In the Heart of the Garden

by Leah Fleming

  Amy and Frou Frou were bathed and scrubbed every day. Minon was not so easy to catch. Her coat was too dusty to enter the chambers and soil the fresh strewn rushes. This compulsion to keep washing her hands was troublesome at times and cost her many hours during a week to see to that her ablutions were checked. It extended to her clothing and once a garment was specked or marked with dirt it must be changed at once or she felt deeply uneased. As a child they had laughed at her fussiness but there was always a servant to pull off the gown and find her another.

  Now she changed her shift every day and the laundry maid washed every garment by hand. Serena loved the smell of sun bleached linen and the crispness of flat ironed garments hanging from the dressing pole. Her bedsheets were washed daily and sprigged with lavender and tansy. Only her velvets with fur trimmed edgings to her sleeves had to be sponged down and steamed with hot water, the pile brushed gently and the pads under her arms renewed to her satisfaction. Only when every part of her body was bathed in her special tub and sponged could she relax into the feather pillows and flock mattress to snuggle up to the little one and drift into slumber.

  Most of her day fled by in these ablutions so it left little time to attend the singing of the offices or the Chapter meeting assembly. She left all the daily business to Dame Maud. Father John, her personal chaplain and priest to the parish came to the little antechamber, consecrated as a chapel to hear her confession, read her devotions, celebrate Mass and take the other offices in her stead. No one could say she was not meticulous in her devotions although Dame Juliane warned her that constant washing was bad for the health. ‘A little dirt, Madame, protects the skin, a little oil gives a gloss and a shine to an animal’s coat. Salt is good as a preservative and skin salt preserves cloth. Too much laundry weakens fibres and they lose their stiffness. Bathing like blood letting need be done only twice a year whether we need it or not.’ Dame Juliane was an old fool and her physick was not what it was.

  In the privacy of her own quarters Serena de Saulte could run her household just as she pleased as lady of the manor, worthy to receive curtseys and bows. The religious life did not over burden her. She would fast only on the high days and holy days as was the rule. Fortunately fish had escaped the curse of Adam and could be eaten without penance and there was plenty of variety, eel, salmon, trout, perch to eke out the fast days.

  Fish had been caught with poor scales and rotting fins, sickly-looking specimens no one fancied eating. They were thrown into the stew pot and promptly gave off such a foul stench that the whole broth was thrown on the dung heap to rot down. The Cellaress had been most apologetic and sent for the fish warden who did not know why the fish failed to thrive. ‘’Tis not a good sign when the Frideswelle gives up dead fish. Something must be fouling the water.’ Yet another trouble brought to Dame Serena’s door. What did she know about such matters?

  Suddenly the child stopped running ahead of her and stood pointing excitedly.

  ‘Vite! Maman… pauvre petite… une faune perdue… vite!’

  Serena lifted her train and swung it over her arm, rushing to see why the little one was fussing. There in the middle of the pond was a young stag, its antlers caught in an overhanging branch. Exhausted with the struggle to keep itself out of the water, it was barely alive. It had obviously jumped from the forest straight over the wall and into the pond. ‘What shall we do, Maman? The poor deer will drown?’ cried the child.

  ‘Run and fetch the damosel from the kitchen. Tell her to bring as many strong yard girls as she can find… and some rope too. Quick!’

  ‘Merci à Dieu… we shall save it!’ smiled the child.

  Oh, yes, Amicia, we shall save it. And hang it, and carve it up for the Bishop’s feast. No one can be executed now for killing a deer from a Royal forest but once His Reverence has filled his belly full of stolen meat he’ll have no choice but to pronounce the ‘omnia bene’ on our little Priory. All may yet be well, she thought, skipping down the track. Yes, all would be well now.

  The Michaelmas Market

  It’s today! The maid rose from her straw mattress, on the earth floor, shook off the arms and legs of her sleeping sisters, scratched her sores, straightened her twisty leg. No one stirred as she lifted the flap of the doorway cover and stretched her aching bones in the coming light.

  It was market day and she had permission to leave the village with Mistress Kit to visit the city of three spires. She, Mary Barnsley, ‘Limpy Mary’ to the inhabitants of the Miller’s house where she worked, was the first in her family to leave Frideswelle for the whole day.

