My mind runs from thought to thought as I return home.
What if Luther cared enough for someone to cover up a murder? What if someone knew enough of his secrets to blackmail him? Then why wouldn’t he just dispose of them? Because he’s many things but he’s not a murderer. Or did he simply do it to cover up a scandal? It’s one thing to sow a field of bastard children – that’s expected of a lord of the manor – but a murder within your very walls. What sort of a man can’t control his own household?
There are just the last skerricks of daylight when I get back. I kick my muddy boots off at the front and sneak in. No one sees me – I’m good at not being seen – and I take the stairs up to the attic, knock softly on Luned’s door. There’s no answer and I did not expect there to be: she’ll be looking after Connell and Sarai in the kitchen while Tib Postlethwaite watches on with equal parts irritation and amusement. I’m careful and quick, checking the chest of drawers, desk and bedside table to no avail. I get down on my hands and knees, peer under the bed. There’s a box, roughly the width of both my hands stretched out; I pull it out. It’s clean, no trace of dust, so it’s not sat there untouched for long periods of time. The wood is old and split in places, the mother-of-pearl inlay is discoloured. Something passed down, I think.
There’s no lock, just a simple bolt and latch. I open it.
Inside: a small notebook, well-thumbed, recipes (spells) scrawled in a barely legible script; a shrivelled paw of something; a calico bag of dried silphium. Then: three small blue bottles, all empty, but the same sort as the one left with the Lewis family; a sachet almost empty, but with a trace of red powder inside, crushed flowers, an identical shade to the blood-bells from the churchyard.
I sit back on the floor, staring into the box. Luned and her cunning woman grandmother. Luned and her desperation to find a way out. Luned saying, You’ve got to protect what little chance you’ve got in the world.
And I think of Miss Hilarie Beckwith and how very beautiful she was. How Luther’s eye would have turned towards her so quickly, whether she was interested or not. And Luned, like Jessamine, watching Luther pursue a new plaything; but Luned, unlike Jessamine, caring whether Luther turned away from her. Luned with so many hopes of getting out, away, all of them strung on the strands from Luther’s purse. Luned, thinking she had so much at stake, when there was never anything at all.
You’ve got to protect what little chance you’ve got in the world.
Luned winding her strong and sturdy little hands around Hilarie Beckwith’s slender neck and squeezing. Telling Luther or him discovering it, then covering for her from guilt or shame or genuine care. Luther, involving Thomas Lewis because he was too lazy to dispose of a body on his own, and Luned having no faith that the coppicer would keep the secret. A panicked plan on her part, not much thought involved, sloppily mixed blood-bell poison thrown in the well, then brought as “medicine from Luther” when they failed to die soon enough.
And then… then perhaps giving up at that second failure?
You’ve got to protect what little chance you’ve got in the world.
Oh, Luned.
I close the box and slide it carefully back beneath the bed. Looking around the little room I make sure nothing is out of place.
Luned has to go.
Why am I trying to help her?
Save her?
Am I?
Do I see myself in her? Trapped and lost and wanting something else? Something more? Something different?
Or is this my mother all over again? Have I been trained to react to broken wicked things? To try and help them in the hope they will be fixed? In the hope of kindness, affection, gratitude?
How broken am I that I keep doing this?
* * *
‘Come to me tonight,’ Eli murmurs in my ear. I’m tidying the folded washing in the laundry room, making it uniform the way Mrs Charlton likes it. When she returns I don’t want her thinking I’ve let this house go to wrack and ruin in her absence. The Binions never make sure the edges all line up properly because the young are too lazy to bother. I take pride in this place as if it is mine. As if I belong. As if I’ll stay. It’s just to keep my mind away from the things that will consume me.
I shake my head. ‘Tomorrow,’ I promise, and he doesn’t insist. He’s learned enough about me to know that won’t help. He disappears with a last soft kiss on the back of my neck and I spend another half an hour bustling about the kitchen and the rest of the downstairs area, making sure all is in order. Tib always goes home straight after she’s finished cooking the evening meal. Burdon is in the hallway when I go into the library to check the fire’s been banked.
‘Miss Todd?’
