After a few moments of silent contemplation, he slipped away as cat-footed as he had come.
Presently, Hrype came back. Edild looked up at him. ‘Is it safe for you?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Yes. He has gone.’
Hrype came to crouch beside me. I struggled to sit up. ‘You don’t want Father Clement to see you, do you?’ I whispered. ‘That’s why you’ve been insisting we disguise ourselves when we come to the abbey. It’s not for my sake but yours.’
‘It’s for both our sakes, Lassair,’ he whispered back. ‘It’s best that he doesn’t know too much about you either.’
I thought about that. Then I asked, ‘Why don’t you want him to recognize you? What happened when you met him at Crowland?’
Hrype smiled thinly. ‘He accused me of witchcraft. He saw me — well, never mind about that. Enough to say that I was careless enough to let him witness something he shouldn’t have done. He was frightened, and his reaction was to accuse me of one of the worst crimes he could think of.’
I waited, but it became clear he wasn’t going to tell me any more.
TWELVE
I slept for a while, but soon something woke me. I opened my eyes to see that Hrype had gone; perhaps it was his departure that had disturbed me. It’s not that he would have made a noise as he got up and left — he wouldn’t; despite being tall, he moves as silently as a shadow — it’s more that he’s such a vital person that his presence or absence in a room always makes itself felt. Well, it does to me, anyway.
I lay still for some time, warm in my cloak and shawl. I watched Edild, sitting close beside Elfritha. I noticed the slump of my aunt’s shoulders; she was worn out.
I shook off my covers and crept across to her, crouching beside her for a while and joining in her close observation of her patient. Elfritha was breathing slowly and steadily and appeared to be deeply asleep. Was that a good sign? Or had I, in fact, mistaken for sleep the unconsciousness that precedes death?
‘How is she?’ I asked, when I could keep quiet no longer.
Edild reached out a gentle hand and stroked Elfritha’s smooth forehead. ‘She is sleeping,’ she whispered.
‘Is that good?’
Edild gave a faint shrug.
‘But doesn’t sleep heal people?’ I persisted. ‘That’s what you always say.’
She made a faint sound of irritation. ‘Lassair, I have never dealt with a case of acute poisoning from mistletoe berries and ergot-contaminated seeds before, so I really have no idea what is good, as you so blandly put it, and what isn’t!’
I knew she was only being cross with me because she was desperately anxious and exhausted, but all the same, her sharp words hurt.
After a moment I felt her hand reach out and take mine. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘It’s all right,’ I said quickly. ‘I understand.’
We sat together, still holding hands, looking at my sister. I heard Edild give a huge yawn. ‘Why don’t you have a sleep?’ I suggested. ‘I’ll watch for a while.’
She looked at me doubtfully. ‘It is a very big responsibility,’ she murmured.
‘I’ll wake you if she — if anything happens,’ I assured her. ‘I promise.’
My aunt looked at me for a while longer, then, abruptly making up her mind, nodded. ‘Very well. Call me if she makes any move or sound.’
‘I will.’
Edild got up, stretched — I could almost hear her cramped muscles creaking — and went over to the place where Hrype had lain. She settled herself, curling up in her cloak like a kitten in front of the hearth. Within moments she was asleep. I saw that one foot was uncovered, and I reached out to tuck it in.
Then I went back to sit beside my sister’s cot.
They say that during the hours before dawn we are at our lowest ebb. It is the time, according to healers like my aunt, when the dying tend to slip away. It is the time, as I well know from my own experience, when your worries press most heavily on you, so that you wonder why on earth you are bothering to struggle on.
So it was with me just then. There was my much-loved Elfritha, my adored elder sister — kind, loving, much missed by us all since she became a nun, but still a part of the world, even behind her abbey walls. She was no better — in the privacy of my own thoughts, I did not try to fool myself — and it was very possible, even probable, that she would die. She had voided her poor suffering body, and now she lay, deathly pale, a mere skeleton covered with the thinnest layer of flesh. She had taken in nothing but a few drops of water for hours, days, and even now she was still occasionally bringing up some of the precious liquid. Unless something changed — unless we could get her body to take in the water she so desperately needed — she would not survive.
Just then I was far beyond trying to think who had tried to kill her: who had wanted her dead and out of the way and so had attempted to dispatch her, just as he — perhaps she — had done with the man in the fen and poor little Herleva. All I could think of was that she was my sister, and I loved her, and I might be about to lose her.
Had I had someone’s loving arms around me to support and comfort me, it might not have been so bad. Full of self-pity now, I thought miserably that at least my aunt had had Hrype to hold her when she cried. I had nobody.
The man I loved had tried to reach me via my dreams. He had called out to me, several times, but now he called no more. My dreams of him had stopped. He had been in terrible danger, and whatever had threatened him had overcome him. He was dead; I was sure of it.
Grieving for Rollo, already dead, and for my dear Elfritha, about to join him, I crossed my arms on my sister’s bed, dropped my head and wept.
I am dreaming. .
It is twilight, or perhaps dawn. The light is unnatural; half-light. Magic light. I am close to water, for I hear it and smell it. My feet are on firm ground, but I know that the path is very narrow and that it twists and turns. It is up to me to find the safe way. Then I become aware that there are others with me, many of them, on the path behind me and depending on me to keep them from harm. The weight of responsibility sits heavily on my shoulders, pushing me down. With a great effort, I straighten my spine and stare anxiously ahead.
The safe way goes along the top of a spit of pebbly ground that snakes through the perilous sand, a spectral voice says in my head. You know this. You have the gift of finding it, and you will not go astray.
I do not know whose voice it is. I do not recognize it. But the words give me confidence, and I move on. I can feel the others, eager now, right behind me. I peer through the gloom. Where are we going? I look over my shoulder, and I see that, halfway down the long procession, there are big, broad-shouldered men who carry a heavy load. There are four of them, walking slowly, one at each corner of a sort of platform.
Proceed, says the voice.
I obey.
A cloud moves away from the moon, and now I can make out the landscape ahead. We are on the foreshore, a wide stretch of salt marsh that extends away to the distant sea. Between me and the water line there is a building of some sort. It is formed out of tall timbers, set in the damp, sandy ground in the shape of a circle. We go nearer, nearer. I begin to make out details, and I see that the timbers form an unbroken wall, in which there is one door that faces us. The voice intones, Behold, the shrine of the crossing place.
I glance up. I can tell from what I can see of the stars in the cloudy sky that the season is autumn, and that we are approaching from the west.
I can see through the open doorway into the interior of the wooden circle. Right in the middle there is the thick stump of a huge oak tree, the wide span of its roots up in the air and its short trunk bedded down deep in the sandy soil. The splayed roots look like open arms, ready to hold a precious offering up to the sky.