The Binding

‘The spring?’

A sharp blue eye glinted at me from the space between his hat and scarf. ‘Your first time out here, isn’t it? Don’t worry. She always makes it through.’

With that he clicked to the shivering horse, and jolted off down our path towards the road. I stood there watching until he was out of sight, in spite of the cold.

If I’d known … I racked my brain to remember what I’d said in my letter to my family – the last one this year … But what would I have added? Wished them a happy Turning, that was all. In a way I was glad that home felt so far away, that I could stand there and feel nothing, as if the freezing air had numbed my mind as well as my fingers.

A fit of trembling seized me, and I went inside.

He was right. It snowed that night, sieving it down in a silent blizzard, and when we woke the road was hardly a ripple in the whiteness. I was meant to light the stove first thing, but that morning when I walked into the workshop Seredith was already awake and at her bench. She was watching a bird hop and flutter outside, leaving neat tracks like letters. A drift of flour from the paste she’d been mixing made it look as if the snow had come through the window.

She’d lit the stove, but I shivered. She looked round. ‘There’s tea ready. Oh, and is there anything you need? I’m writing a list for the next order from Castleford.’

‘The postman said he wouldn’t be back till spring.’ I was so stiff with cold that I nearly spilt the tea when I tried to pour it.

‘Oh, Toller’s a fool. It’s too early for winter. This will thaw in a few days.’ She smiled as I glanced involuntarily at the bank of snow that rose halfway up the far window. ‘Trust me. The real snows won’t be here until after the Turning. There’s enough time to prepare.’

I nodded. That meant I could write another letter home, after all; but what would I say?

‘Go out to the storehouse and take stock.’ I looked at the glittering snowdrifts and a thin chill ran up my back. She added, ‘It’ll be cold,’ with a glint in her eye that was half mockery, half sympathy. ‘Wrap up well.’

It wasn’t too bad when I got down to it. I had to move boxes and sacks and huge jars to see what was there, and after a little while I was panting with exertion and too warm to keep my hat on. I dumped the sack I’d been moving and leant against the side of the doorway to catch my breath. I let my eyes linger on the woodpile, wondering if it would be enough to get us through winter. If it wasn’t, somehow I’d have to find more; but in this wide bare landscape there was no wood to gather or trees to cut down. A cloud had come up to cover the sun, and a breeze whined in my ears like someone sharpening a knife a long way away. It was going to snow again. Surely Seredith was wrong about the thaw.

I should have got back to work. But something caught my eye – something too far away to see clearly, struggling along the faint line of road like an insect stuck in white paint. At last the dark blot grew into the shape of a horse, hock-high in the snow, with a fat hunchbacked speck of a rider. No – two riders, looking as small as children until I realised that the horse was a huge shaggy Shire horse. Two women, the one behind straight-backed, the other sagging in front and slipping sideways at every step. Long before I could see their faces clearly, their voices carried across the snow: a desperate mutter of encouragement, and above that the thin desolate keening I’d thought was the wind.

When they stopped in front of the house, and one woman dismounted awkwardly into the snowdrift, I should have gone to help her. Instead I watched as she struggled, coaxing and tugging and finally heaving the other woman off the horse as if she was a doll. The shrill wailing went on, high, inhuman, only hiccupping and starting again when the women stumbled on their way to the front door. I caught a glimpse of wide glazed eyes and loose tangled hair and lips bitten bloody; then they were huddled in the porch, and the bell jangled off-key.

I turned back to the ordered familiarity of the storeroom; but now there were shadows lurking behind every pile and looking out at me from every jar. Who would drag themselves through this snow, unless they were desperate? Desperate for a binding … Like Lucian Darnay. But what could a book do? What could Seredith do?

In a moment she would open the door to the women. Then she’d take them through the workshop to the locked room …

Before I had time to think I had crossed the little yard and skirted the side of the house so I could slip inside by the back door. I paused in the passageway and listened.

‘Bring her in.’ Seredith’s voice.

