Shadow of the Savernake: Book One of the Taxane Chronicles

by Jayne Hackett

  Nat took his seat opposite, watching Florence feel beneath the table with her hands and throwing her a quizzical look. She stopped, sighing as she found nothing, and began to eat. He’d never seen anyone who was so focused when they ate. Not messy or gluttonous but simply intent on the job of spooning the hearty food into her mouth. She looked up and smiled at him and shrugged as she continued. They needed to share what they’d found out but there was no privacy. After the bread and butter pudding, the conversations became more relaxed and after her last spoonful, she started to whisper, ‘Nat, it’s incredible! There’s so much that’s the same. The kitchen . . . ’

  ‘Quietly. Stop looking so… animated,’ he warned. ‘Did you learn anything useful?’ Her face fell and Nat wondered if she’d almost forgotten why they were here.

  ‘No. Laundry,’ she sulked. Nat was wise enough not to ask. He remembered the hope that had infected him when he thought that he’d found Marlborough. Hope was a bastard, he thought.

  The lads stepped outside to drink a tankard of the stronger ale — their due it seemed after their labours – and Nat was swept outside with them, laughing and joking and wondering how the hell he was going to find Florence alone and plan their investigation of this place. He’d have to intercept her — perhaps on a visit to the privy! Smooth, he chastised himself.

  There was no doubt that it was comfortable to have food and shelter, to know that there was somewhere warm to sleep tonight and every night, but Nat didn’t want it to become so comfortable that they couldn’t move on. He couldn’t allow Florence to believe that just because she knew this place, it really was her home. The stable was cosy enough and the deep straw was an excellent insulator but not sufficient to stop the barrage of teenage bragging and commentary on the attributes of the girls which battered his ears until the lads fell asleep — and there was no gently snoring Florence to fall asleep with. Fortunately, the lads had left him alone after their first barrage of questions and his limited answers. He was so old they decided!

  Fate and the ever present Holless seemed to conspire to keep them apart. Nat didn’t want to give the man grounds for suspicion about his relationship with Florence. If he followed her into the yard, Holless emerged from the house; if he waited for her, it seemed that Cook had yet another task for her. He tried to look disinterested but he’d become accustomed to spending his nights next to her and sharing his thoughts and dreaming about wrapping her in his arms and he felt her absence keenly.

  Sunday gave him his only chance. Naturally, they were to attend the Hall’s small church in the grounds for morning and evening service, a well-maintained building fortunate in the patronage from the Master of Montebray. The churchyard was bounded in a stone wall and between the gravestones, yew trees grew randomly. For the occasion, Nat had been given a set of very stiff breeches — just for the Lord’s day, he was reminded, as he attempted adjustments which might make him more comfortable, and he wore a heavy shirt and leather jerkin which were clean and well patched but which were definitely the property of the house and not his, Holless stipulated. They were to be kept for his ‘Sunday best’ while he was at Montebray. Holless’ contemptuous sneer made it clear that he hoped that it would not be so long.

  Florence, he saw, wore a clean dress with a huge white collar — equally stiff with starch - and a respectable cap which hid the neck length hair. Catching his eye, she smiled and made a face which said ‘not bad’ and he laughed and returned the gesture. Holless watched them before taking his place at the head of the line with Nat and Florence bringing up the rear. It gave them a little space, ‘Well, you’ve scrubbed up well!’ he greeted her as he stepped into place.

  ‘I shall take that as a compliment and return the thought, Nat Haslet.’

  ‘I just meant . . . ’ he stammered. ‘You know what I mean. You look . . . good.’ He really had a knack for this, didn’t he?

  ‘Joking. And, thank you,’ she seemed pleased.

  ‘What’s it like then, this chapel?’

  She wondered if he was testing her. ‘No idea. It was a picturesque ruin in my time. Good spot to smoke and drink when we were teenagers,’ she confided.

  He laughed. ‘A tearaway!’

