The Way Between the Worlds (6 page)

Suddenly, I felt faint. I saw big black spots before my eyes, and I thought I was going to vomit. Hastily, Hrype pushed me down to the ground and made me put my head between my knees. ‘Take deep, slow breaths,’ he commanded.

I kept seeing Elfritha’s face. Sweet-natured, gentle, and by far the nicer of my two sisters, Elfritha would have made a wonderful wife and mother to some lucky family, only from a very young age she knew she belonged to the Lord. I have never told her, but from the day she left to enter Chatteris Abbey, there has always been a bit of a hole in my life.

I was feeling better. I raised my head – slowly – and looked up at Hrype. ‘What do you suggest we do?’

He lowered himself down to sit beside me and, leaning close so that he could speak very quietly, said, ‘There are things I must tell you.’ He paused, gathering his thoughts. ‘There are – rumours, of a fanatic of the new religion who has not the tolerance of some of his fellows.’

Yes, so Sibert had suggested. I did not say so aloud. It had been, I supposed, only a matter of time. We who still honoured the old ways were open-minded. I, for example, had developed a growing love for the saviour god of the Christians, and I understood how appealing it was to believe you had a loving, stalwart friend constantly at your side, encouraging you always to do the good thing – one who, whilst he was sad when you let him down, was ever ready to forgive if you were genuinely sorry. But our tolerant attitude did not appear to be shared by the priests of the new religion, who seemed to take the view that they and only they were permitted to know the true nature of the god of us all and reserved the exclusive right to approach him. This, I guessed, was how they had been able to make themselves so very important to the people to whom they ministered. It had been shrewd, I reflected, to tell the people that their god was all-powerful and ever-present, but so mysterious that his word could only be read by those vowed to his service, who would pass on to their flock only as much as they felt the flock ought to know.

God may well be powerful, I mused, but it seemed to me that the true power rested with his priests. And, for all that they said King William was irreligious, even pagan – although I do not understand what people mean by that term – it was all too apparent that the priesthood’s hold on the consciences of men was steadily tightening  . . .

‘A fanatic?’ I prompted Hrype, who was deep in thought and frowning.

‘Hmm? Yes. He is newly arrived at Chatteris. He was the confessor at Crowland, shut up out there with the monks on their lonely, muddy island, but the monastery was destroyed last year. They are rebuilding it, of course,’ he said with a faint sigh, ‘but for the time being, their priest has been moved to Chatteris. He is acting like the new broom of the old saying, sweeping vigorously into secret corners that it would be better to leave alone.’ Hrype paused. ‘I have been investigating him. I did once encounter him, for I had  . . . business at Crowland some time ago.’ He clearly did not want to elaborate, and I wasn’t going to ask. ‘I needed to find out more, however, so I spoke to some of the serving men at Crowland, and I have learned much about this priest. He is utterly single-minded in his faith, and he does not baulk at using the most rigorous methods to persuade others to obey his god.’ He gave a brief, rueful smile. ‘They said at Crowland he was as hard on himself as on any of those whose souls were entrusted to him, for he fasted regularly and burdened himself with a heavy wooden cross slung around his neck as a constant reminder of his Lord’s suffering. He is – a powerful man.’

That, from Hrype, was praise indeed. When he uses the word
power
, he is usually referring to the sort of power possessed by men such as him: magic power. It seemed odd, at first, to hear him refer in this way to a Christian priest, but, thinking about it, I realized that the men of high position in all religions must have a certain amount of magic, if by that you meant the ability to communicate with beings invisible and generally undetectable to the rest of us. In the mass, the priest communes with his god on behalf of the flock, or so we are told.

‘His power is a threat to our kind?’ I whispered.

Hrype glanced at me. ‘Yes, I believe so. This man does not like competition. He wants the hearts and souls of the people turning just one way, and he will not tolerate any suspicion of loyalty to a far older faith.’

He spoke in general terms, but I sensed there was more. ‘I believe that you think there is a more personal danger,’ I said slowly. ‘Something closer to – to us? To your family and mine?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, I fear there may be. I am not sure yet. It is why I am here.’

‘I thought you had come because the murdered nun may be – may be—’ I could not make myself say her name.

