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Chapter Nineteen

The serfs’ had faces of derangement. Seeing Ailyth and Heloise being dragged to the stake, which already had bundles of dried straw and wood crawling up the post, seemed to ignite in them a kind of frenzy. They reared above the victims, determined to see some kind of punishment for the suffering they’d gone through. The terrible sickness that had stolen their loved ones had been an act of witchcraft, of that there was no doubt, and now they had caught the perpetrators there would be pain and bloodshed in their revenge.

To the delirious chant of, “Burn! Burn! Burn!” Ailyth was forced against the stake, RiffRaff trembling against her chest. Behind her, Heloise was also being tied against the wooden pole that would see her death and, like the girl, her face was pale despite the flames held by the villagers who surged around her.

Heloise set her chin and replied in a voice that she was trying to keep calm, “We show them we’re not afraid. Don’t let them think we’re cowards, Ailyth. Die with dignity, be better than them.”

This wasn’t the answer Ailyth had hoped or expected to hear. “Anything a little more practical?” she shouted above the tumult.

Heloise didn’t answer, and it was only then that Ailyth knew what true terror was. Her nursemaid’s silence spoke the truth. There was nothing that could be done. They couldn’t escape.

Turning back to face the mob, Ailyth’s arms and legs turned to water and she began to slide down the pole. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t come to this, killed by her own people; the very ones she had been struggling to save. Right up until that moment she had suspected that Heloise had a trick up her sleeve, but she’d been wrong. There was no trickery, no magic; only terror as she realised she would die here, burned to death, in the most painful way.

“RiffRaff,” she trembled, thinking of the last good thing she could do before she lost all control of her senses, “if I throw you, can you run? Would you be able to make it to safety.”

The rat painfully shook his head. “No,” he croaked. “He broke my legs. He tried to get me to talk, but...”

Ailyth nodded, and shunted him gently up to her shoulder. “We’ll go together, then,” she shook. “It’ll be over quickly.”

Only time had seemed to slow, so that each leering face that enjoyed the sight of her torture blurred into the next. She wanted to be brave, and strong, like Christ was on the cross, but she was only a human, and her instinct was to live.

“Please,” she begged, as Canute’s guard tied her tightly against the stake, making sure the rope cut into her skin, “please don’t. I’m not a witch, I’m only a girl.”

The heavy snorted a laugh, and tied the knot around her ankles so securely that she yelped in agony. But whilst she was alive, she couldn’t stop fighting.

“Please,” she tried again. “I’m a nobleman’s daughter. I can give you money. Make you rich. I’ll give you whatever you want.”

The heavy leaned forwards, so that his stubbled face was almost pressing against her. “Give me back my Sally then, witch,” he said. “She died of the plague yester-night, and by God do I want to see you pay for that!”

Ailyth recoiled as he sneered at her, tears of horror flooding down her face. As he moved away, she turned desperately to those around her, begging with her eyes for some help. The ropes were ripping the skin from her wrists and ankles, the straw digging into the soles of her feet and, as Canute sauntered towards them with a flaming torch in his hands she tried not to think of the searing pain that would come with being burned at the stake.

In a final act of defiance, Ailyth spat in his face. “Burn in Hell!” she growled as, laughing, Canute wiped her insult away.

Turning to the crowd, he held his hands in the air and a compromise of silence was reached. “The witches have refused to recant!” he proclaimed. “It is therefore my duty to burn their bodies, so that their sinful souls might receive the majesty of our Lord. May God have mercy on them.”

With an almost casual movement, he touched the torch to the straw around each stake, and a flame spurted into life. It was still some distance away from the women, but burned quickly and Ailyth knew that she Canute would make her suffer.

Like Heloise, Ailyth soon found she was pushing herself against the stake in an instinctive hope to somehow escape the flames as they swept ever closer. The heat was already so great that sweat poured from their bodies and the smoke rose in a thick billow that clouded their faces and hair and made their eyes stream. All Ailyth could do was pray.

