‘And he was speaking about the treasure?’ I butted in. I couldn’t help myself.
‘He must have been, although I didn’t realize it at the time. He was chanting to it, I think, as if the object was there before him and he was communicating with it. Sensing its power, perhaps.’ He shook his head impatiently. ‘I don’t know, I don’t have Hrype’s knowledge or his gifts. But he spoke of something he referred to as the sea sanctuary. He talked to the thing, telling it that it was safe there in this sanctuary place because its location was a secret and quite soon it would be hidden for ever, and — oh!’
His gasp of realization came an instant after mine.
Sibert turned to me, wide eyed with awe. ‘He knew!’ he whispered. ‘He predicted this landfall!’
‘He did,’ I agreed. I was struck by a further thought. ‘Sibert, they must have known that this was going to happen, all those hundreds of years ago at the time the thing was put there in this sea-sanctuary place.’ I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as a shiver of atavistic dread went through me. To foresee the future with such clarity was quite alarming. But then a more prosaic explanation occurred to me. It was surely more likely that this eating away of the land by the sea had already been under way five hundred years ago. The men who had hidden their precious treasure had simply taken advantage of a natural phenomenon.
Edild once said to me that the best magicians maintain their scepticism and always keep one foot on the ground. My web of destiny might well show me to be earth-poor and not firmly grounded, but it didn’t mean I was totally lacking in common sense and logic.
I glanced at Sibert. He was shaking his head in wonder, his expression distant and dreamy.
Oh, dear. I was not at all sure he was open to common sense or logic just then.
‘So,’ I said brightly, ‘where and what was this sea sanctuary?’ He must have some idea, I thought. Not only that, he must have believed he could find it. Why else had he come along on this mission?
‘I think I know where it used to be,’ he said slowly. ‘When Romain approached me, my first thought was that the — the thing he was after must be whatever it was I overheard Hrype chanting about. I had no idea what it was but I had already worked out where and what the sea sanctuary must be. When Romain told me about the- When Romain explained, it — er, seemed as if everything suddenly fitted together,’ he finished lamely.
He was being deliberately vague. I was sure, however, what it was he was trying not to say: somehow Romain had discovered what Sibert had not. He might not know where this magical treasure was but he knew precisely what it was.
I thought about that. Romain knew what it was and Sibert knew roughly where it was, and they both needed me to pinpoint it for them. The thought gave me a warm glow of satisfaction.
‘Very well,’ I said, deliberately keeping my emotions out of my voice. ‘Where was it, this sea sanctuary, and what sort of a building was it?’
‘It was not a building. It was a circle of wooden posts, in the centre of which there was the stump of an oak tree, its trunk buried in the ground and its roots open to the air. It used to be some distance inland. Now’ — slowly he shook his head, as if he still could not absorb the vast change in the landscape — ‘now it’s out there somewhere.’ He waved an arm in a sweeping gesture towards the smooth sea, where no structure of any size or shape broke the surface for as far as the eye could see.
But I hardly registered his last words. I was almost in shock; I could not have been more amazed. What he had just described was a replica of one of the places Edild had told me about. It was up on the coast to the north of the Fens and one of the most sacred locations of our ancient ancestors. It was one of the deep mysteries — that much I knew. The upturned tree stump was a symbol of the link between the living and the dead; between us and the world of our ancestors, which was a mirror image of our own that co-existed beneath the earth, so that they walked the same ground as we did but upside down. It sounded quite bizarre to me and I was confused because I thought it was something to do with Yggdrasil, the world tree, but that, Edild said, was because I did not yet understand. How right she was. She had promised to take me to the sanctuary in the north one day when I was further advanced in my studies and, at my present lowly stage of learning, the prospect was more frightening than exciting.
Now it appeared that there was another such structure here at Drakelow. Well, I knew from my granny Cordeilla’s tales that the forefathers had lived on the coast at Dunwich, so it was possible. Did Edild know about this one? Had she seen it? If not, it was too late now because it had gone.
I realized suddenly what I should have appreciated straight away: Sibert’s people had not built their sea sanctuary. They had utilized a place of power that already existed, and had done so for thousands of years. Something about it had called out to them in their urgent need and they had responded.
I felt shaky with the impact of what I had just learned. I wished fervently that Edild were with me; she would have calmed me, helped me to understand and, I was quite sure, told me what I ought to do next. For I was — we were — faced with a problem. The place that Sibert must locate and where I must use my special skill was under the water and, for the present, I had no idea what we were going to do about it.
Then Sibert said matter-of-factly, ‘We’ll have to wait till low tide.’
I have already said that this was my first sight of the sea. I was an eel fisherman’s daughter and I knew how the water washed in and out of the creeks and the best time to hunt for eels. I knew about the sea — of course I did — but I did not know much about it. I certainly wasn’t relating this huge, gently moving expanse stretched before me with the tricky, treacherous, ever-changing waterways of the Fens.
I said, and I must have sounded so stupid, ‘What do you mean?’
And he told me.
Romain’s apprehension had grown to an alarming level by the time he got back to the cliff top. He tried to judge by the two figures sitting there so still, in surely exactly the positions they had occupied when he left, what the prevailing mood might be. Had Sibert recovered from the shock of seeing the landfall? Had he got his bearings, and could he lead the girl to the place where the thing was hidden?
Unable to contain himself, he broke into a run. Hearing him approach, Sibert turned round. ‘Oh, good,’ he said, ‘you’ve brought us our meal. Hurry up, Lassair and I are ravenous.’
Slowly Romain knelt down and, unfolding the linen wrapping, revealed bread, cuts of cold meat, a knuckle of ham, pickles, cheese, some tiny, wrinkled apples and a large sweet cake. He stared intently at Sibert and thought — hoped — he detected a smile. ‘Well?’ he demanded.
Sibert made him wait. He picked up some bread and hacked off a slice of ham, dipping it in the little pot of pickle. He took a huge bite, chewed vigorously and then through the food, said, ‘Lassair, have some, it’s delicious.’
‘Sibert, I-’ Romain began. He felt the blood surge into his face. He was on the verge of losing control.
‘It’s all right, Romain,’ the girl said. She had been eyeing him apprehensively and he wondered wryly if she feared for his health if he was made to wait in his agony of suspense much longer. ‘Sibert’s done it. He knows where the search must be carried out.’
Romain flung himself on the boy, hugging him and slapping him on the back. ‘I knew you could do it!’ he cried. ‘Didn’t I say so?’
‘Yes, Romain, you did,’ Sibert acknowledged.
He stood up again, surprised that they did not instantly do the same. ‘Come on, then!’ he said excitedly. ‘What are we waiting for?’