Daughters of the Witching Hill (13 page)

I dragged myself back to Malkin Tower where Liza and John were sat clasping each other and whispering in their agitation.

"If they send you away, I won't be able to bear it," Liza told her husband.

Landlords could do that—send their tenants off to war. Though we paid no rent, Malkin Tower belonged by law to Nowell. Would he summon our John? My head hurt too much to think anymore. Sick at heart, I trundled off to bed.

The Spanish invasion was the only thing folk could talk about, but before any of our men could be called to fight, the news came that it was all over. Our Queen's Navy had trounced the Armada, so Nowell proclaimed, and had given those Spaniards a right basting, driving them from our shores. Took to flight, they did, and then their warships were battered in summer gales and sank, one after another, to the bottom of the sea.

The Curate said that God's own hand had raised the storms to vanquish the enemy and preserve our Queen. Each of us, whether we were loyal to the new church or the old, offered up our thanks. Alice Nutter and Roger Nowell engraved the same inscription on their manor houses:
HE BLEW
His
WINDS AND THEY
WERE
SCATTERED.

We'd much to celebrate that August: peace, victory, and a rich harvest. Every hand was needed to bring in the wheat, oats, and barley. Our John helped the Holdens at Bull Hole with the scything whilst Liza and I bound the sheaves. When the last sheaf was brought in, decorated like a bride upon her wedding day, folk gathered round each farm for the big harvest supper. Crops were so good that we tried to forget there had ever been famine. Soon we were helping pick apples at Bull Hole Farm and pressing the cider. Sarah Holden gave us a cask to take back to Malkin Tower—it would be ready for drinking come Yuletide. I thanked God and Tibb and all the saints, for this was the most abundant time my family had ever known.

Though I was ever mindful of Tibb's warning regarding Nowell, it was easy enough to stay out of his sight and he'd little enough reason to linger anywhere near Malkin Tower. So I tried not to dwell upon peril and misfortune, but instead prayed to look with clear eyes at what lay ahead.

Elsie's time came in early October. With the Sabden midwife to help her, she bore a girl she named Margaret after her own mother. After the christening, our Liza cradled her newborn niece and stared, full enchanted, at her small, pink face.

"What a lovely little lass. God willing, mine will be bonny, too. Won't be long now." My daughter's belly swelled huge and high. "But mine will be a man-child." This she knew because Ball had told her so.

It was plain to my eyes that Liza was carrying a boy and a big one at that. Her husband, after all, was a tall, long-boned thing. Secretly I worried for her, since she was so small in the hips—the first birth was always the hardest. Liza was so huge, I expected her time to come by the end of October at the latest, but still her belly grew and grew till she could only waddle along, splay-legged as any duck.

"Why's my babe so late?" she asked me, her hands gripping her belly.

I told her not to worry, that I'd seen many a baby born later than expected and come healthy and sound.

At Hallowtide Liza insisted on walking up Blacko Hill, as we'd always done, for our midnight vigil on the Eve of All Saints. Under cover of darkness we crept forth with me carrying the lantern to light our way and John following with a pitchfork crowned in a great bundle of straw. Her cloak drawn to hide her face, Liza brought up the rear.

Once we reached the hilltop, after a furtive look round to make sure no one else was about, John lit the straw with the lantern flame so that the straw atop the pitchfork blazed like a torch. With him to hold the fork upright and keep an eye out for intruders, Liza and I knelt to pray for our dead. In the old days we'd held this vigil in the church, the whole parish praying together, the darkened chapel bright as day with the many candles glowing on the saints' altars. Now we were left to do this in secret, stealing away like criminals in the night, as though it were something shameful to hail our deceased. I prayed for my mam and grand-dad, calling out to their souls till I felt them both step through the veil to bring me comfort.

In my heart of hearts I did not believe my loved ones were in purgatory waiting, by and by, to be let into heaven. There was no air of suffering or torment about them, only the joy of reunion. My mam, young and pretty, worked in her herb garden. She hummed a lilting tune whilst her earth-stained fingers pointed out to me the plants I must use to ease Liza's birth pangs. At the sound of hoof beats, I looked over the garden gate to see Grand-Dad riding up on some old nag the Nowells had lent him. Come all the long way from Read Hall to Malkin Tower to visit us, he had, his smile near splitting his face as he jumped down from the saddle to sweep me up in his arms. He whispered his old charms to bless me and Liza and John.

