Dark Night Hidden

by Alys Clare

  She had taken Joanna to the yew tree and told her to make new ropes, since the old ones had rotted almost to nothing. It had been Joanna’s own idea to make the rope ladder for the topmost stage. She had sat for many evenings during her pregnancy cutting pieces of oak and whittling the rungs. The lengths of rope she had fetched from the house that her mother’s kin had left her.

  It was not advisable, she had decided, to work on the platform whilst pregnant. However, soon after Meggie’s birth she had begun. First she had cleaned off many decades of dark green, sticky residue, apparently made up of foliage, berries and bits of twig, and she inspected the planks for damage. They were sound. Then she set about making a shelter; if she ever had to use the platform in bad weather, it was possible that Meggie, so tiny and so vulnerable, might not survive unless Joanna contrived to make waterproof, weatherproof walls and a roof up there.

  The work was so hard that she almost gave up. She had to take up posts to make uprights for the walls, hazel to weave between the posts and then wattle and daub to fill in the gaps. Then she had to take branches and reed thatch for the roof. And she had already climbed up with two posts when it occurred to her to use the rope as a pulley.

  After that, progress was a lot quicker. Even Lora, sternest of judges over any matter involving security, had to praise her for her speed. And for her thoroughness; kneeling up on the platform – the roof was too low to allow anyone taller than a child to stand upright – she bounced a few times, leant against one of the outer walls and nodded.

  ‘Good,’ she had said. ‘It’ll do.’

  Now Joanna inspected her shelter. Opening the plank door, she peered inside. It was too dark to see much, but the place smelt wholesome. She put her hand down and felt the platform: very slightly damp, but not soaked. It looked as if the roof had not leaked.

  Tomorrow, Joanna thought, I shall bring bedding, furs, blankets – everything that I have. Somehow I must make this shelter warm, for there is little use in saving us from those who would hunt us down if we all die of the cold.

  She was very tempted to lie down inside the shelter and spend the night there. It was safe, and at that moment that was the main consideration. But already she was feeling chilled; her under-robe had been damp with sweat earlier, when she helped the woman back to the hut, and the exertion of climbing up to the platform carrying Meggie in her sling had made her sweat again. Now that she was still, the sweat was rapidly cooling and she knew she would soon begin to shiver. Besides, although Meggie was with her, dozing snug and peaceful in her sling, the woman was not.

  No. She could not contemplate a move to the refuge until tomorrow.

  Resolutely she fastened the door behind her and began the climb down.

  She spent the night watching over Meggie and the woman. She dozed off sometimes, but each time it was to wake with a start of fright from some dire dream where black hands with long, claw-like fingers were stretching out to open the door of the hut. She was very relieved when dawn broke and the new day began.

  She spent the first part of it waiting impatiently for the woman to show some sign that she was returning to consciousness. It’s my own fault, Joanna told herself, and it’s quite unjust to blame her, poor soul – I should not have made the draught so strong.

  As the Sun reached the zenith, the woman stirred, but then slept again. Heartened by this, Joanna began on the plan that she had worked out during the night for heating the refuge in the yew tree. She had already taken up what blankets and coverings she could spare; now she fetched a heavy bucket made of stout hide and lined it thickly with straw. Then she took out the first of a series of large stones that she had put in the fire to heat. It was awkward to handle – she had to be so careful not to burn her hands and render herself helpless – and she tried several methods before hitting on the best, which utilised two short, stout sticks with which to raise the stone on to the surrounding hearthstones. From there it was relatively easy to flip the hot stone into the straw-lined bucket.

  Then she covered the stone with more straw and took it out to the yew tree, climbing up with it and wrapping it, still in the insulating straw, inside the thickest of the blankets. She repeated this procedure seven times. Because she was carrying such a potentially dangerous load, she did not dare take Meggie up the tree each time; instead she laid her carefully in its roots, warm in her furs. It was a relief, in every respect, when the job was done.

