Her Kind

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Her Kind Page 12

by Niamh Boyce


  I ought to return to the house: Esme wanted me to help prepare fish – to tweeze out the lethal bones. Her fingers were too stiff to remove them herself any more. ‘Be thorough – imagine if one got caught in my mistress’s throat?’ she always said. She meant that she’d be out of a job, not that poor Alice would choke. I stood, smacked the grass from my skirts and slipped back into my shoes. As I scurried up the bank, the oyster boy appeared and caught my hand. He promised to meet me at dawn in the orchard and told me his name was Morris. As he whispered in my ear, I placed a kiss on his neck.

  That night, as I sat in my room, I felt some grit on my heel. I took off my shoe and rubbed it, only to see a pearl fall on to the floor. I had carried it from the river bank.

  I met him in the orchard at first light. His hair coiled damp from dew. I walked towards him until we were face to face, opened my mouth to show the pearl on my tongue. I pressed my mouth to his, and, with his tongue, he searched mine for the seed.

  Dame Alice summoned me to her chamber the next day. She looked tired and very serious. I was worried that someone had seen Morris and me by the river. Instead of being cross, my mistress became rather pleasant.

  ‘Keep me company. You can look through my black trunk, if you wish.’

  Despite myself, I smiled. It had been my wish since I first saw it in her antechamber. She unhooked a key from her belt and opened the chest. It was crammed with items: furs, phials, remedies, mementos and scrolls.

  ‘You’re not what you once were, Basilia,’ she said. ‘Now you’re someone who knows her letters, who’s learning of the world. You’re a woman – too old to do your mother’s bidding, or to be brought hither and thither at her bequest.’

  Dame Alice knelt like a girl and pointed at black silk packages tucked in the corner. ‘Family relics,’ she said. She untied the ribbon from one, held up a narrow ebony box and handed it to me.

  ‘It’s a finger casket. It holds the appendage of Sir William, my beloved first.’

  I shuddered and dropped it back.

  ‘Don’t be silly. It’s custom to take such items from the deceased, to bind their fortunes to a household. It’s no more macabre than twists of hair, which, of course, I kept, too.’ She kissed a small pendant. ‘This contains a wisp belonging to my daughter. She died a baby.’ Alice tucked the pendant back into the chest. ‘I don’t keep a relic from everyone. Some people’s fortune is best released. Second husband is buried in toto and far from my door.’

  There was a nest of tiny linen wraps, each tied with red thread and tagged. The writing on the labels was too small to decipher.

  ‘They are meant to aid conception, but it was not to be.’

  The linen was spotted with age. Alice leant on my shoulder and hoisted herself up. Rubbing her back, she crossed the room and lifted a parchment from her desk.

  I picked up a stitched book, a dream book the size of my palm, full of drawings – fish, a boat, a crossbow … each with an inscription. ‘A full moon is a good omen.’ Could a dream’s meaning be whittled down so small? Ever since I could remember, my mother had asked about my dreams. She set great store by their meaning. Lately, they were strong: they woke me, or made me shout out and wake her. ‘Have you been dreaming?’ my mother would ask. I’d shake my head. They came almost every night, the women. Sometimes even during the day, I’d catch a movement, a glimpse of skirt disappearing around a corner, but, when I followed, there would be nothing, no one there.

  There was a foxtail, a rabbit’s foot, a set of rosary beads. I realized then that there was nothing of Dame Alice’s mother in the chest. There was nothing much of her mother in anything Alice had ever said. I did not even know her name. Maybe she didn’t exist? Maybe Alice wasn’t pushed from a woman’s body at all but just magickally appeared in the crook of her father’s arm, her baby fist reaching for his signet ring.

  Cristine rushed in without knocking, looking for her ‘poor Father’, as she called him now.

  ‘Is he still out in the latrine?’ she asked Alice.

  My mistress didn’t wait till she’d left this time. She selected her favourite hog-hair brush and, by way of answer, flung it at her stepdaughter. It missed, but not by much. Cristine threw a hurt look and left the room.

