‘What have you brought?’ I sigh.
‘A child,’ Thomas replies, looking proud as a cat that’s dragged in a dead pigeon.
‘Sir, I can see that.’
‘Mistress, do not be ungenerous. A child sent out of the storm. By God, perhaps,’ he adds hopefully. ‘A girl-child, I believe. Would you have her sent elsewhere? William would be most welcoming.’
The creature writhes, desperate to be away, but Thomas’s hand is clamped firmly round her wrist. Her struggles grow more and more hopeless until she droops, worn out.
He lowers his voice to a pious purr. ‘It is our duty.’
‘Sir, indeed.’
Thomas loosens his grip and the girl falls to her knees, gasping. I hold out my hand to set her aright but she shrinks away. Her gaze bucks and dives about the room, resting nowhere. She is so covered with mud as to be more beast than girl. And she stinks. Thomas watches as I drag the wooden tub from its corner.
‘Will you help, sir?’ I pant. ‘I shall need more water bringing from the well if I am to get her clean.’
‘Me?’
There is a brief silence.
‘Sir,’ I continue, patiently. ‘If I go, the child will run away. Unless that is what you wish. Perhaps, on this one occasion, you can help.’
‘I am always willing to labour for others,’ he replies primly.
He picks up the bucket, after I have pointed out where it is stored, but still does not leave, staring at the girl and myself.
‘Sir. The water.’
‘Yes, yes.’
At last he is gone. I dip a towel into the pot on the hearth and drag it across her cheek. At first she struggles, but with gentle cooing and murmuring I bring a semblance of calm. Each swipe makes her wince, as though to be touched causes pain. I stroke more and more gently until I barely brush her skin with the cloth. By and by her frame undoes its knots a little.
‘You see?’ I murmur. ‘No need to fight. Whoever your enemies are, I am not one of them.’
She mews and tucks her fingers into her chest like a squirrel. From the size of her, anyone would be forgiven for thinking her a child. Anyone save myself. I am a small woman too and I know signs men do not. There’s a sprout of hair under her arms and a feather between her legs, so pale as to be almost white. Her breasts are no more than a whisper of skin, but the swollen nipples betray her womanhood.
I can count every bone in the basket of her ribs. She is gap-toothed, her teeth ridged with brown stripes, her nose cracked by some hand long ago. And there, running up the centre of her back, across her shoulders and chest is downy fur. So pale it can barely be seen, it is the silver-grey you find on the inside of a beanscod.
‘If you were a dog, I’d say you’d been beaten, chained up and starved half to death,’ I remark. ‘Fur or no fur, you’re no pup, and I’ll not treat you as such.’
She glares at me, eyes big as oysters, and lets out what sounds a lot like a warning growl.
‘Don’t you worry about him. What I’ve seen here is none of his business.’
In my mind I see Thomas discovering her dusting of hair. How he’d straightaway declare her a wonder, the same as when the Saint transformed a wolf into a man to be his servant. He’d make her his miracle: dress her in golden robes and parade her round the church. She’s been in this house for less time than it takes to boil a cabbage, but he’ll have to put me in the pot and boil me along with it before I let him do any such thing.
‘What passes between you and me goes no further,’ I declare, and surprise myself with the fire in my voice.
I am so carried away that I think I see the cloud of unknowing lift from her expression for an instant. But it is nothing but my fancy: her mouth droops, lips gleaming with spittle, her eyes pond-water dim.
As the days lengthen into summer, so does my delight grow that I am blessed with this maid. When I first came to Thomas’s house I chattered away to myself, but the sound served only to remind me that I was on my own, and I stopped. My voice no longer dribbles into emptiness, now that it has another pair of ears to pour itself into. It is an unhoped-for pleasure to have a companion, even if she neither understands nor answers.
I begin to recognise the sounds she makes: mewling when she hungers, only quietening when I feed her. I learn her odd ways: how she looks in my direction, yet not quite at me. The moment her gaze and mine meet, she slips away, as though her eyes are greasy in their sockets.
And by the Saint, how she runs: wild as a vixen. She starts the day in the stable, for she beds with the mare and will tolerate no other cradle. It was sufficient for the Blessed Virgin and our Lord so I have no complaint. As soon as she wakes, she’s off, I know not where, nor can she tell me. She could race to Jerusalem and back again for all I know.
