Flora and the Pellar Batt

Dick Greene’s wife had died last Vellumdry, when the summer air was hot and arid — their workhorse, sick with a fever, had panicked and kicked out. He hadn’t actually hit her, but in dodging away from his hoof she’d fallen and hit her head.

Dick was quiet for a long time after.

It had taken a long time for him to finally marry in the first place — he was nearly forty and had grey in his hair, and rumour had it he’d only married Marianne, five years younger, at all because his mother wouldn’t leave him be, and Marianne’s parents had put the same pressure on her.

They’d seemed stressed about it, chalk and cheese, but Flora had met Marianne and she was a funny woman, sharp and burning as snake’s venom, and it seemed to Flora that they settled well into marriage, once they’d been at it a while.

It was sad all around, Flora thought.

She had done, anyway.

They’d been so happy, both of them, about the baby: they had been excited, even Marianne who was always colder and a little more quiet, and Dick would go into these moments of deep thought, smiling faintly, which wasn’t like him at all.

That smile went at the same time Marianne did.

It was four or five months after that Flora saw Dick Greene first walk out down the road that led up toward the pellar’s house in the dead of night, the bags under his eyes made darker by the white shine of the moon.

She’d been sat up on the pallet and had nudged at Conn, whispered to him, “Do you see that Dick Greene through the window there? What’s he after at this time of night?”

“Flora, would you sleep?” Conn had mumbled into the pillow beneath him.

“Fine,” she’d muttered.

She’d tried to stay up to watch for him, but she’d fallen asleep before Dick had walked back into town.

Flora didn’t much like the new pellar.

Their old one had been an old woman they all called Mrs Willow growing up, because she had long hair a pale blond-grey that hung round her waist like willow branches hung off a weeper, and she always gave them candied fruit peel when any of them were sick, and the way she candied it you could always taste it even when the fever and your lungs were so thick you couldn’t taste anything else.

Mrs Willow had asked them to send word for a new pellar when she’d begun to cough herself.

Just from the look of him Flora hadn’t liked him, young and handsome with colour painted over his eyes and his mouth and ink under his skin, his hair a muss of silver curls around his head, much whiter even than Mrs Willow’s had been, no matter how old she was.

He wore silver bangles and jewellery that jangled when he moved, so you could always hear him coming, and every time she’d seen him he had a soft, smug little smile pulling at his dark-painted lips, like he knew everything that you didn’t.

He’d nursed Mrs Willow until she died, and when she’d been buried, and was dead and gone, he’d taken over duty as pellar.

His name was Batt, Pellar Batt, and she’d never heard anyone use his forename — maybe it was that he didn’t have one.

She didn’t like him from the off, and when Missy got sick, the little girl the next house over, and her mother said Pellar Batt had given her candied apple peel to take with her remedies, it had made her irritated.

“It’s like he’s stealing from her,” she’d said to Conn. “Like he’s taking up her shadow as pellar, instead of just the post.”

“What are you talking about?” Conn had asked, and she hadn’t known how to explain.

She never knew how to explain anything to Conn. He didn’t want her to.

Dick Greene went by again a week later, and again the week after that, always on the same night, always very late when the darkness had set in and you could barely see him but for the lights from the moon and stars.

She was always awake.

Flora struggled to sleep at night, had done since she and Conn had gotten married.

She didn’t like him in her bed, how he took up all the space, how he fidgeted and moved and snored, too hot, sweating everywhere, and disgusting when he touched her, his wet skin sticking to hers, or his bristled hair dragging at her and making her itch.

He scolded her when she slept on the rug beside the fire, even though she’d done that for years before she married anyone.

He said it made it look like she didn’t love him.

She never knew how to argue with that.

Conn slept like the dead, once he decided to drop off, and she only wished he didn’t snore like the living.

She knew it was wrong, but one sleepless night after a few others, she saw Dick Greene walk past through the deep night, and followed after him.

The pellar’s door was open when Dick Greene arrived: he walked straight in and closed it behind him.

She waited and waited for Dick to come out again, but he didn’t, and after a few long minutes had passed, she slowly crept up to the window to look. She could hear the sound inside as she drew closer, the heavy breathing, gasping, and when she finally raised her head and peeked through the crack of the lightly open shutters, she saw the pellar’s fingers pressing into Dick Greene’s heavy shoulders, pulling him closer between his legs, saw the pellar’s head tip back as Dick kissed his neck.

She dropped onto the ground in the flowerbed with her hand over her mouth, and pressed her palm tight against it to keep from letting out a noise of shock.

It started to rain as she ran home, and she slipped in the mud in the yard.

She did see Dick Greene that night — that morning — walking back as she scrubbed the filth from her skirt.

He looked lost in thought, and he whistled quietly as he walked, the way he used to. He used to be cheerful and bright, Dick Greene, used to always always smile in a bright and cheerful way. He slept better now, she noticed — or the bags had disappeared from under his eyes, at least.

