The Forest Wife

by Theresa Tomlinson

  ‘She should be here.’

  Mary dropped her baggage, and looked around. Three cats ran amok amongst chickens and goats, jumping and nipping at the poor beasts’ udders. Even in the dim light, it was clear that they desperately needed milking. It was not what she’d expected, this noisy domestic chaos.

  Agnes pushed open the doorway and halloo’d inside the hut. There was no reply.

  ‘Well, I don’t know. I really don’t.’ She wandered round the side of the hovel.

  Mary scooped up a small cat with white patches, just as it pounced on a screeching hen.

  ‘Scat!’ She dropped it down and clapped her hands in its face.

  ‘Mary, come quick!’ Agnes called from behind the hut. ‘Fetch the candle and flint.’

  Mary carried the tinderbox round to Agnes. Her hands shook as she struggled to drop a spark onto the tinder and make a flame.

  ‘Hurry, child, hurry!’

  At last she had the candle lit. She bent down towards Agnes with a sharp intake of breath.

  A very old, wrinkled woman lay on the ground. She was quite still, her flesh gleamed yellow in the candlelight.

  ‘Is she dead?’ Mary whispered.

  ‘Aye,’ Agnes sighed. ‘Dead at least a day and night I should say.’

  ‘But . . . who is she?’

  Agnes stood up, and Mary caught the glitter of a tear on her cheek. ‘She is Selina . . . she is the Forestwife.’

  ‘Nay,’ Mary shook her head. ‘She is just an old woman.’

  ‘Just a woman,’ said Agnes. ‘Just a woman, like me and thee. Poor Selina, she has waited too long already. She can wait till daybreak, then we must bury her.’

  They left her lying where she was, but Agnes covered her with her own cloak.

  ‘Let’s go inside and see what must be done.’ She nodded towards the hut.

  Mary carried the candle inside. A half sack of grain lay in the corner, the top fastened with twine, though one clever chicken pecked at a hole in the side.

  ‘This is what’s needed,’ Agnes smiled. ‘We’ll get no peace here till these animals are dealt with. You take up that pot and feed the hens. That’s it, fill it with grain from the sack, and throw it to the poor hungry things.’

  She snatched up another pot herself, and set to milking the three goats. One of the cats leapt onto her shoulder. The others made her rock on her feet, so wildly did they purr and rub against her ankles, winding their tails around the goats’ legs.

  ‘I see the way of it,’ she laughed. ‘I see where the milk’s supposed to go.’

  Mary smiled too. It was comforting to hear Agnes laugh at so ordinary a thing. Though she was puzzled by the place, she was too exhausted to do much questioning.

  ‘I thought perhaps you came here seeking your nephew?’

  Agnes looked surprised for a moment, but then answered firmly, shaking her head. ‘No need to seek for Robert. He shall come looking for me.’

  At last the animals were quiet, and Mary and Agnes sank down gratefully to sleep on beds of dry bracken, in the home of the Forestwife.

  Bright sun shone through the open doorway, lighting the small room. Mary was comfortable and warm, the black-and-white cat curled round her feet. She yawned, then groaned as she stirred. The cat stretched and yowled, complaining that its cushion would not keep still. Never before had Mary’s legs and back been so sore and unwilling to move.

  Yet the homely surroundings cheered her. The room was crammed with the basic utensils for living. Pots of different sizes, hempen bags of grains, stone jars and crocks, pestle and mortar, all a little dusty and jumbled. Great bunches of freshly-picked herbs hung from the ceiling to dry, wafting their sharp, astringent fragrance.

  Another delicious smell came from a sizzling iron griddle that rested on the fire by the hearthstone. It was tended by Agnes.

  ‘Ah ha, Sleeping Beauty has opened her eyes. There’s cornmeal pancakes and cooked eggs for thee. The hens have paid thee back.’

  Mary ate with relish, the feeling that all was well had returned.

  ‘Is there water near?’ she asked, thinking vaguely that she had heard the babble of a stream in the night.

  ‘Go see for theesen,’ said Agnes, and smiled.

  Sleepy and bleary-eyed, Mary wandered from the hut, following the sounds. Willows drooped their branches over a small spring that bubbled up from the rocks. Mary stooped to splash her eyes, bracing herself for the chill. Her laughter rang out, so that Agnes could hear her from the cottage. She grinned hugely, knowing what the girl had found. The beautiful clear water was warm.

