The Tanner’s Son

Nicholas was deeply in love – but he knew there could be no future with Roisin here in Ireland . . .

The Story So Far

NICHOLAS LECHE has succeeded on his business trip to Ireland – where he was sent by his parents WILL and JANE in an attempt to reel in his rambunctious ways – negotiating a better deal with trader DIARMAID O’HARE than even his father had hoped for. Pleased to read of Nicholas’s success, back in Chester Will and Jane set their minds to freeing their herbalist friend MARGERY from the gaol, where she’s being held on suspicion of witchcraft. Will has had to step away from the tanning business to consult a lawyer in the affair. Jane’s mother, CONSTANCE, is ill with a sweating sickness spreading through the city. Their frail youngest child, NANETTE, also has a fever, and Jane uses Margery’s tinctures to aid them both. EDMUND, Nicholas’s younger brother, who has taken over the running of the business while his parents are preoccupied, is finding custom difficult to retain due to the family’s association with Margery. He is also falling in love with JESSICA AMERY, Nicholas’s betrothed. Eventually, Jane is allowed to visit Margery in the gaol. When the gaoler interrupts with news of the High Sheriff’s wife coming down with the sweating sickness, Jane hatches a plan to have Margery care for her, thus potentially saving herself, and sends Edmund to convince the High Sheriff to let her try. Back in Ireland, Nicholas has fallen dangerously in love with Diarmaid’s daughter, ROISIN, but he knows there can be no future between them and he must return to Chester. On his return from another clandestine meeting with Roisin, he’s presented with a letter from his mother. What could be the news?

NICHOLAS hurried to the seclusion of his turret chamber and, with mounting trepidation, broke the seal on the letter from Chester.

His mother began by expressing her wishes that he was well and praising him for the Irish deal. I fear my next words are not good, Jane continued. The city is in the throes of the worst attack of the sweating sickness in living memory. Your grandmother is gravely ill with it. Rest assured, Nicholas, that so far Nanette has escaped the scourge. We think she suffers from nothing more than her usual bouts of summer fever which come and go. Please God it remains so. We do all we can to keep safe. We walk the streets with pomanders held to our noses to ward off the ill humours and burn cleansing herbs inside. Edmund has been a godsend, taking control in the office whilst your father and I are both otherwise occupied. Which brings me to another unfortunate matter. It concerns your aunt Margery. She languishes in the city gaol whilst your father endeavours to procure her release. He is currently in London Town consulting a renowned man of law there. This is his third visit. We fear that even should your father’s plea be successful, it may come too late for Margery, with the Chester Assizes having begun and High Sheriff

Benjamin Wright coming down heavily on cases of suspected witchcraft. As I write this, Edmund is at the Town Authorities Office in the Pentice, speaking with Master Wright, whose wife Dorothea is brought down with the sickness. It struck me that Margery, above anyone, is capable of nursing Dorothea back to health and in so doing might save her own skin. Edmund fears bringing the High Sheriff’s attention to Margery’s name might be the very thing to condemn her, but it is at least a chance for her. My dearest son, though I miss you greatly I would advise you not to return home just yet. We live in fear of contamination and the death knell tolls hourly for the souls who have been lost to the pestilence. Please convey my regards to your host and tell him we look forward to dealing with him again. Stay safe, my love. Pray for your grandmother’s return to health and for Margery’s release. I shall keep you informed. Your loving mother, Jane.

“Dear God in heaven!” Nicholas ran his hand over his hair.

He was left wondering if his brother’s appeal to the High Sheriff had been fruitful. Certainly Edmund stood every chance of winning him over.

His talent for tact and diplomacy and sheer honesty of character had been advantageous to them in the past.

No word of Jessica. Nicholas wished her well.

As to himself, had it not been for his mother’s plea he might have felt moved to head homewards, but for one factor. Roisin.

His feelings for her far surpassed any he had ever experienced before. And those feelings were returned, may heaven help them both.

****

“It’s been three days, and not a word,” Edmund said, gazing out of the office window at the ornately timbered walls of the Pentice that rose above the others of the town. He turned to face his mother.

“I have to question what the High Sheriff does with his time.”

“To be fair, he will have other matters to address. And I expect he is loath to leave Dorothea’s side.

“Jenny Pole heard at the market that a medic from London Town had been sent for. ”

Edmund gave a snort. “The poor woman could be dead before the medic got here. And are you sure of Jenny’s reasoning? The girl is not exactly gifted in wits!”

“Edmund! This is not like you at all. Jenny tries hard and I suspect Martha is none too patient with her.

