Music of the Distant Stars Read online

  I glanced at Edild and met her eyes. I imagined that, like me, she was going through her medical knowledge – in her case, so much greater than mine – to see if she could hazard a guess as to what had caused this fit and why its effects should persist.

  ‘Fortunately for both families,’ Hrype went on, ‘each of whom has their reasons for desiring the match, there is another, younger, sister. She—’

  ‘Why do the girl’s family want this marriage with a man who is far from rich?’ I put in.

  Hrype raised an eyebrow. ‘Because they want the de Villequier name,’ he said. ‘They have discovered that wealth is not enough. When it is in the hands of a name not recognized by the great magnates of the land, it buys material goods, but not position.’

  ‘So he comes from a famous family?’ I persisted.

  ‘He does. The name resonates through Norman halls of power.’ I would have liked to know more and was poised to ask another question when Hrype, who seemed to read my mind, shot me a glowering look and I subsided. ‘There was still a problem to be surmounted, however,’ he said, ‘because the younger daughter is very, very devout and had set her heart on entering a convent and dedicating her life and her body to the service of God. When her mother told her that she could not have her dearest wish and instead was to marry Alain de Villequier, she, too, fell into a faint, although in her case recovery was somewhat swifter. She tried everything she could think of, even going as far as shaving her head and adopting the habit of a nun, but her mother was adamant.’

  I felt a surge of sympathy for this poor girl. I am quite interested in the Christian religion, and I appreciate how people love the charismatic, compassionate, suffering figure of their saviour, but I cannot imagine dedicating my life to him at the cost of everything that normally lies in wait for a woman. Earthly love, a husband, children. My sister Elfritha is a nun, in the convent at Chatteris. I know that she is blissfully happy, despite the hardships of the life. I also know it is not for me. However, to want with all your soul to be a nun and be forced into marriage instead would, I imagined, be as bad as wanting to marry and being shut up in a convent.

  ‘In the end the girl bowed to her mother’s wishes,’ Hrype was saying, ‘although they say that the concession was partly starved, partly beaten out of her.’ He frowned. ‘Claritia has, apparently, a heavy hand.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ I asked. ‘Have they locked her up in a high tower in case she runs away?’

  Hrype smiled. ‘No. She has given her word at the altar that she will marry Alain de Villequier, and her word is good enough. She is, as I have said, very devout. She will not break an oath sworn before God.’

  It was, I thought, cunning of her mother to have made the girl swear her oath in church. It was devious, somehow, to use the strength of the girl’s feelings against her. I decided I really did not like the sound of this Claritia.

  Hrype was speaking. To my amazement I heard the word Lakehall.

  ‘What?’ I demanded. ‘What’s that about Lakehall?’

  ‘It is where the lady is staying,’ Hrype said. ‘She lodges with her kinsman Lord Gilbert.’

  Of course! I’d thought fleetingly when Hrype had mentioned the name of the young lady’s grandmother that it was somehow familiar. ‘So Lord Gilbert’s grandfather and the girl’s grandmother were brother and sister,’ I said slowly, working it out, ‘making her and Lord Gilbert second cousins.’

  ‘Yes,’ Hrype agreed. ‘With his future wife living for the moment at Lakehall, where she is staying prior to the wedding to allow her to become acquainted with her husband, all the more reason for Sir Alain to be given the task of investigating the death of the young seamstress.’

  Information had been coming too fast. I held up my hands, muttering, ‘Wait, wait!’ It did not take me long; I just had to bring together two strands of the story, which I had thought ran separately. ‘So Sir Alain is to wed Lady Claude,’ I said, ‘for she is the woman you’ve been speaking of – the wealthy heiress who wanted to be a nun, but has to marry because her mother wants the power of an ancient and revered family name.’ Hrype began to answer, but I hadn’t finished. ‘Lady Claude has come here to meet Sir Alain, and it’s her seamstress, Ida, who accompanied her to Lakehall to help her sew her trousseau, who has been killed.’

