Blonde Roots Read online

  Mam had to send little Madge off to Old Sarah, who lived all the way over at Sheepwash. Somehow she made it and Old Sarah came rushing in through our door, sending Madge to heat up some water while I was safely disentangled.

  Then I was swaddled from head to toe in linen bands so that I didn’t grow up deformed, and she made a caudle of spiced wine for Mam, to keep her health and spirits up.

  Old Sarah lived alone, had never married, had no kids, owned a cat, Tibbles, and was over fiftv-all of which should have been enough to see her tied up in a sack and drowned in the river for witchcraft. She also practiced the herbs and was known for her healing powers, which could have got her burned alive at the stake outside the church at Duddingley. She was lucky not to have been stripped naked in search of extra teats (from which her imps suckled), inspected for a telltale mole (a sign she was “consorting” with a demon), pricked by a witchpricker to see if she could bleed, had her shack searched for a pile of stolen, moving penises that fed on oats or corn (as they do); failing all of that, a few days of good old-fashioned torture would have seen her confessing to flying on poles, changing into an animal, taking part in witches’ Sabbaths and having sexual intercourse with the Devil.

  But so many of us owed our lives to Old Sarah that when malice-laced gossip began the rounds-that she was the reason for the Copplestones’ mysteriously diseased cow, or the latest Durridge child’s freakish sixth toe, or the surprise storm that struck young Jennet Briggs down stone dead in the middle of summer-there were many to defend her.

  She died in her sleep long before I could get to thank her.

  They searched her body after her death, but no unusual markings or extra breasts were found, to the disappointment of some.

  When Pa came home after my birth, he gathered me up and took me outside, and, as was the Scagglethorpe family tradition, held his latest swaddled bundle up to the heavens with outstretched arms.

  It was dark but there was a full moon, which shone directly onto me, providing a luminous, otherworldly glow, apparently.

  “I name you, my dearest, treasured new daughter, Doris Scagglethorpe,” he said, his voice throaty with emotion.

  “Doris Scagglethorpe-behold the only thing greater than yourself.”

  IT

  Ten years later I was “it” in a game of hide-and-seek, and Madge, Sharon and Alice were singing out that my days were numbered.

  I’d given them the slip and was hiding behind some bushes at the end of the field. I remember peeping from behind the bush to see if they were making their way up to me when an arm hooked itself around my waist and carried me into the fringes of Coppice Forest, which bordered the fields.

  It was so unexpected that before I had time to struggle or scream I was in the forest and a sack was slammed down over my head. I felt myself being lifted up again and flung over a brawny shoulder so that my head hung down over his back and the sackcloth grazed my cheeks.

  Then he was running. I’d not seen my assailant and no one had seen me leave. I couldn’t breathe properly, my hip bones dug into his shoulder, my head filled with blood that began to stream out of my nose. I remember that I wet myself.

  It was as fast and shocking as that.

  DAYLIGHT ROBBERY

  When I had gone some distance slung over my kidnapper’ s shoulder, bouncing like a ball against the hard muscles of his back, my woolen dress and petticoats ridden up, his coarse hands clasping my knees so firmly the blood stopped flowing, he suddenly stopped and dumped me on the ground like a sack of beets.

  I lay there crumpled in a heap, not knowing my arse from my elbow, quite literally, while he untied the sack and dragged it off my head.

  I rubbed my giddy eyes and adjusted to my head sitting back on top of my neck, where it belonged, and clutched a stomach that had not, miraculously, turned itself inside out. My kidnapper started unraveling a chain from a leather pouch. I heard the grating of the links as they scraped against each other, and snuck a look at his face. A rusty old iron helmet was pulled down over his eyes, and his beard was busy with gray streaks. His face was vivid with crimson blotches, his nose covered with the red veins and blackened pores of the old drunkards who lolled about on the village green while their wizened wives begged for alms outside the church. I could see he needed a drink now because he kept twitching, the same way they did, as if flies were landing on different parts of his anatomy, which he tried to shrug off.

