He did not need to ask where Hrype was going; if they were to find out what reason Father Clement had had for journeying to the area where his body was left, then one of them must go and ask at the last place where he was known to have been: Crowland Abbey.
Hrype had lived for much of his adult life in the fen country, and he would have said that he was immune to the fears and the superstitions of outsiders. He had visited the Crowland area twice before, but the first time had been before the latest fire, when the abbey was bustling with life, and on the second occasion, he had been intent on a specific mission — to find out more about Father Clement from locals in the vicinity — and he had not taken much notice of his surroundings. Now, however, when in the early afternoon of the following day he finally reached Crowland, he discovered he was wrong. He was as susceptible to irrational fears as anyone.
He was entirely alone. He was exhausted, for yesterday he had walked for almost twenty-five miles before giving in to his hunger and fatigue and finding a place to sleep for what remained of the night. Today he had travelled sometimes on foot and occasionally by boat, in the places where the waters were too wide to jump over or ford. Since mid-morning, when a boatman had dropped him off after ferrying him over a meandering river, he had not seen a living soul. The sky was cloudy and lowering, heavy with the threat of rain. Spirals and twirls of white mist rose up from the damp fen, coalescing into a sort of pale layer lying just above the ground. Looking down, Hrype had the impression that he had no feet. Or, perhaps, was walking on cloud. .
He shivered, wrapping his cloak more tightly around him. From somewhere quite close there was a sudden booming sound, like someone blowing across the top of a large jar. The reed beds and the swampy conditions were perfect for bitterns, but such was Hrype’s state of mind that it took him several moments of heart-pounding fear to remember that. He stood quite still, and presently the sound came again. It was spring, Hrype mused. The bird was seeking a mate.
He trudged on. Peering ahead, he could make out a hump of higher ground ahead. The intervening terrain was sodden but not actually under water, or so he thought. But then, still some hundred or so paces from the island, he realized that it was, in fact, surrounded by water. Not very deep, and clogged with reed banks, but nevertheless he was going to have to get his feet wet. Reaching the water’s edge, he stopped and looked around. Now he could make out the fire-blackened ruins of the abbey, but they appeared to be deserted. If there was anyone in residence — there had to be, he told himself firmly, refusing to believe he’d come all this way for nothing — then they were not keeping a lookout for visitors and preparing to send out a boat.
He noticed that there was a line of stakes sticking out of the water. Hoping that these had been placed to mark the shallow way across to the island, he sat down, removed his boots, rolled up his hose and stepped into the water.
He was too busy watching where he put his feet and trying to avoid the deeper water to look up, so when a voice hailed him from the far shore, it took him by surprise. It was only then, when he had evidence that there was someone there other than himself and the spirits whom he sensed crowding around him from all sides, that he let himself acknowledge how the atmosphere of the place had unnerved him.
‘Halloa!’ the voice cried. Hrype saw a tall, spare man in his middle years standing on the shore just above the water line. ‘Go over to your left — ’ the man waved the appropriate arm vigorously in case his visitor did not know his right from his left — ‘and you’ll find the ground slopes up more gently.’
Hrype did as he was bid, soon finding himself climbing up out of the water on to the soil of Crowland island. His feet were filthy with black, slimy, clinging mud. They were also so cold that he could not feel them. He appeared to have cut his right heel; he saw a line of blood snaking out through the foul mud.
The man hurried to meet him. ‘That looks nasty,’ he observed, studying Hrype’s foot. ‘Come along with me to what is left of our infirmary, and I’ll see if I can find something to bathe it with.’
Hrype followed him up the shore. He looked around, noticing the remains of the church and the buildings that had formed the sides of the cloister beside it. Judging by one that had survived the flames, they appeared to have been made of timber, with wattle infill and reed-thatched roofs. No wonder the abbey had burned so thoroughly.
The thin man led him to a makeshift hut that stood within the outlines of what had been a bigger building, rectangular in shape. ‘We’ve put everything we salvaged in here,’ he said, ducking his head and leading the way inside the little hut, which was crowded with sacks and crates and had a small fire burning in a central hearth. ‘It’s not much, but at least it keeps the rain off. Now-’ He stared around, his eyes alighting on a small three-legged stool. ‘Sit there, and I’ll wash and tend your foot.’
Hrype sank down on to the stool, watching as the man moved around him, fetching a bowl, filling it from the iron vessel suspended over the hearth and adding some drops from a small bottle made of green glass. Then he rolled up his sleeves, hitched up his robe and knelt before Hrype.
‘Our infirmarer is not here,’ he said as he bathed Hrype’s wounded heel, ‘since, like most of my monks, he has been sent to be useful in another abbey until this one is up and running again.’ The my monks was a clue, and Hrype was prepared for what the man said next. ‘I am Ingulphus,’ he said, looking up and smiling, ‘and I am abbot here.’
‘I heard about the fire,’ Hrype remarked. If he began with some general comments, he thought, then it might be easier to pose the question he’d come to ask without raising suspicion.
Ingulphus made a sound of despair. ‘I am not surprised. We lost so much. All our buildings burned, including our library, with its precious manuscripts and the experimental model Brother Luke had been working on, with which he hoped to demonstrate the movements of the planets in their spheres.’
‘How did the fire start?’ Hrype asked. ‘Was it a raid?’
‘No, no, it wasn’t,’ the abbot replied. ‘In a way, that would have been easier to bear, since it would have been outside our control. No; a plumber was working in the church tower. A moment’s carelessness, and you see the result all around you.’ He sighed, returning to Hrype’s foot and rinsing it carefully, then applying some drops of whatever it was in the little green bottle.
For a few moments Hrype felt as if someone had set fire to his foot. He cried out, and Ingulphus grinned.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I should have warned you, I suppose, but I always feel that if I’m going to experience pain, I’d rather not be warned, since then you suffer twice, once from the anticipation, once from the pain itself.’
He put another couple of drops into the cut, and this time the pain was less acute. ‘What is that?’ Hrype asked.
The abbot looked up. ‘I have no idea. Our herbalist makes it, and it is his sovereign remedy for cleaning cuts. Now, a dressing, to keep the wound clean — ’ he worked as he spoke, his busy, capable hands wrapping and tying the strip of clean linen — ‘and you can put your boot back on.’ He looked at Hrype’s other foot and, after only a brief hesitation, washed that as well.
‘Thank you,’ Hrype said gravely when he had finished.
The abbot grinned. ‘That’s all right. It seemed a shame for you to have one nice clean foot and one filthy one. Now, why not tell me who you are and why you are here? I thought, when I first spied you coming across the water, that you were one of my monks returning, but I soon saw my mistake.’
‘Are you here alone, then?’ Hrype asked.
‘No, four of the brethren are with me.’ He grimaced. ‘The four strongest, for our work just now consists mainly of tearing down the ruins and clearing the ground so that the new build can begin.’