by Alys Clare
I thought at first that the softly undulating black outline looming ahead was an illusion; the result of my need, making me see things that weren’t there. But, although I blinked and rubbed my eyes so roughly that I briefly saw bright lights, the outline didn’t alter. And, with joy and a great sense of achievement, I realized I was staring at the fen edge.
But I had one last challenge, for abruptly the water level rose. Alarmingly: one moment I was splashing along only wet to my ankles, or at worst my shins, then all at once I was up to my waist, then, terrifyingly, my neck. I could hear the sound of running water. This close to the shore, I could make out the noise of every stream and rivulet as it poured the run-off from all the rain out into the fen.
I went under once.
I thought I was going to die, but some sense of self-preservation made me spread my arms and my legs, and my face broke the surface again. I’d seen dogs swim, and I flapped my hands and arms in imitation. And my foot struck the fen bed.
But it wasn’t the shore.
As I forced myself to climb up, I realized that I was on a small rise right out in the middle of the water. Somehow I’d found my way onto a little island; not much more than a hump of higher ground pushing up out of the dark water and perhaps thirty paces across.
As I stood there shaking with cold and shock, too frightened to feel much relief that I was still alive, I heard the sound I’d been dreading all along.
Splashing.
And I knew straight away it wasn’t some water creature abroad on a night excursion.
It was him.
Somehow he’d managed to follow me. He’d found and braved the causeway onto Mercure’s island, and he’d searched for me until he’d spotted me, making my escape across the water.
Why had he followed me? Why hadn’t he gone back across the causeway?
The water level had risen. Had he not been able to find the causeway again?
In a moment of clarity, I understood that if he hadn’t believed he could get off the island the same way he had gone onto it, if he didn’t know his way across the fens and believed that I did, he must have realized that his only hope was to follow me.
But then I saw the crossbow. He had it in his right hand and even as I stared at him, he raised it to his shoulder.
He hadn’t followed because I was his only means of reaching safety. He’d come after me to kill me.
EIGHTEEN
I had to get out of his sight.
The island was tiny, but right in the centre a stand of low, straggly willows had managed to survive, surrounded by a tangled patch of carr and a lot of brambles. It was scant cover but it was all there was. I ducked right down, bending double, and went into it, instantly feeling the small pain of bramble prickles catching in my skin and tearing at me. I forced a way right through the undergrowth, under the willows and out again on the further side. Then I raised my head and looked out.
He was standing on the shore, staring at the willow trees. Then, seeing nothing, he began a frantic turning this way and that, searching for me. It would only be a matter of time until he realized where I’d gone.
Crawling now, I went down to the water’s edge. I forced myself to put him out of my mind, for unless I found the safe way and immediately set off along it, he would spot me and kill me. Concentrating with all my force, I stared down at the water.
And there it was.
I thought at first that I must have made a mistake; that panic and terror were making my desperate eyes see something that wasn’t there. For I could see the fen edge, perhaps thirty or forty paces away over to the east, exactly where I would have said it would be. Yet the safe path led off from the north-west of the little island.
Incredulously, I traced its progress with my eyes. It continued in the same direction for a while, then twisted and turned its way in a series of tight little bends until, finally, it turned for the final time for the short stretch to firm ground.
I could see it so clearly now that I knew I had made no mistake.
Just as the second path off Mercure’s island had done, it appeared to set off in one direction, only to change its mind and take a different one …
But now wasn’t the moment to dwell on the peculiarities of that.
I wriggled on my stomach down to the water’s edge and, rising to a crouch, paddled out into the water and away from the shore.
He was still on the further side of the island and he hadn’t seen me. It was raining again and that worked in my favour, making it harder for him to see. Praying my silent, fervent prayer of thanks, I stared intently down at the safe way and, slowly, so dreadfully slowly, the far shore came nearer.
He spotted me when I was scrambling through the shallows, with only twenty or thirty paces to go. There was a great cry of ‘Stop!’
I froze. Then, slowly, I turned round.
He was standing on the little stretch of shore that I had just left, on the near side of the island. In a straight line, he was only some fifteen paces away. He held the crossbow up to his shoulder. I couldn’t be sure across the distance that separated us, but I thought there was a bolt pointed straight at me.
There was so much that I needed to know, so many questions I wanted to ask. I wanted to plead with him not to kill me. I wanted to demand how he’d managed to follow me.
But I screamed through the rain, ‘Why did you have to kill him?’
His voice came instantly back to me, his words seeming to bounce against my ears: ‘Because he murdered my father!’
My mind raced. His father?
I was in no doubt that Rollo had killed men, for he was a king’s agent, and that was surely like being a soldier. Killing the king’s enemies was his duty. But murder? And recent murder, for this dark young man to be so filled with grief, hate and the need for revenge.
I tried to work it out. It was so hard because this was Rollo we were speaking of, and Rollo was dead. I bit down hard on my grief and forced myself to think.
Perhaps Rollo had been forced to defend himself against Duke Robert’s men as he fled the duke’s castle, and, like this man, his father too had been one of them. ‘And it happened in Normandy?’ I shouted.
