“Yes, I know,” I said. “Mad daughter of a mad mother. I’m sorry, truly sorry Bertie dear.” Abject sincerity. “I’ll get up. You make the tea and I’ll be down in a minute. Don’t take me seriously, Bertie dear. I’m not myself.”
Not myself? No, I wasn’t. I was half me and half Tilda and what Bertie had suggested was making me reel. Bertie smiled and nodded and tottered off, glad to get away from the crazy woman in the attic.
The central heating had switched on its automatic timer but I was cold and shivering. I huddled into my dressing gown and trailed downstairs. Bertie was bustling, trying to keep his head off whatever chaotic nonsense his ex-wife was trying to confuse him with. He pushed a T-bag into the teapot and poured lukewarm water over it. His tea was always piss foul but I drank it and thanked him. My laptop glared at me from the kitchen table and I hunched over it, as if it might talk to me or offer me some more tangible escape. Bertie scurried off, leaving me to whatever neurosis he suspected I had. My feet were freezing. I pulled the corners of my dressing gown down over them and held it wrapped by curling my toes. I clutched the mug of tea and peered into its sad little wisp of insignificant steam. It made my nose damp. Isabel didn’t have a nose anymore. Someone had cut it off.
Although I knew many experts denied that multiple personality disorder existed as a genuine medical condition, if it did, that was what I had. Except that there were problems with that as well for the two personalities weren’t totally separate. As Molly, I remembered everything that had happened when I was Tilda. When I was Tilda, although her innocence took precedence and she seemed to have no knowledge of any other presence within her being, I myself was still aware. I could be her and live her life and accept all the restrictions of her simplicity, but I knew also my own background. I remembered electricity and mechanics and television and computers and being Molly. Being Tilda I could speak and understand as others spoke the ancient English of the early thirteenth century, but I thought and heard in the modern words I knew as myself. So as I believed, terrified, the possibility that I was mad, I also knew that I was not. Believing something and knowing it are different.
I couldn’t face writing so I made a decent hot pot of tea and took it back to bed. Then I decided something else. Tilda could not ever comprehend the electrical advantages I took for granted and she could not possibly imagine all the amazing changes that had been discovered or invented in the time between her world and mine. Anything she might glimpse would frighten her and seem like madness and magic. Now, in my own fear, I was as blind as she. What was happening to me with time shifts and split consciousness was beyond my understanding. There was no explanation in modern science but that didn’t mean I was insane. This didn’t have to be magic. Such processes just hadn’t yet been discovered. What Tilda didn’t know, had still existed, misunderstood but unaffected by the world’s ignorance. She knew only the inconsistencies of guttering candle light, but she had been born at the same time as her father had been killed by electricity. I knew nothing of the mysteries of time or the budding quantum science that fascinated others, but sometimes I occupied the mind and body of a girl, far younger than myself, who had lived eight hundred years ago. Simply because I didn’t know how – didn’t stop it being real. I wasn’t mad but I was haunted. Now murder touched me in both dimensions and I had no escape from terror.
I apologised properly to Bertie that evening. “Dreams,” I explained. “I’d woken suddenly from a nightmare. I don’t need a psychiatrist. Don’t worry.”
With bleary, blood mazed eyes, Bertie looked like the madman, and his nightmares were haunting him too, though presumably they weren’t as complicated. “I know. It’s not you I’m worried about.”
“We’ll both get through it. And I’ll help you more. If you need anything, just ask.” With my own pseudo knowledge of psychiatry, I thought Bertie had always been insecure. He had a lot of rather inconsequential charm and had been deliciously handsome when I married him, but he’d started his infidelities after just a few months, though because of my own insecurities I’d refused to believe it for the first couple of years. Neither of us had been exactly lucky in love, if such a cliché ever needed saying. Bertie had married a neurotic harridan, got divorced, finally fallen in love and then lost the love of his life to a hideous slaughter before the affair had even tumbled into stability. He needed the hugs and cuddles I now tried sometimes to give him – but heavens, he was my ex-husband. You don’t cuddle ex-husbands. So I felt desperately sorry for him, but I was in need of a lot more than just cuddles myself.
