by Julie Hearn
“There is nothing to fear,” she said briskly. “Just trust in the Lord, be kind to your sister, and breathe not a word of this to anyone. Your father knows what to do and will take care of matters when the time comes.”
The bed creaked as she stood up.
“Are you coming with us to the New World?” I said. “You and your little girl?”
She didn’t answer, only gave me a look before leaving the room. It was a look that said she could imagine no other future for herself other than with us—or with Father, anyway.
I wonder what became of her?
Anyway I did not bother saying any thing further, and she clattered away down the stairs, to check on her pudding. Grace sidled back into the room. Her face was flushed and her glance almost humble.
“Are you all right?” she said. 44Do you understand everything a little better now?”
“I have no wish to discuss it,” I replied, turning my back on her so that she would not see my face.
My poor mind, I have to tell you, was in turmoil.
Did they really take me for such a fool—my sister, my father, and our housekeeper? Did they truly think I had cobwebs for brains?
Oh, it was all as clear as daybreak suddenly.
For had I not borne witness to my sister leaving our bedchamber night after night? And had I not seen the wanton disarray of her as she parted from her suitor at the gate? And heard her foolish sighings with my own two ears?
If I had only known, back then, what it all meant … what it could lead to. If I had only understood …
It made my blood boil, to think of the part I had played in blaming the cunning woman’s granddaughter for my sister’s condition. For the thing in Grace’s belly was not put there by a charm. I knew that now. It was put there by the one she had frolicked with so shamelessly in the woods below our home.
But who was he? Who could he have been?
The answer came to me during evening prayers as if the Lord Himself had whispered the name in my ear.
I did not want to believe it. At first I refused to believe it, even though it made perfect sense. I convinced myself it could not have been; that my sister, Grace—the learned one, the pretty one—would never have fallen for the likes of him, however craftily he had gone about beguiling her.
But when Grace’s time came, and I saw what she birthed, I feared—no, I knew—I had been right after all.
And when I found the wooden heart, branded through with the letters “S” and “G,” I could no longer doubt it.
DECEMBER 1645
The coach comes for the dun chicken two weeks before Yule.
“Oh my,” murmurs Mistress Bramlow as it clatters to a halt outside her cottage. “Oh my, oh my.”
Her daughters press against her.
“Can I come too? Please let me!”
“I’m the oldest. Let me go!”
“I’ll hold the chicken for you. I’ll be good.”
“Me! Me! I’ll hold the chicken.”
“I want to!”
Outside the lanes are iced with frost; the moor is stiff with frozen bracken. It is too cold to snow, which bodes well for the longest journey of Mistress Bramlows life.
“I’ll be home for Yule,” she tells her husband. “God and the weather willing.”
Jack Bramlow touches her cheek. “We’ll be waiting,” he says.
The coachman is waiting at the door. He is holding a purple velvet cushion like a squishy tea tray between his hands. It is a very fine cushion with golden tassels trailing from each corner.
“Is that for the chicken?” the Bramlows’ eldest girl asks.
The coachman grins and nods.
“It’ll make a proper mess of it,” the girl tells him. “And it’ll peck off them dangly bits like they was fancy worms.”
The coachman shrugs and grins some more.
“Right, then.” Jack Bramlow clears his throat. “You’ve a long journey ahead, wife. Best make a start.”
Mistress Bramlow feels like crying. But her daughters are laughing as they pet the chicken—perched on the cushion now and eyeing the golden tassels. So she laughs with them as they all troop out into the cold, and she is still smiling as she steps up into the coach.
A small crowd has gathered to watch her leave.
“All this for a bogging hen,” someone mutters. “All this for a stupid bird that don’t even lay!”
The Watchers tut and draw dark woollen shawls tighter round their shoulders.
But they make way, respectfully enough, as the coachman strides past and reaches up to deposit the dun chicken, on its velvet cushion, in Mistress Bramlow’s arms.
