Tidelands

TIDELANDS, FEBRUARY 1649

The wedding was to be simple. Alys and Richard would be married before the usual Sunday morning congregation at St. Wilfrid’s Church, Alys in her best gown with her new white apron and new white linen cap. Richard would wear his best jacket, and Ned would lead the bride to the altar. The service would follow the new style as ordered by parliament: Richard would make brief promises, and Alys would assent to her own vows. After the wedding in St. Wilfrid’s, they would all cross the rife, take a goodwill drink at the tide mill, and then go on to Stoney Farm for the wedding feast. There would be good food, and healths drunk, and finally the young people would go to bed in the big bedroom under the thatched eaves.

Alys did not sleep until the crowing cock from the barn told her that the night was nearly over, and then she turned on her side, sighed with anticipation, and slept deeply.

The morning of her wedding day was freezing cold but clear, the ice on the harbor so white that the seagulls whirling above it were bright against the blue sky and then invisible against the blanched landscape. Alys, waking late and tumbling down the stairs to eat gruel at the kitchen table, swore that she would not wear her cape but would go into church in her gown and new apron and cap.

“You’ll freeze,” said her mother. “You have to wear your cape, Alys.”

“Let her freeze,” Ned advised. “It’s her wedding day.”

Alinor granted the one liberty that Alys had set her heart on. “Oh, very well. But this is what comes of a winter wedding. And no flowers to be had but a posy of dried herbs!”

“As long as I can wear my new pinny,” Alys stipulated.

“Oh, wear it!” Alinor said. “But you’ll put your cape on when you’re going home in the wagon to Stoney Farm.”

“I will! I will!”

Rob came down the stair from the loft, wearing his new work jacket and the Christmas shoes.

“And how fine d’you look, lad?” Ned asked, slapping him on the back. “This is a proud day for the Ferrymans.”

The children did not mention their father’s name, and Alinor, tightening her cape around her broadening waist, thought that if she had not needed a name for her baby she might never have heard the words Zachary Reekie again.

“All right, Ma?” Rob asked gently.

She smiled at him. “I’m fine.”

“She’s missing Alys before we’re rid of her,” Ned advised, but Rob’s brown eyes were fixed on his mother’s pale face.

“Are you really all right?”

Alinor held her breath. From childhood, Rob had been able to see beyond the surface of things, to illness and sorrow. She wondered if he could see her heartbreak, she wondered if he could sense her baby, his half brother.

She shook her head and smiled. “It’s as your uncle says,” she lied. “I’m seeing you and Alys out the house, both of you, in the same week and I feel like a broody hen with all her eggs stolen.”

“I’ll be working at the mill with you tomorrow,” Alys pointed out. “You’ll see me at first light. And Rob’ll be home at Lady Day.”

“I know, I know,” Alinor said. “And I couldn’t be happier for both of you. Come along now, Rob, and eat some breakfast. Alys, have you had anything?”

“I can’t,” she said at once. “I’ve no appetite.”

“Don’t you go fainting away at the altar for hunger,” Ned warned her.

“Take some small ale and a little bread,” Alinor urged her. “And I have eggs as well.”

Alys sat at the table as she was ordered, her uncle on one hand and her brother on another, and smiled up at her mother. “My last breakfast here,” she said. “My last breakfast as Alys Reekie.”

“Stop it,” Ned advised swiftly. “Or you’ll set your mother off again.”

Mr. Stoney, his wife, and son in their wagon rang the chime for the ferry just as the family was finishing breakfast, and Ned went out to bring them across the high water. Once they were on the island side Alinor rolled out the barrels of wedding ale for them, and the two men loaded them into the wagon. Alinor had two big wheels of cheese and two loaves of bread baked in the big oven at the mill.

“And are you ready?” Mr. Stoney asked Alys. “All your little things packed up?”

“I’m ready, I’m ready!” she said breathlessly.

Richard jumped down from the back of the wagon, his face pink with cold and shyness. He took her hands and kissed each one, and then he kissed her on the lips.

Mrs. Stoney climbed down from the seat at the front of the wagon and Alys curtseyed and kissed her mother-in-law, and as the adults greeted each other, she slid her hand in Richard Stoney’s warm grip.

“I’ll get her things,” Ned said to Alinor. “Are they all ready?”

Alinor and Ned went into the house and brought out a small pile of good linen, the best that Ferry-house had, and a knapsack of Alys’s personal goods. Mrs. Stoney’s eyes flickered over the little bag, but she said nothing. Richard gave Alinor his hand to help her into the back of the cart and lifted Alys in.

“We’ll walk over the mire,” Ned said for him and Rob. “See you at the church door!”

“Don’t delay!” Alys warned him. “Don’t get your shoes muddy—go round by the bank!”

“I shan’t be stolen by mermaids,” Rob teased her. “We’ll get there before you do!”

Mr. Stoney clicked to his pair of horses and they headed south as Ned put the cover over the fire, shut the back door, and walked with Rob on the little paths across the flooded harbor to church.

The whole parish turned out to witness the wedding of the pretty Reekie girl to the wealthy farmer’s son, many of them glad to see Alinor’s daughter doing so well, a few murmuring that it was a shame she was going off the island. Ned was known to everyone in Sealsea Island because of his long service on the ferry, and his father before him, and most of the women had consulted Alinor for their health or for the delivery of a baby. The marriage was an extraordinary upward leap for the family who had worked the ferry on the island for as long as anyone could remember, but everyone conceded that if any girl was likely to marry well for her looks, that would be Alys.

There were a lot of comments about Rob as he took his place in the men’s pews at the back. Some people who had seen him in the summer processing to the front of the church with the Peacheys were glad to see him returned to a lowly place. But the young people, especially the young women, remarked on the difference between Rob their former playmate, son of the missing fisherman Zachary Reekie, and this new Rob, with his command of Latin, his apprenticeship in Chichester, and his well-cut jacket.

Nobody remarked aloud that the two Reekie children had been blessed with extraordinary opportunities, given that they had been born in a fisherman’s cottage to a ferryman’s daughter and a wastrel father who was now missing. Nobody said that their good luck could only be something other than chance, charm, or ability. Nobody repeated the old story that they were faerie born, that their own father had sworn it, and that their good looks and good fortune were the gifts of their mother—a faerie concubine, beloved of the unseen world, and guided by it. But almost everyone thought: how else could the Reekie children be so undeservingly blessed? How else could their mother walk out of a violent marriage with her head high and not a mark on her? How else should Zachary so conveniently disappear? Nobody would say such a thing on Alys’s wedding day, but a number of people thought it, and glanced to each other, and saw that others were thinking it too.

Alys was about to go into church and Alinor about to follow her when Mrs. Stoney delayed them at the church porch. “D’you have the dowry?” she asked. “You’re supposed to give it to me here.”

Alinor halted, and turned to her daughter. Alys flushed a little, and reached into the pocket of her gown under her apron.

“If it’s short you’d better tell me now,” Mrs. Stoney said harshly. “Before you go a step farther.”

“It’s not short,” Alys said.

Alinor tried to nod as if she were confident that Alys had all the money. They had worked all the hours at the mill, and spun, but even with the ferry money and Rob’s wages, she thought that Richard must have donated all his inheritance.

Triumphantly, Alys handed over the purse, and Mrs. Stoney weighed it in her hand and then opened it and peeped inside. Alys’s face was like a sculpture in stone as she looked at her mother-in-law. The woman tipped the coins into her hand: gold crowns, silver shillings, no small coins, no coppers at all: a fortune.

“You got it,” she said, as if she still could not believe it.

“Of course,” Alys said.

“Of course,” Alinor repeated.

Mrs. Stoney tucked the purse into the pocket of her cape. “Then we can go in,” she said. “I’ll put this in our treasure chest at Stoney Farm tonight.”

She turned and went into church, past the standing room for the workingmen at the rear of the church, and took a seat in a pew near the front, while the usual pew owner shifted up sulkily. Alys took her mother’s hand and went to stand at the back, waiting to be called up to the altar. Richard was waiting at the front of the church.

“Next Sunday, that’s where I’ll be,” Alys whispered to her mother, nodding at Mrs. Stoney’s determined occupation of the prestigious front pew. “And you shall sit beside me. That’s worth scraping up for pennies, isn’t it? We’ll have our own pew.”

“That wasn’t pennies,” Alinor said, still stunned that Alys had a dowry purse with the full amount.

