The Black and the White

by Alis Hawkins

  ‘The lumps or coughing blood?’

  ‘Coughing blood. Everybody in our village was the same. Nobody had the putrid lumps.’

  Thomas Hassell nods for me to continue.

  ‘The next day, my father could see I was dying and he called our parson. He gave me the rites.’

  I stop. I am not going to tell him that my father took me, dying, to the forest.

  ‘And then?’ the parson urges, softly. Not a sound comes from the crowd behind him.

  ‘And then … I didn’t die. I woke up in this world. Healed, like Hob said. With my father’s little image of Saint Cynryth in my hands.’

  ‘Not this figure?’

  ‘No, a small one that my father carved himself.’ Awkwardly, with the saint propped against me, I hold my hands apart to show the smallness of the whittled saint.

  ‘And this?’ The parson inclines his head at the saint in my arms. ‘Is it true that you don’t know where she came from?’ Still, he gives not so much as a glance at Hob.

  I crane my head, awkwardly, to the White Maiden’s delicate profile. ‘I found her. Standing on our family’s shrine.’

  I know the word will bring to everybody’s mind a little household shrine, not a rock-hewn shelf beside a spring in the forest. But I cannot help that. My father’s oddness is my business, not theirs.

  ‘And nobody knew how she had come to be there?’

  I hesitate. Alone in the forest, there was nobody to ask. ‘No.’

  ‘Has she healed anybody else?’

  I look past Thomas Hassell to the reeve and answer the question he has asked. ‘No. At least, not that I know of.’

  ‘But,’ Hob cuts in, ‘on our way here, we buried five plague-dead. And we walked through the middle of a town where people were dying on every side.’

  I call to mind the old woman and her stinking kin; the grim silence of Cricklade with its empty streets, its shuttered shop-fronts, its deserted marketplace.

  ‘So the saint offers protection from sickness as well as healing?’ Levett speaks to clarify not to wonder.

  ‘Yes.’ Hob’s voice carries not a trace of doubt.

  The saint’s elbow is bruising my ribs; I pass her across my body to hold her in my left arm. Heads follow the movement.

  Healing and protection from sickness. Is it true? And, if it is, are there other folk — in Salster, elsewhere — also wearing out their knees before shrines dedicated to Cynryth, the White Maiden of the Well?

  All of a sudden, a vision rises before me, a vision of simple shrines placed next to wells and springs the length and breadth of England. In each, an image of Saint Cynryth in her white kirtle and cloak; before each, a kneeling army of the healed and whole. And the saint shines with a radiant white light, like the pale otherworldliness of the moon

  The vision fades as swiftly as it came and I become aware that people are edging closer, that all eyes are on the figure cradled against my chest.

  Hob has moved towards the crowd. ‘Friends! You know we came here looking for help and that we’ve proved an equal help to you.’

  Nods and murmurs break the rapt silence; such a happy coincidence of need must be a sign of the saint’s favour.

  ‘The saint brought us here so that you’d be the first to be blessed by her.’ He shoots a glance at me and grins. ‘Sorry, Martin — I should say the first apart from Martin. So come and put yourselves under the protection of the saint. Come and receive her blessing.’

  His words take me utterly by surprise. I open my mouth to protest but shut it again. What has been said cannot be unsaid. Despite the collective stare of the crowd, I feel the heat of one gaze in particular and half-turn to see its source. Thomas Hassell’s deep-set eyes are fixed on me.

  ‘What do we have to do?’ a voice calls out.

  Hob throws up his hands. ‘You don’t have to do anything, my friend! Only come and feel the blessing of her outstretched hand.’

  It only takes one soul more venturesome than the rest to come forward and, soon, the whole crowd is jostling to touch the White Maiden’s fingers with their own; I almost lose my footing as people fight to be the next to touch the saint.

  Lift her up to them. I hear the voice in my inner ear and cannot but obey. As bodies press in all around me, I raise the saint aloft, holding her hand above the waiting heads. The crowd quietens, eyes uplifted, and I lower her, gently, until her hand rests on the head of a woman with a child in her arms.