  She felt her heart ache, ‘Actually, the most rebellious thing I’ve ever done is to have the tattoo,’ she forced herself to smile. ‘And that was only because I was blind drunk. Little Miss Sensible, me. Until, of course, I walked into an oak tree and was transported 350 years back in time.’ The laughter wouldn’t come.

  ‘I had a tattoo done once,’ Nat revealed, trying to help. He felt the memory of it itch on his right breast.

  ‘Really! I’ve never seen it,’ she blushed, thinking of the places it might be hidden.

  ‘It didn’t take. Had it done in Hong Kong and it went septic. Spent two weeks in the naval hospital in Gibraltar. Ask me sometime and I’ll show you the scar.’ He enjoyed watching her face become warm.

  Nat fell silent for the rest of the way, lost in thoughts of that tattoo - his wife’s name. He’d had it done just before the wedding and they’d laughed over it during the honeymoon but she’d seemed preoccupied and he couldn’t understand it. He even began to wonder if she thought that she’d made a mistake. But he could tell it wasn’t that. They’d made love tenderly and often but on that final night, she’d cried. And then she told him. She explained tearfully how she’d discovered she was pregnant; how she felt that she was too young, that they needed time to adjust to marriage. And then she wasn’t pregnant. She’d made a choice that didn’t involve him at all.

  It had cost a great deal of his salary and considerable pain to remove the memory. The divorce was harrowing. He was blind with fury and she pleaded with him to change his mind. She said that they didn’t need to be parents yet, that they had their lives in front of them, that there would be other children and that after all, it was her body. She said that it had been the right decision. He remembered her exact words.

  Then, he’d been too immature to understand, too shocked, too wounded. He’d thought that it was unforgivable. That’s why he had been going home for Christmas. His parents had insisted. It had always seemed odd to him how they had kept in contact with her, begging him to see it from her point of view. It took the shock of time travel for him to understand her sense of helplessness. He’d had plenty of time in those first few months to think it over. Now it was too late to tell her that he was sorry. That ship had sailed.

  Florence walked by Nat’s side and thought about the strangeness of her morning. There had been a very uncomfortable episode when Prudence had brought in a starched cap for church and offered to fit it for her. ‘Holless insists that we are clean and proper for Sundays – dried up old puritan that he is — so this is for you,’ she made sure that Florence understood. It hadn’t been difficult to satisfy the girls that she had been ill and her hair cut off to aid recovery; it was a well-known cure but it still caused giggles amongst them at the impropriety of it. Pru often stepped in to chide the younger girls for their spite, being a mature fifteen. The stiffness of the cap and the irrepressible bounce in Florence’s bob, made it tricky to keep in place without it springing off so Pru stepped forward to help, before Florence could stop her.

  ‘Here. There’s a way to twist the ties around your hair…’ and she’d pulled a lock of Florence’s hair from behind her ear, halting as she saw the small acorn tattooed there. She jumped back, ‘You are marked Florence!’

  Florence thought fast, ‘Oh, that! It’s a family tradition,’ she laughed, pulling the hair back down. My family are forest folk and beyond all memory, infants have been marked so with the acorn for luck,’ she laughed again. ‘Our minister blesses the mark so that none might take it amiss as a pagan sign.’ She saw well what was running through Pru’s thoughts: was this a witch’s mark? ‘It would not normally be visible but since my chill . . . ’ She watched the girl’s face carefully, saw that she was making a decision.

  ‘Aye. The cropped hair does show it
,’ Pru pondered. She looked Florence in the eye. ‘‘Tis not a tradition that I have heard of before but since you say it . . . I think perhaps you were best to cover it. Those girls can be very superstitious in what they think.’

  Florence agreed. She had cursed the damned thing ever since she’d arrived here and Pru obviously thought it an ill-omened blot.

  The young workers had paired together on this walk, enjoying a day of leisure and the privacy of being together in plain sight. She noticed that the line spread out, with pairs walking a very respectable distance from another. She smiled appreciatively at Nat, pleased to be alongside him. It occurred to Nat that Florence might actually have missed him too as they strolled together, hands almost touching.