  There was no rainwater in their one bucket to splash on her blotchy face. The rash round her mouth was on fire but she mustn’t scratch or it would bleed again. Mistress Kit sometimes gave her hog’s grease with dried elderflower leaves in it to soothe away the itch. Mary could hardly wait to pin a kerchief over the straggles of her black hair. The mistress always made her tie it away out of sight even though it was her crowning glory for she was always scratching her head when the lice bit her scalp. Today she would be early to her tasks so as to be ready and waiting when the mistress loaded the cart with market goods from neighbours and the Reeve. She was a tranter and had permission to exchange goods, sell herbs and take flour sacks to her kin in the city. Mary was bursting with excitement to be her assistant today.

  She let herself into the Miller’s houseplace, stoked up the fire with dry logs and set the pot to boil. Next she lecked the rushes with a sprinkling of water to dampen down the dust. She was careful to sweep the dirty rushes out of the room in a neat pile for the midden heap, sweeping them first away from the hearthstones so that no sparks might set fire to them and brushing them inwards so as not to let the good luck out of their home. Then she shook out the new woven rush mats with pride; no one else in Frideswelle but the Miller’s wife could sport such finery or cover the open window hatches with oiled linen flap overs. As she bent to place them carefully by the oak stools and the chest, her hip was pierced with daggers of pain which no amount of grease rubs and comfrey poultices would soothe.

  Simeon Miller was already at work, spending every daylight hour at his mill, watching over the yard boys and his assistants. The harvest was coming in and there was corn from all over the district to be ground by the big quernstones, so much for him to attend to that he was in no mood for market fairs and fol-de-rols. Mistress Kit said she needed to find preserving spices and vinegar, there were green herbs to barter and they were to visit her Aunt Annie Bagshott and daughter Margery, the highlight of the trip. Mistress Kit wanted to get in early to pitch outside the bakery before other farmers’ wives got there before her. Her two sons could make themselves useful in the yard where Mary’s own mother, Alice, would keep an eye on them in return for Kit taking young Mary down the track on her cart.

  She worried that her mam would let the mistress down again and steal from her shelves while she was away, or else lie on her flock mattress in the solar upstairs, sullying the covers with her sour smell. Mother had little enough time to rest, looking after her noisesome brood. They lived from hand to mouth, one meal a day of pot herbs dunked with a bit of broiled bacon, which was usually rancid for lack of salt. No wonder all of them were chitty-faced with hollow cheeks and festering sores. Mary Barnsley was grateful for the chunks of goat’s cheese and hunks of bread her kind mistress gave willingly to her kin to stave off hunger. It was a pity Mary’s father, Jack Barnsley, was so fond of the ale bench and lashing his fists into Mam’s face.

  Nothing like that went unobserved in the little pinfold of houses and cottages set back from the entrance of the Priory. Bruises and black eyes were common enough, but no one interfered in case they ended up the worse for it. How Mary longed for the peace of that world behind the convent wall, one where no one went hungry or cold and women lived far from the rough beatings of brothers and fathers. She longed to be allowed to work inside there but knew it would never be.

  The mill was the next best place to be employed.
It was timber-framed with large ponds and a stream coursing through to turn the wheel at breast level, giving the best wheel power. The Miller’s house stood proudly next door, lifted above the other dwellings by being larger and higher than the rest with a big yard and buttery shed for the cooking, gardens full of vegetables and an orchard too where Mary loved to walk and scrump apples. Across the green were the smaller houses and lastly the hovels of the three cottar families who had only a little patch of ground around them and a few tumbledown sheds with cows tethered inside. Here was where she must sleep at night.

  All the men were in the fields doing service for Dame Serena de Saulte. Mistress Kit grumbled at how much they were expected to give to the church: tithes, funeral dues and death gifts. The families were allowed to worship at Longhall or occasionally in the Priory chapel so long as they were well to the back and kept quiet. This was nigh on impossible with two naughty lads so Mary sometimes went too to help keep them quiet. How she loved to sit in the cool of the chapel and stare at the beautiful pictures on the walls, the statues covered in gold, blue and red; so much colour and lovely singing to brighten the daily grind. If only she could live her life within these walls. But only gentry folk were allowed to be holy nuns.

