Mist Over the Water

by Alys Clare

  ‘You know why I couldn’t risk that. I told you,’ he said. He didn’t sound quite so angry.

  ‘Yes, I know now,’ I said patiently. ‘I didn’t then.’

  My cousin didn’t comment, except to go, ‘Hrumph!’

  I hurried on. ‘I’m sure there’s no need to worry, Morcar. As I just said, the monk I spoke to had never heard of you.’

  ‘He might have mentioned your enquiry to his brethren,’ Morcar said, face twisting in anguish, ‘including the two that want to kill me!’ He tried to force himself into a sitting position. Quickly, I pushed him back. I had to use more force than I’d expected. He glared up at me out of terrified eyes. ‘Lassair, we have to go!’ he wailed. ‘It’s not only that they want to kill me, there’s something—’ Suddenly, his jaws clamped shut, as if someone had hit him hard on the point of his chin. The fear in his eyes intensified, and he gave a low moan, such an awful sound that my heart quaked.

  ‘What?’ I whispered, barely able to get the word out.

  But he shook his head. ‘No. No,’ he muttered. Then, eyes on mine again, he repeated urgently, ‘We have to go!’

  ‘We can’t,’ I said. Smiling, trying to look reassuring, I added, ‘You don’t even know that these two men were monks, Morcar. And I’m quite sure they weren’t trying to kill you – they probably just brushed against you and you slipped.’

  He closed his eyes briefly, muttering under his breath. Then, opening them again, he fixed me with a furious stare and said coldly, ‘You weren’t there. They tried to kill me, girl. One of them took the gleeve I was using to hold myself up and the other barrelled into me like a charging bull. They thought they’d drowned me. When they find out I’m still alive, they’ll come after me and have another try, and they’ll kill you, too, if you stand in their way.’

  He spoke with such certainty that I began to feel afraid. I allowed myself to imagine them, two dark, hooded shapes looming huge in the dim light of dusk, creeping along the alley, slowly opening the door to fall on Morcar, Sibert and me . . .

  It was a mistake to have let the images into my mind.

  Mentally, I gave myself a severe scolding. ‘You cannot be moved and that is an end of it, Morcar,’ I said firmly. He opened his mouth to protest, but I held up my hand. ‘Tomorrow, if your condition continues to improve, I will send Sibert to find a way of transporting you off the island and away from here. I promise,’ I added, risking my soul because just then I had no idea how I was going to manage it. And where, even if we got him away from Ely, would I take him? Home to his mother? To Aelf Fen and Edild’s care? I thought it best not even to think that far ahead.

  Morcar was watching me closely. ‘I have your word?’

  ‘Yes.’ I’d just promised, hadn’t I? ‘When Sibert comes back you’ll have to try to eat something, Morcar, because if we’re going to move you you’ll need to build up some strength. I will—’

  We both heard the footsteps pounding along the alleyway. They were approaching, fast.

  Morcar’s eyes widened in terror. I grabbed the blanket off the bed where Sibert had slept and threw it over him, covering him from head to injured, bandaged foot, then I lay down in front of him, so close that I could feel the thumping of his heartbeat pushing against my back. I drew his discarded hooded cloak over me like a cover and, propping myself up on one elbow, prayed to every spirit that might be listening that when they came bursting through the door they would see nothing more than an angry young woman woken violently from her slumber and none too pleased about it. You’re angry, I told myself. You aren’t afraid because you don’t know there is anything to fear. You’re angry. Very, very angry . . .

  The hurrying footsteps stopped right outside. They must know Morcar was in here. I raised my chin, going over the words I would shout out as soon as they appeared.

  The door opened.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing,’ I cried, ‘bursting in here without my permission? Waking me up with your noise, making me jump out of my—’

  One person stood there, tall, slim, looking very upset.

  It was Sibert.

  I felt myself slump with relief. I leaned down to Morcar, quickly uncovering his head and saying, ‘It’s all right, it’s just Sibert.’

  I rolled away from my cousin and stood up, preparing to yell at Sibert for scaring us so badly. But his face was white – almost as pale as Morcar’s. As we stood there face to face, the provisions he had brought back fell out of his hands. A small apple rolled across the floor. ‘What is it?’ I whispered urgently. ‘What’s happened?’

