‘Mistress, oh mistress, hurry, hurry.’ Tears fell down her blackened face, causing paler runnels to emerge. ‘Please, save us.’
‘Listen. Betje, when I tell you, I want you to stand on the sill and jump, all right? Then you, Louisa, the men will catch you.’
‘Aye, mistress,’ said Louisa between sobs. ‘God help us.’ She crossed herself. Betje did too, hiccoughing, nodding.
The blanket was so small, the men so big, I prayed it would hold, for it was so far to fall. I glanced up again.
‘Adam,’ I grabbed his shirt. ‘Karel …He’s … in my room. The chest. You must save him.’
Pressing his lips together grimly, Adam looked across at my window. Flames danced around the shutters making the thatch above glow eerily.
‘Here, take this.’ Adam passed his side of the blanket to another burly man, it was Master Blakesmith, the ironmonger. ‘I’ll fetch him, don’t you worry.’ He threw buckets of water over himself then crossed the yard and, ignoring the choking plumes of smoke, ran back in the house. I wanted to follow, but knew if Betje was to be safe, I had to remain where I was.
Standing next to the blanket, beneath the window, I fastened my eyes onto hers. Filled with doubt, scared witless at what I was about to ask her to do, I was more frightened by what would happen if she didn’t obey.
‘Betje, hold onto Louisa and stand on the sill.’ My voice barely carried, the noise was so great, the fire so loud and filled with fury. Betje wailed and shook her head. ‘You must, sweet one.’ I tried to sound calm, authoritative.
Louisa bent and said something. Betje nodded and, clutching Louisa’s hand, oh so slowly climbed onto the sill.
Holding my breath, I watched her clamber onto the narrow strip of wood. It was then I realised she held her doll, Tansy.
‘Good girl! Now, stand up.’
Betje cried out and shook her head again.
‘You must, Betje.’
She trembled like a wet cat, locked in fear.
‘Betje.’ I had an idea. ‘Tansy wants to jump first. All right? Throw Tansy onto the blanket.’
Crouched on the sill, Betje looked at me. Holding Louisa tightly, she glanced at her doll then, with a sudden flick of her hand, threw the toy into the air. Against the sparks and whirling ash, the doll descended, limbs splayed, woollen hair flying. She landed in the middle of the blanket. The men cheered as if this rag was a real person.
Fire began to lick the thatch above the window. Betje screamed, so did Louisa. The smoke was like another barrier, a smothering blanket that prepared to engulf them.
‘Now! Betje, now.’ She didn’t move. ‘For Godsakes, Louisa,’ I cried as there was another explosion and part of the roof collapsed. ‘Push her!’
A ball of fire erupted through the window, engulfing Louisa and Betje. Screams and yells burst from everyone below.
Falling from the window was a small arrow of flame, a living comet shrieking to the earth.
It tumbled through the night and we all watched in horror until it sizzled onto the blanket where the men, mesmerised, nonetheless still managed to catch it.
They used the wool to swiftly douse the flames. Smoke rose, escaping from the sudden rents, the blackened holes. The smell was sickening. The caterwauling from within worse.
Then, from above us, came a piercing wail.
All eyes flew to the sill. Louisa! Though Betje’s fall had been mere seconds, already it was too late for Louisa.
Forever frozen at the window, Louisa became an animated piece of kindling, a Roman candle. We stared helpless, shocked into silence as she was consumed. Her high-pitched screams only ceased when the roof caved, crushing her, silencing her.
I stood immobile, unable to tear my eyes from where she’d last stood until Betje’s whimpers alerted me. The men knelt around what remained of the blanket, too scared too look, fearful lest their rescue failed. Ignoring the smoking, charred mass of flesh Betje had become, I pushed through them, knelt and, keeping the blanket around her, as carefully as I could, scooped her into my arms. Staggering as my own abused body protested her weight, inhaling and gagging as the stench assailed me, I collapsed to the ground.
Some of the men ran forward to help, but I shook my head, sending them away. Relieved of their duty, eager to escape another death they didn’t want to witness, the men scattered to pour more water upon the burning remains.
It was futile. Holcroft House would not survive.