Once, long ago, I’d had such pleasurable expectations. For days, I mourned them. Then, three days later, I woke with the sunshine and sat up suddenly. “Snow,” I said to an empty room. “There must have been footprints.”
When Wattle had left my house it had stopped snowing and it had not snowed again that night for I had found Wattle’s tyre marks when I went out. I had gone walking in the morning and loved the traceries of footprint and stories trodden into the white crust. Later it had snowed again but not for some hours. Wattle and her murderer must have left footprints in the woods. The police had not told me about that, but they must have found something. Even spoiled by the playing children who had found Wattle’s body, footsteps must still have been visible.
I didn’t discuss it with Bertie. In fact, we hadn’t seen much of each other for the past three days which had suited both of us, but we’d watched some television together and pretended to be cosy the evening before. There had been a repeat of an old sitcom and Bertie had actually laughed a little.
For another two days I kept thinking about footsteps in the snow and eventually I phoned the police. I didn’t really expect them to tell me their secrets but I needed to ask. After hanging on for what seemed like an hour, a woman’s voice asked me if I’d like to come down to the station and talk to their detective inspector. I said yes at once.
He was tall and solid and practical. “I’ll be honest,” he said, sitting across the desk from me. I’d been brought coffee. He lit a cigarette and coughed. “We don’t have any real leads. The whole case is very worrying. If you have any information at all, it’s extremely important that you tell us. We’ll keep it anonymous of course, unless we need you as a witness at the trial.”
Trial? God – that was optimistic. I shook my head. He had misunderstood. “I’m sorry, no, that’s not what I came for. It’s just that I’ve been worrying about the idea of footprints. I mean, it had snowed really heavily. Wattle had walked a mile from her car into the woods. Whoever killed her had probably gone with her or followed her. What about footprints?”
The inspector leaned back in his chair and put the tips of his fingers together, peering at me over them. He looked disappointed. “I’m afraid we don’t want any more detailed information getting out to the press at this time. We just need to get on with the investigation.”
In other words, I should mind my own business. They were onto it, but that didn’t need to include me. “I know. I wouldn’t pass on anything. I want the newspapers to forget all about us, even more than you do. It’s just that I’ve been haunted about the footprints thing. It took me some time to think of it, and now I just can’t forget.”
He was kind. He knew what a revoltingly awful situation I was in and he had all the experience in the world to know that I wasn’t sleeping and that my questions and confusion were driving me mad. “I can’t make a habit of this, Miss Susans.” I smiled. It meant that this time at least, he was going to answer me. “I shan’t be explaining police procedure in the future, or going into any further details unless I believe it will help the investigation. I would also appreciate it if you would keep this quite private.” I nodded, encouragingly. He went on. “The fact is, Miss Davidson’s footsteps were clearly visible walking from her car, through the trees and on to the place where she was found. It wasn’t a direct route. She seemed to be walking slowly and wandering a little. At one point it appeared that she walked in a circle. T
here appeared to be no haste. But then under the tree where she was discovered, there was a certain confusion and finally some signs of a struggle. But there was absolutely no sign of another person. No other actual footprints except her own were visible. We were able to exclude the small prints of the young children who found her body and the only other thing we discovered were some regular, deep holes, most unusual marks, like the claws of an animal poked into the snow.”
Animals didn’t hang their victims up in trees, raped, staked and tortured. “You mean a lion or something? Something escaped from a zoo?”
“No, I don’t mean that, Miss Susans,” said the inspector, exhaling smoke with a dissatisfied wheeze. “These belonged to no known species either wild or domesticated. In fact, more like a gigantic toad, according to our experts.”
