Remorse flooded through me. My sister had witnessed murder today, and she had come close to being killed herself, yet the best I could do was yell at her.
I knelt down in front of her. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said humbly. ‘You’ve had a very frightening experience, and I shouldn’t have shouted at you.’ But some devil in me made me add, ‘I’m still not staying.’
The ghost of a smile crossed Goda’s plump face. ‘You’ve grown up, little sister,’ she said, and I detected grudging admiration.
The silence extended, but it was a more companionable one now. Presently I said, ‘Why don’t you tell me all about it?’ It might help her get over it, I thought, to relive the dreadful events while they were still fresh in her mind.
She lay back on her pillow, and the hand in mine relaxed. ‘Not much to tell, really,’ she said. ‘Utta and I were out with the children, setting off to the place where the peddler usually stops, since he was due this morning. I bought a few bits, and Utta moaned because he was out of fine thread.’ A look of intense irritation crossed her face and she added angrily, ‘Lassair, you have no idea what it’s like living with that cranky old bat! She’s self-centred, lazy, she thinks the sun shines out of Cerdic’s arse and, according to her, the woman’s not been born who’s good enough for him!’ I thought Goda had tempor-arily forgotten Utta was dead. The tirade ended as quickly as it had begun, and Goda said, ‘Where was I? Oh, yes. The old cow went on moaning all the way home and, in desperation, I told her that if she was going to be such a misery, she could go on ahead, and I’d stop and sit with the children in the sun for a while.’
I knew exactly what Goda was about to say, and I felt deep sympathy for my sister. I wondered if I should prevent her continuing, but, for one thing, it would probably do her good to express what was troubling her, and, for another, preventing my sister from doing virtually anything has always been a challenge.
‘If I hadn’t been so impatient, we’d all have got home together,’ she said on a sob, her face crumpling into an expression of remorse, ‘and then Utta would still be alive.’
‘But you and your children might not be,’ I said softly. ‘And Utta had already had a long life. If any of you had to die, better that it was the eldest.’
Perhaps not my most compassionate piece of reasoning, but I know my sister.
After a while she sniffed, wiped her nose and her eyes on her sleeve and said, ‘I suppose you’re right.’
To encourage her away from her guilty thoughts, I said, ‘What happened when you got home?’
‘There was this great hulking brute of a man smashing up my house, that’s what happened!’ Goda cried. ‘Utta was lying on the floor, and she wasn’t moving. The children were behind me, so I pushed them back outside and slammed the door. The giant was crashing round the room, picking things up, hurling them about, poking under the beds and into all the corners — honestly, Lassair, you’d have thought he was looking for something, only we’ve got nothing anyone would want!’ Bitter resentment filled her face, as if, in the middle of this new trouble, her perpetual, underlying anger at being married to a hard-working but poor man, who could not afford to buy her the luxuries she craved, had surfaced once more. ‘He looked up and saw me standing inside the door, and he gave a great yell, and came across and took a swing at me. Then he wrested the door open and fled.’
Her eyes wandered away in the direction of the shelf where she stores her cooking utensils and her few bits of good pottery. The utensils were bent and dented, and the pots were smashed to pieces.
‘I liked those pots,’ my sister said. Then, softly and quietly, she began to weep.
TWO
I hurried back to Aelf Fen, eager to find my mother and reassure her that Goda wasn’t about to die. I found all my family at home — it was evening by now — and so was able to give them the news together.
‘She’s all right,’ I panted as I burst in — I’d run the last half mile. ‘A cut and some bruises, but not badly hurt.’
My mother, my father, my brother Haward and his wife Zarina, with her ten-month-old son in her lap, and my two younger brothers all breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Sit down here by the fire and have a drink,’ my father said solicitously, elbowing my little brother Squeak out of the way. ‘Yes, Squeak, I know you’ve had a hard day,’ he said in answer to my brother’s mutinous look, ‘but Lassair’s just walked to Icklingham and back, and she’s had to deal with Goda. She truly is all right?’ he added, a big, firm hand on my shoulder as gratefully I sat down.
‘Yes. But Utta …’ I paused, glancing at my brother Leir. He was not yet seven.
‘They all know Utta’s been killed,’ my father said quietly. ‘We’d like to know what happened, Lassair.’ Then, just for me, he muttered, ‘No gory details, mind.’
I nodded my understanding, then briefly repeated what Goda had told me.
My mother’s face was creased in perplexity. ‘It was a robbery, then?’
‘Apparently so,’ I replied. ‘Goda thought the intruder was looking for something specific, but, as she said, she and Cerdic haven’t really got much that’s worth taking.’
‘What about Utta?’ my brother Haward asked. ‘Might she not have some savings, or something, that she’d brought with her when she moved in with Goda and Cerdic?’ He looked at my mother. ‘Isn’t she … er, wasn’t she a skilled weaver or something?’
‘She was a wool worker,’ my mother said, nodding. ‘She made cloth of a very smooth, soft quality.’
Suddenly I remembered something: an image from six years ago, when I’d gone to look after Goda. ‘She made Goda and Cerdic two beautiful blankets for a wedding gift,’ I said.
‘Well, then!’ Haward exclaimed.
My father gave a deep, rumbling laugh. ‘Well then, what?’ he said with a smile. Please don’t think my father callous; it’s the last thing he is. But none of us had anything more than a bare acquaintance with Utta, and to put on long-faced grief at her death would have been dishonest.
‘Oh.’ Haward frowned, putting his thoughts in order. ‘Er, she probably made lots of money making and selling her nice blankets, and that’s what the thief was after,’ he said. ‘Her bag of coins!’ he added, as if to make sure we all understood.
‘It’s possible,’ I said, smiling at Haward. I love my brother very much, but I didn’t really think his theory was very likely. ‘Although I don’t think Utta was by any means rich.’
My mother got to her feet and, picking up a ladle, began to stir the stew that was bubbling aromatically over the hearth. ‘Supper’s ready,’ she announced. ‘Going to stay and eat with us, Haward, Zarina?’
Haward glanced at his wife, and she gave a little nod. ‘Thank you, Mother, yes please,’ he said. He and Zarina haven’t long moved into their own little dwelling, built on to one end of my family home, and I know Zarina tends to be sensitive over any implication that she doesn’t keep house as well as my mother. Haward, bless him, often appears torn between accepting our mother’s food whenever it’s offered (she is an excellent cook) and not offending his wife (she isn’t).
We settled down to eat, and for a while were too busy with our food to talk. Then, as the platters gradually emptied and the sounds of knives and fingers scraping against wood ceased, my father said, ‘Let’s hope there are no more such incidents in Icklingham, or anywhere else for that matter. The intruder must have realized Goda saw him, and could describe him, so maybe that will have persuaded him that it’s in his best interests to get as far away as he can.’
There were several murmurs of agreement.
‘Has any action begun to find the killer and bring him to justice?’ my father went on, turning to me.
‘I don’t know,’ I answered. ‘I was busy tending Goda, and did not think to enquire.’
My father smiled understandingly. ‘You probably had your hands full,’ he observed. ‘Still, I bet they’ll have organized some sort of a search by now. They’ll find him and deal with him, and that’ll be that.’