Nicholas remained silent, but the others dropped their chins on to their breasts, grumbling agreement. John turned to Anne.
‘Mistress, let the child be seated,’ he said. ‘Then, if you will, hold her knees open.’
Anne stared at John a moment, then crossed the floor, brushing my sleeve. She did not look at me. I was a bird perched on the sill, waiting for her to shoo me away. She fetched a stool, placed the Maid upon it with great gentleness, speaking quietly all the while, and pushed the scrawny legs apart. Their heads turned to the task. I looked at the floorboards, counting the tiny holes of worms that dined on the wood, and would dine again and again until the floor crumbled and fell under its own weight.
‘Will you not examine her also?’ said John, close by, voice low so only I could hear. ‘Unless this is a sight you have tired of already.’
Any brotherly feeling I held in my heart fled at that moment. In his eyes I saw anger and vengefulness and had no idea why. I looked at the Maid: the teasel straw at the join of her thighs, the lips that parted and showed the smallest of pink tongues. No teeth.
John’s voice swelled to the roof-beams. ‘I hope I may speak for us all when I say what we have here is proof of womanhood? Our dear brother in Christ, Thomas, has indeed saved a human child from the marshes. Not a beast. Are we satisfied?’
Nicholas would not speak. He watched Anne cover the girl and hold her close, kissing the top of her tangled head. William and the man Walter nodded together.
‘Reverend Master Nicholas, are you satisfied? I would have us in agreement.’
‘Yes; be with us on this matter,’ said the schoolmaster.
Nicholas cleared his throat, and John seized upon the noise. ‘So, we are agreed. Good. We have declared her a simple girl, abandoned by some godless farmer. Let it be made public. There is nothing else for us here. There are no wonders. Nothing.’
‘Yes, she is a maid.’
‘A maid only.’
No! cried the voice of my soul, but the words stayed locked within. The schoolmaster scratched at his backside through his cloak. John looked at me as though I might struggle against his words, but my arms lay heavily at my sides, and I thought them so weighty I might never lift them again. I said nothing of my revelation, of the holy task God had vouchsafed to me, of my unshakeable faith in the Maid’s holiness.
I could not understand why she did not reveal herself to them as she did to me. She could blind them with her radiance if she chose. She chose not to. It was not my place to say she was holy. That was for God. This was her fault.
‘We will take our leave, Father Thomas, and our grateful thanks for your kind hospitality.’
Blood found my cheeks, for it struck me that I had offered them only ale as they had arrived, and nothing more. The slant of light through the windows showed it was late in the day. I bowed, to hide my shame and confusion.
‘Let us go,’ snorted Nicholas. ‘I have no great taste for a place where mothers abandon their children. I am hungry. You will all dine at my house, I pray you, sirs.’
He drew out a broad piece of cloth from inside his cloak and wiped the whole of his face, which shone with moisture. He hawked into the rag and stared at it. ‘See how the very air here is corrupt, and makes me sicken.’
He held it up like a flag, spotted with blood.
None bade me farewell. The room was quickly empty. Anne busied herself with leading the Maid down the narrow staircase, and did not speak a word.
I listened to the commotion as they hauled themselves back on to the cart; the clink of coins in Aline’s hand; their loud thanks for her welcoming beer; their sorrow they had not been offered food, for they were sure it would have been as tasty as the drover’s report of it. With much shouting and clattering the wagon turned and began the climb back up the hill and the six miles to the Staple.
When I could no longer hear the creak of wheels, nor Nicholas’ hoarse coughing, I left the school-loft and found Anne and the Maid on the street. The Maid looked directly at me, head on one side. Her hand lifted itself and found a comfortable place on Anne’s shoulder.
‘She is no beast.’ My voice beat against air.
‘Sir, I know,’ said Anne. ‘I have always known.’ She paused. ‘And now you have had men come test it out and also find it to be true.’
She turned her face to the Maid: their brows touched. My hand stirred, aching to slap her into looking at me, but I did not let it.