  Hrype waited with exaggerated patience to see if I was going to say more. When it became clear that I wasn’t, he said, ‘Well done, Lassair.’ There was a definite note of irony in his voice.

  Edild had not spoken for some time. She had sat there absorbing Hrype’s story and only now did she stir. ‘You are well-informed, Hrype,’ she observed.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘how do you come to know all this?’

  He took one of Edild’s hands in both of his, gently caressing the back of it with his long fingers. Then he turned to look at me. ‘I heard several weeks ago of Sir Alain de Villequier’s appointment,’ he replied, ‘and I thought that, since he would come to be a prominent figure in the vicinity, I ought to discover what I could about the man. I went to see a good friend of mine who lives in Cambridge.’ He glanced at me, a flash of mischief in his eyes. ‘Gurdyman is a wizard, Lassair. He has the power to stare into the scrying glass and divine the secrets of men’s lives and hearts.’

  I did not know whether to believe him. The idea of a magical wizard living in the urban sophistication of Cambridge was somehow hard to accept but, on the other hand, Hrype certainly did know some very odd people . . .

  ‘Have pity on her, Hrype,’ Edild murmured.

  He grinned, suddenly looking much younger and almost carefree. ‘Very well. Gurdyman is in truth a sage, a wise man who spends his days hunched up over ancient manuscripts, trying to winkle out the wisdom of the past. He is also very astute and, for a man of such an academic temperament, surprisingly well informed about the doings of the great and the good of our land. The de Villequier family’s history is well known to him, as is that of the de Caudebecs.’

  I wondered why a Cambridge sage had been prompted to learn so much about a bunch of Normans. Hrype answered my question, even though I had not spoken it aloud.

  ‘I was not entirely in jest when I said Gurdyman was a wizard,’ he said softly. ‘He is profoundly wise in the Old Ways and therefore potentially an object of interest to our new masters. It always pays, young Lassair, to know your enemy. Gurdyman’s knowledge of the Normans is probably as great as that of King William himself.’

  Your enemy. His words chilled me, not because they told me anything I did not already know – the Normans have been ruling over us for more than twenty-five years now and, although we have no choice but to bow down before their ruthless and chillingly efficient authority, nevertheless in our hearts they are still the enemy. No; what caused my attention to falter is that it is to one of them, a Norman, that I seem to have given my heart. The man I love is, on his own admission, close to the central power that now rules in our land.

  It hardly mattered, though, who he was, if I was never going to see him again . . .

  There was a touch on my arm, and I came out of my sad reverie. Edild was looking at me, concern in her eyes. ‘You are very pale, Lassair,’ she said. ‘You should sleep now, for the day has been long and full of distress for you.’

  She was right. All of a sudden I felt so weary that it was all I could do to stand up. ‘Please excuse me, then,’ I said politely. ‘I will go and prepare for bed.’

  I wanted to visit the jakes and wash my face and hands before I undressed. In addition, it was nice if my aunt and Hrype had the chance to say goodnight without a witness. I took my time and, when I had finished, I strolled down the track for a few paces, sensing the small rustlings of the evening as the wild creatures settled down for the night. I looked up at the sky. The stars were appearing even as I watched. It was a beautiful sight.

  Suddenly I was vitally alert, my eyes, ears, even my skin, sensing all around me and fear coursing through me like flame. I had heard an unexpected soun
d: someone was singing.

  I don’t know why it alarmed me so much. Yes, it was a plaintive, sad song, so full of despair that it would have moved me to tears had I not been so afraid. It was not exactly a song; more a chant, and I am very familiar with chants. My Granny Cordeilla taught me that it is often easier to remember the endless lines of a long narrative if you put in some rhythm and some rhyme, and from there it’s only a matter of time before you start singing.

  What was worrying about this lament – it could not have been anything else – was that I did not recognize the voice, the notes of the chant nor the words, and I knew therefore that the singer was nobody I knew; nobody who belonged in Aelf Fen.

