Wickedness (13 page)

At first I did not know that anything was amiss. I had only just begun to menstruate and so when several months passed with no bleeding, I paid it no attention. But then I began to thicken around the waist and my clothes became uncomfortably tight. In the mornings I would wake up and be violently sick. Even a further dose of laudanum would not relieve it. I knew what it meant now, for Martha had told me that I must be with child.

I was mortally afraid of what Nicholas would say. But I need not have worried, for instead of raging at my news, he seemed overjoyed, saying she, the baby
growing inside me, would have her mother’s red hair and her father’s single-mindedness of purpose.

When I said he could not know it would be a daughter, he smiled at me as if I were an innocent, “Only a daughter can be brought to term and live. Any male child of my bloodline will die in the womb or be stillborn. The spells have given me power over that at least.”

My mind refused to admit the true horror of what he was saying. But my arms crossed low round my belly as if to protect the baby inside me… though I knew such a gesture was futile. I prayed with all my heart that I would be safely delivered of a girl, with hair the dull brown of a field mouse. That Nicholas would forget his obsession with opening the casket. But my prayers went unanswered.

As the months passed and my belly swelled and I did not miscarry, he became ever more jubilant. It was as if we had been incomplete in ourselves and were now made whole. When he was absent, my thoughts were always with him. When he was there, his eyes were always upon me. Winter slowly turned to spring.
The weather, at first warm, became wet and foul. The Doctor rarely went out now. He watched over me. Carefully. But on the 23rd day of April, St George’s Day, he was absent from the house. He must go, he said, to attend the anniversary of the King’s Coronation at the Palace of Westminster. But before he went he placed a hand on my belly and said words in a language I had never heard spoken before.

From the window of my bedchamber, I watched him climb into the carriage and drive away. I stood for a long time looking down into the street. My hands resting on the swell of my five-month belly, tight like a drum. Then I felt a fluttering inside, as if my stomach was full of moths, some discomfort and an urgent need to push down, as if I might squeeze out the baby growing inside me. Which I silently did.

Moments later, lifting my skirts and obeying that urge to push, I was delivered of it. Still in its caul, which was supple like fine leather, slippery as soap and clear as frosted glass. I could see the baby curled up and floating inside it. Thinking, in my ignorance, that I might save it, I tore open the sack with my fingers, the warm waters gushing out. Then I sat back in shock at the sight of it. Its body so small it would fit into the palm of my hand. Its eyes not yet open, but fused over.
So mesmerised was I by it, I did not notice Martha come into the room. It was only when she knelt down beside me, took out a knife from her apron pocket and bent towards the baby, that I was jolted out of my reverie.

“No!” I cried out, not understanding what it was she meant to do. But she pushed me gently away, saying, “Shh now. I mean only to cut the cord. See, it is a boy. There now, you shall hold him for a while.” Which I did, taking in every little thing about him. The tiny hands and toes with their perfect nails all in miniature. The translucence of his skin, with the map of his veins showing clearly through.

“Now, mistress.” She took him from me and wrapped him in her apron.

“You must bury him for me in the orchard, and say a blessing.” I held her by the arm and looked beseechingly into her eyes.

“I will. But first we must clean you up and all this too.”

I looked down at the floor which was wet and bloody. The afterbirth lay there, looking for all the world like so much raw offal laid out on a butcher’s stall.

Nicholas returned home late. I had been watching for him out of the window. Though the city was all aglow from the light of the bonfires celebrating the king’s anniversary, I got no pleasure at all from the sight. I could only think of my baby buried now in the orchard, and of what Nicholas would say when he knew what had happened. I was sure he would be angry with me. I had failed him. A son, and not the daughter he seemed to long for.

At last I saw him; heard his foot on the stairs and I went out to him. I must have fainted then, for when I awoke, I was in my bed and he was there, sitting beside me. “He…”

“Shh. There will be others.” He reached for the bottle of laudanum which was on the chair by the bed. And I dutifully took three spoonfuls. He stroked my brow until I fell asleep.

