Alys Clare - Girl In A Red Tunic

‘I was the daughter of a widow of spotless reputation but limited means,’ she began. ‘We lived honestly but we were poor, and when I was thirteen a position was found for me in a large household. I began as the lowliest of maidservants but as the great improvement in my diet took effect I grew comely and men began to notice me.’ Her face was still concealed but it seemed to Helewise that she stood straighter, preening herself; perhaps she was remembering her lost looks. ‘I was given easier work and a better position, then one day I went with my master and mistress to the Old Manor.’ Helewise gave a start. ‘Aye, Helewise, you remember the place?’ Now the woman was jeering. ‘You remember its master too, I dare say. You remember Benedict Warin as he was in his prime. So do I, lady. So do I.’

She stopped. Turning away from Helewise, she strode to the door and back, as if the memory that she was conjuring up was too powerful for her to stand still. ‘I liked what I saw, I admit that,’ she said, resuming her position in front of the bench where Helewise sat. ‘I knew by then how to attract a man, how to make him think he would never rest again until he had bedded me, and I put my spell on Benedict. It’s quite easy to draw a man when you know how, Helewise,’ she remarked, as if Helewise had asked, ‘a simple matter of a love potion slipped into his broth, a spell spoken naked in the moonlight and the exquisite scent of your own lust on your fingers when your hands are close to his face. He came running, I can tell you, quicker than a hound on a hare.

‘Then when I found I was with child I sought him out and asked him what he was going to do. I told him what I wanted-’

‘Yes,’ Helewise interrupted, ‘I already know the sum of your demands.’

‘Oh, you do, do you?’ The woman’s mocking tone had returned. ‘Reasonable, were they not? The pity of it was that Benedict Warin did not agree. He claimed the child wasn’t his and when I insisted, he threw me out. I kept coming back and he blackened my name, hounded me wherever I went, and I was driven to trying a few little ruses of my own to keep body and soul together. I was pregnant, mind, and you know, don’t you, Helewise, how that state makes the appetite grow? Especially when it’s a healthy boy who kicks in your womb?’

‘Little ruses?’ Helewise demanded sharply. ‘You speak of spells and witchcraft, do you not?’

‘Perhaps, perhaps.’ The woman drew out the words. ‘Folk are superstitious, no matter how the church tries to beat it out of them, and if they prefer to trust in the old ways when they perceive a threat instead of running to that meek and mild saviour whom their priests value so highly, why should I care?’

‘What did you do?’ Helewise whispered.

The woman smiled. ‘Oh, I poisoned a well and when the people fell sick I told them they’d offended the spirit of the spring and that only my charms would save them. Then when they had all paid up I stopped putting the potion in the water — don’t look like that, Helewise! It wouldn’t have killed them, for I know my herbs better than to kill where I don’t intend to — and miraculously the people recovered.’ Leaning closer, she said softly, ‘That was a trick. But I have the Sight and the power to see and to influence things that are veiled from others. You would be surprised to know how many folk crept to my room by night and begged me to make this person fall in love with them, or that person’s crops fail, or tell them what some secret enemy was saying behind their back.’

Despite herself, Helewise was fascinated. ‘How can you see these things?’ she asked.

The woman contemplated her for a long moment. ‘Does your bible not speak of visions?’

‘Yes, but-’

Sirida sighed. ‘But such things are allowed among the holy but not for witches? Helewise, witches are but the holy of an earlier religion! Are you so blind that you cannot see?’

Closing her eyes and her mind to what this terrible person would have her see, Helewise fell silent.

Presently the woman spoke again. ‘What if I did use my talents? I had to help myself, seeing as nobody else was going to. But they turned that against me too and drove me away, accusing me of making magic, of putting the evil eye on their livestock and turning their bawling brats sickly. I promised I’d make all well again if they’d give me what I wanted but oh, no, even my small requests were too much for those smug and self-righteous folk who had once been my neighbours and my friends!’

She was spitting with anger, all the passion of her rejection returning in full force. Her thin body shook with the force of her rage and the concealing shawl slipped slightly; with an impatient hand, the woman pulled it back in place.

Trying to speak calmly, Helewise said, ‘And so you came here and brought up your son alone.’

‘I did,’ the woman agreed, quieter now. ‘Aye, I did.’ She turned and, for a brief moment, stared into the dark corner where Arthur still stood, his head bowed. Facing Helewise again, she said, ‘But I did not let him forget his roots. He’s a Warin, never mind that he was conceived out of wedlock. Yet look at him and look at your own son, Helewise!’ Son , Helewise thought with the first stab of relief; this woman, whoever she is, does not know as much as she believes she does! She does not even know that I bore two sons. ‘Look at Leofgar in his splendid house,’ the black-clad woman was saying, ‘lovely wife and handsome child, food on the table, servants to attend to his every wish, doting mother who conveniently hears the call from God and vacates her marital home so as to leave it free for her son!’

Indeed she does not know everything, Helewise thought jubilantly. She knows nothing of Dominic and she is only guessing at how I came to leave the Old Manor and enter Hawkenlye Abbey. Eyes down lest the woman read her expression, she said meekly, ‘Leofgar has lived a blessed life, in truth.’ Until you came along to spoil it, she wanted to add. ‘But what of it? What is it to you?’ She made her voice sound puzzled and indignant, as if she truly had not grasped what was happening.

The woman gave a sound of annoyance; hard, abrupt. Then: ‘They do not require intelligence of their nuns up at Hawkenlye, then.’ Helewise held her peace. ‘It’s obvious,’ the woman hurried on, eager now. ‘Leofgar has what Arthur ought to have. Leofgar has it all , Arthur has nothing. I am old now and I will not live much longer, yet I would see my son come into his inheritance before I die.’

‘Your son is illegitimate and has no legal claim on the Warins,’ Helewise stated flatly. ‘That is the law. It will not be changed to suit you.’

‘No legal claim, perhaps.’ The woman pretended not to have heard the rest of Helewise’s remark. ‘But he has a moral claim, do you not agree, Helewise? Your father-in-law used me cruelly and flung me away when he was finished with me, and my son and I have lived wretchedly ever since. Why should not Leofgar give some of what he has in such abundance to improve Arthur’s lot?’ When Helewise made no reply — she had no intention of doing so — the woman cried out, ‘I do not ask for much! But what I demand I will have, I swear to you, or else it will be the worst for Leofgar! You think he has suffered already? Well, you wait! If you do not give me what I want, you’ll learn very quickly the terrible things I can do when I’m really angry!’

The threat was awful. But Helewise’s own anger had burned up through her; leaping to her feet, towering over the woman, she shouted, ‘You will not succeed! You have sent a thief to my son’s house and tried to make it appear that my son killed him, and now you have taken me captive, but neither measure will avail you! I am not afraid of you — you will not succeed!’