Brewer's Tale, The by Karen Brooks Read Free Book Online Page B

the noble who’d been party to such a great betrayal? I would never know. Not now.
    Retreating from the gasps of cold that crept through the cracks, I threw on my nightshirt and snuggled under the furs. Despite the comfort and warmth, sleep eluded me. I tossed and turned, adopting the wild rhythms of the weather. Some time towards dawn, I drifted into that in-between space where the waking world and that of apparitions and spirits collide. Mother came to me, drawn across a nimbus of memories. There she was, a younger, more colourful woman, holding my hand steady as I practised my letters; then she was beside me; then opposite, a book open in her lap, reading to me. Her gentle brow was drawn, her white-gold hair framing her face, her voice earnest. Next, we were conversing, our hands as much a part of the conversation as our tongues. I couldn’t tell if we were speaking German, Dutch or Spanish, languages Mother insisted I should be fluent in, but we were laughing between words. Father listened, hands behind his back, a bemused look on his face as his women chattered in foreign tongues. His stern voice demanded we speak French or English and, with a look of regret, we did, Mother promising me with her eyes that as soon as Father departed again, our language lessons would resume. We could set the patterns of our days when Father was gone. Read, talk, explore, garden, brew, ride. My soul began to lighten as I relived the times I’d shared with Mother until I found myself thinking of those last frenzied words she’d uttered, after she’d revealed the terrible truth …
    â€˜I tell you not to torment you or taint your memory of me, but so that you will understand. Do not blame your father. He is faultless in this. I tell you so that one day, my darling, you will have the power to help yourself, Tobias, and the twins should the need arise, should Father be unable or …’ she coughed, her breathing laboured, ‘choose not to … What happened … it hurt him deeply. Scarred him in ways I can only imagine. If you cannot see it in yourself to forgive me, then please, my sweetling, at least forgive him.’
    I rolled over. What did you mean, Mother? I don’t understand … I don’t know what to do … I was three again, wailing in my sleep, crying for my mother.
    As when I was little, she came to me just as I’d given up hope, standing at the end of the bed, regarding me in a manner I knew all too well. Her soft smile, tilted head, exuding faith in her eldest; it was brimming from her eyes. ‘You will make it work, Anneke. You always do.’ It’s what she would say to me whether it was a napkin I couldn’t fold correctly, a stitch I hadn’t mastered or a word I couldn’t translate. I reached out and her image dissolved. I fell into sleep then — the kind from which there is no rest. All the while, her words echoed: You will make it work, work, work.
    The sky had begun to transform, its oyster dullness just creeping into the room when I woke and sat bolt upright, my heart pounding. I threw back the covers and went to the window. Wrenching open the panes, I gazed upon the new day. Following the boundary of the property, I took stock of what it contained: the storage rooms at the rear, the kitchen below, the stables with the rooms above, the bakehouse, the brewhouse … the brewhouse with the small room attached at the back. The silhouette of the buildings blurred before forming something more solid, something upon which my mind could alight and hold fast. As I stared, an idea plucked at the edges of my imagination, teasing me with its incompleteness, its fragments refusing to cohere, until …
    I knew what it was I had to do — what I had to try.
    You will make it work, Anneke. You always do.
    In order to do this, there was one person to whom I could turn, if not to learn the truth, then to test its veracity and possibly change