I tell her not to stray too far; tell her the forest is full of bears. She heeds me not. I could speak in tongues for the difference it makes. In my heart I know the selfish truth of it: I wish to keep her beside me. But you can’t tell a fat baby not to fart. In the end, I let her flit to and fro. The easier I let her go, the faster she flies back to this little ark. By and by she stops longer, departs less and I believe I learn a lesson about love.
The weeks go by, and the feast of Saint Etheldreda is passed by that of the holy martyr of Canterbury. It is the season to fetch laver from the beach.
We tramp through the dunes: Bet, Alice, Isabel and myself. And of course the Maid. She sniffs at every clump of gorse, wrinkling her nose at its sweetness, only to leap away with a wail when the breeze whips thorns into her face. I too was caught out as a child, thrusting my hands into the bushes to pick those yellow flowers. Her scrapes are soon forgotten. She stoops, pawing at the bones of a rabbit picked clean long ago by a fox and scoured bright by the sand. She lets out a small whimper.
‘One of your four-legged brothers ate him,’ Alice tells her, and laughs.
‘Ah, she’s hungry, that’s what it is,’ says Bet. She cries, ‘Here, Vixen!’ and pats her thigh.
The Maid scampers over and is rewarded with a scrap of cheese. We trudge up another sandy hillock and at last catch sight of the sea.
‘Still a fair stretch,’ sighs Alice, with an air of great suffering.
‘Hardly any distance,’ scoffs Isabel.
‘We’ll be there in no time,’ I add brightly.
I set off down the slope, ploughing through the soft ground, the Maid yipping and turning somersaults. Alice puffs the hindmost, red-faced with the effort of remaining on her feet and not on her backside. She trips and falls: I reach out my hand.
‘Can I help you, cousin? You are quite out of breath.’
She shades her eyes against the sun, unsure if I am laughing with her or at her. But she takes my hand in any case. I haul her upright and we set to beating the sand out of our skirts. I pound her gown energetically. The Maid hops around us on all fours like a giant hare; arse in the air and kicking out her heels.
‘I declare,’ says Bet. ‘I can’t tell what she is sometimes: coney, vixen, girl.’
‘She is a girl,’ murmurs Isabel, but neither Bet nor Alice pay any attention.
‘Maybe she’s a swan, for she came from the marshes,’ muses Alice. ‘Or a fish, for she came out of the storm.’
‘Fish don’t fall out of the sky, silly.’
‘My uncle says he heard of a shower of fish in Ireland.’
‘You believe that gobshitery?’
I let them rattle on while we climb the next dune. When they have tired themselves out with disagreements, they fall back into accord with one another. Bet tugs my sleeve.
‘What do you think she is?’ she asks, shyly.
‘The Maid?’ I ask, pretending I don’t know what they’ve been bickering about.
She nods. ‘She lives in your house.’
‘And has done since my father found her,’ caws Alice.
‘It was my brother Richard who first laid hands on her!’ declares Bet.
They look set to start a fresh round of squabbling, but Isabel calls silence. She’s a head shorter than me, but burns with a fire brighter than the rest of us put together. I always found her unremarkable as a child. I wonder when she changed; what else I missed along the way.
‘You know her best, Nan,’ she says to me, using a pet name I’ve not heard for a long while. ‘Whoever was the first man to find her,’ she adds, casting a stern glance at Bet and Alice. ‘What is she?’
The Maid is leaping from tussock to tussock of marsh grass, yipping surprise when she finds each is as full of spikes as the last. I regard the serious faces of my companions and it strikes me how far I have grown from them.
I turn and look out to sea. The sun pierces the clouds and throws down beams onto the waves. Adam once told me that this was God pushing the clouds apart for a better look at His people. I used to love the idea of God watching over us. Now, as I look at the shafts of light moving over the face of the waters, it is as though He is seeking me out for all the wrongs I have done.
I turn about quickly and look back towards the safety of the village: smoke curling from thatched roofs, a pot of peas bubbling on every hearth, the forest stretching away to the north. In a sudden fancy I see the Maid standing on a treetop and beckoning. I stand between land and ocean, neither at home nor away from it.