  Sibert looked at Morcar and back to me. ‘Someone’s been murdered,’ he said. He was trembling. ‘They’ve found a body, down at the end of a narrow stream where some of the men have been catching eels.’ He shuddered, putting up a hand to wipe his mouth. I smelled vomit.

  ‘Did you go and look?’ I demanded.

  ‘Yes.’ He moaned, briefly closing his eyes. ‘It was ghastly. He’d been pinned face forward to the abbey wall with an eel gleeve. It can’t have pierced his heart, for they’re saying it took him most of the night to die. There’s so much blood!’ he exclaimed, and now both of his hands were over his mouth.

  I tried not to imagine the victim’s torment. To bleed to death, feeling the blood seep out of you and unable to do anything to save yourself . . . Stop it, I ordered myself. This is not helping. ‘Sit down,’ I said to Sibert, ‘and if you feel faint, or sick, put your head between your knees.’ He obeyed. I fetched him a cup of water, standing over him while he sipped it. ‘Better?’

  He looked up and I saw that his colour was returning. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  I began collecting up the dropped provisions. ‘When you feel like eating, I’ll prepare something,’ I said, trying to make my voice calm and untroubled. ‘Mmm, this bread smells good. I’m very hungry and—’

  Sibert was staring at something on the floor, just in front of where Morcar lay. The shock from Sibert’s announcement was still written all over Morcar’s face. I would have to do something to help him very soon, I thought, for this talk of murder would surely work on his terrified fancies about hooded assassins.

  I looked to see what had caught and held Sibert’s attention. He was staring at Morcar’s cloak, which I had thrown off as I stood up.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ All my efforts to appear unflustered had flown away and I sounded exactly like what I was: a very frightened girl.

  ‘Whose is that?’ Sibert pointed a shaking finger at the cloak.

  ‘It’s mine.’ Morcar’s whisper was all but inaudible.

  Sibert knelt down right in front of him. ‘Where did you get it? When did you get it?’ he demanded.

  Morcar frowned with the effort of trying to penetrate the mist of fever and answer the urgent question. ‘Er . . . two, three days ago,’ he said shakily. ‘It had started to rain, and it went on raining. A peddler came out to where we were fishing, and he had a load of cloaks on a barrow. He said they’d keep the wet out, but it’s a useless thing, and what’s more it stinks.’ He must have realized he was rambling and stopped.

  Into the silence Sibert whispered, ‘The murdered man wore one just like it.’

  I was beginning to understand. As I did so, my fear rapidly escalated. ‘You say the peddler had a load of cloaks?’ Reluctantly, Morcar nodded. ‘And he sold many?’

  ‘Three or four,’ Morcar managed.

  I turned to Sibert and, meeting his eyes, I knew he had reached the same awful conclusion. The men who had attacked Morcar must have found out somehow that they had failed to kill him. They had seen a man in an identical cloak to Morcar’s and, believing it to be their victim, they’d had another go. They can’t have known that men other than Morcar wore similar cloaks; they hadn’t even bothered to check they had the right man by looking at his face.

  They had struck him from behind, spearing him to the abbey wall face forward.

  My thoughts flew around like a flock of sparrows disturbed by a
cat. I forced them still and tried to work out what we should do. It was surely only a matter of time before the murderers realized they had the wrong man – if, that was, Morcar was the intended victim and the dead man had been mistaken for him rather than the other way round. Assuming the worst, that it was Morcar they wanted dead, when they found out they had failed again they would come after him. Sick and injured as he was, with only a youth and a girl to protect him, they would succeed next time. As Morcar had predicted, they would probably kill Sibert and me too.

  I was by no means ready to die. I was sure the same applied to Sibert and, as my patient, Morcar was my responsibility.

  I turned to Sibert. ‘We need to get Morcar off the island,’ I said. ‘As soon as it’s getting dark you must slip out and find a boat. If we have to use a boatman, we’ll pay him well because he’ll have to keep his mouth shut. Once you’re over the water, beg, borrow or steal a mule and get Morcar on it, then take him to Edild as fast as you can.’ I stopped, breathing hard.

