by Leah Fleming
‘’Tis not so!’
‘Yes, it is. I saw him lying slain on the ground with his brother. He will never come home again with limbs all smashed and his head stove in.’ The hard words were out plain enough but cruel in their sharpness.
‘Shush, Micah, please!’ Even in the first light Nazareth could see her child turn wild-eyed with shock. She was white, jaw dropping open as the words hit home. A whirlwind roared over her, lifting her from the scene. Within the eye of the storm she could see the lovers under the counterpane, their faces filled with pity and concern. Their voices faded as the whirlwind carried her away to the corner of the room where she huddled to ward off the picture of her poor father’s broken body.
Lucie curled into a ball and began to shiver, not uttering a word. Her mother leapt out of bed, not caring that she was naked, cradling the child in her arms.
‘You have to believe what the Captain says. We are all alone now, unprotected in this wicked world. I have tried to protect us both but Father is gone from this place forever. Do you believe me?’
The child nodded feebly from her far off land.
‘I hate him… I hate that wicked man. Make him go away from us.’
Nazareth looked up in desperation. Micah was already at the door with his clothes half on. She pleaded with him with her eyes to stay and help her deal with this distress. ‘Oh, please, wait! She will understand one day…’
‘But I cannot wait around to see it, ma’am. I shall trouble you no further.’
The door was shut and he was gone from them. Nazareth was doing battle on both sides and had lost. Sick, shamed, tired and confused as she was, she knew she must protect her child. None of this turmoil was of her daughter’s choosing.
‘Come to bed with me, Lucie. The thunder is silent now and the storm is over.’
She could hear the patter of the rain lashing on the window pane. It would be cooler and calmer tomorrow. Time then to sort out the misunderstanding and clear her head. But what was to become of them all after this?
*
In the nights following their passion Micah got so drunk he could scarce stand. Each morning aft his head throbbed and beat like a muster drum. His recollections of the harvest home, the dancing and their coming together, were hazy but he could remember every detail of Nazareth’s beauty; how one pale breast was larger than the other, the curve of her hips, the blue veins on the inside of her thighs and the rivers of silver marks across her stomach, the yeasty, salty smell of her passion. Then the coming of the child and his shame like a dousing under cold water – that stupid, stubborn child and her accusations. Surely he did right to dampen her self-righteousness, destroy her foolish hope? It was cruel and hard for all of them. He had only himself to blame for his weakness. How could he let his emotions rule, making a fool of himself before his men with the wife of an enemy?
Micah was bitterly ashamed of these yearnings for her but the stubborn streak which had kept him alive for so long against the odds in this Civil War told him he must escape from this witchy place soon and the charms therein if he were to survive. Here be danger indeed!
Bitter Seeds
The Mistress of Fridewell House rose early to prepare a basket of alms for the families of woodsmen living by the miners’ camp. Taking Gideon as her escort out on to the Chase, they went from hut to hut, giving out cheese and fruit, hog fat and honey comb. It was November and the mists from the valley drifted through the trees like ghosts swathed in grey shrouds. Nazareth shivered in the gloom, glad not to be alone on such an eerie dank path where bare branches reached out to grab at her cloak like desperate beggars in the market place and the last of the leaves hung like carrion from the treetops.
In her hand she clutched the potion from the cunning woman who lived close to the charcoal burners’ camp, consulted and feared by all in the forest. ‘Moll i’ th’ wood’ had remedies and spellings for ailments no lady should know about. She could stiffen the limp, dampen the ardent, empty the belly of all unwanted contents for the price of a silver coin or some hens, dry wood cut to size or a crock of the woodland hooch. Under the guise of charity Nazareth had visited her alone and confessed that her maid was in trouble and needed help.
The crone stared in disbelief at her story, sucked on her pipe and scratched her whiskers as she peered into the smoking fire. Then she reached on to her dusty shelf for a phial of pennyroyal and wormwood juice.
