The Way Between the Worlds (9 page)

‘Oh, I hope you didn’t mind! I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more, but—’

Again, he held up his hand to silence me. ‘No need to apologize, child. Now I know that your father is an eel catcher, for you have told me all about your family. The message that his daughter was safe could have applied to you or to either of your two sisters. I guessed the message came from you or, at least, was concerned with your mission, and I was content to wait to find out more. I found a reliable lad – one I have employed as messenger before – and I dispatched him to your village. By now, your family will be aware of the good tidings.’

Until he told me that, I hadn’t appreciated how heavy a burden I’d been carrying. That I knew Elfritha was safe but my parents did not had been hard to bear. I met Gurdyman’s bright eyes. ‘Thank you,’ I said softly. ‘You cannot know what that means to me.’

‘Oh, I think I can,’ he murmured. Then, switching moods as fast as a blink, all at once he was businesslike and brisk. ‘Who was in danger, Lassair, and is now safe?’ He narrowed his eyes, studying me intently. ‘Not you, I think, for the shadow still hovers over you.’

Shadow? I did not want to think about that. So, trying to keep to the point and make my tale as clear and succinct as I could, I told him of my arrival at Aelf Fen to find my kinfolk safe and well, and of the news of the murder of the Chatteris nun. I related how I’d hurried off to Chatteris and found Hrype already there, and then our discovery that it was Elfritha’s friend who was dead, and I revealed how they said she’d been killed. I explained that Hrype had disappeared during the night and how, this morning, I’d spoken to the cheese seller and learned a little more about poor dead Herleva. Finally, slightly ashamed of myself, I told him that I’d been afraid for my own skin because the fanatical priest might know all about me and be on my trail.

‘He is powerful, this Father Clement,’ I whispered. ‘Hrype said he was and, now that I have encountered him, I have faced his force myself.’

Gurdyman didn’t say anything for quite a long time. I was feeling drowsy and, taking advantage of the fact that I was sitting there so still, Gurdyman’s black cat jumped lithely up on to my lap and made himself comfortable. His name is Abraxas, and he is very handsome. Stroking his smooth and luxuriant fur sent me deeper into my self-induced trance. I was on the point of falling asleep when at last Gurdyman spoke.

‘What of the dreams, Lassair?’ he asked.

‘I’m still getting them,’ I said shortly.

He was not satisfied. ‘Is the content the same? And the summoning voice, does it speak the same words?’

‘The content is much the same. I still see that strange scene with the low hills and the grave-like pit in the side of the mound, and also there’s an enormous bull that seems to rush at me out of the earth.’ I hesitated. ‘But the words have changed. The voice still says
I need you
, but before that it’s now
where are you?
’

There was another long silence. I could have been mistaken, but I was pretty sure I’d seen a sudden flare of interest in Gurdyman’s eyes when I mentioned the bull. Vaguely, I wondered why. I should have been alert, fascinated, bursting to ask him all sorts of well-thought-out questions, but I was just too tired. Scenes and events from the long day floated through my mind, slowly merging with dreams. Then I felt Gurdyman’s hand on my shoulder, shaking me gently.

‘Go to bed, child.’

I did as he bade me, dropping Abraxas to the floor and stumbling inside the house. I made my preparations for bed – they were even more perfunctory than usual – and very shortly I was tucked up in my little attic room. The last thing I saw before I closed my eyes was the light of Gurdyman’s candle down in the courtyard. I wondered how long he would stay up but, even as the thought went through my mind, I was asleep.

It was late next morning when I woke, if the sun through the open shutters was anything to go by. I felt rested and refreshed, and I had slept without dreaming, other than an absurd bit of nonsense about a cat climbing a ladder and offering me a piece of cheese, which I did not take seriously and certainly did not see as portentous in any way.

I descended from my little attic and made myself some breakfast, then went along the passage and down the steps to the crypt. Gurdyman was busy at his workbench and barely looked up as I entered. He was bending over his apothecary’s scales, an open jar in one hand and a tiny silver spoon in the other. He put a very small amount of some brownish substance into the pan of the scales, frowned at it and added some more.

He corked the jar and returned it to its place on the long row of shelves on the far side of the cellar. ‘That will do,’ he said. ‘I shall finish it later.’

‘Can I help?’

‘Yes. But, as I said, we’ll do it later. For now, there is something I must ask you and, depending on your answer, something it seems I must tell you.’

