The Witch of Eye (2 page)

‘You are easily dissuaded, Sir!’ Eleanor rebuked him, pretending annoyance by gently smacking his hand. Then, turning her face up to his, she gave him the look he knew so well. Her eyes, a deep shade of grey which darkened towards the outer rim of the iris, took on a sultry quality and the corners of her generous mouth began to twitch in a smile. Then the pink tip of her tongue appeared and traced the arc of her upper lip. He knew the signal.

‘There are plenty of secret places in the garden,’ she said. ‘Surely it is not always necessary to be a-bed!’

‘Indeed not,’ Humphrey agreed, ‘and if you were to dismiss your ladies ... and I my gentlemen ... we could make the excuse of inspecting the rose arbours!’ He freed her hand from where it had been tucked under his elbow and bent to kiss it. Looking at her from under his eyebrows, he slipped his tongue between her fingers and Eleanor gave a throaty chuckle, knowing exactly what he had in mind.

They turned then and, to all outward appearances the epitome of decorum, continued their walk towards the house.

‘We can at least inspect the rooms which are to be ours,’ Eleanor said. ‘I’m very keen to see exactly where they will be. I have plans for them and I don’t simply mean choosing furnishings and tapestries.’

What she was really wondering was whether adequate provision had been made for a nursery. She had waited long enough, now she must redouble her efforts to conceive a child, so she would send for Margery Jourdemayne as soon as they returned to Westminster. Surely, Margery would know of some medicine or decoction to do the trick. Perhaps she had a charm or a talisman which would help. Eleanor didn’t have any qualms about the dubious nature of such things.

She was becoming desperate.

The Journey

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L
ove will not be constrained by mastery;

When mastery comes, the god of love anon

Beats his fair wings, and farewell! He is gone!

Geoffrey Chaucer

The Franklin’s Tale

Summer 1435

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I
n the parish of Kingskerswell, Devon

‘Try to keep still, my dove.’

Betsy wrung out a cloth in warm water and applied it gently to her daughter’s ear. Jenna’s gasping sobs drowned out the sound of the kettle simmering on the fire.

‘Truth is, I don’t know if this is the best thing for a fat ear like this, but perhaps ’twill bring the swelling down.’ Betsy’s soothing voice belied her fury, her rage at the cruelty of the man. ‘What did you do to offend him this time?’

Jenna squirmed in the chair, biting her lip so as not to squeal in pain under the pressure of the warm compress.

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘Really, Mam, I don’t know. I’d been talking to Parson Middleton, that’s all. Just being polite ... but Jake said...’

‘Aye, let me guess. He accused you of wanting to warm Parson’s bed, I’ll wager.’

‘Yes,’ said Jenna in a small voice. ‘Yes, he did. He says I didn’t ought to be talking to men like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Well, you know, he says I always talk to men like I wanted to lie with them.’

‘Take no heed of him. You’re just a young woman with a pretty smile and Jake’s jealous, that’s all, eaten up with it. Some men are like that. They hate seeing other men looking at their wives, but then they beat the wife, as if it was all her fault. Mind you, your Jake’s worse than most. It doesn’t take great heavy punches like he gives you to keep a wife in her place. He’d been bibblin’ again, had he?’

‘Of course. It’s always when he’s drunk too much that he hits me.’

‘And I suppose that stupid Adam Luxton he works for had been paying him in cider.’

Jenna nodded, carefully. ‘He often does. Jake says he works better for it. But then he went to the tavern.’

‘Before going home? Why?’

‘Because Walter the miller’s wife has a new babe, a boy, and Walter was in the tavern buying ale and cider for everyone, Jake said.’

‘Makes you laugh, don’t it?’ said Betsy, with a grunt. ‘Strutting around the tavern like cocks, as though the hens had nothing to do with it. You’d think they were the ones who went through all the pain. Still,’ she sighed, ‘it’s a woman’s duty to bear children and a man needs a few youngsters around the place if he’s a farm to run. My Gilbert is very pleased that you’re helping with the milking. Saves him having to bend.’

Despite her painful ear, Jenna wasn’t going to let her mother get away with that one. ‘It’s not just helping with the milking, Mam, you know that.’ Since Jenna had learned to do the reckoning, she had taken on more and more responsibility for the day-to-day running of the dairy. ‘If your Gilbert had to keep account and do the milk tallies himself, he wouldn’t like it one bit, would he? It’d keep him away from...’