‘Nan?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘You were miles away,’ says Isabel, gently.
‘Careful now,’ snipes Alice. ‘The Vixen is making Anne addle-brained too.’
I sigh. ‘She cannot help how God made her. Father Thomas has instructed me to care for her.’
Alice giggles at the mention of Thomas’s name, but I fix her with a glare and she swallows the laugh.
‘Come now, you must’ve seen more. Is she always like this?’ Alice points at her, where she is digging with the furious passion of a dog that’s scented a rat.
I smile. ‘She is unlike anything I have ever seen. Anyone I have ever met.’
‘Oh,’ gasps Bet. ‘A marvel, then. Is she—’ She lowers her voice ‘An angel? My brother said his hands went right through her when he grabbed her. Like she wasn’t really there.’
I laugh. ‘She’s flesh and bone, all right,’ I say. ‘No more celestial than the shoes on my feet. Maid!’ I shout. She cocks her head, leaves off her burrowing and comes barrelling pell-mell, rubbing her face into my apron. ‘There’s my clever lass,’ I coo, rubbing the straw of her hair affectionately.
‘She comes when you call,’ says Isabel, impressed. ‘I thought she didn’t understand anything.’
‘Everyone calls her a halfwit,’ snickers Alice.
‘No more than you or me,’ I laugh. Alice pouts. I might be insulting her or myself: she cannot tell.
We come at last to the beach, a wide tongue of sand with barely as much as a shell upon it. We ignore the barren strand and head for the rocks, long dark fingers clawing the water’s edge. The tide has brought up enough laver for us all to fill our baskets twice over. The salt breath of the sea makes us lively and we set to with a good will.
As I gather the sea’s harvest, I think again of Adam; how he used to carry me on his shoulders when Ma sent Cat and him to collect laver. He told tales of the great dragon who lived under the dunes; how the cliffs were its shoulders, these rocks its talons. We spent far more time playing games than collecting seaweed. He chased me up and down the beach, roaring how he was the dragon and was coming to eat me, while I screamed with terrified delight. I remember also how Cat grumbled that she had to pick the laver on her own.
Thinking of Adam makes me melancholy, so I concentrate on finding the tenderest pieces I can. I push away the uncomfortable thought that I am the one who is now left with all the work, while my childish self runs laughing along the water’s edge, chased by the memory of her brother.
In my search I come upon a broad mass of seaweed caught in a shaft in the stone. I open my mouth to call the others, but some force holds a finger to my lips. It is spread thick as a meadow, a rich green splashed with purple, glittering gold where the sun strikes. I cast a glance over my shoulder, I know not why, then shove my fingers into coolness.
I mean to draw out a handful, but instead thrust deeper until I am halfway to the elbow. Still I have not touched the bottom. I churn it about, and it stings my nostrils with the smell of the shadows at the bottom of the sea. It should be terrifying, but I revel in its moist cling, its heavy odour. It is as though I can plumb the ocean and touch the bottom with my fingertips.
There is a giggle behind me and I spring back.
‘I am filling my basket,’ I say loudly, before turning to see the Maid grinning, head on one side. ‘I was about to call them over,’ I add, blushing at being caught in such whimsy. Not that there is any reason to feel shame, for the Maid understands nothing.
I pick till my fingers are dazed. When we’re done, we share our cheese and bread, tossing morsels to the Maid. However high we throw, she catches each one and this provides much amusement. For a short while even I forget the hard-working woman I have become.
‘Still no sign of one of your own?’ says Alice, taking me by surprise. ‘A babby, I mean,’ she adds, for my confusion is writ clear.
‘I have the Maid,’ I reply.
‘Of course you do,’ says Alice, and chuckles.
It is not a kind sound. I make a silent pact that if she continues to look at me so pityingly I shall smack her face sideways. She turns to Bet and raises her eyebrow: Bet ignores the mean gesture and for that I could kiss her. I think of the smug voices of the village women when they wave their infants in my face and ask if I want one like it, filling the room to the eaves with their boasts. Isn’t he fine, the best boy in the shire, the best boy who ever drew breath?
