Raven's Bride (2 page)

“Breakfast is at six sharp,” Mrs. Hawkins said. “Dinner at noon and supper at five. You have missed supper for tonight.”

Anna looked up at the housekeeper. Was she then expected to go without food until the morning? “Will not the cook give me a piece of bread and cheese?” she asked. “Since I have come too late for supper, I would not expect anything hot.”

“There’s to be no food eaten by the staff except at mealtimes, at the master’s orders,” Mrs. Hawkins said. “You won’t get a crumb out of cook until tomorrow morning at six.” With those words, she left.

Left alone in her cheerless room, Anna sat on her narrow cot, blinking away tears. Her stomach hurt from want of food. She had eaten little at breakfast, and since then had only had half a cup of tea and a mug of ale. There was nothing for her to do but to wait until the morn, and eat her fill at breakfast.

The tiny window let little light into her room. The housekeeper had left a stump of candle in a heavy iron candlestick on Anna’s table, with the strict injunction it was to last out the month. Anna didn’t dare waste it on reading. She sat in the gloom, thinking about her father and about how her life had changed in just a few short days.

A sennight ago, she had been Anna Woodleigh, daughter of the vicar of their village. Her father, though strict in his religion and harsh on what he saw as his own failings, had loved and spoiled her. He took her on visits to all the villagers with him, and in the evenings, he had taught her all that he had learned at the university. She had not known sorrow or discontent.

Now she was Anna Woodleigh, governess to Squire Grantley’s three daughters. Her father was dead. The vicarage in which she had grown up was now the abode of a stranger. Her mother was in meager lodgings in the village. And she was alone in her rapidly darkening room, cold and hungry. Silent tears began to run down her cheeks.

When her room had grown so dark Anna could no longer see her hands in front of her, she pulled off her dress. There was a nail roughly hammered onto the back of her door. Anna felt around in the dark until she found it, then hung her dress over it. It was icy cold in her room without her dress on. Anna washed hurriedly in the cold water in her jug and then crawled into bed. The straw mattress was so thin she could feel the iron bars of her cot through it. There were no sheets, but only two rough blankets. Anna wrapped herself in the blankets and then covered herself with her shawl. She was shivering with cold, but in the end she managed to doze off into a fitful sleep.

She was awakened some time later by the creaking of her door. She lay still, wondering whether the draft had blown her door open in the night. There had been no latch to close it.

She was just about to turn over and try to doze off again, when she heard soft footsteps coming into her room.

With a start, she sat up and opened her eyes. The moon had risen and was shining in through her tiny window. It bathed the room in a soft glow. In the dim moonlight, Anna could see the figure of a man at the end of her bed. She wrapped her blankets tighter around her. “Who is it?” she demanded. Her voice sounded very loud in the stillness of the night.

“Anna, my dear,” came a voice which Anna recognized as belonging to the squire. “There is no need to be alarmed.”

“What do you want,” she demanded. “Why have you come here?”

The squire sat with a thump on the small cot next to Anna. “What do you think I have come for?” he said, as he grabbed Anna, still wrapped in her blankets, and pulled her onto his knee. “You are my servant now. You must not question what I tell you to do. You must just be an obedient little girl and do as you are bid.” He bent his head towards her, nuzzling his pointed nose and scratchy chin into her neck and breasts.

Anna struggled to get free, but he held her fast in her cocoon. At last she managed to get one arm out of the blankets. She grabbed the hair on the back of his neck and pulled on it as hard as she could. “Let me go, you beast,” she hissed at him, as she yanked. “You…you vile lecher.”

The squire drew his head up. His eyes were glittering with anger. He drew his hand back and slapped Anna hard on the side of her face. Anna felt her head snap sideways with the force of the blow. She put her hand to her face. The squire’s ring had cut her just below the eye, and she could feel drops of blood trickling down her cheek.

“Now then,” he said, his breathing heavy, “you’ve got a taste of what happens to servants who don’t do as they are told. I would advise you not to try that trick again or you might find out to your sorrow just how angry I can get when I am crossed.”