A shrill scream pierced the air, and Heloise turned sympathetically to Ailyth. “Be strong, my love,” she called. “Don’t let them know you’re afraid.”

Ailyth’s eyes rolled in her head as the dream-like thought floated across her mind. I didn’t scream, she thought in a daze. It wasn’t me.

Something, indeed, had caught the attention of the mob, and they turned as one to see who now was crying out in pain. A figure, shrouded in white, stumbled down towards the pyre and threw herself upon her people.

The serfs tried to pull away from the grasping figure of Lady Eleanor, as though her distress was yet another symptom of her madness, but Ailyth could see that it was the despair of a mother that drove her on, and nothing more.

“O! You misguided creatures,” she cried, and there was her old authority in her voice. “You think that you burn a witch, but in fact you burn your saviour, your only hope! The man who has guided you this far is false; he speaks with the tongue of the devil and would see you all dead if you stood in his way!”

“She’s lying!” Canute called, trying to win his new flock back. “Don’t listen to her; she’s the mother of this abomination! Burn her as well!”

“You will not burn me!” Lady Eleanor boomed, and such was her force that the villagers shrank away from her. “Nor will you burn my daughter!”

“But she’s a witch!” a serf called out, not afraid to confront the Lady who had, until this moment, been wandering around the manor in a haze of delusion.

The crowd fell silent at this, and glanced up at Canute, hoping to be told what to say. Lady Eleanor laughed when she saw their confusion.

Whilst the serfs pondered this piece of information slowly, Lady Eleanor realised that the flames were killing her child. There was no time to wait for them to agree that she was right, so she pushed her way through the crowd and produced a large knife from her sleeves.

“You will save us from this when I free you, won’t you daughter?” she asked as she sliced through the cords that held Ailyth in place.

Ailyth coughed and strained against the ropes so much that, when she did feel the tension ease and the rope begin to slacken around her, she nearly fell headfirst into the flames. Anticipating this, Lady Eleanor caught her under the arms, not even reacting when she saw the rat balanced on Ailyth’s shoulder, and lifted her above the fire.

Despite Canute’s urging, the serfs could not approach Ailyth as she lay resting on the ground, coughing and blackened and nearer to death than she’d ever been. As Lady Eleanor freed her daughter’s loyal nursemaid, the gathered around her curiously, the demonic spell of the night gradually leaving their senses. This was Ailyth; a weak, pitifully thin child whom they’d known since her birthing day, not the horned creature of Hell that the monk had described. Shame crept up on them all and, one by one, they backed away and confronted Canute.

Heloise collapsed next to Ailyth and wrapped her arms around her in sheer relief, before turning to their rescuer, who was crouched down besides them.

“That was a good thing that you did, and brave too,” she said, gazing at Lady Eleanor in a new light. “Thank you. You do not know the importance of what you’ve just done.”

She did know, Ailyth was sure of that. Her mother could not have known about her quest, yet she spoke to the mob as though she’d been party to the secret from the very first. Yet even now, the knowledgeable authority was dying, and Lady Eleanor was looking at the daughter she’d just saved, as though she’d never seen her before.

“My feet hurt,” she said pathetically, pointing to the blisters that were already visible on the soles. “And my mouth’s dry. I’m thirsty.”

Ailyth looked at the serfs, clamouring around Canute, shouting accusations. “They’re not a mob any more,” she said. “They’re my people. And as for the prophecy...I thinks it’s time I took control of matters.”

She stood up and began to walk towards the serfs, who were still crowded around Canute, angrily demanding explanations. They fell silent as she walked amongst them, unable to look the young Lady in the eye as the reality of what they had nearly done sank in. Not all had been convinced by Lady Eleanor’s speech, and moved away from her as she passed, convinced that she would blight them as a punishment.