Her daughter smiled up at her. “Richard,” she whispered. “I told you he would not risk losing me.”

The door of the church behind them opened, and Sir William strolled up the aisle of the church, nodding to his tenants left and right, showing no signs of mourning for the king he had lost and the defeat of his cause. His face was set in its usual lines of calm indifference. His eyes flickered over the men at the back of the church and he ignored Ned and other known roundheads. Behind him, as always, in order of precedence came his household; before them came his guest: James Summer.

Alinor, standing with Alys, unnoticed at the rear of the church, closed her eyes. She felt herself go rigid as an iron bar on an anvil. She had not thought that James would still be at the Priory. It had not occurred to her that he would come to church for Alys’s wedding day. Alinor gripped the back of the pew against the falling sense of faintness. She bit her lip. She held herself as if she were a fragile thing that might crack and dissolve, as if she might be exhaled if she did not hold her breath.

The minister announced the first hymn, the parish stumbled through an unfamiliar song with the musicians sawing away on tabor and fiddle. Alinor opened her eyes, came to her senses, and opened and closed her mouth as if she were singing too.

Her heart was thudding with relief that she had not confided in Alys, who glanced without interest at the Priory household. Alinor thought that if her daughter had known that James was the father of the baby that she was carrying, and seen him walk past her without exchanging a glance, her shame and humiliation would have been unbearable. Alinor turned her head a little so her gaze was directed away from the Priory pew. Perhaps this was her punishment for foolishly trusting a young man who spoke of priceless love but lived inside an expensive world, who called himself mad for her but was all too thoughtful when it came to his future. Alinor realized that the hymn had finished and sank obediently to her knees for the prayers. There was nothing she could do to stop the man who had betrayed her from witnessing her daughter’s wedding. The best thing she could do was to try to share Alys’s joy in this day, and not let her own unhappiness distract her. Alinor closed her eyes and bent her head. She could not find words for a prayer; but she could only wish herself through her daughter’s wedding, and for the day to be over without betraying herself.

James, at the front of the church, sensed Alinor’s presence behind him, and had to fight the temptation to glance back to see if she was looking for him. He had not thought that he could bear to walk past her; he did not think he could get through the long church service. He had forgotten that it was Alys’s wedding day, and it was of no importance to Sir William. The cook, Mrs. Wheatley, could have told him, and that she had baked a great cake to take to Stoney Farm for the wedding feast, but she did not know that he had any interest in Alinor. She would not have dreamed that he was shaking with desire as he knelt and laid his head on his hands, and prayed to God to keep him from sin and from folly.

When the service was finally over, the minister did not walk to the back of the church to greet and reprimand his parishioners as usual. James waited impatiently for the Priory household to lead the way out of church and release him from this vigil—and then he realized that they were not leaving.

“Today we celebrate a wedding,” the minister said. “Those of you not wishing to attend may leave. Please do not linger in the churchyard and don’t allow children to play around the tombstones.”

There was a little murmur from the church wardens, who agreed with the minister, that the parish’s traditional use of the church as a gathering point was ungodly. “And those of you witnessing the wedding, please step closer,” he said.

James, looking around in surprise, glimpsed Alinor’s pale face from the corner of his eye, and remembered, with a jolt, that it was her daughter’s wedding day. He longed for Sir William to lead his household out, and a moment later, realized, with dread, that his lordship was keeping his seat in his grand chair, honoring the wedding with his presence.

Richard Stoney walked up to his place at the foot of the chancel steps, just before the altar table, which now stood, plain and unvarnished, blocking the way before the stone carved rood screen and the empty eastern end of the church.

Alinor concentrated on the wedding, erasing all thoughts of James from her mind. She smiled lovingly at Alys. “God bless,” she said. “Go on.”

Ned came from the men’s side of the church and offered his arm to Alys, as formal as a lord. Alys, very pale but smiling, smoothed the front of the new apron over the swell of her belly, and put her hand on his arm. Alinor, carrying Alys’s cape, walked behind the two of them as they made their way up the aisle towards the communion table. Ned and Alys halted before the minister so that Alinor, standing behind them, was immediately next to James in the Priory pew. It was almost as if the two of them were at the front of the church on their own wedding day. James stared fixedly ahead, his eyes blind to the wooden lectern that held the Bible in front of him. Alinor looked at the back of her daughter’s cap where the little bow trembled.

The minister read the newly approved words of the wedding service and Richard and Alys repeated their vows. Ned passed Alys’s little hand to Richard and he slipped the wedding ring on her finger. It was done. Under the shield of Alys’s cape, which Alinor held before her belly, she released the grip she had on her fingers. Relief flowed through her. It was done and Alys was now Mrs. Stoney, a married woman. Whatever became of her mother, Alys’s good name was secured, her future was guaranteed. Alinor felt hot tears behind her eyelids: Alys was a married woman; she was Mrs. Stoney of Stoney Farm. Alys was safe.

“Amen,” said Sir William loudly, and everyone repeated it.

Richard kissed his bride and everyone moved forward to congratulate the young couple. Alys, rosy and smiling, kissed everyone. Richard was slapped on the back and congratulated. They paused before Sir William, who kissed the bride. James smiled his congratulations and shook Richard’s hand. Then suddenly the crowd of well-wishers parted, and James was facing Alinor. She felt it was as if they were quite alone, in a silent world.

“I congratulate you on your daughter’s happiness, Mrs. Reekie.” He found he could hardly speak, as if he had taken a blow to the mouth and his face was numb.

“Thank you.”

He could hardly hear her above the chatter of people congratulating the young couple, the creak of the church door, and people going out into the freezing churchyard outside and exclaiming about the cold. He tried to say other words of goodwill, but he could not speak. She glanced at him once, and looked down.

“We’ll call in at the wedding dinner,” Sir William announced jovially. “We were riding up to Chichester anyway.”

“Delighted!” Mrs. Stoney said, stepping forward, blushing with pride. “We should be so pleased.”

Alinor did not look at James to prompt him to refuse. It was as if they had nothing between them, no secret, no love, and he would not have understood why she did not want him at her daughter’s wedding feast. It was as if everything was forgotten, as if they were strangers, as he had said they would be. She curtseyed to her landlord, and to the man she had adored, turned away without another word, and followed Alys out into the cold winter sunshine.

Ned and Rob had already gone back to man the ferry for the many people who were walking to Stoney Farm. Farmer Stoney was waiting on the box of the wagon outside the lych-gate.

“That was a good day’s work, Mrs. Reekie,” he said, pleased as Alinor came through the gate.

“Yes indeed,” Alinor said, smiling.

“I never thought you’d get the dowry together,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “You must have sold young Rob to Virginia, rather than an apprenticeship.”

Alinor tried to laugh. “She’s a good girl,” she said. “She’s been working every day, and spinning all night.”

“Even so,” he said. “I know that won’t have covered it. I hope you haven’t put yourselves in debt.”

“Alys had her father’s gift, and my brother helped,” Alinor said, concealing Richard’s part.

“Up you get then,” he said to her, giving a hand to help her into the wagon. “And here’s our little bride.”

Alys sat in the seat of honor, beside Mr. Stoney on the box seat. Mrs. Stoney squeezed in beside her, Alinor and Richard sat on the back, and a few of the Stoney neighbors climbed in to save the walk. Mrs. Wheatley came from the Priory with the footman, Stuart, carrying a great fruit cake, and was helped into the wagon and held the cake on her knees.

“All aboard?” Mr. Stoney said, and clicked to the horse to start. Alinor, looking back down the road, saw that James was mounted on horseback already, but someone had delayed Sir William. He was on his horse, speaking to one of his tenants, who was earnestly explaining something, his cap in his hand. The bend in the road hid them from sight. She hoped very much that Sir William and James would be delayed, and then decide against coming at all. She did not know how she would get through Alys’s wedding dinner if James were to be there, not looking at her, not speaking to her, not even a stranger to her; but worse than a stranger—a man who had chosen to be rid of her and showed no signs of regret.

The tide was ebbing at the wadeway, low enough for Mr. Stoney to drive the wagon through the water, and the people who were on foot crossed on the ferry, with Ned pulling on the rope. As it was Alys’s wedding day, he charged no one and there were many jokes that he would charge them double to get home again. Ned would stay with the ferry till all the guests had crossed the rife, and then he and Rob would follow the bridal party to the tide mill.

