The Plague Charmer

by Karen Maitland

  The path levelled out and I glimpsed the great round smooth pebbles that marked the edge of the shoreline, but the fret was even thicker there. The tide must be far out, for the lapping of the waves was no more than a distant whisper.

  I heard pebbles rattling, as if someone was walking across them, and glimpsed a dark shape moving before the swirling white mist enveloped it again. That sickening smell, it was worse here and getting stronger.

  ‘Goda! Goda, is that you? Answer me, girl!’

  Again I heard the rattle of pebbles. The smudge of a figure appeared, sending the mist whirling as she moved towards me.

  ‘Goda, have you forgotten your baby? She’s as hungry as I am. You must have gathered a dozen—’

  But the woman emerging from the fog was not Goda.

  ‘I have not forgotten the baby, Matilda. Nor have I forgotten you.’

  Janiveer was standing in front of me, her sodden skirts clinging to her legs, her dark hair hanging in wet strands about her face, as if she had just walked out of the sea.

  ‘You have something that belongs to me, Matilda.’

  ‘So, you’re back,’ I said coldly, though I confess my heart was thumping a little from the shock. ‘I can assure you, Janiveer, I have nothing of yours. I would never bring myself to touch anything that a witch had owned. But, in any case, you own nothing save the clothes you were wearing when they foolishly pulled you from the sea. And the whole village rues the day they did that.’

  ‘I will give them cause to curse that day a hundred times over if you do not give me what is mine – the hand of Cadeyrn.’

  I snorted. ‘So it seems you are not quite the seer Sara seems to think you are. If you were, you’d know the dwarf and some of the villagers came to my cottage in the middle of the night to steal it from me. I knew that creature was lying when he said he would give it to you, and I was right! He kept it for himself, didn’t he? If you want it, you’d best find the dwarf.’

  ‘Will brought me the hand you gave him, as he told you he would. But what he brought was not Cadeyrn’s hand but the hand of another.’

  ‘Then the dwarf must have switched them,’ I snapped. ‘They’re foul, deceitful creatures. As I told you, he wants the saint’s hand for himself. No doubt he thinks he can sell the relic for a good price to some abbey or cathedral. He’ll have it hidden away in that cave he skulks in, like the animal he is. That’s where he takes all the things he steals. Go to his cave, Janiveer, and see if I’m not right.’

  So saying, I hurried back up the hill towards my cottage. I could feel those cold, evil eyes upon me all the way home, as if her malice was stalking me to my very threshold. It made my skin crawl. As I fumbled for the latch on the door, my fingers brushed against a wet cobweb that clung to my wrist. Its weaver scuttled across the back of my hand. I dashed the spider against the wall and hurried inside, slamming the door behind me.

  I leaned against it, panting, my legs trembling from the fast climb.

  Goda, gutting fish at the table, glanced up in alarm.

  ‘Whatever is it, mistress? You look like you seen a corpse walking.’

  ‘Janiveer’s returned. The sea-witch is back in Porlock. She walked in on the tide. Did you see her down at the shore?’

  The knife clattered from Goda’s hand on to the table. ‘The one that cursed the village? What does she want?’

  ‘When she was here last time she said she wanted the life of a man, woman or child who had been born in Porlock Weir. And today, when I saw her on the shore, she spoke of your baby, Goda.’

  Not stopping to wipe the scales and fish guts from her hands, Goda snatched up her daughter and pressed her fiercely to her chest. ‘I’ll not let her take her. I’ll run and hide in the forest.’

  Clutching the child, she tried to push past me to the door. But I barred her way, edging her back.

  ‘She’s a witch. They can smell out children as a hound can smell a deer. She’ll find you however deep into the forest you go, and out there all alone, you’ll have no one to protect you.’

  ‘What am I to do?’ Goda wailed. ‘Suppose she comes here? How’ll we stop her?’

  ‘She doesn’t need to come here,’ I told her. ‘If she can call the pestilence to the village and kill so many without even touching them, she can cast a spell to kill your child whenever she chooses. There is only one way to stop a witch and destroy her spell. You must draw her blood.’

