The girl steps aside, allowing me to cross the threshold, then leads me along a corridor to a spacious dark-panelled parlour, curtains and sofas and chairs finely decorated in shades of yellow, patterned in roses and daisies. Clustered in the room are women I recognise as the foremost matrons, wives of men of various standing and others who are the mistresses of those self-same foremost husbands. Gathered with them are children, aged from babes-in-arms to perhaps fifteen, girls and boys looking surly. Elsewhere in the village there will be other children shuttered in their own homes in the care of mothers, older siblings or grandparents unfit for traipsing forest paths. Some, for whom no one cares, will be doing as they please. I wonder if Tieve’s mother has been waiting anxiously; I wonder if she’s yelling even now at her daughter.
Deva Peppergill sits in a tapestry-covered chair shaped not unlike a throne, gold and silver threads picking out more roses, more daisies. Unlike most of the other women in the room, she’s not weeping, although her long face is the colour of milk, not helped by her greying hair. The child – Matthias – was a miracle; she and Thaddeus had spent many years trying for a baby, and although Thaddeus managed to father offspring on any mistress he took (at last count there were six girls and three boys all bearing his large brown eyes and thick hair, just not his surname), his wife seemed impregnable. Until they – she – finally came to me, five years ago, all unwilling to have truck with a witch, but spilling out how other women had come to me and borne offspring. That they’d urged her to come to me, even Faolan’s wife.
It was a near squeak of a thing, with her almost fifty then, but with some of the strongest fertility potions and spells I could muster, and a little something else, Deva finally fell pregnant. Though they both dote on the boy, neither likes to be reminded that they needed aid; and Deva doesn’t like to think of a time when it was whispered that her husband would likely put her aside for one of his fruitful paramours. Yet I can’t help but wonder, if Tieve hadn’t come for me, how long it might have taken before the Peppergills thought to do so – would they have learned from the Hadderholms’ lesson? Or thought themselves better and let that longed-for child disappear through pride?
‘What are you doing here?’ Deva Peppergill’s tone is unfriendly; perhaps that’s my answer there.
‘Hello to you too, Deva.’
‘Hello. What are you doing here?’
‘I heard Matthias has gone missing. I thought perhaps I could help.’
‘You didn’t manage to help Anselm and Gida,’ she hisses at me. I wonder at the vehemence – she and Gida are not especially close. Gida doesn’t even begin to approach the status required to take tea in Deva’s elegant parlour. A shared loss, then; a shared grief. Resentment. Idiocy. ‘Thaddeus is leading search parties.’
I ignore the accusation. ‘No one came to me when Ari went missing, not for days. I can’t work miracles, or at least not all the time.’ I drop my gaze to her stomach, remind her that she wouldn’t have that child if not for me. She flinches. ‘Yet you all expect them. So, tell me: when did you last see your son?’
‘When I put him to bed last night.’
‘You did? Or the nanny?’
‘I did. He’smine.’ Over her shoulder I see the maid servant who’d let me in; she gives a slight shake of the head. Deva won’t wantmeto know she’s handing off care of the child she wanted so badly.
‘Of course.’
Even though the others, the richer ones, do exactly the same thing. None would admit they don’t tuck their little darlings into bed at night, sealing them in with a sweet kiss to the forehead, perhaps a story before slumber. No. The nannies and serving maids do these things, telling the little ones the tales they grew up with, little snippets of superstition, folk and fairy lore, warnings about the creatures that creep about in the dark looking for tasty treats, how they shouldn’t let a foot or hand hang over the edge of the mattress lest it prove too tempting for the things that live beneath the bed, that only come out after sundown – the night-tenants, as my mother called them, those with dominion over the dark hours. The children of the rich are frequently raised by the poor, yet familiar fears are carried in our blood just the same, planted there before we can properly speak, sung to us by the voices of those who guard our bedtime. ‘And the house was undisturbed? No sign of anyone entering? No strange noises heard after lights out?’
Deva shakes her head, twists her hands, one around the other. Still hasn’t risen from her throne.
‘I wish to look at his room,’ I say and nod at the serving maid before her mistress can think twice and gainsay me. The girl is swift, leading me to the staircase and up, along a landing and into a large room filled with toys and books; wooden swords,carved horses, cast metal soldiers gaily painted in uniforms few military men would wear; I palm one for scrying. An enormous bear sits in a rocking-chair in one corner. I check the windows, find them all locked – the room stuffy and warm – and look at the bed, pulling back sheets lest there be a sign of blood or violence there. In the ceiling, no trapdoor or skylight that might be used as another entrance or exit. Nothing under the bed either, and the floors are solid when I stamp on them; same with the walls, no secret panel, nor passages.
