Dark Night Hidden

13

Home once again in her own dwelling, Joanna looked back on Imbolc as if on a dream. All that had happened at the festival was so far removed from everything that had hitherto made up her normal experience that there seemed little else she could do.

One thing, however, remained at the forefront of her mind: she had to face — and pass — another test.

As the February days went by, she was unconsciously preparing herself.

She had been on a hunting trip. Her prey was not, however, any living creature; she had been taught only to kill when she was in dire need, and she preferred to live on what she could grow in her little garden. She had been hunting for sheep’s wool to spin and weave into cloth for Meggie’s clothes, and the best places to go were the gently sloping hills and vales of the Weald where flocks of sheep caught their woolly coats against brambles and twigs.

It took a long time to find enough wool to make even a baby’s garment, but then Joanna had plenty of time. Although the February daylight was short, there were few tasks that had to be done in the course of a winter’s day. Nothing yet grew above ground, so there were no tender young plants to protect and nurture. She had to collect wood for the fire and prepare food and drink for herself — Meggie was beginning to try other mashed and blended foods although she still fed primarily off her mother — but those jobs were easily and swiftly done because she did them every day.

Today she had collected a fat bag of wool. Heading home, Meggie almost asleep in her sling, Joanna was already happily anticipating getting out her spindle after supper and meditating quietly in the light of the fire while she spun her wool. Hurrying away from the sheep pasture, she was eager to get back under the shelter of the forest’s guardian trees.

She always took steps to ensure that none of the Outworlders should see her. Not that there were many people abroad today; she could have believed that she had England to herself. But then, as she reached the outer limits of the forest, she heard something.

Someone. The sound was a low moan, as if whoever had made it could no longer suppress his — or her — distress.

Joanna felt two conflicting impulses. One was to run, to hurry away on silent feet and hide in the depths of the forest so that she did not become involved. This person must surely be an Outworlder, and Joanna had detached herself from them.

But a part of her was urging her to go and help. There was somebody in trouble close at hand, and human compassion dictated that she must do what she could to alleviate his pain.

She cuddled Meggie closer to her — the child let out a small cry of protest as Joanna squeezed her — and then turned to walk in the direction from which the sound had come.

Lying under an oak tree, huddled under a thin cloak stained with blood, was a woman. She had a veil over her head and face, held against her mouth with hands that were blue with cold, and she was sobbing quietly.

Joanna said, ‘I will help you, if you wish it.’

The woman shot up, dropped the veil and stared at Joanna from terrified eyes. She was older than Joanna by perhaps a decade, round-faced, short and quite plump. Or she had been; it looked as if she had lost weight rapidly quite recently so that now the yellowish flesh had settled into pouches around the jaw, neck and shoulders.

There was a flaming, infected sore in the middle of her forehead.

Making as if to get to her feet, she stumbled, fell, and screamed in pain.

Joanna went to help her. Putting one arm around the woman’s waist, she got her to her feet. ‘You can’t stay here,’ she said gently, trying to make her tone warm and reassuring, ‘you’re chilled enough already and if you lie here overnight you’ll surely freeze to death. I will take you to my hut and look after you.’

The woman ceased her feeble struggling. Staring into Joanna’s face, she mouthed something, but Joanna did not understand.

‘I mean you no harm,’ she said earnestly. ‘I am your friend, I promise you.’

One word seemed to have penetrated; slowly the woman repeated, ‘Fren. Fren.’ Then, leaning against Joanna, she allowed herself to be led away.

The journey back to the hut took some time. The woman tried to be brave but could not always contain herself; even had she not cried out loud, all Joanna’s healer instincts told her that the woman was suffering severely. It was all in the way she held herself, in the way she moved so carefully to save herself further pain.

And Joanna had to think about Meggie, too. It was awkward carrying a baby in a sling and trying to half-support a grown woman at the same time.

When they finally got to the hut, Joanna was sweating and her back was aching. Swiftly she put Meggie into her cradle and, ignoring the child’s hungry cries — ‘You will have to wait for a while, sweeting, there is another here whose need is greater’ — she gently sat the woman down on the floor beside the little room’s central hearth. The embers of this morning’s fire were still glowing faintly and it was the job of moments to get a good blaze going.

