Also by Leah Fleming
The Olive Garden Choir
The Wedding Dress Maker
The Daughter of the Tide
First published in the UK in 1998 by Hodder and Stoughton, a division of Hodder Headline PLCThis edition published in the UK in 2019 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Leah Fleming, 1998
The moral right of Leah Fleming to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A catalogue record for this book is available fromthe British Library.
ISBN (PBO): 9781789543278
ISBN (E): 9781789543384
Images: © Shutterstock
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Also by Leah Fleming
Welcome Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Part One: The Clearing at Fritha’s Well
Into the Forest
The Search
Strangers
Miracles
Strange Harvest
By the Water’s Edge
Part Two: The Priory
The Hut By The Well
The Spider Brusher
The Bequest
The Warrior Wind
The Priory
The Ghost Garden
Part Three: Within These Walls
Rumours
The Michaelmas Market
Face to Face
A Mystery
In The Rose Garden
Part Four: The New House
Staying On
The Knot Plot
The Century Oak
Down The Path
Part Five: Fridewell Garrison
Arrivals
Under Sufferance
Harvest Home
Bitter Seeds
The Circle of Flame
The Tipsy Hedge
Part Six: The School
Secrets
The Water Gardens
The Shed Garden
Part Seven: The Shed Garden
A Chime Hour Child
Percy’s Patch
In the Heart of the Garden
Part Eight: Friddy’s Piece
Arrivals
English Lessons
The Paprika Moon
Goodnight
Acknowledgements
About the Druin Burch
An Invitation from the Publisher
For David and that corner of the world, above all others, which holds a smile for us.
‘This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England’
—Richard II, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
For Sale.
The sign is fixed above the gate post. The deed is done. Miss Iris Bagshott takes a deep breath to mark her decision, gulping in the green silence outside. It’s a Samuel Palmer evening, bronzed and enamelled with gold around the edges, one of many in this Vaughan Williams folk song of a summer, haunting, harmonic, memorable. Why should she be feeling so agitated when the pipistrelles are darting into the shadows and the bees drone and the night air smells of stocks and honeysuckle? Time to take the tour. That might ease all her misgivings. Time to do the nightly inspection of sunshine borders and shade corners, water in her seedlings, let the dog stretch its legs in the fields beyond now the sheep have been shifted from the meadow…
Slow down, Iris, follow the golden rule, slowly, don’t rush the tour or you’ll miss something. It’s not that difficult these days to creep at a snail’s pace.
The sign above the gate should please that blessed builder. Now he can make me a generous offer, stop pestering me to sell up and downsize… what sort of word is that? If Arthur Devey’s a cutting off the old stock he won’t be able to spell it either! What about buying one of his new bungalows indeed! He keeps harping on about the value of a cherry orchard with planning permission, the premium of having such an ancient barn suitable for redevelopment, the size of my cottage for just one old lady and her dog. Well now, let’s see if he puts his money where his mouth is. How dare he think that at eighty-five I don’t know the stairs are getting steeper and narrower, and that two acres of garden is a bit too much for arthritic knees? Really… I can still remember flaying his dad’s backside with a slipper when he was a nipper in my classroom. The Deveys are mere Johnny cum latelys to Fridwell village while Bagshotts are rooted in its soil like the oaks in the forest. Some say we’ve been here since Domesday.
Miss Bagshott sips from the smooth rim of her china mug as she surveys her kingdom from the bench seat by the kitchen door. The tour always begins at the homely end of the garden where the salmon pink rose, Albertine, climbs up the warm wall and the studded oak door looks out on the oldest part of her kitchen patch, with not a square inch of its soil vacant. Nothing seems more simple or more beautiful to her at that moment than a well-stocked kitchen garden where even the brick path sprouts seedlings, lemony thyme and velvet moss amongst the weeds.
Into the rows of green lettuces, spinach, chard, cabbages and carrot ferns, chickweed, thistle and couch grass muscle in like thugs but in such well-manured red soil anything will grow. What a riot of plants for the pot stuffed into beds edged with alpine strawberries, glistening in the moonlight like a Sultan’s rubies, mixed with bronzy sage leaves, lobelia and any stray herbs which can grab a spot. Silver-green foliage, blues and pinks all spilling out over the path in front of her favourite peonies whose heads flop like ballerinas curtseying in pink tutus.
Peonies shouldn’t really be in a kitchen patch but I like it when plants find their own place in the sun. The sweet peas dance up the cane tepees alongside an arch of scarlet blossoms from the runner beans. They give height and interest to the bed.
Her eyes drift beyond the boundary wall where the rhubarb has gone to seed and spirals of golden heads lighten the shade. Why shouldn’t some of her umbellifers stick their feathery heads in the air and feed the hoverflies? It takes away the regimented look from the borders, gladdens the eye as it rises over the wall up to the Chase. Here the great oaks sleep in the dusk on the high ridge, silent witnesses to centuries past silhouetted against a marigold sky.
Nothing like trees to cut you down to size, outliving each generation in the end, and Miss Bagshott wonders: Is it true, do her ancestors really stretch as far back as the forest itself? Who cleared this piece and chose this blessed plot to feed themselves?
