I think, soon I will die and we shall be together. I shall see Cat, and Adam. Nothing on this earth will be of any significance. The room tilts suddenly and I join the company of the rushes on the floor. I am in the grasp of the pestilence, and it squeezes me so hard that I fall out of my wits.
I hurt cruelly. I am cold: I am hot. My legs are water. I hear the dashing of feet along stone: they rush away from me, then towards, then away again. I cannot make them stop. The floor sways beneath me and I cling to it for fear I might fall.
I swim upwards through thick pond weed, break the surface of the fever to find a dog panting in my ear. After the time it takes to card a piece of fleece I realise it is my own breath, close and loud. My cheek scratches against straw. The room begins to draw itself together from a soup of blurred shapes into sharpness and colour, and I set about the task of remembering why I am stretched out upon a pile of rotten hay-stalks.
Without turning my head, for it hurts too much to do that, I can see a hearth at the centre of the floor, next to it a long bench. I can see its underside: how the wood is crudely planed where no one can remark upon it, how rough the dowels that clutch side to back. The dim light gumming the surfaces of all about me indicates an early hour. I think, I must set the porray to cook, and remember I am a housekeeper.
Then I wonder how I might stand up and sort the peas, for it seems I have shrunk entirely into my head. Heavy fingers lie close to my nose. I think they might be mine, but am not sure. I am not sure of anything. I urge myself to stir and the hand moves, which seems a great marvel. Nothing about this body is familiar.
I lie there a long time, curious at each new sensation as though I have only been birthed this morning. By and by, I grow used to the hand before me, and at last accept it as my own. Next, I discover my left shoulder tingling with pins and needles, smell the reeking breath fluttering between my teeth.
As the light swells into day I swell into myself. I am suddenly aware that I am thirsty, and hungry. I have a great desire to eat an apple, one picked too early, green and sour to the taste. I roll carefully onto my back and examine the roof beams above me. I lift my arm: it obeys me.
Where the sleeve falls back I uncover scabs, dry enough to pick away. I have fought the pestilence and I have won. I wonder if this is what a miracle feels like. I feel much the same Anne as yesterday, except my head hurts more than I think possible. I want to tell someone about this mystery. The Maid will want to know. And Margret: I must tell her. At last I manage to sit up and see her, a few feet distant.
But it is not Margret; it cannot be. This woman has straw in the place of hair, hobnails for teeth. Her mouth stretches wide, tongue grey as a sheep’s. I struggle to her side, try to push the slug of a thing back into the mouth, but it will not fit. Surely Margret’s teeth are not that yellow. The jaw will not stay closed until I set a piece of wood from the dead fire beneath the chin. My breathing quickens. She is my friend. I love her. As I lick my upper lip, I taste salt. I cannot look upon this body: Margret has fled its shell.
I topple about the room on legs unsteady as a calf straight from the cow. I stagger into the outer room, leaning first on the wainscot-bench, then on the table, set on its trestles ready for an evening meal no one will eat. The house seems strangely large, the furniture unfamiliar. The walls are hung with an abundance of brass pots, frying pans, sieves, plates of pewter, plates of iron, dressing-knives, flesh-hooks, pot-hooks, spit-irons, fire-shovels, tongs, trivets, strainers, candlesticks, spoons, ale-stands and leather bottles. Things, things, and not one of them of any use. I could leave them today. I could walk away from everything and not look back, not once.
I make my way to the outer door and lean on the frame; watch the sun edge itself across the sky, dipping behind clouds as it proceeds on its steady way. I cannot stand for long, and have to sit. I think I will not sleep again, but as soon as I lie down I am swept from this place into the orchard, beneath a tree so mightily burdened with fat and perfect fruit that the branches droop their arms about me, almost to the ground.
Through the leaves I see Margret skip past, her step light as a girl’s. I raise my hand to pluck at her sleeve, but twigs cling to my dress and hold me back. I cannot reach her. She dances up the path, towards the forest. I fight against the tree, but it will not let me follow.
‘Margret!’ I cry.
She turns one last time and waves, smiling.