  He appeared like a giant to me. Surely he wasn’ t a man at all but one of those evil ogres in the legends Pa loved telling us around the hearth on winter nights.

  I recognized the muddy green-and-yellow checked kilt worn by the Border Landers. When he finally spoke, it was in the thick brogue of that foreign tongue. He barked some kind of warning at me, using body language that required no interpreter.

  If only I’d not been in shock. If only I’d been older, wiser, more quick-witted, braver, I might have taken that one chance to run away. I was a fast runner. He was too cumbersome to be agile. I was unshackled. I still recognized that part of the forest. It would soon be dark. I would have found my way home.

  If only I’d known then that I had already lost my family and neighborhood, that I would soon lose my name, my language and my country, then my stupid legs might have taken the risk-I’d have dashed into the undergrowth without a backward glance.

  Then it was too late, the man cocked his head, turned and lumbered toward me, grabbing my legs so that I fell onto my back and my skirts once more rode indecently up my legs. He bound my mouth with a rag, fastened my hands with rope, and placed an iron collar around my neck to which he attached a chain with workaday expertise.

  He began to lead me deeper into the forest following the track cleared by Gervase the beekeeper.

  It was a Sunday. Gervase would be at church all day.

  WE CONTINUED ON OUR WAY: me following the swish of his muddy kilt, the ingrained dirt in the creases at the back of his knees, the contraction of his wide shot-putter’ calves, his scuffed, chipped clogs.

  He gained momentum with each stride, holding a stake in one hand with which he stabbed the ground. His clogs crushed and crunched the branches and leaves beneath them.

  He walked so quickly I choked against the iron collar like a billy goat being dragged up a hill.

  I wanted to tap him on the shoulder and tell him that I wasn’t one of the local poachers and I wasn’t a prisoner of war, either, and that I’d never stolen anything in my life, except for skimming off cream when I was sent to collect milk in the morning, but all my sisters did that so please let me go, sir.

  If only I’d known then what I know now; that I was a prisoner of someone whose conscience had signed a contract with the Devil long ago.

  I belonged to him now.

  The weak sun started its weary descent toward the east. I could tell we had walked many hours. I also knew from the position of the sun which direction would take me home, even though I was now in a part of the forest I no longer recognized. My first hours of bondage had an almost instant maturing effect. Once the initial shock had passed, my mind began to plot with the cunning of an adult’s. If he ever let go of the chain, I’d beat it into the thicket and follow the stars and moon home.

  I kept looking behind me.

  At first I fully expected my father to creep out of the undergrowth with “the lads,” all wielding cutlasses and making such a din that my kidnapper would drop the chain and flee into the forest.

  Pa released me from the chain, wrapped me in his arms, stroked my hair backward with the soft pad of his thumbs. He wiped my eyes dry and, with gentle admonition, chided, “Look at the pickle you’ve gone and got yourself into this time.”

  Expectation turned into prayer.

  When that didn’t work, fury set in.

  Where the bloody hell was my dad, my creator, my protector ?

  AS DAYLIGHT FINALLY BEGAN to succumb to darkness, we came upon a clearing in the forest. It was a camp. Fires were burning. A b
oar was roasting on a spit. There were barrels of alcohol. I could hear laughter. Was it a fayre?

  But before my elation could bubble its way up to the surface, I saw something that filled me with alarm.

  In the middle of the clearing was a roped-off corral. Surrounding it were guards with swords, muskets and truncheons. There must have been hundreds of people inside, all chained to one another, lolling about, looking filthy and exhausted.

  I was no longer alone, but the community I was about to join was a wretched one.

  There were big working men in there, rendered as helpless as children. Some of them would have fought in wars, could carry a cow on their backs and brag about it in the local inn, could shoot an apple from the top of a boy’s head and leave him standing.

  The women sat with their backs to the guards.

  I would soon understand why.

  I would also soon learn to tell the difference between exhaustion and defeat. To recognize the point at which a person’s s spirit is extinguished. After which death is the inevitable consequence. And how some chose death as the only route to freedom.

