Mist Over the Water by Alys Clare Read Free Book Online

bodies, skeletons in rusty armour, black, empty eye sockets staring up at you, bony hands reaching out for help—’
    I wasn’t going to put up with someone trying to scare me out of my wits. ‘I suppose it must have been near here that the Conqueror built his causeway,’ I interrupted, trying to make my tone nonchalant.
    The boatman looked surprised that I should know that but quickly he rallied. ‘This here were Hereward’s stronghold, see,’ he said proudly, ‘the place he chose to set up his standard when he came home to find his lands forfeited and his own brother’s head on a spike over the door.’ I had heard the tale many times but it was still shocking. I imagined returning to my own home and finding my dear Haward’s head on a pole. Quickly, I turned my attention back to the boatman.
    ‘The Conqueror made many attempts to get over the fen but each time he was thwarted,’ the man was saying, puffing slightly as he pulled on the oars, ‘and finally he gave orders for a fleet of wooden rafts to be built and formed up into a causeway. Right here.’ He nodded at the water beneath the keel. ‘Not content with that, he got hold of a local witch and set her up in a high tower, from where she hurled down terrible curses on everyone on the island. Seemingly, he thought she’d undermine our resolve, but she fell and broke her neck and that was the end of that.’ He cackled, coughed, then leaned over the side and spat. I had noted our resolve . Intentionally or not, the boatman had just told us plainly on which side his loyalties lay. It was as well for him that Sibert and I were not Norman spies.
    ‘What happened then?’ Sibert’s eyes were wide.
    The boatman looked gratified at having such an absorbed listener. ‘Well, Hereward knew all about the Conqueror’s causeway, see, and according to some he disguised himself and went out to lend a hand in the building of it. Then when the army was halfway across, too late to order them back, at last the Conqueror realized what Hereward had done.’ He chuckled again. ‘He’d set traps, see,’ he explained before we could ask. ‘He’d made weak spots at intervals all along that long causeway, and when the moment was right he made the planks collapse under the weight, then he set fire to what was left. Most of the soldiers drowned,’ he added in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘and those who didn’t ran away for fear of the deadly, sucking stickiness of the black marsh and what lay hidden beneath.’ He leered again, rolling his eyes for added effect.
    ‘I understand that the monks revealed the secret ways across,’ I said calmly. I guessed this must have been the next chapter in the boatman’s story, for he looked quite cross. ‘Some of them were not wholly behind Hereward’s revolt, or so I am told.’
    ‘You’re told right then, lass,’ the boatman agreed sullenly. ‘Not that it did them much good in the end, either their disapproval of Hereward or their treachery, because, far from being grateful that they’d told him what he wanted to know, the Conqueror was angry with them for not telling him sooner. There’s kings for you,’ he added softly, almost to himself, with a world-weary inflection, as if he had known dozens of kings and was all too familiar with their little foibles.
    ‘What did the Conqueror do?’ Sibert asked.
    The boatman smiled grimly. ‘He made the Ely monks travel halfway across England to seek him out, and then he told them coldly what he wanted from them, to make it up to him.’ Again, his eyes flicked from me to Sibert. ‘Only a thousand pounds!’ he hissed.
    Sibert and I both gasped. It was an unheard-of sum. ‘How did they possibly manage that?’ I whispered.
    ‘Sold or melted down every bit of gold and silver they possessed,’ the boatman said, not without a certain air of satisfaction. It appeared he had little more time for monks than for kings. ‘Crosses, altar pieces, chalices, basins, goblets and all, as well