Was this true? Or was it the product of a mind slowly being pressured to implosion? I did not know.
The sea was sucking and pushing at my feet and I was very cold. I was cold on the inside, too, for I kept hearing the echo of his words: I have killed before and I shall do so again.
He had just confessed to me that he was a murderer. He had killed Romain and I had just seen him drown Sibert. Oh, Sibert!
I knew that he would not allow me to live.
Without thinking I flung myself sideways out of the circle of crumbling timber posts. I had some idea of running around the perimeter and turning for the shore, where if I outran Baudouin I might be able to hide. I was small and light on my feet and I really thought I had a chance. It was better, anyway, than standing there dumbly and waiting for him to kill me.
I flew round the circle. One post, two posts, then a big wave came galloping in behind me and launched itself at my legs. I stumbled and almost fell, but recovered and ran on, my lungs on fire and the muscles in my legs crying out their pain as I forced a way through the water swirling around the sanctuary. I could see the shore line ahead of me — it looked so far away — and I leapt forward towards it.
He caught me around the knees, launching himself at me so that we both fell into the water. Then he was on top of me, his boot or his fist on the back of my head. My face was under the water and I summoned what was left of my strength to try to jerk it up.
I twisted and wriggled and managed to get my nose above the surface. I sniffed in air but the waves were stronger now, sending up a lot of spray, and I felt the cold bite of sea water as it invaded my nostrils and slid down the back of my throat. I choked and coughed but I was under the water again and it was not the life-saving air that I took in but the swirling, savage water.
I held my breath. I could feel my desperate heart hammering in my chest and blackness was gathering on the edge of my vision. I’m dying, I thought. My mother and father will be so sad. .
Suddenly the murderous pressure was off me.
My head shot up out of the water and I took in a huge gulp of air. There was water in my nose, my mouth, my throat, and I coughed, gagged and coughed some more, then I vomited up a great gout of frothy brine. I was on fire. I had never known that salt water burns like flame.
I was on hands and knees, the tide now racing up the shore and threatening to push me back under the water. You have to stand up, I told myself.
Very shakily and unsteadily I did.
Sibert was standing beside the upturned tree stump. Well, he wasn’t exactly standing, he was sort of hunched over it.
I splashed over to him.
‘Are you alive?’ I asked. It was a stupid question, but then I had just seen him drowned.
He neither answered nor turned. He was, I noticed, peculiarly intent and the muscles of his slim back bulged out under his soaking wet tunic. .
The water around his knees thrashed and boiled. Then it was still, then it splashed up again.
The next time the movement ceased it did not start again.
After what seemed a very long time, Sibert said, ‘He’s dead.’
I nodded. ‘Yes.’ I felt strangely unreal, as if this were a dream.
‘He would have killed you,’ Sibert went on. ‘I had to stop him.’
‘Yes,’ I said again. Then, belatedly, ‘Thank you.’
‘That’s all right. You saved me, now I’ve saved you.’
‘Yes.’ I was puzzled. For one thing, I’d thought Sibert was dead. For another, how had he managed to overcome a fierce, strong man like Baudouin? ‘What happened, Sibert?’
‘I took him by surprise,’ Sibert said proudly. ‘He wasn’t expecting an attack.’
‘No, you were dead,’ I agreed.
‘I was lucky,’ he went on modestly. ‘When I leapt on him he fell against the buried tree bole and, as you’ll no doubt have noticed, there are several places on it where branches were once cut off, leaving downward-pointing stumps. I managed to hook his belt on to one of them and after that I just had to push down on him to make sure he didn’t manage to release himself.’
‘What are we going to do?’ I whispered. Shock was affecting me badly. I was shivering so hard that my teeth rattled and I very much wanted to cry.
Sibert took one last look at the dark shape under the water and then left it. He came over to me and put his arm round me. ‘We’re going ashore to dry off and rest. We’ll wait till the tide turns and then we’ll come back here, unhook Baudouin’s body and let the sea take it. Then we’ll go home.’
It sounded wonderful. But we had come here to do a job and if we didn’t succeed, Hrype would send us straight back again. The very idea made me weep. ‘What about the crown?’
He hugged me. Reaching out for my hand, he put it against the bag that was once more hanging at his waist. ‘The crown is safe,’ he said. ‘When we’ve dealt with Baudouin, we’ll put it back.’
I hardly recognized this new and masterful Sibert. Perhaps saving my life and killing my would-be murderer had at long last changed him from a boy into a man. It was going to take some getting used to but, I thought as, cold and weary, we waded ashore, I thought I might grow to like it.
TWENTY-TWO
It was a strange ceremony that Sibert and I performed soon after dawn the next morning. Looking back, it seems more like a dream than reality, although I am pretty sure that it did happen. .
We were soaked to the skin when we came ashore. Sibert lit a small fire and insisted that we both take off our clothes and dry ourselves. It was very odd, sitting here naked before the welcoming heat, and I don’t think I could have done it if it hadn’t been for the concealing darkness. Well, and the fact that I’d probably have died of cold otherwise. Sibert made me eat some dried meat and bread, then he held a mug to my mouth and forced me to take all of the hot drink he had prepared. I tasted honey in it and soon I was feeling better.
We slept, or at least I did, curled up in my still-damp clothes but warm in the heat from the fire, which Sibert must have tended all night. I had a very vivid dream in which I opened my eyes to see him, standing on the other side of the fire, with the light of the flames reflecting off something that lay on the ground between us. Something that was circular and made of gold. Sibert looked different — taller, stronger — and the naked man I saw in my dream was utterly different from the pale, cowed and shrivelled boy who had stood in Aelf Fen before his accusers. I thought I saw a sheen of power rising up from the crown, surrounding Sibert in its aura as if bestowing a blessing, and my dreaming self said, ‘Your ancestor made it, Sibert. He wants you to have some of its strength. He’s trying to help you because he’s proud of you for what you’ve done.’
Sibert did not answer.
He woke me at dawn. The memory of my dream was still too fresh to allow me to look him in the eye and, to my surprise, he seemed similarly affected. I did wonder briefly if it had really been a dream.
He had already kicked out the fire. Now we stood up, left our boots in the sleeping place, descended the low cliff and walked across the foreshore to the sea sanctuary.
The sea was receding but still, as we approached the sanctuary, we were ankle-deep in water. I carefully twisted up my skirt and tied it round my waist; it was so good to be in dry clothes again that I did not want to risk another soaking. Sibert paused to roll up his breeches. Then we went into the sanctuary.
Baudouin was on his side, his stout leather belt still hooked over the stump of branch. Sibert bent down to release him. Together we pushed and dragged the body to the far side of the sanctuary. Soon we were wading in deeper water and the corpse was floating. With a shove, Sibert gave it up to the tide.