The Witch of Eye

by Mari Griffith

  ‘You know, Jenna, no one would ever know that you had no experience of hairdressing at all when you started working for me.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re pleased with my work, Your Grace.’

  ‘Very pleased. You’ve always been adaptable and you’re prepared to work hard.’ The Duchess watched her again, for a long minute. Grudgingly at first, she’d come to admire Jenna more and more as time went by, appreciating the way she applied herself to the job in hand, whatever it happened to be.

  ‘But I do wish my skin was as good as yours,’ Eleanor went on. ‘Margery Jourdemayne insisted it was all due to her marigold face cream, but I’ve been using it for nearly three years now and my skin still can’t compare with yours.’

  ‘I think I’m just lucky, Your Grace.’ Jenna smiled: she couldn’t be disloyal to Margery, even now. The woman was a liar but, apart from anything else, she was William’s wife, though the fact still stuck in Jenna’s craw and, in her most despairing moments, it threatened to choke her.

  William still trod the byways of her mind. The memory of the agonised expression on his face the day she had left the farm and walked out of his life was often the stuff of her bad dreams. She had seen him since, of course, but they’d both been stiffly formal with each other, neither wanting to meet the other’s gaze, neither wanting to open up old wounds.

  Almost as though she was reading her maid’s thoughts, Eleanor said suddenly: ‘I’m surprised you’ve never married, Jenna. You’re pretty enough and with your skills, you would surely make some man a good wife. You do like men, do you?’

  ‘I ... well, I ...’ Jenna met the straightforward question with an embarrassed laugh.

  ‘I understand there are some women who prefer the company of other women for, well, you know, that sort of companionship. Though I’ve never understood it myself.’

  ‘No, Your Grace, I like men well enough. Women too, of course, but only as friends. I was very fond of my childhood friend Alice when I lived in Devon.’

  ‘And what happened to Alice? Did she stay in Devon?’

  Jenna looked away for a moment. ‘She died, Your Grace.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I see, yes. I expect you missed her, did you?’

  ‘Very much, Your Grace. I still do. She was a good friend.’

  A good friend. Eleanor had never had a good friend. While she was younger she had concentrated all her energies on finding herself a rich, titled husband rather than a friend. And once she had ensnared the Duke of Gloucester, she regarded any other woman who came within two yards of him as a potential rival. She took nothing about Humphrey for granted. After all, he had been eager enough to desert his first wife’s bed in favour of hers and she dared not run the risk that he might repeat that performance. So she had never let down her guard: she kept every other woman at arm’s length and the greatest triumph she had ever known was when she walked out of church on her new husband’s arm, secure in the knowledge that she was now the wife of one of the most important men in the land. By implication, therefore, she herself had become one of the most important women in the land. She revelled in the realisation.

  Now, having devoted the best part of her life to him, she was beginning to wonder whether she had become too blinkered in her attitude, seeing neither to the left nor the right, with nothing on her horizon except Humphrey.

  It wasn’t as if Humphrey could be the kind of good friend she sometimes needed, certainly not these days, and that was plain. He wasn’t rude or unpleasant towards her – on the contrary, he always appeared to be charm itself. But he seemed preoccupied and distant. He didn‘t come to her boudoir of an afternoon as he had always done in the past; she would have to go in search of him. More often than not she found him at the writing desk in his study, behind a pile of heavy books on weighty subjects like mathematics, astronomy and the Greek philosophers, almost as though he had built himself a literary fortification against the rest of the world.

  The truth was that her urbane, debonair husband was becoming something of a recluse, and when he did spend time with her, the talk soon turned not to the light-hearted topics she enjoyed but to subjects she found tedious and tiresome: the situation in France and how best that country should be ruled, how much he hated his uncle Henry Beaufort and, more than anything, how everyone was forgetting the good old days of England’s glory, when his brother was King.

  As he aged, so Humphrey had become embittered, and he now found his refuge not only between the covers of books but increasingly within decanters of wine: any wine – he no longer insisted on drinking nothing but the finest Burgundy. By mid-afternoon, his speech was often slurred and his hands shook.

