Blood of the South Read online

  ‘Which could equally well describe the woman lying up there.’ Jack jerked his head in the direction of the church.

  Slowly, inexorably – joyfully – the truth dawned. ‘She’s my kinswoman,’ I whispered. ‘My father’s cousin.’

  I had felt love for her; perhaps it had been the link of our common blood, calling out as it recognized its own.

  There was no time to dwell on that now, although I had the feeling I would do in the future. Already we were hastening on again, and all too soon we’d be confronting Lord Gilbert. And my aunt …

  Something else occurred to me. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I said.

  Jack gave a swift grin, quickly suppressed. ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘It’s probably not important, but I can’t quite work it out. Lady Rosaria and the blonde woman exchanged clothes before they disembarked at Lynn – they must have done, because the mate of The Good Shepherd said it was the maid who had to be helped ashore, not the lady. But we now know it was the blonde woman, not Lady Rosaria, who was dying.’ I paused, trying to work it out. ‘I suppose Rosaria recognized that her mistress was already very sick and would probably die, and so swapped their roles while she had the chance.’

  Jack gave me a strange look. I’d expected him to dismiss my unease, but instead I was left with the feeling that he shared it.

  We got as far as telling Lord Gilbert that it had been the blonde woman, not Lady Rosaria, who was the infant’s mother, but he seemed to be unable to take it in. He asked the same questions over and over again, and I think we’d have gone on all day had Lady Emma not intervened, summing up our discoveries with admirable brevity and clarity. Holding my eyes, she inclined her head subtly towards her husband, as if to say, Don’t worry about him, I’ll explain it later.

  Addressing my remarks to her and to Edild, who had been in the hall talking quietly to Lady Emma when we got back, I said, ‘The fact that Lady Rosaria wasn’t his mother explains his sadness, since he was pining for his real mother, and also why the bodice of Lady Rosaria’s gown was too loose, and why she’d taken up the hem. It wasn’t her gown.’

  ‘Please,’ Lord Gilbert said plaintively, ‘can we all stop calling her Lady Rosaria?’

  I hid a smile. It was going to take Lord Gilbert some time to get over having been so thoroughly taken in.

  ‘I cannot but feel sorry for L— for Rosaria,’ Lady Emma said. ‘And for the mistress whose place she usurped. To have come all that way, surviving the perils of the rough seas, only for both of them to die on reaching the longed-for goal.’

  ‘Yes, my lady,’ I agreed. ‘And the poor blonde woman was sick almost all the way; certainly, from Bordeaux to Lynn …’

  Three curious, intent pairs of eyes stared at me; four, if you counted Lord Gilbert’s, but he still only seemed to have a vague idea of what we were talking about.

  My aunt said softly, ‘What is it, Lassair?’

  ‘Something has been worrying me for some time, and I’ve just realized what it is,’ I said, the words tumbling out. ‘It was odd, surely, that, according to the mate of the ship on which they sailed, the “maid” wasn’t sick on the voyage from Corunna to Bordeaux – perhaps the worst bit of the Bay of Biscay – yet, as soon as they sailed north from Bordeaux, she was vomiting continuously. Because—’

  But all at once I found I didn’t want to go on.

  Jack turned to Lady Emma. ‘Have we your permission to search through Rosaria’s belongings?’

  She nodded, clearly understanding. ‘Of course. This way.’

  She and Lord Gilbert stood in the doorway while Edild and I inspected the many items that Lady Rosaria had spread out. Beautiful robes and underclothing; fine shoes; rich jewellery. And then, in a small leather bag tied with a drawstring, a little glass pot containing a mysterious dark substance.

  Edild removed the lid and inspected the contents. After quite a long time, she said, ‘This is kohl. It is a cosmetic, used to outline and enhance the eyes.’ I wondered if the others were having the same thought: having suffered the terrible mutilation of her nose, it was hardly surprising that she wished to make her other features as beautiful as possible. And, out of memory, once again those magnificent dark eyes stared at me.