‘She is no baby,’ I say. ‘But the Saint in his goodness has seen fit to deliver her into my care. Who am I to question his gifts?’
There’s no arguing with this, not even for Alice, so we all cross ourselves and give thanks to the Saint and the mysterious ways of God. The Maid rubs herself into my skirt and purrs with deep contentment. I smile despite myself.
We make our farewells at the edge of the Great Field and I continue homewards, the Maid at my side. I see no reason to hurry her along. Her clumsy frolics add bright splashes of colour to the afternoon. I knew there was a blackthorn at the turn of the path, but never noticed how it spread its branches just so. I never looked at the way sunlight glances off puddles, transforming them into silver plates laid along the path. The hedgerows are thick with old man’s beard. I sigh.
‘It flowers in spring. By autumn its beauty has fallen away. The story of men and women down the ages.’
She pauses in her games and peers at me, tongue lolling out of the corner of her mouth.
I laugh. ‘Listen to me! I’m quite the wise woman, doling out her proverbs. For all the good it does,’ I add less cheerfully, for what will I become other than another old gammer with hair sprouting from her chin.
Her hand reaches out and I take it without thinking that this is the first time she has touched me willingly. Her fingers are so bony it is more like catching hold of a chicken’s foot. She gurgles, the strings in her neck clenching and loosening, and barks a single word. It might be Anne. It might be ham. Or hen, or any number of words. I crow with delight and clap my hands. I am sure Thomas would give me a sermon about sober comportment, but he is not present. She has spoken her first word, or half-word, to me. Not him.
‘Yes, Anne,’ I repeat, for I decide that is what she meant. ‘What a clever girl. You warm Anne’s heart, so you do.’
I throw my arms around her and squeeze. For an instant, she softens. But just as swiftly she is transformed into a block of wood.
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ I croon. ‘Won’t you give Anne a little cuddle?’
She holds her breath and does not yield.
‘You’ll go blue in the face,’ I say, tickling her ribs to make her laugh.
She does no such thing. Teeth clenched, eyes clamped shut, hands balled into fists, arms rigid, stiff as a plank. Wherever she has gone, it is a long way off. Her face is frozen in a rictus of misery and I am making things no better. I release her.
‘There now. All gone,’ I coo. She cracks open an eyelid. I waggle my hands, to show I have let go.
The eye opens completely, followed by the other. Her shoulders relax a little, but she is still as taut as a bowstring and would fly if I touched her again. My heart swells with the desire to cradle her in my arms. It takes no small effort to resist.
‘Come now. Have a bite to eat.’ I untie the corner of my apron where I’ve kept a crust, pinch it between my fingers and hold it to her lips. Her face remains stony. ‘Thirsty?’ I try. I mime drinking, complete with glugging sounds, but to no effect.
‘What is it you want, my chick? A star from the sky?’ I stretch my hand upwards, close my fist around a handful of air, lower my arm and hold it under her nose. Slowly I uncurl my fingers. ‘Look. A star. For you.’
Her furious stare melts away and she gives me the oddest look. For the space of an eyeblink I am looking at a woman as clever and sinful and peevish and lonely as myself. Then it passes and all is as it was: her face shuttered, eyes blank as those of a sheep.
I cannot read the words in Thomas’s books, but I can read her broken body. She reminds me of the trees around the coast, roots clinging to the brackish soil yet determined and unbowed. Kindness never touched this girl. I catch myself: this woman.
‘I am sorry,’ I say. ‘I shall not cuddle you. Nor coddle you, for that matter. You are no babe.’
I do not know if I feel sorrow for her alone, or for us both.
Even I know I have made a good batch of laver cakes. For once I succeed in rinsing out most of the salt and neither burn nor undercook them. I set the plate before Thomas and watch him screw up his mouth at the first taste. He forces himself to take two more small bites, pulling a face like a pickled walnut.
It is a mercy when he lays down his knife and declares himself full; although he proceeds to sniff around my ankles for the remainder of the hour, asking if there is any pottage left over from breakfast, and is morose when I say no.
‘There is plenty of laverbread,’ I say mischievously, for I have a great desire to press him into admitting what he truly feels. ‘It will do for tomorrow, also,’ I add.
‘I wonder,’ he says, wrestling with politeness and honesty. ‘You have not had leisure to visit your mother recently, have you?’
