Vixen
Rosie Garland
Rosie Garland’s extraordinary tale is a story of superstition and devotion in the time of the Black Death and will bewitch both new readers and fans of her much-loved debut, The Palace of Curiosities.Devon, 1349. In Brauntone, where seagulls screech across the fields and the wind has a mind to change, Father Thomas arrives as the new priest. Determined to impress his congregation, he quells fears of the coming pestilence with promises of protection.For Anne, the priest’s arrival is an opportunity that at sixteen, she feels all too ready for. Convinced a grand fate awaits, she moves in as Thomas’s housekeeper, though hopeful of something more. But his home is a place without love or kindness. So when a strange, mute Maid is discovered, washed up in the marshes, and taken in, Anne is grateful for the company. Their friendship is to give Anne the chance of a happiness she thought she’d never know.But soon the plague strikes Brauntone, spreading panic. And as the villagers’ fear turns to anger, Thomas must sacrifice everything to restore their faith in him.
Epigraph (#ua9fbb700-2dba-51c4-ba73-13f764e6f689)
Love is the longing
for the half of ourselves
we have lost
from The Unbearable Lightness of Being
by Milan Kundera
Table of Contents
Cover (#ue043ea75-4675-5d51-af9f-e40fef986a4a)
Title Page (#u30f57c30-57e3-508e-ac46-2eec7f40b3f5)
Epigraph
Map (#ufbad61fb-fa37-57a7-9c55-4fcb6539c8f2)
Vigils: 1395
Anne
Advent: 1348
Vixen
Mattins: 1349
Thomas of Upcote
Anne
Vixen
Lauds: 1349
Thomas of Upcote
Anne
Vixen
Prime: 1349
Thomas of Upcote
Anne
Vixen
Terce: 1349
Thomas of Upcote
Anne
Vixen
Sext: 1349
Thomas of Upcote
Anne
Vixen
None: 1349
Thomas of Upcote
Anne
Vixen
Vespers: 1349
Thomas of Upcote
Anne
Vixen
Compline: 1349
Thomas of Upcote
Anne
Vixen
Nocturns: 1349
Thomas of Upcote
Vixen
Nunc Dimittis
Anne
About the Author
Also by Rosie Garland
Copyright
About the Publisher
VIGILS 1395 (#ua9fbb700-2dba-51c4-ba73-13f764e6f689)
ANNE (#ua9fbb700-2dba-51c4-ba73-13f764e6f689)
I declare at the start that I was muddle-brained and spoilt. There. It is out.
For all that, I shall have my say. I wasted years holding my tongue, and the older I grow, the less I am inclined to wastage of any kind, be it time, or bread, or affection. I have not been a particularly good woman, by the reckoning of men. Nor have I been especially wicked. I have been close enough to Death to rub elbows, and what I saw in His eyes did not affright me.
Before I go into His great sleep, I should like to see the village once again: walk along Silver Street, turn west at the crossroads on to Church Street, lift my skirts and paddle through the ford where the Caen runs shallow, pass the church and arrive at the house. There shall I pause, hand on the gatepost, and look up the path to the door. Memory preserves things as they were, not as they are: I see the windows shuttered, more oilcloth than glass in the panes; the thatch half-rotten; the raw patch on the door where the Maid picked at the wood. Therein I saw out my fifteenth and came into my sixteenth year. Such a scant number of months, yet they encompassed a lifetime.
I think of the child I was. I think of Margret, my beloved friend. What she had in prettiness I possessed in plainness, although no mirror could persuade me of that fact. I was queen of my hearth, and carried that conviction into our games. I envied her and she bore the burden of my contrary nature with great meekness. I wish I had been a kinder companion. For does not Paul declare that the first shall be last and the last first?
I wish I could have seen where my feet were carrying me, the dangers of that path. If I had my time again – but here I go, twittering pointless wishes and dreams.
Perhaps my greatest foolishness was to think a grander fate awaited me: better than my sister Cat and her snot-nosed hatchling; better than my dam, planting turnips to feed us through hungry winters; at the very least, better than my brother Adam, gutted for some lord’s whim on a battlefield far from home.
Adam was an oak given breath: as tall, as strong, as gentle. When I wept he was my comfort. He strove to make me laugh, made me his special pet, bore me on his shoulders in games of horse and rider where I was his little lady fair and he my sturdy palfrey. He brought me pretty morsels: a roasted pigeon’s heart, marchpane from the Staple fair, a ribbon so blue I thought the sky should hang its head for being outdone in blueness.
He rose each morning, the sun of my life. The light he cast warmed the mud of my childish heart and I bloomed. I spent many an hour squeezing the muscles of his arm, transformed into rock by the rigours of drawing back the bowstring until the fletchings tickled his ear. How I cheered him at village contests, although he never carried off the prize. I could not understand, in my mind he was the best archer, the best brother, the best man at every task. He was my first love, my best love. I adored him with the innocent and all-consuming passion of a child, before she eats the apple and knows evil in the world.
Then, one spring, just after Candlemas, he was called to fight in France and we did not see him again. We lacked his body to grieve over, and mourned an emptiness that was without solace. I howled fit to tear the sky in half. I wanted God to tumble through the rift and fall to our patch of earth so that I could stick out my lip and demand, face to face, that He bring Adam back from dust. I was greedy with misery and believed none other felt it but me. No one slapped me out of my selfishness, not even Cat. I wept and wept until, just as suddenly, I stopped.
I woke that morning and watched my soul quit my body, slipping across the sea to join Adam. I became a girl without a shadow, a half-girl. I ate, I slept, I crouched over the bucket and squeezed myself empty, but was as lacking of life as the wooden saints in the church. My hands made gestures, my feet moved when commanded, but I was stiff, carved from some tough material that was no longer flesh.
When I placed myself in the path of the new priest, Father Thomas, I reasoned that it was out of desire and affection, rather than a hunger for possessions to fill the empty place in my soul. I thought to find consolation. Not raising up to an estate I had no right to, but some peace. I wanted a mild man who lifted his hand only to bless me; a modest house to call my home; a son who toddled on fat legs to bury his face in his mother’s lap. I did not start making sense of the world until much later.
I lost the better part of myself when Adam died and did not get any of it back until the Maid came to the village. My Maid, if I may make so bold – and I do, for I have grown courageous. Of all the folk who have burnished my life, she is the one I wish to see the most. She was flint to my iron. Dull as I was, she struck fire and I have burned bright since that first spark.
I think of her always; yet she comes rarely to my mind. It is a conundrum and I apologise. She was never fenced in, not with words and certainly not by any effort of man. I fear I will not capture her, either. But that part of my tale must wait a short while. There is more to tell, and there is time.
ADVENT 1348 (#ua9fbb700-2dba-51c4-ba73-13f764e6f689)
VIXEN (#ua9fbb700-2dba-51c4-ba73-13f764e6f689)
Must I speak?
Must I stand here, say my piece? Make my words dance to the cramped tune of quill and ink? Must I squeeze myself onto the scored lines stretched tight across this page of parchment? I have no time for books – not that the likes of me can read them. Wear out my eyes squinting at scribbles when I could be lying on my back looking up at the clouds? I’d rather read their restless journey from lands where no man has set foot, and what they saw there.
I need no one, I want no one and no one wants me. That is the finest way to pass through this world, running so swiftly even the air cannot stick. I shake off everything as a fox sheds its tail when the hounds take hold. I’ll skip through this world tailless rather than not at all.
I scratch my scars: the ones on my back, the ones between my legs, the ones between my ears. They itch, particularly when the wind has a mind to change. This year is such a wild turnabout that the earth creaks with the upside-down, pitch-and-toss of it all. What’s at the end I know not, but a topsy-turvy world suits me. It opens new doors to slide through and leap out onto a different side.
Through it all I sing and dance and keep a step or two ahead of Death. Of course He is always there, but for the most part keeps His distance: playing His pipe on the roof-ridge of the next church but one, supping ale in the tavern I was in yesterday, banging on my neighbour’s door all night. The rat-tat-tat keeps me awake but I do not care, for it is not my door.
This year He draws too close for comfort.
I’m the first to see Him. I’m on the quayside, watching ships come in. He stands on the prow of the largest, waving. I’m the only one to wave back. Even from this distance I can hear Him piping out the mortal tune that is playing across the world, from Jerusalem to Rome and all the way to this slack lump of muck.
A woman at my elbow, head bundled up against the winter, says, ‘Who do you see? Who’s there?’
‘Don’t you see Him?’ I say.
‘Who?’
‘The pestilence!’ I cry.
‘Don’t say that!’ she hisses. ‘What are you trying to do; bring it down upon us?’ I laugh until she twists away, making the sign of horns with her fingers.
The moment the ships tie up, it begins.
I see three ships come sailing in with wine and glass, bolts of cloth and spices, things I may name but never dream of owning. Mooring ropes are thrown out: hands catch them, loop them tight, sew the hulks to the hem of the harbour. Rats skitter down the ropes and into town. The gangplank sticks out its tongue and the hold breathes out. I smell what’s on the air. These ships are spewing out the taste of Death.
I know the truth as I know the lines on my hand: this is the Great Mortality come at last. I see Him: strolling down the walkway, trailing rotten robes, worms tumbling in his wake. He steps on to the quayside, licking His lips, for He loves the savour of man and woman, old and young, rich and poor. I look Him in the eye and He grins.
‘Aren’t you afraid of me?’ He growls, and only I am shrewd enough to hear. ‘Aren’t you fearful of my bony fingers, ready to snatch and snuff you out? Of the smile that stretches to my ears? My wormy guts, the sores and scars and scabs I’m studded with? Doesn’t it make you want to piss yourself and run?’
Of course I’m terrified. Only a simpleton would not be. But I fix His hollow eye with mine and shrug. I’ve seen worse painted on church walls: seen bloodier, blacker, harsher.
‘Let others run, and scream, and fall,’ I say. ‘If it’s really you, I’d rather dance.’ I smile. ‘I’ve heard so much about you. About the fever you bring this year.’
Oh, how He picks up his heels and rattles them along the street! Elbows clattering in and out, knees up, knees down, fingers snapping, clapping His great jaws together, arms a frantic windmill.
‘All fall down!’ He sings.
There’s never been anything so fit to make you roar: we two capering fools, skipping along the harbour wall. I laugh until I ache. Of course, He falls in love with me and I have to dodge His kisses.
‘Marry me!’ He croons. ‘I’ll give you such a dowry as will snatch your breath away! Make you the richest bride in seven kingdoms!’ He promises. ‘I’ll furnish a feast that goes on seven days and seven nights! Silk for your sheets! Wine till you burst!’
But dancing is all I want. So I dance, and watch others die.
The harbour-dwellers are first to sicken. They say it’s foul air brought by the ships. The breath of a latrine may make me gag, but cannot kill me. I’ve cleaned up rich men’s shit for long enough to know.
I see men die, and beasts live. Especially the horses: Death hates their odour, which makes me love it, purely to annoy Him. Then there are the rats, too small for men to notice. What is a rat? Of no more consequence than a girl. A girl who does not know her letters, but can read men. Who does not know her prayers, but knows what they are for. Who is tired of waiting for a saviour to turn stones into loaves.
I hear tales about punishment for sins, the wrath of the Lord. As for God’s anger, I’ll say nothing: not for fear of Heaven striking me down, but for the anger of men, who fear the fragility of their faith so keenly they would burn a child who spoke one small word against it.
I dance down the coast, from village to village. The first time, I tell the truth and say I am come from Bristol. They smell trouble and I escape with my skin, racing from hurled rocks and cudgels, only stopping when I am in the forest and they will not follow. I spit on the path that leads back.
The next place I am wiser, but still am chased off. I run: not only from their fists but also from the fever I smell on their breath, the roses blooming in their throats. I avoid villages, sniff out the stink of men and keep away. I use their fields for my larder; learn to move quickly. And all the while I keep one step ahead of the fearsome dancing partner whose breath rots the road behind.
We make a good pair, Death and I. As long as I can pique His interest, amuse Him with a merry expression and fancy riddles, He does not bid me stop. As long as I am more valuable alive than dead, He does not draw me into His most intimate and final of embraces. Each morning I devise a fresh amusement and play it out, ear cocked for His approving chuckle. Poised for dangerous silence.
I point to a man and say, This one?
He nods, and I start my game: steal a string of sausages from under the butcher’s nose, piss on the blacksmith’s fire, throw sand between the miller’s stones, spit on my lady’s poached halibut. I watch them fume and shake their fists, so consumed with anger they do not see the towering darkness behind them till He taps on their shoulder and there’s no time for hand-wringing and pleas for mercy.
I boast, hoping he cannot hear my desperation.
See how light I can make your labour?
Did you ever have such fun before?
What diversions. What amusements! Do I not garland your workaday world with wonders?
It’s a thin path to tread: I must not get so close that He gathers me into His arms and presses His stinking lips to mine. I must not strike a bargain, their lives for mine; nothing so dangerous as spare me and I will make you laugh. I am not so stupid as to spit on my palm and shake Death’s hand. I’ll keep myself well clear of His claw.
I am a jolly-man, a wooden-head; not everyman, but every-fool. I dance, I sing, turn cartwheels and weave my body into knots. For Him I flit between boy and girl, between dog and vixen; so fast that I lose sight of what I am, submerged in the swirling, glittering soup of my creations.
I am exhausted. So very tired of all this labour, this hanging on to life.
MATTINS 1349 (#ua9fbb700-2dba-51c4-ba73-13f764e6f689)
The Feast of Saint Brannoc
THOMAS OF UPCOTE (#ua9fbb700-2dba-51c4-ba73-13f764e6f689)
Because I could not hear the voice of God, I went to the fields.
I woke early, hoping to find a small corner of quiet in my church, but there was none. Before dawn I knelt at the altar, straining to hear the Lord but instead heard some farmer bawling for his cow. By first light this solitary cry had swelled into a wild congregation of yawning and farting and belching and pissing and wailing and sneezing and hawking and cracking of stretched limbs and banging of doors and no chance to hear the boldest cock crow over the dreadful racket.
So I went into the meadow. The morning was brisk: crisp bracken, brown as crumbled horse-bread, curled into itself as though trying to keep warm. Holly thickened the hedgerow, beside thorn bushes and grey-skinned ash with its black fists of buds. Small birds fluttered alongside, keeping pace with my steps.
I strode to the centre of the field. The earth spread its cloak beneath my feet, prickly with barley stalks cut close as stubble on a man’s chin. The breath of the dawn rose in a mist. Drops of water hung at the tips of the grass stems, catching the new light. Rooks splashed in the rutted puddles that lay athwart the fields. Over the sea to the west the sky was dark; the brightness of coming day showed itself to the east.
I shook my head of these distractions, pressed on, dropped to my knees. The dew came straightway through my hose and chilled me awake. I listened: nothing but my own happy breath. I pressed my palms together and spoke the beautiful words of the Office under the roof of God’s sky. No one bothered me with, Father Thomas, are you sick? I did not have to snap, No; I am at prayer. I am your priest. I pray. It is what we do. It was delightful.
For a moment only. A crow cawed, emptying its throat of sand. Its fellow answered from three fields away, echoed by the clattering of magpies. A cow mourned for her calf, taken at the last harvest. Bullocks steamed, sheep coughed at the sparse winter grass. All I asked was a little peace. If Hell was unimaginable pain and Heaven was unimaginable bliss, then the bliss I sought was humble silence. I shook my head, tried to retrieve the silence I tasted when I first knelt.
