Blood Ties

On a bitterly cold winters' day in the year of our Lord 1500, which was the first day of the new year, a simple wedding ceremony took place in the small village of Millhamlet, which was situated some three days' ride on a good horse to the east of the city of London. The betrothed were named Edward and Anne, both being at the time eighteen years of age. These were simple folk, both orphaned at an early age and neither having surviving brothers or sisters; a circumstance which was not uncommon during the time of the ravages of the great pestilence, and given the hardness of the lives of ordinary English people during these years. Edward was a stonemason by profession, and they had met whilst he was plying his trade in the construction of a bridge over the river in which Anne would oft and anon wash her clothes, and those of the family with which she resided. He was only one of a gang of workmen from whom she was subjected to friendly but suggestive banter each time she came to carry out her duties by the waters' edge, but it was Edward whom she noticed, and for him did she reserve her coy, feminine response and girlish laughter. Thus was he emboldened at the end of one particular working day to offer to carry her basket of wet clothing to her place of abode; she accepted, and the two were married within three months, on the first day of the new century. During the ensuing five years, two sons and three daughters were born to these two, and though their life was simple, it was for the most part a good life.

It then so happened that during the year of 1522, whatever good fortune had been theirs was swept away in most spectacular and devastating fashion. Their eldest son, William, was called upon to fight for King and country during the disastrous invasion of France, a country with which England had only very recently been allied, and he left with their love, their prayers and with the hope of his swift and safe return. Then, not two weeks after William's departure, the sweating sickness came to the small hamlet, and moved through the close, tight – knit community like fire through a field of corn – stubble. Theirs was amongst the first households to be affected, their youngest daughter, Veronica, being the first to complain of a headache and nausea before the bloody coughing and swelling began. Nobody in the family escaped the pestilence, however, and within a matter of days Edward and Anne, as well as their other daughters Amanda and Ruth, and finally their younger son Henry, had all succumbed to the sickness. The door to their humble dwelling was closed, a cross was painted upon it, and all inside must trust in the good Lord for their survival, whilst vittles were placed daily at their shutter should any of them still be alive and well enough to eat or drink. Such was the ferocity of this particular strain of plague virus, however, that within a matter of a further two weeks the entire community was either ill, had fled, or had passed away, and there was nobody to provide sustenance or to say prayers for the unfortunate family; it was assumed by any who still remained and were well enough to give the matter mind that Edward Mark Tillington and his entire remaining family had died.

It was not until one night during the second week after the door had been ceremoniously shut to the world that it was opened once more, and from the house a young man emerged, and took his first faltering, painful steps from the threshold. He was malnourished and dehydrated, but alone of his family Henry had, perhaps by dint of his strength and youth, or perhaps by mere good fortune, survived the sickness. He had barely the strength to draw the pale of water from the well which formed the focal – point of the once thriving and happy community, but by degree he did so, and felt for the first time in days the sensation of cool water on his parched lips. Within the hour he was able to drink his fill, and thus did he find the strength and willpower to walk, however uneasily, along the dark track which formed the only way through the village, past the now deserted houses from which emanated the stench of new death, and out into the open country. He did not look back, and never returned to seek out the village of his birth. He would never know, therefore, that the village itself and the old mill were for all time abandoned, the houses left to fall into ruin until no trace remained, and the place once known as Millhamlet was consigned to the history, if any be left to tell it.

* * *

The pestilence had struck in the spring, and during the summer of the same year William, Edward's brother, returned to his home. The campaign against the French had been a disaster, and William had watched whilst his comrades, who had no more wish to be there than he, were cut down by arrows or fell ill and died. The order to abandon conflict and return to the coast had been given, and once the ships had docked at last at an English port, it was every surviving man's responsibility to find their slow way home as best they could. On his homeward journey he had heard rumour of the decimation of his village, and on his arrival there some two weeks after his disembarkation, he found that indeed the place was deserted, and his own family home empty. The corpses of his dead family had by now been buried in a mass grave just outside the village, which had been marked by a single wooden cross.

He said a prayer for his lost and beloved father and mother, for his three sisters, and for his brother Henry, who was two years his junior. He picked up his bag, in which he had some provision and a few clothes, and walked for the last time through Millhamlet, the last resident of the village to do so. He walked in the opposite direction to which Henry had walked some weeks previously and neither brother would ever know the fate of the other, both assuming that their brother had perished by such different means. Certainly, they were never to meet again in this lifetime.

* * *

'Hi Keith; how are you getting on?'

This was Victoria Tillington, only daughter to the Lord and Lady, and Keith was working on his own, on a particular part of the Manor House extension. The contract was moving on at a good pace, the stonemasons and bricklayers were giving good account of themselves, and the structure of the new building would soon be completed to ceiling level before the roof construction would...