‘Not these past three weeks, sir,’ I say, being careful not to let my rancour show.
‘No,’ he muses. ‘Perhaps I could spare you this afternoon.’
‘But there is wool to be carded …’ I let the words trail off and wait for him to pick up the dropped thread, which he does.
‘Plenty of time for that tomorrow. You can do twice the carding then.’
‘But I must scour the pots,’ I continue.
‘They will wait a few hours for your attentions, I believe,’ he smiles, thinking himself very clever.
‘Of course, sir,’ I reply, with exceptional sweetness.
‘It is meet and right for a girl to visit her mother. We must honour our fathers and mothers, must we not?’
‘Indeed we must.’
‘Then go to, with my blessing.’
‘Now, sir?’
‘Now.’
‘Thank you, sir. They will be much fortified by your kind words.’
I am partway through the door when he adds, as if an afterthought, ‘Your mother relishes laverbread, does she not?’
‘As do all my family,’ I add.
I know where this conversation is headed, but I have no wish to make his path any smoother.
‘Why not take it with you? As my gift.’
‘But I made it for you. What will you eat tomorrow?’
‘I am sure you will prepare something even more tasty.’
‘More tasty?’
‘Yes,’ he says, nervously. ‘Of course.’
‘Are you certain?’
‘I am.’
‘You are too generous.’
It matters not what he stuffs into his mouth. There’s enough laverbread to feed Ma, Da and the neighbours, I tell myself as I pack the cakes in a basket. I wrap my shawl around my shoulders and am out of the door before he changes his mind.
What I hear at my mother’s hearth sparks me afire with indignation. She counsels me to say nothing to Thomas, but I cannot hold my unruly tongue. All the way back to the house I bear the weight of the injustice done to him. I stamp up and down, waiting for him to return from Vespers. The words flame from my lips as soon as he steps through the door.
‘Sir,’ I say, as he kicks off his clogs. ‘I must speak with you.’
‘Now? It is late,’ he grumbles.
‘Now. It concerns Edgard. Your shepherd.’
‘I know his name. You do not need to tell me what I already know. What of him?’
‘I have heard troubling words against him.’
‘Indeed?’
He shakes rain off his cloak and drops it to the ground. I look at it and fold my arms. He looks also, irritation spreading across his features. We stare a good while longer, the silence grinding its whetstone. In the end I pick up the discarded garment and hang it on its hook. He makes a grunt of satisfaction that the world is set back in order.
‘You should not listen to tittle-tattle. Or spread it,’ he continues, sharply.
‘How do you know it is mere tittle-tattle if you have not heard what I have to say?’
‘Be careful how you address me, woman.’
‘Sir.’ I stand my ground.
He sighs. ‘Well, well. What nonsense is buzzing around your head?’
‘Edgard is not honest with you.’
‘How so? Let me tell you what a pearl he is, mistress. Edgard cares for my sheep as tenderly as his own. They overwinter with his beasts: he feeds them, tends to their every need, tells me which ones have died, which have come into lamb, how many lambs are born, how many survive. I am blessed to have such a diligent man.’
I chew the inside of my cheek. ‘He does all this for the love of God?’
‘I believe he would if I asked it. When he first suggested the idea, he declared he would not take a penny.’
‘He brought the idea to you?’
‘Yes, and it took me some time to persuade him to take any payment. I had to remind him that his family would go hungry if he did this out of charity. At last I was able to make him agree to a reward.’
‘I’m sure you were.’
‘Then there is the winter forage. Of course, I must pay for that. Last season it cost more than expected. When he told me the price I thought he would break a rib, he pounded his breast with such grief.’
‘Thomas, you are a fool.’ His mouth falls open. ‘Edgard is laughing at you when your back is turned. Plenty of times when it is not, but you do not see.’
‘What evil is this you speak?’
‘It is not evil, Thomas. It is sense, and of the common sort. He is cheating you – the whole village knows it.’
I will not name my mother as the bearer of this news.
‘This is a lie,’ he says haughtily. ‘You speak of a stranger, not the obedient and humble man of my acquaintance.’
‘Then wake up. How many lambs did he tell you were born?’
