Only Hrype knew there was more to it. His own instincts had told him why Sibert wanted to stay on the Isle of Ely. To confirm it, he had looked into the scrying ball and seen into Sibert’s mind. There was confusion there, as well as anger. Above all there was determination. Hrype had at last cast the runes, and then he’d seen everything.
He will not come home
, Hrype thought.
Not until he knows
. He sighed, for he knew what he must do and he did not want to do it. Froya’s mood was already low and troubled, and if he, too, went away he knew she would descend into the melancholia that so often afflicted her. But there was no choice; Sibert’s course was set and the runes said he would not divert from it.
The only thing that Hrype could do was make sure he was there when the inevitable happened. He might not survive – he recalled Sibert’s anger, to which he had been a reluctant witness – but he would have to take that chance.
He lay in the dark and formulated his plans. When dawn began to send a paler light into the eastern sky, he was already up. His pack stood ready by the door, and he sat by the hearth waiting for Froya to wake up. She opened her eyes and looked right at him. She knew. He watched as her face crumpled and tears overflowed down her pale cheeks. But she did not try to stop him.
I tried to think. I was still shaking with fear, for now that I thought about it I realized that I had surely just seen an apparition. Had it truly been there, with its face of horror and the long streaks of blood down its white shroud? Or had I picked up the pale youth’s terror and seen what he believed he had seen? Either way, the thing in the old church had been an abomination, and I felt as if I were disturbed in some frightful way right to my very roots.
As if that were not bad enough, the four broad, thickset monks who had come looking for the pale monk had seen me. They could not but have noticed that the boy and I had our heads together and were whispering; would they jump to the conclusion that he had imparted to me the essence of the dread secret that lay at the heart of this mystery, and would he then be able to persuade them that he hadn’t? Our encounter had been brief, but even in that short time I had sensed that he was honest and decent. I was sure he would do his best to protect me, even . . .
No. It was no good. I was suddenly convinced that it was the pale boy himself who was the secret. Even if he had not uttered a word, I knew he was in there and the four monks now knew that. They had tried to kill Morcar, and they had killed two men they mistook for Morcar, merely because he had witnessed the pale youth being smuggled inside the abbey. What were my chances now that
I
had seen him in there?
My fear escalated, and without any conscious effort I found I was running, my satchel bouncing on my hip, the skirts of my robe and my cloak threatening to trip me. I gathered them up and ran for my life.
I fled across the marketplace and into the maze of narrow, ill-lit streets opening off it. It was late now, fully dark, and there were few people about. I ran on, panting, a stitch in my side. The houses thinned and petered out; I found myself on the edge of a rain-soaked stretch of open space that sloped gently down to the water. There was a shelter of some sort at the water’s edge, and I hurried down to it; it was a wash house. There was nobody within – people don’t do their laundry late in the evening – and I went inside and slumped on to the stone bench that ran along its rear wall.
My heartbeat gradually slowed. I took deep breaths and, as the sweat cooled on my body, clutched my cloak tightly around me, pulling the hood over my head.
The hood . . . With a stab of profound relief, I thought of something. It wasn’t much but it gave me a glimmer of hope. I had gone inside the abbey as a nun, wimpled and veiled like a Benedictine. I had been wearing my disguise when the four monks approached. With any luck, they would not have realized that the nun whispering to their pale boy was the healer who had tended the man they attacked.
With any luck.
I closed my eyes, concentrated so hard that it made my head throb and summoned my guardian. He came quickly – I’m sure he had been with me all evening – and I sensed the tip of his cool nose push into my hot hand. In my mind I saw him, his luxuriant red coat glowing in the starlight, his deep, dark eyes quietly watching me. It was strange because just for an instant I thought I saw the shadowy shape of another animal standing behind him. It was a silver wolf; Edild’s spirit animal.
Already comforted by the reassuring presence of Fox, now I smiled in the still night, for I knew my aunt was thinking about me and her thought was so powerful that her guardian had materialized in the dark place where I was.
Slowly, I reached up and took off the wimple, folding it neatly and stowing it in my satchel. I unwound the tight bun – I had drawn my hair back so severely that the skin of my forehead felt unnaturally stretched – and shook my head, feeling my long hair swing around my neck and shoulders. I sat quite still, composing myself and putting my essence back into my true self. Then, recalling all that Edild had taught me about invisibility – which actually is no such thing, just a way of blending into the background so that nobody notices you – I got to my feet and set off up the alley and back into the town.
I kept to the shadows until I reached the market square. I had to cross it to reach the alley where our little house was and I knew that, if unfriendly eyes were looking out for me, then what I must not do was appear furtive. I slid along right in front of the houses that bordered the square, keeping under the overhanging roofs, walking steadily but not hurrying. I am a healer who has been called out to tend a patient, I repeated to myself. I have laboured long and I am tired, so that my feet drag a little. I stumbled, quickly righting myself. I am heading for my home and a well-deserved rest. I let out a little sigh, which turned into a yawn.
I was in the alley now. I risked a glance over my shoulder at the abbey gates; I would be out of the line of sight of anyone looking out in an instant, so I felt it was safe.
The great gate was not quite shut. I could not see anyone but nevertheless I knew he was there. I felt eyes like bright lights searching the darkness; searching for me.
Either he did not see me or he’d realized that I was no nun and so he had no interest in me. I did not wait to find out; I gathered up my skirts again and ran for home.
I did not appreciate how very much I was looking forward to Sibert’s presence in the little house until I got back and found he wasn’t there. I let myself in and closed the door, trying not to let the panic take over.
Where could he be?