  ‘May Saint Cynryth bless you.’ I had not thought to say anything but, as the saint’s hand touches the woman’s head, the words seem to come from me, unbidden.

  Hearing the words, the crowd begins to jostle once more, pushing forward for the saint’s blessing.

  Again and again and again as men and women and children stand before me, I raise the saint and lower her so that her hand rests, gently, upon each bowed head.

  ‘May Saint Cynryth bless you,’ I say, as my arms begin to burn and shake. ‘May Saint Cynryth bless you.’

  And so they come to our hearth. Some come as gawpers, some come as pilgrims. But, over the next two days, all the villagers of Tredgham and Appledore come out to see her.

  Sometimes they come in threes and fours, sometimes in larger parties, but all come quietly, hardly a word passing between them to tell us that visitors are on their way.

  I have seen this silence before, in Lysington, in the folk who lived through the pestilence; as if those who survive dare not make too great a noise lest they call attention to themselves, lest the pestilence turn back from its onward march and catch them, too, in an indifferent sweep of its scythe. Laughter is rare, gossiping half-hearted, mothers speak softly to their wary-eyed children.

  But, whatever its source, there is something reverential about their silence and, as they kneel for the saint’s blessing, again and again I recall my vision. Shrines to Saint Cynryth springing up before wells all over England. Hundreds — even thousands — of people coming to be healed of the pestilence. More and more, I am convinced that the vision was a true one. For towns and cities are spoken of everywhere as the source of the Great Sin that has brought the pestilence down on us whilst the White Maiden, with her particular care for the wells and springs that rise in woods, is untouched by such foulness.

  Prayers offered, heads bowed to outstretched fingers and blessings received, Tredgham’s pilgrims sit with us awhile by the fire, out of courtesy.

  Of course, the talk is mostly of the saint and, more than once, I am asked whether it would not be better for her to take up a place of honour in the church while we are occupied with our collyering. Coming out to the woods is hard for people, they say, and besides, they would feel easier in their minds if she was in the church.

  As it happens, Thomas Hassell has not offered the saint a place in his church but, even had he done so, I would have declined it and kept her on the hearth with me. As a mortal woman, Cynryth attached herself not to a church or an abbey but to a spring in the woods. If people want her blessing, it seems only right that they should come to the woods to find it.

  That being said, I am more than a little surprised that Master Hassell has not been back to the hearth. He must, by now, have heard the story of the saint’s miraculous appearance in the press for Hob prevailed upon me to tell it to the apprentices and I know they will have sent it all around the village.

  CHAPTER 17

  We quenched the pit last night and broke it open to begin the harvest at first light. When I sent Stephen to the village for sacks, I told him to spread the word that we would be busy about the hearth today, sacking-up the coal but, clearly, some people think their wish to see the saint is more important than our work for a largeish party arrives when we are but a little way into the harvest.

  ‘Well met friends,’ Hob calls from his customary distance. ‘Are you here to pray for healing from the pestilence?’ Some pilgrims come to ask the saint to intercede for sick relatives and everyone but me stands off from them while they kneel before the
saint, touch her hand, ask her blessing.

  A well-set-up man in middle age steps forward to answer. ‘No. But we’ve heard great things about your saint.’

  Coal is black stuff and those who break a pit open very soon become black themselves but the newcomer makes no remark at the state of Hob.

  I listen with half an ear as he idles with the pilgrims and I keep Tom and Stephen at our task. We cannot all afford to down tools — I want the coal harvested and the new pit stacked up by this evening.

  The family, it seems, are from the manor’s other village, Appledore, and everybody from babes in arms to the grandmother of the clan is here. One or two of the party have been on our hearth before — I recognise a girl about my own age simpering at Hob and wonder, sourly, whether she has persuaded the rest of her family to come and see the saint so that she can see him again. Certainly, she wanders to his side whilst the rest of her family are ushering the old dame to the saint’s makeshift shrine, a rude affair that we have knocked together from cordwood.