He took my hand and held on to it. ‘We will find out soon, Lassair, I promise. But we must be very careful if we approach the abbey. I can’t explain yet, but as soon as I know the truth concerning what is happening, I will tell you more. That, too, is a promise.’

I believed him. Hrype knows better than most men that a promise is binding. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Then, as I said some time ago, what do you suggest we do?’

He grinned, a swift expression, there and gone in the blink of an eye. ‘We will go together down to the abbey gates and join all the other anxious friends and relatives,’ he said. ‘We will pretend to be father and daughter, for I would prefer it if we were not recognized as our true selves.’ He studied me. ‘You have already shielded yourself quite well,’ he observed, ‘for your aura is dimmer than usual and not typically yours.’ I was unreasonably pleased at his praise. I was not yet sure what my aura was and had no idea what it normally looked like, but I was sure that to have altered it, even by a little, was quite an achievement. ‘But you can do much better,’ he went on, dashing my moment of self-congratulation. ‘Listen, watch and learn.’

After a rather intense few moments, Hrype and I left the shady shelter of the alders and set off for the abbey gates. I kept shooting quick glances at him; I could hardly believe what I had just witnessed, and I wished with all my heart that I could look at myself, to see if I’d had the same success. He still had Hrype’s features, build and height – he
must
have! – and he still wore the same garments, but he was totally different. His face was twisted into an expression quite unlike anything it usually adopted, he had rearranged his long hair, and he had bent and somehow folded his body and his long limbs so that he seemed to scuttle across the ground like a hunchback. As for me, he had got me to draw my hair back tightly and rearrange my coif so that it covered my forehead as far as my eyebrows, then to place a dark fold of my cloak over it so that it looked a little like a nun’s headdress. Then he told me to imagine I had very short, bandy legs and a pain at the base of my spine. He made me concentrate so hard on this that quite soon I really did have a pain, and the only way I could alleviate it was to walk in a bow-legged waddle. I felt fat, although I knew there was no way I could be  . . .

We were close to the muttering group outside the gates now. ‘Not long, daughter, until we find out,’ a thin, reedy voice with a hint of the complaining tyrant said, close by me. Whoever that old man was, I reflected, I bet he led his poor daughter quite a dance.

After a moment, I realized that the old man was Hrype.

He had a stick in his hand – where had that come from? Had he picked it up in the alder grove? – and now he was using it to force a way through to the gates. ‘Make way,’ he cried in his squeaky elderly man’s voice, ‘make way! My old legs have had a long walk today and will not support me much longer, and I would have tidings of my daughter from these wretched nuns before I collapse!’

One or two people muttered in agreement, saying that it was cruel of the nuns to keep people waiting for the news they were so desperate to hear. ‘Here you are, Grandad,’ one burly woman said, ‘you come through here to the little side gate there – it’s that one they’ll open, I’ll warrant, when finally they make up their minds to tell us anything.’

There were more mutterings. ‘Three days ago it happened, or so they say, and all we’ve heard are rumours! For shame!’ someone said.

‘Tell us what we have come to find out!’ someone else shouted.

Hrype raised his stick and banged it on the wooden panels of the gate.
Bang
,
bang
,
bang
. I wanted to stop him, for it seemed folly to draw attention to ourselves after we’d gone to the trouble of altering our appearances. But then I understood: making us conspicuous was part of the disguise, for a man with something to hide would lurk in the background.

Several other men had joined Hrype and were also thumping on the door, which was not that sturdy and was already beginning to show cracks in the panelling. Someone within must have realized, for abruptly there came the sounds of bolts being drawn back and a key turning in a lock. The door opened to reveal a tall, broad-shouldered nun with a hatchet face and very piercing blue eyes. She wore the black veil of the fully professed, and the heavy bunch of keys clanking from a cord at her waist indicated her seniority.

‘Stop that,’ she said. ‘You will break it down.’

‘We want news of our womenfolk!’ a man behind me cried. ‘We know there’s been a murder, and we all need to know our women and girls are safe!’

‘One of you will be disappointed,’ the nun said calmly. ‘We have been praying for the soul of our dead sister, but now that we have done what we can for her, for the meantime at least, you may come in and speak to the sisters.’

