Her Kind Read online

  Niamh Boyce

  * * *

  HER KIND

  Contents

  Bealtaine: MAY 1. Petronelle

  2. Basilia

  3. Petronelle

  4. Cathedral Hill

  Meitheamh: JUNE 5. Basilia

  6. Petronelle

  7. Basilia

  8. The Bishop’s House

  9. Petronelle

  Iúil: JULY 10. Basilia

  11. Saint Canice’s Cathedral

  12. Petronelle

  13. Basilia

  14. Petronelle

  15. Basilia

  16. Petronelle

  17. Basilia

  18. The Towns of Kilkennie

  Lughnasa: AUGUST 19. Petronelle

  20. Basilia

  21. The Bishop’s House

  22. Petronelle

  23. Basilia

  24. The Bishop’s Quarters

  25. Petronelle

  26. Basilia

  Meán Fómhair: SEPTEMBER 27. Hightown

  28. Basilia

  29. Petronelle

  30. The Court of the Seneschal

  31. Petronelle

  32. Basilia

  Deireadh Fómhair: OCTOBER 33. Petronelle

  34. The Households of Low Lane

  35. Petronelle

  36. Paradise

  37. Basilia

  38. Petronelle

  39. Basilia

  40. Petronelle

  41. The Bishop’s Court

  42. Basilia

  43. Petronelle

  Samhain: NOVEMBER 44. Basilia

  45. Petronelle

  46. Hightown

  47. Petronelle

  48. Market Square, Hightown

  49. Petronelle

  50. The Bishop’s Quarters

  51. Petronelle

  52. Basilia

  53. The Bishop’s Quarters

  54. Petronelle

  55. Kytler’s

  56. Basilia

  57. Petronelle

  58. Basilia

  59. Marketplace, Irishtown

  60. Petronelle

  61. Basilia

  Líadan

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Niamh Boyce was named Newcomer of the Year at the 2013 Irish Book Awards for The Herbalist, her first novel (‘The most entertaining yet substantial historical novel since Joseph O’Connor’s Star of the Sea’ Irish Times) which was also a Number One bestseller. She won the 2012 Hennesssy XO New Irish Writer Of The Year Award and Emerging Poetry Award for her poem ‘Kitty’. Her short fiction has been widely published in anthologies. Her Kind is her second novel.

  To my parents – Anne and Francis Boyce

  We Are Damned, My Sisters

  We are damned, my sisters,

  we who swam at night

  on beaches, with the stars

  laughing with us

  phosphorescence about us

  we shrieking with delight

  with the coldness of the tide

  without shifts or dresses

  as innocent as infants.

  We are damned, my sisters.

  We are damned, my sisters,

  we who accepted the priests’ challenge

  our kindred’s challenge: who ate from destiny’s dish

  who have knowledge of good and evil

  who are no longer concerned.

  We spent nights in Eden’s fields

  eating apples, gooseberries; roses

  behind our ears, singing songs

  around the gipsy bon-fires

  drinking and romping with sailors and robbers;

  and so we’re damned, my sisters.

  We didn’t darn stockings

  we didn’t comb or tease

  we knew nothing of handmaidens

  except the one in high Heaven.

  We preferred to be shoeless by the tide

  dancing singly on the wet sand

  the piper’s tune coming to us

  on the kind Spring wind, than to be

  indoors making strong tea for the men –

  and so we’re damned, my sisters!

  Our eyes will go to the worms

  our lips to the clawed crabs

  and our livers will be given

  as food to the parish dogs.

  The hair will be torn from our heads

  the flesh flayed from our bones.

  They’ll find apple seeds and gooseberry skins

  in the remains of our vomit

  when we are damned, my sisters.

  Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

  (translated by Michael Hartnett)

  Kilkennie Castle

  All Hallows’, 1324

  By first bell, a crowd had gathered beneath the trees. They wore cloaks lined with rabbit or vair, according to their rank. Despite the snow, they waited, watching the castle gates. They argued constantly – of the witches locked inside the Castle Gaol, which would be the first to confess? Which, if any, was innocent?