“But there, Martha has much to cope with just now, taking charge of matters in the house whilst I am with your grandmother.”

“How does Grandmother fare?”

Jane sighed.

“Not good. She hovers between delirium and flashes of lucidity. Biddie scarcely leaves her side.”

There was a tap on the door and Casper Jarvis, clerk of works, came in with a handful of mail.

“This has just arrived, sir. The regular orders should be coming in but so far there have been few.

“’Tis this confounded sickness. Everything at sixes and sevens.”

About to riffle through the mail, Edward recalled that the Jarvis family were blighted with the scourge.

“What of your own, Jarvis?”

“Not good, sir.” “Caspar, I’m sorry,” Jane put in swiftly. “If you need to go home to assist your wife . . .”

“Nay, madam, thank you. Eliza is capable and I am best here.”

He bowed and withdrew. “It is heart-breaking,” Jane said.

“Aye. And there’s not much to cheer in the letters. Ah, here’s one from Father. See what he says, Mother. It may be encouraging news. God knows, we need it.”

Jane took the letter and read it hastily.

“No, nothing yet. Your father says the lawyer is giving the case every consideration and has put it before the relevant authority.

“He warns that there are many such cases and we must be patient.” “Patient!”

“I know, it is not easy. Your father adds that confirmation of the order for tooled leather book boards for Lord Sowerby’s new library should be in by now. Has there been any sign of it?” Edmund shook his head. “None. I think we can forget that one.

“The sickness is not the only reason for cancellations and delays. It’s this matter with Aunt Margery. It’s damaging for us.

“Not that she is to blame,” Edmund was quick to add. “I just wish Master Wright would let us know where we stand.”

****

Word came the next day. Edmund, standing before the imposing figure of the High Sheriff of Chester, was filled with apprehension.

“Sir? You requested my presence?”

“I did, Leche.” Benjamin Wright looked grave. “This woman you profess to be of good repute.” “Goodwife Denny, sir.” “Aye. I’m told you have long-standing family connections. Did your grandsire know her?”

“He would have, sir. Margery Denny was housemaid with us for several years.

“Of course, I never knew my grandsire. He died before I was born.”

“Nicholas Hatton was a good man and a loyal friend. I had every respect for him.

“Am I right in thinking Mistress Denny took on the role of goodwife after leaving your service?” “That is so.”

“I have made enquiries. There were those who were understandably reticent over speaking out. Some, however, were forthcoming.

“The city tanner, Elijah Amery, was one. He could not speak highly enough of Mistress Denny.

“She was apparently treating him for a painful and debilitating ailment. He stressed how greatly he depended upon her remedies.

“The daughter, too, had nothing but good to say of the woman, I believe here, too, is a connection.” Edmund nodded. “Jessica Amery is betrothed to my brother.

“As I understand it, Goodwife Denny cured Jessica of a serious childhood illness. Jessica feels for ever in her debt.”

“Yes, she said as much. She spoke out in Mistress Denny’s favour on behalf of many people in the town. The same can be said of several others.”

The High Sheriff stroked his short-pointed beard.

“On the strength of this, Leche, and taking into consideration that conventional treatment has failed my dear wife, I have opted to act upon your mother’s recommendation.

“Mistress Denny’s remand in custody is waived so that she may attend my wife. Waived, not dismissed.”

“I understand, sir. I can vouch she will do her utmost to restore your lady to health,” Edmund said.

“Please God you are right,” the High Sheriff replied.

Jubilant, Edmund hastened home to relay the promising outcome to the anxious household.

****

In her cell in the city gaol, Margery had just finished the food Jane had brought her when the dreaded approach of

“Mistress Denny’s remand in custody is waived”

heavy footsteps caused her to stiffen.

She waited, fearful, as the key turned in the lock and the door was flung open

“You’re to come with me, ladyship,” the gaoler said. Margery’s fear mounted. “May I ask on what grounds?”

In spite of her best efforts her voice trembled. So this was it. She was to be marched to the Assizes to be told what fate had in store for her.

She would be a fool to hope for anything more lenient than a quick end. She swayed on her feet. “Bear up, ladyship. By order of the High Sheriff you are to be escorted to his residence to treat his lady wife of the sweating sickness.

“And may all that’s good be on your side.”

Margery stared at him in utter bewilderment.

“I . . . I am to nurse Mistress Wright? How has this come about?”

“’Tis not for me to know. Look lively, now.”

“But I cannot grace anyone’s house as I am. I must make myself presentable. And there are treatments I must collect from my stillroom.”

“Happen all that is in hand. My orders are to give you over to a guard, and to make haste about it. Best we go, ladyship.”

