by Sole, Linda
Angeline gasped, fear dawning in her eyes as she saw his purpose.
‘Touch me and I shall curse you,’ she cried. ‘Touch me now and you shall never know peace again.’
Twelve
William de Burgh’s estate, near Winchester, England, 1413
Church bells rang out on the sweet spring air. It was one of those warm days of April that heralded the coming of summer. Beth paused, her basket heavy on her arm as she approached the village and saw people leaving their cottages, summoned by the dire sound. The loud tolling, which had now been taken up by the monks at their monastery a short distance away, sent a shiver through her. This sonorous toll was often no bearer of good news. From the expressions on the faces of the villagers she could see that they were anxious, looking at each other in fear and apprehension.
Marthe’s hut was hidden away in the woods, which lay beyond the village at the far edge of Sir William de Burgh’s lands. Everyone who lived here owed allegiance to the lord; they had their strips of land from him, paid for in rent or work in his fields, rendered up his taxes and obeyed his justice. On his own manor he was king and few ever dared or could afford to seek the justice of the higher courts.
Beth seldom saw anyone except when one of the villagers paid a furtive visit to ask for her mother’s cures or when she delivered them to folk too sick to walk so far. People paid for their potions with flour, worts from their gardens, a pot of honey or perhaps an old gown. Very few paid in coin, but Beth knew that there were other visitors to Marthe’s hut and those customers did pay in coin. She knew that her mother had a small store of silver pennies, but she seldom shared them with Beth. They were kept for the times when they could not forage or barter what they needed.
‘Folk think of me as a witch,’ Marthe had told her once when she asked why she never took her cures to the village herself. ‘We must always be careful, child. I give them what they ask for but when things go wrong they blame me. One day they will come for me and when they do you must hide.’
‘Why? What will they do to you, Mother?’
Marthe had not answered her question, turning away with a muttered curse. Beth expected nothing more. Her mother had always been strange, sometimes cuffing her about the ear for being too slow to obey her, and constantly grumbling. Yet when they had meat in the pot that she stirred over their fire, she would smile and give Beth the tender pieces in her wooden bowl.
‘You were a blessing,’ she would say when the mood was on her. ‘I had nothing until you came into my life.’
‘Was I always here with you?’ Beth had asked once after she’d dreamed again, the dream that had not now visited her for so many moons. It was a familiar dream and that particular time she had remembered it when she woke.
‘What do you mean?’ Marthe asked sharply, looking up from her grinding. They gathered many seeds, herbs and roots, which Marthe used in her cures. Beth liked to watch her work and to help when she could. ‘Of course you’ve always been here. You are my child.’
‘I thought there was somewhere else – a big house with stone walls and a meadow where we picked flowers.’
‘So you remember that – what more do you remember?’
‘There were other people. We were not always alone then but I cannot recall their faces. I do not know who they were.’
‘You were too young when we ran away. We were attacked by wicked men and we had to run and hide. Do you not remember the dog that threatened you? I saved you from the dog, as I saved you from those men. We walked for many leagues, never stopping anywhere for more than a few days, but we are safe here in England. Yet still we must take care. If those men found us they would kill us.’
‘Why do they want to kill us?’
It was another of the questions that made Marthe turn her head away. Beth knew so little of life outside the village and her home in the woods. She learned by asking questions whenever she could. Sometimes Marthe would answer. She had taught her to count on the fingers of her hands and to measure amounts so that she could help with the preparation of the cures. She had also taught her to write her name. The letters had been easy for Beth. She thought that she had known them before her mother taught her but that did not make sense if she had always been with Marthe, for Marthe found it hard to read and could write only a few words. It was Beth who had read the proclamations of defeat or victory in the long war with the people of Wales; the parchment was always nailed to the church door for all to see, though few could read the words. Most people relied on the priest or the monks to read the content to them.
Beth loved the days when she was allowed to take the cures to the village. She sometimes lingered as she caught sight of the forbidding stone towers of the lord’s castle, wondering what it was like inside. When she stood and gazed at the castle, fragments of that other life before they had been forced to flee came into her mind. She saw the face of an angel, a lady with red hair who dressed in beautiful clothes and smelled of flowers. She seemed to remember that the lady had kissed her as she sat on her lap. There was a half-remembered picture of a house. A house with such treasures: books with letters and pictures in them, painted walls, rich embroidery and other pretty things that she could not name. The memory was hazy, unreal, as if she had dreamed it.
Perhaps it was all a dream, not remembered but from her imagination – yet how would she know about books if she had never seen one? She knew the priests read from a book they called the Bible, for now and then she crept into the church when no one was near and looked at its magnificent treasures. The candlesticks of iron banded with silver that stood on the altar; the rich colours of the altar cloth with a cross, embroidered in silver thread, and the glowing pictures in the glass windows. Perhaps it was a church she remembered in her dreams and not a castle at all.
Beth had never dared to venture too near the lord’s castle but she’d seen Sir William riding past on his great destrier. He was a large heavily built man with a stern look and short dark hair. People bowed their heads as he passed but the women and children ran into their cottages rather than greet him.