Using one arm, I dragged us towards the brewhouse, clutching Betje to my breast, muttering inanities, ignoring the way her little red legs struck the dirt.
Falling against the garden wall, holding Betje, Blanche and Iris joined me, their sobs quieter, their fear transformed into something deeper, darker as they stared with stricken faces at the bundle in my arms and began to pray.
Together, we watched as men worked to put out the flames, to try and save the adjoining properties. In a parody of the winter snows, soft black and grey flakes, as well as some bright orange ones fell around us, landing in our hair, on our clothes, settling onto the garden, onto the chickens and pigs, who roused from their slumber were making a clamour.
It was some time before I thought to examine Betje. Mayhap, I was afraid what I would find. Pushing aside the blanket, I sent Blanche for water and gingerly bathed my sister’s scorched flesh, made her drink through ravaged swollen lips, lips that had once been such a perfect rose and were now a twisted reddened mass. Blanche found a fresh blanket in the brewhouse with which to wrap her. Pretending the creature in my arms was still Betje as I last saw her, was difficult. Her clothes, like most of her hair, had been burned from her body. Every morsel of flesh that I could see had been coloured afresh, the palette either black or shades of carmine. Flensed from her body, it was if her skin could not bear to remain; some stuck to Shelby’s blanket. Much came away wherever I touched. It was sickening to see, to hold, and yet I was compelled to do both, to bear witness to my poor little sister’s suffering. I’d no doubt whatsoever she was not long for this world and determined she would die in my arms, being cherished, knowing love. Quietly, I prayed to God to please save her, to save Betje, Karel and, as time went past and he didn’t re-emerge, Adam as well. I already knew that Saskia was gone. Westel roamed through my mind and I wished him to hell each time he appeared. We prayed, Blanche, Iris and, before long, Father Clement who, sweating, soot-streaked and exhausted, arrived and added his to ours.
God was not with us that night. Not only did a wind arise to blow the ash and cinders north, starting fresh fires that took Master Goldsmith’s house and business and the seven properties beyond as well, but the flames devoured all of Holcroft House except, ironically, the brewery. When Adam reappeared, coughing fit to make the earth shudder, and jogged towards us, his singed hair, blackened face and tragic eyes told their own tale. He fell down beside us and, burying his head in his hands, wept.
I had no more tears. Not that night, not ever again.
When the sun rose, trying to part the clouds of billowing smoke, Holcroft House, its darkened skeleton yearning for the light, was nothing more than charred bones.
PART TWO
The Brewer of Southwark
SOUTHWARK AND LONDON 1407–1409
But first I make a protestation round
That I’m quite drunk, I know it by sound:
And therefore, if I slander or mis-say
Blame it on the ale of Southwark, so I pray.
Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Millers Tale’
Southwark for the most part pursued its accustomed way, unruly and unruled.
David Johnson, Southwark and the City
THIRTY-FIVE
ELMHAM LENN TO DOVER TO CANTERBURY
After midsummer to end of February
The year of Our Lord 1406–1407 in the seventh and eighth years of the reign of Henry IV
Trapped in a nether world populated by reassuring whispers interrupted by cruel taunts and roaring flames, it was three weeks befo
re my senses were restored enough to fully grasp what had happened; to understand what I was yet to face.
It was not just the horror and grief of so much death, the final memory of Saskia, Louisa and my beloved Karel, or Betje’s terrible fate, nor the loss of the only home I’d ever known, that I had to reconcile. With my recovery came the painful knowledge that any remaining goodwill I had in Elmham Lenn was irreparably forfeit as well. The fire had unleashed its fury upon my neighbours, destroying other lives and livelihoods. Looking for a scapegoat, people turned against me. Urged on by Hiske, whose capacity for sanctimony grossly exceeded her compassion, the townsfolk affected sought to sue me for restitution. Hurling insults and curses, they haunted the church grounds, waiting for me to emerge from the security of St Bartholomew’s and for their savage justice to be served.