‘In Normandy?’ He sounded surprised.
‘You’re Duke Robert’s man?’
‘What? No!’ He raised a hand to push his rain-soaked hair off his face. ‘He killed my father! I told you, I just told you! I came here to find him, and they told me he had just died. He was murdered!’ The word, emerging as a scream, seemed to bounce off the water in a series of echoes. ‘There was a fight, and his enemy pulled a knife, and he – he died.’
Then I thought I knew the truth and, although I didn’t understand, it was enough to send a deep shiver of abhorrence through me.
‘And you – how did you get on our trail?’
‘Ha! That was easy. People see, they hear, they are willing to tell you what they know if you pay them.’ He was nearer now, for he had waded out into the water. The rain had eased, and there was no wind. He didn’t seem to be speaking in much above an ordinary voice, but I heard him clearly. ‘They told me, you see. They said that the man who murdered my father was the close friend of the healer girl. You’re the healer girl. I know you are, I made sure of it, for I asked several people and they all confirmed that you were.’
The healer girl. Yes, a lot of people called me that.
‘And then I saw you, I actually saw you!’ he cried. ‘I went to the house where you live on that very day, the day my father died, and I concealed myself at a safe distance. I saw you in his killer’s arms with my own eyes, and I knew without a doubt. My prayers were answered, God was good and, although I was not actually shown the face of the man who had murdered my father because his back was turned to me, I saw enough of him to recognize him again.’
Amid my terror I felt a stab of pity for him.
‘You’re wrong,’ I whispered. But the words were not for him. Aloud, calling across the water, I said, ‘Your fat
her was killed in a fight, but it was him who struck first. He had broken the law, and—’
But he didn’t want to hear it. With a huge cry of ‘NO!’, he lunged straight towards me.
The strange inner eye that had allowed me to make out the safe way was still open. And I could see that the dark young man was heading straight into deep water, where the only narrow ribbons of firm ground beneath the feet were nothing but an illusion, for they were quicksand.
‘Not that way!’ I screamed.
He was still coming towards me. He was a third of the way across now, the water sometimes up to his waist, his bow held high above his head, his free hand scooping at the water in front of him. Sometimes I thought he was swimming, his legs kicking and splashing as they broke the surface.
Then suddenly he went down.
His head went under, and he simply wasn’t there.
A moment later, he reappeared. He must have lowered his feet and found firm ground to stand on.
Or, at least, he thought he had.
He was soaked through now, and he had a leather bag over one shoulder. The combined weight of his waterlogged clothes and the bag was pulling him down.
Even as I watched, he began to sink.
His eyes were on mine. I saw a moment of panic, but then a harder, darker, lethal expression took over.
‘Take off your clothes!’ I yelled. ‘Throw your bag and your weapons to me!’ I was poised on the very edge of the safe way straining towards him, water lapping round my legs, the sandy, muddy soil squidgy and trembling beneath me, my feet already making deep dents. ‘You can do it, it’s not too far! You must make yourself lighter, it’s your only hope!’ Still he stared at me. He still clutched his crossbow. If he freed both hands, might I be able to creep forward, slowly, slowly, testing the ground, and take them? I stared to move towards him. ‘Throw me your bow!’ I screamed.
But he clutched onto it as if it were a strong rope. He shook his head, a manic gleam in his black eyes. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘You won’t fool me that way, healer woman.’
He made a huge effort and threw himself forward.
I wasn’t sure if he’d been afloat before, or if he’d been half-swimming and half-hopping along, one foot on the bottom.
If he’d been swimming, the skill seemed to have deserted him. If he’d been hopping, then the ground must have suddenly fallen right away.
And I watched, helpless, unable to reach him, as his head went under again.
This time, he didn’t come up.
I went on.
I could see the safe way and now it seemed as if it shone faintly, and I had the strange notion that it was trying to help me by showing itself so clearly.
In the midst of horror, I clung to the thought.
The shore was close now. At first I went steadily, careful step by careful step. But then I thought, my desperate eyes on the shore, that it wasn’t getting any closer; or, anyway, not getting closer as quickly as I wanted. Then, panic flooding up, forgetting all about being steady and careful, I struck out towards that elusive black line, panting, sobbing, so desperate to be safe that I almost created my own undoing, for I missed my step and once more went right under. My strength had deserted me and for what seemed half my lifetime, I floundered beneath the water, desperate to breathe, cold water in my eyes, my ears, up my nose. But then I surfaced, spat out a mouthful of earthy, sandy water, and suddenly found myself on my hands and knees, crawling up onto the shore.
For what seemed a long time I just lay there, my eyes closed, breathing my thanks, trying to put from my mind those terrible moments when I was under the water.
Eventually I struggled to a sitting position and looked around me. I knew I ought to recognize the spot in which I found myself, for I knew the area so well, and I’d travelled along the fen edge in search of plants so many times. Quite often I’d walked along it on my way to and from Cambridge.
There wasn’t one single landmark that I recognized.
The water level is quite a lot higher, I told myself. Of course everything will look different. Don’t worry.
