Flood (The Fenland Series Book 1)

by Ann Swinfen

  I moved along, past Robin, and attacked another section of thatch. Already I had exposed part of the roof beams and now that the thatch was loosened, the next section came away easily. There were noises now from inside the house – a child crying, someone shouting. Then a candle was lit, casting its light through the great hole I had made in the roof. A woman screamed. The thud, thud of the axes made the whole structure shake. These houses had been constructed hurriedly and were not so well jointed as the framework for the church. There was a cracking as one of the corner uprights split. The upper half tore away from the roof and collapsed like a felled tree, bringing part of the roof structure down with it. Tom and Toby jumped out of the way just in time. From the other end of the settlement I could hear the noise of more breaking timber and now the whole place was astir, with shouts and screams.

  There was the sound of a door crashing back against its frame from the far side of our house.

  ‘Tom!’ I shouted, ‘they’re coming!’

  Tom put his fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. I heard the pounding feet as those from the other end of the settlement ran toward us. I pulled down a last bundle of reeds, shook it loose from my scythe and turned to flee. Men were running toward us now, big men, some with muskets. We had not thought the settlers would be armed and carried no weapons ourselves. I scrambled toward the edge of the field, tripped and fell full-length. Someone fell on top of me and I gave a yell. I thought it was one of the pursuers, but it was Tom.

  ‘Jesu, I’ve fallen on your scythe.’

  ‘Come on!’

  Robin and Jack were hauling us to our feet, but Tom fell back down again.

  ‘My leg! I’ve hurt my blasted leg!’

  Jack got an arm under Tom’s shoulder and heaved him up again.

  ‘Help me, Robin! Mercy, don’t wait. Run!’

  And we all ran as if our lives depended on it. Perhaps they did.

  With my scythe over my shoulder, I ran, but not fast. I was fearful of tripping again and a fall with a scythe is dangerous. I might cut off my own head. As I scrambled up the lode bank and across the bridge, then dropped down into the lane, I could hear running steps ahead of me and the sound of Robin and Jack dragging Tom along behind me. He yelped with pain as they jumped down after me and began to man-handle him along the last stretch to the farm.

  At last we were through the gate. The yard was a melee of men and horses, Jasper barking, Nehemiah at the open kitchen door shouting, ‘Be off with you, quick, before anyone comes!’

  I leapt out of the way as Rafe and Toby clattered past me and out of the gate. In moments everyone was gone except Jack and Robin, half dragging, half carrying Tom into the house.

  ‘Go!’ I said. ‘Go! We can manage now.’

  As the sound of their horses’ hoofs faded away down the lane, I closed the door and leaned on it, gasping for breath. I was still clutching the scythe and let it drop to the floor. Mother, Hannah, Kitty and Nehemiah were looking from me to Tom, who had collapsed into Father’s big chair. His breeches were ripped and blood was pouring down his leg.

  Mother moaned. ‘Not again. Oh, sweet Jesu, not again.’

  Hannah took charge. ‘Kitty, run and fetch my basket of salves.’

  ‘Which ones?’

  ‘Bring everything, I haven’t time to explain.’ She turned to Mother. ‘Abigail, can you heat water? We will need to wash that leg.’

  I saw now that as well as blood Tom’s leg was covered with mud and leaves and even fine gravel, which must have come from the bank. Trying to get my breath, I said, ‘I’ll heat the water.’

  Hannah shook her head and leaned near. ‘Better for her to be busy.’

  Nehemiah fetched a pail and brush and began to clean the blood from the floor and out in the yard, where the moon cast barely enough light for him to see. That trail of blood would lead straight from the settlement to the farm. I followed him outside.

  ‘What can we do to hide the signs?’

  ‘We can clear it here in the farm, but how far back does it go?’

  ‘Right to the settlement.’

  ‘Did they shoot at you?’

  I realised now what I had been too confused to understand before, that there had been the sound of shots as we had run away, but none of us had been hit.

  ‘No, I tripped and Tom fell over me. He landed on the scythe.’

