Was it the thought of a woman on the throne that the hideous creature could not stomach?
But the trials of our journey soon distracted me, for in such terrible weather the roads were not easy, and even our covered wagon was damp and uncomfortable. The horses struggled the last few miles to Hatfield, sometimes halting exhausted on the road, sometimes lurching with their carts into marshland and standing there, trembling and knee-high in muddy water, waiting to be rescued. Several times Alejandro jumped down from the saddle to help the driver guide her ladyship’s wagon back onto the road, the two horses pulling her covered litter being nervous of heavy rain and shying at every unfamiliar object along the road. Yet the only time I heard the princess complain about these constant stops and starts was when a crack of lightning split the grey sky and the horses reared frantically, whinnying and almost throwing the old wagon onto its side.
At last we arrived and found the place in darkness, not a single candle in the windows. It was nearly dusk, the rain still pouring down relentlessly, a strong wind flapping the litter curtains. The Lady Elizabeth waited impatiently in her covered wagon while Blanche and I ran through the rain and mud ruts to hammer at the great studded door.
An ancient old man peered out at us suspiciously, holding up a lantern that swung and shook in his hand. ‘Who is it?’
‘Do you not recognize me, John? It’s Mistress Parry.’ Blanche leaned into the doorway so he could see her face by the light of his lantern. ‘Bless us, we are hardly strangers, will you not let us in? I’m getting soaked to the skin standing here. The Lady Elizabeth has come back home at last and needs a clean dry bed, a good fire and a hot posset.’
‘The Lady Elizabeth? Well, why did you not say so at once?’ John, the elderly retainer, opened the door wide enough to let us stagger in one by one, Alejandro trying to shield the princess with his cloak from the worst of the weather. He bowed low to the Lady Elizabeth, but looked flustered when Blanche asked again about her ladyship’s bedchamber. ‘Alas, we are not ready to receive you, my lady. I had no word of your arrival. There are no sheets on her ladyship’s bed and the fire’s not been lit in her chamber these three months.’
At our arrival, a thin-ribbed, mangy-looking hound had uncoiled itself from the great hearth and now came loping towards us, barking as though under the impression that we were intruders.
Elizabeth gave a cry and bent to embrace the grey-haired old hound, who stopped barking at the sight of her and began to wag its tail enthusiastically.
‘Rufus, my dear old friend!’ She grinned up at Alice, who had shrieked at the sight of the barking hound. ‘Don’t be afraid, Rufus doesn’t bite. Well, not since he was a puppy. I helped to rear him myself when his mother died. Dear sweet Rufus, I can hardly believe you are still alive. But what a loving welcome! We shall take him out across the meadow once the weather is better, see if we can find him some rabbits to chase. Rufus always loved a good walk.’
Blanche turned to the old man with an impatient expression, stripping off her wet cloak and gloves. ‘Where’s your wife Margaret?’ she demanded loudly, as though the man was hard of hearing.
‘Dead,’ John replied sourly. ‘They said it was the plague. We lost five in the village last spring.’
‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ Elizabeth told him gently, and even managed a smile as Blanche helped her struggle out of her sodden cloak. Meg thought Elizabeth had never looked less like a princess. Her cap was lopsided and her damp hair hung bedraggled down her back. But the Lady Elizabeth seemed at home here, her eyes warmer and her smile more natural, as though the cold persona she adopted at court was already falling away. ‘I liked Margaret. But what of your daughters?’
‘Our Bessie married a sailor, but he was drowned away in the Indies, so she’s a widow now and looks after me. She’s in the pantry with young Lucy, a-hanging a hare for next week’s pie. But I’ll send Lucy up with kindling and logs for the fire, and some clean sheets for your ladyship’s bed.’ The old man shook his head as he limped away down a narrow passageway, presumably heading for the kitchen. ‘There’s no hot food to be had tonight, mind. We’ve a pig in the sty but it would take too long to kill and skin it. Nor is there a drop of wine in the house.’