Then she hears the soft trickle of water over stones. The stream which meanders through her patch is so much a part of her garden that she scarcely gives it a thought. Now, in the silence of evening, amidst the perfume of newly mown grass cuttings on her compost heap, Miss Bagshott smiles. Human kind never strays far from the source and giver of life and Fridwell spring must have been named in someone’s honour. But who and why?
AD 912
‘All things pass away, so may this’
—Deor’s Lament, The Exeter Book
‘The Peony
The roots are held to be of more virtue than the seed; the root is also effectual for women that are not sufficiently cleansed after childbirth, and such as are troubled with the mother; for while likewise the black seed beaten to powder… is also available’
The buzzard circled and coiled high over the forest, patrolling above the treetops, sweeping the air with upturned wings dark against the lavender sky of late spring. The roosting birds hid deep under the branches, wary and silent, until danger passed over. The wolves, like grey shadows, crouched under cover of scrub, watching the lambs graze in a terraced clearing.
The bird was joined by its mate. They swooped down into the vale of the silver river which coiled like a snake, glistening in the moonlight; down to the dark earth clearings and the smoke of man, spiralling up to greet them from holes in thatched rooftops.
The sun was setting low over the thick forests of the west, rays of pink and orange promising a settled spell of weather. To the east lay the grey swamps of the Minster church clearing; more sloping terraces fallen to the foe of woodland, the plough. Further afield stood the earthworks of Tamworthig, open land no longer the domain of wolf or eagle. The buzzards soared back to their roost among the oaks.
Underground, moles were turfing and digging to the surface, pushing through the bracken fronds. Worms were churning and sucking down the rotten autumn leaves. They could feel the thunder of heavy ox hooves and the rumble of cart wheels. Men were on the move.
The dusk creatures darted into the hazel scrub, but the little spring still gushed and bubbled out from the deep rock, dancing over the pink boulders, carving a path through the thicket downwards to the brook and river beyond. The Forest of Canok was alive, watchful, waiting, while mankind trundled trek-weary over the faint track. Finally the sparse procession of covered wagons ground to a halt before fording the stream.
‘Stop right here! I’m not going another foot tonight. This’ll do, Baggi. There must be a wellspring ahead – we can rest up here, feed the stock. Me bum’s nailed to the boards.’
Fritha jumped from the cart, stretched her stiff joints, shook out her dark braids and the skirt of her tunic and waved to the other cart. There was a scent of bluebells on the dusk air. They were on the edge of a forest and somewhere close by a spring was trickling into this shallow stream. It would be an ideal spot to rest their weary bones.
For two days the travellers had struggled on in heavy rain, ploughing through the mud with restless livestock tethered to the cart, reluctantly dragging their hooves. The rain had lashed on to their covered wagon, everything was soaked, even the boards they sat on. The children were sodden, hungry and tired out.
She lifted her son, a flaxen-haired babe of two summers, from the back of the cart and shook him awake but he lay draped like a mantle over her shoulder. His sister slept, curled up with the hound, whining at being roughly woken.
‘Are we here?’ she yawned, staring up at the net of black branches overhead.
‘Just another stop over, Wyn. It’s almost dark, time for supper,’ Fritha soothed, hoping to humour the child.
‘Can me and Ranulf go rooting?’ Wyn jumped up and down, her dark plaits flying. Once awakened she would want to scamper and play, race about and get under everyone’s feet. Her father, Baggi, shouted from the other side of the cart.
‘Pee in the bushes but stay close by, do you hear? There may be bears, wild boars or wolves lurking in the scrub. We don’t know this track and any noise from us may make them edgy. Mam’ll light us a fire and get the kale pot on the boil to warm yer innards with broth.’
He turned to untether the goats and the other beasts, moving them on to graze as best they could. He led the animals to the wider verge by the stream, waiting for his younger brother in the cart behind to lift his heavy wife down from the back where she had lain wearily all afternoon. She needed watching that one, not like his woman who was already at her chores.
Fritha took the wooden bucket to draw water. It was still light enough to trace the source, which could not be far, for the stream was still weak. She followed the bank where primroses and purple violets, chickweed and watercress, edged the water. The garlicky scent of ramsons wafted down from under the taller trees in the distance. It was a beautiful setting in which to lie down and rest, with plenty of bracken to stuff a plump mattress. Soon she came to a hidden bank, out of which water bubbled from the rock. This was a sacred spring, of that she was sure, and Fritha squatted to draw the water into her bucket, first sipping it from her cupped hand. It was soft and sweet to her parched tongue. Above her the birds were making their evening noises, piping and chattering, oblivious to her presence. She sat down to enjoy a moment of quietness.
What a bunch of moonstruck idiots they were, striking out to find a new life for themselves with hopes as tall as spears! Beorn’s woman, Lull, looked exhausted, too close to her time to be travelling for three weeks over rough tracks and deserted stone roads. They rattled and bumped, became stuck in ruts and boggy, swampy tussocks, pushed, shoved and struggled to keep moving on to a better site, lighter soil, higher ground. A hard journey for families with young.
Baggi promised he would know when they found the right place to settle but Fritha was bone-weary. All I want is a bed of ferns amongst the bracken, some tree shelter and a fire to keep the wild beasts from attacking our livestock. This place will do, she thought.
