Read Out of the Dawn Light Online
Authors: Alys Clare
Out of the Dawn Light (3 page)
‘What happened to Beofor?’ Haward demanded, eyes wide in the firelight and his stammer quite forgotten as he sat entranced.
Granny smiled down at him. ‘He wandered for many moons and had many adventures, and finally he settled on the coast, in a very special place that called out to him in a magical voice that sounded like the deep murmuring roar of a dragon. There he took two wives and fathered many children and’ – the transition was so smooth and so unexpected that I for one did not suspect a thing – ‘that is quite enough for one night and now I am going to bed.’
We all went about our little rituals for the end of the day. Just before I lay down on my cot, I slipped outside to sniff the night air and look at the stars. I could not resist a quick glance up the track – it was just possible that Romain, perhaps unable to find a bed for the night, might return and beg our hospitality. But the path was empty, the settlement silent and still.
I sensed someone beside me.
‘He won’t come back here,’ Granny said softly.
I was about to pretend I didn’t know who she was talking about but there really was no point. ‘Oh.’ Then: ‘How did you know?’
She took my hand and gave it a little shake. ‘I saw you earlier. I was just coming back to the village and I stood watching you from over there.’ She nodded towards where the path went through a stand of willows.
‘Oh,’ I said again.
She hesitated, then said, ‘Don’t waste your hopes on him, Lassair child.’
‘But he’s so handsome!’ The foolish words had burst out of me before I could check them.
Granny sighed. ‘Handsome he may be, but he is not a man to whom my beloved granddaughter should go giving her heart.’
‘But—’ I began.
She did not register my interruption. Dreamily, as if she spoke out of a trance, she murmured, ‘Nor indeed should any young woman, for he walks in shadow.’
‘In shadow?’ I repeated, my words a terrified whisper. ‘Wh–what sort of shadow, Granny?’
At last she turned to meet my eyes. ‘The shadow of death.’
TWO
T
he autumn went on and the days got steadily colder and shorter. We all worked hard, none more so than my poor father. The demands of our ruthless Norman overlord were diluted down through several tiers before they reached our lowly level, and indeed our local master, Lord Gilbert de Caudebec, was not too hard on us, being a chubby, indolent man who relied heavily on his reeve – who was chilly, self-contained but basically fair – and tended to leave us alone. Nevertheless we were left in no doubt as to what our fate would be if the rigid rules were not obeyed. The few elders who could remember what life had been like before the Conquest spoke wistfully (and very quietly) of the good old days. Most of us had known nothing but the Norman rule and could only take their word for it.
he autumn went on and the days got steadily colder and shorter. We all worked hard, none more so than my poor father. The demands of our ruthless Norman overlord were diluted down through several tiers before they reached our lowly level, and indeed our local master, Lord Gilbert de Caudebec, was not too hard on us, being a chubby, indolent man who relied heavily on his reeve – who was chilly, self-contained but basically fair – and tended to leave us alone. Nevertheless we were left in no doubt as to what our fate would be if the rigid rules were not obeyed. The few elders who could remember what life had been like before the Conquest spoke wistfully (and very quietly) of the good old days. Most of us had known nothing but the Norman rule and could only take their word for it.
My parents, however, succeeded in shutting out the cruel world every evening when my father closed and fastened the door. The seven of us (eight if you counted the baby) settled down to life without Goda as contentedly and as cheerfully as we had anticipated and, in due course, I forgot Granny’s awful warning about my handsome man.
I did not, however, forget about
him
.
him
.
He had come to Goda and Cerdic’s wedding, I reasoned, and so surely he must be acquainted with one or other family. He didn’t know us, so therefore his attendance must have been on Cerdic’s behalf. There was little point in asking around in the village to see if anyone knew more about him than I did, although this didn’t stop me. The only person who even appeared to know who I was talking about was the old man who had shared Sibert’s straw bale – he’s my mother’s friend Ella’s father-in-law’s brother – who muttered something to the effect that the ‘shiny well-dressed little cockerel’ had talked with him and Sibert for some time.
I found his attitude disrespectful so I went off in a huff and didn’t ask him any more.
I saw little of Sibert. For some reason he seemed to be keeping himself to himself and when we did happen to meet, he did his best to pretend I wasn’t there.
