Slowly Fell
1589
"Belle Arden, I've known you for most of my living days, and I can see now that you have an idea for mischief in that fair head of yours. And as the man who cares most for you in all the world, I'm telling you not to do it. For both our sakes."
Jep Wyatt was standing by his work bench, the commissioned almery before him only half completed.
"Stay here with me," he said, "grieve for your sisters, but put that bitter need for vengeance aside. It will eat you up. It will kill you, if you do not set it free."
But the woman turned to look at him, her blue-eyed gaze wide and bemused. "I cannot think what you mean to say, Jep Wyatt."
He put down his hammer and gripped her arm. "Let the matter rest. Hold your tongue and marry me."
"And let my sisters' murder go unavenged? How could you ask that of me? Mayhap," she walked around the bench, looking at his work, "now that he pays you a fine price to work for him, you are his creature and think of his needs before you think o' mine." Although her face was sweet and youthful, her tone innocent, Jep was never fooled. Inside this woman there lurked a sharp, twisted blade of wrath, a vicious weapon forged in dark fury and wrapped around with silk and velvet to cut when least expected. He'd sliced his own flesh upon it a few times, and always cursed himself for coming back again for another wound. But there he was, trying to save them both.
"Amos Wilding and the folk of this village will live to regret what they did to your sisters," he urged keenly. "Their own consciences will plague them enough."
But that was not sufficient for Belle. He might have known it would not be. She'd never been content in Slowly Fell, for she was the restless sort who thought there was a better life for her elsewhere. A bigger world. Her lust for life and adventure was one of the first things he'd fallen in love with— the way her eyes filled with excitement at the prospect of new amusement. Now it only caused him pain, for he was no longer the amusement she craved. Her yearning had grown beyond the simple life and love he offered.
The youngest of four daughters, Isabelle Arden had grown up protected by her elder sisters, in their cottage in the forest where they brewed various herbal potions, balms, wines and cures for all manner of ailments. The Arden sisters had also tended the bedside of expectant mothers, presiding over the births of almost every child in the village for the past thirty years. But because they lived with no man among them, were often absent from church, and welcomed few visitors to their cottage in the woods, the women were regarded by some in the village as rebellious and "eccentric". And it was never wise, in their small world, to be seen as different, to defy the expectations and rules of those who considered themselves superior.
The Arden sisters were stubborn, fearless of whomever they offended, and lived without the bounds of law. A lengthy dispute with the local magistrate, Amos Wilding, over the ownership of a thirty-acre plot of land, had finally led to accusations of witchcraft. It had become a popular way to be rid of one's unwanted neighbors in certain parts of the country, and although Slowly Fell was a village to which news of the outside world filtered slowly and never reliably, they knew about witches and the rules for uncovering their wickedness.
While Belle was away at the market in Shrewsbury, selling her sister's potions, her sisters, Joan, Margery and Alyce had been tried, one at a time, by ducking-stool in the village pond. When she returned, a week later, to find all three sisters drowned, she swore vengeance on the villagers. Particularly on Amos Wilding.
"If it happened to your sisters, you would feel the same rage, as I," she said to her lover.
But Jep had no sisters. He had nobody in the world except for Belle, whom he had loved for many years. Long before she turned her gaze upon him.
"Let it be," he begged again. He didn't like Amos either— didn't care for the way he looked at Belle, but that man held all the power in Slowly Fell. He had inherited a fortune from his father, a wool-trader and moneylender, and had built a great house overlooking the village. Pompous and arrogant, he was everything Jep, the village blacksmith, a man of simple but passionate tastes, thoroughly despised. "Keep quiet now, don't speak up against him, and let me—"
"No, I shan't. They want a witch, then a witch is what they'll get."
