I, Coriander (10 page)

‘I do not rightly know where they are, sir,’ said Danes.

Arise shook the dresser until plates and glasses fell off and the drawers slid open one after another, all crashing to the floor. Finally he found what he was looking for. All this time he gripped my hair tight.

‘Leave her be,’ said Danes shakily. I believe she thought he was about to kill me.

‘Silence, woman. I did not ask for any of your tongue.’

He started to chop my hair off in handfuls. I did not fight back. What did any of it matter any more?

‘How dare you!’ said Danes, rushing forward. Arise pushed her away so that she lost her footing and tripped. She stood up again and said, ‘How can you call yourself a man of God?’

Arise roared, ‘Another word from you, mistress, and you will be thrown from this house. Do I make myself clear?’

Joan was whimpering. For the first time I was not crying. I looked on the floor with horror. For there, amongst all the broken plates, glasses, jugs, candles, pots and pans lay my beloved Beth. I had kept her hidden in the dresser for safety.

The sight of my doll made Arise stop chopping at my hair. He let me go, and kicking a broken plate out of the way picked up Beth.

‘Is this yours?’ he said to me.

‘Yes,’ I said, feeling my legs go weak. ‘May I have it, sir, please?’

‘Is this doll cherished? Is this doll loved? To show regard for any image that is not that of the Lord is a sin,’ spat out Arise.

‘What harm is there in the child having a doll, when she has lost so much?’ said Danes.

‘This child,’ said Arise, grabbing at me once more and shaking me hard, ‘this wicked child has brought sin upon herself and she shall be punished.’

With a flick of his wrist he tossed Beth into the fire. I watched silently as my best beloved doll lay on top of the burning coals. Then the strangest thing happened. Beth stood upright in the fire with her cloth hands outstretched before her, and the flames, instead of going up the chimney, danced from the hearth towards the crooked man, like the forked tongue of a snake. Maud screamed with alarm as Arise’s coat caught light so that he was forced to use the hand of wrath and the hand of salvation to beat out the flames instead of beating me.

A smell of singed wool filled the air, and still Beth stood there like Joan of Arc, refusing to be defeated by the flames. At last she dissolved into a myriad sparkling colours that fizzed and spat out from the fire, flying towards Arise and Maud who were forced to the end of the kitchen.

Arise, now white with rage, the veins in his forehead nearly bursting with anger, brought his fist down hard on upon the table.

‘The Lord be my witness,’ he shouted, pointing his long finger at Danes, ‘this is proof of witchcraft for which I hold you, mistress, responsible. I order you to leave this house and never darken this door again.’

I ran to Danes and she took my hand. ‘Let us be gone, my little sparrow.’

‘No, you do not, you witch,’ said Arise, suddenly grabbing me away from her.

‘I will leave, sir, but let me take the child.’

‘No,’ said Arise coldly. ‘Out, before I turn you over to the authorities, and may you have the grace to see the salvation that is offered you. The Lord is merciful.’

There was nothing else to be done. Danes was without any power. I knew that. I watched her go and felt all to be lost.

‘Mother,’ said Hester timidly.

‘Silence,’ hissed Arise. ‘Joan, what are you staring and shaking for? Get on with the meal. And Hester, fetch a broom and clean all this up.’

I made one last desperate attempt to break free from the crooked man, determined that I was going to escape and run away with Danes, but he grabbed at me and dragged me to the study, followed by Maud. How he had got hold of the key to the room my father kept locked, I had no idea.

My mother’s chest stood empty in the middle of the room with its lid open. Her dresses lay on the floor like lifeless butterflies. The little paintings were gone, the casket gone.

I knew then what the crooked man was going to do and the fear of it made me fight for my life. Finally I sank my teeth into his arm. He let out a yelp of pain and hit me so hard that I have no memory of being put in the chest, only of seeing the light disappearing.

I tried to push the lid open, but it was locked tight. I shouted for help but I knew no one would come. So I closed my eyes, for the darkness in my head was not as black or thick as the darkness I could see when my eyes were open.

This was it, then. I would become no more than a crumpled empty dress. Only my bones would be left to sing the truth of my death.

A
nd so the second part of my tale is told, and with it another candle goes out.

PART THREE

13

Medlar

I
had always believed that there was only one world, the world I had been born into. Now I know that the world we live in is nothing more than a mirror that reflects another world below its silvery surface, a land where time is but a small and unimportant thing, stripped of all its power. For me it was my salvation, for without it I would be no more than dead bones in an oak chest in a grand house that once belonged to a London merchant.

I was certain that my end was near, that death was waiting for me. Terrified, I made one last desperate effort to push the lid open. It was hopeless, and I felt the darkness beginning to smother me.