It was good to be deep in a forest away from the open stone way of the ancient folks, where ghosts marched with the blood of her ancestors on their swords. They had kept the old east to west street in sight as a guide on their great trek to find new land to clear, a better living for their childer, away from the troubles, away from warring thanes and the Dane folk; savage warriors who skinned folk alive and carried off the women to satisfy their lust. Now they were heading northwards from the old stone street, through dense forest with only the tracks of animals and packmen to follow, rising higher on to ridges with a better view.
Holding the bucket in one hand and a bunch of kindling sticks under the other, she shouted to her childer on her way down from the well to gather more brushwood for the fire. Fritha busied herself setting a circle of firestones, striking the flint and tinder, boiling water in their kale pot for the rootings. The children also gathered cress from the stream and any first spring growth they could find for the pot. Wynfrith was a helpful lass in that way, but disobedient and wilful when the moon was in the other direction.
There were still oats in the leather bag and a few of her dried herbs to add flavour to the broth. The chickens in the wooden cage had not laid an egg for days and were eating up the last of their meal. How she wished she could wring their necks! It was weeks since they had tasted meat. If the hens were let out they would soon disappear into the undergrowth for a fox’s feasting.
Lull sat with her back hunched, rubbing her belly, looking low in spirits. For a moment Fritha felt a flash of annoyance at her laziness. Beornwulf was already making up a shelter for her to rest in. If only she were not so swollen in those legs and ankles. It was not a good sign.
‘We shall have to stop soon, Baggi, or Lull will drop the bairn in the cart,’ whispered Fritha to her husband. He was always the more cheerful, hale and hearty of the two brothers, full of schemes and dreams. It had been his idea to strike out for some better land for the two families. Baggi was always the one who listened to the packmen’s gossip that there were rich pickings in the northern kingdom of Mercia, where no thanes had cleared land and the holy men lived in hermit’s cells deep in the forests.
Baggi and Beorn were freemen. Poor though they were, they still had the right to leave their thane’s service and seek other dwellings. Beorn was happy to strike out, too, but Lull was not. There was a restless streak in the elder brother which made Baggi push them on and on but even he knew it was time to stop for a while, to see Lull’s birthing through. They must settle, make a clearing and plant out before the summer’s end if they were not to starve or be destroyed by the winter darkness.
The wooden carts were mud-splattered, wheels splintered and in need of repair. Baggi must not risk another upset load. They were worn, crammed with tools, and the precious plough took up most of Beorn’s cart. Baggi had brought everything they could barter, buy or make for the life ahead. Strapped to the sides with leather thongs were dry seasoned oak beams for the hut-making.
Nothing was left behind but the tears of the old ones, too afeared to make the journey. Their well-loved voices still rang in Fritha’s ear, the parting touch of kin, all the fare-thee-wells stuck inside her chest. It would be the last she would ever see of all of them, as solemn a parting as at the graveside. Her heart held hundreds of misgivings.
Would the provisions last? There was flour, meal, hard cheese, honey combs, dried apple rings, mead in the cask, seeds in the dryest purse, amongst the skins and precious roots and plantings wrapped in damp straw, a bucket of barley sproutings for the ale-making, a gift of salt for curing – all that well wishers could spare for them. Fritha fingered her grandmother’s amulet around her neck, a necklace of beads carved from the root of the peony flower; her trusted charm against evil and sorcery, sickness and bad spirits. For extra measure she had a string of peony seeds and her own store of sacred herbs safe in a leather purse tied to her waist girdle. She was taking no chances.
Sometimes as she lay beside Baggi she felt such foreboding. As if by leaving the settlement they would attract evil spirits to follow in the shadows, setting them around with obstacles and mists, luring them into bogs and swamps to be swallowed whole and sucked down into the blackness. Perhaps if she made a wooden cross piece and hung it around her neck as many now did for protection, calling on the High God of Heaven as the priests and hermits taught, that might help them find a fertile spot.
They were baptised in the Christian faith but Fritha preferred the old ways, the runes, the spells and charms, learned by rote at her own mother’s knee. The old gods were more sympathetic to womankind, for Erce was the Mother of the earth and growing things. Fritha always carried the nine sacred herbs: thyme and fennel, full of power; mayweed against skin rot; plaintain, the mother of herbs; stime to fight pain and poison; mint, sage, wormwood and the blessed rue.
She stirred the pot dreamily, wondering as she gazed over at the others, busy about their tasks, if they too had misgivings about striking out alone, without other company to make a stouter band of travellers. They would be easy pickings for brigands and marauding Danes from the northlands.
Poor Lull, little more than a child bride, now so swollen and fearful. Fritha could never tell how a birthing would go. Each of hers had been different. She was glad she had plenty of peony seeds to make a brew for the labour. Lull was a strange, silent girl, friendly and helpful sometimes, then lost in a mist of moods, distant, forgetful.
