The Way Between the Worlds (7 page)

Why was he so wary? Was it because of this fanatical priest? No doubt he would tell me in his own good time.

Once we were outside the abbey gates, Hrype melted away. He was there beside me one moment, still in his crusty old man’s guise, and then when next I looked he had gone. I knew better than to try to find him. He would be back at the appointed time, I knew. I was not at all sure what ‘after vespers’ meant, so I would have to keep an eye on the abbey church and look out for the nuns emerging.

That, however, was not my main concern. I had undertaken to inform my family as soon as I knew Elfritha was safe, and now I turned my mind to how I should go about it. I went down to the quayside, planning to see if anyone might be heading off in the direction of Aelf Fen, but then I realized this wasn’t wise. Hrype was going to some lengths to keep our identity secret, and all his good work would be undermined if I sent a message straight to my family. Even if I persisted with the pretence of being no more than a close friend, I couldn’t send a message without naming my family and my village. It seemed prudent not to allow either to become known.

In any case, it was highly unlikely anyone would be going that way. Instead, I asked around to see if there was anyone bound for Cambridge, and soon I found a family of parents and two little children, returning to the town having ascertained that the husband’s nun sister was not the murder victim. They were, understandably, jubilant and readily agreed to my request. I told them where to find Gurdyman’s house and gave them this short message:
please send word to the eel catcher that his daughter is safe.

Gurdyman knew what my father did for a living. He might not know which daughter the message referred to, but that didn’t matter; I would explain when I saw him.

The wife smiled at me. ‘You, too, have had good news, then,’ she said.

Not wanting to elaborate, I simply said, ‘Yes,’ then thanked them again and hurried away.

I watched the abbey from the shelter of my alders for the remainder of the afternoon. I saw the nuns file into church and then out again. I did not see Elfritha emerge, but that wasn’t surprising, for she was going on an imaginary, clandestine errand and would not wish to attract anyone’s attention. I slipped out of my hiding place and hurried along to the quayside.

I did not see her at first. I made my way along the quay, now deserted, and after perhaps a quarter of a mile, I heard someone whisper my name. Turning, I saw Hrype and my sister, concealed behind a stand of brambles, the brilliant green leaves of which shone in the dim light.

I went to join them. Hrype said solemnly, ‘Now, Elfritha. Please tell us who it was that died, and what happened.’

Elfritha thought for a few moments, and then began to speak. ‘The dead nun’s name was Sister Herleva,’ she said quietly. ‘She hasn’t – she hadn’t been at the abbey very long, only six months or so, but already we were good friends. She was young and light-hearted, and inclined to be silly. She was often in trouble for giggling, but she didn’t seem able to help herself. She loved life, and there was a radiance about her that made others happy just to be with her.’ My sister’s voice shook, and she took a steadying breath. ‘Three days ago – no, four – she didn’t appear for compline. That’s our last office, just before we go to bed. It wasn’t the first time she’d missed an office, and we didn’t think much about it beyond being sorry for her because she’d be in trouble again and have to do a more severe penance than last time.’ She paused, her eyes cloudy with sorrow. ‘But she wasn’t in her bed the next morning, and then we knew something had happened. The nun who comes round to rouse us saw the empty bed, and she turned away without a word and hurried off. Later we noticed that all the senior nuns were busy searching for Herleva, and then word went round that she’d been found.’ She gave a sob, quickly suppressing it. ‘She was lying behind the stable, and they discovered a big lump on the back of her head. Someone said there was patch of blood staining her veil. She was a novice,’ she added absently, ‘so her veil was white. There was a deep cut in her neck and a lot more blood and they – they’re saying there was a pool of vomit beneath her head.’

The poor girl. She must have realized what was happening, and her fear had brought that violent reaction in her guts. I found myself hoping fervently that the blow to her head had knocked her unconscious, so that there had been no awareness of the knife in her throat that took her life. If her assailant had hit her hard enough, it probably would have done. She might even have been dead before the cut; it depended on how much blood had come out of the wound. Edild had taught me that living bodies spurt blood from wounds, whereas it only seeps from someone whose heart has ceased to beat.