She tried to feel brave as she confronted him, but inside she knew her words would have little effect. This was the man who had been tracking her since Bristol; the man who had tried to kill her twice. And she was still just a girl in his eyes, weak and reliant on the help of others. The look of disgust he gave her as she spoke confirmed his feelings towards her, but they both knew that he daren’t attack her now, when there were so many around who would stop him. It gave her strength, to know he couldn’t touch her, and she held his glare levelly.

She began to walk away, cradling the injured RiffRaff in the crook of her arm, thinking to herself as she went ‘what now? What do I do now?’ Behind her, the pyres still burned, the villagers still milled about uncertainly, the plague still ravaged the land. There was little food, the harvest had to be collected, her father was gone and her mother was mad. There was so much to do, and no one to help her.

She had to speak to the serfs. Sort out the mess of this evening first, then worry about everything else in the morning. Things tended to look better in daylight; more hopeful, somehow, and a good nights sleep would heal all of her ills.

“Go back to your homes,” she said, although the smoke had dampened her voice and everyone had to strain to hear what she was saying. “Lock the doors and hold your loved ones tight. Be thankful that tonight, you escaped becoming murderers, and for that God will be pleased. There is evil here this evening but, in the morning, we will begin the task of making Topsham work again.”

No one sprang immediately into action to obey her words, as Ailyth had hoped they would. It would take time for them to see the awkward girl who had left Topsham months before as the Lady of the manor, and it would take more than guilt to make them listen to her advice, but she didn’t care right now. She was tired, and RiffRaff was shaking even though the air was warm. He was suffering his torture still, his bones snapped and his skin cut at the hands of Canute and, although Ailyth kept pushing the thought away, she didn’t know if he would live through the night.

She desperately wanted to reassure him, comfort him and tell him he would be all right but, whilst she was in the manor grounds, she didn’t dare speak to him in case she was seen and the villagers turned on her again. The fury and fire in the sky made people unpredictable, and she couldn’t trust them not to accuse her of witchcraft until they had calmed down a little.

The manor house was cooler, and Ailyth made her way straight to her old room, before stopping at the door. Closing her eyes, she could see so clearly her sisters lying on their straw mattress’, snoring gently, and she longed to gather them in her arms and tell them just how much she’d missed them. But they were dead. She would never be able to do that.

Wearily, she turned away from the door and continued down the corridor. She couldn’t sleep in there, not tonight, maybe not ever. She’d always be seeing the ghosts of her sleeping sisters, forever young. Perhaps she should sleep in the solar, or the banqueting hall. Anywhere but here.

The hall was empty. No-one dared stay there now. The plague swept through their lives and homes like the angel of deaths, and no-one knew what caused it, but one thing was clear. If you came into contact with the sick, you would get sick too so now, as in Crediton, the sick were virtually boarded up into their homes.

Ailyth didn’t like the hall empty. It hadn’t been built to be so devoid of life and, walking through it, she felt almost like an intruder. It was as though the building itself had dies, and she was disturbing a place of rest with her clumsy, tired movements.

She sat down on the floor, in the middle of the hall, and lay RiffRaff out on her lap. His breathing was laboured, and he lay painfully on his side, unable to speak. All he could do now was gaze up at Ailyth and tell her with his shining black eyes that he was glad she was there with him.

“You’ll be fine,” she whispered, curling his scaly tail around her fingers. “You just need to have a good rest, and something to eat, and in the morning you’ll feel much better.”

His lips parted, and she was sure he was trying to smile. Together they sat in silence, under the sweeping shelter of the hall, waiting for something to happen.

She wasn’t altogether surprised when she heard the footsteps echo into the hall. RiffRaff lifted his head slightly at the noise, but she merely hushed him and, lifting him off her lap, placed him gently onto the floor, by the wall.

Canute walked calmly towards her, a sword in his hand. “Did you think I would just let you live, after all I’ve been through to complete my task?”

“If you kill me,” she said quietly, “you’ll go to hell. You know you will. You know I’m not a witch, and you know I worship the same God you do.”

