Time's Echo (29 page)

Oh, well, if
Sarah
thought it, it must be right. I was beginning to irritate myself with the wet glass. I pushed it away with a scowl.

‘Apparently sociopaths have a grandiose sense of self, and a disproportionate belief in their own abilities,’ Drew went on. ‘Sarah said they’re often driven by a
deep-seated anger, which means they see other people as tools to be used for their own ends. They feel no remorse for their actions, she said. The only thing that matters to a sociopath is getting
his or her own way. They don’t care what anyone else thinks or feels.’

It sounded a perfect description of Francis.

‘But unless they commit a crime, there’s nothing you can do,’ Drew said. ‘You can’t arrest someone for being selfish and manipulative, more’s the
pity.’

‘I can see why you’re so worried about Sophie,’ I said.

‘I’m just hoping she’ll get bored, or see through all the hocus-pocus eventually. She’s a bright kid – but then my mother was clever too,’ he said, and
although he spoke lightly I could hear the bitterness running as deep as a tide. ‘Not that it did her much good. All those brains and she still couldn’t see what was right in front of
her. She didn’t like the real, my mother. Where was the fun, where was the
magic
, in caring for your family? In washing socks and cooking meals and talking to teachers?’

He stopped, clearly afraid that he had revealed too much. I watched him pick up his beer and drink, and although I tried not to look, I couldn’t help noticing the strength of his hand
around the glass. I could see the creases in his finger joints, the bumpiness of his knuckles, the broad wrists and the flat hairs beneath his watch, and I found myself remembering Ned again, and
the warmth of his hands on my skin.

Swallowing, I looked away.

‘Do you think that’s why you became a historian? So that you could fix on the real – things you could prove and back up with evidence?’

‘Perhaps,’ he said slowly. ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that before, but . . . yes, perhaps.’

I picked up my beer mat and began refining the patterns I’d made with the bottom of my glass. I drew the edge of the mat through the wet rings, pulling out the circles and pushing the
droplets in different directions. I was thinking about evidence, and how I might find out whatever it was that Hawise was so anxious to know. Perhaps if I did that, I could go back to my ordinary
life.

Whatever that was – it was hard to remember when life had been ordinary.

‘You know those records you’re using? The ones about ordinary people mending streets and stuff?’

I could tell by Drew’s pained expression that he was unimpressed by my grasp of his research. ‘The wardmote-court returns?’

‘Yes.’ I wasn’t going to tell him that I knew all about the wardmotes. I remembered the jurors setting off to inspect the wards, the grumbles in the street, the abuse (not all
of it good-natured) as they noted blocked gutters and potholes or heard complaints about noisy neighbours. ‘I wondered if I could look at them sometime,’ I said, super-casual, but
Drew’s brows drew together.

‘Is this still about the servant you wanted to track down? What did you call her?’

‘Hawise.’

I wished I’d never said anything to Drew about what I was experiencing. If I hadn’t been so shaken by Francis’s attempted rape, I wouldn’t have told him what had
happened, but it was too late to take it back now.

‘I thought Sarah had explained all that as post-traumatic stress disorder?’

‘She did.’ It was easier to let him believe that was all it was. He would never accept the idea of possession, I knew. ‘I’m just interested. I wanted to put some names
into your database and see if any of them come up.’

I’ve never been very good at flirting, but I wanted to distract Drew from asking too many questions. I looked him straight in the eyes and gave him my most winning smile. ‘Would you
mind?’

There was a tiny pause. Drew’s eyes dropped briefly to my mouth and then he was looking back at me, and even though his expression was unreadable, I felt the colour swoosh up into my
face.

‘No, I wouldn’t mind,’ he said.

‘Great!’ I was mortified at the strangled sound of my own voice. I cleared my throat. ‘When would suit you?’

‘Tonight?’

‘Sure. Why not?’ My heart was pounding ridiculously.

Drew drained his beer and set his glass back on the table. ‘Drink up then,’ he said.