  ‘This is a magical place,’ Mary cried aloud to the willows, flinging the warm water into the air. ‘This is a magical place that we have found.’

  It was only when she returned to the cottage and Agnes pulled out a strong iron spade from behind the door, that Mary remembered with a shudder the sad, shrivelled thing behind the house.

  ‘It must be good and deep,’ Agnes insisted. She’d marked out a spot of soft earth where a golden-berried mountain ash grew close to the circling yew trees. Beyond it lay a stretch of humpy ground.

  Mary groaned and rubbed her back.

  ‘Work through it, that’s how I keep my fingers moving.’ Agnes flexed her rheumaticky fingers in proof. She swore that hard work was the best cure for aching legs and back. She hovered on the edge, giving advice, for Mary had never before dug anything, let alone a grave.

  It was noon, and the sun high in the sky, before Agnes was satisfied. She rolled Selina’s body onto a woollen rug that they’d found in the cottage, and dragged it out to the hole. Mary was glad to leave that job to her. Then they both lowered her gently into the pit, and Agnes pulled the covering cloak away. Clasped between the clawlike hands was a fine woven girdle. Agnes loosened it from the clutching fingers and set it beside her on the ground. Then, to Mary’s disgust, she pulled out the woven rug from beneath the frail body, and folded it carefully beside the girdle. ‘We must not waste,’ she said. ‘Now take up tha shovel.’

  They covered her with the warm, foresty-smelling earth.

  The solemn task was almost finished when the hens set up an anxious squawking. Mary and Agnes turned to see a young boy carrying a smaller child. He stood in the clearing in front of the cottage, looking fearfully from the stone pointer towards the doorway.

  Agnes picked up Selina’s woven girdle and the rug. She went over to the lad while Mary finished patting down the earth.

  The boy was skinny but wiry, about ten years old. The small girl that fretted in his arms must have been two, and should have walked on her own, but it was clear that she was sickly and weak, her skin red with sores.

  Agnes stood before them.

  ‘Can I help thee, lad?’

  ‘Art thou the Forestwife?’

  Though the lad spoke up firmly, his face was white and his bare knees shook.

  Agnes looked down at Selina’s girdle. The intricately woven belt lay across the palms of her hands. She hesitated for a moment, but then she dropped the rug and cloak. Her face was solemn and pale as she fastened the girdle around her waist.

  ‘Aye. I am the Forestwife. What is it that ails thee, child?’

  4

  In the Coal-digger’s Hut

  ‘MY FATHER HAS broken the Forest Laws.’

  ‘Ah. Poor man.’

  Agnes lifted the small girl out of the young boy’s arms.

  ‘Come, sit theesen down in the Forestwife’s hut, and take some food and drink, then tha can tell us all about it. Mary, fetch them a bowl of milk, and can tha cook them both an egg?’

  Mary struggled with the heavy iron griddle that was new to her, but Agnes had not let her grow up ignorant of boiling and baking and kitchen chores.

  Agnes took the small girl to the spring and bathed her. The little one laughed with surprise and delight at the bubbling warm water. Then, after she’d patted her dry, Agnes gently rubbed salve from one of Selina’s pots into the sore skin.

  ‘I
hope tha knows the right one,’ Mary said, still fearing poisons and wicked sorcery.

  ‘Pounded comfrey and camomile. I can tell by the smell, and so shall thee before long.’

  While they ate, Agnes picked up the good rug that she’d taken from Selina’s grave. She cut it into two strips, one larger than the other. Her sharp knife ripped a slit in the middle of each piece, and she slipped the soft warm wool over the head of each child, like a tunic. Then she fastened a short length of twine around each skinny belly. They both smiled at the comfort that it brought.

  ‘A gift from Selina,’ Agnes said. They giggled at that, not understanding what she meant.

  ‘Now,’ said Agnes. ‘Tell us tha names, and tell us what tha can.’

