The next morning I was woken by a sharp rap on the front door. It was a little after daybreak. Bea and I had spent the night sleeping by the hearth, which was now barely warm.
‘All right, all right!’ Ellen cried, still tucking her hair under her cap as she opened the door.
Dr Blood came in without being asked; I supposed that was what landlords did.
‘I come with solemn news,’ he announced, sounding pleased. ‘A word with your guest, if I may.’
Moments later, I was facing Dr Blood, the knot in my stomach telling me this news he brought was of Susannah. He’d already asked Ellen to leave the room. I could hear her listening from the top of the stairs, and was glad she was nearby. Bea, who’d insisted on standing, clung to my skirts.
‘Thanks to the floodwaters receding overnight on the land beyond the village, a discovery has been made – of ten people, drowned.’ He rubbed hands together. The dry, papery sound set my teeth on edge. ‘There’s a young girl amongst them who may be Susannah Spicer.’
‘Have you seen her yourself?’ I asked, willing it not to be true.
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I’m sending you.’
‘Oh no, not me,’ I begged. I’d seen enough dead bodies to last a lifetime.
‘It’s not a plea,’ he replied. ‘It’s an order. If the dead girl is Miss Spicer, you’ll search her for any needlework she might have about her. It’s not fitting for a person of my standing to be seen handling a corpse. You, on the other hand—’
I looked at him sharply. So he was still trying to win favour from the king, even if it meant robbing a dead girl. He was as ruthless as a fox amongst hens.
‘I’m not doing it,’ I told him straight.
He studied me, taking in Ellen’s too-big dress. ‘It seems you’re not a boy, after all.’
‘I’ve always been a girl. You simply didn’t realise.’
He laughed unpleasantly. ‘Oh, there’s plenty I realise, believe me, especially in people who are a little unusual.’
‘I don’t work for you, Dr Blood.’ I was flustering a little. ‘You can’t order me to do anything.’
Quick as a finger snap, he grabbed Bea off the floor.
‘What—?’
I tried to take her from him but he twisted away so she was out of reach. He was holding her so awkwardly my heart was in my mouth.
‘Fuuuffffaaaa!’ Bea cried.
‘Give her back at once,’ I spat.
‘Fetch me the needlework, my dear, and you can have the baby,’ Dr Blood said.
‘And if I don’t?’
He held Bea at arm’s length, inspecting her like an object, and one that was kicking and turning rapidly red in the face. ‘Another drowned corpse shouldn’t raise many questions.’
I rushed at him, making a grab for Bea. Whip quick, he twisted away, again, at the same time landing a blow on the side of my head. Everything went blurry. A foot in my ribs sent me sprawling on the floor.
‘Fortune!’ Ellen cried from her spot on the stairs.
‘Just do as he says, child!’ warned Mistress Cary, who’d joined her. ‘Don’t make trouble for yourself, or for us!’
They couldn’t help me, I realised, not unless they wanted to risk losing their home.
Bea was crying, holding out her arms and begging me to take her. I got up slowly, holding my hurting side. Dr Blood opened the outside door.
‘Bring anything you find straight to my house in Glastonbury,’ he instructed. ‘We’ll wait for you there.’
He had me cornered. I didn’t have much choice but to do as he asked.
*
Since all the other routes from the village were underwater, the road to the common was easy to spot. A track, not quite wide enough for a horse and cart, ran steadily away from the cottages. Despite the early hour, it was already busy with dogs, children, women in bonnets, men in black hats. News of the ten corpses had obviously travelled fast.
Trudging uphill, I grew more distressed. I should’ve held on tighter to Bea. I should’ve fought harder. I dreaded seeing Susannah’s dead body, and having to search her for the crewel work. All I could do was hope it’d been lost in the flood, because I knew all too well which piece she’d hidden up her sleeve – I’d watched her doing it. Even if she was dead, that piece would still cause trouble. It would fuel the arguments that witchcraft was to blame, and if they couldn’t pin the guilt on a dead Susannah, they’d find some other scapegoat.
Up ahead a woman in dark clothes waved for us to stop. She was standing on what seemed to be the brow of a hill, where sheep grazed on, oblivious. I was starting to wonder how the flood could’ve risen so high and dropped again so fast, when behind her I saw how sharply the ground fell away. About twenty feet down, and glinting in the sunshine, floodwater lay in every direction.
‘Only next of kin should come any further.’ The woman barred the way with her arm.
Around me discussions started up in earnest about who should go from each family. I held back, not wanting to be the first. All the drowned bodies, cows, pigs, horses, I’d seen yesterday flashed in my head. I couldn’t imagine Susannah looking like that, and felt sick all over again.
‘You, girl, are you coming or going?’ The old woman’s voice made me snap to attention.