‘Then I will drink ale tonight, if you have any, and take bread instead of meat until that hare has hung long enough.’ The Lady Elizabeth seemed cheerful considering the sorry plight in which we had arrived at Hatfield. She gazed around at the hall, a wistful look on her face. ‘How I have missed this place, and often feared never to see it again. Yet here I am, back in Hatfield with my head still on my shoulders, and here I plan to stay until . . .’ She hesitated, glancing warily at Blanche Parry. ‘Until it is time for me to leave again.’
Until my sister is dead and I am Queen, I finished for her in my head, and guessed from the awkward silence that everyone else was thinking the same thing.
Blanche snapped her fingers at me. ‘Well, look sharp, girl! We must ready her ladyship for bed before the poor mite catches her death of cold, standing about in these wet clothes!’ Impatiently, she gestured me to lift the Lady Elizabeth’s sodden train, then turned to Alice who had been trying uselessly to wipe the worst of the mud from her thin court shoes. ‘Alice, help the maid carry up the logs, and mind they’re dry enough to burn. Her ladyship’s bedchamber will smell as foul as a badger’s rear end in this damp weather, I have no doubt, so let’s not make it smoky too. Then you can fetch her ladyship a hot posset against the cold. And be sure to sweeten it with honey, or she’ll have none of it.’
‘Yes, Mistress Parry,’ Alice replied meekly, and scurried away to find the kitchen.
The rest of the house felt chilly, away from the hall with its huge stone hearth and high-backed wooden settles on either side of the fire. It did not improve my impression when I found the stairs to be dark and winding, nothing like the grand, torch-lit staircases at Hampton Court. Struggling to negotiate each step without tripping over my own cumbersome skirts, I dropped the princess’s train and earned a reprimand from the eagle-eyed Blanche.
At the top of the stairs, I began to feel distinctly uneasy. I was a born witch. I had never been afraid of the dark, not like other children, and had not shied away from wandering the deserted rooms of Woodstock Palace at night, though many had claimed the ruins were haunted. Yet somehow this thick, dusty darkness and the closed doors to empty bedchambers made my skin creep. Blanche had brought the lantern, but its flame was too poor to provide more than a puddle of light before her feet. I found myself peering down at the fine sodden material of Elizabeth’s train rather than looking from right to left, remembering with horror the vile black thing in the Great Hall at Hampton Court. It had seemed half-shadow, half-monster from another world, and it was hard not to imagine it clinging to these walls too, hiding in deep shadow as it awaited its next chance to cause havoc.
Nonsense, I told myself firmly. Whatever that hideous creature had been, it had wanted the Queen. Not anyone here.
Indeed, Hatfield House seemed an excellent place to hide from our enemies. It certainly felt as though the house had been left to fall into disrepair since the princess had spent her childhood there. The air was damp and chill, just as Blanche had predicted, and cobwebs brushed my cheek more than once. The floorboards were misshapen and seemed to creak in protest under every footstep; one or two along the narrow landing were even missing, showing a drop into darkness below.
‘Here we are,’ Blanche said, a little too heartily, hiding her fear from the princess as she pushed open the door. ‘Your old room, my lady. And just as you left it.’
She had been right too about the smell, I thought, and wrinkled my nose. I hurried to close the shutters across the window, shivering with cold. A tendril of ivy was slapping against the cracked glass, the rain still lashing down outside. It was hardly a welcoming night to have arrived. But once the shutters were closed, the bedchamber did seem a little cosier. Though not much, I considered. The panelled walls w
ere hung with old sun-faded tapestries to keep out the draughts, but the room itself was sparsely furnished with a covered bed, a rickety three-legged stool and a low table. It seemed strange to me that the Queen’s sister should prefer to lay her head in such a grim place when she could have stayed at court and lived in the kind of comfort that befitted a Tudor. But perhaps Hatfield House had some hidden virtues which would become plainer in daylight – and when it was not blowing a gale outside.
Blanche set the lantern on the table and began to remove the princess’s black foreskirt, then the beautiful Spanish bodice which had been a parting gift from King Philip, sent privately with a note which Elizabeth had read and then torn into pieces, her face stiff and cold. Nonetheless, I noticed that Elizabeth had worn the gorgeous bodice twice on the journey now, perhaps because it was warm and well-made, perfect for travelling.
