by Ann Swinfen
When I woke the light had changed. It was softer and the bees must have retired to their skep, though the young birds still demanded food. How hard the birds work, I thought, during the few intensive weeks when they breed. Then somehow those tiny creatures must survive through the winter. Surely this new brood was very late to be still unfledged. How could they hope to survive? Inexplicably the thought of those nestlings freezing in the snow made me weep.
A little later Kitty tapped again at my door and asked if Nehemiah might come to see me. I was surprised that he should come, rather than Tom or my mother, but I nodded.
‘Of course. Can you help me sit up?’
The tray was gone from beside my bed. I laid my Bible back on the stool and ran my fingers through my hair. It was not tangled any more and I realised Kitty must have combed it for me. She slipped away.
‘Mistress Mercy? How do you find yourself?’
Nehemiah came in and stood twisting his cap in his hands.
‘Take a stool, Nehemiah. I thank you for helping Kitty bring me up here.’
He moved the other stool near the bed and sat down with his hands planted on his knees.
‘I thought we’d lost you then, when you fell down in the yard. Didn’t hardly seem to be breathing. And once or twice since then . . . You’ve been bad, mistress.’
‘I had a bad time in Lincoln,’ I said.
‘Can you tell me about it? And about Hannah? Kitty says she is dead.’
I nodded. Then I told him everything, from the time we were taken away from the farm until I had collapsed at his feet. Everything, except how Hannah had betrayed me. At the end of it he scrubbed his face with his cap and looked at me in horror. He had turned pale when I told him of Hannah’s death and of how I had been tortured.
‘Jesu! That they can do such things, to folk who have done no wrong. Is there no justice?’
‘Very little, it would seem. Though I think the witchfinder Hopkins will not be able to persecute many more. He is dying of consumption.’
‘May the devil take his own!’ His anger shone in his eyes.
‘Aye, indeed.’ I considered for a moment. ‘Yet somehow I feel he believed he was doing right, doing God’s will. The other man, Stearne, I’m not so sure. I think he tortures and hangs women for pleasure.’
‘A strange kind of pleasure that must be.’
‘Something is twisted in his mind.’
We sat silent for a time. Then I said, ‘But you must tell me all that has been happening here. I do not even know what date it is.’
‘It is the seventeenth of September.’
‘So late! I must have been a long time ill.’
‘Aye. And we do not know how long you were on your journey home from Lincoln.’
‘I do not know myself. Is the harvest in, then?’
‘What there is of it. The barley. And the beans and peas are pulled, and the haulms ploughed in. Kitty is salting beans now, for winter.’
‘Has there been more trouble with the drainers?’
He looked uncomfortable at this. ‘More skirmishes, aye. Our lads pulled down another of those pumping mills, and broke up part of the settlers’ church.’
That was some satisfaction. I was beginning to feel tired and wondered why Nehemiah had come to see me in my chamber, something I would not have expected him to do, unless he was anxious to hear what had happened in Lincoln from my own lips.
‘What has happened about my father’s fine?’
He did not answer at first, but sat staring at the floor, crushing his cap between his big hands. The knuckles, I noticed, were swollen, and the skin cracked and sore-looking.
‘Tom rode to Lincoln to pay the fine,’ he said at last, ‘three days after you were taken. A week before it was due.’
I sat up straighter. ‘What? But his leg, the deep wound in his leg?’
‘Aye.’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘He would go, we could not stop him.’
‘And is Father freed?’
Still he would not look at me. My heart began to beat more quickly and suddenly I shivered. I knew something was terribly wrong.
‘Master Tom went to the court, or the magistrates’ office, or wherever he had to go, and he paid them all the money that had been saved toward the fine.’
I nodded.
‘When he had handed over the money, they said that the debt would be recorded as paid and the stock returned. He was pleased, because that meant Master Isaac could come home.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Then they told him your father had died a week before, of the gaol fever.’
I let out a cry, and pressed my fist to my mouth. While I was lying there in Lincoln Castle, my father was already dead. And Tom had come, had been nearby.