  Nehemiah shook his head. ‘It will be deep, then.’

  We stood looking up the lane. There was no sign of anyone following, but it was also too dark to see if there were traces of blood.

  ‘I’ll go up there at dawn,’ Nehemiah said, ‘and hide any marks.’

  ‘Do you think you can?’

  ‘I must,’ he said grimly.

  Back in the house we found that Tom had been laid on the bed so recently vacated by Gideon. His breeches had been removed and I saw that the injured leg was the same one that had been shot before. The previous injury had healed, but the skin over the scar was thin and pink, fragile as an eggshell. And like an eggshell it had broken. By the worst of luck the scythe had cut across the scarred area, a terrible deep slash that showed the white of bone and turned my stomach. Even Hannah was pale as she bathed it. I knelt beside the bed and took Tom’s hand. He was awake, but his face was drawn with pain.

  ‘Oh, Tom, I’m so sorry. If I hadn’t been so stupid and tripped . . .’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ the words came out with difficulty. ‘The ground there was broken and uneven. Anyone could have fallen. Better my leg to meet the scythe than your neck.’ He tried a weak smile and I squeezed his hand.

  ‘Come, Mercy,’ said Hannah. ‘We must stitch this. There is no other way. You must be brave, Tom.’

  I do not want to remember the next hour. Mother fled to her chamber and even Kitty and Nehemiah, both of whom were stout-hearted, found tasks to keep them busy, well away from us. It seemed as though, ever since the drainers had come in early spring, Hannah and I had spent our time tending the injured. Nehemiah, Tom, Gideon, now Tom again. I thought I had become hardened to it, but I had not.

  At last we were done and the mess of bloody rags and red-stained water cleared away. Tom had drifted into unconsciousness from pain and loss of blood. Hannah sank down in Father’s chair, suddenly looking dreadfully old and frail. Soon she would no longer be able to do this. It was too much for her. I brought us both a cup of the strong beer, usually kept for feast days. We drank it gratefully and I began to feel less shaken. I saw that Nehemiah had removed my scythe and Tom’s axe. I was glad of another man about the farm, for with that leg, Tom would be helpless for weeks. And Nehemiah had shown a quick and practical turn of mind tonight.

  Hannah’s head was nodding and her eyes drooped.

  ‘Come,’ I said. ‘I’ll help you up the stairs to bed. Then I’ll sit with Tom.’

  Tom was restless in the night, calling for water, then sleeping fitfully and crying out in his sleep. I had resumed my old place on the stool at the bedside, hoping I might doze a little, but my senses were too alert after all that had happened. I kept seeing the house coming down around us and thought of the people inside. One of those who had cried out had been a child, and a woman had screamed. In spite of my anger at the settlement, I began to feel a little ashamed. We had not stopped to ask ourselves how these people came to be here. They seemed to be poor tenant farmers. Who had brought them? Who had told them they could settle on our field? The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that some great men were behind it, as they were behind the whole drainage of the Fens. Perhaps it did indeed go all the way up to Cromwell. They were exploiting these poor Hollanders just as they were exploiting us. Yet the strangers could not be allowed to settle here on our common land. Someone must have brought them into the country with promises of land they could farm and, whatever our rights in law, it was going to be difficult to evict them now they were here.

  I must have fallen asleep at last, for I woke to the sound of lashing rain again
st the window. It was still dark. Outside I could hear the wind getting up. The previous day had been exceptionally hot, the sort of day which often preceded a thunderstorm, but we had been so preoccupied with our attack on the settlement that I had not thought about the weather. I got up from my stool and went into the kitchen to check that the window there was secure. It was half open and as I reached out to close it I jumped in shock as the whole sky was lit up by flash after flash of lightning, followed almost at once by thunder so loud I could feel its vibration through the soles of my feet.