Tapping a finger to my chin, I ask the girl, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Cylla.’
‘His room’s not locked at night, Cylla?’ I ask.
‘No.’ She adds hastily, ‘I sleep downstairs, next to the kitchen. For his first three years I slept here, on a pallet in that corner. Then, a few months back, Master said it was time the boy learned to be on his own because we women were making him soft.’ She bites her lip. ‘The mistress loves him, only – she’s tired. She’s older for a mother and well, tired. So, I put him down in the eve and get him up in the morn, but she’s with him the whole day, otherwise.’
I understand what Deva is going through, her time of life is the same as mine, except hers is complicated by a young child demanding attention when she’s barely able to meet her own needs. I’d wondered, when she came to me, whether it was a blessing or a curse to help her bear a child at that age – but I wasn’t prepared to make it easy for Thaddeus to set her aside, marry a mistress and write to the Archbishop of Lodellan begging a declaration of legitimacy for the relevant offspring. At the time, it felt like I was saving Deva from a precariousenough existence, that the child might just buy her some security. I didn’t need to like her to want to help her.
‘Cylla, return to your mistress, tell her I will have other questions in a moment.’
The girl’s obedient and she goes. I’ll likely only have a little time; from my pocket, I pull a long lozenge-shaped clear crystal on a string, something I retrieved from the workroom this morning, and hold it up, swinging the crystal in ever-increasing circles. If something magical and malign has been in the room, the crystal will become a dark purple.
I hold the crystal high so it catches the rays of sun from the windows, then chant, a thing that’s as much a prayer as a spell (I’ve never been entirely sure of the difference between the two). Walking slowly around the room, the crystal echoes me, calling back softly and a little sadly it seems. While a pale green rises in its depths, there’s no sign of the deep purple I was expecting. Finally, I give up. The green mist fades as does the song of the crystal.
The colour means nothing but contentment. A contented child inhabited this room. So, he wasn’t taken. Hewalkedout – toddled – under his own steam. He’s so little, but I’ve never seen that stop a child. If he wanted to leave, if he thought something interesting waited outside? He’d have made his careful way down the stairs and out. He’s tall enough to reach the doorhandles, big enough to turn them. Of course, it’s entirely possible somethingcalledto him from outside – just as it did me – didn’t need to enter the house to lure him forth, didn’t need to pass under the gaze of the green woman that hangs from the tree branches in the front garden.
I make my way to the bottom of the stairs, where Deva is waiting, the other women a frozen wave behind her. I touch the older mother’s arm.
‘Nothing came into your house. So, Mattias left by his own will. Tonight, I’ll scry, see what I can discover.’ Even as I say it I shudder at the idea of undergoing that ritual again. Briefly, I consider going to the Black Lake this time, then I recall the things in the woods, the blood the lake will demand, that Rhea will need to get me back to the cottage on her own – or with the aid of the summer husband, which irks me quite irrationally. ‘I’ll return in the morning as soon as I can with any news – and if the child is found in the meantime, I expect to be advised as soon as possible. Am I understood?’
She nods, a short sharp gesture, and Cylla opens the door for me. I push my way through the crowd of women, and they part reluctantly as if letting me go is not what they wish to do. I’m down the front steps from the verandah and almost at the garden gate when I see a small brown bundle curled in the base of the ash tree, beneath the green woman that twists and turns in the breeze. Camouflaged a little, but I swear I’d have noticed it when I arrived! My heart leaps towards my mouth and it’s all I can do to keep my stomach from following it. I swoop on the bundle, mind filled with thoughts of the red cloak, the red-wrapped parcel, thatslabof child left on my doorstep. I reach out and grasp at the thing, more roughly than I should, and it gives a surprised squawk. I lift it up and the brown blanket falls away to reveal Matthias Peppergill in blue pyjamas, very grubby, a little smelly, clutching a knitted bear of golden-brown wool, but very much alive.
17
With the child deposited safely back with his mother and nursemaid, with loud thanks and quiet apologies ringing in my ears, and my forearms festooned with baskets of bread and fresh produce, sweet soaps and cheeses, I turn towards home. Yet by the time I get there, all these gifts will weigh me down and I’ll be exhausted; I’m not the witch I used to be. It’s probably time to make my life a little easier; my old feather-foot won’t be around forever, and he’s not fit for riding, hasn’t been for years; getting him into the plough harness requires a long negotiation.
