The Way Between the Worlds (20 page)

Edild must have sensed my involuntary movement. She crouched down beside me, waiting as I administered another drop of water.

‘How many has she taken?’

I knew she would ask and had been carefully counting. ‘Seven.’

Edith nodded. ‘Well done,’ she whispered. ‘That’s enough. Now we wait.’

I did not need to ask what we’d be waiting for.

I stood up, putting the cup and the spoon down on the little table beside the bed. Straightening up, I was met with the disconcerting sight of two pairs of eyes, green and silvery-grey, watching me with the intensity of a hawk eyeing the mouse that will be its supper.

I collected my thoughts, for I knew what they were about to tell me.

‘Someone tried to poison her, didn’t they?’ I said.

Instantly, they both shushed me, stepping closer so that the three of us stood in a tight triangle. ‘We think so,’ Hrype agreed.

I paused, again thinking rapidly. ‘Have we a sample of the vomit?’

Edild’s mouth turned down in a grimace. ‘Not of what she brought up at the outset. Since I have been here, it has mainly been watery bile.’

The product of a stomach that had emptied itself, I reflected.

I had a sudden thought. ‘What of her garments?’ I asked eagerly. ‘If the sickness came on her abruptly, might she not have been sick down herself?’

Edild glanced at Hrype, then back at me. ‘Surely someone would have washed her clothes by now?’ There was doubt in her tone.

I made the offer before either of them could ask me. ‘I’ll go and find out.’

I realized quite quickly that the nuns must be in their church, saying one of the daily offices, for the abbey was all but deserted. Two lay nuns sat at either end of the infirmary, and one nodded to me as I emerged from the short passage outside Elfritha’s room. Rather than go down the length of the long room, I used the door that opened directly on to the cloister. I paused to look around, gazing out over the abbey and listening. There was another stout lay sister on duty at the gate, and from somewhere close at hand I could hear voices, a man and a woman’s.

I slipped back into the shadows of the cloister and wondered how I was going to find the laundry. It would have to be close to a water source, I reasoned, and I recalled having seen a little stream running along the western edge of the enclosing walls, where the abbey was closest to the surrounding fen. I turned in that direction and presently saw a small hut, its door propped open to reveal big tubs and a small hearth over which a large pot was suspended, presumably where water was heated. On a rough frame behind the hut, a load of washing was drying in the last rays of the setting sun.

I checked quickly, but there was nobody watching. I looked at the items on the frame, and most of them appeared to be bedlinen. I crept inside the hut.

There was a big pile of dirty clothes awaiting the laundress’s attention. The pot above the hearth was full of cold water, and kindling had been set ready. The nun in charge must have been intending to do a wash when she returned after the office.

I fell on the bundle of clothing, searching for my sister’s habit. I thought I was going to be disappointed, for almost all of the garments were light in colour – novices’ white linen veils, several under-shifts – but then I saw something black rolled up tightly underneath them. I reached for it, my fingers finding the coarse cloth of a nun’s habit. I drew it out from the pile, and even as I unrolled it I knew I had found what I was searching for: I could tell by the smell.

My beloved sister had been sick all over the front of her habit. Smoothing out the fabric so that I could inspect what was spread over it, I held it to the light coming in through the open door.

My heart seemed to lurch in my chest, and I smothered a gasp.

Among the sticky, smelly mess, I could clearly make out pale berries and those dark, distorted rye seeds.

I had seen enough – more than enough, for I was feeling pretty queasy myself, my fear and anxiety adding to the unpleasant atmosphere inside the little hut. I rolled up the habit again and pushed it back underneath the shifts and the veils, careful to make it look as much as possible as it had done before I disturbed it. I peered out through the doorway, checking to make sure there was still nobody watching, then I gathered up my skirts and hurried back to the infirmary.

Back in Elfritha’s room, I found my aunt busy changing the soiled bedlinen, helped by two of the infirmary nuns. I did not at first see Hrype; looking round for him, I spotted him standing behind the door. I had already noticed what a master he was in the art of appearing invisible, and I doubted very much if either of the nuns, preoccupied as they were, had realized he was there.

Edild was too busy to stop and talk to me, so I met Hrype’s eyes and inclined my head very slightly towards the doorway. He understood instantly. As I crept back outside, once more using the door that was closest to Elfritha’s little room, I knew without looking that he was right behind me.