  ‘These are serious proceedings, not a play,’ Friar Bede told them. ‘Go home until the cry is raised.’ They went hungry, but they would not go home.

  As prime was rung, figures appeared at the top of the hill. The prisoners had left the confines of the gaol, but no one could say afterwards how, or by which door. Had everyone looked away, to the sky, or to their feet, at the same time? The women moved slowly. Heretics’ crosses had been stitched to their chests. Weighed down by their trailing gowns, the ladies were last. The maids, less burdened, led. One was unveiled, her hair straggling past her waist. As they neared, people blessed themselves.

  It was a strange sight, the bent figures, dark against the snow, the yellow crosses on their gowns, the bright cold sky above. The crowd muttered their names, as if counting children who had been lost. Helene, Esme, Lady Cristine, her sister, Beatrice … but where was the one they had waited for, where was the maid of Dame Alice Kytler?

  Bealtaine

  * * *

  MAY

  English rule is barbarising the Irish; the invaders have forced us to seek mountains, forests, bogs and barren places, even rocky caves, in order to save our lives, and over a long period have made us dwell in these places like wild beasts.

  The Remonstrance of the Irish Chiefs

  1. Petronelle

  We were so frightened, my daughter and I, scurrying through a maze of alleys, nervous the gatekeeper’s son would lead us astray. He surged ahead, his feet slapping the earth, his torch trailing sparks into the night. We came out into a narrow lane, and the boy stopped midway. He gestured to a stone house with large steps and an arched door. The lad strode off without speaking, whistling a soft tune, as he did so. As if without us in tow, the night was a much safer place.

  I knocked on the heavy door then tugged my daughter close, terrified of being caught after curfew, strangers inside their walls. There was no answer. I rattled the nearest shutter till a light glimmered along its edges. The door swung open and a candle was raised towards my face. There was silence, and then, the sound of breath being released.

  ‘Is it really you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  Beckoning us to follow, Alice Kytler turned and walked into a vast room. Her skirt trailed behind her, blooming from her waist like a black flower. Embers glowed from the wide hearth, where two dogs were stretched out, a dusky mastiff and a white mongrel pup. The mastiff rose and growled. His mistress hushed him and he settled back down. His companion didn’t stir beyond cocking a silky ear.

  My daughter collapsed on a cushioned bench by the wall. She was trembling as if chilled. Alice fetched furs and blankets from a fireside box and handed them to me, taking in my every aspect. I became aware of my hands, cut and filt
hy. Lines ran from her own eyes, but her skin was pale and unweathered. When I’d last seen that face, it had belonged to a different woman than the one who stood before me now.

  ‘I thought you were Roger,’ she said, ‘else I wouldn’t have opened the door.’

  ‘Roger?’

  ‘My husband – not yet home.’

  ‘Well, I’m grateful for that.’

  ‘Don’t assume you’ll have anything to be grateful for.’

  Alice went over to the fire and stoked it a little. I carried the covers to my daughter and placed a dark fur about her shoulders. Instead of being thankful, she shoved it off. ‘Take it,’ I whispered, aware of Alice’s gaze. I realized then that it was a wolf’s pelt and understood my girl’s reluctance. I offered her a wool blanket instead. She knuckled a tear from her cheek and took it. She suddenly seemed strange, flesh of my flesh, my constant companion – her skin white from exhaustion, her coils of red hair tar-black in the low light of the fire.

  Alice dragged two stools to the hearth and bid me join her. When she spoke, her voice was sharper than before. ‘You survived.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Are you here for revenge?’ she whispered.

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘So, why my door?’

  ‘We have nowhere else. I hoped Jose would –’

  ‘My father is long dead.’

