Tonight I didn’t even think of trying to deter him.
We walked quite slowly, arm in arm. He said quietly, ‘Is everything all right, child?’
‘Yes!’ I said, far too quickly.
Apart from my anxieties about Jack and my deep fear at the presence of a killer on the loose in Cambridge, there was something else that stood between my father and me. Although he had no idea what it was, I knew that he sensed it. I was very afraid that he felt I had distanced myself from him, and it broke my heart.
I had found out something about his past. I knew that his father was not who he believed him to be: the quiet, unassuming man who had been married to my Granny Cordeilla and fathered her other children. My paternal grandfather was an Icelander known as the Silver Dragon, and his real name was Thorfinn.
When last I had seen my grandfather, I had yelled at him that it was neither right nor fair not to reveal the truth to my father. I longed to tell him myself, but it wasn’t my secret. I loved my father profoundly, no matter whose son he was, but I hated having to hide from him something so vital.
I squeezed his hand, leaning close against him. ‘I love you, Father,’ I whispered.
He chuckled. ‘I know that, child,’ he said. ‘What’s brought this on?’
I hesitated. ‘Oh – just that I wouldn’t want you to feel that I don’t think about you, and miss you, when I’m away,’ I said eventually. ‘I – I worry sometimes that perhaps you think I’m growing away from you’ – I fought back the tears that threatened – ‘and I want you to know that could never be true.’
It was his turn for a thoughtful pause. Then he said, ‘Lassair, you’re a young woman now, hard-working, learning a good occupation, and it’s true that at times recently I’ve sensed a withdrawal in you.’
‘I don’t-’ I began hotly.
But he hushed me. ‘It’s only natural, my dear heart, for you to make your own way in the world, and I would never stand in your way.’ He paused. ‘Just as long as you remember to come back now and again,’ he finished.
I nodded, unable for a moment to speak. So he had sensed something. I very nearly blurted it out, there and then, never mind whose secret it was.
But then, loud and clear inside my head, I heard Granny Cordeilla say, Not yet, child.
I held my peace. Not yet, she’d said. Oh, but that was encouraging: it sounded as if the time might be near when the pain of keeping quiet would be over. Very well, I said to her. But make it soon!
My father and I walked on. Just as we reached the end of the path up to Edild’s house, I stopped, reached up to kiss him and said, ‘I’ll always come back.’
I stood in the doorway and watched him stride away. While I was happy that we’d spoken words of such care and love to each other, all the same I was still cross with my grandfather, and with everyone and everything to do with the secret I had unwittingly discovered and had to keep.
And unfortunately one of the people involved in that suppression of the truth was sitting by the hearth beside my aunt.
‘What are you doing here?’ I said rudely to Hrype. Edild frowned at me, but I didn’t feel like apologizing. ‘I’m very tired,’ I went on, ‘it’s been a long day, and I want to go to bed.’
That was even ruder, since I could hardly hope to roll out my bed and slide into it with Hrype sitting by the hearth. Now Edild did speak: eyes sparkling her anger, she said, ‘Hrype is here at my invitation, Lassair, and you will show courtesy to my guest.’
I very nearly yelled at her. I almost shouted, He’s not a guest, he’s your lover, and don’t pretend otherwise when you’re fully aware I know!
But I have too much respect for her. I bowed my head, stomped through to the little storeroom and muttered, ‘I’ll finish sorting those mushrooms. Let me know when he’s gone.’
I closed the door behind me, leaning against it and broiling with anger. Too much had happened; I just wanted to close my eyes and try to shut it all out.
After a while, I heard a soft tap. ‘It’s me,’ said Hrype’s voice. ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘Well, I don’t want to talk to you.’ There was a short silence. Then he pushed the door open and came into the storeroom. He shut it again, and we stood looking at each other.
‘Where’s Gurdyman?’ I demanded in a hiss.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Gurdyman? I have no idea.’
‘He’s not at his house,’ I said, still keeping my voice low. ‘He disappeared two days ago.’
Hrype looked at me. ‘And why should you imagine I know where he is?’
‘I know you were there in his house because I found the message you left for me.’ I took the rune stone out from the purse at my belt and held it out to him.
Briefly he glanced at it, in the palm of my hand with my fingers curved around it. There was a sort of lurch in the air: I knew, without understanding how I knew, that he burned to touch it, to take it from me.
He managed to control himself. He raised his eyes to mine and gave a shrug. ‘It’s just a stone,’ he said dismissively.
He was so convincing that I very nearly believed him. Was I wrong? Was it just a stray piece of green stone with a strange gold mark that had lain there beneath the floorboard in the attic room for many, many years?
But I caught him looking back at the rune stone. Just for the blink of an eye, the naked desire was clear in his face.
‘Take it.’ I gave it to him. ‘If you persist in pretending you don’t recognize it, then have it anyway. It’s sufficiently like your own jade rune stones to act as a replacement if you ever lose one.’
His hand closed on the stone. ‘Thank you,’ he said very softly.
And I wondered why I was being so hard on him. He had left the rune stone for me to find, and we both knew it. For reasons of his own, he was now denying it, but it had been a kindly gesture. Following that awful night when Jack and I witnessed the murder of the young priest and then I discovered Gurdyman had gone, subsequently finding Hrype’s stone was the only thing that comforted me, making me believe, as it did, that Gurdyman hadn’t been spirited away by some brutal, vicious murderer but was safe with Hrype.
‘Thank you,’ I replied. I managed a smile. I indicated the rune stone. ‘It achieved its purpose.’
He turned away. ‘You can go to bed now,’ he said as he went back into the main room. ‘I’m leaving.’
I gave him and my aunt a few private moments to say goodnight, then, when I heard the door close after him, went in to Edild. With barely a word to each other, we made our preparations for the night and settled down.
As I lay in the darkness, watching the last embers of the fire, I thought back over my exchange with Hrype. I had very much wanted to tell him that I saw him down in the crypt, with Gurdyman and that shadowy third figure, in that strange flash of vision. But something had held me back.
Hrype was keeping secrets from me; that was perfectly obvious. He did know where Gurdyman was, and I was sure of it. He’d probably taken him away to whatever safe refuge he now inhabited, possibly with that third person, who was perhaps a friend to one or the other of them. So why had he chosen not to tell me? Surely he knew I was trustworthy; he must be aware of how fond I was of Gurdyman; how close to him.
There was a reason, and it was staring me in the face. I didn’t want to acknowledge it, but I realized I must: Hrype didn’t tell me where Gurdyman was in hiding not because he didn’t trust me but because he didn’t trust Jack.