by Ann Swinfen
When the sight of our eyes cannot overwhelm our other senses, the ability to pick out individual scents becomes sharper. Despite the rancid, burnt-fat stink of the rushlight, I could detect the black caramel smell of the peat fire and a lingering hint of our supper pottage in the air. As always, the kitchen held the dried memories of past summers in its bunches of herbs – mint and savoury, tarragon and thyme, rosemary and marjoram – while the ham, returned to its hook in the main beam above the fireplace, brought the promise of food to stave off starvation. The hot stone I had placed in the bed caused the blankets to give off the comforting scent of warm wool, which still held a touch of the lanolin from the raw fleece. It reminded me of the happy days I had spent sheep-shearing. It had been labour every bit as exhausting as scrubbing the manor kitchen floor, but it had been labour with a purpose, with a pile of fleeces at the end of it, the promise of wool to card and spin and weave and knit.
And although I could barely see Gideon as the rushlight burnt away and faded, I could feel his hand in mine. Warm, now, and supple, no longer feeling like the hand of a dead man.
As the rushlight went out, I must have dozed, for I woke suddenly from a terrible dream, my heart pounding in the surrounding darkness. I had been again in the desecrated church, the terrified horse charging down the nave, sparks flying from its hoofs, bearing down on me. Then I was on the floor and someone was gripping my head, forcing me to watch as the soldiers lashed Gideon with their swords. I saw them pound his face and the captain thrust his sword deep into his side. I struggled and struggled to cry out, but my throat was blocked, choked, as though a lump of rags had been thrust down it. My mouth was open, straining, gagging – until my struggles woke me.
For a moment I thought I was still in the church and my eyes had been bound so that I could no longer see, but then I remembered where I was. In my sleep I had slipped sideways, half off the stool, so that I was wedged between the stool and the bed, my left knee painfully pressed against the flagstones, my back twisted. I was still holding Gideon’s hand in one of mine, clutching it convulsively. Awkwardly I crawled back up on to the stool. It was still the dark of the night, though there was a very faint glow showing through the door from the kitchen fire. I must get another light. I stumbled to my feet and felt my way into the kitchen.
As I lit another rushlight from the embers of the fire and carefully laid on a square of peat to coax it back to life, I heard the single sweet note of a blackbird somewhere nearby, probably on the roof of the cowbarn. For a few moments there was silence, then it sang again, a long, liquid waterfall of notes. It was answered by another blackbird, further away. Then the repetitive call of a great tit, remarkably assertive for such a small bird. A brief silence again, then a robin, a song thrush, a willow warbler. Although to my human eyes it was still night, not even the faintest grey in the sky, the birds knew that dawn was coming. I went over to the window and threw it open, the better to hear them. Such tiny creatures, their lives so brief and chancy, yet they sing in hope and belief that the dawn will come. They need no gods, no rituals of faith. Somehow in their small hearts they find the courage to go on.
I laid my forehead against the cold stone of the windowsill and closed my eyes. My body fell into a kind of deep stillness which somehow comforted me. The dawn would come. The day would break over this world of Fen and fields. Life would carry me forward, however uncertain the future seemed. I lifted my head and turned away from the window. Gideon will recover, and some day I will admit that I love him.
The rushlight was drooping in its holder. I straightened it, picked it up, and went back to my vigil.
Despite the brevity of my troubled sleep, I was fully awake now. I set the rushlight on the small coffer where Kitty kept her clothes and straightened the blankets which covered Gideon. They were pulled awry as though he had been restless, yet I had not seen him move since we had laid him down. I gazed at his bandaged head and face. When he did at last wake, he would be in darkness. He must not be alone when that happened, for he would have no idea where he was. After the beating he had endured, he might think himself imprisoned by the soldiers. And blind. I shuddered.
When I took my seat again and picked up his hand, it stirred in mine. I caught my breath. Would he wake at last? I pressed his hand and thought I felt some response, then it went limp again.