  Alice began writing at her desk as if nothing had happened. I wondered whether to stay or leave. I unfolded an old almanac, looked at the symbols inscribed on it – the moon, stars, waves, spirals, the signs of the zodiac. The ink had faded to brown. Someone had sliced a corner off a page, leaving only half an illustration, the curled end of a scaled tail. Was it a serpent, a fish, a mermaid?

  Eventually Alice put down her quill and spoke, half to me, half to herself. ‘This house, it feels different. I’ve lived in it most of my life, but, at night, it seems alive, and creaking with secrets. What is happening? Who is keeping Sir John from my bed?’

  At that, my mother came in with a tray of food.

  ‘Is it you, Petronelle?’

  ‘Yes, Alice.’

  ‘You,’ our mistress mocked, ‘who has the habits of a nun – kneeling in my Altar Room, your veils infused with frankincense?’

  My mother set peas and trout beside our mistress. ‘There are worse habits.’

  She didn’t know what Alice meant, and didn’t care to know, but frowned when she saw me there. I tried to recall where exactly I was meant to be. Alice dismissed my mother, and barely picked at her food. After a while, she left the room without a word. Had she forgotten that I was there? As I finished off her peas, I studied the parchment lying on her desk. It was no letter or account she wrote, but row upon row of wavy lines, like the mark for water.

  21. The Bishop’s House

  Two monks gathered berries while another filled a basket with beech-nuts. They paid no heed to the girl climbing the steps to the bishop’s front door. When it opened, she requested to see his lordship. ‘It’s a matter of urgency,’ she added, placing a small foot in the door and a heavy coin in the hand of the serving man. ‘I am a knight’s daughter.’ She was ushered inside, led down a narrow hallway and into a tiled parlour. He pointed to a straight-backed chair, in which she sat obediently. She was to wait. If the bishop decided to see her, it would be at his convenience.

  The girl sat in the hard chair for most of the morning. Eventually she stood up, walked around the chair, stared out of the window at a young cleric, who had eaten so many berries that his mouth and fingers were purple. When he saw her look, he stuck out his tongue, which was a similar shade and very big. She stepped back and turned her attention to the orange tiles that covered the wall. They were painted with black circles lined like the spokes of a wheel. When she squinted, they blurred as if moving. She imagined chariots, the High Kings of old, charging into battle. At that, the door opened and his lordship, Bishop Ledrede, stepped into the room. ‘Forgive me,’ she said, ‘your bishop, your lordship …’

  Ledrede stared at the girl. Under a transparent veil, each braided ram’s horn was cupped in a jewelled caul. Her freckled nose attested to cross-breeding: a knight’s daughter she might be, but the mare was native. What was it with these men and the native women? Did they not understand their kind would be weakened by such pollution? Gaels were not true Christians; with their pagan love of nature, they were more in awe of the sun than of its creator.

  ‘A travesty has occurred,’ said the creature. ‘My father is ill. I believe his new wife is at fault.’ Her voice rose. ‘She neglects me and my sister, favours a servant’s daughter over her own husband’s …’

  The tedious girl began to sniffle. A matter of urgency this was not. The bishop would give her penance for wasting his time with her petty complaints. If he had a coin for every stepchild with a grudge, the cathedral would have its new roof.

  ‘My father was never ill before. Her last husband died suddenly.’ She paused then and looked up coyly at the bishop. ‘What if Alice poisoned him, too?’

  Alice. After all this time, the answer to his prayers was kneeli
ng before him. The bishop concealed his interest. He let her bumble on a while before clearing his throat. ‘Alice is a common name in this region – to which dame do you refer?’

  ‘Dame Alice Kytler. My poor father – I tried to warn him but he couldn’t get his feet under her table quickly enough. She had him bewitched.’

  ‘Bewitched, you say?’ The bishop leant closer.

  The stepdaughter confided then, in a low voice, how Alice had sprinkled sachets of herbs into her father’s food, and kept philtres of love spells by which she held him entranced, even though she was mid-aged and of no allure, indeed as grey now as a badger were it not for artificial means.

  ‘What else did you witness? Did you hear her chant spells? See her make graven images?’

