Blood of the South

by Alys Clare

  Lord Gilbert backed further away, going to stand close beside Lady Emma. She, good woman that she is, frowned at him disapprovingly, murmuring something under her breath which I assumed was a reproof. ‘Woman’s an impostor,’ he muttered back, his flabby cheeks shuddering with the force of his anger.

  ‘I think, my lady,’ Jack said, watching Lady Rosaria very closely, ‘that Harald lied to you. He wished to impress you, I imagine, for to have a woman of your blood marry his son was a great honour, and he probably wanted to elevate his own kin so that their status stood a little closer to yours.’

  Lady Rosaria seemed to have been struck dumb. She stood very still, swaying slightly, and I thought I could hear her whispering.

  I remembered the state she’d been in when I first met her. She was in shock, for something had recently happened – in all likelihood, as we now surmised, the sickness and death of her maid – and she had been on the brink of despair.

  I knew she wouldn’t welcome me – my family and I were a far cry from what she’d believed she was coming to England to find – but, nevertheless, I wanted to stand by her. What we were to each other was irrelevant just then; she was in dire need, and I was a healer.

  I moved to her side, reached down and took her icy hand in mine. ‘Let me take you to your room, my lady,’ I said, keeping my voice soft and low. ‘You should lie down, I think, for you are all alone and have suffered a grave disappointment.’ She turned to me, panic in the huge eyes. ‘We will support you,’ I went on. ‘Your baby son is part of my family, and we will not desert him. You are his mother, and you too will have our help.’

  Quite how we were going to help her, I had no idea.

  I moved forward, one small step at a time, and she came with me. She was sufficiently aware to remember where to go, and led me down a long passage, up a short flight of steps and into the guest chamber where Lord Gilbert had housed her.

  She sank down on the wide bed, and I swung her legs up, pushing her gently back on the heaped pillows. ‘Shall I remove your veil, my lady?’ I asked. ‘There is only me to see you, and—’

  ‘No.’ The one, brief word came out in a tone as hard and cold as ice. I had raised my hand towards her face, about to unfasten the veil, and she caught my wrist, holding it in a fist like a steel bracelet.

  I bowed, backing away. ‘Very well. You should try to sleep, Lady Rosaria. I will prepare a draught for you.’

  But she turned her face away and did not answer.

  The door closed softly behind the healer girl. Rosaria was alone. At first, she just lay there on the sumptuously comfortable bed, barely conscious, barely thinking.

  Then slow tears began to fall from her eyes, soaking into the rich fabric of her veil.

  She reached out her fingers and stroked the smooth silk of her gown. She touched the pearls around her throat, then moved her hand to the coverlet on which she lay. It was fur: smooth, glossy, warm.

  I thought I would be going to a home like this, she thought, still hardly able to absorb the devastating disappointment. I thought I would be kept in comfort, security and warmth for the rest of my days, fed with good, abundant food and given fine wine in a silver goblet.

  Deliberately she conjured up all the little luxuries of Lord Gilbert’s house, accepted so casually by the lord and lady, given willingly to her, their guest, with the generosity of those who had plenty.

  She curled her hands into fists, the knuckles showing white against the taut skin. ‘You lied, Harald,’ she whispered. ‘You bastard.’

  For a disorienting instant, she thought she saw Harald in the room, standing straight and tall. He was pointing his finger at her.

  And then, welling up from deep inside her, terrifying in its intensity and quite unstoppable, came the bitterest emotion of all.

  Much later, when the raised voices in the hall had long ceased, the hurrying footsteps had stopped and the house was quiet, she got up. On silent feet she left her room, then, keeping to the shadows and out of sight, she made her way out of the great house where for the past days she had lived the life of which she had dreamed. They had treated her like a lady. She had worn beautiful garments, slept in a luxuriously soft bed, with sheets of clean, fine linen, soft blankets of finest wool, and, when night fell cold and chill, she had been comforted by a merry fire in the hearth.

  She slipped out through the gates. Night was drawing on, and people were busy with the final outdoor tasks of the day. She huddled into her cloak, drawing the hood up. She did not want anyone to identify and stop her, to ask where she was going at such a late hour, to offer to come with her to make sure she returned safely.