All this I learned from Father Clement, Adam and Captain Stoyan who, when I collapsed among the ashes of my former life, had smuggled me and Betje into St Bartholomew’s and declared sanctuary. Keeping us hidden within its stone walls, they ensured we received the best care possible. While my physical wounds were repaired quickly, it was those lodged deep in my heart that festered.
Yet, amid the bleakness there was also hope. Despite the dreadful mortification her body had suffered, Betje survived. Told it was God’s will, I demurred. Mayhap, He did wrap my sister in His tender mercy, but it was also the experienced ministrations of Mother Joanna, the head of St Hildegarde’s, the hospital in town, that kept Betje alive. To this woman of God I owed my sister’s life and to Him I was, at first, grateful.
As the days passed and her immolated flesh slowly transformed into raw knots and puckers of red that would disfigure and disable her greatly, I wondered how, having been saved, her life would unfold. How God could be both so cruel and yet so benevolent.
As soon as I was able, I told my saviours what I’d learned that dark night: of Westel Calkin’s betrayal; his brutality, to which my own injuries attested; and his ready admission of murder.
Expecting indignation, rage, sworn vengeance, the uncomfortable silence and knowing looks my friends shared as we sat before the fire in Father Clement’s rooms knelled a warning. What was being kept from me?
‘Mistress Anneke,’ said Adam, reaching for my trembling hand. ‘I’m afraid the justice you seek is not possible … that Goddamned blackguard perished in the fire.’
I stared at him in disbelief. ‘For certes?’
‘What remained of his belongings was found in the ruins of the hall. His cap, his satchel. There were other things, human …’ Adam swallowed.
‘They could only have been his …’ finished Father Clement, fingers clutching his beads.
This was the Lord’s punishment for the evil Westel wrought? Forgive my blasphemous conceit, but it was not enough. Between him and Betje, I found my faith sorely tested.
Less than a week after I was well enough to roam the church and tend to my sister, Hiske triumphed. We learned the sheriff had been summoned from London. What were my chances — an unmarried woman, a brewster, the keeper of an alehouse — of getting a fair trial?
Adam and Captain Stoyan arranged our departure — our flight, if I was to call it by its real name — from Elmham Lenn. Our belongings were meagre, our fears great. Adam had gone through the debris of Holcroft House and salvaged a few barrels of ale and beer from the brewery and found, beneath collapsed rafters, the tin we used to keep our coin. It was half-full of groats, silver pennies and some nobles. Not enough to compensate the townspeople, even if they could be persuaded to accept it, but enough to fund our eventual journey to London, where it was decided we could disappear completely. But not yet — London was too obvious a destination. To deter would-be pursuers, we would travel south.
‘While Captain Stoyan transports you by ship to a safe house in Dover,’ said Father Clement, ‘Adam will take Shelby and the cart and set a false trail north. For as long as I’m able, I’ll make folk believe you’re still here, in the church. There are many days left before your forty days of sanctuary expire. No-one will cross the threshold, not even the city authorities till then, by which time you’ll be long gone.’
When Mother Joanna offered to come with me and continue caring for Betje, I knew not how to express my gratitude, or the need in me she so readily met. ‘The dear Lord knows, you’ve both been punished enough,’ she said, her eyes alighting upon Betje and then my stomach, before sidling to the bowl into which I’d purged every morning for the past week. In the liquid depths of her lovely brown eyes, I saw that she understood — my silence, my guilt. In that exchange, she became complicit in my wretched condition. I’d not mentioned the rape to anyone. I was ashamed, dirty, soiled to my very core. And, truth be told, I felt somehow to blame. It wasn’t only Westel’s insults and the stream of invective that had flowed from him that night and lodged in my veins. It was those who, when I first embarked on this venture and whose opinion I cared about, had warned me of what might happen. They’d possessed a foresight I’d either lacked or wilfully ignored. That innocents had paid so dearly for my sin and folly, weighed heavily upon my soul …
Did we grow complacent in Dover as the months passed and neither the hue and cry nor the county sheriff pounded at our door? Mayhap. Our vigilance, while rigorous when we first arrived, did lessen somewhat. We assumed that we’d slipped into the annals of Elmham Lenn’s past, accompanied no doubt by dire warnings of what befell licentious women, and dared to consider safety a possibility. Even to map out a future. What none of us factored in, however, was Sir Leander Rainford.
