The Mark of Cain Read online

  Table of Contents

  SAINT MARK’S EVE — 24th APRIL 1567

  BELTANE EVE — 30th APRIL 1567

  SAINT HELEN’S DAY — 2nd MAY 1567

  Two years later: SAINT JOHN’S EVE — 23rd JUNE 1569

  SAINT JOHN’S DAY — 24th JUNE 1569

  Six years later: SAINT BARTHOLOMEW’S DAY — 24th AUGUST 1575

  Six years later: THE BLIND DAYS OF MARCH 1581

  SPRING INTO SUMMER 1581

  YULE 1581

  10th JULY 1582

  AUGUST 1582

  MIDSUMMER DAY — 21st JUNE 1583

  10th JULY 1583

  LAMMAS EVE — 31st JULY 1583

  CROSS-QUARTER DAY: LAMMAS — 1st AUGUST 1583

  LITTLE YULE — 13th DECEMBER 1583

  14th DECEMBER 1583

  15th DECEMBER 1583 — NIGHT

  16th DECEMBER 1584

  WEDNESDAY 31st OCTOBER 1962

  THURSDAY 1st NOVEMBER

  FRIDAY 2nd NOVEMBER

  SATURDAY 3rd NOVEMBER

  SUNDAY 4th NOVEMBER

  MONDAY 5th NOVEMBER

  TUESDAY 6th NOVEMBER

  WEDNESDAY 7th NOVEMBER

  THURSDAY 8th NOVEMBER

  FRIDAY 9th NOVEMBER

  SATURDAY 10th NOVEMBER

  SUNDAY 11th NOVEMBER

  MONDAY 12th NOVEMBER

  TUESDAY 13th NOVEMBER

  WEDNESDAY 14th NOVEMBER

  THURSDAY 15th NOVEMBER

  FRIDAY 16th NOVEMBER

  SATURDAY 17th NOVEMBER

  SUNDAY 18th NOVEMBER

  MONDAY 19th NOVEMBER

  TUESDAY 20th NOVEMBER

  WEDNESDAY 21st NOVEMBER

  THURSDAY 22nd NOVEMBER

  FRIDAY 23rd NOVEMBER

  SATURDAY 24th NOVEMBER

  SUNDAY 25th NOVEMBER

  MONDAY 26th NOVEMBER

  TUESDAY 27th NOVEMBER

  WEDNESDAY 28th NOVEMBER

  THURSDAY 29th NOVEMBER

  FRIDAY 30th NOVEMBER

  Maiden in the Mor Lay —

  Maiden in the mor lay,

  in the mor lay —

  Seuenyst fulle,

  seuenyst fulle.

  Maiden in the mor lay,

  in the mor lay —

  seuenystes fulle ant a day.

  Welle was hire mete.

  Wat was hire mete?

  The primerole ant the —

  the primerole ant the —

  Welle was hire mete.

  Wat was hire mete?

  The primerole ant the violet.

  Welle was hire drying.

  Wat was hire drying?

  The chelde water of the —

  the chelde water of the —

  Welle was hire drying.

  Wat was hire drying?

  The chelde water of the

  welle-spring.

  Welle was hire bowr.

  Wat was hire bowr?

  The rede rose and the —

  The rede rose and the —

  Welle was hire bowr.

  Wat was hire bowr?

  The rede rose and the lilye

  flour.

  Maiden in the Moor Lay —

  Maiden in the moor lay,

  in the moor lay —

  Seven nights full,

  seven nights full.

  Maiden in the moor lay,

  in the moor lay —

  seven nights full and a day.

  Good was her food.

  What was her food?

  The primrose and the —

  the primrose and the —

  Good was her food.

  What was her food?

  The primrose and the violet.

  Good was her drink.

  What was her drink?

  The chilled water of the —

  the chilled water of the —

  Good was her drink.

  What was her drink?

  The chilled water of the

  well spring.

  Good was her bower.

  What was her bower?

  The red rose and the —

  The red rose and the —

  Good was her bower.

  What was her bower?

  The red rose and the lily

  flower.

  — Middle English lyric

  We hurry through the wood along the narrow dirt path that runs by the edge of the brook. Zillah’s swollen-knuckled old fingers grip my small hand as I stumble alongside her.

