I breathed in deeply and slowly let the air out, repeating the process several times. I was admittedly quite thrilled at what Edild had just said, and part of me was just longing to test myself to see if I could do it. The more sensible part, however, was moaning that too much was being asked of me. As if it were not enough to be sent alone to deal with a gravely ill man suffering from a high fever and a deep wound in his foot, now somehow I must also find the time to slip away and try out my skill at marsh-hopping. I felt my stiff shoulders relax. If the opportunity arose — and it was only if, I reminded myself, even Edild had said if — then I would cope with it. For now, there were other things to perplex and worry me.
Primarily this: Morcar had suffered his accident on the Isle of Ely, where the Normans were building a huge and showy new cathedral. That cathedral was a part of a Benedictine abbey, no doubt full of learned monks who read the ancient tracts and studied the knowledge that had been handed down to them out of the past. Quite a lot of that knowledge would be concerned with the healing arts, and not a few of the monks would undoubtedly be skilled and renowned healers.
So why on earth had whoever was caring for Morcar sent the message to his mother to bring help for her son? Why had they not taken him straight to the abbey’s infirmary, where he could be tucked up beneath clean, linen sheets with bland-faced, psalm-chanting monks gliding around him and swiftly and efficiently answering his every need?
Why, in the dear Lord’s name, was I going to Ely?
For the first time, I felt a deep shiver of unease.
FOUR
Sibert and I set out in the early afternoon. As the crow flew it was probably only eight miles or so from Aelf Fen to Ely, but Sibert and I were not blessed with wings and would have to trudge along many extra loops and detours as the track edged it way round numerous watery obstacles. In addition, although it was fine today it had been raining hard for the past few days, and the water level everywhere had risen quite dramatically.
It really was no time for a would-be marsh walker to test her probably non-existent skills.
We were basically good friends, Sibert and I, but it was some months since we had done more than nod a greeting to each other as we passed in our daily round in the village. Consequently, it took a mile or two before we even began to be easy together. Sibert asked a few polite but stiff questions: are you well? Are you enjoying working with your aunt? How’s your sister, Goda? Still as awful as ever? To the last I was able to answer honestly that, yes, Goda was pretty much her usual self. She bore her first child — my beautiful little niece, Gelges — two summers ago, and the baby’s safe arrival did, for a precious few months, turn Goda into a nicer person. Unfortunately, the improvement hasn’t really lasted, although I have to admit she’s not quite as waspish as she was before. In the spring she had another baby, a boy who was rather unimaginatively named Cerdic, after his father. He is large, blank-faced and, compared to his sister, a little dull, although it’s hardly his fault, and it’s not fair to judge a child who is still so young.
I gave Sibert an edited account of all that and then we fell silent. I knew that I ought to ask him about his family in return, yet I hesitated. Hrype scares me and as for Froya, on the few occasions she emerges from her cottage she always seems so fearful and anxious that I feared to enquire after her in case the report was bad. Still, we had many miles to go yet, and we could hardly pace along without saying a word.
I drew a breath and said, ‘How’s your mother?’
Briefly, Sibert raised his head and gazed up into the clear sky, an expression of pain crossing his face. Oh dear. ‘I’m sorry I asked,’ I muttered, feeling myself blush.
He turned to me and gave me a very nice smile. ‘There is no need to apologize,’ he said. ‘In fact I’m grateful for the chance to speak to you about her.’
‘To me?’ I said stupidly.
He smiled again, and this time there was an edge of humour on his face. ‘You’re a healer, Lassair,’ he said patiently.
Belatedly, I understood. ‘Sorry,’ I repeated.
Sensibly, he ignored that. ‘She’s not exactly sick,’ he said, ‘or anyway we — Hrype and I — don’t think so, otherwise we’d have made her see Edild or you.’
‘You can’t make people see a healer,’ I protested. ‘Well, not unless they are beyond seeking help for themselves.’
‘Perhaps she is,’ he muttered.
Sibert’s mother has experienced much tragedy in her life. She nursed her dying husband and somehow managed to get him away from those who were after his blood following the Ely rebellion, bringing him to Aelf Fen where he died while his child, Sibert, was still in her womb. She was supported by Hrype, and the help of such a man was surely invaluable. Nevertheless, the one she had loved and married was no longer on this earth, and sometimes it seemed that Froya would never get over her loss. If, indeed, it was grief that ailed her.
It was time for me to be the healer I was meant to be. ‘She grieves still for your father, do you think?’ I asked gently.
‘I don’t. . Yes. I suppose so.’ He seemed uncertain.
‘Describe to me how she seems to you,’ I prompted. ‘Does she not eat? Does she not sleep? Does she speak to you and Hrype of her worries?’ That Froya had worries was no feat of diagnosis. You could tell that just by studying the poor woman, with the perpetual deep frown that creases her smooth, white brow and the constant droop of her shoulders, as if she carries a heavy load.
Sibert was clearly thinking, eyes narrowed as if he were conjuring up an image of his mother. ‘She prepares food for Hrype and me — good, tasty food, for she’s always been a good cook and is able to make something substantial and appealing out of little — but she doesn’t eat much herself. She picks at it, but I never see her finish a decent meal.’ He frowned. ‘I don’t know if she sleeps. I fall into deep sleep as soon as I’m in bed, and I don’t wake till either she or Hrype wake me.’
‘And her anxieties? What troubles her, do you think?’
‘I don’t know!’ The words were almost a howl. Then, more calmly, he went on, ‘Once I came home and heard her weeping as I approached the house. I hurried on inside and she was in Hrype’s arms, beating her fists against his chest and crying out something about punishment, and he was soothing her, telling her in a quiet, steady voice that she was good and kind and full of courage. Then he looked up and spotted me and that was that.’
‘You didn’t ask him what the matter was?’
‘No, Lassair, I didn’t,’ he said testily.
I should have paused to think. Instead I said, ‘Why not?’
‘Oh, come on!’ he cried. ‘You know what Hrype’s like. He gently pushed my mother away from him, and she hurried away to see to the meal. Then he just fixed me with those odd eyes of his, and it was as if I could hear his voice in my mind telling me — no, commanding me — not to ask my mother anything.’
I could well imagine the tense little scene. I was silent for some moments, thinking. Then I said, ‘She spoke of punishment. Do you think she fears earthly or heavenly punishment? I mean,’ I added, ‘has she broken the law or has she sinned?’
He smiled grimly. ‘I can’t imagine her doing either.’
He was right. I couldn’t, any more than he could. ‘Punishment,’ I murmured. It sounded rather as if Froya had a guilty conscience. Why? She seemed to have led an exemplary life, as far as I knew, tending her wounded husband devotedly and doing everything in her power to save his life. If she could not get over losing her Edmer, the man she had loved, it was surely nothing to feel guilty about. Poor Froya, stuck in Aelf Fen in the constant company of Edmer’s son and Edmer’s brother, the two people who more than anyone else on earth must daily remind her of the man she had lost. .