‘Sir William is a black hearted devil,’ Mistress Soames told Beth when she took her a lotion for her chilblains. ‘Be careful of him, child. If he saw you he would take you for his sport.’
Beth had been too young to understand then. She did not know how old she was in years but she knew she had been a child then and she was a woman now for she had begun her courses three summers ago.
That spring she’d stood and watched the young people kissing and laughing as they danced around the maypole to celebrate the coming of summer. Beth had always longed to join in the games the village children played but they made rude faces at her and sometimes they threw stones, chanting at her.
‘Witch’s spawn. Go away, witch. We don’t want you here.’
This particular day one of the young men had seen her watching them. He hesitated and then walked towards her, his hot eyes making her feel strange, as if he stripped away her old gown and saw through to her skin.
‘You’re the witch of the wood’s daughter,’ he’d said and darted at her. He seized her about the waist, pulling her close so that she’d felt the heat of his body. His breath smelled of strong ale as he planted a kiss on her lips. ‘You smell delicious and you taste sweet. I should like to taste your honey, wench.’
‘We have no honey,’ Beth said, because she had not understood him.
He laughed and whispered in her ear of what he wished to do to her. She’d been shocked, too ignorant of the world to know what his words meant, but sensed that he was mocking her. His coarse words and gestures had frightened her and she ran all the way home to Marthe, but when she tried to ask what his words meant her mother grew angry.
‘Do not speak those filthy words to me. Shame on you for listening. You are too young. I’ve told you to be careful of men. Perhaps now you will listen. If you lie with him you will bear a child and we can barely feed ourselves let alone a babe.’
Beth wanted to know more but her mother refused to answer her questions. For a few days she puzzled over it, not understanding why Marthe was so cross, In the end she took Mistress Soames some tiny strawberries she had gathered in the woods and asked her to explain.
‘Your mother should be shamed. You are old enough to bear a child and to be wed. Sit here by me, Beth. I shall tell you of men and women and the pleasure to be had in loving. Your mother is right. You must be careful but ‘tis not all shame and grief.’
Beth thanked her for the knowledge, which explained what all the shrieking and laughter was about when the young people ran through the woods in spring and summer; they came to gather the May blossoms and to lie together in secluded spots beneath the trees. Men chose their women and girls dreamed of lovers, using the magic of the old religion to look at their reflection in water at midnight to see the face of their true love - and hoped the man they favoured would choose them; some were bold enough to do the choosing.
After that day when she’d taken the strawberries to Mistress Soames, Beth had fallen into the habit of visiting the old woman as often as she could, listening to her stories. Mistress Soames had not always lived in the village and had a wealth of tales, which were like fodder to the girl’s hungry mind. The older woman had travelled as far as London when she was young and worked for a great lord as a sewing woman.
‘You are not like your mother,’ she said to Beth one day that spring. ‘There is something finer about you – and you could be beautiful dressed in silk. I like you, Beth. You’ve been kind to a sick woman. When I die I want you to have my things. Open my chest and look inside, girl.’
Beth opened the coffer as she’d been told and removed some linen, which smelled of lavender, revealing something shiny lying below. She glanced at her friend and was told to take the beautiful gown out of its protective layers. It was a long tunic of fine blue material, but not shapeless as most peasant women wore, which they caught in with a linen girdle, but shaped so that the bodice would fit to the wearer’s body and trimmed with delicate embroidery. Beth imagined it the kind of dress a lady might wear. The sleeves were wide and part of the tunic rather than hanging from ties and the embroidery on the hem was the most delicate that Beth had ever seen.
‘It is so beautiful,’ she murmured, stroking it reverently with her fingertips. ‘Is it silk? I shall not spoil it. My hands are clean for I washed them before I came.’
‘Yes it is of silk and you are always clean, Beth,’ Mistress Soames said. ‘You smell of flowers – ‘tis a scent I knew once long ago.’
‘When you were young, before you came here?’
‘I worked for a lady and her lord. She smelled as you do, Beth. She gave me that gown when I left her employ to marry. We wandered all over Wales for I was a camp follower then. My husband fought for Owain Glyn Dwr and I went with him until he was killed. Owain was the true Prince of Wales and his legend will last forever, because he can never die, even though he is defeated. They say he has gone beyond the mountains to a better place where Merlin dwells and that one day he will return to his people.’
Beth held the gown to her nose and inhaled the faint perfume that clung to the silken folds. The scent was similar to the one she made for herself of wild flowers but there was a slight difference, some essence that was new to her – or perhaps an old one long forgotten.
‘You told me that your husband was killed in the year of Our Lord 1406. That is seven years ago. What did you do then?’ Beth asked. She replaced the gown in the coffer, covering it with the protective layers and dried herbs that kept it sweet. Then she brought a stool, placed it close to the old woman and lifted a leg carefully onto her lap. She scooped a little of the lotion she’d made early that morning into her hand and began to soothe it into Mistress Soames’s feet and shins, where the chilblains had turned her flesh purple. ‘I love to hear your stories of the King who stole the throne of England from the true King Richard and of his battles with the Welsh .’
‘I was born to be a teller of stories but I had more than one skill for I was brought up by the Sisters of Mercy; they are a sect of nuns who keep much to themselves but exist to serve the sick, and they taught me well.’