Learning what had happened at Holcroft House, Sir Leander immediately aborted the trip he’d undertaken with his new bride. What she must have thought, I don’t know, but instead of wintering on a sunny coast somewhere in Castile, after merely a few weeks of wedded bliss Lady Cecilia found herself rudely deposited back in London, while her husband, Tobias by his side, made haste to his father’s estates. According to Captain Stoyan and intermittent messages I received from Father Clement, Sir Leander was ruthless in his determination to uncover my whereabouts and, may God bless his soul, clear my name. Even now, the thought of him storming through Elmham Lenn, inspecting the remains of Holcroft House, demanding answers from Father Clement, comforting Tobias as they stood over little Karel’s grave, is difficult for me to comprehend. Our fate never was and should not be Sir Leander’s concern. And yet … he chose to make it so. The very notion made my heart accelerate, but also firmed my resolve to exclude him from my life, to protect him from the damage of any association with me. But in those deep, secret places to which I would rarely venture, I felt such warmth and gratitude towards the man. He cared — whether about Tobias’s future or mine, I knew not. He cared and it was enough for me. It had to be.
That he continued to intrude upon my thoughts, break down the barriers I so carefully erected, happened when I’d no control or say in the matter. No-one is responsible for those who enter their dreams.
For well over a week, Sir Leander remained in Elmham Lenn, questioning the local sheriff, our neighbours, Masters Miller and Proudfellow and anyone else who might have frequented the Cathaline Alehouse. He even tracked down Blanche and Iris, who had returned to their families after the fire. I thanked Mother Mary over and over that my dear servants could offer him nothing. Their ignorance of my whereabouts was their shield, and was also mine. For the same reason, after discussion with Father Clement, and with a heavy heart, I’d made the decision not to share my plans, or my grief, with Tobias. It would be as if I too perished in the fire. He was faultless in all this and I would not make him complicit now I was a fugitive.
So why then, as the days passed and Sir Leander’s efforts led to naught, did I feel so ambivalent?
Not even Father Clement and Captain Stoyan were spared his angry interrogations nor, I learned, Abbot Hubbard. Captain Stoyan reported that while Sir Leander hid his evident concern for me beneath resolute looks and terse questions, Tobias did not. Despite his l
ast bitter communication, my heart broke as I thought of him and the losses he had to bear. Being angry with a stubborn older sister is very different to mourning those you believe forever gone.
While grief and self-recrimination occupied my evenings, the days were reserved solely for Betje and the ways in which, first with Mother Joanna’s help and later, Adam’s, I could alleviate her suffering. Our first weeks in Dover, settling into the huge house of Captain Stoyan’s friends — a wealthy Dutchman and his sister — were mostly a blur. Amid sunshiny days, blustery winds, lashing rain and the encroaching mellowness of autumn was the relentless insistence of Betje’s pain.
Able to cope with the journey to Dover and our first few days in new surroundings, tolerating the unguents and lotions with which Mother Joanna insisted we gently wash and massage her charred and blistered flesh, as well as the potions she was persuaded to drink, it was as if Betje remained unaware of what had befallen her. Or, as I misguidedly believed, that the good Lord had somehow taken pity upon her innocent soul and spared her the suffering that should attend such grievous afflictions. How wrong I was. As the days merged into weeks, it was as if Betje awoke to her state and was tortured anew. The treatments she had tolerated without a murmur, the medicines she had willingly drunk while lodged in St Bartholomew’s, became punishments we cruelly forced upon her. Every wary ministration, every down-soft touch, made her writhe in agony.
Struggling against our attentions, screaming in her strange, hoarse manner, my promise never to shed another tear was sorely tested as I helplessly watched my sister endure. If Mother Joanna hadn’t been there, forcing me to hold Betje while she patiently flensed the dead flesh from her arm, legs, head and cheek, rubbed the oils and sticky lotions into her skin, I would have abandoned the cure long ago. It was all I could do to contain my poor sister, hold her, pray over her and try to soothe her haunting wails and steady her shaking limbs.
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