I knew exactly what I thought of that. I was aware, because Sibert had told me, that his uncle Hrype had somehow sedated Edmer before the amputation. The magic man whom my friend Teb had just described must surely be Hrype. Teb was waiting for my reply. It was not hard to sound thrilled as I said, in an excited whisper, ‘Oh! I wish I knew how he could have done that!’
Teb gripped my knee and shook it warningly. ‘You mustn’t go blabbing about what I’ve just told you!’ he said urgently. His eyes flicked briefly in the direction of the abbey — it was as if he and his friends were aware of it all the time like a watching, listening presence — and he said, all but inaudibly, ‘Them monks are funny about things like that.’
I understood what he meant. In the course of my long and ongoing training with my aunt Edild, she had told me repeatedly that many of the skills she was teaching me were frowned upon by the men of the church. They tended towards the view that if a man or a woman suffered sickness or grave injury it was God’s punishment, and it therefore followed that any alleviation of their agony was contrary to God’s will. The prime example was, of course, childbirth; Edild knew of several palliatives that could ease a long labour, so that there was less risk of mother or child — or both — dying because the mother was too exhausted by pain to go on. The church, however, was adamant: women must bear their children in pain because of Eve’s sin of disobedience.
Edild and I did not see it that way.
‘I won’t breathe a word!’ I whispered now to Teb. I licked my finger, drew it across my throat and then sketched a cross over my heart.
He nodded, apparently satisfied. ‘That’s a good girl.’ I squeezed his hand, still on my knee but now quite a lot further up my thigh. It worked. Once again speaking right in my ear, he hissed, ‘The magic man lived in a little reed-thatched house at the end of the alley that runs east under the abbey walls. They’ll remember him there.’
Then, laying his forefinger alongside his nose in the time-honoured gesture implying secrecy, he sat up straight again.
I wanted to leap up there and then and hare off in search of the reed-thatched house, but it seemed wiser to wait. My old Teb seemed anxious that his information should go no further, so he was hardly likely to tell anyone what he’d just told me. But it was better to be safe than sorry, and if Sibert and I went on chatting to the old men about other topics then nobody would be able to say that we’d shot off like a couple of scalded cats the moment we’d been told about the magic man’s house.
The magic man. . While the superficial part of my mind gossiped with the old men and giggled with my elderly admirer, my deeper self was walking with Hrype.
Finally, Sibert and I got away. There was no need for words as quickly we crossed the marketplace, which was still busy with townspeople, monks and the ever-flowing stream of workmen passing in and out of the abbey, and made our way down the alley that led off under the abbey walls to the east. At first houses and little hovels bunched tightly together in a mass of packed humanity, but quite soon the dwellings thinned. Right at the end there was a row of reed-thatched cottages.
One had its door ajar. I went up to it and peered inside. A woman of around my mother’s age sat on a stool by the hearth. She was spinning wool. Without turning she called out, ‘Close the door, Mattie, it’s cold enough in here already.’
I slipped inside, Sibert right behind me, and he closed the door. ‘Not Mattie, I’m afraid,’ I said softly.
The woman turned. ‘So I see,’ she said. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’
‘My friend here is looking for people who might remember his father, fatally wounded during the. . er, in 1071,’ I said, keeping my voice low. We had no idea where this woman’s sympathies lay; she neither looked nor sounded like a Norman, but that did not necessarily mean she had supported the rebellion.
She nodded slowly as she looked us up and down. ‘Who sent you here?’ she asked. Her tone was not unfriendly, merely wary. I did not blame her for her caution.
‘An old man in the alehouse said there was a healer who used to live here,’ I said.
Again she nodded. ‘Aye, there was.’ She stared down at her hands, fallen idle in her lap. ‘He was a good man,’ she muttered.
‘You remember him?’ Sibert said eagerly.
The woman gazed up at him. ‘No, for I was not here.’ I sensed the sag of disappointment that flooded through him. Then, as if she noticed too, her face spread in a tight smile, and she said, ‘You want to talk to my mother.’
The woman’s name was Yorath. Although she did not admit as much, we gathered that her men folk had fought with Hereward. From what she said, it sounded as if her mother was a wise woman, and it appeared she had been both willing and eager to work with the magic man.
As I listened to Yorath’s quiet voice speaking of the events of twenty years ago, I felt as if her words were casting a spell on me. Such was my enchantment that it was almost a surprise when I heard my own voice ask, ‘Who was he? Who was the magic man?’
And Yorath said, ‘My mother never knew his name. He was here when they needed him, and he did not spare himself in his care of the sick and the wounded.’ She sighed, her eyes soft as she remembered the old tales. ‘Then he was gone, and none of them ever saw him again.’
Her mother, who was called Aetha, lived somewhere out on the fens; Yorath did not specify exactly where. She undertook to send word to her to ask if she was willing to see us. If we were to return the following afternoon, she would give us her mother’s answer.
We promised to be there. I sensed that Sibert wanted to stay; we were standing in the very place where his gravely wounded father had been brought, where Edmer’s brother had tried so hard to save his life, where Edmer’s wife, desperately anxious for her new husband, had done all she could to help. The central drama in his family’s recent history had happened right here. Had I been in his boots, I should have wanted to stay too.
I took his hand and gently led him away. I muttered a farewell to Yorath, catching her looking with deep sympathy at Sibert. ‘We will see you tomorrow,’ I said, and she nodded. Then Sibert and I were outside in the alley, and I hurried him away.
TEN
Sibert’s tension did not dissipate as we made our way back up the alley and across the marketplace. I was not surprised, for I understood how hard it must be for him to sense the mystery of his past so close but still outside his reach. When he cast a longing look at the alehouse and asked if I minded if he went back to talk some more with those within, I said no, of course I didn’t.
I watched him go, my heart flooding with sympathy. If he thought it would help to drink a lot of ale, so that eventually he would fall asleep on the floor of our little dwelling in a beery stupor, then I could not blame him.
I walked on to our room, planning how I would fill in the remainder of the afternoon and the long evening that stretched ahead. I would take the unexpected free time to have another tidy up, I resolved, and when I had done that I would go through my satchel of remedies and medicaments. It was not often that I had access to an apothecary’s shop, and it made sense to check my supplies and think about whether there was anything Edild and I needed back at home.
I swept out the room, shook up the straw and prepared Sibert’s and my own sleeping places, then I fed the fire to make a good blaze and banked it down with ash so that it would burn long and slow. Next I sat in the light from the partly opened door, unfastened my leather bag and started going through the contents. I was already aware, in the back of my mind, that this task would not take much time and that the remainder of the evening loomed ahead with nothing to fill it. It was probably this that prompted me, for when I picked up the bottle of Edild’s special remedy for pain in the joints — it is full of comforting, warming herbs such as ginger and cinnamon, with a good portion of willow and a little devil’s claw — I suddenly knew how I was going to spend the rest of the day.