“See you later!” Alys called to him. “Don’t be late!”

Ned waved and pulled the ferry back to the island as the wagon went towards the mill. Mr. Miller was standing at the five-barred gate to the yard. “Come in! Come in! Toast to the bride!” he exclaimed. “And we have a ham to give you for your wedding feast.”

“I’m grateful,” Mr. Stoney said, turning the horses into the mill yard.

“We can’t stop long,” Mrs. Stoney cautioned him, stepping down from the box. “We have to get to Stoney Farm before Sir William. Sir William is coming to our house for the bridal dinner.”

“You’ll see him riding past,” Mr. Miller assured her. “He’ll stop for a glass of my ale too, I don’t doubt. I’ve never known him go past my door.”

Richard Stoney handed the reins of his father’s horses to the stable lad. Mrs. Wheatley carefully put her cake on the wagon floor and climbed down from the tailgate.

“I don’t know their ale is that fine,” she said quietly to Alinor. “I don’t think Sir William needs to leave home to drink good ale.”

“Course he doesn’t,” Alinor replied loyally, hardly knowing what she was saying. “But I’m glad Mrs. Miller is drinking a toast to Alys. She works her so hard!”

“A smoky kitchen,” Mrs. Wheatley whispered, using the old description of a shrewish housewife.

Alinor smiled. She could feel the child move in her belly and for a moment she leaned against the doorframe and thought how weary she was, and what a long day stretched before her.

“You all right?” Mrs. Wheatley asked.

“Oh, yes,” Alinor said brightly. “I’m happy for Alys; but it’s been a strain, you know?”

The two of them went into the kitchen and through to the parlor where previously Alinor had only been before to clean and polish. But today the parlor was open, and the wedding party were invited guests. The round wooden table was set with glasses and biscuits, and Mrs. Miller was wearing her best apron and white cap. Mr. Miller warmed the ale at the fireside and Jane poured a small cup for everyone. “Where is Peter?” Alinor asked Jane.

“Gone to play with the Smith boys,” she said.

“Here’s to the health of the bride, the new Mrs. Stoney!” Mr. Miller said, holding up his pewter mug. “And to the happiness of the young couple.”

“Here’s health!” everyone replied, raising their glasses. “Health and happiness!”

Alys, her hand resting on Richard’s arm, smiled at everyone. “Thank you,” she said.

“God bless us all,” Richard added.

Mr. Miller, excited at having the floor to himself, as Mrs. Miller went out to the kitchen, was about to say more. “I well recall my own wedding day . . . ,” he started when there was a sudden loud scream from the kitchen.

“Thieves, thieves,” Mrs. Miller was shouting. “Thieves in my—”

She burst into the parlor, Jane’s red leather dowry purse in her hand, her fingers sooty from the chimney bricks, her face blanched with shock.

“God save us,” Mrs. Wheatley said. “Sit down, Mrs. Miller. Sit down. What’s wrong?”

Mrs. Miller pushed her aside. “Look!” she said, holding out the purse. “Look!”

“What’s this, my dear?” Mr. Miller said. “Surely not . . .”

“My savings purse,” Mrs. Miller gabbled. “Jane’s dowry money. I got it out just now to give the girl a half crown for her wedding day. Not that I owe her a penny. But I meant to give her a gift, for her wedding day . . . and—”

“Never tell me you’ve been robbed!” her husband demanded.

In answer she shook the purse at him. There was a reassuring clink of coins, there was a weight to the purse. It was clearly full of coins.

“You’re not short,” he argued. He took it from her hand and weighed it. “There’ll be forty, perhaps fifty, pounds in there,” he said. “I can tell from the weight and the chink of the coins. You get to know—”

“I’ve not been robbed,” she said furiously. “Not robbed. I would rather have been robbed than this . . . I’ve been bewitched.”

There was a hiss of superstitious fear from everyone in the little parlor.

“What?” Mr. Miller asked.

“What?” Mrs. Wheatley echoed. “Here, Mrs. Miller, sit down. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

Mrs. Wheatley helped Mrs. Miller into a chair. Alinor came forward and felt her forehead for the flush of fever, and caught a sideways glance from Alys. The bride was as white as if she had seen a ghost. Her lips parted, she turned as if to speak to her mother but she said nothing.

Alinor felt herself grow terribly cold. Her hand dropped from Mrs. Miller’s forehead. “What’s happened?” she said quietly. “What’s happened, Mrs. Miller?”

“Ma . . .” Alys whispered.

Without saying another word, Mrs. Miller snatched the purse from her husband’s hand and opened the neck of the purse. “See this? Look what’s in here! Look at it. I’ll show you!” She gestured towards Alinor, who unthinkingly cupped her hands and Mrs. Miller poured out the contents of the purse. The coins were hot from their hiding place, and strangely light. Alinor held two handfuls of faerie gold, the shaved and chipped coins that she liked to collect, the lost currency of the old ones, the ancient coins of the Saxon shore. Inside the purse they had chinked like coins, weighed like coins, but here, spilled into Alinor’s hands, they were clearly counterfeit. With her hands filled with her own collection of coins, Alinor looked across at the blank horror of her daughter’s face, and knew at once what she had done.

“Faerie gold,” Mrs. Miller said fearfully. “In my house. Changeling treasure. I had a purse here of good gold and silver, Jane’s dowry. I rarely touch it. I keep it safe in my chim—in my hiding place. And some witch has exchanged my savings for faerie gold. So that I wouldn’t know anything was missing! If I took it out and weighed it in my hands I would think all was well. I’ve been enchanted, and I didn’t even know. Some witch has taken it all. All my money!”

“If I said once, I’ve said a hundred times: it was a stupid hiding place,” Mr. Miller started.

“What about the chest?” She turned on him. “The chest under the bed?”

He blanched and spun on his heel and tore from the room. They could hear his heavy feet pounding up the stair to the bedroom, the creak of the bedroom door, the two swift steps across the wooden floor, and then the noise of the chest being dragged out from under the bed.

Alinor, her hands filled with faerie gold, stood as still as everyone else and listened.

“God save us, God spare us,” Mrs. Miller whispered into the silent room. “That’s all that we have in the world. We’ll be ruined if that’s bewitched too.”

They could hear him fumbling with the keys and then the creak of the lid. They could hear his sigh of relief and the chink of coins being stirred. Then they heard him slam down the lid, lock up, and come slowly down the stairs, putting the keys in his waistcoat pocket.

“Thank God it’s there,” he said, gray-faced in the doorway. “The tide-mill money is safe. It’s your savings that have gone. Jane’s dowry. How much was there?”

Even in the grip of terrible loss Mrs. Miller was not going to tell her husband how much she had put away over the years. “Pounds, I had,” Mrs. Miller said viciously. “More than forty pounds. How am I going to get it back from a witch?”

“Could be a passing thief,” Mrs. Wheatley ventured. “Someone from the yard?”

“What thief leaves handfuls of faerie gold? Nobody has come in here; nobody knows where I hide my money. It’s a witch. It’s got to be a witch. She’s magicked away my savings and left me hers in exchange. This is witch money. This is witch work.”

The room was silent. The silence thickened, curdled. Slowly, as slowly as a thought dawning, everyone turned to Alinor. Everyone looked at Alinor, who had worked for Mrs. Miller ever since she was a girl, who was known as a cunning woman with skills not of this world. Alinor, who needed gold for her daughter’s dowry, her son’s apprenticeship, who was said by her own husband to whore for faerie lords. Slowly, everyone looked at Alinor, where she stood, her face very pale, her hands filled with faerie gold.

“You saw me take the purse from the chimney on the day you went to the market for me and bought my lace collar,” Mrs. Miller said.

Alinor remembered turning her head away and seeing the reflection of Mrs. Miller fetching her purse in the shiny silver trencher.

She swallowed. “That was months ago,” she said. “In the autumn. Last year.”

“But you knew of her hiding place?” Mrs. Wheatley asked.

Alinor turned to her friend. “Yes. So did many, I should think.”

“But you knew, Alinor?”

“And you needed money,” Mrs. Stoney pointed out. “I never thought you would get the dowry together.”

“We worked,” Alys burst into speech. “Everyone saw us. We both worked. Like dogs. Here at the mill, everyone saw us working here, and we spun, and I worked the ferry. And my father gave me . . . and my uncle lent us . . .”

