Witchborn

by Nicholas Bowling

  She felt a little stronger now. It had been four days since her arrival, and she had been asleep for most of them. The stubbled, sorry mess of her hair had not yet grown out, but her cuts and bruises showed signs of healing, and when she looked in the dresser’s dirty mirror, her eyes seemed less sunken and her cheeks a fraction fuller. And since her first bath, she smelt a good deal better too.

  It was midday, and the sun was trying to fight its way through the thick, grime-encrusted windows at the foot of her bed. The room was desperately cold, and barely large enough for her to stand up in. She suspected nobody had stayed up here for years, and the dust and mould was just thick enough to stop the place feeling homely. Still, it was warm enough under the blankets, and Mrs Thomson had left a pie on the side table, crammed with rich goose meat and aromatic herbs that set Alyce’s senses reeling.

  She chewed on the last mouthful while she tried to make sense of last few days. Abruptly she stopped, and swallowed.

  The mommet, she thought. Where is it?

  She flung the bedclothes off, the flesh on her legs rising in goose pimples, and went in search of her smock. The mommet itself was incomplete and essentially useless, but her mother had warned her about letting other people see the things she made. They wouldn’t understand them.

  As she rummaged in a chest of drawers, the stairs outside her room creaked to herald the return of Mrs Thomson. She whirled around to face her as the door opened.

  ‘Good God, child! It’s a good thing to see you out of your bed, but you’re in nought but a nightdress! You’ll catch your death of cold, you will, after all I done to nurse you back to health!’ Mrs Thomson was not a slim woman, and she lumbered awkwardly over to Alyce to manhandle her back into bed. Alyce stood her ground.

  ‘Where is my smock?’ she asked quietly, teeth chattering.

  ‘That old thing? Martha’s giving it a good old scrub. Filthy it was! Full of lice too. Why would you be wanting that, my love? Got you a lovely warm nightdress there. That was mine when I was a girl. I was a little bigger than you, mind,’ she chuckled.

  ‘I need it,’ Alyce croaked. Mrs Thomson’s smile faded. ‘Not the smock. But there was something in the pocket. You took it, didn’t you?’

  Mrs Thomson rested her small, scarred hands on her hips, and a lifetime of wrinkles appeared on her brow. She sighed through the great caverns of her nose.

  ‘I’ve been accused of many things in my time, Alyce. Some gentlemen think I water down me ale. Some think I short-change them. On St Stephen’s Day, heaven help us, a lady thought I was putting rat meat in me pies. But I ain’t never been called a common thief.’ She paused. ‘You don’t trust nobody, and I don’t blame you. But I swear ’pon this inn, and every one of the barrels in my cellar, that I ain’t stolen nothing of yours.’

  Alyce looked at the floor, and then back at Mrs Thomson. ‘Perhaps the maid has it?’

  ‘Martha? Maybe. I’ll ask.’

  ‘No,’ said Alyce, more forcefully than she meant to. Mrs Thomson’s eyebrows went up. ‘I mean, I would rather ask myself. I don’t want to put you to the trouble.’

  ‘Very well. Down we go. Wrap yourself up warm and we’ll go and speak to her. But keep yourself out of sight, mind. Inn’s a place for loose talk, and I got my reputation to think of.’

  Mrs Thomson roughly wrapped Alyce’s shoulders in a blanket so heavy and uncomfortable that it may as well have been a coat of mail, but it kept off the chill. She quickly made up the bed, and spied the empty platter as she did so.

  ‘Well, at least you’re eating. Good to see. Enjoy the pie, did you?’

  Alyce nodded. ‘Very much.’

  ‘That’ll be the herbs then. You need to know your herbs. Much more to it than just adding savour. Settle your humours, they will.’

  With that, she picked up the platter and stomped out of the room. Alyce followed nervously – upon leaving her room her head spun, but when it became clear that Mrs Thomson was not going to wait for her, she forced herself dizzily down the stairs, clutching the bannister.