Chapter Nine
It was a week later when I caught up with Tilda again. Meanwhile it was still bitterly cold and sharp winds blasted past my chimneys and rattled my cottage windows. Winter’s end might have brought a degree or two less frost but it carried none of Tilda’s balmy warmth and pale sunshine. The whole of March in my world rained like fury. On my birthday, I thought of building an arc. The wisteria which scrambled along the front of my cottage and sometimes caught its leaves in the front door’s squeaky hinges was coming into bud, but would need more sunny encouragement to peep into blue flower. Lying in bed at night I could hear the patter and scurry of mice in the roof. They used the wisteria as a ladder and sometimes they ate the buds when other food was scarce. Mice nesting above my ceiling had never bothered me. They rarely sneaked into the house and I hardly ever saw them though I wished they’d leave my pretty blossom alone. At least these weren’t the big brown rats that Tilda took for granted. I worried about Tilda. I worried about how she was coping. I wanted to cuddle her up and wrap my arms around her and make her safe. Which was utterly stupid, because she was me.
On the morning of the twenty third of March I woke with a headache. I could hear the insistent thrum of the rain again and a strong draught made me shiver. I tried to turn, to reach for the paracetamol on my bedside table, something I’d been needing a lot lately. I touched only straw. The prickle of wool was up around my neck and the itch of straw around my body. I was fully dressed and my skirts were entwined between my knees, restricting movement. It was dark. A voice said, “You must get up now, ma petit. There’s a great deal to discuss. You’re the last to wake. Richard is making porridge.”
I couldn’t see anyone and footsteps soft-echoed down creaking wooden stairs. I sat up, groaning, wishing I’d brought headache pills with me, then realised how absurd that was. I rolled to the wooden floor. I was barefoot and wondered where my beautiful new shoes had gone. With an effort, I reassembled my thoughts and memories, transfusing myself into the right personality, grasping where and what.
Downstairs it was warm with the fire spitting on the big stone hearth. A large black pot swung from its iron bracket over the flames, bubbling oats and goat’s milk. The children sat cross legged, faces turning to me as I sat down next to Osbert. Eight fat chickens were clucking in one corner, keeping their distance from the fire. The baked earthen floor was soaking up heat. I saw my little shoes nearby, left to dry off their mud and river water. I couldn’t see Vespasian.
Richard spooned thick pale porridge onto rough wooden bowls. It wasn’t the sweet taste I was used to and I didn’t like it much but Tilda was hungry and enjoyed it. We all ate fast and no one was smiling.
I heard Vespasian’s voice behind me and I twisted around to see him. As usual his tone was low and soft and demanded absolute silence in order to hear each word. “I have to decide our next move,” he said. “Every one of you is free either to come with me, or to go his own way.” He had not shared our breakfast oats but now I was sitting at his feet, watching him. His ankle bones, snug in the faded black wool of his hose, were right next to me and I found myself gazing at the muscles of his calves. His legs were long, elegant and powerful but their slim grace did not hide the ferocity of his strength. I found myself looking too long, and blinked, embarrassed. But he didn’t notice. Although he was talking to us, he was staring into the fire. It was the first time I could watch him properly. The sinuous muscles of his upper arms were pronounced and taut through the thin white linen, and the outlines of his nipples showed dark. Below the long belted shirt, he wore only hose and boots. I already knew him to be a strong man. I wondered then whether he might once have been a knight for he looked nothing like the peasant I had earlier imagined he must be. Then he suddenly became aware of my scrutiny, and looked down on me. I must have blushed. I had never looked directly into such eyes before.
He raised one eyebrow. “Sorry,” I whispered, and because I took it as a question, “I didn’t mean to stare. But I think we’ll all want to come with you.”
The boys were nodding furiously. “What else would we do?” demanded Gerald.
“It means the forest,” said Vespasian. “You know that.”
“It’ll be an adventure,” said Stephen.
Vespasian squatted down next to me and took my hand in his, which surprised me. His hands were very dry and hard, ridged from sword and reins. His fingers seemed unusually long, and the rich crimson of the ruby set into his ring caught the firelight, turning to blood, and making me shiver. “There is no adventure,” he said. “It’ll be cold, it’ll be damp. You often go hungry now. In the forest, that could happen more often. I can no longer return to king or court for revenue. We shall be exiles.”
