Brewer's Tale, The (49 page)

Did we grow complacent in Dover as the months passed and neither the hue and cry nor the county sheriff pounded at our door? Mayhap. Our vigilance, while rigorous when we first arrived, did lessen somewhat. We assumed that we'd slipped into the annals of Elmham Lenn's past, accompanied no doubt by dire warnings of what befell licentious women, and dared to consider safety a possibility. Even to map out a future. What none of us factored in, however, was Sir Leander Rainford.

Learning what had happened at Holcroft House, Sir Leander immediately aborted the trip he'd undertaken with his new bride. What she must have thought, I don't know, but instead of wintering on a sunny coast somewhere in Castile, after merely a few weeks of wedded bliss Lady Cecilia found herself rudely deposited back in London, while her husband, Tobias by his side, made haste to his father's estates. According to Captain Stoyan and intermittent messages I received from Father Clement, Sir Leander was ruthless in his determination to uncover my whereabouts and, may God bless his soul, clear my name. Even now, the thought of him storming through Elmham Lenn, inspecting the remains of Holcroft House, demanding answers from Father Clement, comforting Tobias as they stood over little Karel's grave, is difficult for me to comprehend. Our fate never was and should not be Sir Leander's concern. And yet … he chose to make it so. The very notion made my heart accelerate, but also firmed my resolve to exclude him from my life, to protect him from the damage of any association with me. But in those deep, secret places to which I would rarely venture, I felt such warmth and gratitude towards the man. He cared — whether about Tobias's future or mine, I knew not. He cared and it was enough for me. It had to be.

That he continued to intrude upon my thoughts, break down the barriers I so carefully erected, happened when I'd no control or say in the matter. No-one is responsible for those who enter their dreams.

For well over a week, Sir Leander remained in Elmham Lenn, questioning the local sheriff, our neighbours, Masters Miller and Proudfellow and anyone else who might have frequented the Cathaline Alehouse. He even tracked down Blanche and Iris, who had returned to their families after the fire. I thanked Mother Mary over and over that my dear servants could offer him nothing. Their ignorance of my whereabouts was their shield, and was also mine. For the same reason, after discussion with Father Clement, and with a heavy heart, I'd made the decision not to share my plans, or my grief, with Tobias. It would be as if I too perished in the fire. He was faultless in all this and I would not make him complicit now I was a fugitive.

So why then, as the days passed and Sir Leander's efforts led to naught, did I feel so ambivalent?

Not even Father Clement and Captain Stoyan were spared his angry interrogations nor, I learned, Abbot Hubbard. Captain Stoyan reported that while Sir Leander hid his evident concern for me beneath resolute looks and terse questions, Tobias did not. Despite his last bitter communication, my heart broke as I thought of him and the losses he had to bear. Being angry with a stubborn older sister is very different to mourning those you believe forever gone.

While grief and self-recrimination occupied my evenings, the days were reserved solely for Betje and the ways in which, first with Mother Joanna's help and later, Adam's, I could alleviate her suffering. Our first weeks in Dover, settling into the huge house of Captain Stoyan's friends — a wealthy Dutchman and his sister — were mostly a blur. Amid sunshiny days, blustery winds, lashing rain and the encroaching mellowness of autumn was the relentless insistence of Betje's pain.

Able to cope with the journey to Dover and our first few days in new surroundings, tolerating the unguents and lotions with which Mother Joanna insisted we gently wash and massage her charred and blistered flesh, as well as the potions she was persuaded to drink, it was as if Betje remained unaware of what had befallen her. Or, as I misguidedly believed, that the good Lord had somehow taken pity upon her innocent soul and spared her the suffering that should attend such grievous afflictions. How wrong I was. As the days merged into weeks, it was as if Betje awoke to her state and was tortured anew. The treatments she had tolerated without a murmur, the medicines she had willingly drunk while lodged in St Bartholomew's, became punishments we cruelly forced upon her. Every wary ministration, every down-soft touch, made her writhe in agony.

Struggling against our attentions, screaming in her strange, hoarse manner, my promise never to shed another tear was sorely tested as I helplessly watched my sister endure. If Mother Joanna hadn't been there, forcing me to hold Betje while she patiently flensed the dead flesh from her arm, legs, head and cheek, rubbed the oils and sticky lotions into her skin, I would have abandoned the cure long ago. It was all I could do to contain my poor sister, hold her, pray over her and try to soothe her haunting wails and steady her shaking limbs.

Only guilt and love kept me firm. What right did I have to the relief of weeping? What right did I have to beg Mother Joanna to cease her attempts to help my sister when I'd caused this?

So, I bore my sister's agony by never turning from her, by facing every day, every session with Mother Joanna, by her side.

Adam joined us amidst all this, after laying a false trail for those intent on bringing me to justice. Pushing aside his exhaustion, he too did whatever he could to provide succour.

It wasn't until Christmastide that Betje began to bear Mother Joanna's treatments with stoicism. It was also around then that her hand, which had curled into an ugly claw, slowly straightened, the fingers flexing. Likewise her feet, upon which we'd showered so much attention — the toes of one foot had melded into each other, while on the other they'd been reduced to tight little nubs — began to respond. At the same time, the angry red of her flesh faded to the fresh pink of newly grown skin.

Despite the pretty colour, suggesting youth and innocence, clear dawn mornings and balmy sunsets, it didn't look new. Shiny and slick, as if it were perpetually wet, Betje's face and one side of her body took on a peculiar sheen. Ridges and runnels meant the skin was never smooth, not like the portion of her features that remained unmarred. Instead, it was as if a crone had shucked off her flesh and passed it to my sister as one does a worn garment. The couple in whose house we dwelled whispered to each other that she looked like a candle that had spent half its wax. The comparison was sadly apt. Whenever I looked at my dear sister, thoughts of Apollo's woman, the Oracle who aged and never died forced their way into my head. She was simultaneously ancient and a child.