Reminding Belle that he loved her would do no good. She knew that already. She knew every thought in his head— probably in every other head too. The villagers of Slowly Fell had always thought her the harmless one, even a little addled for the way she daydreamed and talked to herself. But there was something darker and even more willful inside Belle, more dangerous perhaps because it was hidden beneath that innocent exterior. Jep sometimes thought her as deep, dark and treacherous as the village pond. A man had to keep his wits about him if he went fishing there.
"I'll make Wilding pay," she muttered. "I'll bring this entire village to its knees, and I'll rip his heart out with my bare hands."
"Belle!" He struggled to keep her in his arms. "No good will come of this. Stay here with me. We shall be married, and I can protect you then."
"Protect me?" She looked at him and laughed. "You make that special set of thumbscrews to replace those in Amos Wildings's cupboard and once I'm arrested that is all the protection I need, Jep Wyatt. Prove the strength of your love for me, by giving me that way out."
"Then what? If you escape the ducking-stool with the help of my counterfeit thumbscrews, what next? The villagers will be even more convinced of your guilt, even more sure that you're a witch."
The folk of Slowly Fell were not educated or sophisticated in the ways of the greater world. Most of them had never been further afield than Shrewsbury. Anything unusual that happened in the village was attributed to powers beyond their reach— whether angelic or devilish.
"Oh, they'll know they cannot destroy me. I shall plague them." Her eyes gleamed and two hot spots of angry color bloomed on her cheeks. "I shall declare a curse on Slowly Fell unless Amos Wilding gives me all in his possession. I will make him pluck out his heart—" She gestured with her fingers clawed through the air, "— and give it to me on a plate."
He shook his head. "This is madness."
"The villagers will be so scared of me that they'll rise up and make him do it. You'll see."
After a pause, he said, "And what of me? What of my heart? Is that to be plucked out too?"
She looked confused then, just for a moment, as if she might have had just a whisper of doubt. Then she removed his hand from her arm and lifted it to kiss his knuckles. "I can do far more for you, give you more... provide for you, once I have the Wilding fortune in my clasp, can't I, Jep?"
"I don't want riches, Belle. All I want is you." It was plain for him to see. He kept his life simple.
But she was too far into her plan and would heed neither his warnings, nor his pleas. Grieving for her sisters, set on her path for vengeance, she was unstoppable, and he saw that the only thing he could do was craft those counterfeit thumbscrews with which to replace the set kept in Amos Wilding's possession.
* * * *
Belle challenged Amos to put her in those thumbscrews when he tied her to the ducking-stool and he, being an arrogant fool, could not let the challenge go unanswered.
When the ducking-stool came up empty out of the pond and Belle, earlier secured into it so thoroughly, had vanished completely, superstition and fear sank over their valley like a cloud of fog. They could not understand what she had done. Therefore it was "witchcraft".
She waited for her moment and came back two days later, supposedly emerging from the depths of the pond, and by then the village was convinced of her dark magic. How else could she have survived? Enjoying her performance, she walked across the village green in her wet gown and with pond weeds strewn through her hair, trailing a damp snake through the grass behind her.
"Every first born son of Slowly Fell will die before his second birthday," she declared to the shocked and horrified villagers. "That is the curse I put upon you all. Unless..." And then she turned and pointed at Amos Wilding. "The magistrate who caused the deaths of my sisters, sacrifices his shriveled, callused heart and half his riches into my hands."
Jep, watching all this from the gathered crowd of villagers, saw Amos turn white as all eyes fell upon him and he knew that Belle had them all trapped. They wouldn't dare try to kill her again.
* * * *
Jep sweated over the almery, pouring into it all his heartache, all his anger.
It was destined for the church— a gift from Amos Wilding, something to buy his way into heaven.
So Jep carved this story inside the almery, where nobody but he and god would ever know it could be seen. He was a quieter person than Belle and took his vengeance out in quieter ways.
But then there is always quiet before a storm. A menacing air that creeps in, heavy and still it lurks. Until the rage breaks through.
Jep Wyatt's quiet was no different.