Music of the Distant Stars

by Alys Clare

What am I to do? he wondered. She is soon to be my wife and, although I try, I cannot truly make myself like her, never mind love her.

  He sat twirling the stem of his wine goblet, listening to Lord Gilbert and Lady Emma’s voices beside him, quietly discussing some small domestic matter. Did they love each other? He believed they did. He wondered if love had been there from the start; like him and Claude, their marriage had been arranged to suit their families and not themselves. Would love grow similarly between himself and Claude? He hoped so, but in his heart he had his doubts. The trouble is, he reflected, I know what love can be.

  His grief threatened to overcome him. Desperate, he raised the goblet and drank down the contents, swiftly, eagerly. Lord Gilbert, attentive host that he was, noticed and made a discreet sign to a servant, who came forward and refilled Alain’s goblet. Alain drank again. The wine was good. If he could have no real hope of happiness, then he would lose himself in drunken oblivion.

  Lord Gilbert’s wine, however, had failed to bring about the desired result. Now, late in the night, Alain was out of bed and pacing the deserted hall. He had a great deal to think about. He had done wrong, terribly wrong, and his sins played on his mind and would not let him rest.

  The hall seemed to confine him. It resembled his own, although it was considerably larger and much grander. We shall live in a house like this one day, Claude and I, he mused silently. Perhaps the grand manor of her family; perhaps a place that I shall win through my own efforts. As man and wife, it shall be our home until death separates us. The thought threatened to choke him, suffocate him; he had to have air. The hall had been secured for the night, but the bolts and the heavy wooden bar that slotted between iron brackets on the doors were kept in prime condition, and he drew them back without making a sound. He opened one of the doors just enough to slip through the gap and sped down the steps and across the courtyard. The gate, too, had been secured; with barely a pause, he climbed over it.

  He knew where he was heading. Instead of going down the track from Lakehall and turning right along the road into the village, he struck out across the open ground. Lakehall was built on the better-drained land to the south and east of the village; on the far side of the road, his feet would soon have blundered into wet, boggy ground, but up here he could remain dry-shod. Lord Gilbert worked these acres – or, rather, his peasants did – with some success.

  He saw the outline of the church rise up ahead of him, a darker shape on this dark night. He clambered over the fence into the churchyard, skirting other graves until he came to the one he sought. Then he sat down beside it. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. There were tears on his face. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He sat there for a long time.

  The sound, when it finally penetrated his consciousness, seemed like something that belonged to the night. It began so quietly, so subtly, that it was almost as if a soft little breeze had sprung up to bend the tall reeds and grasses and make them flute a gentle melody. Whatever it was, it was a sad sound; achingly sad. Alain’s sore heart gave a throb of pain, and he bowed his head, accepting it as his punishment.

  The sound grew louder and, disturbed now, Alain raised his eyes to look around. He realized something: there was no wind. The night was absolutely still.

  Where, then, did those uncanny sounds originate?

  He rose to his feet, remaining in a crouch as he stared into the darkness. His heart was thumping hard as he sensed danger. He was poised for flight, yet his feet remained fixed to the spot. The sounds went on, then suddenly stopped.

  He sensed movement, quite close. He spun round, eyes wide: nothing.

  Then the sounds started again, far louder now, as if whatever unnatural force was making them had sneaked right up close. Then abruptly they altered, and now Alain knew that they came from a human throat, for he heard words . . .

  ‘Where are you?’ he cried, panic in his voice. ‘Show yourself!’

  Again, nothing.

  Then he remembered who he was, and a small amount of courage came back. ‘I am Alain de Villequier,’ he said, trying to stop the tremble that was audible in the words. ‘I am the justiciar! I say again, show yourself!’

  Then, horribly, there came a cruel laugh. A harsh voice – a man’s? A woman’s? – said, ‘I know who you are.’

  The sounds began again, right behind him. But he heard them only for an instant. Then there came a high-pitched whistle, something hit him very hard on the back of the head and all went black.

