‘You are not in danger at the moment,’ Hrype interrupted, ‘but it might nevertheless be wise to leave Ely.’
‘But the pale boy’s all alone in there, and he doesn’t understand what is happening!’ I protested. ‘Those men have killed already, and they might be planning to kill him too!’
A smile twitched at the corner of Hrype’s long mouth. ‘I think not,’ he murmured. ‘Although there is indeed much danger . . .’ His eyes went unfocused, as if he were contemplating distant things, then he snapped back to me and said, ‘You care about this boy?’
‘I—’ Did I? I had become entangled with the mystery at which he was the heart, that was for sure, and my curiosity was thoroughly aroused. I pictured his face. I saw him trembling with fear. I imagined them holding him down, coldly planning how to dispatch him. It hurt. ‘Yes, I care,’ I admitted crossly.
Now Hrype’s smile spread. ‘It is nothing to be ashamed of,’ he murmured.
‘I’m not.’
He waited while my anger subsided. It did not take long. ‘What will you do?’ he asked softly.
I like to think the idea was mine alone, although my experience of Hrype leads me to believe that he could easily have put the thought into my head. He had, after all, just said it would be wise to leave Ely. ‘I’m going to see if I can find out something about him,’ I said decisively. ‘I’m going to Fulbourn.’ In case he thought I was running away, I added, ‘But I’ll be back!’
It was about sixteen miles to Fulbourn, and I knew the way, having enquired of the ferryman who rowed me across from the island. It lay a few miles east of Cambridge, and for much of the way the path to take was the Ely to Cambridge road. The only slight problem was the rain-drenched land, which meant that some of the lower-lying tracks were under water. I hoped there would be opportunist boatmen ready to make a few coins wherever this had happened.
It was only when I was well on my way that it occurred to me to wonder what Hrype would do while I was absent. I didn’t have to wonder for long, and indeed I was cross with myself for having walked right into his little trap. Something had brought him to Ely, and I did not have to think very hard to work out what it was. Sibert was trying to discover what had happened at Ely when his father took the wound that had ultimately killed him; even without Hrype’s extraordinary ability to see into the minds of others, it would have been clear to him that Sibert had other business on the island apart from escorting me as I went to tend my cousin Morcar.
I had been so proud of not letting Hrype catch a glimpse of what Sibert was up to via the medium of my thoughts. My care and my caution had been quite unnecessary, I now realized, because he’d known all along. Now, by either suggesting or agreeing to go to Fulbourn – I was not sure which – I had given Hrype all the time and the space he needed to go after his nephew and stop his enquiries when they had barely begun.
I was so sorry. I spoke to Sibert silently, inside my head, warning him that Hrype had arrived in Ely and was no doubt trying to find him. I also sent him my humble apologies. I don’t know if he heard but it made me feel very slightly better.
Then, with some effort, I put Sibert, Hrype and the puzzle of their past to the back of my mind and strode out for Fulbourn.
The road to Cambridge was busy, and I got a ride on the back of a farm cart in exchange for giving the farmer a pot of chickweed, camomile and foxglove ointment for his piles. It still surprises me the way complete strangers reveal intimate facts about themselves as soon as they know I’m a healer; I hadn’t been in this man’s company for more than half a mile before he began telling me much more than I wanted to know about his back passage. Still, we both got what we wanted. He would soon have relief from his pain, and I had saved myself ten miles of walking on muddy, soggy ground.
I said goodbye to my farmer just outside the town, setting off on a path that skirted around it to the east and then branching off down a track to the village of Fulbourn. Everyone else, it seemed, was making for Cambridge – my farmer had said there was a market there today – and the winding track was deserted. At least it was dry, although black water lapped, at what seemed to me to be a worryingly high level, in the ditches on either side. It was not raining right now, but the skies were dark and lowering.
If it rained I would get soaked, for the sparse and leafless alders and willows that grew in places along the track offered no protection. But there was nothing I could do about the weather.
I trudged on, my boots already caked with dark mud and weighing twice as much as when I had put them on. Presently, I saw a huddle of buildings in the distance. If my bearings were right, this ought to be Fulbourn.
The narrow path crossed the remains of an ancient track, and for a moment I stood to contemplate it. In the winter-bare landscape I could follow its line as it stretched, straight as a die, into the distance on either side. For some reason I felt a shiver of awe. Or was it fear?
I think some instinctive part of my mind had picked up the danger before I was aware of it because, without my volition, suddenly I found myself hurtling towards a thicket of hazel and bramble that had grown up some twenty paces down the straight track to my right. It was not much of a cover but better than nothing. I got down on hands and knees and wriggled under the dying vegetation. I felt the prickle of a bramble cut a deep scratch into my scalp and crouched lower, my face pressing against the cold earth. I covered myself with my cloak, drawing up my hood, and left just a small space to peer out.
A man was coming along the path from Fulbourn. He was broad and powerful, walking purposefully as if he marched to a beat I couldn’t hear. Even before I saw his face, I knew who he was. I tried to curl up even more tightly, making myself as small as I could.
He was almost at the place where the path crossed the ancient track when he called out. I shut my eyes, in that instant of pure terror reverting to childhood and the belief that if I couldn’t see him then he could not see me. I held my breath, my heart pounding and sweat breaking out all over my body. How would he kill me? With a knife? With his hands around my throat choking the life out of me? I put my hand down to my waist and, trying to stop the tremor in my fingers, drew my knife from its sheath.
I waited.
Nothing happened.
I heard the man talking. What was he saying? Was he asking his gods for strength to do what he must and kill me? I raised the edge of my hood a tiny amount and looked out.
Now there were two men. Another of the quartet from Ely had come to meet him.
I pushed the heavy hood back so that my ears were clear and listened.
