‘Oh, you are too big for this, Coriander,’ she chided, lifting me up on to her hip so that I could see where we were going.
When I was carried I liked to stretch my arms up high to see if I had grown tall enough to touch the signs that hung down from each house and shop. They were all painted with different pictures so that you could see who lived where and who sold what. Our house sign was a painted mulberry tree. The signs were supposed to be hung high enough for a horse and rider to pass beneath. In our narrow street some signs were so low that I thought a rider might lose his hat, if not his head.
Finally we came to the bridge. ‘You can walk from here, little sparrow,’ said Danes, setting me down and straightening herself out.
This is the one and only bridge that goes over the River Thames. There is no other way to cross it unless you go by boat. It is the most splendid bridge. I loved and feared it in equal measure. I feared the pickled heads stuck on poles at Traitors’ Gate like monstrous gargoyles staring down on the travellers, warning them what could befall such vagabonds and Royalists in this godly city. I loved the bustle of the shops, the street hawkers, the street criers, the overhanging gardens, the walkways. There was, so my father said, no bridge in the world to match it.
By the time we arrived the shops were all open. Coaches and carts rumbled along the main thoroughfare, scattering passers-by and chickens. The noise was deafening, with church bells ringing out, apprentices shouting, the water wheels churning. People were scurrying this way and that, not looking where they were going. Into this human soup came the beasts from the countryside on their way to the cattle market.
I was sure that if I were to let go of Danes’s hand I would get lost, be swept away in the sea of people. Usually this thought made me cling to her like a limpet. Except today. Today was different. Today I was wearing my new silver shoes. In truth, in spite of my charm, I was more worried about my shoes getting dirty in the mire than of getting lost.
In front of us, an argument had broken out between a candle seller and a woman leaning out of the third storey of a nearby house. The street trader was very wet and smelling none too sweet, and he was accusing the woman of emptying a pisspot over him.
‘Why did you do that?’ he yelled. ‘The river is just behind you. The bridge is a thoroughfare for decent God-fearing people, not the local midden.’
The woman shook her fist and banged her window to. I hoped no one else felt in the mood for emptying chamber pots, and tightened my grasp on Danes.
‘Watch where you put your feet,’ she said.
I looked down and saw that my shoes were shimmering like a heat haze on a hot day. I pulled my hand away from Danes to lift up my skirt so that I could have a better look.
‘Danes,’ I said. ‘My shoes!’
There was no answer. An eerie mist had descended. Danes, like everyone else on the bridge, had disappeared. All was silent.
I felt so scared that I could not even cry out. I stood very still and closed my eyes tight shut, hoping that when I opened them everything would be as it was before. I waited, then dared myself to peep. The mist had lifted and I found myself standing quite alone outside a shop whose sign was a painted mirror. I thought that I should go in and ask for help. The strange thing was that I had this thought and found myself in the shop all in the same moment. It was gloomy and cool inside and it took a little while for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. When they did, I saw, to my horror, that standing on top of the counter was a large midnight black raven.
My instinct was to run out of the shop, but my shoes would not or could not move. The raven watched me, its pearl black eyes glittering in the darkness.
‘Do not be frightened,’ said the raven. ‘She is waiting for you upstairs.’
I nearly jumped out of my skin. Uncertain what to do, I looked at the door I had come in by. The raven, as if reading my thoughts, flew up, blocking my exit. I could feel the power of its outstretched wings as a wave of feathery darkness swooped down towards me. My heart by now was fair fit to burst with fright. I ran for my life up the stairs, terrified lest he should follow me.
‘Please let Danes be waiting for me,’ I prayed. ‘Please.’
I knew the moment that I entered the room that I was lost, unbearably lost, for there was no Danes, just an old woman sitting in a chair looking at herself in a gilded mirror. The room was panelled in wood; there was a fire in the grate but the flames were still, as if painted. The leaded window was partly open behind the old woman. Shining shards of light were thrown in different directions across the wall and floor, and I could just see the river outside. There too nothing moved: not the river, not the boats, not the people, not the seagulls suspended in the air. All was silent without wind or breath, as if time was being held back by an invisible hand.