Well, I don’t care
, I wanted to shout into his frowning face with its preoccupied expression,
these days it’s a better man than you that I see when I close my eyes at night!
Well, I don’t care
, I wanted to shout into his frowning face with its preoccupied expression,
these days it’s a better man than you that I see when I close my eyes at night!
In any case, life was becoming too full and too exciting for me to spare either man all that many moments. I was newly apprenticed to my fascinating aunt Edild, and Edild is a herbalist and a healer.
She lives in a little house on the fringes of Aelf Fen, by herself apart from a cat, some hens and a nanny goat and quite content with life. Her living space is even smaller than ours but, despite the lack of space, I really love it because Edild has a talent for making a place seem welcoming, homely and secure. Her low door opens into a little room whose beaten-earth floor is always immaculately swept, and the central hearth in its ring of evenly sized stones either contains a fire, burning merrily, or else is laid with logs and kindling and all ready to be lit. Edild sets bunches of herbs to smoulder in among the firewood and I would know her little house blindfold for its sweet scent; in addition to the burning bunches of herbs, the shelves in her house are laden with her remedies and she stores the ingredients in sacks kept in a special wooden box. She has fashioned a narrow platform to the rear of her house and up there, reached by a little ladder, she sleeps in a nest of regularly washed linen and soft woollen covers.
Her garden was always tidily kept and even now, as October gave way to November, you just knew there were bulbs and seeds safely tucked up beneath the smooth brown soil just waiting for spring to bring them back to life. Her reputation had spread beyond the settlement and not many days passed without someone tapping on her door to ask advice, on anything from piles to the suspicion that a neighbour was doing some ill-wishing. Strictly speaking, I was not meant to be privy to Edild’s consultations with her visitors but the cottage was small and sometimes I just couldn’t help overhearing.
It was Granny who had suggested my apprenticeship with my aunt. Granny, as well as knowing all about the ancestors, is very knowledgeable about the living, in particular her three sons (Ordic and Alwyn, fishermen and fowlers, and my father, whose name is Wymond and who is an eel catcher) and her two daughters Alvela (the one who’s the widow of nice Matthew and mother to my taciturn cousin Morcar) and Edild. She knows their strengths and their weaknesses; she also has an uncanny way of appreciating who is likely to get on with whom. She knows, for example, that my uncle Ordic puts a deep, dark fear into my brother Haward so that his stutter gags him to silence when Ordic is about.
I often wonder if Granny suggested my vocation because she knows about the dowsing. Not that I knew it was called that, not till she spoke of it to me. As far as I was concerned, it was just something I could do, in the way other children could wiggle their ears, raise one eyebrow or turn a line of handsprings. My talent is being able to find things. I knew where my mother’s pewter brooch was when it fell off her tunic into the woodpile. Out in the pasture I found a coin with a woman’s face on it. I know where water is, not that there’s any great skill in that when you live in the Fens, but actually I can find water sources that are hidden deep in the earth. All I have to do is focus my mind, hold out my hands and sort of feel the ground before me. When I approach the object of the search, whether it’s water or a lost object, my palms begin to tingle and after that it’s easy. Granny saw me mucking about with my friends one day and asked me quite sharply what I thought I was doing. When I told her, there was a sudden bright light in her eyes and she gave me a wide smile. Then she grabbed my hand and hurried me away to the hazel grove, where, after a bit of muttering to the tree and some funny movements with her hand, she broke off a little branch, stripped off the twigs and the leaves and then split one end. She pushed the split ends in my hands, turned me round, gave me a shove and said, ‘Now, walk. Tell me if anything happens.’
Excited, strangely fearful, I walked. After a few moments the hazel rod started trembling. Then it bucked and spun in my hands, so violently that I dropped it. I turned to Granny, aghast.
I didn’t know it, but she had made me walk across the line of a stream that runs deep underground beneath the path that leads out of the village.
I hurried to pick up the stick, holding it out to her in the full expectation of a scolding. But instead she came to stand beside me, gave me a hard hug and said, ‘Child, you’re a dowser.’
