‘But what of your bull?’ wails King Magnus. ‘I have slain him! He is in a hundred pieces!’
At this moment James sets up a fearsome groaning from inside his pot, enough to turn a man’s blood to gruel. ‘I am murdered!’ he moans, in case anyone has forgotten his fate in the excitement of King Magnus’s repentance.
We turn our attention to the pot and King Magnus slips away, his part completed. I see him dragging off his crown, which is wood and not the gold it seemed to be. He wipes a cloth over his face, the paint comes away and he is once more William the steward.
The Saint weeps and beats his breast. ‘Was this not the most wonderful bull ever known on this earth!’ he yells. ‘It could spear a barn door with its horns! When it stamped its hooves, trees toppled and fell! Its bellow could tumble walls! Its balls were fat as barley sacks! Its pizzle thick as a tree trunk!’
At this, James can be heard chuckling inside the pot. The Saint gives it a kick to make James shut up but does not have much success, and we join in the mirth. More than one lad throws a hopeful glance at a maid, to receive one in return. I glance in Michael’s direction, but he is gone from his spot. After a moment searching the crowd, I spy him beneath the yew with Alice, who is twiddling the end of her braids between her fingers. If I gave her hair a good hard yank, she’d crack her skull against the trunk. As if she can hear my thoughts, she slides a look in my direction and the corner of her mouth lifts in a half-smile.
The drums sound again, there is a mighty squawking of shawms, the Saint calls upon the Lord and James leaps up, restored to life. He bellows so wildly I wonder if the church walls might not crumble a little and fall on Alice’s head. They stand firm.
The crowd clap and cheer. The Saint leads us in a prayer that God might bless us now as He did then and a lusty amen echoes the sentiment. With that, the play is done. I wander about, thinking how empty the path seems without the Maid trotting alongside, when Mother grabs my hand and hauls me into the lee of the wall.
‘I have warned you, girl.’
‘What?’ I say with true surprise.
‘I see you. Making cow’s eyes at Michael. And Geoffrey. Anything with two legs and a pintle.’
‘Ma!’
‘Do not imagine for one minute that you are free to do anything about it.’
‘Of course not. How can you think such a thing?’
‘I think it very easily, for I know you better than you know yourself.’
‘I am a hungry woman, and still a maiden,’ I growl. ‘Thomas does not come to me as a man should. I told you.’
‘Don’t presume to chide your mother, girl. I know you when you’re thwarted, but you’ll not get your way this time. Leave off mooning after the village lads. Or any other, in case you have some wild scheme to skip off to the Staple fair. You got the man you whined for. One is all you get.’
She sweeps away, her gown snapping like a sail in the freshening breeze.
Thomas appears from the west door, hand raised in blessing and extolling the virtues of the Maid, who totters at his side. She stands upright, almost graceful. He has draped her in an altar cloth so white it dazzles the eye. How he managed to make her so biddable I have no idea. I am pierced with a dart of jealousy that she obeys him and not me.
The people gasp, for this is no painted creature from a mummers’ play. She raises her arms and the people drop to their knees, hug their caps to their breasts, muttering prayers. All it took was his words in the church and the Maid is suddenly their darling. I wonder at how fast things turn around: not so very long ago they’d have skinned her like a rabbit and been quick about it.
Thomas shoves forward the lasses who teased her. They hang back, eyes puffed up from weeping over who knows how much chastisement. They proffer a posy of milkweed. The Maid takes it, bites the heads off the flowers and spits them in the girls’ faces.
That’s my Maid, I think.
The people bob around her, waggling their fingers and feeding her scraps of cheese and bread. She squeals hungrily, which serves only to prompt more exclamations of delight at their new treasure. I push through the crowd and their bothersome coddling, grasp the Maid by the hand and start to lead her away. She whines, but I have a firm grip on her paw.
‘What are you doing?’ asks Alice, who is dangling a piece of bacon fat in front of the Maid’s nose.
‘She’s tired. She needs to rest,’ I say, none too politely.
‘So say you.’
