The Memory of Snow (13 page)

2010

Liv turned her back on Ryan. Honestly, he was being
completely annoying today. She’d sometimes had the impression that he wanted to
become a bit more than a friend. She’d known him since primary school; they’d
grown up together like brother and sister, been best friends for years. She’d
always dismissed him as anything else. But lately he’d started to look at her
in a strange way. He’d draw his eyebrows together and stare at her when he
thought she couldn’t see him. And she could tell he was thinking stuff that
hadn’t entered his mind before. She’d given it some thought herself, to be
honest. She was going to say something or at least let him know he had a chance
with her if he’d behaved himself today. But that was out of the question now.
He was driving her mad. She felt an unreasonable, simmering anger bubble up
inside her and quashed it firmly. She knew he hated stuff like this. His thing
was sport and geography and science; nothing ‘girly’ like history, as he kept
telling her.

‘Liv?’ Ryan tried again. ‘I’m sorry, Liv. But honestly. I did
see someone next to you. He held his hand up a few inches above Liv’s head.
‘Here. He was about up to here and he was standing right beside you.’

Liv sighed.

‘Look, Ryan,’ she said quietly. ‘I know you don’t really want
to be here with me. It’s fine. You go on home. The bus will be coming past
again shortly. I can finish up here, and write my notes when it’s nice and
quiet. Then I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Liv…’

‘No. Please. Just… go home,’ she said. She turned back to the
altars and squatted down again. She couldn’t let the idea of Marcus slip away
from her. She needed to understand how they worshipped here and how they lived
here. She was desperate to absorb the atmosphere and try to feel something of
the place. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, letting her surroundings
fade away. Liv gasped as an image, not of a Roman soldier, came to her; but of
a young girl standing in the temple with fair hair. The young girl was holding
her hand out and Liv opened her eyes quickly, looking around her.

‘What on earth…?’ she said. She turned to see if Ryan was
still around, automatically wanting to mention it to him but he’d disappeared.
Of course he had. She’d told him in no uncertain terms to go, hadn’t she? Liv
sighed. It was too complicated to think about. She stood up and shuffled her
papers together. Maybe she should go and write up her notes. She shivered and
looked at the sky. It was a cloudless blue, but there was a distinct chill in
the air. She turned away from the altars and walked back towards the entrance.
She paused at the place where the door would have been. There was a whispering
noise behind her, like a chanting or something. It got louder and louder. Then
she heard a scream. Liv jumped and turned back to face the altars. A bird of
prey was curving away from the temple. It must have been that. But she had the
definite impression that she had just missed something. Something had happened
when she had turned her back. She looked around her again, wishing Ryan hadn’t
actually listened to her and left her on her own. Too late now, she thought.
She hurried out of the temple, and found a patch of grass to sit down on,
throwing her backpack on the ground next to her.

Liv spread her papers around her, weighing them down with
heavy stones from the field. She pulled a pen and a notebook from her backpack
and chewed the end of the pen as she decided what to write. Her mind wandered
as she stared at the blank sheet of paper before her, and she thought again of
the strange chanting. Then a girl’s voice broke into her thoughts.

‘Blessed Coventina, save me.’ Liv froze, her pen out of her
mouth and halfway to the notebook. An eerie silence descended over the
countryside and Liv felt something flutter down from the sky and touch her skin
like a butterfly kiss. Then she felt another. And another. She looked up and
saw a cloud rolling in across the field, bringing with it a blizzard. The
snowflakes fell faster and faster, and Liv scrambled to her feet, stuffing
everything into her backpack.

‘Typical!’ she cried, looking around for some sort of
shelter. Her best bet was the bushes and trees up near the fort. This weather
hadn’t been forecast, she was sure. She lifted her bag and balanced it on her
head as she ran, cursing Ryan for taking the waterproofs and umbrella with him.
She had made him put them in his backpack – her excuse was that her bag was
full of notes for her project. And she didn’t think that she would have fallen
out with Ryan like that. They’d had squabbles in the past, but he’d never
annoyed her to that extent; or indeed walked off and left her when she’d
ordered him away in the past. She ducked her head and hurtled through the
field. Then she wasn’t sure what happened, but one minute she stumbled and
righted herself, pelting onwards, and in the next minute, she was in the
entrance to the temple, looking at a tableaux of such horrific proportions that
all she could do was stare in horror and open her mouth and scream.