“I never thought it’d be enough,” Mr. Stoney contributed. “I thought you must’ve borrowed from someone.”

“No!” Alinor said proudly, and then thought she should have said yes.

“I helped Alys,” Richard interrupted, and received a savage look from his mother.

“You had no business to,” she said sharply.

“And even so,” Mr. Stoney said, “you only had your wages.”

“His inheritance?” Alinor said. Her hands were shaking, the faerie gold sparkled.

“What inheritance? He’s got no inheritance,” Mr. Stoney said.

Alys looked at her mother, her eyes huge in her pale face and silently shook her head. There was no inheritance.

“Mrs. Reekie, say it isn’t so!” Mr. Miller said to her quietly. “I’ve known you for years. Say it isn’t so.”

“Of course it isn’t so!” Alinor repeated. Even to her own ears her voice sounded weak, the denial unconvincing. She stretched her hands towards Mr. Miller’s reassuring bulk, as if to give him the faerie gold.

“No, I don’t want it!” he said, stepping back and whipping his hands behind his back. “I don’t want it in my house.”

“Let me throw it out the door then!” Alinor turned to the kitchen, and the open door to the yard. But Mrs. Miller suddenly barred the way.

“Not so fast,” she said. “You’ll have to answer for this. No dashing out. You hold that, till you prove it isn’t yours!”

“And where’s my dowry?” Jane demanded.

Alinor tried to laugh, her hands sticky with faerie coins. “Mrs. Miller, I’ve been your neighbor for all my life. My mother delivered you—”

“And everyone said she was a witch.”

“No, they didn’t.”

“She did charming. She was a cunning woman. She could find things. She could take things,” Mrs. Miller reminded her. “She could cast . . .”

“But I don’t. You know I don’t.”

“Your hands are full of faerie gold! Where’s it come from?”

“I didn’t take your money!” Alinor exclaimed. “I didn’t change it into this!”

“Lay ahold of her!” Mrs. Miller said urgently, as if Alinor’s raised voice changed everything. “She’s cursing us. And you”—she ordered her husband—“you get the other church warden or the minister. She’ll have to be charged.”

“Back to the church?”

“Are you arguing with me?” Mrs. Miller shouted at him. “A witch in our house with her hands full of faerie gold, and you’re standing there arguing with me?”

Mr. Miller cast one incredulous look at Alinor and went out of the parlor into the kitchen, and pulled on his winter cape. He threw open the door to the yard and everyone heard the sound of a horse. “Sir William,” Mr. Miller said with evident relief. “His lordship’s coming. He’s a magistrate. He can decide what’s to be done.”

Everyone in the parlor crowded around Alinor and led her through the kitchen and out into the mill yard to greet the solitary horseman. But it was not Sir William. It was James Summer.

“His lordship’s on his way.” He smiled, but then he was silenced as he saw Alinor, her cupped hands filled with coins, surrounded by frightened people. “What is this? What’s happening here?”

“It’s Mrs. Reekie, taken for a witch,” Mrs. Wheatley said, matter-of-fact, going to the horse’s head and looking up at James. “Mrs. Miller here has had her savings changed into faerie gold, and she accuses Alinor Reekie, who makes no defense.”

“What?” James demanded incredulously.

Alinor could not bring herself to face him, could not speak to him.

“It’s not true,” Alys said, pushing forwards. “Of course, it’s not true.”

“Then how are my savings turned into faerie gold, and the true coin gone?” Mrs. Miller demanded. “Who would do that, if not a witch? Who could do such a thing? And doesn’t everyone know that Alinor has always loved the faerie gold? Even when she was a girl she would find it and keep it?”

“I didn’t steal your money! Of course I knew where you had it hidden. I’ve known for months—probably everyone does. But I didn’t steal it. I wouldn’t steal from you, or anyone! I’ve been in and out of your house and your yard all my life. I go into people’s houses all the time. There’s not many houses on Sealsea Island that I’ve not attended, and I’ve never ever taken anything. I’m a licensed midwife—”

“Not got a license now,” a man remarked, making Alinor break off and look at him.

“That’s not my fault!” she said. “How can you say that against me?”

“What about Ned’s wife and baby?”

Alinor gasped. “She lost her baby. I did everything I knew . . .”

More wedding guests had followed James into the yard. Alinor looked around at a score of her neighbors and saw puzzled and fearful faces.

“You know me. You all know me. I would never . . .” Alinor could barely speak, even in her own defense.

“Well, someone did it,” Mr. Miller said heavily, looking up at James, who was still mounted, frozen with indecision, as everyone turned to him to rule on what was to be done. “What do you think, sir?”

“Mrs. Reekie will have to go before a magistrate to clear her name,” James said reluctantly.

“Is Sir William following you?” Mr. Stoney asked.

“Yes,” James said. “He’s on his way.”

“He’s a magistrate. He’ll do. He can hear the case against her now as soon as he comes,” said Mr. Miller, a church warden who knew the law. He went a little closer to James and took the reins of his horse. “We don’t want her carried off to prison in Chichester,” he muttered quickly. “She’s a good woman. We don’t want her put on trial for a thief. She’ll be hanged if more than three pounds are missing, and there was fifty pounds in that purse. Best keep this here, in the village. Best his lordship rules here, where we can keep it among ourselves. Better get started, sir, so no one thinks of Chichester.”

James was shocked into action. He dismounted from his horse and the stable lad took it to the barn. “I’ll take the evidence here,” he said loud enough foreveryone to hear. “Sir William and I will confer when he arrives.”

He tried to exchange a glance with Alinor, but she was looking away from him, at her daughter. Alys was white. She clung to Richard’s arm and her gaze was fixed on her mother’s face.

“Where’s the defendant’s brother?” James asked, thinking Edward would have a strong voice in this frightened community.

“We don’t need him,” Mrs. Miller interrupted. “He’s got no control over her at all. She does whatever she wants. He couldn’t even save his own wife. She has no father, and now she says she has no husband, though Zachary Reekie has no grave.”

“Just disappeared,” someone said from the back of the crowd. “Spoke against her one day, and the next day he was gone.”

“Mr. Ferryman is an important witness,” James overruled them. “Send for him.”

James’s calm voice, his tone of authority, was stilling the sense of panic. Mr. Miller, looking around the people crowded into his yard, felt the desire for excitement, for violence, was diminishing.

“Aye, that’s for the best. You go and fetch him, lad,” he said to the stable boy. He turned back to James. “You’ll want a table, and papers, sir,” he said, quietly deferential. “Best sit in the kitchen, if you don’t mind. It’s the biggest room, and we’ve got the table there and the Carver chair.”

James nodded and Mr. Miller led the way into the kitchen, ordered that the big kitchen table be dragged to the back of the room, set the high-backed chair behind it, and indicated that James should sit in justice, with Mr. Miller standing beside him as a makeshift clerk of the court.

“I have no authority,” James muttered to him as he took his seat.

“Know Latin?”

“Yes, of course.”

“That’ll do.”

James sat square in his chair and put his hands before him on the table as everyone crowded into the room, sweeping Alinor, with them, still holding the old coins. Mrs. Miller put a sheet of paper before James and Jane set a pot of ink and a pen before him. As if they were watching a mystery play, the wedding guests filled the room, pushing Alinor forwards, to stand isolated before the table. Alys would have gone to her, but Richard took hold of her hand and gently pulled her to his father and mother at the side of the room.

“I want . . .” she whispered to him.

“Better wait here,” he whispered back. “See how this goes. Why did she think I had an inheritance?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Alys said, silenced.

James dipped the pen in the ink, hoping that Ned would come soon and Sir William swiftly behind him. All he wanted to do now was play for time.

“Name,” he said as if to a stranger.

There was a little satisfied sigh. The deep terror of witchcraft was under the control of an authority. They need not scrabble to protect themselves against the unknown powers of the other world: a gentleman who knew Latin was taking responsibility.

“You know my name,” Alinor replied sulkily.

There was a murmur against her defiance.

“She’s Goodwife Alinor Reekie,” Mrs. Miller interrupted. “Sister to Edward Ferryman, of Ferry-house.”

James lowered his eyes and wrote his lover’s name at the top of the paper.

“Age?” he asked.

“I am twenty-seven,” Alinor replied.

“Occupation?”

“I am a licensed midwife and healer.”

“No license,” someone reminded them all from the back of the room.

Alinor lifted her head. “I am a midwife and healer,” she amended. “Of good repute.”