  ‘My name is Tom, and this is our little ’un, Nan. My father’s a good man, but he’s in trouble. He never beats us like most fathers do, and he worked right hard as a carpenter when we lived in Langden village. My father had an accident – he slipped and cut his hand with an axe. Well, he couldn’t work for a while, and got no payment. He owed the Lord of Langden five days work up at the manor and couldn’t do it. We had to have some meat, for my mother is big with child, and she’d been sick and worn for lack of food, just like my little sister.

  ‘Father went out a-hunting. He wandered away to the south from where we live, and he caught us a good pair of hares with a snare, but then the Foresters of Sherwood found him with them. They claimed ‘twas royal hunting land that he took them from. Father swore ‘twas Barnsdale, where any man may take the beasts . . . but he couldn’t prove them wrong. It’s six days now, since he was sent before the Forest Justices. He came back walking all hunched and moaning.’

  ‘Tha’s done the right thing, lad, to come looking for help.’ Agnes stroked his head. ‘What had they done to tha father?’

  The boy tried to tell, but his eyes filled with tears, and his voice choked and would not make a sound.

  He spread out his right hand before them, and brought his other hand down upon it with a quick chopping action across the forefinger and thumb.

  ‘Ah!’ Mary caught her breath. ‘His bow fingers? For a pair of hares in a snare?’

  ‘He could not pay the fine,’ said Tom.

  Agnes shook her head, unsurprised. ‘’Tis all the same to them. They make sure he’ll not draw bow or pull a snare again. Do not expect fair treatment in the Forest Courts.’

  ‘But I thought King Richard freed us from the Forest Laws,’ said Mary.

  Agnes shook her head, smiling sadly.

  ‘Nay, lass. He emptied the prisons when he came to the throne. They all loved him for that, but now he’s stripped the country bare with his crusaders tax. The prisons are full again . . . they groan with those who’d rather break the Forest Law than starve.

  ‘Well? Did tha father recover, child?’

  Tom shook his head.

  ‘The lord of Langden Manor came by our cottage, and we dared to hope he’d give us aid. My father’s been a loyal tenant all his life. The lord spoke kind enough, and rode away, but the next morning the bailiff came knocking on our door. His lordship would not keep a carpenter who could not hold a saw. He and his men, they turned us out . . . out of our cottage and away from Langden land.’

  ‘You poor lad,’ Mary said, taking his hand. ‘What then?’

  ‘We were desperate, wandering in the forest, my father sick and all of us hungry, but we found an old coal-digger’s hut and thought ourselves lucky. At least we had shelter. ‘Twas last night that it all turned bad. My father began to shake and shiver and we could not rouse him. He lies in the corner, he goes like this.’

  Tom showed them how his father twitched and shuddered.

  ‘And water, like a rain shower, comes out of his skin.’

  Agnes got to her feet and began sniffing and sorting amongst Selina’s pots and jars.

  ‘A festering wound,’ she muttered. ‘Sage to cool the fever, then vervain and woundwort and comfrey leaves.’

  ‘My mother,’ Tom insisted. ‘’Tis my mother too. She was right bothered by the state of my father. Then this morning she started to moan and groan and clutch at her belly. Well, then . . . I picked up my sister, for I dare not leave her there, and I told my mother that I went to seek the Forestwife.’

  ‘Is it far?’ said Agnes.

  ‘This side of Langden village. I set off when the sun was high in the sky, but my sister is heavy and the way was hard to find.’

  ‘Tha mam and dad should be proud of thee,’ said Mary. ‘And tha carried this lass all the way.’

  Within the hour, a strange procession set off for the coal-digger’s hut. Tom led the way and Agnes followed, laden with cloaks and ointments and bundles of dried herbs. Mary followed leading two of the goats, steadying the little girl astride the biggest one. As they left the clearing Agnes stooped to swivel the pointer stone around.

  It was late afternoon when they reached the hut. They heard the screams of the frantic woman before they reached the door. Tom ran ahead to his mother, while Agnes dropped her bundles and followed him. Mary found her on her knees beside the labouring woman, carefully pressing on her stomach. The poor mother groaned bitterly and rolled her eyes.

  ‘The child wishes to come,’ said Agnes, frowning anxiously, ‘but it’s turned itself the wrong way round.’

  ‘Can you do aught?’ Mary winced at the woman’s pain.

  ‘I can try.’

  Agnes bent over to whisper in the woman’s ear.

  ‘Take heart,’ she soothed, stroking her head. ‘I shall be quick as I can.’

