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Authors: Alys Clare

Mist Over the Water (6 page)

BOOK: Mist Over the Water
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I wasn’t going to put up with someone trying to scare me out of my wits. ‘I suppose it must have been near here that the Conqueror built his causeway,’ I interrupted, trying to make my tone nonchalant.
The boatman looked surprised that I should know that but quickly he rallied. ‘This here were Hereward’s stronghold, see,’ he said proudly, ‘the place he chose to set up his standard when he came home to find his lands forfeited and his own brother’s head on a spike over the door.’ I had heard the tale many times but it was still shocking. I imagined returning to my own home and finding my dear Haward’s head on a pole. Quickly, I turned my attention back to the boatman.
‘The Conqueror made many attempts to get over the fen but each time he was thwarted,’ the man was saying, puffing slightly as he pulled on the oars, ‘and finally he gave orders for a fleet of wooden rafts to be built and formed up into a causeway. Right here.’ He nodded at the water beneath the keel. ‘Not content with that, he got hold of a local witch and set her up in a high tower, from where she hurled down terrible curses on everyone on the island. Seemingly, he thought she’d undermine our resolve, but she fell and broke her neck and that was the end of that.’ He cackled, coughed, then leaned over the side and spat. I had noted
our resolve
. Intentionally or not, the boatman had just told us plainly on which side his loyalties lay. It was as well for him that Sibert and I were not Norman spies.
‘What happened then?’ Sibert’s eyes were wide.
The boatman looked gratified at having such an absorbed listener. ‘Well, Hereward knew all about the Conqueror’s causeway, see, and according to some he disguised himself and went out to lend a hand in the building of it. Then when the army was halfway across, too late to order them back, at last the Conqueror realized what Hereward had done.’ He chuckled again. ‘He’d set traps, see,’ he explained before we could ask. ‘He’d made weak spots at intervals all along that long causeway, and when the moment was right he made the planks collapse under the weight, then he set fire to what was left. Most of the soldiers drowned,’ he added in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘and those who didn’t ran away for fear of the deadly, sucking stickiness of the black marsh and what lay hidden beneath.’ He leered again, rolling his eyes for added effect.
‘I understand that the monks revealed the secret ways across,’ I said calmly. I guessed this must have been the next chapter in the boatman’s story, for he looked quite cross. ‘Some of them were not wholly behind Hereward’s revolt, or so I am told.’
‘You’re told right then, lass,’ the boatman agreed sullenly. ‘Not that it did them much good in the end, either their disapproval of Hereward or their treachery, because, far from being grateful that they’d told him what he wanted to know, the Conqueror was angry with them for not telling him sooner. There’s kings for you,’ he added softly, almost to himself, with a world-weary inflection, as if he had known dozens of kings and was all too familiar with their little foibles.
‘What did the Conqueror do?’ Sibert asked.
The boatman smiled grimly. ‘He made the Ely monks travel halfway across England to seek him out, and then he told them coldly what he wanted from them, to make it up to him.’ Again, his eyes flicked from me to Sibert. ‘Only a thousand pounds!’ he hissed.
Sibert and I both gasped. It was an unheard-of sum. ‘How did they possibly manage that?’ I whispered.
‘Sold or melted down every bit of gold and silver they possessed,’ the boatman said, not without a certain air of satisfaction. It appeared he had little more time for monks than for kings. ‘Crosses, altar pieces, chalices, basins, goblets and all, as well as jewels aplenty and a beautiful statue of the Virgin and the Holy Child.’ He sighed. ‘Now that – that was a hard loss.’
We were approaching the island now and, abruptly, the boatman fell silent, his attention on the other craft now bobbing about all around us. I turned away and stared over the side at the water hurrying past. It was so dark, so sinister, and I was overcome with a sense of the unnamed, unnumbered dead down there. I shivered, neither from the cold nor from the boatman’s macabre story.
It was the place itself that frightened me, and my visit was only just beginning.