  ‘What about you?’ Sibert demanded. Morcar was looking at us in horror. ‘Aren’t you coming?’

  ‘No.’ I knew what I must do, and even as I hatched my plan I knew that someone had done it before me; I was repeating the actions in someone else’s tale. It had worked for them, I reminded myself, or anyway this bit of it had. If the spirits were with me, it might work for me.

  ‘Why not?’ Morcar whispered, although from the expression in his eyes I think he already knew.

  I looked down at him. ‘Because the murderers must not know you’ve gone. If we all leave, there will be nobody to keep up the pretence that you’re still here.’ Sibert began to speak, but I knew what he was going to say and didn’t let him finish. ‘It has to be me,’ I said firmly, ‘because I’m the healer and I know what to do. I’ll bustle about asking for various herbs and preparations as if I’m still treating my patient. I’ll even go to your precious monks, Morcar, and ask their advice.’

  Both men were staring at me, neither looking very confident. It was depressing, since I’d hoped they might have more faith in me.

  ‘It’s dangerous,’ Sibert stated flatly, just as Morcar said, ‘I cannot let you do this.’

  I sighed. ‘You don’t let me do things, Morcar, you’re my cousin not my father or my husband,’ I said tetchily. ‘As I keep reminding you, I’m a healer. I have a duty, and if I don’t fulfil it I’m in trouble.’ That was not strictly true, but I hoped neither of them would appreciate it. ‘As to danger, Sibert, there’s only danger around Morcar, so if you take him away and leave me here you’ll actually be making it safer for me.’

  There had to be a flaw in that argument, but I couldn’t see it. Nor could Sibert; grudgingly, he muttered, ‘Very well then.’

  Quickly, I bent down to Morcar. ‘Now, drink, eat if you can and rest. I will check your foot later, and we’ll wrap you warmly. As soon as night falls, you must go.’

  It said a lot about the state my poor cousin was in that he didn’t argue any more but instead gave a feeble nod and fell back limply on his bed. I immediately busied myself with preparing food and hot drinks, going through my herbal supplies in my mind and deciding what remedy I should give to Morcar next. Anything, really, to take my mind off the prospect of that night, after they’d gone.

  When I would be quite, quite alone.

  SEVEN

  T

  here were several hours to wait until it was sufficiently dark to sneak Morcar away without anyone seeing us. I wished it were not so, for it was very hard to fill the time and keep the lid on my nervous anxiety. I gave Morcar a sleeping draught; the more he slept, the stronger he would be for the ordeal of the journey. Sibert and I soon ran out of harmless, non-worrying things to say and with relief – certainly on my part – eventually returned to what was uppermost in our minds.

  ‘You really think someone tried to kill him?’ he whispered, nodding down at the sleeping Morcar.

  ‘Yes. Why, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes. There seems no doubt now that the other poor man has been so brutally killed.’ Sibert frowned. ‘Although we still don’t know which of them, Morcar or the dead man, is really the intended victim.’

  I, too, had been worrying about that. ‘Why would anyone want to kill Morcar?’ I wondered aloud.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Sibert said. ‘He’s your cousin. Can’t you come up with anything?’

  Slowly, I shook my head. ‘No. Until he came here to Ely, he’s always lived the quiet life of an industrious and not very sociable flint knapper. He’s respected, well liked, as far as I know, and he’s never been in any sort of trouble.’

  ‘Then maybe it’s the other man who’s the real victim,’ Sibert said eagerly, ‘which would be good because, although of course I’m very sorry for him, at least if the killers know the right man is dead there’s no danger for Morcar any more.’

  ‘Ye–es,’ I said slowly. I was thinking.

  When I said no more Sibert, too, fell silent. I think he even managed to doze, although sleep was very far from me. Late in the afternoon he stirred, stretched, got up and announced that he needed some cool fresh air to clear his head.

  ‘Be careful,’ I warned.

  He grinned. ‘I will.’ Then, his face serious again, ‘I’ll have a look around for a boat, preferably without a boatman in it. It would be good to earmark one for later.’

  ‘It would,’ I agreed. ‘Good luck.’