‘Look at her. She doesn’t want to go,’ adds William.
The Maid moans.
‘What a girl wants and what a girl gets are two different things,’ I grunt. I tug her hand and she stumbles after me. ‘She must learn to honour her elders. The Lord said so to Moses. If it was good enough for him, then it’s good enough for her.’
They can’t think of a retort to that one, but as I heave her away there’s a lot of muttering and none of it complimentary. I even catch the word whore, but when I spin round to catch the culprit, they are all wearing innocent expressions. This is what Margret has to cope with, I think. It is not so bad.
‘I hear you,’ I growl. ‘Don’t think I’ve gone deaf. Whatever you say, God’s chosen me to look after her, not you. So you can stick that up your backsides and squeeze tight.’
I turn my back on the lot of them, hold my head high and stalk off. The day is done and I am done with it also. There is drizzle in the air and the folk bustle away swiftly, bearing the masks and costumes. Mothers drag their snivelling children homewards, telling them there is no need to make such a fuss; the bull was not dead for long.
I think I’ll have to fight to bring the Maid away, but she trots along obediently. If I was given to fancies, which I am not, I’d swear I hear her chuckle.
‘Listen to them,’ I mutter. ‘The miserable bean-splitters. The clapper-heads. The dried-up herring skins.’
So I grumble. I am still seething with bile when I splash through the ford and up the path. Thomas is at the door, looking very pleased with himself. I shove him aside, make straight for the hearth and peer into the pot. There is enough porray to feed the three of us, if I have a small portion. At my shoulder, Thomas sucks his teeth loudly.
‘It was a fine show, today.’
‘Yes,’ I grunt.
‘The people take the Maid to their hearts.’
‘Hmm,’ I mumble, dividing the food as carefully as I can.
He would gobble the lot if he had half the chance, and then look surprised if I pointed out that the Maid and I had empty bowls. I don’t know why he is such a spindle-shanks, the amount he shoves down his gullet.
‘I said, the Maid—’
‘I heard you. Isn’t it time to say the Office? God wants to listen to you; I do not,’ I snap, far too quickly and far too rudely.
His eyes blaze, and I wait for the clout I know is to come, for he has already balled his hand into a fist and raised it above his head. It is the only part of him he does get up with any regularity, I think sourly, and place my arms over my head in their accustomed position, ready to shield myself from the pummelling.
‘How dare you speak to me thus?’ he starts. ‘A man picked out by God?’
His voice is shrill, the song one that I have heard many times before. I know the tune so well that I can time with perfect precision exactly when and where the blows will fall, how they will grow in intensity from waspish slapping to the climax of kicking. I know how much pain to express: too much excites him to greater efforts and too little makes him go on for longer.
I play my part, groaning where I must make a sound, and biting my lip where I must not. The whole while our dance is accompanied by his chorus of sayings from this saint or that saint, on and on. I am set for it to continue as usual when an unfamiliar sound joins Thomas’s ranting about the disobedience of women.
Thomas leaves off his sermon and looks in the direction of the interruption. The Maid is perched on the hearthstone, chin pointing at the roof-beam, mouth wide o
pen and making the stretched-out howling of a faithful dog that finds its master slain by bandits. The sound rings in my ears, bounces off the walls, swells the room to bursting.
‘Ah-oo!’ she whines.
I am astonished that such a piercing sound can emerge from such a small frame. By the look on his face, Thomas is equally stunned. And worried. His eyes dart towards the door. It is closed, but I know what he is thinking. He is not worried about passers-by hearing my cries, but the Maid? If the villagers think he is mistreating the miraculous gift of the Saint – for that is how he has placed her in their minds – it would not be such a simple matter to explain away.
‘Quiet!’ he hisses.
‘Ah-oo!’ she yowls, even more disconsolately.
‘Obey me!’
At this, she tosses her head back and shrieks so loudly I do not know whether to ram my fingers in my ears or join in with the yowling. Her screams curdle my brains. It is impossible to think, impossible to escape the racket.