It had seemed the only thing to do. Robert had said that he would drive her across London to her old house. Then she would know whether her dad was there or not. And if he wasn’t, she could leave him a note and then he, Robert, would drive her back again. So that is what she wanted to believe would happen.

But then they had crossed over the river and were heading along Pimlico Road when he said, “There’s something I must sort out first. It won’t take long. My house isn’t far away.”

What could she say? It didn’t feel right, but then nothing did just now. The whole world seemed about to collapse around her in terrifying chaos. Her anxiety levels were off the scale. Three in the morning. She’d never been out that late without her mum and dad. Now she was with a man she really knew nothing about, except he wanted
something very badly and she was the key. Well, she would stay in the car while he went into the house. That would be the safest thing to do.

And when they arrived, pulled up outside that house, he said, as if he knew what she was thinking, “You can stay in the car if you like. I won’t be long. But keep the doors locked and sound the horn if you get scared. You never know who’s around this time of night.”

So she sat in the car, terrified. And the fear made her want to pee. She needed to distract herself. Took out her mobile and tried her dad again. A signal this time, but his phone was still off. She’d started to ring Zacharie, but stopped. Didn’t want to wake him… and anyway, what did she expect him to do? Now the need to pee was becoming urgent. Painful. She could get out of the car and use the gutter. But supposing someone came… found her with her knickers down around her ankles. Vulnerable. She looked out of the car window and thought she saw someone, small and slight, slipping into the alleyway that ran alongside the house.

She tried to hold on, but now she was desperate. So desperate that it blocked out the fear
and in seconds she was banging on the door to be let in. But when she ran to use the cloakroom downstairs, he stopped her, saying the toilet was blocked and she would have to use the bathroom on the top floor.

She was bursting, so she ran up the stairs after him, even though every nerve ending in her body was screaming out; telling her not to go.

“You look worn out,” he said, pushing open the bathroom door and turning on the light. “If you want to have a wash…” She pushed past him and slammed the door in his face, locking it.

She tore down her jeans and knickers and sat down on the loo. And for a second nothing happened and then… oh, the relief of it… and she was able to look around. Notice there were clean towels laid out on the side of the bath. A new toothbrush and toothpaste. A round cake of soap, smelling of honeysuckle and roses. She would have given anything to have a shower. Strip off her dirty, sweaty clothes and stand under a stream of hot, pure water. But even with the door locked she didn’t feel safe. So she just pulled up her jeans, flushed the toilet and then washed her hands and splashed water on her face. She felt better now.
Calmer. Was able to say to herself: “Bad things happen to other people” and almost believe it.

So when she came out and saw that the door to the room next door was ajar, she couldn’t stop herself from pushing it open.
Just a quick look
, she thought, and because it was still dark outside, her hand automatically searched for the light switch. But the room was lit already… with candles, though they had burned down a long way and the draught of air as she had pushed open the door had made a few of them gutter and then go out. The light in the room was hazy with their smoke. And it was hot. Unbearably hot. She could feel a trickle of sweat run down the side of her forehead. She brushed it away.

At the far side of the room was a four-poster bed, hung with heavy silk curtains. She crept closer to have a look and could see now that there were clothes laid out on it. She dropped her backpack down at the foot of the bed and reached out to touch them. The grey silk dress and the fine cotton petticoat smelling of roses and honeysuckle. And the little shoes. Oh, the shoes were beautiful. Pale grey silk. She had never seen anything like them before. She reached out to touch their
glittering silver buckles and trace the outline of the flowers exquisitely embroidered on them.

He must have been watching her as she moved about the room, stopping to look and to touch anything that caught her interest. But she hadn’t known he was there. Waiting. Not until she stopped at the table near to the shuttered window, laid out with combs, a looking glass and a silver necklace, thick and heavy as rope. Not until she had picked up the necklace, threading it through her fingers, coiling it, smooth and cool, sinuous as a snake, into her palm.

