Out of the Dawn Light (28 page)

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Authors: Alys Clare

BOOK: Out of the Dawn Light
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I nipped round behind the village and approached her neat, tidy and sweet-smelling little cottage from the far side. As I’ve said, she lives on the very edge of the village, preferring her own company and not being one to gossip at the pump. The bees were busy in the herb beds either side of her door as I hurried up and from the rear of the house I heard the tonk of the bell that hangs round her nanny goat’s neck and the soft clucking of her hens.
I tapped perfunctorily on the door and burst in. Edild was sitting on her wooden chair and she looked up and coolly met my eyes. On the low bench on the opposite side of the hearth sat Hrype and Froya.
I guessed, then, that she already knew.
She went on looking at me for a few moments and I had the odd feeling I sometimes get with her, that she’s creeping inside my mind to see what’s there. Then she said, ‘This is not good, Lassair.’
Froya went to say something, but Hrype put a gentle hand on her arm and she subsided. I glanced at her. She is very like Sibert, both of them tall, lightly built and very fair. Her bright sea-green eyes were not as lovely as usual, being red-rimmed and puffy with weeping. She had a dainty linen handkerchief in her hands, surely deeply inadequate for its present purpose, and her fingers worried at it ceaselessly, twisting it this way and that. Also like her son, Froya is one of those people who are just a bit too fragile for life and need looking after. I look after Sibert – or not, in fact, seeing the pass we had come to – and Hrype, I suppose, looks after Froya, as indeed a good man should, especially if his sister-in-law is a widow with a child to bring up.
I could not bear to look into Froya’s eyes for very long. There was an expression of anguished hope in them and I knew exactly what it was she was hoping for.
I turned back to Edild. ‘Queen Emma managed it!’ I burst out. ‘She didn’t even notice she’d walked over the red-hot metal!’
Edild gave a tut of impatience. ‘That’s just a story, child,’ she said. ‘Do you really think anyone would have had the temerity to make someone like Queen Emma do something like that?’
‘It was her son that made her,’ I mumbled, as if this made it more likely.
Edild did not even bother to answer that.
Then silence extended and they all looked at me. When I could stand it no longer I said, ‘I’m going to do it. I’ve got to, because it’s my fault Sibert’s in this position and I can’t live with my guilt if he’s – ’ I glanced at his poor suffering mother, who had emitted an anguished gasp – ‘er, if anything happens to him.’ Edild started to protest but I overrode her, briefly explaining my guilt. ‘So you see,’ I finished, ‘really I have no choice. If this is the only way to prove I’m telling the truth and Sibert is no murderer, then I’ll have to do what Baudouin demands.’
I could hear the drama in my voice and I’m sure I stood up a little straighter, raising my chin like the brave heroine I was. I fully expected one or all of them to say,
Oh, no, Lassair, you can’t possibly do this frightful thing, it is far, far too much to ask of you
, but nobody said a word
.
I began to feel very frightened.
Then Hrype said, as calmly as if he were discussing how to cook some new dish, ‘I once saw it done. It is quite possible to do it and come to little or no harm.’
I wondered how little was little.
Edild was nodding. ‘I too have heard tell of people walking the fire and not suffering hurt. Tell us, please, Hrype, what you saw.’
He frowned into the distance for a few moments, his light grey eyes unfocused, as if assembling the memory. Then he said, ‘It was in the far north, when I was learning with the shamans.’ The far north of where? I wondered. And what were shamans? It did not sound like anything that happened or was rumoured to happen in my own land and I realized, with a shiver of wonder, that Hrype must mean the far north of the strange land far away over the sea and he must have travelled back to the place from which his people had once come . . .
‘There was grave trouble in the community,’ he was saying, ‘for the Sun had withdrawn his strength and the waters of the cold seas were threatening to engulf the lands, so that the reindeer would no longer roam and the people would starve. The shamans held a great ceremony to honour the Sun and his element of fire. They built a vast fire pit and one by one a hundred shamans walked across the live coals. They chanted as they went, mixing their energy with that of the fire, sending their praise into the night sky where the Sun had withdrawn into the darkness. They gave everything they had as they prayed for healing for their community, and their sacrifice was rewarded. The Sun came back, the waters receded and the people grew healthy once more.’
He looked at me, a long look that I could not read. Then he said softly, ‘Not one of those hundred men and women suffered lasting harm. One or two were burned when a coal broke beneath their foot, but healers were standing by to help, giving comfort and relieving pain.’
After some time I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry. I swallowed and tried again. ‘How is it done?’ I whispered.
Hrype regarded me steadily. ‘By courage and by faith. Believe in what you are doing; believe that the task you perform is vital for the general good. Keep in mind that what you do is for the sake of others. Then your guides and helpers will come to your aid and protect you.’
‘I can have guides and helpers?’ I asked eagerly, then realized, feeling foolish, that he had been referring to the guardian spirits.
‘If you elect to do this thing, Lassair,’ came my aunt’s cool voice, ‘Hrype and I will assist you. We will walk alongside you on either side of the pit. We will encourage you.’
She meant it kindly, I knew, but it wasn’t their bare feet that were going to be on the coals.
‘I don’t know . . .’ I murmured. Inside I was crying out desperately,
Help me! Help me!
My aunt must have heard. Abandoning her detached tone she said with brisk urgency, ‘Lassair, you are fire and air. Remember?’
I thought back across the weeks and months to the day when she had explained my web of destiny. ‘Ye–es,’ I said slowly.
‘Fire needs air to burn, and so the two elements that make up your essence are fire’s own elements,’ she went on. ‘The fire will recognize that you are in sympathy with it. You will not be harmed.’ A lulling, hypnotic quality had subtly entered her voice. ‘You will not be harmed,’ she repeated, the words like a soft chant. ‘In the instant of your birth’ – she was almost singing now – ‘the Warrior God was in the fire sign of Aries, and he always acknowledges his own when they demonstrate great courage. He will protect you.
You will not be harmed.
’
Now another, deeper voice blended with hers. Hrype, chanting with her, harmonizing with her, said, ‘We will help you. We will support you. We will assist you to raise up your energy until it is at such a peak that it matches that of the fire. The fire will recognize you and you will not be harmed.’
You will not be harmed.
You will not be harmed.
Again and again they repeated it until I felt my mind and my voice fall into step with theirs. ‘I will not be harmed,’ I repeated dreamily.
‘Picture your feet, strong like the toughest hide,’ said Edild.
‘Picture your calm, steady steps across the fire,’ said Hrype, ‘picture your peaceful, smiling face.’
‘See the soles of your feet’ – Edild again – ‘smooth, unblemished.’
‘Imagine your feet in boots of ice,’ sang Hrype, ‘safe from the fire, cool, protecting. You will not be harmed.’
‘You will not be harmed,’ they intoned together.
I believed them.
Some time later – I think they put me into a light trance, for afterwards I could not have explained quite how so much time had passed – I was aware of Froya’s anxious eyes. I looked at her. I felt full of love for her, Sibert’s sweet mother, and I wanted to hug her. I beamed at her, feeling the joyful smile spread to encompass my whole face, my whole being. I dropped to my knees in front of her and took her cold hands in my warm ones. I was fire and air; fire was my element. I would not be harmed. ‘Don’t worry any more,’ I said. I bent to kiss the backs of her hands. ‘Sibert won’t die.’ Another kiss, tiny, the lightest of touches. ‘I’ll do it.’
NINETEEN
 
