I expect the smell of Brida, foul air to match the rotting building. Instead, despite the darkness I’m met with the comforting, gamey smell of tallow candles.
Through the shadows I make out a large sitting room with only the stout legs of a table left. Behind the legs are the innards of the toppled chimney I saw from outside. A carpet of dust tells me no folk’ve passed this way in a fair while. But deeper in I find a narrow path of footsteps cutting through the dust to a set of stairs. Folk have been here lately.
And then I hear a lute.
My guts drop. The music is coming from up the stairs. Somefolk is here.
It’s music of a kind I’ve never heard. Both sweet and sad. A flute joins with the lute. There’s more than one folk. How could such a thing be coming from the ruins of the Domus Conversorum? Mayhap Jews are like fairies, and it’s magic. They were the Maker’s chosen folk, after all.
The flute plays a different song, but one that still belongs with what the lute’s playing. It’s like when you sing in a round at May Day, but more intricate. The song makes my heart squeeze up like I’m grieving. I want to weep but also smile. It’s not fairy music, it’s music of the heavenly plains. But played by angels or demons? I gird myself, and step towards the stairs. Whatever lies beyond, I tell myself, I am more fearsome.
Beyond the fourth step is blackness, so I follow the music, feeling my way with my shoes, until I reach the landing. To one side is more blackness, but the other wavers with the faintest flickering light through a poorly hung door. The music’s so strong I feel it all the way down in my guts. I go on to the door with no notion of what I might find behind it.
It’s as if a conjuror has made another world appear. Inside the ruined Domus Conversorum are the Queen’s musicians, the strangers I heard play at the emissary’s arrival. They wear her badge. Six or seven of them. All sitting atop stools in a circle, playing lutes, flutes, and viols. As I step in, the wiry, dark-haired man I saw before brings his bow up to his giant viol and suddenly its sound is rumbling again through my chest.
Behind them, against the walls, are rugs and blankets and other bedding. Sacks and trunks are strewn about as if the musicians came from afar. A window lets in feeble light and tallow candles burn from ledges and tables.
An old body with hair on his ears, but not his crown, stands. The music stops awkward-like. The musicians get still. ‘This is our place, if it please you,’ Hairy Ears says. His accent is like the strangers that come in summer by wagon to perform comedies in the town square.
I wait for them to notice my S and skitter-scatter with alarum. I’m sorry for it. I would like to hear more of their sweet and sad music.
But they don’t scatter. ‘Please leave us,’ Hairy Ears says again, not angry or scared, more like a child who has a piece of cake and hopes to hold on to it.
I bring my hand to my collar to show him who I am, but he keeps speaking. ‘This is our place. The Queen, she give us the invitation to come bring our music. But no inn will take us. No folk lets us the rooms. So we come to here, where our kin before us come for to be safe.’ The whole while he speaks, Hairy Ears looks me dead in the eyes. So do the other musicians. There’s a dripping feeling on the back of my neck. Something’s deeply wrong.
I assay whether the tallow candlelight passes through the musicians’ bodies. It doesn’t. At least they aren’t spirits. They’re real, solid folk.
I grab the S on my collar and hold it up for them all to see. I am a curse.
Hairy Ears takes a step back and speaks to the wiry man playing the chest rumbler in a stranger tongue.
I stamp my foot hard against the floor. The musicians murmur at one another, but they don’t take their eyes from me. I feel naked and weak. Why don’t they fear me? Choler heats my heart. I huff like a bull. And then, without thought, I run through the room knocking the candles from their holders, spraying burning tallow everywhere. Stools scrape hard against the floor as the shrieking musicians scramble into the corners of the room.
At last, I tell the Domus walls. This is how a sin eater should be greeted.
I walk to my fountain. The musicians must not have seen the collar properly in the low light, the fountain tells me. I want its words to make me feel better, but I’m not sure it’s telling the truth.
I let my bare feet dangle in the fountain’s water. The new shoes have rubbed them raw. My toes move back and forth, cool and light, but I’m not feeling the freedom I thought I might after a day as a curse.