I felt a shiver of alarm, for his tone was grave and his face, usually so full of light and humour, was set in serious lines. He drew out two wooden stools from beneath his bench and, sitting down on one, waved a hand to the other. I perched on it and, my heart beating hard, waited for him to speak.

‘In your dream you say there was a bull,’ he began. I’d been right, then, when I thought I saw my mention of the bull pique his interest. ‘Tell me exactly what you saw.’

I closed my eyes and tried to recapture the image. ‘The scene is a lonely, desolate place, and I can see a line of low hills out on the horizon. The light isn’t good – it’s misty, or perhaps it’s getting dark. Close to me there’s a ruined building, and somehow I know it’s very, very old. There’s a pillar and some huge slabs of stone with carvings on them. I see a—’ I paused, wondering how best to describe the crypt-like hollow. ‘There’s an opening in the side of an earth mound, a bit like a grave.’

‘And what of the bull?’ Gurdyman prompted.

‘The bull is suddenly right in front of me,’ I said. ‘I don’t hear him approaching, which is odd because he’s really enormous and he’s wild with fear and very angry. It’s – it’s sort of as if he’s been there all the time but I wasn’t able to see him until someone decided the time was right.’

Gurdyman nodded. ‘As if a curtain had been drawn aside,’ he murmured.

‘Yes, exactly like that!’ I exclaimed. Only, surely the bull couldn’t have been concealed behind a curtain, or I’d have heard it bellowing and stamping  . . .

‘Describe what it looked like,’ commanded Gurdyman.

‘It was just a bull,’ I said lamely. ‘A very big one.’

I thought I heard him sigh. ‘How was it standing? Was it facing you?’

I screwed my eyes tight shut, trying to remember. ‘No,’ I said after a moment. ‘It was turned slightly to my right, and its head was thrown back.’ Then I recalled something I had quite forgotten. ‘There was a man there!’ I cried, my eyes flying open and going instantly to Gurdyman. ‘Or I thought there was – he was in the shadows, and he wore a weird cloak with a deep-blue lining that had stars all over it!’

Gurdyman closed his eyes, and his lips moved as if he was praying. Then he looked at me, a smile on his face. ‘Lassair, it is as I thought,’ he said, still smiling. ‘I do not yet know why you were sent this dream vision. There has to be a reason – there always is.’

‘Is it connected with the words in my head?’ I asked eagerly. ‘Can you tell me what it’s all about, Gurdyman, and who it is who is calling out to me?’

He put out a hand and grasped mine briefly. ‘Perhaps.’ He seemed to retreat into himself for a moment. ‘Yes, perhaps.’ Then he withdrew his hand, settled himself more comfortably on the stool and said, ‘I told you just now that there was something I might have to tell you, and the time has come for me to do so.’ He glanced around his cellar, eyes lingering here and there.

‘This house of mine holds many secrets,’ he murmured. ‘Some of them you will come to know about, Lassair; some will remain hidden. I will reveal one of them to you now, for it seems to me that the moment is right.’ He paused, and I sensed he was reluctant to go on. It was with some effort that at last he began.

‘There has been a settlement here for a very long time,’ he said. ‘Many centuries ago, men recognized that its location was readily defensible, for there is an area of higher ground which overlooks the place where the watery, dangerous fens can be crossed at their south-eastern corner. Later, the invaders from the south crossed the Narrow Seas and made this country part of their vast empire, although they never subdued the north to their will. They built a great wall there, marking the limit of their territory. They would have said, I have no doubt, that it was to keep the barbarians out.’ He smiled faintly. ‘They made roads across the length and breadth of the land, and their soldiers were ever marching up and down, to and fro, on the move all day and by night resting in the forts that their engineers put up along the roads. They built such a fort here, in the same place where a fort had stood before, and a settlement grew up around it. At first only soldiers lived here, but in time the merchants came too, for the river connects the town to the sea and trade developed swiftly. In the fullness of time, men brought their wives and their families, and a rich society developed such as we see here today. But to begin with this was a man’s world: a hard, tough world of soldiers, merchants and traders.’

He stopped, eyes again roaming around the cellar. Then, drawing a breath, he went on. ‘Wherever the soldiers went, their god went with them, for their lives were comfortless and full of danger, with death always at their shoulder. Their god was a god of light, of hope, who made a blood sacrifice for mankind in order to nourish the good earth and allow men to live.’