“And the accusation?”

Mrs. Miller stepped forward, trembling with anger, her voice low and passionate. “I am Mrs. Miller, of Mill Farm. I keep my savings, my daughter Jane’s dowry, in a hiding place in my kitchen.” Dramatically she pointed to the fireplace. “There! Right there! Behind a loose brick in the chimney.”

Everyone looked to where the brick was missing from the chimney breast, and back to Alinor’s white face.

“Months ago, in the autumn, in September it was, she was running an errand for me to Chichester Friday market. I trusted her to buy something for me. I trusted her!”

There was a hushed comment on the notoriously mistrustful nature of Mrs. Miller. She continued: “I made her turn her back as I took my savings purse out of the hiding place. My secret hiding place. But she saw me. She had her back to me, but even so, she saw me!”

There was a ripple of amazement.

“How could this be?” James asked skeptically, his pen poised.

“With her special sight she saw me, though her head was turned away. When she turned round I could see in her face that she had found me out. I just knew. She had seen me, with her witchy eyes.”

There was a murmur. Everyone but Mrs. Wheatley and the Stoney family agreed that this must be proof. Mr. Miller shook his head.

“You may not call her a witch until it is proven,” James reprimanded her, his level voice cutting through the talk. He turned to Alinor. “Did you see this hiding place?”

“I saw her reflection in the trencher,” she said shortly. She gestured to the silver dish ostentatiously displayed on the big wooden dresser. “She told me to face the big platter and I could see her reflection, like in a looking glass. I wasn’t looking for her; but I did see her. But many people know that she kept her savings there. She sometimes paid with hot coins and her fingers were sooty. It was no mystery.”

A couple of the Millers’ gleaners muttered yes, they had been paid with warm coins.

“Is this the case?” James asked a little too eagerly. “The hiding place was generally known?”

“Only a witch could have seen that reflection,” Mrs. Miller said staunchly. “No one else could have made me out.”

Mrs. Wheatley pushed her way across the crowded room to the sideboard, looked in the silver platter. “You can see,” she reported to James. “You can clearly see.”

“Why did you not change your hiding place?” James asked. “If you thought it had been seen?”

Mrs. Miller hesitated. “I didn’t,” she admitted. “I didn’t.”

Her words fell a little flat and she struggled to restore her credibility. “Because she enchanted me!” she declared. “I forgot all about it until now. I simply forgot until now, and I trusted her again and again, because I had forgotten that she had seen me. What’s that if not spell casting?”

“Do you deny this?” James prompted Alinor, but she was not looking at him. She was looking across the room at Alys’s white face, seeing that Richard Stoney was holding her away. Alinor barely heard James; she was gazing at her daughter, her beloved daughter. She was thinking what she might have to do to keep Alys safe.

“You have to answer me,” James prompted her.

She turned her head and looked at him indifferently. “Yes, I did see her in the reflection,” she confirmed. “But I didn’t do anything about it. I’m not a thief. I don’t care where she keeps her egg money.”

“Egg money! There was more than forty pounds in there!” Mrs. Miller exclaimed.

“My dowry!” Jane reminded everyone.

Alinor shrugged, as contemptuous as a lady of court. “I don’t know. I never saw what was inside the purse. I never held the purse. I don’t know the weight or how much you had saved. I only ever saw it in your hand as you gave me money to buy your lace. I never even touched it, did I?”

Alinor’s disdain was more than Mrs. Miller could bear. “I don’t doubt you changed the money into faerie gold without touching it! Without taking the purse from its hiding place!” she shouted. “I don’t doubt it for a moment! I don’t doubt you never touched it; but did it all at midnight from the mire, where you’re always alone, walking in moonlight, on paths that no one else follows, talking to yourself.”

Alinor swayed back a little from the venom in the woman’s voice.

“She didn’t take it!” Alys suddenly spoke up, cutting through the rising noise, stepping forward, pulling away from her new husband. “I know she did not!”

Alinor raised her head and met her daughter’s eyes. “Alys, you say nothing,” she ordered. She looked past her to Richard’s strained face. “Take her away,” she said quietly. “It’s her wedding day. She shouldn’t be here. Take her home. Take her to her new home.”

He nodded, his young face shocked, and tried to guide Alys to the door, but she resisted him.

“I won’t go,” she told him.

“Then stay silent,” Richard said. “As your mother tells you.”

Alys turned to her mother. “Ma,” she said desperately. “You know. . . .”

“Yes, I know.” Alinor nodded. “I know. Just go, Alys.”

“Plotting!” Mrs. Miller exclaimed. “So there’s two of them!”

With relief, James saw Ned enter the kitchen and look around, bewildered. Rob came in behind him. “What’s all this?” Ned asked. “What’s going on?”

“Mrs. Reekie has been accused of stealing Mrs. Miller’s savings by witchcraft and leaving faerie gold in its place,” James said.

Ned walked up to the table, brushing through the crowd. “Lord, you people,” he said scornfully. “Can’t you even go to a wedding feast without stopping for a quarrel?” He went to his sister’s side and she turned to him, her hands filled with the coins, and at once he checked, frozen at the sight of them. “What’s this?” he said in a quite different voice. “What’re you doing with your coins, Alinor?”

“Are these her coins? Her own coins? D’you know them?” Mrs. Miller demanded, her voice sharp with excitement.

“Do you recognize them?” Mr. Miller asked.

“Yes,” Ned said simply. “I’d think so. But one looks the same as another to me. I take no interest in them. Alinor—what’s happening?”

Rob came to his mother’s side and she tried to smile reassuringly, her hands filled with the damning evidence.

Everyone turned to James. Nobody had any doubts about the accusation now. Ned had given absolute confirmation of his sister’s guilt.

“Mrs. Reekie, how did your coins get into Mrs. Miller’s purse?” James asked quietly.

Mutely, Alinor shook her head. Ned took his hat off his head and she tipped the coins into it. Two of them were such light scraps of silver that they stuck to her sweating palms and she brushed them off. There was a little gasp of horror as if she were peeling faerie gold from her own skin. Ned put his hat down on the table before James as if it were evidence, and he did not want to touch it.

“I don’t know,” Alinor said steadily. “I have no idea.”

“I think we should wait for Sir William’s coming,” James said.

Alys shot him a desperate look. “You’re sitting there, you decide,” she said. “This is a mistake, obviously. Let my mother go home. Let’s all go on to the wedding.”

“Hush, Alys,” Alinor whispered to her.

“My mother is innocent of anything, sir,” Rob said awkwardly. “Please clear her name.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Mrs. Wheatley said under her breath. “These poor children.”

“It’s her own faerie gold,” Mrs. Miller said flatly. “As her brother says. Transformed from my good coin. Like alchemy. Gold to dross. What could this be but enchantment? She must be a witch.”

“Prick her,” someone said from the back of the room and at once everyone spoke.

“And search her for marks.”

“Strip her.”

“Get the women to look . . .”

“Devil’s teats . . .”

“Test her with a Bible!”

“Moles on her skin . . .”

“The devil leaves his marks.”

Alinor was as white as her collar, frozen into stillness.

“Sir,” Rob said urgently to his tutor, “they’ve no right. Don’t let them get hold of her. Don’t let them . . .”

James tried to assert himself over the rising noise. “I am still taking evidence here,” he claimed. “And I will take a decision.”

“In writing,” Mr. Miller supported him. “Decision in writing.”

“Swim her!” someone said, and there was immediate agreement. “Swim her.”

“That’s the only way!”

“Search her, and then swim her.”

For the first time Alinor looked towards James. Her eyes were black with terror. “I can’t,” she said flatly. “That, I can’t.”

“She’s very afraid of water.” Ned spoke rapidly to James. “Very afraid. She’s afraid even on my ferry. She can’t be swum.”

“Stop this!” Alys demanded, her voice high with panic. “Stop this!”

“Sir?” Rob’s young face was anguished. “Mr. Summer?”

James rose to his feet. “This is not the time or the place,” he ruled. “I am going to order her arrest—”

“She’s already arrested!” someone shouted from the back. “We want her tested!”

“Tested now!”

“In water!”

The crowd surged forward and Ned and Rob found they were pushing against grasping hands and a mass of bodies. Ned tried to get his arms around Alinor and pull her towards him, Rob faced out towards the people, who were crowding more and more closely. He slapped their hands away from his mother, trying to get between her and them, but they were coming from every side of the room and he could not block them all. Richard Stoney had hold of Alys, dragging her back from her mother, pulling her away, following his own mother and father, who were leaving, thrusting their way through the crowd, out to the yard to the wedding cart, fearful of what was happening.