By its light, she turned to look at her patient.

Having given herself into Joanna’s care, all the woman’s resistance had leached out of her. She sat slumped, hands cradling the opposite shoulders, exposing the damage that somebody had wrought on her back.

Somebody had beaten her.

Joanna warmed water and added some of her precious supply of salt; Mag had demonstrated to her years ago that lightly salted water was less painful on raw wounds than pure water because it was closer to the body’s own fluid. Then she soaked a clean piece of linen and, with as light a touch as she could manage, began to moisten the remains of the woman’s gown until it was washed from her torn skin. The woman was quietly sobbing. Realising that even such gentle treatment was causing her great pain, Joanna fetched a selection of the little wooden boxes that she kept safely stored away on a high shelf.

She gave the woman a dose of the strongest painkiller that she had. It would make her sleep — maybe for a day, a day and a night — but then that would do her no harm. Joanna would look after her.

As the draught took effect, Joanna laid her patient down on the floor, cushioned on Joanna’s own furs. With the woman slipping into unconsciousness, Joanna was able to work faster. Soon she had the wounds of the lash anointed and dressed, and she turned her attention to the woman’s brow.

When she had cleaned the wound, she saw what it was. Somebody had branded the woman with the letter H.

Joanna, who knew full well what it stood for, felt a tremor of fear run through her. If there were people hunting heretics, then she was in danger herself. Oh, no, and she had brought this woman right here, into her home, her own private place! Supposing whoever was after her had seen? Was even now making his way stealthily through the forest, about to order his men to surround the hut, pounce, kill the woman and Joanna?

Oh, dear Goddess, and Meggie!

Danger to herself and her patient had been enough to freeze her temporarily in terror. Danger to her child brought her swiftly out of her paralysis.

She knew what she must do. She had prepared for this and she need not sit there helpless while they — whoever they were — came searching for the woman. For her. She picked up Meggie, fed her and cleaned her, then put her back in the sling. It was dusk now, and there was no time to waste. There was not a great deal that she could do before night fell, but what she could, she must.

She checked on the woman — sleeping deeply, well wrapped and warm — and then, collecting her ash staff from a far corner, slipped out of the hut. The first task was to conceal any tracks that she had made in bringing the woman here to the glade. She found her broom and spent a while sweeping vigorously until there were no traces of stirred-up leaves or footprints to mark their passage. Then she collected brushwood and bracken and fabricated a sort of screen in front of the hut. It was not perfect — she stood considering it — but it would have to do. Now the falling dark was on her side; soon it would be night and the hut would become as near invisible as made no difference. She had banked down the fire in the hearth before she left, so that it was now giving off hardly any smoke. What there was became absorbed in the thick reed thatch of the hut’s roof.

Standing a few paces from the hut behind its screen, she remembered something that Lora had taught her. It was a way to make yourself invisible in a crowd; Joanna had laughed at the time and remarked that this was a skill for which she would not be likely to have much use. Lora had looked at her darkly and said, ‘You cannot know, child. Never turn down knowledge.’

The way in which this invisibility was achieved was to make people look straight past you. You had to blend, Lora had said, you had to become your surroundings. Like many of the old skills, it was a question of believing; in this case, believing yourself to have melted into the background. Deed followed thought, and there you were, unobserved.

Joanna wondered if it also worked for large objects such as huts. Taking a few moments to slow down her breathing and concentrate her mind, she began to make a picture in her head. She imagined that the hut’s outline was softening, that long strands of creeper and kindly, helpful leaves and branches were slowly covering it, hiding it, making it safe from eyes that had no business seeing it.

When she brought herself back to normal consciousness, she had quite a hard job seeing the hut at all.

Smiling, she picked up her staff, turned and strode out of the clearing.

Her destination was no great distance away. She knew she must hurry — the light was fading — but nonetheless she trod lightly, careful not to leave any record of her passage. After a short while she arrived at the foot of a huge, ancient yew tree. Looking up into the dense, dark green of its foliage, she studied the convolutions of the thick trunk. It would have taken three people holding outstretched hands to encompass it; legend said that the yew was a thousand years old.