  “Keep up, child. We have to make haste,” she urges. “It is not good for us to be so close to the watermen. We must take care not to be seen.”

  The wood begins to thin, and the stream, no longer confined by the narrow channel running between the alder roots, broadens out before winding its eager way through the water meadows and down to the river.

  Zillah stops, raises herself as straight as her humped back will allow, shades her eyes, and looks every way about her, from the dark line of the woods behind to the tree-clumped horizon ahead.

  A harsh cra-ak, cra-ak. Zillah’s hand tightens for a moment as a few rooks rise out of the grass and fly off up to the clouds. She gently pulls me towards the sloping bank.

  “This is the best place,” she says. “For it was here that we found you, Aphra, just here, a little babe wailing by the waterside. Scrape up some mud, the softest you can find.”

  I hoist up my skirts, and with feet sinking into the moist dirt of the bank, find a patch between the buttery primroses and the bright spears of new reeds. A startled water hen, red beak bobbing, waddles off on huge starry feet then drops into the river and paddles away.

  I bend down, push my fingers into the wet clay, and scoop two handfuls into the earthen bowl Zillah holds out for me, while her eyes dart about this way and that.

  All at once she seizes my arm and whispers urgently, “Quickly, child, back into the trees — a waterman is coming!”

  Zillah pulls me so hard I flounder up the muddy bank and totter along behind her as she dashes across the clumps of reedy grass towards the woods. From the dark shelter of the trees, while Zillah stands gasping and kneading her wheezy chest with her knuckles, I look down towards the water. A wherry passes by the bank where I dug out the mud. The old waterman, his weather-browned head bent almost to his chest, rows two men upriver a little before ferrying them across to the southern side.

  “Is that where my mother came from?” I ask. “Did she bring me here over the water?”

  Zillah is ready to move on. “We’ve told you often enough, child, she was long away when we found you, who knows where. Now come, you must find a small red stone.”

  I search among the roots, lift scattered leaves.

  “That is too big … that too heavy … too grey.” Zillah tosses them aside.

  Then, under the shaggy roof of a toadstool, a gleam of jewel-red catches my eye. I stoop down. Nestled close to the stalk is a little gleaming garnet of a pebble. I hold it up to my eye and try to peep at Zillah through the tiny hole in its middle.

  “Ah — you have found a bloodstone,” she says proudly, then bends in close to whisper in my ear. “Above us in the skies, the celestial spirits are forever in combat with the unquiet dead, and the blood drops of the fallen come down to earth as little stones like this. Keep it safe.”

  Back in the house in the woods, Zillah and I sit at the scrubbed table, heads together over the lump of mud. As she instructs me, I wet my fingers from the pitcher, take the clay, and shape a manikin, a small doll I can fit into the palm of my hand.

  “Rufus Goode — think Rufus Goode,” Zillah breathes as the light begins to fade behind the shutter. “See his face, Aphra, as you work him. Remember the filthy words he uttered.”

  Rufus
Goode, this is your head, squashed into your shoulders, these tubes of clay are your arms and legs. I push them close in to your body, smear them with water and lavender oil from the flask.

  “Now open his chest and put in the little bloodstone for his heart, Aphra,” says Zillah. “And this one hair from his own beard. It is all you need. Work it into the clay. Now close him up.”

  Rufus Goode, here is your face: I am making it with a sharp stick, carving out your big watery eyes, your swollen nose, your thin-lipped, foul-speaking mouth drooping to the left.

  Zillah shows me how to make a little shirt for him, from the sweat-soiled neckerchief which came loose from Goode’s throat when I snatched at it to throttle him as he pushed me down into the mud. It was on this dirty rag that we found the hair.

  “There is now a spirit thread between you, Aphra,” says Zillah. “You and Rufus Goode. Let him dry slowly. Not near to the fire or he will crack. You can do as you wish with him. Remember what that wicked man did. What does he deserve? Give curse for curse, Aphra.”

  The door opens and Damaris ducks under the lintel, a basket under her arm, the limp claw of a dead chicken poking out from under the cloth.

  “My, that is a good poppet, Aphra,” she says, drawing in to look, the thick yellow hair escaping from her kerchief and brushing my shoulders. “What will you do to him?” She glances at Zillah before moving away to pluck the bird.

