Cunning Women

by Elizabeth Lee

  She stepped out and Daniel realised that this straggle-headed, sunken-faced woman was Sarah’s mother. The same blustery eyes stared at him. ‘You’ll have no potion for my Sarah.’

  ‘I – no, they’re coming for her.’

  ‘Coming why? Who?’

  ‘People, they’re angry, she attacked Sam Finch. Look.’

  He turned to point out the lights snaking up the hill, but she had already seen.

  ‘Fool lad, it’s John they want not Sarah,’ she said, dropping the bowl at her feet and yanking the flimsy door closed.

  Daniel could not take in her words. Was Sarah safe? ‘Where is she?’

  The mother was already heading for the woods. Scent of smoke carried on the sea breeze.

  ‘In the village, but first you keep those men and their torches from my door.’

  ‘What if she comes back?’

  ‘It won’t matter. Because you’ll have turned the pack away.’ She gasped and ran towards the trees. ‘Oh – Annie!’

  The crowd gained, their yells and the pounding of their feet reaching him clearly now. Almost every village man there, all had either taunted or ignored him. He could leave, now, before he was seen. Run to the village, find Sarah. Hope she had a home to return to later.

  Daniel rested his face against the warm, damp neck of the mare, stepped on a small tumble of wall that he thought had once housed a family’s pig, and climbed on to her again. He dared not turn to look, fancying he felt the stare of the spirits whose home he had just trod upon at his back. Rode slowly to face the mob.

  The smell of burning fat and smoke overwhelmed the salt air. Faced with the jeering crowd and dancing lights, the mare snorted and reared, almost sending Daniel plunging to the ground. He clung on, hushing and soothing. The pack cowered and staggered back from her flailing hooves. He had their attention, at least.

  Daniel drew himself up. Opened his mouth. Prayed the words would come. ‘The house is empty.’ His own voice, louder and deeper than expected, rang with an unfamiliar authority.

  ‘What, milksop such like you rode up to the witch house?’ Gabriel asked.

  Daniel looked down at him, strong with the truth. ‘I did. It’s empty.’

  Gabriel scowled. Crackle and hiss of flames, disgruntled muttering. This was not the reckoning they had hoped for. His father in the crowd. Expressions buffeting across his face like a wheat field in the wind.

  ‘Don’t believe him,’ Gabriel shouted. ‘We’ll search it ourselves.’

  ‘Waste of time. Why would I lie?’

  Muttered dissent. It took all Daniel’s strength to sit tall, to hold fast to the mare and hide his fear that any moment she would panic and pitch him off. Only the knowledge that it was Sarah’s home he protected put stop to his shaking.

  ‘There’s justice to be done,’ a voice called. ‘Poor Sam could be lying dead, for all we know.’

  ‘Could be murdered.’

  Voices raised in a drunken, savage cacophony. He held tight to the mare as she flattened her ears and skittered.

  ‘Justice,’ he shouted. Desperate, no idea where he was going with this. Surprised as they quietened for him. ‘The man you need to bring your justice is Magistrate Thompson. Then you’ll have proper penalty.’

  ‘Proper penalty for a beating is a beating,’ Gabriel said.

  Daniel’s heart battered against his chest. There was no reasoning with them. They began to move forward.

  ‘Wait.’

  A voice from the back, not loud but somehow laden with authority. Over the heads of the crowd Daniel saw Parson Walsh.

  ‘Master Taylor is right. Justice of the law is the way of the righteous, not justice by blows.’

  Gabriel the only one to challenge. ‘An eye for an eye, isn’t that what God says?’

  ‘Do you believe yourself a greater authority than the magistrate?’ the parson asked.

  Gabriel opened his mouth but Daniel spoke over him. ‘I know where he is, I passed him not long ago in the woods.’

  Heads lifted in interest as though the scent of scandal was borne on the air. There was only one reason to be in the woods on May Day. A tradition usually favoured by the young, and the magistrate had celebrated his sixtieth birthday in memorable fashion not two months before. Daniel prayed they would go and find him, rescue Phyllis before harm was done. More harm was done.

  Parson Walsh caught his eye. ‘Then reason has won. Lead the way, young man.’

