It felt as if a cold hand had clutched my heart.
‘He – it – the figure spoke,’ Squeak said. He stared up at his father, as if drawing strength from the steady gaze.
‘Go on, son,’ my father said calmly.
‘It said – it demanded-’
‘It wanted to know where the girl was,’ Leir interrupted, ‘and when we said we didn’t know what it was after and who did it mean because there were lots of girls, it sort of spat and said it was hunting for the girl who works for the magician, and that’s you, isn’t it, Lassair?’ He looked at me, and I had to force myself to meet his innocent gaze. ‘You work for that man with the funny name when you’re in Cambridge, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
My father asked the question I didn’t dare voice. ‘Did you tell him where she was?’
‘We said we had no idea what he was talking about, then I wriggled out of his grasp and we fled,’ Squeak said, pride in his voice. ‘Did we tell him, indeed! Of course we didn’t!’ he added scornfully. Then he, too, looked at me. ‘She’s our sister.’
I felt like weeping.
I don’t think any of us slept very well that night. We left Haward, his wife Zarina and their little boy bedded down in my parents’ house, where Zarina said she felt safer. My father wanted Edild and me to stay too, but Edild said she must get back and I went with her. I’d half-expected Hrype to be there; it would have been just like him to have picked up out of the air that something bad had happened and turn up at Edild’s house to protect her. But he didn’t.
Edild barred the door with a bolt of wood and we both went to bed with big sticks beside us.
In the long hours of the night I thought over all that had happened, and I quickly concluded that remaining at Aelf Fen would do more harm than good. The Night Wanderer seemed to know I was there; or, at least, I guessed he did. Anyway he clearly knew I was somewhere in the vicinity. My presence in the village was only going to bring peril to my family. Squeak had already been injured, and both he and Leir had been scared out of their wits.
I kept seeing the heart-turning sight of my smallest brother, trying to be brave as he cast his mind back to abject terror. No six-year-old should have to deal with that. Life was tough enough without sinister ghouls looming up out of the darkness with weapons for hands.
I would have to fight against my united family, however, if I insisted on returning to Cambridge. I had an idea about that, but it wasn’t much of a one, and even thinking about it made me uneasy. I resolved to sleep on it – if indeed I could sleep – and look at the problem again in the morning.
The morning, however, brought problems of its own. Edild and I went back immediately we’d eaten to check on Squeak, and to our dismay there were signs of infection in the wound.
I tried not to think where else that savage claw-hand had been, and what filth it bore on its talons.
Edild bathed the cut thoroughly, pouring undiluted lavender oil into it, and then she covered it all along its length with a thick paste of chamomile and marsh mallow. Both of these are reliable vulneraries that we use to counter inflammation and promote healthy healing. I was distressed to observe that Squeak was feverish, muttering in his sleep. I realized now, when he could no longer mask his true feelings with a display of bravado, just how frightened he had been and I was filled with protective fury. Someone had hurt my brother and I wanted to kill them.
Edild did not seem too concerned about Squeak, however; when I asked her once too often if he was going to be all right, she turned on me and snapped, ‘Yes, Lassair, as far as what skills I have and my long experience tell me, and if you want a better answer, go and ask your shining stone.’
I didn’t pester her any more after that.
But I had now made up my mind what to do and how to do it. Early the next day, when my family and most of the village would be busy setting off for work, either out on the marshes or up in the fields, or else deeply involved in their own homes, I would take my chance. I would tell Edild I was going to fetch more mushrooms, and slip out of the house with my satchel and my shawl. Then I would set off as fast as I could for Cambridge, and pray that I’d reach the town by nightfall. I knew full well that Cambridge was no sanctuary: far from it, for it was in the vicinity of the town that all the murders had been committed. But I reasoned that it had the big advantage over Aelf Fen of being full of people, many of them well-armed lawmen and one of those lawmen Jack Chevestrier.
The Night Wanderer was coming to Aelf Fen, and it appeared that he was looking for me. For everyone’s sake, including mine, it made sense for me not to be there when he arrived.
FOURTEEN
I woke some time in the night, worrying about the finer details of my plan, none of which I had considered in the bright and optimistic light of day. Foremost among them was concern for my family, who when I disappeared without trace might very well imagine that the fearsome, malign figure who had tried to make Squeak and Leir tell him – it – where I was had succeeded in finding me and had spirited me away to some terrible fate. And that concern, in the misery of the sleepless pre-dawn darkness, led directly to another: what if I did as I had resolved to do and walked straight into the arms of the Night Wanderer?
I will not do that, I vowed with silent vehemence. The Night Wanderer believed I was hiding out in the fens. The best thing to do would be return to Cambridge, because that was the one place he wouldn’t look for me.
So said my logic.
I returned to the huge and worrying problem of my beloved father and the rest of my family imagining me dead in a monster’s clutches, and how I could convince them I wasn’t. In the end I came up with an answer, of sorts, although it wasn’t all that more satisfactory than my reasons for persuading myself I was safer running back to Cambridge than staying in the village. Recognizing that it was the best I was going to do, I forced myself to relax and eventually fell into a deep sleep.
Edild had to shake me awake. Horrified that I’d slept right on past the time when I should have been making my escape, I shot out of bed and, dizzy from the sudden movement, would have fallen had she not grabbed my arm.
‘Steady,’ she said. ‘No need to hurry so. It is not late.’
I took some steadying breaths and set about my simple morning routine, trying to impose on myself an air of calm. It wasn’t easy, when a voice was yelling in my head, Hurry up! Hurry up!
I wandered through into the little storeroom and said, trying to sound nonchalant, ‘We worked through all those mushrooms yesterday, so I’ll go and fetch more. There’s a good patch up near the old oak tree.’
‘Yes, do,’ Edild replied. ‘All the time this mild weather encourages them to grow, we should take advantage of it.’
Shortly afterwards, feeling very guilty about having deceived my aunt, I left the house. I put the mushroom basket down behind the privy. There was no point in burdening myself with it, and Edild would need it.
I flew up the low rise behind Edild’s house and emerged on the higher ground. There were quite a few people about, making their way to wherever their day’s work summoned them, and one or two nodded a greeting. I walked along for a few paces behind a trio of raucous lads heading for the large area of strips on the upland, then quietly stepped off the path and under the spreading branches of the ancient oak tree that stands behind the village like a lone sentinel, dwarfing the few other trees nearby.