‘They could not say where your father was buried, only in some unmarked pauper’s grave. And they would not let him see you.’
My father gone. I would never see him again. His temper and bluster were often near the surface, but they concealed the deep underlying kindness of his nature. I thought how I had sat on his lap as a child while he told me stories of his youth and of my heroic grandfather. It was he who had insisted that I learn to read and write, for he said there was a new world coming, when women would need these skills. Tears filled my eyes, and I felt about for my handkerchief.
‘Thank you for telling me, Nehemiah. It cannot have been easy. But I am surprised Tom did not come to tell me himself.’
A desperate look had come into his eyes. ‘He cannot manage the stairs.’
‘His leg is still bad, then?’
‘He reopened the wound, riding to Lincoln and back. He came home like a madman. Then he led the attack on the mill, as if he was possessed.’
He drew a deep breath and his words came out in a rush. ‘The wound festered. Gangrene.’
‘Tom is not dead as well!’
‘No, no. But we had to fetch the barber-surgeon from Peterborough. He cut off Tom’s leg. He burnt the stump. Cauterising, he called it. And painted it with tar. It has healed now. But Tom cannot manage the stairs.’ The last words came out limply, as if they were all that mattered.
I fell back and began to sob uncontrollably. My strong brother, always the leader, the fastest runner, a fine horseman. His leg cut off. And my father dead.
Nehemiah must have left, but I did not hear him go.
In the end I fell asleep from exhaustion and sorrow, for when next I woke early daylight flowed through the window. I realised now, what I had not seen the previous day, that there was that slight change in the light that comes as the year turns from summer to autumn. Even the young birds were quiet in their nest as I lay gazing again at the ceiling, but without the empty calmness of the day before.
When Nehemiah had brought me his heavy news, I could take nothing in but wretchedness, but now I realised that our lives must change. How did Tom manage? With a crutch? I had never known a man with one leg. Could he walk at all? One thing was certain, he could never again work the farm. A man with one leg might perhaps milk a cow. He could weave baskets and eel traps, and perhaps – with help – even fish. But he could not plough or sow or hoe or reap, he could not thresh corn, he could not drive cattle or pitch hay or ride a horse. With Father gone and Tom unable to work, how would we survive?
Soon afterwards, Kitty brought me breakfast and I asked after Tom. I could see that she was relieved Nehemiah had broken the news to me.
‘He has two crutches that Nehemiah made for him. At first his armpits became very sore, but I made some cushions for the tops, padded with tufts of fleece, and now he says he is much more comfortable.’ She flushed with pride.
‘He can walk with them?’
‘Not to say walk, Mistress Mercy, but he hops about. He gets better at it every day.’
‘He is sleeping downstairs in your room off the kitchen?’
‘Aye. That’s best. I – I’m still in Hannah’s room.’ The words caught in her throat, but she went bravely on. ‘I’m a strong worker, Mistress Mercy. Nehe
miah and me, we’ve kept things going, but I’m fair glad you are back again.’
‘You have been truly wonderful, Kitty. Both of you. Nehemiah said you were salting the beans.’
‘Aye. I must get back to it now. And I’ve pickled more eggs.’
‘I will get up today and come to help you.’
Her brow creased in a frown. ‘Are you sure you should, mistress? You must still be very weak.’
‘I am sure I can sit at the table stringing beans.’
In truth, when I tried to get up and dress myself, I found I was indeed very weak, but at last I made my way on slightly shaky legs down to the kitchen.
Kitty was sorting beans on the table and Tom was sitting in Father’s great chair, with his crutches propped against it. I could hear Nehemiah shovelling litter from the barn. There was no sign of my mother. Tom gave me a rueful smile.
‘They have told you, then?’
I went over and kissed him on the forehead. ‘They have told me. Oh, Tom!’ I could not keep the tears from my eyes.
He reached out an took my hand. ‘And what you have endured. We thought we had lost you.’