“Seventeenth century,” he said, reaching a hand over her shoulder and making her start. Then, before she could stop him, he had taken the necklace, looped it round her neck and, pushing her hair up out of the way, had fastened the catch. “There.” He turned her to face him. “A present for your birthday, just gone.”

She was going to say that she didn’t want it. Her hands were already fumbling with the catch.

But then he said something that stopped her dead in her tracks. “It was Margrat’s. Now you must wear it.” He held up the looking glass. “See how beautiful you look. The image of her.”
He reached inside his jacket and taking out a tiny oval miniature, held it out.

Claire didn’t want to look at it. She was afraid of what she might see. But she felt compelled to take it.

“I had so little time,” he was smiling, “but I did well, don’t you think? It is a very good likeness. I have caught exactly the colour of her eyes and hair.”

Claire’s eyes and hair too. Her hand shook uncontrollably. She was alone in a house with a man who clearly believed he had known a woman alive over four hundred years ago. He was mad. He had to be. What other explanation was there?

He held out his hand to take back the miniature. She would give it back and then sprint for the door. It was still half open. Then she could be down the stairs and out and running until she reached safety. So she held out the miniature, but instead of taking it, he grabbed her wrist and squeezed it so tight Claire could feel her fingers throbbing. The ring burned so hot now on her finger, it seemed almost to glow against the paleness of her skin. The miniature fell to the floor.

Now he’ll let me go
, she thought.
So he can pick it up.

But he didn’t. Quite calmly and not dropping his eyes from hers, even for a second, he stepped on it. Deliberately. Ground his heel into it, destroying it completely. “I do not need her, now I have you… the one true daughter, the key to opening the Emerald Casket at last.”

The loss of my baby weighed heavy on me. I took more laudanum to dull the pain. Though Nicholas came to my bed each night, I took no pleasure in it now. He always left before first light and then I would sleep, on and on, sometimes not leaving my bed at all for days on end. It felt for all the world as if I was entombed in a dull, grey heavy leaden casket and I would never escape from it. Martha brought food and drink, but she had to coax me to eat, even a little. And while she coaxed and cajoled, she prattled and it was she that told me fewer people were dying of the plague now.

“As if I care anything about that, when my mother and father and baby son are already dead,” I hissed, turning away from her and pulling the covers even further over my head. But I could not help but think of what she had said; that fewer were dying. So perhaps Sekhmet’s plague dogs had gone, knowing that my ring
would not unlock the casket and the spell was safe. Now the very tiniest spark of a will to live and to escape this terrible feeling of numbness leaped up inside me.

But even though I did then rise from my bed and wash and dress myself, I was in danger of slipping back into the dream world I had wilfully constructed about me. Of believing that Nicholas did truly love me for myself and not for the daughter he hoped I would bear him. For did not the proof of his love lie in everything he did? How he had made a miniature portrait of me and carried it everywhere with him, close to his heart. How he was so solicitous of me. How he flew into a rage and struck me across the face when he found me at the open door and about to step into the street. How he was immediately sorry for that and took me at once in his arms and kissed away my tears and promised never to strike me again. Which he never did. Above once.

And perhaps I would have slipped back down into that world, if, one morning in early March, a boy had not come to the door with an urgent message for the Doctor.

“The yard is all on fire sir. All your herbs and medicines are gone up in smoke.”

Nicholas left in a great hurry.
Now, in all the months I had lived in the house, I had never once been inside his study. Nicholas had made it clear that I might go anywhere in the house, except that one room. And in case I should be tempted, the door was always locked. But when I passed it that morning, the door was ajar and I could not resist the temptation to turn the handle and go in.

It was a room in size, the same as my own. But it seemed much smaller, for every wall was shelved from floor to ceiling. And on the shelves were hundreds of boxes and jars. Their labels were written in Nicholas’s clear script and in both Latin and English. There were books too, astrological charts and a desk with a microscope, weighing scales and a pestle and mortar set out on it.