‘Like – like Jesus?’ I asked tentatively.

‘Like him, yes, but then throughout man’s long history, many religions have worshipped such a figure: a god who died for them and rose from the dead.’

‘Why did the soldiers choose this particular one?’

‘Because his worship was organized in a way that appealed to the mind of a fighting man,’ Gurdyman replied. ‘The soldiers of the southern empire lived under rigid military discipline, and the rules were firm and unbreakable. In this religion, worshippers were divided into ranks, just as the soldiers were in their everyday lives. The lowest rank in the religion, that of the new initiate, was a Raven. He went through various ordeals and, if he passed them, became a Nymph. The ordeals increased in severity, and some of them were both very painful and truly terrifying. If a man was brave and steadfast, eventually he could progress to Soldier, Lion, Persian, Runner of the Sun and, finally, Father, although few men rose to that high degree and many, indeed, were content to remain at a lowlier level.’

‘They’d be foot soldiers rather than officers,’ I suggested.

He smiled, pleased at my understanding. ‘Yes.’

Persian. Runner of the Sun. Silently, I repeated the exotic names to myself. ‘Did they have churches?’

‘No. They worshipped in caves –
spelaeum
, in their own tongue. In places where a natural cave was not available, they would construct an underground chamber. Always, wherever the god was worshipped, there had to be fresh water nearby in the form of a spring or an unpolluted well. The men of the south were habitually clean, Lassair, for they bathed frequently and used the occasion as a social event, going from baths of cold water to hot water and steam, and employing servants to scrape the dirt from their skin.’

I smothered a laugh, finding the idea of communal bathing both absurd and faintly embarrassing.

‘They never approached their god without first performing a ritual cleansing,’ Gurdyman was saying. ‘Together they would enter the sacred space, going down the steps until they were inside the earth, and there they would bathe and dress in clean robes before proceeding into the god’s presence.’

His voice went on, calm, even, soothing, almost hypnotic, and images flashed through my mind. A cave. Going down the steps into an underground chamber. A town that had stood there for centuries. A house with many secrets.

Then I knew what he was telling me.

‘This cellar was a place where the soldiers gathered to worship!’ I burst out.

His eyes met mine, and I saw that he was smiling again. He put a finger to his lips to hush me.

‘
Wasn’t it
?’ I hissed.

I knew I was right, even before he answered. The crypt seemed to be teeming with the presence of unseen men and the air was full of magic.

Gurdyman stood up and moved across the stone flags of the floor. It always surprises me how light on his feet he is, how silently he moves, for although he is short he is not a small man. Now, however, he almost seemed to hover above the ground  . . .

We had been sitting beside the workbench, which stood against the far wall to the right of the steps leading down into the crypt. Beside the steps was Gurdyman’s low cot, and the opposite wall was covered in shelves that groaned under the weight of bottles, jars, rolls of parchment, scales, lamps, ink, quills and all the other tools of Gurdyman’s work.

The fourth wall was covered by a large, heavy hanging. I had never given it much attention, for whatever pattern or scene was once depicted on its generous folds has long been obscured behind the smoke and the fumes and the occasional clouds of noxious humours that frequently fill the crypt. It is now a uniform dark-grey colour, and if you accidentally brush against it, clouds of ancient dust fly out.

Gurdyman walked up to it. He paused before it and, turning to me, beckoned with his finger. I got up off my stool and slowly approached him.

He took hold of the hanging with both hands. With a powerful tug, he pulled it down from the wall.

When I saw what was behind it I gave an involuntary cry and stepped hastily backwards, for in that first instant I truly believed that living, breathing creatures were lungeing towards me.

There was a man: a broad, strong-looking man dressed in a soldier’s short tunic. He wore a cap that rose up in a softly-pointed cone, and a wide cloak flew back from his shoulders as if a fierce wind blew. It was red, and the lining was deep blue, like the twilight sky, and spotted with brilliant points of light that seemed to shine like the stars. His right leg – it was thick and very well muscled – was extended, tense with the effort of keeping his balance, and his other leg was bent at the knee and pushed down hard into the shoulder of an enormous, pure-white bull. His dagger was thrust into the creature’s throat, and he was in the very act of sacrifice: the bull’s life blood – vivid red, glistening as if it had only just begun to flow – spilled out and pooled on the ground.