Page 88 of The Queen’s Witch

Days to cross the Fens, always following the coast. Although I knew what I could and could not eat among the marsh plants, I was always hungry. I dreamed of savory stew, fresh bread, new butter. And so came a sudden memory: Grandmother churning butter and singing a charm to delight me:

“Come, butter, come!

Come, butter, come!

Peter stands at the gate,

Waiting for a buttered cake,

Come, butter, come!”

The butter came—from her churning or from the spell? Why did such a sweet memory hurt so much?

Because it was sweet, and all sweetness had been taken from me.

I emerged from the Fens scrawny and hungry. At the first village, I did not beg nor seek work nor look for cunning folk to feed me. I spelled into immobility a woman weeding her kitchen garden. At the sight of me, a babe wailed in its cradle. I stole from the larder. I had nothing to gift the woman with, but I removed a curse on the child that had prevented her from sucking well. The babe would thrive now, although the young mother would never know why.

No more than I would ever know why the babe had been cursed, or by whom.

Another day of walking, and I came to my destination, Talford Abbey, the place named to me last October by the baker’s wife in Bredham. The small abbey stood within sight and sound of the North Sea. I watched it awhile, then knocked on the wooden door. An axe-faced nun, somewhere between middle aged and old, opened it with the air of one accustomed to command. Behind her hovered a little novice, hands clasped anxiously.

“Who are you,” the nun said, “and what do you want?”

Reasonable questions. I had cleaned myself as well as possible but still looked like a beggar, which in fact I was. I had prepared my answer, anticipating that Cecily might not be in charge, that Talford might already have an abbess. And although religious houses were bound by Christian charity, they were not bound to house travelers for months at a time. For security as healer or kitchen maid or anything else, I needed Cecily. Just as important, I desperately wished to know that she was well, that Cromwell’s murderous assaults had not destroyed her like the same purity of heart had killed so many others.

I said humbly, “I seek Sister Cecily Ainley, my lady. I bring her a message from her family in Northumberland. I was told to give it only to Sister Cecily.”

The abbess stared at me. I needed no magick to know her thoughts; they were visible on her face. Was I a spy for Cromwell’s inspectors? Or was I connected to the whispered word in the Bishop’s Lynn alehouse: rebellion? Was I a scout for thieves? Or was I truly just a harmless messenger?

A man appeared on the abbey roof, holding a bow. Talford Abbey, unlike Bredham, paid for protection.

The abbess said, “You are lying. Sister Cecily’s family disowned her decades ago.”

“Yes, my lady, but now in these perilous times, they are concerned for her. Her cousin Lady Mary sent me.” I hoped that this unlovely boulder of a woman did not know much about Cecily’s distant family or, failing that, whether Cecily actually had a cousin Mary. “May I see Sister Cecily?” I kept aware of the archer on the roof. If he fitted an arrow to his bow, I would bind him.

“She is not here.”

“Not here? Where is she?”

Anger turned her expression even more disagreeable. “She fell ill, and we could not nurse her adequately here. She and Sister Philippa have gone to her son’s estate.”

To Roger, now by law the master of Elizabeth’s inheritance. I knew the estate lay somewhere in Lincolnshire—but where?

“Where is Master Ainley’s manor?”

“If you were really from Sister Cecily’s family, you would know! Now be gone!”

She whirled, black skirts flying, and marched back inside. The archer wagged his bow at me: a warning. I backed away from the abbey.

Perhaps at the next village I could learn more.

I did not have to go far. At a turn in the road, the pale little novice emerged from the trees. She looked both terrified and determined. “Stop, please . . .” Catching her breath. “. . . Do you really . . . come from Sister Cecily’s family?”

“Yes. Have you something to tell me?”

“Yes . . . a minute . . .” She recovered her wind. “Sister Cecily was always kind to me. Not like . . . Tell her family she is in danger. She was not sent away from illness. She is not sick. The abbey heard that Cromwell’s men will come to examine Talford, and if all within do not take the king’s oath, we will be dissolved. Sister Cecily declared she would not take it, so Mother Abbess sent her away. She was a danger to us all. But she was . . . is . . . so kind, so good. Tell her family to take her far away and safeguard her.”

“The rest of you will swear to the oath?”