1650

Nicholson circled Meggie three times. He pressed his grimy,
rough fingertips all over her body, squeezing and nipping her, kneading her
flesh, trying to find a witch-mark. He wanted a beauty spot, or a small mole.
Anything he could see that would justify the trial.

‘There!’ his voice was strong and excited. ‘She bears the
mark of the Devil. A brown circle beneath her breast. Look, men, see the filthy
witch’s mark?’ He pointed at a perfectly round mole, dark against the white
skin where Meggie’s breast met her torso. The men crowded around her and
murmured their assent.

‘It is. I see the witch’s mark,’ said Robert. He reached out
and poked it for himself. Meggie flinched and spat out a curse. These men were
evil. They were filthy. She had never in her life cursed anyone before; but
this was a situation she had never dreamed she would be in. They thought she
was a witch, a servant of the Devil; evil incarnate. She felt dirty and abused,
pawed all over by these wicked men, trying to prove something that was untrue.
She felt the ground sway beneath her and again prayed that blessed oblivion
might carry her away.

‘Behold, gentlemen. I shall prick the fiend and test her,’
cried Nicholson. He raised the staff and again displayed the evil point on the
end of it. He made sure nobody ever touched this staff. Its secret was too
precious. For hidden in the shaft, was a small mechanism which was under his
control. The sharp point, which now glinted in the frosty light from the temple
entrance, was retractable. Cuthbert Nicholson had only to tweak a small lever
worked into the carvings on the staff and the point disappeared. This left only
a blunt end of wood which he would press against a woman’s thigh. By this
method, he had control over who he tortured and who survived. He was a fickle
man. If he needed money, he would find a witch or two easily. If his purse hung
heavy and full by his side, he was more lenient. But he was a greedy man; and
the leniency was becoming less and less evident.

Nicholson’s eyes flickered over Meggie again, but decided
this one was different. He wanted to see the fear in her eyes as he pressed the
staff against her thigh. He wanted to see her thin little face crumple and her
lips tremble as he carried out the test.

‘Men, I am about to test the witch. You Sir,’ he nodded at
John. ‘Reveal the witch’s face to me. Her body must be tested, but her face
must be visible. I must see whether she moves her lips in a chant or a spell to
produce the blood which might prove her to be human.’

John ripped the dress down from Meggie’s face. He held the
fabric away from her, so her body was revealed and her face was free. Meggie gasped
for air and opened her eyes. She was looking straight at Nicholson; to his
great delight he saw her confusion turn into fear as she registered the point
he held up to her eye level. This would be a joy. He curled the edges of his
mouth into a sneer and held her gaze.

Mesmerised by his eyes and frozen by terror, Meggie did not
see the swift move as he stabbed the staff into her thigh. She felt the cold
wooden edge pushing against her skin. Her eyes opened wide and her mouth formed
a silent ‘o’ as she realised she could not feel the pin stabbing her. She
looked down, seeing no blood running out of her body.

‘She is a witch!’ screeched Nicholson. ‘She does not bleed.
Look! She has failed the pricking. She bears a witch mark. We have heard foul
curses stream out of her mouth in this pagan temple. I declare this woman to be
a witch; a child of the Devil. Take her away! Deal with her as appropriate!’

‘No!’ cried Meggie as the men seized her and began to drag
her away. ‘No! Please, do the test again. I beg you; I’m not a witch. Please.
It’s the cold weather – it makes the blood stay within my body. It has settled
within me. I am not a witch…’

‘Very well!’ cried Nicholson. ‘I shall test you again.’ He
raised the staff and prepared to prick Meggie once more. Then there was a
blood-curdling scream from the entrance to the temple. Nicholson looked up and
his face filled with horror. The staff wavered in the air, as if he was unsure
of what to do with it. Meggie managed to turn around; she saw the men who were
by the door fall to their knees as a black shape sped through the middle of the
temple.