  Morcar woke up while Sibert was out. To my enormous relief he looked better. The bright-red flush of fever that had stained his cheeks had all but faded away. His eyes were bright, and he looked alert. When I asked him how he felt he grinned briefly and said, ‘I’ll do.’

  My cousin is, as I think I’ve said, habitually a man of few words.

  While we waited for Sibert to come back I encouraged Morcar to eat – I’d made a sort of savoury porridge which, even though I say it myself, smelled appetizing – and he drank a mug of my febrifuge infusion. Not wanting to put him off his meal I waited till he had finished, then I said, ‘Morcar, if you were the intended victim of the killers, can you think of any reason they would want you dead?’

  He smiled grimly. ‘Lassair, since I’ve been able to think clearly again I’ve thought of little else.’

  ‘And?’ I prompted.

  He shook his head. ‘I can think of nothing.’

  It was starting to look as if the dead man had been the true target. ‘I—’ I began.

  The door was pushed open and Sibert slipped quickly inside, closing the door behind him and leaning against it. I could tell from his face that something was wrong. ‘What?’ I whispered.

  He looked down at Morcar and me. ‘There’s been another murder. They found him just now, down in a ditch by the eel fisheries.’

  ‘Drowned?’ I asked, horrified.

  ‘No.’ Sibert’s face was grim. ‘Stab wound in the back that went straight through the heart.’

  I tried to control the shaking that all but made my teeth clatter. ‘Was he wearing a cloak like Morcar’s?’

  Slowly, Sibert nodded.

  I crouched beside my cousin. ‘Morcar, I think they really are after you!’ I said urgently. ‘They attacked the right man first time, but you managed to live. Now they have tried twice more, and two innocent men have—’ I bit down on the rest of the sentence. Morcar undoubtedly knew already what I’d been about to say. ‘There must be a reason why they want you dead!’ I said instead. ‘Can’t you think of anything? Has any small incident happened recently that you’ve forgotten about? Something you saw or overheard? Something somebody told you that seemed insignificant at the time but now—’

  Sibert nudged me. ‘Let him speak,’ he said.

  I realized Morcar was smiling – very faintly – as he waited for my flow of words to stop. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered.

  His expression deepened fleetingly into a real smile. Then he said, ‘There was something.’

  Together Sibert and I said, ‘What?’ />
  ‘It was when Lassair asked if there was anything I saw,’ Morcar said slowly, frowning as if thinking hard. ‘There was something, when I was going home after a long day’s eel fishing. I was tired and dispirited, it was raining like the Flood was coming back and my new cloak was letting in water. I was trudging along under the abbey wall and I could see a gate house up ahead. Not the main one; this was a small one that they don’t use much. I heard a shrill cry but it was quickly muffled, and I peered into the shadows to see who was there. I could make out four figures, maybe five. They were monks, or I thought that was what they were – robed men, anyway, and at least one wore the dark, hooded habit of the Benedictines.’ He paused. I noticed that his breathing had quickened and I hoped it was with the effort of telling his story and not from rising fever.

  ‘I thought they were just horsing around,’ he went on. ‘One of them was a younger man. He wasn’t much more than a lad, maybe fifteen or sixteen, and he was slim, slight, with bright, very pale hair. I reckoned the older men were teasing him, maybe even bullying him a bit. I guessed the hastily suppressed cry was him – the pale lad – and probably one of the others had quickly shushed him because they were close by the abbey gate and the older monks didn’t want anyone to hear the horseplay and get them into trouble.’ He stared into the distance, eyes unfocused. ‘I don’t reckon they hold with monks being boisterous,’ he remarked.

  I was trying to make sense of it. The monks had been roughing up the pale boy and they knew they’d get into trouble if their superiors found out. Was that it? But not that much trouble, surely – not enough to kill the man who had seen the incident . . .

  Sibert said, ‘Perhaps the pale boy doesn’t want to be a monk and they were taking him inside the abbey by force.’

  It was a better idea than mine. ‘They knew someone had seen them, that someone being Morcar –’ I picked up the thread – ‘and, because what they were doing was wrong, the witness had to be silenced before he told anyone what he’d seen.’