Vixen

by Rosie Garland

  ‘Anne.’

  It is the first time she speaks my name. The way she breathes it softens me a little, but I am determined not to bend so fast.

  ‘You are a clever girl, I grant you that. How you’ve made your way here, and whence you came, I know not. But you are under this roof for now. You shall not address me like that again.’

  ‘Or you’ll do what? Gather the goodmen of this parish and drive me into the sea?’

  She tries to speak as though she does not care, but I’ve smelled fear on plenty of pilgrims and I smell it now. It is my turn to smile.

  ‘No.’

  ‘If it is civility you desire, then I shall bow and call you mistress,’ she sneers.

  I laugh, and it is slow and easy. I gather up one of the discarded sheets, shake off as much dirt as I can and lay it in the chest.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she asks.

  ‘Folding linen.’

  ‘It is still dusty.’

  ‘Indeed it is. He’s not that observant.’

  ‘Shall I help?’ she says uncertainly.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you said—’

  I flap my hand and laugh again. ‘You know what you’re searching for. I am a good housekeeper. I am better at this task.’

  ‘I do not understand. I thought—’

  ‘The clever maid has something yet to learn.’

  She returns to her search. At one point she finds a shilling sewn into the binding of a blanket, and her mood lightens. She examines the rest of them more carefully, shaking out flurries of moth wings like so many flakes of grey snow. But no more coins are served up. At last she is done. She sits in the dust, face smeared and surveys the haul. By the number of coins I know better than to ask if there are sufficient.

  ‘You have only taken men’s clothes.’

  She raises an eyebrow. ‘It is easier and safer to travel as a boy.’

  ‘But you are not a boy. You will simply look like a girl in hose.’

  ‘Here. I will show you.’

  She hops to her feet: pulls a tunic over her head, drags a pair of hose to the knee, holds out her hand and draws me upright. To my surprise, I am looking at a strange young man half a head taller. But the Maid is shorter than me: of that I am sure. She sees my astonishment and grins.

  ‘Is that better?’ growls this lad in a voice deep as a millpond.

  I laugh. ‘How do you do that?’

  Her eyes glitter. ‘How do I do what?’ she asks.

  ‘You know very well.’

  ‘Close your eyes and I will show you more.’

  It seems I have little option. I obey with an exasperated sigh.

  ‘Now, open them again.’

  The youth is gone. In his place stands a priest. Not any priest: Thomas. She sings a scrap from a psalm, intoning his reedy warble so perfectly she sounds more like him than he does himself. She captures the tremor of his head upon his neck, has the particular shuffle of his step. I never remarked on these things before, but now she has drawn them together I wonder how I ever missed them.

  ‘Do I not amuse you?’ she asks.

  ‘You are far more than amusing,’ I say. ‘You are remarkable.’

  ‘Close your eyes,’ she says again, grinning.

  The next time I am commanded to look, I am presented with a one-legged beggar, his face a squeezed mass of wrinkles.

  ‘Alms, mistress?’ he croaks. ‘Bless me and receive blessings yourself!’

  He hops towards me, and I shrink from his claw.

  ‘You do something when my eyes are closed,’ I say. ‘You are cheating. No one can do this without magic tricks.’

  With a shake of the shoulders, the cripple is cast off and the Maid returns, laughing. I am relieved she is herself again, even though I know the beggar was her also.

  ‘There is no trickery,’ she says. ‘Something cleverer. Keep your eyes open this time. It will make no difference.’

  She pauses, breathes. In her hands a tablecloth becomes the bump of an unborn babe a wife bears before her, huffing and puffing. She twists a sheet into a beggar’s hunchback, milady’s over-mantle, an angel’s wings. With the slightest curl of her body she is a tumbler doing handstands; she dons a cap and is a sailor fresh off his ship, purse bulging with coins and lusty desires.

  With another twist she is a drunken woodcutter who cannot strike the tree without falling over; a crone with a wall eye and a withered arm. When she retrieves the discarded fox fur and places it on her head she is straightway a true vixen, all snap and snarl. I swear her bones are water and she can pour herself into any vessel she chooses. The garments obey her.

