The Blood List (21 page)

‘Yes, you did,’ she hissed.

There were soft thuds on the stairs and he looked up to see a black-and-white cat staring at him with large green eyes.

‘Is that Pockets?’ he said pleasantly. ‘I’m glad he’s well.’

It didn’t work. Her eyes were cold as she bent and rubbed her fingertips together until the cat padded across to her and wound itself between her legs.

‘Please, Flora,’ he said. ‘Take the accusation back. Or they will burn her.’

‘No,’ she said coldly. ‘They will hang her.’

His chest constricted. He had wrecked his chance to save Naomi. Whatever happened next would be his fault. He struggled to keep his voice steady as he spoke. ‘I am sorry to have barged in.
I bid you goodnight.’

He walked to the door and reached blindly for the handle.

‘Wait.’

He stopped. A thin, icy wind crept through the keyhole.

‘Perhaps your callous behaviour is not caused by witchcraft . . .’

He waited, not daring to breathe.

‘But just the fickleness of a silly, selfish boy.’

‘You know, Flora,’ he said, without turning, ‘you have always understood me so well.’

‘You liked me before,’ she said quietly.

‘I did,’ he said.

‘Perhaps you would again.’

He swallowed and then said, ‘I’m sure of it.’

Her motionless figure was reflected in the glass. ‘Those are just words.’

‘How can I prove it to you?’

‘The way any lover proves his devotion.’

He began to understand.

‘My father will be in this evening if you wish to speak to him.’

He opened his mouth but his voice would not come. He watched in the glass as she bent to pick up Pockets and rub its sly face against her own. She murmured something and its purr reverberated in
the silence.

‘Shall I tell him you will be calling?’ she said lightly. ‘That you wish to ask him something?’

He raised his hand to lean against the door.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Please do.’

‘Very well,’ she said, ‘I will write to Mister Hopkins straight away.’

‘Thank you. Goodnight, Flora.’

‘Goodnight,’ she said, then added softly, ‘my love.’

He opened the door, stepped outside, closed it behind him, walked a few paces, then retched on the snow-crusted ground.

The village had woken properly by now and the square was criss-crossed with footprints. It was too cold to linger and no-one stopped to speak to him as he tramped home. The
vomit had splashed his breeches and shoes and he’d inadvertently wiped his mouth with his sleeve, so now he stank and would have to change his clothes. Passing the church he almost bumped
into the deaf boy, muffled to the eyebrows, carrying a basket full of paint tubes. They both looked away and the boy deliberately bumped his elbow as they passed one another.

The house was as warm as a bread oven and all the lanterns were lit. When she saw the state of him Juliet insisted on his having a bath, which she dragged to the fire and eventually filled. As
he watched her traipsing back and forth to the kitchen with the cauldron, he grew sleepier and sleepier. The flickering firelight made his shadow on the floor grow and shrink and quaver, as if it
were as insubstantial as the flames themselves.

Eventually the bath was ready and after Juliet had stripped him he stepped into it and lay back. The water was blood-warm and she laid a cloth over him so that his bent knees wouldn’t get
cold.

It would all be over soon. The outcome of the nonsensical search was irrelevant now that Flora was to retract her accusation. She would do it, of that he was certain, so long as he fulfilled his
part of the bargain. But what a bargain. There might yet be a way out of it. Perhaps if he grew very fat and didn’t wash, or perhaps if he feigned madness and grubbed about with the pigs in
the mud. The thought made him smile, and then the pigs took on the features of Abel and Hopkins and Leech and when they opened their mouths to speak they purred like Pockets.

He was woken by an icy blast followed by the slam of the door and sat up with a cry. The bath water was cold and his limbs were stiff and goosebumped. Then his father sprang into his line of
vision, wafting cold air from his cloak and spattering Barnaby with particles of snow.

‘She is saved!’

Frances appeared beside him, pink-cheeked and smiling. ‘The accusation has been retracted.’

Barnaby stood quickly, sloshing water all over the floor.

‘Already?’

‘Hopkins received the letter not half an hour ago. He will be bringing all this nonsense to an end as we speak.’

Barnaby exhaled.
So soon.

Wrapping the towel around him, he stepped out of the bath and began rubbing himself vigorously to warm up.

