Hobbinol

To celebrate this midwinter, we're proud to share Jay Taverner's Prologue to Rebellion. 'In a feudal world of aristocrats and peasants, The Lady Isabella and her gamekeeper's daughter, Hope, are girls of sixteen. From high society through highway robbery and alongside the perils of war, Hope and Isabella share a passionate coming-of-age.'

'

The candles leapt and guttered, and they were in the room. 

Bell shivered. She had been afraid of the horned men all her life. When she was a tiny girl, Sir Walter had tossed her into the arms of their leader, laughing, asking a blessing on his youngest, and she had smelt the village smells of soot and dirt, and over them the strange acrid herbs of the face paints, and the rot of ancient fur. The horned man had grinned at her, and his teeth were huge as the antlers branching out of his eyes. 

She looked for him now; but there was no man amongst them so large as Jack Smith. She had found out he was really the smith long ago, but it made no difference to the terror he carried in his horns and huge, ribboned skirts when he came at the turn of each New Year. Now the six dancers stamped their clogs on the flags, and horns and ribbons shook.

They were masked strangers. 

Their piper stood in the doorway, and began the dancing tune; as they tilted their heads and brought stiff hands to their waists, the piper ran in small and lithe, and began to step a way between them, round them, and then out in a sinuous line to weave the spectators into their spell. The pipe shrilled. Bell watched the line pass behind the servants in the flickering dark under the gallery: Ben and Matt, John Dickson, Mistress Johnson, Dolly - the piper was no taller than the women of the household, but strange, in white breeches and shirt stiff with ancient embroidery; and flesh all green. 

The inhuman face came slowly towards her, down the line of her kin, ducking in front of Sir Walter, but not with deference, no bow, more as if daring the family to answer the music's call. She tightened her hands in her lap. The piping tune came to her, passed close in a wisp of air warmed by the prancing body, danced behind her, shrilling, mocking. She held her neck rigid as a board. The little winding melody came close; in the corner of her eye the green head and hands reappeared – leaning over her shoulder, playing right into her face, then whisking away. Bell gasped; she had been holding her breath. As the tune retreated, the piper dancing, leading the others towards the far door, she found she wanted them to turn and come back. As if called, the green face turned towards her, and stood still. The dance was over, the stamping and the music stopped; the pipe was lowered.

Sir Walter applauded and called for drink for the Mossmen of the Moor. Benchley carried in the big old wassail bowl, and the Lord touched it to his lips, and handed it to the dancers. They were half themselves again now, villagers standing awkwardly in the Manor hall; but still the pride was in them and their horns. The piper drank last, and carried the bowl back to the household. Sir Walter said, 'Do you offer it to my family, Hobbinol: all mine shall drink with you.'

Bell saw James's lip twitch in disgust, but he could not refuse the custom; he smoothed his ruffles down and touched his fingers to the bowl, and his lip to the brim opposite the place where their paint had spread an oily half-moon. As he let go, his eyes flicked suddenly at the green face; the piper turned quickly and came to Bell. Their eyes met. The surge of response came up in her belly again; but it was not fright, as when the smith had enveloped her in his strangeness, nor did she share her brother's distaste.  She put out her hands, and held those that held the bowl, drawing them towards her. She could scarcely swallow the warm cider.

The spell was quickly broken by James's snicker, and a whisper to Alistair at his side; the piper swiftly bowed, leaving the bowl in her hands, and darted away into the darkness outside the candles; the dancers with a final clatter of clogs trooped out. 'I see our sister is spellbound,' said James in his low voice, 'Perhaps a good thing Hobbinol was a wench this year.'

Wrong-turned

Here's a moment of high drama from Hearts and Minds. The inky Weird Sisters highly recommend Jay Taverner's well-researched historical novels in the Brynsquilver series. They're all an excellent read. We suggest you dive in!

By the time Hope reached the end of the last row of cabbages, down by the bottom hedge, Parsley’s shadow was longer than the little cat herself, sitting upright on the path with ears cocked. Hope leaned her hoe on the hedge and looked out over the gate. Bron was not coming, then; she had chosen the shorter but steeper road home, round Bryn. Pushing back the rush of loneliness which came with the thought, Hope shook out her skirt and set off down the slope. The goats were loud in protest in the lower field: it was more than time to bring them in for milking.

Crossing the old field, where the grass still needed resting, she heard something that stopped her dead. It was the cry she had heard this morning - but now it was clearly human. It came from the old goat shed. Hope turned, and began to run.

She pulled open the sagging door, then found herself suddenly sprawled on her back in the grass, the wind knocked out of her and her right cheek exploding into pain. She grabbed ineffectually at a bare foot that ran over her chest, but had scarcely heaved herself on to her knees when the fleeing figure collapsed with a howl into the grass. For a moment Hope knelt there foolishly, shaking her head to clear it, before she stood up and walked cautiously towards the girl who had flung her aside.

The face that turned towards her was filthy and blood-streaked, but the eyes were blazing. The girl struggled to get up but fell back, her face contracted with pain.

“You need not run away,” said Hope, “I won’t hurt you.” She stretched out a hand, but the girl flinched away and flung up an arm to shield her face. Then the narrow, distended body arched in a spasm of pain and she turned her face to bite the grass. Hope could see clearly now why she had not been able to run away: she was in labour - deep in, and a failing labour, if Hope was any judge. She was covered in mud, her skirt bloody and torn as if by desperate hands. The memory of the earlier screams came to Hope with dreadful clarity. She must have been in the shed all day.

Hope bent and took her gently by the shoulders. “Look at me,” she said firmly. “You must let me be your friend. I have some skill in this.” But not as much as Bell has, she thought desperately. Why aren’t you here? I knew I would need you...


Four hours later the girl was weaker, but no nearer to the birth of her baby. She lay before the fire on a straw pallet spread with Hope’s old shawl. Between her fierce, futile pains she lay more and more still, far gone in exhaustion. Hope was exhausted herself; her small experience of birthing had been no preparation for this. The old women of these hills kept their power over their daughters by making this their mystery, and even Bell, trusted wise-woman for all other ills and ailments, was not their first choice for a childbed. Hope had delivered children, two or three, and had helped Bell with a dozen more; but she had seen nothing like this deathly straining for hour after hour, with nothing coming but blood. She knew much more about goats; she had turned back-facing kids, though nannies were feeble things, and still might die on you. This girl seemed unlikely to do that, after all she had so far endured; but Hope did not know how to help her.