Beorn would not dream of letting his brother travel alone and forced his woman to leave their hut. It would perhaps have been better if the girl had stayed. She was holding them back by her feebleness. Little Wynfrith at five was more of a helpmate to her mother than this dreamy girl. Wyn would have to mind the baby so that the new mother might spin and weave cloth for them from the hedge rovings they were gathering along the track. In the sack was madder root, woad and onion skins to dye the wool yam, a task which Fritha enjoyed above all others. How she loved to mix the colours! But it would be many weeks before they were settled enough even to think about fancy stuff. There would be so much else to do if they were ever to fill their bellies. Everything looked so grey and drab and unpromising at dusk.
When it was almost pitch black, night calls echoing across the treetops, they sat round the circle of firestones to draw breath and sup their stew with relish. The moon was high and bright; the wellspring gurgled in a soothing sort of way.
The night was calm and mild and Ranwulf slept where he ate. Baggi lifted him on to the mat of ferns and covered him with a thick overmantle. Soon Wyn was asleep and Lull moved closer to her own wagon with Beorn. Baggi stoked the embers thoughtfully.
‘It takes some out of you, all this travelling. I’ll need no rocking tonight. Tomorrow we’ll get a good start. Take the day fresh, keep heading north-west.’
‘Must we? Lull can’t go much further. She looks off to me, yonderly, as if her time’s coming. Why don’t you scout around with Beorn, check out the forest edge? Give us all more time to come to, clean ourselves up a bit. I could bake some stone bread, make milk porridge for a change if the goat will drop some milk. Don’t you think?’
Fritha touched his leathern arm and smiled her gap-toothed grin. Baggi scratched his head and in his straw-coloured hair and rough wool tunic. Beneath the straps of his leather sandals his feet were black.
‘We’re all flea-bitten, dust-covered and mud-caked it’s true. Go on then, you’ve twisted my arm. But only the one day, mind. I’ll rise at first light and give this place the once over.’
‘Thanks. You’re a good man, Bagwulf. Even if you’re a slave driver, moon-touched and as restless as the sea tide!’
Fritha supped from the mead beaker. She was proud that her man wanted more for his family than sharing a cramped hut with his kin; thought more of himself than to spend his nights at the ale bench. The two brothers had sawn and hammered and fashioned tools, sometimes until cock crow. She was touched by the quality of his handiwork. With this soothing thought, her eyelids began to drop.
The travellers slept soundly, undisturbed until the cockerel stretched its neck in the cage and crowed. Fritha woke with a start. Baggi was gone, Beorn still snoring. Wynfrith and Ranulf were nowhere to be seen. Trust them to tag along with Baggi. His little henchmen, he called them. It was turning into a beautiful sunrise, everywhere decked in spring green, that special freshness of new growth. The dew sparkled on the leaves and the scent of the forest bed was as good as a feast to her nostrils.
Fritha built up the fire to get the stones hot for baking and searched in the cart for the flour cask. When she turned round Baggi had returned dangling a cock pheasant, its bright plumage brilliant in the sunshine. ‘Look what I’ve found for us. It fell into my path.’ He laughed. ‘Get that in your stewpot before any one sees it.’ He turned towards the stream. ‘Where’re the bairns?’
‘With you… I thought you’d taken them with you?’
‘No, they were fast asleep, dead to the world when I left. They must have gone rooting for you downstream. Our Wyn is good at finding mushrooms. They won’t have gone far. The hound must be with them too.’ Baggi smiled but it was a thin smile and he struck out along the path briskly. ‘Wyn! Ranulf! Come and break your fast… now!’ There was no response.
Fritha ran to the other cart and shook the couple inside roughly awake. ‘Quick! Rise up… the kids have gone off the track somewhere. Just wait ’til I get hold of that little mischief… she’ll get such a wallop! I told her not to wander.’ But Fritha felt an icy coldness in her heart.
‘Don’t worry, they won’t have gone far. Their bellies will guide them back. You’ll see.’ Lull tried to be a comfort but Fritha was having none of it.
‘You stay here and keep shouting. I’m going back the way we came. Perhaps they’ll be laiking downstream. Little Ran loves to splash about in water.’
She headed down to the ford, grasping her overcloak around her. Suddenly the sky was overcast and the chill wind bit into her face.
‘Come on, childer, come back now! This is no time for hide and seek,’ she called desperately.
*
By the second nightfall there was still no sighting of child or hound. All day Beorn and Baggi combed through the undergrowth, beating with sticks, calling out, penetrating further and further into the thick forest, leaving runic carvings on tree trunks as sign posts back to the carts. Only the scattering of birds disturbed the air, and black ravens watched silently from high in the branches.
Lull paced round and round the fire, reciting the old charm and adding new exhortations:
Erce, Erce, find each child, fetch the childer,
Bind those rascals tight and bring them safe back.
No ground shall keep them stuck or hidden.
No dragon’s feast are they.
Whosoever steals them shall never thrive.
May they wither as fire withers wood,
As bramble and thistle hurt the thigh.
Show us thy power, thy skill to protect.
Thrice round the fire I go…
She felt sick in the stomach but kept up her vigil. Soon they would stroll back hand in hand, unaware of the anguish they had caused. They would be beaten soundly for their naughtiness by Baggi, though he was tearful with thanks for their return. Then they would set off and leave this cursed place and journey onwards. Soon they would laugh at their fear. That was how it must be. But as the shadows lengthened and the weary men returned, fearful now of the worst, only Fritha remained hopeful.
