, had simply stated the fact, and my initial reaction was that maybe it wasn’t a lie after all . . .
‘She worked for the Lady Claude,’ I said. ‘Lady Claude is sewing for her wedding.’
‘Ida sewed beautifully,’ he responded eagerly. ‘That Lady Claude was lucky to have her.’
I was inclined to agree. ‘Everyone seems to have liked her,’ I went on. ‘They speak well of her up at the hall where she and Lady Claude were lodging.’
He nodded. ‘She made friends wherever she went. She had that gift – people seemed to smile more when she was around. And she was so good – her mother died when Ida was young, and she cared for her old father with such love and devotion that the priest said she was an example to all of us of how a daughter ought to be.’
I risked a smile. ‘And people still liked her?’ It is my experience that it’s actually quite hard to be fond of a person who is held up as an example, especially when the one doing the holding up is a priest.
Alberic understood what I meant. Smiling too, he said, ‘That they did.’ He shrugged, still smiling. ‘There was just something about her.’
‘You weren’t here by the grave when she was buried, were you?’ It was a guess, for he could have been standing at the back with his head down and his hood up and I wouldn’t have known.
He shot me a quick look. ‘I keep to the shadows.’ It was an enigmatic remark, but he did not explain. ‘I shouldn’t be out here now,’ he added in a whisper, ‘only I wanted to see the place where she lies. See it properly.’
Again, I didn’t understand. ‘There were a lot of people here,’ I offered. ‘Most of the village turned up, or so it seemed, and there were plenty of outsiders as well.’ No need to tell him they’d undoubtedly come out of morbid curiosity because Ida was the victim of violent death. ‘Lady Claude came, and Sir Alain de Villequier, who she’s going to marry. And Lord Gilbert and Lady Emma, from Lakehall.’ I pointed. ‘They stood just there.’
He nodded, taking it all in. ‘She’ll be in heaven, won’t she?’
I hesitated. We are told that few people go straight to heaven, the majority having to spend several ages in purgatory while their sins are cleansed so that they are fit to go before God. I am not at all sure I believe it. In any case, it was scarcely what this grieving man wanted to hear. ‘She was good,’ I said gently. ‘I don’t think she had any mortal sins staining her soul.’
Strictly speaking, Ida had been guilty of fornication, for she was pregnant and not married. I studied Alberic closely. If it had been he who’d fathered her child then he’d know all about the fornication and he would surely not have been sufficiently naive to suggest she’d already be in heaven.
I reckoned I had nothing to lose by a direct question. I said, ‘Alberic, were you her lover?’
His head shot up, and he fixed me with such a piercing stare that I flinched. I saw several emotions flash across his face, fury and raw grief the main ones. He seemed about to speak – I could imagine the torrent of heated words that would probably have emerged – but then he shook his head and turned away. After a moment he turned back to face me and said calmly, ‘No, I was not. As I told you, I loved and respected Ida far too much to dishonour her by initiating intimacy when I could not be united with her in the eyes of God and his church. In addition –’ for the first time there was the hint of a smile, albeit a rather grim one – ‘you didn’t know my wife.’ In a flash of memory I recalled the man in Brandon, who’d told Sibert and me how this same wife had tried to burn Alberic’s harp just because she thought he’d looked at a pretty girl.
‘I assure you,’ Alberic went on, ‘if I’d as much as taken Ida’s hand, Thecla would have known. She knew I was sweet on my lovely girl – I couldn’t help that. A man can’t always be watching his expression, and I only had to look at Ida and I’d feel myself smile. Thecla informed me in no uncertain terms that if ever I did more than look, she’d – well, I’m not going to tell you.’ I noticed that he was stroking his fingers along a deep scar that ran across the back of his right wrist. It looked as if someone had tried to cut his hand off.
And he was a harpist.
Horrified, I said, ‘She threatened she’d cut your hands off. Didn’t she? And at least once she did more than threaten.’
Slowly, he nodded. ‘I’d just got back from the fair. There had been music, and I’d been playing and singing. Ida joined in a duet with me on one of the old songs. Although I say it myself, we sounded good together. Thecla must have seen how I looked at her. When I came indoors, she was waiting with the axe. She swung it at me before I knew what was happening.’ He glanced down at his scarred hand. ‘Couldn’t play for two months,’ he added, his tone devoid of emotion.
I was so full of pity for him that I dared not speak. I watched him. He was stroking the earth again, his large hand tender in its touch. ‘My little Ida,’ he murmured. ‘She used to sing like a nightingale.’ Then he crossed his arms on the grave, bowed his head and began to weep.
Tears filling my own eyes, I crept away.