His mother had died a few weeks after he and Marianne had found out they were pregnant, had died happy about it, and now that she was gone, Flora supposed there was no one pressuring him to remarry.

She didn’t think she’d remarry, if Conn died. She’d not wanted to marry him in the first place.

It was weeks after that she went to Pellar Batt, stood on his doorstep, and he invited her in and poured her tea and pulled a chair beside the fire for her, like he knew just by looking that she was always cold. The pellar’s dog, a sleepy creature with beige fur and floppy ears, but his chin in her lap.

“Your name is Flora Cutter,” said the pellar when she didn’t say anything for a while, just patted the dog’s head, stroked his ears between her fingers and thumbs. “What do you need from me?”

“I can’t get pregnant,” said Flora.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Batt. “Have you spoken with a pellar about this before?”

She shook her head.

He nodded, putting another log on the fire. “How long have you been married?”

“Five years.”

“You don’t take any contraceptives, any remedies to prevent pregnancy?”

She shook her head.

“How often do you and your husband lay together?”

“Every night,” she said sharply, feeling embarrassment rise in her cheeks, and Batt hesitated a moment, watching her very carefully.

“And how often,” he went on slowly, “do you have sex with one another?”

She grit her teeth.

The pellar’s tone was gentle as he said, “In order to become pregnant, it is necessary to — ”

“I know that,” she snapped. “He doesn’t want to. My mother keeps asking about it anyway. She said I should come to you.”

The pellar was quiet for a few moments, looking into the fire. His expression was distant, pensive, and the fire lit up the purple pigment streaked around his eyes and made the wax on his lips shine. “Do you want to be pregnant?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Flora. “And — and she said you could give me something, to make it easier.”

“Mrs Cutter, I wouldn’t like to give you a fertility remedy if we don’t know you need one yet. Even my most subtle concoctions can have their side effects.”

“Not for that,” said Flora, fidgeting in her seat. The dog looked up at her with happy, tired eyes, and she wished not for the first time that she had a dog in her house instead of Conn.

“For what, then?”

“You could give me something for him. To make him — want me. More. To make him want that more.”

The pellar looked at her seriously. His voice was cold when he said, “No, I could not.”

“He’s my husband,” said Flora. “He’s meant to want me.”

“Have you discussed this with him?”

“No. He doesn’t let me discuss anything. He doesn’t listen. He just tells me he’s tired or that he’s busy and gets in the way — he doesn’t care.”

The pellar inhaled. Exhaled. “I can’t do what you’re asking me.”

“I saw you,” said Flora. “With the widower Greene.”

“Really?” he asked. He didn’t sound surprised, which she resented. He didn’t sound angry, either. “You were peeking in my keyhole?”

“That’s wrong of you,” she said. “To do that with a widower.”

“Lonely people want to be touched,” said the pellar simply. “I touch him: I let him touch me. He is soothed by that. Is that not my duty, as pellar?”

It made her feel a bit sick.

“No,” she said, and gently pushed the dog away.

When she went home, Conn had come in from the fields, and asked, “Why are you so upset?”

“Because you don’t touch me,” she replied, and put herself to bed.

He didn’t argue. He just went out again.

It wasn’t as though she wanted him to touch her. She’d never had sex before they married, and wasn’t in the least bit interested in it now — frankly, the idea of having a baby in her house as well as Conn wasn’t an appealing one either.

But people kept asking.

They wouldn’t stop.

Every letter that came from her mother was more of the same asking if it had taken yet, if she’d been to the pellar. No one blamed Conn — everyone acted as though it were her fault.

No one would have expected her to be pregnant or have a man touch her if she’d just been able to be pellar herself. Mrs Willow had wanted to teach her, had said she could, and her father had forbade it, because she was their only child.

Pellars didn’t own much land, didn’t run farms or grow much produce, didn’t have children, most of the time.

They didn’t have time for all that.

When Conn finally asked, months into all this, “Do you want to?” she shoved his hands off her and snapped at him to let her sleep.

He got out of her bed and actually did for once.

She suspected it the second week.

By the fourth, she knew.

She was angry, of course, but not because her husband was going to the pellar to touch him instead of her — she was angry that she slept peacefully only one night a week.

“You’re a thief,” she told the pellar one evening, when the skies were red and purple like a bruised eye.

“I am,” he agreed, and pat the dog sleeping over his legs, who opened one lazy eye to look at Flora. His fat, stubby little tail wagged lazily too, doing a few heavy thuds against the floor. “Or, I used to be. Haven’t stolen anything of recent.”

“Haven’t you?” she asked, doing her best to be arch, which she’d never been very good at. The pellar leaned back on the rug he was sitting on, content with his dog, and no one to tell him he couldn’t sit on a rug if he wanted to.

He took a piece of candied apple peel from the jar beside him and tossed it to her.