‘Wyn is a sensible lass. She’ll find shelter in a cave or hollow, give Ranulf water from the stream. With water they will live and the nights are not cold. And the hound will guard them. He’s old but his teeth can still draw blood.’
She sat hugging her knees, half in a dream, letting the fire go cold, watching the water bubbling from the spring. We must wait by this spring until they return.’ She refused to see the worried looks of the two men. Two lost bairns and now a mad wife, that was all they needed.
No one slept that night, taking it in turns to pace around the fire. They could hear the howl of a she wolf, the screech of a vixen, but not the sound of children crying to be found. By the third day Fritha had eaten nothing. She tied strips of hemp cloth to the branches of the wellspring as votives to the water spirits to help in the search.
The men circled and recircled, each time taking another direction, hearing only the echo of their voices in the valley. Until finally, to their joy, a voice called back up to them.
Baggi tore excitedly through the bracken and found a wattle and mud hut, a hermit’s cell, where a hoary old man stinking of rancid neglect stood with staff upraised, ready to defend himself.
‘Peace, brother! Why such a rush on such a beautiful morn?’
‘Have you seen our childer, a boy and a maid, this high? They wandered off from our cart. I heard you calling… thought ’twas them.’ Baggi sagged with disappointment.
‘Nay, brother, my eyes are misty. I see no one but scent the air like a deer. I will pray for their souls and safety. How long did you say they’ve been gone?’
‘For three moons since dawn.’ All the strength was seeping out of him as he saw Fritha waving frantically from the high bank, waiting for a response, hoping with every breath for good news. How could he share what was in his heart, the fear that his bairns were lost, never to be found? That some cruel fate had lured them into the depths of the forest and it was all his fault.
‘Fret not about what has befallen them. Search and ye shall find. Trust in the Lord Jesu and His Saints, pray to the Blessed Chad for a miracle. He will find them else bring you consolation. You must bear what must be borne. Travelling is a mighty dangerous thing even in the summer months. Perhaps someone from the clearings high in the far forest has found them – the shepherd or the woodburners. They are kindred folk. Word will travel down with the pedlars and packmen, holy men will pray for them and pass the word. Stay awhile until you have proof of their fate.’
The hermit made signs of blessing but Baggi took no heed. He plodded back up to the ridge with a heavy heart.
‘Who’s that down there? What news? Is there hope?’
‘There is always hope, Fritha, while we have breath.’ He sighed, trying to hide his fears from her. How he cursed himself for risking this trek. It was all his idea. He had forced the pace, bullied them into this madness. How could he ask them to move on now?
Fritha’s cheeks were hollow, her bony figure hunched and suddenly shrunken. She was his helpmate, his breadmaker and latchkeeper, following him so trustfully. He had torn her from her kinfolk, and now something had torn her bairns from her hearth. He could not look her in her grey starved face. He could not face those burning dark eyes. She was of British stock, had the knowing without words, that gift of truth-divining as if she was feeling his thoughts.
‘Are they are lost to us?’ she croaked in a thin broken voice.
‘The holy man says we must pray to the Saviour God for help. Our bairns may be safe in a sheep clearing with the wool gatherers. The forest is holy land, a wilderness of heath and scrublands stretching far to the west. We are still in Mercia. Over the big river is Dane law. We will not be welcome there. You must be brave.’
‘Are you telling me to stop the search? That all is lost and we must leave our bairns to the mercy of the wolves, for the ravens to peck their unburied bones? Bagwulf, I’ll not move one inch from this spot until I know their fate. Go on yourself but don’t expect me to get in the cart. What’s the point of making a homestead if there’s no son to plough it after we’re dust? Don’t think I’ll go on another measure. I’m rooted here where you brought us all and here I must stay.’
Baggi crumpled at her words as if stabbed by spears. Fritha stood dry-eyed and ice cold in her fury. ‘Time enough for tears when we find their bones but I’ll never come with you. I make my homestead here.’
It was Beorn who broke the silence, hearing their raised voices shouting, blaming, punishing each other. ‘I didn’t want to have to speak of this yet but on my last circle far out… there was fur and blood, the remains of a hound – a grey hound with brown streaks. I saw nothing else. I didn’t want to dash your hopes that the hound was still guarding them. The ground is torn, he must have fought to the death… with something.’
‘Let’s see it, show me! Up where?’ cried Fritha, suddenly alive, tearing at his grey woollen sleeve to drag him away.
‘Stay, lass, there’ll be nothing to see now. The ravens were waiting to finish their feast. Come sit with Lull. She fears her pains are coming. Help her bring new life to us all. The shock of this has let down the birthing waters. Please, Fritha, we’ll not give up hope yet. Baggi and I must build a shelter round the fire.’
‘This is no place to build a homestead.’ Baggi shook his head, all the strength leaking out of his belly.
‘Brother, you’ve had your say long enough. Here we stop for the summer at least. This will clear well enough for me. It’s high, away from swamps, the ground is solid, there’s water and sun from the south. Scrub is always easier to clear at the edge of a forest. I’ll travel no further with you and Fritha is too heavy in heart to move on. Get the tools out of the cart while I gather sticks. We can plait some walls, build up the firestones.