‘As we have lost Father.’
He nodded. ‘They waited until I had handed over every penny we had saved, and then they told me. In law, I do not know whether they had the right to the fine after Father was dead. Dead in their prison, of gaol fever contracted there.’
I shook my head. ‘I do not know what are the rights of it. But I want no dealings with courts and magistrates for the rest of my life.’
I sat down on a bench, for I found I was more tired than I expected. ‘And you? How do you manage?’
He smiled at me cheerfully. ‘Oh, I get by well enough. I shall win no races, but I make my way about the place. See.’
He struggled to his feet, holding on to the back of the chair, then took up the clutches one at a time. Swinging himself forward on them and his one good leg, he crossed the kitchen and came back. The left leg of his breeches was caught up short with pins.
‘You see, I am fine and hearty.’
He eased himself down into the chair again and I noticed beads of sweat on his brow.
‘Good,’ I said, doing my best to smile. ‘Now, Kitty, give me some of those beans.’
As I began to string and slice the beans, then pack them down tight into a crockery jar between layers of salt, I said, ‘Where is Mother?’
Tom and Kitty exchanged a look.
‘She rises late,’ Tom said. ‘She’ll do a little spinning later. She . . . she has been troubled in her mind since you were taken, and then when I brought back word of Father’s death. She has become very forgetful.’
And she will be troubled by your loss of a leg, I thought, but did not speak my thoughts aloud.
‘Our stock has been returned,’ said Tom, ‘all except one calf, which they say died, though I think they lied. It was our best calf.’
‘All our stock?’
‘Aye. And our cart. Our friends have returned the beasts they cared for amongst their own. Alice brought back your hens last week. We have everything except the yoke of oxen. Rafe tried to return them, but I said him nay, not until we could pay back the money he gave us.’
‘Of course.’ I nodded. ‘But the work on the farm . . . ?’ It was good news that the stock was returned, but that would mean more to be undertaken by any who were able-bodied.
‘Kitty and Nehemiah have worked from dawn to dusk. And I can milk, if someone stalls the cows for me. Joseph Waters has been doing day-labour for us too, in return for meals. He seems happy with the arrangement.’
‘Now I am home I can take on my share.’ I rammed down the layer of beans to make my point.
‘Only when you are well enough. You are as thin as a stray cat.’
‘Thank you for that.’
He laughed. ‘Oh, Jesu, it is good to have you home. I do not know how you survived. I am not sure I would have.’
‘I am not sure how I did. Certainly I would not have survived the swimming without the help of the gaoler, Abel Forrester. When I can walk that far, I must go to see his cousin Will.’
Kitty and I worked at salting the beans until dinner time and finished them. Mother came down then and looked at me in surprise, as thought she did not know me, but she said hardly a word, sitting down after the meal at her spinning wheel. Kitty set all up for her and she sat spinning all afternoon. In the evening I went out to collect the eggs and shut the hens away. Even walking the short distance across the yard proved to me that it would be some time before I could walk to the village and see Alice.
As I came in and set the basket of eggs on the shelf, a thought occurred to me.
‘Is Reverend Edgemont still acting as our preacher? I am not sure I can walk as far as the church, and he may come in pursuit of me again.’
‘No, they have appointed a fat little fellow from Peterborough,’ Tom said. ‘Not a ranter like Edgemont, but a time-server, who will bend with the wind. He knows you were found innocent and that you have been ill. He will not trouble us.’
‘Good. I suppose you cannot go so far yourself.’
‘Not yet. But I am getting stronger every day. The sawbones told me that if I went to Lynn or London, I could have a wooden stump made, like the ones they make for injured soldiers and sailors. I shall do that one day.’
‘Will that make things better for you?’
‘I could manage with one crutch then. Aye, it would be better.’
He leaned back in his chair and I could see that for all his brave talk he was tired and in pain.
‘There is another piece of news that will interest you,’ he said.
I looked up from the rabbit I was cutting up for the evening’s pottage. Nehemiah had brought it in while we were slicing beans.
