After several heartbeats, Sibert laughed. An uneasy, nervous laugh, yes, but still a laugh.
I wondered why the very mention of the word ghost should have provoked such a reaction, for I knew from personal experience that Sibert could be brave when danger faced him. There was obviously something he hadn’t told me, and I reckoned there was only one way to find out. ‘Sibert, is the abbey haunted?’
He paled again and, hand like iron on my wrist, said urgently, ‘Shhhhhhh!’ Then, recovering, with an attempt at nonchalance that touched me to my core, ‘Yes. They do say so.’
He was obviously so very reluctant to say more, but we both knew he must. I twisted my wrist out from his grasp — I’m sure he didn’t realize it but his fingers were hurting me — and held his hand. ‘Tell me,’ I said simply.
He drew a deep breath, then another. Then: ‘The monks are scared and their superiors try to pretend that it is not so. They say the men are merely unsettled because the building work is so disruptive to their normally tranquil life. They cannot easily hear God’s voice amid the uproar, and this is disturbing them.’
I was quite surprised at the idea of God not being able to make himself heard to one who tried to listen, even above the tumult of a construction site. What were the senior monks trying to cover up? ‘You spoke to some of them?’ I asked.
Sibert nodded. ‘Yes. They are quite approachable, really, or anyway the younger ones are. They’re just like anyone else and they seemed eager to come and chat to me, although I noticed that they kept looking over their shoulders in case the men in charge noticed.’
‘What did they say about the. . the ghost?’
Sibert swallowed nervously. ‘The rumours say that something’s been seen in the area where the old Saxon church stood.’
‘Something-?’ I began, but Sibert shook his head and I stopped. My curiosity burned me, but I would have to let him tell his story in his own way.
‘The new cathedral is much bigger than the old church,’ he went on, ‘but it’s being built on the same spot, so they’re having to demolish most of the church. The shingle roof and the outer walls went ages ago, and the tower was the first thing to be knocked down. The most sacred part was the little chapel in the south aisle, because its walls are full of bones.’
‘Bones?’
‘It’s a place of honour, Lassair, reserved for the remains of people like old abbesses and Saxon lords. They told me that St Etheldreda’s bones are in there.’
I was beginning to suspect what the nature of this rumour might be. ‘And one of these worthies is resenting the disturbance?’ I suggested.
Sibert clearly disliked my light tone. ‘It’s nothing to joke about,’ he said sharply. ‘You didn’t talk to them. You didn’t sense the terror they’re feeling in there.’ He jerked his head towards the abbey.
‘No, that’s true,’ I acknowledged meekly. ‘What have they seen?’
Again, Sibert drew a steadying breath. ‘It’s a shape, clad in white,’ he said, ‘like a corpse in its shroud. Its face is deadly, ashen, and its hair is pale as snow.’ He, too, was pale, and I heard him suppress a couple of wrenching, retching sounds.
Fear, I suddenly understood, was making him physically ill. .
‘And it’s got pale eyes too?’ I asked, trying to bring his attention back to me.
He turned to stare at me, horror all over his face. His mouth worked, but no words emerged. He tried again, this time successfully, and instantly I wished he hadn’t.
Because he said, ‘It hasn’t got any eyes.’
NINE
We sat there on the straw, clutching each other’s hands, as the fear flowed around us like a dense, dark cloud. A ghost with no eyes. . Dear Lord, what sort of a creature could it be? What had been done to it, and how terrible would be its wrath now that its uneasy peace had been so violently disrupted? Was it even now plotting its unspeakable vengeance?
I squeezed Sibert’s hand. It was warm, human, living, and it squeezed back. I sensed the fear retreat a little. ‘Sibert, we must leave the island,’ I said. ‘It’s not safe, we-’
‘The ghost has only been seen within the abbey or, at the worse, just outside the walls,’ he said quickly. ‘We’re not in danger out here, or at least I don’t think so.’ He looked uneasily around the little room.
‘It’s not the ghost I’m afraid of.’ It was — of course it was — but I wasn’t going to admit it. ‘There’s something else.’ Briefly, I explained to Sibert what I had realized while he was in the abbey. ‘The killers must surely suspect that Morcar told us what he saw, and they’ll come for us. Morcar’s safe now, but you and I will be as helpless as chicks when the fox breaks into the henhouse.’
‘I can fight!’ Sibert protested, stung.
‘Four, maybe five of them?’ That was what Morcar had said.
Sibert frowned. ‘Hmm.’
Sensing a breach in his defences, I pushed on. ‘We needed to pretend I was still here looking after Morcar only for as long as it took you to get him to safety,’ I pointed out. ‘You managed that, and now he’s tucked up snugly in Aelf Fen, and you must admit it’s very unlikely the killers will find him.’
‘I went over the water,’ Sibert said musingly. ‘I left no trail for even the most expert tracker to pick up.’
‘There you are then!’ I exclaimed. ‘Morcar’s perfectly safe. It’s you and I who are in danger now.’
‘Yes,’ he said, still in that thoughtful way. Then he spun round, looked straight into my eyes and said, ‘You can go if you want. I’m staying here.’
I sighed in exasperation. ‘Sibert, why? It’s dangerous, you’ve just admitted that, and you said yourself that the pale monk hasn’t been harmed, so maybe Morcar was wrong and the boy isn’t-’
‘It’s nothing to do with the pale boy.’
Surprised, I said, ‘What then?’
A half-smile twitched at his mouth. ‘Don’t you know? You touched on it when we were on our way here.’
Then I understood.
I tried to recall exactly what he had said. I’ve always wanted to go to the island. There’s something strange about the story of what happened to my father.
His father, poor Edmer, fatally wounded in the Ely rebellion. Yes, of course. There had always been another, deeper motive behind Sibert’s eagerness to accompany me on my mercy mission. I let my shoulders slump. Against the huge attraction of delving into a mystery from the past, what chance did my fears for our safety have?
I straightened up and turned to him. ‘Come on then.’
He was already smiling. ‘Where are we going?’
‘You won’t leave till you’ve done all you can to unearth what you need to know, and I won’t leave without you, so the sooner we start, the sooner we can go home.’
It was past noon, however, and I was very hungry; Sibert was too, and he needed more than the heel of bread I’d thrust at him when I’d returned to find him waiting. I set about preparing a meal, and while I worked I recalled all that I knew of Sibert’s recent family history.
His father Edmer, Hrype’s brother, had fought with Sibert’s grandfather under King Harold at Hastings. After the defeat, in which the grandfather had died, the family had lost their estate of Drakelow, on the coast near Dunwich. Hrype had taken his and Edmer’s mother, Fritha, and fled to the Black Fen, where eventually Edmer found them. Old men spoke with pride of the network of spies and informers that had operated all over the fens after Harold’s defeat as men loyal to him tried to regroup after the disaster; it was thrilling to think of how such secretive men had strived so hard to protect each other. Edmer, Hrype and Fritha had then made their way to the Isle of Ely, where Edmer wished to join the Saxon resistance under Hereward — although Hrype warned him repeatedly that this act would cost him dear.
Edmer, however, would not — and did not — listen. Not only was he suffering from the profound mental wound of having fought and lost, and from being forced to watch his father die in the battle, but in addition he had a new wife: Froya. She had been Hrype’s pupil, and Edmer had fallen in love with her the moment he set eyes on her. Edmer fought for revenge, for the pride of the Saxons and for the future, for now that he had a wife he knew that he might also have a son. The rebellion was the first step to the recovery of Drakelow, the family estate, and Edmer did not hesitate.