I
would be lying if I said that my mood of serene acceptance lasted until the moment I set my bare feet on to the coals. It didn’t. All the rest of that day I suffered dreadful, confidence-sapping periods of doubt, especially when my parents, quietly informed by Edild what I was planning to do, came rushing round to her cottage to dissuade me.
My mother’s sobs were hard enough to bear. When I saw tears in my strong, brave father’s eyes, I was all but undone.
Edild saw this – of course she would – and took them outside. I heard their voices – my mother’s shrill with fear and horror, my father’s a quiet background boom – and then Edild spoke, dousing their horrified protests like cool water on the fire.
Fire.
I couldn’t stop thinking about fire.
Shortly afterwards Edild came back into the cottage. Her face was set firm as if any leeway that she permitted herself would allow the threatening emotions to take over. She said shortly, ‘Your parents have gone home, Lassair. I have explained that you are resolved to do this test and told them why. I have also said that their presence here could distract you and they have agreed to keep away.’
Oh! She was right, I knew she was; I had to fix my thoughts – my whole being – on the trial and, under the instruction of Edild and Hrype, I was working hard on developing a picture in my mind of my feet encased in those imaginary shoes made of thick ice. It was hard enough without having to face my mother’s anguished face and my father’s desperate need to save me from hurt.
‘Will they – will they be there tomorrow?’ My voice was little more than a croak.
Edild looked at me dispassionately, almost coldly. She was just then wholly the teacher, and I could detect nothing in her of the affectionate, funny aunt. I knew it had to be that way, but all the same it was hard. ‘They will stay inside their cottage,’ she said.
Because, she could have added, if they are watching and you know that they are, your concentration will be broken. We were both all too aware of what
that
would lead to.
 