No one had ever raised their hand to her before. She sat in silent shock, her head ringing with pain, as he reached around her and unwound her blankets. She was wearing only a shift underneath. She shivered as the cold night air touched the skin of her bare arms.

“Cold, eh?” the squire asked with a chuckle, as his eyes feasted on her near nakedness. “You won’t be cold for long, I can promise you that. You’ll soon have a better covering on you than a couple of blankets. You’ll be covered by a man, and for the first time, too, I’ll warrant.”

Anna gazed around desperately for a weapon. Her eyes fell on the iron candlestick that the housekeeper had left for her on the table. If she could just get her hands on that, she would have a chance of escaping. But she knew it was just out of reach.

The squire pushed the neck of Anna’s shift down until her breasts were exposed. His greedy hands covered them, pinching and squeezing them so hard that it hurt. A small moan of pain escaped Anna’s lips.

The squire chuckled again. “So you like that, do you?” He bent his head to her breasts and took one of them in his mouth, sucking and biting on it,. It hurt.

Now was Anna’s chance to get the candlestick. She stretched forward, leaning out as far as she could go. She could almost reach it.

Her movements had the added effect of pushing her breast further into the squire’s voracious mouth. He grunted with pleasure, and began bucking into her groin with his hips. Anna could feel the hardness of him through the layers of cloth that separated them.

The candlestick was almost within reach now. Anna leaned a little closer towards the table. The squire grunted again, opening his mouth as wide as he could to take as much of her breast into his mouth as he could.

Anna’s fingers closed around the candlestick. She felt a surge of hope swell inside her. She eased back a little away from the squire. He had transferred his attention to her other breast now, and his hands were pushing up the hem of her shift. Anna held her legs pressed tightly together. She felt him try to grope in between her thighs with his furry paws.

He raised his head from her breast for a moment. “Open your legs for me,” he ordered.

Now was her chance. Anna raised the heavy iron candlestick in her hand and brought it crashing down on the side of the squire’s head.

He looked surprised for a moment, then toppled over, striking his head again on the edge of the bedstead and then slithering to the ground. Anna disentangled herself from him as he fell. She grabbed her dress from the nail, tearing it a little in her haste, and pulled it over her head with trembling hands.

She had to get away before Squire Grantley woke up again, or he would be sure to come after her. She eyed the candlestick uneasily. Ought she to hit him again before she left? She dare not risk killing him with another blow to the head.

Then the words of Mistress Weaver came back to her. “Between the legs. That’s where it hurts a man the most.” Her mind was soon made up. She did not want to soil her hands with the blood of a man, but she could not afford to be caught. Raising the candlestick high above her head, she brought it crashing down on the squire’s groin with all her might. Then she picked up her small case and hurried away down the staircase as fast as she could go.

The moon was still out, and the moonlight was just bright enough to show her the way. She clutched the valise with her few simple possessions in her arms as she ran. Each night noise seemed to her to be the sound of pursuit. Each bramble that snatched at her legs as she passed was the hand of the squire reaching out to catch her.

She was sobbing with fear and exhaustion when she finally reached Mistress Weaver’s cottage. She banged on the door with all her might. “Let me in,” she cried. “For the love of God, let me in.”

The door was opened in a trice. Anna’s mother, clad in a voluminous white nightgown, peered out into the dark with an anxious look on her face, while Mistress Weaver stood by with a candle. Anna stumbled in and threw herself on her mother’s breast, sobbing with relief.

Anna’s mother cradled her close, stroking her head and wiping away the tears from her eyes. “My love,” she whispered over and over again into Anna’s hair. “You are safe now. Nothing can hurt you here.”

Meanwhile Mistress Weaver was bustling about heating a pan of milk on the fire. When it was steaming hot, she stirred an egg into it, added a splash of ale, and brought it to Anna. “Come now, dearie,” she said as she put an arm around Anna’s shoulders and drew her to a bench. “Drink up this now, and tell us all about it.”

