Black Spring

by Alison Croggon

I bathed, ate and then, exhausted, fell asleep in the chair in front of a fire in the pleasant front room as I was reading a book. When I awoke, I was feverish, and Anna, despite my protestations (I had no great confidence in the skills of the northern doctors), became anxious and sent for the doctor, who lived not far away in the village. He arrived late in the afternoon and proved to be a lugubrious man of about sixty who took my pulse and looked under my eyelids, and then inspected the bites on my calf. My nervous enquiries elicited the fact that he was city-educated, and I relaxed a little. He pronounced that I was suffering from nervous shock and a chill, and that the wounds were slightly inflamed and likely to be infected, but with proper care should heal famously. He bled me and left a draught for me to take that evening, saying that I should be confined to bed for a week and that he would call the following day.

  I found myself feeling bored and peevish, but mostly I was consumed by curiosity. Who were those people in that house? I had been educated to expect rustic manners and primitive behaviours among the peoples of the Land of Death – or the Black Country, as they call it themselves – but I had also been told that they were, by their own lights, people of strict propriety. They were bound by the Law of the Book, which governed their every interaction, from property rights to the Blood Laws. Damek, to the contrary, seemed utterly lawless, beholden to no rule but his own tyranny. Had I not been told he was a relation of the king? Did that mean that he held himself above the harsh laws of this place? What could explain his wild behaviour before I left that cursed house? And, most teasingly, who was the witch in the mirror? If indeed I had not hallucinated her in a fever, as I was half inclined now to believe…

  Anna has at least solved the puzzle of Damek’s mad cries for his wife that ghastly night: it turns out that the Lina whom I met at the farmhouse is in fact the daughter of the woman for whom he was calling with such passion, and who is now long dead. The confusion comes from the custom in the north of naming the oldest child after its mother or father, according to its sex. Moreover, Anna is convinced – a thought that chills me to the marrow – that the witch I saw in the mirror was no hallucination, as I have half convinced myself, but the spirit of the older Lina.

  Now I am no longer in danger, the strongest sensation I feel is a powerful curiosity. I have determined to quiz Anna about Damek: she has lived all her life in this place, and must know its stories. I remember how she turned my queries about my landlord when I suggested that I visit him, and I fear that a natural reticence might prevent her revealing this country’s secrets to an outsider like myself. On the other hand, she has been much more forthcoming since my return. I fancy she might believe that the wounds on my leg have earned me the right to satisfy my interest.

  II: ANNA

  VI

  Many people say that Lina was born evil. They wrong her: Lina was as innocent as any baby is when it first opens its eyes on the world, and there was a spark within her that remained innocent until the last. If she was wicked, it was this pitiless world that made her so. All the same, there’s no disputing that ill omen attended her birth. On the night she was born, the moon was in its dark phase, and a comet blazed its trail across the night sky. It was visible for a week, its brilliance weakening every night as the new mother sickened and died of the blood poison. She gave Lina her name and her first suckle, and after that she was too busy dying to take much interest in the infant, whose care fell to my mother, but lately lain in with me and with milk enough for the two of us. My mother, named Anna like me, was then newly married to my father, a stableman and farmhand in the household’s employ; after Lina’s birth she was quickly elevated to chief housekeeper, which was a post she filled for the rest of her life.

  So it was that Lina and I were milk sisters. We played together as children before the duties of the household took me away from that intimacy and it was made clear to me – although seldom by Lina, who for all her touchy pride never really took note of such things – that she was of high blood and I only of the servant class. Even so, our friendship continued until her death. And so there was a closeness between us that was often less of servant and mistress and more like a kind of cousinship, an intimacy that was, I confess, often as much trial as pleasure. I loved her dearly, not least because I had no sisters or brothers of my own; and I was one of the few people to whom she would attend. But with that love came much grief.