‘You mind your tongue, my girl. It’s none of your business what your stepfather does in his own time.’ Betsy spoke sharply. The girl should be grateful that Gilbert had taken them in, a young widow and her child. At least they’d had decent food in their bellies and a roof over their heads these last twenty years and never had to beg for scraps from richer folk.

She concealed her irritation by inspecting the swollen ear again. Jenna would have to hide it under a coif or comb her hair over it. No use provoking Jake any further, he wouldn’t want a wife with a puffball ear to remind him of his own violence.

The moment of tension had passed. ‘Never you mind the old milk tallies,’ said Betsy, giving Jenna’s shoulders a small hug. ‘There are more important things. At least you’ve got a husband, and your place is to give him a child as soon as you can, before he gets one on another woman. It won’t take him long, he’s handsome enough.’ She began to busy herself, smoothing out the damp cloth she had been using, hanging it to dry near the fire, nodding, smiling, pleased at having suggested a solution to the problem. ‘A baby,’ she said, ‘that’s what you need. And pray it will be a boy.’

‘It’s not for want of trying.’ A lopsided smile tweaked the corners of Jenna’s bruised mouth and her mother smiled back at her, tender again. Things couldn’t be too bad between the pair of them then, she thought. And at least Jake’s great ham fist hadn’t broken any of her daughter’s teeth.

‘Aye, the sooner you get yourself with child the better,’ she said. ‘Perhaps Old Mother Morwenna will know of something to help you. Give Jake a babe or two and maybe he won’t beat you so often. Come, my dove, let me help you up. It’s best you be getting back to your husband. You don’t want to go upsetting him no more.’

***

A
t sunset, Jenna crossed the bridge over the village stream with reluctant steps and was back at the small, low-roofed cottage she shared with Jake rather sooner than she really wanted to be. She found her husband slumped on the bench near the fire pit, seemingly sober. He sat motionless in the firelight, watching her take off her shawl and hang it behind the door. She had no inkling of his mood: perhaps he was feeling genuine remorse, but he might equally well be seething with temper, struggling to remain calm. Eventually he spoke, his voice low and regretful.

‘Sweet Christ, Jenna, I’m sorry. I don’t know what comes over me.’

Not trusting herself to speak, she watched him rise and come towards her, flinching as he took hold of her arms and bent to kiss her, recoiling from the stink of stale alcohol on his breath. He stared intently at her then, as though trying to penetrate her mind, his eyes bloodshot in his handsome face.

How she had once loved that face, adored it and lavished exuberant, extravagant kisses upon it, smiling with the pleasure of touching it. Now she felt nothing but an icy calm as she waited for what she knew would come next.

Tears welled in his eyes. ‘I didn’t mean it, Jenna. You know that, don’t you? You know I didn’t mean it. I’ll never do it again. Never. You do still love me, don’t you, Jen? I didn’t mean to hurt you. You know that. You know that, don’t you, Jen?’ He was snivelling now, butting his head against Jenna’s neck like a small child begging her forgiveness, making her swollen ear throb painfully. She struggled in an attempt to hold her head away from him and he suddenly tried to take her in a clumsy embrace. Knocked off balance, she stumbled, almost lost her footing and would have fallen had he not tightened his arms around her. Pushing against him with both hands, she tried to break away.

‘Stop it, Jake! Stop it! Get away from me. You’re not sorry! You weren’t sorry the last time it happened and you’re not sorry now! Get away from me, Jake!’ Jenna was screaming now, pushing him, pummelling his chest. ‘Get away from me!’

She was no match for his strength. He overpowered her easily, his arms tightening like iron bands around her, pinning her own arms uselessly against her sides, her hands bunched into limp fists. His eyes narrowed as he realised she was not going to be won over this time. He began to mock her then, as he shoved her roughly towards the straw pallet where they slept on the floor in the far corner, an ugly sardonic smile twisting his face.

