“Hugh, I heard something. Did you hear it?”
He stands up and looks around. “What did you hear?”
“I don’t know. A twig. A movement.”
The awareness of someone, a presence, is suddenly very powerful. It was the feeling I had on the Pike, and on Beacon Hill, but now a hundred, a thousand times stronger.
“The old man’s dead, isn’t he?” Hugh asks.
“Yes. Perhaps someone else has taken over the cottage,” I suggest, before we can start talking about ghosts and goblins. Hugh begins to creep round the low wattle hut. A branch snaps under his foot. I lift my skirts and step over the broken wall, then move cautiously along the front of the dwelling. A narrow window slot gives on to a dark interior, from which a foul, ancient odour seeps. The hermit was not known for his cleanliness. I move to the door and push it open and peer in. From what I can see of them, the matted rushes on the floor look as if they have been there since Queen Mary’s day. It is impossible to see anything else.
Suddenly, a buffeting wind shakes the woods. The patchy cloud cover overhead shifts, and tightly woven tree branches rattle apart. A bright hem of light swirls through the forest, and briefly illuminates the inside of the cottage. I can see more clearly the rushes on the floor, rank and mouldy, a battered iron skillet lying upended, a heap of droppings left by the hermit’s goat. There is something else too, a bundle of brown and green cloth lying in a corner where broken reeds hang down from the roof. The bundle moves. It is a man. I can see his face, bruised and swollen. It is a face I recognise.
Chapter 6
Hugh looks pleased when I take his hand and lead him back through the woods to the point where the paths diverge. My throat is dry and my head pounding. It amounts to treason, to conceal the presence of a Scot, and the penalty is to be burnt at the stake. The virtual certainty that it is the young man whose face I pushed from the tower window is the only excuse I can give myself. I can still feel his soft skin where my fingers pressed, and the horrific ease of pushing him away into unsupporting air.
“I’ll walk with you back to the tower,” Hugh says, but I tell him I want to be alone for a while, and I watch his vanishing back as he takes the path towards Mere Point. When I reach the meadow in front of the tower, I can see that Verity is already home, standing on the battlements watching the sun go down beyond the bay. Owls are hooting close by, and in the far distance a faint howl comes from the woods across the water. I know it is only foxes, though in a bad winter the wolves of the Scottish borders have been known to round the bay as far as Milnthorpe.
I sit on a tree stump and think about the extraordinary course of action which I have taken. The Scot is obviously injured, possibly badly injured, otherwise he would have fled with his fellow raiders. He must have crawled away from the battle scene after I pushed him from the window, and been unable to rejoin his comrades in time when they fled. He is my enemy, but it is my fault he is injured. On the other hand, he attacked us first. I should have told Hugh, and now it is my duty to tell my father, who will send at once to Milnthorpe for a magistrate, and the Scot will be hanged. Instead, I am going home to collect food and water for him.
I stand up and walk quickly towards the tower. The sheep stop their soft chomping as I hurry by, and scatter as if my urgency threatened them. I let myself in quietly. The kitchen is empty, the fire sunk low in the hearth. I move round as silently as I can, collecting bread, cheese and milk. I put them in a basket, then creep down to the root cellar and stand a leather bottle under the spigot of the copper water cistern to fill. While I wait, I look round the shifting, candlelit gloom. No animals were allowed in the root cellar, but the passage to it became heavily soiled with their waste, and even in here it still stinks. The remains of the winter carrots and turnips seem contaminated.
When the flagon is full I hammer in a wooden bung with my fist, and creep back up the passage to the kitchen. It is still empty. Outside, shadows have stretched across the clearing in my absence. Over the bay a line of purple light still shows, but around me it is almost dark. I walk towards the trees, the basket and flagon concealed under my cloak.
Among the trees it is very dark indeed. I stumble several times over tree roots, even though I know the path so well. I dare not look behind me, nor to the sides. The stillness of twilight is gone, and there are sounds in the undergrowth. When I branch off from the main path I can scarcely see at all. I try to force my mind to more mundane matters than wolves and witches.