  I later learned that some of those people came from as far away as Spain, France, Belgium, Portugal, Denmark and Germany.

  I never knew then that we came from every walk of life too. Regardless of social status, profession, political or religious persuasion, we were all going to the final frontier of Europa-the end of civilization as we knew it.

  In time I came across people who had been farmers, black-smiths, bakers, pastry makers, medicine men, preacher men, musicians, fishmongers, poulterers, watermen, fishermen, wool-men, silk women, wrestlers, paviers, cooks, cock fighters, girdlers, carpenters, haberdashers and housewives, as well as lords and ladies, even those of royal blood. Among our number were the king and queen of the Royal House of Portugal-and all their children.

  To the right of the corral, slave traders were sizing up new arrivals like myself, exchanging goods which were loaded up onto carts; or they were sitting cross-legged on the ground, a day’s work done, toasting their good health and good fortune, knocking back grog that a serving boy poured into pewter tankards from a barrel.

  They looked as if they’d discovered one of the great secrets of life—that money really did grow on trees.

  My kidnapper tugged me toward the traders. I had lost control of my body. It was no longer I who decided whether I walked to my right, to my left, backward or forward, and at what speed.

  He approached two men with big-feathered hats and black hair cascading to their shoulders-in the style of the pirates I’d heard about in Pa’s stories. They had neatly trimmed black beards that tapered to a point, like the description of the Devil I’d listened to in sermons at church. They wore velvet-green frock coats with toggles, silk knee breeches and over-the-knee tan leather boots with little heels. It was the attire of gentlemen. They looked like identical twin brothers. Rich twin brothers. My kidnapper’s demeanor changed as he approached them. He bowed deeply, helmet in hand. They remained upright and nodded, curtly.

  They made an offer. It was accepted. I was sold.

  I wasn’t worth haggling over.

  A guard prodded me with his musket into the corral, where I was introduced to an iron coffle-a rod to which collars were attached at either end. Attached to the collar behind me was a boy who wore hessian knickerbockers and a laborer’s smock. His face was smeared with freckles and his hair stuck out haphazardly like thick sheaves of corn. He smiled; I stared blankly back. He went cross-eyed.

  I had found a friend.

  His name was Garanwyn, and he came from a farm on the Welsh border with England. He and his younger brother Dafyyd had been sold by a rival farmer, who wanted to increase his stock of sheep.

  Dafyyd was curled up asleep in front of me, sucking the fingers of his right hand into his little mouth. Blue veins mapped out his blood supply beneath translucent skin, which showed the ribs of the carcass he would soon become.

  Looking up, I caught sight of my kidnapper heading back into the forest, an invigorated spring in his step, even as he tried to keep steady two caskets of grog, which were balanced on his shoulders.

  A shiny new kettle was tied around his waist.

  When I turned my attention over to where the traders gathered, I unexpectedly caught sight of someone I recognized. His cart had just rolled in loaded up with sheep’ wool, cowhide, a couple of live bullocks. Stumbling and chained behind it were two bruised and furious young men with thighs like shanks of oxen.

  It was none other than Gideon—the eldest son of Old John Hopkins, the master tanner at Duddingley. Gideon sold his father’s leather in the wealthy faraway spa town of Upper Whiddon. He fancied himself a ladies’ man although his prominent overbite meant women recoiled at the thought of clinking teeth with him. We girls avoided him because if we didn’t, he’d find a way to touch us when Mam wasn’t looking.

  Now I stared at him with such an intensity he turned around with the force of it. Gideon knew me. He’d rescue me, surely, even if it meant clinking my teeth with his.

  His face flushed when he saw me-one of the young Scagglethorpe girls. Was it embarrassment? Guilt? Pity? Had he led them to our district? I couldn’t work it out. No sooner had he clocked me than he spun back and continued business with some traders who had gathered around his cart and were squeezing the two young men who were trying to shrug off anyone who touched them.