‘Perhaps we can persuade the Hockets to retract their accusation of the Widow Moone,’ Frances was saying as she removed her hat and cloak. ‘And then that beastly man can go
back where he came from.’

‘With Abel preferably,’ Barnaby said, fastening the towel around his waist.

His mother’s lips pursed. ‘I think perhaps Abel should remain here, don’t you, Henry?’

‘Oh certainly,’ Henry said. ‘I shall take pleasure in knocking some sense back into him.’

‘Hmm,’ Frances said faintly, adjusting her bonnet.

‘What o’clock is it?’ Barnaby said, stepping into the clean clothes Juliet had left out for him.

‘Late afternoon,’ his father said. ‘And none of us even breakfasted yet. Juliet!’

‘I won’t eat directly,’ Barnaby said. ‘There’s something I must do.’

‘Oh, very well,’ his father said. His mother looked at him quizzically.

‘Nothing important,’ he said, concentrating on the buttons of his shirt cuff. ‘I won’t be long, and then I might go up to the Waters place and see how Naomi
is.’

‘Wait till the morning,’ his mother said. ‘Give her some peace and quiet to recover.’

The door was snatched open before the echoes from his rap had died away.

Flora stood before the fire in a bright yellow satin dress trimmed with fur. Her parents flanked her and Pockets sat primly at her feet with a smug look in his reptilian eyes.

‘Master Nightingale!’ her father cried.

‘Mister Slabber,’ Barnaby said with a bow.

The butcher clapped his hands. ‘Wine, Sara!’

Though the whole ordeal could not have taken more than ten minutes from start to finish, by the time he emerged from the house he felt as if he had run a hundred miles.

He had never seen three happier people. Even the damned cat kept jumping on him and digging its claws into his thighs.

There was no need to rush things, so the marriage would take place in the year each of them became eighteen. It would have to be a summer wedding, of course, since Flora did so suit light,
summery colours (pretend exasperation from Flora; a slap on her father’s wrist). Her little hand was as perfect as a doll’s in his. There was no reddening or roughness of the skin and
the nails were long and unchipped. She smelled like sugared fruit. Hours seemed to pass before someone remarked that the snow had begun again. Barnaby saw his chance and got up to leave, promising
that his father would be round in the morning to seal the arrangement. He produced a ring he had taken from his mother’s jewellery box and slid it onto her finger. It was too big. When they
kissed goodbye her lips were hard and eager.

The snow became heavier and heavier until he was walking blind, and by the time he got home it had piled up so high on the front step he could barely open the door. He told his father what he
had done and gave no explanation. His mother was furious. He accepted her remonstrations in silence then, once he had secured his father’s promise to visit the Slabber house in the morning,
he went to bed.

For a while he lay awake and stared at the ceiling. Would Naomi guess why he had done what he had done? Would she be sorry to lose him to another? Had she ever felt about him the way he did
about her? It had never seemed so, and yet he had tethered himself to a girl he felt nothing for to save her. Perhaps Flora had been right all along. Perhaps she had bewitched him.

To regret his actions would be a base and cowardly thing to do and he really tried not to. But it was clear to him that there would be no getting out of this. If he dared try and break the
arrangement, Flora’s father would have him in court. A nasty little thought insinuated itself into his mind that perhaps she would die in childbirth. He was disgusted with himself. All the
pride over his noble act turned to shame and foreboding. Tugging the blanket over his head, he put his fingers in his ears to block out the soft whispers of snow against his window.

Barnaby was woken by Juliet, with hot milk and fresh scones with damson jam. He had slept deeply and felt refreshed and altogether more optimistic about his situation. She
stoked the fire and laid out his clothes while he yawned and stretched and finally swung his legs over the side of the bed. The floor was too cold to walk on without stockings so she got him some
from the drawer and then opened the curtains. The sudden glare made him wince. The entire countryside was blanketed with snow. Each cottage was iced like a cake and only smears of grey from the
chimneys broke up the uniform white. Through the ice-crusted panes he could just make out the shadow of the forest. Nothing was moving. The village must still be in their beds.

‘Why did you wake me up so early?’

‘It’s past nine.’

