The Forest Wife Page 4

  ‘Do you mean that there was another Forestwife before Selina? That there’s always a Forestwife?’

  ‘Look beyond Selina’s mound,’ said Agnes, ‘then count up the humps in the ground.’

  ‘But . . . I have always feared the Forestwife. They call her evil and fearsome.’

  Agnes laughed. ‘An evil reputation has its uses. It keeps away unwelcome visitors, and those who dare to come are desperate.’

  Mary remembered how poor Tom’s knees had knocked when he first spoke up to the Forestwife. She wandered on in silence, thinking it all out.

  At last she turned back to Agnes, grinning wickedly.

  ‘So . . . you are the Forestwife, Agnes, and you can do the job, for I have always known you were a witch. But who am I? What part am I to play?’

  Agnes looked thoughtful. ‘That I don’t know yet, my lovey, but you are most important, of that I am sure. I was not ready to leave Holt Manor, but you were. The time was right; you chose it, not me. I am quite sure there is a purpose that we cannot understand. A purpose that brought thee to these woods.’

  They entered the clearing to a wild welcome from the fowls and cats and the lonesome goat. Agnes swivelled the stone around; the Forestwife was back. They laughed amidst the bleating and cackling. More of a joyful homecoming than ever Holt Manor had offered them.

  They spent the rest of the day making order from the muddle that Selina’s hut had become. Agnes sorted through the pots and potions, sniffing and tasting, throwing out any that were stale or sour.

  Meanwhile, she sent Mary to pick great basketfuls of elder leaves and bracken tips. When she was satisfied with the amount, she set her to unpick the fur trimmings on the fine hooded purple cloak. Agnes boiled the leaves in the biggest pot and plunged the cloak into it, to pick up the woodland dyes.

  When it was thoroughly drenched and dripping, they spread it out on the strong lower branches of a yew. It dripped and dribbled through the night, then dried and lightened in the midday sun. At dusk the following evening, they lifted it down all soft and warm.

  Mary wrapped it around her shoulders. The soft, foresty green that the plants had given looked well with the healthy pink of her cheeks, and the dark gold of her hair.

  Agnes smiled at her, hands on hips.

  ‘You asked me yesterday what part you were to play, honey. I could not tell you then, but I know the answer now. I shall give you a new name for a new life. You are Mary de Holt no longer. I shall call you Marian. You are the beautiful green lady of the woods.’

  5

  The Charcoal-burner’s Daughter

  AGNES’S PREDICTION OF hard work was soon proved true. From early in the morning till late at night a constant trickle of miserable folk wandered into the clearing. Many, like Tom’s father, had been punished by the Forest Courts. They came trudging through the wastes and forestland from outlying villages, with scratched and blistering feet, groaning and fevered with sickening wounds. Some brought dogs with festering paws, their toes brutally crushed by the warden’s men, and so made useless for hunting.

  But of all the many different forms that misery took, the most common sight was a weary woman, carrying a child and followed by a trail of hungry little ones, their father thrown into gaol, the family turned from their home. Few men survived to stand trial, so dreadful were the prisons.

  There was little that Agnes could do for these desperate families, but she’d serve up warm pottage, and send Tom and Marian to help them build a shelter in the woods.

  There were many more suffering from the small and dreary troubles of life: the lonely, the lovesick, the hungry, the mad . . . and all their ailing animals. Each one was listened to and offered help of some sort. Only once did Agnes refuse an angry, loud-mouthed woman, who sought a curse upon her mother-in-law.

  ‘Tha must do thine own cursing,’ she said. ‘But best beware, for the curser may suffer the worst.’

  The woman went off glowering, dragging her white-faced young son behind her.

  Whenever there might have been a moment of peace or rest, Marian was sent out into the forest.

  ‘No time to sit about, my girl. Tha must get to gathering.’

  There were raspberries and bilberries, though honey was the sweetest treat. Wild thyme, rosemary, vervain and bitter rue were needed for Agnes’s vital potions. Meadowsweet and lady’s bedstraw flavoured their drinks and sweetened the rushes on the floor. Marian’s eyes grew sharp at picking out the firm white shapes of mushrooms as she lifted the fallen leaves. Magical clumps of shaggy white fungus appeared overnight, but they must be picked and cooked before they turned black, or the taste grew foul.

