I edged my way over to the group. One of the benches had a little space and, with a smile, I asked its two occupants if they would move up so that I could sit down.
‘Aye, right gladly, my pretty maid,’ said the nearest old man, baring his gums and two remaining teeth in a smile. He shuffled his skinny bottom along the bench and patted the shiny wood in invitation. ‘You perch here beside me and . . . oh.’ He had just caught sight of Sibert, a few paces behind me and now preparing to squeeze in beside me.
Sibert’s presence did not deter his flirtatious advances for long. Soon he had his scrawny hand on my knee, only removing it to pinch my cheek as he commented on my ‘rosy little face’. I bore it with a smile. For one thing, if I did not discourage him it might make him and his friends more receptive to Sibert’s questions. For another, I didn’t really mind.
Sibert exchanged a few general comments with the old men by way of an introduction. I joined in, offering an opinion on the weather and the likelihood of more rain. Then there was a short, reflective pause, and I sensed Sibert go tense.
‘It’s a bit of a disruption, that there,’ he offered, jerking his head in the direction of the abbey. ‘Going to be a monster, that new cathedral!’ His eyes popped with wonder, and I was impressed with his yokel-overawed-with-the-sights act.
There was an exchange of rumbling, grumbling remarks among the old men. Then one of them, sitting on the other side of the one clasping my knee, leaned forward and said in a low voice, ‘They’ve knocked down St Etheldreda’s chapel, you know. Her that’s been our beloved saint since time out of mind.’
‘Have they?’ Sibert whispered, wide-eyed.
‘Aye, lad, they have, with no respect for her that we all love nor no more for us that love her. What’s more, they—’ Whatever further sedition he was going to add was abruptly cut off by the old boy next to me, who dug him smartly in the ribs with a muttered, ‘Dangerous talk, Teb. Dangerous talk.’
Silence fell. Then Sibert leaned forward – all six old men mirrored the gesture – and said, so softly that even I barely heard, ‘My father fought with the Wake.’
The old men did not exactly leap up and welcome him like a long-lost grandson – they were too careful for that – but nevertheless you could see they were delighted. One or two of them nodded, and one muttered, ‘So did we, lad.’
We all sat smiling at each other and then, when the initial euphoria had subsided, the old man next to me – Teb – leaned across me and said to Sibert, ‘Is your father with you?’
‘No,’ Sibert replied shortly. ‘He died of his wound.’
There were mutters of
God save him
and
God bless his brave soul
. Then Teb said, ‘You’ve come to pay your respects, then, at his grave?’
‘He does not lie here,’ Sibert replied. I prayed he would not reveal the fact that Edmer was buried at Aelf Fen, and he didn’t; he must have known as well as I did that it would not be wise to give away the fact of where we lived, even to our new friends. ‘He received a Norman arrow in the thigh, and those who treated him could not save his leg. After the amputation my . . . his friends managed to get him away from the island and away across the fens, but it was no good.’
The old men bowed their heads, and for some time nobody spoke. It was a mark of respect for a fallen warrior, I knew that, but not quite what Sibert must have hoped for. If he had been expecting the tale of amputation and flight to prompt one of the old men to leap up and exclaim, ‘Yes, I remember him!’ then he’d be disappointed.
I thought of something. ‘Where were the houses of healing?’ I asked shyly, as if, being a mere girl, I was hesitant to speak in front of a group of men. ‘Where would my friend’s father have been taken?’
Teb gave my knee a kindly pat. ‘Many were tended by the monks,’ he said. ‘Not that our holy brethren were all in favour of the rebels, oh, no. Still, the healers among them are decent men in the main, and they did not refuse their aid.’
Edmer had not been treated by the monks; his brother and his wife had cared for him. ‘Was there any other place where healers gathered?’ I persisted, giving Teb what I hoped was a sweet and innocent smile.
‘Interested in healing, are you, pretty maid?’ he asked, patting my face.
‘Oh, yes!’ I said with total honesty. ‘I hope that I may make it my life’s work.’