  Most of the party, having received what they came for, drift towards the cooking fire and a few minutes gossip with Hob before they make their way home, so that when the calf-eyed girl kneels in her turn, nobody pays her much attention.

  ‘Oh, oh!’

  When I hear her cry, my first concern is for the saint. Thinking the little figure must have fallen from the shrine, I turn towards her but stop when I see that she is standing, as before, poised in the act of blessing. The girl’s family rush past me, mother first, followed by the other womenfolk and her father. They gather so close about her that it is impossible to hear what is being said. I motion Tom and Stephen back to work, but then a cry goes up.

  ‘A miracle! The saint has done another miracle!’

  Thomas Hassell is swiftly sent for. Meanwhile, the girl — whose name is Beatrice — is brought forward to tell her tale from the beginning.

  Though demure enough, Beatrice keeps darting glances out from under her eyelashes in Hob’s direction. But, when I look over at him to see how greets this piece of flirtation, he seems unmoved by it, his coal-streaked face showing exactly the same half-disbelieving wonder as the rest of the crowd.

  Beatrice knelt down, she says, to ask a blessing. Not for just for herself, but for all the people in their little village who are unable to make the journey out to the woods.

  Here, looks are shot at me and I see that people believe I have stubbornly refused attempts by their parson to have the saint brought to the church.

  As she knelt in prayer, Beatrice says, she heard the saint telling her that she had a great heart — ‘That’s what she said, when I asked for her blessings on everybody who couldn’t come — “You have a great heart, Beatrice.”’

  With these words still in her ears, the dazed girl had lifted her head to the saint’s hand for her blessing.

  ‘And I felt her hand o-o-n my head,’ Beatrice stammers prettily. ‘Not her wooden hand, I mean, a real hand. I felt the saint’s real, warm hand on my head as she blessed me.’

  The boy sent to fetch Thomas Hassell comes dashing back with the news that the parson is on his way.

  ‘He says he wants to talk to everybody who was here when the miracle happened,’ the boy pants, more than rewarded for his run by the power that this instruction has given him over his relatives. ‘So nobody’s allowed to go home until he comes.’

  The parson arrives shortly afterwards and crosses the hearth to where Beatrice sits. Holding out a hand to the girl, he raises her up before turning to the crowd that has followed him.

  ‘Leave us, please. I would speak to Beatrice alone.’

  Everybody shuffles away, darting backward glances at the pair of them as Thomas Hassell begins to speak, his head lowered, close to the girl’s.

  ‘You must feel thankful that you came to Tredgham,’ Beatrice’s father tells me, settling himself at the fire once more. ‘You came with a saint who’d done one miracle and you’ll leave with one who’s done two.’

  I stare at him, at a loss as to how I should answer.

  ‘More than two!’

  Hob’s voice comes from behind me and I watch the man’s eyes turn from me to him.

  ‘She’d done at least three miracles before we got here, by my reckoning.’ Hob holds up a finger. ‘She healed Martin from death.’ A second finger. ‘Her image appeared on the family shrine, a gift from the saint herself in heaven.’ A third finger. ‘And she disappeared, only to come back to Martin again when he needed her.’

  Beatrice’s father shrugs, his eyes on me again. His clothes are probably the ones his wife keeps for high days and holy days; does he feel himself to be above me because I’m black from my craft? ‘Still — it’s strange, isn’t it,’ he says, ‘how your saint saved this blessing for my Beatrice instead of giving it to you?’

  I feel Hob’s hand on my shoulder.

  ‘It’s not strange at all. Why would the saint want to give Martin such a little, everyday blessing when she’s already done a miracle almost as great as bringing Lazarus from the tomb?’

  ‘An everyday miracle?’