  I clap delightedly at the show, like nothing I have ever seen before; so exciting it makes me catch my breath for fear of losing it. Next she is a harlot, I her customer, and she prowls around me like a cat. Then she is a lovesick boy who drops to one knee, begging a favour from his beloved. He is quite the esquire and I play along, holding out my hand so that he may take it and prance about, bowing low and praising the gold of my hair and rose of my cheek.

  On and on she leaps from person to person, body to body, and it comes to me that each one is the reflection of someone she has observed. Across this land are folk lacking a portion of themselves and they know not where they might find it: a beggar who has lost his misery, a tumbler his balance, a priest his faith, a harlot her heart. She has stolen a piece of their souls and taken it into herself.

  If she can be so many different people, how do I know that my girl is the true Maid? Perhaps that is another of her fabrications. I try to shake the thought away, but it sticks, nipping at my insides. Faster and faster she goes, man after woman and woman after man, till they blur into each other and at their heart I see the same face shining through them all: an angry face, twisted, screwed up, monstrous with terror. I stop laughing.

  ‘Wait!’ I cry. The play stutters to a halt. Her body melts the final time and she is the Maid once more. ‘Who is that?’

  ‘What?’ she pants.

  ‘Who is at the heart of these disguises? Where are you in all of this shadow-play?’

  ‘Me? Nowhere. I am nothing.’

  ‘Anything but,’ I snort. ‘Tell me who you are, in truth.’

  Her eyes darken. ‘If you knew the truth, you would thrust me away.’

  ‘Would I now?’

  ‘There’s nothing to me but disguise. It is safer to be a different person.’

  ‘Are you so unacceptable that you do not wish to be yourself?’

  ‘Anne,’ she growls, with warning in the sound.

  ‘Trust me.’

  ‘No!’ she snorts, as though I have asked her to cut her own throat. ‘I am not worth trusting, Anne,’ she adds, voice smaller than a cockle. ‘I am evil.’

  ‘Are you? To me you sound frightened.’

  ‘Enough. Do not press me. Please.’

  I don’t know what possesses me, but without thinking about it, I lean across the space between us and kiss her on the mouth. Her mouth is soft, surprisingly so, for everything else about her is as brutal as bent wire. She freezes, stares at me from huge eyes.

  ‘Yes, you are frightened, if a kiss can make you stone.’

  ‘Anne—’

  ‘Come. Let us go downstairs. I shall steal nothing more from you. Until you have enough money to go, you’re safe here. And from more than the pestilence.’

  Despite the delight with which the Maid sweetens my life, still I must endure daily battle with Thomas. Every morning we take up arms: I demand he send grain to the miller along with every other woman in the shire; he grumbles about the cost and bids me get on my knees and grind his oats into meal. He tries to sweeten his obstinate behaviour with flattery, but I do not for one moment believe he prefers the taste of home-ground oatmeal. He savours the labour he must load on to my shoulders.

  One afternoon shortly after the Feast of Saint Lawrence I am in my accustomed position, at the grindstone. Thomas hops around, finding fault as always. His
barbs have lost much of their sting, for I harbour a secret companion and he knows nothing about it.

  ‘You should rub the grindstone to the left,’ he snipes.

  ‘Widdershins? That is bad luck, sir,’ I say, seemingly without guile.

  ‘Superstition is the work of the devil,’ he grunts.

  I stretch my eyes wide. ‘I say it only because the bad thief was hung on the left side of our Lord. You said so in the Easter sermon. Of course, I might be mistaken. That is altogether possible. Am I wrong, sir?’

  ‘No,’ he grumbles. ‘You are correct.’

  ‘Your sermons are very memorable, sir,’ I simper.

  His eyes examine me for impertinence. Finding none, he turns to go.

  ‘Sir?’ I call, pointing at the grindstone. ‘You are leaving? I thought you were going to give me proper instruction.’ I make my expression so helpless I am sure even Thomas will see right through to the scowl behind. But he does no such thing. He purses his lips and I dare even more. ‘Please, sir,’ I trill, pattering my eyelashes against my cheek. ‘You could show me, I am sure.’