I had to hug my arms together when we left the pub, frightened that if I didn’t, my hands would take on a life of their own. I was lfustered by how badly I wanted to touch Drew. It was a
long time since I felt that jab of lust, that twitchy craving to press skin against skin, to feel that aching slide of bone and muscle.

It was just because I’d been thinking of Ned earlier, I tried to excuse myself. With Hawise’s memories running through my head like a private erotic show, it wasn’t surprising
that I was muddling the two men up. Drew and Ned didn’t look alike, but they had the same contained air, the same cool mouths, the same capable hands.

Drew was talking as we headed back to Monk Bar, but I hardly heard him. I couldn’t think clearly. I was dizzy with lust, fizzy with it. I was like a balloon tethered by a single strand,
billowing up, ready to float out of control. I kept telling myself that it was wrong – that
he
was wrong – but it didn’t do any good. I couldn’t drag my eyes from
his mouth, his hands. I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to spread my hands over his shoulders, to press my lips to the pulse that beat in his throat and breathe in the
scent of his skin.

Who are you going to see the film with?
The words hovered on my tongue, but I swallowed them. I didn’t want to know the answer. I didn’t want him to wonder why I cared.

It was just the mood I was in, I told myself, with an edge of desperation. I’d been like this all day, ever since Vivien had given me the amulet that pressed hot against my skin. I just
wanted to anchor myself in the present – that was all it was.

I tried thinking about Drew as a small boy instead, hoping that it would sober me up. I’d hardly drunk anything, but I was reeling with lust and needed to give myself a mental slap in the
face. What had it been like for him to realize that his mother didn’t care about him? I made myself wonder, while we waited for the pedestrian-crossing lights outside the bar. How could she
have left him like that?

I was just trying to distract myself, but at that thought a wave of desolation barrelled out of nowhere and smashed through me, pushing the air from my lungs and making me suck in a breath at
the misery of it. I knew straight away what was happening, but I didn’t want to slip back to Hawise in front of Drew. Desperately I dug my fingers into my arms, hoping the pain would keep me
fixed in the present. My knuckles were white, I remember that, and I remember thinking that if I were lucky enough to conceive, I would never abandon my child.
Never
.

‘Hello?’ The Widow Dent’s cottage looks just as it did a year ago. I am drawn to it and repelled at the same time. It stands in the clearing, misshapen and
leaning, as old and bent as the widow herself. It is barely a hovel, and yet it seems to me that this place resonates with a power greater than the Common Hall, greater even than the Lord
President’s place where they do the Queen’s business. The air is shiftier here, the silence deeper. There is a thudding in my ears.

The door is ajar, but I do not dare push it open and step inside. My knuckles are white against the handle of my basket, and I make myself relax my grip. Shifting the basket to my other arm, I
call again.

‘No need to shout.’

Sybil’s voice behind me makes my heart lurch, and I spin round, clutching my throat. I have been straining for a sound in the silence. How could she have come up right behind me without me
hearing her? Unless she appeared by magic. My mouth dries.

What am I doing here? This is no place for a young wife. But I want a child, and I can’t think of anywhere else to go.

I didn’t think it would be as hard as this. I conceived not long after Francis and Agnes’s wedding, and for a while I was so happy I didn’t even mind about Francis any more.
Even Agnes seemed pleased when I told her of my conviction that I was with child. We grew closer, and for a while it was how I always imagined it would be: two sisters, both wed, talking about
women’s business. I told Agnes even before I told Ned. I wanted to be sure, before I got his hopes up. And Agnes was kinder than she has ever been. She made me rest and brewed special possets
to make the baby strong, which she made me drink, scolding me when I made a face at the taste.

And then one day, just after I whispered the truth to Ned, I started to bleed. I was with Agnes when the cramps hit me, wrenching and racking and jerking at my belly, turning my body inside out
until I hollered like a beast.

