Raven Queen (10 page)

“Perhaps it is for the best,” Doctor Aylmer said.

I whirled round to face him. “For the
best
? How could it be for the best?”

“Do not tell me that you did not suspect. You are clever, Jane. You
must
have known. That is why you did not ask him.”

I picked up my Bible. “I swear that I did not.” I looked closely at him. “
You
knew! You have both deceived me,” I shouted. “He should have told me!
You
should have told me!”

At that moment, I became my mother. My lips thinned and turned down at the corners. I slapped Doctor Aylmer’s cheek. He did not react, so I slapped him again, harder. Finger marks flushed his skin. Then I threw myself into his arms, sobbing. “I am sorry, I am sorry. That is what my parents have done to me. Violence breeds violence.”

“You are upset, that is all.” He sat me down because I was trembling. “Be calm, Jane. It was not for me to tell you. It was between you and Ned.”

“How can there be anything between us now? He is a Catholic and I am a Protestant.”

“Does it matter?”

I blushed and shook my head, ashamed.

“I have told you many times, Jane. You must not judge people by the way they pray to God.”

“I liked being with him.” I smiled to myself as I remembered. “And now I cannot be.”

“Ask God to forgive you,” Doctor Aylmer said. I knew that he was disappointed with me and that hurt almost as much. As he turned to go, he stopped and said, “It is never too late.”

It was cold in the chapel. They had taken Thomas’s body there and all evening a procession of people had come to pay their respects – everybody except Ned. Two small candles lit the coffin, now closed and covered with aconites, primroses and snowdrops.

I knelt to pray. What if we reformed thinkers
are
wrong? What if the bread and wine are the flesh and blood of Christ?

The door creaked and the candles flickered, but I did not turn round, even when footsteps approached the coffin, until the hairs on my neck prickled and I knew that Ned was there. He was placing ivy on the coffin, ivy for eternal life.

“Forgive me, Jane!” he said.

I turned to look at him. “The Bible says that the truth sets us free,” I said, “but it is wrong. The truth teases and betrays.” Revulsion filled me. “The lips that have touched mine are stained, tainted with Jesus’ blood. Go away, and never speak to me again.”

But he came closer. “It is still not too late, Jane. Remember what I said that day in—”

“You fool!” I shouted. “It is even more impossible than it was then.”

“Why?” he said. “I will give up the priesthood for you. What will you give up to be with me?” He paused. “You could start by giving up your intolerance.”

“I cannot help it, Ned. I
have
tried.”

“Then try harder.” He took hold of my hand, turned over the palm and kissed it. “Do you love me?”

I nodded. “But I do not love your faith.”

“You do not need to. Come with me, Jane. Do not forget the life you want…the freedom…we can go…”

My father pounced like a wild animal. How long had he been listening? He came so close that I could smell the ale on his breath, see the morsels of meat between his teeth. He squeezed the skin of my arm between his finger and thumb, faintly, then harder so that my skin stained red. “Go back to the house, Jane,” he said, his face mottled with anger. “Tell Mistress Ellen not to let you leave your bedchamber.”

They came for him after dusk.

“Come out, Papist plotter!”

“No need to kill ’im!”

“Blood drinker!”

Flaming torches flickered as far as the bakehouse. There were about seven men waiting outside – one of them was Jack – all restraining the hounds.

“Out! Out! Papist spy!”

As Ned ran down the steps, the dogs hurled themselves at him, but he kept running.

I saw it all from my window: the snaking trail of flame skirting the forest, gusting in the wind, disappearing and reappearing, and all this time I thought of the dogs sinking their claws and teeth into Ned’s fair flesh.

“Come away from the window.” Ellie pulled me back, closed the curtains and rocked me in her arms.

“Let him go!” I said. “That is the price he must pay for all his deceit.”

No, my head did not want him.

But my heart did.

My anchor had gone. Without it, I was tossed on wintry seas. I was alone. And sick at heart and full of shame.

I did not know who had seen us in the chapel. It could have been Jack or Alice, Catherine or Mary – or just my father coming to pay his respects one more time to his trusted servant. He would not tell me. He only taunted me for bringing a Papist to Bradgate Hall.

“Jack was strutting around the kitchen like a bird with a worm,” Ellie said. “
He
would have known that Ned had gone to the chapel. Or Alice could have told him.”

Alice flickered into my mind. I had watched her only yesterday, stumbling across the kitchen yard on swollen feet, her face lumpy and rounded. She had curtsied clumsily.

Has he trapped you, Alice, as he has trapped Ned?

But knowing who it was made no difference.

Ned had gone.

I felt a wound in my side that I knew would slowly heal with time, but like all wounds it would leave a scar as a reminder.

Although in my head I knew that Ned had gone, in my heart I did not believe it. I still went to the forest, thinking that I would glimpse him. They say that after someone has died, you seek their face for a long time in the crowd and that was how it was with Ned.

That January was the coldest Ellie could ever remember. Its shadows chilled us to the bone. Dusk brought snowflakes swirling from the hill and they settled lightly.

Where was Ned? Was he lying under a whitened hedgerow, face and fingers frosted?

One evening, I crouched in front of the fire. I did not want to move for Ellie to prepare me for bed. “I feel like death, Ellie.”

“You think too much and too deeply,” she replied, lifting up my hair to brush it. “Your head will be so full one day that it will fall off.”

I put my hands to my neck, horrified. “Do not say that!” I cried. “Not even in jest.”

It happened that night just as Ellie said it would. Not to my head but to that other part of my body that is hidden and mysterious. I woke up so early the next morning that I thought the huntsmen must be gathering below my window. I dragged myself to the window, my body heavy and scented with a sweet smell I did not recognize. There was nobody there, only the horizon streaked with red. When I went back to my bed, I saw that the bed linen was spotted with blood.