Weakened from the long weeks of confinement, Margery stumbled after the gaoler along the maze of dark, dank passageways that stank of squalor and despair, and came abruptly out into blazing sunlight.

She stood a moment, squinting against the brightness and taking in great gulps of city air that was not of the best quality, yet preferable to that of her cell.

“The prisoner,” the gaoler announced, and handed her over to a guard.

Her arm was roughly taken and she was marched out of the prison precincts and under the arched gateway of the Northgate, heading for the fresher environs beyond, where her cottage and others replaced the centuries-old timber and wattle constructions destroyed by fire some years previously.

Tears blurred Margery’s vision when she saw the home she had thought never to see again.

But when her gaze cleared and alighted on a swirl of woodsmoke rising from the chimney, she was seized with alarm.

Who was there? Had someone else taken residence in her absence?

“Make haste!” her escort said, spurring her forwards.

The garden had changed while she had been away.

At her friend Jane’s instruction, the outside lad Dickon had done his best to keep things tidy, but her herb beds were overgrown and needed cutting back.

Still apprehensive as to what – or who – she might find in the house, Margery was thrust inside to the scented sweetness of her parlour, and met the startled gaze of Jane’s maidservant Jenny Pole.

“Jenny! When I saw the smoke I thought . . . I know not what!”

“Goodwife? Is it you? Dear heart, what have they done to you?”

“Nothing a soapy cloth cannot put right. Is there water on the boil?”

“There is, ma’am. I were about to scrub the floor.”

“Leave that for now and help me fetch in the wash-tub from the scullery.

“Then fill it with water as hot as bearable, while I raid my bedchamber coffer for a set of clean clothes.”

There was a soft mewling at Margery’s feet and the snowy form of Puss began weaving around her ankles.

She went to fondle her cat, earning a sharp rebuke from her escort.

“Hurry, woman. My orders are to waste no time.”

Margery straightened. “Peace, my good fellow. There are matters which must be accomplished before I will contemplate setting foot in a sickroom.

“Have the goodness, would you, to wait outside while I prepare myself.”

A short while later, tingling from a scrubbing from top to toe, her hair cleared of lice with a pungent treatment of her own making and rinsed in rosemary water, Margery was feeling more herself.

She had lost weight during her sojourn in the gaol and her blissfully clean gown hung loosely on her.

Margery pointed to the discarded pile of filthy clothes on the floor.

“Jenny, take those rags outside and burn them. Then clear up in here.” “Yes’m.”

Once the maid was gone, she darted a glance through the lead-paned window.

Her guard was standing by the garden gate, an anxious frown betraying his impatience.

Well, he would just have to wait! Margery went through to her stillroom to investigate her shelves.

All looked worryingly depleted, and she was transported back to the fateful day of her capture.

She saw again her simples box crashing to the ground, her captor’s boot smashing the polished rosewood to smithereens, its precious contents shattering into shards, the essences and tinctures of hours of labour spilling in bright pools.

But there was no place here for regret. Steeling herself, Margery found a leather satchel to replace the simples box and looked again at her shelves.

Feverfew she had in plenty, also elecampane, woundwort and marjoram.

Yarrow to cleanse the blood, valerian root to relax and soothe, phials of ready-made tinctures and essences, not of the greatest potency, since time had passed since they had been blended.

All went into the satchel. Little cloth pouches of cleansing herbs for burning – by her own instruction Jane had helped herself to these, though some uncanny foresight had spurred her into making more this time. She tipped the lot into the satchel.

The phial of tincture and other items destined for

Jane she wrapped in a square of linen and returned to the parlour, where Jenny had emptied the wash-tub and was now wiping the floor.

“Jenny, hide this parcel under the dusting cloths in your basket and listen carefully. It is for Miss Nanette and Mistress Hatton.

“Tell your mistress that this is not the tincture I normally provide for Miss Nanette, but a less specific one.

“Give two drops in watered wine to Mistress Hatton every hour. For Miss Nanette, half the dose. Mind me, Jenny?” Jenny gazed blankly. “A tincture, ma’am?” “To help arrest the fever, yes. Convey to your mistress that I do not have any of the usual fever tincture made up.

“Remember, one drop in watered wine on the hour for Miss Nanette and double the dose for Mistress Hatton.”

Margery tensed as the rattle and clop of a horsedrawn vehicle was heard approaching the gate.

“Ho there, goodwife! The carriage is here. Are’t ready yet?” the guard hollered from outside.

“I am coming,” Margery called back.

Aware that this was an eleventh hour rescue and by no means a certain one, she donned the cloak that Jenny handed her, picked up her bulging satchel and went out to join her escort.