  In the evening I go up to watch the manikin drying where I have laid him, on the small chair beside my pallet under the eaves of the house in the woods.

  Whispers creep up the ladder from the room below.

  “You should not have shown the child how to make a poppet, Zillah.”

  “That Rufus Goode is a filthy man, Damaris. He caught Aphra near the black pool. If I had not heard her screams …” She waits for a moment, then says, “He cursed the girl as we came away. You know as well as I, she must be the one to deal with that. We can only show her what she must do… .”

  Damaris lowers her voice still more. I hold my breath to catch the words: “You know, there is something about the girl, Zillah. The spirits come to her.” Damaris pauses. “I — I have heard the child whispering in the voice of another.”

  I do not hear what Zillah says in answer, she speaks so softly.

  “Aphra has gifts beyond even our own, Zillah,” Damaris continues. “Maybe her mother saw it in her — was afeared of her — and cast off her own infant in the river; if she ever had a mortal mother, that is, and was not just pushed up through the foul, black mud eight years ago for us to find. She should not learn those cursed arts, Zillah.”

  “But she found a bloodstone… .”

  “Anyone can find a bloodstone.”

  “She was meant to come to us. We are the three-headed goddess, Damaris. I am the past, you are the present, and the child is the future… .”

  Damaris says nothing.

  “I have bound you to me, Rufus Goode,” I whisper, running a dirty fingernail across his face. “I think I will rip out your heart.”

  I am in such an excitement I can barely wait for evening.

  “Can we go yet?” I ask Zillah as the sun is still passing across the open sky above the clearing. She gives me pots to clean in the stream.

  “Is it the time?” I ask Damaris as the sun dips behind the high leaves of the oak leaning over the cottage. She gives me twigs to twist out the cobwebs in the corners.

  At last the hour comes.

  As the shadows lengthen on the grass, I dance ahead of Zillah and Damaris into the woods, to collect green branches for the Bringing In of the Summer.

  “Can I do it? Can I ask the hawthorn mother?”

  “No —” Damaris begins, but Zillah raises her hand to quieten her and nods to me. Gleefully, I stretch my arms around the ancient trunk in the middle of the grove, rest my cheek against the gnarled bark, and whisper close, “Let us take your wood, hawthorn mother, to fill our house this Sabbat night… .”

  A gust of wind creaks the tree, moves the branches, rustles the new leaves.

  I smile at Zillah, then begin to twist one of the thorny boughs to break it. But the branch will not be snapped. It snatches itself back, whipping its barbs across my cheek, leaving rows of thin, bloody lines. In stinging tears, I run to Zillah’s arms. She glances at Damaris, then, without a word, moves me to the edge of the thicket. While I wipe my face on my apron, the two women quietly gather the green branches, then we return to the house together, all subdued through the twilight trees, to hang them from the beams.

  Afterwards, when the great glittering beasts, the Lion and the Bear, begin their nightly prowl across the sky, we carry bundles of dry sticks into the clearing in front of the cottage and throw them carefully together on the earth to make our Balefire. Zillah takes a brand from our hearth and sets the faggots all alight. For a short while the three of us forget what happened in the hawthorn grove, lift our skirts, and laugh and jig in and out of the fire, swift, and not too close to its leaping heart.

  But into my head comes the little manikin under the eaves, almost dry, wrapped in his neckerchief shirt. I look up at the gable shutter and picture him there on my cane-bottomed chair.

  “Aphra! Aphra!”

  Damaris is shrieking.

  I turn, look down at a huge spear of flame flaring up my skirts, flap at it with my hands. A razor-sharp stinging spreads over my leg. I suck in breath and smell roasting meat. Zillah pushes me to the ground, presses me down.

  “Honey! Milk!” she screeches to Damaris.

  With shuddering breath Zillah heaves me up in her frail arms and lurches towards the cottage. My head is pounding. I cannot be quiet. Birds clatter up out of the trees at my screaming as we stumble by.

  In the cottage Zillah lays me down on the table, clamps a hand over my mouth, bends close to my ear.

  “Hush that noise!” she urges. “Use the pain! Send it into the poppet up above. Use it for your hate. Use it! Do not cry out! Never cry out!”

