The Edge of Dark Read online

  She stomped over to the window, ignoring the wild warning cry of instinct at the back of her mind, ignoring the throb of her neck where the necklace had lain. There was nothing there. She was going to pull up the blind and look out of the window, and when she found herself staring down at the car park, she was going to feel an idiot. There was no reason for the heavy thud of her heart, or the fear squirming through her belly. Good God, she wasn’t going to be able to hold down a job in York if she didn’t dare look out of a window!

  Even so, she paused with her fingers on the cord. She’d meant to jerk the blind up, but instead she found herself sidestepping to the edge of the window so that she could ease the slats cautiously away from the glass and look outside once more.

  Chapter Three

  November 1570

  The hens pecked unconcernedly out of Jane’s way as she hurried down to the herb garden. A petulant drizzle cast a sheen of damp over everything and Jane rubbed her fingers together, wishing that she had stopped to put on a gown. There was little enough growing at this time of year, but she might be able to find some thyme, some rosemary, a leaf of bay, enough to make a faggot of sweet herbs. Ellen was going to show her how to stew a fillet of beef for dinner and Jane had consulted her mother’s cookery book, running her finger carefully along each line to make sure they had all the ingredients.

  Her father had been in a black mood all morning, thumping his meaty fist on the table and shouting until the wainscot rang with his booming voice, and it had been a relief when he stumped out of the house to attend a council meeting. The stewed fillet was his favourite and Jane was hoping it would sweeten his temper. If he was pleased with his dinner, Juliana would be able to wheedle a new gown out of him, and then she would be happy for a while.

  ‘You must look after your sister,’ Jane’s mother had said. Her voice had been rasping with effort and she had stopped after every few words to lick her cracked lips. ‘Her passions are so violent, I fear for her. She is not strong in spirit like you, dear Jane. Promise me that you will care for her. Keep her safe.’

  ‘I promise.’ Jane took her mother’s hand. She could hear Juliana weeping hysterically in the other chamber. Jane wanted to weep too. She wanted to throw back her head and howl like a dog, but her mother had taught her to be modest and quiet, so she sat very still, lips pressed firmly together, and she held her mother’s hand until she died.

  Afterwards, her father told her that it would be for her to run the household now.

  ‘Ellen will help you,’ he said roughly. ‘She’s been servant here long enough to know how to go on. You are twelve, old enough to take your mother’s place and care for your sister.’

  Jane was doing her best, but she missed her mother. Juliana was their father’s pet. Her hair was a glorious gold, tumbling in curls to her waist, and her eyes were as blue as a summer sky. Small wonder Henry Birkby was besotted by his beautiful daughter, and irritated by Jane, who was thin and plain and whose eyes were the murky green of a hedge ditch, and who had not had the decency to be born a boy. Juliana knew to a nicety how to cajole her father into a new gown. The merest hint of tears sparkling on the end of her lashes was enough to have him reaching for his purse. Once or twice Jane had ventured that it might not be good for Juliana to be quite so spoilt, and was accused of being jealous and a killjoy for her pains. Her mother had known how to manage both her husband and her daughter, but it was harder for Jane without the authority of a wife or a mother.

  It wasn’t that Jane didn’t love her sister. How could she not when Juliana was so very beautiful? When Juliana was in a sunny mood, she was as enchanting as a kitten and impossible to resist, but her moods were so changeable that Jane never knew how she would react. One minute she would be laughing delightedly, the next cast into despair and weeping herself into a state of misery that could take days to lift. She had feverish enthusiasms that died overnight, and was so ruthlessly self-absorbed that sometimes Jane could only gape at her lack of concern for others.

  She had promised to look after Juliana, but it was no easy task, and there were times, faced with hysterical weeping, when Jane felt overwhelmed by the charge her mother had laid on her. She took refuge in keeping house, in the practicalities of making sure that her father was fed and Juliana comfortable. Jane knew that she was dull and plain, and she would rather be in the kitchen with its comforting smells of bacon and spices than sitting in the parlour. She took more satisfaction in casting the accounts than in tales of knightly quests, and she tied on her apron with as much pleasure as Juliana did in smoothing down the skirts of a new gown. Away from her father’s vicious rages and Juliana’s extremes of emotion, Jane was glad to beat the carpets and dress the meat and polish the silver goblets her father flaunted until they reflected her homely face back at her.