The village children are enthralled. Even the ones too small to run after the coach as it pulls away will always remember how fine it looked and how excited everyone was to think that it had been sent all the way from Falmouth, by royal command.
Many years later, when the story has faded to legend and people are starting to say it never really happened, one very old man will be badgered by his great-grandchildren to “tell the chicken story” and will grin to remember the way that daft bird inclined its head and fluffed its wings, for all the world like the queen of all living things, bidding lowlier beings farewell.
“Did Charles II really give it corn in a golden bowl and let it poop in the palace?” one great-grandson will want to know.
“Ah, now that I cannot tell you,” the old man will say. “But I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
By the time they reach the outskirts of Falmouth, Mistress Bramlow is exhausted from being jolted over miles and miles of rough ground—and is pretty fed up with the chicken.
She has dined sumptuously along the way and rested at quality inns. No highwayman, ghost, or rebel soldier has stopped the coach, nor has it lost a wheel or been stalled by blizzards. As journeys go in this wild region, in the cold season and with a war raging, the whole trip has been surprisingly uneventful.
The dun chicken, however, has been a restless, flapping, poop-scattering pain in the arse. Used to ranging wherever it wants, the coach just seems to it like a cage on the move, and the velvet cushion is no substitute for a dust bath or a good wallow in old cinders. Daft though it is, it vaguely misses home. And it isn’t going to settle until it feels safe.
It is late evening and too dark to see when the coach swerves onto a slippery quay and comes to a final halt.
The coachman jumps down and comes round to open the door.
“I must tend to the horses,” he tells Mistress Bramlow, keeping his voice low. “Best you wait here, Mistress. Only, don’t step too close to the water’s edge. And hang on tight to that bird.”
Mistress Bramlow would have been glad of a lantern and a bit more information before being left in pitch blackness with the dun chicken tucked grumpily under one arm and the unfamiliar sound of seawater sloshing scarily close to her ankles.
There is a small inn not many steps away. But it seems deserted, with no sounds of revelry and just one candle burning low in an upstairs window. Above and behind the building, the thick, twisting shapes of winter trees blend with the night and stretch away along the edge of a creek as far as who knows where.
The air smells of seaweed and crabs’ claws, and Mistress Bramlow dare not move.
Then she hears it: a faint but regular splashing sound as if a seal or some other swimming-creature is heading for the quay. The dun chicken hears it too and starts to cluck.
“Hush,” Mistress Bramlow tells it, straining her eyes in the dark as the splashing grows closer and louder.
It is a boat. A boat with one figure rowing and another trailing his left hand idly through the inky water and humming a jaunty tune. There are no barrels or boxes on board, so they cannot be smugglers.
The one humming wears a good thick coat and a plumed hat. As the boat reaches the quay he lights and raises a lantern, spies Mistress Bramlow, and beams.
“Got the chicken?” he says, leaping from the boat. “Aha. I se
e you have. Excellent. Follow me.”
Mistress Bramlow manages a clumsy curtsy before falling into step behind the swinging glow of the lantern. Don’t you poop down my skirt, she begs the chicken silently as they head toward the inn. Not in front of royalty.
Nell is sorting seaweed when she hears footsteps creaking on the stairs. She has already noted the arrival of a coach and is vaguely wondering who else has come to stay at this out-of-the way place, hidden like a secret among the thick woods beside the water.
This little room, overlooking the quay, has been her refuge for several weeks now. It is warm, clean, and safe, with meals and a good fire provided and a feather mattress on the bed.
The Prince has been visiting almost daily, rowing over from his base at Pendennis Castle to make sure she is all right and has everything she needs. He has told her that his father, the King, keeps nagging him to sail for France, or Denmark, or some other foreign shore, and to stay there until the rebels are defeated and it is safe for him to return.
I’ll take you with me,” he has told her. “So don’t worry.”