  While I whine between clenched teeth, tossing my head from side to side, Zillah busies herself with the muslin wrappings drenched in honey and the cooling milk-soaked cloths. Damaris, to the side, tears up plantain leaves, weeping, whispering through her tears. “It was the hawthorn mother that did this. Aphra did not please her. She should not have tried to break the boughs.”

  “Nonsense,” says Zillah. “It was no more than a mishap. Give me the leaves. They should ease her pain.”

  I try to do as Zillah says: send the pain into the little manikin drying on the chair up in the eaves.

  I can make a fist, hold it in front of my eye, and blot out the new moon. That is the size of the burned flesh on my thigh. It is so sore it keeps me from sleeping. Zillah says the skin will never be smooth as it was before, but I should be glad that remedies were close at hand and that she and Damaris are healers. She says others have died from lesser wounds than mine.

  She gently lifts the covering and I make myself look at the oozing, broken blisters. I remember the jagged, sizzling flame and the pain, and begin to tingle with sweat.

  “Hush your grizzling,” Zillah says, bringing clean muslin and more soothing honey. “I told you before, do not waste your power crying out.”

  Damaris comes with the news that Rufus Goode’s heart has burst in his chest, and the sexton of Saint Michael and All the Angels is even now digging his grave. I knew the moment it happened because I felt the spirit thread snap, but I did not tell my mothers. Damaris studies me with an anxious glance. I thought Zillah would be happy with me, but even she is uneasy; she had not expected a death, merely a sickness.

  Here I am, a child, and Rufus Goode has died.

  I will keep the little bloodstone close to me always, so I will never forget what I can do.

  Sick, needy, miserable people come to the house in the woods — mostly women — mostly in the dark.

  Many times I sit on my pallet above, curled hands around knees, and watch through the hole between
the laths the darting spark of a small lantern approaching through the night trees.

  I steal quietly from my bed and peep through a large crack between the boards that allows me to see almost everything that goes on in the room below. I watch and listen and learn secret things that Zillah and Damaris would not wish me to know at so tender an age. But at ten years I have already learned how artful they must be when laying charms; how all must be done in the proper order, all the words correct in accordance; that sometimes there is no remedy for a fault, an incompleteness in the charm, for then the spell can turn against the person who is casting it. Even cunning folk have died that way.

  This is how it goes: a soft, nervous knocking at the door, murmuring, a fearful woman, low voiced, trembling, grabbing at Zillah’s hand, whispering close in Damaris’s ear. After a while the chanting begins, the swirling of water, the fragrance of wild plants crushed with a stone, mixing in a jug, the silver bowl, bloodletting, binding.

  The house fills with spirits — the spirits that Zillah and Damaris call up to do their will.

  I know them all: Tilly Murrell, the witch-child of Hungerhill, Little Clim, Dorcas Oates, Matty the Boy. They do my mothers’ bidding, then float up to my place in the loft. I can just see their glassy forms on the edge of my eye as they sit on my shoulders, play with my hair, laugh in my ears in their airy way, and flit in and out of the rafters above me like darting swifts.

  Sometimes the spirits try to climb inside my head and peer out of my eyes. Now and then I allow them, suffer them to speak out of my mouth for their play, but only when I wish it.

  Matty the Boy laughs in his little high voice, and with my hands I let him beat on a horn cup with a tin spoon until Damaris calls up for me to stop the noise.

  Dorcas Oates was drowned by her own people in the sea, and I cannot abide for long the feel of the close, cold water and the briny smell of samphire and bladderweed.

  Little Clim shivers. His mother thought he was a changeling and left him out in the woods alone for the fairies to take back and return to her the child they stole away, but they never came. He tastes of earth and leaf mould.

  Tilly Murrell I do not let in at all, for she is a sly, deceitful little spirit, and I might not get her out again.

  I have no fear of them. Indeed, I know little fear at all.

  Yet it is fear, though not mine, that saves me from the flames, this first time at least.

  It is early evening, just at twilight. I am still below, laying down the fresh rushes on the floor, breathing in the scent of the water meadows from where Zillah has gathered them earlier in the day, when a timid knock rattles the latch. Damaris opens the door and a plain young woman, without beauty, grace, or a lantern, steps over the threshold, looking furtively behind her.