  She listened for the sound of water. It was close; here in this bleak marshy land, it was always close. She shivered. It was so different from the home she had left so far behind. No sun, no brilliant colours, no deep blue sky.

  Oh!

  Her grief, her pain and her guilt rose up in a devastating flood.

  She walked on, the pretty, unsuitable indoor slippers sliding in the muddy ground. She hoped she could find the place. She had listened carefully when they described it, on that terrible day when the news came. It had been the beginning of the end: somehow she had known it, even then, some time before today’s devastating discovery of the true nature of Harald’s kin. There is no rosy future for me, she thought, the words running through her head again and again as she hurried on. I have struggled so hard, and it has all been for nothing.

  Remorse hit her like a fist to the heart.

  She walked on. One of the little shoes came off, and cold mud oozed between her toes. She bent down to put the slipper on again.

  Then, after quite a long time, suddenly, she was there. She had found the right spot, and she stood for a moment staring down at the meandering little waterway. Torn branches and bits of dead vegetation clung to the steep sides of the banks, and she saw that the water level was lower now as the flood receded.

  She came to the bridge.

  Debris brought upstream by the flood still partially blocked its arch, forming a wide pool on the far side.

  Perfect.

  She walked into the water. There was no grip for her feet in the silly little slippers, and her legs went from under her. It was so cold. Her veil floated for an instant as the water closed over her head. Weighed by her heavy cloak, she sank quickly. The pool was very deep, and her feet, the toes pointed, found no firm ground.

  There was only the water.

  Presently, the rush of bubbles coming up to the surface ceased, and all was still.

  She hadn’t even struggled.

  SEVENTEEN

  Skuli stood staring up at the ancient ruins soaring above. Rollo had worked his way through the crewmen crowding around their captain, and now he was at Skuli’s side. Standing so close, he was able to pick up every nuance of Skuli’s mood.

  What he observed horrified him.

  Skuli had metamorphosed from a taciturn, driven, silent and brooding figure into a being who seemed lit from within. His expression was radiant, and his light eyes shone as if reflecting brilliant starlight. Somehow he was giving off energy. Rollo, glancing down at his own bare forearm, noticed that the hairs were on end.

  They had been standing below the ruins for some time. Breaking abruptly from his enchanted stillness, Skuli turned to his crew and said, ‘At last, my faithful friends, we have reached our goal! At the almost unbearable cost of the loss of our three honoured companions, we stand at the very spot we have dreamed of and yearned for over so many long months.’

  He opened his mouth in a great cry of joy, stretching out his arms as if to embrace the whole place. ‘Asgard, my friends! Here we stand on the very edge of the blessed realm, and soon we shall find Valhalla, and Bifrost that links Asgard to heaven!’

  He paused, breathing hard. Then, more calmly, he went on. ‘Since we were children crouched wide-eyed round our fathers’ hearths, we have heard the old tales, learned of the deeds of the great heroes who fought a mig
hty war before these very walls, their chariots raising the sand in vast clouds and the fine dust soaking up the brilliant blood of the wounded and the glorious dead. And the blood of legendary men bred with the Aesir, who dwelled in Asgard, and from their loins sprang our own honoured gods, Thor, Odin, Freyr, Freya, Tyr, and even the evil Loki and his wolf-son, Fenrir.’

  With a shiver of dread, Rollo recalled that haunting wolf’s howl …

  ‘Our beloved Odin travelled into the north, as the poets tell us,’ Skuli hurried on, his voice getting steadily louder, ‘and there he took many wives and populated our world. Now, at long last after the endless millennia, we have returned to pay homage.’ He paused, his eyes roaming around his enthralled crewmen. ‘And,’ he added, swooping down to a whisper that was even more frightening than the loud proclamations, ‘to tell them that the men of the north do not forget.’

  Filled with disbelief, horror and dread, Rollo found he couldn’t move.

  Solemnly Skuli turned to face the ancient ruins up on their plateau. Raising his voice again, he began to sing a hymn of praise, and after only a moment the crew joined in.

  Rollo thought he had drifted into a dream world.

  His reason battling with the evidence of his senses, his mind working frantically, he felt the deep shudder of the soul that affects a man when he comes face to face with madness.