Hrype went to Lord Gilbert’s manor house and informed him that I was prepared to take the test. To my surprise – and Hrype and Edild’s too – in the early evening he came to Edild’s cottage.
His chubby face was quite pale and he looked at me out of worried eyes. ‘You do not have to do this,’ he said. ‘You are accused of no crime and neither your freedom nor your life is in the balance. It is not too late to change your mind.’
I wondered why he was doing this. ‘What does it matter to you?’ I demanded. I realized as soon as I had spoken that I sounded rude. ‘I am sorry,’ I added. ‘You have, it seems, my well-being at heart.’
‘I have!’ he agreed fervently. ‘Lassair’ – at least he remembered my name now – ‘this trial is a fearsome thing! They are constructing the pit as I speak and soon the fires will be lit. You will—’
I sensed Hrype casting round for a courteous but irrevocable way of telling him to be quiet. He knew, as did Edild, that this talk of pits, fires and fearsome things was not good for me.
I spoke first.
‘Lord Gilbert,’ I interrupted, ‘it is kind of you to take the trouble to explain my position to me.’ I knew it perfectly well already, but it was still kind of him. ‘However, there is really only one factor to be considered, which is that if I don’t do the test and prove that I’m telling the truth, then Sibert will hang.’ I tried to hold his eyes but he looked away. ‘Is that not so?’ I prompted.
‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘It has to be so,’ he added, ‘for Baudouin de la Flèche has a witness.’
And Baudouin himself, I thought, is a powerful Norman baron, even if just at present he’s a landless one. As Lord Gilbert said, it had to be so.
There was nothing more to be said and after a while he realized it. He gave me a sort of bow – just a slight nod of his head – and it was an extraordinary thing to see, given the huge void between our respective positions in the world. Then he turned and, flinging the door open as if he could not wait to get away from us, hurried away.
I did not think I would be able to sleep that night. The images were far too vivid in my head and the ice boots were having a tough time holding their own against the glowing coals. However, Edild made me an infusion in which I could taste dill and the bitterness of wood lettuce and she made me drink every last drop. Very soon after that, I curled up on the shakedown bed by the hearth that she had prepared for me, drew up the soft lambs’ wool blanket and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
 
In the guest chamber of Gilbert de Caudebec’s manor house, Baudouin de la Flèche looked out of the small window at the gathering darkness outside and told himself, one more night. Just one more night, and then all this will be over, the crown will be in my hands and I can be off, on my way to plead before the king.

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