FIVE
S
ibert and I set off from the waterside, jostled by people hurrying to complete the day’s business before the light faded into night. One or two boats were still setting off across the water but it was clear that ferrying operations were winding down. We passed one of the barges, half of its cargo of stone already unloaded. A gang of men were quitting work for the day, laughing and calling out to each other as they set off for their own hearths. Their garments were coated so thickly with stone dust that they looked like moving statues.
We could see the abbey walls, rising sheer and uncompromising ahead of us. I increased my pace, grabbing hold of Sibert’s sleeve and dragging him with me. The monks must surely be on the point of shutting the gates for the night, if they hadn’t done so already, and if Morcar were inside then I had to get to him before I was shut out. I heard Edild’s voice in my head:
if he dies, it will be because you got to him too late
. The sensible inner core of me told me that wasn’t exactly what she had said but, all the same, it was the last thing I wanted to think about just then.
Sibert had moved ahead of me, thrusting a way through the hurrying crowds and, with me a few paces behind, we reached a gatehouse. The gates were still open, but a frowning monk was waiting, tapping a foot in impatience, while an old woman and an even older man shuffled out of the abbey. He had a bunch of huge keys in his hand and he was jangling them against his leg.
I pushed past Sibert and said, ‘Please, brother, may I speak with you?’
The monk’s eyes swivelled round to look at me. He did not seem to like what he saw. His face went vinegary and he sniffed, drawing back. ‘No women, not without permission,’ he snapped.
I could have pointed out that the person hobbling along next to the very old man was a woman but I thought better of it. ‘I understand,’ I said meekly, bowing my head so that I was not staring at him. I have been told (by Edild; who else?) that some men in holy orders take exception to women purely because of their sex, taking the view that the forbidden stirrings they feel in their groins at the sight of a woman are all the woman’s fault simply for existing and nothing to do with their own lustful urges. Surreptitiously, I drew my hood forward, hoping to conceal most of my face. ‘I have come to aid a sick kinsman,’ I went on quickly – the keys were making even more noise now and I knew the monk was just itching to boot Sibert and me out of his gateway and lock up – ‘and I was hoping that you might be able to give me news of him?’
I risked a glance at the monk. His expression had thawed imperceptibly. Perhaps the fact that I had come on a mission of mercy and wasn’t just a flighty little piece of nonsense after his virtue had affected him. ‘What’s his name?’ he snapped out.
‘Morcar,’ I said eagerly. ‘Morcar of the Breckland. He’s a flint knapper,’ I added, ‘but—’
‘We’ve no use for flint knappers here,’ the monk said dismissively. ‘
Our
abbey’s new cathedral’s being built of Barnack stone, best that money can buy.’
‘He was injured,’ I hurried on, ‘and he has a deep wound in his foot. He also has a high fever. I have brought medicaments and I—’ Too late I realized my mistake. This monk, so proud of his abbey, so obviously viewing himself and his brethren as rarefied beings several levels above the rest of us, would not be happy at the implication that some slip of a girl thought she was a better healer than the Ely infirmarer.
The monk was shaking his head. ‘I know nobody of that name,’ he said baldly. ‘There are no cases of high fever in our care at present.’ He might as well have added
and that’s the way we want to keep it
, for it was plainly written on his sour, disapproving face.
Anger rose up in me, but I managed to hold it in. My mission had only just begun, and it would be foolish to make an enemy so soon. I bowed again and said, ‘Thank you, brother. I will pursue my search elsewhere. Good evening.’
I pulled Sibert away, the monk’s faintly surprised dismissal and perfunctory blessing echoing in my ears. ‘Why were you sucking up to him?’ Sibert hissed. ‘He couldn’t have been less helpful if he tried!’
‘I know,’ I hissed back. ‘But he might come in useful later.’
Sibert frowned, clearly trying to work out what I meant. But I had other things to worry about. We had reached the end of the abbey wall and it turned away abruptly to the south. Ahead of us lay the town, and I wondered where in its sprawl of narrow streets and huddled dwellings I was to find my cousin.
Think
, I commanded myself.
Think
.