She was standing, irresolute, at the foot of the stair, when the door opened suddenly and a tall, slightly stooped figure was outlined against the red and gold of the sinking sun.

“Bron! Thank God!”

Bron looked startled. “What’s the matter?”

Before Hope could answer, the girl screamed. Bron’s eyes widened; she stood, frozen, as the girl thrashed on the floor. Hope thought suddenly, she has never seen this. How could she, living all her days on a hill farm so far from other human dwellings, and no mother, no women there, only her father and brother since she was a child? Bron was staring, horrified; for a desperate moment Hope thought she might turn and go. She felt a great need to keep her, to have company, however little help it might be. Words tumbled out of her.

“I think the babe is turned wrong,” she said. “It won’t come. And I don’t know how to help her, I…” She stopped and ran her hand through her hair. “I don’t know what to do, Bron.”


Bron’s eyes had not left the writhing body on the floor. Hope could not tell what she was thinking. Then, still without speaking, Bron crossed to the hearth and knelt down. She took the see-sawing head between her hands; she was making a little crooning noise, between whistling and humming. She was not flung off, or bitten; the flailing body relaxed, and the hands that reached up held on, thin brown fingers gripping into Bron’s old jerkin as if it were the last handhold in the world. Bron stroked the matted black hair out of the girl’s eyes, then gently, and still making the same reassuring, wordless noise, ran her large red hands over the swollen belly. “Wrong-turned, yes,” she said, “and wedged so. I must turn it, or it will kill her. Hold her, if she will let you.”

Discovering Brynsquilver

The ancient cottage at Brynsquilver features in all Jay Taverner’s historical novels. Unlike the other stories, Something Wicked is set in the present, but the cottage is still standing. 

Scotty and Helen shelter from the rain.

Crossing a slimy little wooden bridge, they scrambled up a steep thread-like sheep-path, already softening into mud as the rain came on. Scotty felt the back of her shirt begin to soak through, and concentrated on trying to work her tired legs fast enough to catch up. Ahead, Helen pushed through a thin hedge and plunged into a band of trees. Scotty followed, fending off a branch that slapped wetly back at her. Inside the wood, the ground was still dry; the patter of a million raindrops on the upper leaves sounded like a distant waterfall, but it had not yet broken through. They walked silently on a springing carpet of rust-coloured leaves. There was a ferocious clap of thunder, right overhead, and the first drops of what was by now an icy deluge began to fall from the leaves. Heedless of the twisting roots and sudden hollows, they ran. Helen clambered over a low stile, almost buried in the undergrowth and, following her, Scotty found they were in a derelict garden. Ancient roses climbed and hung from every branch around, a bower of softest pink. A very wet bower. She charged after Helen, up the path, and into the front porch of a substantial stone cottage.

"Do you know them?" she gasped, clutching hold of the nearest post amidst the gnarled stems of the roses.

“It's empty," Helen said. "Has been for a long time. Hang on." She was fiddling with the door; after a moment she lifted it up, and pushed. It opened. They slipped inside. 

Breathing in deeply, Scotty closed the door and leant on it, shutting out the drumming downpour. The place smelt strong, but not of dirt or dung or the usual pollutions. It smelt of stone and of water, wetness; and some green overtone, weirdly like an expensive perfume. 

Helen was standing looking at her. There was suddenly a very awkward pause. Then Helen smiled dazzlingly, and Scotty blessed the gloom for hiding her blush. I've not felt like this since the junior geography mistress left, she thought.

Helen unslung her backpack. "Are you very wet?" she asked. "We could light a fire, I expect, and dry your shirt."

"No - no, I'm fine." 

She peered around. There was indeed a fireplace, one of those enormous stone ones. Its front was blackened, and the remains of a wood fire lay somewhere in its depths. The wood probably came from the panelling of the staircase, she thought, glancing across the low room. The whitewashed matchboard had been wrenched away, to reveal a flight of solid wood steps more like a medieval castle-scaling ladder than a domestic staircase. On an impulse, she crossed the uneven flagged floor, and climbed up.

Her head came out through the floor, into a lighted space - lighted by a hole in the roof. Broken tiles, those amazing graded stone things she had noticed on Owen’s cottage, lay piled in front of her nose. The kind of stuff merchant bankers from Chipping Camden would give half a year’s ecus for; but here they just seemed to lie around, totally neglected. Oddly moved, she reached out and touched the nearest stone. It was surprisingly warm. She ran a finger along its naturally laminated edge; beautiful.

She looked up. A noose, made of pink baler twine, hung from the rafters. The mindless hordes had daubed a skull and some sort of animal outline in charcoal on the plaster of the great chimney. Rain beat in. She retreated.

Helen was busying herself. "Let's light a fire, anyway - it's obviously the thing to do," she said, collecting bits of wood.

Scotty helped: she got out her cigarette lighter. Helen looked at her as if she had produced an Uzi from her back pocket.

"I don't smoke," Scotty rushed to reassure her. "It's a memento of my youth – " She hesitated, then went on, deliberately, "It was a present from my first lover. Someone who didn't know me very well at the time."

"Oh. Right," said Helen. She stood up, and rummaging in her backpack produced a pristine Guardian, which she shook open and crumpled into balls; she thrust each one efficiently into the old ashes, securing them with sticks.

Scotty flicked and lit. Another fire began. They both stood up.

"How did you know you could get in?"

"I've been here before on a walk, with my aunt – she had something to do with the disposal of the furniture, once upon a time." She walked to the window, and began to pick at the last flakes of paint on the frame. "It's been empty years - thirty years at least, probably a lot longer. But they're tough, these old stone cottages - built to keep out the weather, whether you're here or not."

"There's a hole in the roof, now, though," Scotty said, and Helen frowned. She crossed to the steps and looked up.

"That's bad," she said, "once the roof starts to go –" She smiled at Scotty. "But I think it'll last out the shower. I brought a thermos – would you like a cup of tea?" 

They drove back through the sharp, cool sunshine that came after the storm in a comfortable silence. The image of the cottage as they had left it, half-hidden by its ancient hedges, a haven and a mystery, was vivid in Scotty's mind.

Annette

We have another enthralling extract from Jay Taverner's Liberty today. It really is very good.