‘Yes, Burdon.’
‘Have you… it’s a strange question, I know, but have you noticed a change in Master Luther?’
‘Honestly, I don’t think I’ve spent enough time with him to make such a judgement,’ I demur.
‘Don’t be wriggly, Miss Todd, you see plenty around here with those big eyes eating it up, storing it away. Don’t think I don’t notice.’ He waves a finger at me.
‘You’re far more imaginative than I’d given you credit for, Burdon,’ I tease. ‘But you might be right. He does seem… happier. He’s certainly better with the children. Perhaps the time away has given him the opportunity to consider and count his blessings.’
He grumbles, unsatisfied.
‘Sleep well, Burdon. I’ll put out the lamps.’ I watch his light move up the stairs into the blackness of the upper reaches, up, up, up until even the glow is gone. I finish my tidying – fidgeting – and follow him.
* * *
I dream that I’ve found the door to the Witches’ vault once again, and I’m descending into a darkness that grows thicker and thicker, until it swallows the flame of my lantern and begins to feel like soil covering my feet, then rising, rising, rising, until I’m buried and can no longer breathe. There’s a weight on my chest, the heaviness of being in this house of secrets and lies – the ones that reside here and the ones I brought with me.
And I realise it’s not a dream and I truly cannot breathe.
A pillow is being pressed down on my face. So very hard. My lungs are aching. I hook one hand around a wrist that’s holding the pillow and I tear at the skin, feel it come up in furrows beneath my nails. There’s a cry and a curse and the pressure lessens. I take the opportunity to grab at the fabric and push it away. My assailant off-balance, I sit up and swing wildly, my fist connecting with a face, a nose, the crunch of cartilage. A beam of light from a hooded lantern on the dresser shows blonde dishevelled hair, a white nightgown. Luned.
‘What were you doing in my room?’
‘How did you—’ almost breathless, I blurt before I think better of it.
‘Saw you coming down the stairs, didn’t I? No other reason you’d be up there unless you’re doing favours for Burdon.’ Her nose is bleeding, so’s her bottom lip, already swelling. She puts her back to the door and slides down it to sit on the floor. ‘You hit like a man.’
I shrug, get out of bed. Take two steps and my knees go from under me, a sudden weakness. Breathing hard, drawing in cold air that tastes like nectar after the bleak blackness of near-suffocation. Now we’re sitting a few yards apart, staring at each other. I gesture at the discarded pillow. ‘Why did you—’
‘Tib’s boys said you’d been talking to Thomas Lewis and you made him cry. Then I saw your boots by the door – that clay mud from the quarry. Then seeing you come down from the attic, I figured…’
‘You’re smarter than I thought.’
‘And you’re dumber than I thought.’
I can’t fault her on that. Clearing my throat, I say, ‘Her name was Hilarie Beckwith. I don’t really know what she was like, but her aunt misses her. She did not leave here. She’s in the quarry – does she sing to you sometimes? Do you hear her?’
She begins to cry, nodding, palming tears and snot and blood away but just spreading it further over her face.
‘Luther told you he’d had Thomas dispose of her, but you feared he’d betray you. That his fear of Luther wasn’t enough. Two attempts at poisoning, Luned, both quite poor. Trying to murder a whole family. Then you gave up – why?’
‘It’s not easy to kill someone, you know. Hard up close, less so at a distance. But still, you imagine it. Imagine how they suffer. After the second time… it didn’t seem to matter. I thought they’d keep their mouths shut.’
I shake my head. ‘But why did you kill Hilarie Beckwith?’
‘Because of how he looked at her! It was only a matter of time before he set me aside.’
You’ve got to protect what little chance you’ve got in the world.
I shake my head. ‘No. There’d have been nothing on her side of it. She wasn’t interested in men. She’d have been more interested in you than Luther.’
Luned starts to cry harder. She tries to get something out, however I can’t understand. ‘Say again?’
‘I said, I can’t take a fucking step but I land on a thorn.’