‘Blessed Coventina!’ cried Meggie. ‘You came to save me!
Merciful goddess, prove to these men I am not a witch!’ She knelt and raised
her bound hands to the shadow, imploring it for help. It was the shape of a
slender, young woman. She had long, dark hair and her clothes clung to the
outline of her body. The image was hazy, but as it approached Meggie, it leaned
towards her, reaching out its hand. Meggie had seen spirits and shades before,
but nothing like this. It had to be Coventina, it had to be.

‘Demon!’ cried Nicholson. ‘The witch has summoned a demon.
Get thee back to Hell!’ he shouted. He raised the staff in the air and grasped
it with both hands. He brought it down with a crack across Meggie’s shoulders.
The girl let out a cry and crumpled onto the stone floor, falling face
forwards. Nicholson raised his staff again and this time thrust it point first
into Meggie’s back. He stabbed again and again, repeating his accusations,
until even his men were sickened by what they saw. Three of the men wrestled
Nicholson’s weapon away from him. The girl was obviously dead; she lay
unnaturally twisted on the ground, blood congealing around her, matting her
hair and soaking her clothing. Someone had the decency to throw a cloak over
her and they led Nicholson to the side of the temple. He was still hurling
abuse at Meggie, even whilst they tried to reason with him.

John staggered outside and vomited. Robert crawled out
shortly afterwards and sat beside him, his face pale. The images of what he had
just witnessed replayed over and over in his mind’s eye. John wiped his mouth
and turned to speak to the older man.

‘She bled,’ he whispered. ‘She wasn’t a witch.’

Robert shook his head.

‘No. But she’s something queer. She summoned up something in
there. What else could that…thing…be?’

‘I thought it was maybe Alice,’ choked out John. His eyes
filled with tears and they spilled down his cheeks. He looked helplessly at
Robert. ‘Maybe Alice. Coming to help her.’ Robert shrugged.

‘I don’t know. She would have called her by name, surely, if
it was Alice,’ he said.

John dropped his head into his hands.

‘What’s going to happen to her? They can’t leave her here
like that, can they?’ he whispered.

There was a commotion from the temple, and Nicholson stormed
out. He was no longer restrained by his lackeys, but they guarded him closely
as he left; Robert thought it was for his own protection.

‘Remove it from the temple. Take it away and burn it. Reduce
it to ash and scatter the ashes in running water,’ rambled Nicholson. ‘The
place where we found the witch- it was a spring. It was the source of this
stream that runs past us. Take the body there and burn it… Tell nobody what we
witnessed here. Let it be known that she was a witch. Let anyone who defies my
findings be condemned as a witch or a wizard. They shall meet the same fate
without the trial. Only a person who harbours a dark side would have seen
anything in there; anything that happened in there. Do you understand? Do you
understand?’ He leant down and screamed the last three words in John’s ear.
John flinched and nodded. Nicholson fixed Robert with the same gimlet stare and
waited for a response. Robert stared at him and inclined his head. Satisfied,
Nicholson stormed off and ordered someone to clear the temple.

One of the men, who had been sent to escort Nicholson -
perhaps Bell- left the temple with a bloodied bundle slung over his shoulder.
John retched again and Robert looked the other way, across the field to the
ruined fort. He saw a man up there on horseback. Charles Hay. He was watching
to see what the outcome was. Hay didn’t have to wait long before the smoke
began to curl upwards into the slate-grey sky. It had stopped snowing now, but
the landscape was blanketed in white and the clouds were hanging heavy with the
promise of a fresh fall before evening.

Long before the new snow came, the pyre had burnt out and the
so-called witch’s ashes had been scattered in the burn which sprang from Coventina’s
Well. The water swept the ashes away and tossed them downstream, where they
danced and whirled, flowing eventually into the River South Tyne. Meggie had
always believed Coventina made the ice melt and the winter thaw. And nobody
thought to wonder why the Dene Burn hadn’t frozen over that day.

Nobody gave the flowing water more than a fleeting thought as
they left the Well and straggled back to the village in silence. Nobody, that
is, except Charles Hay.

Two days later, Charles brought his horse down the hillside
and rode it past the temple. Hay felt no emotion as he followed the track
towards Coventina’s Well. He walked the horse slowly past the burn which
gurgled as it ran through the field. He pulled the horse up by the Well and
gazed into the water. He leaned over to peer into it. Was that where they had
thrown the ashes? He had heard tell they’d scattered them somewhere. He thought
he could make something out in the depths of the pool. It looked like a person.
He frowned. They’d burnt the body, he’d seen it. It must be a trick of the
light. Whatever they had done, as far as he was concerned, it was good
riddance. The girl had been a menace to society, guilty of attempted murder no
less. Why should she have been spared? As he reasoned with himself, a movement
behind the stone wall of the Well made him look.

