Beyond the back yards and rooftops the clouds were massing ominously, but the air was still warm with the scents of summer. They must have finished the barbecue, because all I could smell was long grass, dusty tracks and the drowsy sweetness of newly mown hay.
Which was odd, because it was only May.
The computer was thrumming quietly on the edge of the desk. Its screensaver turned endlessly, serenely, mocking my jitters, but the air was still snapping and trembling about me, and when I turned back to clear the papers, I saw the stain where the apple had sat on a sheet of scrawled notes and I shuddered.
Snatching up the paper, I scrumpled it up and was about to throw it in the wastepaper basket when something made me stop and unfold it slowly. I stared down at Lucy’s writing, black and loopy and almost illegible. Between all the heavy underlinings and arrows and question marks, I made out a couple of dates – 1577 and 1583 – and a scribble that looked as if it might be ‘Bess’. But there was no mistaking one word. There, circled in the middle of the page, Lucy had printed in capitals: HAWISE.
Gnawing my thumb, I sat and stared at the name until it shimmered in front of my eyes.
I am waiting for Francis and nibbling at my thumb. I do this when I am nervous, even though Mistress Beckwith scolds me for it. Thinking of my mistress, I drop my hand. For years she has been telling me not to fidget or laugh too loudly or ask too many questions. I must be quiet and modest and discreet, she tells me. I wish now that I had heeded her advice. Then I wouldn’t be standing in this orchard, wondering what I am going to say to Francis.
Well, it is too late for that. I straighten my shoulders. I wasn’t modest and I wasn’t discreet, and now I must deal with the consequences. At least, I think, my betrothal is an excuse not to meet Francis any more, but I need to tell him myself. I owe him that. He will hear about it in the street otherwise, and that would be unfair to him.
I don’t want to see him again, but I don’t want to hurt him. All he has done is not be the man I wanted him to be. That is not his fault – it is mine.
The long grass is wet after all the rain, and the guards on my skirt are already sodden. It is not actually raining now, but I am standing in the meagre shelter of the apple tree and the air is so damp that moisture clings to my face.
‘Good day, my lady,’ Francis says when he arrives, and he bows with the flourish that so delighted me the first time I saw it. Now I can’t help thinking that it looks faintly ridiculous. I am not a queen, after all. I am not even a lady. I am just a foolish maid who forgot everything her mistress taught her.
‘Good day to you, Francis.’ I smile nervously. He is so intense that he smothers what little lightness there is in the air, and when he seizes my hands I pull them away instinctively.
He barely seems to notice. ‘I have bought you a gift, Hawise. Look!’ From his pocket he pulls a pair of silk gloves, embroidered with tiny flowers and bees. A lover’s gift.
I moisten my lips. ‘They are very fine, Francis, but I cannot accept them.’
‘Oh, why so shy?’ He smiles, pressing the gloves into my hand even as I push them back at him. ‘They are a token of my love for you.’
‘No, Francis. Stop!’
He doesn’t like that. His brow darkens. ‘I want you to have them,’ he says, sounding like a petulant child.
‘I can’t,’ I say, and something in his face makes me take a step back. ‘I only came today because there is something I must tell you.’ I draw a breath. ‘I am betrothed.’
He laughs at that. ‘Impossible!’
‘It’s true. I’m sorry, Francis, I didn’t know . . . ’ I trail off at the expression in his eyes. ‘Last night was the first I’d heard of it.’
‘Why didn’t you say that you were promised to me?’ He is standing there, staring at me, while he twists the gloves tighter and tighter and tighter in his hands.
He had never even mentioned love. Two brief kisses . . . How could he even think of it? ‘I’m not. I never made you a promise, Francis. You know that.’
Francis tosses the poor mangled gloves aside and grabs my hands again. ‘Promise me now,’ he says, his voice throbbing with urgency.
‘Francis, I can’t.’ I thought it would be a courtesy to tell him about my betrothal, but now I am wishing I hadn’t come. With some difficulty I tug my fingers from his. ‘I would lose the goodwill of my family and friends.’
‘Do they mean more to you than I do?’