  It was only the second day of Yuletide, and The Swan was positively glowing with talk and song and drunken jests, and the rich scents of warm ale and roasted meat. Every beam and bannister was wreathed in holly and holm oak, which Mrs Thomson periodically stopped to rearrange as she passed. It actually wasn’t so different to the midwinter festival that Alyce celebrated with her mother back in Fordham, although it was a bit more raucous. She took a waxy holly leaf between her fingers and smelt it, the scent and the memory bittersweet. Perhaps she was still in time to see the sacrifice, to take her cup of lamb’s blood. Maybe they’d let her wear the horns of the hunter god.

  No, that probably isn’t the way they do things here.

  Mrs Thomson led Alyce down the back staircase into the kitchen, and by the time they had reached the ground floor the heat from the ovens and the crowds of revellers was already causing them both to sweat profusely.

  Alyce found the bustle overwhelming, and was buffeted this way and that by cooks and maids who cursed with words and oaths she had never heard before. She was relieved when Mrs Thomson took her straight through the kitchens and out into a narrow alley that led off the inn yard, where Martha, the buck-toothed serving girl, was busy scrubbing clothes in a tub of dirty, icy water. Her hands were blue, her nose red – it was dripping, too, and as they approached she paused to wipe it on a dress she was supposed to be washing. For all her discomfort, though, she was humming to herself.

  ‘Martha, you remember Alyce.’ Mrs Thomson brusquely introduced them. ‘You want to ask, Alyce, you go ahead and ask. I got customers to attend to.’ There was an almighty uproar from the front of the inn, that was somewhere between outrage and hilarity. ‘If I don’t go calm that game of Hot Cockles, there’ll be blood running in the streets before long . . .’

  Her last few words were lost as she charged back into the kitchen to avert disaster. Alyce stood, feet frozen, and pulled her blanket up around her.

  ‘How now, loon,’ Martha said, without looking up from her work.

  Alyce was not quite prepared for that. She cleared her throat. ‘Good day.’

  Martha continued scrubbing and humming. Alyce shifted from one foot to the other, and coughed again. ‘I think . . . I think you are washing my smock.’

  ‘Yes.’

  That was all. Alyce pressed ahead.

  ‘There was something in the pocket. A . . .’ She paused. ‘Something I made. Do you have it?’

  ‘I do not.’

  She tried a different tack. ‘I am not a loon,’ she said quietly.

  Martha dropped her bundle of washing into the water with a great splash. ‘Is that so? Got yourself locked up in Bedlam for japes, then?’

  ‘How did you know . . .?’

  ‘It’s hardly a secret!’ Martha cackled. ‘Look at you! Your hair, your face. If you weren’t mad before you went in, you must be by now. Must’ve kept some fine company in there, fine company . . .’

  ‘Listen to me.’ Alyce began to feel her choler rising. ‘I am not a lunatic.’ But the statement did not sound as confident as she had hoped.

  ‘Them’s the only folk that go to Bedlam. Them that’s gone mad on their own. Or . . .’ Martha held up a finger, and her face brightened. Alyce suspected the whole convoluted exchange had been leading to this point. ‘Or them that’s been driven mad by the Devil.’

  Alyce felt a rush of hot blood to her face.

  ‘If you aren’t a lunatic, must be you’re a w—’

  ‘That’s enough out of you.’ Mrs Thomson had returned, and was standing behind them with her hands on her hips, an immovable colossus in the kitchen doorway. ‘Why do you always got to bait our guests, Martha? Don’t listen to her, child. Leave her be. There’s someone else here to see you. Won’t get any nasty words from him, that’s for sure.’

  Alyce didn’t move for a moment. She stared at Martha, who had gone back to sloshing the water around with a grin. Her heart was rattlin
g uncomfortably behind her ribs.

  ‘Alyce?’ the innkeeper said again. She blinked herself back into the real world, and turned around to see the boy, Solomon, standing awkwardly at Mrs Thomson’s shoulder.

  He slipped his frame past Mrs Thomson’s bulk like some huge spider. His midnight-blue doublet looked rather fetching from a distance, but as he advanced she noticed his sleeves were rather too short, and the waist of his breeches was too large, crumpled and cinched with a belt that he had forced extra holes into so it would be snug around his skinny hips. Over one shoulder hung a well-used leather satchel.

  ‘My lady,’ he mumbled, with a neat little bow.

  She could have wept. After all the scorn, all the disgrace heaped upon her, those two words seemed to give her the strength of twenty women. She straightened up. My lady!