But something
was
moving: a cart inched slowly up the hill in the direction of the lake – although the lake itself had been swallowed up by the endless white.

He dressed, went downstairs and breakfasted by the fire. Today, he noticed, the mark on the chair-back looked exactly like a bloodstain. His mother was not speaking to him but his father gave
him the odd wink and occasionally rolled his eyes at her back.

‘Well,’ Henry said, finally, ‘I shall make my way to the Slabber residence.’

Frances stopped eating but did not look up from her plate. Then as his father pushed out his chair she said, ‘Are you really sure that this is what you want, Barnaby?’

It was easier to reply since she did not look at him.

‘Quite sure, Mother.’

‘You will not break the engagement.’

‘No.’

‘Whatever Flora is . . .’ Frances tailed off. ‘She doesn’t deserve that.’

After a moment she picked up her fork and resumed eating.

For a moment he was tempted to tell her the real reason for his engagement: she of all people would understand, might even admire him for it. But then again, those high principles might make her
tell the Slabbers the truth and he couldn’t risk Flora going back on her word.

He walked with his father to the market square then the two parted ways and Barnaby made for the path that led up to the lake. As he climbed he was engulfed in fog and though his boots were
thick-soled and waxed they were soon heavy with moisture. The snow was a foot deep in places and trekking through it was so exhausting he considered turning back several times.

Eventually he stopped and let his breath billow around him to mingle with the fog. He was far enough up the path to make out the blurred shadow of the forest to the east but the Waters place was
still hidden behind the brow of the hill.

The ground began to shudder beneath his feet and he heard the faint thunder of horses’ hooves up ahead. The cart he had seen earlier, possibly. Where had it been going? There was nothing
up there but the lake and the Waters place.

But the fog and snow had made the cart sound far more distant than it was and, before he knew what was happening, the white veil of fog tore and the huge black shape was bearing down on him. He
cried out and threw up his arms, making the horse rear, then he managed to scramble into the ditch as the driver roared and cracked his whip as he struggled to keep control of the vehicle.
Eventually the animal was sufficiently subdued for the driver to lean from his seat and hurl abuse at Barnaby. Too shocked to reply, Barnaby just crouched in the stagnant water until the driver
whipped up the horse and the cart trundled on into the fog.

But not before he had seen its occupant, her face grey, her eyes staring from matted knots of hair.

‘NAOMI!’ he bellowed, but his voice echoed back off the shroud of fog that enveloped him.

The Boar’s stables were almost fully occupied. The weather had forced the drinkers from the previous evening to stay the night, and conditions hadn’t improved
enough for them to leave yet. Barnaby saddled up the lightest, youngest-looking bay mare and led her out of the yard, grateful that her footsteps were muffled by the snow. On the way out he peered
up at the higher floors, tempted to storm up there and confront his brother, but if he wanted to catch up with the cart he would have to leave now.

It must be heading to the gaol in Grimston. On a good day the journey by cart took under two hours; today it might take until sundown and Barnaby would be swifter on horseback. Mounting the
mare, he passed through the streets to the market square then steered her onto the road that led out of the village. Untrodden drifts lay in swathes as far as the eye could see and it took long
minutes to plough through them to reach the crossroads. A few flakes of snow fell against the horse’s caramel brown flank, melting immediately at the heat of effort that radiated from her.
Would she make it? If on the Grimston road she became too exhausted to continue she would certainly die; Barnaby too. It was ten miles until the next village.

But as they continued, Barnaby found that if they kept to the black, sludgy tracks made by other vehicles they could maintain a pretty good speed. By midday they had passed the last village
before Grimston and the horse showed no signs of tiring. The high sun had burned off the fog and the tracks became little streams of dirty water. They settled into a comfortable pace.

Flora had retracted her accusation of witchcraft, so was Naomi’s arrest for some other reason? Perhaps she had struck one of Hopkins’s women as they ‘searched’ her. He
smiled grimly. It was no more than they deserved. Perhaps she had lashed out at Hopkins himself. If so he hoped she had caused some injury. He would make sure she got the best lawyer and pay any
fine that was imposed. Or . . . his smile faded, had Flora withdrawn the retraction as soon as she was sure of their engagement? He wouldn’t put it past her.