He considers the question. His eyes roll up a little and his lips move as he recollects. I tap my foot. A man either knows how many lambs he has or he does not.
‘Seven,’ he declares brightly.
‘Seven?’ I cannot hold back the shock.
‘Yes, seven. What ails you? Why do you insist on questioning me so? I have fifteen sheep. Ten were in lamb.’
He smirks, proud of his memory and how he is able to rattle off the figures. I do not point out that I could have baked an oatcake in the time it took him to remember.
‘Fifteen sheep, ten in lamb?’
‘That is what I said. You do not need to repeat everything I say. I’m not a simpleton.’
‘Yes you are!’ I cry.
‘Woman,’ he growls, his voice dark with warning.
I do not, or will not hear its knell. I snort and fold my arms. ‘You have twenty sheep. This is the word in the alehouse, whatever he tells you.’
‘That cannot be. I had twenty. They were Father Hugo’s before me. But there was the murrain—’
I wave his words away. ‘Did he tell you only your sheep were unlucky enough to fall victim to this disaster? Did you ask how many of his were carried off?’
‘Why should I ask? His sheep are of no concern to me.’
I ignore him and his stupidity. ‘In truth, you had sixteen lambs this spring. I have heard it.’
His mouth falls wide again. Then his eyes grow crafty. ‘You heard these stories in an alehouse. How do you know they are not the wicked words of his enemies?’
‘Because the words come from Edgard’s own mouth. He boasts of it to anyone who will listen. And your congregation do listen.’
‘No! The people would tell me if anything like this was afoot.’
‘Would they? Edgard grows fat on your mutton, Thomas. He makes sure he gives enough away to still wagging tongues. No one likes you enough, respects you enough, or cares about you enough to tell you the truth and put an end to his cheating. Until now.’
It is the first time he strikes me.
I only know it has happened when I find myself on my arse, halfway across the room. Only then does the pain wake up in my cheek and flare its hot insistence. I touch my fingers to the bone, but he does not appear to have broken anything. I prod more deeply and lightning forks into my flesh. With great care I move my jaw from side to side. Slowly, cupping my chin as though it might fall to the floor, I stand.
I look at him. His face flowers scarlet and I consider telling him that excess of choler will upset his stomach. But I do not trust my mouth to make such complicated movements. His breath swells in and out between us, and sour it is too. I continue to stare at him; but there is nothing to be gained so I shrug, none too energetically as it engenders another stab of pain, and turn to leave.
‘I have not dismissed you, woman!’ he shrieks, voice shrill as a piglet when you cut off its nakers.
I stop and move no more, not even to turn around and face him. My chin grumbles. I stand a while longer, listening to him wheeze. Now he has arrested my departure, he seems to have forgotten what he wanted to say. I begin to wonder if I’ll be here at Judgement Day when he barks: ‘You have plenty of work. Go to it.’
I walk away with studied slowness. As I pass out of the room I find the Maid crouching in the lee of the doorpost, eyes wide. I say nothing, nor need to. She chews her lips as though deciding what to do, then bolts from the house with the wind behind her. Thomas is not long after, railing about collecting tithes from his loyal parishioners. I listen to him kicking stones down the path.
My jaw aches. If I do not set a cold towel upon it quickly, the whole world will see the scarlet banner he’s slapped on my face, but the only dishclouts I can find are filthy. Then it occurs to me how much clean linen lies unused in the attic room.
The ladder is up in two breaths, and I am up it faster. I believe it eases the sting to know that I am going to use something from Thomas’s precious store to soothe the hurt he has caused. My hand trembles on the door. I wince with a sudden fear that he crept up here while I was at my mother’s and locked it: but he would have been unable to keep that morsel to himself.
I lift the latch: the door swings back with a creak. At first I think the room is a void, for it is dark as the inside of a mouth. I am seized with the even crueller idea that I only dreamed the treasures. Slowly, my eyes accustom themselves and I see that all is exactly as I left it, down to my footprints in the slut’s wool on the boards. I pick up one of the swords and lunge at a heap of curtains, imagining it is Thomas’s scrawny backside that I am piercing, but it reminds me of Adam and how he may have died. I throw the sword as far from me as I can and wipe my hands on my apron.