Suddenly I have reached the boundary of the hovel. I almost fall over it in the dark. In places the wall is completely covered with brambles. They fill the clearing and even climb up the wattle and daub of the cottage walls. Stones have fallen from the boundary wall into the gateway, and I have to pick my way carefully over them. One stone rocks beneath my feet and almost pitches me head-first into the thorns. It also, with its clatter, announces my arrival.
What if I was mistaken and he is not injured? What if, even at this moment, he is waiting behind a tree? I put down the basket and flagon by the worm-eaten doorway, and flee. Only two candles are burning in the kitchen. Verity has coaxed the fire back to life and is sitting with her feet up on Kate’s oak settle, watching the pot over the fire start to steam. She points to the bark box where she keeps dried camomile flowers.
“Do you want a bedtime drink?” Her voice sounds normal, but I can see that something is wrong. She has changed into her cream linen nightsmock and grey woollen nightgown, and her hair is down round her shoulders. She would look angelic if her face were not puffy and red, with a large spot on one cheek and shiny swellings beneath her eyes. Verity has been crying.
“Thank you. I could do with something soothing.”
She raises her eyebrows. She had not been going to ask, but if I was going to tell, well then, that was different. The pot boils, and she ladles hot water on to the wizened camomile flowers in our pewter mugs. The flowers sink and float, sink and float, briefly regaining their white and yellow fullness. My lips brush the petals as I take a sip.
“Is it Hugh?” she asks.
“Yes, I think Father and Uncle have been getting at him. I suppose it’s inevitable.”
Verity slops her drink down her nightgown. “Inevitable? Nothing’s inevitable, Beatie. I think you’ve taken leave of your senses, heading into the forest hand in hand with Hugh. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Hugh and Gerald are two more like Father. You’ll be nothing if you give in to one of them.”
I stare at her. “But surely we have no choice? What will happen to the farms if we don’t keep them in the family?”
“No different from what happens to them now, I daresay. We don’t have to sell ourselves to keep our land.”
“I know that. But…” I feel I must do our cousins justice. “… Hugh and Gerald aren’t like Father, Verity. They’re our friends.”
“Just wait till they’re husbands, and then you’ll see. You’ll go to Hugh at Mere Point, and leave your home and everything you love. Gerald, who is not my friend, by the way, and whom I dislike rather a lot, will come here and want to take over. No, I will not have it. You and I can look after Barrowbeck ourselves.” She extracts a camomile flower from her teeth and flicks it into the hearth.
“You mean not marry at all? They wouldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t put it past Father to disinherit us.”
Verity moves her feet to make room for me at the other end of the settle. “Aye, and I wouldn’t put it past thee and me, Sister, to pay a visit to Magistrate Chantry at Milnthorpe some cloudless night when a passing lordship is being held up on the highway.”
I look at her sceptically. She smiles. “All right, maybe you’re right, but I’d have a mighty urge to threaten him with it.” She reaches for the poker and turns a log so that its red underside throws out heat into the room. Firelight falls across her face as she leans back and looks at me. “It will not happen, Beatie. They will not force us to marry. Not that you’d need forcing if Parson Becker were to stand the wrong side of
the altar with you.”
My own face burns. “Verity, your brain is fevered,” I snap. “Anyway, Parson Becker is already wedded – to his work.”
“Hm…” Her eyes narrow in a faint grin, and I am so glad to see the tears gone that I forgive her look of triumph. It is rather a thrilling thought, anyway. The fire crumbles into pink-tinged ash, and just one single, cold flame flickers at its centre. I kiss the top of my sister’s head and retire to bed, to remember the feeling of Parson Becker’s rough black clothes under my hands, the day he comforted me after I fell off my pony. The Scot, and what I did to help him, seem unimportant now, distant and unreal. I push them from my mind. He is likely long gone already.
Chapter 7
In the morning I am not so sure. I know I am going to have to go back and find out.
I hurry through the morning’s tasks and am about to set off straight after our midday meal when word arrives that the queen’s purvey man is on his way from Lancaster to collect our taxes. Father insists I go down to help Leo move the cattle around. We put out our thinnest, scraggiest ones to pick away pathetically at thistles in the fields, and drive the good strong beasts through the barmkin and into the underground chambers. Verity is sent round to tell everyone to put on their poorest clothes. Unfortunately for the purvey man, news of his coming travels even more efficiently than news of the Scots.