You can avoid the big publishers and get hold of a copy direct from the authors here

- and all the others in the Brynsquilver series too.

Annette’s chamber was at the top of one of the towers flanking the entrance to the château. From the window, she could see across the courtyard to the chapel and the stables, and beyond them to the wide plain where the river flowed in slow curves between the vineyards. All the land she could see belonged to her father, and all of it was planted with vines. The gnarled black stems stood row on row, like black characters on a whitey-brown page, telling the story of her family’s wealth and her own inheritance.

Below her, the château was already awake and busy. A woman crossed the cobbles slowly with two pails on a yoke; a girl scattered crumbs for a flurry of doves and a screw-necked peacock. Annette watched as a young man emerged from the stable block, his hair straw-gold in the morning sun. It was a moment before she recognised Father Lamontaine, the chaplain. Pierre. She stared. His hair was beautiful. She had hardly ever seen him without his neat little clerical wig. She watched as he set his slender shoulders and started off towards the chapel. He would say his morning Office while waiting for her father. Annette suppressed a sigh at the thought of her stern and so predictable papa. Philippe Lavigne-Brillac was a devout man; he would not breakfast before he had heard mass. But neither would he hear mass until he had taken his morning ride.

There was the noise of wooden shoes on the stairs. Annette turned from the window and climbed quickly back into bed, drawing the heavy brocaded hangings close. It was Jacqueline’s job to wake her mistress, and she took it as a personal failing if Annette was up before she arrived. Annette dived across the wide mattress and snuggled back into the warm hollow in the feather bed. Soon the door creaked open and she heard the click of pattens on bare oak boards. There was the rattle of the tray being put down, then the ring of the fire-irons and the wheeze of the bellows as Jacqueline blew life into the embers of last night’s fire. The routine never varied. Sometimes Annette longed for her to drop the fire tongs or knock over the chocolate pot, just for the sake of variety.

At last the bed hangings were twitched aside and the maid’s pale face appeared, almost on a level with Annette’s own, since the bed was high and Jacqueline rather short.

‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle! You are awake?’

‘Bonjour, Jacqueline. All’s well?’

‘Very well, Mademoiselle, thank you. It is a fine day. The sun is shining. You are ready for your chocolate?’

‘Thank you, I am.’ Annette propped herself up on her pillows and took the tall porcelain cup with its delicate pattern of flowers. While she sipped, Jacqueline fastened back the bed curtains and laid out her mistress’s silk robe de chambre at the foot of the bed. Then, dropping a low curtsey which caused her almost to disappear from sight, she picked up the slop pail and departed to fetch hot water.

With a sigh, Annette contemplated her day. She would dearly have liked to ride out herself this morning; the brisk weather with its hint of spring to come called to her to be out of doors. But there would be visitors for dinner: relations, therefore boring as well as demanding. That would mean at least two hours’ dressing; with her lessons and her daily devotions, and writing to her godmother in England, there would be no time left for riding. She hoped one of the boys would exercise Aurore; the little grey was frisky enough already, and had not been ridden yesterday either. Annette sighed again. It promised to be a tedious day, apart from the hour she would spend this morning in her thrice-weekly lesson with the chaplain. The thought made her smile. Thank heaven for Father Lamontaine. Far more than tutor or confessor, he was her friend and ally, the only other person in the house anywhere near her own age, and the only one with whom she could have any conversation about things that mattered. She felt under her pillow for the book they were discussing: the Social Contract of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She could not imagine exactly what her father would say or do if he knew his daughter was reading such revolutionary writing, but she certainly did not want to find out. She pushed the book back under the pillow as Jacqueline clattered in to help her rise and dress.

*********

A small fire was burning in the petit salon, Annette’s favourite sitting room, three floors down from her own bedroom in the southwest tower. The curious old decoration – a bright blue ground with a rambling frieze of vines – was so antique that it came into her father’s category of ancient things not to be disturbed, so it had been regularly repainted. In front of the fire the table stood ready laid with fragile cups and saucers, tea pot, coffee pot and urn, and a set of Venetian glass decanters. The waiting footman proffered the keys of the tea-caddy and coffee box and then retired.

Annette spooned grounds into the little pot. The Abbess watched her every move with cups, spoons, and urn, until she cocked her wrist and poured out the coffee.

‘Charming,’ her great-aunt said then. ‘And you sing and play? Paint a little?’

Annette nodded, concentrating on the coffee.

‘And languages?’

‘I have learned a little Latin with Father Lamontaine, and I correspond in English with my godmother Lady Waldon, in London. But you know my father disapproves of too much learning in a woman.’

‘Moderation in all things,’ the Abbess agreed smoothly as she sat forward to take the cup. ‘St Paul teaches us well in that. Oh, no, my dear, I must not take cream. Far too rich for those of us who know the simplicity of the cloister.’ Leaning forward, she unstopped one of the decanters and poured a generous dose of brandy into her coffee. Then, with a rustle of dark brown silk, she sat back and looked at Annette. ‘It is time to talk about your future, my dear.’

‘Madame?’

‘You are – how old now? Nineteen? Then in only two years’ time you will come into your fortune. You may be aware that it is, happily for you, considerable. The money you inherit from your mother and grandmother, and which your father has used wisely on your behalf, will be yours to use as you wish. When you marry, this personal fortune will go with you. Out of the family.’ She put down her cup and looked at Annette, as if to check that she was following. ‘You are, of course, the only child – and a girl. So you will understand, my dear, that it would be best for everyone if your fortune could be kept in the family.’

There was a pause. The bones of Annette’s stays poked into her breasts excruciatingly. She sat up straighter. Meeting her aunt’s gaze, and keeping her voice as steady as she could, she asked, ‘How, Madam, could that be achieved?’

‘Good girl. There are two ways. The first, and simplest, would be for you to marry within the family. Your father and the Count are, I believe, discussing that at the moment. However, your cousin François is only six, and not robust, so that I think will be decisive.’

Annette stared in disbelief. The old woman might have been discussing a choice of gloves.

‘The alternative,’ she continued, ‘and to my mind the obvious choice, is for you to take the veil. You are a sensible girl, and would soon adapt to the religious life. And as my cousin, you would have golden prospects at Our Lady of the Little Angels. Your dowry would come to us, therefore, but only during your lifetime. The promise of its safe return in the future would provide a surety against which your father could raise other moneys, should the need arise.’ She sat back in her chair. ‘Excellent coffee. I’ll take a little of the cherry brandy now, if you will kindly pass it.’