  The woman woke up in the mid-afternoon. Her eyes looked dazed and vague and, when Joanna asked if she were in pain, slowly she shook her head. Joanna gave her water and offered food, but the woman refused it. Joanna was not surprised; the painkilling draught was reputed to take away appetite.

  Joanna had a quick look at the woman’s wounds. On neither her back nor her brow was there any sign of that dread smell that indicated corruption of the flesh and, indeed, it seemed to her that the bright red inflammation had receded a little. Joanna said encouragingly, ‘It’s good! You are beginning to heal,’ and, for the first time, the woman gave her a very small smile in response.

  ‘I am called Joanna.’ She pointed to herself. ‘My baby is called Meggie.’

  The woman was nodding as Joanna spoke. ‘I, Utta.’ She put a hand on her chest. ‘Not – not speak good. Just a little.’

  ‘Where do you come from?’ Joanna spoke slowly and clearly.

  ‘Home – is Liège.’

  Liège? Where was that? Joanna tried to think. In the Low Countries? She thought so. ‘Why did you come to England?’ she asked.

  ‘Frens bring. Man said to come, to tell the word.’

  ‘Your friends brought you? What happened to them?’

  The woman’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Frens – friends – taken. Whip, brand. In prison. Dead.’

  Joanna was beginning to understand. If she was right and H did indeed stand for heretic, it sounded as if Utta had been part of some sect that had come to England from the Low Countries to seek converts. Perhaps to seek refuge, although if they had hoped for that then it seemed they had been sadly disappointed. They had clearly been caught and punished.

  Joanna knew what happened to heretics in England. They were few in number, or so she had been told, and the law was relatively silent on the matter of their treatment. Having been convicted, they were to be punished and then exiled; anybody found harbouring them or otherwise helping them was to have his house burned down.

  It was one thing, she now thought, to be aware of a fact. Quite another matter to see evidence of it before her own eyes. ‘They beat you and then turned you out into the bitter weather?’ she asked, sympathy strong in her voice.

  Utta nodded. ‘They say, go away and not come back. I go, but nowhere to shelter from cold.’

  ‘You did not go with your friends?’

  The tears flowed more freely now. Utta said, ‘My friends in prison. Frieda, Arnulf, Alexius. Guiscard also, I do not know. Frieda have – man. But he not love her, he tell men about her, about us all. Aurelia and Benedetto . . .’ With a weak shrug, she gave up.

  ‘Seven of you,’ Joanna murmured. ‘And one of you met some man – an outsider – who, in betraying her, also betrayed the rest of you. You were punished and then either turned out in the cold or put in prison.’ There was one thing she had to ask. Staring intently into Utta’s soft blue eyes, she said, ‘Are they still looking for you?’

  Utta gave another shrug. ‘I not know. I think, men say to let me go. But not the Black Man, he say no, that we must all suffer death.’ She dropped her face into her hands and her shoulders shook with her sobbing.

  Joanna put her hand on Utta’s shoulder, murmuring gentle, soothing words. Her mind racing, she tried to think. The Black Man. What did Utta mean by that?

  Then she thought, but it doesn’t matter who he is. Utta says he may still be searching for her. If so, and if he tracked her to the place on the forest fringe where I found her, then he may soon start hunting for her within the forest. He may bring others with him.
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br />   There was no time to lose.

  Speaking slowly and calmly, she said, ‘Utta, I have a place of safety. We can go there, you, me and Meggie. It will be hard for you because of your injuries, but I’ll give you more pain-killing herbs, which will help. But we must go now.’

  Utta stared back at her. For a moment it looked as if she would refuse, and Joanna could hardly blame her; when you were in pain, the last thing you wanted to do was to stagger to your feet and set out on a journey. And she hadn’t yet told Utta about the yew tree. But then Utta nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I safe, you safe.’

  Good woman! Joanna thought. You understand that if you’re safe then I am too. Me and Meggie. She said bracingly, ‘Come on.’ Utta was already trying to get up, and Joanna put out her arms to help her.

