Sin Eater
Page 25
Old Doctor Howe gathers himself. “We decided… We agreed,” he amends, “that we would keep her from ruin. We would bury the past, but we could not murder the baby girl. We placed her where she would be safe and never spoke of it again.”
It’s the bulgy-eyed man I give the list of foods to. He has a musty-mouth smell that reminds me of the Willow Tree, but his eyes are filled with grief as he marks the foods down on a slate.
Two days later, the old sin eater and I are at Old Doctor Howe’s Eating in his large home. Lots of folk come and sit. The main chamber has a big tapestry across from where they’ve set the coffin. It’s of the heavenly plains and shows Adam, the keeper of the fields and orchards. It reminds me of Corliss’s tapestry, and I recall that I never sorted out who placed the deer hearts on the women’s coffins.
As I’m chewing mustard seeds, I give it a good think. Queen Bethany thought her babe was killed. She would have expected to see deer hearts on Corliss’s and Tilly’s coffins. Mayhap somefolk placed the hearts to continue the fiction. Mayhap they thought she would have the bastard killed if she learned of it. Or mayhap they thought she would claim it. My granddam said once a babe’s out and living, a mother can’t deny it. A queen with a bastard would lose her throne, and her closest advisers would lose everything with her.
I see the bulgy-eyed man in a chair at the back of the chamber. I wonder that he doesn’t take a seat closer to the coffin. He must be close kin to have taken the list of foods for Doctor Howe.
Something niggles. Another old body who took a list of foods. The Willow Tree. He collected the foods from Corliss’s Recitation and the Painted Pig’s. He could have added deer heart to the lists, mayhap Tilly Howe’s too, then delivered the parchments to the clerk in the royal kitchen with none the wiser. Except me. Tilly said in her Recitation that he had been a tutor in Katryna’s household. Mayhap he knew of Queen Bethany’s pregnancy and her ladies’ deception in keeping the baby alive. Or mayhap he read the secret years later in the tapestry. What I do know is that he staked his life’s work on Bethany’s reputation as a virgin and her continuation as queen. He must have placed hearts on the coffins to keep her from knowing the babe was alive.
The revelation sends mustard seeds shooting out my nose. The folk at the Eating mutter and sputter, but the old sin eater keeps on chewing her leek, even when I start to laugh. Nothing surprises her.
* * *
In the evening, the other sin eater and I sit on our stools by the hearth together, me hoping the closeness of our space will someday become a closeness of spirit. It almost works. If it doesn’t yet match the sorts of company I’ve had before, at least I’m not alone. And, with luck, we’ll have more company soon. I’ve drawn the sign for sanctuary on our door, the one I once scrubbed off a different door. I’m hoping folk who need safe haven will find it. And that word will spread. Mayhap even all the way to Brida and Paul.
At night as I crawl into bed, I decide I’ll name the old sin eater Bessie because it feels nice. Someday, mayhap, I’ll learn her real name. I curl up under an old rug that Bessie the sin eater found for me. Mouse, my cat, curls up too. My collar’s sitting in my box by the bed. As I fall asleep, I am May again. Just May.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my agent Stephanie Cabot, as well as Ellen Goodson Coughtrey, Rebecca Gardner, Will Roberts, and everyone at the Gernert Company. Thanks to my editor, Trish Todd, along with Kaitlin Olson and the team at Atria Books. And to Araminta Whitley of the Soho Agency and Sam Humphreys of Mantle. I am grateful to my early readers Carol Doup Muller, Jay Dunn, Nikki Reisch, Silvère Boitel, and the inimitable Boomie Aglietti. To my writing group, Soren Kisiel, Jenny Hagel, Dava Krause, Julia Price Baron, and Michelle Walson: thanks for the beer and noticings.
In writing this novel I drew inspiration from a number of books, in particular Elizabeth’s Women by Tracy Borman, The Queen’s Conjurer by Benjamin Woolley, and Rogues, Vagabonds, and Sturdy Beggars edited by Arthur F. Kinney.
This book was mostly written during my first child’s second year and my second child’s birth and first year. There would be no book without childcare. Thank you to everyone at the BBCDC, especially Kimberly Dalton. And to Natalie Mayne and Leah Gonsalves for bouncing on the ball. For hours. And there would be no childcare without my day jobs, so thank you to the fine people at the Neighborhood Playhouse and American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and to my (at this point) hundreds of former students for making those jobs pretty damn pleasant.
Thank you to the Salyers Hurand family for their unflagging support. My profound gratitude goes to my parents for valuing my voice and to my sisters for sharing theirs. Last and most to A, K, and G for being my folk.
More in Historical Fiction
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Megan Campisi is a playwright, novelist, and teacher. Her plays have been performed in China, France, and the United States. She has been a forest ranger, a sous-chef in Paris, and a physical theater specialist around the world. She attended Yale University and l’École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2020 by Megan Campisi
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Interior design by Kyoko Watanabe
Jacket design by Laywan Kwan
Jacket illustration by Alan Dingman
Author photograph by Gates Hurand
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Campisi, Megan, 1976– author.
Title: Sin eater / Megan Campisi.
Description: First Atria Books hardcover edition. | New York : Atria Books, 2020. | Identifiers: LCCN 2019019150 (print) | LCCN 2019019360 (ebook) | ISBN 9781982124120 (eBook) | ISBN 9781982124106 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781982124113 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Great Britain—History—Elizabeth, 1558-1603—Fiction. | GSAFD: Historical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3603.A4885 (ebook) | LCC PS3603.A4885 S56 2020 (print) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available a
t https://lccn.loc.gov/2019019150
ISBN 978-1-9821-2410-6
ISBN 978-1-9821-2412-0 (ebook)