VIXEN
As Anne labours within, I stand without. The house squats like a toad, the stink of the pestilence oozing through the thatch in such a choking cloud that I cannot approach any closer than the gate. Thomas appears at my side. He is as much of a coward as me, and stops at the gate also. He champs his jaws together for a few moments as if trying to reach a decision, then gets to his knees.
‘We must pray,’ he announces. I stare at him. His eyes harden. ‘You must. You may be a beast, but you will kneel. Now.’
I stay where I am. His eyes melt into desperation.
‘Please. Do this. You are sent from God. If you pray with me, you can save Anne. You can.’
I snort. Surely he cannot be that benighted. Not now. But it seems he is, for he continues his warbling.
‘You are an angel,’ he whinnies. ‘You showed yourself to me once, remember? Let me see that brightness again. Please.’
I don’t know if I have finally had enough of his empty clatter, or if I am also made witless with the dread of what is happening to Anne.
‘Be quiet!’ I shriek. ‘For once, will you hold your flapping tongue!’
The day sucks in its breath. He looks around as though I am a wooden poppet and somewhere behind my back a trickster is throwing his voice like men do at fairs.
‘Who speaks?’ he says, squinting.
‘It’s me, you dog turd.’ His face wipes clear of all expression and for one delicious moment he has nothing to say. I fill the space. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Your Holy Maid is not an idiot after all.’
‘But the Maid can’t speak,’ he protests. ‘What manner of devilry is this?’
‘Haven’t you worked it out yet?’ I cry, waving my hands at him. ‘Surely you cannot be that stupid.’
He gawps, lower lip drooping.
‘Yes,’ I sigh. ‘You are. You have heard me speak; but your desire to have me mute and miraculous was greater than the good sense God gave you.’
I watch the slow light of comprehension creep across his features.
‘Why didn’t you say anything before?’ he whispers.
I lick my lips. ‘And show myself to be nothing but some plain runaway? I’d have been flogged into the sea.’
‘You could have spoken to me.’
‘You? You spoke around and above me, never to me. I spoke to Anne. I am hers. She told me what a fool you were, how hungry for miracles. Not that I needed telling.’
He gulps, eyes blinking. There is a pause and it goes on far too long. I know it and he knows it too.
‘I believe!’ he cries. ‘You are holy!’
‘I am not. You’re not convincing anyone. Not any more.’
His lips wrestle one against the other, as though his mouth is full of bile and he must needs spit it out, but dare not for some pointless sense of propriety.
‘God cannot have meant for this,’ he says eventually.
‘Oh, hold your tongue.’
‘How dare you!’ he cries. His mouth curls into an unpleasant shape, like a bit of shoe leather left in the rain and dried by the fire too quickly. ‘I shall …’ he stutters. ‘I shall tell the people what you are!’
This time I cannot hold in the laughter. ‘They know what I am.’
‘They know?’
‘And love me for it. I am saving their lives, which is a lot more than you are doing. They care nothing for you. Every word you speak is a turd floating in their beer. The people are mine. Anne is mine. We are leaving. I know ways through the forest you cannot follow.’
There is another pause, where he opens and c
loses his eyes over and over.
‘No. I forbid it!’ he squeals.
‘You forbid it?’ I scoff. ‘Words, words. You are full of them, you old bellows. How do you plan to make your word law?’
‘I shall denounce you to the Bishop! Those men will come back from the Staple and then we’ll see who’s the master. They got a good look up you last time. Next time they won’t stop with their eyes!’
I laugh. ‘I do not fear them, nor any man. Soldier or saint, you all want this.’ I step forward so quickly his eyes broaden with alarm. Before he can shrink away, I grab his paw and press it to my breast. I’m as flat as a boy, but he grasps my meaning clear enough. ‘You called me Vixen?’ I hiss. ‘You’re the dogs: slavering, sniffing …’ My words snag in my throat.
‘I never touched you,’ he croaks. ‘Never a finger. Not you, not Anne, not any creature.’
‘But you want to, don’t you?’
With my free hand I grasp the root and branch between his thighs. He is soft as a new cheese. I let him go and he sinks to his knees, pummelling his fists into his eyes.
