too much store on it,’ I sigh.
He coughs. ‘Thirsty morning, is it not?’
I bite my lip. ‘There is water,’ I whisper, my face so heated with embarrassment I can barely look at him.
He snorts. ‘Well, there’s a welcome. Have you been telling tales against me, Anne?’
‘Tales? Of course not!’
‘Then why does he not send for me?’
I have no answer. John stands on tiptoe, tugging his hood forward to hide his eyes and trying not to show how greedily he scans the room for goodness knows what stories of riches. His gaze swallows up the old rushes, the hard benches without so much as a cushion to ease your way, the plain walls, the single side of pork dangling from the roof beam, the dark embers on the hearth.
‘Well, now,’ he says and scratches his head. ‘Ah.’
I see the dismal interior through his eyes, as unkempt and unloved as every other thing of Thomas’s. This is not the house wherein I was toasted a handful of weeks ago. No table set for a feast, no bunches of herbs to sweeten the air, the door opened to him by a goodwife as dreary as the sodden reeds which should be swept out.
He holds out the rabbit, grinding its ankles together in his fist. My fingers brush his as I take the dead beast, less than a second, but it is enough to make my flesh quicken. For no good reason I see my braids caught in his firm hand, tugging my head back as he plants a kiss upon my lips. I slam the door in his face with a muttered word of thanks.
I set about skinning and drawing the coney. The aroma of cooking meat calms me. As I catch my breath, I talk to myself sharply for entertaining such brutish imaginings. I set up the trestle and spread a clean cloth. By the time Thomas returns from visiting a poor widow out beyond Saint Michael’s chapel, the stew has fragranced the whole house. Mother always told me that a good cook feeds her husband’s heart. Today might be the day I succeed. His nostrils flare as he steps over the threshold.
‘A fine smell, mistress,’ he says.
‘For you, sir,’ I grin, with a pretty curtsey. ‘John brought a rabbit.’
‘Another visitor?’ he asks darkly.
‘A gift, sir. A kindness from our butcher. I have made a stew.’
He grunts and kicks off his boots, scattering dried mud across the floor. It does not matter. I shall sweep it away later.
‘You may take it to the miller and his family.’
‘The miller?’
‘Yes.’ He snaps his fingers. ‘Nathaniel? Simon? Martin?’
‘Simon.’
‘Yes, yes. I hear he is taken sick and I am tired out from walking all the way to the far side of the marshes,’ he mutters. ‘With God’s blessing,’ he adds quickly.
‘I could spare a bowl,’ I say, wondering if he truly means me to give away the whole lot and have nothing to eat myself. ‘But I made it for you.’
‘Then you have wasted your time, mistress,’ he says, shrugging off his cloak, which smells like a wet ewe.
It sprawls across the bench. He stares at it until I pick it up, shake it off and hang it on its hook.
‘Does the scent of rabbit displease you?’ I ask, knowing it does not. His eyes are glued to the pot, even if he thinks I am too stupid to notice.
‘Of course not. Your cooking is quite sufficient. But it is Thursday evening.’
‘Yes?’
I must sound truly confused, for he smiles. He always smiles when I do not understand what he has said. I wonder whether he does it on purpose.
‘So I cannot eat flesh.’
‘Thursday is not a fasting day,’ I say, a little uncertainly, for the good Lord may have changed His mind this morning and added Thursday to the dense thicket of days when meat may not be eaten.
‘It is past Compline. I did not think to be so late. But the widow would keep me …’ He draws in a steadying breath. ‘May the Saint bless her and keep her. So it is the eve of Friday. As a man of God, I must fast.’
I look at him. He looks at me. I am not convinced: he looks far too pleased with this act of piety for my taste. But there is nothing I can say. I return to the hearth and set to heating the porray left over from this morning. I consider adding a piece of the rabbit to it, but he would notice and I would get another sermon. I stir the mush so angrily some of it flies out of the pot and lands on the rushes.
I watch the spilled oatmeal dry out. I could scrape it off the floor and put it into his bowl. It is hardly a sin. He says neither a word of praise nor condemnation about the food I cook, whether it is the best dish I ever made or something I hurled into the pot without thinking. I doubt he’d notice if I seasoned his victuals with sheep dung. I know these thoughts come from the Tempter and I should pray, but today I am not in a prayerful mood. I continue to stir, feeling very sorry for myself.
When I first came here, I prepared victuals with the shy hand of a maid who loved and hoped for it to be returned. I thought my store of affection was enough to last many a lean winter, but I was wrong. It has shrivelled away so quickly. I look into the pot. Steam rises off the surface and warms my face with its gentle touch. I hover there a while longer, feel water pool beneath my tongue.
I shape my lips, part them slightly and watch spittle fall in a silver string. It rests on the surface of the pottage, the size of a small coin. I could pretend it is a mistake, one I did not intend to make. But I intend every bit of it. One movement of the ladle and it is gone. No, not gone: hidden. How I will smile if he praises his supper, tonight of all nights! Only I know it is there, and I will watch him eat.
I am sitting in the arms of an oak, picking shreds of rabbit meat out of my teeth when I see them: a flight of starlings moving as one bird, a banner turning the morning dark. I watch the play of their flight. I never tire of the tales they write upon the clouds: marvellous stories of where they have been and the wonders they have witnessed.
I feel that mix of wistfulness that I have no wings to spread and join them, yet happy that my journeys are conducted in solitude and not subject to the squabbling whim of birds. I am so wrapped in the drowsy distraction of a full belly that it takes me a while to realise that something is amiss. Their flapping is troubled, unlike their usual joyous dance. They cast themselves raggedly across the sky, first one way and then the other.
Their cries fill the sky and in them I seem to hear: Come close; follow and we will tell. Half-words, half-news and I must know the whole. The last thing I want to do is venture from the safety of the forest and any closer to the village squatting a stone’s throw away. But something pulls me, like iron to a lodestone.
I slide from my perch, scrambling down fast as a squirrel. My attention is so fixed on the birds that I almost trip over the body stretched across the path. I leap away shrieking, and hear a dry chuckle above my head. Some would say it’s no more than the rattling of rook’s beaks, but I know better.
‘Very funny,’ I grumble. ‘I suppose that’s your idea of a joke?’
The man’s arms are stretched out as though nailed to the earth; back arched upwards, his body a bow that Death pulled back and never released. I don’t want to look at him. I cannot take my eyes away.
His scrip is gutted, any coins long gone. His boots must have been fine, for they too have been stolen. His cap bears a leaden badge and just out of reach of his clawing fingers is a tiny book: face down, wings spread, prayers melting into the dirt.
Don’t you want to step a little closer? whispers my old friend. Smell the roses I have planted in his throat?
I