‘The woman is disobedient!’ he whines and I almost laugh at his petulance. ‘She must be punished. It is God’s law.’
The Maid snorts, spraying snot over his boots. He takes a step in my direction, ignoring the noises bubbling up from the girl’s throat.
‘Don’t hurt me, sir,’ I whimper, making my voice piteous.
He draws back his foot and I curl my knees to my chin in case he should take it upon himself to kick me in the stomach. The Maid howls. He lowers his foot, and the moment he does so she stops, panting happily, tongue hanging out of her mouth and glistening with moisture. He lifts his foot and she starts to shriek once more. It is like the miracle play, and as much of a wonder to observe.
‘You cannot stop me!’ he shouts.
Very slowly, I get to my feet. I ache, but only a little, for the Maid brought an end to this beating before it truly began. I look at her; she looks at me. Thomas’s gaze flits between the two of us, unable to settle, unable to decide what to do.
The Maid sidles across the floor, clutches a handful of my skirt and hangs on with furious determination. She opens her mouth wide and I think she is about to vomit, for she retches like a cat trying to spew up a fur-ball. She screws up her brows, shaping and unshaping her lips. Eventually, after much gagging, she lets out a bark, loud as a clap of thunder.
‘Good!’
As she speaks, she thumps my thigh with great enthusiasm. The word sounds a little like goot, but I hear it and so does Thomas.
‘Good?’ he says, all disbelief. ‘Did she call you good?’
For answer, she strokes the rough weave of my skirt, turning adoring eyes to my face in case he should be in any doubt as to her meaning.
‘It is her first word,’ I say. ‘Perhaps she is not so unreachable after all.’
Thomas frowns. I watch the creaking wheel of his thoughts turn in a most unwilling revolution, seeking out the many reasons why I am not good. Before he can discover them, the sound of the church bell reaches us.
‘Why, sir,’ I say. ‘It is time for the Divine Office. Edwin is there before you.’
He scowls, and I see how dearly he would like to tell me I am mistaken. But there is no time, and I am right. He is away quickly. I watch him grow smaller as he disappears down the path to the church. I know he will find some excuse to call me worthless and deceitful and strike me again. No doubt I will give him good reason, for I have run out of the patience it takes to speak to him courteously.
The Maid gawps at me, huffing and puffing in that puppy-like way of hers.
‘So,’ I remark. ‘I am good, am I?’
She smiles. Not in the halfwitted way I have observed till now. Her eyes are clear, and for that moment she is no more a fool than I am. I tell myself it is nothing, but struggle to believe my own counsel. I have glimpsed this before.
By the Saint, I am not good. My bodily desire grows until it is fit to burst out of me. I am wakened and there is no chance of sleep. My mother is right: I ache to quench my heat with another. Any other. Every word Thomas says, every cold gesture, should throw a blanket on my conflagration. But I smoulder. I cannot be put out. I am banked up like the fire of a charcoal-burner, a man who knows how to tend flame and bend it to his will. And as simply as that, I know what to do.
Lust calls me to the forest, clear as a bell.
I could tell Thomas I am off to dance naked with gypsies, he takes so little notice. The charcoal burners come to the village but once a year, so I have no fear of my escapade becoming the subject of salty tales told in the alehouse. I settle the Maid by the hearth and shove a piece of bread into her hand. The fire is low and she is seated far enough away not to fall into the embers.
‘Be a good lass,’ I coo. ‘I’ll only be gone a short while.’
She watches me prepare to leave, sucking on the crust and rocking backwards and forwards. She gives a squeak of curiosity and stands, so I shove out the flat of my palm and tell her to sit. She understands either the word or the gesture and squats upon the rushes.
‘Good girl,’ I say.
Her face carries the look of concentration it wears when she is considering a shit, but I decide to take the chance. Besides, if I am unlucky, I can sweep up her turds and the rushes with them when I return.
I race to the well and keep on walking into the forest. Birds call to each other in their different tongues, remarking upon the stranger come among them. Wind moves the trees, so that the leaves speak with their own voice also. But it is the barking of a dog that guides me to the spot I seek.
