I let my eyes wander along the rows of silent people. Derman is big and bulky — I suspect he is very strong — and quite hard to overlook. I saw my parents, standing with Edild on the edge of the crowd. Squeak and Haward were with them, standing either side of Zarina. I thought suddenly that the two of them looked defensive; Haward had his arm round her waist. But there was no sign of Derman.
The priest had finished at last, and the gravediggers were starting to heap earth down on top of the shrouded body. I did not want to watch. I grabbed Sibert’s hand, said, ‘Come on!’ and, hurrying through the villagers and the strangers as they milled about on the track and began to think about turning for home, caught up with my family. I reached out to grab Haward’s arm — he was nearest — and he spun round, his face angry and his hand clenched in a fist.
Then he saw it was me. ‘Oh. Hello, Lassair.’ He called out to my father and asked him to take his place at Zarina’s side. Then, his hands on Sibert’s and my shoulders drawing us close, he jerked his head in the direction of the slowly-dispersing crowd of villagers and said quietly, ‘They’ve t-taken against Zarina. They say her brother’s a k-k-killer and ought to be hanged for what he did.’
‘But they don’t know yet that he did anything!’ I protested.
‘Hush!’ Haward glanced around hastily to see if anyone had heard, but the people closest to us were muttering avidly about the priest, his prayers and likely span of the dead girl’s sojourn in purgatory. ‘You know what they’re l-like,’ he said bitterly. ‘Derman was seen near the island — ’ I thought it very restrained of him not to add that it was I who had seen him there — ‘and now he’s run away. As well as that he’s simple, and he and Zarina are strangers, and it all adds up to his guilt.’
‘They’ve been here since Lammas last year!’ I said. ‘They’re not strangers any more.’
Haward sighed. ‘Yes, they are. And they’re different.’ He did not need to elaborate; I knew what he meant. Dropping his voice, he muttered, ‘We’ve got to find Derman and warn him. If he returns to the village they’ll very likely take him out and st-st-string him up.’
I imagined the scene. A group of strong village men, stirred to violence by gossip and righteousness, setting out to avenge a girl they hadn’t even known, when their real motive was to hound the outsider, the man who was different, and be rid of him once and for all. Poor Derman. Poor Zarina — she must be terrified.
‘Still no sign of him?’ Sibert was asking.
Haward shook his head. ‘No. Sir Alain has organized search p-parties — most of the village men and b-boys were summoned — and they’ve been out most of the d-day. Nobody’s reported anything that might lead to Derman.’
With the image of a local gang bent on murder still vivid in my mind, I wondered if somebody had seen something but, preferring village justice to Sir Alain’s kind, had kept quiet. Would this man, whoever he was, even now be spreading the word to the others? Wait for darkness, then we’ll creep out of the village and I’ll lead you to him. We’ll show him how we deal with murderers!
It was horrible. It was also all too easy to imagine. I looked ahead to where Zarina walked between Squeak and my father, her head up, her back straight, her eyes fixed on some object in the distance. I thought I heard the sound of angry bees buzzing and, as I looked around, I could see the villagers getting their heads together, murmuring and shooting furtive glances at the woman they would shun because she was the sister of a simpleton who they had decided was a murderer.
It just wasn’t fair.
‘I’ll go and sit with her for a while,’ I said, overcome with the urge to give her my support. ‘She won’t want to be alone with just old Berta for company.’ The washerwoman Zarina lodged with was highly likely to be first in the line of those denouncing Derman, for all that he’d lived under her roof and uncomplainingly done far more than his share of the rough and heavy work.
‘Zarina won’t be alone,’ Haward said, giving me a quick smile. ‘She’s coming home with us.’
Yes, it was typical of my parents to have asked her. It might be unseemly for a single girl to sleep in the same room as the man who wanted to marry her, but then there would be three other people present. ‘But I’d be really pleased if you’d t-talk to her,’ Haward added. ‘You remember what I asked you to do?’
He’d asked if I’d try to judge how Zarina would feel if Derman didn’t come back, and all I’d done so far was have one brief conversation with her. ‘Yes, of course,’ I said. I thought quickly. ‘I’ll go to her now and offer to go back to her house with her to help her collect what she needs for the night.’
Sibert suppressed a snort of laughter and said, ‘Very subtle, Lassair. I’m sure she’ll never guess you’re trying to get her on her own.’
Haward glanced at him and said coolly, ‘Lassair’s doing her b-best and I’m grateful.’ My brother doesn’t really understand my relationship with Sibert.
‘It’s all right,’ I whispered to my brother. Then I hurried on to catch up with Zarina.
Berta was still out somewhere muttering with her cronies, so Zarina and I had the little house to ourselves. I watched as she made a desultory attempt to gather a few belongings together, then she slumped down on her cot and put her hands over her face. I went to sit beside her, unsure whether or nor to put my arms round her. I wanted to, but there’s something a little distant about Zarina.
I said after a while, ‘It must be a good sign that they haven’t managed to find him yet.’
She murmured something that might have been an assent.
‘There have been heaps of people searching,’ I plunged on, ‘and if Derman has avoided them, then he must have found a good place to hide. Perhaps he’ll-’
She uncovered her face and spun round, halting my well-intentioned words. ‘And just what do you think he’ll be doing out there in this hiding place?’ she demanded.
‘Er — well, he’ll have built a shelter,’ I improvised, ‘and maybe he thought to take food and drink with him, and perhaps even a blanket, and-’
‘Lassair, Derman hasn’t the first idea how to take care of himself,’ Zarina said heavily. ‘He ran away with only the clothes he stood up in. I checked, and his spare shirt and hose are still in the lean-to, with his blanket and his cloak. As for food and drink, if I don’t put it before him he doesn’t eat.’
‘Couldn’t he forage?’ I suggested hopelessly.
She laughed harshly. ‘What do you think?’
No. He couldn’t.
Derman had been gone for at least two days. If the search party or the village gang didn’t find him soon, it would be too late.
Zarina must be thinking the same thing. Surely it would not shock her if I put it into words? Very tentatively I said, ‘How long could he survive?’
She shrugged. ‘Six days, a week, maybe. Thirst would drive him to find water, although whether he’d know to make sure it was clean enough to drink, I couldn’t say.’
I nodded. I knew very well what I wanted to ask her, but I could not find the words. To me — probably to everyone else — Derman just seemed a burden, a big, shambling adult with the body, the strength and the natural urges of a man but the intelligence of a child, and a pretty odd and dim-witted child at that. I viewed the prospect of his dying out there in the wild as something very regrettable, but if it happened — through nobody’s fault but his own, he being the one who had chosen to run away — it would remove the obstacle to her wedding with my brother that Zarina saw as insurmountable. What I was overlooking was the possibility that she might love him.