Flood (The Fenland Series Book 1)

by Ann Swinfen

  I opened my eyes and squinted sideways, twisting my neck to look up. The owner of the fine boots wore a red alderman’s gown and a magistrate’s chain of office. He was looking down at me as though he were appraising a horse of dubious parentage which he was contemplating purchasing, but had decided against.

  ‘Get up, woman.’

  I tried to get up, but fell back to my knees.

  ‘They’re weak after the swimming, sir,’ my gaoler said knowledgeably. ‘She’ll need help.’

  He put his arms under my armpits and heaved me to my feet. I realised he was also checking that the stones were no longer in my pockets. I managed to stay on my feet, though the world seemed to tip sideways and I felt myself sway. Hopkins looked disappointed, but also seemed even more ill than he had before. Stearne peered at me suspiciously, but I realised that he did not dare to contradict the magistrate.

  ‘Let her go then,’ said the alderman. ‘You have caught one witch, the one you hanged. This woman must be an innocent neighbour.’ He glanced around at the crowd. ‘Be off with you! Back to your work.’

  The people began to melt away, some looking a little shamefaced, others disappointed that the whole episode had ended so tamely. The alderman turned on his heel and walked away, the crowd parting like water before him. The witchfinders and their guards followed behind. In a short time there was no one left on the bank with me but the two gaolers.

  ‘Here, Jim.’ My gaoler picked up a coil of wet rope which had been lying underneath me. ‘Take this back.’ The other man looked as though he would say something. ‘And keep your mouth shut.’

  The man called Jim nodded, gave me the ghost of a smile, and headed back to the castle carrying the rope.

  ‘What is your name?’ I said, when we were left alone.

  ‘Maybe better you don’t know.’

  ‘I’ll tell no one. I want to be able to remember you in my prayers. You saved my life.’

  He gave a shy grin. ‘All right, then, Mistress Bennington. I am Abel Forrester.’

  I was Mistress Bennington again, though I felt I no longer fitted my name, standing there dripping with foul river water.

  ‘I thank you, Goodman Forrester, with all my heart. I don’t know how you contrived to tie me so that my hand came free.’

  ‘Like this.’ He took a length of twine from his pocket and with a quick few turns knotted it around my thumb. ‘You see, you are tied fast. Now move your thumb a little.’

  I did so, and the twine fell away.

  ‘Magic!’ I said.

  He shook his head and looked at me gravely. ‘Do not utter that word here, at such times as these. There is no magic. When I was a lad I served on the King’s ships for a time. I learned every sort of knot, for they intrigued me. On a ship you sometimes need a knot which can be unfastened quickly.’ He bent to pick up the twine and stuffed it back in his pocket. ‘If they had swum my Cecily, I might have been able to save her, but they tortured her till she confessed. She was not as strong as you.’

  ‘I grieve for you,’ I said.

  ‘It is done now.’ He looked away in the direction the witchfinders had gone. ‘I think one of them is being punished by God and I am glad of it.’

  ‘Hopkins? That is consumption that is eating him away. And I also am glad of it.’

  Suddenly, despite the sun, I shivered violently. ‘What must I do now?’

  ‘Get out of Lincoln as quickly as you can and make your way home.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘We do not provide a means of transport for the innocent, only the arrested or condemned. I will escort you to the city gate so that you are not set upon. The people are not happy when a swimming fails.’

  We started to walk through the streets of the city, parallel to the river, towards the gate where Hannah and I had been brought in the cart. I stumbled once or twice and my shivering grew worse.

  ‘I hope you may not have caught some disease from the evil humours of our stinking river,’ Abel said.

  ‘I did swallow some of the river.’

  ‘You did.’ He grinned. ‘I’m sorry I had to hit you, but it is the only way to get the water out.’

  ‘Something else you learned as a sailor?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘I think it is my wet clothes that make me shiver.’ Indeed I was leaving a wet path through the streets like the trail of a giant slug. And clouds had begun to pile up, shutting out the sun. ‘I have no clothes with me and no money to purchase any. I must walk briskly and hope they dry on me.’