He asks it almost jovially, as if confident that I will say no. I stare at him uneasily. It is as if he has been in a different orchard, a different world, those times we met. Doesn’t he remember the stiffness of the conversation, the awkwardness of our kisses? There were no promises, no words of love.
His green eyes glitter with delusion and I am afraid. He is not rational.
‘My master and mistress have been good to me,’ I say carefully.
Francis brushes that aside. ‘They love you. They would forgive you.’
‘It would shame them.’ I pause, wondering how to make him understand. ‘Mr Hilliard is a wealthy merchant, a member of the guild. The match reflects well on the Beckwiths. I would not have such an opportunity if it were not for them. They are well pleased, as is my father.’
As well he might be, I reflect with some bitterness. It seems that Ned Hilliard is prepared to take me even without a portion, and my father is rubbing his hands in the expectation of having all his debts paid so that he can gamble some more. Everyone is delighted at the betrothal.
Everyone except me. But nobody asks me what I want. Nobody thinks what it is like for me to find myself betrothed to a man almost twice my age.
It seems I have explained too well. Francis’s expression has turned ugly. ‘A wealthy merchant!’ He spits out the words. ‘I see. So I am not good enough for you in fact?’
‘Francis . . . ’ I feel helpless. ‘This is the way of the world. You, of all people, must know how things are.’
He pounces on that. ‘I, of all people? What do you mean by that?’
‘You told me that you have to make your own way in the world. You are dependent on pleasing your master. You said that you have little money.’
‘Now I have none, but it won’t always be that way, Hawise. My master is sick.’ Francis’s face lights up with an eagerness that makes me recoil. ‘I have completed my apprenticeship. He has promised me his house and his goods when he dies, and it cannot be long. I will see to it. Will I be good enough for you then?’
I will see to it.
I am horrified. More than ever I think there is something wrong about Francis’s eyes. ‘It wouldn’t make any difference,’ I manage through numb lips.
‘It would be enough. And the Beckwiths are kind to you.’ Francis is pacing through the long grass. ‘Everyone says you are their pet. You will inherit everything from them. We will have plenty of money then.’
‘I, inherit?’ My horror turns to astonishment. ‘Who told you that? The Beckwiths have married daughters of their own. They have grandchildren. There will be no money for me, and nor should there be. Already I owe them more than I can say. No, Francis,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I have nothing save a father burdened with debts. I cannot whistle a wealthy merchant down the wind,’ I add bitterly. ‘I had no choice, Francis. I had to agree.’
It was done. I had made my promise in front of witnesses, and when Ned Hilliard touched his mouth to mine, his lips were cool and firm. It cannot be undone now.
‘But you love me!’ Francis swings round aggressively, and his words beat at me like staves, but I stand firm. I am shaking inside, but I lift my chin and look him straight in the eyes.
‘No, Francis, I don’t.’
‘You kissed me,’ he reminds me, advancing on me, and I back away until I am pressed right up against the apple tree. I can feel the roughness of the bark, the dampness of the green-grey lichen, the squelchiness of the rotting apple I stepped in. The smell of it fills my nostrils, mingling with the odour
of wet grass and the high, rank nettles that clog the orchard. I remember how eagerly I once hurried to this place, and I marvel at myself.
‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ I stutter.
‘You kissed me,’ Francis says again, his eyes blank and green. ‘You led me on. You little whore!’
‘Francis!’ I am so shocked I don’t know what to say.
He keeps on coming, and I can see the spittle at the corners of his red mouth. ‘You thought to make a fool of me, did you?’
‘No!’
‘You were just amusing yourself with me before you got married to your fat merchant, hmm?’
‘I didn’t know about Ned until yesterday,’ I protest, but that only inflames Francis further.
‘Oh, it’s Ned now, is it? It was Mr Hilliard before, but perhaps you have remembered now that he has rutted with you? What did it cost him? More than the price of a pair of gloves, I warrant!’