The nails of my toes are filthy. I jiggle my toes so I can’t see the dirt through the water. The flesh on my calf moves back and forth. That’s new. Mayhap my monthly courses will come back with all this new plump on me. I stopped getting them when food got scarce. I’ll need to get blood moss and sew up blood breeches to hold them in place.
I remind myself again that I’m free. Beholden to none. I jiggle my leg again to see the flesh wiggle. But it’s no good. My mother was skilled at this sort of thing, at doing as she pleased. But not me. I run my tongue over my back teeth where there’s still the faint taste of orange. Eating sweets is nice. Having new shoes is, too. But what would please me more?
To live in my old home.
To have my old life.
To see Da again.
I can’t get these things. But I do think of one thing I can get.
I leave the fountain and make my way back through town. It doesn’t take long to find what I want in the back of a wagon. And none see me lift it.
When I arrive home there’s no messengers waiting. Off looking for me, mayhap. My squatters are gone too. I go up to my loft with what I took from the wagon. It’s not a particularly valuable thing. Just a wooden box. I place it on the bottom shelf alongside Ruth’s, alongside the boxes of all the sin eaters before me. I don’t have anything to put in it yet. But in time I might. It feels good to see it next to the others.
I haven’t more than sat down on my mattress when a rapping comes at the door. I wonder if there’s ever a day that passes on this earth without death. A whole day of only life, living and thriving. There’s another rapping at the door. Not this day.
The messenger’s well dressed and wears a badge I don’t know. A Recitation, he tells me, for a condemned prisoner in the Queen’s dungeon. I feel the little plum stone in my chest again, grating against my heart. I’m going back to the place Ruth died.
17. HIPPOCRAS
IN MY OLD life, I never purposely walked the town at night. What girl would when there’s hog boons and goblins and worse trolling the darkened alleys looking for a choice bit? A howl from the lane to the woad yard scares me and the messenger right proper. I remind myself, I am the hog boon. Brida’s the goblin. And the worse? They’re all tucked away in the castle poisoning and setting poppets at one another. Safer out here.
Crossing the town square, I wonder if the condemned prisoner is the Eucharistian countess I once saw in the dungeon. The one put there for plotting against the Queen.
A constable comes into the square and raises a lantern towards me and the messenger. I open my shawl to show my S, and he leaves us to our business. My nerves fade. There’s a sort of peace in the night-time. Figures melt into shadows, eyes watch from the dark, but like putting my own box on the shelf, I feel a sort of belonging. Mayhap my place isn’t a house or a family, mayhap it’s my trade, sin eating.
At the castle, I’m led across the quiet courtyard. The plum stone in my heart seems to swell, my breath coming harder around it.
I climb down the ten mouldy steps into the dungeon. The countess’s cell was one of the nearest to the entrance, I remember. But it’s not hers I’m taken to.
A man waits outside the cell, wearing the same badge as the messenger. Mouldy Beard, the young guard from my last visit, unlocks the door. Inside is an old body, sitting as if waiting. There’s candles and a writing table and his chair has a cushion. He offers me the chair. Then he kneels on the stone floor. It’s the Eucharistian way to give your Recitation.
He hasn’t much to recite. He doesn’t even recite being Eucharistian. I think it’s because he doesn’t believe it’s a sin. It feels odd for me to know he has a sin, but for him not to recite it. I keep wanting him to say it. I even say it in my own heart. But then he finishes, and there’s nothing for it. I say the words to end and give the scant list of foods to the man with the badge waiting outside the cell.
I’ve done my duty, but I can’t quite leave. It’s Ruth. I feel like part of her is still here, farther down the passage, in the cell where she died. A part of her that’s unsettled. Waiting.
She’s with the Maker now, not in a cold, stone cell, I remind myself.
But then my feet start down the passage, and soon I’m in the dark curve that takes me to the nethermost part of the dungeon.
I stand outside Ruth’s old cell door, suddenly afraid to look in. Afraid her bloodstains will still be there. I remember the promise I made to her on Da’s grave that I would sort out this mess of deer hearts for her. I haven’t done it. I’ve just been biding my time, hoping it would happen on its own. I think that’s what she’s waiting for. For me to act.