  Eleanor was worried about him. If he was to become King, this was no way to behave. His brother Henry had been a paragon of kingship and though he’d been dead nearly twenty years, the people still spoke his name with pride and reverence. If anything should happen to Humphrey’s insipid nephew, and Humphrey himself was to inherit the throne, then he must at least try to live up to his late brother’s glowing reputation. Becoming a drunkard was not the way to do that.

  If only she could foresee the future...

  ‘There, Your Grace,’ Jenna said, placing the hennin on Eleanor’s head and adjusting it to fit comfortably. ‘Are you happy with that?’

  ‘Let me see.’ Roused from her reverie, Eleanor leaned forward to take the long-handled mirror out of its holder, and held it up so that she could inspect her reflection more closely in the light from the window. ‘Mmm. Yes, that’s not bad. What do you think of the colour?’

  ‘I think that shade of blue suits you very well, Your Grace. It complements the grey of your eyes.’

  ‘Good. Then help me into my houppelande. I must leave very soon. Canon Southwell and Magister Bolingbroke will be expecting me.’

  ‘Are they not meeting you here, Your Grace?’

  ‘No, our meeting will take place away from the palace today and it will be in private. Now, make haste with that houppelande, Jenna. I don’t have time to waste.’

  ***

  ‘Quick, Jane, quick! You’ll never guess who’s coming!’

  Jane had been rhythmically sweeping the floor, with a long-handled cane besom, towards the stream that ran through the centre of the dairy. Now she stopped and looked up, alarmed.

  ‘Who is it? What’s the matter?’

  Kitty was standing on tiptoe to look through a gap between the door frame and the wall which afforded her a good view of the Willow Walk. A hooded figure in a dark cloak was approaching the dairy at a determined pace.

  ‘It’s Mistress Jourdemayne!’ she whispered dramatically.

  ‘Old Mother Madge!’ Jane’s voice was hoarse. ‘What on earth does she want? We haven’t seen her here in the dairy for months. It’s a wonder she remembers where it is!’

  ‘She’s probably up to no good,’ said Hawys.

  All three of them hurriedly took up positions of concentrated application to their work and when the door opened abruptly, they looked up, feigning surprise.

  ‘Oh, Mistress Jourdemayne,’ said Hawys from her pose behind a butter churn. In fact, she churned very little these days, being in an advanced stage of pregnancy. No sooner had she and Seth settled into one of the tiny workers’ cottages on the Eye estate than she had become pregnant, and work in the dairy was getting more and more punishing for her. So, now that Kitty had grown much taller, she had taken on a great deal more of the churning for the sake of Hawys’s aching back. If this was what knowing men and having babies did for a woman, Kitty thought, she really couldn’t see why women were so keen on the whole idea. It was not something she was eager to do.

  Margery Jourdemayne looked at the three faces turned expectantly towards her. Ah, yes, there she was, the youngest one. Kitty. The virgin. She had a job for Kitty to do, a very specific job, but she would have to be careful how she asked her to do it.

  ‘Well, girls,’ she said, addressing them all, ‘I thought it was high time I paid you a visit. I h
ave deserted you all for too long and I wondered how you all were. Is everything all right?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mistress Jourdemayne,’ they chorused obediently.

  ‘And you, young Kitty,’ Margery said, turning towards her with a winning smile. ‘How are you getting along?’

  ‘Very well, thank you, mistress.’

  Kitty was no longer the shy little girl she had been a year or two ago – indeed, it would have been difficult to remain entirely naive while she worked every day with a gaggle of dairymaids who weren’t above making lewd comments from time to time and cackling raucously at each other’s bawdy jokes.

  ‘I expect you’re all looking forward to May Day, are you?’

  ‘Yes, Mistress,’ they chorused again, each one wondering what trick the Master’s wife had up her sleeve. They were all aware of her reputation for duplicity.

  ‘Well now, I wonder which one of you will be Queen of the Pea! Would you like to be, Kitty?’