All now depended upon her good wifery skills and the uncertain hand of fate.

****

“Think hard, Jenny. What exactly did Goodwife Denny say?” Jane asked the maidservant in the small parlour of the house on Talbot Row.

On the table between them was the bulbous phial of greenish tincture, a tall earthenware bottle of cooling lotion and a smaller one of inhalant.

The latter two were familiar but the oddcoloured tincture gave pause for thought.

“Jenny?”

The girl’s face screwed up in concentration. “She said I were to give you this. ’Tis to make Miss Nanette and Mistress Hatton better.”

“Yes, but is this the tincture I usually have?”

“I . . . I think there were summat said about time not permitting,” Jenny said, some latent memory having surfaced in her clouded mind.

Sweeping and scrubbing she delighted in. Anything else defeated her.

Jane sighed inwardly. The tincture was of a darker hue than the usual and she knew how potent Margery’s simples were.

An incorrect dosage could do more harm than good.

“Did you learn how the tincture should be administered? Think, girl. What did the goodwife say?”

Tears of frustration came to Jenny’s mild brown eyes.

“I . . . I can’t remember exactly, ma’am. Drops, she said. In wine. Watered wine, that were it.”

“Would it be a specific dosage for the adult and half for my daughter?”

Jenny stared dumbly and Jane gave up. She would just have to use her own discretion.

“Very well, Jenny. You may go.”

Once the girl had made herself scarce, Jane took up the tincture, selected a flagon of wine from a display on the cabinet by the door and headed for Nanette’s bedchamber, where Martha Renfrew was in attendance.

As she ascended the stairs she heard Edmund riding out of the stableyard and wondered where he was going.

Some business matter, no doubt. She hoped he would not be away too long.

****

In the deep heart of the Flookersbrook woodland, not far from where Margery was being shown into the sickroom of the High Sheriff’s house, an afternoon hush had descended.

Dismounting in the cool shadows of the beeches, Edmund helped Jessica from her mare and led her to the fallen log they had claimed as a seat.

“It’s good to be away from the flurry and worries of the town,” Jessica said. “If it were up to me . . .”

She paused, and Edmund gave her a smile. “Yes?”

“I would have a house in the country. With a big garden and a high wall around it. It would be more peaceful than living on a busy street.”

“There are times when I feel the same. Being in the town has its benefits but I would question living at one’s place of work.

“The clock was striking midnight as I headed for my bed last night.”

“You should take more care and get your rest.”

“Aye, well, there is much to be done.” Edmund paused.

“You know, when I was a boy I used to escape to the meadows and write poetry. I made a den in the willows on the riverbank.

“Nicholas tracked me down there. He snatched my book of verse and flung it into the water. I landed him a thump and he fell in after it.”

Jessica chuckled. “There then, boys will be boys! Have you always penned verse? I loved the poem you gave me about the Bickerton Hills. I could imagine myself there.”

“I have another for you.” Edmund reached into his doublet and produced a folded sheet of parchment.

“Wait until you get home. Read it in private.”

She tucked the item into her reticule, and then looked up at him.

It was a moment of perilous intimacy.

There was no arguing with the fact that they loved each other. He knew it, and she knew it.

“Edmund, what are we going to do?” Jessica asked in a low voice.

“For the moment, nothing. My aunt Margery believes that if something is meant, events will work out in its favour.”

“Wise words?” Jessica looked down at Nicholas’s betrothal ring on her finger.

It was a pretty thing. Edmund knew how proud she had been to wear it.

Now, it seemed to mock them.

“Aunt Margery is a wise person,” he said firmly.

“Indeed she is.” Jessica shook her head in selfrebuke. “Our worries are little compared with hers.

“Don’t you wonder how she fares at Larchlea House?

“A goodwife can only do what is in her power and the sweating sickness is a greedy monster.”

“We must pray for her, my sweet,” Edmund said.

****

Under the watchful gaze of a servant in a far corner of the bedchamber in the High Sheriff’s house, Margery bathed the face of her patient with spring water laced with cooling essences.

“So good,” Dorothea croaked through lips that were cracked and blistered.

On her arrival Margery had flung open the windows to change the foetid air.

Dishes of physic herbs smouldered fragrantly and the fire, which had given out tremendous heat, was kept to a minimum.

Cool and fresh was the order of the day. The patient had been gently washed and put into a clean night-robe, the soiled bed-linen changed for freshly laundered.

“Hush, lady. Do not tire yourself. Rest and let the healing scents do their work,” Margery said.