‘This was not my doing. You know I speak the truth, mistress.’
She set her chin against me, chewing the words before spitting them out.
‘Sir, did you labour to bring the test to an end? No. You welcomed their spite into this place. And anything else they brought with them.’
A nail drove its chill point into my belly.
‘I do not know what you mean, woman,’ I blustered.
‘You saw the fever brewing in that man’s sweat, yet did nothing. You did not fight against those gentlemen any more than a fowl throttled and plucked for their table.’
‘Madam, you speak against me, and against God’s laws.’
Her eyes opened and closed. Surely she would be quiet now.
‘Is it God’s law to use a girl so?’
‘The apostle tells us that the husband shall be the head of the wife. That is what I meant.’
‘Sir, you are not my husband.’
The Maid looked at me attentively. Her hand rested still upon Anne, neither tightening nor loosening in any way.
‘Mistress Anne,’ I said, and found my voice light as a boy’s, ‘I wish it were not so.’
‘Passionately I wished the same. This spring. Three months ago, even. No longer. I am a sinful woman, for I am in your house and not a wife. Today I thank God for my sin. I would not be tied to you by God.’
‘Anne.’ I could say no more.
She led the Maid away and I watched them walk down the street towards the ford. I did not follow. I found my way to the stream beyond the churchyard and waded in up to my knees. Washed and washed myself over and over but still could not make myself clean. I wished to beat myself against a rock, as women do with their linen.
ANNE
As we leave Thomas behind us, I cling to the Maid’s hand. Any man observing us – and today we have been observed sufficient for a lifetime – would swear that I lead her. I know better. Without seeming to, she holds me back as though she can tell from the trembling of my limbs that I am near to bolting. So we proceed. I have never walked so slowly, nor needed to.
I have trodden this street many times, but today it is a foreign land, the ford so far off it will take the best part of a day to walk there, surely. The Maid hugs my side so that she is the one who appears afraid. She is the one who has been wounded, yet this past half-hour has cut me open as deep as a knife. My hands shake, and not only in fear.
I am furious.
If she was not hanging on to me so firmly, I would run to the house, his house: drag out his bed, his clothes, his books; burn them all and dance round the bonfire screaming songs of conquest. And if he came scampering up the road to see what all the fuss was about, squawking what a to-do, I’d pick him up by his greasy shoulders, toss him on top of the heap and watch him sizzle.
I’d invite everyone to warm their hands: Mother, Father, even my sister Cat, the whole village. I’d drag the winter meat down from its hook and feed the folk till they could eat no more. We’d toast bread in the flames, warming chilly fingers and drying out our sodden feet. Thomas would blacken and crisp up like a good bit of roast pork. I’d say, For once the snail-paced skinflint has sweetened the air around him, and everyone would laugh.
But I am on the mud track on the way back to Thomas’s house. The rain flings itself sideways into my eyes, soaking my delectable picture. It flickers and snuffs out.
‘I did not know men could do such things,’ I whisper.
The Maid does not reply.
‘Have you ever seen anything so …’
I scrabble for a word, but nothing seems sufficient. ‘So vile,’ I say eventually.
It does not encompass what I wish to say, not at all. There is no answer.
‘Don’t you think so? Surely you must think so.’
She is quiet.
‘Why won’t you speak?’ I say miserably. ‘Have they terrified speech out of you?’
The realisation that this is precisely what has happened is so awful to bear that I fall to my knees, throw my arms around her hips and bury my face in her belly.
‘Oh Lord!’ I wail, blotting her shift with my tears. ‘Why did they not defile me instead? Holy Brannoc, strike them down! Every one of them, for shaming this girl!’
‘Anne,’ she hisses. I raise my face to hers. ‘Hush.’ She glances about us nervously. ‘Get up,’ she says, speaking in a strange way. I hear the words, but her lips do not move. ‘Now.’
‘My love?’ I gasp, scrambling to my feet. ‘You are not struck dumb?’
I wipe my face with my apron. My knees are still trembling. I am crammed full to bursting with feelings – relief, passion, anger – and all of them contending against the other.