********

It didn’t take long to find out what had happened. Annette didn’t even have to ask; everyone in the château was talking about it. Father Lamontaine had been caught, in Jacqueline’s words, ‘doing it’ with the new stable-boy. Monseigneur had sent unexpectedly for a horse, to ride out yet again to check his coverts and speak to the gamekeeper in the Big Wood; Edouard, rushing into the lower stable on this errand, had caught the two of them in the straw.

Jacqueline went into no further detail about what they were actually doing at the moment of Edouard’s arrival, and Annette did not feel able to ask – but she did wonder why it had caused quite such an enormous fuss. She remembered quite clearly the last occasion on which anything remotely similar had happened: Edouard’s predecessor, a poor relation of her father’s who had acted as his private secretary and steward, had got one of the maids with child. Annette had been about ten at the time, all the more agog to know about it because no one wanted to tell her; but she was sure that Cousin Georges had not been unceremoniously bundled out of the house. The girl had been turned away, of course – but Georges had stayed; he had only died last year. Annette could not see why anything these two young men might have been doing was worse than fathering a bastard on a servant. But Jacqueline just sucked her teeth and shook her head when Annette tried to re-open the conversation.

The house was in complete disorder; Annette dined alone in her room, and was trying in vain to order her thoughts by recording the events of the morning in her journal when Jacqueline reappeared, looking agitated.

‘Your noble father, Mademoiselle. He requests the pleasure of your company at once. He is in the grande salle, Mademoiselle. Please go quickly!’





Monseigneur Lavigne-Brillac was standing at the end of the always-chilly room, his back to the huge carved fireplace. He did not acknowledge her, or ask her to sit. As soon as she rose from her curtsey, he said ‘Father Lamontaine has left this house this afternoon, Mademoiselle. You will oblige me by not attempting to contact him, or communicate with him in any way.’

She had often seen her father angry, but this cold fury was something new. He was white; his hand shook as he spoke. ‘Is that understood, Mademoiselle?’

‘Yes, yes, of course, father,’ she stammered. ‘But –’

‘You will not ask, and we will speak no more of it. It is not a thing for a young girl to think of. And you will, of course, not encourage the servants in any gossip on the subject.’

As if they needed encouragement! Annette held her tongue.

Her father spoke again, his voice strained. ‘However, I must ask you a question – a painful one. It has been brought to my attention that Père Lamontaine was in possession of more than one immoral and irreligious book.’

Annette froze. She pictured the tiny blue book even now hidden under her pillow, and the two companion volumes resting under a pile of handkerchiefs in her dressing table drawer. She swallowed.

‘He was your tutor. Can you assure me that he never, at any time, put this wicked filth in your way? Never offered you anything to read that was not of the purest piety?’

Annette met his eye. ‘No – I mean yes, father,’ she lied. ‘I cannot think what you could mean.’

His face cleared a little, but he did not take his eyes from hers. She willed herself not to blush but then, realising that maidenly confusion would be an appropriate enough reaction, she looked down, and up again at him with big round eyes.

He strode two paces across the wide hearth while she held her breath, then turned back to her abruptly.

It had not worked.



‘Nonetheless,’ he said, ‘one cannot be sure what paths corruption takes to an innocent mind. You must be put beyond further harm at once. Tell your woman to pack your immediate necessaries tonight. You must go in the morning to the convent at Bordeaux.’

After the shipwreck

The Weird Sisters were delighted yesterday to attend the book launch of Jay Taverner's latest novel, Liberty. The authors gave lively readings from their work and answered some imaginative questions from the audience. Today we have an extract from Liberty for you below - it's the intriguing sequel to the blog post of 27th June 2021 (read that first, if you haven't already, and then find out what happens next). By the way, the whole Brynsquilver series is being republished too. Rebellion, Hearts & Minds and Something Wicked are all waiting for you now. What a feast! 

Lotta’s house was the first off the cliff steps; no one reached the back beach before her, but Franco and his donkey were soon at her heels. The wet sand under their feet had been swept clean of its usual filth by the strength of the outgoing tide; and, sure enough, huge waves were already dumping the shattered ship ashore. Broken spars, sodden lumps of sailcloth and all the other rubbish of a wreck were already flung along the beach. Lotta leaned into the wind, heading for a wooden chest that was driven into the sand by its edge. Skirting a spouting rock, she found the first body, face down in a new-formed pool tinged pink. She heaved him over. His head was a mush of bone and brains, and she could tell nothing about his face. Crossing herself, she turned away. She did not need to rob the dead, though of course there would be those who would.

She reached the chest. A good, strong box and still shut, even though it was not roped together. It was either locked or stuck. With a quick thanks to San Antonio, who looks after things that are lost, Lotta called out to Franco. He rose from his knees beside the corpse, where she hoped he had been praying, and helped her pull the box out and rope it onto the beast. Lotta picked her way over a clutter of new white planks. Someone with a cart could fire a baker’s oven all next year. She shrugged. And then she saw the boy.

He lay awkwardly on his front, one white arm thrown forward, long legs splayed, his bloody shirt rucked up to show their full extent. His pigtail had come free so that his long pale hair clung to his face and fanned across his bare shoulder; a golden chain gleamed through it at his neck. He lay as if asleep; but of course, he must be dead. He was handsome, in a stern northern way that Lotta had seen before: strong brow, high straight nose, a perfect mouth, smooth cheek. No sign of a beard, though he must be taller than she was herself. She reached out to touch – and he was warm. Urgently, she tipped him onto his back, pulling the ripped shirt away and put her cheek to his throat to feel for a pulse, and there were two surprises: he was alive; and he was a girl.

It was bright day by the time they got the limp body up to the house, and the storm was wearing itself out. Lotta could not tell how badly hurt the stranger was, nor whether the donkey’s slow, jolting climb might make the harm much worse. But there was no leaving that beautiful body on the beach, and now the girl was lying in Maria’s bed, deathly pale but still alive. Lotta bent her head, and listened to the low breathing. She put her fingers in the mouth. No blood. Holy Mary be praised, then, the broken ribs – there must be broken ribs – had not pierced the lung. There was nothing more Lotta could do, except wait. So after she had taken the gold locket and put it into her dress for safekeeping, she placed a bucket by the bed in case the stranger woke and then, leaving the shutters closed against the sun, went out to buy food just as if it was an ordinary day. But all the time she was at the market, she thought about the stranger with the beautiful pale face, lying in her sister’s bed.