  His tightening grip on the mare caused her to skip in a circle. Helpfully. ‘I must take the horse back, parson. But if you pass into the woods here and head towards the village, you will find him.’

  The parson tapped his hat and led the crowd. Daniel dug his knees into the horse’s side and she galloped down the hill, air racing past so fast it stole his breath and chilled his skin, clinging so hard his fingers and arms burned. The house was saved. He would find Sarah before the villagers returned. If he survived the ride. And the wrath of the village should they discover his warning, and turn their rage and torches upon him.

  Soft-skinned, Soft-hearted

  I know they’re all drinking and dancing at the green, but still I quicken my steps. Curse John and his eager fist.

  Empty street, silent but for the cry of gulls. The sea a vast black bulk, white waves gleaming in the moonlight; boats rest quiet in the harbour, creaking in the breeze.

  The blood is black and drying. Teeth gone. I have looked, I’m free to leave.

  A sound of clattering fills the night, hooves on the dirt track. I turn and see Daniel Taylor and his horse. A wild pair, his face streaked with blood and mud, her eyes rolling and mouth frothing. I cannot make sense of them.

  He brings the horse up to me, so close I see and smell the sweat darkening her hair, and reaches a hand down. His fingers are stained with soil, a mark of outdoor work that no scrubbing will remove.

  I don’t know why he is here, nor what drives him to reach for me. Soft-skinned, soft-hearted man that knows only a simple life of work and food and sleep in a bed with cotton sheets.

  The only person to know my name who does not share it.

  I take his hand, unexpectedly strong as it closes around mine. He pulls and I half-slide, half-scramble up the horse’s side until I sit in front of him, petticoat bunched under me, his arm tight around my waist. A solid, warm touch, the like of which I’ve never known.

  ‘Hold on,’ he says and I grasp the horse’s mane as he does with his free hand. He kicks and we are moving. I fear I will be flung to my death. As soon as I surrender my will to his I regret it.

  I am feared, though not as much as I should be. We turn from the village towards the beck and I wonder what he means to do with me there. If he lays a hand on me I shall curse him with worse than sores.

  At the bank, the river lilting dark and gleaming beside us, he climbs down and holds a hand out to me. I bat him away, annoyed that he thinks I need help, and then find myself unable to follow. He offers his hand again, I refuse it again, then launch myself to the ground and fall into him. The night is cooling and he is warm. I pull away, brush down my rumpled petticoat.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I ask.

  ‘I— saving you.’

  I listen as he describes how he spoke to Mam, drove the villagers from our door. Never before has anyone not of my blood shown care for me. I don’t trust his kindness.

  ‘But you are unharmed,’ he says. ‘So all is well.’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Fear and anger at this new turn in our dealings with the village surges through me. By standing with us he has defied them. I don’t understand why.

  ‘I cannot stand to see pain,’ he says.

  ‘Any creature’s pain, I suppose. Softer than the mud bank after a week of rain.’

  He is steady. ‘Any creature’s, yes.’

  My rant is set. My path, not his. To walk as I choose and face every obstacle how I see fit – and God knows, there are many, more than he can dream up.
r />   ‘But yours especially,’ he says.

  And I am silenced. There is a stillness about him I feel I could be sucked into. He waits.

  ‘Well,’ I say. ‘That’s—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Meaningless.’ I lift my chin, cannot quite meet his eye, heart rattles faster and faster.

  A breeze stirs the grass at our feet, lifts his hair. He wears no hat, I don’t know why. ‘Not to me,’ he says.

  ‘You care for me no more than you would an injured foal.’

  He frowns. ‘You are – wounded. But that isn’t what draws me. You make me feel different, as though I’m – solid, or more real. I – I don’t know.’

  There is desperation in his expression. Nothing that’s ever happened to me has prepared me for such a conversation. I’m insulted that he sees a wound in me, hidden I thought, having trained myself to turn to fury rather than fear. Insulted that he, so clearly broken in his own ways, dares to voice it. He is fearful of any that have a low opinion of him and yet defies the village to protect my family. Feared of my kind, brave facing the wild horse. I take a step away, and he reaches out, then draws his hand back. Sweat gleams on his brow.