I recoil from his crudeness. ‘Francis, please . . . ’
‘Please what?’ he practically spits. ‘Please crawl back under the stone you came from? Please go away and leave me to my rich husband? Tell me, did you tease his cock the way you teased mine? Did you give him the same smiles that you gave me, leading him on until he was panting like a dog at your knees? I should have seen the Devil in your eyes. I should have known you for what you were – nothing but a hot little harlot!’
‘Stop it!’ I bring up my hands to push him away, but he grabs my wrists and shoves me back against the tree, so hard that my head thumps against the rough bark and I cry out.
‘Betrothed, are you? He has had you, I can tell. You’re like a bitch in heat.’
I’m struggling, really frightened now. ‘Francis, no!’
‘Francis, yes!’ he mocks. ‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t have you too. I’m due some recompense for all this time wasted on gentle wooing.’
I twist my face away from his lips as he tries to kiss me roughly. ‘Please, Francis, let me go,’ I beg. ‘I am a maid still, I swear it!’
But that is the wrong thing to say. ‘All the better. If I am the first to have you, it is as good as a betrothal, is it not? You can go back to your merchant and tell him that you’re mine after all.’
With one part of my mind I am marvelling that there could ever have been a time when the thought that Francis might want to kiss me would have thrilled me. Now the very idea fills me with horror. With the other, I am twisting and turning frantically, disgusted at his attempts to press his spittle-flecked lips to mine.
He has turned into a beast, a monster, and I am desperate to get away from him, but he is so much stronger than me. He manages to pin both my wrists together in one hand and scrapes them viciously against the trunk of the tree while he drags my skirt up with the other and tries to smother my screams with his mouth. His tongue is like a fat, wet slug, shoving between my lips, and I gag at the feel of it. I buck my body against his as I try to push him off me, and at last manage to wrench my mouth from his and spit out the taste of him.
‘Before God, leave me alone,’ I shout at him and kick frantically at his legs.
‘You little bitch!’ Francis drags me from the tree and throws me down into the long grass, and I cry out as I fall hard, jarring my bones.
‘Stop it. Stop it!’ I am flailing at him with my hands, frantic to get him off me, but he only laughs.
‘Scream all you want. There’s no one to hear you out here. Isn’t that why you chose it? Somewhere quiet we could be together, wasn’t that right? Somewhere no one would see.’
He’s lying across my chest, pinning me to the ground as he yanks up my skirts, rips at my shift, his hands cruel. He likes hurting me. I think he likes it that I am fighting him too, but I won’t give up. I am twisting like a cat in a sack, cursing and spitting.
‘I will tell my master. He will have you strung up from the nearest gibbet!’
‘You won’t tell him. Then you’d have to tell him that you’d been sneaking off to meet me, and then what would be left of your reputation, hmm? Will your fat merchant want you then? I don’t think so.’
His voice is gleeful, but his eyes are terrifyingly blank. He doesn’t care, I realize. I can almost hear the rushing in his head, the need to crush me, to hurt me, to destroy me.
‘Sweet Jesù, help me!’ I cry, but I know there is no one to help as he tears at my sleeves, pulling them from their laces and baring my shoulders while he slobbers at my neck like a hound in heat.
I am so crazed with disgust that I barely notice at first when he pauses and lifts his head to stare down my breast to where it swells above my bodice and a birthmark, shaped like a small, blurry hand, shows red against my white skin.
‘What is this?’ His voice sharpens.
‘Get off me!’ I’m beating at him with my fists, but Francis doesn’t even register my blows.
‘It is the mark of a witch, is it not? The mark of a harlot. By God, I know you for what you are!’
The sight of it prods him into a new frenzy. Now he is fumbling with his hose, throwing his legs over mine to pin them down, grunting obscenities, and I can feel him, horrifyingly stiff and smooth, pushing at my privy parts. The rotten apples squelch beneath me as I squirm desperately to free myself. Their stench is suffocating.
‘For God’s sake, be still,’ he mutters, swiping a blow at my head, and then he is jabbing at me with his fingers.
‘No!’ I am screaming. ‘No, no, no! Jesus, save me!’