When she returned, the young woman was still unconscious, her breathing shallow but regular. American, they had said in the town – a merchantman out of Salem (wherever that was) bound for Jamaica and lost with all hands. Lotta didn’t intend to lose this one, however. She touched the pale face. It would not hurt to wash away the blood, and perhaps then she would be able to see how bad the wounds were. She fetched water and a sponge, and gently wiped the girl’s cheek, combing back the fine, light hair with her fingers. Then, very carefully, she pulled off the stained shift and began to wash away the blood and dirt. The cuts that had made all this blood were not after all, too deep; the worst hurt was the purple bruising all along the left side, and almost certainly there were broken ribs there, as she had thought. But perhaps not too bad. She smiled, and continued her work. It was a grown woman’s body, she realised, not a young girl’s as she had supposed from its thinness. She could not tell how old: no childish roundness in the face or neck, but no sign of childbearing either – the small breasts and flat belly were firm and unstretched. Lotta could see why she had mistaken this long, straight-limbed body for a boy’s. She smiled. The bodies she knew best were men’s, but she took pleasure in women, too. She bent and kissed the lips of the boy-girl from the sea, then covered her tenderly with the bright cotton coverlet.

The young woman did little that day but doze and mutter – in English, of which Lotta knew almost nothing – but the next day, when she could sit up and eat a little, they began the difficult work of trying to talk. It was hard indeed, when they had so little language between them. Lotta had lived in Havana since she was a tiny girl; Spanish and the local patois both came as easily to her as her native French. Beyond that she knew a few curses and the words for what men wanted, in a dozen languages including English, but none of it was useful now. This woman, like the few other Americans Lotta had come across, understood no language but her own.

So Lotta simply talked all the time, in her own mixture of Spanish and French, with dumbshow to help explain her meaning. This worked quite well when she wanted to find out where the woman had pain, or whether she felt hot or cold, or needed the chamber pot, or if she was hungry or thirsty. On the second morning, Lotta tried to ask her guest’s name, pointing to herself, saying ‘Lotta!’ then tapping her friend’s chest.

For a moment the American woman looked so blank that Lotta was worried she might have lost her memory in the wreck. But then she looked straight at Lotta and said firmly, ‘Judith.’ At which, to Lotta’s horror, the grey eyes filled with tears, and the tears spilled over and rolled down Judith’s face, and she lay there not even trying to wipe them away. 

And of course Lotta reached out and held her, kissing the wet face and holding it against her own, but that was wrong, too, for Judith reddened and flinched away, and pulled the thin sheet up under her arms as if she did not like to be looked at, let alone touched.

For the first few days Judith dozed or gazed blankly through the window at the hot blue sky, and seemed too weak, or stunned, to talk much. But as the days went by and she returned to herself, she began to talk much more, and grew distressed when she could not make herself understood. Lotta did understand, quite quickly, that the woman wanted to speak to the Governor. But he was dead of the yellow fever, like most white folks who came fresh from Europe. As this Judith would very soon be also, Lotta feared; but she could not tell her any of this. Slowly she made her understand that no others had come from the wreck alive, and that the seaman’s box she and Franco had brought up from the beach was the only chest that had come ashore whole. She went and fetched the locket, and put it round Judith’s neck, so she would know something of her own had been saved. 

She smiled at that, and opened it, showing Lotta the beautiful old picture inside – which Lotta admired afresh, asking her guest whether the picture was her mother, or her grandmother, or some fine lady who had been patron of the family? She had such splendid jewels, such a haughty turn of the head, it was hard to imagine she belonged in the New World. Judith said something, urgently; but Lotta could not make it out. She finally got her guest to understand that the locket was all that had survived the shipwreck. Then Judith gazed out of the window for a long time without speaking, as if she thought, or prayed. When she turned back, she looked so lonely that Lotta took her in her arms and this time she did not resist, laying her head on Lotta’s breasts like a child. This time she did not cry.

So, what with cooking and washing and bandages, and trying to learn English words and teach Judith Spanish ones, Lotta did not find much time for her clients. Sometimes men came banging on the door, and she shouted to them to go away and come back next week, she was busy; and they went off cursing her for a faithless whore, or laughed and said the man she had in there with her must be a fine one, to last so many days. Sometimes when Judith was asleep, Lotta had time for one of her regular clients, so there was at least money for food.

She wondered what food they ate in the north, in New England. Judith clearly did not recognise most of the things that Lotta put in front of her, poking at her plate uncertainly, as if the food would burn her. After a while, though, she ate more heartily and Lotta, who prided herself on her cooking, took trouble to make tasty dishes to tempt her. In particular, Judith had clearly never seen a tomato before, and looked quite shocked the first time she was asked to put one in her mouth, but soon she got quite a taste for them, watching hungrily from her window as Lotta tended the vines in the yard where the big red and green fruit grew. She only tried once to help, but bending made her cry out with pain. Lotta tried to comfort her, counting on her fingers the weeks that would mend the broken ribs, and then pretending to be Judith marching about with a watering pot for the tomatoes. It made her new friend laugh, though whether she understood the meaning of it was hard to tell. Judith was always very brave about the pain, and made Lotta strap the bandages tightly so she could be up and moving round the house. The weather was hot, and no one could see her, so she did not need more than her shift and sometimes, at night, a shawl. But the problem of her clothes – and indeed all her other lost possessions – would have to be faced soon.The days passed and Judith mended quickly. She moved more easily and smiled more often; her fair skin flushed gold in the sun. They did not talk much – at least, Judith did not. Lotta told her every thought that came into her head, but it did not matter, since she could not understand. Sometimes, though, Lotta felt they were very aware of each other, moving carefully, alert, like two stranger cats in the same room. She would catch Judith’s eyes on her, and preen a little to show she knew she was being watched, and Judith would look down – but not for long. They drank wine, ate and slept and laughed, tidied the house, sat on the terrace; and all the while Judith’s body mended and Lotta fell more in love with it, and with her.