Canute smiled at her. “My God will not punish me for killing you,” he said. “You’re working against Him.”

There was cold steel in his eyes; no room for compassion or reason. He saw the situation as he always had, since the moment the Abbot had first spoken of the plague that would kill sinners. She was stopping England becoming a paradise, and for that she must lose her life. It was a small price to pay for Heaven on earth.

“Our priest has died of the plague since I’ve been gone,” Ailyth said. “How does that go with what you’ve been told, that the Black Death will only cut down those who belong in hell?”

Canute lifted his sword. “I have been sure of this task of mine since the day it was given me. It’s right that sinners and witches be punished, and you cannot talk me out of it now with your devil’s words. No more talking, Ailyth. Your death has been long over-due.”

He swiped the blade through the air and, with the same motion, Ailyth ducked and span on her heels to reach a small table that was hidden in the shadows. There were swords mounted on the wall and, if she could just but a little time, she could run to them.

The table hit Canute heavily on his side, and he fell to the floor under its weight. Without watching to see him throw it over, Ailyth scrambled to the wall with the swords and began tugging at the mount frantically. They had been secured well, and the ominous sounds of Canute freeing himself from the oak wood that pinned him down made her fingers tremble and slip, until she could hardly even grip the mount at all.

There was only one thing she could do; run. She was smaller than Canute, and more agile, and whilst he was heaving himself to his feet, his sword still in hand, she fled the hall, air bursting in her lungs.

She had no idea where she was going, but just ran as Canute’s angry footsteps followed her down the corridor, up the stairs back towards her room. There was no point in running into a room as she couldn’t lock herself in - even if she’d had the keys to do so, so did Canute and he would soon find her. And yet... An idea formed.

Canute stumbled to a halt when he turned the corner of the upstairs corridor, to see it empty. She had definitely gone down this route, hadn’t she? He glanced behind him, to see whether Ailyth had somehow tricked him and was already running back down the stairs, but it was still. The whole place was eerily quiet, and he began to move forwards slowly, expecting an ambush.

In her room, Ailyth was barricading herself in. She had managed to lift some of the empty chests up against the wall, but it wasn’t enough. Using every last piece of her strength, she pushed her back against her bed and began shifting it inch by inch to the door.

It was the clunking noise that the bed made against the floor, now stripped of its rushes, that alerted Canute to her room. With a sly smile, he stalked to the door and nonchalantly pushed it. It didn’t move. With a frown, he set his shoulder against it, and the door began to give. Slowly. Ailyth had gone to great effort to hold him up.

Not that he couldn’t get through her blockade. Naive girl, he thought. I’m a grown man. I’m strong. It wasn’t easy, and it took him several minutes, but soon he had created a gap in the door large enough for him to fit through.

He stuck his head through the gap, grinning at the thought of the fear she must be feeling now, but the room was empty and the sheets that usually hung in front of her window had been torn down. Cursing, he squeezed into the room, clambering over the obstacles she had placed in his way, and staggered to the window, in time to see the girl running along the keep wall and disappearing behind the corner.

There was a sword on the floor. Ailyth praised God and all of his Saints for the careless soldiers that used to protect her home - at least now she would have something to defend herself with. She stopped to pick it up, before almost promptly dropping it again. Jesu, it was heavier than she thought. How could anyone fight with this?

But it was better than nothing. She couldn’t run for ever and, admittedly, now that she was on the keep wall she had essentially cornered herself. But she couldn’t run for ever. Now it was time to fight.

Canute saw the sword she was struggling to hold in both hands as soon as he came onto the wall, and began to laugh.

Ailyth struck first, surprising them both, by lunging forward with her whole body and sailing straight by Canute. He tripped her as she went, and she dropped the sword as she fell.