  ‘I don’t know if – have you conjured these feelings in me?’ he asks. ‘Is it – to what purpose if you do not share them?’

  Something in his eyes stops me from leaving. A battle of fear and anger and hope, that I cannot bear to look upon. ‘Any conjuring here has been done by you, a notion of a lass that I am not and cannot be. You mustn’t be kind. I’m not used to it.’

  ‘You deserve kindness.’

  ‘I deserve what I get. It’s what I was born to.’

  Clouds roll above us, uncovering a bright moon that gleams in the black water of the river.

  ‘Born to it how?’ he asks.

  ‘Chosen.’

  He shakes his head. ‘By – God?’

  The laughter that comes from me is tainted. ‘You don’t understand a thing.’ I am tempted to reach out and touch the thick cloth of his tunic, the plump flesh of his cheek. ‘How can you? Leave me to my life and be grateful for the comfort of your own.’

  ‘But you’re not in it.’

  His voice shakes a little. His words leave me stunned, more than any blow I’ve taken.

  ‘You don’t want me in it,’ I say.

  ‘What if I do?’

  ‘Then God help you.’

  I have a feeling of eyes upon me. There is a movement in the trees, and I turn sharply to see the white flash of ears and tail. The horse shifts and Daniel reaches to steady her, hushing softly. I stare at where the hare was, for surely that is the creature I saw, but there’s nothing now. He looks down, scuffs the grass with his boot. ‘Can I ask – what is it that you feel?’

  A big question. He has filled my thoughts since the day we washed Annie’s hair in the beck. The echo of his touch warms my hand at night. The thought of his idiotic, freckly face will not leave me be. I cannot name how I feel. I will not.

  ‘Cold,’ I say. Turn my back. Make to leave.

  ‘Wait,’ he says. ‘Your family are safe. Stay here with me a while?’

  His expression remains open. I can see no malice in him, and now I’m shamed at my ill temper after he saved us. Mam’s voice rings in my mind. I must go. But I do not move.

  We stand for a moment, in silence. The horse steps towards him and nudges his shoulder. He almost loses his footing, flushing and clearing his throat. ‘Jealous,’ he says.

  She’s beautiful, gleaming in the moonlight, mane lifting in the breeze. I stroke her neck and she presses into me, whinnying gently.

  My tongue sticks in my mouth, empty of words, and I flail for something to say that might please him. ‘She’s bonny,’ I say. Hardly impressive, but all I can manage.

  He rests his face against hers. ‘She is.’

  She lifts her head and snorts. Daniel laughs. ‘And she knows it. But without her I’d not have reached your house in time, so we must be grateful.’

  I watch him stroking her. ‘I am grateful,’ I say.

  ‘Is that – that’s what we’ll call her. Bonny. Shall we?’

  ‘It’s – yes. That’s good.’ I’ve never struggled so to hold a conversation. We smile, too much and without reason, each a reflection of the other.

  The breeze whips the grasses at our feet, lifts sandy clods to scour our legs, brings the scent of mud and sharpness of the beck. I shiver, and he frowns.

  ‘We could light a fire, if only I’d brought a flint,’ he says. ‘I’ll remember next time.’

  Next time? I look at him quickly and he catches my eye, flushes.

  ‘And you bring a neckerchief to keep warm,’ he says.

  ‘I’m warm enough,’ I say. Then, though I don’t know why I’m drawn to tell him the humiliating truth, ‘I don’t have one.’

  I glare, daring him to show pity or embarrassment. Nothing. A small nod is all.

  This conversation is pointless. There can be no next time. Mam would drag me away by the hair if she knew I were here, and I know well enough the reasons why I cannot see him again, even if I wished to.

  ‘I—’ He reaches into his pocket, brings out the stone I gave him. ‘I – we could meet here. In the – at night. I’ll leave the stone, I’ll tie it to this branch, see?’ He points at an alder at the edge of the cluster of trees. ‘If I can come that night, I’ll leave it there.’

  He has lost all sense. We both know this cannot be.

  ‘And you, you come and look, and if you can meet me take the stone. Then I shall know. And I’ll wait for you.’

  ‘I shall not come.’

  ‘I’ll wait.’