  Marian did as she was told, and gathered willingly enough, but she really couldn’t see the need for it. Everyone paid them what they could, and they soon amassed a good store of grain. But Agnes would not touch it, swearing that it must be kept for winter.

  ‘Well,’ said Agnes watching Marian at her tasks, ‘it seems my girl’s thriving as never before.’

  She spoke with satisfaction, but still she fretted and worried, and built up her supplies.

  ‘I don’t know what tha’s bothered about.’

  ‘Tha shall see the need . . . before next spring.’

  So Marian tramped the woods with Tom as her guide, carrying baskets and bags. Her legs grew sturdy, her hands like leather, her fingers quick and strong.

  Barnsdale’s vast tangles and swamps were no longer frightening; they hid a network of secret paths and signs. Marian soon discovered that the very perils of the wilderness became a source of protection to those who learned its dangers well. She grew to know each tree for miles around the clearing; to know each hovel and cottage, each warning smell and sound.

  It was late in August, and a still evening when Marian returned laden with mushrooms and a few late raspberries and fat, dark bilberries.

  A young girl stood hesitating by the pointer stone.

  Though she had learnt to step silently, Marian purposely made a sound, not wishing to startle the girl. She was right to have done so, for the girl jumped nervously, and turned around. Marian gasped at the whiteness of her face in the gathering dusk. She knew this girl, and she knew her swollen belly.

  Marian stepped forward holding out her hand, but there was no recognition in return. The girl was exhausted and ready to drop.

  ‘Hungry?’ Marian asked, offering the berries that she’d gathered. She could not keep back a wry smile, remembering the strawberries she’d once scorned.

  But the amusement vanished, for the girl put out a trembling hand and sank to the floor.

  Marian caught her awkwardly, shouting out to Agnes, who came running from the cottage doorway. Between them they carried her inside.

  ‘You see who it is?’ Marian cried. ‘She didn’t know me.’

  ‘I see her,’ said Agnes. ‘I hope we can trust her.’

  ‘What ails her, do you think? Is she having the child?’

  Agnes shook her head, puzzled for once.

  They settled her on the bracken-filled sacks that were their beds. As they fed her with sips of warm goat’s milk, she started to revive.

  She sighed, staring surprised at Agnes. ‘I know thee, but I came to seek the Forestwife.’

  ‘You have found her, honey,’ Agnes laughed.

  The girl stared, puzzled, for a moment, looking from one face to the other. Then her own distress came flooding back.

  ‘I hope tha can help me, for I surely wish to die.’

  They sat still on either side of her, listening to her sad story. Her name was Emma. The Ecclesall bailiff had caught her one day in the woods. He made her lie with him, threatening double land rent to her father if she told. She’d been terrified when she came to understand that she was with child. Her father had been angry, but he’d not turned her away. Then gradually, as the child had grown and moved inside her belly, she’d come to accept its presence, to wish to protect, and at last . . . almost to love. But suddenly, two days since, th
e child had ceased to kick or move at all. ‘Then I came seeking the Forestwife, knowing my father would in truth be glad to see me and the child gone. It lies in my belly like a heavy stone. I know that it’s dead, and I wish to die too.’

  ‘No, you must not,’ Marian snatched up her hand.

  But Agnes shook her head. ‘Let the girl rest,’ she said. ‘She cannot think straight after such a long hard walk in such a state. In the morning we’ll talk again.’

  Agnes brewed up a sleeping potion, while Marian fetched her own green cloak to cover the girl. Emma watched her wearily, with just a spark of curiosity.

  ‘Thou art . . . the lady,’ she whispered. ‘Thine uncle rages over thee still . . . but I never told.’

  Marian bent over her, tucking the cloak snugly around.

  ‘Aye. I know you did not.’ She gave a low laugh. ‘I call myself Marian. I am the green lady now.’

