The Plague Charmer Read online

  That bitterweed, Matilda, would terrify the wits out of the boy with her spiteful sermons, but for once I was grateful to her. At least she’d keep Hob safely away from the sea. I hurried down to where the shingle beach gave way to wet, muddy sand, rocks and weed.

  I glanced up. I could have sworn it was growing darker, though it was not yet noon, and the wind was rising, changing direction too. Was there a storm brewing? I searched the sky to see which way the gulls were flying. If they were heading inland, it would be a sure sign of bad weather. But there was not a single gull to be seen. On any other day the air above would be full of their screeching, but I realised I couldn’t hear the cry of any bird. I shivered, but not from the wind.

  Holding my skirts above my knees, I ran down across the wet mud. Behind me, Aldith called something, but I couldn’t make out the words. I was too busy shouting for Luke. I picked my way round the outside of the thick stone walls of the nearest weir. The pebbles underfoot were slimed with bright-green weed and several times I had to grab for the wall to stop myself slipping.

  The stones gave way to cold mud again, numbing the feet. It wasn’t until I felt the sharp salt sting and saw the scarlet blood running from beneath my instep that I realised I must have slashed it on a razor shell or a fragment of old iron stuck in the mud. At least I hadn’t trodden on a viperfish. Their poison made grown men weep in agony.

  I squelched forward, shouting for Luke all the while, but I dared not lift my eyes to search for him as I picked my way between the sharp rocks.

  Painful though it was, I tried to walk only on the patches of sharp stones or glistening swathes of bladder wrack, for though the smooth stretches of wet silt looked so soft and inviting, I knew they could conceal those viperfish or, worse still, might be quicksand from which there was no escape.

  I paused and glanced up to get my bearings. Five boys were out ahead of me. I could see Luke now, furthest away from the others. There were shouts from the beach. I couldn’t catch the words, but some of the boys heard them and lifted their heads. Two began to wade back towards the shore. But Luke, oblivious to all, was crouching down and digging with his hands in the mud, trying to pull something free.

  The sky was definitely growing darker, I was sure of that now, a strange half-light that leached the colour from land and sea, turning all to grey. I glanced up, expecting to see thick, black clouds, but there were only a few skeins of white on the horizon, no sign of any storm. Yet it was growing colder. The wind blew strange, whirling eddies across the pools of water trapped in the hollows of the rock and sand. The ripples were turning widdershins, against the sun. I knew it for an evil omen.

  ‘Hurry,’ I yelled at the nearest boys, waving my arms. ‘Get back to the shore now! Quickly!’

  The boys looked alarmed, but they moved swiftly, or as swiftly as they could, weighed down by baskets of crabs, flapping fish and dripping slime-covered treasures, which might have been anything from broken swords to sea-sculpted driftwood.

  Finally, Luke raised his head and stared at me, startled, as if he couldn’t understand what I was doing there.

  ‘Leave it, Luke. We must get back to the shore, there’s a storm coming.’

  He squinted up at the wisps of white cloud in disbelief and waved a muddy hand at me. ‘I’ve almost got it, Mam, just have to dig a bit more.’

  ‘No, Luke, you have to come now.’

  Why was it growing so dark? I glanced at the sky again. For a moment I thought a giant leech was crawling across the edge of the sun. Blinded by the dazzle, I rubbed my eyes and, squinting, tried to look up again. Blackness was oozing across the bright disc, obliterating the light as if the sun was slowly being swallowed by its own evil shadow.

  ‘Luke!’ I yelled, floundering towards him.

  His head jerked up again and he suddenly seemed to notice that daylight had turned to twilight. As he straightened up, I saw that he was holding something covered with mud, but I didn’t stop to wonder what it was. My son waded towards me, his eyes wide with fear. I pulled him into my arms and hugged him fiercely, staring around. Luke clung to me. It was growing darker and colder with every panting breath we took.

  ‘What’s happening, Mam? The sun . . . is it gone?’

  For one terrible moment, I didn’t know which way I was facing – towards the safety of the shore or the treacherous sea. Even on a moonless night the fishermen say they can still see Porlock Weir from the sea by the candles glimmering through the windows of the cottages and the fires in the yards glowing red. But it was noon and no lantern burned to guide our way back to the shore.