But here was a fox crying with the voice of a whipped boy, the dit-dit-swee of the titmouse, the rattling chatter of robins, the twee-twee of dunnocks, the bubbling of blackbirds. Seagulls cackled at some private joke. I pushed away the thought that it was myself they found so amusing.
I prostrated myself upon the earth and inhaled the reek of its dark breath, rolled over and lay on my back, stared upwards into the bowl of the heavens: the half-darkness unrippled by clouds, the stars closing their bright eyes one by one as the approaching daylight spread itself across the sky.
Can you not pray, my son? Am I so difficult a master?
I groaned. My disobedient senses were drawing me away from God. I shut my eyes tight, shoved my fingers into my ears till all I could hear was the hissing of the fire in my head.
‘Oh God!’ I bellowed, to drown out the world around me.
My heart slowed. Oh Lord, behold Your servant. That was the sum and total of my prayer, for the hour of the Office was done. It was time for me to spit upon my hands and labour for God. The pilgrims would come today and I would be ready.
I hitched my cassock and splashed through the ford into the village, slapping warmth into the cold meat of my thighs. Rain slanted down onto the thatch, gathering itself together for another busy day. There had been no frost all winter, only this steady river falling from the sky and making the fields swim. But the rain must stop soon: it was almost spring.
William stood at the lychgate collecting donations from the gathered pilgrims. He was a fine steward, and I could not fault him for the wholehearted way he displayed his stave of office with its clubbed head of brass. He stopped short of affrighting people, as a rule. Lukas stood at his side, arms folded, eyeing the crowd keenly for anyone who might try to slip in without payment. He grinned, tying up a sack of candles ready to be hauled away to the treasury.
‘It is a good take today, Father,’ he said, squeezing rain from his beard. ‘There’s two bags of tapers put by already and we’re barely past breakfast.’
‘The people turn to the Lord in earnest,’ I replied soberly. ‘That is what matters.’
‘Numbers are up,’ said William, gloating.
I would speak with him, another time. ‘The Saint’s intercession is most powerful,’ I said. ‘He has never failed us.’
‘Indeed, Father,’ he said. ‘Very good to us, he is. And don’t these folk know it,’ he roared, sweeping his arm in a gesture encompassing the company. ‘Come for a piece of his goodness, every one of them.’
‘It’s a fine thing he’s so generous,’ added Lukas.
Aline bawled a greeting and pushed a wooden mug into my hands.
‘There you go, Father! The Saint’s ale itself. Fresh this morning and I never brewed a better, if I say so myself.’
Her face was red. I decided to take it for hard work rather than hard drinking. I sniffed the pot, not discourteously, and took a mouthful.
‘It is good, mistress.’
She grinned. ‘Bless you, Father!’ She turned round, took a deep breath and bellowed, ‘He likes it! Good enough for the Saint’s man, more than good enough for us, so it is!’
There was an answering cheer from the multitude, many a cup raised. I picked my way through the field of folk, spread thick as daisies upon the grass. They regaled me with tales of how the Saint saved them from drowning, healed broken arms and broken hearts, planted healthy sons in barren wombs, cured this sickness and that sickness till my head spun and my arm wearied from pumping up and down in blessing.
A man laid on the ground stretched out his arm and grasped my ankle. Though his shoulders were broad and muscular, his legs were so thin they could not bear his weight. The bones of his knees were as big as cabbages.
‘Father,’ he croaked. ‘Can your Saint save us from the pestilence?’
With the speed of a bucket of water hurled onto a fire, the pilgrims fell silent. The burden of their glances heaped on my shoulders.
‘My son,’ I said, making the sign of the Cross upon his brow. ‘Pray to the most holy Brannoc. God have mercy upon you.’
The man shook his head petulantly. ‘The pestilence, Father. Are his relics proof against the Great Dying?’
The crowd hissed through their teeth at the dangerous words. Inch by inch they drew back, clearing a circle of mud around him. One old female muttered under her breath and made the sign of horns with her fingers. I glared at her for indulging in such heathen tomfoolery. She ignored me and spat at my feet. I closed my eyes and called upon the Lord to plant the right words into my mouth.
‘Only God knows the workings of His will.’ There was a groan, and not a little sucking of teeth. ‘The pestilence is His will. It is punishment for our sins,’ I continued, gathering strength.
‘God forgive me!’ sobbed a man from somewhere in the mob.
He was hushed swiftly, and for once all ears turned to me with full attention.
‘But,’ I cried. ‘But,’ I repeated, for it was a good word and had captured them. ‘The Saint is a strong protector. Not one goodman or goodwife of this village has perished since the Great Mortality came to this land.’
My words stirred up a hubbub of excitement: they hung on to my coat, pawing at my arms, heaping thanks upon my head and calling down the blessings of the Saint for some miracle they thought had taken place. I wriggled free of their clinging and hurried to the church, its hulk looming out of the drizzle like a monstrous bull. I patted its flank and let myself in by the small north door; laid my back to the wood, closed my eyes, stretched out my hand and brushed the plaster of the wall, warm and soft as a child’s cheek. Oh Lord, behold Your servant.
What a dungheap you go to, John had said when the Bishop divided up the parishes between we new priests. He was given the Staple with its fine harbour and cobbled streets; its church with silver and gold and paintings on wood and wall. I had laughed then, and I laughed now, joyful in my heart to be amongst simple, unlettered folk. Did Our Lord not do the same? My church boasted no pillars, nor aisles, nor benches. A barn of a place rather, fit for gathering a harvest of souls who offer fruits of praise. I smiled at the neat thought: perhaps that would suit today’s sermon. The Lord had not seen His way to giving me a theme as yet.
Besides, my church had its own prize: the shrine of the Saint, hallowed with his bones. My feet whispered a path to where it swamped the chancel, pinnacles piled up like sugar loaves nibbled by greedy children, pierced with windows through which could be seen the plain grey hulk of the tomb. I spat on my sleeve-end and rubbed at a thumb-mark, no doubt left by a careless pilgrim.
‘Guide me, oh Lord,’ I prayed. I heard God knock at the door of my soul once, twice, and I shouted, ‘I am here, Master!’
‘Father?’
I twisted about. A man stood at the rood-screen, banging his knuckles against the wood.
‘Father!’ he bawled. ‘Shall I ring the bell? It is time.’
I blinked myself back into this world, waited until I was sure my voice was steady.
‘Edwin, you do not need to ring the bell. I am content to do it myself.’
‘I am the bell-ringer. Father Hugo chose me. I cannot be unchosen. Do I not do it well, Father Thomas?’
‘Yes, Edwin, you do it very well,’ I sighed.
He folded his arms. ‘You have chosen no deacon yet, Father? You have been here this quarter-year.’
‘No deacon, Edwin.’
‘Not even a chaplain? A priest needs a chaplain.’
‘I strive for God,’ I said. ‘It is my joyful duty to be about His work, however humble.’
‘Father Hugo had a chaplain. And two church-wardens.’
‘That Reverend Father was content to let others toil for him,’ I said. And he did many other things I would not, I thought privately. ‘I will not set myself above you.’
‘But you’ve made William your steward. And Lukas. Do you favour them?’
‘I do not,’ I sigh.
I had had little choice in the matter, although Edwin did not need to know about those colourful discussions.
‘You work too hard, Father,’ he muttered; disappeared up the tower steps and the bell clanged out its welcome.
Soon, I must open up to the pilgrims. I propped the ladder at the west window and peeped out. Even through the glass I could hear them, buzzing like bees in a pot. Like bees to the hive for the honey of the Saint and his sweet miracles. Perhaps this was the right idea for my sermon. I let it bloom in the soil of my mind, planted there with God’s grace. It came to me that a honeycomb with its many cells was like a psaltery, each of the cells a psalm dripping with the treacle of God’s word. The hive was the community of this church, the congregation bees who laboured for their queen, bringing tithes of nectar and offering them freely.
I was delighted with these clever notions. Here was a fine Saint’s Day sermon to instruct as well as dazzle the people. But a worm twisted in my mind: if the priest was the queen, then that made me a female. If I saw it, so would they. I imagined them snickering behind their hands and my enthusiasm stumbled.
I revived myself hastily; the remainder of the idea was sound, especially the part about the tithes. Then I remembered that bees had stings and used them on whoever tried to take the honey. Also, they were as like to desert a hive and fly to a better place if they had a mind to it. My idea, so clever, crumbled. Perhaps God did not speak to me after all. I shook off the prick of disappointment.
An idea would come to me. The pilgrims were here. They had heard of the pious priest who tended the relics. I would make them love me, would take the leaden blank of this day and stamp my impression upon it. I wanted them to carry away a clear picture of their new priest, not Father Hugo. I was tired of hearing how bold he was, how strong, how jolly, how wild. I wanted them to return home with my name on their lips and in their hearts. Oh, that Father Thomas, they would say round their hearths. You should have heard him preach! Not like Father Hugo, and that’s a good thing. Next year, I would be greeted like an old friend.
I sighed. I could delay no longer. I climbed back down, pulled open the great west door and turned to greet the pilgrims with a broad smile.
Straightaway, they swarmed towards the shrine: clawing the stone, kissing and licking and begging to be cured of the itch, the flux, the ague, the earache, the falling sickness, the fever. All of them weaving their limbs in and out of the openings until the shrine could barely be seen for the bodies wriggling upon it, the onion reek of their breath so strong it heaved my stomach.
One man, very grandly dressed, approached the shrine on his knees. It was only when he passed that I noticed that the flagstones behind him were smeared with blood. Exhaustion had ploughed deep furrows upon his face. When he reached the chancel steps he paused and lifted one leg in an effort to climb the step. I approached and took his arm. He shrank from the contact.
‘Don’t touch me!’ he growled, only then noticing my liturgical garments. ‘I beg forgiveness, Father,’ he moaned, balled his hand into a fist and clouted himself on the side of his head.
‘My son,’ I said. ‘I offer succour. It is Christian charity.’
‘I said, do not touch me,’ he replied, only a little less angrily. ‘I have vowed to undertake this pilgrimage with no help from any man. Do not thwart me when I am so close.’
Tears rose in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks into the grim stubble of his beard. I made the sign of the Cross over his head.
‘The Lord forgives you, my son.’ I spoke most earnestly, for his pain had moved me.
‘How do you know?’ he snapped. ‘How dare you speak for God?’
I gasped at his intemperate speech, only to gasp louder when he tore away his tunic. The flesh of his back was raked with gashes. Where they had scabbed over they had been torn afresh so that new scars lay atop the old. Now I understood why the ground about him was smeared with blood.
‘This is too much, my son,’ I said gently. ‘The Lord does not demand such—’
‘Such what? Such shows? How do you know what God has demanded of me?’
The cause of his wounds was clear: about his middle was a girdle of iron, tight-fitting and barbed with teeth that pierced his skin every time he breathed in. Fresh blood soaked into his hose. As I watched, he removed this cruel belt and struck himself over the left shoulder: once, twice, thrice; then over the right, tearing fresh wounds. There were gasps of wonder from those standing around. He uttered not the smallest sound, teeth gripped together, face set like stone.
‘You have no idea what sins I have committed,’ he grunted. ‘What God and my priest have ordered as repentance.’
When he finished flogging himself, he fastened the belt once more and put on his over-tunic. Without so much as a glance at the shrine, he turned and, still on his knees, dragged himself back down the nave. I walked at his side. No one else would stand close to him and I grieved for his loneliness.
‘Absolution awaits all who truly repent,’ I said.
‘Do you presume to see into my heart?’
‘I am a man of God,’ I declared. ‘Be careful how you address me, however noble you may be.’ I strove to make my voice tender again, for he was a soul in torment. I had never seen one so undone by his sin. ‘Surely you may stand now that you have completed your pilgrimage?’ I said quietly.
‘Completed?’ he said, bitterness dripping from the word. ‘I am but a quarter way through.’
‘My son—’
He interrupted me. ‘I am charged to visit every shrine in England, on my knees. Then Wales, then Ireland. Then Saint James at Compostela.’
‘God grant you peace,’ I said.
He turned empty eyes to mine and hauled himself away, huffing and puffing, swinging the stumps of his legs one after the other. All heads turned to follow him on his painful journey out of the church. Two servants awaited him, a grim-faced old man and one much younger of the same stamp: I guessed father and son. When they saw me they bowed their heads with the precise amount of reverence due an insignificant parish priest and not one whit more. It was difficult to tell if they succoured their charge or watched to see if he reneged on his vow.
‘What did he do, Father?’ said a voice at my shoulder, so unexpectedly that I jumped.
I turned stern eyes upon my questioner, a youth from the village whose name I did not remember.
‘That is for God to know, and not for men to gossip about.’
‘It must’ve been something very wicked,’ he mused, as though I had not spoken.
I fixed him with a disapproving stare. He smiled, shrugged his shoulders and sauntered out of the church towards the great yew, where a clutch of young hatchlings gathered, lounging against each other and whistling at the girls who had flocked from the surrounding villages.
He pointed his finger at the retreating penitent and their heads drew close as they whispered who knew what sort of nonsense. I considered marching across and chiding them for treating this holy day with so little respect. However, when I raised my eyes to the west window, the Saint looked down with such loving kindness that I relented. I counselled myself that it might be better to bring them to godliness through mild words rather than cruelty. Perhaps kindness should be the watchword for my sermon.
The pilgrims were much affected by the agonising spectacle of the penitent on his knees. Their weeping increased in intensity, as if it was not already deafening. One woman fell to the floor with a particularly piercing wail. She was helped back up by her companions, but struggled against them, falling once more. They tried to lift her but each time were defeated.
I hurried to assist, for the disturbance was distracting the pilgrims from their devotions as they queued to touch the shrine. In the time it took to reach her, the woman had started to babble noisily and everyone was stretching their necks to get a better view.
‘This is not our doing,’ hissed one of her companions, before I had even had a chance to open my mouth.
‘She has been moved by the spirit of repentance!’ cried a stranger from a few yards away.
The noisy woman’s friends looked at each other doubtfully, weighing up if this might be the case.
‘Let me kneel!’ the woman yelled. ‘I beg forgiveness!’ She tore at her coif and a long strand of hair tumbled out, a fat black worm sprinkled with salt. ‘I am a sinner!’ she gargled, sinking to the floor.
Her companions glanced at each other over her head and frowned.
‘Come now, mistress,’ I said sternly. ‘The Saint does not demand that you shout. He can hear the quietest of prayers.’
One eye flipped open and peered at me. It looked me up and down, testing the weight of my words. Then it closed and she began to bemoan her sins even more fervently. I arched my eyebrow at her friends, who caught the significance of my gesture. They picked her up by the armpits and dragged her towards the shrine with as much grace as a sack of beets, her blubbering the whole while.
A number of pilgrims muttered complaints that she was carried to the front of the queue while they had to wait patiently. I made pious comments about the Saint’s ears being dinned in by the screeching, and how it would be a shame if he grew deaf to the prayers of others as a result. They saw sense straight away and helped her up the chancel steps.
She had fainted clean away by the time they brought her down; exhausted by her exertions or some kind miracle, I could not tell. She was carted out of the west door with much flapping of kerchiefs in her face.
Her bothersome performance infected the pilgrims: some fell to their knees at the west door, some as far back as the lychgate. Most contented themselves with dropping at the rood screen and made the last few yards of their journey grunting and puffing. An uncharitable part of my soul wondered if they thought the Saint could only see them after they passed through its thick gateway.
I told the first ones that it was not necessary; the Saint did not demand it of everyone. I was given looks of disbelief that a priest should ask for fewer penitent gestures rather than more. In the end I left them to it and counselled myself that if God willed this, then so be it.
