The Assassin's Wife (4 page)

I shook my head. The scent of green herbs confused me. “I thought—people say—”
 

“You thought I was a witch? You’ve heard people say I can conjure up spirits, put a curse on your enemies, or tell your fortune. Oh, I know all the talk.” She paused to look at me kindly then, pushing up a dangling, brown sleeve. “Tell me, little maid, what
you
want to know.”

Her black eyes bored into me as she snatched my hands in a powerful grip. Fluttering wings beat in my belly.
 

“The seasons come and go, and all things have an ending.” She stared through and beyond me as if she could see into farthest distance. “There’ll be a day when you can look back without weeping. Saddles and horses for you, and a long road to travel. The river will run with blood, but your tears’ll dry. You’ll travel north, child.”

I stood quite still, unable to withdraw my hands, and felt her heave a long, shuddering sigh.

“I can’t change destiny, but strong desires lead us on strange pathways.” The melodious chant of her dark voice wove its own spell about me. “You walk yet in ignorance but the way has already been shown. You must follow the purpose of your dreams. No one has a liking for rough ground, but there’s love and laughter for you too. The rose is a beautiful bud, but it contains the canker. Look to the nun, and beware the man with blood on his hands.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and then dropped my hands as if scalded.

“You’ve no need of me, child. You have the Sight.”

“But what does it mean?” I asked, trembling with desire to know more.

“It means you must learn to live without the help of others.” Pity shone in her eyes. “Just as we did when Hugh died.”

I realised then someone else in the room was watching. By the hearth sat an elfin child, so still she might have been carved out of wood. Yet her hands moved deftly, for she was winding wool. She looked up at me. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but in that moment flames licked all around her, setting her hair on fire, and I opened my mouth to cry out. But something in her black eyes prevented it. They shone well-deep like her mother’s and held the same ancient wisdom.

“There was another girl—”

“Olwyn, my eldest, looking after the sheep.”

A long, uncertain silence froze me.

“Your future’s written,” said Widow Evans. “I can’t change it. There’s no charm potent enough to turn the tide. Destiny can’t be altered to suit us.” Her face grew melancholy. “You don’t understand half of what I’m saying, do you?”

She glanced up suddenly as if she’d heard something on the roof.

“Storm clouds are gathering. You should go home while you can.”

Outside a blackbird sang fiercely, a flood of pure harmony; hens clucked and scratched in the earth; sheep cropped the meadow grass, but there was no sign of the girl with the willow-wand.

With a heart heavier than the burden of kindling I carried, I trudged past the water-mill and the shabby cluster of huts and duck-pens by the little stream, puzzling over the strange fate the widow predicted for me.
 

Chapter Four

“You’re in trouble.”
 

I jumped at the reedy voice. Elaine stood up from a huddle of girls playing five-stones at the far edge of the green, away from the houses, but Alys pushed toward me, huge blue eyes blurred with tears.

“Oh Nan, a messenger came this morning and ever since there’s been such dreadful talk—”

“But what have I done?” I stared defiantly at the ring of shocked faces, relieved to find Johnanna Nettleship not among them.

“Everyone’s talking about a big battle at Northampton.” Elaine’s eyes gleamed, malicious with secret amusement.

“What’s that to do with me?”

“Peter Nettleship’s been killed.” Alys grasped my hand with painful urgency. “And my mother said the Brewers have lost two sons.”

“You said those men wouldn’t come back.” Elaine’s spiteful taunt provoked me. “And now they’re all dead. The river’s blocked with bodies. One turned up as close as Billing Bridge. You should hear what people are saying about you.”

I didn’t wait to listen.
 

Turning back the way I’d come, I skirted round the church. Ignoring the tight knots of women in the lane, I scurried homeward.
 

The sight of our open door halted me.
 

“John’s a sister in London,” I heard my mother say.

“Such a place might prove a grand haven,” the priest’s mellow tones replied. “But I’m after thinking this will be a warning to her and it may not come to that. She’s a powerful imagination, but there’s no malice in her—”

“She needs a whipping.” Fat Marion growled like a peevish cur. “Jane’s been too soft. I’ll wager the Nettleships would be glad to see the last of her—not to mention the Heywoods and the Brewers. She’s an impudent manner of speaking and it’s my belief she likes to frighten folk. Not so long ago she told me I’d lose my lads at harvest time. ‘You’ll be weeping then,’ she said. What kind of child thinks up such wickedness? It’s not natural–”

She paused and suddenly pointed through the doorway, reddened cheeks quivering with indignation. “Well, speak of the devil—there she is!” Her eyes darted fury. “See how she creeps about spying on folk—”

She shrugged off the priest’s soothing words and stormed out into the road. “Best fetch your washing in, Jane.” She held a plump hand upward. “It’s starting to rain.”

* * * * *

Rain.

September brought great floods and swathes of it. It filled the ruts and hollows, swelled the ponds and burst over the fields, greedy as an ogre, consuming everything in its path. Crops barely ripened by a poor summer bowed under the torrents and rotted on the stalk. In an effort to bring in what remained of harvest the men-folk struggled against the elements, until sodden, cold and despairing, we faced the prospect of hunger and starvation.

“Harvest’s never easy — Noll says the Nene will flood.”

Ignoring my father’s words, my mother snatched him out of the winding-sheet of his wet clothes. Muttering, she knelt to rub his mottled flesh into life before our meagre fire. After working in the fields all day he looked bone-weary.
 

“But this year—I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Shivering, he crouched over the heat, hugging a coarse blanket round him.