ELEVEN
I said to my aunt as we ate our midday meal, ‘I do not believe Alberic fathered Ida’s baby,’ and I told her about Thecla and the axe.
Edild nodded, chewing thoughtfully. I had been all ready to back up my belief, but I wasn’t required to. Feeling a little warm glow inside that she should trust my judgement in something so important, I waited to see what she would say.
‘Could it have been Derman?’ she mused.
‘Shall I go and ask Zarina?’ I was crouched ready to spring up immediately if Edild said yes, but, with a soft laugh, she pushed me dow
n again.
‘Oh, Lassair, don’t be so impatient!’ She smiled affectionately at me. ‘It’s not really your fault,’ she added, ‘too much of quicksilver Mercury in your stars. What would you do? Rush round to Zarina’s house and blurt out, Hello, Zarina, I’ve come to ask if your brother is capable of sexual intercourse and if he might have made Ida pregnant?’
Since I’d thought no further than that, I hung my head in embarrassment. Edild took pity on me and, reaching for my hand, she took it in hers and said, ‘It is something that we do need to find out, although we must be very tactful, as I am sure you very well know.’
She had given me time to think, and now I said, ‘The difficulty is that nobody except us seems to have known that Ida was pregnant, so we’ll have to raise the matter with Zarina without making her suspicious.’ An idea was taking shape in my mind; Edild waited patiently. Then, thinking as I spoke, I said, ‘I could say that I realized Derman had taken a fancy to Ida. Then I could say that maybe he’d imagined marrying her, and that grief because she’s dead, and his dream will never come true, is the reason he’s run away.’ I met my aunt’s eyes. ‘Do you think that might do? It would be sort of like asking if Derman could be a proper husband, if he can—’ I stopped, embarrassed all over again.
‘Lassair, you are a healer, and you must accustom yourself to speaking of sexual intimacy between man and woman without this silly awkwardness,’ she said briskly. ‘However, I think your suggestion is sound.’
I leapt up. ‘I’ll go straight away!’
‘Be careful,’ she warned. ‘Zarina is in turmoil.’
Turmoil. Poor Zarina.
I found her down at the little pool where she and her washerwoman widow spend much of their day. She was alone. Looking up, she saw me approaching and smiled, her eyes bright. Then, apparently reading my expression, her face fell and she said, ‘No news.’
She’d thought I’d come to tell her they’d found Derman. I sank down beside her and took her hand. ‘No. I’m sorry, that’s not why I’m here.’
She had slumped against me but now, with a detectable effort, she straightened her back. ‘Why, then?’
I sensed her slight hostility. ‘Not to harangue you again about marrying Haward,’ I said, and was rewarded with a fleeting grin. ‘It is about Derman. I just wondered, Zarina –’ I paused, choosing my words – ‘d’you think he hoped to make Ida his wife, and that his grief because he never had the chance to do so is why he’s run away?’
She looked up into the clear sky for a moment, her face working as she strove for control. Then she said, ‘It is a moving thought, Lassair, and it is indeed true that he loved her very dearly. But –’ now it was her turn to search for the right words – ‘he is not as other men, as indeed you are aware, and he does not begin to comprehend the true nature of how a man and wife live in physical intimacy together. He—’ She paused, frowning. Then she said, ‘Think of him as if he were still a child, who observes a cat with her kittens or a hound with her pups and is filled with joy at the pretty young creatures, yet has no more idea of how they came to be there than if they’d appeared by magic.’
‘So he—’
‘He adored her from afar, Lassair,’ Zarina said gently. ‘He saw a lovely smile, long, shining hair, dimpled cheeks. He probably sensed a kindly heart and ready laughter. That was what he loved. I can assure you, the idea of touching her, of any sort of physical closeness between them, is just not possible.’
I studied her. Was she right, or was she telling me what she fervently hoped was the truth? Derman might still have been overcome with longing – he had the body of a man, that was clear to see – and he could have attacked Ida, raped her, impregnated her. Oh, but she’d conceived back in February or March, weeks before she’d come to Aelf Fen. It was, I supposed, possible that Derman had come across her when she had lived in Brandon – he did sometimes go off wandering, although it was a long walk to Brandon – but if he’d assaulted her then, surely she’d have accused him at the time? For sure, once she’d arrived at Lakehall and seen him, she’d have cried out against him and fled from his presence. She certainly wouldn’t have been kind to him.
It was still possible, if unlikely, that Derman had killed Ida, perhaps because she had stopped being kind. But it appeared that neither Derman nor Alberic had fathered her baby.
Then who had?
I sat with Zarina a little longer, then old Berta came hobbling down the path from her cottage, and I could hear the vulgar abuse she was hurling at Zarina when she was still fifty paces away.
‘Go!’ hissed Zarina.
