I don’t like to go out when there’s a storm brewing. Not just because my gowns are threadbare and the soles of my boots so thin I can feel the gravel through them, though that doesn’t make the weather feel more welcoming. It’s more that when I’m seen around town as the waves are churning and the clouds are whipping through the dark sky, people remember.
So I was scurrying along, hood up and cloak drawn around me to keep the wind out, in case any whispers reached my ears. It was years now, since my husband had died. Drowned when his fishing boat was dashed against the rocks in a storm. But people still remembered.
I knew why they blamed me, of course. I wasn’t stupid. Women weren’t supposed to hold power – as Gregor Kincaid had made very clear – and I had known that when John left me his position as burgess on the parish council, people weren’t happy. But it was perfectly legal and there for all to see in his official papers. There was nothing anyone could do about it. Except talk and whisper about how the storm that killed my John had come from nowhere. How the weather had been fine, until it wasn’t, and had someone made it happen? Had someone caused the sea to swell and the waves to crash and the lightning to fork? Someone like me.
Many years had gone since then. I’d been carrying Alice when John drowned, and now she was grown. But people still talked. It wasn’t malicious – not often. Just careless gossip and chitter-chatter that had died away over the years and come back just as strong, since Gregor Kincaid returned.
I had reached the fisherman’s cottage on the edge of town, and now I knocked on the door. It opened at once.
‘Honor,’ said the woman who stood there, her white pinny splashed with blood. ‘I am pleased to see you.’
I took off my cloak and gloves. ‘Where is she?’
‘Upstairs. She’s in such pain but nothing is happening.’
‘Is the bairn’s head down?’
‘I think not.’ The woman – Mary, a capable farmer’s wife who often delivered babies in the town – looked worried. ‘I tried to turn it before her pains began but try as I might, nothing happened.’
I picked up my bag. ‘Take me to her.’
The mother was leaning over her bed, crying with pain, when I entered. She looked up at me with fear in her eyes.
‘My baby is dying, Honor,’ she said, reaching out to me. ‘And I am dying. You must help.’
‘Hush now, Bridie,’ I told her. ‘No one will die today.’ I busied myself taking a small bottle of oil from my bag, and some dried herbs. ‘Let me see you.’
I helped her up onto the bed, washed my hands in a basin of water that Mary was holding, and then gently examined Bridie. She was exhausted but the baby wasn’t coming yet. Mary was right – the little one was trying to come feet first. I looked at Bridie carefully.
‘How long have the pains been coming?’
She shook her head, tears welling in her eyes. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘It feels like days, but it can’t be. Two days, I think and one night?’
In surprise, I glanced at Mary who gave a tiny nod.
‘You should have come to get me sooner,’ I scolded. ‘Bridie, I need to turn your baby inside your belly.’
Bridie lay back against the bed, looking pale and weak. She didn’t have the strength to say yes or no.
Quickly, I crumbled the herbs into a bowl and with a taper from the fire, I lit the leaves. They caught straightaway and burned well, filling the room with scent. Then I uncorked the bottle and rubbed the oil into Bridie’s bulging belly. More smells filled the air.
‘What is that?’ Mary said, her brow furrowed in suspicion.
‘Lavender,’ I told her honestly. There were other things in there too, but I never told anyone what was in the tinctures and oils I cooked up. Only Alice, who was proving to be a capable and creative apprentice.
I put my hands on Bridie’s skin, feeling the baby move beneath my fingers. ‘Come on, wee one,’ I said softly. ‘I know there’s not much room, but you have to move.’
Bridie groaned and I stroked her head gently. ‘It’s going to feel odd for a minute, but you’ll be right as rain after. Ready?’
I thought Bridie would agree to anything I asked of her, so worn out was she. She nodded and I pushed on the side of her abdomen, not hard but with just enough pressure in the right spots, and then I gently rubbed and coaxed as the baby wiggled round, making her taut skin ripple like the waves on the sea on a calm day.
‘Ohhh,’ Bridie moaned and then her eyes widened. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
I looked down at the bed, where liquid was trickling. ‘It’s your waters,’ I reassured her. ‘Things are moving now.’