With hardly a word or a glance the transaction with the Devil was made, thought Nazareth as they walked slowly back along the track. Only cunning folk had that special knowledge of herbs and incantations, the mystical powers to prevent such a public shaming if she delivered a bastard. It was over two months since her courses had stopped suddenly just after the harvest home. She needed no conjuror to tell her that in the excitement of passion she had released seed to the man. At first she put such an absence down to the upset of Lucilla’s tantrums and the silence between herself and the Captain, but there were other warnings: a tenderness in her breasts, a dizziness and fatigue. She had trodden this path before and knew the signposts.
Since the night of the storm she’d scarce looked in his direction and he had avoided being alone with her. Captain Bagshott now preferred to lodge with his men, patrolling the outskirts of the city both day and night.
Nazareth felt humiliated to have such a sickness in her belly; to be with child by a common soldier; to be a fornicator not fit to bring up a child and now a bastard.
Oh, Beavis! How have I besmirched your memory. What deceptions must I practise now to secure your name. It was lust and loneliness not the love we shared together. Please forgive me for what I must now do but I will not shame your name any more than I already have. If I die then so be it. It will be God’s punishment for my weakness and wickedness.
If this potion works its effect then no one will ever know of this shame and I will spend the rest of my life in penitence and prayer. I will visit the sick and the poor, restore the church of your forebears to its former glory and teach Lucilla to be a God-fearing woman. Never again will I walk abroad on feast days nor waste time in dancing or dallying in the garden unescorted. The lure of the roses, the scent of the lavender, was my undoing. All shall be ripped up and burnt. You shall find me an example, nay, an exhortation to all widows in my piety and soberness. I will be purer than any Puritan in black plain garments. Oh, God, hear my plea! Forgive this foolish woman but it must be done to protect others and for the sake of my child…
She pulled out the rag stopper and gulped down the liquid with a grimace, out of view of Gideon who was walking ahead. The juice burned down her throat. If it was so painful then its bitterness must surely do some good. Whatever suffering followed this act of contrition she would bear it alone.
*
Where’s the mistress, Miss Lucilla?’
Lucie was mixing a bowl of pot pourri in the still room. She loved to sift the dry crinkly petals and sniff the scents of summer, preferring them better in the chamber than out in the wet garden. She had counted all the different shapes and colours; bay leaves and calamint, meadow sweet which smelt of honey, delicious spearmint, sweet briar and sweet Cicely, tansy and rose petals, all the colours of the rainbow. Mother always said that dry roses put to the nose would comfort the brain and the heart, carrying sad spirits back to Heaven. She wondered if Father could smell roses in Heaven too; if so she would make up a special bowl of them for her own chamber and he would see that she still remembered him.
Since that terrible event she had slept with Mother every night. Lucilla was afraid to leave her alone in case the evil man came creeping back to her bed. But she sensed that his power had waned and they were safe again. He did not sup with them and the garrison force hardly camped in Fridewell any longer.
‘Lucilla! Is your mother still in her bed chamber at this hour?’ Martha was interrupting her dreaming.
‘Aye, she said her stomach pains were cramping her too much to rise early. She slept badly.’
Lucie bounded up the stairs with Peto following at her heels. Since the Captain’s departure she spent more time in the kitchen with Martha and less sitting on the stairs waiting for her father’s return. She was still the Guardian of the Kingdom, though. Once an ugly beast had crossed over these portals to steal the faerie queen but now he was repelled, just as the King’s men were still holding off the siege in the Cathedral close, so all was well.
There was a hump in the bed. Mother peered out and groaned, beads of sweat dripping from her brow. ‘Go away, child. I’m just a little unwell today.’
‘Shall I fetch Martha?’ asked Lucie, seeing how pale and pinched were her cheeks.
‘No, no… One day you’ll understand. ’Tis a woman’s curse to bear this ailment, the price of bearing children. Tell Martha to see to it all and you take my place at her side.’
‘I will, but she asked if you needed some physick.’