  Kitty was quite taken aback. ‘Queen of the Pea, mistress? That’s on Twelfth Night.’

  Margery’s hand flew to cover her mouth in an exaggerated gesture. ‘Oh, yes! A slip of the tongue, of course. I meant Queen of the May.’

  ‘Well, mistress ... I ... I don’t think...’

  ‘Do you remember when Jenna was Queen of the Pea?’

  Kitty rewarded her with a huge smile. ‘Oh, yes, mistress. She was lovely.’

  ‘Yes, wasn’t she? It’s a pity she doesn’t work here any more, isn’t it? I expect you miss her, do you?’

  ‘Oh, yes, mistress. I miss her all the time.’

  Good, thought Margery Jourdemayne, she had hooked her fish. She smiled, encouragingly.

  ‘Jenna was very good at counting. Have you learned to count, Kitty?’

  ‘Yes, mistress. I can read a few words, too.’ Kitty nodded, rightly proud of her own improving skills.

  ‘That’s very clever, Kitty. Would you like to come up to the farmhouse and help me, just like Jenna used to? If you’d like to, then you might see Jenna from time to time, when she calls to see me.’

  Kitty hesitated. She had a bad feeling about Mistress Jourdemayne ... and yet ... and yet she knew she was far more likely to see Jenna in the room off the farmhouse kitchen than she ever did in the dairy. She played for time. ‘What would the Master say?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘Wouldn’t he be angry?

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so, Kitty. But leave that to me. I’ll explain it to the Master and I’m sure he won’t mind a bit.’

  ‘But what about the milk tallies, mistress? I’ve been learning how to do them and I do them quite often now. Master Jourdemayne –’

  ‘Never you mind about Master Jourdemayne, I’ll tell him.’ Margery was becoming a little exasperated. ‘And it doesn’t matter about the milk tallies, either. Hawys can carry on with those. Now, come, child. Come with me.’

  With her hand firmly clamped on Kitty’s shoulder, she turned on her heel, pushing the girl towards the dairy door. Opening it, she thrust Kitty through in front of her.

  Hawys and Jane stood stock still, staring at the back of the door as it closed.

  ‘Dear God,’ whispered Jane, ‘what on earth does that old witch want with Kitty?’

  ‘And how can I possibly go back to doing the tallies?’ wailed Hawys. ‘You know how much I hate doing them, Jane! You know, don’t you? And in my state! I won’t be able to get near an abacus, not with this big belly in the way!’

  ‘Oh, get on with you,’ said Jane with a nudge. ‘I’ll help you with the milk tallies. We’ll manage them between us somehow and Nature will take her course with your belly. I’m far more concerned about what’s going to happen to Kitty. I’ve got a very bad feeling about all this.’

  Part Three

  Accomplice

  And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgement, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.

  Ecclesiastes 3:16

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  April 1441

  Jenna’s spirits always seemed to lift around the time of St George’s Day. With winter well and truly departed, it was time to prepare the Duchess Eleanor’s summer wardrobe and, for the past week, the rosemary bushes in a secluded part of the kitchen garden at La Pleasaunce had been festooned with Her Grace’s light linen shifts drying in the spring sunshine. The laundresses had made up a mild solution of cuckoo-pint root for Jenna so that she could lightly starch the pristine white undergarments. Now they were thoroughly dry, she could fold them and store them neatly in the linen press. Then she’d be able to find exactly what the Duchess wanted whenever she demanded it.

  Her Grace did seem to be particularly demanding at the moment. She had been restless and irritable for several weeks and there had been occasions when Jenna had been hard put to hold her tongue. She did her best to remember that she was dealing with a frustrated woman who was hopelessly irritated by the fact that her husband seemed to be taking less and less interest in her. No doubt the Duchess was also worried about the Duke’s excessive drinking, Jenna thought, and though she understood it well enough, it was not her place to say anything until she was asked. The question, when it came, took her entirely by surprise.

  ‘Do you think my husband looks ill, Jenna?’