‘I’m trying!’ Breathless, a village accent, stronger than mine. ‘I can’t get her to – come on, Milly, please—’

‘Didn’t she want to come? If she doesn’t agree, I can’t—’

‘Oh!’ A brief laugh, sharp with bitterness and fatigue. ‘Oh, she wanted to come, all right. Begged and begged, even in this snow. And then half a mile down the road she went like a rag doll – and she won’t stop this bloody noise—’

‘Very well.’ Seredith said it without heat, but it was enough to cut her off. The wailing went on, sobbing and quavering like a trickle of water. ‘Milly? Come here. Come inside. I can help you. That’s good, now your other foot. Good girl.’

Something about her tone reminded me of when I’d first come here. I turned my head and focused on the wall in front of my face. A thin crust of windblown snow clung to the rough plaster, as intricate and granular as salt crystals.

‘That’s better. That’s good.’ It was like Pa, murmuring to an edgy mare.

‘Thank goodness.’ The woman’s voice cracked. ‘She’s gone mad. You’ll make her better. Please.’

‘If she asks me to. There we go, Milly. I’ve got you now.’

‘She can’t ask – her mind’s gone—’

‘Let go of her.’ A pause, and the keening faded a little. The other woman sniffed. Seredith added, more gently, ‘You’ve done all you can. Let me look after her now.’ I heard the workshop door open, and the three sets of footsteps: Seredith’s familiar tread, the lighter step of the other woman and a dragging, halting shuffle that made my scalp crawl.

The door closed again. I shut my eyes. I could count the time it took them to walk along the worn boards to the locked door, the moment Seredith unhooked her keys and put them to the locks … I thought perhaps I heard it open and shut again, unless it was the knock of my heartbeat in my ears.

Whatever happened behind that door, it was happening now, to the woman who looked like a wounded animal.

I didn’t want to know. I forced myself to go back to the storeroom. I still had work to do. But when I’d hauled the last sack back into place and chalked up the last numbers on the wall, it was as if no time at all had passed. It was nearly sunset, and I’d had nothing to eat or drink all day. I stretched, but even the ache in my shoulders was distant and unimportant.

When I walked into the workshop the room was dim and grey. A fine flurry of snow crackled against the windows.

‘Oh!’

I spun round, catching my breath. The other woman, not the mad one but the tall, straight-backed one who’d brought her … Stupid. Somehow I knew that everyone went in there on their own, alone with the binder. Of course Seredith would have told this woman to wait outside. I was an idiot to have jumped like that.

‘Who are you?’ she said. She was dressed in shapeless blue homespun, and her face was weather-beaten and freckled, but she spoke like I was a servant.

‘The binder’s apprentice.’

She gave me a wary, hostile look, as if she belonged here and I didn’t. Then she sank slowly back on to her seat next to the stove. She’d been drinking from my mug; a thin ribbon of steam rose from it and dispersed in the air.

‘Your … friend,’ I said. ‘Is she still – in there?’

She looked away.

‘Why did you bring her here?’

‘That’s her business.’

No, I wanted to say, no, I don’t mean that, I mean what’s happening to her, why bring her here, what can Seredith do? But I hated the way the woman had turned away, dismissing the question. I sat down, deliberately, and reached for the jar of flour-paste, rummaged in a drawer for a clean brush. I had some endpapers cut and ready to be glued out; I could do that without concentrating, while the room filled with a silent hum from the locked room …

But it wasn’t locked now. If I went and turned the handle the door would open. And I’d see … what?

A gobbet of paste dropped from my brush onto the workbench, as if someone had spat over my shoulder. The woman was pacing, her heels clicking on the floor at every turn. I kept my eyes on my work, on the dirty rag I was using to wipe the paste away.

‘Will she die?’

‘What?’

‘Milly. My friend. I don’t want her to die.’ I could hear how hard she’d tried not to say the words aloud. ‘She doesn’t deserve to die.’

I didn’t look up until I felt her come close to me. The scent of wet wool and old saddles rose from her clothes. If I looked down I could see the hem of her skirt, the old blue linsey stained along the bottom edge with splashes of mud. ‘Please. I heard that sometimes they die.’

‘No.’ But my heart turned over. For all I knew …

‘You liar.’ She swung away, her breath rasping in her throat. ‘I didn’t want to bring her. She was desperate. I said to her, an old witch, why go to the old witch? You know it’s wrong, it’s evil, stay strong, don’t give in. I should never …’ She caught herself, as if she’d realised how loudly she’d spoken, but after a moment she started again. ‘But today she was crazy, I couldn’t hold out any longer. So I brought her to this awful place, and now she’s been in there for …’ Her voice trembled and died.