  I was awake early, for Edild had told me before we went to bed that I would have to check on Derman’s body that morning. Her work is always faultless, but she has her reputation to think of; if any smell had sneaked up out of the crypt and into the church, word would soon have spread that the healer did not know her own business. I loaded my satchel with fresh supplies of sweet-smelling herbs – bay-laurel leaves, mint, sprigs of rosemary – and Edild gave me several of the special incense cones she makes, the ingredients of which remain a secret that she promises one day to reveal to me.

  I slipped into the church, relieved to see that there was nobody there. Closing the door behind me, I walked up to the altar, my eyes on the wooden cross. My senses alert, my skin tingling, I sensed the presence that is always there. I let my mind reach out, opening myself at the same time so that I was receptive. On occasions, I have felt such a jolt of power in the church that I have staggered, but today there was nothing. The presence was still there; of that I had no doubt. But it was quiet, its attention far removed from me.

  I bowed low, muttered a few words and backed away.

  I walked over to the low door that opens on to the steps down to the crypt. So far I had detected no aroma that should not be there. The little church usually smells of damp, with the lingering memory of incense and of stale sweat. I pushed the door open a crack and sniffed. Now I could smell Edild’s incense. She must have left some burning yesterday, and the smoky perfume had been trapped behind the door. Encouraged, I hurried down the steps and emerged into the low-ceilinged crypt.

  I know about the strength of a vaulted roof, for Hrype has explained to me that the arch is a wonderful concept and can bear vast weight. Nevertheless, I am always uneasy in the crypt, especially on my own. I crossed to where the wrapped body lay, on boards stretched across two trestles. The head was bound in many layers of cloth. Presumably, Edild had wished to cover up that terrible wound so that no blood showed on the outside. The legs were less thoroughly wrapped, and I saw faint blotches where blood from the cuts on the shins had leached into the material. Cuts . . . I thought about that. If you fell against the edge of a plank, would it cut you? It might bruise you and give you a deep graze, but surely you needed something sharper to give cuts such as those on Derman’s shins?

  I pictured the causeway. And I realized that the death couldn’t have happened the way we had thought, for the layout of the place meant that it was all but impossible. For Derman to crack his shins against the causeway, he would have had to be running through the shallow water towards it, not along it, and he would surely have fallen on to the planks that had just tripped him up, not off them into the water . . .

  I was going to have to revisit the scene of his death.

  Swiftly, I walked round the body, sniffing as I went. The stench of death was there, of course it was, but so far the cool air in the crypt and my aunt’s care were keeping it at bay. I arranged my fragrant herbs around the corpse, lit three more incense cones and then went back up the steps.

  The priest had arrived, and he turned to stare at me as I emerged from the crypt. He is wary of Edild and, by association, of me too, for like many men, especially men of the church, he does not approve of a woman who lives by her own wits, independent of any man. However, like most of the village, he has had occasion to ask for her help, and she always responds with her usual generosity and competence. He is, I suppose you could say, carefully neutral regarding my aunt and me.

  ‘Good morning, Father Augustine,’ I
said, making a respectful bow. Edild always says that it is best to treat potential enemies with courtesy, thus giving them no excuse for releasing whatever malice they may have towards you.

  He returned the greeting. ‘You have been tending the body?’ He jerked his head towards the crypt door.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does it – er, is it all right?’

  The morning was already warm, with the promise of a hot day. I knew what he meant. ‘So far, yes. If I might suggest, you should not delay in putting him in the ground.’

  ‘No, indeed.’ He frowned. ‘I have told his sister that he will be buried this morning.’ Looking up, briefly he met my eyes, and I was surprised to read emotion in his. ‘There will be few other mourners, I fear,’ he said.

  ‘People are afraid of what they do not understand,’ I said softly. ‘Derman was not like the rest of us.’

  ‘No,’ Father Augustine said. Then, abruptly: ‘There was much talk concerning the dead young woman. They would have it that Derman had some hopeless love for her and killed her when she turned him down. I do not believe it is true,’ he said fervently.

  ‘No, neither do I.’