I wondered if word would get around and at the next festival the whole lot of them would approach thus. Perhaps leaden tokens in the shape of knees would be sold; perhaps Brannoc would garner a reputation as a healer of ailments of the leg and there would be a rush of pilgrims afflicted with diseases of the ankles.
These were distracting thoughts. What might happen next year was in the hands of the Almighty. I sighed and rubbed my fingers on the point where my brows met. The commotion was driving a nail into my brains. William strolled by.
‘Why are you not at your post?’ I asked.
‘Clearing out a piece of rubbish,’ he laughed, clapping his hands. He dipped inside his tunic and drew out a small leather bag. ‘See?’ he said, waving it in my face.
‘What should I see?’
‘The ties are cut,’ he replied, slowly, and I had the strong sense he was speaking as you would to an idiot. ‘I found a lad lightening a gentleman of his possessions. Scabby little snip of a – begging your pardon, Father.’
‘Where is the boy? I must counsel him.’
‘He doesn’t need any more of that, Father. I’ve given him a right good counselling.’ He laughed again. ‘He’ll not be back.’
He sailed out of the west door, tall and straight as a mast. He waved the money bag above his head and bawled for its owner to claim it. I leaned against the rood-screen to gather my tattered senses together. I still had no sure theme for my festival sermon and there was very little time left.
Two young women giggled and clutched their kerchiefs to their noses as they passed. For a moment I wondered if I was giving off a noisome smell, but it was only the silly shyness of girls when faced with a man.
‘Do not jostle me so, Margret,’ hissed one of them. ‘Father Thomas,’ she cooed, dropping a curtsey.
The female called Margret cupped a hand round her friend’s ear and whispered something too quiet to overhear. Whatever it was, it earned a fierce glare from her companion.
‘Father Thomas,’ said Margret. ‘We should like to welcome you to this parish. Shouldn’t we, Anne?’
‘Yes,’ agreed the maiden named Anne, in a flurry of further curtseying.
‘The new priest is a blessing, is he not?’
‘Yes,’ twittered Anne. Her cheeks flushed so pink it was little wonder she attended the shrine. Such an excess of choler was not healthy in a woman. Much as I applauded their modest blushes, I wearied of their chatter, so with a polite God be with you, I stepped away. But the encounter had not been without value: modesty in women was the perfect subject for a sermon.
Finally, I had my theme, and not before time, for I must be quick and deliver the Mass. I hurried to the treasury. A boy was there, William’s son, I didn’t doubt. He held up the festival cope with as much grace as you would a day-old herring.
‘Higher, boy,’ I said. ‘I can’t get into it if you drag it across the floor like that.’
He huffed, hoisted it and I poked my head through the narrow opening. I declare I staggered under the sudden weight, although I hid it well and he did not notice.
‘You are an idiot,’ I muttered. ‘You may as well send your sister next time. She’d do a better job.’
He bore my terse words meekly, but his lips were tight, and angry spots reddened his cheeks. No doubt he would grumble about me to his companions.
‘Go to, go to,’ I commanded in a kinder voice, for he was not a bad child, merely untutored. ‘Tell the choirboys we are ready.’
I smiled, but of course the lad did not understand such niceties. I wondered briefly if he might be worth instructing; he seemed attentive. He could hardly be worse than the previous boy, who sang in the bell-tower and was found in the churchyard with his hand inside a girl’s bodice.
I wriggled inside the fussy cope. It was ballasted with gold stitching and pearls, heavy as a stack of logs. I did not hold with all this panoply. If I had the choice, I’d leave that to peacock priests. But I did not have a choice: the Bishop made that clear when he heard – I know not from whom – that I conducted my Christmas Mass in plain shirt and hose. I endeavoured to explain I meant no disrespect: I wished to emulate the simple dress of our Lord, not to ape my poor flock. He lectured me with some force that I had no idea how Christ clothed himself and I would dress as commanded. Grandly, as befitted my station.
He told me that I insulted my parishioners by pretending to be the same as them. You’re a priest, by God, he thundered. Act like one. I could not believe he should so mistake my humble intentions. So today, I sweated in gold and garnets. I contented myself with the knowledge that God saw my inner humility. If men needed pomp to bring them to penitence, so be it. I was commanded, therefore I would obey, uncomplaining as a lamb.
The procession began. The choirboys tumbled in through the west door, picking their noses and gawping at the pilgrims. They sang lustily, but to them the words were sounds only and they quacked them with as little comprehension as ducks. I strode ahead, robes trailing behind me. I tolerated their rude manners, their cracked voices that tore the psalms to shreds. I calmed myself with the knowledge that my reward was to read the Divine Office in solitude, tomorrow and every day after it.
I breathed relief. A high Mass such as this took place mercifully few times in the year. And at last, I had my sermon.
ANNE (#ulink_2b92b441-86e3-5c85-8855-1a4cf2a25436)
For three days, we are a city. The world comes to our hamlet and brings its finery, its marvels, its smells, its terrors, its tragedies. For three days I stretch my eyes wide open and do not close them once, not even to blink. A handful of days, but crammed with a year’s worth of new sights and sounds, fresh riddles and do-you-remembers unsurpassed. These days supply me with every tale with which I’ll entertain myself for the remainder of the year.
The churchyard is too small to encompass these wonders, so the field behind Aline’s alehouse blooms thick as daisies with tents, blankets, fires. Every trestle for five miles about finds its way there; tables spring up and are loaded with bread and cheese. The air is riotous with the scent of bacon, for John the butcher always has a pig fat and ready for the Saint. In return the Saint makes sure his purse is heavy afterwards, and the world carries away the memory of the best pork in the shire.
So tumble in the girdlers, purse-makers, skinners, tanners, cap-makers, smiths, pewterers, glovers and net-makers; behind them the scullions, reeves, nuns and shoe-makers, brewers, cooks, archers, glass-blowers, knights, goldsmiths, silversmiths and gem-polishers.
Next come in the ploughmen, the sailors, the sea-captains, fishermen, pig-men, shepherds, dairywomen, alewives, spinners, weavers, high ladies and low women. Here are the barbers, the saw-bones, men of physic and midwives, wise women and charlatans. We have fools, clerks, schoolmasters, pullers of teeth, bone-setters, knife-grinders, matrons, virgins, peddlers, tinkers and trench-diggers.
It is a small Heaven upon earth: a lion of a soldier fresh from the war comes to thank the Saint for his deliverance and lies down with the lamb of a carpenter come to pray for the soul of his son, who was not so lucky. The crook-legged man upon his wheeled tray prays for the straightening of his limbs. He slumbers chastely beside the beautiful young wife, who aches for her husband’s seed to take root in the parched earth of her womb. For three days no one is troubled by lustful dreams.
Margret and I walk through the crowd. Heads turn, but I am grown enough to know that none of them turn for me. Margret is the lady now and I am the wench dragged in her wake. There is whispering also, and not all of it kind. I catch snatches of it, sticking to our skirts like teasels.
That is John of Pilton’s woman.
A priest’s woman is no goodwife, but a harlot.
You hold your tongue in check, Edwin Barton. You are the bell-ringer. Have some respect. This is the Saint’s day.
Mama, what is a harlot?
I hear it; Margret hears it. When the sneering grows too loud to ignore, Margret stops and stares down the man who called her harlot.
‘Why, Edwin,’ she says, all kindness.
‘Good day,’ he mutters.
‘How fares your mother, Edwin?’ she enquires.
‘Well, missus. Well,’ he mumbles, tugs his cap so hard it slips over one eye. But there’s no hiding from the press of Margret’s courteous questions.
‘And your brothers?’ she continues. ‘How fare they?’
‘All well, to be sure, missus.’
‘The Saint be praised.’
Margret’s smile is so sweet I am surprised butterflies do not alight upon her head and lick her with their coiled tongues. But it is too early in the year for butterflies. ‘Let me see,’ she muses. ‘Tell me if my recollection falters. There’s Arthur?’
‘Yes, missus,’ he says.
‘Bartholomew? Sam? Peter?’
He bobs his head at each name, declares each brother hale and hearty.
‘I have forgot none, have I, Edwin?’
‘Oh no, missus. None.’
‘All of you so different in looks. By the Saint, who would have thought one father could bring to bear a redhead, a black-haired lad, one tall, one short.’
Her face is all concern for the welfare of Edwin’s brothers. Yet I know the truth of their parentage, as does every man and woman here, their mother being an accommodating woman. Edwin grows red in the face, so dark a hue I think he might burst. Margret pauses for a long moment, her eyebrow lifted. Then she picks up the corner of her skirt and folds it over her arm. It is fine kersey, more shillings to the yard than I could hope to afford in a year, and exceeding beautiful. She bows her head politely and Edwin bows in response. She walks on without another word.
I pause for a moment, less time than it takes to pour a cup of beer, but time enough to hear the giggles begin. I watch them, helpless with the need to keep respectful silence within sight of the church door, yet burdened with the equally pressing need to void their laughter at Edwin’s expense. John the butcher chokes on his mirth and must be thumped on the back.
‘She’s got you there, Edwin, and right enough,’ he splutters, to much cheerful agreement.
Edwin smiles as best he can. He is not a bad man. It is only his tongue that runs forward and escapes his mouth. I quicken my pace to catch up with Margret.
I find her within the church, gazing up at the painting of the Saint. He is planted on his knees before the Virgin and wears a look of avarice. Mary is the size of a child’s poppet. She floats on a cushion just out of the Saint’s reach, throwing sticks out of the ends of her fingers and aiming them at the Saint’s head. I know they are supposed to be shafts of heavenly light, but they look like the poles you set up for beans. When I share these thoughts with Margret, she smiles again.
‘Shh,’ she whispers. ‘That is the Virgin.’
‘I do not insult our blessed Mary,’ I hiss, curtseying as I say her name. ‘I insult the hand of Roger Staunton, who imagines he can capture her on a cob wall. He is not as good a limner as he thinks.’
Margret heaves her shoulders up, then down.
‘I hear those words wherever I go,’ she says, and I know she speaks of Edwin Barton, and not the painting. ‘Most of the time, they keep their foul opinions quiet, although I know what they are saying. It is like the sea: however far the tide is out, you can still hear it murmuring, waiting for the hour to turn so it may come back to land.’
Margret was always the poet. I have as much poetry in me as a pound of pickled pork. She shakes herself, as a horse does when plagued by insects.
‘The tide of harsh words is high today, yet I prevail.’ She straightens her back and tips her chin at the wall. ‘I thank you, blessed Virgin, for your blessings.’
‘Blessings?’
‘She has given me two. Greater than I could ever hope for. My dear son Jack, my dear John. He is a pearl of a man. I have not met a kinder, Anne, unless it be your father.’
I nod my head and do not disagree, for my father is the sweetest man ever to break bread.
‘John serves God and man, and declares he does far better with me at his side. If God did not bring us together, then it must have been God’s mother. It is to her I shall turn on Doomsday to pray for forgiveness. I have great hope for mercy,’ she says firmly. ‘John and I may not be chaste, but we love each other with a fidelity I defy anyone to condemn.’
My heart swells. At that moment, I would take up sword and buckler to defend her honour.
‘It is strange,’ she muses. ‘They envy me my gowns, my furs, the cup from which I drink, yet they scorn me at the same time.’
‘It is jealousy,’ I say.
I do not tell her that I am envious also. Since she left for the Staple, there has been a hole the size of a door in the wall of my life. I guard that door. I did not know her love brought such comfort until she took it away and gave it to another. I see her seldom and the wind blows leaves into my empty heart. Today, she is by my side. For these few hours the breach in my soul is filled.
She clasps my hand and leads me through the pilgrims to a spot where we might have the best view of the Saint as he passes by on his wagon. He is carved from oak, face battered as a gate that has been swung on by a lifetime of rowdy boys. But he is ours, and we will have none other; not even the new one made of pear-wood and so beautiful he could make a cow weep. Our Lord Bishop gifted it to us, told us it came from Germany, and very costly too. But he’s too pretty to be a man who yoked stags to a plough. So he stands on a pedestal in the north corner and bides his time, while our beloved tree trunk of a Saint protects us and favours us with miracles.
The new priest passes by, a hop in his step. He is nothing like Father Hugo, who could scarce pass through an alehouse door save sideways and whose voice could be heard in Hartland. His chin is unshaven and I wonder when he last took the razor to it. He takes his place on the chancel steps and clears his throat, which bobs with a sharp Adam’s apple. We fall into a respectful silence, the better to hear the sermon. He lifts his arms.
‘I speak of Solomon,’ he begins. ‘And the Queen of Sheba.’
There is a rumble of surprise, for we are expecting a tale of the Saint. Father Hugo always told a fine tale about one miracle or another and most amusing they were too.
‘Wise King Solomon,’ he continues. ‘A lion amongst men.’
‘What’s this new man talking about?’ murmurs Margret. ‘Where is our Saint?’
She is not the only one to be asking that question. Some of the bolder lads shuffle towards the door muttering thirsty excuses, when Father Thomas raises his voice.
‘Solomon had a hundred wives. A hundred to one man.’
Those halfway gone pause. Their heads turn: perhaps this sermon is not so disappointing after all. I look about. He has everyone’s attention.
‘Each as beautiful as a rose. But more beautiful by far was Sheba.’ His eyes shine as he describes her. ‘Behold! She was fair. Her teeth were white as a flock of sheep fresh from the washing.’
The congregation nod their approval, for all men know nothing is whiter.
‘Her hair was like a flock of goats that appear from Mount Gilead!’
My opinion is that goats are inclined to stink, but I keep my thoughts to myself. I look about. Every man is open-mouthed, every woman drinking the nectar of his words. More than one damsel raises a hand to her hair and smoothes it from the crown of her head as far as it will go, in imitation of Sheba.
‘Her cheeks were like pomegranates.’
I spy one lass raise a hand to her face and pinch blood into her cheek.
‘Her lips were like a thread of scarlet.’
Even I primp myself and nibble my lips to redden them.
‘Her neck a tower of ivory, her stature like to a palm tree.’
At this, each girl stands up straighter, shoulders back. I have never seen a palm tree, but it cannot be very different from the ones in the forest. Father Hugo preached many a fine sermon, but not like this. I still recall his telling of Noah’s flood and how we cheered when the rainbow appeared and all the dragons were drowned for ever. This affects me in a different way.
‘The joints of her thighs were like jewels, her two breasts young does, feeding among the lilies.’
There is a drawing-in of breath. I appraise this new priest keenly. He must be very bold to speak thus. The blood of young men and maids needs little prompting to come to the boil, and he is stirring us as skilfully as a cook stirs batter for pancakes. He ploughs on, telling us of grapes and gazelles and temples and vineyards till I am giddy.
‘Hear how she spoke to Solomon! A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.’
I have never had a man lie between my breasts, let alone all night. It is an arresting notion. I catch Thomas’s eye: it does not slide away in that way of priests who look at everyone and no one at the same time. He looks directly into my face and I hold his gaze, careful not to be too bold.
‘Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes,’ he says, chin bobbing, eyes bright with excitement.
My mouth drops open, and it takes a moment before I remember to close it. He does not look away, nor does he stop talking. His voice soars; as it does so it squeaks somewhat, but there are worse things of which a man can be accused. I flutter my eyelashes, venture a coy smile and am rewarded with a beaming grin that cracks his face open.
‘How Sheba tempted the king!’ he cries, spreading his arms, his gaze flying away into the roof. ‘Come, she said. Let us go early into the field, she said. There will I give thee my love.’
I hear sniggering. It is hardly surprising. We all know what those words mean.