Hugh was the oldest of us all now Isabel had gone. He was frowning and shaking his big square head. He wasn’t the most intelligent. “Maybe – I’m not sure – perhaps I won’t come. And anyway, I don’t understand. Why do we have to run away? None of us did this foul thing. We ought to be safe staying here and I don’t see why not. None of this is my fault. It’s not fair. I don’t want to live in trees.”
“None of us do,” said Walter. He rubbed his button nose with the back of his fist and I wondered if he was trying not to cry. “But we don’t have any choice. When the sheriff finds out who Isabel was, he’ll come here. We’re thieves so we’ll all be dragged off to the gallows. Who’ll care that we didn’t do it? They’ll say – thieves are all murderers. Hang them.”
“I don’t mind living in the forest,” repeated Stephen. “It’s exciting. I’ll build a hut up in the branches.”
“And be caught and castrated for poaching the king’s deer,” I found Tilda saying.
“None of you are listening,” said Vespasian very slowly, reaching through our ignorance, explaining the depths of the danger. “Isabel wasn’t killed for profit, this was far beyond the brutality of simple rape, and she wasn’t murdered in revenge for the purse she had stolen, which was still on her belt. She was mutilated and butchered and tortured for the pleasure of the killer. We are talking about darkest magic. Yes, we are an odd assortment, a gang of thieves, and for involvement in theft and sorcery, we would hang. I do not intend to hang. But there is also danger from the magic itself. The forest will not protect us from that, but it will conceal our whereabouts for the moment. I am going into exile and any of you who have the sense to come, I promise to protect with whatever ability remains to me. It is up to you.”
“There’s hundreds of outlaws in the forests,” said Gerald. “Does that make it more dangerous? But if they can live there, so can we.”
“And we have Vespasian, which no one else has,” said Tilda.
I heard Vespasian laugh. “Yes, you have me. Whatever consolation that gives you, has ever given you, it continues. But remember, I shall be the hunted now, not the hunter. And I will be deemed more guilty than any of you.” He stood again, letting go of my hand, but he was still looking at me. “You, Tilda, I could find you work in some castle or country estate. You’d be safe enough. You of all of us, need not come into the forest.”
“I don’t want to be a laundry maid,” said Tilda, affronted. “I was born a serf but
now I’m free. Since I’ve known you, I’ve always been free. I want to come into the forest with all of you and stay free.”
Vespasian nodded. “Exile isn’t freedom, but it’s better than serfdom or slavery and it’s better than gaol and hanging. Then it’s all of you, except perhaps Hugh? We leave in a few hours. Pack whatever you want. Bring the hens.”
“If everyone’s going, then I am too.” Hugh chewed his lip.
I saw there was already a sack, heavy cloth and tied with cord, waiting by the door, Vespasian’s belongings, and little enough at that. “What about the beds? What about the pots?”
“Forget the beds and pots,” he said briefly, turning on his heel. “Bring the blankets and pillows. I’ve sold everything else to Jack Saddler. There’s very little time so never mind talking. Do whatever you have to.”
I wanted Tilda to say that all of us leaving immediately and suddenly like this was going to look terribly guilty. Modern concepts still influenced me. I wanted her to say that we should stay, act innocent, help any official inquiries and cooperate with the investigation. Luckily Tilda wouldn’t say it for me. Instead she said, “I’m ready now. I don’t own anything so I haven’t got anything to pack.”
“Then help the others,” said Vespasian.
It was raining more heavily when we left and I pulled my hood over my head. In minutes I was soaked and my little red shoes were splashing mud again. I carried a stiff sack with a fat chicken bundled up in my woollen bedcover, and a lump of brown bread. The chicken, tucked into the dark, had gone to sleep. It would wake soon when the rain soaked through to its feathers. Then it would wriggle and be heavy. The bread would go mouldy but we’d eat it anyway. I wondered what it would be like in the forest in weather like this.
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