  ‘Well, brother. You are looking . . . healthy!’ And he was, she thought. His tanned face and arms were clean, and beneath the loose shirt there was a hint of well-defined muscles which made her wonder if he was tanned to the waist and where the scar of his tattoo might be.

  ‘Aye, sister, I am that. Honest labour and pure thoughts will do that for a man,’ he teased.

  The overheard greetings done with, they were able to create a little space between themselves and the crocodile of servants by dawdling.

  ‘Don’t look now . . . but can you see it — the tattoo?’ she hissed at him. ‘No! Not so obvious, Nat. Just glance and tell me — casually.’

  ‘No. Hair covers it. Why?’ He thought that she had a lovely neck.

  ‘Pru thought it was a witch’s mark this morning. Wish I’d never had it done,’ she sighed remembering a drunken night at Kew when several of them had visited a late-night tattoo parlour. Who could have known the bizarre consequences? At least she’d not had the evil eye done as one of her friends had. Feeling reassured, she appraised him and he preened a little at the way in which she cast her eye over him and smiled. ‘Really, you look . . . good Nat.’

  ‘Yeah. Lots of hard work but these lads are good humoured and don’t slack. Bit like having a group of bootnecks really. You?’

  Her tight grin was practised. ‘I am an excellent scullery maid, it seems. Cook has even started to share a few recipes with me, she’s very kind, a really good cook and she doesn’t mind if we graze.’ This was a huge bonus as far as Florence was concerned but then a small angry cloud, ‘There’s still the laundry, of course . . . but she looks out for me. Yeah, I’m OK.’ There was a certain thrill in being able to use ‘OK’.

  ‘I’ve . . . missed you,’ he whispered.

  ‘Me too.’ It was genuine. ‘So, you understand — about the brother and sister thing?’ she felt awkward.

  His reply was too affirmative, ‘Of course. The other thing could have made it . . . difficult — for sleeping arrangements. Yeah. No problem.’

  Florence was relieved and disappointed.

  He filled the space, ‘So I’ve been asking a few questions. Seems that Master Moorcroft is away a lot. He goes to London on a regular basis but they don’t know why. He’s not married and doesn’t have much to do with other gentry in the area. Bit of a loner by all accounts.’ Florence absorbed it. ‘It’s Holless that runs the place. He rarely leaves it. Doesn’t even like going out into the fields — which the lads appreciate. He leaves them to it and they don’t cross him. Wanted to ask you – do you remember Moorcroft’s name from the family tree?’

  ‘No. I don’t. My family lived here from the 1690s and it was passed on through the female line. I can’t recall anyone called Moorcroft from before that which is strange.’

  ‘Are you sure . . . Perhaps . . . ?’

  ‘Nat. Stop testing me on it. It absolutely is Locksley Hall. I was beginning to recognise the landscape as we came towards it even without the landmarks I knew. I know the kitchen, the courtyard, the chimneys. I’m home — just a few hundred years adrift,’ she heaved a heavy sigh and continued. ‘And I know for sure that Denzil Moorcroft was never on the family tree. There was a man who descended from a woman exiled in Holland after the Reformation. He was my direct ancestor.’

  ‘So, if this is Locksley . . . And I believe you, Florrie,’ he added as she threw him a look, ‘then Moorcroft shouldn’t be here — just like us. Is it why we’ve been pulled here?’ Neither had an answer. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Cook’s a closed book. She’s not interested in gossip in the kitchen – I’ve tried. Pru’s nice — bit nervous. Won’t say anything about Moorcroft. They all came here after Moorcroft arrived. Seems that they were recruited by Holless from local families who needed to find work for their children. As far as they know, this is how it’s always been.’

  ‘We have to get a look at the rest of the house.’

  ‘Agreed. If there’s something here, then Moorcroft is the one who’ll know, but I’m not allowed beyond the kitchen.’

  ‘Have you seen him yet?’ Nat thought that she had far better access to the inner secrets of the house than he.