  She wasn’t sure how to reply. If she expressed her honest opinion that the Duke looked whey-faced and sick, she could expect to be slapped down for having made an insulting remark. If, on the other hand, she said she thought the Duke looked well, she could be accused of lying. The judicious answer lay somewhere in between.

  ‘I think perhaps he is working too hard, Your Grace,’ she ventured hesitantly. ‘He seems to spend a great deal of time in studying his books.’

  ‘And in drinking his wine!’

  The comment was like the crack of a whip and it was difficult to think of anything sensible to say in reply. The Duchess slumped down onto the stool at her dressing table, cradling her head in her hands.

  ‘He’ll kill himself. I’m almost beside myself with worry about him.’

  ‘Oh, please, Your Grace, try not to distress yourself. I’m sure your husband can be persuaded to drink less. Perhaps he needs to talk to someone ... I don’t know, a physician perhaps. Someone whose opinion he respects.’ Not knowing what to do, Jenna found herself stroking the back of Eleanor’s head in a helpless gesture of comfort.

  ‘Oh, what can you possibly know about it!’ The Duchess shook off Jenna’s hand with an impatient toss of her head. ‘You have no experience of anything like this.’

  Jenna didn’t reply immediately. Her mistress had dropped her guard and given in to her concerns: she might have been any woman in desperate need of understanding and friendship. It was time to share a secret, time to acknowledge a common problem and make a gesture of reassurance and support.

  ‘In fact, Your Grace,’ Jenna said hesitantly, ‘I do have experience of it. Quite a lot of experience as it happens.’

  ‘What? What do you mean?’ Slowly, Eleanor turned to face Jenna. ‘What sort of experience?’

  ‘I ... well, you see, I ... I have been married myself, Your Grace. And I was married to a man who was unable to control his drinking. Jake couldn’t control his temper either, and he was twice as bad when he was drunk.’

  ‘But you’ve never said a word about this!’ Eleanor’s grey eyes were wide with surprise.

  ‘The subject never arose, Your Grace. You never asked and I’ve never really wanted to discuss it with anyone.’

  ‘Then why are you telling me this now?’

  ‘Just ... oh, I don’t know ... just so that you know you’re not alone. You’re not the only woman who has had to face the problem.’

  ‘I knew nothing of this. Why did you not tell me you had been married?’

  ‘It never seemed relevant, Your Grace. I didn’t see any reason to burden you with the information. Besides, I wanted you to judge my work on its merits. I didn’t want you to feel sorry for me
.’

  ‘Why should I have felt sorry for you?’

  Now that she had started talking about her past, Jenna knew there was no way out. She had to be honest.

  ‘Drinking ale made my Jake very violent, Your Grace. He ... he often used to hit me. More than once I went to church with a black eye. And I have Jake to thank for this puffball ear.’ She lifted the corner of her linen coif to show her mistress the distorted ear she still hid from view and always would; Eleanor winced at the sight of it. ‘I’m still slightly deaf from his blows. He beat me much more than is reasonable for a man to chastise his wife. My mother always said so. He never took a stick to me, but he used to lash out, punch me, slap me, kick me ...’ Her voice faded.

  ‘So ... what happened? Were you ... did you...’

  ‘I ran away, Your Grace. I couldn’t take any more. I was afraid he’d kill me one day. I was in constant fear for my life. My mother used to say that if I gave Jake a son, he’d change his ways, but I didn’t want to have a child, not if the poor little thing was going to be beaten black and blue by his father. I couldn’t bear that. I couldn’t possibly bear that. I never wanted his baby.’

  A bitter expression distorted Eleanor’s mouth. ‘And I’ve done everything possible to give my husband a child, but much good it’s done me. Lately I’ve been trying to arouse him at the time of the month when Margery Jourdemayne says I’m most likely to conceive, exactly according to her instructions. Sometimes I’ve behaved like a Winchester goose, but it’s no use; he’s usually too drunk to do anything but snore.’

  ‘I know the sound of snoring, Your Grace!’ Jenna ventured a conspiratorial smile.

  ‘Jenna, sit down.’

  ‘No, really, Your Grace, it’s not my place...’