But she wasn’t talking to me. Another girl had appeared, staggering towards us. She was wearing a nightgown – at least, it might’ve been one once. The garment was shredded at the hem and splattered with mud and goodness knew what. She had a ghostly, staring look to her, even though she was shaking her head at the old woman and saying no, her brother and father weren’t amongst the dead.
It didn’t occur to me who the girl was until she was almost level with me.
‘It’s you!’ I yelped, throwing my arms round her.
Susannah froze. Then, realising who I was despite my skirts, she hugged me back and burst into tears.
‘Oh, Fortune!’ Susannah sobbed. ‘I was so sure everyone had died.’
Taking her hand, I led her a little way from the crowds. She was shivering, so I put my jacket over her shoulders and gently pushed the hair from her face. I wanted to see her properly, to know it really was her.
‘I tried to hold on to you, truly I did,’ I said, tears coming.
‘I know.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘But the sea was too strong. I was lucky enough in the end, though.’
‘Did someone rescue you? Was it Ellis?’
‘No, not him,’ she said sadly. ‘I clung on to a door and floated with it for I don’t know how long. I saw terrible things, Fortune. Things I’ll never forget.’
‘Me too.’
We stood for a moment, letting everything sink in.
‘I have some news,’ I said, when she looked a little stronger. ‘Grave news. Do you wish to hear?’
‘Your father, I’m sorry to say, has drowned,’ I said. ‘And Mistress Bagwell, and Jennet the kitchen maid – I saw them all. I’ve no word about Ellis, though.’
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. Nodded.
‘But please, be happy, because Bea is alive,’ I told her. ‘She’s in Glastonbury.’
‘Oh! Thank goodness!’ Susannah’s hands flew to her face.
‘Dr Blood has her, presently.’
‘The Dr Blood?’ She looked surprised. ‘That’s very decent of him.’
‘There’s nothing decent about that man,’ I replied. A glance over my shoulder and I dropped my voice. ‘Listen, have you still got that piece of crewel work?’
‘I have.’ She touched her sleeve warily. ‘I should burn it, shouldn’t I? I don’t deserve even to be here after what I’ve done.’
‘This flood hasn’t happened because of you,’ I told her firmly. ‘Whatever you think, whatever anyone says, you’re not a—’
‘Witch?’
‘Shhh!’ I hissed in alarm. ‘Don’t say that word!’
Yet for the swiftest moment, she did look unusual – eyes as sharp as daggers in a pale pinched face. Not a witch, exactly, but someone mysterious, who I still didn’t feel I knew very well.
‘Dr Blood’s got it into his head that your crewel work will win him the king’s favour. He’s desperate to get his hands on it.’ I hesitated. ‘The problem is, he’s holding Bea as a sort of hostage.’
‘A hostage? Well, he can have my dratted sewing. I never want to see it again.’ She started to pull the crewel work from her sleeve.
‘No!’ I insisted. ‘We can’t give it to him.’
‘What?’
‘We need to grab Bea – somehow – and get away from here as fast as we can.’
Susannah drew in her chin.
‘I refuse to run anywhere,’ she said. ‘If Dr Blood has Bea, as you say, then I’ll simply go and fetch her back.’
I thought of how he’d kicked me to the ground: my rib was still sore from it. ‘Susannah, the man holding your sister, who wants your crewel work, is a witch-hunter and the local magistrate. He’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants.’
She frowned. ‘No, he’s merely an odious little tooth-puller who happens to be Father’s business partner.’
‘Exactly.’ I took a deep breath. ‘He and your father were in it together. I overheard them talking at the Twelfth Night feast, about needing the king’s support to get a sugar cargo across the sea, and a witch-hunt is how they plan to do it. Your father had other motives too, as you know.’
Very slowly, she seemed to understand.
‘Is this about Mother dying, and the midwife’s herbs? Does Father – did Father,’ she corrected herself, ‘want revenge?’
‘He did. And now there’s all this flooding. Like your father did when he lost your mother, people are looking for someone to blame.’
She grew paler.
‘You need to trust me,’ I pleaded. ‘We’ll get Bea and go to Fair Maidens Lane, where my family are. We’ll be safe there. My brother will protect us. And we’ll try to find Ellis too.’
‘You’re giving a lot of orders, Fortune,’ she remarked.
True, it wasn’t the normal way of things for a servant to make the decisions. But then, I’d never seen a gentleman’s daughter in a public place wearing only her filthy nightwear, either. The fact was Berrow Hall had gone, and with it the life we’d had there. This new, devastated world of ours was a very different place. Who we’d once been didn’t matter so much any more. First and foremost, we had to be survivors, and that meant getting away from here as fast as we could.