  I dream, briefly, of finding the stone and meeting him as the light fades. Of a fire. A different life. There is a rustle again behind me, a feeling of being watched. ‘I cannot come,’ I say.

  I run through the door to see my family. Safe. The house is smoky and dim, save for the light of the fire, before which they all sit, crammed on the ground by the edge of the table.

  ‘Sken,’ Annie says, skipping over to me, waving something in my face.

  I laugh, gather her bony warmth into my arms, nuzzle her twig-taffled hair. ‘Hold it steady then, I can’t see.’

  ‘I maked it. John’s helping me.’ She holds out a block of wood, crudely hewn into the shape of something unrecognisable.

  John looks up from where he sits, sharpening his knife. ‘A squirrel for my little squirrel,’ he says and Annie skips back over to him. He rests a thin arm over her shoulder, giving her the knife and guiding her hand with his as she scrapes at the wood. Her face solemn with concentration, tongue poking from her lips. I wish now that I had invited Daniel in, let him see John as the boy he is, not the demon they all fear.

  ‘Where are those teeth?’ Mam sits cross-legged, moulding a lump of clay, her bare feet leaving prints in the spilled ashes. I look to see any sign of Dew-Springer, but find none, and wonder again at the hare I saw earlier.

  My happiness dries and shrivels. ‘They weren’t there.’

  She turns, the light flickering over her sagging jaw and narrowed eyes. ‘Then you’ll have to fetch me some of his hair, or a bit of cloth from his tunic at least.’ She goes back to the figure she’s fashioning. ‘He will suffer now. Brought hurt to my family. He must pay.’

  Somehow, I notice now the gaps in the wooden planks of the door, the holes where the rain mizzles through our roof. This house does not feel as solid as it did when I walked into it, offering little in the way of protection.

  I kneel in front of Mam, take her hands and still them. ‘Don’t use it,’ I say. ‘Please. Leave them be. We don’t want more trouble.’

  She shakes me off. ‘If they want no trouble they should not hurt my own,’ she says, continuing to mould the clay.

  ‘That isn’t what I said.’

  I take a handful of the ash and sprinkle it around the mat. Ring the bell in the corners, Annie’s hand in mine. I do my best to keep her safe. Wou
ld I knew an enchantment to protect her from the villagers too.

  Mice Shaken from a Sack

  Exhausted and reeling from the night’s events, Daniel stepped through the door. Extraordinary to enter the house so late. The kitchen quiet and tidy, pans polished and hanging on the wall, fire glowing behind the grate. Scent of the bread Bett had baked that day still lingering in the air. Father, sitting at the table with a flagon of ale, looked up as he opened the door and they both hesitated.

  ‘Son,’ he said, nodding an acknowledgement of Daniel’s presence. ‘Drink?’

  It was late and Daniel had to be up at dawn for the milking. The last thing he wanted was to make awkward conversation into the night. ‘Please,’ he said, and drew up a chair.

  Father filled a tankard and Daniel took a gulp, then another. He was dry, he realised, and this was more welcome than he had first thought.

  ‘So,’ Father said, ‘mare’s coming on well.’ A deliberate steering away, Daniel knew, from the roles they had both played in the events of just hours before.

  ‘Yes.’

  Father tipped his tankard and inspected the contents.

  Daniel raised his drink to his lips, tried to appear casual. ‘Did you find the magistrate?’

  Father shrugged. ‘Didn’t go, I left them to it.’

  Daniel was desperate to know what had become of Phyllis and clung to the hope that, in sending the crowd to find her, he had rescued her in some part. Sarah’s house had still been standing when he left her there, that much he knew, but would the villagers remember their cause and return another night?

  His mind bustled with questions that could not be asked, just as Father did not question why he was at the home of those they considered villains or worse, nor why he turned the crowd away. Silence stretched, broken only by the faint lowing of oxen.

  ‘Always work to be done,’ Father said. ‘You know.’

  Daniel nodded. The space between them taut and empty.

  The sound of heavy steps on the yard outside had them both looking at the door before Gabriel strode in, cheeks flushed, eyes alight, his happy fever causing disquiet to trickle under Daniel’s skin. Gabriel stopped, expression corroding at the unfamiliar sight of father and son drinking together. He looked at Daniel and whistled through his teeth.