So, before dawn broke I rose and went out into the garden, and gathered the things I needed. Ben lay in a heavy slumber on the bench, with an empty ale jug for company. I drew a circle in the soft earth, and placed four candles around it. In the center I made a tiny fire, with sticks of hawthorn and elder. Somebody had to help John’s spirit to go free, and to seek its new path. I could not trust these people to do the right things, even though they loved him. The flames burned small but bright and true. I fixed my mind on his weathered, solemn, steadfast face, and on all the things he had been, and I threw onto my fire handfuls of pine needles, and of thyme leaves, so that before long a sweet, cleansing smell spread across the garden. My mind pictured John as a great, spreading tree, that sheltered and guarded many within and under its wide canopy. I thought of the roots of this tree, holding firm to the earth of the valley, a living part of its deep heart. He was a valley man. Wherever he journeyed, whatever his spirit path, a part of him would always remain here. As dawn broke, I quenched the candles and scrubbed out the circle, and I spread out the last embers of the fire and covered them with sand. It was another day, and there was work to be done.

From that night on, until May Day when everything changed again, I set myself apart from the household, as if in some invisible, protective shell. I applied all my will to my task. For I sensed my enemy all around me, drawing ever nearer as spring blossomed and burgeoned into summer, as berries set on bushes, and young birds tried their wings, and the household of Harrowfield swallowed its grief and put on a brave face, in readiness for a wedding.

Instead of walking out in the early mornings, I sat in my garden spinning, for Lady Anne had provided me with distaff and spindle as she had promised. If I did venture forth, it was not to the orchard, or the fledgling forest of young oaks. At night, the guard remained outside my door. I did not look to see who it was, and the door stayed closed. I took to working in my room, even at the times when the women would gather upstairs; I did not wish to hear them talk, or endure Lady Anne’s frowning distrust or, worst of all, sit by Margery as she went mechanically about her work, blank eyed. She did not ask to see me again, and I would not go where I was not wanted. So I sat alone and told myself tales, and when I had no more energy for that, I repeated my brothers’ names over and over to myself in silence. My hands got worse, from long misuse without respite; without the daily treatment Margery had administered, they were sore and wretched. I kept on working. The pain was not important.