Teb nodded his approval. ‘Well, if you’d been here during the rebellion you’d have learned enough to last a lifetime,’ he said grimly. He glanced around him, then leaned closer to me and whispered right in my ear, ‘There was this man, magic they said he was, and it’s told that he could put a man into a deep, dreamless sleep and whip off a limb without his victim even noticing!’ He leaned back, triumph in his eyes, as if to say, what do you think of
that
?
I knew exactly what I thought of that. I was aware, because Sibert had told me, that his uncle Hrype had somehow sedated Edmer before the amputation. The magic man whom my friend Teb had just described must surely be Hrype. Teb was waiting for my reply. It was not hard to sound thrilled as I said, in an excited whisper, ‘
Oh!
I wish I knew how he could have done that!’
Teb gripped my knee and shook it warningly. ‘You mustn’t go blabbing about what I’ve just told you!’ he said urgently. His eyes flicked briefly in the direction of the abbey – it was as if he and his friends were aware of it all the time like a watching, listening presence – and he said, all but inaudibly, ‘Them monks are funny about things like that.’
I understood what he meant. In the course of my long and ongoing training with my aunt Edild, she had told me repeatedly that many of the skills she was teaching me were frowned upon by the men of the church. They tended towards the view that if a man or a woman suffered sickness or grave injury it was God’s punishment, and it therefore followed that any alleviation of their agony was contrary to God’s will. The prime example was, of course, childbirth; Edild knew of several palliatives that could ease a long labour, so that there was less risk of mother or child – or both – dying because the mother was too exhausted by pain to go on. The church, however, was adamant: women must bear their children in pain because of Eve’s sin of disobedience.
Edild and I did not see it that way.
‘I won’t breathe a word!’ I whispered now to Teb. I licked my finger, drew it across my throat and then sketched a cross over my heart.
He nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘That’s a good girl.’ I squeezed his hand, still on my knee but now quite a lot further up my thigh. It worked. Once again speaking right in my ear, he hissed, ‘The magic man lived in a little reed-thatched house at the end of the alley that runs east under the abbey walls. They’ll remember him there.’
Then, laying his forefinger alongside his nose in the time-honoured gesture implying secrecy, he sat up straight again.
I wanted to leap up there and then and hare off in search of the reed-thatched house, but it seemed wiser to wait. My old Teb seemed anxious that his information should go no further, so he was hardly likely to tell anyone what he’d just told me. But it was better to be safe than sorry, and if Sibert and I went on chatting to the old men about other topics then nobody would be able to say that we’d shot off like a couple of scalded cats the moment we’d been told about the magic man’s house.
The magic man
. . . While the superficial part of my mind gossiped with the old men and giggled with my elderly admirer, my deeper self was walking with Hrype.
Finally, Sibert and I got away. There was no need for words as quickly we crossed the marketplace, which was still busy with townspeople, monks and the ever-flowing stream of workmen passing in and out of the abbey, and made our way down the alley that led off under the abbey walls to the east. At first houses and little hovels bunched tightly together in a mass of packed humanity, but quite soon the dwellings thinned. Right at the end there was a row of reed-thatched cottages.
One had its door ajar. I went up to it and peered inside. A woman of around my mother’s age sat on a stool by the hearth. She was spinning wool. Without turning she called out, ‘Close the door, Mattie, it’s cold enough in here already.’
I slipped inside, Sibert right behind me, and he closed the door. ‘Not Mattie, I’m afraid,’ I said softly.
The woman turned. ‘So I see,’ she said. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’
‘My friend here is looking for people who might remember his father, fatally wounded during the . . . er, in 1071,’ I said, keeping my voice low. We had no idea where this woman’s sympathies lay; she neither looked nor sounded like a Norman, but that did not necessarily mean she had supported the rebellion.
She nodded slowly as she looked us up and down. ‘Who sent you here?’ she asked. Her tone was not unfriendly, merely wary. I did not blame her for her caution.
‘An old man in the alehouse said there was a healer who used to live here,’ I said.
Again she nodded. ‘Aye, there was.’ She stared down at her hands, fallen idle in her lap. ‘He was a good man,’ she muttered.
‘You remember him?’ Sibert said eagerly.
