56

16th December 1580

I am a man of almost fifty summers yet I race across the spinney towards Well House barely three paces behind the girl, not heeding obstacles in my way. All my thoughts are on Viola ahead of me. I must be there when she confronts – as I believe she must – the demented woman that Isabeau charged with stealing her baby. I barely think what has happened is credible, yet I have seen it with my own eyes, seen the butchered body of Isabeau.

The garden gate stands ajar, and as if Agness’s guilt was not proven enough it is confirmed by a bloodied handprint upon the frame. The sky casts a blue light over the frost, the last stars melt into the beginning of day. My Viola barely checks, but throws herself through and into the garden beyond, her skirts caught above her knees. Past an orchard of gnarled ancients, she sets to flight a dozen rooks in the low branches. Near the house she finally pauses, giving me a moment to catch her, to stand with my flanks heaving like a plough horse. A figure stands, side on to us, wrapped in a rough cloth, her hair unbound, a mass of wiry curls. She spares us no glances, but is rapt in the gaze of the man. He stands bareheaded, in simple shirt and hose, his boots unlaced, and stares back at her.

Viola would have gone forward, but I catch her arm, murmuring in what breath I can spare: ‘Wait, my child.’

She nods, and leans against me. Agness and Solomon stare like fighting cats.

‘Your French whore is dead.’ Agness’s voice is strident, deep like a man’s, triumphant. ‘I have saved your child from her filthy body.’ She holds up a silent bundle to him. He glances at us, his face distorted with agony.

‘Master Vincent. Tell me: does she speak truth or lie?’

I could not dissemble. ‘Mistress Isabeau lies slain. Her babe is gone from her belly.’

‘No!’ The man’s shout is harsh with his anguish, and Viola flinches in my arms. ‘You are a murderess! A monster!’

Agness shook her head, cradling the bundle in her arms. ‘Nay, sir, it was a French witch that had you in her spell. See – your babe. We will raise him as our son.’ She reaches out with the bundle, as if to show him, but I hear no sounds from the infant, not even after all the shouting.

Viola steps towards them and calls out; her young voice cuts like birdsong through the rough voices. ‘Let me see him, Mistress. Mayhap he is cold in this air. Let me warm him.’

‘You?’ the woman spits at Viola and the girl halts. ‘You think to wed a man like Solomon Seabourne? Back to your books and music, child. A man needs a woman and a babe a mother.’

Seabourne has covered his face in his hands, but looks up at this. We behold Agness draw a dagger from her cloak with one bloodied hand, crushing the infant against her with the other. ‘You have no claim on him.’

‘Nor you, Mistress.’ Viola lifts her chin, ignores the knife, and walks forward. I make a grab for her arm, but her sleeve slides through my fingers.

Solomon’s man Kelley steps from the shadow of the house. ‘Mistress, let us get the lamb within, by the fire.’

Viola holds out her hand. ‘Yes, let us help the babe. It cannot be good for him to be in this cold, unswaddled, Mistress Agness. I will go into the house with him, then you and Master Seabourne can talk.’ Her young voice is pleading, and Agness glances down at the bundle, at once uncertain, perhaps.

‘He is pale,’ she muses.

Solomon gathers himself, and says with his natural authority: ‘Give the child to Viola, Mistress, and Kelley shall take both indoors. And you may say what you wish to say to me.’

‘Solomon, my love.’ Such is the woman’s voice altered at this, I barely recognise it.

While she is momentarily distracted, Viola reaches her, ignoring the wicked blade and its vile stains. She stands at her elbow like any woman admiring another’s child. I hold my breath for fear.

‘He is bonny,’ she says, in a gentle voice, like her mother’s. ‘But he looks pale and cold. Poor boy. Let me get him by the kitchen fire.’

‘Give the maid the child,’ I add, ‘and we will resolve this.’

Agness turns upon me with a snarl, and great hatred contorts her features. ‘Give the child to her, the bastard child of a bastard?’ She spits at my feet, then. ‘You think the whole manor does not know that you are Viola’s true father?’

Viola spins around, staring at me. ‘It is not true.’