Mother, who dislikes this deception that we are so poor as to be well nigh untaxable, always gives him one of her ripe cheeses from the dairy. Dense and dark-rinded, they are strong enough to cure the ague. The purvey man says he takes it as a present for the queen, and perhaps he does, but we think he probably keeps it for himself. In return, he brings us ready-made soap from a place called Bankside in London. It is paler and less greasy than our own home-made soap, and a great luxury.
It turns out, when the purvey man arrives, that he has been robbed on the highway, at Kerne Forth, the night before. Father expresses shock and horror. The rest of us avoid each other’s eyes. Father offers to give the man a little extra contribution for himself, to help him on his way, after such a distressing event. When I go down to the root cellar to fill a flagon with water for the Scot, I find Father there, sorting through coins so that he doesn’t give the man his own money back.
I should try to stop Father’s secret life of crime, I know that, but I fear his temper, and anyway, it would be pointless. He is in thrall to highway robbery as he is in thrall to drink, and I dread that one day he will be caught. I suppose a proper sense of right and wrong would make me want him caught, so that innocent people are no longer terrorised and their belongings stolen. I must therefore assume that I do not possess a proper sense of right and wrong. I knew that anyway, otherwise I should not be protecting a Scot.
As I finally set off for the hermit’s cottage, I meet James at the edge of the clearing. Anxiety rises in my throat. Am I never to be able to get away? James has come up the back way from his farm with eggs and honey for us. At the tower we do not keep chickens and bees ourselves but are paid in eggs and fowl and honey and beeswax by James and the homesteaders, for our protection. James looks at my flagon and oilskin package and tells me he will leave his basket at the tower and then walk with me. I assure him I’ll be delighted to have his company, for I am off to have a quiet afternoon of prayer and contemplation in the chapel on the cliffs. James remembers an urgent appointment elsewhere.
It is damp and cool today. The path squelches under my feet. Further along, where the ground rises and becomes stony, I meet my little horse, Saint Hilda, clopping down towards the meadow, and I give her a small, brown-spotted apple which I had intended to eat myself. It is the last one salvaged from the straw in the corner of the root cellar, and very precious, since there will be no more until autumn. Saint Hilda snuffles her white velvet breath into my palm, and crunches the fruit sloppily between her big, yellow teeth. I have a nasty feeling that after my lie to James I deserve something horrible to happen to me in the woods, perhaps to see the Green Man himself or some other malevolent woodland spirit who will punish me for pretending to be on a holy errand when I am on a most unholy one. The apple is a small penance, but perhaps it will do.
I reach the beck. Fast-moving water glitters through ground mist. The woods are quiet, apart from the sound of water. I duck beneath low hanging branches and move through dense woodland where drifts of wood anemones make white patterns on the forest floor. From this direction, the cottage is invisible until I am almost on it. Trees and brambles enclose it tightly from behind. All around me wet leaves drip water down thin stems. I think of the Green Man with his leafy fingers and knothole eyes, and of chained spirits in trees, so jealous of our freedom that we must touch wood to acknowledge and appease them, if we should happen to feel too pleased with ourselves.
I creep round the cottage to the front. Nothing stirs. The cottage is silent inside and out. I shiver. Perhaps the Scot is now dead. It might be better for him if he were. I bunch up my skirts and edge through a gap in the surrounding wall. I keep out of range of the door and push through the brambles to one of the window slots. The remains of a transparent oiled linen rag hang here, where it once served as windowpane. The cottage is dark inside. I cannot see anything. I drag my skirts free of the brambles and move to the doorway. The basket and flagon have gone from the threshold but the door still stands half open, as it did before. I step inside.
The sight and smell hit me at the same time. The Scot is there, indeed, but not as I have ever seen any human being. He lies on his side, twisted out of shape with agony. His eyes are rolled back in his head; his mouth is open and frothing. Spittle and filth cover his face. His arm is clearly broken. No natural elbow ever bent at that angle. A grey glister of fever covers every part of his skin that is visible. His jaws jerk in a grotesque, spasmic champing motion.