  Goda shook her head vehemently, backing away from me. ‘I – I can’t. I wouldn’t dare. Suppose she curses me. You do it, you!’

  ‘It wouldn’t break her spell if I did it. It is your daughter she seeks to kill, a child of your body, so you are the only one who can stop her.’

  I crouched and dragged out the box from under the bed. From it, I took a knife, sheathed in leather. Drawing the blade carefully, I laid it on the end of the table, the only part not covered in guts and scales. The steel glinted in the firelight.

  ‘You must use this. It’s as sharp as a razor shell. It will take only the lightest touch to draw blood. But it must be on her forehead, above her breath, to break any curse she puts on your child.’

  Goda reached out to touch the blade.

  But I caught her wrist. ‘Careful. I told you the blade is so sharp you’ll cut yourself badly if you touch it.’ I slid it back into the leather sheath, and pushed it across the table at her.

  She shook her head, backing away. ‘If she would hurt my babby when there’s neither of us done her any harm, what will she do to us if I cut her?’

  ‘Once you have drawn her blood, the witch will be powerless to hurt you or your child ever again. She will never be able to work her evil against you. You’ll be safe.’

  She stared at the sheathed knife as if it might rise up and fly at her. ‘But it’s ’gainst the law to go cutting anyone. When that sailor stabbed the pedlar at Sybil’s brew-house, Cador arrested him and they hanged him at the assizes.’

  ‘You’re only going to scratch her,’ I assured the girl. ‘Why, this knife is so sharp, she won’t even feel it. And even if Cador still lived, he wouldn’t arrest anyone for a mere scratch.’

  I moved around the table, picked up the knife and tied the sheath around her waist by its leather strap. ‘Don’t go using that knife to cut the fish, else you’ll blunt it. When you see Janiveer, just walk up to her, pull out the knife and strike. You can be away before she even realises what you’ve—’

  The silence outside was shattered by the clanging of the church bell. It was not the slow, measured tolling of the death knell – no one had rung that since the pestilence pit was dug – or the summons to Mass, but a frantic and urgent tolling as if someone was trying to rouse the whole village. I flung open the door and hurried outside, Goda close on my heels. The mist was beginning to lift, and below I caught glimpses of the wet sand glistening out in the bay. The bell was still ringing, but more slowly now, as if whoever was heaving on the rope was tiring.

  I hurried down the hill, Goda trailing after me, but we were nearly at the bottom before we stepped out of the mist and into the strange white light below it. A small knot of women stood on the foreshore staring out into the bay, and a few old men came limping towards them, summoned by the bell. The mist still drifted in patches over the wet sand, but between white swirls I could see something huge and dark. It was a ship, a crayer, beached far out on the sand and tilting over at an angle. The sail that hung from her single mast was shredded and tattered. But there were men on board, some leaning over the side, others up in the castle.

  The gulls had at last taken to the skies as the mist began to lift and they circled the mast of the stricken ship, screaming, but they weren’t landing and little wonder, for I suddenly knew where that terrible stench was coming from. As I watched I realised that not a single figure on board that vessel was moving. It was a ship of death.

  Chapter 61

  Sara

  Fiddle-fish bring good fortune to a vessel if they are dragged behind it o
n a line till they disappear, but if that line be cut before the fish are gone, the ship’s luck shall be cut with it.

  Meryn hopped a pace closer on his crutches, his withered leg dragging behind him. He jerked his chin towards the stranded ship. ‘Next tide’ll lift her and smash her into the fish weirs. ’Tis a miracle she were beached afore she ran into them last night. Weirs’ll be destroyed and those corpses’ll be scattered all over the beach. She’ll have to be burned afore the tide comes in.’

  Sybil turned to look at me. ‘Then it’s us’ll have to do it.’

  ‘And just how will you get out there with enough pitch to set fire to it?’ Isobel demanded. ‘Last time the pestilence struck, the menfolk went out to fire the ships. If my husband was still alive, he’d know—’

  ‘Well, he isn’t,’ Sybil retorted. ‘So we’ll have to do the thinking.’