‘But,’ he says loudly, and cuts the merriment short. ‘But,’ he continues, and we hang on what is to come. ‘Solomon was a clever man,’ he says. ‘He did not believe what he heard, nor what he saw. Our ears and eyes can be deceived, can they not?’
There is a murmur of assent, and not a little prompting from some quarters to say more of what went on in the field.
‘He placed no trust in this queen’s seeming beauty. Not for all her jewels and crowns, not for her fine robes, nor her flashing eyes and pretty smile. Oh no!’
I suck on my teeth, find a piece of pea-skin wedged there. I wiggle my tongue, trying to dislodge it, and when I fail, stick my finger into my mouth and have another try at digging it out. It reminds me that I am hungry. As though it needed my permission, my stomach rumbles. I’m not distracted for long. What Thomas says next is enough to make a bawd catch her breath.
‘Solomon has a test for this woman,’ he cries. ‘He commands: lift up your skirts!’
‘Does he indeed!’ I murmur in Margret’s ear.
‘The shame of it!’ she replies quietly. ‘I would not do that; not even for King Solomon.’
‘Or King Edward,’ I add. ‘No king could make me show off my parts.’
There is a commotion of murmuring, like a hearth full of steaming pots, all of them boiling over at the same time. Matrons clamp their hands to their mouths. Goodmen blush, trying not to catch the eye of their friends for fear it will set them giggling. Only the bravest lads and lasses steal glances at each other and wink knowingly. This man is unlike any priest I have heard before. Even when Father Hugo came into the alehouse the worst I ever heard was the old joke about the new bride farting in her husband’s lap. Still he is not finished.
‘What does wise King Solomon see?’ he cries, voice climbing further up its perilous ladder.
‘What indeed?’ I whisper to Margret.
She hushes me so piercingly I worry that Thomas will hear and look at me again, less smilingly this time. But I am not the only one to have spoken, judging by the waterfall of shushing. Either Thomas does not hear us, or chooses not to remark upon it.
‘What does she do?’ calls out a brave fellow.
Every head turns to discover who has shouted so disrespectfully, even though all of us carry the same question on the tip of our tongues. I am pretty sure it came from the knot of lads leaning against the west wall. They display looks of the most sincere innocence.
‘The king commands. The queen must obey!’ shouts Thomas. ‘When a man commands, a woman must obey, even if she is a queen!’
‘Still, I would not,’ declares Margret under her breath. ‘It is a sin.’
I think briefly of her and John, and him a priest, and what sin means, but I say nothing.
‘No woman can refuse the command of a man,’ he growls. ‘Certainly not Solomon. Did not the Lord ordain that God is the head of man, and man is the head of woman?’
There is another muttering of agreement, louder from the men.
‘Sheba wrings her hands. Oh, she begs Solomon. Anything but this! But Solomon insists. He will be obeyed.’
The smaller boys are now sniggering openly, hissing coarse words at each other.
‘The Lord guides him to find out her secret sin! The foulness she hides underneath her robes!’
I do not care for the direction this is taking. Yet again Thomas fixes me with his stare, wilder than before. For all his strange words, he is a man and is looking at me. This time I am daring enough to stare back, even if only for a few heartbeats.
‘Lo!’ he cries. ‘She obeys! She grasps her skirt and raises it an inch so he can see her toes. How strange they look. But perhaps they are the outlandish boots worn by barbarians. Solomon must be sure. Higher! he commands. Weeping, she lifts her robe another inch. See how unwilling she is. Not from modesty. Oh, no!’
‘How does he know it wasn’t modesty?’ hisses Margret, angry now. ‘Was he there?’
As though he has overheard, Thomas glares at Margret.
‘This is the Word of the Lord,’ he says. ‘She is not modest. She is ashamed. Higher! cries King Solomon and another inch is uncovered. Higher! At last her foul secret is revealed.’
He pauses and we hold our breath.
‘She has the legs of a goat!’
There is a rumble of disbelief and amusement. I am not sure what I think. Relief that it is goat’s legs and not her cunny that is revealed to us? Perhaps. Thomas rounds off his sermon quickly, thumping home the moral that the path to hell is up a woman’s skirt, and that a great deal of monstrousness is hidden there.
Amen, we gasp, breathlessly. Amen.
I can only suppose that he means to horrify the lads, shame the lasses and thereby throw a bucket of cold water on licentious thoughts. But he holds up his hand against a tide, and the spring tide at that. Besides, by talking in such delicious detail about getting a woman to lift up her dress, he has stoked the fire of everyone’s thoughts and thrown dry wood upon the flames.
A woman would have found a way to dissuade him from such a theme. That he is so gullible sparks a flame in my breast: it feels a lot like pity, and I dismiss it. Pity is not something I want cluttering me up if I’m going to set my eye on this man. I wonder if he can truly be that stupid: yet again, I wipe that word away swiftly and replace it with innocent. Which is no bad thing. Innocence is a state that wants only for education. I do not share these thoughts with Margret. I do not know why, for my habit is to tell her everything.
We stroll arm in arm around the churchyard. The younger children are racing up and down in a shrieking game of catch me. Plenty of older ones join in, adding saucy touches of their own when they capture their quarry. More than once we come upon a man and maid sitting in the lee of the wall, engaged in a grown-up pastime inspired by the recent sermon.
A brace of stout lads leap on to the path before us and push back their hoods. Their faces glow with the goodness of Aline’s festival ale.
‘Ah, it’s you, Hugh,’ I say to one. ‘Good morning.’
‘And you, Robert,’ says Margret to his companion.
‘Halt!’ says Hugh, somewhat unnecessarily, for they stand in our way.
‘We are not moving,’ I say, waving my hand to indicate the truth of it.
‘Good,’ says Robert, and giggles. ‘You are obedient, which suits our purpose.’
Margret snorts and this sets them both off, sniggering into their hands.
‘We must examine you for goat’s legs,’ announces Hugh and makes a lunge for the hem of my kirtle.
‘Oh no you mustn’t,’ I reply.
I step out of the way of his questing paw. It is not difficult, as his feet are unsteady.
‘Or pig’s trotters,’ hiccups Robert. ‘I’ll wager one of you at least has pink trotters.’
‘For shame, boys,’ chides Margret. ‘How much have you been drinking?’ They find this an amusing enquiry, but she continues to tick them off. ‘Go and play your silly games somewhere else. I am a married woman and am beyond such foolishness.’
Robert’s eyes squint into crafty folds, making him look uncommonly like one of the pigs he seems attached to.
‘Married?’ he slurs. ‘That’s not how we hear it,’ he adds, digging his elbow into Hugh’s ribs. ‘You might cover your head, but you’re no goodwife. You’re John of Pilton’s woman.’
‘What of it?’ she says, tilting her chin upwards.
‘A priest’s woman,’ says Hugh.
They are neither so drunk nor so disrespectful to venture further and they know it.
‘Here comes Father Thomas,’ I announce brightly. ‘This would be a good time to see our ankles, don’t you think? If you demand it, we must comply.’
‘You insisted,’ says Margret, smiling.
In truth, the man in question is not coming this way at all, engaged as he is in blessing pilgrims at the south door. Robert and Hugh are not to know this, as they are facing the opposite direction.
‘Yes!’ cries Margret, warming to the task. ‘Please demonstrate to our new priest how diligently you have hearkened to his words.’
‘He will be proud to have had such an effect on the two of you.’
The lads glance at each other, declare how thirsty they are and must be off, that we are very tiresome, and all manner of excuses.
‘That’s him,’ says a voice at my shoulder.
It is my mother. She grasps my elbow and shakes me, jabs her finger in the direction of Thomas.
‘Who?’ I ask, even though I know full well.
‘Him,’ she hisses with great weight and portent. ‘He is in need of a housekeeper. The village knows it.’
‘I am not sure if I wish to be a housekeeper.’
‘Don’t play with me, girl. You know exactly what he wants. And you’ll not get finer from any of these lads.’ She raises her eyebrows at the throng of village boys.
‘But a priest, Mother?’
‘What of it?’ she says sharply. ‘You stand with Margret, do you not? You girls were always perfectly matched in everything.’
I look at Thomas. His chin is not so small, when you look at him from a distance. Mother purses her lips thoughtfully.
‘I hear he lives on a diet of lentils, as though every day is a Friday. Gammer Maynard was there this week just gone, searching for her chickens, and she says the floor is strewn with old straw. Think of it. That big house, with him rattling around on his own. What a sin to let it go to waste. If you won’t take him, plenty will. And quick.’
‘Mother!’ I clap my hand to my bodice and endeavour to look shocked. ‘I am sure I do not understand,’ I add with becoming coyness.
‘That’s my clever Anne,’ she murmurs. ‘We understand each other.’ She smiles and touches her forehead to mine. It is a girlish sweetness I see in her rarely. Then her face crumples. ‘My little babe! My Anne!’ she warbles. ‘Surely it was only yesterday you were at my breast and suckling there.’
She lifts the hem of her gown and wipes her face. When she is done, she is pink about the eyes, the skin puffed up. I lay my hand on her arm. It is a strange feeling to be the one soothing my dam, not altogether unpleasant. I feel important, a woman on my own account. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a mother. I decide that I like it, and wish to have more.
‘Look at me,’ she says. ‘I declare. I haven’t got the sense of a pulled hen.’
She smoothes out her apron, all business once more, and is gone as briskly as she arrived. I continue my keen appraisal. Thomas: that is his name. Of Upcote: though where that place might be, I have no notion. Margret follows my gaze and examines him also.
‘His nose is a little thin,’ she says.
‘Yet his teeth are fine,’ I reply.
‘His hair has been cut with a hay rake.’
‘Then he must have a woman cut it for him.’
‘His shoulders strain to bear the weight of his gown.’
‘Then he needs good victuals to fill him out.’
So we prattle on in low voices, until Margret pauses. Her eyes are sad.
‘What ails you, my sweet?’ I say.
‘Be careful, Anne. Have great care before you take this step. Once the road is chosen, there is only one direction you can walk, and that is forward.’
‘Oh, Margret. How dour you make it sound.’
‘Anne, you are as close as a sister. I speak as one who loves you as dearly.’
‘Well?’
‘Be sure of this man.’
‘I am decided. I will have him,’ I reply somewhat snappishly, for it seems she wishes to pour sand upon the fire of my happy plans.
‘Anne—’
I round on her. ‘What is it, Margret? Do you wish to deny me your good fortune? I did not think you so ungenerous. I took you for my friend.’
‘I am your friend, and dearer than you know for telling you this hard secret.’
I will have none of it, and am angry with her. ‘So, a fine bed and a heaped board are right for you but not for me, is that it?’
‘Of course not.’
I know not whence comes my peevishness and spite. In my venom I hear an unhappy, jealous woman and I do not like her one bit. I would snatch back the words, but it is too late. The hag who has taken the reins of my tongue will not permit it.
‘It seems to me that you want to keep all finery to yourself and fear a rival.’
‘No, sister! How can you think this of me?’
‘I can think it easily. Do you take me for a fool? Is this your revenge for our childish games, where I was your queen? Is this your plan, to pay me back?’
‘Anne, do not speak like this.’
‘Why should I not? Anne is below, and Margret is raised up. That’s how you wish things to remain. You above me, now and for always.’
‘Anne, no—’
‘Anne, yes. You are no sister. A sister would rejoice.’
I see my words strike Margret, the poison of their cruelty mark her face as clear as the slap of a hand. She fiddles with her headpiece, a contraption of wire and linen that makes her look like a nanny goat.
‘Perhaps I should return to Pilton,’ she remarks. ‘John and Jack will be waiting for me.’
Her face softens as she speaks. In a dark corner of my soul, a serpent flicks its heavy tail. Suddenly I am very tired of Margret prattling about her darling son, her precious John. Up spring more sharp words, and I cannot stop them from bursting out.
‘Your son, your son,’ I snap. ‘The way you talk, Margret. It is quite tiring. I wish you would speak of something else.’
‘Anne?’ she says. Her face shifts, the gentle smile sucked back into her mouth. ‘What do you mean by this?’
‘You dare ask? How you crowed when you went to John. Me, the dunnock against your peacock. How very grand you have become.’
‘I am blessed,’ she replies, with dignity.
‘I’m sure it is not sufficient. Not for a duchess like you.’
‘I would not test the Lord by asking for more joy than is my portion.’
‘You are no more a lady than I am, Margret. Be careful you do not climb so high you lose sight of the earth.’
At last I run out of nastiness. It is though I bore a sack of bile in my belly and had to spew it up. She stares at me; I stare at her. I have a great desire to hug her close and say sorry for my selfishness.
‘Margret—’ I begin.
At that moment the lady Sibylla, wife of our Lord Henry, approaches and enquires after our health. We fluster, curtseying and murmuring at being noticed by a person of such high degree. After a moment she moves on to make her gracious good morrows to the rest of the congregation, setting up a flutter like a fox in a chicken coop. The venom has been sucked from my meanness, but there remains a prickling unpleasantness.
‘The Saint is truly powerful if he can make great ladies pass the time of day with peasants,’ Margret remarks.
‘Ah, Margret,’ I say. ‘Let me—’
‘I declare,’ she interrupts. ‘I see Mistress Aline. I will greet her. God be with you, Anne.’
She tightens her mouth, turns and strides off. She does not glance back. I quiver with the desire to run after her, push aside the holiday crowds and beg her forgiveness. But shame and guilt have the governance of me and will not permit me to bend. So I stand and watch my friend walk away. By and by her sun sets in the distance and my world fades into a dimness of my own making.
I have said what I have said. I have set my eye on this Thomas, a man to hook and bring to shore. I must set my eye on ambitions greater than girlish friends. I tell myself I have no further need of Margret. I will see her at the next festival. But by then, everything has changed.
VIXEN (#ulink_270483c7-439a-5dce-a069-77a54636e00d)
I strike south-west, outskipping Death. Only when I pause for breath do I realise how hectic has been my dash from the Great Mortality. My feet are worn out from dancing, my tongue a clapper of wood from all the jokes I’ve had to tell.
I stand at the gate of the forest and beg safe passage.
‘Oh, grandmother, let me in, and I’ll bring you the head of a charcoal-burner!’ I cry.
She opens to me straight away, for wood-burners are her greatest enemy.
‘Show me the path away from clever folk, and into the arms of simpletons,’ I add, for it pays to be specific when asking favours from powerful persons. ‘Do this, and I’ll steal a hundred axes, and throw them into the sea.’
She shakes her branches and a swish of laughter ripples overhead. She knows it is a brazen boast, but my heart’s-wood is behind it.
‘Lead me away from Death,’ I say, and she falls quiet.
I take it as a good sign. She makes no promises, nor does she make merry at my fear. It’s as good an answer as I’ll get from trees, so I content myself with it and press further into her labyrinthine belly. She draws me into her arms and I let her rock me. Death tries to follow, but her shadows conceal me from His eyes. I am safe under the swing of her cloak, for she is fearsome only to those who do not know her.
The forest is my song, the best kind: no words, but all manner of music. I tune my ear to her particular melody and she rewards me with all I need to know. I listen for clues, for knowledge, for information, for the sheer pleasure of it. Overhead, boughs rustle; dead leaves crunch underfoot and warn of pitfalls that can swallow your foot and snap it sideways. She guides me more clearly than any gazetteer, instructs me better than any primer, delights more than any gold-splashed psalter.
Most of all, she is peaceful. Where there are people, there is greed. Thievery. Falsehood. Murder. When beasts kill each other, they do so simply to eat. What I have seen of men is that they kill to clear a bigger space at the world’s table for themselves.