  I give him my most beaming smile. He mumbles his usual excuse about the work of the Lord and scuttles away. The Maid appears beside me. One moment she is not there; the next she is.

  ‘I don’t know how you do that,’ I gasp, fanning myself with my apron. ‘One day I’ll faint clean away, so I will.’

  ‘I’ll teach you sometime,’ she says softly. ‘It’s not so difficult.’

  I give the grindstone a few more turns, aware of her bright presence at my elbow.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Don’t you start. I get enough of that from him.’

  She laughs: it is such a delicate sound. ‘I have something to help.’

  ‘A spare pair of hands?’

  Her laughter continues, so thin as to be near invisible. ‘That’s better,’ she says. ‘I like it when you are prickly.’

  She holds out her hand and uncurls the fingers. In her palm is a mound of sand, dry and yellow.

  ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘The dunes.’

  ‘They’re three miles from here!’

  ‘They are.’

  ‘Very pretty. Now let me get on with this, or he’ll have no oatcakes with his supper and oatcakes are what he wants.’

  ‘Lift up the stone.’

  ‘Maid,’ I say. ‘Leave me be. We can play after.’

  ‘No. You listen,’ she snaps, sharper than I’ve ever heard her. ‘Learn something, Anne.’

  I am so taken aback that I open my mouth to give her a piece of my mind. But it’s not her that’s vexed me: that’s Thomas’s doing. If I shout at her it would be unfair. So I hold my tongue. Whatever she wants to do, it won’t take long. I can indulge her. I sigh with the air of one martyred to their patience and lift the grindstone onto its side, revealing the half-ground meal beneath. Before I can stop her she sprinkles the sand onto it.

  ‘What was that for?’ I cry. ‘My work, ruined! I’ll have to start all over again.’

  I go to slap her skinny calves, but she hops out of the way.

  ‘No you won’t,’ she giggles. ‘Drop the stone. Turn it a few times and you’ll be done.’

  ‘But it’s full of sand!’ I moan.

  ‘Do it,’ she commands, takes my shoulders and shakes me. I am always surprised by how much strength there is in that whip of a frame. ‘Christ’s bones,’ she growls. ‘You say I am witless.’

  Grudgingly, I give the grindstone a yank. After two revolutions, she holds up her paw.

  ‘Now. Look. Test it.’

  I roll back the stone and find finely milled flour. It is a miracle. A moment ago it was half husk.

  ‘That’s all very well,’ I grumble, to conceal my surprise. ‘But it’s still got sand in it. Unless you have a clever plan for getting it out.’

  ‘Can you see the sand?’

  ‘No. That’s the problem.’

  ‘Is it? You can’t see it: neither will he.’

  ‘He’ll feel it soon enough, the moment he bites into the cake.’

  ‘Exactly.’ She watches my face as the sun of comprehension rises. ‘Yes, you got there in the end. He gets his bread. I take it he gobbles the lot and you have to content yourself with the porray left over from this morning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought as much. Here is your answer: half the time to grind it, twice the pleasure in serving it up to the swag-bellied bastard. He’ll never know what you’ve done.’

  I think of the Maid calling him swag-bellied and smile, hiding my amusement behind a straight face as I set up the trestle, spread the cloth and lay out the trencher of salt pork and bowl of oatcakes. I am careful to proceed with not one whit greater or lesser pomp. I must do everything just as I always do or the conniving dog will be on my scent in a flash.

  The Maid and I seat ourselves next to the hearth. I take the stool and she crouches at my side, leaning against my thigh in the way she has done since she came to me. At first I thought the gesture of no more consequence than a cat rubbing its body against my leg to get attention. Now that I know her for what she truly is, her flesh warming mine through my skirt is oddly thrilling.

  As I heat up the pottage, I wonder what it would be like to place my thumb beneath her chin, tip her face to mine and kiss her as I did before, right here by the fire. Would Thomas even notice? She pats my knee and I jump. I have meandered so far away that I have forgotten to fill our bowls. As I do so, I reflect on how these delightful wanderings have kept me from staring at Thomas and gloating over his coming discomfort, and that is no bad thing.

