To Sleep No More

by Deryn Lake

‘Soon we will have our own child,’ Jenna said, and Benjamin answered, putting his hand on her distended belly, ‘It can’t be too soon for me.’

  They were enormously happy, as if their coming together again, putting the past and the bad memories behind them, had sealed their companionship for ever. In fact Jenna sometimes felt that the splendour of their love was too great, that neither of them could taste such sweetness and live. When she thought like this she would shiver with apprehension and wonder what she could do to ward off disaster.

  She had not found herself able to destroy her great aunt’s book, had stood with the dark pages in her hand for an age before she had locked it back in its box, unable to commit a lifetime’s work to the flames. Yet in a way Jenna had kept her word. She had never consulted it from the day she and Benjamin had been reunited to this, even making the raspberry leaf potion to ease childbirth from memory.

  And now, walking by the river, she felt suddenly in need of a draught of it, for a low, dull pain had started in her back and she was anxious to get home. Sensing her change of mood, Benjamin said, ‘Are you all right, sweetheart?’ and she answered, ‘A little tired, that is all. I do not think we should call on Agnes today.’

  But there fate interceded, for as they drew level with the little cottage, looking with pleasure at the lights on the pond as the sun dipped overhead, Jenna felt a great rush of water course down her legs and knew that the baby would wait no longer. ‘We must go in,’ she said, ‘the child is on the way.’

  What a fussing and rushing ensued: Agnes helping Jenna up the ladder, laying her on the bed they had shared until recently; Benjamin hurrying to the village to fetch the midwife and the raspberry leaf potion; young Richard’s nurse coming down from Baynden and Daniel going out to find some cronies and drink ale. Then, in the way babies have, nothing more.

  But during the hours of waiting, soothed by the herbal remedy, Jenna day-dreamed, thinking that she could see the hawkish young man, the owner of the ring that remained wedged upon her finger. She thought that she stood outside and watched his poor hapless body being hidden in the wall of her own home, that Daniel’s cottage held the key to the mystery. Then she woke up and found herself lying on the bed, with Benjamin leaning over her and saying anxiously, ‘Oh, my darling, you were so still and pale, I thought you to be near death.’

  ‘Not I,’ replied Jenna, ‘I have too much to do delivering your babe.’

  Afraid, Benjamin would have stayed with her then, wanting only to share her experience and be part of the child’s birth, but the shocked faces of the midwife and the others drove him out to find Daniel. Yet, as he finally stepped from the inn in Maighfield, having drunk his fill, Benjamin shivered. There was a wind blowing hard from the coast, clean and strong and stinging with salt. It was a raw March night for his child to be born, and he felt a shudder of apprehension.

  ‘I must go back,’ he said to Daniel. ‘I will not leave Jenna any longer.’

  Something was amiss, he felt sure. Some cruel force had started its inexorable progress. Making the sign of the cross, Benjamin galloped his horse off into the darkness.

  It was as he entered the trees above Baynden that he first saw the glimmer of a lantern and, thinking it a messenger from the cottage, hurried his horse forward. But there were two riders out and he realised, even at that distance, that one of them was a woman. At once something about her seemed frighteningly familiar and as the lantern moved in the wind, Benjamin saw the gleam of fair hair. It was Debora Maynard, come back to Maighfield on the very night his child was to be born.

  His immediate instinct was to avoid her and he crouched low in the saddle, guiding his horse into a thick patch of trees. But then he heard a whinny of alarm and, peering cautiously, saw that Debora and her escort had drawn to a halt before a low-roofed building, her mount stamping in panic.

  Why he went to help her he never afterwards knew, but go he did, catching her horse by the reins and bidding it be still. Debora did not even look at him, peering instead at the building in front of them.

  It was a forge and as Benjamin did not recognise it, he immediately lost his sense of direction and thought he had taken the wrong turning.

  ‘Where are we?’ he said.

  No one answered and very much to his surprise, Benjamin heard Debora’s escort, a servant from Glynde, give a shout of alarm and gallop off. There was silence, except for the cry of that harsh salt wind; then every other sound of the night became magnified a hundred times. Benjamin’s ears were full of the noise of tiny nestling creatures, the sniff, snort and stamp of horses, the cry of a distant owl.