Joanna raised her staff and, standing on tiptoe, poked it into the fork where one of the lowest branches met the trunk, perhaps two or three man-heights above the ground. After a few attempts, the hidden rope that lay curled up there came tumbling down. Checking that Meggie was secure in her sling, Joanna quickly climbed the rope. Once she was safe on the branch, she pulled the rope up after her and put it back in its hiding place.

She now did the same with a second rope that was tied to a branch further up the tree. Once she had gained that higher branch, it was easier; she had made herself a rough rope ladder, which hung there permanently since it was quite impossible to see it from the ground.

The rope ladder led up to a platform in the middle of the place where the yew’s great trunk divided into four. The platform was very old; it was made of oak planks, beautifully sawn and planed, smoothed to a glossy finish. The joints were pegged, as secure and solid as on the far-distant day that they were made.

Lora had told Joanna about the yew tree’s secret.

‘It’s a refuge, see,’ she said. ‘There’s been times when our ordinary places of concealment haven’t been enough, or at least we’ve feared so. Our forebears in their wisdom made the secret refuges, where our people could go when there was danger and where they could remain until it was past.’

She had taken Joanna to the yew tree and told her to make new ropes, since the old ones had rotted almost to nothing. It had been Joanna’s own idea to make the rope ladder for the topmost stage. She had sat for many evenings during her pregnancy cutting pieces of oak and whittling the rungs. The lengths of rope she had fetched from the house that her mother’s kin had left her.

It was not advisable, she had decided, to work on the platform whilst pregnant. However, soon after Meggie’s birth she had begun. First she had cleaned off many decades of dark green, sticky residue, apparently made up of foliage, berries and bits of twig, and she inspected the planks for damage. They were sound. Then she set about making a shelter; if she ever had to use the platform in bad weather, it was possible that Meggie, so tiny and so vulnerable, might not survive unless Joanna contrived to make waterproof, weatherproof walls and a roof up there.

The work was so hard that she almost gave up. She had to take up posts to make uprights for the walls, hazel to weave between the posts and then wattle and daub to fill in the gaps. Then she had to take branches and reed thatch for the roof. And she had already climbed up with two posts when it occurred to her to use the rope as a pulley.

After that, progress was a lot quicker. Even Lora, sternest of judges over any matter involving security, had to praise her for her speed. And for her thoroughness; kneeling up on the platform — the roof was too low to allow anyone taller than a child to stand upright — she bounced a few times, leant against one of the outer walls and nodded.

‘Good,’ she had said. ‘It’ll do.’

Now Joanna inspected her shelter. Opening the plank door, she peered inside. It was too dark to see much, but the place smelt wholesome. She put her hand down and felt the platform: very slightly damp, but not soaked. It looked as if the roof had not leaked.

Tomorrow, Joanna thought, I shall bring bedding, furs, blankets — everything that I have. Somehow I must make this shelter warm, for there is little use in saving us from those who would hunt us down if we all die of the cold.

She was very tempted to lie down inside the shelter and spend the night there. It was safe, and at that moment that was the main consideration. But already she was feeling chilled; her under-robe had been damp with sweat earlier, when she helped the woman back to the hut, and the exertion of climbing up to the platform carrying Meggie in her sling had made her sweat again. Now that she was still, the sweat was rapidly cooling and she knew she would soon begin to shiver. Besides, although Meggie was with her, dozing snug and peaceful in her sling, the woman was not.

No. She could not contemplate a move to the refuge until tomorrow.

Resolutely she fastened the door behind her and began the climb down.

She spent the night watching over Meggie and the woman. She dozed off sometimes, but each time it was to wake with a start of fright from some dire dream where black hands with long, claw-like fingers were stretching out to open the door of the hut. She was very relieved when dawn broke and the new day began.

She spent the first part of it waiting impatiently for the woman to show some sign that she was returning to consciousness. It’s my own fault, Joanna told herself, and it’s quite unjust to blame her, poor soul — I should not have made the draught so strong.