His turf hut is surrounded by a large circle of brushwood; I pick my way carefully and although I make little sound, he is there to meet me. His face is smeared with oily ash, skin dry as the bracken heaped over the kiln. Sharp lines crease his eyes from peering into the stack.
‘Good day,’ I say.
‘Ah,’ he croaks.
‘I am here,’ I say. ‘Not for burned-up wood.’
‘Ah,’ he repeats.
He rubs his hands together, warming them at the fire of what we both know is to come. They are black from shovelling charcoal and I think of my kirtle and kerchief. Easy to explain away a little mud about the hem, but not the dark prints of this man’s paws. For all that Thomas is a fool, he is not blind. Even he will notice his housekeeper dirtied from head to foot. And if he does not, then I can be sure that every soul from here to Hartland will remark upon it and their tongues will flap like dishclouts in a gale.
The charcoal-burner moves forward, his eagerness to begin plain as the stick pushing out the front of his leather apron. I hold up my hand and he grins, revealing teeth the same colour as his hands and face.
‘Not a time to be changing your mind, missy,’ he cackles, and takes another step. He busies himself with the rope binding his apron, frowning at the knot.
‘I’ve not changed my mind. But I’ll not go home as black as you.’
He laughs, the ack-ack-ack of a magpie. ‘Lift your skirt and be done with it,’ he caws, laying his hand on my hip.
I shrink away from the touch. ‘I said wait.’
I am all busy-ness, all fire. My kerchief is off far quicker than it took to fasten it about my head; my kirtle away in a moment, for I did not lace the sleeves. It’s an easy matter to find a bush on which to hang them. He hops from foot to foot, smiling wider with each garment I remove, until I am down to my under-shift. As I hoist it to my armpits, he gloats at my body hungrily.
‘Well then, man?’ I gasp, for I am famished also. ‘Why do you wait? A moment ago you would have nailed me to that oak.’
‘It is a long time since I saw a woman,’ – he waves his grimy fingers – ‘thus.’
‘Eyes give no satisfaction. Come now. Give me what I need.’
I squeeze my breasts, lifting so that the nipples poke their pink noses through the slashed neckline. The ache between my legs is so piercing that I fear I may cry out. It is a heavy fullness, yet at the same time I am empty and yearn to be filled.
I
need, my body moans, I need.
I choose a patch of ground that is neither cruel with stones nor filthy with bird droppings. I lie down while I still have the choice and am not thrown into thistles or shoved against a tree. Finally, he is done with unfastening himself. I spread my knees and point at the wet place where I want him.
‘In here,’ I pant, in case he does not know what to do with the maypole that’s waving its purple head at me.
But he does know, and is on me, and at last I am full. He rams home and my body cries yes with the relief and rightness of it. He pulls half out and I moan, ‘Oh, do not go!’ But he is straightway in again, again and again. I throw my legs around him, drum his ribs with my heels as though he is a mule and I must spur him to more vigorous action. I yell for more. He pounds harder and still it is not enough. I want more; what, I do not know. Then he shudders: once, twice; drops his weight upon me like a sack of flour and is done.
I roll from beneath him, pull my shift past my knees, collect the rest of my clothes and climb into them. I return to the village without another word, nor a backward glance. I should feel shame, but I do not. Mother said it would hurt, my first time; that there would be blood. If there is blood, I do not see it. If there is pain then it reminds me I am alive. I am not merely a pair of hands to prepare food or a pair of feet to run back and forth. I know my monthly courses well enough to know I shall not be taken. And if I am: so be it. I do not care. That night I sleep better than I have since I was a girl. That child is gone and I am free of her.
I observe the Maid privately, hoping to catch that look or hear her speak again with comprehension. But for the few days following she seems more witless than ever, even pissing where she stands. I am not so easily put off, however. I act the innocent, prattling on as usual, but secretly watching for her to make some slip that I may leap upon. I do not have to wait for long.
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