‘No. It is fornication,’ he squeaks. ‘You are a maid. I am a man of—’
I tip back my head and crow with fierce delight. ‘You can’t even say it any more, can you? You stupid, tiny man. You understand nothing. God has deserted you. You are a speck of dirt on a flea’s backside. A maggot in a speck of dirt on a flea’s backside.’
It is mean-minded and vindictive and I know it. I should hold my tongue. In my head I hear Anne’s voice; how she would counsel caution, how a cornered beast is more dangerous than it looks. But fear and cowardice have dragged me far away from good sense. I am not just. He is not one of the many men and women who have hurt me. This man saved me from the mob; for that reason alone I should be merciful. I am anything but. I have stored up a lifetime of anger and upon his head I heap its slurry, railing, screeching, howling. I wait for him to grit his teeth and give blow for blow: but his face collapses in on itself, eyes wet as whelks.
‘You are not worth insulting. A man should fight back. A man would fight back.’
He makes wheezing noises and I realise he is weeping.
‘Anne,’ he moans, rocking back and forth. ‘All she wanted … I pushed … No …’
He manages few words between the gulping breaths, but all the same I hear the passion, the loss, the remorse, the misery. I hear his love for Anne. How his God swept away any chance of happiness with her. How he has been warped into this threadbare sack of bones. It should make me kind. I should hold out my hand and speak tenderly to this unhappy man. But I am new to kindness and am afraid that if I show him any, I might squander my whole stock.
It is my great, my only error.
I watch myself taunt him and do not like what I see: a cruel girl sneering at a wretch stripped bare of everything. Anne would chide me, and with good reason. Anne would judge neither of us. Anne would comfort him, and me, and I would grow strong enough to be generous. But Anne is within, showing a bravery of which I am not capable. She is dying, clasping the hand of her dying friend. We two cowards stand outside, circling each other like dogs, snarling and snapping: each of us chained to the spot, unable to leave, yet unable to go inside and help.
It strikes me at last: if Anne is dead, then I would rather join her than stay here. I leave Thomas wailing in the dirt.
I take only one step over the threshold before I am halfway back out, gripped in terror. The house bloats with the stink of death. Lying on a heap of foetid straw on one side of the room is Margret, chin propped shut with a lump of firewood, tongue pointing stiffly at the roof. Then I see Anne, stretched out on the floor beneath the bench. Despite my fear, I kneel and take her hand. I expect it to be cold, but she is warm and life flutters within.
‘Anne!’ I cry. ‘I am sorry. I am here. Now.’
I pour a cup of water from the half-filled jug and, nestling her head upon my lap, feed her small sips. Her lips move, slowly at first and then more hungrily as she takes greater and greater gulps. Her eyes open, and she sees me. Very slowly she smiles, as though it is a profound effort to do so.
‘Anne,’ I repeat. ‘I thought you dead.’
‘No, I am alive,’ she says, astonished at the discovery of this simple truth. ‘I had the fever, but did not die.’
The story seems too marvellous to believe; perhaps soon she might start to talk of men with eyes in their bellies, ears hanging to their knees.
‘It is a miracle,’ I say.
‘Is it?’ she whispers. ‘I am not sure I believe in them.’
‘Margret—’ I begin.
‘Yes,’ says Anne, and speaks the words that affright me still. ‘She is dead.’
I heat a pot of peas upon the hearth and make a poor job of it, but I claim no skills as a cook. It is hot, and that is sufficient. She manages a few mouthfuls with an appetite that both surprises and delights before she lays down her spoon. The afternoon hangs silently between us.
‘I am a coward,’ I whisper in a shrivelled voice.
‘Are you?’ she wheezes. ‘If I hated everyone who was a coward, then I should have to hate myself.’
‘You forgive me?’
‘Of course I do.’ She pauses, gathering her wits together as though they have strayed. ‘Do you think I would rather have you brave and dead? If you had stayed with me, you would have caught the fever also. You stayed away. I am happy, for you are alive.’
I brush my forehead against hers. ‘Thank you,’ I whisper.
‘Thomas is still outside, I take it?’
‘Yes.’ I grimace with the memory of my malice.
‘What is it?’ she asks.