Nell isn’t worried. For what is there to worry about? The Prince has been kindness itself. Like a brother. Like a friend. She was on her guard to start with, not knowing what would happen, what he might expect of her, now that they have saved each other’s lives.
It crossed her mind, in a niggling way, that he might try to frolic with her, having set her up so nicely in a cozy room with a feather bed in it. He is a prince, after all, and used to getting what he wants. She worried about that for a while, until he noticed how tense and distant she had become and asked why.
“I keep expecting you to try to frolic with me,” she told him, blushing to the roots of her raggedy hair and staring fiercely into the fire. “And I don’t want you to. In fact if you so much as touch me at all, in that kind of way, I’ll fix it so you never frolic again. Not with anyone. I can do that, you know. With the Knowledge. On a waning moon. My granny taught me.”
He had laughed his merry laugh at that and had given her a playful shove on the arm. And she had felt a great sense of relief, realizing that he did not think of her as a frolicker after all and was no more likely to frolic with her than to take ale with the piskies.
Since then she has been more like herself. Only not completely so, for the Prince has told her it isn’t safe to venture out. When they are both far away in another place, he says, she will be able to roam where she pleases. For now, though, she must stay here, eating and dreaming and waiting to go.
There is sense to what he says, but it irks her to be kept here all the time. Like a prisoner. Or a pet.
A knock at her door startles her, for she isn’t expecting the Prince tonight. Perhaps, she thinks, it is the innkeepers wife, come to check on the fire or bring more soup.
“Come in,” she says.
“Surprise!” the Prince calls out. “Close your eyes!”
Nell smiles, but faintly.
“Are they closed? No peeping. You must promise not to cheat.”
“All right. I promise.”
What now? she wonders. What has he found for me this time? More seaweed? Another bag ofshelL·? Or a clutch of feathers from a gull bird? He brings such things all the time, knowing that they interest her and have something to do with the Knowledge. She hasn’t the heart to tell him that a true healer gathers her own bits and pieces, giving due consideration to the phases of the moon and taking care to honor the Powers of earth, air, fire, and water, depending what she picks, catches, or cuts.
Even the richest takings from sea and shore are no good for healing if collected by someone without the Knowledge. And anyway she has no means of preparing them—no cauldron, no knife, and no stock of magical juices, waters, oils, or powders for mixing.
Instead, to pass the time and keep the Prince happy, she has been arranging the seaweed, shells, and feathers into pleasing shapes on the floor. A face shape; a tree shape; and today, the shape of a bird outlined in weed, filled in with feathers and with shells for a beak and an eye.
Some more white shells would be useful and some of the particularly stringy weed. Then she could do a whole person shape, perhaps. Or a cantering horse with a flowing tail and mane.
Her eyes are tight shut, as required, when the door opens and footsteps enter the room. She senses rather than sees that there is more than one person in front of her, and fear flashes through her brain and lodges deep in the pit of her stomach.
Who is it? Who can the Prince have brought to visit her, when her presence here at the inn is supposed to be secret? And why has he told her not to peep?
Wildly, irrationally, it dawns on her that the other person might be the witch-finder. Or a hangman. Perhaps telling the Prince little bits about the Knowledge has been a terrible mistake. Her granny always said it was best kept secret from outsiders, particularly during troubled times. Perhaps the Prince has decided she is a dangerous girl after all and wants nothing more to do with her.
Perhaps—
“Hold out your hands,” the Prince tells her.
He doesn’t sound grim or sorry. He sounds gleeful. But then, he has royal blood in his veins, doesn’t he? And maybe boys of royal blood always sound gleeful when they are about to chop someone’s head off or hang them from the nearest tree.
Slowly, too terrified now to peep or even protest, Nell holds out her hands and waits to feel the cut of leather or rope binding her wrists.