  Henry Birkby was a butcher whose wealth eclipsed many a gentleman’s, or so he liked to boast. Jane was hopeful that one day she would be married, if only for her dowry, and while she would never be a beauty, she would have practical skills to offer in place of a fair face. Sometimes Jane dreamed of it, when she was on her own, and absently plumping up cushions or folding linen; she would have a kind husband, children, and she would be able to lavish on them the same care she gave her father and her sister, but with greater reward. Her husband would appreciate her and commend her, and her babies would clutch at her hair with fat little hands, and nestle trustingly into her bosom the way she had seen her neighbours’ babes do. Jane sighed a little mistily whenever she thought of it. It did not seem so much to ask, to be loved, just a little. She didn’t need extravagant declarations of passion the way Juliana doubtless would. She didn’t need a knight to slay a giant for her. She only wanted to be needed and appreciated. Just a little.

  So she dreamt of a future home of her own, and she listened to Ellen and she learnt how to go on. ‘We’ll make a housewife of you yet,’ Ellen sometimes said approvingly.

  Jane liked Ellen. She was not so old, nineteen or twenty, but Jane’s mother had trained her from a girl, and she knew the kind of things Jane wanted to know: how to make a remedy for a rheum or how to make a tart of an ear of veal. Ellen could be brusque, and her temper had been shorter than usual lately, but she was a good cook, and it showed in her round figure.

  Where was Ellen, anyway? It was not like her to be away from the kitchen for so long. Jane frowned a little as she bent over a straggle of thyme. She had been looking tired and puffy-eyed earlier, and Jane had seen her rest her hand on her ample stomach and wince. Jane glanced down at the privy at the end of the garden. Perhaps Ellen was in there? She would leave her be and start stewing the fillet herself. She would read the recipe and it could not be so hard. Already she had set out her ingredients: raw beef from her father’s shop, oozing blood, some claret, some mace, a precious lemon. The lemon was somewhat wizened, but it would serve.

  A restless gust of wind blew the branches of the apple trees about, splattering dampness and drizzle in Jane’s face. She wiped it off with her knuckle. Just a few leaves more and she could go back to the warmth of the kitchen. Shivering, she crouched to pick over more twigs in search of some green, and that was when she heard it.

  A groan, as if ripped out of a belly, a whimpering gasp. Jane jerked upright and spun round. Had it come from the jakes? What if Ellen was ill in there? She took a step towards the wooden privy, only to stop when another cry came from the stable.

  Her father was out on his horse, and his servant, John, had gone with him. Tom, the apprentice, was minding the shop in the Shambles. The stable should be empty.

  Jane hesitated, her hands full of thyme leaves. A stable would be a fine hideout for the vagabonds and rogues her father said were thronging the city. She tiptoed down to the privy. ‘Ellen,’ she whispered, but there was no reply, and when she tentatively pushed at the door, it swung open to release the familiar stench.

  Should she go back to the house and find her? Or she could pretend that she hadn’t heard anything. Half o
f Jane wanted to do just that, to run back to the kitchen and warm her hands by the fire, to slice the beef half as broad as her hand, as the recipe said, and set sweet butter sizzling in the frying pan. But there had been real distress in that muffled scream. Someone was hurt, and Jane couldn’t walk away.

  The stable door stood ajar. Hesitantly, Jane laid down the thyme and pulled the door wider so that she could step into the opening. ‘Who’s there?’ she called, trying to sound like the mistress of the house and not a scared twelve-year-old maid.

  The only answer was another wrenching cry.

  ‘Who is it? Who’s there?’ One cautious step after another, Jane advanced into the stable. It smelt of straw and horse and wet leather, and of the apples wrinkling in the loft above. The meagre November light through the open door barely penetrated the shadows, and Jane paused, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. A pitchfork was leaning against the wall, doubtless where John had left it, and Jane picked it up. She was but a poor squab of a girl, as Henry Birkby was always pointing out in disgust, and the pitchfork was taller than she was, so Jane was not at all sure how she would be able to use it to defend herself. But it would make her look as if she was not to be trifled with, surely?

