ran, half slid down the bank to our old meeting spot under it, then followed the slippery path in the direction I’d seen Kat walk earlier. I nearly dry-heaved from fear. Neither of us was dressed for the cold, but we were both sweating.
“But—no one’s wed to the miller,” I protested, trying to hold back the horror of what this could mean. I remembered the way Kat had suddenly seemed resolved—but resolved to do what?
“He must have mixed that up,” Will muttered. “But Master Sandells says the girl’s drowned!”
I nearly collapsed, but he pulled me on, past the place where Kat and I had talked just hours earlier. No! Dear holy Jesus in heaven, please protect her—please, not Kat.
“It can’t be Kat!” I insisted. “I talked with her a while ago, and she said—well, of course, she’s overturned about Dick and Guiles—but she promised I’d see her soon.”
He slowed but did not let go of my hand. “Watch your footing,” he ordered. “We don’t need to slip in too, if that’s what happened. People will be here soon. Come on! Maybe she’s only knocked her head, and we can save her. I saw a limp cat get pulled out of a well once, and it breathed again.”
Too soon and yet too late, we reached the spot we both feared to look but knew to search. There a willow grew aslant a brook that fed into the river by an eddy that always pulled things down into it. In the sweet months, crowflowers and daisies grew there; now only frozen reeds adorned its hoary bank.
I saw Kat’s discarded pail and, pointing at it, let out a scream. The gloves she’d worn—Will’s gift to her—were neatly folded on the upturned pail. All grew silent in my head and heart as we went closer and looked down to behold our friend staring up at us through the clear ice that edged the banks.
Her eyes and mouth were open, as if in surprise or expectation. Her thick, curly hair had straightened and darkened, yet it seemed to crown her head with a wreath as the current swept past where her body had wedged. Her open, empty hands floated at her sides, palms up as if she were beseeching us to give her something, and her sodden skirts shifted as if she danced. Was this an accident or her own design—suicide? Will held my hand so tight it went numb while we gaped down at her.
“God save us, she’s killed herself over it all,” he whispered.
“No—don’t say that. Not that, or they’ll bury her by the crossroads as a heathen where everyone throws stones. I couldn’t bear it.”
“I know, I know. But unless we can convince the crowner and bailiff it was an accident, they’ll not allow her in hallowed church ground.”
We could hear other voices coming closer, random shouts and cries, no doubt her family as well as others. Fulk Sandells perhaps, leading people in. Yet we did not move but held tight to each other, gazing down in awe as if our friend had been preserved in a glass coffin.
“Damn Dick Field!” I said. “Her parents and Guiles too! They killed her. It’s murder!”
“Leave off!” Will ordered, giving me a shake. “If you talk that way, you’ll turn everyone against our common cause.”
“What common cause?” I demanded as I pulled away from him to kneel on the bank. I reached out to put my hand upon the cold, slick ice over Kat’s face. Tears had frozen on that face earlier; now it seemed a torrent of tears encased all of her. If only she could get up and dance a jig with me as we were wont to do, as Will had said corpses did upon the stage at the end of the play to make everything right again.
“I’ve learned a lot at the law office where I’ve been copying documents,” he said, speaking fast now, though his words hardly pierced my stunned brain at first. “If we both testify—you, especially, since you saw her but a while ago—that she was calm and of sound mind, happy enough about her coming nuptials, they will have to rule that she drowned by chance, not what they call felo de se—suicide. Anne, do you hear me? Would you stand up with me on that, both as her friends? We must let no one gainsay what we claim.”
The ragged group of people turned the bend in the riverbank and burst upon us. Kat’s mother was with