  For surely Skuli was mad; a sane man did not travel halfway across the known world in search of his gods.

  Did he?

  And why? What purpose did it serve, other than to bow down in worship? Could that not be done anywhere on the good earth that the gods had created? That, anyway, was what good Christians believed. But then, his rational mind pointed out, Christians in their droves went on pilgrimages, undertaking arduous, dangerous and expensive journeys purely to visit a shrine, a holy site, or even the place where a sacred relic was housed.

  Skuli’s hymn was continuing, its intensity growing in pace with its volume. The air was thrumming and humming with the sound, which was being magnified as it rebounded from the great ruin-topped mound soaring up before them.

  Rollo was in turmoil, the noise and the disturbed air seeming to crowd in on him, beating him down, spurring him to respond and fight back so that he could barely organize his thoughts.

  But something was emerging … An idea, sparked off by something he had just been trying to work out …

  Yes! He had it.

  He knew suddenly, and without a doubt, why Skuli had come here; why he had risked so much, striven so hard and paid such a terrible price.

  His gods had had their day; the world had changed, and a new deity was in the ascendant. The Christians had spread their faith all over the places where Skuli’s gods had once reigned unchallenged.

  And Skuli had come here, to this place from which he believed they had once sprung, to reawaken them.

  The singing had worked the men up into a state of ecstasy. Some were on their knees; some were weeping, sobbing, tearing at their hair and their beards. Skuli stood before them all, staring up at the soaring ruins, singing in a voice that seemed to shake the earth.

  Shake the earth …

  The wolf howled, close at hand; it was Fenrir, Loki’s wolf-son, evil in his heart. In a tumult of fear, Rollo heard the eight-legged horse again; Sleipnir, with Odin on his back, was thundering across the plain and racing into battle. Overhead flew Odin’s ravens, Huginn and Muninn, Thought and Memory, their sharp black eyes piercing any who dared to look, and—

  With superhuman effort, Rollo pulled himself back. NO! There was no eight-legged horse; no evil wolf; no cruel-eyed, magical ravens! Such things did not exist; they belonged to the realm of legend and myth.

  The earth shook again, and a deep, resonant rumble sounded from somewhere far beneath them.

  Earthquake.

  Grabbing Skuli, Rollo yelled, right in his ear, ‘We have to move! We must get the men away from the mound and from what stands on top of it, before the whole lot falls on us and crushes us to death!’

  Skuli twisted round to face him, trying to shake him off. The mania that had him in its grip made his eyes blaze. ‘We stay where we are!’ he shouted. ‘This is what we have come for!’

  Rollo tightened both hands on Skuli’s arm, dragging at him, only his desperation driving him to tackle a man so much taller, broader, stronger and heavier. ‘You cannot do this!’ he yelled. ‘These men are your responsibility! They have followed you loyally all this way, endured everything you have asked of them – you must not abuse their loyalty by endangering their lives!’

  For an instant, Skuli stopped struggling. Rollo had time for one fleeting moment of relief – he’s seen reason! – and he eased his fierce grip.

  It was a huge mistake.

  Released, Skuli swung back his massive right arm and punched Rollo very hard on the side of the head. Blackness flooded Rollo’s vision even as he fell.

  Lady Rosaria’s body was brought back to Lakehall on a hurdle. Someone had covered her with a beautiful velvet cloak, its rich purple shimmering in the soft autumn sunshine.

  Lord Gilbert and Lady Emma stood side by side at the foot of the steps leading to the great door of the hall, heads bowed. Edild and I, summoned to Lakehall as soon as Lord Gilbert had learned what had happened, stood behind them, a couple of steps up. Looking down on them, I saw Lady Emma straighten her back. I thought she was disguising her emotions well, but then, revealing a more human side, I saw her reach out for her husband’s hand. He turned to her briefly, giving her a quick smile.

  In the mood of distress and shock, it was comforting, somehow.

  The four men carrying the body came slowly up to the steps, and one of the pair at the front looked up at Lord Gilbert. ‘Where shall we take the lady, my lord?’ he asked.

  Lord Gilbert looked at Lady Emma, who turned round to us. ‘Where do you think, Edild?’ she asked quietly.

