Alys Clare
Music of the Distant Stars
ONE
Dawn.
As I crept out of Edild’s house, careful not to wake my exhausted aunt, I glanced up and saw the first faint, silvery light beginning to extinguish the stars. I have lived in the fens all my life, but there are some moments when the immensity of the vast skies can still take my breath away, and this was one of them.
It was very early, for Midsummer Day had only just passed and the nights were short. I fastened the door behind me, again ensuring I did not make a sound. For many nights now, Edild had barely slept, and I knew she would make herself ill if she did not rest. When I left, she was lying curled up like a cat on the hearth. She would have hated me to say so, but she was snoring; quite softly and musically, but nevertheless snoring.
Isn’t it funny how we all vehemently deny something that probably every one of us does?
I had made my preparations the previous evening before I went to bed. Edild had explained exactly what I must do and, once she had convinced herself that I was up to the task, she had seemed very relieved that in the morning it would be me, not her, who would slip out at first light to do what had to be done. As for me, I was both thrilled because my aunt and teacher had deemed me worthy, and tense with anxiety about the grave responsibility entrusted to me.
I crept into the shadow of the little outhouse next to where the hens were penned up for the night. By touch, I located the shallow dish of water in which I had placed my flower garland and retrieved it. I checked in my leather satchel to ensure that all the other objects I would need were safely packed, then, taking a few deep breaths in an attempt to slow my racing heartbeat, I set off along the track that led out of the village.
Like my aunt, the majority of Aelf Fen was still fast asleep. I heard not a sound, and I saw not a single small, flickering light. I stopped for a moment, looking down the road to where my parents’ house stood, at the opposite end of the village, and I knew instinctively that my father was awake. I concentrated hard, visualizing his familiar, beloved face that now wore the signs of grief, and I sent him my love. We are close, my father and I, and I am quite sure he received my silent message of support.
Then I hitched up my satchel, steadied the flower wreath on the palm of my hand and went on my way.
I had perhaps a mile to go; possibly a little more. As I walked, keeping up a good swift pace, I tried to ignore the shadowy places under the clumps of willow and alder and concentrate on the faint path that wound this way and that ahead of me, as clear to my eyes as if it had been cast out of moonlit silver. I am a dowser and, besides having the knack of finding underground water sources and lost objects, I have discovered that in some inexplicable way I can see hidden tracks and pathways that are all but invisible to others. Recently, I had even managed to locate a safe way across the waterlogged fens, but I was under severe stress at the time and I’m not at all sure I could repeat the achievement.
The track I was following that morning was ancient; as ancient as our family’s habitation of Aelf Fen. Sixteen generations ago, Faol the Wolf Warrior took to wife Ligach the Pearl Maiden of the Fens, whose line had been fen folk since the beginning of time. Ligach’s revered ancestor Aelfbryga spoke with the spirits, and they showed her the secret way to Aelf Fen. They taught her magical skills, including how to build an artificial island out in the black waters of the mere. I had long known this — we treasure our past and our bards keep it alive for us, telling us the tales of our ancestors so that they are almost as familiar to us as our living kin — but, when first I was told of it, I well recall how surprised I was to learn that Aelfbryga’s island still existed. It was my destination this morning. Haunted by the spirits, seeming to vanish at times into the mist on the water and then reappear in a sudden shaft of sun or moonlight, it is a place so full of magic that it never fails to raise the hairs on the back of my neck and send shivers right through my body.
I was close to the island now. I was still excited, still anxious. In addition, I was now terrified.
Suddenly, my feet seemed to freeze to the ground and I could not move. I stood on the narrow path, my heart thumping so hard that it hurt. I could hear my teeth chattering, although the thinly-lit morning was not cold and I was snugly wrapped in the lovely shawl that my sister Elfritha had made for me. My fear threatened to master me. Aelf Fen was far behind me, too far for any cry of mine to reach the ears of any drowsy villager. The path still glowed faintly, but on either side the land was clothed in its thick-leafed summer foliage, providing far too many places where someone bent on harming me could hide.
I was not afraid of ill-intentioned humans, however. The entities I dreaded had no need of hiding places, for they were, I was quite sure, perfectly capable of invisibility. They could creep up on me without my suspecting a thing, and the first I would know was when icy fingers clutched at my throat and supernaturally strong arms thrust my head down into the black waters till I drowned and went to join their grey, shimmering company. .
With a great effort I commanded myself not to be so fanciful and cowardly. I was there for a purpose: a very special, very important purpose. I had a task to fulfil, which had been entrusted to me because I had been deemed worthy, and that was a great honour. Was I going to turn tail and run back to the village, knock on my aunt’s door in a melt of tears and moan that I couldn’t do it — oh please, please, don’t make me — because I was too scared?
No. I wasn’t.
I had faced danger before, more than once. Someone had tried to drown me in the sea and I had survived. I had attacked an armed man and had the scar on my face to remind me. I thought about these occasions, and slowly my courage began to come back. I managed one step, then another. Soon I was walking on towards the artificial island. Moving slowly, yes, but nonetheless going in the right direction.
The reeds and rushes of the fenland vegetation on either side of the path thinned, and I could see out across the water. Daylight was waxing strongly now; it would not be long before the first thin arc of the sun came up in the eastern sky. Ahead of me, in the west, night still had command; the three great stars — Vega in the constellation of the Lyre, the Swan’s Tail in the Swan, and Altair in the Eagle — shone out brightly, forming the familiar and beloved summer triangle. Pausing briefly to twist round and hold up my face towards morning, I turned and walked on.
Now I could see the stakes that marked out the path to the island. Our ancestors drove them down deep into the black mud, fixing bracing struts between them on which the sawn lengths of timber were laid, making a secure way across the water. The timbers and the bracing struts are taken away when not in use and, unless you knew, you would not appreciate the secret purpose of the stakes, for they are set at random intervals, they are of different lengths and emerge from the water at a variety of angles to the surface of the mere.
The struts and timbers were there now because we needed access to the island, and we would continue to do so for many days to come. This was our burial island, where the most revered of our people were interred. My great-grandfather Leofric and his wife Aedne were there, lying together for all eternity in the same grave. Beyond the slight hump that marked the precious place lay Ceadda, the Keeper of Swans, and Vigge, who died defending Edmund, King of the East Angles. Over on the far side of the island, where land melted into water, were the most ancient graves, among them Beretun the Cunning Man, and Yorath the Young Wife, who married her teacher. It was our lasting sorrow that many of our greatest warriors did not lie among their kin; my father’s two uncles, for example, Sagar Sureshot and Sigbehrt the Mighty Oak, died at Hastings and their bodies were never found.