The Way Between the Worlds (29 page)

‘Every one,’ the sacristan said heavily. ‘Most of them pulled dead out of the sea and strangers to us, but there’s quite a few of our own too, caught up in the floods and drowned or struck by lightning. Three of them struck, there were!’ His eyes were round with amazement. ‘Three! And I’ve only heard tell of one other, and I’ve always doubted that tale because it was my cousin’s husband that told me, and he’s famous for exaggerating a story when it suits him.’

I was getting a clearer picture of this storm. To the image of huge seas and an icy north wind, I now added thunder and lightning. Which was very strange, as the weather lore I had learned ever since I was a child suggested you did not normally have thunderstorms with a very cold northerly wind.

‘There were drowned horses, too,’ the sacristan was saying. ‘They disappeared very quickly, I can tell you.’ He put a finger to the side of his nose. ‘People are hungry, and there’s good meat on a freshly-dead horse.’ He fell silent, clearly thinking back. ‘Some of the creatures made it to shore, mind,’ he went on. ‘Seems horses swim better than men.’

‘What else came ashore?’ Rollo asked. I was not deceived by the light tone; this question was, for some reason, important.

‘Oooh, let me see, now.’ The sacristan frowned. ‘Sacks of supplies – good food and drink it had been, before it was all spoiled by the salt water, although much of the bacon and preserved meat found good homes, it being salty already, as it were.’ He chuckled at his own small wit. ‘There were crates of fighting gear, too. Arrows, bows, flints and steels, stuff like that.’ He shrugged. ‘Being a man of God, I don’t know about those things,’ he added piously.

Rollo was staring down at the long lines of graves, but I did not think he was seeing them. His attention was far away.

The time was ripe, I decided, for him to tell me what this was all about. I said a courteous farewell to the sacristan, wished him good luck with his day’s toil and, taking Rollo firmly by the arm, led the way out of the graveyard and back to the road. When we were safely away from the village and sufficiently out in the open to be able to spot anyone approaching, I stopped, selected a low, grassy bank beside the track and sat down, pulling Rollo down beside me. I dug in my leather satchel for my flask of Edild’s special restorative for travellers, offering him a sip and taking one myself. I think he already knew why we had stopped, for there was a wry smile on his face.

I looked at him and said, ‘Now, if you please, explain to me what we’re doing here.’

Rollo had already gone through it in his mind and had a fair idea of how he would tell her all that she so richly deserved to know. Consequently, he was able to start speaking almost immediately.

‘I had no idea, when this whole business started, where it would lead,’ he said. ‘It began, I suppose, at the beginning of last year. The king was off in Normandy, and it was feared that the Scots in the north would take advantage of his absence and organize an invasion into English lands.’

He studied her face. She was clearly listening intently, but he could not read her expression; it was almost as if she had deliberately arranged her features so as to give nothing away. She knew of his involvement with the Norman ruling power; he had told her of his allegiances when they first met. He had remarked lightly then that he would pass on a comment of hers to the king, and she had laughed, thinking he was joking. One day – one day quite soon – he would have to enlighten her. He was fearful, though. She had told him that her family were Saxon, and that the Norman rule was inimical to them – and that was putting it mildly. He was afraid that, once she knew how close he was to the king, she might discover she could not – no. He would not let himself even think it.

‘The king needed people up on the border country to keep watch for signs of any advance by the Scots,’ he ploughed on. ‘If anything should happen, William needed to know about it as soon as possible, and word would be sent to him via the chain of messengers that he has set up all over the land. It’s amazing,’ he added, ‘how fast a message can travel, for each man covers only a short distance and so his horse is fresh and fast.’ But he was digressing. ‘The king was right to be apprehensive, for in early summer last year, King Malcolm led his forces into England, pushing down south of the Forth river and penetrating deep into English-held territory. As soon as the Scots king’s intention became clear, the message to the king was initiated and sent on its journey over all the long miles from England’s northern border to Normandy.’

‘So King William came rushing back to defend his territory.’ Her tone was neutral; he had no idea what she was thinking.