  It dawned on me then that the Kytler people spoke of, the wealthiest moneylender in the country, was not Jose any longer, but the woman now taking in my hands and neck with quick assessing glances.

  ‘What did you bribe the gatekeeper with?’ she asked.

  ‘A jewelled girdle, my dagger. We need shelter, we –’

  ‘How do I know you won’t steal my silver, my husband?’

  Looking over at the bench, I saw my daughter had curled up and closed her eyes. I reached under my collar, lifted my necklace over my head and offered it to Alice. Taking it, she pressed an amber bead to her mouth.

  ‘How dull they seem now, just mere conkers.’

  ‘I’ll pledge it to your keeping, I promise we’ll leave next spring. One winter is all I ask.’

  ‘A winter bride,’ she laughed, weighing the beads in one hand, then the other.

  ‘For my girl’s sake.’

  She looked over at my sleeping daughter, took a purse from the deep folds of her dress and slipped my beads into it.

  ‘I do need servants.’

  ‘Servants?’

  ‘Yes’ – she had lowered her voice again – ‘and there must be no mention of past acquaintanceships, for servants are all you will be. Understand? The roof over your head depends on it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. You’ll have new names, English ones, if you’re to stay on in Hightown.’

  I felt careless with relief. The moneylender could call us anything she pleased.

  Someone had left smocks as thin as gauze across our beds. I placed an amber bead beneath the pillow. Unable to part with them all, I kept one back. My daughter’s pallet was alongside mine. She could barely stay awake long enough to climb into it. I didn’t rest as easily. The wolves. I’d drift off only to be awakened by their calls. Sometimes they all howled, mournful and low; sometimes it was just one. I imagined their eyes in the darkness; pictured them circling the house, nudging an unlatched door. Nonsense, I told myself. Every entrance was locked, every window secure. After a time, the howling ceased, but I still couldn’t sleep. I opened the shutter over my bed. Outside, the orchard rustled; there were pale blossoms on the trees. Beyond, the river glistened. We were safe, I told myself, strong city walls stood between harm and us. To survive here, all I had to do was serve Alice.

  She had set out my duties earlier. I was to dress her, undress her, arrange her hair, take care of her gowns, mend, embroider, carry messages to her friends and debtors. I was to oversee the hives. I was never to speak of my life before: there was to be no Gaelic, no native ways or tales. For this, my daughter and I would be safe. It seemed a fair exchange, but it was my due and Alice knew it.

  The next morning, we rose with the tolling bells. There was a knock on the bedroom door. I opened it to find a neat pile of clothes in a wicker basket. We swapped our cloaks, tunics and loose hair for maid’s smocks, kirtles and neat coifs. My daughter was silent as I untangled her curls, combed till gold glittered amongst the red and plaited it neat. I pinned the coif in place and kissed her forehead. ‘See,’ that kiss tried to say, ‘we are as we always have been, mother and daughter, new names don’t matter.’ With the white linen framing her sulky face, she looked pure as a novice. We hurried downstairs for our instructions. Our time is not our own any more, I reminded her, our time belongs to Alice Kytler.

  The mastiff barked as we entered the hall. My daughter sidled towards him, and he quietened. She scratched his head; the brute was meeker than he looked. The windows were glazed with thick glass, sallow as pondweed, making the lane outside appear green. Seeing it in daylight, I realized the room was even larger than I had thought. Rush mats were strewn about the earthen floor. Some stools and a bench were set by the fire, along with a carved wooden chair. A folding screen stood behind it, its green panels closed like a fan.

  I noticed a huge tapestry on the far wall. Thinking it familiar, I went closer. A border of golden suns surrounded panels of hunters, beasts and angels, woven in reds, oranges and blues. I caught my breath. The last time I’d seen it, the angel’s wings and hunter’s tunic were still bright skeins in my mother’s basket. I remembered the snippets of thread clinging to her cuffs, her bandaged fingers raising the warp, shuttling thread through as the pattern grew. Líthgen was a wonderful weaver. I was not as gifted but loved working the loom. I had carried my shuttle with me when I fled Flemingstown as a girl, my smooth little boat, its bobbin fat with crimson thread.

