Afterwards she asked, ‘How did you know to come?’
Rowan shrugged. ‘I felt it, as if something had sliced right through me, and then before I knew it, my legs had carried me here.’
Her mother looked upon her, considering. ‘You have it, don’t you?’ she asked. ‘The sight?’
‘The what?’ Rowan looked at her blankly.
‘Your grandmother had it too. You will always have to be on your guard. Especially with your hair so fair. Don’t breathe a word of it, not even to your brothers or your father, do you hear me? For people will surely believe you to be a witch.’
The word struck fear into Rowan; she well knew what happened to those accused of the craft. They were shunned, blamed when the crops failed or livestock died, when ill fortune or ill health was visited upon a person. Those suspected of witchcraft, even if there was no proof of it, were driven from their homes, outcast from their villages, or worse, locked up in the nearest gaol. Whispers became gossip became fact in less than the blink of an eye.
Not so many years ago, her mother had told her, witches were drowned, or burned on a bonfire while the rest of the village looked on in terror and awe. At the very least, they were tortured, pilliwinks used to crush the bones of their thumbs until they confessed to their crimes, whether real or conjured from the faintest suspicion. Merely being outspoken meant being harnessed with a scold’s bridle, a metal bit pushed between your teeth to stop you from speaking. Everyone knew the story of the Malmesbury witches, three women who had been blamed for causing sickness, branded as ‘cunning women’ and hanged for concocting potions and casting spells. And her mother had been but a girl when the Handsel sisters – four Danish girls living in Wilton, a village not far from Inkpen – were accused of bringing pox to the village and were bludgeoned to death in Grovely Wood without so much as a hearing.
Not all the ducking stools – inflicted on harlots, scolds and witches – had been destroyed when the laws against witchcraft were repealed. Some were still hidden away in byres and sheds, attics and sculleries. Rowan had never seen one, but she shuddered as she remembered her mother telling of the thick leather straps that held a person down as they were lowered into the water, could imagine the terror they would face, unable to move, unable to breathe. She had always been fearful of water: fast-flowing rivers, streams that wound their way across pebbles and sticks, deep pools formed by storm-felled trees.
Her mother had already been instructing Rowan in simple medicines, made with herbs and plants foraged from the hedgerows and hillsides, but after the incident with the knife she began to teach her a number of enchantments, and Rowan knew without having to be told again that she was not to speak of it outside the house or to the rest of the family.
The boy shifted on the seat and Rowan felt the pain radiate from him again; there was something very wrong.
‘My sister will wonder what’s become of you,’ Prudence scolded the boy. ‘Come hoping for some supper, by chance?’ she asked.
‘No, Auntie Pru, look.’ Tommy gingerly swung his left leg out from under the table.
The cook, who had taken a swig from the beaker at her elbow, spluttered out a breath. ‘Lawd sakes!’ she cried. ‘How the devil did that happen?’
A round welt had formed on his shin and below that a deep gash was oozing blood, the skin around it already discolouring. ‘Kicked by a horse,’ he said, gritting his teeth against the pain.
As he spoke, Rowan went to where she had left her bundle of belongings and found a pot of salve she had brought with her. ‘Here,’ she said cautiously, holding it out to Prudence. ‘This might help. He’ll also need to bind that; keep it clean. Is there some cloth about?’ Surely in the house of a fabric merchant there would have to be.
‘I’ve muslin that I use for straining sauces,’ said Prudence, a note of doubt in her voice.
‘As long as it is clean, please fetch it,’ Rowan replied, surer of herself now.
‘But where’d you get that from?’ Prudence pointed to the pot in Rowan’s hand.
‘It’s mine. I mean, I made it,’ she replied. When the summer just past had been at its height, Rowan had ground comfrey, yarrow, lemon balm and calendula, adding lanolin extracted from lambswool gathered from the hedgerows. Her mother had taught her well; she could make the salve, and a number of other healing balms and poultices too, using the herbs of the wayside and field mixed with beeswax and honey, soaked bran and bread. She had not forgotten the knowledge of other, stronger remedies, though when she and her brothers had been taken in by her Aunt Win, the woman had insisted upon ‘none of that kind of magic’ under her roof. After that, she had stopped making all but the simplest remedies.
The cook raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
‘My mother taught me. She was … she knew about such things.’
Rowan looked at her as innocently as she knew how, hoping to dispel the flash of mistrust she had seen in the cook’s eyes.
‘Out with it,’ said Prudence, her expression narrowing with suspicion. ‘Are you a hedge witch?’
Rowan held her breath. A hedge witch was the name for someone who dealt in herbal tinctures and healing potions, not magic exactly, but she did not dare admit to even this, for the slightest hint of anything untoward cast a long shadow. She was still a stranger in this house and had yet to prove her worth and good character. ‘It is but a common remedy,’ she said quietly.
The cook hesitated for a brief moment, then held out her hand. ‘Right. Give it here, then. And you’d best be off to bed, girl. You’ve a long day ahead of you tomorrow.’
Rowan passed her the precious pot of ointment and turned to leave.
‘Thank you, Rowan Caswell,’ Tommy said.
She glanced back and flashed a grateful smile at him – he reminded her so much of her brother Will. He had the same shock of tow-coloured hair and eyes the colour of filberts and she couldn’t help but like him. ‘’Tis no matter,’ she said, before scampering up the back stairs.
When Rowan reached the top of the house she found the attic room again, though still no sign of the mysterious Alice. It was a small, shadowy space with a sloping ceiling and a dormer window that looked out onto the street. It contained an iron-framed bed made up with a patterned counterpane, linen sheets and a pair of thin pillows; a linen press and a chest of drawers on which sat a wide basin and a jug made up the remainder of the furniture. To Rowan, who had slept on a pallet in the kitchen at her aunt and uncle’s house, and before that shared a bed with two of her brothers when they were small, it appeared very grand indeed.
She placed her scant possessions on the floor next to the bed and lay down on the side furthest from the door. Though the mattress and pillow were thin, they felt like goosedown to Rowan after a night spent in a copse on the way to Oxleigh. She lay, luxuriating in the feeling of them against her skin, her mind a tumult of the day’s experiences. Then, remembering, she reached into her bundle and pulled out a small cross fashioned from two twigs bound in the centre with a strand of wool dyed red with crabapple bark. The twigs were from the rowan tree, for which she had been named, and her father had made it when she was little, indeed had made one for each of her brothers too. As she touched its familiar surface she heard her mother’s words. ‘For protection,’ she had said when she handed it to her. Rowan hoped the charm her mother had placed upon it had not lost any of its power, that it would keep her safe in this strange new place. She clutched the cross in her hand and was seized with a sudden longing to be back in Inkpen, curled by the embers of the fire, her brothers, like a tangle of pups, close by. Before she had time to dwell on the thought any more deeply, she was so soundly asleep that she did not stir when a young woman crept into bed next to her many hours later.