The Witch of Eye Read Free Page B

will of God.
    In unendurable pain, poor Alice died, leaving her mother, her father and her dearest friend to mourn her and wonder what sin they had committed that was sufficiently grave to cause such a loss. How had they offended God so much that He took Alice away from them?
    Jenna passed a restless night. The sensation of falling from a great height would convulse her from the brink of slumber until, finally, she abandoned all thought of sleep and slid carefully from under Jake’s arm. In the last glow of the dying embers, she lowered herself gingerly down onto the bench by the fire pit, muscle by aching muscle, until she found a moderately comfortable position.
    As she sat, she took stock of her situation. In time, she realised, she could become a vexed and resentful old woman, cowed by her husband’s callousness, the teeth knocked from her head and deaf as a post from his blows. While she was still comparatively young, her most precious possession was a lively mind in a God-given healthy body, something Alice would never have again.
    By the first light of dawn, Jenna had made her decision. She would get as far away as she possibly could from Kingskerswell and all it stood for. No matter what it took, she would get away from Jake.
    And there would be no going back.

CHAPTER TWO
    Midsummer 1435
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    W illiam Jourdemayne, dependable and honest, excelled in his work as the tenant farmer on the manorial estate of Eye-next-Westminster but, in his wife’s opinion, that was not enough. It infuriated her that he seemed perfectly content with things as they were.
    It had taken some persuasion on Margery’s part to get her husband to do what she wanted of him. Though impatient to put her plans in motion, she had realised the value of investing her time and energy over several weeks in pleasing him in every way she could, being warmly receptive towards him in their bed and readily agreeing to help him with the quarterly accounts for Abbot Harweden. She was eventually rewarded with the key to a small room just off the manor farmhouse kitchen for her own exclusive use.
    Once Margery took possession of the room, she had cupboards moved into position against three of the walls and filled them with pots and pans, jugs and funnels, bottles and ewers, pestles and mortars. There were small bowls for mixing her ingredients and bigger bowls for washing her utensils; she was scrupulously clean in her work. Above the cupboards were several high shelves where, in a series of small locked coffers, she kept the secret ingredients she used in her recipes. Bunches of summer herbs for winter use were strung up to dry above the hearth while their seeds were stored in meticulously labelled boxes. Beneath the window, a sturdy table was positioned where the light was good and next to that, fixed with great care to the wall, was a large mirror. The mirror had been an indulgence on Margery’s part; William would have been appalled if she’d been entirely truthful about the cost of it, but she had paid for it herself out of money she’d saved from selling her wares so she didn’t think it any of her husband’s business to question her purchase. Next to the mirror was a hook for her apron, but that apron was now tied around her slim waist as she worked at the table.
    Raising a phial to her lips, Margery tasted a drop of liquid which was sharp and bitter on her tongue. Good, that was about the right consistency, and the correct balance of myrrh resin to strong, sweet white wine. She couldn’t afford to make mistakes with anything as expensive as myrrh. Reaching for a small flask containing an infusion of mint leaves in boiled water, she tested the temperature of the liquid by letting a little of it drip onto the inside of her wrist. Judging it to have cooled to blood heat, she then held the flask up to the light and measured into it precisely ten drops of the tincture of myrrh, shaking the two gently together, watching the mint