Lotta began to dread the moment when her friend would be well, would go away. But she also knew that she would soon run out of money. She had few hours now to give to the clients, and was worried Judith would say something about them. But most of all, as she grew more and more fond of her handsome new friend, she was more and more afraid about the yellow fever. Few incomers lasted much more than a month in Cuba before they succumbed to the shakes and the vile black vomiting; you had to have been born here to have much chance of surviving, or at least to have had the fever as a child. Lotta remembered her dose well, soon after she arrived from France with her parents, when she was seven, and they had set up their little shop. The fever had killed her father; her mother had survived. Mama had always been a strong woman, and was today, even now she was old. Her fall last month and the broken leg had still not killed her. Lotta wondered briefly how Mama and Maria were getting on, out in the country. Perhaps Maria would have to stay there for good now. Then Judith would not have to go away, but live here always and they would be lovers. She smiled wistfully, knowing it for the dream it was; Judith must go, before the fever came. So Lotta pushed aside a pleasing picture of kissing Judith, very slowly, all over, and started to look around for an answer to her problem.

It came much sooner than she cared for. They had only had two weeks together after Judith began to move about, when the Belle Heloise was sighted beyond the harbour bar. The cannon boomed out, and people began to flow down to the harbour to see her come in. A French ship meant old friends as well as customers. Lotta oiled her hair, put on her red dress and went downtown. She took her keys, and checked the shop was secure and all was well there, before she joined the expectant crowd of traders, rooming-house keepers and whores on the quayside. The ship was only a few days out of San Domingue, they said, on the voyage home to France, and had stopped to add good Cuban tobacco to its cargo. That done, and more water and fresh fruit taken on board, it would sail again in a few days.

She was in luck. The Heloise carried many of the same crew as the last time it had put in at Havana, and she found a dozen old friends at their accustomed inn. The night was a profitable one. She bought a bargain walrus tusk, with neat pictures of harpooning, from a sailor who’d gambled away his advance pay already. Even more usefully, talking to old acquaintances gave her an idea about what she could do for Judith. She went home in the early morning feeling hopeful. Over the next few days she did brisk home business. She knew Judith did not like it when the men came. But Judith would soon be gone; and next week there was the rent to pay. She sighed. Her new friend would have to go. But not before she had taught her some useful things. Lotta smiled to herself.

The next afternoon, she looked out and saw what she had been waiting for: a brown-skinned man with a great belly and blue tattoos on his forearms, sweating up the steps from the beach. Armand. She ran out, smiling and waving. She had known him since she first started working here, when she was scarcely more than a pretty child and he a thin, lonely young man far from home. Now he was fat and bald and had friends everywhere. For the last three years he had been ship’s cook on board the Belle Heloise, but still he never failed to come to visit whenever they were in port.

‘Armand! You are welcome, cheri, as always,’ she told him, and took his arm to lead him indoors. ‘Now I will do something nice for you. And then, mon vieux, you will do a little something for me.’

He laughed and pulled her close. ‘Bien sûr I will do that,’ he said,

In the end, he did agree to what she asked. Judith, not surprisingly, took longer to convince. But, as Lotta pointed out, she had no money, and no way of earning any. There was clearly no point in Lotta offering to take her into the trade, and there was no honest work here for a woman who had neither French or Spanish. Judith had no friends – except Lotta – and no clothes. And soon she would take the yellow fever, and then she would die.

Judith agreed, with whitening face, to each elaborately acted-out argument. And finally Lotta, triumphant, produced the things she had found in the seaman’s chest. Shirt, breeches, waistcoat, all washed and aired and mended; knife, tinderbox, tobacco box. Then she told Judith, with much miming of pot-stirring, tasting, swaying on her feet and looking out to sea, about Armand, and about their plan. Judith was outraged, incredulous, scandalised. If there had been any other possibility at all, she would never have agreed. But what choice did she have? So finally she calmed down, and let Lotta help her to put the clothes on.

Lotta, who had helped numberless men get in and out of their breeches, was an expert. She showed Judith how to wrap the long tails of her shirt between her legs, as men did to protect their soft parts. In a moment of inspiration, she took the ends of the shirt-tails and twisted then into a knot in front. When Judith had pulled on the breeks and buttoned them up, the effect was truly impressive. Lotta laughed out loud, and Judith blushed.

When Judith was completely dressed, her hair bound into a sailor’s pigtail and a red handkerchief knotted at her throat, Lotta fetched the piece of looking-glass from the bedroom and Judith looked at herself. She did this for several minutes, frowning and holding the glass at different angles. Then she put it down slowly and, with a wistful little smile, lifted a pretend spy-glass to her eye and gazed out to sea. Then she turned back to Lotta and gave a little bow.

‘Buenas noches, Señora,’ she said. ‘My name is Jude.’

Lotta, surprised, put out her hand, and her friend grasped it formally, raising it to her lips, as she had seen a French sailor do. 

Lotta giggled.

So they had two days to alter the clothes to fit, and to teach Jude to be a boy. She swaggered up and down the little yard, or sat astride her chair, or lounged against a wall, while Lotta looked judiciously on and told her what to do differently. Judith’s stiff shyness had vanished. In her new clothes, she was not playing the boy: quickly, quickly she became one. Her chin tilted up, and her eyes flashed; she laughed; she filled the room. Lotta was more than delighted, indeed overwhelmed. The second evening, they went out and walked in the street, with Lotta holding her new client’s arm, and no one looked at them twice.

That night Lotta said, ‘One more lesson only.’ And she pulled Judith’s face down to hers and kissed her. Then she led her into her own room, where the big bed was.

The huge shining sky

Weird Sisters are very excited to share a glimpse of Jay Taverner’s forthcoming novel, Liberty – in which Miss Rebecca Wiston sets out on a sea voyage. We can't wait to read more.

(Liberty is the fourth in the ‘Brynsquilver’ series of historical novels (the others are Rebellion, Hearts and Minds and Something Wicked), and is set at the time of the French Revolution.)

PROLOGUE

The Robin, two-masted coasting vessel out of Salem, walloping southwards before a following wind off the Carolinas in the early spring of 1789. The Robin, shabby, worm-eaten and stinking, laden with oak staves for sugar casks and fusty rice to feed slaves in the British colonies. The packet plodded along, more Dobbin than Robin, Rebecca thought: an old nag bound head-down for its stable. But she did not care. She loved the ugly little ship. For her, everything – salt spray and heaving deck, swearing sailors and puking passengers – was insignificant in the face of the huge shining sky and the swooping, thrusting flow of brilliant air. And every day of rolling progress brought her nearer to her new, half-guessed future.