There must have been hundreds of workers there on the island, all of them connected in some way with the new cathedral build, all of them housed in temporary lodgings. Was there, then, a specific area where they were putting up? It seemed likely. I looked swiftly around me. Spotting a plump and cheerful woman of about my mother’s age, holding the hand of a small child, I approached her.
‘Good evening,’ I said, and she returned the greeting with a smile. ‘I’m looking for the workmen’s quarters – my cousin is wounded, and I’ve come to help him.’
Her smile widened and I could have sworn she winked. ‘Have you now!’ she said. I realized, suddenly, what sort of a girl she thought I was, and I felt the hot flush spread across my face.
‘Yes,’ I said simply.
She studied me and her salacious grin slowly faded. ‘Oh.’ Then, shortly, ‘Sorry. My mistake. The workmen lodge down there.’ She nodded down the alley that ran along the abbey wall. ‘Cross the marketplace then take any one of the streets leading off it to the south. There’s a huddle of lodgings down there towards the water, set up in the shelter of the abbey wall.’
She was gone before I had finished thanking her; it was her turn to blush.
Sibert grinned hugely. ‘She thought you were a—’
‘Yes, thank you, Sibert, I know what she thought I was.’ I didn’t want to dwell on that so I set off down the alley, and I heard his footsteps as he fell in behind me. We strode across the marketplace – empty now – and hurried down the first of the alleys leading off it. Presently, the more solid, permanent houses petered out, and we found ourselves in the workmen’s quarter.
You couldn’t really call the dwellings houses. Some were not too bad, although the walls looked flimsy and the roofs must surely let in the rain. Some were no more than lean-tos, and although we tried not to it was all but impossible not to catch glimpses of men huddling round small, inadequate hearths, with cloaks, blankets or even sacks wrapped round their shoulders to keep out the all-pervasive damp. Down towards the water, the plump woman had said, and now I realized what she meant. Space was in short supply on the island of the eels, and the only place to house the suddenly expanded workforce was down on the low ground where nobody else – nobody in their right mind – would want to live.
A man pushed past us, presumably making for his lodgings, then quickly apologized. ‘Didn’t see you there,’ he muttered.
I stopped him. ‘I’m looking for my cousin,’ I said for the third time. ‘His name’s Morcar and he’s injured. I’m a healer,’ I added, in case this man thought, like the plump woman, that it was other comforts I was offering.
The man spun round, and I thought I saw relief in his face. ‘Oh, you are, are you?’ he demanded.
‘Do you know where he is?’ I snapped out.
‘Oh, yes, I certainly do,’ the man replied angrily. ‘He lodges next door to me, and his moans and groans have kept me awake these past nights!’ Then his better nature got the better of him. ‘I’m right glad to see you, girl, and so will he be,’ he said. ‘Come on, I’ll show you the way.’
He set off at a trot along an alley that led off to our right, and we passed several dwellings that gave the impression they were leaning on each other for support. Their walls were made of hazel hurdles on which daub had been haphazardly slapped, and not one of them had a properly fitting door. The man stopped at the one that was almost at the end of the row, and pushing open the door – I noticed that he did not bother to knock – he jerked his head towards a long shape lying on the floor and said, ‘There he is.’
He was about to leave – I could sense how much he wanted to be away from the foetid, stinking little space – but, again, he must have listened to the voice of his conscience. He leaned close to me and said softly, ‘If you need anything, my door’s next one down.’
There were two things I needed immediately. ‘I must have water and I need to mend the fire,’ I whispered. There was a hearth in the middle of the floor – my cousin lay curled around it – but the circle of stones enclosed little more than faintly glowing embers.
The man nodded. ‘Firewood’s behind the house. Water you’ll need to send your man to fetch –’ I realized who he meant, and I almost laughed as Sibert’s faint snort of protest indicated that he did too – ‘from the end of the track. You’ll find a bucket and pots in the corner there.’ He indicated to where the vague shapes of cooking pots and other utensils lay in a heap.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You’ve been very kind.’ I realized he was swaying with exhaustion. ‘Go and get some rest.’
BOOK: Mist Over the Water
5.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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