‘It’s better to be busy and doing. Better than roaming the forest on a fruitless chase. I’m sorry but you know what I fear. I wanted to shield you from the truth.’
For the first time in his twenty summers, Beornwulf felt he was in charge, making the decisions for all of them. Cruel fate had stopped them on this trek. Here was where they were meant to stay. If he wished to go on Baggi must travel alone and that, he was sure, his brother would never do.
*
Fritha was sitting hidden from the others by the wellspring, her wellspring. Her prayers hung in tattered rags on the overhanging branches of the willow tree, the water spirit deaf to her pleas. Her heart was filled with yearning for her kids. In her imagination she was clasping them to her bosom, feeling their hot breath, the soft down of hair on Ran’s head. Never to see them again… Her heart was numb with shock. She could see no colour only darkness and trees. Heavy was the wound she bore, like a knife thrust in her side. Soft sounds of a lullaby stuck in her throat as she rocked her empty arms. Gazing deep into the water she thought she could see their faces glimmering up at her. She cried out and turned away.
Suddenly there came another cry. The groan of a woman straining in labour. Fritha turned from her hidey hole as if in a trance. She was living in a half-remembered dream, a tale sung by the minstrel with the lyre in the mead hall. The cries grew louder, pulling her back, and she made for the cart to aid Lull.
This was a good sign surely, thought the two men as they nodded together. Now they must set to work on their homestead. By sunset with a bit of luck a wattle hut would be raised, a fire lit and a new bairn would be at Lull’s breast. How Fritha would react to that, did not bear thinking of.
In the days following their fruitless search Baggi and Beorn gathered staves and prop posts, cut and lopped down branches, plaited wattle walls, fixed them into a ditch of stone footings, criss-crossed the roof and wove in heather and ling to thatch over the roof, leaving a hole in the centre for the smoke to escape. Lull nursed her baby daughter whom they sprinkled with dew, raised to the moon and named Hilde. It was a strong name for a girl but any baby would need to be tough to survive here. The bairn was swaddled in tightly to its mother in a makeshift sling, close to her breasts. Lull was afraid to let the child out of her sight.
Fritha took no interest in the baby once it was delivered safely. She could hardly bear to look into the soft pink face and blinking blue eyes. Every waking moment she busied herself with a hundred tasks and the rest of the time roamed alone over the tracks, searching, searching, for her lost children. Once she saw a traveller, rushing upon him like a mad beast and badgering him to tell her if he had heard of any children rescued from the forest in other clearings. He was almost scared to reply that he had not.
As the moon waxed and waned and high summer burned through the leafy branches on to the clearing, her spirits sank deeper into hopelessness. She withdrew into a sullen silence but worked like an ox, following the plough as it churned over the dark red soil, picking out and clearing away stones, gathering furze and kindling for the fire, tying them into thick prickly bundles. She scooped up the precious dung for the midden to feed the winter soil, letting it stink and dry in the open air. No wonder she fell asleep on her feet as she stirred the supper pot.
The men chopped down trees, split the timbers and loaded them on the cart, trundling the wood off to harden and dry in the clearing. This would make the stout walls for their winter dwelling. It would be a race against the season to plant out barley and peas, beans and oats, flax, hemp and linseed. The hens, fenced off in their own croft, clucked over a brood of chicks and soon there were spare cockerels for the pot.
Lull busied herself collecting rushes for the bed straw and lamplights, carrying water from the stream to douse the dry plantings, taking care never to stray far from the site or disturb Fritha at her digging by the well. She cured animal skins, carded goat’s hair rovings into balls to spin from a shoulder spindle. They would need more cloth for the baby’s wrappings and fresh undershifts for their rough cloth tunics. She was not fit yet for heavier work, feeling faint and weak if she walked too far in the sun.
It was Fritha who tended to the fire and the cauldron, gathered greenshoots, nettles, fungus and herbage for the pot. Often she found herself yearning for the old huts far away, for her kin whom she would never see again, for the Maytime feasting and dancing, the time of visits and merrymaking when hawkers peddled their gossip from clearing to clearing, relaying messages and greetings from far-flung members of family. Here it was all back-breaking hard slog in the heat of the sun and she could see no point to it. Beorn was their leader now. He had a child even if it was only a girl to marry off and find a bride gift for.
They had all helped to make a patch of bare earth for her, closer to the water and her spring; a leek and kale plot for the sowing of winter vegetables and pot herbs, for onions and greenshoots. Digging over the soil, clearing away roots and stones, flinging them on to a heap, was strangely satisfying. Raking over the tilth, planting out her precious seedlings and cuttings occupied her hands but not her mind. There was only the memory of Wynfrith tugging at her skirts, wanting to help, to share the task. The child would wait for the plants to rise straightaway and grew fractious when everything took so long to appear out of the soil.
Fritha turned her sunburnt face southwards to the sight of the oxen plodding forward, the iron plough biting into the earth, cutting neat strips across the cleared earth, the ridge made by the furrow deep and straight. The two men must work from dawn to dark to finish their ploughing if they were all to survive to next summer. Each night they returned with sweat like dew on their foreheads, ready only to eat, drink from the last of the mead cask and sleep.