There was a general heave in the direction of the doorway, which was quite narrow. I feared some of the slighter people might be crushed, and the big nun must have had the same thought. ‘One at a time,’ she said in the same calm, quiet yet utterly commanding voice. Raising an arm in a deep, black sleeve, she pointed to where a row of older nuns stood before the abbey’s church. ‘Proceed to the sisters over there, and give the name of the nun you wish to enquire about.’

‘I want to see my daughter, not enquire about her!’ a woman yelled.

The big nun nodded. ‘Naturally. As soon as the kinsfolk of the dead woman have been identified, if they are here, we shall speak to them and take them apart for solace. Then the rest of you will all be able to see your kinswomen.’

She stepped aside, and we filed into the abbey. As we crossed the courtyard, I felt sick with nerves. Supposing it was Elfritha? What would I do? How, oh how, was I going to be able to tell my parents she was dead? As if Hrype felt my anguish, he reached out and took my hand.

We approached a small, plump nun whose elderly face was deeply creased with laughter lines but which now held only grief. Her eyes were red with weeping. Leaning towards us, she said quietly, ‘Which nun do you wish to enquire about?’

Hrype nudged me, and I opened my mouth to speak. My voice wasn’t there. I coughed, swallowed and tried again. ‘The novice Elfritha,’ I whispered. I was about to add that she was my sister, but then I remembered nobody was supposed to know Hrype’s and my identity. ‘We are friends of the family,’ I said instead, ‘here on their behalf.’

For an instant the little nun’s face fell, and I thought she was about to cry. Then – and I am sure she saw my reaction – she reached out, took my free hand in both of hers and said, ‘No, no! Elfritha is unharmed.’ Then she beamed, so widely and so genuinely that it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. ‘God be praised,’ she added, and I muttered an
Amen
.

I was hardly aware of Hrype helping me away. One of the other nuns was shepherding us along, around the corner of the great church rising high above us and into a cloistered space on its right side, where the community were waiting. At first I couldn’t see Elfritha, and I thought wildly that there must have been a mistake and she was dead after all, but then there was movement in the still, silent group of black-clad figures: someone in a novice’s white veil pushed her way through and my sister took me in her arms.

While Elfritha and I were still tightly embraced, I felt hands on my arms and Hrype was pushing the two of us, none too gently, into a dark little corner where a narrow passage led off the cloister. ‘We mustn’t be seen talking together,’ he hissed.

Elfritha raised her head, an astonished expression on her face. ‘But—’ she began.

‘Hush!’ Hrype pushed us further along the passage. ‘Lassair, we must go. Arrange to meet your sister later, somewhere we shall not be observed.’

Elfritha was clinging on to me, tears streaming down her face. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Why can’t you stay? I hoped someone would come, Lassair, and I’m so glad it’s you, and I—’

I know Hrype well enough to appreciate that he wouldn’t have given his order if it wasn’t necessary; strange he may be (he is), but he understands about love, and he would not have separated me from Elfritha had he not felt he must.

‘He is right,’ I said gently to my sister, wiping her tears away with my fingers. ‘When can we meet? Are you free to come out of the abbey?’

She shook her head in puzzlement, then shrugged. ‘Well, yes, I suppose so. I’m often sent to collect flowers and plants for the herbalist, so I could say I’d been told to go out and gather something later on today  . . .’

I realized she would be in trouble if anyone uncovered the deception, and it touched me that she should put loyalty to me above obedience to her superiors. ‘Be careful,’ I warned her.

‘I will.’ She gave me a quick smile. ‘I’ll meet you this evening after vespers, on the path that leads down to the left of the quay – water pepper grows down there, and I’ll pick some. Don’t worry, Lassair, everything’s so confused at the moment that I’m not likely to be challenged. I can confess later.’ Her face clouded. ‘It’s horrible,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, I keep picturing her—’

‘Later,’ Hrype interrupted firmly. ‘Come, Lassair.’

I gave Elfritha one last hug and turned away. Hrype grasped my hand and pulled me along, out into the crowd of nuns and their relatives in the cloister. He paused here and there, stopping on the fringes of several of the little groups. I guessed his intention was to confuse: had anyone been watching us, they would not have known which of the nuns was associated with us.