He watched Thorfinn struggle to overcome his distress. Finally, the old man lowered the concealing hand and turned to Hrype. ‘She is quite right,’ he said quietly. ‘What she said pained me, but in both matters – her right to use the shining stone as she wishes, and my need to confess the truth to my son – she tells me what my conscience already knows.’
Hrype considered, his head on one side. ‘In essence, yes,’ he agreed. He paused. There was something he knew he should add, but it was not strictly necessary, and he was impatient to discuss what he and Thorfinn should do next. But, somewhat to his amazement – he prided himself on being above emotion – the old man’s distress had affected him.
‘You should not be surprised at her strength,’ he heard himself say. ‘She is of your own blood, old man, and you do not breed weaklings. Her mother, too, is formidable.’ He smiled, a swift expression there and gone in a moment. ‘Threaten those she loves and she’ll use an iron cooking pot on you as if it were a battle axe,’ he murmured.
Thorfinn looked up at him. ‘Really?’
‘So they say,’ Hrype confirmed. There was more; he made himself go on. ‘Thorfinn, I sense that already she is regretting her cruel words to you,’ he said. ‘It was me she wished to hurt, but you, being more vulnerable, were the easier target.’
‘Why should she wish to hurt you?’
Because she grows in strength and will one day rival me, and because I cannot let myself admit it, I suppress her, was the honest answer. Hrype wasn’t going to share that with Thorfinn. He shook his head. ‘Explanations would take too long. The important thing is that what has just happened will not come between you.’
Thorfinn’s face lightened. ‘You are sure?’
‘I am.’ All at once weary of the discussion, Hrype hardened his tone and said, ‘Now, what are we to do about Skuli?’
Next morning, I was heavy-eyed after my night’s excitement. I was also sore at heart and guilty; I had shouted at my grandfather and hurt him, and he really hadn’t deserved it.
I didn’t try to justify to myself why I sought out Jack. I needed to be with him: that was all.
He was in the Lakehall stables, tending his horses. He seemed to find conversation as awkward as I did, and, for want of anything better, I said, ‘I asked my aunt if my Granny Cordeilla revealed anything useful concerning her missing brother, but she said not.’
He didn’t reply straight away. Then, just when I was thinking I ought to go and leave him to his work, he said, ‘The missing one was the youngest brother, you said. What of the others?’
‘He and the two who fell at Hastings were the final three. There were two older sisters, but they died years ago.’ I paused. ‘Oh, and one entered a monastery. His name was Sihtric.’
‘Is this monk still alive?’
‘Yes, as far as I know. He’s in an enclosed community out to the south-east of Cambridge, at Little Barton.’
‘Quite an easy ride, now that the flood waters are receding,’ Jack observed. He reached out for the grey gelding’s bridle, deftly buckling the straps.
‘But he won’t know what happened to Harald!’ I protested. ‘He may not even be still alive.’
‘Wouldn’t his monastery have notified his family if he’d died?’ Jack asked.
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
His own horse was now tacked up. Gently pushing me out of the way, he turned his attention to Isis. ‘We’ll go and find out.’
We reached Little Barton in the late morning. Jack had been right about the flood water, and there had only been one place where we’d had to make a detour. The village was tiny: a collection of lowly dwellings, a run-down smithy, a church with holes in its roof. Jack asked a man waiting for the smith to finish replacing a shoe on his horse’s hind foot if he knew of a monastery in the area. He removed the straw from his mouth, spat, then silently pointed down the narrow track leading off behind the church.
We headed out of the village. Several small boys emerged from a line of hovels, and one of them said a dirty word. For a few awkward moments, we were the centre of attention, and several pairs of round eyes in snotty-nosed faces watched as we rode by. Perhaps they didn’t get many visitors.
The monastery was about a mile out of the village. It consisted of a small group of wattle-and-daub buildings up on a slight rise, and the largest of them had a wooden cross on its roof. The buildings were enclosed by a high paling fence, and the tops of the palings were sharpened into points. On three sides, the fence merged into thick undergrowth from which stands of willow, hazel and alder rose up, effectively concealing the monastery. In the fence facing us as we approached there was a gate, firmly closed.
‘Do you think they’re trying to keep the world out or the monks in?’ Jack wondered, staring at the wretched enclosure before us.
‘A bit of both,’ I replied.
‘What do they do all day?’ Jack went on. ‘They obviously don’t spend their time tending the poor and the needy.’
‘They’ll have to support themselves,’ I said, ‘so presumably they farm their land.’ In a field to our right there was a small herd of skinny cows. ‘And most of their time is probably spent in prayer.’
‘Praying for a better world,’ Jack muttered. ‘I can’t help but think they’d do more good trying to heal the sick and feed the hungry, but I suppose it’s a matter of belief.’
‘Granny Cordeilla said Sihtric was always a dreamer, even as a boy,’ I said. ‘He got out of a lot of distasteful chores by saying he had to go and communicate with God.’
‘It looks as if he’s still doing the same,’ Jack observed. ‘Let’s see if they’ll open the gate and admit us.’
We rode up to the fence and dismounted. I held our horses’ reins, and Jack banged on the gate. It was some time before anyone came to see what we wanted. Finally, a tiny gap appeared between the stout wood of the gate and the frame in which it was set, and a cowled face peered out. ‘What do you want?’ hissed a reedy voice.
‘We wish to speak to Brother Sihtric,’ Jack said firmly. ‘This young woman is his great-niece, and needs to consult him urgently on a family matter.’
‘We abandon our families when we enter St Botolph’s,’ the monk said reprovingly.
‘But perhaps your families do not abandon you,’ Jack replied gently. ‘Is Brother Sihtric here?’
‘Of course he is,’ the monk snapped. He opened the gate a fraction more, glaring out at me from faded, rheumy eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. ‘You can’t come in, you’re a woman,’ he accused. ‘No women allowed!’
He went to slam the gate shut, but Jack had put his foot in the gap. Wincing slightly – the stringy old monk must have been tougher than he looked – he said reasonably, ‘Well, if we can’t come in, perhaps Brother Sihtric could come and speak to us here?’
The monk frowned, furiously working empty jaws together as if chewing on invisible meat. Then he said, ‘Wait,’ and slammed the gate shut.
We waited. There was the sound of a brief muttered conversation, and within the enclosure a door creaked open and closed. Footsteps approached, and the gate opened again – a little wider this time – to reveal an even smaller and more wizened monk dressed in a patched and fraying habit.
I knew he was my great-uncle even before he spoke. He had a look of Granny Cordeilla in his very stance, and the deep, dark eyes, bright as a robin’s despite his advanced years, were hers exactly.
‘You wish to speak to me?’ he asked, his voice cracked and rusty with disuse. He cleared his throat of accumulated phlegm and spat a glistening, yellowish gobbet on to the ground.
‘I’m Cordeilla’s granddaughter,’ I said before he could change his mind and shut himself away again. ‘Her son Wymond’s child.’
‘Cordeilla.’ His lined old face softened. ‘How is she?’
‘She died,’ I admitted. ‘Two years and more ago.’
He nodded, as if it was only to be expected. ‘I shall pray for her,’ he said. ‘Was that what you came to tell me?’