Feathers … warmth … the familiar weight of …
No. It cannot be. ’Tis a gull bird, than all. He has brought me a living gull bird, thinking, perhaps, to call it my familiar and have some sport before—
But a gull bird wouldn’t cluck like the creature in her arms. It would cry like a brokenhearted sailor. Nor would one be snuggling against her chest or bobbing its daft head against her chin in spasms of sheer delight.
Certain, almost certain … Nell opens her eyes.
It is!
It really, really is!
And there stands Mistress Bramlow, of all people. And the Prince, behind her, beaming to see Nell so lost for words, so clearly astounded by the brilliance of his latest surprise.
“It didn’t die after Hopkins kicked it,” he tells her. “It’s got a bit of a limp now, but that’s all.”
Nell nods, unable to speak.
“I thought about keeping quiet and just getting you another one,” he continues happily. “A younger one that would lay eggs. But I knew it wouldn’t be the same.”
Nell looks at him. She will never fear or mistrust him again. Never. He looks so pleased for her right now that anyone would think she had given him a present.
And Mistress Bramlow, too, is smiling like a saint, despite having a stream of chicken dung all down the front of her skirt.
All of a sudden there is a lump in Nell’s throat as big as a stone, and she knows she is going to cry. Before she can, though, the dun chicken—alert now and extremely hungry—leaps, flapping, from her arms and makes a dash for what appears to be the nearest source of nourishment.
“That really is a very foolish animal,” the Prince remarks as its skittering feet send seaweed and feathers flying and its stupid beak goes peck, peck, peck at the tiny shell Nell placed on the floor as the eye on the head of her bird shape.
“It is,” Nell agrees, laughing with him through her tears. “And a hungry one. So don’t take your hat off, whatever you do, or it will have the brim for sure and take the feather for good measure.”
So corn is sent for. And something a little finer, for human consumption. And Mistress Bramlow forgets about the rigors of her journey and the dung on her skirt as she watches Nell, petting the dun chicken in the glow from the fire, and listens to the heir to the English and Scottish thrones chatting away as happily and easily as any village lad known to them since his cradle days.
Later, after the Prince has taken his leave, Mistress Bramlow puts an arm round Nell, just as her granny might have done, and
gives her a hug.
I’ll be all right now,” Nell tells her.
“I know. I know you will.”
For a while they watch the flames, twisting in the grate.
Then: “There be no word on Sam Towser,” Nell says. “He could be as dead as a door knocker or alive still. No one knows.”
“That’s strange,” Mistress Bramlow muses. “For enquiries made by the Prince himself should surely have led somewhere. There can’t be many Sam Towsers fighting for the King hereabouts.”
Nell shrugs. “I expect he changed his name,” she says.
Mistress Bramlow looks puzzled. “Why would he do that?”
So Nell tells her about Grace Madden being with child and about it being a Merrybegot and deserving of its life, even though its father couldn’t care two pins, and its mother had tried to kill it.
“Well, I never.” Mistress Bramlow shakes her head. “I should have guessed. For no one has seen that girl for months. We all thought she was sickly still or too ashamed of her foolish playacting to show her face in church. ’Tis said the whole family be leaving soon, anyway, to sail for the New World. Perhaps they’ll take the baby with them and pass it off as an orphan—or as the housekeepers child, maybe.”
“Really?”
Nell hopes Grace Madden’s Merrybegot will be all right in the New World. She hopes it will find friends there and that the Powers will look after it all its life.
“I’m a Merrybegot too,” she says. “Did you know?”
“Yes.” Mistress Bramlow smiles at the wise little face beneath its uneven crop of hair.
“And the Powers have looked after me, haven’t they?”
“They certainly have. And His Majesty the Prince will be a kind and loyal protector. You will want for nothing, Nell, I’m sure.”
Nell agrees, but her expression grows stubborn as she scratches the dun chickens neck and stares into the fire as if divining something there.
“He thinks I should grow my hair,” she says. “But I don’t want to. It would only snarl up.”
Mistress Bramlow pats her hand. “Then keep it short,” she says. “’Tis your hair, after all.”