by Alys Clare
Out of all of them, I was most aware – most afraid – of Baudouin and his witness. I made myself turn slightly so that I could not see them. Then I steadied myself and said, ‘Sibert and Romain had a fight. That much is true, for Sibert and I had taken – er, Sibert and I had something that Romain badly wanted. Sibert and I left Drakelow – that’s on the coast south of Dunwich – ahead of Romain, but very soon he followed after us. He caught up with us in a clearing just south of the road that leads due west from the coast and he attacked Sibert. He had a knife and Sibert was unarmed and he’s not much of a fighter at the best of times – sorry, Sibert, but you’re not – and so I sort of sided with him – Sibert, I mean – because I thought Romain was going to kill him and I yelled, “Sibert, get your knee up,” and he did and he caught Romain between the legs and he went down and that’s how we left him, writhing in agony, but you see he was lying on his back!’ I finished triumphantly, talking a much needed breath.
There was a deadly hush. Then Lord Gilbert said, ‘So?’
‘Don’t you understand?’ How could he be so stupid! ‘Romain was lying on his back yet that man’ – it was my turn to point and I swung my arm round and aimed my forefinger at Baudouin’s witness – ‘that man claims he saw Sibert strike Romain on the back of his head! Well, he can’t have done, because the back of Romain’s head was on the ground, so if he says that’s what happened then he was too far away to see clearly and so how can he be so sure it was Sibert?’
Now I had their attention. Lord Gilbert was no longer looking at me as if I were something smelly on his shoe and the man on his right was whispering urgently in his ear, his eyes on me. Several of the other men were also murmuring amongst themselves.
Eventually Lord Gilbert held up a hand for silence. ‘You have made a valid point,’ he began, ‘and we—’
Then I was shoved out of the way – so violently that I fell – and Baudouin shouted furiously, ‘She cannot possibly know how Romain was positioned, whether he was standing, sitting, lying on his back or his front, because she wasn’t there! This is another of her fluent, convincing lies, my lord, gentlemen, and you must open your eyes and see it for what it is!’
Several of the men, Lord Gilbert included, clearly did not care for Baudouin’s tone, and indeed he had stopped only just short of insulting them. There was more muttering – a great deal more – then at last Lord Gilbert straightened up and addressed the hall.
‘We have here a simple case of two conflicting accounts and it is our duty to decide which describes the true version,’ he declared. ‘Either Baudouin de la Flèche’s man is telling the truth, and I must here remind you all that Baudouin himself vouches for the man, or else this girl’s account is the true one. What is your name?’ he demanded impatiently, leaning down towards me.
‘Lassair,’ I said.
‘Lassair,’ he repeated. ‘So, who are we to believe, the witness Sagar or the girl Lassair? We must now—’
Baudouin spoke up, his voice loud and confident. ‘Forgive me, my lord,’ he said, ‘but there is a method by which this can be decided once and for all.’ He shot a glance at me and I felt as if a lump of ice was being run down my back. I knew then that this was what I had foreseen in that awful moment when I had recognized him as my enemy. I did not know what he was about to say but I knew it was going to be terrible.
‘What is this method you refer to?’ Lord Gilbert asked. ‘Speak up, let’s hear it!’
I waited, trembling, my heart thumping so high up in my chest that it felt as if it was stopping me from breathing.
Baudouin smiled at me, a cold smile full of malice. Then, turning back to Lord Gilbert, he said smoothly, ‘We are faced, as you so eloquently say, my lord, with a choice: which of two people is telling the truth. We are all, I believe, inclined to believe Sagar here, who saw with his own eyes the murder of my poor nephew, a boy I have nurtured and cared for most of his young life and who was to inherit my manor of Drakelow. We have been told the frightful details – I will not repeat them – and Sagar presented himself as witness to this foul deed of his own free will. Against him we have this girl, this liar’ – he spat the word with sudden fierce venom – ‘who would have us believe her falsehoods.’
There was a pause, so full of drama that the air hummed. Then Baudouin cried, ‘Let her be tested, my lord! Let the truth of what she says be tried in the old, reliable way!’
Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Lord Gilbert cleared his throat and said, ‘By – er, by what means would you have us test her, Baudouin?’
‘Let her face trial by ordeal,’ he answered instantly. He shot me a fierce look. ‘If she persists against all reason in making us believe this tale of hers, put her to the test! Build a fire pit, my lord, and challenge her to walk barefoot across the red-hot coals.’ He laughed. He actually laughed. ‘Then we shall see who speaks the truth!’
I heard the words – fire pit . . . red-hot coals . . . barefoot – and at first they made no sense. I shook my head in perplexity.
Then the blessed incomprehension cleared and I knew what he was going to make me do.
The nausea rose up uncontrollably and I threw up my breakfast on the floor of Lord Gilbert’s hall.
EIGHTEEN
I fled. I was aware of shouting. Some of the men were outraged and I heard one of them cry out, ‘But she’s only a child!’ Another protested vehemently, ‘He has no right to ask this!’ As I raced down the length of the hall Lord Gilbert’s voice rose loud above the hubbub, declaring that I had until tomorrow to consider Baudouin’s challenge.
He started to say that if I refused, Sibert would be taken out and hanged from the gibbet at the crossroads but I could not bear to listen. Instinctively my hands flew up to cover my ears and I did not hear any more.
There was a small crowd outside the big doors that opened into the hall and suddenly Hrype’s face was right in front of me, so taut with tension that I barely recognized him. He too was talking, hurling urgent words at me, but I did not stay to hear them. I shook my head, elbowed the avidly curious villagers out of the way and raced down the steps, across the courtyard and out on to the track.
I didn’t know where I was going. I only knew that I had to get away and be quite alone. I had to think. I had to look deep into myself to see if I had the courage to attempt this frightful, ghastly thing that might just possibly save Sibert’s life.
I ran and ran until my heaving chest and the crippling stitch in my side caused me at last to stop. I bent over, hands on my knees, panting and gasping for breath. As I began to recover, I straightened up, looked around and saw that I was right out on the far side of the villagers’ strips of land, on the edge of a ridge of slightly higher ground where the soil is dryer. There was a band of willows and gratefully I sank down in their welcome shade on to the warm, friendly earth.
For some time I just lay there and after a while I sensed that the sheer solidity of the ground beneath me was giving me reassurance. I breathed deeply several times, then I faced the frightful challenge that Baudouin had laid down.
I blanked everything else out and called to mind everything I knew about trial by ordeal. Normally it was used to sort the innocent from the guilty, because if you were innocent then God came to your aid and protected you from lasting harm. He would make sure that the boiling water in the cauldron did not burn your hand and your arm as you reached down for the pebble on the bottom. He would guard your tender flesh as you carried the red-hot metal in your bare hands. When after three days they removed the bandages and inspected your wounds, if you were innocent then God would already have instigated the healing process and everyone would know you had been wrongly accused.
I had not been accused of any crime but I desperately needed to prove I was telling the truth – difficult, for a habitual liar – and Baudouin had cleverly turned my protestations against me, in effect saying, Prove it.
Oh, but what a terrible method he had chosen. Red-hot coals under my bare feet and—<
br />
No. Don’t think about that.
There was a story about Queen Emma, King Cnut’s wife and mother of the brutal Hartacnut. She had another son, Edward, by her marriage to Ethelred and when she became too powerful he plotted against her, accusing her of adultery with her bishop. People whispered behind their hands that to prove her innocence she was made to walk nine feet over red-hot ploughshares, but God must have known the accusations were false and malicious because Queen Emma skipped over the glowing metal, turned to her tormentors and demanded to know when the trial would begin.
It was a good tale. My granny Cordeilla sometimes tells it when she is particularly sad that the days under the Old Kings have gone for ever.
We do not have much land under the plough around Aelf Fen. It’s too wet and marshy. I doubt if there are enough ploughshares to cover nine feet of ground, which is presumably why Baudouin opted for a pit of red-hot coals instead.