  Hob steps forward until he is standing over Beatrice’s spluttering father. ‘Yes. Consider: if her child comes running to her for comfort, what mother doesn’t put an arm around his shoulders and a hand on his head? The saint loves those who come to her more than any mother loves her child — she’s in the courts of Heaven, her love is perfect, and not even the most loving mother’s is that. What should she do for people who come to her but put a loving hand on their head to bless them? But in Martin’s case —’ he turns to me, puts his hand back on my shoulder — ‘things were very different. To bring life from death is not an everyday matter.’

  Bested, the man rises from the stool and goes over to the parson, still listening to Beatrice’s tale.

  I do not take Thomas Hassell for a man who will look kindly on being interrupted so, loath to be caught watching, I join my apprentices in riddling the last small coals from the baked earth beneath the pit. Will looks up, expectant, but I am still pondering Hob’s words.

  A miracle almost as great as bringing Lazarus from the tomb.

  Much that seemed uncertain before now seems clear. My healing was the saint’s first miracle and she sent the beautiful, lifelike statue to confirm her blessing on me and on my pilgrimage. Saint Cynryth wanted me to make the journey to Salster before Richard ever came to the hearth, bent on sending me away.

  ‘Martin.’

  Master Thomas is coming towards me.

  ‘I have heard John Longfellow’s daughter’s account. Now I want you to tell me exactly how your family came to know this saint.’

  Though a few villagers remain on the hearth, reluctant to leave while there might still be something to see, Beatrice and her family are long gone by the time I have told the parson everything he wants to know.

  ‘And you are certain that you didn’t take the saint from the shrine? That you didn’t put her in your press for safe-keeping?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Does he think I am an idiot? Or a liar, perhaps?

  ‘The pestilence does disorder a man’s wits — I’ve seen it again and again —’

  ‘No. I was healed. I was weak but in my right mind. I know I didn’t take the saint down.’

  He nods, his eyes on mine. Then, seeming to weigh his words, he asks, ‘Is Saint Cynryth a common patron where you come from?’

  I shake my head. ‘No.’

  He waits. Then, when I say nothing more, he asks, ‘Had you heard her story before the peddler came?’

  Is there doubt in his tone? But she has done miracles now, in his own parish. Surely he cannot still be uncertain of her?

  ‘No,’ I admit.

  He seems to consider what to say next. ‘Well … it’s our duty to ensure that her miracles are acknowledged. They must be recorded in the diocese’s annals.’

  He pauses. Is he waiting for me to say something?

  ‘I’ll go to the abbey at Malmes
bury, myself,’ he concludes when I find nothing to say, ‘and make sure it’s properly done.’

  ‘But what about the pestilence?’ Hob asks.

  I turn. How long has he been standing there?

  ‘From the tales we’ve heard these last few days,’ he tells the parson, ‘it seems the Death has no mercy on abbeys and priories. If anything, it kills monks for preference.’

  It is true. People are beginning to say that if the plague has been sent to cleanse the earth of corruption then the church is as sinful — if not more so — than the rest of us.

  ‘I’ve been spared thus far,’ the parson says. ‘If it’s God’s will, I’ll be spared no matter what I find at Malmesbury.’

  ‘But what’ll you do if there’s nobody left there?’ I ask.

  Two men who are hovering nearby, pretending not to listen, cross themselves at this vision of an abbey where all are dead and no-one remains to do the work of God. But the parson seems unaware that our conversation is being overheard. ‘If there’s no-one to help me, I’ll find the annals and write it myself.’ He takes a breath. ‘And, while I’m there, I’ll look to see what other records there are of her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because —’ Hassell flicks a glance at Hob as he answers his question — ‘I want to see whether other miracles of hers have been attested to.’

  ‘Why?’ Hob repeats. ‘Isn’t it enough to record the miracles that she’s doing now?’

  The parson turns his shoulder, directing his answer to me. ‘From the story of her life — though, I admit, I’ve only heard it at second-hand — it seems that all the saint’s previous miracles were in response to particular prayer. Prayers for healing, prayers for barren women to be made with child…?’

  I nod.