  I make a dumbshow of reminding the Maid how to hold the spoon so that the gruel does not slide off. It would not do to have her be too skilled too quickly. Besides, I like to have some excuse to be close to her. These days, I feel empty when she takes herself away, even for a moment. We play our mealtime game of spills: I wipe her mouth and praise little successes with kind words and pecks on the cheek, and Thomas is almost forgotten.

  ‘Anne,’ he says with a choke, drawing me back to the room.

  I start: he seldom calls me by name. Perhaps something in my manner with the Maid has given us away.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘This bread—’ he coughs again and pounds his chest.

  ‘Yes, sir?’ I keep my face sober.

  ‘What is in it?’ he rasps.

  ‘Oatmeal, sir.’

  ‘Nothing else?’

  I pause and consider the question. ‘Water,’ I say, after a long moment’s reflection.

  ‘Did you do anything different?’

  He holds up a piece, peering at it as though it is sprinkled with thorns. I rub my chin thoughtfully. The Maid lets out a squeak and I lay off the philosophical brow-wrinkling. She is right: there is no point overdoing things.

  ‘I ground the flour differently.’

  It is the plain truth. Putting sand into his bread is one thing; telling a falsehood before God is another thing entirely.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You remember, sir. You instructed me to turn the stone the other way.’

  ‘The other way?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. That is what I did.’

  I smile obediently. The Maid rattles her spoon around the inside of her bowl, scraping up the last morsel and making slurping noises, for all the world ignoring our conversation. With a grunt of achievement she elbows me and holds up the empty dish for my inspection.

  ‘All finished!’ I coo. ‘What a clever girl you are.’

  I never spoke more truly. She continues with her distractions, hopping about and pointing to the door.

  ‘Sir. She wishes to ease herself. She is getting so much better at letting me know, isn’t she?’ I simper. ‘Permit me to take her outside, if you will.’

  I watch him wrestle with the desire to skewer me with sharper questioning and the prospect of her baring her arse and squeezing out a turd in front of him.

&
nbsp; ‘Go to,’ he says reluctantly.

  I lead her outdoors as slowly as I can manage. Once we are clear of his prying eyes and ears, we run to the far end of the glebe and throw ourselves on to the ground, rolling on the grass and laughing like children.

  Thus are my days lightened of Thomas’s burdens. A touch of her hand, a smile given willingly, however swiftly she swallows it afterwards. The hearth grows cold, for I neglect to keep the fire lit. More and more often my feet carry me to the stable, for the Maid is there, and Thomas is not. When I look at him now, all I see are her gestures aping his. He is lost to me: not that I ever had the smallest portion of him.

  At the Feast of Saint Bartholomew, the charcoal-burners descend from the forest and pass through the village on their way to the Staple to sell their wares in preparation for the colder days of autumn. Thomas sends me to buy some, and hands over a shilling as though it is a bag of silver as big as my head.

  The whole company of villagers bustles about, making what meagre bargains they may. I can hardly see the donkeys save for their spindly ankles poking out from beneath the knotted rope nets. The charcoal-burners pretend to have none put by for us, hemming and hawing and rubbing their chins at how pressing are the demands of the burghers at the Staple. They say the same each year and each year there is enough for our needs. It is their game, and we take part with a good enough humour.

  My mother plucks at my sleeve. ‘You look a lot happier,’ she says.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘It gladdens my heart to hear it. So, you finally found a way around him, eh?’ she winks.

  I consider how insignificant Thomas is to my present happiness. ‘I am content, Mother,’ I say, when the pause stretches out its ribbon too long.

  She nods her head. ‘If God preserves us, I will see grandchildren?’ she adds hopefully.

  Once again, a silence hangs on to the tail of her words.

  ‘I pray for the Saint to keep us in his care,’ I say, for lack of anything better to drop into the space.

  ‘Of course, of course,’ she mutters. ‘Thomas is a fine and wealthy man.’