There’s a soft cough inside the cell. My heart leaps. Ruth. I scramble to the door’s hole to see if it’s her, knowing that it can’t be, and hoping all the same.
But of course it’s not. I know the gnarled figure inside even from the back. The Willow Tree, a candle at his side, leaning over a body.
‘Are you there?’ he calls. I step back from the peephole before he sees me. ‘You may unlock the door, I’ve finished.’
When there’s no answer he calls louder, ‘Hello?!’ Footsteps echo down the passage. I move into a shadow as Mouldy Beard comes around the curve. He peeps into Ruth’s old cell.
‘Found the witch this time, did you?’ Mouldy Beard asks.
‘Lamentably, no,’ the Willow Tree says back. ‘Maker help us.’
Mouldy Beard unlocks the door, and the Willow Tree comes out wiping his hands on a dark cloth. As he passes Mouldy Beard he says, ‘You can remove the body.’
It takes a good while for Mouldy Beard to drag the woman out. She smells of burnt meat. I keep my eyes in the shadows so I won’t see what the Willow Tree did to her. After Mouldy Beard’s gone, I finally make my way out of the dungeon.
It’s deep night, and a full moon lights the courtyard. I don’t know if it’s the Willow Tree’s work or the witching hour, but my guts are all wobbly. I belong in the night, I remind myself, and start to make my way home.
I haven’t gone far across the courtyard when something curious catches my eye. From the shadow of a doorway, a small light flickers twice and then disappears. A moment later it comes again, like a candle flame, flashing twice, and then gone.
I’m trying to fathom what it might be when I catch the sound of a door opening on the other side of the courtyard. I keep still as a rabbit as a hooded figure walks sure and direct through the moonlight towards the flashing.
The light appears again, this time steady. Steady enough that I can see it’s a candle held by a man. The hooded figure joins him. If they speak, it’s too low to hear. All at once the hooded figure reaches into the hood and tugs. He offers what he’s plucked to the candle man. The candle man wraps the hairs in a kerchief.
Hairs plucked under moonlight. I hear my mother’s voice recounting how witches wait till the full moon to pluck hairs for their blackest magic. As if hearing my thoughts, a guard suddenly calls, ‘Who’s there!’ One hand on his sword and the other holding a lantern, the guard trots towards the two figures.
The candle man doesn’t even startle. Instead, he and the hooded figure wait, calm as anything, for the guard to approach. The guard raises the lantern to the candle man’s face. It’s the Willow Tree.
Then the other man pulls off his hood. The guard starts back. Then hastily bows his head. It’s not a man. It’s the Queen.
She directs the guard to join her. He follows at her side like a dog, lighting the way to the scroll door that leads to her quarters. The Willow Tree watches them go, then pinches out his candle and shuffles across the stone courtyard with only moonlight to guide him.
My arms and legs get light like I might swoon. The witch finder is collecting hairs for witchcraft and the Queen is a part of his treachery. And I witnessed it. Had I returned home direct after the prisoner’s Recitation, I’d never have seen a thing.
Ruth. Mayhap this is why I was drawn to her cell. Mayhap it’s time to sort out this mess.
I hear Bessie’s voice, You’ve your mother’s blood in you. My mother never sat back waiting for something to happen. She was wary like a fox, but a hunter still.
But what can I do? I ask my Daffrey blood. There are guards all about the castle, and, worse still, Black Fingers.
Follow the Willow Tree, my blood says. Softly, nimbly, find out his game.
The Willow Tree’s shadowed figure is growing harder to see. My whole body’s alight with nerves as I begin to trail him.
I follow him across the courtyard, beyond the scroll door. He passes through an archway where the stones are crumbly beneath our feet. I get a sudden inkling where he’s headed. I’ve been here once before. He finally stops before two ancient, wooden doors. The Queen’s private Makerhall. Then he disappears inside.
And I follow.
