“What rumors?” The question fell out of my mouth at mention of my mother’s name, but Rafe just smiled at me, offering no answer. He pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket and uncapped a ballpoint pen. I hoped I hadn’t somehow offended him. My pulse quickened, my whole body buzzing with curiosity. I felt as if my mother, long imprisoned, was now crying to be freed. I bit my lip. “Are you a historian?”
“You could call me that. Certainly a student of a history as interesting as this.” Rafe grinned again, apparently unfazed by my awkwardness. He cleared some dirt off the headstone beside him, jotted something in the notebook, then looked up at me. His eyes were very blue, a shade I’d only ever read about in books.
“You’re here for research, then?” I said, heartened. “Here to learn more about . . . the family?”
“I am.”
“Maisie!” called Matthew, having escaped the grieving woman and suddenly aware of my new interaction. “Are you ready to go?” His casual tone almost hid the note of urgency beneath it.
“Just a minute!” I called back.
“Maisie,” said Rafe with a bow. “A lovely name. It’s good to meet you. Who’s your friend?”
“Matthew,” I said as he came closer to us, frowning and tugging at a stray lock of hair. “His name is Matthew. He’s . . . his great-aunt was Mrs. Blott,” I said, desperate to hear more. When Rafe looked at me quizzically, I foolishly continued, “Mrs. Blott, the one who keeps—kept—house at Urizon.”
“Ah!” said Rafe with confident enthusiasm. “Well.” He tapped his fingers in a quick pattern against the edge of the grave, and twice clicked his teeth. Matthew was just a few headstones away, and widening his eyes in an exaggerated gesture that seemed an attempt at a warning. “I wouldn’t normally do this, but I simply can’t help myself,” Rafe said. “Would you come join me for a coffee? I have about a million questions regarding Urizon, and it seems that you two have an inside scoop.” Rafe’s teeth were very white. They glistened when he smiled. “In return, if you’ve an interest in the Blakelys, I’ve got several juicy stories I can share.”
The Bit of Braided Wire
Kathryn, 1223
Kathryn was born, in the year 1206 of her Lord, with an insatiable hunger.
For food, at first. She was a chubby child, worrying her mother with the rate at which she’d finish her pottage, the cause of countless conversations between parents about how they would keep Kathryn and four elder brothers fed. But by thirteen, Kathryn’s appetites had shifted. She shed her baby fat and blossomed, a new need unfolding, a different desire.
Kathryn’s mother came across her on the shore of a stream where she’d been sent to do the washing. Dirtied clothing sat in small piles around the girl, including her own underthings. Her auburn hair gleamed in the light, falling over her bare shoulders, bright against her breasts. Her head was tucked, fingers exploring, mouth caught in a delicate Oh.
The mother ran to the rock on which her daughter sat and took her by the hair, yanked her up, and slapped her. Beat her with the washing bat, three smacks against pert backside, three throbbing red welts. This behavior was improper. It was sinful. It would lead her to her end.
Perhaps, as Kathryn’s father claimed, such punishment did not make an impression. A harsher beating was warranted, a stronger assault. Or perhaps there is no way to punish appetite, which only grows with abstinence, consuming both desirer and desired.
AT FIFTEEN, SIXTEEN, seventeen, Kathryn still wanted. She’d steal off to the wood with the cousin of a neighbor, to the barn with the miller, to the river with a groom. Her family knew, the hamlet knew, but none who might act on the knowledge could ever catch her at it. Her mother pleaded with her to be modest, cried and begged. Her father beat her. When Kathryn carried pails of water up the hill to her home, when she worked in the garden, women would pull their daughters closer, whisper harsh words, throw stones, spit. It did not bother Kathryn. She cared nothing for gossip. She was adept at dodging curses. She was never afraid.
Her brothers disapproved of their sister’s reputation. Kathryn laughed at their mumbling, the burn of their cheeks. She only truly cared for one of them: handsome Owen, three years Kathryn’s elder and her double in complexion. As a small child Kathryn would cling to him, ignoring the others when they tried to entertain her, preferring him over either parent. Owen would bounce his sister on his knee, tend to her bruises. Then came a day on which his sister on his lap set his groin stirring and he pushed Kathryn off, ashamed and stuttering.
Thereafter Owen could not ignore the urges that he felt toward Kathryn. He would watch her bathing, trace his fingers across his own hip bone, thinking of hers. He would dream of the white dip of her neck.
He told no one of his feelings, and would never act upon them; Owen was an honorable man. As they grew older, he was wed to the daughter of an influential socman, a clever young girl who he loved dearly. Still, Owen blushed each time he passed his sister.
Kathryn, for her part, did all that she could to tease him. Would walk behind him and breathe soft against his neck, loosen the top of her dress, bend so he could see her freckled bosom. She would lick her lips and smile.
WITH THE COMING of each spring, the people of their hamlet gathered for a festival. They welcomed warmth with rituals—the drowning of an effigy, a Wild Man dressed in roughage—and concluded with a bonfire and a large amount of ale. So much ale that Owen, aglow with the drink, eventually succumbed to his beautiful sister. They coupled in a barn at the edge of the wood, faces flushed, two pairs of sea-green eyes in mirrored reflection. She nibbled his ear, he sucked on her breasts. He entered her, both gasping. Her nails left red roots on his back.
Owen’s wife found them asleep, their limbs tangled together. No question of identity, their matching red-brown hair and small, peaked noses, each sleeping with bent arm above a head. In shock, Owen’s wife screamed for her mother, for her father, for someone, quick, to come.
Sacrilege, they said, for a brother to lie with his sister. Action must be taken. Something must be done.
THEY TOOK OWEN first. Brought him, clothed, to the stockade. His wife, once her head had cleared, was sobbing, begging her father to spare him. He had done wrong, yes, but he still had her love. A whipping, perhaps, some sort of fine, and his lesson would be learned. It was not Owen, but Kathryn, who needed punishment.
Owen’s father-in-law agreed to spare his life, but only under two conditions. The first: Owen would be banished, could never set foot in the hamlet again. The second: they’d instead take the head from his whore sister’s neck.
Kathryn’s parents pleaded, but Owen’s father-in-law, churchmen behind him, would not be deterred. Owen was given a rucksack with few supplies and sent out of the village, went stumbling, shamefaced, off into the unknown. Kathryn was locked in an underground room of the parish church. She’d have three days to reflect on her behavior, then would be burned ceremoniously. A warning. An example.
Kathryn’s mother sat stone-faced on the hard-packed dirt outside her daughter’s prison, cursing her own failure, silent for the first two days of the girl’s condemnation. On the morning of the third day, Owen’s wife appeared. Kathryn could hear the two women whispering, but could not make out what they said. The door swung open.
Kathryn’s sister-in-law stood at the entrance to the cell, her eyes decades older than they’d been the week before, swollen and red like two battered fists.
“My father will be back soon,” she said. “Run.”
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