  She loved the way Father John intoned the service, the bells and smells of incense and candles. She could not wait to go to Heaven. Not that Mary understood a word that was spoken usually but last week Father John, priest to Frideswelle and Barnsley Common, read out a letter from the Lord Bishop himself, in English, warning the congregation to repent and pray for their sins in order to avoid the great pestilence descending over the land like a plague of locusts – whatever they were. There was a hushed murmuring and a shaking of heads at such terrible news but Mistress Kit said that she could not imagine anything disturbing the peace and quiet of this sleepy hamlet. The nearest double cart track was three miles away, closer to Longhall and the City of Spires.

  Now, as they jiggled down the track in the cart laden with flour sacks and herbs in baskets, Mary was willing the journey to last forever. Mistress Kit had lent her one of her own smocks to cover up the grime of her skirt but none of her shoes would fit Mary’s twisted foot. She sometimes had a strange knowing without words of the thoughts of others and knew that this good wife was counting her blessings to be wed to a kindly man, with two healthy boys and her stew pot always full.

  ‘When we visit poor Annie Bagshott at the bakehouse don’t speak about her troublesome daughters,’ the mistress warned. ‘Stay well back out of their wind and observe all I do.’

  Mary knew all about Aggie Bagshott’s woes. Every day she would sneak over the wall to bend Mistress Kit’s ear about Dame Iseult and Dame Juliane. How her father must be told how ill his daughter was becoming, how she struggled to breathe in that place, like a fish out of water, dull-eyed and lonesome. ‘I’ll wilt and die if I don’t get away!’ she’d say.

  Then there was Mistress Mags, her sister, who was all airs and graces, trying to pretend she was the Shire Reeve’s wife not wed to a baker. Mistress Kit had whispered once that Margery led poor Hamon a merry dance with her flirtations and spending sprees. Her poor mother was quite worn out with her idleness too. Mistress Kit said she was glad she had no girls to worry over yet. Boys were simple; feed them, beat them, cuddle them, let them run wild like puppy dogs until they snuffed themselves out like candles each night. In Mary’s family the boys were rough and coarse, kicking her and stealing her food, and she hated them all.

  Her eyes were soon on stalks as she turned and twisted to get the best views as the countryside around became unfamiliar to her. This track was lined with thick high hedgerows, arching over in a canopy of golden leaves. The rustle of the wind through the branches, the scent of mist and fruit on the air, stirred Mary’s feelings of excitement even more. Mistress Kit explained that the Michaelmas Fair was the best one of all, especially when the ripe fruits were displayed and the sweet scent of meadow rushes and herbs underfoot mingled with their scent. It lasted for four days sometimes.

  Along the hedgerows the last of the summer flowers looked tired and grey but the rosehips were good and they decided to pick some for winter cough syrup on their way back. Soon they would enter the city through the north gate, entering darker alleys, clumped up together like a tangle of roots. There was little light or air in the city which was always wreathed in smoke.

  Mary was disappointed by her first glimpses of the fearsome place. There were smelly channels running down the lanes; putrid carcasses were flung out of the butcher’s on to the road to be snatched by beggars with boils and toothless grins. She found the rumble of carts and constant shouting a little frightening. The mistress said not to be afeared, she would soon get used to it. She also warned it would be noisier today as the fair stalls would spill out of the market place down the side streets. At least the market place itself was open and bright.

  As the mistress steered the cart into the procession of travellers and handcarts, tumbrils and wagons, the line drew to a halt. The stall holders parked and waited. ‘What’s the hold up?’

  ‘No strangers to be let in,’ came word down the line, ‘on account of the sickness coming into the city.’

  ‘What sickness?’

  ‘Haven’t you heard? The fever has come to the district and they don’t want it in their city. Turn back now or you’ll be driven away by the constable,’ a pedlar spat out.

  ‘Saints in heaven preserve us! I’m here to deliver flour to my kin at the bakery. How many times have you seen me go through this gate? Hell’s teeth, I live but three mile up the track! Mary, mind the cart.’