‘Go… please let me rest. I have all the physick I need. I shall be well enough ere long but fetch me the close stool just in case.’ The child dragged the heavy chair with its lid across the room. Nazareth summoned all her strength to sit up, forcing a false smile of reassurance as if what ailed her was a mere trifle. ‘Go to your duties, hurry!’
All day the pain ebbed and flowed like the tide on a beach she’d once visited many years ago; the place where the river flowed out to the sea. She had watched enraptured as the waves lapped over her satin shoes and then was beaten soundly for her silliness. Now she tried to ride the waves of pain as they crashed within her bowels, sending spurts of bloody matter on to the cloths. Moll i’ th’ Wood had told her to rest and wait for the purgings to begin, to catch all the matter in a bowl and burn it at midnight or cast it out over running water to take away all stain. She had not expected such pain but it must be endured. She could not bear to look within the bowl or on the cloths. Thankfully she had prepared a tisane of poppy juice, camomile water and vervain and she sipped it from a goblet to soothe her head.
As the meagre November light faded into darkness she felt the pains ease and their intensity weaken. Soon it would all be over. The Lord in His Mercy would understand. Her penitence would begin the minute she rose from this bed; all those fevered promises made on the journey back from the forest would be honoured.
Later, when it was dark, she crept down with a candle jar to the still room and buttery to help herself to a chunk of cheese and a cool glass of cider to quench the dust in her throat. At first her legs wobbled like a blancmange but slowly, as she shuffled on the stone-flagged floor, the strength seeped back into them. All the soiled cloths she stuffed into a ball and then saw that the fire was still ablaze and burned her sinning bit by bit. The terrible smell made her feel sick but soon enough the charred remains of the cloths were nothing but ashes.
The bowl from the close stool she had covered with a napkin. This she took out into the garden, taking care to open the latch of the old Priory door carefully so as not to disturb Martha in her cubby hole across the corridor. There was only one place to take the bowl and she walked carefully over the frosted grass, glinting in the moonlight, which torched her path to the wellspring. The recent rains had swollen the spring which flowed like a torrent downstream. Nazareth stood over the running water and emptied the pot.
‘I cast my sins upon the water. Flow, secret shame, flow away to the everlasting sea. Have mercy on me, Lord.’
The spring would tell no tales for it was a holy well and heathen spirits must surely have departed long ago. In this shady bower had the seeds of her enemy been sown, now it was right to be destroying that shameful harvest here. Nazareth bowed her head in gratitude that such madness was over. Had she not seen the bloody evidence with her own eyes?
By Christmas she was so swollen in the belly and ankles as to fear she had some dreadful disease. Her courses never returned as she’d hoped but that was only to be expected after such a purging. She had little fluid to spare now. Her back ached and her limbs swelled, her hair lost its lustre and her stomacher would not lace up properly, but it was the tiredness which overwhelmed her, making her search out a stool whenever she stood to a task.
Christmas was a meagre affair: a little greenery and extra candles, a visit to Longhall for the mistress had forsworn any feasting and drinking now that she was a sober matron. Whatever ailed her caused her to throw up food at the slightest sniff of spice. Martha thought it some strange green sickness and bade her mistress rest. The garrison had gone from the house but roamed abroad in the forest, tracking down the supply routes to the besieged fort in the Cathedral. The weather hardened and the snow fell in the New Year but the thaw came quickly after and the forest was alight with alarms and rumours of battles and raids. Nazareth turned her ears from the gossip. It was none of their business now. They would need all their strength to survive the onslaught of winter.
One morning Martha rushed in from the yard. ‘Come quickly, mistress. There are wounded soldiers in the yard… in a bad way though I know not whose side they are on.’
‘Does it matter? They are all sons and husbands, I will not turn a sick man from my door. If some kind soul had taken pity on Beavis then perhaps we would not be so unprotected now. See to it. I’m coming. It’s no morning to be abroad with wounds.’ The men lay scattered about the barn and she recognised some familiar buff coats from the old patrol. Like wounded animals they had come back to a safe lair to die. Some were gashed about the face and arms; others were merely exhausted, and blue-lipped with cold.