  ‘Once I heard chanting and spied the dame and her maid Petronelle by the fire. The dame was twisting a ring she always wore. It was just them and the dog asleep by their feet. I heard their voices chant faster and faster, and then there was silence. I slipped into the room to find that they’d disappeared. There was no one by the fire, not a creature, nothing! The next day her maid could not stop yawning, and Alice stayed late in bed.’

  ‘Transformed, most like, to travel into the night, and exhausted themselves, the evil creatures.’

  ‘So, your lordship, will you help us?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be God’s servant if I didn’t.’

  The girl almost cried with gratitude. She promised to testify if need be; then she left, scurrying with excitement.

  The whole town had kept silent, had drawn together to protect Kytler, but now, at long last, he’d got this – real testimony from a proper witness. A knight’s daughter – a half-breed, but he couldn’t afford to be fussy.

  The bishop left his house and walked over to the cathedral. He went down the centre aisle, and over to the spot where Kytler’s maid stood every Sunday. There was a carving on the pillar there, a small gargoyle, high over his head. No, not a gargoyle – how had he not realized? It was a forest god – he had seen such things in England. Robin of the Woods. Obscenely sculpted heads with foliage sprouting from each orifice. What did it put him in mind of? Each evil was linked to another like a web spun by a spider – you just needed the right light to see them quiver.

  Ah, yes, in the scriptorium here, on so-called holy manuscripts, the bishop had seen heathen tongues curling like vines, tails spiralling from waists instead of legs … the work of an old scribe who had mocked him once. The monk couldn’t keep from illuminating God’s words with pagan creatures, half human, half beast. He looked up at the stone head and shivered. All those times the maid had stood in his congregation, her lips moving as if in prayer. She had worshipped her own heathen god, right in the true Lord’s temple, using her mouth not to revere Christ but to mock him.

  22. Petronelle

  One morning, we heard shouts while in the kitchen. We followed the roars down to the river and saw a crowd of monks there. There was some commotion, fighting and fists raised. Then one of them was carried away by others in a state of great distress. Our household watched as the two remaining monks hoisted their habits thigh-high and waded into the river with the desperation of a mother saving her child, plunging their hands under the water. They were searching for precious manuscripts, we were told. When eventually they found them, it took three more monks to heave the sodden satchels to the bank.

  We later heard what had happened from Ralph, who got it from a Franciscan stable boy. Ledrede had decided the works of an elderly scribe were heathen and ordered they be pumiced from the manuscripts. On hearing this, the scribe lost his mind and declared he would rather drown himself and the scripts. He was successful on neither count and now would be hanged for his efforts.

  The next day, the pages were dried on trestles in the Franciscans’ Lady Garden. The curious were welcome, if they kept their hands clasped behind their backs. I was surprised at the queues. Word had spread that the deadly sins were illustrated in colour. Finally, it was my turn. The pages were very large. Flat stones covered some pictures, but glimpses could be had, if you bent slightly, which we all did. The parchment was river-darkened. On some pages, the ink had rinsed completely away, yet the words remained as deep scores into the skin. I imagined those were times when the scribe had leant heavily. Was he impassioned, were those words important, were they more sacred? Or was he just wishing for his bed?

  Two friars were there, standing guard.

  ‘Which scribe has the better hand?’ one asked me, mockingly.

  I held my tongue. I preferred neither, no matter which hand, narrow and cramped or loose and slant – to me they were just meaningless slashes.

  I should never have gone to the hanging. Maybe I thought to aid the old scribe when he looked up one last time, hoping that mine would be the one compassionate face amongst the jeering ones. Afterwards, everyone claimed that he shouted gibberish as the rope was looped around his neck. They said the devil had taken control of his tongue. I saw his angry old face, his mouth that wouldn’t stop moving till the last. I stood close. It wasn’t gibberish he spoke; it was Irish. ‘A life’s work,’ he had cried. ‘A whole life’s work.’ He never looked up.

  I went home and kept my hands busy to rid my mind of his voice. I was in the kitchen with Esme shelling hazelnuts when Líadan slipped in, clutching her wrist. There were scratches on it, four blood-filled lines. Esme stood up and looked at the wound.

  ‘Sofia Hatton?’ she asked.