Ned was in London, and Agnes was all I had. She let me hang onto her hand, and she prayed for me, and she stayed with me until the desolate end. I was grateful to her for that.

Dear God, the pain was terrible, but I fought it all the way. I
wanted
that baby. But the screaming didn’t help, and the prayers didn’t help, and the yearning and the hoping
didn’t help, either. A last desperate convulsion and through a red haze I felt my child slip out of me and away, leaving me with only loss and loneliness.

I turned my face into the pillow while Agnes dealt with everything. She sent the maids for rags and hot water, and she cleared up the mess which was all that was left of my baby. ‘It is
God’s will, Sister,’ she said, smoothing the sheet down around me. ‘There will be other chances.’

My eyelids were leaden with grief. I didn’t want other chances, I wished I could shout. I wanted
that
baby. But I couldn’t say that to Agnes, who had stayed by my side. All
I could do was thank her. My head was so heavy on the pillow that it was a huge effort to move it, but I made myself turn, only to surprise an expression in her eyes – a gleam of something I
couldn’t read, something elusively familiar.

A blink later and the look was gone. I might have imagined it. I probably did. My mind was clouded with pain and grief. But sometimes the memory is like a sliver of ice in my head, and I puzzle
over what it was and what it meant. Then the other day I watched John Acclam’s mastiff chase a tomcat across the street. Swarming up a wall, the tom stopped to wash its paws, and the look it
gave the raging dog below was replete with insolence and something that reminded me of the way Agnes looked that day: satisfaction.

I must be wrong.

There has not been another baby. ‘Give it time,’ says Ned, even though I know he longs for a child as much as I do. Agnes hasn’t conceived, either. When I asked her if she
yearns for a baby in the same way, a strange look crossed her face.

‘I have Francis,’ she said, as if that is an answer.

‘Yes, but—’

‘You should not talk of such things, Hawise,’ she said curtly. ‘It is not seemly. Whether we conceive or no is God’s will.’

Perhaps she is right. Margery and the maids didn’t know that I was with child, although I dare say they guessed. They will have heard my groans, will have seen the bloody rags, but no one
ever says anything. It makes me feel as if have done something shameful, but how can it be shame to grieve for a babe lost?

So I keep it balled up inside me, the sadness and the longing, like a knot of brambles, and I hold myself very carefully. I don’t cry and weep and wail. That would mean letting go, and
even breathing too deep catches me on the thorns of my pain, tearing at me and making me flinch. I breathe shallowly and I don’t look inside or try to untangle it; and then the sadness
recedes to a constant dull ache of emptiness and loss and I can live with that.

My breath hangs in the iron-grey air as I stare at the cottage. The ground beneath my clogs is rigid and bumpy with ice, and my hands are very cold. It has been more than a
year since Ned and I were wed. The neighbours, I know, suck in their teeth when they talk about me, and shake their heads at Ned’s foolishness in marrying me. I should have given Ned a son by
now. There are mutterings about curses, about how they always knew that I was no fit wife for him.

Agnes says I should ignore them. She is being very solicitous, and brings me her special spiced mead every day, which I drink obediently. I don’t really like it – it has a sour
aftertaste – but she is eager to help and I don’t want to hurt her feelings by refusing, not now that we have grown closer.

She and Francis live just around the corner now. My father, God rest his soul, died suddenly just after Lammas. He left everything he had to Agnes. What need had I of anything, with my rich
husband? Francis argued. It is true that I lack for nothing, but I would have liked a keepsake.

Francis sold the house in Hungate and bought one in Jubbergate. It grates with him, I can tell, that he cannot afford a house like Ned’s, but he has not done badly all the same. In a
little over a year he has gone from a notary’s assistant to a man of property with connections to one of the wealthiest men of the city. Sometimes I remember how coldly he spoke of his master
–
I will see to him
– and I think of how unexpectedly my father died, but there is no one I can share my fears with. To the rest of the world Francis is a godly man with a
respectable wife, welcome in the neighbourhood.