“Stop this!” James shouted, but his authority was melting away in the crowd’s rising heat. “I order you to stand still!”

Ned got Alinor around the waist and was pulling her away from the crowd in the kitchen, taking her into the house, towards the parlor door. Alinor, with people pulling at her gown, dragging at her apron, snatching off her cap so her hair tumbled down around her frightened white face, was fighting to go with him, pushing as hard as she could to stay in his arms and make their way towards the parlor. James, seeing what they were doing, came out from behind the table and opened the parlor door, got hold of Ned’s jacket, and hauled him backwards, the three of them head-to-head when he felt Ned suddenly flinch and recoil: “You’ve a belly on you!”

Alinor, white as skimmed milk, her jacket ripped from her shoulders, her cap lost, her apron pulled aside so everyone could see the swell of her pregnancy, looked her brother in the face amid all the noise and said: “Yes, God forgive me.”

“A belly?”

“Not now,” James said quickly, but it was too late: someone in the forefront of the crowd had overheard.

“The witch’s whelping,” someone exclaimed.

“No!” Mrs. Wheatley exclaimed. She pushed through the crowd to Alinor’s side. One glance at her blanched face and her curving body confirmed her guilt. “Oh! Alinor! God forgive you. What’ve you done?”

“With child?” Mr. Miller asked, disbelievingly. “Alinor Reekie?”

Everyone was stunned into silence and stillness. Alinor turned to face shocked and hostile gazes. Rob was looking at his mother in complete bewilderment. “What? Ma?”

“Whose child?” Mrs. Miller demanded, her voice sharp with renewed fear. “That’s what I want to know? Who’s the father? What’s the father? What has she done now?”

In the frightened silence, they heard Sir William ride into the yard and the clatter as he dismounted and came to the kitchen door.

He took in the scene in one swift glance: Alinor held between her brother and James Summer, her cap off, her hair falling down, her apron torn, and her rounded belly straining against her gown. Nobody said anything.

“Mr. Summer,” said his lordship icily. “Come out here, and tell me what the devil is going on.”

Everyone spoke at once, but Sir William threw up a hand to silence them. “Mr. Summer, if you please.”

James threw one anguished look at Alinor, released her, and went out, the crowd silently parting to let him go. Ned stood between his sister and their neighbors but now there was no need to protect her; nobody wanted to touch her. Nobody moved, or even spoke. They were all straining their ears to hear the low-voiced conversation between the two men on the threshold, and then the snap of Sir William’s fingers summoning the miller’s lad, and the clip-clop of Sir William’s horse being led away to a stable. Alinor fixed her gaze on the floor. Long moments passed, an unseasonal bee buzzed against the parlor window. Alinor, distracted by the noise, turned her head and made a little gesture as if she would release it.

“Leave it,” Ned ordered tersely.

Sir William appeared in the doorway. “Good people, don’t crush yourselves, now. No need to be all squashed in here. You’d better all come out into the yard,” he said generally.

Everyone jostled out into the harsh winter sunshine of the yard. The tide was on the ebb and seagulls were crying over the mire. The millpond gates were bumping closed, pushed together by the deep water in the millpond. There was a trickle of water, overflowing the top of the gates.

“Mrs. Reekie, these good women will have to examine you, you know that,” Sir William ruled.

Alinor bowed her head to her landlord.

“Mrs. Wheatley, would you choose three women to take Mrs. Reekie into the house privately, and examine her closely for witch’s marks, ask her to name the father of her child, and when she expects to be confined.”

Mrs. Wheatley, her lips compressed, looked around the crowd of neighbors, old friends, and some old enemies. Mrs. Stoney flinched back against their wagon. Blandly, Mrs. Wheatley ignored her. “Mrs. Jaden, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Huntley,” she said, naming her cousin, her friend, and a woman who worked as a midwife in the south of the island. Sir William waved them towards the house, and the four women went back inside with Alinor walking slowly between them.

“I won’t have her in my house!” Mrs. Miller said furiously. “You should do it in the yard. Strip her naked out here!”

“You will oblige me, Mrs. Miller, I am sure,” said his lordship. “We’re not complete heathens.” He turned aside and spoke quietly with James. Alys tried to edge closer to hear, but Richard Stoney held her tightly. He held to her as if he would save her from drowning, as his mother and his father stood at a little distance, looking at the white face of the daughter-in-law they had never thought good enough.

Mrs. Stoney turned to her husband, put her mouth to his ear. “The dowry,” she said quietly. “I have it in my pocket. Should we—”

“Be still,” he whispered. “We’ll look at it when we get home and this is all over. They’re wed, it’s the dowry she brought. You saw it, it was good coin. Leave it be for now.”

She nodded and waited in silence like all the other neighbors. After a quarter of an hour the searcher women came out of the house again, Alinor walking with them, her cap off, her golden hair tumbled as if they had run their fingers through it, hunting for signs. There was a thin raw scratch on the side of Alinor’s neck, and a trickle of blood from her ear to her white collar, which was torn. Rob exclaimed: “Ma!” and she gave him a weary glance. “It’s nothing,” she tried to reassure him. “Nothing.”

Mrs. Wheatley walked up to her employer and stood before him.

“Have you examined Mrs. Reekie?” he asked her.

“We have.”

“Is she with child?”

“Yes, sir. She believes that she will be brought to bed in the month of May.”

There was a muttered exclamation from the Stoneys. Richard looked at Alys as if he would ask her something, but met such a glare from her blue eyes that he said nothing.

“So the child was conceived . . . ?”

“In August or September, sir.”

“Did she name the father of her child?”

James cleared his throat as if to speak; but Mrs. Wheatley continued with her report. “No, sir, she is incorrigible. When we begged her, for the sake of God and for her own good reputation, to give his name she said nothing.”

Sir William nodded. “Is it her missing husband’s child?” he suggested.

Mrs. Wheatley was quick. “Nobody has seen Zachary the fisherman for over a year, sir. But, of course, he could have come back and visited her secretly.”

“Is that what happened?” Sir William asked Alinor, giving her a way out from the accusation of whoring. “Think before you speak, Mrs. Reekie. Think very carefully. Is that what happened?”

“No,” she said shortly.

His lordship looked at her for a moment. “Are you sure?”

Alys whispered “Ma!”

Alinor looked towards her. “No,” she said again.

Sir William returned his attention to the searcher women. “Did you scratch her for a witch?”

“We did,” Mrs. Wheatley said. “With the darning needle that we found in the sewing case in the parlor.” She turned politely to Mrs. Miller. “We left it on the table if you want to throw it away.”

Mrs. Miller gave an exaggerated shudder. “You take it away. It’ll be cursed.”

“And did she bleed?” Sir William pursued his inquiry.

“She bled like a mortal woman and she felt the pain. Not very much, but red blood, like any woman.” She pointed to the scratch on Alinor’s neck. Alinor stood like a statue, her eyes on the ground.

“And did you examine her for witch’s marks?”

“We did,” Mrs. Smith answered. “She has no extra teats that we could see; but she has a mole in the shape of a moon, very uncommon and very suspicious, on her ribs.”

“In the shape of a moon?”

“A new moon. A sickle moon. A witch’s moon.”

There was a deep satisfied sigh from the listening crowd, and Sir William fell silent at this incriminating evidence. The crowd, staring at Alinor, waited for him to speak, content to wait for his decision, since there could be only one decision from him. It was as if they were enjoying the pause before the final act of a mystery play, the chance to savor the sentence that would come, waiting for the violence that would break out.

“The purse,” Sir William said quietly to Alinor. “Did you steal the money? Did you put the old coins in place of Mrs. Miller’s savings?”

“I did not,” Alinor said.

“These old coins and chips of coins. Are they yours?”

Alinor looked at her brother’s hat, which one of the searcher women handed to Mr. Miller, who held it out at arm’s length, as if the little silver tokens would burn him.

“They look like my coins.”

“You keep them at Ferry-house?”

Alinor glanced at Ned.

“She does,” he said miserably.

“Then how did they get from there to here?”

Alinor choked on her answer. She looked at the sky over Sir William’s flinty face, she looked at the ground beneath his polished boots. There was a long silence.