All I could hear was my heart pounding.
‘Come, my child,’ said the old woman in a croaking voice. ‘Do not be frightened. Let me take a good look at you.’
I wanted to run out of the room, but my shoes refused to move. The old woman was somehow much nearer than she had been a minute before. She had small eyes and a hooked nose and a mole on her chin. Her face was like a mask.
‘Do you know me?’ she asked. And for a moment the mask became transparent and another face of cruel beauty shone through. Which of these two faces frightened me more I could not say.
‘No,’ I said. I tried to back away from her, but still the shoes refused to move. It was then I noticed that somehow the raven had got into the room and was perching on the back of her chair.
‘How old are you?’ asked the old woman.
‘Six summers,’ I told her.
‘So young, so young,’ she whispered.
I stared down at my feet. The oddness of everything made me think of Danes, and tears began to roll down my face. The old woman seemed neither moved nor worried to see me so upset.
‘The shoes suit you very well indeed,’ said the old woman. ‘I am glad you like them. You do like them?’
I said nothing. All the words I had in me seemed frozen to my tongue.
‘Cronus,’ said the old woman, ‘do you think she likes the shoes?’
‘Why, of course she does,’ said the raven. ‘She chose to take them.’
I was now sobbing so much that my chest was heaving and my shoulders shaking and I wondered if I would shudder apart. I felt hot and light-headed. Finally I found my voice and gasped through my tears, ‘I want to go home, please. Now.’
The old woman smiled and held up the gilded mirror for me to see. The glass was made of liquid silver that whirled round and round. It was like looking into a deep, deep well: I could fall into it and be lost for ever. My head felt as if there was a thunderstorm crackling in it.
The old woman studied me closely. ‘What do you see?’
‘Nothing,’ I said miserably. ‘I want to go home.’
She put the mirror face down. ‘Where is home?’
I told her.
‘Your mother, how is she?’
All the time the old woman had been speaking I could hear my mother’s sweet voice saying over and over again, ‘Take off the shoes, take off the shoes.’ I sat down on the floor and pulled at them with all my might.
It was as if I were lost in a forest and being hunted like a wild animal. The room began to spin and a high-pitched sound flooded into my head. Then all was silver and all was darkness.
‘Are you all right?’ said a voice somewhere near me. I looked up to see the friendly face of Master Thankless the tailor.
A crowd of people had gathered round us on the bridge.
‘Lucky you saw her,’ said a passer-by.
‘Ain’t she the cunning woman’s child?’ said another.
‘I don’t feel well,’ I whispered.
‘You don’t look too bonny,’ said Master Thankless. Gently he lifted me up and carried me home. I wanted to tell him that I had lost Danes, but my head was pounding and lights were flickering before my eyes, and
I was afraid that if I opened my mouth I would be sick.
The last thing I remember him saying to me was ‘Where are your shoes?’
5
The Heat Within
I thought I saw the raven’s outstretched wings beating at my windowpane, was sure that I heard his brutal cry in the night. I thought I saw the old woman watching me from a tower across the river. I know that I saw Death standing by my door holding his huge scythe, waiting for someone. Was it me?
How long the fever lasted I could not tell, for all things tumbled together, the dark and the light becoming one.
My mother was with me, that much I am sure of. So was Danes. She said over and over again, ‘Do not fly away, my little sparrow.’