Anna took a sip of the hot milk. It warmed her from the pit of her stomach. In a shaking voice, she recounted all that had happened to her since she had left the cottage that afternoon.

Mrs. Woodleigh looked very grim when Anna had finished her tale. “He did not touch you more than you have said?” she asked, the tremor in her voice betraying her anxiety. “You are not holding anything back out of fear?”

Anna shook her head. “No, Mother,” she said. “I swear that he did not touch me further.”

Mistress Weaver harrumphed. “That’s not to say that he won’t the next chance he gets. You need to take her away from here, Mrs. Woodleigh, the first chance you get.”

Mrs. Woodleigh nodded. “I’m afeared you’re right,” she said, her voice shaking a little. She hugged Anna tightly. “It is all my fault. I had not thought that even a king’s man could sink so low. We will have to leave. This very night, if we can.”

Anna looked up from her milk. Her heart had stopped pounding quite so fast, but her legs felt as wobbly as swamp mud. She did not think she could go any further. Still, to escape the squire she would run until she dropped down dead. “Where can we go?” she asked. “We have no friends but in the village, and no relations that I know of.”

Anna’s mother shook her head in sadness . “I was a grand enough lady before I married your father,” she said. “My family lived in a manor house quite as big as the Squire’s, just fifty miles from here. My step-father disowned me when I married your father, and swore he would never receive me again. I swore, in my turn, that I would never ask him to.”

Anna saw a tear trail down her mother’s cheek. “I have been punished for my pride,” Mrs. Woodleigh said. “Now I would give anything to be taken in by my family, but I have not spoken to them for twenty years. I know not even whether my step-father is still alive. Or my step-brother either. He was always a kind-hearted man.”

“You must send him a letter at once,” Mistress Weaver said. “Tell him that you are on your way.”

Mrs. Woodleigh blinked away another tear. “There is no time to send him a letter.,It will take at least a sennight to receive a reply, and we must leave at once.”

Mistress Weaver nodded. “Yes, that would be best. But how will you get there? I have not even a donkey cart you can borrow.”

“We can walk,” Mrs. Woodleigh said. The doubt was clear in her voice whether they could make it. “It is not more than fifty miles.”

There was a short silence.

Then Anna spoke up. “Is it not the day that Rafe Ericson, the miller, goes to market? He always leaves before dawn. If we hurry, could we not ask for a ride from him? He would take us over halfway there, and we could walk the rest. Then we could leave this very night.”

Mistress Weaver clapped her hands together. “Just the very thing,” she crowed. She bustled to her feet and threw a shawl around her shoulders. “Now, just you get your things together, the two of you,” she ordered, “and I will go and talk to Mistress Ericson. Old Ericson will be coming round to fetch you in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, I’ll warrant you.”

In less time than Anna thought was possible, she and her mother were sitting amidst huge sacks of flour, while the donkey cart bumped and shuddered its way down the road.

Anna peeked in the small sack Mistress Weaver had handed to them just as they left. It was food, just as she had hoped. She took out a couple of apples. “Mother, will you eat an apple with me? I am hungry.”

Mrs. Woodleigh took the apple with a small, sad smile, and the two of them munched companionably as they bumped along.

Anna felt her heart grow lighter with every mile that took them further away from the squire. Each mile brought her and her mother closer to safety.

Mid-morning had arrived before they reached the market town where the miller was taking his flour. Anna and her mother clambered out of the donkey cart, rubbing their protesting muscles. Anna’s eyes felt heavy with weariness. She had not been able to sleep sitting up in the bumpy cart. She knew her mother had had no rest either. Slowly the two of them shouldered their bundles and started to walk. They still had many miles to travel.

By late afternoon, they still had more than five miles to go, and Anna was dropping with weariness. Her mother, she could tell, was in far worse shape. Anna had taken her mother’s bundle some hours ago, and her mother had barely had the energy to complain. She was plodding along, putting one step in front of the other, her back bowed and her eyes never lifted from the road in front of them. Every so often she stumbled and nearly fell.