Free The Way Between the Worlds by Alys Clare Page A

voice to an intimate whisper.
    The cheese seller put her mouth close to my ear. ‘She was hit on the head and her neck was slit from ear to ear,’ she whispered back. She looked swiftly up and down the track, but there was nobody in sight. ‘There’s something else,’ she hissed. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this. No one’s supposed to know, not even the nuns themselves, but I had to visit the herbalist on account of she wanted some of my sage and I overheard her talking to the abbess.’ She paused, undoubtedly for dramatic effect, then said, ‘Poor little Herleva was poisoned!’
    I remembered Elfritha mentioning the pool of vomit. I’d thought perhaps Herleva had been sick because of her terror. But poison! How extraordinary, that she’d been poisoned, then hit on the head, then had her throat cut. Had the poison not been sufficiently potent and the blow to the head not hard enough? Poor little Herleva, indeed. Somebody had been utterly determined that she should die, even if it took three attempts.
    ‘Surely she was very young, for someone to hate her so much?’ I said, opening my eyes wide and trying to sound naive.
    The cheese seller patted my hand kindly. ‘Oh, there’s reasons enough to kill a person other than hatred,’ she said, ‘as I fear you’ll come to understand, my dearie, before you’re much older.’
    ‘But what could they possibly be?’ I asked, genuinely wanting an answer. Herleva was young, kind, gossipy and a novice nun. Why would any of those things make anyone want to kill her?
    The old woman shook her head. ‘No use asking me, dearie. I came to realize years ago that the ways of this wicked world are beyond my comprehension.’
    She levered herself to her feet and raised her yoke back on to her shoulders, wincing as she did so. ‘The lass would have been poor, so it can’t have been theft that made someone do for her. Nor love, come to that, since the nuns are chaste, or meant to be!’ She laughed shortly. ‘Your guess is as good as mine, dearie. Now, I must be getting on my way, or I won’t be done afore dark.’
    I stood up too. ‘I hear there’s a new priest here,’ I said. I was interested to see if the woman would have an opinion on him, and I wasn’t disappointed.
    ‘ Him !’ She spat on the ground. ‘Yes, we’ve a new priest all right. I don’t know how he is with those nuns, but I can tell you, dearie, he’s as tough as they come with the likes of us. Hard as rock, he is. Rigid in his ways, with no time for excuses and explanations. A sin’s a sin, and that’s that.’ She leaned closer, dropping her voice. ‘We don’t much like him, I can tell you that. He’s got no heart, see. Like my son says, he wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.’ She nodded, as if to emphasize her words.
    ‘I see.’
    ‘Don’t tell anyone I said that,’ she added, her face suddenly anxious.
    I patted her broad arm. ‘Of course I won’t.’ On impulse I reached in my satchel and took out a small pot of Edild’s remedy for stiff muscles. ‘Use some of this on your shoulders before you go to bed tonight,’ I said, pressing it into her hand. ‘It’ll help the pain.’
    She looked at it, then up at me, giving me a kind but almost toothless smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘It’s good to know there’s some fine, Christian folk left in this wicked world.’
    Then she waddled away.
    It was time for me to leave Chatteris. So thoroughly was my curiosity aroused that if I stayed, I knew I might be tempted to throw caution to the winds and try to go into the abbey and seek out Elfritha. She had been Herleva’s friend. She would know, if anyone did, the secret reason why the poor little novice had died. She might not realize she knew, but I could, I was sure, winkle the information out of her if I asked the right questions.
    No, I must not even think of going into the abbey.
    My footsteps had taken me back along the track that led to the gates, but I made