The Assassin's Wife (5 page)

“Your father fell in the field, Nan.” Brother Brian glanced up from his devotions. “Noll, and Giles Arrowsmith carried him home. He’s very sick.”

The words spilled over me without meaning for I was shocked by the scowl on Noll Wright’s face. Never had I seen such hatred in anyone’s eyes.
 

He staggered to his feet to address the priest in surly tones.

“I’ll leave you to your prayers, Brother Brian. My work here’s done. I’ll send my wife to help Jane. Ruth Arrowsmith’ll keep the little lad this night.” He gave me a hard glance. “The maid must look to herself.”

When he was gone I sat beside the priest, listening to the rain drumming on the roof, sensing my world sliding into chaos. I couldn’t rouse my mother. She sat by the hearth holding her swollen belly, rocking and moaning. When I touched her shoulder, she turned a savage look on me.

“I blame you for this,” she said.

Chapter Six

Throughout the waning autumn, the passing-bell brought many to the churchyard. Daily, hooded women thronged the houses of the bereaved. The drone of loss filled the village like the hum of a busy hive.
 

But nothing touched me. The Mass, the burial, and the mourning for my father’s death sailed like ragged thunder-clouds across my days. Dry-eyed and lonely, I stumbled through my tasks while rotting corpses swelled the burying ground. But when they carried Fat Marion’s last son to his grave, the storm of anger broke across my head in all its fury.

“Witch! Witch!”

A clod of earth struck me as I stooped to draw water from the well. I turned in shock. Fat Marion, red-faced and weeping, bore down upon me.

“I’ll see you hanged for this!” Shoulders heaving with exertion, she paused to catch her breath. Soil crumbled from her hands. Her shrieks roused neighbours from their houses. Sullen and watchful, they waited on their thresholds.

When she fetched me a cuff around the ear which made me drop my pail, I froze. Around me faces leered, lips drew back exposing jagged teeth, bodies tensed, fist and nail curled in anticipation. I looked into the eyes of strangers, and murder glowered in every one of them.
 

I ran towards the woodland.

As at a signal, they joined the chase, pelting me with mud and stones. Ahead, the blacksmith stood brandishing a mattock, a giant barring my path, and from all sides, greedy hands snatched and clawed. Like a panicked hare trying to dodge the teeth of the hounds, I ran this way and that—directionless—witless—blinded by fear.

How I reached the church I don’t know. Brother Brian stepped through the open door and I fell into his arms.

“That creature’s the devil’s instrument.” Fat Marion panted at my heels. Behind her the feral crowd roared its approval.

“She’s only a child,” the priest said.

For an instant the snarls abated, held by the power of his words and the church’s authority.

“Witches can be any age, Brother Brian.” The blacksmith’s voice rang fearless. “The devil’s in that maid and she’s infected all of us. We must burn it out.”

The crowd took up the chant. Above the priest’s protests, the voices snapped and whined as individual villagers cursed, blaming me for everything, for the battle, the plague, the lost harvest, even for the death of my own father.

Squeezing my eyes tight shut, burying my face in the rough, dusty fabric of his robe, I clung to Brother Brian. Any moment I expected to be torn away and dragged to the stake. I’d heard people talk of witch burning with a strange mixture of glee and horror, and now the crowd’s frenzy rose to a screeching, breathless climax —

“Go home!”
 

The fury of the priest’s command brought silence.

“I’m shamed to hear such things. Is it ignorant you are? Have my words meant nothing to you? Have you forgotten how Our Lord was persecuted by an angry mob? And are you after punishing a child? Go home at once and reflect on your sins. I’ll hear no more of this.”

They slunk away like curs and then he looked at me, his eyes full of tears.

“Child, child, what am I to do with you?” he said.

Chapter Seven

Two days he hid me in the church. I lay in the very heart of the village with my neighbours prowling just outside while the priest kept watch. Alan Palmer carried messages and I listened to their desperate whispered exchanges while pretending to draw ink patterns on scraps of vellum.

“You took the letter?”

“The messenger has it in his pack. He left early. But Master Wright says she must be punished and my father says some of the men plan to fetch Sir Robert from the manor at Houghton—”

“They wouldn’t violate the sanctuary of the church.” The priest plucked at his mouth and paced the flagstones.

“Her mother won’t take her back—”

“The letter was to her aunt. Does anyone know she’s here?”

The blond lad shook his head. “I said I’d seen her in the woods and near the Stone on Ford’s Hill—”

My heart skipped. Everyone feared the Standing Stone. No one understood the strange designs scratched on it or how it came to be there. Long ago some ancient bones and daggers were discovered buried in the earth nearby, and whispers of pagan sacrifice still circulated. Why had Alan told people he’d seen me there?

“Wait here. I must speak to Martin.” The priest snatched up his cloak and gave me a quick glance. He turned back to Alan, his face haggard. “If anything should happen—ring the bell.”

An uncomfortable silence settled. I tried to decipher the meaning of their conversation.
 

“Will they burn me?”

A tremor shook the lad. His beautiful
limpid eyes regarded me with horror.

“Brother Brian won’t let them.”

We didn’t speak again. But when the priest returned I knew some irrevocable decision had been made.

“Go home now, Alan. Martin’s agreed.” The priest crouched beside me, his face strained. “You must eat your supper, Nan, and go to sleep. We’ve a long journey tomorrow.”

* * * * *

“Quickly now, on to the cart.” The carter shoved me mercilessly.
 

Blind with sleep, I scrabbled up, scraping knees and hands, clawing for purchase amongst the coils of rope and bales of straw.
 