I helped, carefully unlacing the silk-embroidered sleeves from each shoulder, and then the princess’s mud-soiled shoes, laying them aside to be scraped once dry. Alice struggled in with a basket of logs and a blushing young girl of about sixteen who seemed overawed by the Lady Elizabeth, despite the princess’s kind reassurance that she remembered Lucy well. The two girls knelt to set the fire together, arguing in fierce whispers over the best way to make the twists until Blanche knocked their heads together. William and Alejandro came to the door soon after, having carried up the princess’s clothes chests, and soon the Lady Elizabeth was sitting on the stool in a dry nightshift and woollen wrap, enjoying the heat of a fire while Blanche dried her hair with a clean rag. A plate of bread and cheese was produced by young Lucy, along with a pint pot of ale, and the princess consumed these in a daze, clearly exhausted by our long journey from court.
The bed was sagging and in serious disarray, so I set about thumping the feather mattress, straightening the bolsters, and shaking reluctant spiders out of the hangings. Clean sheets had been provided by Bess, only a little musty-smelling from storage, and with Alice’s help these were soon tied across the mattress. A hot brick wrapped in a fleece was positioned just below where her ladyship’s feet would go, and left to heat the bed for a space. Several old furs and lacy woollen coverlets were found to keep the Lady Elizabeth snug and warm, and just as well, for the princess sneezed several times as she climbed into bed.
‘Lord preserve us, I said you would catch your death in that wet gown and here you are sneezing!’ Blanche exclaimed, hurriedly tucking the heavy furs in around Elizabeth’s chest. ‘Did I not say so, my lady? This terrible rain will kill us all. There, there, take my handkerchief in case you should sneeze again, for I have not yet unpacked your own. Don’t fret, Lucy is bringing you a hot sweet posset and then you shall sleep for as long as you like.’
‘Thank you, Blanche,’ Elizabeth murmured sleepily, her eyes already closing.
Blanche handed me a lit candle and shooed us out of the door. ‘Hush, go now, and let her ladyship rest. Best find yourselves somewhere to sleep too, and don’t come knocking with her breakfast until at least nine o’clock, for my Lady Elizabeth never gets up early at Hatfield.’
Lucy showed me and Alice to the room we would be sharing, then left us alone to tidy ourselves while she hurried downstairs to prepare a ‘cold plate and ale’ for us too. Our chest of clothes had not yet been brought upstairs, so we contented ourselves with brushing the mud from our skirts and straightening our damp caps. The fire in our room was unlit and the room was chilly, but the old retainer arrived after a few minutes with a large bag of straw and two mattress covers, which we sat on the floor to stuff.
A deep growling thunder rolled overhead several times.
Alice looked up, quivering with nerves. ‘Dear Lord, the thunder is so loud! What if the next bolt of lightning should strike the house?’
‘Don’t be such a goose, the storm’s almost over,’ I told her, tying my mattress cover with a firm knot, then shaking it out so the straw was well-distributed. ‘Besides, why should it? We are all good Catholics here.’
Alice stared, then saw that I was joking and covered her giggle with a nervous hand. ‘Meg, you should not say such things,’ she whispered. ‘It’s . . . it’s almost blasphemous.’
‘I’m sure God has better things to do than strike me down for making a jest,’ I told her tartly, and went to the window to close the shutters.
Lightning flashed at that moment, a brilliant white sheet of light that illuminated the grounds as though it were noon. I stared, my hand frozen on the shutter.
There was a hooded man standing on a flat stretch of grass between trees, gazing up at the house from the shadow of his hood. It seemed to me in that terrifying instant that he was looking right at my window, right into my soul, that he knew my name and everything about me. That he had come here to find me, in fact.
Then it was pitch-blackness again outside the window, only black rain lashing the glass and wind howling in the chimneys.
‘Meg? What is it?’ Alice asked, coming alongside me. Her eyes were wide as she too peered into the darkness.
‘I thought I saw—’ I began breathlessly, then another lightning bolt lit up the grounds in a repeat of that brilliant flash, silencing me.
