‘You truly are prepared to do this?’ he asked.
‘I am, Father.’
He sighed heavily. ‘My heart misgives me, and I want more than anything to go with you,’ he said. ‘But I cannot.’ His eyes fell, and I had a strong sense of his sudden hatred for his lot: if he followed his powerful desire to look after me, he would risk his livelihood, his home and the well-being of all the other people who depended on him.
It was not easy for people like us.
I went over to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I will be quite safe, Father,’ I said quietly. ‘It is, as you say, most unlikely that Elfritha has come to harm. As soon as I know she is safe, I will send word.’
His only answer was to take hold of my hand and squeeze it, so hard that it hurt.
I set out for Chatteris while there still remained some hours of daylight. The sky was clear and the weather continued to be mild; I had no fear that a night in the open would do me any harm. My mother packed food for me and a leather flask of small beer, and Zarina rolled up a light blanket. I was dressed for travelling, having journeyed from Cambridge, and had my heavy cloak with its deep hood. The leather satchel that I always carry contained the personal items that I would require, as well as a freshly-replenished basic stock of medicaments. A healer is always a healer, wherever she is, and must be prepared to give aid whenever she is asked.
We said our goodbyes inside the house. It seemed sensible not to make a big public display, which would have got people talking. I didn’t think anybody had taken any particular notice of me so far; I was dressed sombrely and from a distance probably looked just like everyone else. There was no need to suspect Lord Gilbert had been informed of my presence in the village.
I embraced my family and, with the impression of their loving kisses still on my cheek and the sight of their anxious faces before my eyes, slipped out of the house and quietly left the village. I saw no one except in the distance, and none of those still working the fields and the fen edge took any notice of me. Soon I had left Aelf Fen behind and, as I trod the road that would curve in a long loop around the southern edge of the fens and then north again to Chatteris, I could have been alone in the world.
I made good time, setting my feet to a marching rhythm and humming to myself to keep my spirits up. I told myself that my sister couldn’t possibly be dead, since she had called out to me for help. I didn’t allow myself to consider that the sort of summons I had received could equally well have been sent by a dead spirit as a living one. I kept saying to myself, Elfritha is safe! She’s safe! and the words wove themselves into the pattern of my footsteps. After a while I thought I saw a familiar shape out of the corner of my eye: perceiving my need, Fox had come to keep me company and was silently pacing along beside me.
Until I realized this, I hadn’t let myself face my fear of the coming night. With my animal spirit guide at my side, my dream — if it came — would not be so terrifying.
When at last the light began to fade, I looked around for a place to sleep. I had passed the landward end of the Wicken promontory now and taken a short cut that I knew across the marshes to the north of Cambridge. Some years ago I’d had to find a similar safe path from the island of Ely to the mainland, and I’d discovered that it’s actually quite easy to do if you’re in the right frame of mind. I think it’s part of being a dowser, and that’s a skill I’ve had most of my life. It seems that, in addition to being able to find underground water and lost brooches, I can also trace the line of the firm ground through the fens.
Now, not wanting to settle for the night out on the marsh — it’s far too wet, for one thing, and you’d wake up very soggy — I turned southwards and was soon clambering up a steep bank to the higher, drier ground. Presently, I came to an outlying hamlet. It was almost fully dark now, and the small group of mean-looking dwellings showed no lights. I made out the ragged shape of a tumbledown hay barn and crept inside. The hay was old and smelt a bit musty, but I heaped it up against the most solid-looking of the walls and reckoned that, with my blanket and cloak, I would be snug enough.
I decided I could risk a little light, so set a stump of tallow candle on a patch of ground from which I’d carefully removed all the stray bits of hay, and struck my flint. The warm, yellow glow showed that the barn was even more dilapidated than I’d thought, and I thanked my guardian spirits for a fine night. I opened the pack of food and ate hungrily; I hadn’t realized how famished I was.
I had almost finished when I heard a low growl from out of the shadows. Alarmed, I raised the candle and saw a black and white bitch slowly advancing on me. She had a wall eye and held her head turned slightly to one side so as to look at me out of the good eye. I spoke some quiet words — Hrype had taught me how to disarm angry animals — and she gave a soft wuff. I twisted off a small piece of the dried meat from my food pack and held it out to her. She walked slowly up to me and, with a gentle mouth, took it from my fingers. I smoothed my hand over her head, still speaking the spell, and soon she came to lie beside me. When I finally curled up to sleep, it was with the wall-eyed bitch at my back and, as I closed my eyes, the last thing I saw was Fox pacing to and fro in front of me.
I don’t know whether it was my fatigue or the presence of my two animal companions: either way, I slept without dreaming. However, when I woke at first light I heard the echo of those words ringing in my head: come to me! I need you!
With a new urgency driving me on, I got up, packed up my little camp, brushed the hay from my clothes and, with an affectionate farewell to my wall-eyed bitch, set off again.
Quite soon I came on a busy road leading roughly north-westwards, and I guessed it was the route leading out of Cambridge that skirts the fenlands to the west. I cadged a ride with an elderly woman driving a small cart pulled by a mule and laden with brushwood, advising her on how to treat the stiffness in her poor, twisted hands in exchange. I gave her a small bottle of Edild’s remedy, explaining that she must rub it into her joints each morning and evening. She looked at me sceptically, but I just smiled; the remedy would work, I knew it.
She dropped me off close to where the ferries run across to Chatteris, on its little island. Feeling increasingly apprehensive, I walked the last half a mile and waited at the fen edge until a boatman tied up at the quayside. We bartered for a while and then settled on a fare, and he rowed me over the water to my destination.
I’d visited the abbey several times before. The nuns of Elfritha’s order keep themselves to themselves in general, although they do have a small infirmary where they treat outsiders, and their refectory hands out food from time to time. Not that the food is anything to get excited about: vowed to poverty as they are, the nuns eat very plainly and very sparsely.
My boatman was a taciturn man whose face wore a permanent frown, and I was disinclined to ask him if he knew about the murder. If the news was bad — I was praying as hard as I knew how that it wouldn’t be, even though I appreciated that not being bad for us meant it was bad for some other family — I didn’t want to hear it from a grumpy boatman.
The crossing did not take long. I paid my fare and clambered up on to the quay, stopping at the top of the stone steps to take in the view. There were two or three rows of shabby dwellings, undoubtedly housing those few families who managed to survive on the island, either by ferrying people to and from the abbey or by providing fish and other basic necessities to the nuns. In the distance, the track wound away through some fields and a bit of sparse scrubland before eventually losing itself in the muddy, marshy margins of the surrounding fen. The abbey dominated the scene, although in truth there wasn’t much to dominate and it wasn’t much of an abbey. Its high walls were interrupted by a pair of stout gates facing the track, and above them could be seen the roof-lines of the various abbey buildings, tallest of which was the church. I knew from visits to my sister that there was also a huddle of buildings around the cloister, consisting of refectory, chapter house, dormitories, infirmary and one or two others whose function I was not aware of. Chatteris was a pretty desolate spot, and it had always come as a surprise to discover that my sister and her fellow nuns were by and large a happy, cheerful lot. Perhaps that was the reward you got for giving your life to God.