  What was really frightening was that, although I stared all around me, I could not see anybody. The singer was invisible.

  I wanted to flee, but I could not. It was as if the sounds I was hearing, which seemed to flow over me and draw me into the strong emotion behind them, had fixed me to the spot. Against my will I listened to the words. It was very strange, but it was as if I could not hear them individually; I could only perceive the meaning they strove to impart. The chill of coming night seemed to flow up out of the ground into my feet, up my legs and into the warm centre of my body, and as the chant went on I felt as if my soul was being drawn out of me, up, up, away from the good, solid earth and into the darkening sky, heading for the stars . . .

  Then I heard a door quietly close and the sound of firm footsteps on the path behind me. Abruptly, the singing stopped.

  Hrype called out, ‘Sleep well, Lassair.’

  I dragged myself together and managed a reply. Even to my own ears, my voice sounded shaky. Hoping he would attribute this to my fatigue – he had stopped and was eyeing me curiously – I made myself smile. ‘I’ll be quite all right tomorrow,’ I said.

  He smiled back. ‘You’d better be,’ he remarked. ‘It promises to be a challenging day.’

  Wondering what he meant – it sounded ominous – I hurried back along the track to Edild’s cottage, let myself in and very carefully closed and fastened the door.

  FIVE

  My sleep was filled with weird dreams, and in the morning I did not feel all that rested. Edild informed me that our duty today was to lay out the dead girl’s body. It is one of the services that Edild performs for our village, and she has been training me so that I can follow in her footsteps when she is too old. I knew I could not avoid the task – I know full well I must do whatever my aunt tells me – but the thought of preparing poor Ida’s body for the grave was quite dreadful.

  Edild must have noticed my reaction. Instead of querying it, which would have been pointless as we both knew I had no choice but to do as I was told, she said calmly, ‘We are not expected at Lakehall until midday. I can manage without you this morning, so why don’t you go across the village and see your mother?’

  I bolted the last of my porridge and leapt up. It was early yet, and if I hurried, I might get home before my father left for work.

  Some time later, I was sitting beside my mother in our family’s house. There had been barely enough space for us all when we’d all lived there, for at our most crowded we had numbered eight plus a baby: my father, my big, blonde mother, my Granny Cordeilla (not that she ever took up much room), my sisters Goda and Elfritha, my brothers Haward and Squeak (his real name’s Sihtric, but hardly anyone remembers that) and the baby, Leir. Now that my sisters and I all lived elsewhere – I with Edild, Elfritha with her nuns and Goda, the eldest of us (and I have to say the least agreeable) with her husband and two little children in Icklingham, a few miles away – my parents shared the house only with their three sons and, although Leir is a baby no more (he is four), there would still be room enough for Haward’s bride.

  I don’t think any of the family had thought yet how it would be living with Derman.

  This morning just my mother was at home. I had caught my father as he was leaving, my disappointment assuaged a little by the warmth of his hug and his quiet words of comfort, just for me, spoken softly in my ear. My mother, too, was red-eyed; Granny Cordeilla had been a good mother-in-law to her, and the two had been close.

  ‘I know she was small and had few possessions,’ my mother said, twitching a stray strand of long, pale hair neatly behind her clean white headdress, ‘but the house just seems so empty without her.’

  I felt the same. I was rapidly learning that it’s not the actual space a person occupies that matters; it’s the extent to which their character expands to fill a house.

  I squeezed my mother’s hand. ‘It’s hard for you and the men folk,’ I said, ‘since you have to live with the constant reminder that she’s not here any more.’

  My mother wiped her eyes. ‘Yes, that’s true, but there’s a comfort in being here, because she’s still with us.’ She frowned. ‘Well, she’s not, of course, but—’ She shrugged, apparently unable to put the feeling into words.