  The sky, the earth, the sea had melted into one formless black mass. No birds cried above us. No animals called from the hill. The only sound was the desolate moan of the wind. It was as if we were ghosts wandering through the dark, icy caverns of the dead.

  Then I heard a cry. I couldn’t make out the words, but knew it was human. I prayed it was coming from the shore. Grasping at the sound, as if at a rope thrown to guide me, I held Luke tight against me and urged him forward. We slipped on seaweed and grazed our legs on the shell-covered rocks. I heard Luke gasp at the pain, but I wouldn’t let him stop. Day had turned to night yet there was an eerie bone-white glow above us, like the ghosts of drowned sailors risen from the depths of the sea. I was afraid to look up, but I couldn’t help myself. The sun had turned as dark as a pool of tar. It hung as a black disc in the sky, with only a halo of a deathly cold flame snaking about it, like ice burning.

  By then I scarcely knew if Luke was pulling me or I was dragging him. My legs were aching from the effort of trying to hurry through the cloying mud.

  The voice drifted out towards us, pulling us to the shore. Domini venit crudelis . . . plenus et irae furorisque . . . peccatores eius conterendos de ea . . .

  I could tell they were words now, though they made no sense to me, but I knew it for the same tongue as the priest used when he spoke the words of the Mass. But Father Cuthbert’s tone was dull and flat, like the beat of the flail when we threshed the corn in the barn. This was a woman’s voice, harsh and accusing as the skeins of greylag geese that cry, Winter, winter, as they fly. I glanced behind me, thinking to see a flock of angels screeching through the darkened sky, calling out that the Day of Judgment had come.

  I thought I would trudge through that endless wasteland of mud and darkness for eternity. Then without warning my feet were scrabbling over shingle and I felt hands reaching out, tugging me up on to the track above the beach. I stood trembling, clutching Luke. I could feel him shivering and for the first time in many months he did not pull away from me.

  A huddle of villagers silently faced the sea, only their clothes and hair moving in the wind. No one spoke. They just stared out into the strange twilight.

  ‘Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, a cruel day of wrath, and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners. For the stars of Heaven shall not display their light: the sun shall be darkened in his rising . . .’ The woman’s voice rang out. ‘It is a warning. The prophecy of Isaiah has come to pass this very day. Fall to your knees and pray for forgiveness, pray that you may be spared!’

  I could dimly make out a figure standing on a low wall, her head and shoulders raised above the villagers. She shook her fist and pointed into the sky as if she was commanding the darkness to obliterate us. Now that I was safely back on land, my head began to clear and I recognised the voice I’d heard shouting above the wind. It was no avenging angel, only Matilda, and the villagers were taking as much notice of her as of a pissing dog.

  Someone in the crowd pointed upwards, relief bubbling in his voice: ‘Look, sun’s escaping!’

  We all shielded our eyes and gazed up. A bright crescent of light was emerging from the circle of blackness, and as it grew, so the skies began to lighten again. We rubbed our eyes, blinded by the dazzling glare. The sun was sliding free. Light and warmth were returning, and as if to reassure us, two jackdaws glided down over the hillside and on
to the shore, uttering their mocking tchack-tchack as if they had hidden the sun to play a joke on the world and were laughing at us all for our fear.

  Matilda was still shouting: ‘And the Lord says I will visit the evils of the world against the wicked for their iniquity: and I will make the pride of infidels to cease, and will bring down the arrogance of the mighty. The sun is God’s warning, take heed.’

  But with every passing moment the sky was growing lighter and the birds had begun calling, as if it was dawn. Even the goats and pigs had started to forage as if they had just been let out of the byres after winter. Neighbours, grinning sheepishly, were slapping each other on the backs and shoving their friends as if to show they’d never been afeared, not for one moment, and were teasing those who had. All the same the laughter was uneasy. The sun does not grow dark at midday for no reason. It was an omen, but an omen of what? Nothing good, that was for sure.

  Col came racing along the path and barged into Luke. ‘What’s you got there?’

