Brewer's Tale, The (48 page)

They used the wool to swiftly douse the flames. Smoke rose, escaping from the sudden rents, the blackened holes. The smell was sickening. The caterwauling from within worse.

Then, from above us, came a piercing wail.

All eyes flew to the sill. Louisa! Though Betje's fall had been mere seconds, already it was too late for Louisa.

Forever frozen at the window, Louisa became an animated piece of kindling, a Roman candle. We stared helpless, shocked into silence as she was consumed. Her high-pitched screams only ceased when the roof caved, crushing her, silencing her.

I stood immobile, unable to tear my eyes from where she'd last stood until Betje's whimpers alerted me. The men knelt around what remained of the blanket, too scared too look, fearful lest their rescue failed. Ignoring the smoking, charred mass of flesh Betje had become, I pushed through them, knelt and, keeping the blanket around her, as carefully as I could, scooped her into my arms. Staggering as my own abused body protested her weight, inhaling and gagging as the stench assailed me, I collapsed to the ground.

Some of the men ran forward to help, but I shook my head, sending them away. Relieved of their duty, eager to escape another death they didn't want to witness, the men scattered to pour more water upon the burning remains.

It was futile. Holcroft House would not survive.

Using one arm, I dragged us towards the brewhouse, clutching Betje to my breast, muttering inanities, ignoring the way her little red legs struck the dirt.

Falling against the garden wall, holding Betje, Blanche and Iris joined me, their sobs quieter, their fear transformed into something deeper, darker as they stared with stricken faces at the bundle in my arms and began to pray.

Together, we watched as men worked to put out the flames, to try and save the adjoining properties. In a parody of the winter snows, soft black and grey flakes, as well as some bright orange ones fell around us, landing in our hair, on our clothes, settling onto the garden, onto the chickens and pigs, who roused from their slumber were making a clamour.

It was some time before I thought to examine Betje. Mayhap, I was afraid what I would find. Pushing aside the blanket, I sent Blanche for water and gingerly bathed my sister's scorched flesh, made her drink through ravaged swollen lips, lips that had once been such a perfect rose and were now a twisted reddened mass. Blanche found a fresh blanket in the brewhouse with which to wrap her. Pretending the creature in my arms was still Betje as I last saw her, was difficult. Her clothes, like most of her hair, had been burned from her body. Every morsel of flesh that I could see had been coloured afresh, the palette either black or shades of carmine. Flensed from her body, it was if her skin could not bear to remain; some stuck to Shelby's blanket. Much came away wherever I touched. It was sickening to see, to hold, and yet I was compelled to do both, to bear witness to my poor little sister's suffering. I'd no doubt whatsoever she was not long for this world and determined she would die in my arms, being cherished, knowing love. Quietly, I prayed to God to please save her, to save Betje, Karel and, as time went past and he didn't re-emerge, Adam as well. I already knew that Saskia was gone. Westel roamed through my mind and I wished him to hell each time he appeared. We prayed, Blanche, Iris and, before long, Father Clement who, sweating, soot-streaked and exhausted, arrived and added his to ours.

God was not with us that night. Not only did a wind arise to blow the ash and cinders north, starting fresh fires that took Master Goldsmith's house and business and the seven properties beyond as well, but the flames devoured all of Holcroft House except, ironically, the brewery. When Adam reappeared, coughing fit to make the earth shudder, and jogged towards us, his singed hair, blackened face and tragic eyes told their own tale. He fell down beside us and, burying his head in his hands, wept.

I had no more tears. Not that night, not ever again.

When the sun rose, trying to part the clouds of billowing smoke, Holcroft House, its darkened skeleton yearning for the light, was nothing more than charred bones.

SOUTHWARK AND LONDON 1407–1409

But first I make a protestation round

That I'm quite drunk, I know it by sound:

And therefore, if I slander or mis-say

Blame it on the ale of Southwark, so I pray.

Geoffrey Chaucer, ‘The Millers Tale'

Southwark for the most part pursued its accustomed way, unruly and unruled.

David Johnson,
Southwark and the City

ELMHAM LENN TO DOVER TO CANTERBURY

After midsummer to end of February

The year of Our Lord 1406–1407 in the seventh and eighth years of the reign of Henry IV

T
rapped in a nether world populated by reassuring whispers interrupted by cruel taunts and roaring flames, it was three weeks before my senses were restored enough to fully grasp what had happened; to understand what I was yet to face.