So this was where he prepared his medicines and burned his incense. I could feel the smell of it entering into the very weave of my clothes and into every pore of my skin. I read the titles of the books:
The Pharmacopoeia. The Complete Herbal and English Physician. The Book of Poisons.
And the labels on some of the jars: Antimony. Hemlock. Distillation of Aconite – in a blue glass bottle. I unstopped it and took a sniff, though I did not dare taste what was inside
.

Then one bottle caught my eye. It looked to be full of the same liquid the Doctor had prepared for my parents. I took it down and read the label.
ARISTOLOCHIA
. Snake root. Took out the stopper and sniffing it, recognised it as the ‘plague water’ Nicholas had given to my mother and father.

Well whatever it was, I thought, it had not saved my parents from the plague and death. But I was curious about it. Taking the
Herbal
from the shelf, I turned the pages until I came to a description of it. And ever after wished I had not…

Excess. Was two spoonfuls day after day an excess? If so, then my parents had not died of the plague as I had thought, but had been poisoned. And I, unwittingly had given the last dose of it to my mother. The book slipped from my hands and fell to the floor.

I do not know how long I might have stood there if Martha had not found me.

“You should not have come in here,” she whispered.

I knew that.

She bent and picked up the
Herbal,
wiped it clean of dust and placed it back on the shelf. She took my hand and led me out of the study. She closed the door behind us. “You must pray that he never finds out.”

I did pray. But it was in vain, for the minute he returned and came to find me, he knew. He stepped close. Too close. He could smell the incense and the fear. I struggled to keep my voice calm. I confessed I had peeked in at the door. It had been open, I said, and curiosity had overcome me. I had not touched anything. I swore on everything that was holy, I was telling the truth. He pinched my chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted my head up so I could not look away. “I believe you Margrat. I do.” Then he left me and went up to his study. I imagined him climbing the stairs and opening the door. I saw at once the bottle of snake root, where I had left it on the desk and the
Herbal
, wiped clean, back on its shelf.

After that things fell apart. For I was consumed now by fear of him and what he might do. At dinner
that
night, I sat in terror, convinced that he would poison me. He knew it and made an exaggerated play of tasting every dish of food and glass of wine. He read to me from
The Duchess of Malfi,
a play about murder, ambition, blood and lust. But I would not dance with him now.

“You cannot make me do anything, I do not belong to you,” I said, though I was trembling.

“Not yet Margrat,” he said, standing close behind my chair and leaning forward to whisper in my ear. “Not yet.”

That night I locked my bedchamber door and I took my chair and wedged it tight under the doorknob. I prayed fervently to God for forgiveness for what I had done and I asked him what I should do now.

The next morning, when Martha came to me and said I was to get dressed in my best clothes, for Nicholas was taking me out, I thought quickly. I could refuse to go and he might be forced to drag me kicking and screaming from the house. Or I could go willingly and then pray I might escape. I tucked my three half crowns in my pocket and got dressed. I thought of Christophe.

With only a few now dying of the plague, the streets were crowded again. Our carriage moved at walking pace along the Strand, up Fleet Street and back into the city by way of the Ludgate. I held tight to the leather strap that hung from the roof, for the roads were rutted and riddled with potholes. Nicholas seemed not to notice and was silent the whole way, lost somewhere inside himself.

When the coach stopped at last in Duke Place and he lifted me down, he took my face in both his hands and said, “You will see in time that everything I do is for the ultimate good of all and I will be forgiven. It is meant to be, Margrat, and you cannot stop it now.”

At first I did not comprehend what we were doing here, but then I saw that we had stopped near St James’s, a church well known to those who planned to make a hasty marriage.

“You are wrong,” I said shaking my head. “The parson will not marry us, for it would be against my will and a capital offence.”