I pick my way with the tiptoe step of a deer, so delicate that when I come upon a herd, they lift their heads without fear. Some of the does are heavy-bellied, flanks quivering as the fawn within stirs in its wet sleep. In me they see a cousin crippled with two legs instead of four, not someone come a-hunting. I am to be pitied and not scurried from, so they bend their necks and return to the more important business of grazing.
I almost trip over a fawn. He lies still as a stone dropped from Heaven and marked with the thumbprints of the angel who threw him. I stare at him; he stares at me, eyes bigger than my fist and blacker than the bottom of a well. His nostrils flare: he catches my scent and presses his nose into the fork between my thighs. If he is seeking milk, he finds nothing but the scent of the sea.
‘You won’t hurt me, will you?’ I ask, and he trembles his answer.
His dam crashes through a bush and glares her jealousy. He droops his head, guilty for falling in love with another so fast, him not even weaned and her not gone five minutes.
‘And you,’ I say to her. ‘You’ll shake your head and stamp your hoof, but that’s all.’
She answers by doing both. The fawn sighs and takes her teat. Her envious glare melts into satisfaction. She’s not yet lost him to another female.
‘There are arrows far more deadly than those of love,’ I whisper, but she is deep in her trance of milk-giving and does not hear my warning. ‘Rest easy,’ I say. ‘I’m away.’
I’m as good as my word. With beasts there is no need for lies.
I am safe here; safe as anywhere on this unreliable earth. There are rabbits to snare, raven’s nests for my larder. Death cannot reach me. Perhaps I could hide in the trees and wait for Him to pass over.
But Death wants for amusement and so do I. I stuff my belly with eggs, laugh at the birds as they flap useless wings. Their blunt beaks cannot hurt me. What next for me? Who shall be my next fool? Where can I find me a dupe? So do I lie, sucking yolk from my fingers, head blooming with dangerous fancies. I ought to know better. I should be careful of what I wish for.
LAUDS 1349 (#ulink_314a8f18-e998-558d-815f-41131457b75b)
From Saint Alphege to Edward the Martyr
THOMAS OF UPCOTE (#ulink_398e1c98-c98d-5fe3-8961-cc7331dc9b63)
‘A man should not do the work of women.’
The man filled the mouth of my door, rain streaming off his woollen cloak. I scrabbled in my mind. Was this piece of wisdom a line from a psalm?
‘Even less a man of God,’ he continued.
‘Indeed,’ I agreed, wondering who he might be.
‘You have let your needs be known, Father.’
‘My needs?’ Some agency sent heat into my face.
‘A priest needs a housekeeper.’
‘Yes,’ I spoke hastily. ‘I need a housekeeper.’
‘Indeed, Father. My Anne would be a good housekeeper.’
‘Anne?’
‘I am her father. Stephen.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘The carpenter.’
‘Ah, yes.’
‘You know her.’
‘I do?’
‘By my head; you smiled at her on Relic Day.’ Water dripped from his muzzle onto his clogs.
‘I did?’ Again, I searched my memory but found the face of each female as unremarkable as the next.
‘Indeed you did, Father.’
‘I smile at all my flock.’
‘But her in special.’ He gnarled his eye shut and I realised he was winking. He spat on his hand, shoved it into mine. ‘I will send her mother.’
I opened the door to loud knocking. Three women shadowed the light: a matron and at her back two younger females who flicked at the ends of their braids. My face asked the question.
‘I am Anne’s mother, Joan.’ She aimed a broad thumb over her shoulder. ‘These two are her gossips, Alice and Isabel.’
‘Greetings, Mistress Joan. Ladies.’
They pressed their way past me and walked directly to the hearth. They peered into the butter-pot one after the other, held up the frying pan and tested its weight, counted out the knives, the dishes, the pitchers and the pewter plates, banged their knuckles against the great pot on its hook over the fire.
The two maids sighed, scowling at each item as though it was wanting in some way I could not comprehend. Joan strode into the solar and stared at my bed awhile, mercifully without comment. She flipped up the lid of the chest as though it were only the weight of a penny, and straightway began filleting the sheets folded within.
‘Good linen,’ she clucked, ‘what there is of it. Surely you have more?’
‘It is stored. I have little need for—’
‘Good, good.’ She peered at me, from my uneven tonsure to my clogs. ‘Your glebe, Father.’
I realised it was a question. I had the uncomfortable feeling of being a clerk standing before a strict schoolmaster and not knowing the answer.
‘I have an orchard,’ I gabbled. ‘Apples and medlars, six cherry trees besides. Fifteen healthy ewes at the last count, tended for by Edgard. A tup-ram, a milk-cow and calf, many fowls for eggs. A mare in her own stable. My Lord Bishop is generous.’
She hummed and swept back into the hall, dragging us in her formidable wake. She kicked at the reeds on the floor, clicking her tongue at one of the maidens, who nodded and said in need offresh rushes to her companion. She tapped at the oilcloth set into the window, tested the shutters.
‘No glass?’
‘It is warm enough. There is much vanity—’
‘With the shutters open it is too cold. With them shut it is too dark,’ she said as brisk as you would to a boy. ‘How can a woman see clear to bake your bread?’
I had not thought that far ahead. One of the maids sniggered: Joan quenched the sound with a glare.
‘I will pay for a glazier,’ I gulped.
‘And curtains?’
‘Yes. I have some. Stored with the linen.’
‘Fine?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. A tapet for the bed?’
I had no idea why she wanted my bed to appear grander than it was. It was an indelicate question, but I let it pass, for rustic folk have odd notions.
‘I shall not stint,’ I said.
‘That is a fine thought, Father. And for the feast?’
‘The feast?’
‘When she shall come to you. It is our way.’ She patted my hand. ‘There must be beer; the good brown, nothing sour.’
I felt myself suddenly in the sharp angle of a small room, its walls pressing hard upon my shoulders.
Ground almonds?
Green cheese and hard cheese?
White porray with saffron?
Wheat bread? Of sifted flour?
A dozen rabbits?
I quacked out agreement after agreement until I believe I could have given my assent to anything. Raisins. Lemons. Hot wine caudle. Nutmeg. Mace. Custards. A sugar-loaf. They were no longer requests but statements.
‘Eels and herrings for yourself. Two new lambs to roast.’
‘Two?’
‘Two. You shall not stint.’
I was dizzy with talk of pies, and spices, and boiled chickens, and stock-fish, and clapbread and havercakes and so much honey my teeth ached. At last she stopped; held out her hand. I fetched coins from my safe-box and counted them into her palm until she clicked her tongue a final time and closed her fingers.
Anne was brought to my house fifteen days later, on the Feast of Saint Perpetua, her mother eager to bring her before Lent. There was a fine dampness in the air, as barely noticeable as breath. Maybe this was the day the rain would cease.
Just before Prime the women arrived with my dishes, now filled with the food I had paid for. They looked to be bringing it the whole morning, so I took myself to the church and did not return till after Terce. As I walked down the path I heard laughter, the bleating of a pipe.
Her hair was glossy as an otter. It had been combed through and sheaves of it looped up in plaited trenchers over her ears, threaded through with sprigs of mayflower. She fluttered with a girdle of coloured ribbons, wound about her so tight it was a marvel she could guffaw so loudly. As they reached the ford she was hoisted like a log and carried on the shoulders of two young men who hung onto her knees. She kicked out her feet and showed red slippers.
One of her bearers began to sing, ‘I tell of one so fair and bright’, and all bawled the refrain, ‘Oh, bright and fair!’ She grinned and swung her head about to be so praised; but I saw her slap the lad’s fingers as he clutched her thigh too tightly, and knew her for a virtuous maid.
I was at my door to welcome them as they trod their last few steps. All were wet halfway to the knee save Anne, and there was much merriment as the women wrung out their underskirts and the men squeezed out their hose and came in bare-legged. They patted mud from their tunics, knocked dirt off their clogs. I resolved to be a cheerful host and not draw attention to this rudeness.
‘Welcome,’ I said. ‘Welcome all.’
I barely knew my own house. While I had been in the church it had been wreathed about with ivy and may, as though the Feast of Saint Lucy was come round again. The trestle shone with bright linen, and a great heap of logs glowed in the hearth, the embers studded with seething pots of green and white porray. The very air was foreign to me, thickened as it was with tickling spice. There was a roar as the ale was brought in.
‘It is the very finest,’ said Joan. ‘Made by our own Aline.’
The ale-wife dropped to her knees as I thanked her, drowned out by thirsty bellowing. Each man dug out a beaker from inside his shirt and polished it on his stomach, ready for it to be filled.
‘Good Aline!’
‘Happy woman and happier husband!’
The man spoken of cawed like a rook. ‘It is the spring!’
‘It is near!’
‘It will be a good spring,’ I said.
‘It will, God willing,’ a man declared, and ducked his head at me.
‘God is good,’ I continued, and they raised their cups in agreement.
‘And so is Anne!’ cried one voice, to answering cheers.
‘My death I love, my life I hate,’ sang one fellow. ‘All for a girl so fair; she is as bright as day is light, but she won’t look at me.’
‘So fair she is and fine,’ boomed another. ‘I wish to God that she were mine.’
‘Oh, Anne is a fine girl indeed,’ whispered Joan, close to me.
‘Fair was her bower,’ cried a third voice.
‘What was her bower?’
‘The red rose and the lily flower.’
The company laughed.
‘My turn now,’ cried a voice thick with ale. ‘When the priest comes in to pray, next day Death takes you away.’
‘Best not get the priest in, then.’
‘Hush now,’ said Joan.
‘No disrespect, Father.’
‘I can sing too!’ I smiled, and took a deep breath.
‘Jesus Christ, my darling Lord, That died for us upon the tree. With all my might I do beseech, You send your love to me.’
They coughed and stamped, and said, That is a good song, Father, and I was warmed.
‘We will be safe this year, Father,’ said Joan.
‘We are always safe in the Lord.’
‘But here, in special.’ She dropped her voice. ‘Against the pestilence. Is it not true?’
‘Our Saint protects us.’
I made the sign of the Cross over the victuals, and they fell to, picking at their teeth with their knives and spitting on the floor. The hours swam by in eating and drinking, and I began to wonder if they might stay the entire night. I could not leave them to go to the church, for it would show them less holy than myself. As I thought it, Joan left off gossiping and clapped her hands. The talking and laughter tumbled into silence.
‘Good people,’ she said, and I thought how loud her voice was, for a woman.
I had not yet heard Anne speak and I hoped her voice was milder than her mother’s. Someone cheered to hear himself called good, and there was jostling until Joan lifted the spade of her hand and dug it into the air. The noise was struck down.
‘Yes, good we are indeed,’ she continued. ‘And as such, we must be gone to our homes.’
The man roared again, wild enough to shout about anything. He stood up to assert his goodness, but his feet were unwilling to follow and he slipped to the floor. His companions hauled him upright and I saw his face made dark with ale.
‘I am sorry, Father,’ he said, the drink gone from him straightway.
The eyes of the room screwed themselves into me.
‘It is nothing; you are merry.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘It is a fine day to be merry, is it not?’
‘Yes, Father.’
He rubbed his face. Someone slammed me on the back. I was pleased at my cleverness not to chide him, for the word would be about that I was a forgiving man. Joan smacked her hands together, and the room was hers.
‘Let us say a good night to our priest. Our fine and right reverend Thomas.’
The people cheered and I burned with happiness. If I could pick out one instant in my life when I was entirely happy, it was then. A warm room; the company of innocents stuffed with food and smiling for me alone. But it was built of shadows. I did not know what was to follow, and when I look back, I cringe that I was so much a fool.
‘Let me bless you before you go,’ I cried.
‘Yes. It would be a fitting farewell, Father,’ said Joan.
There was a clearing of beery throats, the rustling of feet in straw. I must bid Anne sweep it out, for it was sticky with spilt victuals. It would wait until morning. Every chin dropped onto every breast.
‘Oh God, who created the earth and everything in it, look upon our simple feast. Bless us in our humility. Grant us health on earth as it is in Heaven. Comfort our bodies.’
Ah yes, comfort us.
The room rumbled its thanks. Joan began to shoo the company out of the door, encouraging them to bear away what food was left. Anne’s father grasped my wrist and gazed at me with a wandering eye.
‘Father Thomas, you are a good man,’ he hiccoughed. ‘She is a fine girl, Father.’
‘I do not doubt it.’
‘Clean.’
‘Yes,’ I nodded.
‘Willing.’
‘Yes, good.’
‘She could be meeker.’
‘I am sure of it.’
‘But bright in humour.’
‘I wonder you can spare her; she is such a jewel.’
‘My Joan fetches and carries well enough,’ he beamed. ‘I would rather lose a pig than send my Anne to a bad house.’
‘She will be honoured under my roof, Stephen. Have no fear of that.’
‘It is a good thing, Father.’ His eyes shone. ‘You are a better man than we thought.’
My heart leapt and thrust water into my eyes: at last they accepted me. I sheltered the thought in the soft nest of my soul.
Aline directed the steadier of the men to carry away the ale-pots: women wrapped roasted lamb in their aprons and men stuffed half-loaves down their shirts. I wondered how much would survive the crossing of the ford. I pressed them to take more, so they would also carry away the tale of my generosity. In the end it was Joan who stopped them, smacking the greediest of hands, and declaring that some must be left for the two who remained. She was the last to go, nodding a brisk farewell to her daughter.
The cloth on the table was stained with gravy and splashes of ale, the floor crunching with bread crusts and mutton bones. A bowl of pottage had been tipped into the fire: I noticed the smell of burnt peas only now. I held the door open to clear away the breathed-out air. The rain was now coming down steadily, but it seemed nothing could dampen my guests. I could hear them singing in the darkness, as though the heat of their happiness might dry up the downpour. I sucked in the clean breath of the night.
There was a small cough at my back. Of course, Anne was here. We faced each other, listening to the laughter grow fainter. When it was quiet enough to hear my own thoughts, Anne took her skirt in each hand and lowered herself to the floor in such a deep curtsey that her knees brushed the straw.
‘No, mistress; there is no need to kneel before me.’
I grasped at her elbow to pull her upright, but she toppled sideways and I staggered with her: I would have fallen if I had not wrenched the both of us upright. Her giggle snapped off in a yelp.
‘I am sorry, mistress. Are you hurt?’
‘No, sir,’ she said between her teeth. Her eyes wrinkled as she rubbed her shoulder.
‘I am a gentle man, mistress.’
‘Yes, sir. I stumbled. It is my fault.’ She yawned, and a yeasty belch escaped.
‘Are you tired?’
Her eyes sprang open. ‘Oh no, sir. I have eaten well, that is all.’ She looked about, as though seeing each thing for the first time: the hearth, the benches, the table still dressed with trenchers and dribbled ale. ‘Shall I clear it, sir?’
‘Yes, mistress. That would be a good thing.’
She looked surprised, and it came to me at last what she expected and feared. That I was a beast like other men; a corrupt priest who wanted her only to slave beneath me in my bed. I could have wept at her innocence; thinking herself trussed up and sacrificed to me. I started to undo the gaudy ribbons binding her waist; plucked out the wilting blossoms tucked into her looped hair. She panted a little.
‘Do not be afraid, mistress.’
‘I am not, sir. My name is Anne.’
‘I know it.’ I folded the ribbons neatly, for I understood and forgave the hunger of common girls for pretty things. ‘There: you are free now.’
‘Free, sir?’
‘You owe me no debt, Anne.’ I folded my hands together. ‘You know I am a priest?’
‘I do, sir.’ Her breath furred the air between us.
‘You know a priest can never be married to a maid.’