  He turned to look at the forge. A monk bent over the furnace, his tonsured head revealing the gaunt sweeping lines of a bony face.

  ‘Where are we?’ repeated Benjamin, but Debora did not answer and a brief look at her frozen profile revealed her to be in a trancelike state, gazing at the monk quite petrified.

  Very slowly the smith turned his head and Benjamin found himself gazing into his eyes. Molten orbs of brilliance stared into his, everything of light and power reflected in them.

  ‘Who are you?’ shouted Benjamin. There was no answer as the monk turned away again and bent once more over the furnace. From nowhere possible in such a sharp hard wind, a mist came up and blew over all, hiding the forge from the gaze of the onlookers.

  ‘Christ’s mercy!’ said Benjamin. ‘Was that an apparition?’

  Debora turned to him and he saw that she was looking at him, seeing who it actually was for the first time.

  ‘Perhaps it was the fatal vision?’ she whispered.

  Suddenly realising that the last time they had been together they had been engaged upon the most intimate business of all, Benjamin hurriedly said, ‘My marriage is mended, Debora.’

  She gave him a look of scorn. ‘I was ill when that happened. I am no longer interested in men. I have banished the evil one at last and so been banished in my turn. My only concern now is for my child. Do you know where he is?’

  ‘He spends much time with Sarah Steven, his nurse. I’m afraid your husband is totally disinterested in him.’

  ‘And does she still go home each night from Baynden?’

  ‘Aye, and takes the child with her on occasion. You’d best seek her out, Debora.’ Benjamin laid a hand on her arm. ‘Forgive me for what I did.’

  Her face was ashen beneath the lantern. ‘No, forgive me. Sometimes I get a — wildness. That was what you saw. It will never be repeated.’

  ‘Indeed it won’t,’ he answered bitterly.

  ‘Benjamin, a final favour. Will you ride with me to Master Steven’s house? I am too frightened to go there alone.’

  He hesitated, longing to be with Jenna but knowing he could not leave Debora defenceless in the darkness.

  ‘Quickly then, my wife is in labour and I must go to her.’

  She made no reply, merely nodding her head, and they cantered off together towards the village. Entering on the eastern track they started to climb up the hill and were almost half way up when the bobbing light of a lantern revealed Maud, making her way to her cottage.

  ‘Good evening to you both,’ she called, her face a pudding in the flickering light. ‘Why, it’s Debora ...’ Her voice died away. ‘... and Benjamin! So you are still together!’

  The carpenter would have liked to tell her that he had not seen Goodwife Maynard for nearly a year, that Maud was a wretched old gossip and should mind her own affairs, and that his one thought was to go to Jenna, but he was too short of time to explain.

  ‘We met again this evening,’ he said abruptly and rode on, leaving Maud staring after them, her face going from a pudding to a walnut as an evil smile spread over it and crinkled every one of her deep-creased lines.

  *

  The labour had been hard and, at first, the mother had moaned in agony, calling out again and again for her husband to come. Then, at the moment when she had seemed in greatest pain, a look of determination had suddenly crossed her face a
nd she had muttered, ‘I’ll cry out no more, no matter what. I shall ride this sea alone if I have to.’

  For it had seemed to Jenna then that she was drowning in an ocean of pain and only by forcing herself to swim could she get the cruel sensation to stop. So, to help herself, she imagined that she was riding the waves with two tunicked boys. At first it had been difficult and she had fallen off into pain again and again but then, somehow, she had brought her labour under control and together Jenna and the boys had scaled the sides of monstrous white-tipped breakers that would have frightened them if they had dared to look.

  The height and sheer raw power of the sea had grown ever fiercer, but the strange little trio had still plunged bravely on and scaled even the tidal waves with which that beautiful forcing ocean finally challenged them. They had triumphed. The water had calmed and then there was nothing left but a great and uncontrollable urge to growl like an animal and push the babe, strangely quiet now that the walls of his world had fallen in, out into the light.