  He seemed surprised; perhaps I was the only villager to freely admit seeing it the way he did. ‘I would not bury a murderer in sacred ground,’ he said.

  ‘Of course not.’ I was suddenly filled with relief for Father Augustine’s conviction of Derman’s innocence. I was quite sure Zarina would have been devastated if Derman had been refused a proper burial. Perhaps the priest might even have been reluctant to marry her to my brother had he believed she was sister to a murderer.

  Zarina. Not, perhaps, sister to a murderer. But what of she herself?

  As if he, too, were thinking of Zarina, Father Augustine said, ‘Derman’s sister is now free to marry your brother Haward and, indeed, Haward has already spoken to me of his hopes.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It would make Haward very happy.’

  My words were automatic, the natural, polite response to what the priest had said. My thoughts, however, were far away.

  I was on my way across the churchyard when I glanced across at Ida’s grave.

  There was something wrong with it; the humped earth that covered her was higher than it ought to have been. My satchel banging against my side, I raced across to look more closely.

  He lay face down. The back of the skull had borne the same savage attack as poor Derman’s. There was blood; a lot of blood. On the left, where the head curved out above the neck, there was a huge swelling about the size of my clenched fist. Crouching beside him, I put my fingers to it, feeling for the same devastating crushing of the bones that I had witnessed in Derman.

  The swelling made it impossible to tell. I reached in my satchel for a piece of clean cloth and wiped away the blood, my eyes straining for fragments of bone. Instantly, the blood welled up again, lots of it, and impatiently I mopped it up, still searching for what I was almost sure I would find.

  Then I gave myself a mental kicking for being so stupid; I could only think that the shock had affected me. The blood was flowing; he was still alive.

  I took another pad of cloth and, swiftly finding the source of the bleeding, pressed it to the wound. I began to tuck his cloak around him – he felt terribly cold – but then I thought that I’d only be keeping the cold in, so I dragged it off him and lay down beside him, pressing my warm body against his cold one and pulling the cloak over us both. I dared not leave him. All my training told me that his life hung by a thread.

  I opened my mouth, drew in the deepest breath I could manage and yelled at the top of my voice for Father Augustine.

  EIGHTEEN

  We thought he would surely die.

  I have rarely seen my aunt fight so hard to save a life. I did not believe him to be a murderer and nor, I think, did my aunt. At the very least, she seemed to be giving him the benefit of the doubt. It was, of course, still possible, still plausible, that he had quietly dispatched Ida so that she did not reveal their secret and prevent his marriage to Lady Claude; that he had been forced to seek out and kill Derman because Derman knew what he had done.

  But if that was how it had happened, who had attacked Sir Alain and left him for dead?

  To begin with, Edild required two pairs of hands, and I had no choice but to swallow down my squeamishness and do as I was commanded. The swelling on the left side of our patient’s skull had grown alarmingly large now, as fluid of some sort leaked out of his head. Edild applied successive cold compresses, under which she laid a layer of fresh, crushed comfrey leaves and the flowering stems of water pepper, but it was clear she was losing the battle. The bleeding that had so worried me seemed to have lessened, but I could tell from Edild’s grave manner that this was not necessarily a sign that Sir Alain was going to live.

  I plucked up my courage and, hoping I was not interrupting some intricate thought process, said, ‘What are you trying to do?’

  She wasn’t angry with me; far from it. She turned, gave me a quick smile and said, ‘I am sorry, Lassair. I have been so preoccupied that I had forgotten, for the moment, that a part of my duty is to teach you.’

  ‘It’s all right, I—’

  She ignored the interruption. ‘I have often spoken with Hrype concerning wounds such as this one. It is our conclusion that when someone is hit very hard on the head, there is swelling on the outside of the skull cage, which with luck can be alleviated, but there is also similar swelling inside the head bones.’ She shook her head in frustration. ‘If only we could look and see what causes it! But, of course, that is impossible with a living man . . .’ Her words trailed off. She knelt in silence beside her patient, looking at him with an anxious frown. Then, once again turning to me, she said, ‘There is a procedure called trepanation. Hrype has told me of it; he has seen it done.’