‘Not here,’ she continues, in the same odd way that makes her look as though she is not speaking at all. ‘God’s Blood, let us get to the stable, then talk.’
I ache to take her hand and dance around the churchyard, but I walk solemnly at her side, through the ford. It is only when the door is closed behind us that I speak.
‘You are well!’ I shout. ‘The Saint be praised for your deliverance!’
She shoves me against the wall, and at first I think she is going to kiss me, in that fierce way of hers I relish so dearly.
‘Be quiet, Anne!’ she cries, face writhing in fury. ‘What was all that carry-on in the street?’
‘I was—’ I begin.
‘Asking me if I was struck dumb? Every eye in every cott was upon us.’
‘I saw no—’
‘No what? You can’t fart in this village without everyone and their dog knowing about it.’ She pauses, waiting for the stone to make ripples in the sludge of my mind. ‘My whole disguise is convincing people that I’m a halfwit who cannot speak save when God speaks through me. You could’ve given me away. You did give me away.’
‘You worry too much,’ I protest.
The words are feeble and roll between us, dry as knucklebones in a child’s game. I open my mouth to apologise, but she grabs my kerchief where it fastens around my neck, twisting it so violently that the air in my throat is squeezed out.
‘Do I?’ she hisses.
‘Maid,’ I wheeze.
‘I have been plumbed and prodded. I have only just escaped having my cunny stretched by that slack-wit’s fist while your bastard Thomas stood by, and yet you say I worry too much?’
Stars are sparkling in my eyes. The bellows of my lungs are empty. I pat her fist, rammed under my chin. She ignores me.
‘I have spent this quarter-year playing the fool and you risk bringing it to nothing. All it takes is two minutes of caterwauling in front of the church where everyone can see.’
A river is rushing in my ears; I am caught up in its tumbling flood. My arms fall limp. Her wild words swim thicker and thicker and I close my eyes. At that moment the strangle loosens and air dashes into my body. It takes a dozen greedy breaths for the dancing lights to clear. When they do I find myself leaning against the wall and the Maid a long way off, turning over the straw with her toe.
‘I hurt you,’ she grumbles. ‘I am sorry.’
She gives the straw a mighty kick and it sends up a spray of splinters. I rub my neck, cough.
‘I was about to say that I am the sorry one,’ I say, voice hoarse. ‘You are right. I was foolish.’
Her back is to me, shoulders hunched, expecting a blow, a kick, a punch; her body speaking where her lips cannot. I cross the room and stand behind her, fold my arms across her chest and hold her gently, back to belly. She hardens, but does not thrust me away. I place my nose into the crook of her neck and inhale the thick musk of the mare, which has become the Maid’s own particular scent.
However, I am neither greedy nor stupid after what she has borne today. I will not press her to further intimacy, although I have learned the rapture it brings. There is a rumble, deep within the well of her body. I do not know if she is purring or warning me off. I continue the light caresses, murmuring forgiveness with each stroke. I think of the cat we had when I was a child, an old mouser who loved me to pet her, eyes shut, ears flattened with delight. So unlike my thin girl, body pricked to run, however sweet my touch.
I am sinking into a delicious half-dream when she pulls away. I jerk awake, and sigh, consoling myself with the thought that at least I held her for a short while. But she is not finished: she grasps my head and hauls me into a kiss of such hunger I think I shall be gobbled up. Her tongue pushes my lips apart, running back and forth against the gate of my teeth. I keep them closed, for I know not what else to do, I am such a fool. She stands back, just far enough to speak.
‘Open to me,’ she pants.
‘Are you sure?’ I gulp. ‘After what has happened?’
‘Never more so.’
I obey her command. She fastens upon me once more, diving into the slippery cave of my mouth. My hands seize her head to hold her steady. We suckle upon each other and I cannot tell who is more desperate to devour the other, nor does it matter: for the first time we are matched in desire, one body fused breast to breast, joined at the mouth.