I step as quiet as my new shoes allow into the Queen’s Makerhall. The Willow Tree’s vanished. Just then, there’s a small scrape up by the altar. I duck down behind a pew as the Willow Tree appears from the vestment room, holding a long beeswax candle. A woman I don’t know follows after, carrying a cloth bundle. The Willow Tree begins to chant softly.
He’s saying stranger words mixed with Anglish. It’s not a new faith prayer. It’s witchcraft, I know it.
The woman is nearly as tall as the Willow Tree and much thicker. She places her bundle at the foot of the altar and opens a book. She joins the chant.
Ho ktistais,
Ho ktistais,
Thou art powerful and eternal, Maker.
They say the words over and over again, and then some more. I get dizzy with the sound. Mayhap I’m falling under whatever spell they mean to cast. I shake my head, and my collar clinks. The Willow Tree raises his hand, and the woman gets quiet.
I hold myself still, barely daring to breathe. The Willow Tree surveys the pews. He pauses for a moment on the bench in front of me. I hold my breath until it hurts. Then he takes up the chant again. When the woman joins him, I finally let my breath go in a long, quiet rush.
They chant until the beeswax candle burns down the width of three fingers. Then all at once they stop. The quiet pricks at my nerves.
The Willow Tree speaks softly. ‘Maker, we come here to your temple. We speak words more ancient than the Makermen’s. Your devoted servants, we seek protection for our mistress. We place her substance and her likeness before you.’ The Willow Tree takes his kerchief with the Queen’s hairs and puts it on the altar. Then the woman brings out a miniature portrait and lays it beside the hairs.
The Willow Tree bows. ‘Protect her, Maker, against the forces now at work to savage her. Protect her as you protect your champions.’ It’s some sort of black magic mixed with the Maker faith. I didn’t know there was such a thing.
The Willow Tree goes on. ‘We beg you to take our offering. A tribute given in exchange for your safeguard. A sacrifice. A life for life.’ It’s then that I hear a muffled shriek from the bundle at the base of the altar. The terrified cry of a baby.
18. SHORTBREAD
ALL AT ONCE I’m not a curse. I’m a girl alone in a terrible predicament. I try to quiet my breath, but it just comes all the louder. These two mean to murder a babe in a Makerhall not ten paces from me.
‘Silence it!’ the Willow Tree hisses. The woman drops to her knees and grabs at the squealing bundle. She raises it to the altar.
I feel a warm stickiness on my hands. I’ve squeezed my nails into my palms so hard, they’ve begun to bleed.
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br /> ‘Do it presently!’ the woman whispers hard.
The Willow Tree reaches into his robe and takes out a short, thick knife. He chants again:
Ho ktistais,
Ho ktistais . . .
The bundle begins to kick, but the woman holds it tight, muffling the sound.
My knees are leaden, but I will them to rise.
The Willow Tree steps towards the altar. The bundle twists under the woman’s grasp.
I’m standing now, but I’ve done it so suddenly that my head’s full of stars, and for a moment I can barely see. I stumble forward anyway, for there’s no time.
Ho ktistais
Ho ktistais . . .
The Willow Tree raises the dagger in the air. I’m only halfway there. A glint of candlelight from the knife blade hits my eyes. I won’t make it in time. The woman pulls the cloth from the tiny, squealing body, and I see a flash of pink skin as the knife comes down. There’s one last squeal.
I cry aloud as I fall hard onto my knees.
The Willow Tree’s head whips towards where I’ve fallen, but I’m back behind a pew. ‘Block the door!’ he whispers.
The woman’s already running for the entrance. If they’ll kill a babe in a Makerhall, what will they do to me if I’m caught? I squeeze my jaw shut to stop my teeth from shaking. I need another way out.
Behind the altar is the vestment room. Mayhap there’s a passage in and out for the Makermen. I scramble along the cold, stone floor beneath the pew towards the side of the hall. When I get to the end I listen. I only hear one set of footfalls: the fast pat of the woman near the entrance. I hazard a look. The Willow Tree is only paces away, and he’s still got his knife.
‘There!’ he hisses.
I dash out and make for the front of the hall. I hear the woman’s feet on the stone floor pursuing me. She’s faster than I am. I don’t know that I’ll make it.
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