  I pulled the window to, and as I did so, the lightning flashed again, illuminating the whole yard in a bluish glow. I saw that the barn door was open. In our haste to set off we had failed to close it and Nehemiah had been so occupied with cleaning away the blood he must have forgotten it. Blaze hated thunderstorms. He would panic and start kicking the sides of his stall. He might hurt himself. There was nothing for it. I would have to go out there and close the barn door. I hooked Tom’s coat down from its peg on the wall and slipped it on. It hung down low and the sleeves were too long, but it would keep the worst of the wet off me. The wind fought me for the door, but at last I managed to open it and step out into the yard. The wind nearly threw me off my feet and by the time I was halfway across the yard my hair, still uncovered, was sopping, blowing across my face in a wet tangle.

  Before I even reached the barn, I could hear Blaze. He was kicking out and giving shrill whinnies of fear. I slid into his stall, avoiding his hoofs, and began to talk to him, stroking his head and neck, and laying my cheek against his shoulder. After long minutes he grew calmer and stood still, though tremors continued to run over his skin. I forked down fresh hay into his manger, which he began tentatively to eat, rolling a nervous eye at me from time to time. When at last he seemed quiet, I slipped away, closing and bolting the door.

  The storm had not abated one jot. If anything, the wind was stronger, sweeping me towards the house so that I could barely stay on my feet. The orchard trees were lashing their branches in the storm like the wild dervishes dancing through some eastern tale, and despite the noise of the storm I could hear the pattering of apples dashed to the ground. Even our apple harvest was to be taken from us. I fought again with the door, then stood leaning against it in the sanctuary of the kitchen, water streaming from my hair, my shoes making puddles on the floor. I realised with a jolt that I was still wearing Tom’s breeches.

  Despite the noise of the storm, which continued to light up the kitchen with those violent flashes, no one else seemed to have woken. I prised off my shoes and laid Tom’s coat over a bench near the fire to dry. When I looked in on him, I saw that he was sleeping more quietly now, so I took a rushlight and climbed up to my chamber. There I discarded the breeches and pulled on the petticoat and skirt I had left in a heap on the floor. Either Hannah or Kitty turned over in bed in the attic room above me, but did not wake.

  Back in the kitchen I laid the breeches next to the coat to dry. Feeling a sudden pang of hunger, I cut myself a slice of bread and topped it with a piece of cheese. It would mean less for tomorrow, but fear and danger, dressing Tom’s injury, and now the storm, had left me feeling that hours had passed since I had last eaten. As I suppose they had. I took my seat on the stool again and ate my bread and cheese slowly, to make it last.

  Gradually the storm began to blow itself out. At least, I thought, all this rain will have washed away any traces we left when we fled from the settlement.

  The storm lasted for two days, and we saw no one outside the household. I hoped the people whose houses we had destroyed had been able to take shelter with their neighbours. On the first morning Nehemiah trudged through the dropple to the pasture and brought back the cows for milking. After that, we decided to keep them in the barn until the storm had passed. Gradually it blew itself out and on the third day a watery sun broke through. Everywhere the ground began to steam, a mist from the evaporating pools rising like smoke.

  ‘I wonder how the new ditches will have dealt with the rain,’ Tom said. He was out of bed, refusing to lie like an invalid, though his leg was heavily bandaged and propped on a low stool.

  ‘After milking I will go and see,’ I said. I did not tell him that I also planned to take a careful look at the settlement, from a distance.

  As I had expected, the new ditches were filled almost to the top, water roaring along like raging rivers. Usually when we had one of these heavy summer storms, the peat moors would absorb most of the water. They were like sponges. The ground would become even more water-logged, the open meres would spread their boundaries, but by and large the water would be contained. The fields and meadows, which stood a little higher, would be soggy for a day or two, but not enough to give the stock foot-rot or cause the crops to go mouldy, because the excess would soon drain into the Fen.

  Now, instead of this natural dispersing of the water, it was being channelled from the Fen into the new ditches. I skirted round the place where the ditch which had been dug across the pasture met Baker’s Lode and saw a group of men struggling with their new sluice gate. They seemed to be having trouble opening it against the pressure of the water. When they did, there would be a surge of water down Baker’s Lode. If there was too much, it might even overflow the banks and flood the fields, including the area where the settlement had been built. There would not be enough to endanger our farm or the village, but in the future, when the winter storms came, who could tell?