  ‘No. He’s away. London, they say. I need to find a way to put myself in his path as soon as I can. He’s not about to give time to a scullery maid. Have you thought about asking Holless a few leading questions?’

  Nat huffed, ‘Not a chance. Bugger hates me. Doesn’t he remind you of the Preacher in one of those Poltergeist films?’

  Florence looked blankly at him. They were still divided by their own times. ‘All I know, is that he’s a creep but keeps to himself.’

  ‘OK. Let’s see what Moorcroft’s like and maybe he’ll be more promising. It’ll be a dangerous game to draw his attention but truthfully, you’re more likely to be able to do it than me,’ he gave her a crooked smile. He didn’t like her taking these risks. ‘Just don’t let him . . . misinterpret your interest.’ He was worried that she could be putting herself in harm’s way. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking. Maybe that man was simply trying to get to Montebray – perhaps he’d just been here. I’ll ask a few questions about visitors. Perhaps you could start to gather a few supplies from the kitchen so that we have food for the next leg. If we don’t find anything here, there’s no point in staying. It’s a good time to travel. We won’t need much because I don’t think that Oxford is far, but I’d go for things that will keep like . . . ’

  She stopped in her tracks. ‘No. The next leg! Nat, I’m not going anywhere. That man said the name of this place in his dying breath. It’s the only other clue that we’ve found. The penknife. The watchers. There has to be a connection. And it is my home! Something’s drawing us here — you said so yourself. At least we have to stay until we’ve seen this Moorcroft. Doesn’t it seem strange to you that I’ve never heard of him?’

  Nat could see why she’d want to stay but it really wasn’t her home — not yet. ‘OK. We stay — for a while. Let’s just be ready to leave quickly if we have to.’ As much as Florence was feeling the draw of the place, he was sensing something far more disturbing. The truth was that he’d been worried by her account of Pru seeing the tattoo, remembering the reaction to his AC/DC tee-shirt. He’d been able to rip that to pieces so that it couldn’t condemn him, but Florence’s mark . . . These people were wracked with superstition and fear.

  The shock of finding herself somewhere that she knew, ignited Florence’s dreams again. On the road, she’d begun to accept the here and now, was giving up her dreams of finding her true life again. And now . . . even if she stayed in this time, perhaps, one day, she’d be able to use her true skills again. She had fantasies about reading and writing, she longed to hold a book in her hands — even a paper copy. They were valuable here for a reason. Florence knew that she had to find a way to give value to her existence. She didn’t know whether Locksley – Montebray – would provide any answers. They might spend the rest of their lives trying to find someone who knew about the trees — they might never meet a soul who could help. If this was home, she wasn’t going to live her life as a drudge. She was better than that. There was potential here and she didn’t want to gamble that away.

  Florence missed Nat’s company, his warmth beside h
er. She missed his knack of making her laugh — even when she didn’t want to - and she missed sharing memories with him. Nat had made things better but she had never felt so vulnerable and powerless in the whole of her life and being dependent on him was part of that feeling. She was learning what courage was and whether she had any. She’d never had to be brave before because there was no danger. No. She had choices to make that held real risk. Besides, she wasn’t ready to leave Cook’s bread and butter pudding.

  Lying in the straw that night, Nat thought that he understood what was at the heart of Florence’s reluctance. Their lives before had been easy and they’d lived them to the full. Their decisions had revolved around education — which university, friends, holidays, careers. He’d had cause to re-think some of his certainties in the theatre of conflict but Florence hadn’t. Her life didn’t involve prejudice or discrimination — until here where it was the norm. As much as he wanted to protect her, she could never be the independent woman she’d been.

  And then she was brought back to that place of comfort – Locksley - Montebray - and she felt secure again. He saw how she clung to it, sensing that she might put this nightmare behind her and find her own life. Nat remembered his old life; he remembered his time here before Florence and he knew that he would love her in any century. For now, in the sunshine, they walked on, side by side, towards the church of Montebray Hall.