Even apart from my peculiar skill, Granny knew that Edild and I would get on and we do. We have similar colouring and we look alike – sometimes people take us for mother and daughter – and we laugh at the same things, finding amusement in the incongruous and sometimes, it has to be said, in the vulgar and the frivolous. Not that Edild ever shows this light-hearted, laughing side to those who come seeking her help; it is an indication of how well we understand one another that she has never had occasion to tell
me
not to appear in the presence of a patient with anything but a serious face and a studious, intent manner.
me
not to appear in the presence of a patient with anything but a serious face and a studious, intent manner.
Since the late summer Edild had been instructing me in an overview of her craft. I have learned about the main healing herbs and how to prepare and use them, the making of amulets and talismans and the composition and reciting of charms. She also explained to me the workings of the human body, male as well as female, which I must admit caused me to blush more than once despite the fact that, like all country children who grow up cheek by jowl with their family’s animals, I first witnessed the mystery of procreation when I was still learning to walk. Still, animals mating is one thing; people, quite another. Now, as the winter days grew short and the darkness waxed, Edild began teaching me about the stars and their influence on everything – people, animals, plants – that lives under the great bowl of the sky.
‘I have cast your web of destiny, Lassair,’ she said to me one bright morning. ‘We shall use the knowledge that it provides as a basis for our discussion on how the planets guard us, guide us and, indeed, make us what we are.’ I like that about Edild; even when the lesson consisted of her talking and me silently listening, she still calls it a discussion. ‘You are air and fire,’ she went on, ‘and you live in your mind and not your body. You are restless, drawing on a great well of energy, and in time you will perceive and penetrate the web that connects all of life. You will brim over with creativity and new ideas and you will be brave, uncompromising and direct, yet possess the ability to conceal your true self with a plausible false skin.’ Yes, that bit sounded like me; I had always been a good liar. ‘You are essentially a private person, and your friends and your lovers’ – I blushed violently – ‘will sense that they are never truly close to you. You must learn to distinguish between independence, which is admirable, especially in a woman, and its darker face, isolation.’
‘But I’m not isolated!’ I protested. I felt the urgent need to lighten the mood. ‘I live in a tiny cottage with seven other people!’
Edild regarded me, her green eyes solemn. Then, ignoring my foolish comment and my nervous little laugh, she went on, ‘At the time of your birth, the Sun, the Moon and the planets were all in signs of air and fire. You are water-lacking, so that the turmoil of emotions experienced by others will be incomprehensible to you, and you are also earth-lacking, and will thus have little sense of being grounded firmly in the good Earth.’
I was never going to achieve closeness with people, even my lovers. I would never understand emotion, presumably not even my own. Oh, it sounded bitter. My dismay must have shown in my face for Edild reached out and took my hand, squeezing it in her own.
‘Look,’ she said brightly after a moment. ‘Look at your chart, Lassair.’ She spread out a large square of vellum, beautifully marked with a big circle divided into segments and dotted with intriguing little signs and symbols. ‘This is the moment of your birth, in the early pre-dawn light of the twentieth of June, in the year 1074, and this is where the planets were positioned.’ I followed the long finger with its short, clean nail as she pointed. There were the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, marked on my web of destiny as if for that instant of my birth, their sole purpose had been to make me what I was. It was an awesome thought.
Something struck me; I heard Granny’s voice, speaking of another Lassair. ‘My namesake was a child of the fire and the air,’ I said cautiously. ‘It’s in Granny’s story.’
Edild smiled. ‘I thought you would remember. Yes, Lassair’s web was very similar to yours – she too had Mercury placed in his own house of Gemini, the planet of love in the same air sign and the warrior god in Aries, most warlike sign of all.’
She fell silent, frowning as if in thought. Perhaps she was thinking, as I was, of the mysterious ancestress who had borne my name before me and I knew enough about her to understand that she cannot have had an easy life, to say the least. I hesitated, and then said in a small voice, ‘Will I be a mystery too? Will I disappear into the mist one day and nobody will know what’s happened to me?’
Edild have me a hug. ‘I doubt it,’ she said robustly. ‘You usually chatter so much that we’re left in no doubt whatsoever where you are and what you’re up to. Now, come and look at my model of the planets and I’ll tell you which of them influence which healing herbs and show you how to work out the best time for planting and harvesting.’
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