‘But you said – you asked Seredith to help her …’ I bit my tongue.

But she didn’t seem to hear me, let alone realise that I’d been eavesdropping earlier. ‘I just want her back, my lovely Milly, I just want her to be happy again. Even if she has to sell her soul for it. I don’t care if it’s the devil’s bargain, whatever the old bitch has to do, all right, she can do it! Bring Milly back, that’s all. But if she dies in there …’

The devil’s bargain. Was that what Seredith did? The bitch, the old witch … I tried to lay the coloured paper on top of the white, but I missed. Clumsy hands, stupid trembling hands. Even if she has to sell her soul. But what did that have to do with books, with paper and leather and glue?

The sun came out between two slabs of cloud. I looked up into a pinkish mist of sunlight. It stung my eyes; for a split second I thought I saw an outline, a dark silhouette against the dazzle. Then the sun was gone, and the young man was too. I blinked away reflexive tears, and looked past the after-image to my work. I’d let the paper cockle, and I’d let it dry; when I tried to peel it away it ripped. I ran my thumb over the sticky white scar that ran across the feathered patterning. I had to start again.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t …’ She strode to the window. When she glanced at me her eyes were in shadow but her voice had a pleading edge. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. I didn’t mean that. Please don’t be angry. Please don’t tell her – the binder – will you? Please.’

She was afraid. I screwed up my botched endpaper and threw it away. Not just afraid of Seredith, afraid of me too …

I took a deep breath. Cut more papers. Mix more paste. Glue out the pages, lay them down, nip in the press, hang them up to dry … I didn’t know what I was doing, but somehow I carried on. When I came back to myself the room was so dim it was hard to see, and a pile of glued papers were waiting to be put between pressing boards. It was like waking from a dream. There’d been a sound, the door opening.

Seredith’s voice, dry as stone. ‘There’s tea on the stove. Bring it here.’

I froze, but she wasn’t talking to me. She wasn’t looking in my direction, she hadn’t seen me. She was rubbing her eyes; she looked drained, infinitely weary. ‘Hurry,’ she said, and the woman scurried towards her with a spilling teapot and chinking cups.

‘Is she – all right?’

‘Don’t ask foolish questions.’ A moment later she added, ‘In a minute she will be ready to see you. Then you should hurry home, before more snow falls.’

The door closed. A pause. A spray of snowflakes brushed the window like a wing. So much for the thaw. In a while the door would open again. I willed myself not to turn round when it did.

‘Come on, my dear.’ Seredith led the keening girl out into the workshop – only now she was docile, quiet.

And then they were embracing, the other woman laughing with relief, sobbing, ‘Milly,’ over and over again while Seredith slowly, deliberately locked the door behind them.

Alive, then. Sane, then. Nothing terrible had happened. Had it?

‘Thank goodness – oh, look at you, you’re well again – thank you—’

‘Take her home and let her rest. Try not to speak to her of what’s happened.’

‘Of course not – yes – Milly, sweetheart, we’re going home now.’

‘Gytha. Home …’ She pushed the tangled hair away from her forehead. She was still gaunt and grimy but not long ago she’d been beautiful. ‘Yes, I should like to go home.’ There was something empty and fragile in the words, like a cracked glass.

The woman – Gytha – led her into the hallway. ‘Thank you,’ she called again to Seredith, pausing at the door. Without anyone pushing her Milly was inert, her face so calm it looked like a statue’s. I swallowed. That uncanny serenity … It made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. My heart said, wrong, wrong, wrong.

I must have made a noise, because she looked at me. I met her eyes for an instant. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing no one there.

Then they were gone, and the door closed. A second later I heard the front door open and shut. The house sank back into the muffled snow-silence.

‘Emmett?’ Seredith said. ‘What are you doing in here?’

I turned to the bench. In this light my tools looked like pewter, and a silver smear of glue glinted on the wood like a snail’s trail. The pile of finished endpapers was all shades of grey: ashes-of-roses, ashes-of-peacock, ashes-of-sky.

‘I thought I asked you to sort out the stores.’

A draught flicked a fine sand of ice against the window and set a wire swinging above my head. There were more papers hanging there; more dim wings, more pages than we could ever use.