But it is not Jesus who saves me. There is a thwack, a thud, and it is Francis’s turn to cry out. He rears back from me and I see Widow Dent standing over him with a stout stick.
‘She said no.’
Widow Dent is only a sparrow of a woman, but her eyes are deep and uncanny, and as she stands over Francis she looks strangely powerful.
Sobbing with relief, I start to scramble away from him, but he grabs my ankle. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Let go of her.’ Widow Dent barely raises her voice, but she lifts her stick.
‘Get out of here, you old hag,’ he snarls at her. ‘This is nothing to do with you.’
I am panting, kicking desperately to rid myself of his hand. ‘For God’s sake, let go, Francis!’
‘No,’ he says, tightening his fingers and pulling me back towards him. His yard still juts out of his hose, twitching like a grotesque faceless creature, and I shudder at the sight of it.
‘Take your hands off her,’ Widow Dent tells him, still quiet. ‘Or I will curse you. All I need to do is touch you with this stick and I can unman you for the rest of your days. Is that what you want?’
I feel Francis pause. Does he know that Widow Dent is reputed a witch? Is that filtering through his red haze?
‘Let her go,’ she says again.
His lips curl back exactly the way Hap’s do, and I see fear mixed with malevolence in the look he gives her. ‘You would not dare!’ he says, but he releases my ankle all the same.
‘Would I not?’ She lifts the stick and points it towards him. ‘I can shrivel your balls with one touch, if I choose. Shall we see?’
Under my astonished gaze I see Francis’s thing deflating, and Widow Dent laughs as he shoves it hurriedly back in his hose. The expression in his eyes is murderous.
‘Witch!’ he hisses, making the sign to ward off evil. ‘I’ll get you.’
‘Begone,’ she tells him, ‘or it won’t be just that cock that shrivels!’ She shakes the stick at him again and Francis backs away, his eyes darting between me and the widow.
Quite suddenly she lunges for him, and he stumbles back with a yelp of fear. ‘Shall I send my familiar to suck your blood? He’ll melt your eyeballs and eat your brains. He’ll creep in the night and make you itch until you scratch out your own eyes. He’ll make you shit blood out your arse.’
But Francis is already running. ‘I’ll see you in Hell!’ he shouts over his shoulder, but the widow only laughs contemptuously as she lowers her stick at last.
�
�More than likely,’ she says.
Overhead there is a rumble of thunder. I am retching and shivering in the grass as a gust of wind lifts my hair and splatters rain against my face.
I blinked at it, and abruptly I was back at Lucy’s desk with the rain pounding on the windowsill and the screensaver on my computer twisting and circling silently.
Lightning crackled across the sky and I flinched. The window was still wide open and the rain was splattering over Lucy’s papers, half of which had been blown onto the floor, where they lay damp and reproachful. The temperature had dropped dramatically, and I was shivering as I stood to pull the sash window down. I was very cold, and not just because of the rain.
It was a long time since I had had a bath. I was used to sluicing cold water over myself from a mandi, and it felt very strange lowering myself into hot water, but my teeth were clacking together so hard that my jaw ached, and I knew I had to get warm.
Lying back in the water, I listened to the rain splattering against the windows, and willed myself to relax, but the harder I tried to empty my mind, the more I churned with memories of that brutal assault in the orchard. The stench of rotting apples clung in my nostrils and I ached all over. I couldn’t get the feel of Francis out of my mind – his vicious hands and slobbery tongue, and the violence as he tried to push himself into me.
The memory of it made me gag. Perhaps he hadn’t succeeded in raping me completely, but I still felt sick and soiled. I found some soap and a flannel and scrubbed my body vigorously, trying to obliterate the disgust, the fear, the powerlessness, but no matter how hard I rubbed, I couldn’t get clean.
Eventually the water grew cold, but I couldn’t face getting out, so I leant forward and turned on the hot tap, and let it run while I soaped my arms and shoulders mindlessly. Encountering the familiar texture of my birthmark, I paused and my fingers traced the outline of it unsteadily. Hawise had the same mark, in the same place. The mark of a witch. Francis’s words echoed around the bathroom and I shuddered.
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