‘I told him we are leaving,’ I mutter.
The blood in my stomach grows cold. She sighs and closes her eyes briefly.
‘Then it is too dangerous to stay.’ She tries to stand, clasps the side of her head, lets out a groan and her knees buckle. I catch her, and she seats herself carefully on the bench. ‘But we are going nowhere today.’ She surveys the ruined house. ‘Save to the stable. I have had my fill of death.’
‘What of Margret?’ I nod towards the body of her friend, stretched out on the far side of the room.
‘We must bury her. Will you help?’
I lower my eyes. I have been cowardly. I will be so no longer. ‘Yes.’
I fetch a sheet from the attic and Anne winds Margret in its folds. I carry the shrouded body over my shoulder. Anne totters at my side, leaning on one of Thomas’s discarded staves. We place her in the common pit. For once, the rain holds itself away, the low sun heaving itself across the sky.
‘Let her lie comfortably,’ says Anne. ‘Shoulder to shoulder with friends.’
‘Friends? I thought—’
She smiles. ‘After we are gone, I believe all enmity is shaken out of us. That is the meaning of love, as my poor wits reckon it. How very peaceable God’s kingdom will be.’
I cast a spadeful of earth onto the corpse and we say our final prayers.
‘There is no more business to be done here,’ she declares. ‘It is time to go.’
I know she does not mean to the stable, but a lot further. She turns her face to mine. Thomas is even more of a fool than I thought. All his gabbling about there being a light around my head, when right in front of him was a woman lit with such brilliance that I almost need to shade my eyes. I nod my answer, for words are lacking.
‘We will take what we need.’
‘We shall,’ I answer.
‘And no more, for we are not thieves.’
‘No,’ I agree.
‘We shall leave the people with your knowledge. They will live, or … Either way, we must be gone, must we not?’
‘Yes.’
‘I never thought I’d leave. I thought I’d be too frightened to quit the village. Now I’ve changed my mind and it is as easy as changing my kerchief.’ She shudders, as though someone has poured a dish of ice water down the back of her gown. ‘There’
s no surety that we will live. Perhaps I am your undoing. Perhaps you should have stayed cold and hard, and run away at the start.’
I clasp her hand.
‘Maybe once upon a time, Anne. I railed against this prison, as I thought it. It has become my liberation. I cannot explain, but I am no longer afraid.’
She looks at me, face bright with fear and something else besides. It is strength, shining far brighter than the weak sun above our heads. We return to the house, but only to collect the food and garments we shall need on our journey, for Anne declares this is the last time she will step through this door. In the stable, we wash Death’s reek from our bodies and replace it with the comforting odour of horse piss.
‘Good,’ she announces, with finality in her voice. ‘We are ready.’
‘We are.’
‘I wonder,’ she says, looking at her finger-ends. ‘Is there anything – or anyone – I should fear on our journey through the forest?’
‘There is no danger. From any man.’
‘No?’
I know of whom she speaks. A flame of blood springs into my face with the memory of that betrayal.
‘No. A greater force than the law of this world has swept them away.’
‘Good,’ she sighs, on an outrush of breath. ‘I do not believe I have the vigour to fight another battle just yet.’
A smile lights her features, casting its warmth upon me also.
That last night, I do not sleep. Anne closes her eyes and is lost to dreams, for her travail against Death has exhausted her. Perhaps we should wait a few more days – but I shake my head free of this nonsense and keep my vigil. I think of how she has changed; how we have wrought these changes in ourselves and each other.
She sleeps so heavily that she barely seems to breathe. At one point I am so convinced that she has gone to join Margret that I place my ear to her mouth. I am not satisfied until I feel the goose-down of breath on my cheek. I lay my hand on her unbound hair and she stirs. I am afraid that I have woken her, but she wrinkles her nose at the straw tickling it, turns over and sleeps again.
I look around at the stable. It is battered, and smells of horse urine. The walls leak wind, the thatch is busy with insects. There is the constant sound of the door squeaking in the breeze and distant thunder from the mare’s insides. It is not home: I would not know home if I walked into it with both eyes open wide. But I will remember this place tomorrow and the day after, and it will be a sweet remembrance.
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