‘I finished. I made more endpapers.’

‘What? Why? We don’t need—’

‘I don’t know. Because it’s something I know how to do, I suppose.’ I looked round. There were rolls and rolls of book-cloth, piled like logs on the shelf, all sombre and shadowy in this silvery half-dusk. The cupboard below held goatskins, a box of leather scraps, bottles of dye … And next to it – the door was swinging open, the catch needed seeing to – the boxes of tools glinted dully, their tiny elaborate feet poking up into the light. Reels of gold foil gleamed. In front there were presses, another long bench, the board-cutter, the plough … ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘All this – to decorate books that you don’t even sell.’

‘Books should be beautiful,’ Seredith said. ‘No one sees, that’s not the point. It’s a way to honour people – like grave-goods, in olden times.’

‘But whatever happens in your locked room … that’s the real binding, isn’t it? You make books for people, in there. How?’

She made a sudden movement, but when I looked at her she was still again. ‘Emmett …’

‘I’ve never even seen—’

‘Soon.’

‘You keep saying—’

‘Not now!’ She staggered, caught herself and dropped into the chair by the stove. ‘Please, not now, Emmett. I’m tired. I’m so tired.’

I walked past her, to the locked door. I ran my hand down over the three locks. It took an effort. My shoulder prickled with the impulse to pull away. Behind me Seredith’s chair scraped on the floor as she turned to look at me.

I stayed where I was. If I waited long enough, this fear would pass: and then I would be ready. But it didn’t. And underneath it, like a sickness I hadn’t known I had, was a black misery, a sense of loss so strong I could have wept.

‘Emmett.’

I turned on my heel and left.

In the next few days we didn’t speak of it again; we only talked about the chores and the weather, treading carefully, like people edging across new ice.

IV

I woke out of a dream of fire. I opened my eyes and blinked away the flickering red light. I’d been in a palace, a maze made of flames, so high and hot they sucked the air out of my lungs, and for a moment I thought I caught the bitter scratch of smoke in my throat; but the room was dark and when I breathed all I could smell was the subtle metallic scent of snow. I sat up, rubbing my eyes.

Knocking. That was what had woken me: a hard pounding at the front door that hardly paused. And someone shouting. There was a bell jangling too, a continuous clanging like an alarum.

I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on my trousers. The boards were cold under my bare feet, but I didn’t bother about shoes. I stumbled out into the passageway and stood there for a second, listening. A man’s voice, breathless. ‘I know you’re there!’ The door juddered in its frame. ‘Come out or I’ll smash your fucking windows. Out!’

I clenched my fists. At home Pa would have reached for his rifle, and when he swung the door open whoever was there would have stammered and fallen silent. But this wasn’t my house, and I didn’t have a rifle. I crossed the passageway to knock at Seredith’s door. ‘Seredith?’ I didn’t have time to wait for an answer. I pushed it open and peered round, trying to make out where her bed was. I’d never been in this room. ‘Seredith, there’s someone outside. Are you awake?’

Nothing. I could just see the pale crumple of her pillows and rucked sheets, next to the window. She wasn’t there. ‘Seredith?’

Something muttered in the darkness. I whirled round. She was curled in a chair in the corner of the room, shielding her head as if the sky was about to fall. Her eyes were open, gleaming at me. Her face was so pale it seemed to hover in the air. ‘Seredith. There’s someone knocking at the door. Should I answer? What’s going on?’

‘Come for us,’ she muttered, ‘they’ve come, I knew they would, the Crusade, the Crusade …’

‘I don’t understand.’ My voice wavered and I clenched my fists. ‘Should I open the door? Do you want to talk to him?’

‘The Crusaders, come to burn us all, come to kill us – nowhere to run now, hide, hide in the cellar, don’t give up the books, die with the books if you must—’

‘Seredith, please!’ I dropped to my haunches in front of her, so that my eyes were at the same level as hers. I pulled gently at one of her wrists, trying to uncover her ear. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Do you want me to—’

She recoiled. ‘Who – get away from me – who who who—’

I rocked backwards, off balance. ‘It’s me! Seredith, it’s Emmett.’

Silence. The pounding stopped. We stared at each other through the dense grainy dark. I could hear her hoarse breathing, and my own. There was the smash of glass from downstairs. ‘Hey!’ the man yelled. ‘Come out here, you old bitch!’