  Then she pushed her fingers up inside the woman’s body, reaching and twisting and grunting with the effort of it all. Tom’s mother groaned and bit her lips, quietened by Agnes’s calm assurance and faith in her own skill. The children watched in frightened silence. Then at last, with a sharp jerk that shocked the mother senseless, Agnes pulled free two kicking feet. A baby boy slithered out into the world, alive and shouting. His mother soon stirred again and blinked, then opened her eyes and set to grateful weeping at the sound of the child’s cries.

  Agnes turned to the sick man who groaned quietly in the corner. ‘He needs me now. Can tha see to the mother and babe?’ she asked Mary. ‘They will be fine, now that this bairn is free.’

  ‘But, I’ve never . . . ’

  ‘’Tis naught but common sense. Get them both clean and warm and comfortable. I must look to the father.’

  It was thick dark by the time Mary settled down to try to sleep, curled up beside the little girl on a thin pile of ancient straw. She sighed with exhaustion, but also with satisfaction. She’d cleared up the bloody mess of birth, and seen the new baby washed and put to the breast, all the while receiving tearful thanks from his mother, whose name was Alice.

  Agnes had made herself as comfortable as she could, propped up beside the wounded man, ready to tend him through the night. She’d cleansed and dressed his wound, and spoon-fed him with her simples. Now he slept, wrapped well in the cloaks and rugs that they’d brought, still twitching at times, but breathing calmly.

  By the morning his fever had gone. He was very weak, but calm and clear in his mind. Agnes milked the goats and saw the family well fed. Though there was much more that could be done, she insisted that they must return to the Forestwife’s hut. The mother nodded her understanding and rose up shakily from her bed of straw to search out a small bag of dried beans. It was one of the few things they had managed to snatch as they left Langden village. She handed it to Mary.

  ‘’Tis all we have to pay thee with.’

  Mary began to refuse. How could they take food from those who had nothing? But Agnes stepped in and took the beans.

  ‘That pays us well enough,’ she said. ‘But there’s something more I’d ask of thee. I’ve many tasks that I need a strong lad for. Will you send Tom to us, twice a week? I shall pay him with a good jug of goat’s milk and a few fresh eggs.’

  ‘Certainly he shall come,’ Alice agreed. Tom
looked well pleased at the plan.

  Alice caught hold of Agnes by the hand, her face solemn. ‘I am sad for the old wife, but glad of the new. We have great need of thee since the Sisters stopped their visiting.’

  Agnes frowned. ‘The sisters?’

  ‘The Sisters of St Mary, from the convent in the woods.’

  ‘You say they come no more?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘They were so good to us; to all around Langden. We wondered if we’d offended them?’

  They left one of the goats behind to help the family through the first few days, with the agreement that Tom would bring it when he came to work for them.

  As they wandered back through the forest, there was much on Mary’s mind. Much that she wished to ask, but it was difficult to know where to start.

  ‘Well . . . it seems that tha’s taken Selina’s place,’ she began.

  Agnes nodded, but she looked tired and sad.

  ‘You knew her, didn’t you?’

  ‘Aye. I knew Selina. She helped me once, long ago. There’s a great deal that you do not know about your old nurse, my lovey, and I shall tell it . . . but all in good time.’

  It seemed that Mary would have to be satisfied with that for the moment, so she turned to more practical matters.

  ‘Why did you take their beans, yet leave them with a goat? How do you know you’ll ever see that beast again?’

  ‘I took the beans in payment, which is only right . . . they have their pride. I left the goat for they need the milk, and it shows we have faith in them. We’ve taken upon ourselves a task that I do not think you rightly understand. Not yet.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Agnes fingered the woven girdle of the Forestwife. It was a beautiful thing, not like a wealthy lady’s ornament, but intricately woven and rich with the forest dyes of madder, blackberry, sorrel and marigold. It was edged with finely plaited leather and fastened with a heavy metal clasp.

  She sighed. ‘It is an ancient and sacred pact, an agreement, between the forest folk. It will bring us safety, for none will know or even ask our names. The Forestwife may keep her mysteries. They will protect us, but there is our part of the bargain to be kept; always to be there, always to answer to those in need. It will be our refuge but, believe me, it will be hard work.’