54

16th December 1580

Saltpetre for the making of bacons and hams, one small barrel thirteen shillings and sixpence

Accounts of Banstock Manor, 1576–1582

We tell no one but her brother and Lord Banstock about Agness Waldren’s survival. It seems to me that the reverend is disappointed that his sister still lives, as he now needs to find her a home. First find her, I say. I keep my concerns about her madness to myself. She is obsessed with Isabeau and I fear for the Frenchwoman’s safety. I send a man to ride over once or twice a day to check on her. Seabourne gives me his solemn word that he will not communicate with his mistress.

As the days shorten we have slaughtered pigs and made puddings, hams and bacons until the ground by the butcher’s is black with frozen blood. With Christmas approaching, we prepare for our guests: Lord Anthonie’s (and my) sister and her husband and daughters. Lord Seabourne comes with his eldest sons, at least in part to haggle over Viola’s bride dowry and the monies to be settled upon her should her husband die before her. Two neighbours, both old widows, also come to us at Christmas, so the manor is in a storm of cooking, baking, salting, smoking. Then we shall have Viola’s wedding, which fills me with disquiet. My strongbox, just recently fattened by the autumn stock sales and harvests, is becoming depleted again as I buy in geese, sugar, wines and sweetmeats.

I get up before dawn to enjoy the quiet as I tally figures and prepare for the day. I am just lighting my fire and a stick of candles against the dark, when Viola flies into my office, much perturbed. The servant Margery, set to watch over Isabeau, has walked over the dark fields to say the Frenchwoman is missing from the cottage.

I fear no woman so close to her confinement would go far. We walk out through the early frost, towards the grounds of Well House on the way to the village. The sky is barely lightening in the east, the sky a royal shade of blue dotted with a few of the brightest stars, so I take a lantern.

We walk through the orchard looking for footprints or signs that someone has passed that way. The frost, as clear as snow, has left marks of the passage of feet: a fox or dog, trotting under the apple trees afore the pigs are let out, rabbits criss-crossing his path, and the heavy feet of a badger. Then we spot the partially frosted-over signs of small shoes.

We find the seamstress’s cloak, tangled in a knot of brambles. Viola recognises it; the lining is fashioned from brightly coloured scraps left over from her work. It is torn down one side, as if a great struggle has occurred, and the cloth is lightly dusted with rime. It has clearly lain here for some time. I take it up, examining it. There is blood splattered on one edge, and my heart quickens.

We see her path beyond, her footsteps pressed into the soft ground, mixed with larger ones. One seems to be chasing the other. Viola runs ahead, and I, puffing behind holding the cloak, can spare no breath to command her to wait for me.

Her scream cuts through the still air, so shrill I think for a moment that it issues from a wounded animal.

‘Uncle!’ she shrieks again, and as I round the last oak I see her, cowering on the ground beyond the stream. I blunder down the slope towards the water and plough through it, the mud frozen hard on the surface and clutching at my boots beneath.

Blood in low light looks black, and such is the scene that it looks as if the thicket has been painted with darkness. The body before me, for at first I have no doubt it is a corpse, is hardly recognisable as Isabeau. Then I hear a pitiful hiss of air, and I realise the poor girl still lives.

I drop to my knees, smelling rather than seeing the woman’s torn entrails, and the horror forms within my mind slowly. Her body has been cruelly opened, and her babe removed. She mewls a moment, then turns her head. Her cap hangs from her long hair, spread with frost, and she looks like a ghastly parody of a Madonna.

I reach for the hand wavering towards me. ‘My child, who did this?’

‘Mon enfant—’ she murmurs, her face no less white than the ground she lies upon.

It sounds as if Viola gags, but then she kneels on the other side, and Isabeau turns her head slowly towards her. Viola speaks, her breath misting her face. ‘She wants us to find her child. Isabeau, you must tell me, who has taken it? Who has stolen your baby?’

‘A— Agness. Mon enfant—’ the word drifts out on the mist of a sigh. I fear it is her last. But her hand clutches mine with a spasm, then tries to lift it towards her head. I hold my hand up as hers falls away, divining her need. Like most men of my age, I remember the papist rites, as they were drummed into me as a boy.

‘I am no priest…’ I try to object, but then bow my head. Tracing the sign of the cross upon her forehead, my tongue finds the last rites as I had heard them spoken over my mother. ‘Salvam fac ancillam tuam—’

I have no idea if the words will help her, but send a silent prayer to a loving God that he will find her tormented soul and keep it safe. When I look down I see she is dead, her eyes glistening in pools of tears, which wet my fingers when I close them.

Viola stumbles away from me when I would have comforted her. ‘We have to save the baby!’

‘’Tis likely dead. Born in such a way…’ I shudder. I have seen shepherds hack open dead ewes to save the lambs, but few survive.

‘But he was stolen from a living mother – he might be alive! We have to do something. Where would Agness have taken him?’

I ease Isabeau’s cloak over her corpse. As the light brightens I can see the footprints better: a single track leading towards Well House and the sorcerer.

Vincent Garland, Steward to Lord Banstock, His Memoir