  ‘Kohl is made from finely powdered stibium, otherwise called antimony,’ Edild went on, ‘mixed up with soot and blended with olive oil to make a paste.’ She was already searching through the remainder of the objects Rosaria had left spread around the room. ‘We must try to find the raw ingredients,’ she muttered. Then she raised her head, looking at each of us in turn. ‘Stibium is a poison, producing headaches, dizziness, sickness. It is used as an emetic, but in ruthless hands, it is the tool of a murderer. Fed in regular small amounts over many days, the resulting continual vomiting weakens the victim, until finally they become so debilitated that they can no longer hold off death.’

  Edild was still searching, her movements increasingly desperate. Gently Jack caught hold of her hands. ‘If you are right,’ he said, ‘and I am sure you are, she will have got rid of the poison long since.’

  Edild stopped, then stood perfectly still. ‘Of course,’ she said neutrally.

  ‘So – so Rosaria, who was originally the maid, poisoned the blonde woman, who was originally her mistress, by putting this stuff in her food all the way home?’ Lord Gilbert’s fury seemed about to choke him, and I couldn’t help wondering if he would have been as indignant had it been the lady who had poisoned the maid.

  ‘It seems likely,’ Jack said.

  ‘Can this theory be put to the test?’ Lord Gilbert demanded. ‘The drowned woman is still in the crypt beneath the church. You!’ He spun round to Edild. ‘Can you tell for sure if she had taken poison?’

  ‘I will try,’ Edild said calmly, ‘although it must now be almost a fortnight since her death.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ I said firmly. I was desperate to get her alone, for she needed to know the whole story.

  My aunt and I stood over the body of the blonde woman, and Edild frowned in concentration. After some time, she said, ‘To establish with certainty whether or not she was given antimony, I’ll have to open her stomach and inspect the contents.’ Already she was pulling at the winding sheet.

  I caught hold of her wrist. ‘Don’t,’ I said softly. I’d once seen Gurdyman perform the procedure on a corpse, and I didn’t want it to happen to this woman.

  Edild shot me a look. ‘Explain.’

  I paused, gathering my thoughts. Then I said, ‘As we surmise, Rosaria was a slave. She wasn’t Harald’s daughter-in-law, but one of his servants, sent by the dying Harald to accompany the tall, blonde woman and her little boy on her long voyage to find her English kin. Rosaria wasn’t married to any son of Harald; perhaps he never even had a son.’ Again, I paused. ‘But he did have a daughter, and his daughter married a man of the south, dark-haired and olive-skinned. When he died and Harald was dying, Harald’s daughter and her baby were the last of his line, for had there been other family in Constantinople, then there would have been no need to send them so far away. He had to save them,’ I went on, ‘and getting them away to his kindred in the north was the best he could do.’

  Edild was touching the dead woman’s shoulder with delicate fingers. I saw a tear on her cheek.

  Very softly I said, ‘This is Harald’s daughter. She’s your cousin.’

  I heard Edild sharply draw in her breath.

  There was silence for a long time. Then Edild put her hand down to where the sheet covered the dead woman’s heart, resting it lightly above the smooth linen. ‘We would have welcomed you, cousin,’ she said gently. ‘We are not rich, and have no fine houses such as Rosaria was hoping to find, but what we have we would have shared with you.’

  I waited until Edild raised her head, then, my eyes holding hers, I said, ‘Rosaria killed her. She poisoned her, bit by bit, making her sick for days on end, and she took her identity. Then, when she finally succumbed and died, Rosaria pushed her
body into the water. The storm surge and the flood that came immediately afterwards dislodged the corpse from wherever it was hidden, and washed it so far inland up the river that, when it was found, Aelf Fen was the nearest place to which to go for help.’

  Slowly Edild nodded. ‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘Yes, that is how it must have been.’ Then, frowning, she said, ‘But why, when Harald sent his daughter away to England, did he let her and her maidservant believe they were going to find a noble, rich household where they would live in luxury? He knew they wouldn’t. He knew they’d only find us.’

  I thought about what Sihtric the monk had said: There was never anyone like Harald for building up a tale, and we always took everything he said with a pinch of salt. ‘He exaggerated,’ I said softly. ‘So far from home, who was to know if he made his family out to be richer and more powerful than they really were? In time, no doubt, like many braggarts, he came to believe his own boasting. I don’t think,’ I concluded, ‘that he’d deliberately have misled his beloved daughter.’