‘I do, sir.’
‘I am a chaste man, Anne. A kind man. I will never insult you.’
‘Sir?’
I smiled at her virgin simplicity. ‘I will never give you cause to rebuke me. You will never be dishonoured in my house. You will never be hungry.’
‘Sir?’
‘Our companionship will shine like a jewel at the heart of this community. We shall show everyone the meaning of marriage in Christ.’ I leaned forward and pressed my lips against her cheek. ‘Goodnight, mistress. I give you the kiss of peace. You are safe here.’
I went to the solar and closed the door behind me. The floor and bedcover were sprinkled with petals frilled with rust.
ANNE (#ulink_c613ea21-6b04-575b-a00c-f3026cf94757)
I lie on my mattress in the outer room that night and every night after, listening to his snores shake the wall. The weeks pass, and every month my blood comes and goes also. Even the moon is less regular. I yearn for Thomas with a hunger that pricks me with wakefulness. Of course, I’ve seen rams tup their ewes and stallions cover their mares, but never guessed the eagerness to be about their labour. I burn for him: he should burn for me. He’s no old dodderer, far from it. All young men have this fire: as the sun rises each morning, so men rise up with it. I do not know why he will not rise up for me.
In the meantime, I want for amusement and I take it where I may find it. Boredom is a dangerous estate for a woman, and I blame Thomas for thrusting tedium of the mind upon me. I cannot accuse him of sparing the labours of the body, for there is no end to the chores he discovers to occupy my hands. I scrub linen, bake bread, spin and a hundred other tasks. Not that any of this drudgery diverts me from wifely passions. But feeling sorry for myself will get me nowhere, nor will trying to fathom the workings of a man’s wits.
I watch him in and out of the house, to the church and back. And most interesting to my way of thinking, he goes to his storeroom, tucked beneath the eaves. The way he scoots up the ladder fast as a weasel pricks my interest, and when he comes down he’s carrying some treasure: a fine knife, a pair of embroidered slippers or a shirt so crisp I could shave his beard with it. More’s the point, he has an air of guilt that fires my curiosity and sets it burning. I know a secret when I smell one.
He never permits me to go up there, even though I come up with plenty of reasons, from clearing out mice to opening the shutter and letting new air chase away the old. I bustle below, and the room breathes in and out above my head. As the tale says, there’s nothing like the curiosity of a woman who is forbidden to do something. It is his fault. If I were not so bored, then I would have no need for distraction.
It is three weeks past Easter before I find the path up that ladder, and it is all due to his refusal to have good pots and pans. I clear my throat and begin with my latest stratagem.
‘I was set to make you pikelets, sir. A recipe of my mother’s, and very fine too. With butter.’
Despite himself, his tongue pokes out and draws a moist line along his bottom lip in anticipation of the treat.
‘Go to, mistress.’
I sigh disconsolately. ‘I would, sir. But I cannot.’
‘Why so?’
I hold up the frying pan and peer at him through the hole in its bottom.
‘Oh,’ he says, for there is no denying a pan you can stick your nose through. ‘Then you must fetch one from the upper room. Here.’
With the words, he unlooses the key from his chatelaine. It is as simple as that. I chide myself for not remembering a man’s belly is the path to all desires. I bob a curtsey, fetch the ladder and try not to scramble up it too hastily. The key trembles in my hand.
A frying pan is the first thing I clap eyes on when I unlock the room. Although tarnished from lack of use, it is of the finest quality: one of four cooking pots, all new and in a heap behind the door. However, I have no intention of being done with my adventure quite so soon.
‘Where do you think it might be, sir?’ I call, making my voice as dull as possible.
The pots are the least of the wonders. When I lift the shutter and prop it open, a cave of treasures reveals itself: a mattress that feels like an angel’s wing when I press my hand against it, a mountain of curtains, stacked wood with a fragrance so heady I am dizzy with the breathing of it. In one corner stands a fiddle, a crumhorn, a trumpet and a pile of tambours all higgledy-piggledy. Leaning against the eaves are half-a-dozen swords and a rusty pike, all surrounded by dust so thick you could roll it up and use it as a blanket. More enticing still than these wonders are two oaken chests, almost big enough for me to climb inside. I step towards them, but Thomas calls from below.
‘What are you doing up there?’ he shouts. ‘A pan cannot be that hard to find.’
I kick at the swords and they rattle.
‘I shall find it soon!’ I shout. ‘It’s so dark I can barely see,’ I lie.
‘Foolish woman, I must help you,’ he grumbles.
His foot thumps on the ladder.
‘Oh, no sir! I have found it!’ I cry, quick about it. ‘I shall come to you this instant.’
I grab the pan, dash out of the room and wave it so he can see. ‘There is no need to trouble yourself.’
‘About time too. I never met a stupider female.’
‘No, sir.’
If I dropped the pan, it would strike him on the top of his shining pate. If I threw it hard, it might crack that pate clean open.
‘Make sure you shut the door and lock it properly. Ach, you are so foolish, you will not be able to do it right. I will come and do it.’
He takes another step.
‘Do not worry,’ I say, slamming the door. ‘It is done.’ I twist the key in the lock and it makes a terrific grinding. ‘Can you not hear, sir?’ I continue to turn the key so that as well as locking the door I also unlock it again. ‘Am I not clever, sir?’ I simper, pulling a rude face he cannot see.
‘I can hear. I am not deaf. Come down.’
I descend the ladder and make a great show of pressing the key back into his hand. Next time he bothers to go up there, all I need do is make out that I am a silly girl who was sure she locked it, because of all the noise it made.
I make the pikelets, even managing to keep one back for myself, for he’d stuff himself with the lot if I did not. He makes what he thinks are kind remarks about how gifted I am to make such fine scones, and I seethe with the pleasure of what I have discovered. He will be mine, so will everything I have seen today. All it takes is time and patience. He’ll share all, and gladly, too, when I’ve turned him to my way of thinking.
It is a few days after the Feast of Saint Bede when Cat pays a visit, along with our cousins and her new babe. Thomas is bustling up the path as they come to the door, and stalks past with a grunted Good day.
‘Thomas,’ I say, my cheeks pinking at his discourtesy. ‘Sir. My sister is come from the Staple. With her baby. And Bet, and Alice, and Isabel.’
He peers at them as if they might be cows waiting to be milked. They bob and giggle.
‘Good day, I say,’ he repeats and passes into the house.
I dash after him and pluck his sleeve with enough determination to hold him still. ‘Sir,’ I hiss. ‘They have come a long way.’
‘The Staple? It is not so far.’
‘Sir. May I invite them in?’
He pauses and narrows his eyes in the way he does when he thinks he is being crafty.
‘Is this not the day you wash the linen?’
‘I have done it all. It is dry enough to hope I may gather it in later. There is bread made, and a white porray simmering for you.’
‘The Lord is good,’ he mutters unhappily. ‘Is there enough to feed them?’
‘You do not need to concern yourself about food. Each has brought something for the board.’ I eye him levelly. If boldness can’t move him, softness might. ‘Oh, sir,’ I add, ‘it would be such a charitable gesture.’
‘Very well,’ he says, grudgingly. ‘They are welcome.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ I say carefully, and curtsey.
They enter at last, pretending they have not heard a word and each making a neat compliment about his benevolence. Cat waves her boy in Thomas’s face and the infant stares at him with blank intelligence.
‘God is good. He makes us fruitful,’ he remarks.
Alice elbows me in the ribs. I busy myself with setting up the trestle so that I do not slap her. We drag the bench to the hearth, for in truth it is a cold day for May. We unpack the victuals and Cat offers Thomas a cup of ale. He refuses, as I guessed he might.
‘You are not like Father Hugo,’ says Cat.
‘Holy Mary, how that man could drink,’ said Alice.
‘And eat,’ adds Bet.
We know the tales, having had them since childhood. The French and Spanish wines, costly spices; how he bought in barrels of almonds and figs, even during Lent.
‘But he did not forget his prayers,’ Thomas reminds us.
‘Oh no! He bellowed out the fame of the Saint,’ agrees Cat.
‘Ah, the crowds of pilgrims.’
‘And the gold that came to the church.’
‘How his stomach swelled!’
‘Further and further!’ I laugh, cupping my hands around an invisible stomach and blowing out my cheeks.
Cat raises her eyebrows and it occurs to me that I could also be imitating the belly of a woman with child, so I stop and tuck my hands behind my back. Thomas takes the action for contrition.
‘To be a servant of the Almighty is not a cause for idle merriment,’ he counsels. ‘It is to be of sober and calm temperament.’
We point the tips of our noses at the floor. I hear Alice and Isabel stifling giggles with little snorts. If Thomas notices, he says nothing.
‘Yes, sir,’ I say, biting my lip.
Bet starts to chant rhymes to the baby and Thomas makes good his escape, scuttling away to the church. Free at last, we settle to eating and drinking and playing with the lad. He is so grown in the past two months I barely know him. He grabs for the edge of my kerchief and drags it askew. Alice and Cat wink and cast saucy looks upon me until I am vexed with their intimations.
‘So,’ drawls Cat. ‘How is life with your man?’
‘Quiet,’ I grumble.
‘But not at night, I’ll wager,’ titters Alice.
‘Hush now,’ says Isabel. ‘See how she blushes. Be gentle.’
‘Is that what you say to Thomas?’ says Cat, and they collapse into raucous laughter.
‘Thomas does not come to me,’ I mutter when they’ve finished hooting.
‘Why ever not?’ asks Alice, face writ with disbelief. ‘Do you anger him?’
‘My Henry came to me quick enough after we were wed,’ twitters Cat, with a salty laugh. ‘A fine and upstanding man he is, too.’
‘Oh, cousin!’ snickers Alice, hiding her smile behind her hand. ‘How you talk!’
‘My Henry pays his marriage debt delectably often,’ Cat continues. ‘All our little Anne needs is a good firm man to take to hand, don’t you?’
‘Cat! This is a priest’s house,’ I say, hearing Thomas’s priggishness in my voice and disliking it intensely.
‘Perhaps we should not talk so boldly if you are still a maid,’ she smirks, with a keen edge to the blade of her words. ‘For you are, are you not?’
‘Not for lack of trying,’ I sneer.
‘Maybe there is some fault in you,’ chirrups Alice, enjoying every minute.
‘You need a babby of your own,’ declares Cat with great wisdom. ‘That’ll put a smile back on that sour little face of yours.’
‘You are not ugly, my dearest,’ Bet simpers. ‘You could have any man.’
I nod at this morsel of flattery. I never before found their chatter annoying, yet today all I can think of is how I should like to smack the smiles off their faces.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I demur. ‘I am a cabbage compared to my beautiful sister.’ I lift the heavy boy from Cat’s lap. ‘Aren’t I, my little man?’ I coo, tickling him gently. ‘This is the way the farmers ride,’ I sing and jiggle him on my lap.
He twists his square head round to gawp at me and vomits curdled milk over my bodice.
‘What a lad!’ crows Cat, patting me with a napkin and smearing the puddle in a broader circle. ‘He does that if you bounce him too hard.’
Alice sweeps the child from my hands and cradles him on her lap, where he shrieks happily, seemingly done with spewing now that I am covered. He lets out a fart of such sonorous depth that he scares himself and begins to yowl, which of course only serves to make Cat and Alice laugh the louder.
‘A true man,’ crows Bet.
‘My own little man,’ adds Cat.
I know they do not mean to hurt me with their talk of adoring husbands and babes. I give myself a moment’s respite by going to fetch bread. They have brought cakes, a jug of fresh ale and more besides, for which I am grateful. I am shamed by the empty cupboard I am housekeeper to. At least I have platters to spread before them, cups into which to pour the drink.
‘Well now. It’s early days. I’ll bring Thomas to me soon,’ I say, with a great deal more confidence than I feel.
‘If it is help you need …’ says Alice, a great deal more kindly. ‘Even the loveliest of maidens needs a little—’
‘Encouragement?’ suggests Cat.
‘Help,’ says Isabel.
‘Assistance,’ adds Bet.
‘Inspiration,’ says Alice.
‘Don’t be cast down just yet,’ murmurs Isabel. ‘There are many ways to bring savour to your bed.’
‘See, Anne,’ says Cat, with unexpected tenderness, and pats me with a dimpled hand. How she keeps it so soft, what with cleaning up after a husband and her baby, I do not know. ‘We are your loving friends. Isabel, show her.’
Isabel dips into her bodice and draws out a tiny packet wrapped in linen. She places it in my hand, still warm from her breast. I look at them in turn. Alice raises an eyebrow and Bet guffaws as though something very naughty is about to take place. I undo the folds to reveal a pinch of dark powder. Although a mere sprinkling, the scent of spices fills the room with delight. I lift it to my nose.
Cat glances about the room nervously. ‘Careful!’ she hisses. ‘Don’t sneeze over it. It cost more than you can guess.’
I hold my tongue. I must be polite, for she means well. Bet sniggers and I glare at her until she quietens.
Isabel pats my arm. ‘Don’t you mind her, cousin. This cannot fail. Put these spices in a glass of wine and Thomas won’t be able to take his eyes from you.’
‘Or his hands,’ snorts Alice.
‘Or his kisses,’ says Bet. ‘He won’t sleep for dreaming about you,’
‘Dreaming’s not what Anne needs,’ sneers Cat.
‘There is no wine in the house,’ I say. ‘Thomas is not—’
‘You mean he’s a tight-fisted—’
Isabel’s eyes widen. ‘Cat,’ she breathes. ‘Kind words. We must help our little cousin.’
‘Why must we?’ protests Cat, raising her eyebrows until they disappear beneath the folds of her kerchief. ‘Anne wants this, Anne wants that. It’s all I’ve ever heard, from the moment the spoilt brat was born.’
‘You’re upsetting the baby,’ says Alice, jiggling him up and down.
His fat features gather themselves together, lips pout. He looks on the verge of a good long squawk.
‘Anne wants a man, Anne wants a baby, Anne wants a king and golden crown,’ continues Cat in a sing-song voice, ignoring her son. ‘Here we are, running around after her like we always did.’
I sniff the spices carefully. ‘Delicious,’ I sigh.
Their heads swivel like owls spying a mouse and I realise I’ve spoken out loud.
We set to preparing the drink, Isabel sprinkling the spices into the jug of wine, for she has brought that also. My eyes prick at her kindness. We chatter some more, and even Cat speaks warm words when we part. She kisses me and calls me her silly little goose, but not unkindly. There are lines drawn at the corners of her mouth and eyes, which I’d never noticed before.
I wait for Thomas to return. I unbraid my hair. I braid it again. I loosen my bodice laces. I tie them again. Never before has he been gone to the church so long. When he returns at last, I declare I am worn out with the waiting. His nostrils flare with the scents perfuming the house. As well as the wine, they have left a neat dish of food: lardons of pork, fried crisp; buttered peas with sippets; two honey-cakes so small you could swallow them both in one mouthful; a humped bun of wheaten bread studded with raisins.
‘This is very fine,’ he remarks, with a true note of pleasure.
I stand by the table, hands gathered behind my back so he cannot see my fingers wringing with nervousness. My face glows with the thought of him speaking as kindly from this day on.
‘It is for you, Thomas. A gift from my cousins.’
‘I must thank them.’
‘They know you for a good man. They offer you this also.’
I heft a glass of the wine and hold it to his nose. The dark spot at the centre of his eye blooms with delight.
‘It smells strong,’ he remarks.
‘It smells tasty. It is for sweetness in this household. Come.’
‘Yes, that is a good toast,’ he says, and once again his voice is soft. ‘We live sweetly, do we not?’
