He heard footsteps. Turning, expecting to see one of his brethren, he found himself face to face with a young man perhaps a couple of years older than himself. The newcomer was tall and slim, with fair hair styled quite long and blue-green eyes that held a wary expression. He wore a shabby, shapeless cap pulled forward over his forehead.
He wasn’t a monk and this alone was sufficient to make Gewis approach him eagerly. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked.
The stranger was staring at him intently. Then, taking Gewis totally by surprise, he grinned and said, ‘Yes, I think you can.’
Gewis had no idea what the young man meant and, before he could ask, there was the sound of running feet and three older monks came hurrying along the corridor. The one in the lead drew to a halt, composed his face into a smile and said, ‘Thank you, Brother — er, Brother Ailred, we will deal with this.’ His two companions had hastened to take up positions either side of the stranger and, so subtly that Gewis wondered how they had achieved it, they had swiftly turned him round and were ushering him back along the passage.
‘You say you saw a rat scuttling away down here?’ the first monk said to the stranger as he followed the group back up the corridor. The young man muttered something in reply and the monk said, ‘That is most helpful and we shall take steps immediately to deal with the problem. Now, if you would be so kind, let us explore this way. .’
Gewis stared after them, his broom hanging from his limp hand. He tried to fight the thought, but he was fairly sure he had just seen a helping hand from the outside world smoothly and efficiently snatched away.
The morning seemed endless and as the hours crept by I had to fight the increasingly horrible scenes that my imagination threw up. Sibert can look after himself, I kept saying to myself. He is in no danger. He has gone into an abbey full of monks — God’s men, for heaven’s sake! — and he will come to no harm.
That was all very well, but the logic and the good common sense were having a hard job holding their own against images of eel fishers in hooded cloaks lying dead on the sodden ground, murdered in ways too brutal to contemplate. .
Frustrated, anxious and sick of the sight of the four walls that enclosed me in that small room, I drew my shawl around me and went outside, quickly walking the short distance down to the waterside at the end of the alley. It was not exactly raining this morning, but moisture made the air heavy and already hundreds of tiny droplets had settled on my shawl. I clutched my fingers into the fine wool, remembering my beloved sister Elfritha, who had made it for me. The thought was reassuring, and just for an instant it was as if she stood beside me, hugging me close. I wondered if she was thinking of me just then, even as I thought of her. Love is God’s miracle, the men of the church tell us, and I have often thought that if it is indeed miraculous then it probably can unite people across distance.
I went on standing there, barely aware of the brownish water slipping by just below my feet. It was only gradually that I realized I was no longer worrying about Sibert. I was, in fact, quite calm.
It was perhaps the absence of that anxiety that made me appreciate something I should have thought of ages ago, something which, as soon as it had occurred to me, drove out the calm. Oh, I thought, oh. How could I have missed that?
Morcar had witnessed the pale-haired monk being bundled into the abbey, and for that the men with the young monk had tried to kill my cousin, making two more attempts when somehow they found out that he had survived. They had killed two men whom they had mistaken for Morcar. Did they know that their true victim still lived? I had feared they would find out, which was why it had been imperative to get Morcar off the island and divert his would-be killers by pretending he was still here, being nursed by Sibert and me. So far, so good, but what would they do when they started to wonder if Morcar had told anyone — Sibert and me, for example — what he had seen?
Morcar’s life was in danger because he had seen something he shouldn’t have seen. This perilous secret was now also known to Sibert and to me. Try as I might, I could see no way that the two of us did not also now share the danger.
I wished I could fly away down the waterside path, opening my mind and letting my dowser’s gift seek what I so desperately needed. I wished I could let my feet find the safe paths across the fenland so that, safe in a place that meant death to everyone else, I could evade those who must surely be hunting for me. Had it been just me, I would have done just that. My ancestress had known how to cross the treacherous water; in my heart I knew I could do so too.
It was not just me. There was Sibert, to whom I was bound in some way that I did not really understand. As well as him there was the pale-haired young monk, possibly trapped inside the abbey against his will and without doubt involved in something so serious that men were driven to kill.
I yearned to flee, but I had to stay.
I turned away from the water and walked slowly back to the little room.
I found Sibert waiting for me. It was a relief to see him, and for a moment that drove the greater fear aside. He was tense with excitement and I made him sit down on the straw while I made him a hot drink and tore off a hunk of bread.
‘I found him!’ he said through a mouthful of bread.
‘He’s alive? He’s not hurt?’ I don’t know why I thought they might have harmed him.
‘No, no, he was busy sweeping a passage, and he looked fine.’
‘You’re sure it was the right one, the pale monk who Morcar saw?’
‘I can’t be absolutely certain, naturally,’ Sibert said reasonably, ‘but the boy I saw was pale all right.’
‘Describe him.’ It sounded very curt, and I shot Sibert an apologetic smile.
He grinned in return. ‘He’s quite slight, slimly built and not very tall,’ he began, ‘and he looks sort of insubstantial, as if he might float away. He was sweeping quite slowly and rhythmically, as if he were moving in a trance.’
Interesting. ‘What did he look like? His face, I mean?’
‘His skin is very fine and very white — more like a girl than a boy, really. His eyes are. . I’m not sure. Grey, I think, and very light, without much colour at all. His hair is white.’
‘White? What, like an old person’s?’
Sibert thought. ‘No, not exactly. Old people’s hair goes dry and straw-like. The boy’s hair is glossy, and it swings when he moves his head.’
‘But it’s white?’ I insisted. I had never heard of a young person with white hair.
Again, Sibert paused to think, this time screwing up his face as he tried to describe what he had seen. ‘White’s wrong,’ he said eventually. ‘The young monk’s hair is cream.’
Cream hair, white skin, eyes with barely any colour at all; what on earth was this boy?
I turned to Sibert to find his eyes — his lovely, familiar, blue-green eyes — on mine. The moment felt heavy with menace. Trying to break the mood, I said flippantly, ‘He sounds more like a ghost than a living person.’
And Sibert gave a shudder so powerful that I saw him tremble.
I felt his fear like a living thing, and it seemed to leap from him to me so that suddenly I, too, was shaking. ‘What is it?’ I managed, my voice barely audible.
‘A ghost,’ Sibert whispered, eyes wide with dread. ‘Oh, dear God, supposing he was a ghost? And I was right beside him. I could have reached out and touched him!’
For a moment we were both frozen with horror. Then I said, forcing a grin, ‘Sibert, whatever else ghosts may or may not do, I don’t think they sweep corridors.’