She sat each day on a pile of spars in the steadily strengthening sun, breathing deeply and, with each long breath, letting go of another link that chained her. On the ninth morning, the new warmth seeping into her back through the serviceable grey wool of her winter gown made her wonder for a moment whether she might go barefoot, as the sailors did; she had not felt the world though her toes since she was a wild child running in the summer woods, twenty years ago. 

It had taken some persuasion to make the Captain take her as a passenger. She knew that her appearance had hardly recommended her – a tall, spare woman dressed in Quaker grey, past her youth at eight-and-twenty and, she thought ruefully, with all the marks of an old maid; but she’d fixed him with a steady gaze, and made him listen to her carefully prepared speech about needing a passage to England, and begging information about getting there via Jamaica. Captain Singleton had clearly been unhappy about an unaccompanied woman traveller. It was not entirely unprecedented, of course, for the Friends did quite often go forth alone, to bear witness in distant places; and, by a stroke good fortune, Captain Singleton’s mother and father-in-law were already on board, bound to see their new grandchild in Jamaica. They had agreed, a little reluctantly, to take Rebecca under their protection, and so the problem was solved.

In the event she had seen very little of these other passengers. Since the Robin had sailed, Rebecca had spent every day on deck, mostly gazing out eastwards towards her distant destination; she rarely entered the cabin.  She had watched Salem dwindle out of sight as they sailed out of the harbour and, as they sailed on, she’d watched the sailors at work. They watched her in return, and grinned, and answered when she spoke to them. She’d stood out of the way while they kicked the poxy old tub into shape, and now she strode the length of the deck without so much as holding to the rail. She had stood by the man at the helm for two days, asking questions which he had answered with surprised politeness. Now the sailors tipped their caps, and she smiled, as they passed by.

On the tenth day they left American waters, passing out into the Gulf, the last leg of the trip to Jamaica. The sun grew hotter and, by the time Rebecca went down to her cot in the narrow cabin, the wind seemed to have dropped to a lulling whisper. But when she woke, too early, before light, she could feel a strange shift in the motion of the ship. The other passengers were both sound asleep on the other side of the cabin, their sickly faces pale in the surging sea-light that slapped against the porthole. Rebecca sat up. The everlasting wallow of the ship had changed to a choppy, gut-wrenching rhythm. Rising quickly and wrapping her woollen shawl over her shift, she made her way across to the companion-way, holding on against the unnatural buck and rear of the deck. 

Above, in the midst of the turbulent motion, there was a strained stillness about the crew. She could see three men holding on by the port rail, and the captain at the wheel; all were staring into the east, as if to catch the rising dawn. Rebecca turned her head. The easterly sky was livid, with green-tinged rays of light rising eerily from the coming sun. Singleton caught sight of her at the companion-head, and called out, gesturing for her to go down again – but his voice was lost in the wind, and in the disaster that fell upon them. A screaming, twisting squall swept down on the ship, tossing it madly like a nutshell in a waterfall. As Rebecca clung to the rope at the stair-head, a wall of water wrenched her sideways, completely off her feet. The icy wave knocked all the breath from her body, but she clung on, pressed against the companion housing for what seemed an age, banging helplessly in the wall of water that swept across the deck. The sound of crashing, splintering timber deafened her.

Then the surge of the sea dropped her abruptly and spewed out of the bilges. Men ran by shouting, laid hold of ropes and began working like demons with knives and axes to free the cumbered ship as she thrashed like a terrified horse tied by the head. Tons of broken wood and sail trailed away in the water. The mast, Rebecca realised – the main mast – had gone by the board. She ducked down the stairwell out of the screaming wind, but darkness and enclosure filled her with terror and she scrambled out again, watching as the crew slashed and chopped to clear the rigging, while two men struggled with the wheel. The captain was gazing away from the rising sun now, westwards, and she pulled herself along by the rail to see what he was watching. 

It was land. A rocky coast, green cliffs incredibly near. She had imagined them still out at sea, swept by this twister in mid-ocean; but they were hard by the shore. Her heart leapt. Then, as she turned back to watch the struggle to master the ship, the deck shuddered and rose under her feet, freed from some of the dragging debris. A man screamed. Horrified, she watched him fly by, mouth open and hands clutching, caught by the leg in an escaping mass of rigging that he had cut free. The ship seemed to right itself, pulling upright before the wind, almost as if it answered to the helm; but as she drew a stunned breath, the air exploded into wet chaos again and she was flung aside, up and away as, quite unmistakably, the hull struck a rock.

You need not call me sir!

Hearts and Minds is the second historical novel in Jay Taverner’s ‘Brynsquilver’ series and is set in the 1730s. In this extract, Lucy, daughter of a washerwoman and an enslaved manservant, has run away to Shrewsbury, where the woman she loves has been imprisoned. Destitute, Lucy finds work selling ‘Mountain’s Elixir’ in the market.

This morning she was working alone, the now-familiar patter coming almost without thought.
‘Step up now, ladies and gentlemen! ’Tis time for a spring tonic - Mountain’s Elixir will put the bounce back in your step, ladies, and the sparkle in your eyes. ’Tis good for a sweet breath and a strong grip, my lads - you’d not have your sweetheart disappointed, now, would you?’

A passing trio of apprentices giggled and pushed each other, but did not stop. 

Lucy paused to listen to a shy girl in a new pink hood, blushing and whispering her question. She was new-married, and wanted to know if the Elixir would help to get her with child. Mrs Mountain’s rule was to say yes to everything. But the girl was so young – about Lucy’s own age – and so full of longing, that Lucy’s heart softened towards her. Whatever else it might do, the Elixir was some kind of purge – that, too, made people believe in it, according to its inventor – and Lucy had a strong feeling that it was likely to put a swift end to pregnancy, rather than encourage it. She said as much to the girl, who looked disappointed. 

Lucy put on a wise face. ‘Better to take green tea fasting of a morning, and elderberry syrup before bed,’ she improvised wildly. ‘Then I’d not be surprised if you had good news before the month is out.’