  Today’s walk was slightly better than yesterday’s. Utta even offered to help carry some of the covers, so Joanna folded a couple of light woollen blankets and laid them across her arms. Joanna carried both the furs and Meggie in her sling.

  When they reached the yew tree, Utta looked up at it in amazement. Joanna, who was just realising what a task she had set them both, made up her mind that this was no time to be half-hearted. Jerking down the rope, she said, ‘Up you go, Utta. I will put Meggie down – look, she’s quite safe here among the roots – and I will help you.’

  Utta put her hands to the rope. But Joanna could see straight away that there was no strength in her arms; quickly she made a loop at the end of the rope and showed Utta how to put her foot in it. Then she threw the slack middle section of the rope over the branch and, before Utta could protest, began to haul on the end. Utta was jerked off the ground; she clutched on to the rope with one hand and fended herself off from the yew’s trunk with the other. In moments, she was up on the first branch.

  Joanna, sweating profusely and panting from the effort, pulled the rope back down and quickly climbed up it. She got Utta up the second stage using the same method then, showing her the rope ladder, let her climb it on her own, following close behind in case she slipped. Eventually they reached the platform, and Joanna got Utta inside the shelter.

  Turning to Joanna, she gave her small, gentle smile again. She said simply, ‘Safe.’

  Joanna, grinning, muttered, ‘I hope so.’

  She went back down to the ground and brought Meggie up, making her a secure little nest in a corner where a fold in the yew’s trunk made a triangular space the right size for a small baby and her wrappings. Two more trips for food, water and medicinal supplies for Utta, and Joanna was finished. Utta, welcoming her into the shelter with a grateful look, helped her to secure the door.

  Then Joanna uncovered the hot stones she had brought up earlier. The insulation seemed to have worked; the stones still gave off quite a lot of warmth. The mere presence of people inside the shelter had raised the temperature by a few degrees, and Joanna began to hope that they would survive the night.

  Knowing that there would not be light once night fell – it would be folly to have a flame of any sort – Joanna got on with the many tasks she still had to do before sunset. She made a bed of sorts for Utta, putting one of the hot stones at her feet beneath a covering of blankets and furs, then she laid out a similar bed for herself. She went back to the hut in the clearing and fetched the food she had prepared earlier – hot food, a sort of porridge with root vegetables, which she carried up to the yew tree platform in another leather container – and she made sure they had adequate drinking water. Before she left the hut, she banked down the fire and put some more stones in it to heat. She was very afraid that they would soon be needing them, and she was already wondering how she would manage to climb down and up the yew tree in the dark.

  Just before they settled down to sleep, Joanna gave Utta another draught of the herbal mixture. Again, it would both help with the pain and make her sleep. Joanna was tempted to take some herself; not that she was in pain, other than aching muscles as a result of all her activities over the past two days, but the idea of a long, sound night’s sleep was seductive.

  No, she told herself. I do not dare. Someone has to watch out for us all, and I cannot do so if I am in a drugged sleep. She would wake from a normal sleep, she well knew, if anything out of the ordinary happened; she was so attuned to the regular night sounds of the forest that she would instantly recognise anything that ought not to be there.

  Finally, there was nothing left but to try to sleep. Closing her eyes, putting out a light hand to touch Meggie, deep in her infant dreams close by, Joanna said a swift but heartfelt prayer to the protecting powers and drifted off.

  14

  In the world beyond the great forest, one of Utta’s companions was already dead. Frieda, who had fallen in love with a man who was not of her faith and who had betrayed both her and her friends, lay violated on the foul floor of a prison cell, her skull crushed.

  Two more of them had been rescued from their cell. Driven to this desperate act, their saviour had carried out an act of violence against the man who guarded them, believing their lives to be in grave danger. He was right. The secular authorities would have been content to have the punishment administered and then turn the men loose; did not the relevant statute forbid any man to receive them in his house? The view was that the troublemakers would either return to wherever it was they came from or else perish. Whichever happened, they would no longer be a problem.