‘I’ll explain to her!’ I cried, leaping up, filled with guilt because I’d got Zarina into trouble.
‘No you won’t, you’ll only make it worse,’ Zarina flashed back. Still I didn’t move. This was the woman I fervently hoped would be my sister-in-law, and I felt I ought to defend her. ‘I know how to deal with Berta,’ Zarina said firmly. She, too, had risen to her feet, and I noticed how much taller she was than the crude, fat old woman for whom she worked. ‘Go on!’ she repeated, and this time she was smiling.
I went.
Edild and I worked hard all afternoon. Midsummer is a busy time for us. Although the warm, dry weather means less serious sickness – for we believe that the all-penetrating damp of the fens is the cause of many of the illnesses that crop up again and again – nevertheless, late June is the time when many plants are at their best, and we dare not waste the opportunity to harvest what we will need for the remainder of the year. The struggle to remember the hundreds of facts with which my aunt daily bombards me often wakes me in the night, when I lie there in the dark telling myself silently hemp nettle for open wounds, use the flowering stems, and woodruff flowers for ulcers, rashes and heart palpitations. I was heavy with fatigue by the time we stopped work, more than ready to eat, drink and, above all, rest. However, when the long day finally ended, we had a visitor: Hrype.
I had the usual dilemma over whether I ought to leave the two of them on their own but, reading my thoughts as easily as if I’d spoken them aloud, Hrype said kindly, ‘Stay, Lassair. The three of us must talk together.’ About what? I wondered, starting to feel anxious, but he read that too and added, ‘I saw Edild while you were with Zarina. We all are puzzled by the same question, and the time has come to share our thoughts with each other.’
Ida’s baby, I thought. I did as he bade and sat down beside the hearth, my aunt beside me and Hrype opposite to us. He said, ‘We do not know who killed Ida and, even if we are not convinced by those in the village who lay the crime at the feet of poor Derman, still it remains true that little progress can be made until either he is found or returns to Aelf Fen of his own accord. You found him close to the island, Lassair –’ he turned his strange eyes to me – ‘and it seems logical that his distress could well have been caused by having seen something pertaining to the girl’s death, even if we do not go so far as to say he had a hand in it.’ He paused. ‘However, Ida’s death is not the only tragedy: there is also the matter of the young life that was within her when she died. Ida may in some way have brought about her own death; we cannot say until we know more of the circumstances.’ I was about to protest – whatever could a girl of my age have done to deserve being strangled and stuffed in someone else’s grave? – but my aunt caught my eye and silently shook her head, so I stayed quiet.
‘The child, however,’ Hrype continued, ‘was innocent. No sin of its mother could be its fault. It was blameless. The same, though, cannot necessarily be said of the man who fathered it. There are many reasons why a man will not, or cannot, admit to paternity.’
There was a short silence. We were all thinking the same thing, I was quite sure, for Hrype himself had not told his own son of their true relationship until last year, and his reasons for keeping the secret from Sibert had been sound, even if Sibert found that hard to accept.
None of us referred to Hrype’s own history. None of us needed to.
‘I
t is this perplexing question, of who fathered Ida’s child,’ Hrype went on after a moment, ‘to which we must now address ourselves. You are convinced that neither Derman nor this man, Alberic, was the girl’s lover?’ He looked at Edild, then at me. Both of us nodded our heads. ‘Very well. Ida came to Lakehall about a month ago, in the employ of Lady Claude de Seés, and the reason for her visit was to allow her to spend some time getting to know her future husband, Sir Alain de Villequier, who, as our justiciar, was already resident in this area. As Lady Claude’s treasured seamstress, it was natural for her to accompany her mistress, who was to be working on her trousseau whilst under Lord Gilbert’s roof.’ He paused. ‘You judge, Edild, that the child was conceived at the end of February?’
Edild nodded. ‘Thereabouts, yes.’
‘Then her lover was someone she knew at home, either in the village where she lived or at Lady Claude’s family estate of Heathlands,’ Hrype said.
‘The man whom Sibert and I talked to in Brandon said she didn’t have any followers among the village lads,’ I put in. ‘He said she had a nice way of putting them off and that she treated them like brothers.’
‘I wonder why that was?’ Edild mused. ‘Was she, do you think, aware of Alberic’s devotion and quietly, unobtrusively, returning it?’
‘It would explain why no handsome village boy ever took her fancy,’ Hrype agreed.
But I shook my head. ‘Alberic would not agree,’ I said firmly. ‘According to him, he never let her know he loved her.’
‘Perhaps he did not need to,’ Edild said shrewdly. ‘Perhaps she loved him in total ignorance of his feelings for her and never dared let him know because of this gorgon of a wife you speak of, Lassair.’