‘You have many stories of others. Tell me now of your own life.’
‘The lady I served told me I might return to her if I wished but I never did. After my husband died of his wounds, I wandered for a time, earning my bread by telling stories and sometimes I found work sewing for others. I was always clever with my needle.’
‘I have seen the beautiful work you do,’ Beth said and sighed as she carefully changed one foot for the other and began the task of soothing and healing once more. I wish I might learn to sew but there is no money for thread or fine cloth.’
‘I have thread and cloth in my other coffer,’ the old woman said. ‘You have the healing touch, Beth. Your mother’s potions did not help the pain and soreness as yours do. If you will accept no other payment, let me teach you to sew. Sit with me for an hour and I will show you how ‘tis done; then, when my time comes, you must take my things for yourself. If I were you I should go away and make a new life for yourself elsewhere.’
‘How could I leave Mother?’ Beth asked, but when he had finished her healing she washed her hands and then fetched the piece of plain linen, cutting it into a square as her friend directed.
She had begun her lessons that day, hemming and embroidering a kerchief, which she had been told she might keep. Since then she had gone regularly to the little house at the far end of the village to learn and to talk with Mistress Soames.
It was in the hope of making a linen shift for herself that Beth had come this day. She had made Mistress Soames the lotion for her legs and a mixture for her digestion and she’d been promised another story while she worked on her sewing.
‘Mistress Soames has not been well since you last came,’ one of the village women caught Beth’s arm as she passed that summer morning. ‘Have you heard why the bells are tolling?’
‘No, Mistress Grey,’ Beth said. ‘I fear ‘tis not good news. Perhaps you should go to the church. If the priest is ringing the bell he must want to tell you what he has heard.’
‘My husband will go with the other men,’ the woman said, her eyes narrowing as she looked at Beth. ‘When Mistress Soames dies she wants you to have her cottage and all her things. You should move in with her now and care for her until the end. Would your mother come here to live?’
‘I do not know. I shall ask her if she will allow me to nurse Mistress Soames. If she is ill I must hurry for I would help her if I can.’
‘She has told me how kind and gentle you are, Beth.’ Mistress Grey frowned. ‘People do not like or trust your mother. I say this for your own good. You could live here amongst us, but Marthe might not be welcome. I know she means to help us but some whisper against her.'
‘I could not leave her, she needs me.’
Beth hurried on. She knew the woman meant well, but Marthe was her mother. How could she desert her? Besides, in summer she enjoyed living in the woods. There was something magical about the scents of the woodland and being close to the birds and small animals that lived there. In winter when the rain turned the forest floor to mud and the bitter cold ate into your bones, it would be good to have the shelter of a stout cottage, but Marthe would never live in the village. Beth knew her answer without asking her, but she would ask if the time came just the same.
As she entered the cottage an unpleasant sour smell hit her nostrils. Her patient had been sick and her bowels were loose. Beth saw her lying on her bed and went swiftly to her side.
‘Mistress Soames,’ she said, bending over to touch her face. ‘What ails you?’
‘My bowels have turned to water and there is blood in the flux,’ the old woman said. ‘I think my end is near and I want you to promise me that you will take my things when the time comes. You should leave the woods and come here before it is too late. I fear for you, child, but I know n
ot why.’
‘Hush,’ Beth said and stroked her face. ‘I shall make you warm and dry and then I shall gather the herbs I need to brew a tisane that will ease your guts.’
‘You cannot cure what ails me, child. ‘Tis useless to try. I know the herbs you would use but I do not believe you can stop this foul disease. Not even the Sisters of Mercy could cure what I have. It has been eating away at me for a while and I have little time left to me.’
‘Let me at least try to help you.’
‘I shall not deny you,’ Mistress Soames said and smiled. ‘You have been a blessing to me since you came into my life. I wish that I might have had a child such as you. Marthe does not know how fortunate she is, Beth.’
‘She often tells me I was a blessing when I came into her life.’
‘A strange thing for a mother to say,’ Mistress Soames coughed and lay back against her pillows. She caught Beth’s hand, holding it to her cheek for a moment. ‘Always when you touch me I feel easier. I think you have some special power that was born in you, Beth. Thank you for making me comfortable. Brew your tisane and I shall drink it, but I think it will not cure me.’
‘I shall return very soon,’ Beth said. ‘The herbs do not grow far away.’
‘Bless you, child. Do not forget that everything I have is yours.’
‘I shall not forget,’ Beth smiled at her and went out.
She walked quickly away from the village in the direction of the castle, which was where the herbs she needed grew in abundance. There were other places within the woods, but these were closer, though nearer to the lord’s home than she would normally venture.
As she bent to pick the precious leaves that she would brew into a tisane, she heard the thunder of horses’ hooves and looking up saw a party of riders on their way to the castle. They passed her on the road, but yards from where she worked, and she caught sight of the knight’s face. He was fair, fairer than any man she had seen before in her life. His hair was covered by a hood of mail but his skin had a golden sheen and for a moment as he happened to glance her way, she saw that his eyes were a dark grey with a hint of silver in their depths.