  ‘Mud-horses,’ I said. ‘If they can carry eels back, they can take barrels out.’

  ‘Have you ever used one?’ Isobel asked.

  ‘Seen menfolk do it since afore I could walk. Can’t be that hard,’ I said impatiently, but it was.

  Spinning looks easy to them who’ve never done it. My Elis laughed once that it must be the simplest task in the world if a woman could do it. So I made him try. He soon stopped laughing when he found he couldn’t spin a half-foot of yarn that wasn’t either as lumpy as a dish of beans or so thin it broke.

  We managed well enough rolling the tar barrels down from the watchtower and lashing them to the runners of the mud-horses. But when I stepped out on to the wet sand and tried to bend forward over the frame same as I’d seen the fishermen do, I found I couldn’t lie flat and put my feet on the ground at the same time. The mud-horses were built for the height of men, not us. And when my feet were touching the ground, I couldn’t push the sledge forward, for the barrels were too heavy. I felt someone wriggling in beside me. Katharine leaned against the other spar. Between us we managed to get the runners to slide, but that mud-horse juddered and jerked over the sand as if it were a living beast. The men used to make the mud-horses fly. We could only crawl.

  The frame dug painfully into my breasts, and my legs felt as leaden and unwieldy as tree-trunks before we had gone more than a few yards. Looking around me, I saw that the other women, too, were working in pairs, but making no more progress than we were. Sybil, being taller than the rest of us, was making better weather of it, but not much. We were all too weak from the flux.

  ‘Stop,’ I called to Katharine. ‘At this rate we’ll not reach the ship afore the tide starts running in. We’ll have to push it like a barrow. But you hold on tight, case there’s quicksand. If you feel the ground going from under you, get your foot on that runner.’

  She nodded grimly. It was hardly much faster when we were walking behind and pushing, for our feet sank into the sand as the mud-horse resisted, or it would suddenly shoot forward, leaving us sprawling. I daren’t glance up, for each time I did, the ship seemed further away than ever. Only the foul stench came closer, carried on the strengthening breeze. My back and legs moaned in pain, and my feet were so numb from the cold wet sand that a dozen viperfish could have stung them or razor shells slashed them and I’d have felt nothing. I just kept forcing them forward, one foot at a time.

  Then, just when I thought I couldn’t take another step, the great rough timber wall reared up in front of us, covered with clumps of barnacles and weed. We stared up. Three men hung, face down, over the side, thrown there when the ship had rolled on the sand bank. Their faces were black and swollen, dried lips drawn back over their teeth, like snarling dogs. Their eyes, filled with blood, glared down at us, like the demons in the chapel. For a few moments none of us could move. We’d lived with the grave pit for weeks, but the sight of these men looming over us was more terrible than any corpse we’d buried in the village. We might have been standing there still, if Sybil hadn’t roused us.

  ‘No time to waste,’ she grunted. Her face was mottled red and white, and streams of sweat ran down either side of her nose. ‘Tide’ll be on the turn. No! Don’t go pulling the barrels off, they’ll sink into the sand. We’ll have to burn them on the mud-horses. Push them in till they’re touching the timbers.’

  We gave one last push, ramming the mud-horses as far as we could under the curve of the ship’s timbers. Sybil pulled a flint and iron from the pouch that hung at her waist. The spark came easily enough, but the tar wouldn’t catch.

  ‘No good! We need straw or kindling or summat.’

  She gazed helplessly around at the expanse of wet sand. There was nothing dry enough to burn.

  Katharine turned around, her back towards me, and struggled to unlace her kirtle. ‘Front of me is all wet, but the back of my shift should be dry enough. Help me rip it! Hurry!’

  She pulled down the kirtle and, using my knife and teeth, I tore a long strip from the top of her shift. Several of the other women copied us, tearing cloth from any part of their garments that was still dry. We splashed along the row of barrels, stuffing the rags into the tops. The wind was stronger now, but Sybil, shielding the barrel with her body, managed to get the first rag to light, then another and another.