  Lina’s father, the Lord Georg of Kadar, was a distant cousin of the upland king and so a beneficiary of the royal tax, from which came much of the family’s wealth. I should explain that royalty in the highlands is a different matter from nobility down south – older, for a start, tracing its lineage back to the dark years and, so legend says, before that to Judas Iscariot himself, arch-traitor to Jesus our Lord. One would think such lineage would shame a family of so much pride, and certainly – perhaps out of some sense of propriety – it is not marked in the genealogy of the royal family Bible (which I have seen with my own eyes, when I once had the duty of dusting it). On the other hand, in the ancient chapel in the family manse – not the chapel which is in use for regular worship, which is far grander – there is a fine stained window in the central place above the altar that certainly portrays Iscariot. He stands with his face downcast. In one hand he holds the bag that contains the thirty silver coins with which he betrayed Christ, and from the other dangles the rope with which he hanged himself. Inscribed on the stone plinth where he is stood are the words: “Error is the road to God”.

  Some heretics have argued that Iscariot was the true Christ, because it was through his abjection and treachery that man was redeemed by the Saviour, and without his action God would not have seen His will done. I see you look shocked? There was once a cult that believed it, and may still be, for all I know; most of its acolytes were burned by the Inquisition, but it may still thrive in the Plateau, away from the eye of the Orthodox Church. Such things are possible here. And whether that ancestry is real or no, the royal family of the north holds it as true; and perhaps this says as much about them and their wealth as anything I could tell you: most particularly, of their twisted pride and their obscure shame, which are twined together as inextricably as mating adders. Though as is never said but sometimes thought, there are many reasons why they might be considered cursed, and their ancestry the least of them.

  Lina’s mother, who was named Lina Usofertera, was a daughter of a powerful clan who count among them the most feared upland wizards. Her marriage to the master was a union of passion, and most impolitic. It was said afterwards that she cast a spell over the Lord Kadar; according to report, he certainly acted as a man bewitched, and ranted and raved until he had his way and his bride. After his wife died, my mother told me, the master was maddened with grief, and but for her intervention would have killed himself by his own hand. When he came to his senses he took himself and his new daughter away south, swearing he would never return to the highlands. My mother said he always blamed the wizards for his wife’s death.

  Of course, the wizards, who enforce the Lore, and the kings, who take the Blood Tax, are the two chief powers in the Black Country, and it might be said that they have many interests in common; however, in practice each keeps to its own, and the families never intermarry. The master married Lina’s mother against the wishes of the king himself. The king forgave the master his transgression a few years after Lina’s birth, when he called him back to the Plateau, although the king’s later actions showed that his forgiveness held a modicum of poison. In marrying the master, Lina’s mother defied her own family as well, as the clans don’t hold with mixing their blood with the royal family. Some, including the master, believed that her death in childbed was the result of a curse from her father’s cousin, the Wizard Ezra, who was the most implacably opposed to the marriage; others claimed further that this curse was a pact between the king and the Usoferteras. All these rumours are impossible to sort out one from the other, and the truth is anybody’s guess. This is a country where secrecy is
the chief rule, and so gossip blossoms here like nowhere else.

  When Lina was born, she had the blue eyes of a new babe, and in any case the household was all at sixes and sevens because of her mother’s death and her father’s madness, so no one except my mother took much notice of the motherless scrap. It wasn’t until her sixth month that her eyes attained their violet colour and showed her true nature. If she had been the daughter of any man but the Lord Kadar, she would have at once been abandoned naked on the hillside to die of exposure and her poor little corpse left to feed the crows, like every other baby girl born a witch in these parts. But by then, Lord Kadar had driven south with his household, and he said that he would be damned if he would kill his only daughter out of some black upland superstition. As some said later, recalling those words, if the Lord Kadar wasn’t damned, his daughter was.