  ‘After father died, I meant to have that tapestry taken down …’

  Alice stood beside the screen, draped in a violet gown. She was more ornate, less homely, than the previous night. She had not changed as much as I had thought.

  At her bidding, we followed our new mistress behind the screen. There, wide steps led down to a rough-hewn door. She pushed it open on a smoky, sunlit room. A cauldron steamed on the crook in a huge hearth. Leverets hung from its lintel. Herbs and onions were strung from the beam above a long table where two servants sat preparing a meal. Beyond them, a door opened out on to a courtyard where hens pecked the ground and a thin boy brushed a stout piebald. Alice led us to the doorway and bid us to look out.

  ‘Herb plot, latrine, stable, vegetable rows, rose garden, orchard, hives … and the land down to the river? All mine. And the latrine seats three at a time.’

  The servants had risen to their feet; they both wore white kerchiefs on their heads. The elder was dressed in a brown kirtle and a linen apron. Tall, stout and tidy, her brows and lids were completely bald, her eyes grey. She was the cook, Alice told us, and her name was Esme. The younger maid was slight, with eyes too dark for her complexion. The string of her apron went twice around her narrow waist. She was called Helene. Alice gestured towards us.

  ‘This is my new maid, Petronelle de Midia, and her girl, Basilia.’

  Helene dipped into a crock and offered my daughter an oat cake. She didn’t answer, just stared at the glossy strand of hair that spilt from the maid’s cap and down her neck. I realized then that it had been some time since my daughter had spoken.

  The rest of that day passed swiftly, with much pounding up and down the stairs behind Alice. She chanted instructions as she mimed the way a lady’s gown was laced, her wimple pinned, where and how her clothes were to be stored. I was shown which tray to carry up for each meal, for, unless there were guests, the dame dined in her chamber. I was shown how to wait discreetly, with my back to the wall, at those times that I would not be needed. The sun set without my seeing its face.

  That night, I joined the servants in the kitchen. At the very least it would be warm. In tr
uth, I wanted to be apart from my girl and her silent brooding. They sat at the table, which had been dragged near the hearth. Half a dozen tapers gave a dim light. The boy I’d seen brushing the piebald sat on the floor paring a whistle. No one had seen fit to tell me his name. ‘Milo,’ he answered when I asked, going back to his whittling with a blush. Helene was splitting peas into a bowl and popping every second one in her mouth. The cook wore filthy white gloves; she was chopping mushrooms and adding them to a saucer of milk.

  ‘A sauce?’ I asked, as I joined them.

  ‘Yes,’ she laughed, ‘for the flies.’

  I didn’t understand.

  ‘The mushrooms are venomous, see.’

  Esme pointed at the windowsill, and then at a nook of shelves in the corner: on each were saucers, with flies floating on the surface. She peered at me.

  ‘So, what brought you to Hightown?’

  ‘This is a good place,’ I answered.

  ‘If you don’t mind being tamed, and named like a pet,’ said the cook.

  ‘There are worse ways to keep warm,’ I said.

  ‘True, true,’ she said, shrugging.

  ‘Has Alice’s husband come home yet?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, he finally showed his face. You should’ve heard them arguing, the tongue on Alice.’

  ‘She was worried perhaps,’ I said. ‘She must’ve been, to sit up so late.’

  ‘The mistress only waits up to make sure Sir Roger locks the door,’ interrupted Helene. ‘She wouldn’t care if he never came home. “Let monks, poets and fools sing of love, I’ll measure my life by silver” – that’s what Dame Alice says.’

  The Alice I knew used to mock merchant wives who slept with their silver. This woman they spoke of – she didn’t sound like the girl I remembered.

  ‘What were the two of them fighting over?’ asked Helene.