But I was thinking like a healer, not as a loving sister. Elfritha, beside me, was trembling with distress, and I hadn’t even offered her a word of comfort. I took hold of her hand. It was very cold, so I wrapped her in my arms, trying to soothe and reassure her with my body warmth.

Glancing at Hrype, I saw that he was frowning, apparently deep in thought. Elfritha went to speak again, but I touched her cheek and, when she looked at me, shook my head. Hrype does not like to be interrupted when he is thinking.

After what seemed like a very long time, he nodded and said, ‘Very interesting.’ He added something else, which could have been:
it is as I thought
.

But whatever he thought, he wasn’t going to share it with us. When this became clear, Elfritha – who, unlike me, is not used to his ways – looked indignant. ‘Is that all you have to say?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ Hrype replied. ‘Come, we must get back. You should return to the abbey before anyone misses you.’

Elfritha picked up her bunch of water pepper and – side by side, with Hrype silently following – we went back along the quay. We saw her as far as the abbey gates, where she and I said our farewells. ‘We are holding a vigil for Herleva,’ she said, ‘and I doubt I shall be able to see you again.’

‘I understand, I’ll come back when—’

But Hrype, his expression abruptly sharpening, interrupted. ‘The dead girl is not yet buried?’

‘No. Father Clement is away and will not be here until the morning. He’s our new priest; he was appointed back in the late autumn, just before Christmas. He sent word that he was fully occupied elsewhere but was praying earnestly for the dead sister and all of us.’

Father Clement. I memorized the name. I was going to make some comment – to ask what sort of a man he was, whether he would be able to reassure and solace the nuns with his presence – but I happened to glance at Hrype. And his expression alarmed me, for it was dark with menace.

Then I realized. Father Clement was Hrype’s fanatic of the new religion.

FIVE

H
rype and I found a sheltered spot to spend the night. I had a hundred questions I was desperate to ask, but I knew I must leave him in peace until he was ready to speak to me. He had promised to tell me as soon as he knew the truth, and I knew he would. What I didn’t know, of course, was how long it would take him to find the truth out. We built a small fire, for the sky was clear and the night was growing chill, and he made us a hot, spicy drink. He shared his food with me, for I had finished mine, and then we settled down to sleep.

I was warm enough, for our camp was beneath a bank where brambles grew thickly and we were out of the light wind that gusted intermittently. So much had happened that day that I forgot to be afraid to fall asleep. My reward was to be sent such a fearsome nightmare that I woke sweating and sobbing with fear. As I came up into consciousness, I saw that strange, wild landscape with the low hills, and the ruins with the grave-like hollow. For an instant I thought I saw a huge bull come roaring up out of the ground, his eyes wild with anger and fear, his nostrils flaring. I heard the words again. This time, they were slightly different; they said:
where are you? I need you!

Even while I was still suffering from the horrors induced by my dream, part of my mind was recognizing that, if the summoning voice was still calling out to me, it couldn’t have been Elfritha’s.

I dropped my face into my hands and wept.

Hrype tended me in a distant sort of way. He seemed to perceive without my telling him that I’d had a bad dream. Knowing him, he’d probably had a quick look inside my mind and seen the images for himself. He poked up the fire and made me another drink, and I guess it must have contained a mild sleeping draught, for I knew no more until I woke to thin daylight.

Hrype had gone. So efficiently had he covered his tracks that he’d left no sign of which path he’d set off on. In fact, had I not seen him beside me in the night, I wouldn’t have known he’d been there at all.

I did not waste any time wondering where he’d gone and what he was up to. Hrype is a mystery, and such is the sense of deep power that emanates from him that you question him at your peril. He is, I honestly believe, a good man, although in truth good and evil are not really terms that you apply to someone like him.

He had left me food and drink, so I sat there and made myself finish everything before I got up. I was still feeling disturbed, for the dream had shaken me. When I felt I was as fully restored as I was going to be, I rolled up my blanket, packed up my belongings, straightened my clothes and my hair and put on my coif. Then, ready to face the day, I set off.