  I glanced down. Luke was kneeling on the track, trying to prise open the lid of a small box, covered in the tracks and holes from ship’s worms. But the rusty lock held.

  ‘I bet it’s gold!’ Col breathed, glowering reproachfully towards his father, whom he evidently blamed for preventing him searching for treasure too. He pulled a gutting knife from his belt and proffered it to Luke, who wriggled it into the crack.

  ‘Mind you don’t snap that blade, Luke,’ I warned. ‘I’ve not the money to go buying Col’s father another.’

  But both lads ignored me. Luke rocked the knife back and forth. The lock held but a narrow strip from the edge of the lid splintered and fell away. Luke tipped the box, but no shower of gold coins or jewels tumbled out. He poked two fingers through the small hole.

  ‘There’s summat in there,’ he said, screwing up his face as he struggled to reach it.

  I felt a sudden pang of unease. Whatever was in that box had not been washed up on the shore as a gift from the sea. It had been stolen from the sea. It belonged to her and she would demand something or someone in return. And the sea always exacted her price three times over.

  I hauled Luke to his feet. ‘Throw it back. It doesn’t belong to you.’

  I tried to pull the box from him, but Luke clung to it. ‘It’s mine. I found it. ’Sides, I can’t throw it back, less you want me to go out there again.’

  He took a threatening step towards the beach. The fear I’d felt for him out there boiled up into anger. I raised my hand with every intention of slapping him, but he dodged away and raced up the track towards the cottage.

  ‘When your father gets home he’ll give you the thrashing of your life,’ I called after him furiously.

  But we both knew he wouldn’t. He’d probably chuckle at the boy’s ‘high spirits’, as it pleased him to call Luke’s defiance.

  ‘When the tide floods in, she’ll bring a storm wi’ her,’ old Abel muttered grimly. ‘Taste it, I can, on the wind.’

  ‘Aye, well, for once I’m glad of it,’ Bald John said. ‘Good drop of rain is what’s needed, make streams start running again.’

  I scanned the horizon in the hope of seeing rain clouds, but even the few wisps of white had vanished. But something was approaching, something evil – I could feel it. As if in a distant land the devil had just unfurled his wings and was even now flying over the sea towards us, his shadow reaching out before him.

  Chapter 3

  Porlock Manor

  From the foolish tongue come many troubles.

  Medieval Proverb

  ‘Give it to me,’ Eda demanded, looming over the girl.

  ‘He’s a baby not a dog,’ Christina whispered. She gazed down into the forget-me-not-blue eyes staring trustingly up into her own. The tiny mouth blew a bubble in the milk that dribbled out from between his lips. ‘You must call him Oswin.’

  ‘I call him a bastard, for that’s what he is,’ Eda retorted. ‘A bastard without a name.’

  The girl’s head jerked up. ‘How dare you speak to me like—’

  ‘Like what, m’lady? Like a whore, an adulterer?’

  Eda ripped the sleepy infant from her arms. Christina half rose, trying to tuck the shawl tighter around her son, but her hand was slapped away.

  Her mother’s tiring maid shuffled the few paces to the thick oak door of the tiny turret chamber. Eda always reminded Christina of an aged ferret standing on its hind legs, whip-thin and mangy. The maid turned, clutching Oswin tightly against the folds of her white wimple, as if she was about to sink her fangs into his neck. Christina was overwhelmed with a desire to snatch the helpless child back, but she had learned painfully, weeks ago, not to attempt that again.

  ‘The steward tells me that your mother’s cousin, Lady Pavia, is expected to arrive here shortly,’ Eda announced. ‘She is withdrawing from London. Many are leaving . . .’ She pressed her lips tightly together as if she feared words would escape from them without her consent.

  Christina frowned. ‘Why?’

  Eda gave that dry little cough of hers, which always meant she had no intention of answering the question but, as a servant, could not say as much.

  Christina had encountered Lady Pavia only half a dozen times in her life, but that was more than enough. The first time she’d been brought to her, the old dowager had stood so close that, as a small child, all Christina had been able to see of her face was a pair of sharp eyes peering down over the great mounds of her breasts. Even a few minutes of her sharp questions always left Christina feeling like a chicken that had been weighed and pinched by a cook to determine if she was fat enough to kill.

