The Gallows Curse

by Karen Maitland

  Talbot grunted. 'Easy to say when your life's not at stake. Thing is, what are you going to do now? Seems to me it's still your word against Hugh's, or rather that girl of yours. And -'

  Raffe smashed his fist into the palm of his hand. 'And I can't prove a bloody thing against Hugh. If I could have seen him with this Faramond, or the king's men had taken even one of the Frenchmen alive and questioned him, he might have given them Hugh's name. But Osborn will never hear a word said against his brother. If there's one thing in this world he has any feelings for at all, it's that little whelp.'

  Raffe grabbed a clump of grass and ripped it from the ground in frustration. His hope of seeing the whole pack of them turned out of the manor had slipped so far from his grasp, he couldn't see how to retrieve it.

  'Thing is,' Talbot said, 'sooner or later Hugh's going to start wondering who tipped off the king's men, and I reckon he'll get to thinking that the girl did overhear what was said after all and told someone. If you've any feelings at all for her, you'd best see she stays well hidden out of his way.'

  Raffe raked his fingers through his hair. God in heaven, how much more could go wrong? At least Elena was in the village, and Hugh was not likely to soil his boots by mixing with cottagers from Gastmere. He just prayed Elena would have the sense to stay away from the manor.

  Both men stared in silence over the darkened bay. The flames reflected on the glassy black water danced around the stricken ship like imps at a witches' Sabbath. Even as the two men watched, the ship rolled over on its side with a mighty crash. As waves broke over the deck, the flames clawed higher in the sky as if they were desperately trying to escape the sea. But it was only for a moment, then the water closed over it and the Santa Katarina and all she contained was pulled down and down into the cold black depths.

  7th Day after the New Moon,

  June 1211

  Rowan — was once known as raun, meaning charm, for it is a powerful weapon against witches and the evil eye.

  Raun tree and red thread, hold the witches all in dread.

  The druids burn rowan to summon the spirits to battle, or to force them to answer questions. Mortals often plant the tree near the door of a house so that no evil may enter it. On Quarter Days, when the spirits of mischief are most active, mortals lay a rowan sprig over the lintel of doors and windows, so that evil spirits cannot enter. Some mortals wear necklaces of rowan wood and hang garlands of it in the cattle byres or over the horns of a beast that they fear has been overlooked by the evil eye.

  Those whose milk is witched so that it will not turn to butter had best get themselves a churn made from rowan wood. If their horse is bewitched and throws the rider, it may be tamed with a rowan whip. But those who really fear the spirits seek out the flying rowan, the tree whose roots do not touch the earth, but grows in the cleft of a rock or on another tree, for its wood is the most powerful of them all.

  But take heed, mortals, rowan will protect you from the evils of men, but it will not protect you from a mandrake's power, for we are neither witches nor spirits to be commanded. We are gods.

  The Mandrake's Herbal

  The Shearing

  'You'll never wind the bairn like that,' Athan's mother declared, scooping the baby from Elena's arms and patting him briskly on his back.

  The infant stopped grizzling and looked vaguely surprised.

  'You'll join the other women in the barn soon as you've finished here,' Joan said. It was a command, not a question. 'They'll help you with the little one.'

  What you really mean is, I can't be trusted to look after him, Elena thought, but she held her tongue and merely nodded. It was the first time since the baby had been born that she would spend the day away from her mother-in-law. With the sheep-shearing about to begin and ploughing still to be done and the first haymaking starting in the forward meadows, every man, woman and child was pressed into labour, no matter what their age or infirmity.

  Athan had left for the fields at ghost light, before the sun was even visible above the dark fringed marshes. Every precious hour of daylight had to be used while the weather held fair. But his mother continued to linger at the door, still watching Elena as a fox watches a rabbit, waiting for it to come close enough to pounce.

  Please just go, Elena willed her.

  'Remember to take clean rags, he'll need changing'

  Elena nodded to the bundle she'd made ready. 'I have them. Hadn't you better make haste? Marion'll not be best pleased if you're late.'

  Joan sniffed. 'Just because that harlot is keeping the bailiffs bed warm, doesn't give her the right —'

  She broke off abruptly as Marion and some of the other Women called out to her as they passed the open door of the cottage. Pausing only to issue a further list of instructions about the care of her grandson, she sped off to catch up with them, only too eager to regale them with the latest of Elena's failings as wife and mother.

  Peace seemed to roll in through the open door in the wake of Joan's departure. Elena took her son in her arms and gently kissed his face. His eyes were heavy with sleep, but the lids were almost transparent so that the blue of his eyes glowed through them like a jewel through gauze. She stroked the soft apricot down on his warm head and slid her finger into the tiny fist, feeling the fingers curl tightly round her own as if he knew without looking that it was his mother's hand.

  The bairn, that's what they all called him. Athan said he had chosen a name, but Joan declared it was bad luck to say it out loud before the baptism in case a stranger or the faerie folk should learn it and use it to witch the child before his name was sanctified by the Church. At his baptism Athan would whisper it to the priest at the font, but only when the priest proclaimed it to the congregation would Elena knew what they were going to call her baby.