  ‘I know,’ I whispered. I had just caught a glimpse of Granny Cordeilla, sitting up on her little cot eyeing us brightly and waiting her chance to get a word in, just as she always did when I came to visit. The fact that her cot had been dismantled and ceremonially burned, as is our custom, and that Granny herself was dead and in her grave, did not appear to have made any difference. I hugged my mother’s large body to me and winked at Granny over her shoulder. Granny winked back.

  Presently, my mother disentangled herself from my arms, gave me a quick but affectionate peck on the cheek and said, ‘Enough of tears! Let’s talk about something else.’

  I took a last look at Granny, already fading into the planed planks of the wall behind her. She would be back, and we both knew it. Then I settled down beside my mother and said, ‘What shall we talk about?’

  As if she had been waiting for this invitation, she said instantly, ‘Haward’s going to marry her,’ and I knew precisely what was on her mind.

  ‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘Zarina’s a fine woman, and she loves Haward sincerely. She’ll make him happy.’

  In my eagerness to reassure my mother, I had spoken without thinking. Instantly, my mother pounced: ‘How can you possibly know?’

  I could not tell her. Could not begin to explain how Hrype had started to teach me the rudiments of rune lore and how, unable to resist the temptation, I had slipped away with my own crude set of symbols, succeeded in putting myself in a light trance and asked the question burning in my mind: will she make my loving, vulnerable brother Haward a good wife? The answer had come, swiftly, unequivocally, and I had read it both in the fall of the runes and in the succession of images that had seared through my head.

  I could not tell my mother this. Far more crucially, I could not tell Hrype, for he had specifically warned against the perils of a novice such as I asking personal questions. The pounding, throbbing, sick-making headache I had endured all the next day was my punishment. If Hrype had noticed – and he probably had – he must have decided there was no need for him to add anything.

  ‘I just feel she’s the right woman for him,’ I said now. It was a weak answer, but seemed to satisfy my mother.

  ‘I do too,’ she said, the frown deepening. ‘I shall welcome her here, just as Cordeilla welcomed me, and I shall do as she did and endeavour to overlook what differences Zarina and I may have and concentrate on what binds us.’

  ‘But?’ I knew there was a but. I also knew what it was.

  My mother gave a faint, defeated shrug and said simply, ‘Derman.’

  I waited, gathering my thoughts. Then I said, ‘What does Zarina say? Is it definitely the case that where she goes her brother goes too?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ My mother spoke sharply, but I knew her frustration was not with me. ‘I said Haward’s going to marry her, but in truth I believe he hasn’t actually asked her yet.’ A soft smile lit her face. ‘He told us all two days ago that he was going to. It was so sweet, Lassair, almost as if he were asking our permission.’

  That was just like my
brother. I could follow his thought process: he’d have reasoned, very fairly, that his parents and his brothers were going to have to share their house with the new wife and so would have wanted to ensure they were happy at the prospect. Naturally, it was better for everyone if people liked each other. Houses in our village are pretty small. There is nowhere to get away from an uncongenial fellow inhabitant, as all of us had known all too well when Goda had still lived at home.

  ‘Perhaps we should just wait and see,’ I said tentatively. ‘Maybe Zarina has a plan. There could be family we haven’t heard about who could take Derman.’ My mother began to protest. ‘Yes, I know she said they were alone in the world, but maybe there’s someone who’s like a relation, but not actually kin. What about those travelling entertainers that Zarina was with when first she came to the village? It’s possible, surely, that Derman may go back to them?’

  My mother looked singularly unconvinced. ‘It’s possible, I suppose, but not very likely. You see, Lassair,’ she added in a burst of confidence, ‘it’s been the problem all along, the one thing that’s come between Haward and Zarina: what to do about Derman. If there was an easy solution such as you suggest –’ I’d never actually said it would be easy, but I let it pass – ‘then I’m sure Zarina would have said so, got on with implementing the arrangements and she and Haward would have been wed these many months past.’