  The southern estate is a small property by the sea which is famous in a minor way for making wine, and there the household repaired until Lina and I were ten years old. We had some of our happiest hours playing in that low, wide house, with its vine-twisted verandahs and red terracotta roofs, tumbling among the chickens and peahens scratching in the yard, or swimming in the tiny half-moon bay that lay beyond the garden. My mother cared for Lina as if she were her own daughter, treating her no differently from myself; and the master was kind, although he inspired me with the awe due to his authority. If he brought treats home from his travels, he never forgot me. I recall that as a blessed time, drenched with sunshine and laughter, although no doubt my memory tricks me: certainly, I was a contented child, and I think for Lina it was the only untroubled period of her life.

  Lina’s character was evident from early on. We all knew she was a witch – which was not such a bad thing down south, where they do not kill their witches – but she showed no early sign of magic. There was, however, no disguising her eyes, which were the vivid violet of the witchborn, and were large and luminous, surrounded by thick, long lashes. She was a startlingly lovely child, but oh! so wilful; she would lose her temper in a trice over anything that crossed her. Sometimes she would scream with rage until she vomited, setting the entire household in a fright; but then without warning the storm would pass, leaving her sunny and biddable, as if nothing had happened.

  She could be cruel, but somehow it was never personal. She once sat on me to hold me down and broke my little finger by bending it back over my hand. I still remember the expression on her face as she did it: it was curious and intent, as if she simply wanted to see what would happen. Her dismay at the dramatic result was comical, as if my screams and the subsequent row – I didn’t tell my mother how it happened, although she had her suspicions – were the last thing she expected.

  The following day Lina told me that I should break her little finger, to make up for what she had done. She looked at me with unusual seriousness, and laid her hand down flat on the floor. “It’s easy, you just pull it back like this. I won’t stop you, I promise.” To her surprise, I recoiled at her offer, and she pressed me until both of us began to get angry. When she realized that I really wouldn’t do it, she looked hurt, but then she shrugged and laughed. “You are strange, Anna,” she said. “It’s only fair. But if you won’t, I can’t make you.”

  I suppose it’s unsurprising that Lina’s childish notions of justice should be shaped by vendetta: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a finger for a finger. However, when she believed something was unfair, she could react in unexpected ways that had nothing to do with what she was taught. I remember vividly the day some of her friends, who were mostly children from land-owning families near by, began to tease me. They said I was only a servant and should not be allowed to play with them, and they mocked my clothes and held their noses to demonstrate how I stank. I was a shy child, and wholly unable to defend myself against their abuse.

  As I stood in tears, Lina bristled with fury. “That’s nice coming from you, Kinrek Tomas,” she said, pointing scornfully at my chief persecutor. “Last week we had to take you home because you wet your pants! And Maya, I’ve never seen Anna with snot all down her front, like when you sneezed that time. Anna’s cleaner than any of you. And she’s six times more fun.” (This last wasn’t strictly accurate.) “I won’t speak to any of you until you say you’re sorry. You’re all pigs.” Then she took my hand and marched me home, where we played the games I liked best all afternoon, even though I knew they bored her rigid.

  That day Lina won my undying loyalty. I did get my apologies, and I was never teased by those children again, though it took some time for me to forgive our playmates. Once they apologized Lina regarded the episode as finished, and she showed no resentment towards any of them. One of her virtues as a child – it changed later, although I never blamed her for that – was that she didn’t bear grudges, and was mystified by those who did. It was another reason why I excused her excesses. That was the least northern thing about her: in the north hatreds are nurtured for generations of vendetta, as if they are precious family heirlooms.

  We children treated Lina as if she were a perilous natural element, like the sea: we watched her with caution, and fled when she turned nasty. When she was in her sunny moods, no one was more fun: she led us into mischief, even the boys, because she invented the best games and was the most daring of all of us. We all admired her fearlessness, but her generosities inspired our deeper loyalty. Once, when we were caught raiding a neighbour’s orchard for his plums, Lina stepped forward and took the blame for all of us, persuading the angry man to let the rest of us go. She was thrashed for her pains but, as she said to us with studied carelessness later, he wouldn’t have dared to beat her nearly as hard as he would have beaten us, because she was the Lord Kadar’s daughter.