Confident of an easy victory, he waited for her to stand before striking down with his own weapon, catching Ailyth’s sword squarely across the blade. The vibrations reverberated up her arms and made her wrists ache so much that she wanted to throw it down. But the element of surprise counted for everything, she knew that, and whilst he was still smirking she brought her sword down again and again against his.

The first blow almost knocked him back, but his feet were steady and he recovered his balance quickly. He knew she would tire herself out if she carried on like this, so he let her continue swinging at him until her breath grew heavier and she began to flag.

When it was clear that she needed to rest, exhausted by her efforts, Canute carelessly thrust his blade at her and she had to jump back to avoid it spearing into her stomach. Clearly he was a good fighter and she, a novice, knew that there was no hope that she would beat him. The only thing she could hope to do was play dirty.

He was preparing himself for Ailyth to heave her sword towards his face again, so Canute did not think to protect his feet. Ailyth slashed at his legs and felt the blade slice skin, and then blood began to soak through the material of his clothes. They both stood staring at it for a moment, watching the deep red rosette grow until, enraged, Canute lunged for her, determined to make her pay for his pain.

All Ailyth could do was defend as he struck her sword and drove her back along the wall. Unyielding in his assault, he went for her again and again, his face a contorted snarl of anger.

“You will die for that mistake,” he spat, as Ailyth was pushed closer and closer to the wall, until she almost had to lean back to avoid his blows. Behind he, the pyre’s smoke was at its highest rage, and the smoke was now swirling around the base of the manor house.

Canute stood back a little, panting, as Ailyth felt the cold stone of the wall behind her. She was cornered, and Canute knew it. With a tired, satisfied smile, he slowly lifted his sword.

But Ailyth had no wish to meet the wrath of God and, as the mad monk lunged towards her, she rolled out of the way, sending Canute crashing into the wall. Ailyth knew her home, and she knew its faults. The wall had been made weak by decades of harsh weather, and she knew it would prove Canute’s undoing.

Canute had pressed heavily against his chest, and the wind had been knocked out of him. He was too busy trying to regain it to notice that the walls were crumbling. He didn’t hear the cracking, or see the stones shift in their position. The first he knew of the wall’s lack of support was when the stones tumbled away from it in one movement, and he was falling through the gap it had left behind.

Much as she hated him, Ailyth couldn’t watch him fall. If there had been a way to leave him alive, she would have taken it. But Canute screamed as he plummeted to the ground, and the muffled thump and the end of his cries signalled the end of his task, and his life. Ailyth shook as she heard his light go out.

He was gone, and now there were other things to worry about. Squeezing back through the window, she raced to the hall to get RiffRaff, to tell him that the man who’d hurt him and tried to kill her would finally do them no harm.

There was no reply from the rat, and Ailyth bent over him. His eyes were closed, and his breathing was slow and laboured.

He didn’t react to her. He was alive, but barely. In the time that she had gone he had weakened, his little heart had slowed so that each rise and fall of his chest was agonising to watch. Without a thought, she picked him up and pressed him to her chest.

“Oh no,” she cried, rocking him against her. “Oh Riff’, don’t die, not now. I’m sorry I left you, I had no choice, but I’m here now. Don’t you go leaving me.”

They heard her wail out in the manor grounds, and wondered what poor beast was being tortured. In the manor house, the ghostly people who had suffered too much heard her pain and were shaken out of their private worlds. Heloise, trying to force Lady Eleanor to lie straight in her bed, knew it was Ailyth who cried and made her way to the hall, where she saw the girl sobbing as though her heart would break.

“He’s dead!” Ailyth screamed, clutching the body of RiffRaff against her. “My Riff’s dead, and I left him on his own!”

“Oh!” Heloise gasped, tears springing to her own eyes as she took in the sight before her. “No, he can’t be...” She crouched down next to the girl and tried to take him from her, but Ailyth turned her body away.

“No, you’ll hurt him,” Ailyth keened, holding him like the most precious treasure she owned. Then, she was turning to Heloise with a new passion, an idea having just sprung to her mind. “You can take it back, can’t you?” she said.