  But the secular authorities had not reckoned on the Church. Or rather, to be exact, one member of the Church, who, believing in his fanaticism that a heretic ceased to be a danger only when he – or she – was dead, had a more permanent and more certain solution in mind. He wanted them dead, every one of them that could be rounded up.

  Even as Joanna and Utta were waking up on the morning following their first night in the yew tree refuge, the hunt was beginning.

  Daylight brought to Joanna another long spell of hard physical work. She went back to the hut for supplies and brought back to the yew tree all the dried food she had. For as long as they remained up there in the refuge, they were going to have to put up with a very monotonous diet; she could not risk lighting a cooking fire and so there would be no fresh food. She also filled all the containers that she could find with stream water and lugged them to the refuge. When she had made her last trip to the hut – for her medicinal herbs, since she still had Utta’s wounds to care for – she fastened the door with a special piece of string that Mag had given her, using Mag’s most powerful knot.

  She replaced the foliage screen and stood for a moment, breathing quietly and evenly, until she felt the strength rise up into her body from the ground beneath her feet. She closed her eyes the better to visualise the deity, then said a deeply heartfelt prayer that her hut – her precious home – should remain safely hidden away.

  Then, without a backward glance, she walked away.

  Utta perceived what she was trying to do and came to help. Weak though she was from loss of blood and infection, still she worked with all the little strength she had, lowering ropes, helping to pull up loads and always, even when not actually engaged in a task, nodding, smiling, encouraging Joanna in her efforts. She was, Joanna was quickly realising, a good woman.

  She was also excellent with Meggie. One of Joanna’s main problems in her solitary life was only having one pair of hands; whenever Meggie needed something, Joanna either had to drop what she was doing and attend to her or else endure the child’s protests until she did so. Now, when a loudly crying baby was the last thing they wanted in their secret refuge, the problem was poised to escalate into a major difficulty.

  Until, the first time it happened, Utta stepped in. With a swift look at Joanna as if to ask for permission, she picked the child up from her furry nest. Cradling her against her breast, she began softly crooning to her, stroking the small back with a smooth, gentle rhythm that Meggie instantly seemed to appreciate. She has the touch! Joanna thought, watching from two branches down the tree as her daughter relaxed int
o Utta’s arms. Her heart full of relief, she sent up a swift thank you to the Goddess for sending her someone so very useful.

  When the two women sat down to eat at noon, Joanna was exhausted. She had stripped to her undergown and, as she downed a very welcome draught of water, she realised something.

  The weather had improved.

  It was nowhere near so cold, and the Sun now really had some heat in it. The hardest task – of keeping the three of them warm enough – had just been made a great deal easier.

  Again, Joanna sent up her thanks. Whoever was up there in the Heavens keeping an eye on them, they certainly seemed to be on Joanna and Utta’s side.

  They heard the hunt early in the morning of the next day.

  At first they thought that it could have been horsemen after deer or boar; such parties came into the forest from time to time, as Joanna well knew since she had sometimes had to hide from them. Usually they were rich, well-mounted men who had the King’s permission to hunt in his forests.

  Joanna, hurriedly pulling up the rope ladder and securing it, found herself a vantage point; there was a small hole in one of the planks, in a place where the platform sat above thinner branches and empty air instead of right over the thick trunk. Quickly she checked on Utta and Meggie; Utta was crouched down against the trunk, wide-eyed with fear, and Meggie was asleep in her nest. Then, lying flat on the floor, Joanna put her eye to the hole and stared down.

  The yew tree stood in the midst of undergrowth, but some faint animal tracks led here and there around it. A little further off, one of those small tracks met a larger one, which in turn led to a wider ride that gave on to a clearing. By angling her head, Joanna could make out the end of the ride and the very edge of the clearing.

  She could see the men now. There were five of them, well dressed and well mounted. As she watched, three of them dismounted and gave the reins of their horses to the other two. She heard the faint murmur of conversation, then the three men on foot walked towards where the ride branched off from the clearing.