  For some time, neither of us spoke. Then, taking a breath and squaring her shoulders, Edild bestowed a last gentle pat on the dead woman and turned away. ‘I shall leave her be. The kohl we found among Rosaria’s belongings is sufficient to suggest she could have poisoned her mistress; whether or not she did, it hardly makes any difference now.’ She met my eyes. ‘God will judge her,’ she murmured.

  Then she led the way across the crypt to the steps, and we left our dead kinswoman to the peace of death.

  The earthquake that hit the north-western tip of the Anatolian plateau that September morning brought down a long section of the ruined walls of ancient Troy. The group of twenty-three northerners who had been standing at the foot of the plateau when disaster struck got off lightly; only two of them died.

  The remainder, leaderless, terrified almost to madness, at first tried with frantic hands to extract their fallen comrades from the huge heap of earth and stones. But it was hopeless. The ground was still shuddering, and, pausing only to scratch a few hasty runes on to a block of fallen masonry, they fled.

  As they hastened back to Gullinbursti, carrying the unconscious and helping the injured and dazed, a pair of ravens soared overhead.

  Rollo came to himself two days later. His head ached so badly that he groaned aloud. Exploring his skull with nervous fingers, he found a lump the size of an egg on his forehead and a long ragged cut running up into his hairline. His left leg hurt, too. Risking a glance at it, he saw that his ankle had been put in splints and bandaged.

  He dared not even start to think what sort of injury those wrappings concealed.

  But I am alive, he thought.

  He thought back to the moment of disaster. He had seen the high cliff that formed the edge of the plateau begin to quiver, and then, as it had melted before his horrified eyes, he had dashed forward to try to pull Skuli back.

  Now, as he gazed around the deck, slowly counting heads, he understood that he had failed. Skuli was gone; so was Tostig the singer, who had been at Skuli’s side as they approached the place Skuli had convinced his crew was Asgard, home of the gods. Fat Eric now held the tiller, but he wasn’t laughing any more.

  Gullinbursti was under sail, and a stiff breeze from out of the south-east sped them along. It was a blessing, for the depleted crew, shocked and grieving, were as yet in no state for the hard physical work of rowing. Perhaps, Rollo thought vaguely, the gods, having punched Skuli and his men very hard in the face for their audacity, were now feeling a little remorse, and sending them a favourable wind.

  Conversation was limited to everyday matters. Nobody seemed ready to talk about what had happened. Brand the cook, apparently having made up his mind that good food was the best cure, spoiled them every evening with meals that were irresistible, and, whenever supplies of fresh foods ran low, he insisted on putting in to shore to replenish his stores.

  And so Gullinbursti made her way home. As they rounded the southern tip of the Peloponnese, Rollo took his first stumbling steps unaided along the ship. As they headed west for Sicily, he won the argument with Brand – who as the oldest and most experienced mariner had taken the role of master – and finally took his place as a working member of the crew. His broken ankle prevented him from rowing, so Brand set out to teach him how to steer.

  The days passed. Sometimes the wind failed, and then the hours of daylight were sheer hard slog. At the tiller, Rollo began to learn his craft, and now found he no longer had to concentrate to the exclusion of everything else. With time to think, he went back in his mind over the preceding, extraordinary weeks.

  It was too painful to dwell on what had happened on the plateau, and Skuli’s madness still had the power to shock. Instead, Rollo turned his thoughts to Harald.

  What a tale he had told! With his inner eye, Rollo saw once again the old man’s face as he had described his marriage to his beautiful wife, and his boundless joy when the baby girl born to them grew up in her mother’s image. His happiness when the daughter – her name was Agathe – made a good marriage to an intelligent and perceptive Saracen doctor; the summit of all his hopes when her baby, Harald’s grandchild, was a boy.

  But then violence had spread through Miklagard. Frightened into panic by the rumours of the Turks at the door, the people had turned on each other, seeking out, as mankind will always do, those who worshipped God in a different way and using them as a focus for the angry attacks they could not make on the real enemy. And Ismail Adil Adnan, Agathe’s gentle, courageous, compassionate husband, had been brutally slain; attacked and cut to pieces by the blood-hungry, mindless mob.