  ‘Aye, that is best. Keep going as long as you can before you stop to rest, as far from the city as possible.’

  We had reached the gate and the bridge over the river. Unbidden, tears filled my eyes. This man, this stranger, had risked so much for me. I curtseyed deep to him, as if he were a gentleman.

  ‘I shall always remember you, Goodman Forrester, and pray for you and for the soul of your Cecily.’

  Looking embarrassed, he made me a clumsy bow. ‘God go with you, Mistress Bennington.’

  ‘And with you.’

  I turned away and passed through the city gates, setting my feet on the road home.

  The city gates opened on to the bridge over the Witham, leading to the old Roman road, so I knew I had only to follow it until I met the lane which led eventually to Crowthorne. I would not risk walking through there, however, but would bypass it, cutting through the fields. But the junction with the lane was a long way away, at least three days’ walk if I had been strong and healthy. In my present weakened state it was bound to take longer.

  There were people about along the first stretch of the road near the city, which was lined on both sides with new houses, where Lincoln had burst beyond its ancient perimeter. The people stared at me. No wonder, in my draggled, filthy clothes, my cap and headcloth long gone. I had torn my skirt trying to free the stone from my left pocket and it gaped, showing my underskirt. Before long I had to hide behind a bush at the roadside and knot my broken garter again, for my stocking was falling down. The clouds were building up further overhead and I could feel rain coming. Not that it mattered. I could hardly be wetter than I was already.

  I trudged on through the darkening afternoon, so weary I was hardly aware of where I was going. Had the old road not lain across the country in a straight line, swinging neither to right nor left, I might have wandered off, but the way lay clear. Somewhere in the back of my mind I realised that I was hungry and regretted that I had vomited up the porridge I had been given that morning. Unless I could beg food somewhere, I would have nothing to eat until I reached home. I was thirsty too. Vomiting up the river water had left my throat raw and sore, but for the first few miles of my journey I passed no clear stream or village well where I could drink.

  Sometime in the late afternoon the rain came at last, a slow mizzle at first, more mist than rain, but as the sky grew darker so the rain came down heavier, until at last it fell in grey sheets. My clothes had dried a little by then, though they were patched with river mud. Now I was soaked again to the skin.

  I did not know how far I had come. My legs ached, but I was sure my pace had been so slow that I had covered little ground. There were thick hedges here on either side of the road and it was some time since I had passed through the last village. It was the best shelter to be found, so I crawled into the base of the hedge, where sheep or deer had hollowed a shard through, and crouched under the lowest branches of a hazel tree. I found a dock leaf in which a little rain had gathered and drank it thankfully. There were small clusters of nuts on the hazel, barely ripe yet, but I broke them off and prised the nuts from their husks. How to free them from their shells was more difficult, but I found a couple of stones and pounded them until at last the shells cracked. There was little sustenance in the tiny nuts, but I ate them gladly, chewing them slowly to give myself the illusion that here was food indeed.

  All this effort had exhausted me. I curled up in my prickly bed, laid my head on my arms, and fell asleep. Once or twice in
the night I woke when the pains that still lingered in my limbs and back became too acute. There were furtive rustlings in the hedge – small creatures like field mice or roosting birds – but they seemed to have accepted my presence. When I had eased my painful body into another position, I fell asleep again.

  I was woken very early by the dawn light filtering through the hedge into my face and the sound of the birds giving voice, welcoming the day. It had stopped raining, but my clothes were sodden with the rain that had penetrated the hedge and the heavy dew which now lay over everything. Before I started on my way again, I gathered as many of the hazel nuts as I could reach and shelled them so I could fill my pockets with a little food to take me through the day. All the leaves of the hedge were wet and I was driven to licking them for water.

  Before climbing forth again into the road, I peered out to make sure there was no one about, for I did not want to be taken for one of those mad creatures who are turned away from their villages and live wild in the woods. When I saw the road was clear, I scrambled down from the hedge and set off walking again, picking leaves out of my hair as I went. It was tangled and as wild as any mad woman’s, though I tried to comb through it with my fingers.