She caught it by instinct, but stubbornly refused to put it in her mouth and chew, even as he took a piece himself.

“A pellar cures a man’s ills,” said Batt.

“What ill has my husband?”

“Not one your touch can cure him of,” said Batt. “Nor any woman’s, I’d wager. And nor should you, given as you’ve never wanted to.”

“It’s my duty,” she said bitterly, and he laughed.

“Why?” he asked. “He’s no good lay. You’re missing out on nothing.”

“He won’t get you pregnant,” she muttered.

“And I wouldn’t want him to,” he replied. “Imagine a child with his nose and my eyebrows. That’d be a cruelty.”

She didn’t want to laugh, too spiteful to give him the satisfaction: she ate the apple peel.

“Mrs Willow wanted me to be pellar,” said Flora.

“I know,” said Batt. “She told me she didn’t want no other successor from this village, asked me to stay when she passed.”

She hadn’t known that, and she worried it showed in her face.

“I have her notes aside for you,” said Batt, popping another piece of peel in his mouth and scratching the dog’s ear. “Whenever you’re ready.”

She didn’t know what to say to that at all.

“I can’t be pellar,” she said.

“Why not?”

“I’ve a husband.”

“That’s easily remedied.” She blinked, thinking, and Pellar Batt looked at her very sternly, raising one scarred, tattooed finger to point at her. “Not like that.”

She scowled. “How then?”

“That’s up to you.”

“Mrs Willow never let a man touch her,” said Flora.

“She didn’t,” agreed Batt.

“Or a woman,” said Flora.

“Wrong on that count,” said Batt. “But she didn’t invite the widows as I invite the widowers, I grant you. No reason you’d have to, being a pellar yourself.”

“Why do you?”

“It’s something I can give, something it doesn’t trouble me to give. I enjoy it, too.”

“I don’t,” said Flora. “I think it’s horrible. Wet, and — and horrible.”

“It’s not for everyone,” said the pellar.

He was being so reasonable that she wanted to hit him, and he smiled at her with his blue-painted lips.

“Could send your man over to the widower Greene,” said Batt, offering the jar this time, which forced her to step closer to take a piece.

The dog was wagging his tail again and she had to concentrate to stop herself from smiling.

“They’d find each other when I’m gone anyway,” said Batt.

Flora frowned at him. “When are you going?”

He shrugged. “Not up to me.”

Flora chewed a piece of peel, and said, “I liked how her life looked to me. Being able to be on her own. Help people. Not to have to marry anyone or have children.”

“Why hold back?”

“My family said I had to get married.”

“You did get married. Job done.”

“What do you care?”

“It’s my job to care: I cure ills, don’t I?”

“What ill have I got?”

“The worst of all: unhappiness.”

“A pellar can’t make everyone happy.”

“No,” said Batt softly, with his sly, smug smile. She was beginning to like it after all, which she resented. “I try to take them one at a time.

She glanced back to the road. “You’ll teach me?”

“Everything you want to know.”

“You’ll go, then?”

“If you say the word.”

“And if I’m bad at it? If I’m no good as a pellar?”

He sighed, long-suffering. “Then I suppose I’d have to stay. Why, are you planning to be no good?”

“No.”

“Then I doubt it will be a problem.”

Flora looked away for a moment, shame coiling and shifting in her belly like a nest of snakes. “You shouldn’t be so kind to me,” she said. “You shouldn’t teach me.”

Batt, seeming interested, peered up at her. “Why ever not?”

“I don’t deserve it,” she said. “I was cruel to you.”

“That wasn’t cruelty,” said Batt wryly, spoken like a man with experience. “You were unhappy. You suggest I would punish you for bearing a great deal of punishment already?”

“I suppose.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

The pellar stood slowly to his feet, gently dislodging the dog, and patted his thigh for him to follow inside. “Come,” he said to Flora as the dog waddled before them both through the door. “Let me teach you to candy apple peels.”

That night the pellar’s dog, who was named Bread Roll, followed Flora home, and she laughed, and let him. She slept curled up with him on the rug beside the fire.

“Aren’t you going to come to bed?” asked Conn.

“It’s not your bed,” said Flora. “It’s mine. But you can sleep in it tonight, I’m staying here.”

“What will people think?” said Conn.

“That I don’t want to share a bed with you. And they’re right.”

“Flora — ”

“There’s the widower Greene outside. You should walk with him to the pellar and let me sleep.”

“Fine,” snapped Conn.

He seemed happier in the morning.

“I’m going to be a pellar,” said Flora.

“Don’t I get a say in that?”

“No.”

Conn breathed a sigh of relief, and knocked his knuckles against the table.

“I’m going to meet with the widower Greene,” he said.

“Good,” said Flora — and smiled at him.

After a moment’s hesitation, a cautious pause, Conn smiled back.

It was the first time she could remember that they’d smiled at one another.

She let Bread lead the way back up to the pellar’s.

FIN.