‘Gideon?’ I leaned close to him. ‘Gideon, you are safe here. It is Mercy here with you. You are safe here at Turbary Holm. You have been badly hurt, but we have dressed your wounds. There is a bandage around your head, so you will not yet be able to see.’
I gulped. My voice sounded thin and scared. Gideon did not move or respond, but lay still like one dead.
For three days Gideon lingered somewhere in the borderland between life and death, and I veered between hope and despair. Each night I sat with him. Each day, reluctantly, I would rest for a time while Hannah watched over him, but soon I was back, taking up my position again on the stool beside his bed. My family did not comment on my determination to stay with him. Time enough to think on that if he recovered. I had confessed to myself that I loved him, but could not imagine that he could think of me as anything other than the child he had once taught. Several times a day and again at night, I tried to trickle a little small ale or one of Hannah’s herbal potions between his lips. Most of it spilled on to the cloth I laid across his chest, but a little was swallowed, else I think he would have died in those first days.
During the night of the fourth day, he began to stir restlessly, uttering faint moans. When I tried to tuck the tangled blankets around him, he threw them off again. I felt the little of his brow that showed above the bandage. Where before he had been cold and clammy, now he was on fire. Should I call Hannah? No, I knew what to do. I fetched a jug of fresh cold water from the pantry and bathed as much of his face as I could reach, and the inside of his wrists. We had dressed him in a night shift of my father’s, which hung loosely on him, for he was of much slighter build. I turned back the blankets and untied the strings at the neck. He was sweating profusely. Again I bathed what I could reach – his neck and armpits, the upper part of his chest above the bandaged sword slashes. When I had finished, I rolled the blankets to the bottom of the bed. Heat rose off his body so that I could feel it. I knew I must let the heat escape, but I did not like to leave him quite uncovered. From the coffer in the hallway, I lifted out a linen sheet which my mother had woven as part of my dowry. It was stiff but scented strongly of lavender, which aids sleep. I spread it over Gideon, not tucking it in but leaving it hanging loose. It seemed that already he was a little cooler.
I made up the kitchen fire and carried a cup into the bedroom. I was hot and thirsty and poured myself a cup of water. As if the clink of the jug against the pewter cup had at last penetrated that awful stillness, Gideon whispered, ‘Water.’
My heart gave a great leap. I slid my arm under his shoulders and lifted him up. His body was still so hot in my arms that it burned me through my bodice.
‘Here is water,’ I said. ‘Careful. I will help you drink.’
He sipped the water at first, then drank greedily. Despite my attempt to hold the cup steady, some of the water ran down over his chin and on to his shift. I set down the cup and with my free hand mopped it up with my handkerchief.
‘Good,’ he said. And after a pause, ‘Is that Mercy?’
‘Aye. You are at our farm. Quite safe.’
‘I don’t remember . . . What happened?’
‘Later. Do not worry about it now. You were injured. But now you are recovering.’
‘Very hot.’
‘You’ve had a fever, but it is going down now.’
He lay still for a long time until my arm became numb and I thought he had fallen asleep again.
‘Mercy,’ he said quietly, in what was almost his normal voice, ‘I cannot see.’
I felt tears prick my eyes, but I forced myself to speak cheerfully. ‘You have some damage to your face and the back
of your head. Hannah and I have bandaged you, that is all. It is night time anyway, and dark.’
‘You have been sitting up with me?’
‘Aye.’ I pressed his hand. ‘Have you much pain?’
He seemed to consider for a while. ‘My head does hurt. And my left side. And my back.’ He asked again, ‘What happened?’
‘It was a troop of soldiers. They broke in upon the baptism and gave you a beating.’
I thought it better not to tell him of the desecration of his church, but even so he became agitated and tried to sit up.
‘The baby, Alice Cox’s baby, he is safe?’
‘Aye. They did not touch him.’