A long spell I knelt there, held in the embrace of my beloved dead, till the straw on the pitchfork burned itself out, falling in embers and ash to the ground. Our John helped my pregnant daughter rise to her feet, then we made our way home through the night that no longer seemed so dark.

All Souls' Day was no longer a holiday, but just the same Liza and I baked soulcakes of oat, apple, and honey, the way I learned from my own mam, to give to any poor folk who came knocking on our door, but our only visitors were Anthony Holden of Bull Hole and some of his hired men. He'd come to tell our John it was time to cull the herd.

Like Judgement Day, it was. Young John sorted out the good milk cows and heifers and the bull calves from the rest. Some of the young bulls he castrated. Others went with the weak and crooked into the slaughter pen. When the first bullock was led to the killing ground, his bellowing was enough to send the rest crashing round the pen till I feared the fence would break. Our John and four other men fettered the bullock before Anthony Holden himself slit the beast's throat, quick and merciful. Though the animal was well dead, it still heaved in its death throes. So that none of the blood would be wasted, our Liza came with a firkin to collect it. Blood pudding, she said she'd make, and black pudding, sausage and tripe, and she'd pickle each hoof and head.

But the sight of so much blood made her go pale as whey. Dropped the firkin, did my girl, splashing blood over herself. As the cattle in the slaughter pen bawled and charged, so the babe in her womb thrashed with such force that I could see the movement through her bloodstained apron. She swayed on her feet.

I caught Liza under the arms. "Her time has come."

John helped me bring her to the house. Whilst John ran to fetch fresh straw to spread on the floor, I took off her red-spattered apron and kirtle, and found her a clean shift to wear. After setting the kettle to boil, I brewed raspberry leaf and motherwort for my daughter who crouched on the birth straw.

"Lad wants to come out," she said, trying to hold her baby through her own wall of flesh. Again I saw the child kicking and pummelling, making the thin fabric of her smock leap and shake. "Come to me, my little boy."

Liza panted, too weak to stand, whilst I mopped the cold sweat off her brow and waited for her waters to break. Generally a babe stopped kicking before it travelled down the mouth of the womb and the birth pangs began. But this child kept on flailing inside her whilst outside the cattle lowed and wailed. Hours dragged on till we both knew her time hadn't yet come after all. With a heavy heart, I moved her to her pallet, swept the birth straw off the floor, and unbolted the door so the men could come in. Past sunset it was and they were awaiting their supper. They roasted fresh meat on a spit, but my Liza could only stomach thin broth. Next day I rose at dawn to get on with the pickling, salting, and sausage-making. But I collared John and told him that Liza was not to do any work besides stitching till the baby came.

Late at night I crept out the door. Cold air slapped my face and frost-spiked grass pricked at my bare feet. As I squeezed through a gap in the hedge, a great long hare crossed my path. Caught my breath, I did, as it sailed clear over the stone wall in one mighty leap. I'd barely walked another ten paces when a second hare hopped to the middle of the track, its ears and nose a-twitch.

"Tibb?" I whispered. "Ball?"

No glint of recognition flickered in the creature's eyes. It just bounded away.

When I reached the far meadow that bordered the beck, I spied more hares cavorting in the moonlight than I could count. This wasn't right. Spring and summer were the seasons for sighting hares in plenty—not this dead end of the year. What portent was this? Onward I pressed, ploughing a track through the crowd of them till I reached the beck and its rushing waters. Cried out to Tibb, I did. Cried loud, over and over, till my throat ached. When he showed himself, he seemed distant, his face washed silver in the cold moonlight.

"I need your help," I said, fair throttling him for taking his sweet time on a night such as this. "It's Liza."

"Aye, Bess. I know it well." He spoke up solemn as any curate. "In time the babe will come. Everything that is to be will be in the fullness of time."