Seredith shuddered. I tried to take her hand but she scrabbled backwards into the corner of the room, scraping frantically at the plaster. Her face was gleaming with moisture and her mouth was half-open. For a second she’d known who I was, but now she was staring past me, her lips trembling, and I didn’t dare touch her again.

I stood up. She caught at my shirt and tugged. I nearly fell. ‘Seredith.’ I peeled her fingers away one by one. They were brittle and clammy, and I was afraid that I’d break the bones. ‘Let go of me. I have to—’

I pulled too hard, and she cried out. But as she shook the pain from her wrist, her eyes seemed to clear. ‘Emmett,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘I was dreaming. Help me back to—’

‘It’s all right. I’ll go. You stay here.’ I walked into the passage on shaking legs.

The man’s voice rose, clearer now that the window had gone. ‘I’ll smoke you out! You come out here and talk to me, witch!’

I don’t know how I got to the bottom of the stairs, or slid the bolts on the front door, but suddenly I was in the open doorway. The man in front of me startled and stepped back. He was smaller than I’d expected, and his face had a pointed, ratty look. Behind him more dark figures turned their heads. One of them had a torch. So I had smelt smoke.

He squared up to me as if he thought he was as tall as I was, though he had to tilt his head back to look me in the eye. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘I’m the witch’s apprentice. Who the hell are you?’

‘Get her down here.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I want my daughter back.’

‘Your daughter? She’s not here. No one’s here but—’ I stopped.

‘Don’t try to be smart. You know what I’m talking about. You bring her book out here, right now, and give it to me. Or—’

‘Or what?’

‘Or we burn this house to the ground. And everything in it.’

‘Look around you. It’s been snowing. These walls are three feet thick. You really believe you can just set light to the house? With one torch? Why don’t you and your makeshift army—’

‘You think we’re that stupid?’ The man gestured to his friend, who hefted a covered bucket and grinned. A slosh of liquid dribbled over the side and I smelt oil. ‘You think we’d come all this way to make empty threats? You want to take me seriously, son. I mean it. Now bring me that book.’

I swallowed. The house had thick walls, and there was snow on the thatch; but I’d seen the barn at Greats Farm on fire one winter, and I knew that if the flames took hold … ‘I don’t know where it is,’ I said. ‘I—’

Seredith’s voice said, from behind me, ‘Go home.’

‘That’s her,’ one of the dark figures said. ‘The old woman. That’s her.’

The man glared over my shoulder. ‘Don’t you order me, you old hag. You heard what I said to your – whatever he is … I want my daughter’s book. She had no right coming here to you.’

‘She had every right.’

‘You mad old bitch! She sneaked out without my permission, and then she comes home half-empty – looks at me like she doesn’t even know who I am—’

‘It was her choice. All of it was her choice. If you hadn’t—’

‘Shut up!’ He jerked forwards; if I hadn’t been there maybe he would have hit her. I caught a whiff of sour beer on his breath, mixed with something stronger. ‘I know your lot. I’m not having you sell my daughter’s book to some—’

‘I don’t sell books. I keep them safe. Now leave.’

There was a silence. The torchlight danced on the man’s face. He glanced backwards, licking his lips, and his friends stared at him. His hands opened and closed like claws.

A breeze ruffled the grass and set the torch-flame fluttering. For a moment I felt a damp breath on my cheek, blowing away the scent of smoke; then it died, and the flames leapt upwards again.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right, we’ll do it your way.’ He grabbed the bucket of oil from the other man, and lumbered heavily back to the door. ‘I want that book burnt. If you won’t bring it to me, I’ll burn the house down with the book in it.’

I tried to laugh. ‘Don’t be a fool.’

‘I’m warning you. You’d better come out here.’

‘Look at us – an old woman and an apprentice, you can’t really—’

‘Watch me.’

My grip tightened on the door frame. The blood was thrumming in my fingers so hard that it felt like the wood might leap out of my grasp. I looked at Seredith. She was staring at the man, white-faced, her hair straggling over her shoulders. If I’d never seen her before I could have believed she was a witch. She said something too low to catch.

‘Please,’ I said, ‘she’s old, she hasn’t done anything wrong, whatever happened to your daughter—’