The wind drove a sudden rain squall against the house and drops of water hissed among the flames. Stinking smoke rose from smouldering sticks and my father coughed until his eyes streamed.

“Don’t sit there choking to death.” Impatiently, my mother gathered up discarded garments and thrust them at me. “Eat your supper. I’ve been trying to keep it hot. I thought you were never coming home.”

Dragging the heap of sopping clothes into a pail, I watched him spoon up his pottage so slowly I thought he’d fall asleep over it.

A wretched sense of gloom seemed to settle on the house. Even the sly-lipped goat pressed against the wall, hung its draggled head.

“Giles and Noll are still out there,” he said at last, heaving a sigh.
 

“What? In the dark?” My mother fumed over the trail of wet ash around the hearth, mopping at it with a rag as if her fear and anger goaded her to relentless action.

“They want to finish the top field.”

All night wind and rain battered at the house, thrashing the leather door flap, driving in puddles, churning the earth to mud. It rained next morning, too.

And then the sickness came.
 

Like a gale, it swept into the village, striking down weak and strong without pity. Within days it devoured whole families.
 

When my father stumbled home early from the fields one dank afternoon, I left off spinning and ran to greet him. Shaking off his draggled cloak, he loitered on the threshold, his face grim.

“Did you hear anything of Roger Miller?” he asked my mother, who was stirring a pot over the fire.

“He died this morning. Marion said his belly swelled up like a great bladder and he raved in agony all night. That’s the third one in as many days.” She crossed herself and moved toward him. “You’re early. What’s wrong?” Fear etched deep lines in her face.
 

“Marion’s lad fell in the field just now. He looks bad.”

“But Stephen didn’t go to work today—Marion said he’d been sick—”

“It’s her eldest—Mark.” My father’s mouth twisted. “Noll and Giles had to carry him home just now. Wait—” He snatched at my mother’s arm. “There’s nothing you can do, Jane.”

“I should go to her—”

“You’ve your own children to think of.”

Defeated, she sank on to a stool by the sodden door flap, her face the colour of bone. “What are we going to do? They say there’s no cure for it.” She gave me a quick look and bit at a strand of chestnut hair. “Where’s it come from, John? What have we done to deserve such a thing?”

It marked the beginning of a time of tears and terror. The burial ground sprouted a crop of new graves and women flocked to buy remedies of Mistress Evans— until rumblings of witchcraft panicked them. Grim faces turned in my direction then. Impudently, I shook off the whispers and nods, but my mother buckled under the shame of it.
 

“What kind of child are you to heap such sorrow on my head?” she asked.

Chapter Five

One raw morning in late September my mother thrust a basin at me. “Go to the woods and pick some berries.”
 

Glad of her curt dismissal, I took refuge among the trees. But I went alone, and before long one of those strange, heavy feelings I couldn’t shake off descended on me. It nagged at me like a stitch in the side and I wished I could talk to my father about it. But in spite of the perpetual drizzle, he’d been out in the fields again since daybreak.
 

In normal times the hedges drooped heavy with fruit, but this year they bloomed with mould. I plucked what whole morsels I could find, my hands stained almost black with juice. I didn’t hear the arrival of other foragers.
 

“Why do you say such terrible things?”

“What
have
I done now?” I rounded fiercely.

A tear-streaked Alys faced me.

“You told my mother her sons would die at harvest time.” Alys looked so helpless with her little sister at her side, I grew contrite in a moment.

“I only told her some men would be going away.”

“But three of my brothers have died.” Her voice trembled. “Oliver was buried only yesterday.”

“I’m sorry.” Foolishly, I offered the only comfort I knew. “But they’ll come back to see you. Don’t you remember how I saw Will Nettleship—”

Alys’ blue eyes widened. She crossed herself, hugging her sister close.

“You mustn’t tell lies!” The flaxen curls shook with horror. “You’ll go to hell!”

Friendship melted into silence while other children invaded the grove. They crept up to stand around us, mute and sullen. Glancing from one stark face to another, I caught at last some inkling of the fear I’d conjured in our community.
 

“My head hurts.” The small girl’s wail echoed amongst the dripping trees.

Alys dropped her basket to place a hand on the child’s brow. “She’s burning hot.”

Our eyes locked.

“She’s got some spots on her neck—” Her frightened whisper provoked a panicked threshing through the bracken. Abandoned, Alys and I clung together, joined again in adversity.

Quarrel forgotten, we carried the sick child from the woods. At Alys’ cottage strong arms took up the burden and drew her into the comfort of shared sorrow. But me they shut out, dropping the door flap against my offers of help.

* * * * *

No plume of smoke curled from our roof, but a knot of men stood outside. Daft Geoffrey, the miller’s feeble-minded son, crooned and swayed on the threshold.
 

I ran toward them through the spits and spots of rain, but when they recognised me, tension gripped their shoulders, hostility flooded into their eyes. Without a word they stepped aside.

I found my mother hunched over the ashes of a fire, her face blotched with grief. Kneeling by a pallet on the floor, Brother Brian prayed earnestly. Noll Wright, his head lapped in an old, burned cloth, leaned over a huddled figure beneath a heap of threadbare blankets.

My father’s face twisted into a frightful grimace, one eye fixed and milky, the other wandering. Like a stone he lay, mumbling strange sounds and drooling like a babe.

“Strong as an ox, John was,” said Noll Wright. He rubbed his knuckles over the stubble on his chin. “I’ve worked with him from dawn to dusk every harvest since we were both young bachelors. I can’t believe I’m seeing this.”