  THE TIME CAME FOR US to set off in a crocodile trail of interlinked coffles into the forest. Torchlights fired up the night. The coffle scraped the skin on my neck. Young Dafyyd was struggling with the weight of it.

  People who couldn’t go on were beaten with a truncheon until they did.

  After many hours Dafyyd began to stumble about like a dazed newborn foal, his legs buckling under. I wanted to reach out but the coffle separated us by three feet.

  Finally he collapsed, bringing down those of us attached to him like dominoes.

  Our solemn procession ground to a halt. Dafyyd wasn’t moving. The guards tried to rouse him with a few swift kicks.

  Garanwyn tried to tell the guards he would carry his little brother on his shoulders, but they ignored him.

  Whether Dafyyd’s heart had already stopped beating at that stage I have no idea.

  He was released from the coffle and swung by his arms and legs into some bushes.

  Heavy as a three-stone sack of barley.

  I heard the thud as he landed.

  IT TOOK TWO NIGHTS and three days to reach the sea, which, I discovered, was just like the winter sky: lackluster, bleached, vacant.

  The surf drizzled spit onto the shingle beach.

  Makeshift wooden cages were waiting for us.

  Way out on the water were enormous ships.

  Pulled up onto the beach were small boats called yawls.

  The first time I saw the blak men I couldn’t believe how their skin could be so dark, their features so broad, their hair so crisply curled. All the stories I’d heard were true because even though it was cold, they wore only cotton strips to cover their privates so they shivered and sneezed and were covered with goose pimples.

  I didn’t know then that they would rather suffer chilblains, frostbite, the dreaded influenza and even death than dress like the natives.

  The blak men inspected our bodies, our mouths, our limbs, and we were soon loaded facedown into the yawls.

  As I awaited my turn, I imagined telling my sisters back home that I had seen the blak men, with my very own eyes, yes, really and truly; that the stories about slave raiders were not exaggerated gossip to bring drama into our lives, but a terrifying reality that had, fleet of foot and with a sinister stealth, made its way into our homelands.

  Just before I was thrust down into a yawl, I looked at those enormous vessels out at sea, ready to carry me somewhere I knew not, and it hit me.

  I wouldn’t be reporting back to anyone.

  DOKLANDA

  When the slow-rocking wheels of
the train eased to a sliding stop, I woke up.

  It was dark. There was no door. Was I lying upside down or spinning from the ceiling?

  I saw the moon dance above my head and a hawk sweeping down about to pluck out my eyes with its beak.

  Raising an arm to defend myself, I realized it was the driver holding a lantern, shaking me awake. I could see clearly that he was indeed one of the Tuareg nomads who sometimes made their way to Londolo after a drought or war in their own lands. Submerged beneath flowing robes, they floated about the city keeping themselves apart. He was an immigrant, then, like myself.

  “Come,” he said in that soft desert voice of theirs that requires little reverberation to blow across miles of uninterrupted sands. I scrambled to my feet, forgot the basket and followed the Tuareg and the lantern off the train.

  The platform was coated in a sleepy blur as I struggled to keep up with his loping strides.

  We mounted a few steps to a landing where I could see a shimmer of light through a slit in the wall. I soon discovered it was a door because when he unbolted it a vicious blast of midday sun and noise exploded upon us like the roar of a furnace flame. I recoiled as if burned, ready to scamper back into the safety of the tunnel, but he turned around to face me, his willowy outline silhouetted against the bright daylight.

  “Wait,” he said and left.

  I never saw him again. He had said all of two words to me.

  Before I had time to bolt the door and panic, my next helper arrived bearing a package of food in banana leaves.

  “Hi,” she said cheerily, popping her head around the door as if I were an old friend she was just dropping by to visit. “You can call me Ezinwene!”

  I recognized the smell of Ylang Ylang perfume, from the fragrant isle of Madagascar. It came in a bottle shaped like a voluptuous woman, and it was Madama Comfort’s favorite. Whiffs of her sickly sweet scent usually turned a corner long before she did, giving us time to walk double-quick in the opposite direction.