‘And did I complete the baptism? It was not left undone?’
‘You had just said the blessing. Little Huw is safely baptised.’
He sank back with a sigh. ‘That is well.’ His voice sounded blurred and a few minutes later I saw that he was asleep, truly asleep, and this time it seemed to be natural. I leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips, knowing that I would not wake him.
Then I rested my head against the wall and found myself also drifting off into a deep, untroubled dream.
The next morning Gideon was able to eat a little porridge and I realised that I must resume my normal work about the farm. I milked the two cows and set a batch of milk and rennet to start cheese-making. I churned butter, scrubbed out the dairy and cleaned the hen-hus. While I had been away at the manor house, Kitty had set one of the hens to brood a clutch of eight eggs and the chicks were now running about like balls of yellow wool on their stick legs. Alice had been as good as her word and sent the eggs from my best layers every day, so that, in this good laying season, the family had been living very largely on eggs and bread. We must preserve some for winter, however, so that afternoon Kitty and I set to and pickled a batch which we stored in an earthenware crock in the pantry.
Kitty was becoming a good little housewife and the next morning I decided it was time she learned to spin. My mother had been at her spinning wheel every day since I returned, for there still remained most of this year’s fleeces to spin. Often we would simply send the untreated fleeces to Lincoln market, but this year, with times so hard for us, it was better to put in the labour spinning and weaving to sell the finished cloth, which would fetch in more money.
‘Can you teach Kitty to spin, Mother?’ I asked. It was something she could do sitting down, for I had been concerned, since I came home, at how she appeared to have aged just in the few weeks I had been away. ‘I think she could manage a drop spindle now.’
‘Aye. Fetch me yours, then.’
‘I know where it is!’ Kitty ran to the storeroom off the hall, where we kept our tools – spindles, loom and loom weights, carding combs, and the spinning wheel when it was not in use. Her eyes were sparkling at the thought of learning a new skill. Perhaps one day I would teach her to read. She was a clever little soul.
The two of them set to, Kitty on a stool at my mother’s feet. It is far from easy to learn how to use a drop spindle. Somehow it seems impossible that something so simple can turn the raw fluffy wool into a fine twist which can be knitted or woven. To begin with Kitty got herself into a fine old tangle, but her fingers were slender and nimble. Quite soon she was spinning a thread which would not be fine or even enough for weaving, but could be used for knitting a man’s woollen hat for winter. I left them to it, the eager child with her spindle and the skilled old woman at her wheel, and made our midday dinner.
Gideon wanted to come to table with us, but Hannah and I forbade it, fearing that his wounds might open if he moved too soon.
‘Besides,’ I said, spooning up his pottage for him as he lay in bed, ‘you are not ready yet to have the bandages removed from your eyes. You must tolerate my nursing for a little longer.’
‘You have been so kind, Mercy. Taking me in and caring for me.’
He reached out his hand towards me, and found my face. His fingers brushed back a strand of my hair that had escaped from my cap and he cupped my cheek in his hand.
‘Nonsense,’ I said briskly, glad that he could not see me blush. ‘Of course we must care for our friends.’ I was already beginning to worry that he might remember those intimate moments in the night, when I had held him in my arms.
Toward the end of the afternoon, when Tom had just returned from hoeing our portions of the common fields, Jack stepped through the door.
‘You are all well?’ he asked, looking around as if he was searching for something.
‘All is well with us,’ Tom said, looking puzzled. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Come,’ I said. ‘You are looking very hot, Jack. Sit a while and take a cup of ale with Tom.’ I had already fetched the flagon from the cool pantry, for Tom had come in complaining of the heat.
They sat at the table with their ale and I sat with them, taking up the mending of Tom’s stockings which he always wore out quicker than anyone else in the family.
‘I am just back from Crowthorne,’ Jack said, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. ‘That’s an excellent brew, Mercy.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Crowthorne?’ said Tom.