  She already had a name in her heart for him, though she would never be allowed to use it. She whispered it sometimes when she was sure no one would hear her, a secret name because she adored him and he was her son. But she knew that any name she gave the child would not keep him safe, only the Church, only baptism could do that. But when would he be baptized?

  With the Interdict and all the churches closed and half the priests fled or imprisoned, no infant could be christened How many months more would they have to call him the bairn? And all that time he would be unprotected from witches who could cast the evil eye on him and faerie folk, who might snatch him, and from demons and monsters who would devour his soul. If he died before he could be made a child of Christ, his soul would wander lost for ever; he would be buried at the crossroads or the hundred boundary where all the suicides, madmen and murderers lay.

  Once, years ago, Joan had told her, a girl in the village had given birth to a boy and kept it hidden in mortal fear of her husband for he had been away at the Holy Wars when it was conceived, so he would know it was none of his getting. The poor little mite had died not long after. The sexton had found the mother trying to bury the tiny body in the churchyard, and had torn the corpse from her arms and buried it at the crossroads outside the village bounds, for he knew that if they did not take it out of Gastmere the soul of the unbaptized infant would wander through the village every night, rattling the doors and shutters trying to find a mother who would take it in.

  Ever after travellers who had the misfortune to find themselves at that crossroads at night heard a baby wailing in great distress. If they were foolish enough to go closer to try to find the child, they saw a little infant white as bone, with large hollow eyes, burrowing out of the earth and crawling towards them on one leg and one arm, screaming so piercingly that horses and men alike were driven mad. Locals avoided the place after dark and if they had to travel that way always carried a sprig of rowan and a horse shoe to beat the creature away with, but many an unsuspecting traveller had been thrown from his horse, which had bolted at the shrieks.

  Elena gazed down at the softly rounded cheeks, the tiny nose and pink plump lips wrinkling as if he still suckled in his sleep. She
would never let them bury her son at some lonely crossroads in an unmarked grave. She would not have horses trample the ground above him or carts drive over him. She would not have them curse her beautiful angel or watch his decayed corpse crawling up out of the ground. But if she killed him, they would bury him there. They would drag his little body from her arms and bury him deep and alone in the cold, hard ground, without even a twig to mark where he lay.

  As each day passed she loved him more and she knew it would only get harder to do what she must do. It had to be today. She could not wait for another. She must do it now, before it was too late. She must keep him safe — safe from them and above all safe from her, his own mother. Tying her baby tightly to her chest with her shawl, she slipped out of the house. The track was deserted. Everyone who was fit enough to walk was already at work in the fields or barns, but Elena was not making for the barn, she was walking as rapidly as she could in the direction of the forest.

  A soft, warm breeze had sprung up with the setting sun. It rustled the leaves on the currant bushes and stirred the bright green shoots of the onions in their beds. Elena gently removed one of the two young pigeons from the little wicker cage hanging under the apple tree and carried the bird back into Athan's cottage. She sat down on a stool by the rough wooden table. The pigeon was struggling, flapping its wings fiercely in an effort to get away, but as she caught the wings and smoothed them back into a resting position with her fingers, the bird, calmed and lay passively in her grip. Its bright black eye looked sideways at her and blinked. She could feel its tiny heart thumping beneath its soft warm feathers.

  'Hush now,' she murmured, 'I'm not going to hurt you.'

  Outside in the small wicker cage, its mate cooed in the hot evening sunshine. For a moment or two, Elena stroked the bird gently, calming it almost to a point where it was falling asleep in the warmth of the fire. Then Elena's right hand moved up to the bird's neck. In one deft movement, she twisted and pulled sharply. The pigeon flopped limp in her lap.

  She began to pluck it at once. It is always easier when the body is still warm. She ripped the feathers out, letting them drift into a soft mound on a rag she had spread out at her feet. When the bird was clean, she took her knife and ripped open the belly, pulling out the guts before tossing the carcass whole into the iron pot that was already bubbling on the hearth.

  Then she went outside to the little wicker cage where the second bird still cooed, its hope undiminished, as if expecting an answering call from its mate. Elena reached inside and gently removed it, soothing it in her hands as she carried it back to her stool next to the steaming pot.

  Preparing meals was something she had done ever since she could walk, like every girl in Gastmere. Her mam had taught her, just as her mother taught her before that. Most days Elena hardly wasted a thought on it, as long as there was food to be prepared. Her hands worked steadily as her mind drifted off to other places. But now she suddenly recalled how as a tiny child she had watched her own mother cleaning a bird. The picture was as clear in her head as if she was still there in her mother's cottage, though she had never remembered it before. Fascinated, Elena had pulled herself up on to her wobbly little legs by clutching her mother's skirts. Then, standing unsteadily, she had watched, with the wonder that only a child can know, as the soft grey feathers drifted down in dizzy spirals over her mother's legs, only to be caught by the breeze and lifted again, like a thousand tiny birds in flight. She remembered how she'd reached out her chubby hand to catch them and had overbalanced and tumbled on to the rushes. Her mother, laughing, had bent down to haul her upright again, with big red-raw hands smelling of feathers and onions and blood.

