Chapter 1 - PREVIEW

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 chapter 1                   

 

In the end, I listen to the fear that keeps me awake, that resounds through the frantic beating in my breast, the dry terror in my throat, the dread that comes with the pricking of the rat's nervous feet in the darkness. 

Christian has not come home all the night long.

            I know, for I have lain in this utter darkness for hours now with my eyes stretched as wide as pits in the ground, yearning for my son's return. 

Each night he weaves late, I cannot sleep. I am tormented when he is not here – I fear that he will never return. I lie awake, plagued by whispering shadows of loss and loneliness. But so often my fears are for naught.

So, in the early hours of the night, I tell myself that the sound I hear is frost cracking, river ice breaking. I lie to my own heart, as one lies to a frightened child, one who cannot be saved from the conflagaration.

I lie.

All the while, I know it is a fire. And I know how near it is.

For at the beginning, there were shouts and cries of alarm, and now there is the sound of rapid running, of men hauling buckets of water and ordering children to help. A house burns.

Yet always I fear to venture forth, for my unreasoning fright grows into a deranged panic that gibbers in the dark. What if this fire was started to burn me out? What sport would they have, watching a mute moan as she turns on the spit?

A crackle and hiss in the distance. A heavy thud, then the inrushing roar of an inferno. Where is Christian? I must go, I –

Scrambling out of the straw, I throw on a rough woolen shift. I rush to the door, and then I remember poor Nell, who died last spring. I do not forget her agony. 

I blunder in the darkness then, fumbling for the fireplace soot, and I smear the smooth edge of my jaw, marking with trembling fingers a hint of beard on my soft upper lip and my chin. Always, I must hide my true face.

As my fingers work, I grip hope to me, a small bird quaking in the nest of my heart. Desperately, I long for the words of a prayer from my past at the Abbey.  

… O Alma Redemptoris, redemptoris… 

I have lost the words to it, yet I struggle on, hoping against hope.

This sooty ritual is perhaps my own strange paean to womanhood. Like Theresa of Avignon, that spoiled heiress of the French throne, who shared my vows at Canterbury, the world will see me only as I intend. It is a type of vanity: if I cannot be a woman, I will be as ugly a man as I can muster.

And in this ceremony, my dread subsides, my fingers stop trembling. I can think clearly for a moment. Even now, perhaps Christian is one of those who carry buckets of water to fight the flames, perhaps Christian takes the fearful to safety.  He is hale and healthy. He is mine, and I am his. All will be well. I repeat it like a rosary. All will be well.

Then there are harsh shouting voices outside, men rushing towards the burning building.

"Trapped," they shout. "Trapped and burning! Those children will be killed by hellfire!"

The words of the prayer desert me. The Abbey goes from my mind, as well as all my memories of womanhood. I quake with dread, for I am not finished, I should wrap my bosom tightly, bind the feminine shape of my body into that of a eunuch. But I lunge for the door, my bosom unbound, my heart full of fear.

Fear for my son. Fear for my own flesh. Even as my heart belies me, I pray that this fire is nothing. Nothing to do with my life, my secrets.

 

         •••

 

Across the village square, the largest house is consumed: the windows are wreathed in flame, every piece of wood steams as if it is melting. The roof seems supported not by heavy timbers, but by ropy masses of blazing smoke.

It is the home of Benedict, the weaver, and it is the home where my son is apprentice.

The smoke chokes and claws at my nostrils and my throat. The roof catches in a roar of darkness visible. There is no order to the turmoil of the crowd, only the desperation to save their houses, their village, their children.

Not a one of the villagers pays the slightest heed to me.  

I am an old man to them, and a broken, mute one at that. Wiry as a starved mule, leathery with long labor. My nose thin as a knife, cheeks high and tarnished by the sun. It is rare that any in this village look beyond the rat's nest of gray hair and wrinkles to the sea-green eyes above my mute and mirthless mouth.

Tonight, I force them to see me. I seize each of their faces with my gaunt hands, turning them, staring quickly into each pair of wild frightened eyes. I find my friend Liam's frightened pale face and red beard. He looks for his son too. Across the way is a boy wrapped in a cloak and hood, but when I meet his eyes, they are black as night. It is only Cole, that orphan lad.

Salvius the blacksmith runs past, throwing water on the flames. Hob the alderman is shouting at the men, ordering them on, as he does. Then I see Tom, who hangs back in the crowd. His wideset bovine face is full of fear. I clutch at him, wanting answers, but he pushes me away. I turn, I pull down another man's hood, and it is bald Benedict, who owns this weaving house. He gives me a dark glance, and pulls away as well, to lift a bucket of water. There is a short man I grasp next, small Geoff the carpenter with the squint.

"Where's my boy?" he shouts in my face. "Where is he?"

That is the question. I turn about again, I seize on every person, look in every face.  

I search frantically for his blue eyes, I hope for only one boy. My son.

Christian.

Slowly it comes to me that I have seen nearly all the living folk of this village. Only a few are not here. The very young, of course. And Jack, whose foot was trampled by the cow. Phoebe, whose swelling ripeness comes to full bloom now. Benedict's wife will be with her this night – for flighty and inconstant Clara is the closest we have now to a midwife, now that Nell is no more.

Desperately, I search each face again and again until they push me away. I wish – not for the first time – that I could use the tongue that lies silent within my mouth.

The people shout their names. "Breton! Matthew! Stephen! Jonathon! Christian – "

The large boy who belongs to Tom, and the son of Geoff the carpenter. Then the second son of Benedict the weaver, and after that the eldest son of Liam the miller. But there is only that name that echoes in my mind. My son, my only.

Christian – Christian – Christian –  

The house falls half apart, split wide, a timbered carcass steaming and cracking in the winter frost. Salvius is always brave: he leaps up onto the smoldering threshold, and uses a beam to batter in the smoking door. Then Liam wraps his arms in a soaked cloak and steps into the smoke. A sound goes up from Liam within – he shouts that they died close to the door.

There is a rushing confusion in the crowd, ants scurrying on a broken anthill.

I push my way through the milling villagers to see Liam and Tom, dragging out a charred body. Then another, and another. Five of them, in the end. All the missing accounted for.

My tongue forms his name, a voiceless cry. The flames rise again, the west wind gusts strong across the heath. It is a demon, roaring as it takes the building apart. The crackle is that of hell itself. The men run frantically to cover the neighboring crofts with buckets of water.

The bodies lie on the ground, black as broken shadows. They stink now of death and burning. Roast pig, scorched wool. It is a nauseating stench, yet despite myself, my mouth waters at the smell of meat roasting in the flames. I am always so hungry.

A bit of metal glimmers faintly below one charred head. It is a thin silver chain. Is that my chain? My boy's neck?  

I am pierced to the root then, all of my veins bathed in a liquor of terror.