‘What is that?’
‘Edmund Dillingworth has disappeared from home. Some of the manor servants mentioned it in the village. He has not been seen since the beginning of September. No one knows where he has gone. Into exile with other Royalists? Or perhaps there is some new gathering of King’s men.’
‘We are well rid of him.’ I chopped the meat savagely.
‘There is also,’ he said quietly, ‘no news of what has become of Gideon Clarke.’
I was too tired, too numb – even too frightened – to question him further. That vision I had seen as I dragged myself home from Lincoln, Gideon walking away from me until he vanished, felt like an omen. Gideon was gone for ever and I felt as though I had lost a limb as surely as Tom had.
The next few weeks went by quietly enough, taken up with the usual tasks of autumn, preserving as much food as we could for winter. Nehemiah salted down eels and smoked both eels and fish. He had always done this in his own smallholding, and sold some of his produce at Lincoln market. Now none of us wished to go near the city. He said he would store his produce for our household and exchange some of it in the village for other goods. He found an old hollow stump somewhere out on the Fen and wheeled it back in a barrow, then he fitted crossbars inside to hold the fish, strung together in pairs, and made a roof of tightly woven green willow branches, which would let the smoke gradually out at the top. I watched him make a fire of wood chippings in the bottom of the stump, then, when it was low and smoking to his satisfaction, he hung the fish in the smoke and fitted on the top.
‘I remember watching you do this when I was a child,’ I said.
‘Aye, you were always a curious little thing, wanting to know how everything was done.’
‘How is the fishing now? Since the drainers moved over towards Crowthorne?’
He shrugged. ‘Poor. The wild creatures do not like their homes disturbed, whether they are flesh, fish or fowl.’
When I was strong enough, I walked to the village, taking with me two hearty cakes stuffed with some of our precious dried fruit. One I gave to Will Keane the blacksmith and his wife, sitting down with them to recount the story of the way Abel had helped me.
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p; Will shook his head sadly. ‘I am glad you are safe, Mercy. Abel is running a great risk, although he says he will only try to help those he believes are innocent.’
‘I think he does it for the sake of the girl he was to marry.’
‘Aye,’ said Will’s wife. ‘He loved Cecily dearly and courted her a long time before her father would consent. Then this frenzy of witch-hunting began. She was no more a witch than you or I, but some of their neighbours disliked her mother, who had a sharp tongue on her, and they accused mother and daughter both of witchcraft. They confessed under torture.’
‘There was a packman came through a few days ago,’ Will said. ‘His pony had cast a shoe and I saw to it. He said the witchfinder Hopkins had gone back to where he came from. Somewhere in Essex. And died there.’
‘Not soon enough,’ said his wife.
I was relieved to hear it, but not surprised, and wondered whether Stearne would carry on without the more senior man.
The other cake I took to Alice, to thank her for caring for my hens and sending the eggs every day. Without them there had been days when we might have starved. She insisted we sit out in the orchard with a slice of my cake and a drink she had made some months ago from elderflowers and mint. It was the very bench where we had sat before Huw was born. He lay now on the grass at our feet, trying to roll over.
‘Soon he’ll be crawling,’ I said.
‘Not yet a while!’ She laughed. ‘Aye, and then he will be into everything, like his father.’ She beamed at me, and touched my arm. ‘I cannot say how glad I am you are safe, Mercy. I thought I should die when they took you away. So many they have killed, those witchfinders, most of them innocent, I’ll be bound. Perhaps all of them. And then that terrible journey you had, coming home, ill and starving. You are still so thin.’
‘I grow fatter every day,’ I said, more cheerfully than I felt. ‘But, oh, Alice, I do not know how we will fare, with Father gone and Tom . . .’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Rafe and I have been discussing this. It will be apple harvest soon, and we will come to help you. Then at Martinmas Rafe and Jack are going to come for your autumn slaughtering. You and Nehemiah cannot do it on your own.’