Fritha woke every night before dawn, creeping out to sit with her loneliness by her spring. It gave her comfort to be there away from Lull who crooned over her newborn, suckling her contentedly whenever she stirred. It was strange that such a feeble maid had birthed so easily and brought forth such a strong baby with sturdy plump limbs, showing that her milk was rich enough.
There was no one but the deaf spirit of the well to hear Fritha’s woes. She sat under the grove of high trees pouring out her troubled thoughts on to the water. Sorrows bound her heart tightly like the hoops of a cask. Only here could she clasp and kiss her children, rest their heads on her knee as in the olden days when they were all together in the wagon.
As each moon set and each sun rose slowly over the forest, as deep shadows lifted, she wept for the pain to go away, for the earth to swallow her into itself as it had done her bairns. How she longed to be suckling her own babe at the breast again. The moon blood had never returned since Ran was birthed and now she feared she was dried up inside, as barren as thin soil. Only the moon blood brought a quickening in the belly and the swelling of new life.
She fingered her necklace of wooden beads, tearing at the leather thong to throw it away. What use had it been to her, bringing only bad luck and foul deeds? Her grandmother swore by the power of the peony charm but something stronger had taken away its strength to protect and now it would shrivel the soil, kill the growing things. They would all starve or die of the swamp fever.
Only then did she recall Grandmother’s words: ‘All things pass, so may this.’ But would this feeling ever pass from her? It was like a weed which bound itself around berry bushes and blossom, sucking out the strength and goodness. Sitting here in the dark time when wild beasts lurked she felt like the sad-minded woman whose sufferings were endless in the minstrel’s song. All things pass, so may this… How could she ever forget her own flesh and blood or stop her search for them in the wild wood? Would it ever be bearable?
But if she were to defend them all against the dark ones she would have to bestir herself, take heed of the other advice her old grandmother had given many times: ‘Nothing grows from nothing. You must bless your labours, honour the earth, sprinkle it with water and blood for it to yield up its strength to your stock and flavour to your food.’ A blessing of words and deeds, that was what she must offer if they were to survive. Hilde must live, thrive and multiply, if the loss of her own children was to be borne.
Fritha kicked her feet in the cold water, splashing away the dust and grime from between her toes. Her skin was like tanned hide, dark and tough as good feet should be, strong soles without blisters. I must grow with my plantings, feed them all well. For the first time in weeks she could face the dawn with determination and resolve. This now was her piece of the middle earth; she would make it rich with fruit and grain. Only then did she notice the blossom on the hedgerows, the white of the may bending its branches like snow, the carpet of daisies and dandelions, buttercups and lady’s smock, the pink dog roses peeking through the scrub and the humming of the bees about their morning business. The seasons went their way whatever a woman’s suffering but here she would stay put, just in case…
*
Baggi woke with a start, feeling no body beside him warming his backside. Fritha was like a shadow, rising silently early each morning. He knew where she would be sitting and would not disturb her sorrowing. He had his own worries, feeling a frown as deep as a furrow across his brow. It was all going too well. Not, of course, the terrible loss of his bairns but Fritha mourned that enough for the two of them. Men must keep busy, not dwell over their troubles. They could not talk of it together. There was a high wall between them now and neither would tear it down. For Baggi it was a shield to hide behind so that he could get on with sowing, hoeing and keeping the livestock safe.
It was all going too well, though. He was having to admit that the site was good and Beorn right for once. The soil was clay mixed with sand and the rich loam of season upon season of rotted leaves. Virgin soil of the best quality. As long as the rains came regularly his plantings would survive. Yet still Baggi felt uneasy. Land such as this was often cleared for common grazing, on which to raise sheep and cows. The edge of the deep forest offered the advantages of shade and rich leaf mould as well as protection from the wind. Why had no one ever cleared it before? Surely they were not the first to pass over the ford and see its possibilities?
Did the land belong to the Kings of Mercia? To a bishop or earldorman, some thane in his great hall? Or was it land once tilled, now overgrown and forgotten, ripe for exploitation by young peasants like themselves? Was it part of the ancient hunting forest where the nobles chased the deer and boar? If so they were already trespassers and could all be hanged. He was sure at first that some thane’s reeve would ride up one day and demand an explanation, rent, services and tithes for the honour of being permitted to better the land. But he had seen no one but the hermit and when they had returned to ask more of the holy man, his cell was abandoned and deserted. Baggi even wondered if he had dreamt their encounter on that fateful day.
What they needed was a thane, a shield protector, someone to replace the kinfolk they’d left behind. One lonely homestead, a few kine and ploughed fields could easily be destroyed by raiders, their harvest stolen and their wives carried away as slaves. He argued to Beorn that thanes in wild lands must be eager to find new settlers for their rough scrublands. The two of them had just seized an opportunity, being freemen not runaway slaves, but had no proof of their status only their own word.
This forest was so vast you could walk for days and nights and never see another clearing. They were treading over no one’s hearth, and surely doing the owner a liege man’s service by their careful husbandry? He could not bear to think that all this would go to waste for the want of somebody’s permission.