  ‘Who’s there?’ she said again, comforted by the weight of the pitchfork in her hand.

  A stifled gasp came from the stall. She could see more clearly now, and she picked her way around a splatter of dung towards it. Taking a firmer grip of the handle, she stepped around the end of the stall to confront the intruder inside. Only then did she see who was crouched in the straw, clutching onto the manger, her face contorted with pain.

  ‘Ellen!’ Jane dropped the pitchfork. It clattered to the stable floor unnoticed as she fell to her knees beside the servant. ‘Ellen, what has happened?’

  The tendons in Ellen’s neck stood out and her eyes were rolling wildly. ‘You shouldn’t be here, Jane,’ she managed between gasps. ‘Get back to the house!’

  ‘I can’t leave you! You’re sick!’

  Ellen gritted her teeth against a grunt of pain. ‘I’m not sick, you simpleton! Arghh!’ Hoisting up her skirts, she slumped back into the corner of the stall while Jane watched in horror. ‘Go on, get out of here,’ she snarled at Jane when she had the breath.

  Jane scrambled uncertainly to her feet. ‘I’ll get help.’

  ‘No,’ gasped Ellen. ‘No, there’s nowt anyone can do now. It’s too late for the midwife.’

  ‘Midwife?’ Jane gaped at her and Ellen barked a laugh between the mighty twists of pain.

  ‘God’s bones, what did you think was happening? Did you think I’d just grown fat these last few months?’

  She had thought that. Jane flushed. ‘I am sorry,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I did not know.’

  Unable to bear the innocence in the huge eyes, Ellen looked away. ‘Well, now you do.’

  ‘What . . . what of the baby’s father? Does he know?’

  Ellen stared at the knots in the wooden stall, exhausted by the pain that had her in a savage grip. ‘Oh aye, he’ll know.’

  ‘My father will speak to him. Put him in mind of his obligations.’

  Ellen’s laugh was bitter. ‘You reckon?’ She broke off with a scream as another contraction, more powerful than the others, shook her. ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she panted when she could. ‘You’re just a lass, Jane. Go on, begone with you.’

  ‘No.’ The soft mouth set in a stubborn line. ‘If I cannot get help, then I cannot go. Tell me what to do.’

  ‘Sweet Jesus, do you think I know?’ Ellen buckled under another onslaught of pain, and Jane crept up to take her hand.

  ‘Does it hurt very much?’

  Tears oozed down Ellen’s face. The cap had slid off her head and her wiry hair was damp and dark with sweat. ‘What do you think?’ she managed with a twisted smile before her eyes rolled back once more and she bellowed as if her body was being ripped apart.

  Jane looked around frantically. There had to be something she could do. Spying the cloth John used to rub down the horses, she snatched it up and dipped it into the water trough, so that she could wipe Ellen’s face. ‘It will be all right,’ she said in her firmest voice, and a faint smile twisted across Ellen’s face.

  ‘What would you know?’ she managed, but she groped for Jane’s hand once more. ‘I’m frightened,’ she confessed in a hoarse whisper. ‘I’m right glad you’re here, lass.’

  Jane was frightened too. She wished she knew how to help, but childbirth was women’s work, and she was just a maid. Her mother had died giving birth to a brother who had never lived at all, but she had had her midwife and her sister and her gossips around her, all of whom had babes of their own and knew what she was enduring. She had not been alone with a poor, scared dab of a girl for company.

  ‘You’re strong,’ she told Ellen, trying to sound confident. Trying not to wince at Ellen’s painful grip on her hand. ‘All will be well.’

  At first it seemed that it would be. The pain was terrible and Ellen screamed and panted and cursed, but all at once a bulge appeared between her legs and then a baby slithered out onto the straw.

  One moment there had been just Ellen and Jane in the stable; the next there was a child too. Jane’s throat closed at the wonder of it. Awed, she reached to pick up the babe, careless of the blood and the slime.

