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There were tears streaming down my cheeks, and the heaving of my chest as I sobbed made further speech impossible. Hrype took me in his arms and gently stroked my back, soothing me, steadying me, all the time crooning words in an unknown tongue which, of all things, made me want to go to sleep. .

‘That’s better,’ he said after a while. I had the strange sensation that quite a lot of time had passed, and I came back to myself to find that I was once more sitting on the bench and Gurdyman had topped up my cup of wine. I took a big sip, swallowed it and then made myself look up at Hrype.

The question I both longed and dreaded to ask must have been clearly visible in my face. He said without preamble, ‘I bring news of your sister, Elfritha. She is very sick, and it is feared that she may die. The nuns at Chatteris have been caring for her to the best of their ability, but, knowing of the fine reputation of her healer aunt, they sent word to Aelf Fen, and Edild is now in charge.’

He paused, as if to let the news sink in. For a few moments I could not think at all. A part of my mind registered the fact that no harm had befallen Rollo — none that Hrype had heard of, in any case, which did not say a lot — but before I could even pause to be glad about it, the rest of my thoughts filled with grief for my beloved sister.

She is very sick, and they fear she may die. Oh, Elfritha! First we had feared she was a murderer’s victim, and now this!

Out of nowhere came a tumble of happy memories, of a lifelong companion who, only a year and four months older than me, was as different as a sibling could be. Dreamy, gentle, impractical Elfritha, patient where I was impatient, kind when I wanted to hit out, and always, through everything that we shared in our childhood, full of love for me and my staunchest supporter. The beautiful shawl she made for me became, on the day she presented it, my most treasured possession, and it still is. I missed my sister from the moment she entered the abbey, and I think of her every day of my life.

Now she was sick. She was very possibly dying. I did not know how I was going to bear it.

Gurdyman, perhaps understanding that I could not speak, asked softly, ‘What ails her?’

‘I do not know,’ Hrype admitted.

I wondered how long it was since word was sent to the village. Oh, oh, she might already be dead! I raised my head, trying to put this agonizing suspicion into words, but Hrype did not need words.

He knelt down in front of me and took hold of my hands. His felt very warm, or perhaps that was because mine were icy.

‘She is still alive at this moment, Lassair,’ he said. His voice was firm and cool, and his eyes did not leave mine. I believed him, although I would have liked to ask him how he knew. But he was Hrype, so I didn’t.

Gurdyman was busy with some task, and at first I did not perceive what he was doing. I felt slightly affronted, I think, that he could calmly be getting on with his day when we had just had such dreadful news. Then I realized: he was packing up food and drink, setting it ready with my shawl.

He came over to me and patted my hand. ‘If you set out straight away, you will be at Chatteris by nightfall.’ He glanced at Hrype, who gave a faint nod. ‘Hrype will look after you. He is a swift and canny traveller, experienced in the fastest ways of proceeding both by the track and over the water, and nobody could guide you better.’

I looked up at Hrype and mumbled my thanks. He gave another quick nod. Then, getting to my feet, I gave Gurdyman a low bow. He reached out and took hold of my hands, raising me up again. I wanted to say so much: to apologize for hurrying away and abandoning his teaching as if I did not value it at all; to thank him for being so considerate as to make it easy for me to go; to say even that I appreciated the pack he had so swiftly prepared. Like Hrype, he could read my thoughts as if they were words on a page. He smiled, gave my hands a squeeze and murmured, ‘Good luck.’ Then Hrype grabbed the pack, I swept my sister’s beautiful shawl around my shoulders and we were off.

It was soon after noon when we left Cambridge. There was not much traffic on the road, even less going in our direction, so to begin with we walked. We were both fresh, however, and able to keep up a good pace. My mind reached out constantly for my sister, and once or twice I thought I sensed a response. It was feeble — more like a breath in my face than an actual voice speaking in my head — but nevertheless I made myself take it as a good sign.

It might help to take my conscious thoughts off my fear, I thought, to speak of something else. Breaking quite a long silence, I said to Hrype, ‘Where did you go when you left me at Chatteris in the middle of the night four days ago?’

If he was surprised at such a question out of nowhere, he did not show it. ‘It was in fact near dawn when I got up to go,’ he said calmly. ‘I would not have abandoned you during the night hours, Lassair.’ He glanced at me, the suspicion of a smile on his face. ‘I left you some food and drink, did I not?’

‘You did,’ I conceded. I decided to keep to myself my suspicion that he’d slipped a mild sedative into the herbal brew he’d given me. It does not do, I have discovered, to push Hrype too far.

‘I wanted to try to discover more about the death of the nun, for which I needed to look at the place where she was found,’ he said, after a pause that had lasted so long that I was quite sure he had forgotten the question, or decided not to answer, or possibly both. ‘I recalled the nun who admitted us to the abbey saying that she was looking for the kinsfolk of the dead girl, if indeed they had made the journey to Chatteris, and I also made some careful enquiries to see if I could locate them.’

‘Did you?’

‘No. Nobody had gone to ask about Herleva.’

It struck me as very sad, and I was sure from Hrype’s tone and his expression that he felt the same. ‘Perhaps they haven’t yet heard,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘It is possible. Or perhaps she was alone in the world.’

I did not want to dwell on that.

‘I, too, have been thinking about Herleva,’ I said. ‘In particular, how she died.’

Then I told him about the man in the fen, and how Gurdyman had taken me with him to assist as he inspected the body. I told him how the man had been killed, and what Gurdyman had concluded, and how I’d thought it was similar to how poor little Herleva had met her end. I confessed that, just for a moment, I’d wondered if she, too, had been a sacrificial victim. ‘But she wasn’t,’ I finished, ‘because if she was, she’d have been left somewhere in the marginal places between water and land.’

Hrype was deep in thought. I wondered if he’d heard a word I had said. Then, abruptly, he barked out, ‘Where do you think Herleva was found?’

‘I — er, Elfritha. .’ Oh, Elfritha! ‘My sister said Herleva’s body was found behind the stables.’ A very worrying thought struck me. ‘Hrype, you just said you needed to investigate the place where Herleva died, so you must have gone back inside the abbey walls!’ I stopped dead and looked up at him. ‘You did, even though it was so perilous, especially without me there pretending to be your daughter! Oh, what if they’d spotted you and recognized you?’ I felt a chill round my heart. ’They didn’t, did they?’

He waved an impatient hand. ‘No, Lassair.’

‘But how else-’

Enough,’ he said, quite sharply. Then, perhaps recalling where we were going and why, he said more kindly, ‘Listen, and I shall tell you.’

I shut my mouth and hung my head.

‘You misheard what your sister said,’ he said after a moment. ‘As, indeed, did I. We both understood her to have said that Herleva’s body was found behind the stables, which we took to mean the big stable block within the abbey where the horses and mules of visitors are cared for. So when I realized that I had to know more concerning her death, I thought I would have to go back inside the abbey, and this was, as you rightly pointed out, quite risky.’