  ‘Again, the undercroft is suitable, my lady,’ my aunt replied. ‘Lassair and I will tend her there.’ She hesitated, looking at Lady Emma with raised brows.

  Lady Emma understood the unasked question. ‘The other body has been removed,’ she said, her voice quite steady despite her shocked pallor. ‘It is now in the crypt beneath the church. Lord Gilbert and Father Augustine have decided to postpone the burial, in the hope that someone may yet turn up to claim her.’

  It was, I thought sadly, an increasingly faint hope.

  Lady Emma murmured to the men with the hurdle, and they bore their burden away around the side of the house, to the door that opened on to the undercroft. Hitching my satchel on my shoulder, I followed Edild in their wake.

  The wide vaulted ceiling of the huge undercroft spread out above us as we bent over the trestle on which Lady Rosaria had been laid. Lord Gilbert’s house servants had provided many candles, set in tall brass holders and spaced around the trestle. Our little area of the crypt was brightly lit but the shadows gathered in the corners, and the bulky shapes of whatever was stored there loomed over us as if they drew close to watch us at our work.

  Water from Lady Rosaria’s garments dripped steadily on to the stone floor. We removed her little silk slippers – her feet were tiny – and rolled her over on to her side so that we could unlace her gorgeous gown. Edild slid it down off the cold, pale body, then handed it to me. I was touched to see that the hem was coming down; in her flight, she must have caught her heel. I had a sudden, painful image of her, sitting sewing in that tavern room in Cambridge. As I inspected her work, I thought, Poor Rosaria; you weren’t very good with your needle, were you?

  Edild was now stripping off the undergarments: there were several underskirts. Now she handed me a chemise made of some fine, smooth fabric …

  I had seen a garment made of this material before.

  ‘Edild, I—’

  My aunt gave a tsk! of impatience. ‘Not now, Lassair. Help me with her – I must attempt to detect if there’s water in her lungs.’

  Together we g
ently turned the body so that it was face-down, and Edild applied steady pressure on the upper back. Water came out in a lazy stream, seeping through the veil and out from beneath it.

  ‘I think we can tell your lawman that she did indeed drown,’ Edild said.

  We rolled Lady Rosaria on to her back once more.

  Edild had covered her with a length of linen, and now, respectful of the dead woman’s modesty, she examined the body, uncovering it a bit at a time. Shoulders, chest and breasts, then waist and belly. Feet, ankles, legs, thighs, groin.

  Edild stood back from the table, a frown of perplexity on her face.

  ‘What is it?’ I felt apprehensive; afraid, almost.

  Slowly my aunt beckoned. ‘Come and see. I may be wrong – I must be wrong – but I’d like to hear what you think.’

  ‘What must I look at?’

  ‘Her breasts, then her private parts.’

  I did as I was ordered. The breasts were small; I remembered the gown that had been too big in the bust, and how I’d imagined Lady Rosaria had lost the fullness as her milk dried up. The nipples were pink and dainty, like a girl’s. Carefully I drew up the sheet to cover her chest, then, raising it from its lower end, looked down on her belly and thighs.

  It felt wrong to be examining her. She had been so proud, so haughty, and her stiff, erect posture had informed you, all the time that you were in her presence, that she was a fine lady. But I had a job to do, and I could not afford scruples.

  I looked at her slim, smooth thighs, at the narrow hips, the flat, almost concave, belly. She must have padded out her underskirts for, naked, she had a much slighter, more boyish figure than she’d appeared to have when clothed.

  Finally, aware of Edild’s eyes watching me, I gently parted the thighs and stared at the genitalia.

  After a moment of utter stillness, I covered the body, tucking the sheet in around it. Then I met my aunt’s eyes.

  ‘She has never borne a child,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ Edild agreed.

  We went on looking at each other.

  ‘So whose baby is Leafric?’ I whispered. ‘Is he an adopted child, do you think?’ My thoughts were racing ahead. ‘Perhaps Lady Rosaria was barren – she does look quite immature – or perhaps her husband was infertile? As members of a great family, they’d have definitely wanted a child to inherit and to carry on the name, so maybe …’