  In the next village I came to, I asked at the first house for bread, saying that I was a poor traveller, robbed, and trying to get home to my village, but the door was slammed in my face. I did not try again. That night, having eaten the last of my nuts, I could not find anywhere to bed down, so I simply kept on walking, until sometime in the night I lay down on the verge and slept there.

  The world was becoming a very strange place. The road was no longer straight, but swerved first this way and then that. The trees leaned over me and threatened to fall. And the line between land and sky was blurred and wavering. I no longer tried to find food, but from time to time thirst drove me to seek water. One day I found a clear stream running beside the road. I lay down on my stomach and scooped up the water, drinking like a thirsty horse. I cupped water and poured it over my head, which had grown very hot. I touched my cheeks and forehead with my wet fingers and they were so hot I thought they would sizzle, like fat in a hot pan. That set me laughing and I lay there by the stream, laughing and laughing until my sides hurt.

  Everything after that was blurred. Days and nights merged into each other. Sometimes I felt as though fire was licking at my limbs. They burn witches in Scotland. Hanging in England. Burning in Scotland. Sometimes my very limbs were frozen into ice, so that I could not lift my legs but rolled into a ball under a hedgerow. My mind was filled with terrifying visions, in which water closed over my head and I fought for breath until a thin scream broke from my lungs. Once, I saw Gideon walking down the road in front of me and I stumbled after him, begging him to stop, but he walked on, dwindling into the distance and did not look back.

  I do not know when I reached the crossroads with the lane which would take me to Crowthorne and eventually to my village, the crossroads where they had loaded Hannah and me on to the cart. I stepped from the raised ramper on which the Roman road was built down on to the rutted lane. Somehow my feet took me along the lane without any conscious thought. I looked down at my feet. One. Two. One. Two. Step after step. I noticed that the sole of my right shoe was flapping loose. When did that happen? I had no memory of it. My face was so hot, sweating. I tried to wipe it with my apron, and found that my apron was gone. I stopped and turned slowly around. No sign of it. Where had I lost it?

  Staggering a little, I turned back again. My feet seemed to know where to go, so I let them lead me, thinking of nothing except how hot I was. One step. Then another. And another. And another. There was smoke ahead, rising from cottages. I shook my head to try to clear it. Something told me I should not go there. My clever feet – they knew where to go. Over the stile to the left, and along a faint path which followed the edge of a field. It was difficult walking here, the ground rough with tussocks of grass and stones. The sole of my shoe clung on by the last few nails. I stopped and looked at it for a long time, then I took it off and put it in my pocket. That was better. The shoe no longer caught on every rough place on the path, but now I went dot and carry, with one shoe and one stocking foot. I stopped again and took off the other shoe and put it in my pocket. Now at least my feet were the same. My stockings were little protection, for they were full of holes.

  I crossed the field and then another.

  My whole body was on fire and my head ached, but through the buzz in my ears, one clear thought reached me. That house ahead was my home. I climbed over the wall that ran along the side of the field into the lane.

  Aye, this was my lane, my home. A few more steps and I would be there.

  There was the gate into the yard. The barn. The hen-hus.

  It was very quiet.

  Somehow I knew it was milking time. Someone should be bringing in the cows. Should I go and fetch the cows?

  I reached the gate into the yard and leaned against it, for it was almost too much to lift the latch and open the gate. Slowly I managed to open it and stepped through.

  Why was it so quiet?

  Then Nehemiah came out of the barn. I could not hear his steps, but that must be because of the buzzing in my ears.

  ‘Mistress Mercy!’ he cried out, and looked at me in horror.

  ‘Why is it so quiet?’ I said.

  Then it went black.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The room was filled with the sound of bees. I lay flat, gazing up at the white-washed ceiling. My whole body felt slack, as lifeless as the cool linen sheet that covered me. I wanted to do nothing but listen to the bees hovering outside the open window and study that ceiling, whose bumps and cracks were as familiar as the palm of my hand.