‘Yes. He crossed back to England in August, bringing his army with him, and immediately set about organizing his forces for the expedition into the north. He was, they say, quietly furious at the thought of King Malcolm and his men encamped on English soil, apparently doing nothing but waiting for him to get up there and face them.’ He paused, gathering his words. ‘King William elected to send his great force north in two different ways: one army going overland; one sent by sea, up the east coast to the Scottish border.’

Watching her closely, he saw a sudden flare of excitement in her eyes.
She understands
, he thought.

‘The king was riding at the head of his land-army, and in due course he met King Malcolm, and peace, of a sort, was negotiated between them. King Malcolm agreed to swear allegiance to King William, and in return William undertook to restore to Malcolm the towns he had held under the rule of William’s father, the Conqueror, and in addition pay him twelve marks every year.’

‘A far more advantageous arrangement for King William than for King Malcolm,’ she remarked, ‘for William not only achieved his purpose of getting the Scots king out of England, but he also gained him as a vassal. King Malcolm left the confrontation only with a couple of promises.’

Astute of her, he reflected, to have instantly seen to the heart of the matter. ‘King William returned south,’ he went on, ‘but not without first making some further arrangements regarding the border.’ He paused, for what he was about to tell her was confidential. Should he go on? His head said no, but his heart and all his senses were full of her. She had just saved his life; did that not give her the right to share some of his secrets?

‘King William is very aware that last year’s treaty with the Scottish king was an insubstantial thing,’ he went on, speaking fast before he could change his mind. ‘In the long term, the solution is to fortify the border lands, and before he can set about doing that, he needs to know the number and the quality of those forces that may be ranged against him. He therefore placed eyes and ears—’

‘Spies,’ she put in coolly.

‘Very well. He put spies, then, in the border lands which he plans to take later this year.’ The king would have long since received Rollo’s information concerning Carlisle, and doubtless he was already sending his conquering forces up to the north-west, if not riding with them himself. But there was no need to say so.

He paused, seeing again the body of Hawksclaw lying across the bed of animal furs, efficiently dispatched even while he slept. He glanced at Lassair. He had killed Hawksclaw; he had killed other men. Did she know these deep things about him? Did her remarkable powers enable her to see into his heart and understand who and what he was?

But that, too, was something from which he shied away.

He made himself go on.

‘The king had a second task for me,’ he began. He was reluctant to speak, and the words had to be forced out. Even back when William had first issued the orders, Rollo had been wary. Now that he knew so much more, wariness had given way to dread.

‘I said just now that, in order to counter King Malcolm’s advance, King William sent half of his army by sea. They perished, almost to the last man, their ships hit by a storm of unbelievable violence that struck somewhere off the east coast.’

She gave a soft gasp. He waited, but she did not speak.

So he went on: ‘William has ears and eyes throughout his land. He is a man who always needs to know what is happening, even in the far, forgotten corners of his realm, and he has organized a highly efficient network of men and women who are well paid to keep him informed.’ She nodded; perhaps she had heard tell of such people. ‘Someone came to him with a whisper overheard, a rumour, the merest suspicion, yet for some reason its effect on the king was powerfully strong.’ He fell silent, recalling vividly how the king had looked and sounded as he conveyed to Rollo what he had learned. He felt again the shiver of dread that the king’s words had caused.

‘What did the whisper say?’ Lassair asked quietly.

He met her eyes.
You know, don’t you?
he said silently. She made no response.

He took a deep breath that sounded more like a sigh. ‘The rumour said that the storm which wiped out the ship-army was no natural storm, but a magical one, raised by a tempestarius.’

He sensed a sudden tension in her, and for a moment she did not speak. Then she repeated the word. ‘A tempestarius?’

‘It means a storm-raiser.’ He lifted an eyebrow, half expecting her to say:
oh, yes, I know all about them
. She didn’t. ‘There are many ancient tales about such people, or so the king’s informant assured him. Some tell of a magical land of clouds called Magonia, where the inhabitants sail the skies in ships made of storm clouds. They are in league with the tempestarii – the storm-raisers – and when the violence of the weather reaches its peak, the Magonians fly down to earth and raid the farms of anything they can carry away.’