“Why do we have to go now? It’s not even daylight. I wanted to see Tom—”

“Sssh! Do you want to rouse the whole village?” The carter’s brutal hiss stung my ear. “You’ve caused enough trouble—”

Brother Brian sprang to my side and, dropping his bundle, wrapped a protective arm about me. The squeeze of his fingers suggested sympathy, but wasn’t it his idea to send me away? I fumed against this restraining grip, but before I could wriggle free, the horse shifted in its harness and the cart lurched forward.

“Steady there—” The carter must have snatched the reins as he climbed into his place. Stamping and snorting, the horse clinked his bit, and I sniffed the moist warmth off him, sensing the quiver of his flanks. Even he seemed anxious.

Save for a peck of stars straddling the black arc of the sky, no lights pierced the dark. Looking back, I distinguished the bulk of the church hunched like a crone over the sleeping village. I held my breath to listen to the night noises—the wind’s eerie flap among the trees and the hunting owl’s shriek. The smell of damp earth and smoke hung in the air and something sinister, thick with danger gathered in our silence. I realised I no longer belonged in this place.
 

Smuggled away without a chance to say farewell, cast out and despised, I felt like Joseph in the Bible being sold into slavery in Egypt. But black rebellion burned in my heart. Had Joseph felt like this? Picking a splinter from my thumb, I plotted a childish vengeance. One day they’d all be sorry. But when Robin’s contrite face and Alys’ reproachful eyes rose up to confront me, I swallowed painful tears.

The cart’s sudden pitch plunged us on to the road. Tucking my feet under me, I huddled deep into my cloak, shrinking from the mean tang of autumn on the wind. Eventually, the steady, swaying rhythm lulled me, but every now and then I started up and shivered.
 

“We’ll be at Saint Bede’s before dawn.” The carter grunted his relief.
 

“You’ve done well, Martin. I’m grateful” The priest’s words puzzled me. I wondered at his gratitude for such a journey.
Although I’d heard talk of Saint Bede’s, I’d no notion of where it lay.
 

Not long after, a worried-looking monk emerged from the black night to beckon us. In the feeble light of his lantern I caught the furtive glint in the carter’s eye, the gnawing of a lip, and sensed his eagerness to be gone.
 

Snatching up his bundle, Brother Brian leapt down while the wheels were still in motion, and before I could think the carter lifted me to join him. Without pause, he hurtled away again into the dark and the monk hurried us inside.

A noxious smell of mould oozed from the flagstones under my feet and a spindly lad in a stained surplice thrust a bowl of porridge into my hands. I tried to swallow the tasteless mess but excitement closed my throat. Instead I stood holding the warmth against my belly trying to decipher the urgent, mumbled conversation between the monk and Brother Brian.
 

“Quickly, Nan.” The priest thrust my bowl at the lad and drove me out after the monk like a recalcitrant goat. Stumbling over the hem of my cloak, I followed the bobbing lantern and came to where two asses waited by a gate, their rumps facing the wind. Another monk helped me swarm up into the saddle, instructing me to cling to the pommel. Once mounted on his own steed, Brother Brian took my ass’s reins and turned us back to the road, forcing the animals swiftly into a trot.
 

“Godspeed!”
 

The priest acknowledged the blessing with a lift of his hand.

But when the first pale ribbons of dawn began to unfurl across the sky, he pointed out a distant building.

“We can find food and lodging there.”

“Will we be in London soon?” My belly rumbled and I’d a pressing need to void my bladder.

Brother Brian laughed. “We must travel several days to reach the city,” he answered gently. “But there are many monasteries which will shelter us. And there are good people who’ll help us along the way.”

So, sick and bruised, I found myself jolted along the London road, only half listening to the priest’s voice, and cursing the ill fortune that drove me further and further from home.
 

My head grew dizzy with the blur of people and places we encountered. Each monastery guest-house brought the same meagre comforts of hard bed, and tasteless food eaten in draughty, prayer-haunted refectories. The faces of the monks all wore the same sorrowful expression as they listened to my piteous tale.

“Nan’s been offered a home in her uncle’s house in London,” Brother Brian told them. “Her father, God rest him, died of the plague just a week or so ago, and her mother’s too sick to care for all the children.”

This plausible story earned much sympathy. He made no mention of spirits or witchcraft and for that I nursed a grudging respect.

“Do you think I imagined the dreams?”

We stopped to share some bread and cheese by a little, ragged copse.
 

Brother Brian paused, bread in hand, to stare at me, his blue eyes troubled.

“And did you?”

“No.” I returned the stare with a bold tilt of my chin. “And I know they’re true. As well as I know Alys Weaver will marry an old man and Robin Arrowsmith will die with a dagger in his throat.”

A painful frown cleft the priest’s brows.
 

“I had a brother gifted as you are—”

“A brother? I didn’t know priests had families.” This information caught my interest.

A smile replaced the frown. “I was born far from here in a country called Ireland beyond the sea. And I lived in a village with my parents and my brothers and sisters—”

“Like me!”

“Well, in a manner of speaking—but in my country people are after believing in seers and wise-women. So when my brother, Niall, said he could see spirits and the dead returned to speak to him, no one was much alarmed. They thought him chosen for some special purpose.”

“What happened to him?”

“He went away to study and learn how to use his gift—” He raised a finger to check any interruption. “But here things are very different. People are frightened by what they think is witchcraft. Your tales are dangerous—”

“But Mistress Evans—”

“The Widow Evans is a good woman who uses her skills with herbs to help others. In Ireland she’d be called a wise-woman.”