“Sir William . . .” Alys began, her voice thin and trembling. “Your lordship . . .” She detached herself from Richard’s grip and took one step forwards.

“I did it,” Alinor interrupted her daughter.

“Witchcraft!” Mrs. Miller exclaimed. “Just as I said. Witchcraft.”

“Oh, Alinor, God forgive you!” Mr. Miller joined in.

“Was she going to pass off her baby as ours?” Richard clamped Alys to his side, his eyes burning. “Are you truly with child? Our baby? Were you going to make me a cuckold twice over—put a faerie child in my cradle, and my wife not the mother?”

“What?” demanded Mr. Stoney.

Sir William and James exchanged shocked glances, but events were moving too fast for them.

“No, no!” said Alys, her hand twisting in his grip, but he held her tightly. “For God’s sake, no!”

“But you knew that your mother was with child too? Conceived at the same time? How’s that possible?”

Alys looked despairingly towards her white-faced mother. “It’s nothing to do with us, Richard. And the money—”

“You hush,” Alinor said firmly to her daughter. She was calm now, as if the needle scratch had bled away all shame. She nodded to Richard. “Take her away,” she said. “I told you before. Take her to your home. I don’t want her here.”

“Ma! I have to tell them—”

“Never,” Alinor said firmly. “You have nothing to say that can help me. Just go.”

“We don’t have to do what you say!” Mr. Stoney blustered.

“For pity’s sake, take her away,” Alinor said simply to him, and Richard nodded and half dragged and half lifted Alys towards the wagon. His father and mother followed, torn between their desire to join their neighbors in the trial of a witch, and the horror that the witch was now related to their family.

They were climbing in the wagon and setting the horses going when someone spoke up from the back of the crowd: “Swim her!”

“I didn’t do it with witchcraft, I did it as an exchange,” Alinor said rapidly to Sir William. “It was a loan. That’s why I left everything that I have, to show that I would pay it back. As a token that it was me and I would repay.”

“Faerie gold,” someone said. “It’d fade to nothing if anyone but her held it.”

“And who’s the father of her child?” someone else demanded.

“We should take her to Chichester for the hangman!” someone suggested.

“Satan’s child.” There was a low hiss from the back of the crowd. “A faerie-born boy.”

“Her husband always said Rob was none of his begetting,” someone remembered.

Rob turned a horrified look at his mother.

“It’s not so!” Alinor cried out. “It’s not so! Not so! Rob is a good boy from a bad father!” She turned to Sir William, gabbling in her distress: “Your lordship, don’t let them speak ill of Rob! You know what a good boy he is.” She turned to Ned. “Take him away,” she implored him. “Get him away.”

“Enough!” Sir William exclaimed, cutting through the rising shouts that Alinor should be taken to Chichester and hanged. “We’ll swim her,” he ruled, into the sudden avid silence. “In the millpond. If she comes up alive she’s innocent of all charges, and nobody says anything against her again. She repays the money to Mrs. Miller as she says she intended. Agreed? We swim her to see God’s will! Agreed? That’s my judgment, and my ruling! Agreed?”

“Swim her,” half a dozen voices assented.

“Quite right,” they said. “Duck her.”

Alinor, blank with terror, turned unseeing to her brother, Ned, but he was looking down at the ground, shamed before everyone.

“Ned, take Rob away,” she whispered to him. “Ned!”

His head came up at the urgent tone in her voice.

“Take Rob away!”

Her whisper recalled him from his misery at her shame. “Yes,” he muttered. “Come on, Rob. Let’s get out of here. It’ll all be over in a moment.”

“They shan’t touch her!” Rob exclaimed, pushing between his mother and the crowd, though the searcher women laid hold of her and would not let him take her.

James grabbed his arm. “Better this, than she’s accused of theft,” he said urgently. “This will be over in a moment. But if they get her to Chichester they’ll hang her for theft on the gallows.”

“Sir, she can’t bear it! The pond is deep water. She can’t bear it! You know—”

“Yes, I can,” Alinor interrupted him. Her face was white as whey, her eyes huge with fear in her ashen face. “But you go, Rob. I can’t stand for you to see this.”

Already people were running to the mill to get ropes to truss her up, shuffling their feet and hesitating, not knowing how to lay hold of her, frightened of touching her, but pushed forwards by more people behind them. Sir William watched them, scowling, and nodded to Ned. “Take the lad away,” he said. “That’s an order. He shouldn’t see.”

Ned took Rob by the shoulder and forced him through the yard gate, towards the ferry, bobbing on the ebbing tide. “We’ll just wait here, beside the ferry,” Ned said, his voice gruff. “Then we’ll go back and get her when it’s over.”

“How can she be with child?” Rob whispered to his uncle.

Ned shook his head. “Shamed,” was all he said shortly.

“But how can she?”

Ned wrapped the boy in his arms and pushed the young face against the rough weave of his jacket. “Pray,” he advised him. “And don’t ask me, I can’t bear it. My own sister! Under my roof!”

James watched the two leave. “How can we stop this?” he demanded urgently.

“We can’t,” said Sir William. “Let them do it. Get it over with.”

Alinor did not look at either man as the crowd encircled her, tied her hands behind her back and her legs together with coil after coil of rope around her long skirts. Then they herded her towards the mill, supporting her hobbled walk, half carrying her. She went unresisting, her face so greenish-white that she looked half-drowned already. Mrs. Wheatley was trailing behind, shaking her head, Mrs. Miller angrily leading the way.

They got to the millpond bank and looked in the green weedy depths. The pond was full, the tide gates closed, holding back the water from the mire where the sea was draining away. The gates rubbed against each other with the squeak of damp wood, pressed by the deep mass of water. The pond was limpid, like a deep bowl set beside the muddy harbor. The old walls were slippery and green, the water gates trailing seaweed like hair. But there were no steps to get into the pond and it was too wide for a rope to pull her from one side to another. Nobody wanted to go near the edge: the water was menacing in itself, in its dark depths, deathly cold in winter.

“We need more rope!” someone said.

“Just throw her in from the bank as she is, tied,” came the suggestion. “See if she can get out on her own?”

“The mill wheel.” Mrs. Miller was inspired by spite. “Strap her on the mill wheel.”

Incredulously, her husband looked at her. “On my wheel?” he demanded.

“Two turns!” someone said from the back of the crowd. “Strap her on and turn it twice in the millrace. That’s a fair test.”

“My wheel?” Mr. Miller said again. He looked at Sir William, horrified.

“It turns fast?” his lordship asked quietly. “You can dunk her and bring her out again?”

“It can turn fast if it’s not milling,” the man said. “If the stone’s not engaged, it will go as fast as the water pours in.”

“Two turns,” his lordship ruled, raising his voice over the murmurs of excitement. “And if she comes up alive, she’s no witch. She repays the money, and she’s released. Agreed?”

“Aye. Fair enough, yes. Agreed,” the people called out, excited at the prospect of a witch trial, looking from the slight woman to the huge wheel, which stood motionless, the bottom blades deep in the millrace, the upper blades white with frost in the freezing air.

Alinor’s knees were buckling beneath her, she swayed on her feet, fainting with fear. She had lost her voice. She barely knew where she was. James could not look at her, as two of the searcher women took her bound arms at the elbows and half led and half dragged her away from the bank of the millpond, to the platform at the side of the wheel. The women tightened her hands behind her back, and twisted the rope around and around her breasts and her swelling belly.

“Better than hanging,” Sir William reminded James, as they stepped on the platform beside the wheel.

“She’s terrified of water,” James whispered.

“Still better than hanging.”

The men had to lift her, as limp as a new corpse, up to the mill wheel.

“Put her on the blades of the wheel,” Mrs. Miller suggested at the forefront of the crowd. “Tie her on so she don’t slip off.”

Wordlessly, Mr. Miller gestured to the mill lad to hold the wheel steady by stepping on it with both feet, holding the green blades, and leaning back as a counterweight, as they lifted Alinor by her shoulders and legs and laid her on one of the blades of the wheel. They took another rope and lashed her on.

“Make sure she’s tied tight,” Sir William ordered. Aside to James he said: “We don’t want her falling off and getting trapped under the wheel.”

James could see her rounded belly as they laid her on her back on one blade, the second blade just inches above her face, the golden tumble of her hair falling loose against the green of the weedy wooden paddles. She did not cry out, or scream for help; she had not said a word since she had sent Rob away. He realized she was speechless with terror.