  We waited, our sleeves pressed over our mouths and noses against the stench, until the flames leaped up from the first barrel, licking along the tarred seams of the timbers. The other barrels caught quickly and the flames, fanned by the strengthening wind, raced along the caulking between the ship’s timbers and began to rear up towards the sloping deck.

  I glanced at the waves breaking out on the edge of the bay. ‘Tide’ll be turning any time now, and that wind’ll push it in fast. We’d best hold hands going back, case someone falls.’

  My legs were trembling with weariness and some of the other women could barely stand, but we couldn’t afford to rest. We linked arms and turned for the shore, trying to encourage each other.

  ‘Be much easier going back without having to push the barrels.’

  ‘Not far now.’

  The heat from the burning ship scorched our backs. The wind was driving the thick, oily smoke over us, making our eyes stream with tears and our throats raw with coughing, but it was impossible to hurry on the soft mud.

  An agonised scream made us whip round so suddenly that Katharine slipped and fell. We stared up at the blazing ship. One of the sailors was clinging to the rail in the stern. His clothes were afire and he was trying to beat them out. But his hands were burning like torches where the melted pitch from the timbers had stuck to them. He was howling and shrieking, then he flung himself over the side. The smoke was so dense we couldn’t see where he’d landed. Then, as a gust of wind lifted it for moment, we glimpsed a blackened heap on the sand below the ship. It was blazing almost as fiercely as the tar barrels, but the man didn’t move.

  Katharine, kneeling on the sand, leaned over and was violently sick.

  Chapter 62

  Will

  Riddle me this: Some try to hide and others to cheat, but whatever you do we shall always meet.

  Janiveer appeared on the rise above the beach. I say appeared for that was the word that always came to mind whenever I saw her. One moment the spot was empty, the next she was standing there, like some ancient warrior queen, her dark hair streaming behind her. She was staring across the bay at the ship that blazed like a beacon in a pall of thick black smoke. Fragments of burning sailcloth were snatched up by the wind and tossed about like seabirds in a storm, carried up so high that those on shore began to glance anxiously at the thatch on their cottages. The mast lit up like a giant candle before it came crashing down on the deck, and even at that distance we could hear the crackle and crack of the timbers as the flames consumed the bodies of the sailors on the giant funeral pyre.

  Janiveer stood motionless on the rise above us, her sea-grey eyes fixed unblinkingly on the ship as if she was willing it to burn. For a moment, I had the wild idea that if she looked away the flames would go out and the ship would be floating in the wa
ves once more, with all the crew alive. Janiveer had returned to the village and that same day a death ship had drifted into the bay. Had she summoned it, just to remind us of what she could do?

  A wail distracted me. Goda was crouching on the beach, crying like a small child that her beloved Jory might be one of the seamen aboard that ship. Meryn, leaning on his crutches, clumsily patted her shoulder. ‘And if he was, my maid, better this than you find his rotting corpse on the beach.’ He glanced back up the hill towards the grave pit. ‘You wouldn’t want him dumped in with them. I don’t reckon they’ll ever rest easy.’

  Goda’s anguished wails redoubled. The man’s words were plainly doing nothing to reassure her. I was about to step in and remind her that there were a thousand ships at sea, and at that moment her lover was probably supping his fill in a tavern on some distant shore, when I saw the Holy Hag making her way towards Goda, her face contorted with fury. I don’t know what Matilda had to be angry about, but her fury was a summer’s breeze compared to the storm that was boiling up in me.

  I sprang into her path and stood there, arms folded. ‘You wicked old hag. You sent me chasing after a mare’s nest. You knew that wasn’t the hand of St Cadeyrn. Where have you hidden the real relic?’

  ‘There has only ever been one relic in that chapel, dwarf. Where would I get another? Now let me pass, you vile creature.’

  She tried to sidestep me, but I skipped in front of her, dancing from side to side to block her way. ‘Janiveer’s returned, Matilda. She’s searching for the hand. If she’s the power to summon a ship of corpses, imagine what she’ll do to you if she finds you’ve been keeping her ancestor’s hand from her. Look at her, old woman! Look!’ I pointed up to the rise where Janiveer stood, still staring out into the bay, as if she could command the waves to sweep in and drown the whole village.