He takes the cup and drains it off so fast that he coughs and water leaps into his eyes. I pour him another glass, and begin unwinding my coif until I stand before him bareheaded. He stares with his mouth open as I shake out the binding of my braids. I dip one of the sweetmeats into the wine and push it between his half-open lips. He pauses a moment, as though he has forgotten what you should do with a cake in your mouth, then begins to chew. I take the other and eat it myself, slowly. It is so luscious my eyelids droop.
‘Are you tired?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘I am never tired.’
This seems to be a great jest for I start to giggle, then laugh and cannot stop. Suddenly neither can he. I pour another glass of the wine; he swigs half of it and offers the other. I smile and take a tiny sip, putting my lips over the wet spot where he laid his.
‘No, I shall share all with you. You are my companion,’ he says, pushing the cup into my face.
I take a mighty gulp. I am springing fire: throat tight, breath rushing and a stabbing, almost painful, between my legs. However, his eyes are closing and opening slowly. If my needs are to be met I must get him before he falls asleep, which won’t be long by the look of him. I slip my chemise from my shoulders and draw his hands to rest upon the bare skin. He sucks in a sharp breath as I take his hand and guide him further down, to the breast. My nipple rounds into his palm and his head lowers as though he is about to suckle.
‘Yes, Tom,’ I gasp, and his head jerks up at the calling of his name.
He pulls his hand out of my bodice so quickly that he rips the laces; shoves me hard and I stumble backwards, falling onto the floor.
‘No. No. It is not right,’ he moans.
‘It is. It is,’ I cry, hanging on to his ankle as he walks away.
‘I am not a fornicator; they couple like rats in straw.’
‘Please, Thomas,’ I beg. I cannot lose him now, not when I am so close to my goal.
‘They fly from one woman to another like flies from one dungheap to the next!’ he cries, his voice rising into a shout.
The room holds its breath. I pick myself up, smoothing down my apron.
‘A dungheap?’ I say. ‘Is that what you think of me?’ I raise my eyes and fix them boldly on to his. ‘Am I so low in your estimation?’
‘No, I do not mean that,’ he mumbles. ‘I am not one of those priests who think women filthy. Women are the mothers of boys who grow to be men. As such we should honour them.’
‘Yes, sir.’ I tuck away my breast and fold my arms, hiding the torn fabric.
‘Would you have me bring the shame of a bastard child upon you?’
‘My beloved Margret is a priest’s woman, in Pilton. They have a boy; no one calls him bastard.’
‘It is a sin. It is written.’
‘Father Hugo sired a girl.’
‘I know this. He was lecherous.’
‘She married a merchant of the Staple with no shame.’
‘Best she is gone there, and swept clean from this place!’ His voice rises into a squawk.
‘You do not need to shout; I am standing beside you.’
‘Woman, show your master respect.’
I press my lips together and glare at him.
‘Would you have me sin?’
‘No, sir,’ I sigh and give up the fight. There is no point trying to boil a pot of wet ashes. He lowers his voice and pats me upon the cheek, petting me as you would do a cat. Or a child. Something harmless, stupid and of no significance. I writhe beneath his touch.
‘I shouted at you. I should not do that,’ he says. ‘I shall not talk of this matter again. I will never rebuke you for it. No one need know.’
I leave the house and am through my mother’s door in moments.
‘Mother, I must speak with you,’ I begin, and the words parch upon my tongue.
She pauses in her chopping of turnips and raises her head. ‘Come now, Anne. What is it? Tell your mother. I have a week’s worth of work to do in an hour.’
‘It is Thomas.’ I whimper. ‘He is – difficult.’
‘All men are so. That’s how the Lord made them,’ she says, and returns her attention to the turnips. In an hour there will be a fine stew bubbling on the hearth. For some reason, the notion of eating turnips in my mother’s house seems a feast.
‘But,’ I start again. ‘He does not – things are not as they should be.’
She sighs, lays down the paring knife. ‘By the Saint, girl. Can you not play him right?’
‘I try, so hard. Nothing I do is enough,’ I whine. She gives me a blank look. ‘He moans, he complains,’ I add, in case she does not understand.
‘Daughter,’ she says, and there is no softness in her voice. ‘What did you imagine happens between a man and a maid?’
‘Ma!’
‘Not that,’ she snorts. ‘Did you have it in your feather-head that he would sigh, and weave you caplets of apple-blossom whilst composing pretty riddles praising your smile?’
‘No,’ I say uncertainly.
‘It’s hard work, and do not mistake me. If he’s not what you hoped for, then make the most of it. You’re not starved, you’re not badly treated, and you’re surrounded by more gewgaws than I could shake a stick at.’
‘I have tried sweetness; I have tried meekness, cheerfulness, hard work, speaking, silence. He is wood. There is no pleasing him.’
‘There is a way, daughter. There is always a way and if anyone can find it, it is my pretty Anne.’
I pause, so that she thinks I am meditating upon her words. ‘Mother, can I come home?’
She gives me a long cold stare. ‘You are home. And I am busy.’
‘I mean, come home to stay.’
‘You most certainly cannot,’ she snorts. ‘The very idea! That would be a fine business. First you’re his woman, then you are not. The shame of it.’
‘I want a proper husband.’
‘You are spoiled, my girl. If I ever sinned, it was in being too soft with you. You wanted him; you have him.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘It is. You shall stay where you are.’
‘I don’t want him any more.’
‘A man is not a brass pot, to be tossed aside when tired of.’
‘I am not tired. I—’
‘Hold your tongue and listen, for once. What man will take the leavings of another?’
Never before did my mother speak to me so harshly. I feel tears rise in my eyes and am determined not to let them spill over.
‘Thomas has never touched me!’
‘So you say.’
‘Don’t you believe me?’
‘I believe you want to be away from a house that half a year ago you begged to be in. You cannot change your man in the same way that you change the ribbons in your hair. I asked you if you were sure, and you swore you were. Heed me now. You will stay, and there’s an end to it. I have done with this conversation.’
I do not know what shocks me more: the force of her words or that it is my mother who speaks them. She wipes her hands and wraps her kerchief around her head.
‘I’m going to fetch your father from the alehouse,’ she announces.
‘But can we not talk some more?’
‘You do not want to talk. You want to twist me to your way of thinking. It will not work any more. By the Saint, Anne, I thought you would have stopped hanging on to my skirts by now.’
‘Mumma!’
‘That is a child’s word. You are not a child.’
I follow after her, for the last place I wish to go is Thomas’s house. My house. She looks down her nose at me.
‘Have you nothing better to do?’ she says.
‘Clearly not,’ I growl.
She sniffs, but does not shoo me away. As we walk, she takes my arm.
‘Come on, lass,’ she says with greater warmth. ‘If any woman can bring him round, it will be you. A man is an instrument and can be played. All he wants is to hear a sweet song, and a woman with her wits about her can sing it afresh every day. Even your father is this way, although I declare I am blessed with my Stephen, for he is the most agreeable of melodies. All you need do is find the tune to make this man dance.’
She pats my hand. I know she means to fortify me.
Stepping through the alehouse door is to enter a dream filled with delightful scents and sounds, and I am stabbed by a sensation that feels a lot like happiness. A cloak of laughed-out air lays itself soft around my shoulders, and I taste the moist kiss of Aline’s brew on the halloas that greet us as we step under the lintel. Mother goes straightway to my father. They embrace each other and he clears a space for her on the bench next to him.
I sigh, imagining Thomas’s sour expression when I return late to the house. It is hardly a sin for me to dawdle awhile and be merry for this one night. I resolve to stay.
The men are engaged in playing a game with a pig’s bladder, which is already the cause of much mirth. Joseph the drover puts his lips to the hole and blows, then lays it upon the bench with a great deal of ceremony. He strolls about with his thumbs hooked behind his back, whistling, inviting us to sit.
‘Come now, Mistress Aline,’ Joseph cackles. ‘Take the weight off your feet! You must be tired after a day making such a fine brew.’
He is interrupted by drinkers raising their cups and shouting huzzah. Aline nods her thanks and laughs.
‘Oh no, not me. All these thirsts to quench and rushed off my feet already!’
She winks at us: we cheer at her clever answer. He scours the room for a suitable fool and this time points at me.
‘You! Little Anne!’
‘Me?’ I squeak, and the folk roar at how tiny my voice is become. I clear my throat and repeat the word more resonantly, which, it appears, is even funnier.
‘Yes, you, my chick. A pretty bird like you should have a comfy nest on which to fluff up her feathers. Look! Here’s the very place,’ he cries, and points to the bench.
I search for a smart retort or I shall have to sit down and lose the game. I find nothing, shake my head and shrivel into the wall. I wait for him to coax me out of my shyness, but when I raise my head he is gone to the other side of the room and is chattering to Alice.
I am more disappointed than I expect. I wanted him to cozen me, so that I could make a big show of saying how I was too busy to play his foolish game. I have been denied the opportunity and it irks me. Alice bats her eyelashes and preens her hair with dainty gestures. Every gaze is upon her and she fair wriggles with the pleasure of it.
‘Oh la, sir!’ she pipes. ‘There are wolves in this very room.’ She looks about, stretching her eyes wide. One old fellow starts to howl, to the amusement of those gathered. ‘If I roost,’ she smirks, ‘one of them is sure to gobble me up.’
There is a thumping of cups and more huzzahs at her quick rebuff. My Da slaps me on the back.
‘Why didn’t you think of that?’ he chuckles.
Alice is casting coy glances at Geoffrey the cheese-man. He returns the look with a grin that lifts first one side of his mouth then the other; a smile that cannot believe its luck. I remember how he once set his cap at me; a short while only, for I looked down my nose at him and made no secret of it. I set my eye way above the head of a man who smelled of curds.
‘We should have Father Thomas here,’ declares Joseph. ‘He’s a man on his feet all day, wouldn’t you say so, Anne?’
At the sound of his name my heart drops.
‘He is not a man who takes much rest from his labours,’ I say as respectfully as I can manage.
This answer makes them roar lustily and I wish it did not.
‘I’ll bet our little Anne keeps him busy!’
‘Now now, he’s a man of God. Let’s keep it clean,’ chides Aline, to a volley of sniggers. ‘Haven’t you told him how good my ale is?’ she continues. ‘Father Hugo was always front of the queue.’ She gives me a look that has an edge of hurt.
‘Eager to get a bellyful, so he was.’
‘Father Thomas is not like Father Hugo,’ I say.
I look at her, raising my eyebrows and praying that she can hear what is behind my words, for I dare say no more. But Aline was never much good at riddles and does not understand my meaningful glances.
‘He’s a lot scrawnier, that’s for sure. Peaky, I’d say. You should feed him better, Anne. I’m not the only one thinks so. Have you got a headache, screwing your forehead up like that?’
‘Aline’s right,’ adds Joseph. ‘Fatten him up and tell him how good this ale is.’
‘You can’t keep him to yourself the whole time.’
‘What?’ I gasp.
‘A honeymoon’s a honeymoon, but you’ve had him cooped up over two months.’
‘You only let him out to go to church.’
My mouth falls open. ‘I do not—’
‘No need to be abashed, my love,’ chuckles Aline and plants a kiss on my brow. ‘I couldn’t let James out of my sight for a quarter-year, could I, now?’
The man in question grins lopsidedly as his companions slap him on the back and snort their congratulations.
‘That’s right. Let him out for a bit of fresh air.’
‘Bit of colour in his cheeks.’
‘And a pint in his belly!’
I consider explaining to them that Thomas would no more sit on a pig’s bladder and pour ale down his throat than he would bare his backside at the high altar. However, Aline would sooner believe that than believe in a man who does not drink beer. It occurs to me that I do not understand Thomas either.
I am surrounded by folk I have seen each day of my life, as much a part of me as my hair and my hindquarters. Yet it is as though I am hovering above their heads like a hawk. Like a glamour wearing off, I see them for the first time, small and terrified as voles, swilling ale to drown out their fear of the pestilence, which prowls around the village like a starved wolf.
I wonder if this is how Thomas sees us, and if he has made me like himself. Perhaps I am becoming used to him, and his coldness is rubbing off on me. It is not a pleasant idea. I shake myself like a dog shakes off water. Ma is right. I need a bit of fire in my belly. I have been doused far too quickly. Alice can have Geoffrey and his dripping cheeses. I have a man and I shall bend him to my will.
As I leave, Ma presses a jug of ale into my hands. ‘This’ll set Thomas right,’ she says, and winks.
She links her arm through mine and accompanies me back to the house. We splash through the ford, lifting our skirts and giggling like children, for the ale has made us clumsy.
‘That’s better, my little Nan. A smile on your face and this good brew. That’s all that’s needed.’
She squeezes my cheek. We reach the door, although it takes longer than it ought, and the latch is slippery in my fingers. At last I get it open and we tumble inside with much hushing of each other, so as not to waken Thomas.
‘What a quiet place!’ Ma says, in the sort of whisper that can be heard three fields away.
We kiss goodnight and she bustles away. However carefully I try to close the door, it slams so hard the house shakes. After she has gone the room seems emptier than it should. When I turn, Thomas is there, fingers laced over his privates.
‘I did not see you, sir,’ I say for lack of better greeting. ‘Were you asleep?’ I add, rather weakly.
‘I was,’ he says, with considerable weight upon the second word.
‘I beg pardon, sir. My mother saw me safely home.’
He makes a harrumphing sound, as though the idea is a foolish one. ‘Mistress,’ he says. ‘Must you have visitors so often?’
‘Often, sir? It was my mother. Not a visitor.’
‘Comings and goings. All hours.’
‘I beg pardon, sir. It is a little late—’
He continues as though I have not spoken. ‘Every day my house is …’ he ignores me and purses his lips, ‘… overturned.’
‘Every day?’
He raises his hand and flaps my words away. ‘Day, week.’
‘Or month, perhaps?’
‘Too often. I am a man of God. If it’s not your mother, tramping in and out in the middle of the night, then it’s your – sister, friends, silly women filling my ears with bothersome chatter. I have had enough of it.’
Dear Lord in Heaven, I think. Here he goes. I bow my head and let the sermon roll over the top of my head. To help pass the time I consider how I shall get up early tomorrow morning and set myself to sifting the barley to make a white porray. Every now and then I mutter, Yes, sir, to keep him happy. I swallow a yawn.
‘So we are agreed.’
‘Sir?’ I say with a start, for I was a long way off.
‘You will give proper notice of visits and seek my permission.’
‘Shall I?’
‘You shall.’
‘Very well.’ I bob a curtsey. I think quickly. ‘Sir, may I be permitted a visit from my mother in one week’s time?’
‘No.’
‘Then,’ I begin carefully, ‘in two weeks?’
‘No,’ he says, more loudly.
‘What of my sister?’
‘No!’ he cries.
‘Please, Thomas.’ I hear the plaint in my voice and hate it.
‘I said no, woman. And stop calling me Thomas.’
‘It’s your name, you fool.’
‘I am sir. Don’t you forget it.’
‘Little chance of that, sir,’ I sneer. ‘You can’t cut me off from my family. My sister has a new baby,’ I add desperately. ‘My nephew. I am his godmother.’
‘Very well. At the feast of Saint Eadburga.’
‘That’s past next quarter-day! He’ll be pushing a plough by then.’
‘Do not exaggerate. He’ll still be spewing up all over your clothes, I’m sure.’
‘What of it? I’m sure the blessed Virgin had her fair share of baby sick to wash out,’ I growl.