  Líadan nodded. I cleared a corner of the table and treated the wound with lavender and honey. Of course Líadan refused to tell me what had happened, or why Sofia Hatton, horrible creature that she was, had scratched her.

  ‘Next time walk away,’ said Esme, rubbing Líadan’s head.

  ‘What do you mean, next time?’ I asked. ‘What has Sofia against my daughter?’

  Líadan pulled her hand away then and sighed. She left the kitchen, limping a little as she went.

  ‘Well?’ I looked at Esme.

  ‘It’s a tale older than memory. They like the same boy.’

  It seemed silly, childish. Yet a spiteful girl could be dangerous, especially one from a family as powerful as the Hattons. I suddenly felt grateful for Alice’s fondness for Líadan. At times like this it worked in my daughter’s favour. Scratches would be the least of her worries otherwise. A young lady like Sofia could have Líadan whipped on no more than a whim.

  Esme and I worked on in silence. The house had quietened down again – the twins were in the Hattons’, and Sir John’s friends had ceased to rally round. I recalled those sturdy men in fine clothes, raising toast after toast and Sir John in the centre, loudest and most lively. It was a shame to see one so strong fail. I remembered when he’d reached towards my nape in this very room, the way he’d stared. I recognized something in him that day. Something that used to be in me, an appetite I refused to feed. I would prefer him recovered, and out of this house. Caged beasts do damage.

  Helene entered the kitchen, already talking. ‘Piotr Hatton has just gone up to Alice, begging for more pearl-diving money. They say those pearls come from Hatton’s seed, you know. That he spends it in the river, and …’ She gestured with her hands.

  ‘Oh, stop, Helene.’

  ‘Well, I won’t be putting them around my neck.’

  ‘You won’t have the chance to.’

  ‘Piotr’s eager to do business before Dame Alice is banished,’ said Helene. ‘Abracadabra! Vanished!’

  ‘Banished for what?’ I asked.

  ‘Magick, of course.’

  ‘Alice doesn’t practise magick, and, even if she did, no one was ever banished for such petty craft. Was Margaret Dun banished for selling magickal pouches or healing stones, or Tuttle for divination or palm-reading?’

  ‘You’re the only one who believes that, Petronelle. Everyone says the dame will be cast from this town, and her demons will follow, babbling like that witch-monk –’

  ‘Demons? Is this another notion fro
m Sir John’s fevered rants?’ I asked.

  ‘Cristine told me, and she’s not fevered.’

  ‘You shouldn’t heed Cristine. It’s your mistress who deserves your loyalty. I’ll be watching you, do you understand?’

  ‘It might serve you better to watch your daughter.’

  She ran out of the room before I could belt her. I returned to shelling nuts.

  ‘Watch your daughter.’

  I’d heard those exact words years ago, from the mouth of Alice’s ageing nurse, Tabitha. She had been speaking to Líthgen, claiming Alice and I ran too wild. I suppose we did. We met in our makeshift hut not long after that. Alice had news. Tabitha had died. My friend promised, as she squeezed my hand, to ask Jose if I could become her maid. Then I could share her chamber, she said, wear decent clothes. She picked up the fabric of my skirt and let it drop. I would be clean for once, and well fed. I could leave that shambles of a shack.

  Heart-stung, I turned away. Unclean, indecent, shamed, I got on to my knees and crawled from the hut. A small thing, but I never forgot the shock. Líthgen had misled me into thinking I had the same worth as anyone else. Alice had shown me that I did not.

  23. Basilia

  Mother wasn’t grateful any more. ‘I’ll be taking you out of here when September comes,’ she kept saying. I was no longer hers to take. I had changed, Alice said so, from the mite who traipsed barefoot to the girl who knew her letters. One morning, my mother pulled the clothes we’d arrived in from under the mattresses. The coarse cloth was grass-stained and frayed. Though I’d worn them only a few months ago, they seemed like they belonged to another girl. She gathered them together, along with almost everything else in the room, into a bag that she stored beneath her bed. Only for my quills and whittled animals in the nook, our chamber might’ve been a nun’s cell. She could pack what she liked – I wouldn’t be going.

 

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