I helped her back onto her feet, so she could walk around the room.
‘Don’t let her lie down,’ I warned Mary. ‘She’s tired but she needs to stay upright. It’ll help.’
Mary rolled her eyes but she nodded. ‘And keep the herbs burning,’ I added. ‘They’re soothing.’
I packed up my things and pulled on my cloak. Mary pushed some coins into my hand and I tucked them away without looking. Then leaving Mary tending to Bridie, I quietly went downstairs, pausing only to look in at Bridie’s husband, Conall, who was asleep in a chair by the fire. He’d never know I’d been here unless Bridie told him. I wondered if she would.
Outside, the weather hadn’t worsened as I’d thought it would, but it was still cold and windy. I headed for home through the dark lanes and found my daughter, Alice, standing at the side of our cottage looking at the sky.
‘I think we’re over the worst of it,’ I said.
‘It’s passed,’ she agreed, still staring at the heavens. Then she dropped her head and looked at me. ‘Did the bairn live?’
‘He’s not born yet, but he will.’
‘It’s a boy?’
I nodded. I always knew if babies would be boys or girls. Just as I knew Bridie’s wee one would survive.
‘Did you tell Bridie?’
‘No,’ I said with a chuckle. ‘Though I don’t think she’d have heard if I had. She was worn out, poor thing.’
‘How much did they give you?’
I put my hand in my cloak and pulled out the coins Mary had pushed into my hand. It wasn’t much. Alice made a face and I waved away her disapproval. ‘Better than a kick in the shins,’ I said. ‘Come inside and we shall have some warm milk.’
Thistle cottage was small, but it was plenty big enough for Alice and me. We didn’t have a lot of room inside, but we had a great deal of it outside. My husband had been a clever man. He went from having one fishing boat to running three boats out of the harbour every night. He made money and he spent it on land. And because he was a landowner, he was entitled to be a burgess with a seat on the parish council. He was older than me, my John, and had always thought he would never marry. But marry we did and John built our cottage with his own hands – and some help from the men in town. I named it for the thistles that grew in the garden, and we made our home together. Our land stretched from the Kincaids’ estate to the south, and Old Man Fraser’s farm to the east. The churchyard was our border to the west and at the front of the cottage was the sea.
‘Did anyone see you go to Bridie’s?’ Alice looked worried as we went inside.
I shook my head. ‘Just Mary.’
‘I hate looking over our shoulders all the time,’ Alice said with a groan. ‘We are doing good work. You have saved that baby’s life, and Bridie’s too I imagine, and still we need to keep it quiet.’
‘It’s for the best.’ I poured some milk into a pot and set it on the fire to warm. ‘We can’t be too careful. Not with Gregor Kincaid dripping his poison into the ears of the town.’
Alice pushed her hair back from her face and I thought how much she looked like her father. ‘It’s not fair,’ she said. ‘We do nothing wrong.’
‘There will always be those like Gregor who think women should not own land, or hold authority over men,’ I said, wrapping a cloth around the pot handle and pouring the warm milk into mugs. ‘And for that reason, we must give them no cause to suspect us of any wrongdoing.’
With a sulky nod, Alice sipped her milk. ‘You are right,’ she said. ‘But I don’t like it.’
‘We are doing well enough. Don’t we have a good life? We’re luckier than some.’
Alice looked as though she was going to argue, but she didn’t. I was pleased. My daughter had grown to have a stubborn nature and a mouth that often ran away with her, and while I admired her ferocity, it wasn’t always fun to be on the receiving end of it. She was clever, too. John had taught me to read and write and I’d taught Alice, and she’d picked it up in no time. She had persuaded me to keep records of my remedies, writing down the combinations of herbs, flowers, thistles and other ingredients that made up my tinctures. My potions, Alice called them with a wry smile. Now we had bundles of paper, tied up with string, with remedies for every ailment you could think of, from heartburn to unwanted pregnancies. And more besides. People from all over town came to us for help, but they did it quietly, because ten years ago, and twenty years before that, and decades before that, over and over again, women like us had been taken from their beds and punished for being different or having knowledge. So we worked quietly and I saved most of the money we earned. Because I never knew if one day we would have to run.