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.’
Sibert and I both turned to Morcar. ‘What do you think?’ Sibert asked him. ‘Does that make sense?’
Morcar thought about it. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘But why would it matter to anyone but the lad if he were made to be a monk when he didn’t want to?’ He glanced at me. ‘Who did they fear I’d tell?’
I had no idea. ‘Er—’
‘It would matter,’ Sibert said slowly, ‘if the pale boy is someone important.’
Silence fell as we all thought about that. Eventually, I said tentatively, ‘What, like some lord’s son who was supposed to make an influential marriage?’ We all knew how the wealthy and powerful in our land used their children as pawns in their complicated games, marrying them off where their presence would most benefit their fathers.
‘It’s possible surely?’ Sibert said. ‘And whoever is trying to shut him up with the monks doesn’t want this marriage to happen.’
It was possible, certainly it was. ‘Yes,’ I replied. With an effort I turned away from the interesting avenues of speculation that were flooding my mind. ‘We must work out the why later,’ I said firmly. ‘For now, we have something far more important to do.’ I edged closer to Sibert, lowering my voice. ‘Did you find a boat?’
He nodded. He was smiling, excitement thrumming through him. ‘Yes. It lies tethered to a post right at the end of the track, and it looks as if nobody’s been near it for years.’
‘Is it watertight?’ I demanded. It sounded too good to be true.
‘It floats,’ Sibert hedged. ‘But listen, I’ve got some really good news – it’s raining again, very, very hard!’
Morcar, hearing this, groaned aloud. Thinking of him, my poor, sick patient, I said sharply, ‘Why in the Lord’s name is that
good
news?’
Sibert looked happily at Morcar and me. ‘Because the water’s started to rise once more, very fast. Already, many of the lower-lying areas around the island are flooded.’
I still did not understand. Morcar did. He said kindly, ‘When it floods, Lassair, you don’t need to find a mule or a carter to take you from Ely to Aelf Fen. With a boat and a strong oarsman –’ he shot a grateful look at Sibert – ‘you can go by water all the way.’
I did my very best for my cousin. I checked the wounds in his foot, which were angry looking, the surrounding flesh red and swollen, but which showed no signs of putrefaction. I dabbed on more comfrey ointment and re-dressed the foot, wrapping a generous amount of linen around it to pad it. The wounds would hurt like fury if Morcar so much as touched his foot to a hard surface, and I knew I must do what I could to soften the impact. Then Sibert and I helped Morcar into his outer garments, wrapping him closely in his woollen cloak and putting the new short, hooded cloak over the top. I prepared a pack of food and medicines – not many of the latter, for with any luck he would be with Edild in a few hours – and Sibert slung it on his back. Then we gathered up Morcar’s blanket and the sack containing his tools, and together Sibert and I got him to his feet.
Sibert checked the alley outside. It was dusk and there was nobody about, which was hardly surprising as it was raining so hard that we could barely see three yards in front of us. I dived back for my own blanket and put it over Morcar’s head. He needed it more than I did.
We set off, keeping under the eaves of the hovels as much as we could, and Sibert led the way down to the isolated spot where the boat lay all but hidden in the rushes. Its bottom held several inches of water, which Sibert baled out as best he could with his cupped hands. Then we helped Morcar down into it, settling him on the thwart that ran across at the stern. The boat had a framework over the stern and the tattered remnants of a cover for it lay folded under the thwart. The cover was made of canvas, hard and brittle with age, full of dusty dried leaves, cobwebs, dust and general dirt; by the time Sibert and I had draped it over the frame we were both filthy as well as soaked. The cloth did a little to keep the worst of the rain off Morcar and as he looked up at me I could just make out his white face.