Heloise looked at the girls, her face shining with sudden hope, and shook her head. “No,” she said sadly. “I’m sorry Ailyth, but I can’t do that.”

Ailyth didn’t mean to take it out on Heloise, but she found herself hitting her when she was told this. Heloise was lying, she must be. She was cruel - why wouldn’t she just help RiffRaff?

Like a wild animal hunted, Ailyth staggered to her feet, still holding RiffRaff’s body. “Somebody must be able to help him,” she screamed into the echoing recess of the hall. “If there’s anyone truly out there,” she screamed to the heavens, “if there’s anyone who can help me, then bring RiffRaff back! I’ll do anything!”

Ailyth opened her eyes and looked into the bright void. There was nothing, yet there was everything, and she was looking into it all. A feeling of giddy happiness plunged into her chest, and she relaxed back into the embrace of the light, feeling happier than she had even when she was in Albion.

“Yes,” she whispered back to the voice that was everywhere and nowhere; both in her head and echoing in the light around her.

The light broke, and Ailyth found that she was sitting in a tree, with leaves made of the thinnest, most delicate gold and with a trunk of warm, bright ice.

A movement caught Ailyth’s eyes, and she stared at a picture forming on one of the gold leaves; the picture of Heloise crying over her body. It was interesting, to watch your own death from so far away.

“You want my life?” she said, although somehow she couldn’t feel sad about that. There was no room for sadness in this heaven. She looked about her, for the source of the comforting voice. “Who are you?” she asked. “Are you God?”

“If you like,” the voice repeated in the same, ethereal tones. “I can appear to you as either, for I am all and everything. I am a loving and reasonable God for my children of man, who need a father; I am the wise and natural mother of the earth for my hidden children. It just depends on what you would feel more comfortable with. What would you prefer?”

Ailyth thought about Albion, and she thought about her life, growing up and going to church. Then she thought about what Granfer had said to her, in the church in Crediton. That God and the mother goddess were the same.

“I am that I am,” it said, and it was all that Ailyth needed to understand. She wanted to throw her arms around this being who spoke to her like she was its precious daughter, and in return for that thought she felt warm clouds of air caress her like an embrace.

“You’ve been angry at me, Ailyth,” it said. “You’ve blamed me for things that weren’t my fault. Canute. He has not been acting on my advice, or in my spirit. Please do not blame me for things that man has done in my name.”

“Evil made the plague come, not I, and it is a battle I’m constantly fighting. But I thank you for your help.”

Giving up? Had she given up? If so, it wasn’t intentional. But then she remembered RiffRaff, and the first thought of sadness penetrated the cloud of bliss.

She thought of RiffRaff, and the way he had calmed her whenever she’d felt doubt. She thought of how he’d guided her, and loved her, and given his life for her.

There was admonishment in the voice when it replied, “No-one’s life is more important than the next. You value yourself too little.”

Strangely, anger flashed into Ailyth’s cheeks at this, even in such a place. “You just said that no-one’s life is more important that the next, and his life is important. He’s kind, and loyal, and loving and brave, and I can’t think of any better reason to spare someone from death than that.”

The warmth returned, and the power was pleased with her answer. “Of course, you are right,” it said, “so I will grant your wish. What is it that you ask of me?”

“Then it is done. But listen, Ailyth, and listen well, for it is the last you will here from me. The words you used to describe your friend describe you also and, what’s more, you are both willing to lose your lives for each other. You think you are bad for the mistakes you have made, but you’re my child and I love you. For your act of selflessness, for your offer of your life, I will take neither. Go back to your body, and your loved ones, and help me defeat this plague.”

Through her closed eyes, Ailyth could see a flash of blue, and then a sensation of pleasure and happiness spread through her face. A pair of lips was pressing gently against her own and, with nothing more than a deep sigh, she opened her eyes to see who had woken her.