The heat outside. The heat in the room. The heat in my body. So much heat that it was hard to breathe. I was propped up in bed and given a bitter brew to drink, and my burning, itching skin was soothed with ointments. I was moved at some point to my mother and father’s chamber and lay in their bed, the windows open in hope of a cooling breeze, but the air was slow and stagnant. I could hear the cries of the watermen, ‘Westward ho, eastward ho,’ the bells of St Magnus, St George and St Saviour’s ringing out, the screeching of seagulls. The shouts of the street sellers were the background noise to my fevered nightmares. The room would start to melt away and I was once more in a forest. I could hear the hunter’s horn, I could see the shadows of the dogs as they came chasing after me, I could feel their hot breath on my neck. I would wake screaming, feeling my energy ebb away from me like the sluggish river tide.
It was at the darkest of moments, when my sight was so bad that I could hardly make out my mother’s face, that I first saw the fairy. She twinkled and danced in the shafts of sunlight that struggled between the drapes at the window. I could not be sure if it was really a fairy or just the stuff of dreams. Yet every time I woke, there she was floating above me. She became my good luck charm. I felt that as long as she was there, I would be all right.
When I was better and the shutters were folded back and the drapes removed, I saw for the first time that what I had taken for a fairy was in truth a beautiful poppet doll that Danes had sewn for me while I lay there so ill. She was made out of cloth, with tiny stitched fingers and feet. She had red hair like good Queen Elizabeth and a ruff that looked like wings. I called her Beth and felt not the least bit disappointed that she was not real. I told no one but Beth about the raven and the old woman with the mirror. I thought no one else would believe me.
Master Thankless came to call, bringing me presents of ripe cherries and some pretty marbles. I was still too weak to stand, my legs being as thin as twigs, and during the day I lay on a bed in the garden, under the shade of the crabapple tree.
‘How are you doing, little mistress?’ Master Thankless asked cheerfully. ‘You gave us a fright.’
‘I am much better now,’ I said, showing him Beth.
‘Beautiful! Did you make her?’
‘No,’ I laughed. ‘Mistress Danes did.’
‘Well, mistress,’ said Master Thankless, ‘you could come and teach my apprentice a thing or two.’
Danes blushed. ‘It is nothing.’
‘We have a lot to thank you for, good sir,’ said my mother.
‘That’s funny,’ I giggled, ‘a lot to thank Master Thankless for.’
‘I have fun made of my name more times than I can say it,’ said the tailor good-naturedly.
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I did not mean …’
‘Of course not,’ he said with a smile. ‘Bless you, it is good to see you looking so much better.’
After a while, my mother excused herself, leaving Master Thankless with Danes to discuss the new clothes that needed ordering.
‘I am glad to be making the little mistress another gown,’ said the tailor, smiling at me. I went on playing with Beth while, thinking that I was not listening, he leant forward and whispered to Danes, ‘Forgive me for asking, but I am baffled as to what really happened on the bridge.’
‘So am I, Master Thankless,’ said Danes. ‘The bridge is a dangerous place. Why, only last week twelve sheep ran wild and rushed into the river, taking the printer’s apprentice with them.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said the tailor. ‘But how did the little mistress get separated from you in the first place? And how did she lose her shoes? One moment I saw you both standing there outside the haberdasher’s and the next she was gone. When I found her, the child looked as if she had seen a ghost. And the state of her! It seems impossible for it all to have happened so quickly.’
‘I think, good sir, you make too much of it,’ said Danes. ‘To me she was lost for quite long enough.’
‘Nay, mistress, that is the odd thing. It was not that long, I do assure you. My apprentice, Gabriel Appleby, witnessed it too and will say the same as I do,’ said the tailor, quite distressed.
‘Surely all that matters,’ said Danes firmly, ‘is that you found her, for which we are eternally grateful. The rest is of no importance.’
‘Forgive me for saying it,’ said Master Thankless, ‘but there is a lot of talk, and not all of it favourable.’
‘So I have heard,’ said Danes. ‘One would have thought that people had better ways to spend their time than in idle gossip. ’
My keen ears heard every word that was said, and every word worried me greatly. I had long wanted to ask what had happened to the shoes and could not, because I felt that in some way I was to blame for what had befallen me: that if I had done as I was bidden, I would never have got lost, never have become ill, never have had the nightmares.