His face turns so pale I declare I could knock him over like a ninepin. I leave him to his spluttering and go to my pallet before he can gather his wits and call me a blasphemer. When Christ was a child he’ll have puked like one. And farted like one also, although I do not press my luck by drawing this to his attention.
‘Mistress,’ he calls after me.
I raise my eyes to the roof, for he is not done with me. I wait for the accusation of speaking against God, but instead he looks me up and down.
‘Why is your head covered?’ It is such an unexpected question that I gawp at him for a long and silent moment, wondering whither his brains have taken him this time. ‘You are unmarried,’ he continues. ‘You do not need to do so.’
I hold his gaze and say nothing. I stare boldly enough to earn a slap, or words of caution at the least; but after a while a red spot appears on each cheek. He lowers his head and scurries back to his bed. Perhaps if I had chased him then, if I had asked him why he blushed, demanded to know what he felt for me, perhaps things would have been different between us.
However, nothing is different, and everything is the same. I thought I would grow fat on meat in the house of a priest. But porray is my portion, day in and day out: green, white and red I eat it. I am not starved. I have enough to satisfy hunger, but nothing more. I am no glutton, but I ache with the tedium. So many turnips my belly aches for an onion to brighten my plate, let alone a bit of bacon, fried crisp.
A few days afterthe Feast of Saint Boniface, John the butcher brings a rabbit.
‘For Father Thomas,’ he says. ‘Once he tastes this he’ll send for my wares more often, eh?’
‘I wouldn’t set too much store on it,’ I sigh.
He coughs. ‘Thirsty morning, is it not?’
I bite my lip. ‘There is water,’ I whisper, my face so heated with embarrassment I can barely look at him.
He snorts. ‘Well, there’s a welcome. Have you been telling tales against me, Anne?’
‘Tales? Of course not!’
‘Then why does he not send for me?’
I have no answer. John stands on tiptoe, tugging his hood forward to hide his eyes and trying not to show how greedily he scans the room for goodness knows what stories of riches. His gaze swallows up the old rushes, the hard benches without so much as a cushion to ease your way, the plain walls, the single side of pork dangling from the roof beam, the dark embers on the hearth.
‘Well, now,’ he says and scratches his head. ‘Ah.’
I see the dismal interior through his eyes, as unkempt and unloved as every other thing of Thomas’s. This is not the house wherein I was toasted a handful of weeks ago. No table set for a feast, no bunches of herbs to sweeten the air, the door opened to him by a goodwife as dreary as the sodden reeds which should be swept out.
He holds out the rabbit, grinding its ankles together in his fist. My fingers brush his as I take the dead beast, less than a second, but it is enough to make my flesh quicken. For no good reason I see my braids caught in his firm hand, tugging my head back as he plants a kiss upon my lips. I slam the door in his face with a muttered word of thanks.
I set about skinning and drawing the coney. The aroma of cooking meat calms me. As I catch my breath, I talk to myself sharply for entertaining such brutish imaginings. I set up the trestle and spread a clean cloth. By the time Thomas returns from visiting a poor widow out beyond Saint Michael’s chapel, the stew has fragranced the whole house. Mother always told me that a good cook feeds her husband’s heart. Today might be the day I succeed. His nostrils flare as he steps over the threshold.
‘A fine smell, mistress,’ he says.
‘For you, sir,’ I grin, with a pretty curtsey. ‘John brought a rabbit.’
‘Another visitor?’ he asks darkly.
‘A gift, sir. A kindness from our butcher. I have made a stew.’
He grunts and kicks off his boots, scattering dried mud across the floor. It does not matter. I shall sweep it away later.
‘You may take it to the miller and his family.’
‘The miller?’
‘Yes.’ He snaps his fingers. ‘Nathaniel? Simon? Martin?’
‘Simon.’
‘Yes, yes. I hear he is taken sick and I am tired out from walking all the way to the far side of the marshes,’ he mutters. ‘With God’s blessing,’ he adds quickly.
‘I could spare a bowl,’ I say, wondering if he truly means me to give away the whole lot and have nothing to eat myself. ‘But I made it for you.’
‘Then you have wasted your time, mistress,’ he says, shrugging off his cloak, which smells like a wet ewe.
It sprawls across the bench. He stares at it until I pick it up, shake it off and hang it on its hook.
‘Does the scent of rabbit displease you?’ I ask, knowing it does not. His eyes are glued to the pot, even if he thinks I am too stupid to notice.
‘Of course not. Your cooking is quite sufficient. But it is Thursday evening.’
‘Yes?’
I must sound truly confused, for he smiles. He always smiles when I do not understand what he has said. I wonder whether he does it on purpose.
‘So I cannot eat flesh.’
‘Thursday is not a fasting day,’ I say, a little uncertainly, for the good Lord may have changed His mind this morning and added Thursday to the dense thicket of days when meat may not be eaten.
‘It is past Compline. I did not think to be so late. But the widow would keep me …’ He draws in a steadying breath. ‘May the Saint bless her and keep her. So it is the eve of Friday. As a man of God, I must fast.’
I look at him. He looks at me. I am not convinced: he looks far too pleased with this act of piety for my taste. But there is nothing I can say. I return to the hearth and set to heating the porray left over from this morning. I consider adding a piece of the rabbit to it, but he would notice and I would get another sermon. I stir the mush so angrily some of it flies out of the pot and lands on the rushes.
I watch the spilled oatmeal dry out. I could scrape it off the floor and put it into his bowl. It is hardly a sin. He says neither a word of praise nor condemnation about the food I cook, whether it is the best dish I ever made or something I hurled into the pot without thinking. I doubt he’d notice if I seasoned his victuals with sheep dung. I know these thoughts come from the Tempter and I should pray, but today I am not in a prayerful mood. I continue to stir, feeling very sorry for myself.
When I first came here, I prepared victuals with the shy hand of a maid who loved and hoped for it to be returned. I thought my store of affection was enough to last many a lean winter, but I was wrong. It has shrivelled away so quickly. I look into the pot. Steam rises off the surface and warms my face with its gentle touch. I hover there a while longer, feel water pool beneath my tongue.
I shape my lips, part them slightly and watch spittle fall in a silver string. It rests on the surface of the pottage, the size of a small coin. I could pretend it is a mistake, one I did not intend to make. But I intend every bit of it. One movement of the ladle and it is gone. No, not gone: hidden. How I will smile if he praises his supper, tonight of all nights! Only I know it is there, and I will watch him eat.
VIXEN (#ulink_57f7f5bb-4a58-5cb4-9025-3c3711a0b089)
I am sitting in the arms of an oak, picking shreds of rabbit meat out of my teeth when I see them: a flight of starlings moving as one bird, a banner turning the morning dark. I watch the play of their flight. I never tire of the tales they write upon the clouds: marvellous stories of where they have been and the wonders they have witnessed.
I feel that mix of wistfulness that I have no wings to spread and join them, yet happy that my journeys are conducted in solitude and not subject to the squabbling whim of birds. I am so wrapped in the drowsy distraction of a full belly that it takes me a while to realise that something is amiss. Their flapping is troubled, unlike their usual joyous dance. They cast themselves raggedly across the sky, first one way and then the other.
Their cries fill the sky and in them I seem to hear: Come close; follow and we will tell. Half-words, half-news and I must know the whole. The last thing I want to do is venture from the safety of the forest and any closer to the village squatting a stone’s throw away. But something pulls me, like iron to a lodestone.
I slide from my perch, scrambling down fast as a squirrel. My attention is so fixed on the birds that I almost trip over the body stretched across the path. I leap away shrieking, and hear a dry chuckle above my head. Some would say it’s no more than the rattling of rook’s beaks, but I know better.
‘Very funny,’ I grumble. ‘I suppose that’s your idea of a joke?’
The man’s arms are stretched out as though nailed to the earth; back arched upwards, his body a bow that Death pulled back and never released. I don’t want to look at him. I cannot take my eyes away.
His scrip is gutted, any coins long gone. His boots must have been fine, for they too have been stolen. His cap bears a leaden badge and just out of reach of his clawing fingers is a tiny book: face down, wings spread, prayers melting into the dirt.
Don’t you want to step a little closer? whispers my old friend. Smell the roses I have planted in his throat?
I don’t need to be a clerk to read this riddle. His flesh is swollen, eyes thrusting from his head, mouth gaping in its final shriek and gagged by the thick tongue bloating between his lips. The pustules at his throat broke open long ago and are congealed with black ooze.
I am muffled in silence, as though the forest is stuffing her fingers into her ears. I wonder if this is what the birds want to show me. I squint through the branches, a dart of disappointment that I have lost them, then spy the flock heading west. The call to be away is clear. I set my shoulders straight, leap over the pilgrim’s carcase and follow them out of the trees.
I keep pace as best I can: running alongside streams and ducking under hedgerows in case I should meet some worthy peasant who takes it upon himself to ask difficult questions of a strange girl wandering where she shouldn’t.
The starlings reel in the direction of the sea, a bowshot distant, chattering, We know what’s coming! Follow us and we’ll tell all! I skirt the village and chase them into the saltmarsh, a scribble of whip-grass and vetch heavy with the brackish reek of sedges. There’s not so much as a bush to provide cover. My feet itch to be back in the forest, my neck prickling with the fear some man is watching. But curiosity drags me forwards. I must know.
‘Come on,’ I growl. ‘If you’ve got something to say, be done with it.’
The mere is raked with drainage ditches, digging their talons through the mud. Weak sunlight catches the surface of the water, turning them from black to silver, silver to black. I jump into one, scuttle along out of sight.
After a few minutes I meet a water rat dashing in the opposite direction, fur sticking out in a shock of frizz. The only thing they fear are dogs, and where there’s a dog there’s a man soon after. I crouch low in the cutting, sending silent thanks to the fleeing creature for its warning. My ears are cocked for barking, for the snuffling of a wet nose on the scent, the encouraging shouts of its master; but there’s nothing save the racket of birds heading further into the marsh.
More water rats bounce past on tiny paws, then a pair of otters, all running inland. The hindmost otter pauses and hops onto her hindquarters. She peers at me and sniffs.
‘What’s afoot?’ I ask her. She pats her broad paws together. ‘That’s right. Tell your old friend. What’s all this business with the birds? I’ve never seen such a commotion.’
For answer, she ruffles her whiskers and dives back into the waterway. With a flick of her tail she catches up with her mate and is gone. I can’t help but laugh. I have always found the beasts of the field far better company than men. The breeze stiffens and I curse myself for leaving my over-tunic in the fork of the tree. I press on, shivering in under-tunic and half-hose.
The starlings continue to swirl, crashing into each other with such force that they tumble to earth in a sprawl of feathers. I trip over snapped bodies: beetle-wing eyes already dim, the tips of their beaks pointing in the same direction, towards the sea. They are not alone. A wild parliament of birds is gathering there.
Lapwings brush the earth with their bellies, curlews flipping over like cakes on a hot stone. A pair of swans thrash their necks so furiously I think they will snap. Even rooks have joined the throng, drawn from the forest as urgently as myself. The air roughens with the okokok of geese, the clattering of oystercatchers, the booming of bitterns, a hubbub of squawking and screeching. In the melee, more and more collide and plummet, raining down until the earth is pillowed with plumage.
‘What do you want?’ I shout. ‘Why have you brought me here?’
At my words, the company falls silent. They stretch their wingtips and pause, hanging in the thickening air. It is the matter of a moment. Then, as if by some unknown command, they draw together like the fingers of a giant hand, from the greatest to the smallest, till they are one flock. Not one touches the other, not by so much as a tail-feather.
With stately grace they form a circle the breadth of the heavens: no haste, no sound, even the beating of their wings muted. They glide round and round in a dizzying arc, the maelstrom so thick as to make the morning dark as evenfall. I watch open-mouthed, and in the silence I see what is coming. To the west, massing over the sea, is a mountain of cloud, black as the bottom of a well and greater than any I have ever seen.
‘A storm?’ I yell at the birds. ‘Is that all? You dragged me out of my warm, comfortable tree to tell me it’s going to rain?’
I shake my fist and a bellyful of seagull shit lands on my head. I run my hands through my stinking hair, cursing shitty-arsed birds the world over. My fingers tangle in filth.
‘Why me?’ I yell, dripping with half-digested fish. ‘What did I ever do to you?’
The gulls laugh, a raucous rattle like a stick dragged along a gate. A black-faced bird unpicks itself from the whirlpool of wings and dives so close to my head that I have to crouch to escape its attack. It swoops away without striking. Another does the same, and another, buffeting my head with salt air. I have seen birds mob a cat before, and have laughed mightily at the sport. Now the tables are turned and it is not in the least amusing. Drops of rain strike my shoulders, save it is not rain, it is more bird shit. All join in, pelting me with muck.
‘I hate you!’ I shriek. ‘I’ll kill every one of you! I’ll set fire to every nest and burn your hatchlings to cinders! I’ll burn down the forest and you in it!’
Egg-killer! they shriek. Murderer of our children!
I see the empty nests, all their generations gulped down my gullet. ‘I was hungry!’ I whine.
They make one more turn of their grand dance. The smallest are the first to leave: sparrows and wrens head back to their hedgerows, followed by the larks, the thrushes, the blackbirds, the plovers, the fieldfares, the magpies, unravelling themselves one by one from the tight-wound skein of quill and claw until only the gulls remain, chuckling at the joke I am beginning to understand. I was the fox. Now I am become the quarry.
I look up at the jaundice-yellow sky. I’ll have to take to my heels if I’m going to outrun the storm back to the forest, for it is coming in fast. I hear the cracking of a distant tree, pulling up its roots and crashing through the frail arms of its brothers as it falls to earth. But there are no trees: it the sound of approaching thunder.
I take no more than three paces before the rain begins in earnest. At least it’ll wash off the muck, I think. I race along and soon come upon the drainage channel, now churning with orange water. I can’t believe it is full so quick, for the downpour has barely started.
It is too dangerous to crawl within, so I crouch and run alongside, comforting myself with the knowledge that no other person will be so mad as to venture out in this weather. I am a fool to be so caught, and counsel myself over and over never to follow the flight of birds again, for they bring nothing but trouble.
‘You bastard birds!’ I shout, and am rewarded with another splat on my arm. ‘Ha! Missed my head!’ I cry, and a volley lands on my shoulder.
The marshland is a blur, rain pouring so heavily that I swear it goes up my nose. I am grateful for the straight line of the ditch, guiding me back inland, but the next step thrusts me into mud up to the knee. I sink further and only just manage to drag my foot out. Somehow, I have followed the ditch in the wrong direction and am at the sea’s edge. Rusty water spews into the estuary.
I throw myself backwards and gasp on the quaking edge of the morass. I shove down the shock and remind myself that I have made a simple mistake and gone towards the sea rather than away from it. All I need do is retrace my steps and all will be well.
I turn about and make my way as swiftly as I can, which is not that fast, for the ground sucks at my feet as though unwilling to release me from its grasp. I fortify myself with the thought that soon I will come upon a hedgerow that betokens solid ground. But the ditch is met by two more: one leading to the right and one to the left. It is impossible to see further than five paces in either direction. I hop from sodden foot to foot, the earth softening dangerously as I loiter.
I set off to the left but go barely twenty paces when I am knee-deep in sludge again. I head back, bent beneath the downpour, but all is mud this way also. I have no choice but to strike out across the wasteland and pray that I can hold a straight line away from the sea.
The earth quivers like a haystack soaked by a week’s rain. The wind leaps in front of me and slaps my face; I turn and it flings mud into my eye, tearing up clods of earth and hurling them past my ears, twisting me round and round in a game of hoodman blind. Bulrushes uproot themselves and fly past, lashing my body in wet rope.
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