A gentle tap on the door indicated the return of a manservant from the market with a list of requirements from Margery – the herbalist’s stall there being more suited to her needs than the apothecaries of the town.

When the door opened, however, it was not the manservant but the tall figure of the High Sheriff himself.

He carried a clothwrapped package and, seeing Margery go to rise, gestured her to remain seated.

“Peace, mistress. I don’t wish to disturb but Jennings is just back with your order. I thought to deliver it myself.”

Quietly for so heavy a man, he approached the wasted figure in the curtained tester bed.

Two high spots of colour stained his wife’s cheeks; her breathing was ragged.

“She is not as restless as she was, my lord. The fever has yet to break.

“Once it does we shall know better what her chances are.”

Margery spoke honestly. She saw no point in raising false hopes and Dorothea was sick indeed.

Whether to her own detriment or not, she was not prepared to spare the truth and she saw Benjamin Wright’s bushy brows rise in surprise.

“You are outspoken, madam. The medic I had in went into great lengths on the merits of bleeding. Didn’t help much, I fear.”

“No. The ill humours of this disease do not live in the blood but in the nasal passages and throat.

“And at worst, they travel to the lungs.”

“Dorothea has not reached that stage?”

“No sir. I shall do all I can to keep the breathing passages clear. Did your man obtain everything on my list?”

“He said as much. The herbalist sprang to attention once your name was mentioned.

“Seems you are held in high regard, mistress.”

“One acquires one’s name on merit, sir. If I might have the package? I must make up the tinctures at once.”

“Then I shall not hinder you further. If there is ought else you need, you have only to say.” The High Sheriff pressed a kiss on his wife’s brow and left.

Margery made a bid for calm. She alone knew how badly her patient fared and the administrations of the medic had done nothing to help matters.

For all her bold words,

the spectre of the city gaol hung over her still. If she failed to cure the woman, what then?

Shaking the thought aside, she removed the wrappings of the package.

All was present and correct and the herbalist, good man, had thought to include a pestle and mortar, a measuring globe and a small set of scales.

Grateful, Margery took her supplies to the table placed under the window where the light was best, and was soon immersed in a world of measuring, blending and stirring.

And discreetly, so as not to arouse the suspicions of the watcher in the corner, she applied a touch of healing of her own.

****

October was here and the light at Drogheda was subtly changed. The wind had a harder edge to it and the greens of the landscape were not so intense.

“Winter beckons,” Roisin said, looking up at Nicholas from the back of her mare.

“Shall you be here till spring, do you think?”

“I cannot say, sweeting. There has been no further word from my mother.

“Your father has been a most generous host but I cannot impose on his good nature indefinitely.”

“Doesn’t he relish your company? You are the son he never had. More so than Fergal will ever be.”

She wore his ring, a huge emerald that flashed green fire in the candlelight as she entertained them all on her small harp in the great hall each evening.

Nicholas thought the ring too big for her small hand.

“I doubt your sire would be pleased if he knew how it was between us.”

“Ah, don’t! We must make the most of this extra time together.”

“True, though I would prefer it not to be like this.

“All this subterfuge, discretion at every turn, when I want to shout it from the rooftop that we belong together.

“Maybe one day I shall. We must be patient.”

Roisin grimaced. “The day I was born the angels were not overgenerous with patience. But I will try.

“Tell me more of your family at Chester. Your sister, Nanette. How does she look?”

“Like a moonbeam, silvery and transient. She has the voice of an angel.”

Strangely, at that moment he seemed to hear the echo of Nanette’s singing, borne on a current of air. He stiffened in the saddle, his ears straining.

He felt Roisin’s hand on his arm.

“What is it?” “Nothing. Just the wind in the grass. There is rain coming. Best we head back, my sweet.

“I shall ride with you as far as the headland and then we must take our separate ways.”

“Promise me this. Tonight, after supper and I have entertained with a song, will you meet me?

“In the passageway to the inner courtyard where no one ventures.”

“For sure, wouldn’t a goodnight kiss make my dreams all the sweeter?”

He laughed gently. How could he refuse her anything?

Later, darkness outside and the hiss and hammer of rain everywhere, Nicholas headed for the given place, where Roisin was waiting.

She tasted of the honeyed mead they had been served at supper and it went to his head faster than any he had consumed that evening.

One kiss led to another, and locked in an embrace, neither of them heard the outer door opening or the soft approach of feet and the tapping of wolfhounds’ claws on the stone floor of the passageway.

It was the howl of pure outrage that caused them to look up and see the bulky form of Roisin’s father.

Nicholas felt a cold wave of despair wash over them.

Gently, he released his hold of Roisin and prepared to meet his fate.

To be continued.