She stares at me, shakes her head. I could turn her in – or try. Who knows what the constable in the Tarn would do? Nothing much, I suspect, if Luther threatened his position or looked at him sideways. But if Luther didn’t intervene? My mother didn’t intervene? Who’d believe Luned was helped by the lord of the manor? Nothing would touch Luther, only Luned would be punished. She’s no less guilty, but somehow I can’t bring myself to… She was trying to smother you, I remind myself. It was a pretty half-hearted effort, I reply. I think about all the dreadful things I have done and know I’m in no position to judge her.
‘Have you ever heard the story? About the path of thorns?’ She grins in a fractured fashion through her tears and that looks like it hurts.
‘No. Not that one.’
‘My nan used to tell me. Over and over and I could never work out why. Didn’t tell the others, just me. Why she’d keep saying the same thing and looking at me as if I was an idiot. She’d say, “D’you see? D’you see, girl?” and I’d say yes but she knew I didn’t.’ Luned shakes her head, shrugs. ‘You’re clever. You might get it faster.’
‘Try me,’ I say and think about the ridiculousness of the pair of us sitting on this floor, on this pretty rug, her with her broken nose and me with my knuckles aching and grazed from when I punched her and caught her teeth. Telling stories in the cold hours of the night, no one to save us.
‘Before the beginning of everything, there was a girl whose feet hurt.’
‘Good start.’
‘Do you want to hear it or not?’
I nod.
‘Then shut up.’ She takes a breath. ‘Before the beginning of everything, there was a girl whose feet hurt. She went to her mother and said, “Mam, my feet hurt.” And her mother said Yes. The girl then went to her grandmother and said, “Nan, my feet hurt.” And the grandmother said Yes. The girl went to every woman in her family, in her village. To each and every one she said, “My feet hurt.” They all said Yes. And the girl’s feet hurt forever.’ Luned leans her head back against the door, her neck arched like a swan’s, presented like a sacrifice. ‘So, what do you think?’
‘Life. A woman’s life is the path of thorns,’ I say. ‘We walk through it, our feet will always hurt.’
‘I knew you were smart.’ She presses her lips together, calls me by my name for the first time. ‘Asher? My feet hurt.’
I say, ‘Yes.’
And we both begin to cry.
* * *
It’s desperately cold in the darkness of the stables. Outside the snow has finally begun to fall. My fingers falter as I saddle the brown horse Archie left behind. It’s a good enough beast, not the best, but good enough. Someone saw him coming when they sold it to him, but they didn’t rob him completely. I lead him out of the stall and apologise for sending him into the maw of winter. Luned, dressed in thick trousers, two cable-knit jumpers, a scarf, boots, a woollen cap and a thick coat looks at the animal with suspicion.
‘You can ride, can’t you?’
She nods. ‘Doesn’t mean I like it.’
‘Ride south for an hour – it’s not hard; follow the road, and you’ll come to Tyler’s Burren.’
‘I know what’s around here,’ she snaps. I cut her hair close to the scalp and she looks like a hard pretty boy.
‘There’s an inn. Only spend one night there. No one will be looking for you, at least not for a day or two.’
‘You won’t tell them?’ She fidgets with the strap of the satchel across her back. It contains whatever items of her life she thought worth saving and a purse with some of the Witches’ coins in it. It’s the closest I can give her to a new start. To saving her. Whatever she does now is her choice.
‘I’ll never tell them, Luned.’ I touch her shoulder and she does not move away. ‘Tomorrow morning, take the road for St Sinwin’s. From there take a ship. Go where you will. Stay safe, do no ill, help where you can – this is the price of my aid. Only you will know if you pay it or not.’
She stares at me for a moment, then throws her arms around me. We stay like that for long breaths, until she says, ‘You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and that’s the worst thing in the world.’
‘I’d also suggest you work on your compliments.’ I pull away, bend, and clasp my hands for her foot. With a boost, she scrambles into the saddle. ‘Look after yourself, Luned.’
She urges the horse forward, then reins him in; looking back over her shoulder at me she says, ‘Will I see you again?’
‘Not if you’re lucky.’
We both snort, then she says, ‘Whatever you’re doing here, Asher Todd, I hope it’s worth it. I shouldn’t but I hope you succeed.’
And then she’s gone, the snow muffling the footfalls of Archie’s mount.