  Indolently I lifted my right hand and regarded it thoughtfully. It seemed unchanged. I let it drop back again.

  The bees were busy in the late honeysuckle that grew up the outside wall of my chamber. They loved the sweet flowers, their creamy trumpets filled with nectar which they would turn to honey. Hannah’s bees. I knew there was some reason I should not think about Hannah, but my mind would not focus on the thought.

  There was a fluttering of wings just outside the windows and the shrieks of hungry nestlings. House martins always nested under the eaves there, and this year the parents had built a second mud nest adjacent to the first, to rear a second brood, like a householder with a growing family building another wing to his house. As my ancestors had added to this house.

  I knew where I was. This was my own chamber, where I had slept since I was a child first out of the cradle. Everything about me was familiar. My narrow bed. The way the ropes beneath the mattress creaked when I moved. The coffer holding my clothes. Two joint stools, one of them beside my bed with my Bible laid on it. A small table where I kept a few childish treasures – a pretty pebble, a kingfisher’s feather that changed colour as you turned it in the sunlight.

  The house martin returned and the nestlings shrieked again, demanding to be fed. I smiled and stretched out my arms. Then I frowned. There was something strange about my arms. They were too thin. I peered at them. No question, they were my arms, yet they looked unfamiliar.

  There was a gentle tap on the door.

  ‘Aye?’ I said. My voice came out in a weak croak, but the door opened. Kitty put her head round it and beamed.

  ‘Oh, Mistress Mercy, you are awake at last!’

  She ran over to the bed and fell on her knees beside it.

  ‘You have been so ill.’

  ‘How did I come here? I remember reaching the gate, and Nehemiah crossing the yard, then nothing.’

  ‘You fainted. Nehemiah and I carried you up here. Your clothes – they were terrible, torn and filthy. I have washed them and mended them as best I can, but they are hardly fit even for rough work.’

  I looked at the sleeve from which my odd arm protruded.

  ‘You dressed me in my night shift.’

  She blushed. ‘I washed you and tried to
make you comfortable, but you have had the sweating sickness for more than two weeks.’

  I remembered then confused dreams and a feeling of burning in the fires of Hell.

  ‘You said terrible things,’ she whispered, her face pale. ‘You kept saying “They burn witches in Scotland” and “I am going to drown, I am going to drown.” It was very frightening.’

  I reached out and patted her hand. ‘But I did not drown. Or burn.’

  ‘And Hannah? What has happened to Hannah?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘Hannah is dead, Kitty. We must pray for her.’

  Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over. ‘I feared that was so. She was kind to me.’

  ‘And to me.’ I resolved then that I would never let it pass my lips that Hannah had betrayed me. She should rest in peace.

  ‘Kitty, could you bring me a drink?’

  ‘Of course. And something to eat?’

  I realised that I was hungry. ‘Aye, that would be kind. But something soft. My throat is very sore.’

  ‘The apothecary said that you had an infection of the throat as well as the sweating sickness.’

  ‘You have had an apothecary to me?’

  ‘Aye.’ She seemed suddenly nervous. ‘I will fetch you some buttered eggs and small ale.’ Then she was gone.

  We could ill afford an apothecary, I thought. Where had Tom or Mother found the money? Or Father? My heart gave a sudden leap. If the fine had been paid, or most of it, was Father home again?

  Kitty soon returned with a tray and helped me to sit up so that she could balance it on my lap, but she seemed flustered and anxious to go back to the kitchen, so I did not try to keep her. The ale slid comfortingly down my throat, my own good brewing with its familiar flavour, enhanced with the herbs I used. The eggs were soft and rich with butter. They slipped easily down and the warmth glowed inside me. I lifted my Bible from my bedside stool and laid the tray in its place. Tired from even the small effort of eating, I lay back, with my hands folded over the Bible on my chest, and fell asleep again.