“Go on,” Sir William said to Mr. Miller. “Get on with it then.”

The miller turned abruptly. “I’m opening the head sluice,” he said loudly, to warn her of the sudden roar of water, as he turned the great metal key that lifted the gate from the pond to the millrace beneath the wheel.

The cascade of water pouring into the race forced a little sob from Alinor; but no one but James heard her. Now she could smell the icy water rising fast beneath the wheel, the weedy green smell of the mire, the creeping cold breath from the rush of icy water. She could sense it rising higher and higher beneath her. Soon the millrace would be filled, and then the miller would open the drain to the mire, and take the brake off the wheel, the water would pour through the millrace and out into the mire, and the mill wheel would turn, and take her down into the waters.

“Ready!” Mr. Miller shouted from inside the mill.

The miller’s lad took his balancing weight off the wheel and it shifted slightly, dropping Alinor towards the water. There was a little gasp of anticipation from everyone.

“Go on,” someone said.

“Turn the wheel!” Sir William shouted to Mr. Miller inside the mill.

They heard his shouted reply. “I’m turning now!”

“No!” James said. He stepped towards the blade of the wheel where her bright hair was lifting in the wind. “Alinor!” he shouted at her.

For the first time that day she turned her head and looked directly at him, but he saw from her agonized face that she was beyond hearing him, beyond seeing him. Strapped to the mill wheel, facing the great terror of her life, she was blind to him and heard neither the cascade of water pouring in, nor the creak of the wheel as it started to turn and lift her up.

Stunned, James watched her inexorable rise to the top of the wheel and then her descent on the other side. He took two steps to the back of the wheel and met her terrified gaze as she headed towards the flooding water beneath her. Down she went, into the narrow churning millrace, and he saw her hair swirl around her white face as she went down and down and then, horrifically, the wheel creaked and stopped. It turned no more, it was holding her underwater. There was a silence, there was a long moment.

“God’s will,” someone whispered in awe. “God has stopped the wheel to drown the witch.”

“No! No! It’s the weight!” Mr. Miller shouted from inside the mill. “It’s her weight on the bottom of the wheel.” He came bounding from the mill as everyone crowded round for a glimpse of her golden hair in the pouring water that rushed past the wheel and out to sea.

James understood, and flung himself on the back of the wheel, hands gripping and feet slipping, clinging desperately to the blades hauling it round. He could feel the wheel, yielding, and then slowly he felt it turn again, in the constant pouring swirl of the water, and then lift blade by blade. Slowly, the drowning woman came out of the depths.

He stepped back. Now the wheel was taking up speed. She went over the top of the wheel and past him again and he caught a glimpse of her white face striped with waterweed, water pouring from her clothes, her boots, her open mouth. He heard over the terrible roar of the wheel her retching cough and her gasp for air and then she was plunged under the waters again and she disappeared.

The wheel, turning faster in the churning water, brought her up on the other side, the miller’s lad shut off the sluice to hold back the water and Mr. Miller, inside the mill, clamped the grinding stone on its bed to hold the wheel with Alinor at the middle of the turn. There was seaweed in her hair, seawater streaming from her open mouth, her eyes black with terror, her gown plastered to her straining belly. Mr. Miller came from the mill, his face dark with anger, pulled a hefty work knife from his boot, and cut the cords that bound her to the blade of the wheel. Like a sack of flour he pulled her towards him, slung her over his shoulders, stepped back from the wheel. The crowd, awestruck, parted to make way for him as he carried her away from the wheel to the mill yard and dropped her, like a sodden sack, facedown on the cobbles.

Mrs. Wheatley had a stable rug to wrap around her as Alinor heaved and vomited dirty water, and heaved again and again, choking and fighting for her breath.

“So she’s not a witch.” Sir William climbed down from the mill platform to stand over the retching woman. He addressed his tenants in his most magisterial tones. “She survived the ordeal. As to the theft: I rule that she borrowed Mrs. Miller’s savings, planning to return them, leaving her tokens as a promise. This she will do and I will guarantee it. Mrs. Reekie is proven innocent of witchcraft. We have tested her with a fair ordeal and she is no witch.”

“Amen,” they said, as devout as before they had been frightened.

“What about the baby?” Mrs. Miller demanded. “She’s certainly a whore.”

“Church court,” Sir William ruled swiftly. “Next Sunday.”

The sound of a cart distracted everyone. It was the Stoney cart with Alys on the box, her brother, Rob, beside her, Ned in the back. Alys drove the cart into the yard, to where her mother was lying, bundled on the cobbles, wrapped in the horse rug, streaming with water, surrounded by neighbors who would not touch her. Alys passed the reins to Rob, jumped down from the box, and stormed past Sir William as if he was a nobody. She knelt at her mother’s side and raised her up. Alinor could not stand, but Mr. Miller took one arm and Alys took the other. Nobody else moved. Together, they dragged her, still choking and retching up green water, across to the waiting cart where Ned reached out for her, and loaded her, like a beached fish, into the back, lying her on her side so she could spew out water.

“Mrs. Reekie is cleared of witchcraft,” Sir William declared loudly. “She is innocent.”

Alys looked at him and at James with her blue eyes blazing with rage. “Agreed,” she said through her teeth, and then she clicked to the horse and they went out of the yard.

As James rode back to the Priory in the early winter dusk he could see a narrow bar of firelight through the closed shutters of Ferry-house, and he stopped his horse, tied the reins to the gate, and tapped on the kitchen door. Alys answered it, a horn lantern in her hand.

“You,” she said shortly.

“How is your mother?”

“She has stopped vomiting water but, of course, she could drown later, when it flows into her dreams. She might die of poisoning from the foul water, or she may miscarry her baby and bleed to death.”

“Alys, I am so sorry that . . .”

The look of hatred that she shot at him would have silenced any man. He said nothing, then: “Please give her my good wishes for her recovery. I will come tomorrow and—”

“You will not. You will give me a purse of gold for her,” she said quietly. “She is going to leave here. I am going with her. We are going to London and we’re going to set up a carting business. You are going to buy us a storehouse with a place to live. I’ve taken the cart and the horse from my husband’s family. We’ll leave tomorrow at dawn, and we’ll set up a business and keep ourselves.”

He was astounded by the authority of the young woman. “You’re leaving your husband?”

“That’s between him and me. I don’t have to explain to you. We’ll never come back. You’ll never see her again.”

“You know that the child is mine.”

She shook her head. “You lost any rights when you let them strap your child’s mother on the mill wheel and put her under the water.”

“I have to tell her—”

“Nothing. You have nothing to tell her. You watched your lover accused of whoring and you let them swim her for a witch. You have nothing to do but to give me the money I demand, or I will tell the world that you are the man who forced her. I will name you as a rapist and you will be shamed as she has been shamed. I will name you as a papist spy and I will see you burned to death in front of Chichester Cathedral.”

“It was better that she be swum for a witch than hanged for a thief!”

“It was me that should have been hanged for a thief!” she flared at him. “I owe her my life, just as you owe her your honor. She kept my secret and yours, and it has nearly killed her.”

He took a breath as he thought of the secrets that she had kept for him.

“For love of us,” Alys said through her teeth. “Because she loves you and me so much she faced her worst fear for us, and she nearly died for us. I will repay her with my love. And you will pay too. You will pay for the child that she carries for love of you, you will pay for your betrayal, and you will pay for our silence. That’s worth a purse of gold. And you will go now, and bring it here at once.”

“I must see her again,” he said desperately.

The girl was like a Fury. “I would gouge your eyes out of your head and blind you for life rather than you saw her again,” she promised. “Go and get the money. Leave it on the doorstep, and go.”

“I don’t have that sort of money.”

“Steal it,” she spat at him. “It’s what I did.”

It was a cold dawn on the harbor, the tide coming in fast over snowy reeds and icy puddles, the seagulls crying white against the gray light. The barn owl, quartering the hedge line along the harbor, was bright against the dark hedge and then invisible against the frozen bank. A few flakes of snow filtered from the pewter clouds as Alys helped her mother to the seat of the wagon and climbed up beside her.

Alinor was shuddering with cold, and she constantly coughed into the hem of her cloak. Tenderly Alys took up the reins, putting her other arm around Alinor, who rested her head on her daughter’s shoulder. Alys clicked to the horse to start up the road to London.