  The mistress, in her best russet gown and kerchief, was in no mood to be gainsaid and jumped down, her back stiff from the jolting ride. She marched up to the gate, smiled at the constable’s assistant, gave her maiden name of Bagshott, and their cart was waved through – much to the anger of some of the pedlars and chapmen hanging about hoping for entry to the fair.

  Once inside the city, they made straight for Kit’s usual pitch outside the bakery but the shop was shuttered and the streets quiet for a market day. There was tension in the air and the goodwives did not linger at the few stalls which were open in ‘Women’s Ceaping’ but hurried on with their baskets clutched tight and their faces veiled. The street corners were quiet; no jugglers and fire-eaters, no dancing bears, no troubadours or travelling players. It was quiet as a fast day.

  To the mistress’s amazement, there was not a fresh herb or an ounce of spice to be bought anywhere, no fennel seeds or liquorice root, ginger pieces or treacle. Nothing medicinal left at all. Only rumour was in plentiful supply: how sickness was in Tamworth and the villages around, creeping ever closer; how once it came no one was safe; how the priests could do nothing but pray and would not even bury the dead; how whole families were wiped out in a day, in an hour even, as they tended their sick. Mary suddenly felt ill with fear and clung to the cart.

  ‘Perhaps we should just make the one stop and go straight home?’

  The sky was dark indeed, even the light seemed foul, and she no longer felt safe. But the mistress was battering on the bakehouse yard gate, shouting, ‘Will! It’s Kit, your sister’s child! Let me in to deliver.’

  A lad peered above the wall to check them. It was Hamon.

  ‘It’s only the flour, and Mistress Miller and her maid.’

  The gate was opened gingerly and the cart quickly pulled in.

  ‘You’re mad to risk these streets today, Kit. Whatever possessed you to wander abroad? Have you not heard about the pestilence?’ ‘Poor Aunt Annie’ emerged from the bakehouse, her flushed cheeks dusted with white. Margery followed at a distance, looking at them suspiciously.

  ‘We didn’t think it would reach here so soon, Aunt. The gossips on the stalls are full of it.’

  ‘And so they might for it’s battering down our doors even as we speak, I fear. Go home now, Kit, don’t dawdle. Consider your bairns. It fills me with dread to think how God wi
ll punish us all! I cannot sleep for fear of it creeping through the casement to strangle us in our beds as we sleep. Many are fleeing to the hills. Dark times, Kit, I fear, dark times.’

  ‘You’ve water at the Grey Friars gate piped fresh from the hills. I hear the pump is free to all. How does this fever spread? Who brings it to the door?’

  ‘No one dare go to the well for fear it travels in their buckets from the pipes. Strangers with fever on their breath may drink from the tap. Touch no sore or body with the sickness unless your hands are soaked in vinegar, I’ve heard, and keep garlic by your side at all times. They say it will protect. That’s all we know here.’

  ‘Annie, I couldn’t buy a clove of garlic. It’s sold out.’

  Mary listened closely, sweat pouring from her brow in the oven heat of the bakehouse, trying not to shame her mistress by scratching.

  ‘Aye, you’ll have to pay in gold for a single clove, such is the demand. There’s not a gillyflower head or a jar of vinegar to be had within these walls. The herb seller is fled and his garden ransacked. Warn our Aggie to stick close to the physick garden and to store herbs for herself, then get on her knees to pray for her kin. I’m glad she’s safe behind those walls. Nothing can harm a godly nun.’

  Now was not the time for Mistress Kit to tell them the truth about Agnes’s unhappiness there. It would have to wait for better days.

  Margery could see their news was scaring the visitors.

  ‘Stop it, Mother! You’ll bother us all to death with this chatter. It’s only talk, Kit. Have no fear. It hasn’t come here or no one would be let in or out, not even you. You haven’t come all this way to hear such tittle-tattle, take no notice. A few dead of fever in the back alleys… dogs and beggars. There’s nothing new in that, is there? Now how’s that bad back of yourn and your two young scallywags? And who’s this ragamuffin by your side?’