We found a place in the far corner of the cloister, where we sat down on a low wall. The cloister was deserted, and we positioned ourselves so that we could see anyone coming. It was evening now and beginning to grow dark. I checked that there were no doorways in which people could lurk and listen to our conversation.

I had a final quick look round, then I told him, as succinctly as I could, what Gurdyman had found in the stomach of the dead man in the fen. I was on the point of describing how Gurdyman and I had speculated that Herleva had also been given the same poison, but there was no need because, being Hrype, he had already worked it out.

‘And the little nun – your sister’s friend – she, too, had vomited,’ he said.

‘We’ve no way of knowing what it was that poisoned Herleva,’ I went on. ‘But I am pretty sure that Elfritha was given the same fatal gruel that the man in the fen ate.’

‘Not fatal yet,’ Hrype put in swiftly.

I ached for reassurance. Could he give it? I knew he had ways of seeing through the mist into the future. ‘Will she live?’ I asked in a small voice.

He turned to meet my eyes. ‘I do not know, Lassair,’ he said. ‘Your aunt has not said, and she is the healer, not me.’

‘Couldn’t you—’ I began. I dropped my head, unable to go on.

‘Could I ask the runes?’ he supplied. ‘Is that what you would ask, child?’ Mutely, I nodded.

There was quite a long pause. Then he said, ‘I could, yes, and they would give an answer. But they do not lie, and they tell truths that often cause terrible pain, for sometimes to know of a dreadful event before it happens is to suffer it many times over rather than just once.’

‘Then you do think she’s going to die.’

‘
No
,’ he said very firmly. ‘I said I do not know. Nobody does, Lassair. All we can do is look after her to the best of our ability.’ His mouth creased up in a very small smile. ‘By
we
, I mean, of course, you and your aunt.’ He reached for my hand, clasping it for a moment and then letting it go. ‘Nobody could have better care,’ he added softly.

It was kind of him, but really undeserved. I would only be doing what Edild told me; if Elfritha survived, it would be thanks to my aunt.

We were quiet for some time. It was pleasantly warm in our corner out of the wind, and I thought fleetingly how lovely it would be to curl up in my shawl and go to sleep.

Hrype’s voice broke the spell.

‘Why should someone try to kill Elfritha?’ he asked.

My eyelids had been drooping, and I had been sitting slumped against the warm stone of the wall behind me. Now I sat up, rubbed the drowsiness away and forced myself to think. I’d had a theory, hadn’t I? Last time Hrype and I had visited the abbey, I’d worked it all out. I composed my thoughts and, when I was ready, began to speak.

‘There
was
one thing that occurred to me,’ I said. Hrype’s sudden intent gaze told me I had his full attention. ‘When we came here the first time, you insisted that we adopt the guises of an old man and his daughter, and I realized you wanted to hide our true identities from somebody. I wondered who it was, and why you didn’t want them to recognize us.’

He went: ‘Hrmph,’ and I knew he was thinking. Then he said, ‘What did you decide?’

‘That you believed the abbey was dangerous to us. To me, especially, because the new fanatical priest you spoke about – Father Clement – might have learned that I’d spoken to Elfritha concerning  . . . well, concerning my healing, which he probably would regard as pagan, sinful, the devil’s work. Oh,
I
don’t know,’ I exclaimed in sudden frustration, ‘I don’t really understand.’

‘You are quite right,’ Hrype said, coming to my rescue. ‘A man such as Father Clement believes there is but one true path to salvation. It is very straight, very narrow, the walls on either side are very high and there is no alternative way. He would view you as a sorcerer, a witch, and a practitioner of magic. And, worst of all, you’re also a woman.’ He gave me an ironic smile. ‘Doubly damned, I’m afraid.’

I barely recognized myself from his description, other than the bit about being a woman. ‘I don’t do magic,’ I whispered.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘No? Then the stories I’ve heard about a certain young healer who can dowse for hidden paths and lost objects must be untrue.’

‘That’s different,’ I began. ‘That’s just something I can do  . . .’ I stopped.

He grinned. ‘There you are, then. It’s magic, to someone as narrow-minded as Father Clement.’