  ‘Oh Ellen,’ she said, and her eyes filled with tears. ‘You have a fine boy!’ Entranced, she stared down at the baby’s red, wrinkled face. His eyes were screwed tight, his tiny fingers curled into fists. From his belly ran a dark, pulsing cord, and as Jane watched, his mouth opened and he let out a thin wail, barely more than a bleat, and flailed his arms and legs. ‘He is beautiful,’ she said, belatedly turning to place him tenderly in his mother’s arms. ‘I will go and find a cloth to swaddle him in.’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Ellen. A spasm crossed her face as the baby squirmed against her but she didn’t look at him. Instead she struggled grimly up, tipping the baby so that she could hold him by his ankles as he wailed in protest. The navel string was attached to a bloody mass.

  Still on her knees, Jane watched Ellen lumber over to the trough. Perhaps she thought Ellen wanted to wash herself or the babe. Afterwards Jane couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that she knelt there and watched as Ellen shoved the baby into the trough and held it under the water.

  To Jane, staring uncomprehendingly, everything seemed to happen very slowly but with excruciating clarity. She saw Ellen’s face twist, saw her arm curve up and then down. She heard the baby crying, then the muddled splash cutting off his wail, but none of it made sense, and when it did, it was too late. Scrambling to her feet in horror, Jane stumbled over to the trough, but she was too slow. It felt as if she was floundering through a quagmire of invisible mud that clung to her skirts and dragged her back.

  ‘Ellen! Ellen, what are you doing?’ Desperately, Jane grabbed at Ellen’s arm as it held the baby down, but Ellen shoved her back with her free hand.

  ‘Leave it!’

  ‘Ellen, no!’ Jane leapt forward once more, flailing at the maid, beating with her fists when Ellen barred her way. She could see the baby’s leg kicking feebly, and as she watched one tiny hand bobbed out of the water as if reaching for help. ‘Ellen, please, stop,’ she sobbed.

  But Ellen didn’t stop until she lifted the baby out of the water and dropped it, dripping and lifeless, onto the straw, and the stable was filled with a silence so enormous that it drummed and roared in Jane’s ears.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Best thing for the little bugger.’ But Ellen’s hands trembled as she plucked a handful of hay from the manger to wipe between her legs.

  Jane stared at the baby that lay limp and silent in the straw. Her hands were still red from his birth blood. ‘You killed him,’ she said, her voice hoarse from screaming at Ellen to stop.

  ‘What else was I to do with him?’ Ellen demanded, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. ‘Your father
would turn me out if I have a child.’

  ‘No . . .’ Jane couldn’t think clearly. She was buckling under the shame of having let the babe die. If she had been stronger, if she had fought Ellen harder . . . ‘No, he wouldn’t.’

  ‘He would, and there would be no one to take me in. I have no kin in York. I would starve and so would the babe. It is better this way.’

  ‘But the father—’

  ‘You nodcock.’ Ellen cracked a harsh laugh with no humour in it at all. ‘Who do you think the father is?’

  Jane tore her eyes from the pitiful body in the straw to stare at Ellen. ‘No,’ she said, shaking her head from side to side. ‘No.’

  ‘I tell you, yes.’

  ‘Then . . .’ Slowly Jane looked back at the baby. She remembered the way he had flailed his arms, the tiny hands struggling to find a grip on life. She remembered the feeble wail, the way he had reached out of the water to her, to anyone who might save him. ‘Then this is my brother?’ she said dully. Her kin, a babe she might have raised with love and kindness, who might have loved her back. Murdered before he had a chance to know any care at all.

  She turned and vomited into the straw.

  When she lifted her head, Ellen was grimly forking the soiled straw into a pile in the corner of the stable. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘You must help me clear this.’

  ‘Should I get a priest?’ Jane whispered, wiping her cheeks with trembling fingers.

  ‘A priest?’ Ellen echoed incredulously. ‘Of course not! We cannot tell anyone!’

  ‘But we must bury him.’

  ‘Fire would be better. Or we’ll give him to the swine. There won’t be much left when the pigs have finished.’

  Jane’s hands crept to her mouth. ‘You cannot!’

  ‘What choice do I have?’ Ellen’s face was ravaged as she threw the pitchfork against the wall and staggered back to the stall. ‘You do not have to watch. I told you to leave, but no, you must stay, and now you know.’