He is lying on a blackened straw pallet. I step over to him, appalled. I should never have left him to get into this state. His legs, beneath the filthy brown and green blanket girdled about him, kick convulsively. His rolling eyes circle past me. He cannot see me. I crouch next to him and whisper, “It’s all right.” I can feel the heat off him before I even touch him. I put my hand to his forehead. It is burning under a layer of greasy sweat. “There now.” I push the hair off his face. “We need some water.” I look round the room. The flagon stands in a corner. It is still half full. I hold it to the Scotsman’s lips. They move weakly and liquid dribbles down his chin. I support his head and drip water into his mouth.
“That’s good. Take some more.” I ease a few more drops past his clenched teeth. The stink of him is frightful, and my stomach heaves. Kate always says you can tell an illness by the smell of it. I wonder what she would make of this.
By the time I have forced the equivalent of half a cup of water past his lips, the Scotsman’s legs have ceased their convulsions and his eyes have closed. He lies back heavily against my supporting arm.
“I must clean you,” I whisper. I stand up and realise that I must clean this place, too, if he is to recover. The cottage consists of just one small room. The only furniture is the straw pallet. The rushes on the floor are black and evil-smelling, and dotted with droppings from the hermit’s goat. Brown beetles scuttle amongst the mouldering stalks, their dry legs clacking. Tiny, reddish-brown fleas dance round my ankles. I decide to clean the Scotsman first, then the cottage.
In the valley we cover our floors in winter with fresh rushes from Mistholme Moss, the swamp over towards the next village, and in summer with sweet herbs and dried grass. I will strew the floor with wormwood to get rid of the fleas, bay to get rid of the beetles, rosemary, lavender and sweet woodruff to make the air wholesome.
I use water from the flagons, then more from the beck, to bathe the Scotsman. I have only the cloths that wrapped the bread inside the oilskin, but they must suffice. First I clean his face, coaxing dirt and grimy fragments away, then his neck and shoulders and legs. It seems strange to be bathing a grown man, and
I am glad that his senses have abandoned him. When I come to look at his injured arm, I try to ease his sleeve back gently, but still a howl of anguish escapes him. I wait, but there is no sign of returning consciousness, so I persevere. His upper arm is a horrid sight. Raw flesh is suppurating on the bone, and as I peer more closely, I can see the bone itself. I realise that this arm may not be saved. I have seen wounds like this before, where the limb has had to be removed by our local sawbones, a fearsome giant who lives on the cliffs, and whom we call the Cockleshell Man. Occasionally the doctor will come from Milnthorpe to try to save a limb, but his fees are high, and most people in the valley cannot afford him.
“You need a doctor, my poor enemy,” I tell the Scot, “but if I send for the physician he will hand you to the authorities and you will hang.”
“Aye.”
I nearly collapse.
“Get on wi’ it, lass. Clean me up. Let me die washed, at least.”
I pull myself together and reply coldly, “You’ll not die, Scotsman.”
“Well it’ll not be for the want of you trying. Why would ye want to save me now?”
“Did you expect me to help you over the windowsill and into the tower? I was protecting myself and my family. That doesn’t mean to say I’ll leave a defenceless man to rot to death now.” I take my knife from my belt and cut his sleeve from his arm. His eyes flicker at the flash of metal, and he grunts with pain. I take a package from the oilskin. “Here, I’ve brought some willow bark. It’ll help the pain.” I force the strip of willow between his teeth, then wash round the wound while he writhes. When I can see the injury clearly, I try to work out how his arm should lie. It is broken above the elbow, and the flesh is deeply cut and torn. I look at him, and he looks back at me, then I dampen the willow bark with a palmful of water from the flagon and fit the curve of the wood to his tongue. He sucks, and closes his eyes. I stroke his hair, then grip his arm with both hands and straighten the bone. It is a blessing that his senses desert him again at this point, so that I can concentrate properly on fitting the bone together, unencumbered by his screams.
Raider's Tide Page 4