  Behind her, Martha snorted with derision.

  ‘My lord,’ Alyce replied, the only thing she could think of. They stared at each other, the full stupidity of their exchange dawning on them, and then both lapsed into nervous laughter. ‘Thank you,’ she added at last. ‘For helping me. In the street. I thought he was going to finish me off, that man. Over a baked apple.’

  ‘Didn’t just help you in the street!’ chipped in Mrs Thomson. ‘He’s been back at your bedside nearly every day, I reckon. Cooling your fever and whatnot.’

  Alyce was touched. She tried to smile at Solomon, but he wasn’t looking at her.

  ‘Um,’ he said. He scratched at something non-existent on the back of his hand. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were getting better, that was all. You look well.’

  ‘No I don’t.’

  Solomon cocked his head, and his mouth twitched with amusement. ‘No. You don’t. You look terrible. I just didn’t know what else to say.’

  Alyce laughed again. The sound took her quite by surprise.

  ‘Did you find what you wanted?’ asked Mrs Thomson. Alyce’s smile faltered, and she shook her head. ‘Not to worry. Come inside, the both of you, get yourselves warm and fed. Solomon here’s an actor with Sussex’s Men, he don’t get many hot dinners.’ She chuckled to herself.

  ‘We’re doing very well at the moment, I’ll have you know,’ said Solomon, trying to puff himself up a little. ‘We’re playing at Court for the next few weeks.’

  Mrs Thomson whistled. ‘You hear that, Alyce? Our Solomon, a courtier!’

  ‘That doesn’t actually make me a courtier . . .’

  ‘Well, come on then! What’s the latest news? How’s our Queen Bess?’

  Solomon sighed. ‘I knew you’d ask. I don’t know her personally, Mrs Thomson. I just get rumours.’

  ‘Well?’ Mrs Thomson was undeterred. ‘What are they?’

  ‘Just that she’s tired. And angry.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Thomson, her face falling. ‘And why’s that?’

  ‘Story goes,’ said Solomon, with sudden relish, ‘the Queen of Scots is smuggling messages out of prison.’

  ‘Mary Stuart?’ Mrs Thomson crossed herself. ‘She’s no good, that one.’

  ‘Apparently, Mary’s gaolers are making her a bit too comfortable. Letting her have the run of the place. Bess is furious.’

  ‘The devils! And?’

  ‘And what? That’s just what I heard the other night. I have to wait until the courtiers are drunk before they start letting things slip. And then when they get too drunk they stop making any sense. It’s quite a delicate art, actually.’

  Alyce smiled, and she saw Solomon see her smile.

  Mrs Thomson tutted. ‘It’s a wonder this country’s still in one piece. It’s a wonder Queen Bess is still in one piece, for that matter. Bet Mary Stuart’s got her spies all over the place.’

  She looked at Alyce as though expecting some response, but Alyce didn’t have a clue what they were talking about. Queen Bess, Queen Mary – the names meant nothing to her. The only queens she’d ever known had been in stories. There was the Wolf Queen and the Queen of the Dead, Queens of the East and Queens of the Sea.

  She thought of a hundred questions but none of them left her lips.

  ‘Are you just going to stand there talking all day?’ piped up Martha. ‘Or can I get on with my washing?’

  ‘Well! You’re a saucy one, aren’t you?’ Mrs Thomson clipped her round the ear. ‘We’ll be out of your hair, Your Majesty,’ she said, giving her a mocking curtsy. ‘Come on you two. We got other things to talk about besides politics.’

  Once inside, they went into the same back room that Alyce dimly remembered being carried to when she had first arrived. It seemed to serve half as a storeroom, half as a makeshift office for Mrs Thomson. There were sacks of grain, bunches of dried herbs hung on the walls and piled on shelves, and in the centre were two stools and a desk, covered with spilt ink and sheaves of parchment. While Alyce was trying to read what was written on them, the innkeeper settled herself into a creaking chair on the other side of the desk, and swept them away from prying eyes.