As the Sun reached the zenith, the woman stirred, but then slept again. Heartened by this, Joanna began on the plan that she had worked out during the night for heating the refuge in the yew tree. She had already taken up what blankets and coverings she could spare; now she fetched a heavy bucket made of stout hide and lined it thickly with straw. Then she took out the first of a series of large stones that she had put in the fire to heat. It was awkward to handle — she had to be so careful not to burn her hands and render herself helpless — and she tried several methods before hitting on the best, which utilised two short, stout sticks with which to raise the stone on to the surrounding hearthstones. From there it was relatively easy to flip the hot stone into the straw-lined bucket.

Then she covered the stone with more straw and took it out to the yew tree, climbing up with it and wrapping it, still in the insulating straw, inside the thickest of the blankets. She repeated this procedure seven times. Because she was carrying such a potentially dangerous load, she did not dare take Meggie up the tree each time; instead she laid her carefully in its roots, warm in her furs. It was a relief, in every respect, when the job was done.

The woman woke up in the mid-afternoon. Her eyes looked dazed and vague and, when Joanna asked if she were in pain, slowly she shook her head. Joanna gave her water and offered food, but the woman refused it. Joanna was not surprised; the painkilling draught was reputed to take away appetite.

Joanna had a quick look at the woman’s wounds. On neither her back nor her brow was there any sign of that dread smell that indicated corruption of the flesh and, indeed, it seemed to her that the bright red inflammation had receded a little. Joanna said encouragingly, ‘It’s good! You are beginning to heal,’ and, for the first time, the woman gave her a very small smile in response.

‘I am called Joanna.’ She pointed to herself. ‘My baby is called Meggie.’

The woman was nodding as Joanna spoke. ‘I, Utta.’ She put a hand on her chest. ‘Not — not speak good. Just a little.’

‘Where do you come from?’ Joanna spoke slowly and clearly.

‘Home — is Liege.’

Liege? Where was that? Joanna tried to think. In the Low Countries? She thought so. ‘Why did you come to England?’ she asked.

‘Frens bring. Man said to come, to tell the word.’

‘Your friends brought you? What happened to them?’

The woman’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Frens — friends — taken. Whip, brand. In prison. Dead.’

Joanna was beginning to understand. If she was right and H did indeed stand for heretic, it sounded as if Utta had been part of some sect that had come to England from the Low Countries to seek converts. Perhaps to seek refuge, although if they had hoped for that then it seemed they had been sadly disappointed. They had clearly been caught and punished.

Joanna knew what happened to heretics in England. They were few in number, or so she had been told, and the law was relatively silent on the matter of their treatment. Having been convicted, they were to be punished and then exiled; anybody found harbouring them or otherwise helping them was to have his house burned down.

It was one thing, she now thought, to be aware of a fact. Quite another matter to see evidence of it before her own eyes. ‘They beat you and then turned you out into the bitter weather?’ she asked, sympathy strong in her voice.

Utta nodded. ‘They say, go away and not come back. I go, but nowhere to shelter from cold.’

‘You did not go with your friends?’

The tears flowed more freely now. Utta said, ‘My friends in prison. Frieda, Arnulf, Alexius. Guiscard also, I do not know. Frieda have — man. But he not love her, he tell men about her, about us all. Aurelia and Benedetto. .’ With a weak shrug, she gave up.

‘Seven of you,’ Joanna murmured. ‘And one of you met some man — an outsider — who, in betraying her, also betrayed the rest of you. You were punished and then either turned out in the cold or put in prison.’ There was one thing she had to ask. Staring intently into Utta’s soft blue eyes, she said, ‘Are they still looking for you?’

Utta gave another shrug. ‘I not know. I think, men say to let me go. But not the Black Man, he say no, that we must all suffer death.’ She dropped her face into her hands and her shoulders shook with her sobbing.

Joanna put her hand on Utta’s shoulder, murmuring gentle, soothing words. Her mind racing, she tried to think. The Black Man. What did Utta mean by that?

Then she thought, but it doesn’t matter who he is. Utta says he may still be searching for her. If so, and if he tracked her to the place on the forest fringe where I found her, then he may soon start hunting for her within the forest. He may bring others with him.