I had been thinking hard as I ate my breakfast. Father Clement, according to Hrype, had set himself the task of eradicating the old ways. It would be an uphill struggle, I knew. Laws were always being passed –
no one is to dress the wells
;
nobody must worship false idols in the form of the old gods
;
the singing of charms and the wearing of tokens and amulets is not allowed
; and many more – and the sheer number of these prohibitions showed the strength of the ancient traditions and how much faith the populace had in them. People took the sensible view that what had worked for their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and so on was good enough for them. They might be happy to attend church and worship the Lord Jesus and his awesome father, but when trouble came, as it invariably did, in the form of sick children, barren wives, fields that did not produce crops and animals that failed to thrive, the people placed their trust in the old beliefs, and who could blame them?

This Father Clement would keep his eyes and his ears constantly open for what he would see as the devil’s work. He was the priest of Chatteris Abbey, where you’d imagine there would be little in the way of heretical murmuring. Among the nuns, that was  . . .

Suddenly, I knew why Hrype had been so careful not to let the two of us go into the abbey in our normal guises. It had been for his own sake, of course, for he was pursuing Father Clement and would not wish to be recognized. But it had been just as much, if not more, for my sake: I visited my sister whenever it was permitted, and we always talked non-stop for the duration of our allotted time. She would tell me about her life in the abbey – which, incidentally, she loved, or had done till her best friend was murdered – and then I’d answer all her eager questions concerning the family, the village and my healing work with Edild. And, on my last visit, I revealed to her some of the milder topics on which I was receiving instruction from Hrype and Gurdyman.

I would have trusted Elfritha with my life, and I did not suspect for an instant that she would have told her priest what her younger sister was up to. But what if someone had overheard? Usually, we walked together out of doors in the cloister when I visited, but the last time it had been very wet and we’d sat with the other nuns and their visitors in the parlour. It was unlikely but, I had to admit, possible that our quiet words had attracted the attention of someone else – a nun or one of the relatives – and that, in an excess of religious zeal, they had told Father Clement.

If that was true, then I could be in danger.

As I walked along the quayside towards the abbey and the settlement around it, I wondered what would happen if I was right and Father Clement really
was
eager to find me. The problem was that to many churchmen, anyone whose religious beliefs differed in the smallest degree from their own was guilty of heresy. Once someone had set him or herself apart in this way, other accusations often followed. When life was cruel, it was natural to want to put the blame on someone, and sooner or later the cry would go up that the misfortune had happened because a witch had uttered a curse. Much of Edild’s and my work as healers consisted of providing charms and remedies for people who believed they had been cursed. Neither of us truly believed this was possible, but Edild’s view was that to prescribe a ‘magic’ rabbit’s foot or a mild herbal concoction would do no harm. Quite the opposite, in fact; we usually found that the cure was effective simply because the patient believed it would be.

We were on the fringes of Christian society, my aunt and I. So, come to think of it, were Gurdyman and Hrype, but they were inconspicuous compared to a pair of village healers, and, anyway, I reckoned they could both look after themselves. My fear, when I made myself face it, was that I would be the subject of Father Clement’s attention simply because, although I dutifully went to church from time to time, I also practised what he would call pagan rites. If he was as fanatical as Hrype believed, then undoubtedly he would see me as a heretic. At best, I might have to do several years’ penance. At worst – and I knew there were precedents – I could be put to death.

The sensible thing would be to quietly get off the island and go back to Aelf Fen or Gurdyman’s house, then avoid Chatteris Abbey until either the fire went out of Father Clement’s belly or he went away again. Don’t think I wasn’t tempted: of course I was. But I knew that if I slunk away, the dreams would go on tormenting me and, for all that I now knew it wasn’t Elfritha’s, that voice would give me no peace. I could not for the life of me see how my night terrors could be connected with the murder of a novice nun, but I knew as well as I knew my own name that they were. Instinct again, but, as I have said, I was learning that my instincts were almost always accurate.