A long February

February was a savage month that year. A few days after the sudden death of the little Lady Ethelburga, Ethelmund Ashdown’s infant son was stricken with a fever and a rash of tiny spots.

Within days, the pox had spread to every baby in the small community and to nearly every child under two years of age, from Princess Britamund in the castle down to the daughter of the blind ragwoman. And within a week, over half of those children were dead.

The Princess recovered, but nearly every other family lost a child that year. The Earl’s youngest daughter, the baby Lady Margarethe, was among the first to die, and before the Countess had fairly begun to grieve, little Lady Eadith was struck as well.

Egelric Wodehead kept an anxious eye on his little daughter through those terrible weeks. 

He had been trying to convince himself that the curse was not real – whenever he saw Gunnilda, she would capture his eyes with a long gaze that cautioned him more clearly than words: “There is no curse.” And he could draw strength from her own strong belief.

But when he rode past the peasant huts where the women were wailing, and when he saw the heart-​​stricken fathers working outside, and how they stopped and stood and stared grimly at him as he passed, he thought he could feel the curse trailing behind him like a cloak.

But Baby did not fall ill.