I took off my shoes and looked at my feet. They are small and narrow, the toes straight and the nails like little shells. I twisted my leg so that I could inspect the sole of my right foot. The skin was hard – unless I was planning on going any distance, I usually went barefoot through the summer – and when I poked it with my fingernail, it felt tough and resilient.
Red-hot coals . . .
Queen Emma survived unscathed, I reminded myself. Surely I would too? I was, after all, telling the truth . . .
Supposing I didn’t, what then? Frightful, suppurating burns. Infection. Pus and stinking, blackening flesh. The loss, perhaps, of both feet. Life as a cripple, all my dreams of being as fine a healer as Edild come to naught. Could you be a healer sitting down? I did not really see how.
I made myself think about that for some time. So, I thought eventually, I might lose my feet.
Sibert is about to lose his life.
If I lost my feet, I realized, Sibert would lose his life anyway because if I failed to heal, they would judge that God was rejecting me because I was guilty and an evil, worthless liar. I would not be believed when I insisted Sibert had not murdered Romain and my huge sacrifice would have been in vain.
But what if I did heal? What if, knowing that for once I was as innocent of lying as Queen Emma had been of adultery, God and all the good spirits put their protection around me and my desperate, hurrying feet and kept me from harm?
I sat there quite a lot longer. Then slowly I stood up. I desperately wanted to go home. I wanted to curl up in my safe little bed and turn my back on the hostile, frightening world. I needed my mother’s loving arms, her soothing voice. I wanted my strong, wise father. But both of them would forbid me to take this appalling test. I was their daughter, they cherished me, they did not want to see me suffer ghastly pain. Their reaction would be quite understandable.
They had not been there in the clearing when I yelled out to Sibert to knee Romain in the crotch so that, immobilized by pain, he had been unable to defend himself when his killer came for him.
They did not know that if Sibert was hanged it would be my fault.
If I failed, lost my feet to the fire and Sibert died, at least I would be able to console myself with the fact that I had tried.
I imagined life knowing that I had sat back while they had sent an innocent young man to his death. Then I imagined life without my feet.
I reckoned I knew which would be the harder to bear.
I went to my aunt’s house. She loved me too, or I was pretty sure she did, but she was not my parent and I thought she might be better able to distance herself and advise me dispassionately than either my father or my mother.
I nipped round behind the village and approached her neat, tidy and sweet-smelling little cottage from the far side. As I’ve said, she lives on the very edge of the village, preferring her own company and not being one to gossip at the pump. The bees were busy in the herb beds either side of her door as I hurried up and from the rear of the house I heard the tonk of the bell that hangs round her nanny goat’s neck and the soft clucking of her hens.
I tapped perfunctorily on the door and burst in. Edild was sitting on her wooden chair and she looked up and coolly met my eyes. On the low bench on the opposite side of the hearth sat Hrype and Froya.
I guessed, then, that she already knew.
She went on looking at me for a few moments and I had the odd feeling I sometimes get with her, that she’s creeping inside my mind to see what’s there. Then she said, ‘This is not good, Lassair.’
Froya went to say something, but Hrype put a gentle hand on her arm and she subsided. I glanced at her. She is very like Sibert, both of them tall, lightly built and very fair. Her bright sea-green eyes were not as lovely as usual, being red-rimmed and puffy with weeping. She had a dainty linen handkerchief in her hands, surely deeply inadequate for its present purpose, and her fingers worried at it ceaselessly, twisting it this way and that. Also like her son, Froya is one of those people who are just a bit too fragile for life and need looking after. I look after Sibert – or not, in fact, seeing the pass we had come to – and Hrype, I suppose, looks after Froya, as indeed a good man should, especially if his sister-in-law is a widow with a child to bring up.
I could not bear to look into Froya’s eyes for very long. There was an expression of anguished hope in them and I knew exactly what it was she was hoping for.
I turned back to Edild. ‘Queen Emma managed it!’ I burst out. ‘She didn’t even notice she’d walked over the red-hot metal!’
Edild gave a tut of impatience. ‘That’s just a story, child,’ she said. ‘Do you really think anyone would have had the temerity to make someone like Queen Emma do something like that?’