  ‘Your mother has informed her ladyship that you have been sent to Porlock Manor because you have an oppression of the spleen and the physician has advised removing you from the evil miasmas of the towns. I doubt that Lady Pavia will want to see you, but if she does feel obliged to visit you as a courtesy to your mother, you must pretend that you’re weak and need to sleep. That should not be difficult. You’re well practised in deception.’

  The invention of an illness of some kind had been required to explain why a new bride of just sixteen summers should have been sent away to such a remote manor and kept in isolation away from the rest of her uncle’s household. Rumours of a contagion, however vague, would alarm the servants and Christina looked too healthy to be suffering from the green sickness, which often affected young girls. So Christina’s mother and Eda had settled upon a safe and respectable illness – oppression of the spleen. It would also usefully explain Christina’s frequent bouts of weeping, for everyone knew such a malady caused melancholia and, furthermore, the spleen could continue to be oppressed for as many weeks or months as might prove expedient.

  Eda stared at the milk-stained top of Christina’s gown and wrinkled her long, thin nose as if some foul smell had assaulted it. ‘Don’t allow Lady Pavia to linger. She has sharp eyes, and even if you cover yourself, she’s sure to notice those are no longer the paps of a virgin maid.’

  Christina’s breasts had never been any larger than half-peaches, for her whole body was slender, but they had swelled alarmingly during the last few weeks before Oswin’s birth. Indeed it was her breasts rather than her belly that could not be concealed beneath the folds of her gown, and had first aroused Eda’s suspicions. The tiring maid had wasted no time in reporting her suspicions to her mistress.

  A hollow echo rang through the stone walls as Eda pulled the stout door shut behind her. It muffled any sound beyond, so that Christina could not hear the maid’s soft leather shoes retreating down the stairs, but she knew that Oswin would be taken straight to the stillroom that stood alone in the courtyard, where the woman now slept. Eda had told the other servants that the baby was her own niece’s child. Her niece, she said, had died giving birth and she was obliged to tend the infant until its father, a drover, returned. Eda was also well practised in deception. It was an art required of many a loyal servant if they were faithfully to serve their n
oble masters and mistresses.

  When Eda had first taken charge of her son, Christina had been terrified the old woman would find a way of ensuring that Oswin did not survive. She imagined Eda leaving him naked in a draught from a casement so he would die of cold, dropping him on the hard flags or smothering him. But she had come to realise that the maid would protect the child with her life; to do otherwise would be to fail in her duty to her mistress.

  Besides, even Eda didn’t know for certain he was not Sir Randel’s son. None of them did. The maid might make her foul accusations in the privacy of Christina’s chamber, but she’d never bring disgrace upon her mistress, Lady Aliena, by uttering such suspicions about her daughter outside that chamber or in the presence of another servant. Eda was rarely obliged to hold her tongue up in the turret: except for a scurrying of serving girls who twice a day brought food and emptied the pisspot, no one else climbed those stairs. It was a prison without locks, for Christina was forbidden to set foot beyond the door, and knew full well that life could be made very much worse for her if she attempted to do so.

  At least, Christina told herself, she was allowed to give suck to her son, snuggle him and drink in the sweet-sour smell of infant skin and milk that lingered in his hair as soft as thistledown. No other niece of Sir Nigel Loring would ever be permitted to suckle children at her noble breasts. It would not have been fitting for any female relative of a man who was the ‘dear and beloved knight’ of the Black Prince, his envoy, his diplomat, his protector, his ‘cher et très bien ami’.

  No, such treasured babies were whisked away the hour the cord was cut and delivered into the arms of stout wet-nurses with teats as long as cows’ udders. The noble offspring were returned only when they were weaned and walking. But Eda had dared not employ a wet-nurse for little Oswin. Such women knew they would never be paid to give suck to a great-nephew of a lowly maid. The tale of a dead mother would not fool them for an instant, and they could build a bonfire of scandal from the merest wisp of smoke.