  Even then she was imperious and stubborn. It was, I suppose, the other side to her courage. My mother did her best to blunt Lina’s edges and to instil in her some sense of womanly modesty, but this was undone by her father, who spoiled and indulged her, and whom she adored with a passion made all the sharper by his frequent absences.

  One day the Lord Kadar returned home from a long journey. As was our custom, we all gathered solemnly in the dining room to welcome him home. After he had distributed gifts, he took Lina on his knee and kissed her cheek. She flushed with pleasure and buried her face in his neck, and he put his arm about her and announced, as if he were talking about tomorrow’s breakfast, that we were going to move back north, to Elbasa. “As soon as the house is packed,” he said. “I want to be home for the summer.”

  There was an immediate hubbub of astonishment. “But what about Lina?” asked my mother, her question cutting through the noise. It was typical of her that she thought of Lina first, although even then, young as I was, I knew that she was homesick for the north and for the family she had left behind when the master moved us south all those years before. “What will happen to Lina?”

  The master looked my mother straight in the eye, but he hesitated before he answered her. “Lina too. The king has forgiven my family, and I think it’s time we went home. And we are of royal blood, after all. The Lore doesn’t apply to us.”

  Lina looked up at him, with a wicked laughter in her eyes. “I am a princess and a witch!” she said. “No one would dare to touch me!”

  “Neither they would, my darling,” said her father, and kissed her brow. “And a beautiful princess at that!”

  My mother pressed her lips together, for she disapproved of such petting, which only encouraged Lina’s excesses. She said nothing more: it wasn’t her place to have an opinion about the master’s decisions. The rest of the evening was a whirl of gossip in the kitchens as everyone talked about the news. My father, a taciturn man, went so far as to shrug his shoulders. None of us in the least expected it, not even the master’s manservant, who was a little sulky at being taken by surprise: he felt it demeaned his status in the household. Later my mother was uncharacteristically impatient with me as she washed me and put me to bed, and I knew she was worried
.

  “Will they really try to kill Lina?” I asked, for like everyone else I had heard dark rumours of the savage ways of the north, although my mother never told those stories. I mostly picked them up from my southerner friends, when they wanted to tease me. And sometimes – always led by Lina – we had played hunt the witch, with Lina in the principal role. We dressed up as highland wizards, with sticks for our staffs, and dragged Lina from hiding, her hands tragically clasped; and we pretended to set her on fire, while she cast her eyes to heaven and called down curses upon our heads. I have sometimes thought, although her father would never have countenanced such a vulgar occupation, that she should have stayed in the south and worked in the theatres of the city: she was a born actress.

  My mother didn’t answer me for a time, as if she were turning over things in her head. Then she said, “The master is right. She won’t be killed, at least not by the common people, and maybe her royal blood will protect her from the wizards. I doubt she’ll have an easy time of it on the Plateau, things are different there. But it is not for you or me, child, to question the will of the master.”

  And that was that.

  VII

  It was early spring, and the weather was still uncertain: everything that was to go north must be wrapped in sacking and oiled tarpaulins and packed on the drays in straw, and my mother, as chief housekeeper, had the responsibility of making sure that all the fine china and glassware didn’t arrive in Elbasa shivered to smithereens. I had to leave behind my best friend, Clar, the red-headed daughter of the dairyman (Lina never counted as a friend so much as a condition of nature, to be borne with as best I could). Once I realized I would likely never see Clar again, the gloss fell off the excitement for me; I cried myself to sleep every night for a week, and we knotted bracelets of coloured wool for each other and swore never to forget our friendship. Lina, on the other hand, was radiant with excitement. She told everybody who would listen that she was going to claim her birthright as a princess of the blood, even after we were all heartily sick of hearing about it, and was determined to help with the packing. Although she was continually told off for being underfoot, not even the most severe scolding could darken her disposition.