She draws away once more, cheeks shot with crimson, eyes gleaming. She glances over my shoulder and my heart plummets, for I think she has heard someone approach the stable. I am delightfully mistaken. A smile lifts the corner of her lips; she takes my hand and leads me to the house.
The place sighs its emptiness over us as we enter. She strides to Thomas’s room and flings back the door. His bed stands narrow as ever, prim with the linen I have washed and bleached more times than I care to remember, yet never white enough to please. Beneath the window crouches the chest wherein he keeps his books, upon it a plain latten cross. Hooked to the wall at tidy intervals are his tunics, shirts and second-best cote, like so many dark ghosts overlooking him at his devotions.
The Maid struts around the room, pressing her nose to the wall and tutting at some invisible fault in the plasterwork. She swipes a finger along the bedstead, grumbling about dust. She rubs his winter cloak between finger and thumb, muttering, Poor stuff, very poor indeed, although I know it is the best piece of wool this side of the Staple. She mimics the self-satisfied bob of his head with such eerie perfection that my laughter is nervous as much as it is delighted.
‘Once again you capture him,’ I breathe, full of wonder. ‘It is as though he is here.’
‘I hope not,’ she says, and makes a great show of searching for him under the counterpane, behind the door, in the chest and all sorts of drollery; clapping her hand over her mouth in mock fright until I am laughing so hard I have to hold my stomach.
‘Come to me, my pretty Anne,’ she leers, her voice so much like his in timbre, yet so unlike in word or meaning.
‘No,’ I say. ‘Not that.’
At once, she returns to herself. ‘Very well,’ she says in her own voice. She flourishes her hands as though chasing moths from the room. ‘He is gone from this place.’
‘To think I once wanted the snot-nosed, self-loving—’ I gasp, the rush of words spilling like water from a jug.
She laughs, so loud and free I realise that what I have said is amusing as well as gloomy. I touch my fingers to my mouth, feel how it turns down at the corners. As I listen to her laughter, I begin to smile. If I can choose to be miserable, I can also choose to be happy. Perhaps I am not chained to my feelings. I can slip free.
It is a dangerous idea. If I can do that, then I might also slip free my moorings to this house, this village, this shire. I might float up to the clouds and ride them east or west; wherever takes my fan
cy. I might change my name and be an Alison or a Jennet. These thoughts are so frightening that they make me tremble.
‘What ails you, Anne?’ she asks, leaning her warmth into me.
‘I could be – anyone,’ I whisper.
‘That sounds like a glorious way to be.’ She grins, but not unkindly. ‘Maybe you can choose anything. And be everything.’
My heart leaps. ‘No! That is too terrible. If I can choose to be anything, then where is Anne?’
She laughs again and takes my hand. ‘The weather changes. The land looks different from one moment to the next: white with snow, wet with rain, bright with sunshine. But it is the same earth. You are always Anne, constant as that land.’
‘Is it that simple?’
‘If you wish it,’ she says.
I take a steadying breath. ‘In that case, I could leave this place.’
‘You could. With me.’ The room swings around us. ‘What do you need now, Anne?’
I swallow. The sound seems excessively loud. No one but you, says the voice of my soul. ‘I need to sit down,’ I say, and smile.
‘Come then,’ she says.
She points to the bed and raises her eyebrows with wicked intent. My frightened old heart cries no! But this new heart beating within me roars yes! We race to see who can get there first, pushing and shoving to be the winner. I throw myself onto the mattress and would shout, I have won! but its luxurious softness steals my cry of victory clean away. I bounce, testing to see if I can believe the evidence of my own backside.
‘It’s feather,’ I gasp.
She hears the wonderment in my voice and starts to snicker. ‘What else did you think that sniping cheese-parer would rest his arse upon?’ she sneers. ‘Surely you knew this.’
It is like sitting on a cloud. I think of my straw palliasse in the outer room.
‘He does not allow me in here. Only when I sweep out the rushes, and then he watches.’
‘How generous of him to permit you to clean his room!’ she cackles.
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