At the movement of the dancers, their lifting hands, the woman backs away, still facing us, not trusting us perhaps. She must know that if she hesitates the men will swarm round her like a cloud of gnats. It is only when she draws level with the gate that she turns toward it and the dark and goes forward, steps outside, and we are left to exchange, well, sheepish glances. We know the pipe and fiddle cannot play again. We cannot dance. We bid one another uncomfortable good nights, and hurry home to sleep the evening off, or lay awake, or worse.

I hope — like everyone — to find the woman when I leave. But I have better cause than them. Master Kent has asked me to. He says that I should bring her back, bring Mistress Beldam to the barn and let her pass the night with his straw bales as her mattress and a velvet shawl as coverlet. He does not count it proper that a woman, any woman, no matter what her felonies might be, should spend a night alone and unprotected from its dangers. I see him hesitate. He wants to specify what dangers there might be but does not think it seemly. There are no longer wolves to fear. We have not seen the traces of a wolf in living times. There are no bears or dragoncats. And Master Kent is not the superstitious sort that dreads the deeds of devils or spirits, of firedrakes or wood demons. There isn’t frost or snow, of course. It won’t be uncommonly cold tonight. What summer chill we can expect when the hours are small and the night is deep will not prove a danger to anybody sleeping wild and rough but only an inconvenience. Yet, having now seen the woman for myself and then observed the wisting in my master’s eye, I understand what outcome he must fear for her; what he admits to in himself, indeed; what I have felt and still am feeling; what every man among us — even brave and bloodless Mr. Quill — will be dreaming of tonight.

“Do what you can to make her safe,” he instructs me finally.

First I go to keep a promise at the pillory and cross. I will not be surprised to find Mistress Beldam there, attending to her men. Indeed, I pray that she is there. Among other things, I want her as a witness to my kindness. I leave the barn enlivened by my task, but my ardor is dampened straightaway. While we have been at the feast and dancing, deafened to the weather by the fiddle and the pipe, a greater Steward than Master Kent has noticed that our barley has been safely cut and stacked and told the heavens it is safe to rain. It’s midnight rain, the sort that in the darkness has no form until it reaches you, until it strikes with the cold and keen insistence of a silver-worker’s mallet.

It takes several steps before I realize how heavily it’s raining. My neighbors have already scurried to their cottages, so far as I can tell. I do not see the outlines of another human soul. I ought to scurry home myself and save my tasks and promises until it is more dry. But the rain is pleasurable. It’s washing out impurities. My fingers and my chin are soon rid of veal grease. My mouth is washed by water more pure and rewarding to the taste than anything our ponds and our obliging brook have to offer. Even my damaged hand becomes less painful in the salving of the rain. I run my tongue across my upper lip and savor the downpour. It’s not quite sweet and not quite flavorless. It’s sobering but, then, my drinking has been more moderate and tame than most.

Tonight, there is no moon in view, of course. The low clouds as I imagine them are a heavy blanket, woven out of black and gray. As yet, there’s not the slightest trace of wind to take the rain away and irrigate our distant neighbors’ lands instead of ours. We can expect this storm to settle in and persevere till dawn. Tomorrow will provide a motley of pools and puddles in our lanes and fields. Our ponds and cisterns will be full, and we’ll be glad of that. Although it may not feel so now for anyone that’s caught in it, we are the beneficiaries of Nature’s dowry. Nevertheless, I doubt that Mistress Beldam will take much persuading that the barn is where she should seek safe haven from the weather.

I take the mud-caked lane away from my master’s buildings, past his orchard gardens and his byres, toward the dreamed-of spire. I would benefit from light, though no lantern in the world, no matter how enclosed, could survive the volume of this rain for long. I have to trust the scratchings and the marks that my dozen years of being here and working here and walking here have etched in me. The storm has robbed us of all colors — the usual blues and mauves that finesse the night. But I make out silhouettes; that crouching oak, its swishing sleeves of ivy, that little dusty elm that should be taken down and logged before it blocks the path. I recognize the billows and the swells of the hedges, either side, where there are gaps and gates, where there are peaks and branching pinnacles, where damsons can be scrumped. I pick up smells that I can name. The master’s byres, of course. The sweating of his silage heaps. But other gentler odors too. The acrid smell — exaggerated by the rain — of elder trees. The bread-and-biscuit smell of rotting wood. The piss-and-honey tang of apple trees. I navigate my midnight village as a blind man would, by nose and ears and touch and by the vaguest, blackest forms.

I see the men before they hear or notice me, or that’s to say I see the outline of their wide-winged cross and how bulked and heavy it’s become, draped as it is with sodden prisoners. I stand and watch, not daring for a while to make my presence known but still enjoying what must be a further penalty for them, the unrelenting rain. They cannot harm me, that is certain. Their arms are pinioned and their necks are caught. My only risk can be a backward kicking. I’ll have to treat them like a pair of tethered horses and not inspect their tails or rumps. I am holding my breath, not to be discovered. How silent it has become,beyond the pelting of the rain. I fear there’s no one living anywhere. The night is ponderous. No owl or fox is keen to interrupt the darkness. It seems that even the trees have stopped their stretching and their creaking, their making wishes in the wind, to hold their breaths and stare like me toward the pillory.

If I could, if I had the powers of a wizard or a god, I’d build that church gate right away. I’d make it arch above the pillory. I’d build it with a canopy to keep these two men dry. Now that my eyes are more accustomed to the dark, I see them more clearly. This morning I persuaded myself that probably it’s wise for all of us to hold our tongues for the time being and let these newcomers soak up the blame. But now, beneath these weighty clouds, I recognize my foolishness; no, let us name it as it is, my lack of courage and of honesty. Soak up is not a happy phrase, I think. This rain is pleasurable only for those not fixed in it, those who can look forward to a square of drying cloth, a roof, a bed, sweet dreams. Tonight’s beneficiaries of Nature’s dowry do not include Mistress Beldam’s family.

So I approach them, and I speak. “My name is Walter Thirsk … It’s Walt.” There’s no response. “I was not there, this morning, when you drew your bows,” I say. They need to understand at once, I should not be numbered among their accusers. I did not shake my stick at them. I did not help to shave their heads. I did not march them to the pillory. They cannot know I failed to speak on their behalf. Indeed, I am the only one among the villagers against whom they shouldn’t harbor any grudge. Still, they do not offer a response. They are like cattle feeding; their faces strain toward the ground. The rain drops unabated on their shoulders and their necks, channels down their spines. They each have a ropy tail of rain. The younger lifts his chin and looks at me, then drops his head again. He is exhausted by the weight of his own head, it seems. The shorter shuffles on his stretching toes.