My Swordhand Is Singing (9 page)

“Your hand,” Agnes said, innocently. “It feels warmer than last night.”

Peter suddenly let Agnes’s hand drop from his, as if it were something dangerous.

“Peter, what is it?”

He hesitated, then spoke quickly, his words catching in his throat.

“Are you saying I came here to see you, last night?”

“Yes, you did. You asked me to—Oh, Peter! It wasn’t you?”

Suddenly he felt behind his back the huge darkness of the forest, in which myriad horrors might be tracking him. It surrounded him with almost unbearable menace, a vast world that ruled and ran his life, seeing everything that passed beneath its branches, yet giving away no secrets.

“Agnes. You have to let me in.”

He spoke with a quiet strength, but with fear mingled in, and it scared her into agreement.

“Yes,” she said. “Oh God! Yes. It wasn’t you? Yes. But the door, the door!”

“Never mind. Stand away from the window.”

He reached up and groped around, swinging the shutter open and gauging how wide the window was. Small, but he could make it. Putting a foot against the irregular log wall of the hut, he found a foothold and half jumped, half pulled himself though the gap. Then he wriggled and pulled and fell headfirst into the hut, spraining his hand as he landed.

“Oh!” cried Agnes. “Are you all right?”

“Don’t you have any light?” asked Peter, standing up. He rubbed his hand, but it wasn’t bad.

“No. I’m not allowed. Tell me you’re joking, Peter. That you just said that to get in here with me.”

Peter said nothing in reply.

“Who was it?” she whispered in horror. “He said he was you! He asked to come in.”

“You didn’t—?”

“No!” Agnes said quickly. “I wouldn’t let you…him…in.”

“Thank God for that.”

“But who is it?”

Peter shook his head in the dark.

“I don’t know.”

He went back to the window. From the stillness outside he could sense that it was still snowing, though he couldn’t actually see it. The shutter was banging against the outside of the hut. Somewhere there was an iron handle to pull it shut. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was put his hand back out into the night, but he had no choice. Expecting his wrist to be grabbed at any moment, he felt out through the window, found the handle, and pulled the shutter inward, swinging the bolt into place. He turned to Agnes.

“I don’t know,” he repeated, “but something is wrong around here. Tell me exactly what happened.”

“I told you. You…someone came to the window last night. He asked to come in and I said no. He asked again and I said no again and…”

She stopped.

“Oh!” she said.

“What, Agnes?” Peter felt for her in the dark and put his arms around her. “What?”

“When I wouldn’t let him in, he asked for a kiss.”

“You didn’t do it?”

“Peter, I thought it was you. I’ve been so scared. Anyway I said no, but I let you…him kiss my hand.”

Peter swore.

“I thought it was you,” Agnes said.

“I know. I know.”

Peter felt her tense in his arms. Her head jerked up toward his in the blackness.

“Oh God and the Forest!”

“Agnes? Agnes?”

“He said he’d come back again tonight.”

21

Threads

For a long time neither of them moved, as if expecting to hear a voice at the window at any time. When they were finally convinced they could hear nothing, they began to breathe again.

“Sit down,” Agnes said, guiding Peter to the small bunk where she had been sleeping. They sat on the edge of the bed, neither willing to voice their fears.

Peter cursed himself for being so naïve. He could have brought his axe with him. He had tried to believe Tomas, that this was all village superstition, but deep down he had known something evil was afoot.

“Have you been all right here?”

“Yes,” said Agnes simply. “But I’m worried about Mother. I’ve been thinking about her. And about Father.”

“Your mother’s fine,” Peter said quickly. “I saw her yesterday. I spoke to the widow Caterina next door. She was very reassuring.”

It was all lies, but Agnes didn’t need more to worry about, and as far as he knew, her mother was all right.

“But what have you been doing? It’s been a week!” he said.

“Spinning,” Agnes said. She laughed. “If you could see the floor of this place. There’s enough wool to dry up the river in here. They said I might as well make myself useful. And I started after a couple of days. I was too angry at first. But then I began to get bored and I was grateful for something to do. I must have spun a mile of it by now!”

“And someone brings you food every day?”

“Yes, one of the Elders, I think, but the person doesn’t speak. I just hear the basket being left on the windowsill. It’s such a small window. I can only see a few branches and a little bit of sky. But at night, I can see the stars in the heavens….” She sighed.

“I’m going to find out what’s going on, Agnes. Trust me. I’ve got an idea.”

“But what about…him? If he comes again. He said he would.”

“That’s my idea. We’ll find out what’s happening. How much wool have you spun? Really?”

Agnes and Peter waited. Peter had explained to Agnes what he wanted her to do. She wasn’t happy, though eventually she had agreed. They waited, and though Peter had often longed to be alone with Agnes, now that it was happening he didn’t know what to say or do. Surely there were a thousand things he wanted to ask her? Surely she wanted to talk and talk to him, to hold him and maybe kiss him? But somehow they sat next to each other as mute as stone. Peter wondered if it was because they were both scared out of their wits, but he began to suspect there was another reason. A reason that shocked him at first, but once he had picked it up and looked at it and turned it over in his mind, a reason that he calmly accepted as something approaching the truth.

The truth. That maybe he didn’t love her.

For much of the time they sat in silence on the bed, in reach of each other, but miles apart. After a while Peter found his mind playing tricks on him. He saw tiny pinpricks of light but decided it was his imagination. Nevertheless he felt he could have been anywhere; his enforced blindness seemed to remove the walls from the hut, and even the presence of the forest itself receded until he felt utterly alone.

Hours passed, and Peter was just about to ask Agnes if she had any food, when he heard a noise outside. It was clear from the way Agnes shifted next to him that she had heard it too.