A young woman slipped out of the shadows; dark haired and
dark eyed, she stared curiously at Hay. She gazed at him brazenly for a while
without speaking.

‘What is it?’ Charles snapped eventually. ‘Why do you stare
at me?’ She was starting to make him feel more than a little uncomfortable.

The girl blinked and tilted her head to one side.

‘Is this yours?’ she asked, not answering his question. She
held up her hands, offering him something she clasped in her palms. Despite the
wintry conditions, the girl stood in a loose, white gown which lifted gently in
the wind. She didn’t shiver or seem cold in the slightest. Hay glared at her,
not trusting her.

‘Show me what you have,’ he stated. ‘I do not come here
regularly, so I doubt anything you find would belong to me.’

‘I have seen you before,’ she said. ‘You were on the fort two
days ago, watching, were you not?’

Charles felt unsettled by this woman. She spoke evenly and
quietly; she did not take her eyes off him for an instant.

‘Do you know who I am?’ he said. ‘I am allowed access
wherever I care to go. It is not my problem if I stumble upon something
distasteful.’

‘It is you who caused the problem, Mr Hay,’ said the girl.
Charles started. He hadn’t mentioned his name to her at all.

‘No. It was not me,’ he answered. ‘It was a misunderstanding
between some villagers, that’s all.’

‘A mistake, Mr Hay?’ asked the girl. She held her hands out a
little further. ‘Please, tell me. Is this yours?’

Hay glared at her. He didn’t recognise her at all. She wasn’t
a village girl; her voice was accented slightly he realised. Was she a
traveller? Or a gypsy? He noticed a thin golden ring on her finger and a golden
cross around her neck. So she had some things of value, he thought. The ring
was intricately carved and no doubt stolen from some poor sap she had fleeced.

‘Show me,’ he repeated, nodding at her hands. They were
white, smooth hands. Not the hands of a worker.

The girl unfurled her hands and presented Charles with the
object; a small, sharp bladed knife. Bone-handled and slim, he recognised it
from Meggie’s house. It was the knife she had used to stab him in her pathetic
attempt at self-defence.

‘No!’ he cried, blanching. ‘No, that’s not mine. I don’t know
who it belongs to. I’ve never seen it before...’

‘Haven’t you?’ whispered the girl. Her eyes flickered away
from his face and she fixed her gaze over his shoulder. Charles twisted around
in his saddle. On the hillside opposite, he saw a faint, white shape. It seemed
to be the outline of a person. As he looked, it began to walk towards him.

‘He is here,’ whispered the dark haired girl from behind him.
‘Come; come to us.’ Hay whipped his head around to shout at the girl, but she
had vanished.

‘What the...?’ he cried and twisted around again. The dark
haired girl was on the other side of his horse, and the figure in white was
standing right behind her. The horse whinnied and pranced. Charles hung on to
the reins.

‘Charles Hay,’ said the figure in white. It stepped out from
behind the dark haired girl and raised its hand. Now he could see that the gown
was not white – it was stained with blood and ripped in several places as if a
blade had thrust into it. ‘A curse be upon you; you will pay for your errors of
judgement. I curse you with all my powers and all my knowledge. I curse you for
the harm you have inflicted on other people and the women you have violated. I
curse you for your actions, your thoughts your words and your deeds. Suffer,
Charles Hay, as you have made others suffer.’

Nobody was near enough to hear Charles Hay scream or to hear
his cries for mercy. Nobody was there to hear him choke his last breath out.
They found him soon afterwards, his body floating in the seven feet of water in
Coventina’s Well. They couldn’t explain how his throat had been cut or how he
had ended up in the water. They put it down to murder; but there was never a
manhunt. Perhaps a vagabond, or a traveller had done it, they said. Some even
said he had inflicted the wound himself, out of guilt. They had found a small,
bone-handled knife on the edge of the Well; maybe he had dropped it as he had
fallen? Nobody would ever know.