It was as good a place as any from which to observe my friend Sibert’s house, and I only hoped I wasn’t too late.
After only a short time, I saw him come out. He called something to someone still inside – his mother, Froya, no doubt – and then he set off up towards the higher ground. Almost as if he knew I was there, he strode right up to the oak tree.
I called out softly as he drew level. ‘Sibert! May I speak to you?’
He stopped dead. ‘Lassair?’
I emerged from behind the tree’s massive trunk. ‘Yes. Good morning.’
‘I heard you were back,’ he said, smiling. ‘I was going to come and see you, but I heard about your brother getting hurt and thought maybe you wouldn’t want visitors.’
‘It’s always nice to see you,’ I said truthfully. Once I’d believed myself in love with Sibert, but I’d been quite young. Since then we had shared a lot together, and I look upon him as a true friend.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked. ‘I’m heading that way.’ He indicated. ‘Shall we walk together?’
‘No,’ I said. Too dismissively; his face fell. ‘Sorry, but I’m not staying in the village.’ Very quickly I explained about how whoever had attacked Squeak was looking for me and how, fearing that my continued presence would bring more danger to my kin, I was heading back to Cambridge.
Sibert looked at me for a long moment. ‘I understand your reasoning,’ he said eventually, ‘but, honestly, Lassair, it’s a bit daft to leave a village full of family and friends who’d all protect you and scurry off on your own, isn’t it?’
He was absolutely right, but I didn’t want to acknowledge it. ‘I’ll be quite safe,’ I said hurriedly, ‘because the Night – the person looking for me thinks I’m in the village.’ Sibert’s mouth opened to interrupt but I didn’t let him. ‘And once I get to Cambridge,’ I went on, raising my voice to drown his, ‘I’ll be safer than anywhere else, because I’ll go straight to Jack Chevestrier.’
Sibert’s expression changed. Something left it – something quite vulnerable – and his features stiffened into formality. He turned away. ‘You must do as you see fit,’ he said distantly.
‘Will you do something for me?’ I asked timidly.
He spun round to me again. ‘What?’ He sounded cagey.
‘My family will worry about me and-’
‘You mean you haven’t told them of this hare-brained scheme you’ve come up with?’
‘Of course not, they’d stop me.’
Slowly he nodded. ‘Indeed they would. I imagine,’ he went on, ‘you want me to wait till later, when you’re well away from here, and then, just when they all start to panic because you’re nowhere to be found, calmly explain where you’ve gone, and why, and that I knew all about it yet didn’t try to stop you.’
When he put it like that, I could readily see his objections. ‘Please, Sibert!’ I said in a sort of suppressed shout. ‘I have to go, but it’ll make everything so much more horrible if they think I’m – er, if they start imagining the worst!’
He looked at me, and I wasn’t sure I could read his expression. ‘Can’t I come with you?’ he asked. ‘I could look after you till you get to the town.’
‘No,’ I said firmly. I reached out and took his hand. ‘Don’t think I’m not grateful for the offer, but I’m quicker on my own.’ I was also quieter and a lot less noticeable, having taught myself long ago to move through the landscape of my native fens soundlessly and all but invisibly. Once off the main tracks – I had planned in my head the route I would follow – it would take a better man than the Night Wanderer to find me.
Or so I hoped.
Sibert went on holding my hand. ‘I’ll tell them. Good luck.’ Then he leaned forward to put a kiss on my cheek, dropped my hand and strode away.
I watched him till he was just one more figure among many. It was only then that I remembered I’d meant to ask if he had any news of Hrype; if, indeed, Hrype was in the village.
Too late now.
My journey went more smoothly than I’d dared hope. Almost as if invisible hands guided me, I seemed to know instinctively which paths to take, which short cuts would work, and even, at times, where a hidden causeway just under the surface of the water would take me safely across an inlet and cut off a good couple of miles.
The last one was a skill I’d used before. It was good to know it hadn’t deserted me.
My luck held even after I’d emerged from the fens and was heading off down the road into Cambridge. A very fat woman driving a rather insubstantial little cart was going my way and she offered me a lift. I accepted gratefully, although I felt sorry for the poor horse having to pull the extra burden, and as we trotted briskly along, the fat woman told me she was on her way to town to stay with her daughter, who had just given birth to her first child, taking a cartload of good fresh milk, cream and cheese, a newly baked loaf, some apples just off the tree and a side of bacon. She clearly believed you only got wholesome food in the countryside.
‘Your daughter will be glad of your support,’ I said when I could get a word in edgeways.
‘Aye, that she will,’ the fat woman agreed. We were close to the town now and an aggressive glint came into her kindly eyes. Reaching down beneath the narrow little bench on which we sat, she brandished a huge club with several nails sticking out of the thick end. ‘And just let this here Night Wanderer come anywhere near my new grandson, and he’ll regret it!’
He does not fear you or your club, I thought, although I didn’t know where the thought came from; I didn’t believe it originated with me.
A deep shudder of fear ran through me. You didn’t have to come back here, I told myself bluntly. You have come running back to this town full of dread, and must face the consequences.
Hurriedly changing the subject – just then I couldn’t bear to think about what I’d done, how foolhardy and reckless I’d been – I asked the fat woman what the new baby was to be called.
I went first to Gurdyman’s house. It looked just the same and at first I didn’t think anybody had been there; certainly, there was nobody at home now. I emerged from the crypt and walked slowly along the passage. Just as I went out into the little inner court, warm with the afternoon sun, something prompted me to look into the shining stone. I sat down in Gurdyman’s chair, took the stone out and gazed into it.
But it seemed only to want to show me things I already knew about, mostly concerning the journey I’d just made. I saw myself under the oak tree looking at Sibert’s retreating form, and then I was out on the fens, making my sure-footed way over small hillocks sticking up out of the dark water. I was wondering whether this was the stone’s way of boosting my self-confidence when all at once I felt a wave of love. Then, fleetingly, I was standing at a greater distance from the image of myself in the stone than I had been, as if I had been transported into the mind of someone else looking at me. That person, whoever he was – I was almost sure it wasn’t a woman – loved me. There could be no doubt of that.
As suddenly as I’d flown to that other viewpoint, looking back at myself, I was returned to me watching me. It’s hard to explain how I knew – the shining stone is full of mysteries, and this, it seems, is one of them. I wrapped the stone and put it away. I knew why it had wanted me to look into it; it wanted to reassure me that I’d been right to believe I’d be in no danger on my journey, because someone had been guarding me. Perhaps, I mused, sitting there in the warmth and letting my mind drift, this was another instance of the stone wanting to boost my confidence in my own abilities; to reinforce, yet again, the old message that my human mentors also kept repeating: listen to your instincts, and the more you act upon them, the more reliable they will become.