I rose unsteadily to my feet. I took off my cloak and gave it a good shake. A lot of water seemed to fly off. I was wet through, but somehow the cloak’s waterproofing qualities kept in my body heat. Without a doubt, I felt warmer when I was wrapped in it than when not.
I looked up into the sky. The clouds were building once more, but for now visibility wasn’t too bad. I could see the North Star and I knew – hoped I knew – which way to go. For some moments I stared up at it, and the presence of its guiding light was comforting.
Then I started walking.
I was trying to get home.
They say that wounded, frightened animals make instinctively for their holt, their burrow, their place of safety, and I was nothing more than an animal that night.
I wasn’t wounded – not bodily – but I was certainly frightened. And I was in deep shock, for I had just seen two men die right before my eyes. One had drowned. I hadn’t known him, and, given that he was trying to kill me, I should have felt more jubilant than I did that he was dead. Just then, I didn’t feel jubilant at all.
The other had bled to death, lying in my arms. And it was only now, with his death, that I knew I’d loved him.
I put my grief for Rollo aside for now. I would think about it later, once I was home.
I knew had to get to warmth, to safety, for I was wet to my skin and could no longer control my violent trembling. My heart felt funny, its beat sometimes speeding up to such a rate that I could scarcely breathe, and sometimes slowing right down.
But I didn’t know where I was.
It was no good running up and down the fen edge in rising distress, trying to find a landmark that I knew and by which I could direct my steps to my village. So I stopped, waited until my breathing had steadied, and thought about it with as much common sense as I could muster.
I thought about the location of Mercure’s island, which is to the north, or perhaps the north-east, of a long peninsula of land that snakes out from the higher ground surrounding the fens. I’d gone roughly north from there, for quite a long way, and, although the safe way had jigged about in almost every direction, overall I’d stayed on a northwards course. Then I’d turned east.
But it was foolishly optimistic to expect the safe way to lead me straight to my village, and, once I understood that, I knew what had happened. I realized, with a sinking sense of dread, that I’d made it to shore some unknowable distance north of where I’d been aiming for.
I struggled on for a time. My strength was almost spent. I carry my satchel with me all the time and I’d have said I was used to its weight, but now it was dragging at me, weighing on my shoulder, so that I was uncomfortably aware of it all the time.
With an exclamation of disgust at my dull wits, I realized what it was trying to tell me. I stopped, sat down on the soggy ground, crossed my legs and made an apron of my skirts, and drew the shining stone out of my satchel. The feel of it in my hands was a comfort. I made my mind go still and stared into it.
Its customary deep, dense black – I think of it as its resting colour – cleared very quickly. I saw the moon in its glossy shine, and it was as if that bright reflection cleared the dark shadows away. I saw a shimmering patch of green, a glittering ribbon of luminous gold, and then I was right down in the stone’s depths.
I saw someone I recognized.
With a start of amazement, I raised my head and looked wildly around.
And I knew where I was.
I was at the end of the inlet where once someone I loved had moored a small boat, out of the way of the curious, for his mission was private.
With the higher water, it looked so different now that, without the stone’s prompting, I wouldn’t have known it.
And suddenly I heard my father’s voice:
I’m to meet up with a new acquaintance soon …
He’s a huge, white-haired old man they call the Silv
er Dragon, an Icelander, or so I’m told, and he used to frequent these parts when he was a young man … knew your grandmother Cordeilla, and wants to look up her kin.
I forced my aching legs and my burning lungs to make one last effort. If he wasn’t there, I thought I would probably die.
The little waterway of my memory was full and flooded now. I kept to the bank on its right side, and at times I had to climb higher to get round some swollen stream splashing down to join it. I went on for perhaps forty or fifty paces. I didn’t let myself even admit the possibility that I was mistaken, for the shining stone had led me here and the shining stone was my ally.
The inlet curved round in a gentle bend. And, ahead, I saw a small wooden boat tied up to the bank. Skins and lengths of oiled cloth had been rigged up over it, so that, inside, it would be like living in a low-roofed tent.
I broke into a run, my feet slipping and sliding in the mud. I called out, again and again.
Some sudden movement inside the craft set it rocking. Then soft light shone out as a gap was opened between two sections of the covering. A big, broad, very tall figure seemed to fly up the bank and I ran forward.
And my grandfather took me in his arms.
I think I must have been in a far worse state than I’d realized, for I have little memory of those first moments in Thorfinn’s boat. I remember his distress, his shock as gently he touched my ice-cold hands and face, my soaked garments, my feet that I could no longer feel. I remember being told to strip off right down to my skin and the odd combination of his dictatorial voice and his compassion, for he understood my modesty and turned his back. I remember the rough way he rubbed me all over with a huge length of coarse fabric. I remember the agony as my numb extremities came back to life.
When I was as dry as he could make me, he wrapped me in layers: soft, fine woollen cloth next to my skin, several blankets, then, on the top, a luxurious fur. He took my clothes and disappeared out through the gap in the awning, and I heard him set about lighting a fire. He must have kept his wood dry, I reflected. Was he going to burn my clothes? Oh, but there was Jack’s cloak, he mustn’t burn that—