“He will, for it is all arranged. He has been well paid and after we are married you will never escape or bear witness against me.”

Then, though I struggled and scratched at his face, he forced me into the church and locked the door and
pocketed the key. We were halfway up the aisle and I was kicking and screaming at the sight of the parson waiting at the altar, when I felt Nicholas loosen his grip on me and I fell, cracking my elbow on the stone floor. The red mist of pain left me blind for a moment, but when it cleared, I could see that Nicholas lay unconscious on the floor beside me, blood trickling from a cut deep above his left eye.

Then Christophe was there, a hank of rope slung across his chest like a bandolier. And he was dragging me up and pulling me away towards the church door and there was no one yet to stop us. The parson had disappeared.

“The door is locked.” I cried out, “Nicholas has the key in his pocket.”

Christophe stopped, let go of me and went back to where Nicholas lay. He rolled him onto his back and started to search his pockets. But just as I thought Christophe would find the key, there was a cry and Nicholas was come to and had grabbed Christophe’s wrist tight. I ran back and snatched at Nicholas’s hair and pulled as hard as I might and he cried out with pain and let go of Christophe’s wrist. And in an instant Christophe had my hand and we were running towards a door to the back and side of the church, our footsteps
echoing loud and Nicholas in pursuit. Through the door we went and were at the bottom of the church’s tower. Up, up, up the steps and out onto the lead of the church roof. And Nicholas coming after us.

Fear gripped my throat so tight I could hardly speak, but the sound of his feet on the stone stairs, swift and terrible, spurred me on, though I did not see now how we would escape him. Hand in hand, Christophe and I scrabbled and slid our way down the roof until at last we were on the edge. The houses were huddled close around the church, their roofs nearly touching its walls. Christophe slipped the hank of rope from over his head and tying one end around the steeple, he tossed the coil of rope over the side of the tower. We watched the rope uncoil until it reached the ground. It was a very long way down. Christophe looked into my eyes and held my hand and squeezed it. I knew what he wanted me to do, but fear rooted me to the spot. Even though I could hear that Nicholas was nearly upon us. A few steps more, a heartbeat closer.

“I cannot climb down the rope,” I whispered.

“You must, for if the Doctor finds the casket, then you hold the key.”

“No, no, for he has the casket already and my ring will not open it.”

“I do not understand. I thought you were the
red-haired
maiden… the true…”
He gasped. Blood drained from his face.
“Dieu…
now I understand what it means. Do you carry a child inside you… a daughter
, his
daughter?”

My hand instinctively felt for the imperceptible swell of my belly. Though he had told me before, now I had to face the truth of what he was saying. If the baby I carried was a girl… and had red hair… then I knew what would come to pass. Nicholas would take her from me and, when she was 14, he would use her to open the casket. The horror of it, as burning and hot as I imagined the fires of hell. Oh, yes, I must escape now, or die trying. But just as I leaned forward and prepared to grab hold of the rope, I was pulled back and felt the cold press of steel against my throat. The blade whispered across my neck as if it caressed it. Christophe cried out in desperation, but there was nothing he could do. A step closer and Nicholas would slit my throat. But he could escape… and be free to help me still.

Nicholas was growing impatient. “Are you waiting to see her die?” The blade pressed closer now and drew blood. I felt it trickle, warm, down my neck.

“Go,” I whispered.

I thought Christophe hesitated, turning and turning
the ring on his finger. Then he slipped over the edge of the roof and was gone from sight. Still holding the knife to my neck, Nicholas dragged me across and we both looked down. I thought I would see Christophe’s body spread out on the cobbles below, but I had forgotten that he had no fear of heights and was as agile as a cat. His feet pressed against the stone of the tower and hand over hand on the rope, he climbed down. Nicholas took his knife from my throat now and I could not stop him as he used it to cut the rope. But he was too late. Christophe had reached the ground safely. Pausing only for the briefest of moments to look up, he ran towards the river. God willing, he would be safe.