  Tears suddenly poured down Elena's face and she realized that she would never feel her own son's dimpled little hands clinging to her skirts as he pulled himself up, never hear him laugh as she blew a dandelion ball for him so that the seeds danced in the shaft of sunlight, and never fashion a little boat of bark for him to bat across a puddle. There were a thousand inconsequential things she would never do for him, trivial things that did not put food in his belly or warm clothes on his back. Silly, time-wasting things, that somehow at this moment mattered more than anything else in her life.

  She heard the sound of voices outside and hastily scrubbed the tears from her eyes as the door opened. She tried to compose her face, pressing her hands together to stop them shaking. But she need not have troubled, for Joan didn't bother to glance at her.

  'What possessed you to shut the door?' Joan snapped. 'That cooking fire'll have us all roasted alive.'

  The older woman sank wearily down on the stool, looking every one of her forty-five years and more. Her face was caked with dust and sweat, and her grey-streaked hair had come loose from its bindings and clung damply to her forehead. Elena, still trembling, pushed a beaker of ale into her hand, while Joan fanned herself with the other. Her mother- in-law just about managed a curt nod, which Elena was willing to believe might be a thank you.

  Joan gulped thirstily at the ale, draining the beaker before she spoke. You want to be grateful, my girl, you could work in the shade of the barn today. It was as hot as a baker's oven out in those fields, not so much as a pant of wind all day.' I

  Joan glanced out of the open door. The light had almost faded, and in the cottages opposite theirs, rushlights were already being lit.

  'They'll have finished the shearing for the day. I thought my son would be home by now.'

  'He's probably stopped off at the alewife with his friends,' Elena suggested quietly.

  Joan immediately bridled. 'Would you begrudge him a drink to quench his thirst? You want to be thankful you don't have the husband I had. He'd have slept in the inn if I hadn't gone round to haul him out. You've got a jewel in my son and you want to remember that and count yourself lucky. I hope that supper's ready, the poor lad'll be famished enough to eat a horse and its cart.'

  Elena was too drained to reply. She felt as if she was going to vomit each time she tried to think how to tell them where she'd done. She tried not to think, and concentrated on ladling out the pigeon and bean pottage into a bowl, which she handed to Joan. Joan sniffed at it dubiously and took a sip from her horn spoon. She wrinkled up her nose in distaste.

  'Too much salt. We've haven't got it to waste, my girl. Not at the price those thieves are charging in the market.' She pulled out her knife and speared a piece of pigeon breast, stuffing it into her mouth.

  Elena hung her head, saying nothing, but she noticed that for all Joan's grumblings the pottage was disappearing fast enough down her gullet.

  Joan thrust the empty bowl at her to refill. 'At least you got my grandson to sleep before Athan comes home.' She nodded towards the hooded wooden cradle in the furthest corner of the cottage. 'You see, you can manage the bairn well enough when you try. You just give up too easily, my girl, that's your trouble.'

  Both women glanced up as Athan's bulk filled the doorway. He stumbled across to the fire, rubbing his aching shoulders, pausing to plant a kiss first on his mother's cheek, then on his wife's.

  Joan flapped her hands impatiently at Elena. 'Stop pawing him, it's food my son needs, not your kisses. Quickly now, before the poor lad faints with hunger.'

  Elena filled the bowl from the steaming pot and Athan tucked in, grunting in appreciation as he shovelled the food down. As Joan had predicted, he was ravenous. His mother beamed and affectionately ruffled his hair as if he was still a small boy, though she had to reach up to do it.

  Elena watched him too, her heart aching with love for him. Even now that the first flush of youthful excitement had worn off and they were in all but name an old married couple, she could not look at him without a little jolt of pleasure. She even loved the foolish things about him, like the way his sandy hair, slick with grease from the shearing, glistened in the firelight, or the childlike way he ran his finger round the wooden bowl to catch every drop of the juices.

  He must have felt her watching, for he glanced over at h
er with a smile, his blue eyes vacant and untroubled, like a dog who is thinking only of a juicy bone. How could she start to tell him? How would she begin? Her mouth was dry. He'd understand, of course he would. He loved her. If she could just speak to Athan alone, then he could explain the whole thing to his mother. Athan would stand up for her. She knew he would . . . when it really mattered.

  Joan was already nodding off, exhausted by the long day in the fields. Her head lolled against the wall. Her mouth hung open. Elena caught hold of Athan's hand, and with her finger pressed to her lips began to tug him towards the door. Athan, with a glance back at his sleeping mother, grinned broadly, and followed Elena outside.

  The wind, which had been sleeping in the heat of the day, had finally begun to blow in earnest and was skimming the clouds across the moon. Before Elena could speak, Athan pulled her round into the dark space between two cottages and drew her into his arms, his breath hot on her neck.

  'I've been missing you all day, my angel,' he whispered, a