You will only marry when you can have a child.

Now Ellie brought me strips of linen to bind my body. “You cannot change the course of nature,” she said.

I pleaded with her. “Do not tell anybody.”

“Your mother asks me almost every day and I cannot lie.”

“Not today,” I begged, “or I shall…I shall kill myself. Do you promise?”

She nodded.

I could not stop myself from weeping and I was surprised that my tears were not full of blood. Then I leaned my face against the windowpane and my tears melted the frost away.

Now I would face my fate as Ned was facing his.

They are like the black dog of my nightmare, the dogs that chase me. Two of them reach me and pull me to the ground, tugging at my clothes, snarling and slavering. But I push them off and I get up as soon as the grip of their teeth slackens. I run like a madman through the night until I realize that they are not following. The first night, I squat in a ditch, ready to run. It takes all my courage to stay.

Every rustle, every shuffle makes me jump. I hear whisperings in the dark. I cannot catch their words and I know they are all in my imagination.

Dawn brings soft sunshine and silence and I stretch my limbs, pleased with myself for still being alive.

What shall I do? The necklace reminds me, its sharpness prodding my skin.
Take it to her. She will make you very welcome.
Why not? The Lady Mary is of my faith and she will give me news of Jane. Yes, I shall go to her.

I stumble away from Bradgate Hall towards the Great North Road. Fear goes with me. Although I may no longer be recognizable as the boy who escaped from Lincoln prison, who stole a loaf of bread and an apple and nearly hanged, I know that if anyone finds the necklace, they will hang me from the nearest tree. I unpick some of the stitching of my waistband and thread the rubies through, and as I walk they dig into my back, reminding me constantly of why I am making this journey. Then I quicken my pace.

I want to die many times during the silent and solitary days that follow. In the evening, when the trees darken with flocking birds, I allow myself to think about Jane. Only then. I have to ration the thought like my food, otherwise I cannot bear it.

I cannot remember the days now, only the weeks – and I pass them on the highway. I am not fit for this journey and the coins in my pocket remind me that I could hire a horse. But my fear of being recognized is still too great.

On the path to a village called Oakham, I catch up with a small boy as thin as a reed, his face smudged like a bruise. He does not leave me. He does not ask for food. He does not ask for water. He just wants to be with another human being. I soon get used to the pattering of his little bare feet. Sometimes I hand him a crust or a bad apple and he always takes it. Once the wind blows so hard that he falls over, he lets me carry him.

He has been alone so long that he has forgotten his name.

“I shall call you Tom after the great bell in Lincoln Cathedral,” I told him and he smiled for the first time.

The next morning, Tom does not wake up. I wipe his face with icy water from the ditch and place him in the bulrushes, scattering him with violets.

I miss him, and his footsteps haunt me every mile. And I fear the cold. I know that a fit man can walk twenty miles a day in good weather. But the icy winds have weakened me.

The cold deepens every day, forcing me to light a fire. I flinch as the first flame flickers, and stand well back, piling on twigs with a long stick. The same stick secures a rat. Its roasting flesh sickens me to the stomach and forces the memories to tumble from me.

It was a day like this when they came to our house last year. My father was sitting at the fireplace. Blazing oak logs scented the air and wood ash speckled his hair as he leaned towards the flames, spilling water from his goblet, making them hiss.

There were three of them. As soon as they forced their way into the room, they went straight to him and ripped off the crucifix he always wore, so hard that I thought they had broken his neck. They hurled it into the fire and turned towards me, jeering, “A young Catholic in the making! Do you go to Mass with him?”

I did not reply.

“It is me you should talk to,” my father said. “Leave the boy alone.”

One of the men – I remember he had red hair – sniggered. “Boys are always a soft touch,” he said.

I flinched at the menace in his voice. I had heard plenty of tales about what soldiers did to soften up Catholic boys and girls. The clock ticked. To my relief, they went back to my father. “Who goes to Mass with you?”

He just bowed his head. I thought they would arrest us there and then, but they seemed to lose interest. They glanced at each other, shrugged their shoulders and made for the door. I ran towards the fire, picked up the poker and started to push out the crucifix. The red-haired man happened to glance back. He whispered something to the others.

They all came back, forcing me to kneel in front of the fire, tugging my right arm until I thought it would leave its socket. Then they thrust my hand into the flames.

My father howled like an animal, but the pain was so great that I could not cry out.

“Take your precious crucifix!” they shouted.

I grasped the hot metal. I saw my hand blacken, smelled the stench of sizzling skin. The men laughed as they left. And I dropped the crucifix and slipped away into total darkness.

My father continued to wear his crucifix, proud of its twisted metal, proud of my bravery. But I was not brave that day. I had no choice.

Now panic fills me as I look at the fire I have lit. I glance down at my scarred palm and weep like the child I was that day.

Spring is late and the trees start to green long after the end of Lent. The cold winds and rain make my bones ache and I long for the warmth of the bakehouse. A late frost nips the budding leaves around me and the daffodils bow their heads over the whitened grass.

I stagger along. It rains every day, a soaking rain, and a fever quickly grips me. The highway rises up to meet me and as I put out my hands to protect my head, I topple onto the side of the road.

I know that I am ill and I know that I am safe. Although the hands that help me are rough-skinned, they are also gentle and lavender-scented; except when I have to relieve myself and the woman with me shouts, “Walter, you’re needed up here!”

One day, when the sun brightens at the window and strength seeps back into my limbs, the man helps me downstairs.