His brow creased in concentration. Then, as if he had been working out the dates, he said, ‘That were back in May. Next thing we know, a miracle happens and Thecla died.’
I was framing the question, but Sibert got in first. ‘What happened to her?’
Our informant chuckled. ‘Alberic didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking, although there’s not a man here that wouldn’t say she’d deserved it if he had done. No. Thecla had grown very fat over the years — ’ so much for Alberic not providing sufficiently for her, I reflected — ‘and she tripped over her own slippers and fell down the step leading to her door. Cracked her head on the hard stone and burst her skull like a walnut. Alberic found her brains all over the path.’ He recounted the details with great relish.
‘So Alberic was free to court Ida?’ Sibert said.
‘Aye, so he was, and he barely waited till Thecla was in the ground before setting off to find her,’ the man agreed.
‘When was this?’ I demanded suddenly. An awful thought had struck me.
The man’s eyes flew to meet mine, and I knew from the compassion in them that I was right. ‘Not four days ago,’ he replied.
I worked it out.
Oh, no.
Alberic had hurried to find the love of his life to tell her he was now free to marry her on the very day somebody killed her. I was aching for him, aching for both of them. My brilliant solution to the mystery of Ida’s death — that her married lover had slain her to stop her revealing that she carried his child — seemed to have flown right out of my head.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her; about both of them. .
Sibert and I thanked our friend and set off on the road back to Aelf Fen. It was not long past midday, and the sun was hot, so quite soon we found a shady spot a few paces off the track under some trees and sat down to eat the supplies we had brought with us.
I took a long drink from my flask and handed it to Sibert. ‘That’s better,’ he remarked as he set it down. He stretched out on his back while I prepared the food. ‘Did you believe that man when he said Alberic hadn’t seduced Ida?’
‘No,’ I replied, busy slicing dense dried meat. ‘She was pregnant, Sibert. Of course he’d seduced her. Perhaps,’ I added, ‘she seduced him. She probably felt sorry for him. Everyone else did, apparently.’
‘Poor man,’ Sibert muttered. He sat up, and I handed him his food. ‘He thought he’d found happiness at last after a lifetime of misery, only to have it snatched away from him.’
Poor man indeed.
I chewed my bread and dried meat, idly wondering where Alberic was now. Had he gone straight back to Brandon after learning Ida was dead, or had he decided to wait to see her buried? He might have-
Then I knew where he was, or at least where he had been the night before last. It had taken me a long time to realize it, but then, in my own defence, the man described by our informant sounded very different from the one I had heard.
Two nights ago, when I had dragged my exhausted body back to Edild’s house after our hopeless search for Derman, I had encountered an invisible singer. I had heard him the night before that, too, at the end of that long and dreadful day when I found Ida’s body. Somehow Alberic had learned that she was dead, and he stayed in Aelf Fen, pouring out his grief for his dead love the only way he knew how. In my mind I could hear the echo of his lament, so tragic and so ethereal that I had thought him not human but a spirit: longing to fly away, but bound by grief to the indifferent earth.
I was no longer hungry. Surreptitiously, I slid my share of the food over beside Sibert’s. Then, saying that I was sleepy and would have a brief nap before we went on, I lay down, turned my back to Sibert and quietly mourned for a man, a girl and a love that had had to die.
NINE
Sibert and I slipped quietly back into Aelf Fen in the early evening. We took great care to make sure nobody spotted us, although in fact there wasn’t a soul watching out because almost all the village had gone to the churchyard to witness the burial of Ida’s body.
We hurried along after the last stragglers, panted up the slight rise to the church and found a place on the edge of the silent crowd. The priest was just finishing his prayers for the dead girl’s soul, and at his feet the linen-shrouded corpse lay in the freshly-dug grave. It was a beautiful evening, and the westering sun was casting long shadows from the stumpy trees around the graveyard, illuminating the watchful faces with a soft, golden light. Somewhere nearby a chaffinch was singing, the fluting notes ending in a repetitive little phrase that seemed to say, too young to die!
Immediately behind the priest, on the highest ground, stood Lord Gilbert and Lady Emma, their heads bent. Lady Emma’s lips moved as she added her own pleas to those of the priest. Lady Claude stood beside her, very pale, her mouth compressed as if to hold back the tears. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her eyelids were puffy. I felt a stab of compassion for her; it did not look as if my sleeping draughts were helping very much. On the far side of Lord Gilbert and a little behind him, Sir Alain de Villequier stared out over the assembled villagers. I noticed that Lady Claude kept shooting him anxious little glances, and I was touched that she seemed to be trying to draw strength from him. Perhaps, despite those terrible embroidered panels and her tight features that spoke eloquently of rigid self-control, there was a chance that their marriage would be happy. .
I thought back to Brandon, going over everything that Sibert and I had learned. Was Alberic here, watching as the body of the girl he loved was buried miles from her home? Suddenly filled with the conviction that he was, I copied Sir Alain and began scanning the crowd for an unfamiliar face, only to realize pretty quickly that it was an impossible task, for there were dozens of strangers present. I guessed everyone who had a friend or relative in Aelf Fen had heard of the mysterious death of a young seamstress and come hurrying over to witness the burial. Part of me wanted to shout at them, tell them to get back where they belonged and not be so ghoulish. Then, reflecting on how rarely anything at all exciting happened in most people’s dull and monotonous lives, I relented. After all, they weren’t doing any harm. Villagers and outsiders alike were standing listening respectfully to the priest’s endless prayers, and one or two even had tears on their faces. As for Ida, if any part of what had made up the living girl was present and watching the proceedings, then she would surely be gratified that so many had come to see her off.
Still, the presence of so many strangers meant that Alberic could very well be here among us and no one would know.
I wondered if Sir Alain was also searching the faces for the stranger that might be Alberic and feeling similarly frustrated. Then I realized that, unless he, too, had heard the invisible singer, followed the trail of Ida’s life back to her village and found out about her lover — which was unlikely because if he had, our informant would have told us — he didn’t know of Alberic’s existence. Just as I was wondering if I ought to tell him, something else occurred to me. If Sir Alain wasn’t looking out for Alberic, who was he hoping to see in the crowd?
The answer came quickly: Derman.
Oh, oh, but it was just what poor, simple Derman would do! He must surely be in torment, hiding away from his sister, his home and everything that made up security for him in a cruel world. If somehow he had managed to find out that they were burying the girl he had loved this evening, then he would undoubtedly have been drawn back to say his farewell to her, no matter the danger to himself if he were to be spotted and apprehended. Did he even understand that there was danger to him? He must have done, I reasoned, for why else had he run away?