  Then, with tears in his eyes, Harald had told Rollo how he had made the great sacrifice: fearing that the baby, as a child of mixed blood, would also be a target for the mob’s fury, he had made his beloved daughter and her son flee the overheated, dangerous city, sending them, with only a servant woman for company, far away to the only kin he had.

  You saved my life, old man, Rollo thought. And as you nursed me back to health and strength, you opened your heart and shared your soul with me.

  He’d had little to offer in return, but what he did have was probably the best possible gift. The memory of that was good, and Rollo gave it free rein.

  He had said to the old man, ‘Be comforted. Agathe’s long voyage won’t be in vain.’

  As he had heard the words, Harald’s face lit up. ‘Members of my family survive?’ he whispered tentatively, as if it were almost too much to hope for.

  ‘Indeed they do, and they are thriving,’ Rollo said gently. He described Lassair and her family, striving to remember all the names. ‘Your sister Cordeilla is dead –’ he heard the big man gasp, the small sound quickly suppressed – ‘but she lived to a good age, revered and loved by her family.’

  ‘When did she die?’ Harald asked, his voice shaking.

  Rollo searched his memory for the detail. ‘Two years ago. She’s buried on the secret island.’

  There was a long silence. Rollo, reluctant to break it, gave the man the time he seemed to need, and, eventually, he raised his head and looked straight at Rollo. His eyes were full of tears.

  ‘She’d have had two of her brothers there to keep her company, if I’d tried harder,’ he said. ‘But it was all such a mess after the king fell. The men had flocked to him, protecting him, driving forward with him, and the heaps of corpses were thickest around him.’ He bowed his head, his face working with emotion. ‘I know Sigbehrt was right beside him,’ he said quietly, ‘because I heard him shout that great cry he always gave when his blood was up, and I saw him standing, so tall and proud – they used to call him the Mighty Oak – just before he was cut down. And, wherever Sigbehrt was, Sagar wouldn’t be far away. He was an archer, really,’ he went on, some of the life returning to his face as he became swept up in his memories, ‘and his nickname was Sureshot. But when it came to close fighting, he was pretty handy at that, too, and anyway, since he was older than Sigbehrt – the olde
st of the three of us – he reckoned it was his job to look after Sigbehrt and me.’ He chuckled. ‘It always looked so comical, seeing Sagar fussing round Sigbehrt, when Sigbehrt was a head and a half taller and twice as broad.’

  As if his thoughts threatened to overcome him, he got up, paced to and fro across the little room, and then came back to sink down on to the end of the bed where Rollo lay. He said simply, ‘I couldn’t find them. There were so many of us, all searching for our own dead, and, in truth, given the injuries, it was no easy task. Then the rumours started – William the Bastard’s men were coming back and they were going to finish off anyone they found still lurking around. That cleared away most of the living, I can tell you, and I took my chance and made one final attempt. I must have stared into a hundred dead faces, but I didn’t find either of my brothers.’ He gave a shaky sigh. ‘They lie buried with all the others now, on the field where they sacrificed themselves for the way of life they wanted to see endure. All in vain.’

  His head dropped. Respecting his mood, Rollo waited, not speaking. After quite some time, Harald got up again and went over to the table. He picked up an object and, turning back to the bed, held it out to Rollo.

  It was a small knife, the fine, sharp blade set into a handle carved in a pattern of curls and swirls which, when Rollo looked closely, resolved into extraordinarily shaped birds and beasts. ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said. ‘Which one did it belong to?’

  Harald smiled; a soft expression of happy reminiscence. ‘Sagar. I found it not six paces from where the king fell.’

  Rollo gave the knife back, and Harald, after clutching it briefly in his right hand, laid it back on the table. He coughed a couple of times, then said, ‘So, you tell me I have a very pretty niece.’

  ‘She’s actually a great-niece, the granddaughter of your sister Cordeilla, but she is most certainly pretty.’ Rollo was staring into Harald’s eyes, understanding why their shape and colour had sparked off memories. ‘She has your eyes,’ he added.

  Harald nodded, although he didn’t speak. It seemed to Rollo that, for a few moments, speech was probably beyond him.