The girl thanked her earnestly, but could not be stopped from buying a bottle of the Elixir for her husband. Lucy dropped the money into the purse she had set on the table, and cast an eye over her stock. It was well down; she would soon need to bring out some more bottles. She raised her voice again.

‘Mountain’s Elixir! Renowned throughout the Marches for its wonderful properties! Proven good for all ills - sovereign remedy for the gout, the quinsy, for apoplexies and agues. Good for falling hair, flat feet and stinking breath. Mrs Mountain’s secret ingredients have been brought from the far Indies, here to you! Mountain’s Elixir cures the gripes, the toothache, the bellyache and the screws! Taken on a fasting stomach daily, it protects against the wandering mother, blackening of the skin, hardening of the veins and mortification of the tripes!’

The crowd was thick, but not very interested in her wares. She needed to stir them up to the point of buying. She took a deep breath but, before she could start again, she became aware of music coming up the hill. The crowd heard it too, and Lucy cursed under her breath. A gaggle of boys pushed into the cramped space, and behind them came a troupe of pipes and tabors, making for the steps of the Butter Cross. Lucy’s crowd wavered and started to drift that way; she hurried to serve the three or four who were ready to buy. As she dropped their money into her purse she wondered if it was time to finish for the day. But the music might bring a fresh crowd that she could share: she would stay a little longer. She ducked down behind the draped table to stock up while there was a lull.

She was on her knees behind the table when she heard a bloodcurdling yell. Flinging the cloth aside, she snapped her head up. As her eyes came level with the edge of the table, she saw two hands poised over her open purse. A grubby paw was plunged into coins and held there; its owner had clearly been about to lift her takings. But his wrist was clamped in the grip of a larger, stronger set of fingers, a hand that had caught him in the very act. The hand was black. As dark as - no, darker than Lucy’s own. 

Her eyes travelled slowly from the hand to the snowy ruffles at its wrist; from the ruffles to a deep, buttoned cuff, a cuff of canary yellow that extended almost to the elbow of an elegant yellow silk coat. And on up, to a black face smiling at her over more snowy linen. Lucy felt a surge of excitement, followed by shyness that made her face hot. 

‘Now, miss,’ said her saviour, ‘what would you have me do with this wretch? Shall I call the watch?’

The would-be thief began to whine and struggle.

‘Oh, no, sir! Please - please to let him go,’ Lucy stammered.

The thief’s head snapped round to goggle at her. He began to babble thanks and apologies.

‘Stop your noise, codshead,’ said the young black man scornfully. He shook the limp hand he still held, like someone flicking water from a cloth, to make sure there was no money in it, before he thrust the man away.

Lucy hardly spared the fellow a glance. She could not take her eyes from her rescuer. ‘Thank you, sir. It was my whole morning’s take,’ she said.

His smile widened. ‘Faith, little sister, you need not call me sir! Benjamin will answer nicely - or even Ben, when we are better acquainted. Your servant, ma’am!’ With a flourish of his hat, he made her an elaborate, courtly bow. Several people in the crowd laughed and clapped. 

As he straightened up, Lucy saw the gleam of the silver collar nestling in the lace at his throat. But his eyes shone with fun. ‘And now, ma’am, if your la’ship pleases, I shall convey you to dine at the best eating-house in this town.’

Dazzled, Lucy let herself be swept along, her mind whirling, confused. He was a slave, like her father, but he dressed like a lord. And behaved like one, too, with his airs and graces and his confident smile: the poulterer on the corner of Butcher Row had agreed at once to Ben’s suggestion that he keep Lucy’s stock safe for an hour or two. She followed her new friend through the maze of streets until the bustle of shops and markets was left behind. Ben stopped in front of a tall and beautiful brick house. 

He waved an arm at it and grinned. ‘My humble abode, ma’am,’ he said. ‘Welcome.’

He led her through the carriage entrance at the side of the house, and down some steps to a basement door. They hurried along a flagged passage with many doors, some standing open. Lucy caught glimpses of huge painted cupboards, of a girl sewing, of two men in yellow suits like Ben’s, playing cards. It was like a dream. They came at last to a kitchen that would have swallowed her mother’s cottage whole. A long, warm room, lined with shelves where bright brown pans were ranged, each larger than the one before. Ham and poultry hung from the ceiling; there were bowls of eggs and China oranges, buckets of fish and baskets of vegetables. A small girl in a large mob-cap was working at one end of the long kitchen table; she looked up as they came in, but did not speak. At the fire a great joint of meat, half an ox at least, twirled solemnly to and fro by itself amid a forest of gleaming metal hooks and bars. The dripping pan swam with fat juices whose smell made Lucy feel faint with hunger.

The queen of this paradise, she found, was called Mistress Rundle. She was a fierce, stringy woman with a red face and a sharp tongue for anyone who came into her kitchen – except for Benjamin, who had clearly charmed her as Lucy suspected he charmed everyone. It seemed he had been at the market on an errand for Mistress Rundle, and now flicked three little papers from his huge yellow cuff. She was pleased, tapping the ground spices out at once into the bowl where the kitchen-maid was pounding something with a heavy blunt stick. The girl still stared at Lucy, but did not stop working.

‘Little sister, indeed!’ said Mrs Rundle scornfully. ‘Black she may be, but green I am not. You’re a shameful young rascal, Benjamin, and I hope the girl knows it.’

‘What she knows, Mistress Peg my darling, because I told her, is that you make the best mutton-pies in England. Look how thin she is! You’d not turn her away, now, would you, and you a good Christian woman as you are?’

For answer the cook slapped Benjamin’s behind as if he were a small boy, and showed Lucy a seat at the corner of her huge table. 

‘There’s no guest goes hungry from this kitchen, lassie,’ she said, putting a large plate of broken meats on the scrubbed white wood in front of her. ‘Though the Lord knows ’tis not what I call a kitchen! Nasty mean, low place – miles of stairs to the dining room and a day’s walk to the pump. And will you look at this poor wee fireplace with its nasty iron contrivances? Modern improvements, indeed! You’ll wait all day for the meat to warm through merely, and there’s no room at all for a dog to turn the spit or a boy to do the basting. Bet, what are you at? Put some go into it, lassie, you’re not stroking your bairn’s bottom there!’

She pushed the little maid aside and stirred the stuff in the bowl about, sniffing at it. Ben caught Lucy’s eye and winked. Lucy went on eating the wonderful food.