"Now you speak in riddles. Why are there so many hares and what have they to do with Liza's baby?"

Tibb lifted his face to the moon. "As for the baby, you must love him. Above all, that."

"What are you saying, you daft thing? You think I need you to tell me to love my own grandson?" So sharp was my temper that Tibb faded away. As loudly as I implored him, he did not appear again that night. Homeward I plodded, kicking at the hares as I crossed the meadow.

When I opened the door, I found my Liza slumped before the hearth, tears a-glitter on her cheeks. "Wondered where you were off to," she whispered. "Couldn't sleep for my nightmares, Mam. Kept dreaming that hares were chasing my baby."

Tibb, how could you abandon me to this?
Trying to hide my fears from her, I filled the kettle and brewed hops to send her back to sleep.

But I lay awake, aching with cold. Edging my way to the window slit of the upper tower room, I looked out to see hares sporting far as I could see, bleached ghost-white under the moon. How they chased each other round and round, having a merry old time, as if this were their world, not ours.

Liza's travails began upon Martinmas morning. First the gush of water, then the twinging that signalled the start of her labour, her womb clenching like a great fist. Again John brought in fresh, clean straw and I brewed raspberry leaf and motherwort. The sun climbed a sky full of lacy mare's tails. Between the pains, our Liza clung to the window frame and declared that the omens were good. We both gazed out that open window till the cold air stung our faces, and we saw not a single hare.

Hands pressed to the small of her back, Liza paced in circles, round and round, ever sun-wise for luck, till the force of her travails forced her down upon the straw. I rubbed her private parts with new butter so she wouldn't tear. Holding her upright whilst she squatted, I chanted and prayed to the Mother of God and to St. Margaret, patroness of childbirth, and begged Liza to hold on and keep pushing. At last a great purple head crowned between her thighs. Then, despite the butter I'd used, my poor girl tore and bled.

Liza's head lolled back, her eyes twisting in their sockets. In her torment she cursed and swore she'd never let John in her bed again. My ears rang from her wailing till the biggest newborn I'd seen in all my days slipped out of her and into my arms. Huge as a full-grown hare, he was. I prayed that this harrowing birth wouldn't be the end of my girl.
Help us, Tibb.

She collapsed on the straw. First I thought she'd fainted away. Then her eyes opened, and I cut the cord and held up her baby. Eyes filling with tears, Liza begged me to hurry up and clean him off so she could hold him. In trembling arms I cradled him. He was whole and perfect, except for his head which seemed a sight too large for the rest of him. I cleaned out his nose and mouth, and then the lusty little thing punched the air and bawled. Whilst I washed him, a sliver of dread needled me, though I didn't understand why. There was nowt wrong with the boy, nowt I could see. He already showed us his nature, brawny and full-spirited. I wrapped him in his swaddling and tucked him in his mother's arms.

"Isn't he beautiful? My darling boy." Liza was smiling like I'd never seen her smile.

Then, with her last strength, she pushed out the afterbirth, which I cast straightaway into the fire so that the flames consumed every part of it. An evil soul could use the afterbirth for blackest magic.

Next I washed her, stitched her back together again, and laid on a witch hazel compress to still her bleeding. After that was done, I covered her in blankets and called out to our John who had been wandering like a lost soul between the house and the shippon, waiting till I invited him in.

Liza was wan and weak, but grinning like a mad thing as John bent to kiss her.

"Feel how strong our little man is." She opened the swaddling and wrapped her husband's fingers around one tiny, powerful foot, laughing as their son kicked out as he'd been kicking away in her womb for months. "He'll grow to be taller than even you!"

"We'll call him James," said John. "After my father." Such wonder shone upon my son-in-law's face. In his baby boy, I knew he hoped to see his cherished and long-dead father live again.

My own misgivings about the baby weighed heavy, a yoke upon my shoulders. Leaving Liza and John to their happiness, I swept the soiled birth straw off the floor and burned it in the hearth till the flames leapt high as hares. Tibb's voice echoed in my memory.
You must love him. Above all, that.
Then I understood that young James's birth was the turning point of our fortune and fate.