‘Quite so,’ said the tailor. He continued in almost a whisper, ‘But they are saying it was -’
‘Well, Master Thankless,’ said Danes, ‘it is for the Good Lord to know the answer.’
I was not sure if I had heard him right. It was only when Danes stood up quickly that I realised what he had said.
Danes sighed. ‘We should be used to it by now. Nevertheless, it rubs me up the wrong way.’
The word that he had used was sorcery. I did not know what it meant, but as I repeated it to myself I had a feeling of foreboding.
That summer was the beginning of my love of words and stitches. My mother taught me my letters with great kindness and patience, under the crabapple tree.
There is an art to using a quill and it took me many sheets of paper and much spillage of ink before I could write my letters. I hated it when the pen splattered, which it often did, stubbornly ruining my hard work. Though when it went well, the words gathered on the paper like flowers in a meadow on a sunny day.
I got through so much ink in the learning that the inkseller took to knocking at least once a week on the garden door. He had a grey solemn face that looked as if it was chiselled out of stone; he was stooped down like the letter C, as if he were Atlas carrying the weight of the world in his wooden barrel of ink. Maybe he did. I have learnt that there is great power in words, no matter how long or short they be.
‘Is this for you then, young mistress?’ asked the inkseller, as he carefully poured his ink through a funnel into a stone jar.
‘Yes, of course,’ I said with pride.
‘Well, there’s a thing going to waste, all that learning on a girl,’ said the inkseller.
My father thought it was good that I was being taught to read and write, and said that I had a quick wit which would serve me well in life. He taught me the countries of the world on his globe, and showed me maps that had Neptune sitting on a rock looking out over his vast watery kingdom of mermaids and sea monsters.
My dear Danes could neither read nor write, and had no wish to learn. Instead she could sew with the fingertips of fairies, her stitches so small and delicate that her needle could embroider whole stories. I would sit for hours with her trying to do the same, but without much success.
When at last I was strong enough there were plans to send me out of London to Highgate with Danes, for the good country air. I was to st
ay with the sister of my father’s long-dead cousin Master Stoop, who had married a rich man, a Master Gearing. In truth Beth and I were not looking forward to it. I had never been away from home and Highgate was quite a distance.
On the eve of my departure, Mistress Gearing turned up.
She was dressed as plainly as any woman I had seen and I wondered if she was very poor. My clothes and my mother’s had embroidery and fine lace, but Mistress Gearing wore a simple black wool skirt and jacket with a starched white apron and a plain white collar. Her hair was pulled back and hidden under a cap with flaps hanging down that made her look like a startled rabbit. She held a huge nosegay of flowers in which she buried her face and stayed with her back against the garden gate, refusing all requests to come further in.
The whole thing seemed most vexing and I had determined by this time that I was not going to spend a month in the country with a badly dressed rabbit, no matter how good the air might be.
‘Did you come by carriage?’ enquired my mother.
‘Nay,’ replied Mistress Gearing, ‘I walked with purpose and God for company and shall go home the same way, with the Lord’s blessing.’
‘I will not hear of it,’ said my mother. ‘You must be footsore. Why, you are most welcome to stay with us for tonight. My husband has already arranged a carriage to take Coriander and Danes to Highgate tomorrow.’
‘Go on,’ Danes whispered to me, ‘go and greet her. She is probably shy and unused to the ways of the city.’
‘No, no,’ shouted the rabbit as I went up to her. ‘No, keep your distance, I pray!’
‘Mistress Gearing,’ said my mother kindly, ‘there has been some misunderstanding. I would not have dreamt of asking you to have Coriander if I thought she was still sick.’
‘I have heard that the child had a deadly disease,’ said Mistress Gearing, sniffing so hard at the nosegay that she was overcome with a fit of the sneezes.