There was a pause while I thought about that. Then I said, ‘Do you think I’m right? Do you think Herleva and Elfritha were poisoned because they’d been whispering about forbidden things?’ My words were hurting me, but I had to finish. ‘Things I’d told Elfritha, that she’d passed on to her best friend?’

Oh, if that were true, if those two innocent young women had been harmed because of something I had done, then how was I going to live with myself? Nevertheless, I was convinced I was right. They’d sat in a corner somewhere, white-veiled heads close together, and Elfritha had told her friend all about the wonderful, thrilling, magical things her little sister got up to. Someone had overheard; somehow the conversation had reached the attention of a powerful figure in the abbey. And this person had killed Herleva, dressing her death up as a sacrifice to the spirits of the place, and then they had tried to poison my sister.

Although I shied away from the thought, I knew who I suspected, and there seemed no room in my mind for any other possibilities. But was I right? Could such evil have been perpetrated by the person I suspected?

I had to ask.

‘Hrype?’ I whispered. He turned to look at me, his face unreadable. ‘Hrype, could Father Clement be so fanatical that he would murder two young nuns, simply because they had spoken of forbidden matters?’ Even as I spoke the words, I found myself denying them. Surely no man of God could have done something so brutal, even a fanatic like Father Clement.

The instant denial that I’d been hoping for did not come. Instead, after a long pause, Hrype said, ‘Father Clement is strict, blinkered and powerful. His own beliefs are so strong that he truly thinks his is the only path to certain redemption. He is, I feel, hard on others because he sincerely wants them to come to his god and, when they die, be permitted to spend eternity in paradise. Everything he does – and, as I told you before, he is as tough on himself as on his flock – is with that aim in mind.’

‘But would he kill?’ I persisted.

Hrype looked at me, smiling. ‘No, Lassair.’ He hesitated, then went on, ‘He is the priest of the Chatteris nuns, responsible for their spiritual welfare, and, up to a point, he would be prepared to impose much hardship and even suffering, in the form of penance, if he thought he would thereby bring an errant soul to his god.’ He leaned closer to me, the smile gone. ‘But murder is a sin, a deadly sin, and a priest such as Father Clement would no more consider it than fly off over the fens. He is no killer, Lassair. Be assured of that.’

It was both a relief, because the thought of my sister and her friend being poisoned by a man they trusted was so dreadful, and a disappointment, because if Father Clement wasn’t responsible, who was?

We sat there a little while longer, and then, without speaking a word, at the same moment we stood up and set off back to the infirmary.

It was dark in the little room where my sister lay, the only light coming from a tallow lamp set beside the bed. Edild sat beside her patient, watching her closely, from time to time letting another drop or two of cold water fall on the cracked lips. Hrype wrapped himself up in his cloak and lay down in the corner behind the door. Once more, if I hadn’t known he was there, I’d never have guessed, so thoroughly did he seem to melt into the background.

There was no sound in the room. I felt my eyelids drooping and once or twice had to jerk myself awake from a light doze. I realized how tired I was; it had been such a long day  . . . Then, as is the way when you’re exhausted, all at once I was deeply asleep, lost in some worrying, muddled dream in which I had to find my way through shivering sands where one wrong footstep would drag me down to a horrible death. The thick, viscous mud was actually flowing into my mouth when once more I was kicked back into wakefulness.

The relief of finding it had only been a dream was short-lived. There were low voices in the infirmary: the soft, whispery tones of a nun, and a man’s rumbling mutter.

There was, as far as I knew, only one man who could be in the abbey infirmary in the middle of the night.

Hrype had clearly realized the same thing. He was already on his feet, a deeper shade in the shadowy corner, and even as I watched, he slipped out through the partly-open door. There was a brief gust of cold night air, and I guessed he had gone out through the door that led on to the cloister.

My aunt sat for a moment staring at the place where he had apparently vanished. Then she turned to me, and I saw the relief in her eyes.

I heard footsteps: Father Clement was completing his rounds with a visit to the sick novice. There was just enough time to pull my shawl up over my head, concealing my face, and lie down with my eyes closed. I made myself take some deep, calming breaths. If I was going to be convincing in my pretence of being asleep, I would have to sound right. I tried out a small snore. It sounded authentic. I did another one, soon getting into a rhythm.