The grass between the trees now stood empty. The man had vanished into black rain and howling nothingness.
Were my fears still playing tricks on my mind? Ever since William had told me Marcus Dent was still alive, I had found it hard to sleep, imagining in the creaking darkness that Dent was standing at the end of my bed. But this fleeting vision was something new. It made no sense though. Not even a man as determined for revenge as Marcus could have found me so quickly, not when we had only just arrived at Hatfield House – and when so few people had known we would be coming at all. Only a witch skilled in the ancient art of divination could have managed such a feat, and that was hardly likely for a witchfinder.
‘Meg?’ Alice was impatient, tugging on my gown.
I shook my head, forcing a laugh. ‘It was nothing,’ I told her firmly, and closed the window shutter. ‘Let’s go down to the hall and find what there is to eat. If we don’t hurry, I fear my brother will soon have eaten it all.’
We met Lucy again below, running past us and up the stairs with a steaming hot posset for the Lady Elizabeth. ‘I’ll be back to serve you by and by,’ she gasped in passing, her face flushed with the exertion and excitement of suddenly having a princess to wait upon – not to mention her entourage of ravenous servants.
I imagined it must be odd for the poor child to have this quiet secluded house suddenly full of people again. And what strange people! By the light of our candle, we looked like two giants entering the hall, great spidery shadows that stretched to the roof.
Alice grinned, finding my brother on the settle by the fire, poring over a shallow dish of the princess’s sweetmeats. ‘You’ll be in trouble now! Those are my lady’s sweetmeats.’
‘Rain must have seeped into their wrappings during the journey and spoiled them; they are no longer good for the Lady Elizabeth to eat,’ he said defensively, and showed her the dish of sticky sweetmeats. ‘It seemed a waste to throw them out.’
‘Well, don’t eat too many,’ she told William, ‘for more than a handful can cause an imbalance of the humours. One of the Queen’s own doctors told me that. Well, one of his apprentices. He said it was not wholesome to eat too many sweetmeats.’
William looked sceptical. ‘What did this “apprentice” say we should be eating instead, then?’
‘Goose fat,’ she said promptly.
I laughed at this nonsense and sat down comfortably next to my brother. It felt as though the past wrongs between us had been laid to rest over the journey here from Hampton Court. The fire down here had been well built-up up least, and the heat warmed my damp bones. I stared into the flaming heart of the logs, piled haphazardly in the vast stone hearth, and tried to shake off my sense of unease.
The older daughter, the widow Bessie, came bustling into the hall with a great bowl of a
le. She placed this on the settle beside William and wiped her hands on her apron. ‘There’s enough there for everyone to share. That’s the last of the ale, but we’ll have more brought up from the village tomorrow, with poultry and spices for the pot. I’ve made a hot pottage now and some bread to go with it too, if you’ve a mind to eat. It’s only a poor meal, but should warm you.’
‘Sit and drink with us,’ William suggested as she turned to go.
Bessie looked horrified. ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that, sir. It wouldn’t be right. Besides, we had our ale at supper.’
‘Meg saw something outside,’ Alice said blithely, ignoring my warning stare, ‘from our chamber window.’
Now Bessie turned to stare at me. She was a big girl, and puffed when she walked, yet suddenly she was still. ‘What did you see, mistress?’
I hesitated, unwilling to share my fears in this company. Now my brother was frowning at me too. Even the shadows seemed to bend in from the darkest corners of the hall, listening to our conversation. I felt under scrutiny, like a tiny insect in the palm of a child’s hand.
Why did Alice have to meddle?
‘Just for a moment, I thought I might have seen . . . a man.’ I tried to dismiss the whole incident as unimportant. And indeed perhaps it was. ‘A man standing out there in the rain. That’s all. Then he disappeared.’
‘What was this man doing?’ William asked intently.
Lucy had come back and was listening too, her eyes fixed on my face. I saw no point in lying. I shrugged. ‘Looking up at the house.’
My brother’s voice was insistent. ‘Did you see who it was? Did you see his face?’
Witchfall Page 13