The woman gazed up at him. ‘No, for I was not here.’ I sensed the sag of disappointment that flooded through him. Then, as if she noticed too, her face spread in a tight smile, and she said, ‘You want to talk to my mother.’
The woman’s name was Yorath. Although she did not admit as much, we gathered that her men folk had fought with Hereward. From what she said, it sounded as if her mother was a wise woman, and it appeared she had been both willing and eager to work with the magic man.
As I listened to Yorath’s quiet voice speaking of the events of twenty years ago, I felt as if her words were casting a spell on me. Such was my enchantment that it was almost a surprise when I heard my own voice ask, ‘Who was he? Who was the magic man?’
And Yorath said, ‘My mother never knew his name. He was here when they needed him, and he did not spare himself in his care of the sick and the wounded.’ She sighed, her eyes soft as she remembered the old tales. ‘Then he was gone, and none of them ever saw him again.’
Her mother, who was called Aetha, lived somewhere out on the fens; Yorath did not specify exactly where. She undertook to send word to her to ask if she was willing to see us. If we were to return the following afternoon, she would give us her mother’s answer.
We promised to be there. I sensed that Sibert wanted to stay; we were standing in the very place where his gravely wounded father had been brought, where Edmer’s brother had tried so hard to save his life, where Edmer’s wife, desperately anxious for her new husband, had done all she could to help. The central drama in his family’s recent history had happened right here. Had I been in his boots, I should have wanted to stay too.
I took his hand and gently led him away. I muttered a farewell to Yorath, catching her looking with deep sympathy at Sibert. ‘We will see you tomorrow,’ I said, and she nodded. Then Sibert and I were outside in the alley, and I hurried him away.
TEN
S
ibert’s tension did not dissipate as we made our way back up the alley and across the marketplace. I was not surprised, for I understood how hard it must be for him to sense the mystery of his past so close but still outside his reach. When he cast a longing look at the alehouse and asked if I minded if he went back to talk some more with those within, I said no, of course I didn’t.
I watched him go, my heart flooding with sympathy. If he thought it would help to drink a lot of ale, so that eventually he would fall asleep on the floor of our little dwelling in a beery stupor, then I could not blame him.
I walked on to our room, planning how I would fill in the remainder of the afternoon and the long evening that stretched ahead. I would take the unexpected free time to have another tidy up, I resolved, and when I had done that I would go through my satchel of remedies and medicaments. It was not often that I had access to an apothecary’s shop, and it made sense to check my supplies and think about whether there was anything Edild and I needed back at home.
I swept out the room, shook up the straw and prepared Sibert’s and my own sleeping places, then I fed the fire to make a good blaze and banked it down with ash so that it would burn long and slow. Next I sat in the light from the partly opened door, unfastened my leather bag and started going through the contents. I was already aware, in the back of my mind, that this task would not take much time and that the remainder of the evening loomed ahead with nothing to fill it. It was probably this that prompted me, for when I picked up the bottle of Edild’s special remedy for pain in the joints – it is full of comforting, warming herbs such as ginger and cinnamon, with a good portion of willow and a little devil’s claw – I suddenly knew how I was going to spend the rest of the day.
I had a good supply of oil, and it did not take long to prepare several bottles of the warming rub, diluting Edild’s remedy in the proportion she had instructed. Then I set to preparing myself.
I always carry lengths of clean, white cloth folded at the bottom of my satchel, for use as dressings and bandages. Hoping I had some large pieces, I spread them out and soon found what I wanted. Then I took my knife and, with its sharp point, cut out the shapes I needed. I fetched needle and thread and sewed the seams, testing the fit and, when I was satisfied, neatly hemming the raw edges. Then I unbraided my hair, brushed it back off my face and wound it in a tight, severe bun at the back of my head. I put on the wimple I had just fashioned, relieved to find how closely it framed my face. I put my cloak on over my gown and pulled up the wide folds of my hood; the fabric was dark, the material inexpensive and, like all my clothes, well worn. I stood up, wishing I could see what I looked like and fervently hoping that I looked sufficiently like my sister Elfritha: like a nun. I did not suppose I would have fooled one of Elfritha’s superiors, but I trusted that the average Ely monk would only have a sketchy idea of what a Benedictine sister wore.