‘So,’ he said, his voice low and threatening, ‘you think you can get away from me, do you, you teasing little whore? Well, you can’t. You’re my wife and there’s no bastard on earth can change that. But they can’t wait to get their stinking little hands on you. I’ve watched them going out of their minds wanting to grab your tits, pull up your skirts. It’s your fault, you’re like a bitch on heat. You set a man’s prick alight. But I’m going to have you now, bitch, I’m going to show you ... show you how it feels to have a real man screwing you ... not a sickly whelp of a man like the Parson ... you want it, don’t you? You want it, don’t you, bitch!’

Jenna whimpered hopelessly as he pushed her down onto their mattress then dropped to his knees, roughly shoving her skirt up over her thighs, forcing her legs apart. He was inches taller than she was and as strong as an ox, his powerful body honed by years of labour in the fields. She could only pray that this time he wouldn’t leave her skin raw and bleeding, her mind blank with shame and horror.

***

J
enna lay on her back for a long time after Jake had violated her, praying for merciful sleep. His arm lay heavy across her body, pinning her down, and she dared not move for fear of disturbing him. Over the sound of his snoring, she heard a tomcat yowling in the darkness outside the cottage and she pitied the poor queen that would soon have to endure the pain of his selfish penetration. Managing to turn onto her right side so that the weight of her own head on the pillow wouldn’t put unbearable pressure on her swollen left ear, she slowly became aware that, with her damaged ear uppermost, she could hear neither the tomcat’s yowling nor Jake’s snoring with any clarity. It was as though she had pulled the pillow over her head – but she hadn’t.

Dear God, if Jake had damaged her hearing, what would he do next? Would it always be like this for her, treading on eggshells for fear of annoying him, never knowing when his mercurial temper would flare up? Would she live in terror of her own husband for the rest of her life? And would she have to work her fingers to the bone on her stepfather’s farm each day? She always avoided being alone in the dairy with the dirty old bastard her mother had been so grateful to marry and when there was no alternative but to work alongside him, she tried hard not to mind his drooling leer and his groping hands, if only for her mother’s sake.

Why did men behave so oddly towards her? In all honesty, she reflected, if her stepfather hadn’t made her so nervous, perhaps she wouldn’t have been so keen to marry Jake, though she had to admit she had thought herself madly in love with him. She should have given herself time to get to know him better, time to discover the jealous temper simmering perilously close to the surface, ready to explode into violence as soon as it was fuelled with drink. How stupid she had been to fall so unquestioningly in love with a beautiful face.

Nothing was likely to change. If God spared her and she was still alive twenty years hence she would be just like her mother, her back bent with hard work, her face lined with worry. She could see no choice but to go on living with Jake, lying passively under the bulk of him at night, waiting until he grunted his satisfaction then heaved himself off her and began snoring like a bull. Did she really want a child as a result of these bestial couplings? Her mother’s assertion that a baby would be the answer to her problems was of no comfort to her and in any case, although she didn’t want to admit it to Betsy, she had already been to see Old Mother Morwenna to ask her advice. And to pay for it.

The wise woman of the village had been unexpectedly sympathetic. They talked companionably over a glass of small beer, sitting at the table where the toothless old crone concocted her herbal remedies for everyday ailments, coughs and colds, aches and pains, making medicines to cure constipation or aid conception. Amid much sighing and tut-tutting, Old Mother Morwenna pointed out that failure to conceive did not always mean the woman was barren.

‘Look at the Dynhams, up at the Manor,’ she said in her cracked, high-pitched voice. ‘Those men couldn’t beget a son to save their lives, not for all their money and their fancy ways. That’s why the house and the land kept reverting to the King. Yes, for want of an heir. I’m old enough to remember it. Can you believe that? Eh? Can you? Do you know how old I am? Eh? Well, in truth, I’m not sure myself. But I do remember my own mother saying that one or two of the Dynhams’ widows went on to have fine broods after their husbands died.’

She patted Jenna’s arm with her bony hand. ‘So it could easily be your man’s fault that you have no little ones, my dove. Mind you,’ she added with a cackle, ‘you’d be a fool to tell him so!’

Before she left Morwenna’s cottage, Jenna had parted with half a groat in payment for a phial of something viscous and brown which the old wise woman assured her would resolve the situation if she drank a third of it exactly mid-way between her menses on three consecutive months. But the phial had remained hidden under the eaves, unopened, while Jenna looked for some sign that things were going to change between her and Jake before she swallowed its vile-looking contents.