He straightened up, a hand to the small of his back, and grinned at me. ‘Only joking. I know you’re a fearsome magician these days, as well as a brilliant healer.’
I was used to his teasing. We went back to our weeding. ‘So Hrype’s away?’ I said after a while.
‘Yes.’
‘Where is he?’
‘No idea.’
‘When’s he coming back?’
‘Don’t know.’
This was going to be hard. I weeded on for some time and then said, ‘Sibert, I know we’ve been making light of this voice I’ve been hearing, but it’s actually quite important. I’d like to talk to Hrype, so if you have any clue as to where he is, I’d love to know.’
He stopped weeding. Bending down to look into my face, he said quietly, ‘It is important, isn’t it? I can see it in your expression.’
‘Mmm,’ I agreed. We were both standing upright now, eyes on each other’s.
Sibert said, ‘I don’t know for sure, because my — because Hrype does not confide in me.’ There was pain beneath the abrupt words, and it told me much about my friend’s relationship with the strange, difficult man who fathered him. ‘But I overheard him speaking to my mother, and he said there’s someone who concerns him — a priest, I think. My guess is that he’s gone to find out more about the man.’
‘Concerns him?’ It seemed a rather general term. ‘What does that mean, exactly?’
‘Exactly, I couldn’t say.’ Sibert’s tone was angry. ‘They thought I was asleep, and in any case they were muttering. Mother said did he — Hrype — really have to go, because she’s always fearful and nervous when he’s absent, and he said yes he did, because-’ Sibert frowned. ‘I thought he said, because this man who I think is a priest is a threat and very powerful.’
I thought about that. Hrype is a cunning man, full of magic, full of a very special sort of force. Had he meant this priest was a threat because of the religion he represented, which in the eyes of many — especially its own clergy — stands firm in its opposition to the old ways? It seemed very likely.
Could it be, then, that it was Hrype who needed me? That, faced with the problem of a zealous priest determined to route out the last vestiges of the old ways, Hrype had summoned me to help him? For a few delicious moments I almost let myself believe it. Then reality struck me like a shower of rain in the face, and I returned to earth.
Still, this talk of a very powerful priest was the first lead I had uncovered. I was determined to follow it up. ‘Do you think your mother would know where Hrype is?’ I asked tentatively.
Sibert had gone back to his onions. ‘Why not stop pestering me and go and ask her?’
As I hurried back to the village, I hoped I would find that Froya had returned. Also that she’d be prepared to tell me where Hrype had gone; Froya is a very distant figure, and with her there is always the feeling that she is so busy fighting off her inner demons that there is little of her left over for anyone else. I do not suppose for a moment that she is easy to live with, and I admire Hrype for his loyalty to her, especially when he loves another woman so deeply. (His relationship with my aunt Edild is another secret that I keep to myself.)
In the end I never got as far as tapping on Froya’s door, so I didn’t find out if she was there. As I clambered down the bank that leads off the higher ground and on to the track through the village, I heard my mother calling out to me.
She was far from calm and serene now. Her cap was awry; her face was red and full of anguish. She ran up to me, grabbed my hands in both of hers and said, ‘Oh, thank God you’re here! Where have you been? Have you heard?’
‘I was out on the upland talking to Sibert,’ I replied, feeling my heart thump with alarm. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’
My big, brave mother seemed to sag, and for a moment I supported her not inconsiderable weight. Then she forced herself to stand upright and said, ‘There’s word that a nun has been found murdered. A knife to her throat, they say, or possibly she was strangled.’ She frowned, then shook her head violently. ‘Oh, I don’t know — the story is confused.’
A nun. I felt very cold.
‘Who brought the news?’ I demanded. It could all be just an ugly rumour, a salacious tale to relieve the boredom of country life.
‘The peddler from over March way — he’s brought a consignment of pins and we’ve all been crowding round him; I haven’t seen a package of pins since last autumn. Oh, oh — ’ my mother’s eyes filled with tears — ‘and I never got mine! I forgot all about them when he told us!’
I put my arms round her. I already knew, but I thought I should ask anyway.
‘He’s from March,’ I repeated. ‘That means he’d have journeyed past-’ I hesitated. Perhaps if I didn’t put it into words, it wouldn’t be true.
But my mother was nodding. ‘Yes, yes, I know! He was there two days ago, and the news was spreading like fire in a hayrick. The dead nun’s from Chatteris!’
Chatteris Abbey is a small foundation of Benedictine nuns, neither very wealthy nor very important. There are perhaps twenty nuns there, maybe twenty-five. And one of them is my beloved sister Elfritha.
I heard the echo of those desperate words. I need you! I braced myself to face the horrible possibility that they had come from my sister.
We hurried home again, and the news must have reached even the outlying lands of the village, for all the family were back.
My father said firmly, ‘We have no reason at all to believe that anything has happened to Elfritha. She is one of a score, so the chances are slim.’
Slim, perhaps, but they could not be discounted.
‘I thought she’d be safe in her convent!’ my mother sobbed. ‘Life is hard and full of many dangers, and it was my one great consolation, when she went away to shut herself up with the nuns, that she’d be safe!’
‘She probably is perfectly safe,’ my father said. I thought he sounded less certain than he had before.
There was only one way to find out. Someone would have to go to the abbey and ask. Dreading that this was indeed the answer to the mysterious summons, I said, ‘I will go to Chatteris. I’ll set out straight away, and I ought to get there tomorrow.’
There was a chorus of protests, mainly from my father and Haward and mainly to the effect that I ought not to go off travelling alone when there was a murderer about. I held up my hands, and my family fell silent.
‘It makes sense for me to go,’ I said calmly. ‘For one thing, any of you would have to get Lord Gilbert’s permission to leave the village, whereas he doesn’t know I’m here so I’m free to come and go as I like.’ It was a rare luxury for people like us, and I was not surprised to receive one or two envious glances. Lord Gilbert believed I was in Cambridge; he had given permission for me to go and study there because, as Edild and Hrype had explained when they went with me to present my case, the more I learned, the more use I would be in the village. Lord Gilbert undoubtedly believed I was being taught further healing methods. Neither my aunt nor Hrype mentioned the other skills that my new teacher possessed in such abundance, and I certainly wasn’t going to.
‘For another thing,’ I went on, ‘I’m used to travelling and I know how to look after myself.’ I tapped the knife I keep at my belt.
I could now protect myself in other ways, too; Gurdyman had already taught me many things besides the first rudiments of alchemy. But I did not think it wise to reveal this to my family.
There was a short silence. Then my mother looked at my father, and even from where I sat I could read the appeal in her eyes.
‘So I am to risk the safety of one daughter in order to set your mind at rest concerning another?’ my father muttered. He turned his eyes from my mother and looked at me, and I read such love in his face that I felt tears smart. I blinked them away and gave him a smile.