Then there was light, wonderful light, blinding light, like the curtains being drawn back at a playhouse. I feared that I must be dead, for winter had melted away and here was summer as bright as Bartholomew Fair, with trumpets blazing, drums beating, and a chorus of crickets and birdsong to greet me. Wild flowers giddy in their scented finery and cow parsley as pretty as lace nodded in the breeze; hedgerows beckoned like market stalls full of fresh blackberries, and ripe strawberries giggled in their red gowns. The sky was blue, without a cloud to trouble it.

I turned round with a start to see a strange-looking man standing there. He had a long beard tied into a knot, and was holding a lantern as round as the moon. As surprising as he appeared, still there was something familiar about him, which rattled me, for I knew I had never met this man before.

‘Wondrous fair!’ he said, giving a deep bow. ‘I was beginning to think you would not come. What took you so long?’

Was he talking to me? In truth, I was not sure, though there was no one else around.

‘Am I dead?’ I asked, which seemed to send the strange fellow into a fit of giggles, and he said, as if it were the funniest idea ever laid before him, ‘Death and time do not belong here, Coriander.’

‘How do you know my name? How did you know I would be here?’ I stared at him, dumbfounded, and he held out his hand.

‘Forgive me. I have not introduced myself. Medlar is the name I go by. I knew your mother when she was the same age as you, and was fortunate enough to meet your father one midsummer’s night. A true gentleman, if I may say so.’

I stared at him, hardly even daring to whisper to myself what I thought. I felt that I was walking on water, so uncertain was I of everything, and that at any moment I would sink, be lost for ever below its shining ripples. For if a season can change in the closing of a chest, then maybe if I asked a question Medlar might vanish. So I kept quiet and accepted with joy that I was still alive, and took comfort in the knowledge that he had known my mother and had met my father.

‘Ah, wondrous fair,’ said Medlar again, as a horse and cart came plodding down the lane. I could hear a tinkling of bells and the sound of passengers singing merrily.

The driver stopped when he reached us and Medlar helped me up on to a seat.

The folk in the cart must, I thought, be going to a wedding, though no kind of wedding I had ever seen, for they wore skirts and petticoats, doublets and waistcoats, the like of which not even a Royalist would dare to put on. All had the most perfect shoes and none of them looked as if their bones might ache or their teeth be black or their hearts sad like the people of London. ‘Welcome,’ they said as they moved up to make room for us.

I sat there pleased that no one had asked Medlar what he was doing with such a ragamuffin. I felt out of place and was glad that no notice was taken of me whatsoever.

The cart jogged along and the passengers began to talk amongst themselves. I only half heard what they were saying; I was still perplexed as to how I could have come from cold darkness to such a brilliant summer’s day. This is truly magic, I thought happily to myself.

‘Knocked the milking stool away and down she went, legs out in front of her,’ laughed a lady sitting next to me. She was wearing a coat that looked as if it were made of thistledown.

‘They ask for it,’ said her friend.

‘Indeed they do. Always wishing for this and that, never really knowing what it is they want. Then, when their wishes come true, instead of being happy, blow me down if they don’t go wishing for something else,’ said my neighbour.

‘Exactly,’ agreed the other one, ‘never satisfied.’

‘It is sad, though,’ said the woman in the thistledown coat.

‘True, but it brightens the day,’ said her friend. And at that they both set off again in gales of giggles.

‘Are you going to the wedding?’ asked a gentleman with a large flower in his buttonhole.

‘Of course,’ answered Medlar. ‘Where else would I be going on a midsummer’s day like this?’

The gentleman leant forward in his seat. ‘They say this marriage is all Queen Rosmore’s idea.’

‘So I have heard,’ replied Medlar.

‘It is wrong, I tell you,’ said the man. ‘It is like expecting fire and water to live happily together. We all know what happened last time they tried to force such a marriage.’

All the passengers nodded wisely.

I wanted to ask what had happened, but I felt shy. A man in a very tall hat who was sitting opposite us looked about him and then, lowering his voice, said, ‘They say that if Prince Tycho will not marry Princess Unwin, the Queen will change him into a fox.’

‘No! How terrible,’ said the lady in the thistledown coat.

‘There is a rumour that the Queen has the shadow already,’ the man added with great importance, puffing out his chest like a chicken on a Sunday.

‘You don’t say!’ said the lady.

‘I have heard she is desperate to get that daughter of hers married, ’ said a stout lady carrying a cloth-covered birdcage. ‘It is a great sadness they picked such a sweet prince, though. I do not know what he did to deserve this dubious honour.’

‘I tell you this for nothing,’ said the man in the tall hat. ‘We shall all be lost if the Queen becomes any more powerful.’ He crossed his arms and as he did so his hat flew from his head and tumbled down the lane like a drunken acrobat. The driver halted while he clambered out to retrieve it.

‘No more rumours,’ said the stout lady when he clambered back in. ‘Today is the wedding. Let us wish the couple well and speak of happier things.’

I asked the stout lady what she had in the cage, but she just smiled sweetly and did not reply. I wondered if she might be deaf.