  On a high point of the bank along the Lode, I stood and looked over at the settlement. The large house we had attacked had collapsed in on itself. We could not have done that much damage, but the subsequent rain would have weighed down the broken thatch and further undermined the weakened frame, until the hastily built house had given way. I could not see the furthest house clearly, but one whole wall had fallen outwards and lay in pieces on the ground. I retreated quickly, not wanting any of the settlers to catch sight of me.

  When I reported back to Tom what I had seen, he smiled in satisfaction.

  ‘Good. We have taught them a lesson, then.’

  ‘Do you think it will make any difference?’

  He shrugged. ‘It will show that we mean business. That we will not give up until we are rid of these drainers and intruders.’

  I was not sure, but I was too tired and saddened to argue with him.

  The lane between the farm and the village was deep in sludder, an impossible quagmire, which gave us an excuse not to attend church on Sunday and endure Reverend Edgemont’s tirade. It was another two days before we saw anyone from the village, then Toby came wading through the mud to enquire after Tom.

  ‘And how does the leg fare?’ Toby asked.

  ‘Well enough.’ Tom answered cheerfully, though I suspected that he was still suffering a good deal of pain. The slash to his leg, cutting through the flesh which had already been damaged once, was very deep and would take a long time to heal.

  ‘So you managed to stay away from Reverend Edgemont’s sermon on Sunday.’ Toby looked from one to the other of us keenly, and I realised that he had some news to impart. Disturbing news, it seemed.

  ‘That was a fair old storm we had. Not just thunder and lightning and rain, but a fierce wind.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Tom. ‘Mercy says it has flattened the barley. That will be another crop running short this year.’

  ‘That’s the truth. But it damaged more than barley. That ship you went in search of, at Lynn – the Brave Endeavour?’

  My heart gave a lurch. We are not sea-goers hereabouts, apart from Jack’s three years’ adventure. I had not thought about how the storm might affect a ship. Suddenly I was aware of the danger such a small ship must face on the wild German Sea.

  ‘The Brave Endeavour, that was the name. What of her?’

  ‘It seems she set out, two days after you left Lynn. That was the day the storm broke. The day we went to the settlement.’

  ‘Aye, it was.’

  ‘It seems the captain
was reluctant to sail, for he could see a storm was brewing over the German Sea, but there were some passengers travelling with him who were particularly anxious to leave the country. Gentlemen who had served in the King’s forces. They paid him well to leave as planned, despite his worries.’

  ‘What happened?’ I burst out. What did I care who else was aboard? ‘Has something befallen the ship?’

  ‘They sailed on the afternoon tide and were out to sea when the storm broke. It was a northeast wind and it’s a small ship, poorly rigged. They fought the storm for several hours during the night, but in the end they had to make a run back to port with the daylight.’

  ‘They were safe?’

  ‘Safe enough. Torn canvas, a broken spar. She will not sail again for a week or so, but no one was lost or injured.’

  I gave a sigh of relief, but why did Toby look so serious?

  ‘It seems that one of the Dillingworths’ servants was sent on business to Lynn, and he came back with a strange tale to tell. He announced that he had seen a dead man walking. Gideon Clarke was alive and seen on the street in Lynn.’

  ‘So our lies will be discovered,’ said Tom with a worried frown.

  ‘Worse than that. Edmund Dillingworth went to Reverend Edgemont and told the tale. They put their heads together as to how this might have come about. The preacher announced it in church on Sunday.’

  Toby looked from me to Hannah, who was alternately knitting and dozing by the fire.

  ‘Reverend Edgemont has declared that the rector was known to have died. As he now lives, he must have been raised from the dead, and such can only be accomplished by witchcraft. He claims that those who treated the rector practised witchcraft, and has sent for Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne. He declares that Hannah Green and Mercy Bennington are to be taken up for witchcraft.’

  Chapter Eleven