  Once Emma had fallen into an exhausted sleep, Agnes and Marian sat whispering together by the door.

  ‘Can you do aught to help her?’

  Agnes sighed. ‘There’s little I can do, for she’s right, that poor babe is quite dead inside her. All I can do is to bring it to birth. Then maybe she will recover and live – if she has the will for it.’

  ‘She must find the will,’ Marian said.

  The next day was a hard one for all three.

  Agnes nervously brewed up a potion from those herbs most dangerous in their uses. She fretted and fussed that the measures must be just right.

  Marian sat by Emma the whole day through, helping and holding her hand. A birth took place, but a birth that lacked all joy.

  In the late afternoon Marian was sent up to Selina’s mound to dig a new and tiny grave. Then as the sun went down, Emma herself came walking slowly from the cottage, carrying a carefully wrapped bundle. Agnes supported her, her arms about the young girl’s waist. Marian ran to take the bundle from Emma, but she shook her head.

  ‘Let her see to it herself,’ said Agnes, quite firm.

  Marian backed away then, thinking Agnes hard and cruel, but as she saw the touching care with which the young girl buried her dead child, she understood that it was right.

  She watched her old nurse guiding Emma through her miserable task. How was it that Agnes knew so much? For the first time the thought came to her that Agnes must herself have borne a child. Agnes had been her wet nurse, hired for her milk. She must have had a child to bring that milk. What had happened to it? Had she buried it herself like poor Emma did now? How stupid that she had never wondered before.

  Marian sought around for some small token and gathered twigs of bright berries from the rowan tree. Emma took them gratefully and set them in the small hump beside Selina’s mound.

  They both helped Emma back to bed, and Agnes brewed another sleeping drink.

  Marian wandered outside, weighed down by the sadness of it all. She walked towards the strong green branches of the greatest spreading yew, and flopped down to lean against the trunk. Here in the forest she had never been so strong and free, and yet she felt that she might burst with sadness. There was hardship unlike anything she’d known.

  She turned her face to the bole of the yew, sighing and wrapping her arms for comfort around its sturdy stem. As dusk crept through the forest Agnes came looking for her. She found her half asleep, still curled up there.

  ‘Why, love, I couldn’t see thee for a moment. What a sight tha makes. Has our green lady fallen in love with a tree?’

  Though Marian shivered and rubbed her cheek, she could not help but smile. It was a reminder of one of the stories that Agnes used to tell when she was a child, about how a poor servant girl was lost in the woods and fell in love with a beautiful tree. The tree was really a handsome young man bewitched by a wicked old woman.

  ‘I fear I’m not as clever a witch as that,’ said Agnes, holding out her hand to pull Marian to her feet. ‘And if I was, I’d turn the tree back into a fine young man for thee. Art thou sad and lonely, my lass?’

  ‘Tha keeps me far too busy to be lonely, old witch.’ Marian grinned at her.

  They both went back towards the cottage.

  ‘There’s one in there that needs a friend,’ said Agnes. ‘I can mend her body, if fortune smiles, but . . . ’

  ‘Aye,’ Marian agreed. ‘I shall be her friend.’

  They went inside together, glad that the day had come to its end.

  Agnes was right, as usual. Emma’s body mended fast, but her spirits could not. Within a few days she was up and walking easily, but she would sit for hours by the small hump of freshly turned earth beside Selina’s mound. Marian worried and tried to distract her.

  ‘Let her be,’ Agnes said. ‘Let her stay there as long as she wishes, however long it may take.’

  When Marian had finished her chores she would go to sit with Emma. At first they sat in silence, just keeping company. Then gradually they began to talk quietly; not of the lost child, but of their early lives in Sheaf Valley, so close – yet so unlike.

  Marian offered Emma the best fruits and cheese, but she’d eat little. Tom did his best to gossip and smile, even if he received nothing but a polite nod in return. Though she was clearly strong enough in body, nobody suggested that Emma might return to Ecclesall, and at least there was no more talk of wishing to die. In the end it was the charcoal-burning, and Marian’s ignorance, that threw Emma into the long haul back to life.