  The boys were gone and suddenly Jenna was alone, lying on skins in a great dark cave, outside the roar of vast and monstrous beasts. As the midwife said, ‘Easy now, hold your breath,’ the sides of the cavern vanished and she saw that she had been in her father’s cottage throughout. She gave a shout and a gasp as the baby slid in to the world and no sooner had he been wiped and handed to her, wrapped in a cloth, than the gasp turned to a cry of greeting. A son lay in her arms.

  She dropped a kiss on his brow and said, ‘Can Benjamin come up now? He will want to see him so much.’

  ‘Benjamin is not here,’ answered Agnes from below. ‘He is not back from Maighfield.’

  ‘Is father still with him?’

  ‘No,’ came the slow reply. ‘Father has been here some while.’

  Jenna felt tears sting her eyes, but there was no sign of them when, an hour later, her husband walked in without explanation. Almost angrily she held out the baby.

  ‘Here! Here is your boy. What do you think of him?’

  Benjamin kissed the infant brow. ‘He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen — apart from you.’

  *

  The next morning, before he had had time to get drunk, two pieces of information were passed on to Richard Maynard by his servants. One was that Jenna Mist had gone into labour in Daniel’s cottage and had given birth to a son. The other, that Debora had returned to the village and had stayed the night at the house of Thomas Steven.

  The yeoman turned away, retching, as soon as the door closed, feeling as bitter as the taste in his throat. The two women he hated most in the world had triumphed, or so it seemed to him. The black-haired bitch who had rejected his advances had been reunited with her husband and given birth; and the biggest whore in the land had returned to the village, after consorting openly with the Master of Glynde, to rub his nose in shame. He felt he would like to kill them both.

  Richard slumped down at the table, his hand automatically reaching out for the ale jug, regardless of the early hour of the morning. He drank a pint without pausing for breath and felt a little better. He poured another and the wonderful elation that only drink could bring swept over him. He felt human again, ready to plan.

  Another draught and Richard could see everything clearly. Debora must return to him so that he could inflict on her a life of misery to make her pay for her crimes. She would die of a broken heart and no blame would be attached to him. After that he would take another wife and, when he was settled again, set about the destruction of Jenna Mist.

  He stood up, reaching for his hat and whip, and walked a little unsteadily to the door.

  ‘Going to church, Goodman?’ a servant asked.

  ‘Later, later. First I have business in the village. And Joan ...’

  ‘Yes, master?’

  ‘Prepare the house. I think the mistress might be coming home.’

  ‘Very good, master,’ said the startled girl, wondering what could be going through Goodman Maynard’s mind now.

  *

  The cold, salt-filled wind dropped during the night and Debora, looking out of the tiny window of Master Steven’s house, could see that it was a fine March, a Sabbath day, with a high, bright sun already out and lighting the village to the colour of buttercups. She wished that she had more heart to enjoy the scene — so gentle and pastoral — but could feel nothing but apprehension as to what her future might hold. Today she might be a calm and sober woman, searching for her child, but at any time the other part of her could gain dominance once more, forcing her to flaunt herself at Robert, at Benjamin — at any man who might cross her path. It occurred to Debora that her only possible hope was to cross the Channel and enter a religious house, where, even if the wicked side of her took over completely, there was not a man to be seen. Or, failing that, simply to die.

  Sighing deeply, she started to dress and was almost finished when she heard the sound of banging on Thomas Steven’s front door and then Richard’s voice raised in anger. Hurriedly she pulled on the last of her clothes and went down the ladder.

  Her husband was standing with his back to her, drinking a measure, but turned as he heard her approach. Debora saw with horror that though his pale skin was flushed and mottled and his hair clung damply to his forehead, he was attempting a smile. The effect was dreadful; he looked like something stepped straight from hell.

  ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘I had forgotten how beautiful you are.’

  His speech was slightly slurred and Debora realised that he had been drinking since he rose.

  ‘Richard, what do you want?’ she asked. ‘Everything is over between us.’

  ‘Want?’ Again that ghastly smile. ‘Why, nothing but to settle our differences. I realise now that I upset you with my demands. Debora, I am here to ask you to come back to me. For the sake of the child, if nothing else.’