There was no time to lose.

Speaking slowly and calmly, she said, ‘Utta, I have a place of safety. We can go there, you, me and Meggie. It will be hard for you because of your injuries, but I’ll give you more pain-killing herbs, which will help. But we must go now.’

Utta stared back at her. For a moment it looked as if she would refuse, and Joanna could hardly blame her; when you were in pain, the last thing you wanted to do was to stagger to your feet and set out on a journey. And she hadn’t yet told Utta about the yew tree. But then Utta nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I safe, you safe.’

Good woman! Joanna thought. You understand that if you’re safe then I am too. Me and Meggie. She said bracingly, ‘Come on.’ Utta was already trying to get up, and Joanna put out her arms to help her.

Today’s walk was slightly better than yesterday’s. Utta even offered to help carry some of the covers, so Joanna folded a couple of light woollen blankets and laid them across her arms. Joanna carried both the furs and Meggie in her sling.

When they reached the yew tree, Utta looked up at it in amazement. Joanna, who was just realising what a task she had set them both, made up her mind that this was no time to be half-hearted. Jerking down the rope, she said, ‘Up you go, Utta. I will put Meggie down — look, she’s quite safe here among the roots — and I will help you.’

Utta put her hands to the rope. But Joanna could see straight away that there was no strength in her arms; quickly she made a loop at the end of the rope and showed Utta how to put her foot in it. Then she threw the slack middle section of the rope over the branch and, before Utta could protest, began to haul on the end. Utta was jerked off the ground; she clutched on to the rope with one hand and fended herself off from the yew’s trunk with the other. In moments, she was up on the first branch.

Joanna, sweating profusely and panting from the effort, pulled the rope back down and quickly climbed up it. She got Utta up the second stage using the same method then, showing her the rope ladder, let her climb it on her own, following close behind in case she slipped. Eventually they reached the platform, and Joanna got Utta inside the shelter.

Turning to Joanna, she gave her small, gentle smile again. She said simply, ‘Safe.’

Joanna, grinning, muttered, ‘I hope so.’

She went back down to the ground and brought Meggie up, making her a secure little nest in a corner where a fold in the yew’s trunk made a triangular space the right size for a small baby and her wrappings. Two more trips for food, water and medicinal supplies for Utta, and Joanna was finished. Utta, welcoming her into the shelter with a grateful look, helped her to secure the door.

Then Joanna uncovered the hot stones she had brought up earlier. The insulation seemed to have worked; the stones still gave off quite a lot of warmth. The mere presence of people inside the shelter had raised the temperature by a few degrees, and Joanna began to hope that they would survive the night.

Knowing that there would not be light once night fell — it would be folly to have a flame of any sort — Joanna got on with the many tasks she still had to do before sunset. She made a bed of sorts for Utta, putting one of the hot stones at her feet beneath a covering of blankets and furs, then she laid out a similar bed for herself. She went back to the hut in the clearing and fetched the food she had prepared earlier — hot food, a sort of porridge with root vegetables, which she carried up to the yew tree platform in another leather container — and she made sure they had adequate drinking water. Before she left the hut, she banked down the fire and put some more stones in it to heat. She was very afraid that they would soon be needing them, and she was already wondering how she would manage to climb down and up the yew tree in the dark.

Just before they settled down to sleep, Joanna gave Utta another draught of the herbal mixture. Again, it would both help with the pain and make her sleep. Joanna was tempted to take some herself; not that she was in pain, other than aching muscles as a result of all her activities over the past two days, but the idea of a long, sound night’s sleep was seductive.

No, she told herself. I do not dare. Someone has to watch out for us all, and I cannot do so if I am in a drugged sleep. She would wake from a normal sleep, she well knew, if anything out of the ordinary happened; she was so attuned to the regular night sounds of the forest that she would instantly recognise anything that ought not to be there.

Finally, there was nothing left but to try to sleep. Closing her eyes, putting out a light hand to touch Meggie, deep in her infant dreams close by, Joanna said a swift but heartfelt prayer to the protecting powers and drifted off.