‘Aye. I drove over six of my ewes to sell to a fellow there. And there has been much talk.’ He looked around him again. ‘And here in the village too. They are saying that Gideon Clarke was killed by those troopers.’
Tom and I exchanged a look.
‘And what are they saying about it in Crowthorne?’ Tom asked.
‘You know them for the rampant Puritans they are. Godly, they call themselves!’ Jack snorted, and took another swig of his ale. ‘So godly that they are rejoicing at Gideon’s death. Saying that he practised ungodly superstitions, the way of the great Whore of Babylon. He deserved to die.’
I half started from my chair and opened my mouth to speak, but Tom shook his head at me.
‘And what are they saying here in the village?’
‘That they hope he lives and may be spirited away to somewhere safe.’
‘Perhaps it would be well to put it about that he has died,’ said Tom.
‘Exactly what I was thinking.’
Jack followed my glance at the bedroom door. Gideon, I knew, was sleeping.
‘Aye,’ I said. ‘We did our best, but his injuries were too severe.’
‘You know, if there is any smuggling of a man to the coast, you can call on me,’ Jack said. ‘I have friends in Lynn, from the time I worked there on the boats.’
We both smiled at him, remembering Jack’s adventures a few years before, and so it was agreed.
I got up and fetched bread and cheese and more ale.
‘Any more news from Crowthorne?’ Tom asked. The village was larger than ours and had been actively involved in recruiting men for the Model Army. News of the outer world generally reached there before it reached us.
Jack pulled a face. ‘There has been more of the witch-finding. Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne have come this way again, just when we thought they had moved to Norwich and the coast.’
I shuddered. The panic spread by the witchfinders during the last months had reached even our remote village, though happily the men themselves had not. Places where all had lived in peace, neighbour with neighbour, were suddenly riven by terrible accusations of satanic practices. When children had died, crops had spoiled, cattle had run mad, it was all said to be the work of witches, where for generations these disasters had been attributed to visitations of the ague or the plague, bad weather, or beasts eating dangerous weeds.
The two men, Hopkins and Stearne, had moved up the east country from Essex, and as they moved, this poison of witchcraft moved with them, like the bow wave pushed out before a boat. Where the waters of daily life had been pure and untroubled before, now there was turmoil and turbulence, the waters poisoned. Accusations of witchcraft were worst in places like Crowthorne, where the people were led by a hell-fire preacher who spurred on their spite and suspicion. Old
scores were being settled. The moving of a boundary stone in a grandfather’s time was now being avenged by sending some poor innocent woman to torture and the gallows.
‘Did you know that they swam a clergyman for a witch, and hanged him for it?’ Jack said. ‘And now they have declared an old woman of Crowthorne a witch. She is to be hanged.’
‘So near to us!’ Tom looked alarmed.
‘Which old woman?’ I asked.
‘Agnes Pettifer. She’s is the local wise woman and midwife. They say she has killed two babes and put a murrain on the preacher’s cattle.’
‘Agnes!’ My heart began to beat fast.
‘You know her?’
‘A little. I have met her at Hannah’s cottage a few times. They were girls together, when Agnes lived in our parish, before she married a Crowthorne man. They shared their knowledge of herbs and healing.’ I shook my head. ‘She was no witch, just a decent old body, a midwife, widowed these many years, who helped folk in need. She must have delivered most of the people of Crowthorne under fifty.’
‘Well, they have turned against her now.’
‘She would have stood against their new preacher,’ I said slowly. ‘She would not have tolerated his wicked nonsense. She was outspoken and probably did not watch her tongue.’
I thought of Agnes as I had last seen her, a few months before the drainers had come. She was a brisk, tidy woman, who wore her years more lightly than Hannah, for she made nothing of the long walk from Crowthorne. They had their heads together over some new way of preserving plums in honey with a little precious cinnamon stick. Two old women, discussing recipes.