He was not still at the ale house, I was sure, because I had just passed it and no lights showed, nor were there any sounds of human activity within. The drinkers had left, and those who resided there had turned in for the night. Had Sibert fallen into conversation with someone and, desperate to know more, gone home with him or her to continue the exchange? Oh, he might have told me!
But you weren’t here to be told
, my reason protested.
You were out on an errand of your own that Sibert did not know about. It’s entirely possible that he came home hoping to find you and was as disappointed, puzzled and, yes, alarmed as you are now
.
I collapsed on to my straw mattress. I thought about going to look for him, but I had no idea where to start. Besides, someone had been on watch at the abbey gate and to go out again was surely pushing my luck too far. I was so tired that I knew I would not get far, and the fact that my mind was exhausted too meant I was highly likely to make stupid decisions.
Go to sleep
, said a voice in my head. I smiled; someone with more sense than I appeared to be guiding me. I slipped off my boots, loosened my belt, pushed my knife under the mattress within easy reach of my hand and lay down, drawing my cloak around me. There was a moment when I held on to wakefulness –
Sibert, where are you?
– and then I let myself go.
It must have been very late when I drifted off, or perhaps I was more in need of sleep than I had realized, for when I woke the light streaming in through the small window told me that it was getting on for noon. I stretched and yawned. I was thirsty, and my stomach was growling with hunger. I pushed the cloak off me – I was too hot – and was turning my thoughts to food when I remembered.
I shot up, twisting round to look at Sibert’s straw mattress so fast that my head spun. He was not there, but someone else was.
My mouth opened and closed again as I tried to form the words. He beat me to it; with a cool smile Hrype said, ‘Good morning, Lassair. I was starting to think you were enchanted and would never wake up.’ The smile widened. ‘You are all right. You have not been harmed.’
It was a statement; Hrype did not need to ask, being able somehow to sense hurt or malaise in the auras that he claims he sees around all sentient beings, humans included.
‘No, I’m fine,’ I agreed. I knew what he would ask next, and I steeled myself to tell him the truth.
He already knew that too; apparently, he knew much more than I did, which admittedly would not be difficult. ‘Sibert has left the island,’ he said softly, as if he were chanting the words; it was the voice he used when he was describing what his inner vision showed him. ‘He seeks someone, one who he hoped was to send for him, for he grows impatient and will not wait.’ Then, relief flooding his stern face, he said in his normal tone, ‘But it’s all right; she is not ready to be found.’
‘I’m not sure he—’ I began, but he raised a hand and I fell silent.
Then, as if the short and strange exchange had not happened, he said, ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. Let’s go and find some dinner.’
I hurried to get up, brushing straw off my gown and surreptitiously trying to tidy my hair. He waited patiently until I was ready, and then we left the little house and, side by side, set off up the alley.
TWELVE
T
he food stalls were crowded, catering to the needs of a workforce of hungry men who had been busy since first light. Hrype led the way to one where the queue was long enough to suggest that the food was good but not so long that it would be ages before we were served. We stood in silence while we waited, and when it was our turn Hrype ordered steaming bowls of cabbage soup and rye bread sprinkled with poppy seeds. We found a place to sit down – a partly demolished wall over on the abbey side of the market square – and tucked in. The cabbage soup had been thickened with barley and flavoured with pork stock; it even contained some quite generous pieces of the meat. I dipped in my bread and sucked in my first mouthful. The soup was delicious, and very quickly I had eaten the whole bowlful.
With a smile, Hrype tipped some of his into my bowl. ‘You, evidently, are more in need than I,’ he remarked.
I hesitated fractionally, purely for the sake of politeness, and then resumed eating.
When I had finished, Hrype asked me to tell him all that had happened since Sibert and I had arrived in Ely. I did so, concentrating hard to make sure I told him the important facts without too much elaboration or speculation. I forced myself to think only about the pale youth and the murders to which his presence on the island had led. I knew that if I so much as let the thought of Sibert’s private mission cross my mind then Hrype would somehow spot it and pounce.
‘So you see, it really looks as if this pale monk is at the heart of some dangerous secret, although he claims to have no idea at all what it could be,’ I concluded.
Hrype was silent for quite a long time. Then he said thoughtfully, ‘Pale.’
It was a pretty typical Hrype remark: enigmatic and, as a conversational contribution, not in the least informative.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked after a pause during which I cast around frantically – and fruitlessly – to see if I could divine what he meant.
‘Describe
pale
,’ he ordered.
Ah, yes. ‘His face is white, but not the greyish pallor you get when you’re very sick or in great pain.’ Edild suffers from the dreaded hemicrania, often with disturbed vision and nausea, and I know from one look at her when the pain is bad because her face goes corpse-white and her eyes seem to sink in her head. ‘He just looks as if he’s naturally white-skinned. His eyes have very little colour. The light was poor so I could not determine exactly, but I’d say they were very light grey. His hair is cream.’
‘Cream,’ Hrype echoed.
‘Yes, cream. Not white, like a grandmother’s, not blonde like a child’s.
Cream
,’ I insisted.
Hrype smiled. ‘Yes, all right, Lassair, I do not doubt your word.’
That was a relief. I sat waiting for him to comment, but he said nothing. Eventually, I could not contain my impatience. ‘Hrype, I’m sorry if I’m interrupting your thoughts, but what should we do? This pale boy was forced inside the abbey by four big, strong men who may or may not be monks, and it appears that they watch him closely even now he’s tucked away inside the walls. They saw me talking to him last night –’ I said that quickly, hoping to minimize the shiver of fear that shot through me when I thought of those four bulky forms advancing through the dusk – ‘and, although as I explained I was dressed as a nun, it’s still very likely they know who I am. They might have followed me, or—’