‘What happened?’ she asked as she tried to see who was alive or dead in the crumpled heap.
‘What a rout! We was ambushed in a narrow lane and the horses at the rear panicked and bolted into the troops at the front, trampling them like straw. “Away! Away! Shift for your life. We’s all dead meat here!” The wagons were overturned and the poor horses trapped so we cut their harness and they bolted. They was firing at the troopers on horseback from the bushes. What a bloody mess! The spoil of the horses left a trail of blood which froze upon the snow… a terrible sight, ma’am. I never want to see the like.’ The soldier drifted into a faint and Nazareth tried to stem the gushing of blood from his neck.
‘Bring him out into the cold, mistress. It will freeze his wound and stem the flow. This frost will save many a life.’
She turned around and there he was, the man she’d hoped never to see again. Captain Bagshott, propped up by two foot soldiers, half dragging him across the couryard. This was no time for debate, only action.
‘Take him upstairs to his old quarters. He will show you where.’ She tried to stay calm and composed but her heart was racing with concern for him and for their own danger. Were there other forces following in hot pursuit? Would they all be slaughtered as harbourers of the enemy? Whichever side you aided in this cursed war you were a turncoat and traitor. She was sick of this slaughter in her own land. Better one side was finally victorious than all this mayhem in country lanes.
Martha brought the bags of healing herbs from the men’s pouches. Thankfully most soldiers carried their own supplies, lovingly sealed in embroidered bags by mothers and sweethearts for their protection. Now that loving care would be put to the test. Some had only dried herbs for cooling teas; others had stuff for poultices and presses. They would have to do their best with what she had stored from the garden for their own physick.
First she dipped her hands in the lye bucket. She often did this although it burned her chapped fingers, but if it purged the dirt from linen then it would purge the dirt from her own hands and purge the muck of the soldiers as well. It made sense to her to touch each with clean hands though why that was important she did not know. It was just one of those things you did.
Only when all the other survivors were comfortable did she tread heavily up the stairs to see the Captain.
He lay on the bed in his filth, face white and his dark pain-filled eyes sunk in their sockets.
His wound was close to the groin on his inner thigh and she made Martha cut away the cloth of his breeches so that she could examine it closely. A sword had cut through cloth and skin to the muscle, a clean cut like a slice from a joint. It would have to be sewn together and dressed with a poultice. She found a needle but her hands shook when she got close to that flesh and the smell of his filth made her retch and leave the room. When she returned Martha whispered that he had sewn it up himself with not a squeak and what a brave man this Micah Bagshott was. Nazareth felt ashamed of her own weakness and made sure that she saw to his dressing daily, but it was a stubborn wound and at first would not heal.
Lucie took to her vigils on the stairs again and otherwise never left her mother’s side, peering through the door at the soldier, stabbing dagger looks of venom in his direction. They found leeches from the pond and placed those on his leg to suck away the rottenness. Gideon gathered the moist spaghnum moss to dress the soldiers’ wounds and Martha said that a mouldy bread poultice would help any injury of the flesh, with a spider’s web in it for good luck. Captain Micah jeered and said her poultice was so strong it should be stuck on the walls of the Cathedral, its force would surely bring the ramparts down! In desperation all remedies were tried at once and the gash turned from purple-black to pink but the leg was weak and would not bend.
Captain Micah was not the easiest of patients but would read any book put before him. The old chest in the roof space was opened to find any printed material left in the house after their first raiders had torn out pages to smoke in their pipes.
Outside the wind blew from the north-east across the Trent valley, driving swathes of snow into hillocks and drifts, trapping the men in the barn and setting the whole village shivering under sheepskins and flock mattresses. The fireplace blazed with the last of the fuel and all sat round its warmth, Nazareth dressed in black with a white cap once more and blanketed in a thick woollen piece of tapestry cloth she had found in the chest to keep her warm.