I answer loudly, ‘It is not true, though, God forgive me, I loved the lady truly. Nothing passed between us but words. Viola is my brother’s child, born in wedlock. Give her the babe. She will keep him well by the fire, Mistress Agness, and we will fetch the rector to your aid.’

The woman hesitates, then kicks aside the wooden cover that lies over the old well. I gaze across the garden at Solomon, and see that he is not trying to cozen the woman, but walking closer to her.

‘Better he drowns than be given to her,’ says Agness, but I see uncertainty in her expression.

Viola steps forward, her voice gentle. ‘Mistress, I have seen that I should not marry Master Solomon and I will break off my betrothal. But God will never forgive you if you harm that baby.’

For a moment the woman hesitates. She unfolds the bloodstained cloth, an apron I realise, and I see the inside is wet with scarlet. The baby’s face is white, his eyes closed, his budded lips blue. A slash down his chin tells of some injury, perhaps gained when his mother was butchered.

‘He does not move,’ the woman wonders, and Viola reaches a hand towards him, though her fingers are shaking.

‘Come, Mistress,’ she offers, but the woman turns to me, meets my eyes over Viola’s shoulder, and her lips turn into a sneer.

‘If I cannot have his child, none will.’ She turns towards the well, and as I leap forward to grab Viola, Agness throws the child into its black mouth.

My fingertips catch the back of Viola’s cloak as she screams and dives towards the edge, falling to her knees, sobbing something incoherent. Agness’s face is a mask of triumph.

Viola falls half across the well’s mouth and I see her scrabble at the stone edge to brace herself, staring into its black depths. I stumble over to her, catching one arm, seeing deep below the white of the apron and its lost burden. I pull Viola towards the shelter of the hedge and cradle her as she sobs in my arms.

I look up at Solomon. His finger is outstretched at Agness, who has stopped not a half-dozen steps from the well.

‘Master Vincent, get Viola away.’ His voice is strained, hoarse with his rage, his grief. ‘There is the witch. For she is possessed by the Devil. Who else would slaughter a babe, and a woman who has done her no wrong? You are the villain here, Mistress Agness!’

The woman totters a step backwards. ‘But you smiled at me! That day, outside the church, upon your betrothal to the Lady Elizabeth.’

‘Perhaps I did smile at his lordship’s servants and tenants! For I was betrothed to a gentle girl and had not yet met Isabeau Duchamp.’

‘Solomon, my love!’ Agness cries, her words screeched.

‘No love, indifference.’ He steps closer to her and his hand shoots out to clamp her knife arm. ‘I did not know you existed.’

‘Master, no!’ Kelley darts closer and stands between the pair and the well, a brave move. ‘Do not compound one black murder with another.’

‘One murder? She has slaughtered both mother and child, and would no doubt take Viola as well.’ He shoulders Kelley aside, dragging the now silent Agness closer to the ring of stones.

Viola shudders in my arms like a bird. ‘Go, Uncle,’ she whispers. ‘Do not let my husband be a murderer. Let Agness come to justice.’

I watch Agness fight in Seabourne’s hands but every movement brings her closer to the edge, until it lies not two paces from her feet. She drops to her knees, somehow losing half a pace, and digs her fingers into the frozen grass.

‘Mercy!’ she cries.

Seabourne stares down at her. ‘Mercy? What do you know of the word, madam? You have killed a fine woman and a helpless baby.’

I stride towards the pair, holding one hand out to stop this, as Agness bends her head, her shoulders shaking. ‘I have loved you since the day I saw you, since we saw each other.’

‘I did not see you. You are no one to me.’ Seabourne’s words are harsh, but I see his hand waver.

In a bound, she shakes him off. I stand between the madwoman and Viola as she screeches at me, pointing the knife at my chest. ‘You! You have done this – you brought the French witch here, you tried to marry Solomon to Banstock’s bastard—’ She stabs at me, as Solomon’s arms sweep her off her feet. The knife grazes my arm and she struggles wildly as he spins around. The circle of stones seem to reach for her faltering boots as she fights free of his arms. She falls backwards, screams once and then disappears into the blackness.

Vincent Garland, Steward to Lord Banstock, His Memoir