  ‘There’ll be some fresh pie for you soon. Frumenty too, if you fancy,’ she said, making a pile of the parchment on the corner closest to her. ‘Sit down, both of you. You know my favourite thing about Yuletide? Everyone telling stories. No one tells a good story in the summer, don’t know why that is. But come winter, when you got your roaring fire, and your belly full of beer and wine, and your tongue’s good and loose, everyone’s got a story to tell.’ She let that observation hang in the stuffy air for a moment. Alyce and Solomon looked at each other. ‘But I reckon, of all the tall tales that are getting passed around out there –’ she waved in the direction of the common room – ‘there aren’t many that will compare with yours, Alyce. So, now you’ve had a bit of rest, how about you tell us your story, and let’s see if we can’t find a place for you here.’

  Alyce frowned, and rubbed the top of her head, feeling suddenly self-conscious. She wanted nothing more than to tell them everything, to pour out all the contents of her tired heart, but a month of silence in Bedlam had left its mark. The old Alyce had talked a lot – too much, her mother had always said. But perhaps the old Alyce was gone for good.

  She looked at Mrs Thomson’s kindly, expectant face, then into Solomon’s dark eyes. Where to begin? What to say? More importantly, what not to say?

  She took a deep breath, found her first words, and fumbled on from there.

  ‘Witches!’

  Once Alyce had finished her story, Mrs Thomson heaved herself out of the chair, skirted around her and checked that the door was fully closed behind them. Alyce couldn’t quite gauge her tone – she was half expecting the innkeeper to go out into the kitchen and round up an angry mob.

  ‘There ain’t no such thing as witches, girl. Ain’t that the truth of it, Solly?’

  Solomon silently rolled the stalks of something he’d found on the table between his finger and thumb.

  ‘Witches,’ she muttered again under her breath. ‘It’s all just a lot of folk with no manners, poking their noses into women’s business. They don’t understand what we do, or they think we’re different, and they don’t like it, so they call us “witches”.’ She turned to see the comprehension dawning on Alyce’s face. ‘Oh yes, girl, they called me that too. Lot of uses for herbs beyond just flavouring meat pies. Been learning all my life. Won’t find another herbalist in London with half my skill. But they don’t like that I know something that they don’t. So it must be black magic, and I must be learning from Lucifer Himself.’ She spat. ‘Witches. They ain’t nothing but faerie stories. And all over England women getting killed. Just cos they know things.’ At this she whirled around, her apron catching the parchment she had tidied and sweeping it on to the floor.

  Alyce dared not move or speak. She sensed Mrs Thomson was not quite spent. Solomon was staring at the buckles on his shoes like a chastised schoolboy.

  ‘That’s why they came for your poor mother, Alyce,’ she continued. ‘I’m sorry to say it. That’s why they came for his mother too.’ She pointed a stu
bby finger at Solomon, who glanced up at Alyce with something that looked like an apologetic smile. ‘My best customer. And a better friend. They need to control us, Alyce, see? They don’t like what they don’t understand. They don’t like it if you ain’t doing and saying what they want. Now, may well be you’re just as strange as your mother . . . but as if a girl like you might be talking with the Devil!’ She crossed herself again.

  ‘Um—’

  ‘That’s what people will think, mark my words. Most folk in this city would have tied you up like an animal and hanged you, if they heard the things you’re saying. Saw the way you look. But not me, i’faith, no. I been on the end of that sort of slander too often, and I’ll make sure no one around here speaks ill of you. You ain’t the first so-called witch I’ve had under this roof, and I dare say you won’t be the last.’

  Mrs Thomson suddenly looked a little embarrassed at how loudly she had been speaking. She smoothed out her apron, pushed her explosion of grey frizz back under her bonnet, and sat back down in her chair. She was perspiring a little.

  ‘Now. What’s done is done.’

  You don’t know the half of ‘what’s done’, thought Alyce.

  ‘You got any relatives who might give you a helping hand?’

  Alyce paused for a moment, again weighing up how much she should tell these two, who, kindly as they seemed, were still perfect strangers.

  ‘I need to get to Bankside.’

  ‘Bankside? Who’s there?’

  ‘John Dee.’

  Solomon and Mrs Thomson looked at each other.

  ‘I take it you don’t mean Doctor John Dee,’ the innkeeper chuckled. ‘Then you really would be moving up in the world!’