Page 44 of The Ladies Least Likely
St. Sefin’s was a refuge for those who would otherwise be left without relief. She had made it so. She would tear Calvin Vaughn’s guts out and dance on his entrails if he took this sanctuary away from them.
Her own rage astonished her. It wasn’t like her to be vengeful. But somehow, of all the English gentry in Wales, he knew the Suttons. And with that name he raised all her ghosts. They capered about her, mocking, screeching, tormenting her with what she had lost.
She’d put them in danger already, by deciding to take in Penrydd and then lie to him. When the wolf awoke, he would swallow them all. Penrydd had far greater power to destroy them than Calvin Vaughn.
Something was wrong at St. Sefin’s. A candle bobbed along the upper passage, where the women had their rooms. Everyone should be abed at this hour. Gwen stepped into the kitchen, her heart still beating erratically from her confrontation with Calvin Vaughn. A keening cry came from above, and a cold shiver ran down Gwen’s spine.
Dovey met her at the bottom of the night stair leading to the women’s dormitory.
“Who—?” Gwen started.
“Mathry.” The shadows hollowed her cheekbones and thinned her lips, turning Dovey’s beautiful face into a frozendeath’s mask, like those on Egyptian mummies. “She tried to purge the babe.”
“She went to the midwife?” Gwen gasped and tossed her cloak on its peg.
“Not ours. She went to the cunning woman in Bassaleg, and now she’s convinced the woman laid a curse on her and she’s going to die.”
She led Gwen to the source of the keening. Another candle burned in Mathry’s room. The girl lay in bed, her gown drenched and stuck to her with sweat. She struggled to her elbows and stared at Gwen with wide, terrified eyes.
“Don’t let it die.”
“Mathry,dynan.” Gwen hurried to her, pressing a hand to her brow. The girl was clammy, but not feverish. “Dearie. What did you do?”
“He told me to get rid of it.” Mathry burrowed her forehead into Gwen’s palm, her face crumpling. “He said he’d take me back if I did. So I went to the woman he told me of—another maid at Greenfield went there, and she was free after, and found work again. But the place was so horrid, Gwen, and she said some awful spell with smoke and incantations, and she made me drink a brew, so bitter…I’m sure she poisoned me.”
Mathry shook her head and sobbed. “As soon as I drank, I knew—I don’t want to lose it. I don’t want it gone.” She reached out both hands, tears running freely down her face. “Please help me.”
Gwen met Dovey’s eyes, her stomach slithering with fear. They didn’t need to speak. If the woman knew her herbs, she would have given Mathry something highly effective, something that could not be reversed.
“Are you bleeding? Vomiting? Voiding?” Gwen pressed Mathry’s cold hands between her own.
Mathry’s soft, dumpling face drew taut with pain. “Me belly feels like there are snakes in it. And I’ve been puking me guts out.” She nodded toward the chamber pot near Gwen’s feet, which exuded a noxious aroma.
“But bleeding,” Gwen said, just as Mathry leaned over the side of the bed to add to the contents of the chamber pot. Gwen held back her hair as she heaved. Dovey rubbed her shuddering back.
“No.” Mathry wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her shift. “Not yet.”
“Then there’s a chance,” Gwen said. “She might have only given you a purgative. Or a laxative, if she didn’t know better. Did she say what was in the brew?”
Mathry shook her head in misery. “She only asked if I had quickened. I told her no.”
“We might be able to stop you throwing, but only if she gave you something for the bowels and not the womb.” Gwen scooped her hand under Mathry’s trembling arm and Dovey moved to her other side. “We will make a tea. And walk. And pray.”
“Ein Tad,” Mathry began obediently, swinging her legs over the bed and sliding on her slippers. “Yn y nefoedd, sancteiddier dy new…”
“Not the Lord’s Prayer,” Gwen said. “Pray to St. Elen, mother of Constantine. And we will go light a candle to St Gwladys, mother of Cadog the Wise.”
Dovey grabbed Mathry’s wrapper off its peg and they shuffled down to the kitchen, the girl between them moaning with every few steps. In the kitchen, Mathry ran into the scullery to puke into the sink, then collapsed in a chair while Dovey built up the fire in the stove to heat water. Gwen ducked into her stillroom, blessing again the housekeeper at Vine Court who had imparted her knowledge of herbs. Anne Sutton’s family hadgiven Gwen much, before they robbed her of the things she most wanted.
“What will help me?” Mathry whimpered, clutching her middle. “Anything?”
“Cramp bark and black haw,” Gwen answered, carrying her precious stores into the kitchen. “Here,pwt, chew some fennel. Pen picked it for Mother Morris, but it might help your belly if she gave you a purge.”
“Hedge witch,” Mathry muttered, taking the stalk.
“That’s the Roman church that burned cunning folk for witches,” Gwen said, going through her herbs. “And the English church took up the torch. In Merionethshire, we went to the cunning woman for all our remedies. I don’t know this one in Bassaleg, and I haven’t heard well of her.”
Mathry wrapped her hands around her middle and bent forward. “I don’t want to lose it. Is it terrible that I didn’t know that until now?”