  She did not trust him. His eyes were staring wildly and in his cheek a muscle had started to twitch.

  ‘But Richard, I don’t want to come back. I don’t love you. All I want is to take my child and live out the rest of my days in peace.’

  Once again he spoke in that terrible placatory voice. ‘But, Debora, you are my wife. I can give you peace and love and joy. Please say you will return.’

  For a second she hesitated, believing that perhaps he really meant it, that she might attain a semblance of happiness with him. Then she saw behind the veneer and shuddered.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘we could never be happy.’

  The smile erupted into a snarl and his hand shot out and delivered a stinging blow on her cheek.

  ‘You slut,’ he hissed. ‘You are my wife and must do my bidding — all of my bidding. I’ll drag you back to Baynden by the hair if necessary, and there you shall stay for the rest of your days.’

  She turned to run past him and out through the door, but he blocked her flight, pushing her to the floor and throwing himself on top of her. Shuddering beneath his heaving, sweating weight, Debora felt him push cruelly into her.

  ‘Master Steven,’ she screamed, ‘help me.’

  ‘He’s gone to church,’ came the growled reply. ‘There is no one here to save you — and I intend to have what is rightly mine, even if it kills us both.’

  ‘Richard, I beg you ...’ she gasped. Only to lose consciousness as the pain he inflicted on her became too great to bear.

  *

  That evening, Daniel and Benjamin carried Jenna down the ladder and, wrapped in warm coverlets, laid her on the floor of a cart and took her back to the carpenter’s cottage, the baby — in tight swaddling — beside her.

  There she was put to bed, and the child placed in the cradle carved for him by his father. They were both fast asleep by the time Benjamin went up to see to them.

  He went below again, smiling, and took his usual place by the fire, watching Rutterkin eye the grumpy cat who had, inevitably, jumped heavily onto his knee. Benjamin stared into the flames, thinking how good it was to be indoors on such a nigh
t, for the salt wind had come up again and was howling about the house as if trying to enter.

  His thoughts turned to Debora, not far away in Thomas Steven’s house, and he hoped fervently that she would either go back to Richard, who strangely had not been in church this morning, or leave Maighfield for good.

  Benjamin stood up, crossing to the window, and looked out. The sky was lit with a faint pinkish glow, just as if it were dawning, and the scattered stars seemed to be tinged with the same colour. Wondering what was causing the extraordinary light, Benjamin went to his door and opened it.

  The wind hit him like a physical force and he smelt on its breath not only the tang of the sea but something else as well.

  Benjamin sniffed and the acrid smell of burning filled his nostrils. A fire was raging somewhere in the village.

  As he ran out he found that others were doing the same, and with the crowd he rushed up the lane and into the village. ‘What’s burning?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s Thomas Steven’s house and the blaze has caught the cottage adjoining as well.’

  ‘Is Thomas safe?’

  ‘There’s no sign of him. I think they’re all in there.’

  ‘All?’

  ‘He and Sarah — and Debora Maynard.’

  ‘My God!’ said Benjamin, and started to sprint towards the cottage. But as he turned the corner he saw that the situation was hopeless. The flames had turned the two cottages into an inferno, while the wind was fanning tongues of fire towards another nearby house and barn.

  ‘They won’t have a chance,’ he said.

  ‘Some say the baby’s in there too. That Sarah brought him home for Goody Maynard to see.’

  Benjamin shook his head but could say no more as he was pushed into a line of people forming part of a human chain, and set to work with the others to put out the blaze.

  ‘If we don’t get it under control the whole village might go up,’ said an educated voice beside him, and Benjamin saw that Sir Thomas May had left the palace, and had set to work in his shirt-sleeves with the ordinary folk.

  As the witching hour came to Maighfield, their luck turned. The wind dropped a little as the fire lost fury and finally was put out. And some hours later, when the worst of the heat had gone from the buildings, the men were able to go into what was left of the cottages and look for bodies. They were all there: Thomas and Sarah, recognisable only because they could be no other, and Debora by the wedding ring that Richard Maynard had given her. The baby beside her was nothing more than a charred heap of little bones.