‘What happened then?’ Sibert’s eyes were wide.
The boatman looked gratified at having such an absorbed listener. ‘Well, Hereward knew all about the Conqueror’s causeway, see, and according to some he disguised himself and went out to lend a hand in the building of it. Then when the army was halfway across, too late to order them back, at last the Conqueror realized what Hereward had done.’ He chuckled again. ‘He’d set traps, see,’ he explained before we could ask. ‘He’d made weak spots at intervals all along that long causeway, and when the moment was right he made the planks collapse under the weight, then he set fire to what was left. Most of the soldiers drowned,’ he added in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘and those who didn’t ran away for fear of the deadly, sucking stickiness of the black marsh and what lay hidden beneath.’ He leered again, rolling his eyes for added effect.
‘I understand that the monks revealed the secret ways across,’ I said calmly. I guessed this must have been the next chapter in the boatman’s story, for he looked quite cross. ‘Some of them were not wholly behind Hereward’s revolt, or so I am told.’
‘You’re told right then, lass,’ the boatman agreed sullenly. ‘Not that it did them much good in the end, either their disapproval of Hereward or their treachery, because, far from being grateful that they’d told him what he wanted to know, the Conqueror was angry with them for not telling him sooner. There’s kings for you,’ he added softly, almost to himself, with a world-weary inflection, as if he had known dozens of kings and was all too familiar with their little foibles.
‘What did the Conqueror do?’ Sibert asked.
The boatman smiled grimly. ‘He made the Ely monks travel halfway across England to seek him out, and then he told them coldly what he wanted from them, to make it up to him.’ Again, his eyes flicked from me to Sibert. ‘Only a thousand pounds!’ he hissed.
Sibert and I both gasped. It was an unheard-of sum. ‘How did they possibly manage that?’ I whispered.
‘Sold or melted down every bit of gold and silver they possessed,’ the boatman said, not without a certain air of satisfaction. It appeared he had little more time for monks than for kings. ‘Crosses, altar pieces, chalices, basins, goblets and all, as well as jewels aplenty and a beautiful statue of the Virgin and the Holy Child.’ He sighed. ‘Now that — that was a hard loss.’
We were approaching the island now and, abruptly, the boatman fell silent, his attention on the other craft now bobbing about all around us. I turned away and stared over the side at the water hurrying past. It was so dark, so sinister, and I was overcome with a sense of the unnamed, unnumbered dead down there. I shivered, neither from the cold nor from the boatman’s macabre story.
It was the place itself that frightened me, and my visit was only just beginning.
FIVE
Sibert and I set off from the waterside, jostled by people hurrying to complete the day’s business before the light faded into night. One or two boats were still setting off across the water but it was clear that ferrying operations were winding down. We passed one of the barges, half of its cargo of stone already unloaded. A gang of men were quitting work for the day, laughing and calling out to each other as they set off for their own hearths. Their garments were coated so thickly with stone dust that they looked like moving statues.
We could see the abbey walls, rising sheer and uncompromising ahead of us. I increased my pace, grabbing hold of Sibert’s sleeve and dragging him with me. The monks must surely be on the point of shutting the gates for the night, if they hadn’t done so already, and if Morcar were inside then I had to get to him before I was shut out. I heard Edild’s voice in my head: if he dies, it will be because you got to him too late. The sensible inner core of me told me that wasn’t exactly what she had said but, all the same, it was the last thing I wanted to think about just then.
Sibert had moved ahead of me, thrusting a way through the hurrying crowds and, with me a few paces behind, we reached a gatehouse. The gates were still open, but a frowning monk was waiting, tapping a foot in impatience, while an old woman and an even older man shuffled out of the abbey. He had a bunch of huge keys in his hand and he was jangling them against his leg.
I pushed past Sibert and said, ‘Please, brother, may I speak with you?’
The monk’s eyes swivelled round to look at me. He did not seem to like what he saw. His face went vinegary and he sniffed, drawing back. ‘No women, not without permission,’ he snapped.
I could have pointed out that the person hobbling along next to the very old man was a woman but I thought better of it. ‘I understand,’ I said meekly, bowing my head so that I was not staring at him. I have been told (by Edild; who else?) that some men in holy orders take exception to women purely because of their sex, taking the view that the forbidden stirrings they feel in their groins at the sight of a woman are all the woman’s fault simply for existing and nothing to do with their own lustful urges. Surreptitiously, I drew my hood forward, hoping to conceal most of my face. ‘I have come to aid a sick kinsman,’ I went on quickly — the keys were making even more noise now and I knew the monk was just itching to boot Sibert and me out of his gateway and lock up — ‘and I was hoping that you might be able to give me news of him?’
I risked a glance at the monk. His expression had thawed imperceptibly. Perhaps the fact that I had come on a mission of mercy and wasn’t just a flighty little piece of nonsense after his virtue had affected him. ‘What’s his name?’ he snapped out.
‘Morcar,’ I said eagerly. ‘Morcar of the Breckland. He’s a flint knapper,’ I added, ‘but-’
‘We’ve no use for flint knappers here,’ the monk said dismissively. ‘Our abbey’s new cathedral’s being built of Barnack stone, best that money can buy.’
‘He was injured,’ I hurried on, ‘and he has a deep wound in his foot. He also has a high fever. I have brought medicaments and I-’ Too late I realized my mistake. This monk, so proud of his abbey, so obviously viewing himself and his brethren as rarefied beings several levels above the rest of us, would not be happy at the implication that some slip of a girl thought she was a better healer than the Ely infirmarer.
The monk was shaking his head. ‘I know nobody of that name,’ he said baldly. ‘There are no cases of high fever in our care at present.’ He might as well have added and that’s the way we want to keep it, for it was plainly written on his sour, disapproving face.
Anger rose up in me, but I managed to hold it in. My mission had only just begun, and it would be foolish to make an enemy so soon. I bowed again and said, ‘Thank you, brother. I will pursue my search elsewhere. Good evening.’
I pulled Sibert away, the monk’s faintly surprised dismissal and perfunctory blessing echoing in my ears. ‘Why were you sucking up to him?’ Sibert hissed. ‘He couldn’t have been less helpful if he tried!’
‘I know,’ I hissed back. ‘But he might come in useful later.’
Sibert frowned, clearly trying to work out what I meant. But I had other things to worry about. We had reached the end of the abbey wall and it turned away abruptly to the south. Ahead of us lay the town, and I wondered where in its sprawl of narrow streets and huddled dwellings I was to find my cousin. Think, I commanded myself. Think.
There must have been hundreds of workers there on the island, all of them connected in some way with the new cathedral build, all of them housed in temporary lodgings. Was there, then, a specific area where they were putting up? It seemed likely. I looked swiftly around me. Spotting a plump and cheerful woman of about my mother’s age, holding the hand of a small child, I approached her.