‘It was her son that made her,’ I mumbled, as if this made it more likely.
Edild did not even bother to answer that.
Then silence extended and they all looked at me. When I could stand it no longer I said, ‘I’m going to do it. I’ve got to, because it’s my fault Sibert’s in this position and I can’t live with my guilt if he’s – ’ I glanced at his poor suffering mother, who had emitted an anguished gasp – ‘er, if anything happens to him.’ Edild started to protest but I overrode her, briefly explaining my guilt. ‘So you see,’ I finished, ‘really I have no choice. If this is the only way to prove I’m telling the truth and Sibert is no murderer, then I’ll have to do what Baudouin demands.’
I could hear the drama in my voice and I’m sure I stood up a little straighter, raising my chin like the brave heroine I was. I fully expected one or all of them to say, Oh, no, Lassair, you can’t possibly do this frightful thing, it is far, far too much to ask of you, but nobody said a word.
I began to feel very frightened.
Then Hrype said, as calmly as if he were discussing how to cook some new dish, ‘I once saw it done. It is quite possible to do it and come to little or no harm.’
I wondered how little was little.
Edild was nodding. ‘I too have heard tell of people walking the fire and not suffering hurt. Tell us, please, Hrype, what you saw.’
He frowned into the distance for a few moments, his light grey eyes unfocused, as if assembling the memory. Then he said, ‘It was in the far north, when I was learning with the shamans.’ The far north of where? I wondered. And what were shamans? It did not sound like anything that happened or was rumoured to happen in my own land and I realized, with a shiver of wonder, that Hrype must mean the far north of the strange land far away over the sea and he must have travelled back to the place from which his people had once come . . .
‘There was grave trouble in the community,’ he was saying, ‘for the Sun had withdrawn his strength and the waters of the cold seas were threatening to engulf the lands, so that the reindeer would no longer roam and the people would starve. The shamans held a great ceremony to honour the Sun and his element of fire. They built a vast fire pit and one by one a hundred shamans walked across the live coals. They chanted as they went, mixing their energy with that of the fire, se
nding their praise into the night sky where the Sun had withdrawn into the darkness. They gave everything they had as they prayed for healing for their community, and their sacrifice was rewarded. The Sun came back, the waters receded and the people grew healthy once more.’
He looked at me, a long look that I could not read. Then he said softly, ‘Not one of those hundred men and women suffered lasting harm. One or two were burned when a coal broke beneath their foot, but healers were standing by to help, giving comfort and relieving pain.’
After some time I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry. I swallowed and tried again. ‘How is it done?’ I whispered.
Hrype regarded me steadily. ‘By courage and by faith. Believe in what you are doing; believe that the task you perform is vital for the general good. Keep in mind that what you do is for the sake of others. Then your guides and helpers will come to your aid and protect you.’
‘I can have guides and helpers?’ I asked eagerly, then realized, feeling foolish, that he had been referring to the guardian spirits.
‘If you elect to do this thing, Lassair,’ came my aunt’s cool voice, ‘Hrype and I will assist you. We will walk alongside you on either side of the pit. We will encourage you.’
She meant it kindly, I knew, but it wasn’t their bare feet that were going to be on the coals.
‘I don’t know . . .’ I murmured. Inside I was crying out desperately, Help me! Help me!
My aunt must have heard. Abandoning her detached tone she said with brisk urgency, ‘Lassair, you are fire and air. Remember?’
I thought back across the weeks and months to the day when she had explained my web of destiny. ‘Ye–es,’ I said slowly.
‘Fire needs air to burn, and so the two elements that make up your essence are fire’s own elements,’ she went on. ‘The fire will recognize that you are in sympathy with it. You will not be harmed.’ A lulling, hypnotic quality had subtly entered her voice. ‘You will not be harmed,’ she repeated, the words like a soft chant. ‘In the instant of your birth’ – she was almost singing now – ‘the Warrior God was in the fire sign of Aries, and he always acknowledges his own when they demonstrate great courage. He will protect you. You will not be harmed.’
