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19

For the third time, Josse rode down the track and across the marshland to Saltwych.

This time they knew who he was and they were waiting for him. Two of the guards who had apprehended him on his first visit rode out to meet him and, grim faced and silent, fell in on either side of him and rode with him into the settlement. There were few people about; the place appeared almost deserted. One of the guards took charge of the horses; the other man took him to the long hall. Josse expected to be faced with Aelle, but it was not the clan chieftain who waited for him across the hearth.

The strange silver eyes contemplated him for some moments before the man spoke. Then, in a neutral voice, he said, ‘You have returned, Josse d’Acquin. By day now and not sneaking through the dark on your belly like a whipped hound.’

Josse straightened his shoulders. ‘I was told quite definitely that the woman of whom I spoke, Galiena Ryemarsh, came from this community. I came back because I wish to establish the truth.’

‘The truth,’ mused the man with the silver eyes. ‘A dangerous commodity, Josse d’Acquin. Are you quite sure you wish to know it?’

‘I am,’ Josse replied.

‘Even more dangerous,’ went on the man, still in the same quiet, contemplative tone, ‘is your implication that the clan chief lied to you. Aelle does not care to have his word doubted.’

‘But I was told by Galiena’s family that this was where she was born!’ Josse said forcefully. ‘I believe that they spoke true.’

The man said nothing. He stood on the far side of the bright fire in the hearth, and Josse could not see him clearly. He wore a long robe of some light colour and its outline seemed to shimmer in the flickering light. Unaccountably, Josse felt heavy-eyed as he tried to focus on his adversary.

The man held up a long hand and beckoned. Josse stepped around the hearth and went over to stand beside him. ‘Aelle is away hunting,’ the man said softly. ‘He has taken the strong men of the clan. They will not be pleased to see you back here, asking your questions. Oh, no.’

‘Then tell me what I need to know and let me leave before they return!’ Josse urged. ‘I have come in peace, it is not right to threaten me in this way.’

‘You perceive a threat?’ The man’s eyes opened wide with false innocence. Or was it false? Josse could not decide. ‘Well then, we shall have to reassure you.’ He glanced around and, seeing that he and Josse were alone in the far section of the hall, stepped back to the far wall and, lifting the corner of a ragged hanging, revealed a small door. ‘Come,’ he ordered. ‘We shall sit in my own private chamber and I shall attempt to tell you what you wish to know.’

Josse hesitated. The guards had not relieved him of his weapons — perhaps because their chieftain was not in the hall — and he felt the weight of his sword at his side. The silver-eyed man gave a soft laugh. ‘You will not need your sword,’ he said. ‘You would not attack an unarmed man, and I, as you see, carry no knife or broadsword.’ He opened his arms wide and the long, full sleeves opened out gracefully. But he was right; as far as Josse could see, he bore no blade.

‘Will you come?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ said Josse.

The man carefully closed the door after them and led Josse to a small building that he had not noticed before. It consisted of a shallow cave in the cliff face, out from which walls had been built so as to increase the space within. The man opened a low door in the outer wall and ushered Josse inside.

The chamber was in near-darkness, the only light coming from glowing embers in a small iron brazier. The man put some small pieces of wood on to the embers, blew up a flame and then added a bundle of what looked like dry, twiggy sticks and dead leaves. Then, having drawn up a simple stool for Josse to sit on, he said without preamble, ‘Galiena did come from here. She was known by a different name and she was of high birth among our people.’ Watching Josse closely, he murmured, ‘Iduna was her given name. She was called for the goddess who guarded the golden apples of youth, for it was hoped that her birth was an omen and that she would put new vigour into the chieftain.’

Goddess. Apples of youth. Good God above, Josse thought, these are pagan things.

‘She was the chieftain’s daughter,’ the silver-eyed man was saying, ‘begotten by him upon a woman of the bloodline and born to him in his dotage. We hoped she would heal him, for he was sick at heart and in despair.’

‘It cannot be that you speak of Aelle?’ Josse said.

‘No. Of Aethelfrith, the father of Aelle, who was chieftain before him.’ The man sighed. ‘Aelle saw the responsibilities of a chieftain differently. His father had encouraged us to look outwards, to mix with our neighbours and to end our long self-imposed and inward-looking isolation. He did not think it healthy for us to preserve our secret ways and to keep others away by the fostering and the propagation of frightening legends. That, he considered, was the old way. The unenlightened way.’

‘The old ways worked efficiently,’ Josse murmured, remembering the tale that had so distressed him as a child.

‘Yes, they did, didn’t they?’ The silver-eyed man looked pleased. ‘But then it is very easy to frighten uneducated and superstitious folk out of their wits.’

It was nothing to be proud of, Josse thought. But he did not say it aloud.

‘The baby girl whom we knew as Iduna was healthy and she thrived.’ The man picked up his tale. ‘But the name that we hoped would bring good fortune failed us, and her father died when she was but a few weeks old. With his death there was no choice but to hail Aelle as chieftain. He turned his back on the outside world, shutting out the light just as it had begun to penetrate our life here. And his first act as our chief was to send his little sister away.’

‘Why?’ Josse asked.

‘Why? For two reasons. One, because she too was the daughter of a chief and when she grew to adulthood, she might have thought as her father did and so challenged her brother’s rule of secrecy. For another-’ He paused. Then: ‘Josse, what did you think of Aelle? A clever man, would you say? A wise and worldly one?’

‘I cannot say,’ Josse admitted. ‘I did not study him sufficiently well to judge.’

‘A fair answer.’ The man gave him a nod of approval. ‘Aelle is wise, and also worldly, for all that he lives isolated out here on the marsh and has little contact with the world. But he understands power, you see. He wants power, as it is understood in the wide world. Therefore he placed his baby sister in a place where he believed power was to be found.’

‘But Raelf of Readingbrooke is but a country lord!’ Josse protested. Smoke from the newly stoked brazier was floating through the chamber and prickling his eyes. It had quite a strong smell; somehow it caught at the back of the throat. He coughed, then said, ‘He lives comfortably, aye, but his prime concern is for his family!’

‘Yes,’ the silver-eyed man said patiently. ‘But I do not speak of Raelf de Readingbrooke. I speak of Ambrose Ryemarsh. Wealthy, indeed, very wealthy, would you not agree? And of a certain influence with those who rule over us?’

‘Aye,’ Josse agreed, remembering Ambrose’s swift and generous response to Queen Eleanor’s ransom appeal and the implied closeness to Plantagenet power circles, ‘but-’ He was struggling with what he was being told. ‘But she was not placed with Ambrose, she was adopted by the family at Readingbrooke!’

‘Yes, but she was married to Ambrose Ryemarsh.’

Again, Josse felt incredulity. ‘You are telling me that Aelle knew she would marry Ambrose if she were to be adopted by Raelf?’

‘Aelle did not know. But I did. I saw it.’

Josse slowly shook his head. ‘I can scarce believe it.’ It was more than that; he actively disbelieved it, but it did not seem prudent to say so.

‘She married him, did she not?’ the man enquired. ‘You will have to take my word for it, Josse d’Acquin.’