  Uneasiness crept up on me. I had never heard the word before and had no idea what it meant, but there was something in her voice that told me she, too, was disturbed. ‘What is it?’ The words were barely a whisper, for my mouth was suddenly too dry to speak.

  She took a breath, straightened her back and said, ‘It involves making a hole in the skull to allow whatever is causing the swelling inside the head to escape. According to Hrype, relieving the built-up pressure frequently restores a patient to consciousness and quite often they live.’

  Frequently. Quite often. It sounded as if this operation was by no means a certain cure.

  I said, horrified as the realization swept over me, ‘You’re not thinking of doing this to him?’ I indicated our comatose patient.

  Edild, too, looked at him. ‘If there is no other way, I may have to,’ she said gravely. ‘We are healers, Lassair. We have given our solemn oath to save life.’

  ‘What – how would you do it?’ I asked. I didn’t want to know – the dreaded queasiness was building up, and I was seeing black spots on the periphery of my vision. There was a thundering, drumming sound in my head. But I, too, was a healer; my aunt was an excellent teacher, and it was my duty to learn from her all that I could.

  ‘Trepanation involves the removal of a piece of the skull,’ she said, her voice eager, as if it was a relief to speak with authority after facing up to her inability to help her patient. ‘You remove the flesh that covers it, then you scrape, saw or bore through the bone and cut away the firm white skin that covers the brains.’

  I concentrated on thinking about the healed patient following this dreadful operation. I told myself that the discovery of how to do it was a gift from the spirits to mankind, a gift that allowed lives to be saved.

  Some lives . . .

  ‘Hrype has seen this done?’ I asked.

  ‘So he says.’

  ‘Did the man live?’

  ‘The patient was a woman, and yes, she did.’ Her eyes looked suddenly unfocused, as if her thoughts had gone far away. ‘She kept the piece of her own skull as an amulet, and now Hrype has it in memory of her,’ she said softly.
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br />   I thought about that. I wondered who the woman had been, but I knew I could not ask. Hrype’s secrets were sacrosanct and, even if he had confided in Edild, she would not tell me. ‘Should I go and fetch him?’

  It was her turn to consider. She removed the compress on Sir Alain’s head and put her hand on the swelling. ‘I think—’ she began. But then her frown lifted and her expression changed. She shot me a swift glance of triumph and said, ‘No need. The swelling is going down.’ She grabbed my hand and laid it very gently on the lump on Sir Alain’s head. ‘Feel,’ she commanded.

  I let my hand rest softly over the area and then, to confirm my initial impression, felt around the lump with my fingertips. Edild was right. I looked up and met her eyes. I felt like cheering, and not only because I had just avoided witnessing – perhaps helping with – an operation that would have seemed more like torture than healing.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

  She shrugged. ‘I cannot say. Possibly the cold of the compresses and the power of the healing herbs has done the trick.’ She glanced around and then, lowering her voice, whispered, ‘We should thank them.’

  I spun round to look where she had looked. I thought I saw movement, and for the blink of an eye I could see a silver wolf and, right up close behind me, a red fox.

  I should have known they were there. They are our spirit guides; my Fox is often with me, and I have almost – but not quite – learned to accept his presence. It was, however, a rare privilege to be allowed to catch a glimpse of Edild’s silver wolf. I have only seen him twice before, and the first time I thought he was a fox. When I told my aunt I had seen him she told me I had been imagining things. I was young then, and I almost believed her. I know better now.

  I whispered to Fox, telling him how much I appreciated his presence, especially when I hadn’t been conscious of asking him to come, and for a moment he stood beside me, mouth stretched in what looked very like a grin. Then he faded away.

  It was as if the presence of the spirit animals had brought a special, precious mood inside the little room. While they were there, everything had a shine to it; scents were intensified, colours were brighter. With their departure, life returned to normal and, just for a moment, I saw how uninspiring normal actually was.