Our daily massages, gentle yet firm, continuing till our digits ached and our backs were bent with fatigue, ensured her limbs finally found their old habits again. While her lips would remain twisted in a swollen parody of a smile, the teeth within were white and wholesome. The beautiful grey eye that gazed upon the world, unlike its twin, forever fused beneath a fleshy curtain, began to sparkle with curiosity once more. Denied speech, or perhaps refusing to use words when they might only describe horror, Betje eschewed talk and grunted and pointed to let her needs be known.

Finally, after winter's fury was tamed and the seas began to settle, we were able to introduce her to the streets of Dover, taking her down to the docks to greet Captain Stoyan's ship when he laid anchor in late January. It was during this first foray into the wider world that I learned of its capacity for cruelty once more. Not only was Betje the focus of unwanted attention and comments from passers-by, but also exclamations of horror and disgust. How could Christians so condemn one of God's own children? Even with Captain Stoyan, Adam and Mother Joanna there, and Betje enveloped in my arms and mantle, it was a long walk back to our residence as I seethed at the offence of it. I still recall how, as we sat in silence before the fire in the solar, Betje climbed into my lap and rested her good cheek against my breast. As I swept aside the few locks of hair that fell over her face, I felt wetness and my heart seized.

I would do whatever it took to protect my dear sister from those people and their ready and shallow judgements. I swore it over and over in the depths of my being. As I did so, I knew that in order to keep such a promise, I needed position, money and the authority that attached itself to both. Only then would no-one dare cause my sister injury.

As Betje wept against me, I pledged I would achieve these things, no matter how long it might take, and began to think how I could achieve such a lofty goal.

Perhaps it was fate, perhaps it was something else, but there was only one way I knew to make money and, as my eyes alighted on the old ale-stick that rested in a corner against a chest with some other belongings we'd salvaged from Holcroft House, my plans began to form. A saint I was not and never had been, but for once I wondered what it might be like to embrace the life of a sinner, the life that had once been ascribed to me.

Was I so very wicked that I found the notion appealing?

It was not intended we'd make the trip to London via Long Southwark Road nor at this time of year. We'd planned that after I'd delivered the baby, which I could no longer deny I was carrying and was due mid-spring, Captain Stoyan would transport us to London by ship and that business acquaintances of his in the Stilliard, the great steel-walled warehouse of the Hanse that lay on the Thames, would harbour us until I could commence brewing again — for that was my means to shore up a life for Betje, Adam and myself. The child inside me, I didn't consider. Just as we would find our way, it too would have to accept the life into which it was born. If it survived, it would be the son or daughter of a brewer. Bless the captain and Adam that they didn't dissuade me but understood my ambitions.

All our preparations were thrown to the winds the day Sir Leander arrived in Dover. How had he found us? Father Clement must have capitulated and given up our secrets. Nothing else made sense …

A torrent of emotions engulfed me. My instinct to flee, to hide my shame, my condition, was paramount. But there was also a strong desire to throw myself into his arms and seek his aid.

I didn't often allow myself to examine how I felt about the child quickening in my body, growing with each passing day until such time as it emerged into the world, a living, breathing reminder of what Westel Calkin had done, the way in which he'd violated my body, my trust …

I gripped my stomach, willing the child to cease its movements and, God forgive me, as I had in the many months prior, for it to simply die. I no more wanted this child than I did the memories of its conception or of the man who fathered it. That it would live and thrive when Karel lay rotting in the ground was not something to which even God and my faith in His will could reconcile me.

I could never see Sir Leander or Tobias again. Hesitant fingers followed the curve of my billowing stomach, loathing its strangeness, its roundness. How could I explain … this? That I was not complicit in the sowing of this seed? The church preached that a woman was only deemed to have been taken against her will if no child resulted from the union, so my version of events would only ever appear to be a weak attempt to protect my virtue. How was it that I paid with a lifelong sentence for the vile sins of another? Of a man of God, no less? As the weeks passed and my body swelled, it seemed that Eve's curse upon her sex knew no bounds.

Yet, according to Hiske, and even Tobias, virtue and I parted company long before Westel Calkin entered my life.

And so, six months after we left Elmham Lenn, and two days after Sir Leander was reported to be searching the streets, Adam, Betje and I left the security and comfort of Dover. Mother Joanna retired to the abbey until spring, at which time she would return to Elmham Lenn. Despite it being the last week of winter, despite the sleet, rain and bitter conditions, and against the advice of Adam and the captain, I insisted we leave. If we didn't, I knew it was only a matter of time before Sir Leander found us.

Some would call it madness to travel when snow and ice carpeted the ground and frosty winds were pitiless and persistent companions, but for us, the February cold quickly became a merciful if not devoted friend. Only the desperate or unbalanced journeyed at this time, and I hoped the conditions deterred anyone inclined to pursuit, including Sir Leander.

We left Dover early, before the birds trilled their morning song or the hearth-fires had been banked. Wrapped beneath layers of wool, we headed towards London via Canterbury, a deliberate deception in case we were followed. Travelling cautiously, avoiding company when it appeared, we rested in small lodgings, shunning conversation with patrons and, to the best of our ability, their curious eyes. The days were cold and brief; too often turning into an icy drizzle that blasted us in torn sheets. Not that we had cause to complain, for those very things that made being abroad a trial, also meant the way was mostly devoid of travellers. Unless a market was on in a nearby village or a king's courier or a group of soldiers churned the road, we barely saw a soul. But what protected us also made us vulnerable. Rumours of highwaymen and bandits reached us and Adam and I determined that, after one close scrape, as soon as possible, we'd reverse our initial intention and seek the company of strangers.