Alis (28 page)

His voice was tight with anger. “Because I must decide what is to be done with you. And if you will not confess your part in this, I must hang you, however little I wish to. Can you not understand that?”

She was trembling. Perhaps it was a trap. But she would die if she did not speak, and it could make no difference to Edge, who was condemned out of her own mouth.

So, fearfully, she told him how it had been. She said that Edge was someone she had known in her time away, come to say good-bye because she was going over the sea. That she had lashed out in fright, thinking herself attacked. They had tried together to staunch the bleeding of the terrible wound, and Galin had said Edge must be given clothing, money, and time to get away.

When she ceased speaking, William said to her, “There is one thing that puzzles me still. Why should Minster Galin put his life in jeopardy for a girl he did not know and who had so savagely attacked him? I cannot credit it. Did you plead for her because she was your friend?”

“No. I was afraid for him. I did not want him to die. It was terrible.” She shuddered, remembering the dreadful gaping wound and how the blood had oozed through the dressings in spite of their efforts. “But he would not let me go for help. He said he had blighted my life and he would not do it to another. He knew she would hang if they caught her.”

William frowned. “What did he mean, that he had blighted your life?”

She paused, unsure whether he would believe her, or whether it was safe to speak the words.

“Well?” He sounded impatient.

Nervously she said, “He meant by marrying me. He said it had been wrong.”

She held her breath. To voice such a view was to defy the Great Council’s edicts. There was a sardonic expression on William’s dark face. “I can well imagine that Minister Galin thought so. He was ever a rebel.”

Minister Seth’s pen was scratching away. William waited until he was done and had sanded the page to dry it. Then he said to Alis, “You must read this, and if it is a true record of what you have said, you must sign it.”

She took it in her hand but the words blurred before her eyes. She said huskily, “I cannot read it.”

William took it from her and handed it back to the other man. “Read it aloud, if you please.”

When he had finished, William said to her, “You accept this?”

She nodded. He motioned her to take the pen that the Minister had prepared for her, and placed his finger at the foot of the page to show her where she should sign. Then he signed it also and Minister Seth added his name as witness. The Minister went out, leaving Alis alone with William.

She tried to still her trembling. She did not know whether she was saved or not, but she would not weep and plead. She watched him in silence. He stood by the window looking out for a long time. When he turned to her there was a brooding expression on his face.

“Well, Mistress Alis. You have done ill, there is no doubt of that. I do not know that you deserve your life.”

He stopped and frowned, as if he were still in doubt. She pressed her hands together. Would he never speak? When at last he did, his voice was somber. “We cannot have such as you among us, but—you may thank the Maker for His mercy, sinner that you are—I will not hang you.”

S
he was not to hang but she must leave Freeborne and make a life for herself in the world somehow. There was no place for her in the Communities of the Book. And she did not care. She was angry. They had made her suffer; they had brought her almost to death. Why should she want to stay? There was Elzbet, of course. And it grieved her to bring more sorrow on her parents, but Joel had come back to them. She comforted herself with that.

He had reappeared in Freeborne one cold day—shivering, ragged, and hungry—seeming not to know where he had been or how he had survived in the months since his parting from Edge. At first he complained of headaches and said his memory failed him, but their mother, who had given up her position as an Elder, cared for him devotedly, and he recovered, though he seemed to Alis a changed person. He would not speak of his former life, and what he felt about Edge’s part in his sister’s troubles she could not tell. When he was well again, he went to work alongside his father in the carpenter’s shop, learning the trade. He seemed content.

A week was all she was given, and then she must leave. Her parents, though sorrowful at the prospect of parting, rejoiced that Alis was to live and exercised themselves to think how she might find work and safety. They knew little of life outside the Communities, and she did not contradict them when they made foolish suggestions. She had survived everything, and she was not afraid. She would go back to Will and Jessie. Even if they had no work for her they might know of someone among the local farmers who wanted help in the household. Then she would write to Ellen with word for Luke. She could not ask him to abandon his grandmother, but he must be told her plans, or how would they ever see each other again? She would not let herself think it might never be.

The day approached. Her father’s face grew still more melancholy and she tried to comfort him. “I will send to you when I am settled. You shall hear all that I am doing. And you have Joel back, which you did not dream of.”

“But we will miss you so, Alis. And perhaps you will marry again, and we shall not be able see our grandchildren.”

There was nothing she could say to that. She put her arm around his shoulder and rested her cheek against his.

Her mother, too, though delighting in Joel’s return, mourned her daughter’s coming departure. “If only that wicked girl had not come here!” Hannah said bitterly. Edge’s guilt had been proclaimed in the prayer house upon Alis’s release.

Alis swallowed down an angry answer, saying instead, “Then perhaps Joel would not have found his way back here. It is thanks to her that he was in these parts.”

Hannah sighed. “Yes, that is true. And I cannot be sorry to have my son back. But”—her expression darkened—“she killed Galin. I cannot forgive her for that. And you would never have been tried if she had not done it.”

Alis had struggled not to reproach her mother but she could not help herself. It seemed so unfair to blame all on Edge. “If you had not married me to him, it would not have happened at all.”

Hannah blanched, her face tightening with pain. “Alis, we sought to do the Maker’s will as we are bound to do.”

“Galin did not think it was the Maker’s will. He told me so at the end. He was sorry.”

She wanted to say that her mother should be sorry, too, but the words would not come. Hannah abandoned the dishes she was washing and sat down at the table.

“I know it. And perhaps he was right. We . . . spoke of it once, not long before he died, but it was too late then.” She looked up at her daughter. “You cannot understand. We were brought up—as I tried to bring you up—to put aside ourselves, our own selfish desires, and do only our duty: the will of the Maker. And sometimes that is very hard. You are my child whom I love, and Galin was my dear friend. Do you think I wished you married to each other when neither of you wanted it?”