Beorn thought him daft even to think of going looking for a thane. ‘We can’t pay rent or do services yet. There’s too much to do here as it is.’ They nearly came to blows over the matter in the heat of the midday sun.
Baggi sometimes sensed uneasily that they were being watched from a distance and that their presence was reported back to someone. They were too close to the thin edge of the forest to go unnoticed. What if they did all the work and then the cleared land was confiscated or given to someone else while they were branded thieves or hanged for their efforts? Better to be safe now than sorry later.
Somehow he would have to make it his task to seek out the owner and plead his case. He would have to journey back to the Minster in the swamp where the monks prayed in the clearing they called the ‘Field of Martyrs’. He was sure he would find an answer there. But how to convince his brother it was the right way to go about things was another matter. Beorn could be as stubborn as an ass when the wind was in the right direction. Baggi would have to bide his time and seize the moment.
*
Lull and Beorn stood in the shadows. The baby had been restless, crying hard, and would not be shushed until they walked her up and down in the moonlight. It was then that they noticed Fritha, moving in her kale patch, etched naked against the midsummer moonlight. She was bending over, busying herself. She seemed to be digging in the dark.
‘What’s the crazy woman doing now?’ Baggi joined them, watching her antics with concern.
‘She’s digging for something or else burying it. We can’t see for sure. Tell her to come inside and rest. Time enough to delve and hoe when it’s daylight,’ whispered Beorn, shaking his head in amusement.
‘Shush! Don’t disturb her. She has a purpose. Don’t laugh at her,’ said Lull, hugging her baby. ‘Who knows what I would do if I lost my bairn? Let her be. Whatever it is, she’s doing no harm. She likes the old ways and the old charms. Come, inside, the baby is asleep now.’
They crept back into the hut silently but Baggi’s heart was bursting with sadness. Why did his woman have to be so secretive, so odd, so silent? What on earth was she doing out there in the dark? Something she didn’t want them to see, one of her granny’s old tricks, some conjury or witchcraft? He should go out and stop her now. But Baggi sank back on to the ferns and straw. He hadn’t the stomach to order her about. One look from those sad black eyes was deterrent enough. He was the slaughterer of Wyn and Ran. How could a father ever forget that?
*
First she dug up four sods from the corners of the growing patch and then Fritha carefully began to pinch out the top shoots from plants coming up, gathering green herbs, cabbage leaves, radishes, everything except burdock – she must not gather any of that. Next she placed some greenshoots in each hole, bits of each in turn. She could not add oil or honey or yeast yet for there was none to spare but a beaker of goat’s milk was dropped in for good measure. A sprinkling of precious rock salt, hairs from the beasts and some from her own head too, peony seeds, fennel seeds, all fell on to the pile and as she walked from corner to corner she prayed the old prayer:
Eastward I stand and pray for your mercy.
Guardian of the heavens, Earth and sky.
Raise crops for us,
Fill the fields for us,
Let our seed double,
Fill this patch with food for all.
In the sprinkling of blood and water
Guard against witchcraft and foul deeds,
Make this land fruitful forever.
Slowly she paced around the tilled ground, sprinkling spring water into the holes, then carefully dug back the soil. Fritha was doing her best, following the old charm, and prayed she had missed nothing out, nothing important which might spoil the spell. If Baggi and Beorn would bless their plough and mattock, axe and hoe, then the meadows would surely flourish with pasture and the crops never fail. Just for good measure, though, she placed four cross sticks on top of the holes, hoping the Christian Gods, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, would add their power to the spell. She promised that when the harvest time came around she would bake a loaf filled with all the grain seeds she could muster and bury it under the ground as a thanksgiving. You had to put back what you take out, or crops fail. For the next three nights she must repeat the prayer at each corner or the charm would not be strong enough to see them through the winter.
Fritha returned to the hut and crept back to Baggi’s side. For the first time in many moons she would sleep until first light and wake with no tears running down her cheeks. Yet she could sense danger on the wind. Why was the forest alive with the screeches of birds disturbed from their roosts? She thought she could scent woodsmoke on the air, the sound of hooves thundering through the bracken. Danger on the way! She could hear the sound of hounds somewhere to the west of the clearing. Raiders were coursing through the forest in search of plunder.
Wake up!’ She tugged at Baggi’s bare arm and kicked him. ‘Wake up! All of you… Take the bairn to the bear pit… Can’t you hear them? Hurry before we’re roasted alive. I smell fire!’
The settlers peered out cautiously from the wolf pit, lifting up the bracken to see if the raiders were gone. Lull crouched over Hilde to protect her and silence her crying. Beorn was already climbing out to see what havoc the robbers had left. They had stayed all night in the foul hole in the ground, terrified to move for fear of capture or worse. They stood up and stretched themselves, damp, chilled and sickened by the sight before them.
‘Look at the hut, it’s just a pile of ashes! All that work…’ Beorn kicked the burning embers in disgust.
‘But at least we weren’t all roasted inside it. Thanks to Fritha we’re safe.’
Baggi touched his wife’s arm gently. How could he confess to nearly beating her black and blue for yanking him out of his bed, disturbing his slumbers?