The man who had come from the village was nodding his head in answer to something his companion had asked. The companion asked again, and this time the first man said, loud enough for me to hear, ‘It is safe now.’
This seemed to satisfy the other man. He said something – I think he was complaining about a wasted journey – and the first man gave a harsh laugh and said, ‘I told you I could do it alone. It was your choice to follow me.’
They were already moving off. I risked another look and saw that they were not going in the direction of Cambridge, behind us to the west, but up the straight track – which, I had reckoned, went almost due north. Well, if they were striking out back to Ely then it would be a more direct route.
I watched them stride away. They moved fast, and quite soon they were no more than two dark shapes in the distance. I waited a little longer. When at last they were out of sight, I crept out of my hiding place, brushed myself down and hurried on to Fulbourn.
The faint shiver of dread was now escalating very rapidly into all-encompassing fear.
The village had grown up around the church and the green. Rows of small, dark houses huddled close to each other as if for security from the wide, flat land all around. I smelt bread and my nose led me to a baker, busy extracting fresh loaves from his oven. I wished him good day and asked where I might find the carpenter’s house.
He wiped his sweaty face with the back of his wrist and gave me a grin. ‘Which one?’ he asked.
Oh. ‘Er – the carpenter I’m looking for has a son of about fifteen,’ I said, embarrassed. I hadn’t prepared for the possibility that there would be more than one carpenter in the village, which was pretty stupid of me.
To my relief the baker was nodding. ‘I know who you mean now,’ he said. ‘Young Gewis is about that age and he’s Edulf’s son and Edulf was a carpenter, only Edulf died . . . ooh, let me see, now.’ He paused, a thoughtful frown creasing his cheerful face. ‘Three, four years back? Four, I’d say.’ He nodded, as if agreeing with his own estimate.
Gewis’s father was dead. I hadn’t prepared for that, either. Perhaps it was the wrong family; there was an easy way to find out. ‘Gewis lives in the village?’
‘Aye, that he does.’
I cursed silently. ‘And he’s here now?’ I would have to look elsewhere for my pale youth’s family.
The baker scratched his head. ‘Come to think of it, I don’t reckon I’ve seen him for a few days.’ His frown deepened. ‘A couple of weeks, maybe . . .’ My hopes shot up again. ‘His mother’ll be at home,’ the baker went on, and my optimism rose even more. ‘I saw her yesterday evening. She bought a flax-seed loaf and we spoke about whether there’d be more rain before nightfall, and she said—’
‘Where would I find her?’ I tried to cushion my interruption with a smile.
‘Now that I
can
tell you,’ the baker said helpfully, taking my arm and drawing me so that together we were looking along the street. ‘Go up to the end of the row, past the church and round Norman’s Corner, then head on down that row and you’ll come to four cottages all together. Asfrior’s is the third one.’
Asfrior. Edulf. Gewis. I memorized the names. ‘Thank you,’ I said to the baker, ‘you’ve been very helpful.’
He beamed at me. ‘I like to be of assistance to a pretty maid.’ He reached out a swift hand and pinched my bottom.
I spun around and hurried away.
As I made my way to the quartet of cottages I planned what I would say. I would tell the pale youth’s mother that I had come from Ely and was concerned about her son, worried in case he was in the monastery against his will. I’d say we had talked, her son and I, and that I’d sensed he was uneasy. If she, too, were worried about him, this would surely give her the chance to reveal her anxiety to me in the hope that I might be able to help.
I approached the four cottages. They were well kept, the walls and roofs in good repair, and smoke spiralled up out of the reed thatch of three of them. I went up to the third one and tapped on the door. There was no answer so I tried again, harder this time. I was just about to call out when the door of the cottage on the far side opened, and a short, plump woman of almost my granny’s age emerged on to her immaculately swept step. She wore a gown of some dark-brown shade, over which she had tied a voluminous apron. She wore a neat, white headdress; her face was round and red; and her small, dark eyes bright with interest.
‘If you’re after Asfrior, she’s not at home,’ she said.
‘Oh.’ The disappointment was crushing; somehow I had not thought for a moment that I would find nobody at home. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘Gone to market, I expect,’ the old woman replied promptly. ‘I heard her very early, getting ready. Heard voices, see, and then a bit of a bustling about; then the door closed and all went quiet.’
‘When do you think she’ll be back?’ If she had set out so early, perhaps she would have finished whatever business had taken her to market and even now be on her way home.
The old woman was staring out up the road. ‘I’d have thought she’d be here by now,’ she said, a slight frown creasing her already lined brow.
I was struck with the alarming thought that maybe Asfrior had not gone to market at all but to Ely. How ironic – how
annoying
– it would be if I’d come all this way to find her and she’d gone to the very place I’d just left. ‘I’m sure she won’t be long,’ the old woman was saying. Then she added, ‘Want to come inside and have a warm and a bite to eat? You look as if you could do with it.’ She was eyeing me, taking in my thin body.
‘I’d love to,’ I said. Never mind her prurient interest in my skinny body; she had just offered me comforts that I hadn’t expected until I got back to Ely.
She led the way inside. Her cottage was tiny, much of the space taken up by a bed against the far wall. A fire burned brightly in the hearth, and I caught the savoury smell of whatever was bubbling in the pot suspended over it. The old woman pushed forward a stool, told me to sit down, take my boots off and warm my feet, and while I did so she fetched two wooden bowls and ladled out generous portions of barley broth. She fetched a loaf and tore off two chunks of bread.
I fell on the food, and my old woman did not speak until I had finished. Watching as I wiped my bowl with the last of the bread, she said, ‘Coleman bakes a good loaf. If he could only keep his hands to his craft, and not let them wander all over pretty girls’ bottoms, he would be perfect.’
I smiled. ‘It was he who directed me here.’
‘Did he pinch
your
bottom?’