It was not just the horror and grief of so much death, the final memory of Saskia, Louisa and my beloved Karel, or Betje's terrible fate, nor the loss of the only home I'd ever known, that I had to reconcile. With my recovery came the painful knowledge that any remaining goodwill I had in Elmham Lenn was irreparably forfeit as well. The fire had unleashed its fury upon my neighbours, destroying other lives and livelihoods. Looking for a scapegoat, people turned against me. Urged on by Hiske, whose capacity for sanctimony grossly exceeded her compassion, the townsfolk affected sought to sue me for restitution. Hurling insults and curses, they haunted the church grounds, waiting for me to emerge from the security of St Bartholomew's and for their savage justice to be served.

All this I learned from Father Clement, Adam and Captain Stoyan who, when I collapsed among the ashes of my former life, had smuggled me and Betje into St Bartholomew's and declared sanctuary. Keeping us hidden within its stone walls, they ensured we received the best care possible. While my physical wounds were repaired quickly, it was those lodged deep in my heart that festered.

Yet, amid the bleakness there was also hope. Despite the dreadful mortification her body had suffered, Betje survived. Told it was God's will, I demurred. Mayhap, He did wrap my sister in His tender mercy, but it was also the experienced ministrations of Mother Joanna, the head of St Hildegarde's, the hospital in town, that kept Betje alive. To this woman of God I owed my sister's life and to Him I was, at first, grateful.

As the days passed and her immolated flesh slowly transformed into raw knots and puckers of red that would disfigure and disable her greatly, I wondered how, having been saved, her life would unfold. How God could be both so cruel and yet so benevolent.

As soon as I was able, I told my saviours what I'd learned that dark night: of Westel Calkin's betrayal; his brutality, to which my own injuries attested; and his ready admission of murder.

Expecting indignation, rage, sworn vengeance, the uncomfortable silence and knowing looks my friends shared as we sat before the fire in Father Clement's rooms knelled a warning. What was being kept from me?

‘Mistress Anneke,' said Adam, reaching for my trembling hand. ‘I'm afraid the justice you seek is not possible … that Goddamned blackguard perished in the fire.'

I stared at him in disbelief. ‘For certes?'

‘What remained of his belongings was found in the ruins of the hall. His cap, his satchel. There were other things, human …' Adam swallowed.

‘They could only have been his …' finished Father Clement, fingers clutching his beads.

This was the Lord's punishment for the evil Westel wrought? Forgive my blasphemous conceit, but it was not enough. Between him and Betje, I found my faith sorely tested.

Less than a week after I was well enough to roam the church and tend to my sister, Hiske triumphed. We learned the sheriff had been summoned from London. What were my chances — an unmarried woman, a brewster, the keeper of an alehouse — of getting a fair trial?

Adam and Captain Stoyan arranged our departure — our flight, if I was to call it by its real name — from Elmham Lenn. Our belongings were meagre, our fears great. Adam had gone through the debris of Holcroft House and salvaged a few barrels of ale and beer from the brewery and found, beneath collapsed rafters, the tin we used to keep our coin. It was half-full of groats, silver pennies and some nobles. Not enough to compensate the townspeople, even if they could be persuaded to accept it, but enough to fund our eventual journey to London, where it was decided we could disappear completely. But not yet — London was too obvious a destination. To deter would-be pursuers, we would travel south.

‘While Captain Stoyan transports you by ship to a safe house in Dover,' said Father Clement, ‘Adam will take Shelby and the cart and set a false trail north. For as long as I'm able, I'll make folk believe you're still here, in the church. There are many days left before your forty days of sanctuary expire. No-one will cross the threshold, not even the city authorities till then, by which time you'll be long gone.'

When Mother Joanna offered to come with me and continue caring for Betje, I knew not how to express my gratitude, or the need in me she so readily met. ‘The dear Lord knows, you've both been punished enough,' she said, her eyes alighting upon Betje and then my stomach, before sidling to the bowl into which I'd purged every morning for the past week. In the liquid depths of her lovely brown eyes, I saw that she understood — my silence, my guilt. In that exchange, she became complicit in my wretched condition. I'd not mentioned the rape to anyone. I was ashamed, dirty, soiled to my very core. And, truth be told, I felt somehow to blame. It wasn't only Westel's insults and the stream of invective that had flowed from him that night and lodged in my veins. It was those who, when I first embarked on this venture and whose opinion I cared about, had warned me of what might happen. They'd possessed a foresight I'd either lacked or wilfully ignored. That innocents had paid so dearly for my sin and folly, weighed heavily upon my soul …