Silence for a moment, then: “Agnes? Agnes? Are you there, pretty one?”

Peter’s heart pounded. He reached across and nudged Agnes, wordlessly urging her to answer.

“Yes,” called Agnes up to the window. “Yes, I’m here.”

Her voice was frail and nervous, and Peter thought it was too obvious, but whoever was outside didn’t seem to have noticed.

“Let me in, pretty Agnes!” came the voice.

“Who is it?” Agnes replied.

“It’s me,” the voice said. “Peter.”

Agnes sat dumbly next to Peter, the sheer terror of the moment paralyzing her, but Peter nudged her again, willing her to go over to the window. He strained to see in the blackness, all his senses going wild but telling him nothing.

Still she refused to move. He pushed her to her feet, shoving the end of the spun wool into her fingers as she went. He squeezed her hand.

“I can’t let you in, Peter. You know that.”

“Let me in, pretty one. I’m so cold!”

“I can’t let you in.”

“I’m so cold. Feel my hand. Open the shutter and feel my hand.”

There was silence, and Peter could imagine Agnes rooted to the spot from terror. In his mind he tried to force her to move, to stick to his plan.

“Open the shutter, Agnes, pretty one. You felt my hand last night.”

After a long, long pause, Peter heard Agnes move up to the window and unbolt the shutter.

“Here,” she said bravely.

“See how cold I am?” said the voice. Peter marveled at it. It didn’t sound like him, but it was so quiet that he couldn’t have said that it wasn’t his own voice either.

“Touch me,” said the voice. “Let me in.”

“I won’t let you in, Peter.”

“Then kiss me.”

There was another terrible pause, as Agnes steeled herself, trying to be calm enough to go through with what she and Peter had agreed.

“Very well,” she said finally, in a tiny voice. “I will kiss you. Wait a moment.”

Agnes moved and found the small stool she sat on to work. She pulled it to the window.

Peter waited in an agony of fear, paralyzed by inaction. All he could do was pray to the Forest to protect her, if that was who he should be praying to.

He heard Agnes climb onto the stool. Then she leant through the window. He heard the faint noise of the thread starting to slip out from the huge winding of wool on the floor, and silently he prayed that his idea would work.

There was a moment of total silence, and Peter tried not to think of what was happening. He couldn’t hear the kiss.

Then Agnes shrieked.

“You’re so cold!”

“Come here!” said the voice, suddenly loud, angry and vicious. “Let me in, pretty bitch!”

There was the sound of a struggle and thuds fell against the wall outside. Agnes screamed and fell back into the hut. Peter now dared to stand and pull the shutter back into place.

“I’ll be back,” said the voice, shrieking in rage. “I’ll be back tomorrow night!”

Silence.

22

Calling

For a long time, neither Agnes nor Peter dared move. Eventually Peter crawled over and found her huddled on the floor. He held her gently and then realized he could hear something.

The wool was being pulled out slowly from the winding.

“You did it!” Peter cried. “Well done!”

Agnes was silent.

“You did it.”

Peter went over to the shutter, and felt the wool paying out through the gap between the shutter and frame. It was not moving fast, or even that steadily, but it was moving.

Being careful not to snag the wool, he opened the shutter again, and saw that the snow had stopped. The sky had cleared and there was enough starlight to see the outlines of the trees. He spent a long time looking for the terrible visitor, but could see no sign.

Faint light was spilling onto the floor of the hut now and he checked the pile of wool. Agnes had been busy; there was enough wool to stretch to Turkey, as far as he could tell. Making sure it could move freely from the skein that Agnes had coiled from her spinning, he turned to her.

“Agnes. It’s time for me to go. Stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

He lifted Agnes up and placed her on the bed again, pulling the blanket up to her neck.

She turned to face him.

“Don’t go,” she said, her voice small and still.

“I have to. This is what we agreed. You’ve done your part. Now I must do mine.”

He took her chin in his hands and tilted her face up to his.

Agnes shivered.

“I kissed him, Peter.”

“You did what you had to. You fixed the wool. That’s all that matters.”

“He was so…cold. So…”

But she couldn’t explain what she had felt.

“Stay here,” Peter said, and leant down, kissing her forehead. “It’ll be light soon. That will make you feel better. Close the shutter when I’ve gone.”

He got up and, without another word, set the stool upright by the window once more and climbed out, slightly more easily than when he had entered, earlier in the night.

Once outside, it was easy to tell that dawn was still far off, and it was hard to see clearly. But Peter smiled to himself. He didn’t need to see, he just had to follow. Agnes had done her job well. The distaff that she had been spinning with had a metal clip on it. They’d broken the clip off and tied the wool to it. In that awful moment as she leant out of the window, she had fixed the clip onto the back of the jacket of her nocturnal visitor.

Now all Peter had to do was follow the wool, and he would find the culprit. He tried to tell himself it was probably just some young fool from the village who had a desire for Agnes, but nonetheless he wished he had his axe with him.

Peter followed the wool, threading his way through the trees.

Agnes lay on the bed in the hut, unable to move. Overwhelmed by fear, she blinked in the gloom for a long time, powerless to get up and close the shutter as Peter had told her to. Her mind was occupied with a single thought: she had kissed the thing at the window. She could still taste something on her lips, something foul. At last she made a small movement and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. It felt no better, so she did it again. And again, and again, and then frantically she began to scratch at her face, desperate to rid herself of whatever disgusting coldness it was that clung to her.

She rolled onto the floor and crawled to find her jug of water, wasting it all trying to wash the taste from her lips. Then she heard a noise at the window.

She lifted her head as she knelt on all fours, like a dog getting a scent.

“Peter?” she called. And then panicked. It had to be Peter. Who else could it be?

“Peter! Come in and help me! Come in!”