He stared at me for a moment. Then he looked away. ‘There’s hot food ready.’ He indicated the blackened iron pot suspended over the hearth. ‘But eat quickly. We need to be on our way.’
He turned away and the door closed behind him.
Oh.
It looked, I thought as I helped myself to porridge, as if his way of dealing with what had happened late last night was to pretend it hadn’t. Very well. I was prepared to accept that for now – we did, after all, have more important things on our minds – but I wasn’t going to for ever.
I ate quickly, then rinsed out the pot and bowl, tidied the bed, kicked ashes on the embers of the fire, slung my satchel over my shoulder and wrapped myself up in my shawl. I went out to join Jack, saying no more than, ‘I’m ready.’
He nodded. He closed and fastened the door, then led the way through the deserted village and out on to the road. There was nobody about. The track to the fens branched off on this side of the river, but we didn’t take it. Instead, as we crossed the bridge, Jack said, ‘We have to see Walter. I must tell him of the deaths of the magician and his pupil.’
While I was desperately eager to get away and off into the relative safety of the open countryside, all the same I was glad that those two brutalized bodies weren’t just going to be left till somebody else stumbled across them. I didn’t know what orders Jack would give Walter. The important thing was for the sheriff and his officers to be told, as soon as possible, that the Night Wanderer had now killed six people.
I waited outside the tavern while Jack went in. He was very quick and, shortly afterwards, we were returning across the Great Bridge and setting out on the track to the fens. It was still too early for anyone to be about, and I was all but certain nobody saw us leaving. We had gone perhaps half a mile when he turned off the track along a path running between well-tended fields, largely pasture. There was a long, low building ahead, set in two wings around a central courtyard, and several horses had put their heads out of their stalls to have a look at the newcomers.
The horse at the near end was a grey with a smooth, silky mane and intelligent dark eyes. I smiled involuntarily, for I remembered Jack’s gelding Pegasus.
Jack went through the door into the room at the end of the stalls and I heard the mutter of brief conversation. Then he emerged again with saddle and bridle in his arms, and shortly after he led Pegasus out and off up the path, and I fell into step behind.
Jack stopped when we reached the road. ‘You ride first,’ he said, busy with the girths and not meeting my eyes, ‘because I feel-’
Annoyance flared into anger, and, before giving myself time to think, I burst out, ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jack, we can share the horse! It was just a kiss, and I enjoyed it as much as you evidently did, and I don’t think for one single moment that you were abusing my trust, or assaulting me, or taking advantage of my weakness after such a fright, and I really wish you’d stop treating me as if you’ve got to maintain a distance of several feet at all times and totally avoid looking at me!’
My voice had risen to a shout, and I listened with fast-growing embarrassment to the dying echo of my words. I could feel the hot blood rise in my face.
Jack stared at me. Then his lips began to twitch, and his mouth spread in a broad smile. ‘Actually,’ he said mildly, ‘all I was going to say was that I feel the need for some hard exercise, so I’d rather walk for a few miles.’
‘Oh.’
My face felt red-hot. Without another word, I stuck my foot in the stirrup, hauled myself up on to Pegasus’s back and touched my heels to his sides. Eagerly he set off, and I urged him to a brisk trot.
If Jack felt like hard exercise, he could damned well have it.
I thought that Jack would remain with me at Aelf Fen. I imagined us together in the deep rural peace of my little village, with the time to talk, to walk by the fen edge at the end of the day when work is done, to open up our diffident hearts and begin to reveal to each other how we felt.
But it was just a lovely daydream. As soon as we had reached my aunt Edild’s little house, and he had seen me over the threshold and handed me, as it were, into her keeping, he gave me a long, hard look and said, ‘Be on your guard, for it may be that your whereabouts can be guessed.’ Then he nodded a curt farewell to Edild – who was seated by the hearth and picking over a large basket of fungi, watching us closely – and without a single word or gesture in my direction, turned and hurried back down the path.
I ran out after him. I called out, ‘Jack! Jack!’, and the hot words rushed up, fighting to be spoken. You’re leaving me here? When will you come back? Do you want me to return to you? How will I know when it’s safe? How will I be sure you are safe?
I said nothing. I watched him swing up into the saddle, mutter a word to Pegasus, jerk at the reins to turn the horse’s handsome head, and then ride away.
I went back inside and closed the door. Edild looked at me, her face expressionless. Something in her eyes – a hint of compassion, perhaps – suggested, however, that she hadn’t missed one nuance of the little scene that had just been enacted on her doorstep.
All she said was, ‘Since you’re here, Lassair, I would very much like some help with these mushrooms.’
The day seemed endless. In the early evening I went along to my parents’ house, where my mother was busy preparing food and my father just in the act of removing his wet boots after a hard day out on the fen. They greeted me with pleased surprise. ‘We weren’t expecting you back so soon,’ said my mother, shoving me out of the way as she reached for a string of onions.
‘I’m not staying,’ I replied quickly. Wasn’t I? I only wished I knew.
‘Oh,’ my father said. Then, recovering, he added, ‘Well, we’ll just have to make the most of you while you are here. Stay and eat with us.’
I accepted; I’d been sure they’d suggest it, and Edild wasn’t expecting me back till bedtime. I slipped into the habits of home as if I’d never been away, anticipating my mother’s needs as she cooked food and set out bowls and mugs, murmuring responses to her flow of comments about the rest of the family, all the time looking out for the small, bright-eyed shade of my Granny Cordeilla, hovering in the corner where her little cot used to stand. She’s been dead these two years, but she’s still watching over us. Sometimes I hear her voice. I treasure those moments.
My younger brother Squeak came bursting in, arriving as usual just as the food was being put on the board, and accompanied by the youngest child of the family, little Leir. Not so little now, I thought, for at six years old, he was leaving plumpness behind and growing straight and tall.
It seems always to be the way of family members returning to the fold that after one or two cursory enquiries as to what you’ve been doing, everyone rapidly loses interest and reverts to talking about their own concerns. Thus it is with my kin, too, and, after a few moments of hot resentment that nobody seemed very interested in my life in the city, I sat back and let my sore soul be bathed by the comfortable familiarity of home.
I didn’t, of course, say a word about the Night Wanderer.
When we had finished the food and talk was giving way to yawns, I stood up and announced I’d better be going back to Edild’s house. As he always does, my father got up to escort me. Sometimes I protest that there is no need, although this is always to spare him if he’s looking tired, for those all too short walks through the night-quiet village are pretty much the only moments that I get my beloved father to myself, and they are very, very precious.