Cold light from the opened shutter fell upon her features. The skin of her face had slackened, worn thin. She looked old and tired. Full of remorse, Alis sat down also, saying, “I know you did not. But why should it have been the Maker’s will, Mother? What did it do but bring suffering upon us all? I cannot understand it.”

Hannah did not reply at once, and then she straightened her back, saying in the familiar tone that brooked no further argument, “I do not know. But there is no virtue in doing what is easy. We must trust that there is purpose in what seems so cruel.”

It was the old answer. Alis looked at Hannah’s hands resting on the table, noticing for the first time the way the veins stood out on the weathered skin. Her mother would never change.

 

 

The last day. Elzbet and Martin defied the rules and came to visit, bringing with them a purse of money collected secretly after Alis’s expulsion had been announced.

“My mother arranged it,” Elzbet said. “She knew there were some people who would wish to help you.”

When it was time to part, the two girls clung to each other.

“You will send word, won’t you, Alis?” Elzbet said through her tears. “Perhaps we will join you one day. I should like to bring my children up where there is more freedom.”

It was a comforting thought.

 

 

Morning. It was not yet fully light; the mist lay thick in the fields and hid the further houses from view. Her father’s old mare—hers now—was waiting, harnessed to the cart. At the door of the house, she embraced her parents for the last time, holding back her tears as best she could. Then Joel lifted her box into the cart and she got onto the cross-seat. She took up the reins, clicked her tongue at the horse, and the cart began to move. When she looked back, the standing figures were already becoming hazy. Soon, they were quite gone.

The mist enclosed her. There was nothing but the rattle of the cart’s wheels and the soft fall of the mare’s hooves on the road. She and the horse might have been the only living things in the world. She let her tears flow freely as they plodded along. Once, she halted, unable to bear it: she would go back, speak to them all again, have a few more minutes with them. Yes, she would do it! She began to pull the horse round.

And stopped. It was no good. Her heart ached to think how long it would be before she could see any of them again, but if ever she did, it could not be in Freeborne. Well, she would not despair. She must make a new life for herself, and she would. Her courage rose, and on she went.

The mist was clearing and she could see the boundary signpost, with its wooden finger pointing the way to the settlement. Beside it stood a figure, roughly dressed, with a bundle and stick. She thought it must be one of the wandering laborers who worked on the farms in the busy seasons. They sometimes came begging in winter and could be threatening, but she had barely time to feel nervous when a familiar voice called her name.

Her heart seemed to stop. It was Luke! He stood before her, thin and unshaven, shaking the moisture from his hair. While she sat there stunned, he swung himself up into the cart saying, “Quickly! Let us go. We must not be seen together so near to Freeborne.”

Caught between joy and terror, she obeyed at once, urging the mare into a fast trot.

Alis could not believe that Luke was there, solid beside her in a farmer’s jacket, his boots wet with dew. If only she could stop and embrace him. She put her arm through his, drawing close to him. She could barely keep her eye on the road while questions tumbled over themselves in her mind.

“But Luke, how is it that you are here? What are you doing? Does Mistress Elizabeth know?”

He shook his head. He had not seen his grandmother for many weeks, not since she left Two Rivers for Freeborne, hoping to make Thomas acknowledge his sin with Lilith and offer some support for the child.

“She had only been gone a few days when news arrived of your husband’s death. Oh, Alis, I was afraid for you. I thought perhaps he had demanded his rights of you and that you had”—he hesitated—“defended yourself as you said you might. I set off at once and came as quickly as I could but I had to walk, for Ellen could not spare a horse and there was no one else to ask. As I got near to Freeborne, I learned that you had been tried for killing your husband and might hang.” He shuddered. “Everyone was talking of it, and how your servant girl had listened to our conversation that day. I came into Freeborne—”

“But Luke!” She was horrified. “Someone might have recognized you.”

He shrugged. “I had to take the risk, to see where you were locked up. I did not care that you were well guarded—I would have found a way to get you out. But it was said that Master William believed in your innocence and would not hang you if your husband’s attacker could be found. I did not want to bring further suspicion on you and endanger you when you might, perhaps, be safe after all.”

“Dear Luke. I wish I had known that you were close by. It would have been a comfort even if—”

He said firmly, “I would have saved you.”

She did not see how, but she did not wish to hurt his feelings, so she said, “What would you have done?”

He was silent for a while, then he said quietly, “I would have gone to Master William and told him that it was I who had attacked your husband. I would have died myself, rather than let you hang.”

She gave a gasp of horror and clung closer to him. He said with a note of triumph in his voice, “He would have believed me, I am sure. Who had better reason than I did? And it fit with what that girl said.”

Appalled, she stopped him. “Don’t, Luke! It’s too horrible to think of.”

“I meant to do it, but the very day I came into Freeborne, there was news that some girl had been accused in your place and you were to be cast out instead of being hanged.”

“What did you do then?”

“I went to see your friend, Elzbet. You’d told her our story, I knew. It was a task to convince her who I was at first. She hid me until yesterday, so that I might know which way you were going and join you on the road.”

“But she said nothing,” Alis cried. “Not even when we were saying good-bye. Why did she not tell me?”

“She meant to, if she could speak to you alone. But not if there was anyone else there, for fear that you would exclaim and give yourself away. She was not sure about your mother, whether she would think she must stop me.”

“I do not think she would have interfered,” Alis said slowly. “But she is fierce for right, even when she must sacrifice those she loves. Perhaps it was best.”

Her heart was heavy at the thought of her mother. She leaned against him and was silent.

After a while, he said gently, “Do not be sad, Alis. We are together now and we thought it could never be.”