Her expression suggested she thought the story a little far-fetched. ‘I’ve never heard of anyone – even the greatest magicians – being able to carry off a herd of cows inside a cloud,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t sound very likely.’

‘That’s just what the king said,’ he murmured.

‘But there are certainly shamans and sorcerers who can control the weather, or it’s said that there are,’ she went on, frowning as she thought. ‘The men who teach me have told me of such people.’ Her eyes met his, and he saw that she was deeply troubled. ‘But this is high magic,’ she said, ‘and far beyond anything I have ever encountered.’ She gave a sudden violent shiver, so strong that it set her entire body shuddering.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘I was remembering the place where I found you,’ she said, so quietly that he had to strain to hear. ‘It was a place under an evil spell; there was no doubting it. Someone had put a powerful enchantment on it, and usually that’s done to keep people away from something that has to be kept secret.’ Now she turned to face him, eyes blazing. ‘Supposing the rumour was right and a storm-raiser
did
create the tempest that drowned the ship-army. They perished just off the coast, right here. Out where the shore gives way to the sea there was once a place of power, built by the people who in ancient times held sway in this land. Its power will still be there, and someone capable of raising such a storm would know that.’ She paused, fear and excitement competing in her expression. ‘He stood out there, right on the site of the circle at the crossing place, and invoked all the force of its long existence to help him. He cast his spell, and the ships and the men were lost. Then, because he did not want anyone to know what he had done, he set an enchantment on the place to stop the curious venturing out on to the salt marsh to investigate.’

There was a light in her face, and he sensed she was being inspired by some power outside herself. ‘He knew you would come,’ she said, and her voice sounded dreamy, distant; unlike her normal one. ‘He’s been aware of you, questing after him, and he set the trap for you and your horse, meaning to draw you on and on, out across the shaking ground, until you both succumbed.’ Tears were streaming down her face. ‘You lost your poor mare, whom you loved. He got her, but – but  . . .’

He opened his arms to her, and she fell against him. He cradled her against his chest, dropping kisses on her soft hair. He wanted to weep with her, for the loss of Strega was raw and pained him constantly.

After a while, he felt able to finish what she had tried to say. ‘But he did not get me,’ he whispered.

He took her face between his hands, gently turning her so that she looked up at him. Then he bent his head and kissed her lips.

‘Thanks to you, my sweeting, he did not get me,’ he repeated.

She drew away from him a little, eyes fixed on his. Then, as if the talk of narrowly-avoided death had made her more vitally alive, she in her turn took hold of his face and kissed him back.

His kiss had been tentative, gentle.

Hers, however, was neither.

EIGHTEEN

S
ome time after we had released each other, I looked at him and realized just how much he meant to me; how much I would give to keep him safe. The next thought followed seamlessly on that one: the peril we had faced in that fearsome place was something so far beyond my experience and my knowledge that every impulse was telling me to flee.

But I had to convince him to come with me, for I would not leave alone.

He was on his feet, standing in the middle of the track and looking north towards the shore. Towards the wood circle, for all that we could not see it. I could
feel
it, though. Its power was neither good nor evil: it was simply power – fundamental, elemental power – and it scared me rigid.

I said, having thought carefully, ‘I am not equal to what the storm-raiser has imprinted on this place. I cannot fight his magic and find a way out to the place of power within the old wood circle.’

He spun round to me. ‘I would not ask you to,’ he said. ‘But I—’

‘You are even less well equipped to fight what is out there than I am,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady and sound authoritative. ‘You—’ I had been about to remind him what happened the first time he made the attempt, but it was too cruel.

He knew, though. His face had clouded again into grief. He hung his head.

I hurried over to him. ‘There is nothing more that either of us can do here,’ I said urgently. ‘You have done what you were commanded to do; you have found out that the rumour is true, and that the storm was raised by human agency.’ Human? I wondered about that. The being who possessed such magic was more than human  . . .