I lift the lid of the nearest chest. It brims with fine garments, both men’s and women’s. I smirk at the reason why Father Hugo needed to clothe a woman, and so beautifully. Thomas would no more dress me in such finery than wear the gowns himself. But these thoughts curdle my excitement and I have no desire to feel more resentment towards the sapless goat than I already do. Besides, smiling hurts.
Beneath the clothing is sheet after sheet of linen, each with folds sharper than the sword I was playing with. I’ll wager not one has ever been spread across a mattress. I lift out the uppermost piece and press it to my throbbing cheek. Its coolness is almost enough to soothe the pain away. It is of such a tight weave you could carry water in it. If I took it – just this one – I could lay it upon my narrow plank of a bed and wrap it round me, brushing my skin from neck to ankle.
Thomas would notice. Even if I stowed it under my skirt he would discover it somehow. I do not know how I can be so sure, but I am. I return it to its nest, close the lid and move to the next chest. It is even more stoutly built than the last, and is locked. This fills me with a passion to uncover what is within. My jaw is forgotten. In my mind’s eye I see pearls, rubies, a king’s crown, gold coins. Not that I would have the slightest idea what to do with any of them.
I consider kicking the lock, but have no desire to break my toe, whatever the reward. The sword I discarded is a better choice. I wedge it into the narrow slot where the lid bites down, but only succeed in snapping the blade in half and cutting my thumb, though not deeply. I suck on the wound while I search for a stronger tool. Amongst the pile of weapons is the head of a pike. It is a fierce-looking thing, even without its shaft, which either broke away or was fixed to a rake in more peaceable times. It splits the lock as easily as if it was made of cheese. The lid flies back.
Pale grey fur fills the interior. At first, I think a wolf is crouching within and jump back, a cry escaping my lips. The beast does not stir, and I recover my composure. I stretch out my hand and lay it upon the creature, half expecting it to stir with warm breath. But all is quiet.
It is the softest thing I have ever touched. Softer than the down on a day-old chick, softer than my mother’s breasts, than the breath of my sister’s babe upon my cheek. I plunge my fingers deep and am lost up to the wrist. I haul it from its resting place.
It is too small to be a wolf, yet too large to be any fox from hereabouts. Its head is gone, but the tail is still attached and bushy as a heap of teasels. The colour is unlike anything I’ve seen: pale as the moon, a misty grey save for a darker stripe down the spine. My mind spins with the notion that somewhere, far away from here, live white foxes.
I stick my face deep into the nap and it tickles any remaining pain into sweetness. I drape it around my neck. It is supple as velvet and possessed of a fresh scent despite the long sojourn in its oaken prison. I parade across the boards, making a broad trail through the dust, grand as a duchess.
I turn it over so that the hair lies against my skin. As I do so, heat springs between my shoulders as though a bonfire has been lit at my back. I let it slip from my shoulder to the wrist and my body sparkles with the fire of a hundred tapers. I examine my arm, half expecting it to be singed. Every hair is pricked and upright, my dreary flesh called to life by this pale beast.
I do the same with my other arm and experience the enchantment afresh; a tingling so delicious my knees quiver. I want to sit down, but the floor is so dirty I’d cover my skirt in smuts, yet another thing to conceal from Thomas. So I return to the first chest, drag out the topmost sheet and spread it over the floor.
I lie down and hug the fur close; draw it to and fro across my limbs, trembling with each caress. Never before have I felt so encumbered by my clothes. They chafe, they itch, they demand to be off. I obey the command and unfurl my body across the sheet, naked except for my beastly cloak, animal fragrance rising around me like a mist.
I take the fox to my breast and writhe beneath the press of its body, my belly lifting and falling. It melts me as surely as a flame melts a candle. My flesh cries out and for the first time I hear its call. I do all I can to draw closer to its promise, pulling the pelt firmly between my thighs. The fox rubs me, teases me, smoothes me, tempts my body into flight. My legs quake like those of a foal wet from the belly of its dam, knees knocking together. I never tasted anything so wonderful, so strange.
Yet it is not enough.
However tightly I grip the fur, however loud I pant in the race towards my own body, I fall short. Completion dangles out of reach from my groping fingers and I am left empty.