  Agnes had been worried that the small supply of charcoal in Selina’s hut was almost done. In the long winter months to come, they’d have great need of slow-burning charcoal to keep the fire glowing through the nights.

  Tom and Marian set to work to cut plenty of wood, and they could do that well enough. When they had a good pile ready they began to lay out a great stack in the middle of the clearing in front of the cottage.

  Agnes watched, ready to call instructions from the cottage doorway, but then thought better of it, clamped her mouth shut, and went inside. Emma sat listlessly on the step, fitfully turning her head towards her baby’s grave.

  The stack began to grow in a wobbling, untidy way, with both builders shouting wild instructions to each other.

  Emma became restless. She could not manage to sit still, and got to her feet. She firmly turned her back on them and sighed, then plodded off towards Selina’s mound. But she could not quite ignore them, and turned to see again the toppling pile that grew from their hands. She could stand it no longer. Emma swung around and marched up to them, hands on hips.

  ‘If tha builds the stack here, tha shall fill the cot with thick black smoke. And if tha sets it out like that, tha shall be burning half the clearing and the trees.’

  Tom and Marian stared at her amazed. Emma licked her finger and held it up. ‘The wind blows from beyond the cot. Tha must set the stack up there beside the stream. It must be built all neat and round, with a good space in the middle. I’d best show thee.’

  A short while later Agnes looked out from the cottage door and smiled. All was well. There was busy building, and following of orders, and a deal of friendly chattering. The charcoal-burner’s daughter was in charge.

  6

  The Blacksmith’s Wife

  TOM LED HIS little sister, Nan, into the clearing. She was walking well now and growing strong, but Marian caught a hint of fear in the child’s wide-eyed expression, and in the tense grip she kept on her brother’s hand.

  ‘Why, what ails thee little Nan?’

  The child shook her head and hid her face in Tom’s rump. He laughed and pushed her from him.

  ‘’Tis naught but the weeping in the forest that upsets her.’

  Marian smiled, with a slight puzzled frown. ‘And what weeping is that, Tom?’

  ‘Has tha not heard it, lady? It often comes to me when I’m on my way to visit thee. I can’t rightly say where it comes from. Some days it seems to come from all around.’

  ‘Nay. I cannot say as I know what tha means. The forest is full of crea
ks and sighs, but most have a reason. ’Tis thee that’s taught me so. If tha hears it again, come tell me quick, so that I can listen.’

  But the strange wailing in the forest was soon forgotten, for Tom’s mother, Alice, came following them through the forest to the clearing, carrying her new baby in her arms. She was out of breath with walking fast, and all upset at the news she’d heard from Langden village. Agnes and Emma appeared from inside the cottage, disturbed by the anger in her voice.

  It seemed that a man who had worked the land for the manor had died of a fever, and no sooner was the man buried than the lord of Langden had turned his old demented mother from her home.

  ‘As we know only too well,’ Alice cried, ‘there is no place at Langden for those who cannot work. He is a cruel master indeed. We found poor Sarah wandering in the forest three days since, half-frozen and hungry, quite out of her wits.’

  Marian’s eyes blazed with outrage. Agnes shook her head.

  ‘I’ve known it happen before,’ said Emma.

  ‘But that is not all,’ Alice insisted. ‘We took Sarah into our hut and fed her, but not a word of sense could we get from her. So my husband went to Langden, as near as he dared to go. He’s just come back with worse to tell.

  ‘There is a woman who lives in Langden, she was my friend, Philippa, the blacksmith’s wife. She was angry when we were turned from our home, but like them all she kept silent for fear. But she has not kept silent now. Old Sarah’s treatment was too much for her. She led a gang of villagers up to the manor house and they marched into the great hall. Philippa shouted at William of Langden that Sarah should be brought back and cared for.’

  Both Agnes and Emma gasped. ‘What came of it?’ asked Marian.

  Alice bit at her lip. ‘She is clapped into a scold’s bridle, and fastened to the stocks. William of Langden has sent to the Sheriff to have her declared outlaw. They will brand her and chase her from Langden land.’