The Vanishing Witch

by Karen Maitland

  ‘No, I swear it . . . Upon my life, I’m no witch!’ Diot was clutching at her chest in earnest now, her voice cracking with fear. ‘I only went to fetch a physic. Old Meggy knows all about herbs and suchlike. There’s none better at curing folks than her.’

  ‘And was it a potion from old Meggy your mistress gave to my mother?’

  Diot’s many chins jerked up. ‘Catlin only give your mam what Master Bayus told her to. If you saw her put anything in the posset, it was the physic he sent. She had to – it was that bitter your mam wouldn’t swallow it else. But it’s a great pity you didn’t go to old Meggy yourself when your mam first got taken sick. I reckon she’d be living now, if you had. Those physicians only know what they read in their books. Old Meggy, she learned at her granddam’s knee, like her mam did afore her. It’s in their blood, it is.’

  ‘You’re lying!’ Jan spat. ‘Your mistress is determined to marry my father for his money and she wanted my mother out of the way. And now I know who got the poison for her.’

  ‘Mistress has money enough of her own,’ Diot said defiantly. ‘She don’t need none of your father’s.’

  She had taken several shuffling steps back from Jan, though she must have seen she was trapped: there was no way she could get back through the postern gate before he reached her.

  Jan advanced towards her. ‘Oh, she has money, does she? Well, not for long. All the money and possessions of convicted felons are forfeit to the Crown. When you and your mistress are rotting in gibbet cages, Catlin’s son and daughter will be left with only the rags on their backs. Worse than that – when my father comes to his senses and realises what she’s done, I’ll see to it that he brings an Act of Attainder against both her spawn, so neither they nor their descendants can ever own anything. They’ll have fewer rights than an outcast leper. And as Catlin swings on the gallows she can comfort herself with the knowledge that her precious son will end his days carrying buckets of shit for a living, while her daughter works as a stew-house whore. Those are the only ways either of them will earn a crust of bread by the time we’ve finished with her family.’

  Diot was slumped against the wall, wheezing, her face screwed up in pain. ‘Can’t hang me . . . nor my mistress. Done nothing . . . we haven’t . . . nothing! Master Bayus says she wasn’t murdered . . . So does the priest. They’ll . . . both swear to it and you can’t prove otherwise.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Jan said. ‘But I’ll find a way. There’s a man, a friar, who’s been trying to warn me of something. I thought he was threatening my father, but the first time I saw him was on the day the evil widow came to our warehouse. I’m certain now it was her he was following, not my father. He knows something about Catlin, I’m sure of it, and I’m going to find him. So you can tell your mistress from me that she’ll be dancing soon enough, but not at her wedding. She’ll be dancing on the end of a rope!’

  Chapter 26

  If a demon is suspected of raising a storm, the church bells should be rung against the wind, so shall the demon flee and take the wind with him.

  Lincoln

  Father Remigius bowed gravely to Robert as Beata admitted him to the hall. He seemed on the verge of speaking straight away, but stopped as he caught sight of Catlin seated beside the fire. The elderly priest glanced around, frowning. Leonia was curled up in the window-seat opposite Adam, playing a game of Nine Men’s Morris with clay marbles on a wooden board.

  ‘Forgive the intrusion, Master Robert. I had thought to find you alone.’ Father Remigius massaged his shiny, swollen knuckles. ‘Perhaps it would be better if I returned later.’

  Catlin rose and, to Beata’s annoyance, poured a goblet of wine and handed it to the priest, as if she were already mistress of the house.‘We wanted the children to get to know each other better,’ she said, ‘since they are to be kin. But if we are intruding on a business matter, Leonia and I will leave at once.’

  ‘I’m sure anything Father Remigius wishes to discuss will concern us both, my dear,’ Robert said pointedly, leaving no doubt in his expression or tone that if anyone was going to leave it would not be Catlin.

  The priest stared at the goblet in his hand as if he couldn’t for the life of him work out how he had come to be clutching it. Evidently embarrassed, he shuffled across to watch the game in progress. ‘And who is winning, children?’ he asked, with forced jollity, though it was plain Leonia was beating Adam soundly or that Adam was allowing her to.

  Adam stared down at the board, but Leonia looked up with a smile so guileless and radiant that the old priest fondly imagined he was staring at a statue of the young Holy Virgin.

  ‘Adam’s won all of the other games. He’s so clever.’

  Adam flushed. It wasn’t true. He hadn’t won any of them and he knew he wasn’t clever, but he didn’t contradict her.

  ‘So what brings you to my house, Father?’ Robert asked, somewhat tetchily.

  He’d been hoping to spend a quiet afternoon alone with Catlin, but she had paid more attention to Adam than to him, and if that weren’t bad enough, Beata had been clattering about in the hall on some flimsy pretext, coming in and out so often that the banging of the door was beginning to make his head pound. He devoutly prayed the priest wasn’t intending to invite himself for supper.

  Father Remigius crossed back to the couple and, with an anxious glance behind him at the children, lowered his voice. ‘I deeply regret that such a thing should have happened, but you must understand I cannot ignore it.’

  ‘What is it, Father? Have my men been brawling in church again?’

  The old man’s watery eyes blinked at him in puzzlement. ‘Brawling? I don’t believe so . . . that is, no one has complained to me. I’ve come about your banns. The notice I pinned to the church door proclaiming your intention to marry has been . . . defaced.’

  Robert frowned. ‘Market brats, I suppose. They throw filth at anything. The constable needs to put a few in the pillory – see how they like to be pelted. That would soon stop them.’

  ‘I fear it was not street urchins,’ Father Remigius said. ‘I would not have troubled you with such a trivial matter.’ He reached into the scrip that hung from his belt and withdrew a rolled sheet of parchment, which he handed to Robert. ‘This is the notice of your intention to marry, which I pinned to the door myself, but see what’s been written upon it.’

  Robert straightened the parchment impatiently and, as he looked down at the words, an angry flush crept across his face. ‘This is an outrage!’ he spluttered.

  Father Remigius spread his hands in his familiar gesture of conciliation. ‘I know, I know, but as someone has written it and the accusation has been posted on the church door, I am obliged as your priest to ask . . . is there any truth in it?’

  ‘How dare you? Of course not!’ Robert crumpled the parchment and hurled it into the fire. It crackled, then burst into flames.

  Catlin crossed to Robert’s side, took his clenched fists and lifted them to her lips, pressing tender kisses on them. She scanned his face anxiously. ‘What is it, Robert?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Robert said, his jaw working furiously. ‘Nothing for you to trouble yourself with, my dear.’

  ‘But I’m afraid,’ Father Remigius said firmly, ‘that Mistress Catlin must be troubled with this. I cannot perform the wedding unless you both swear that the accusation is false. This constitutes a public declaration that there is an impediment to your intended marriage.’

  He turned again, glancing unhappily towards Adam and Leonia, who had abandoned all pretence of playing Nine Men’s Morris and were evidently listening to every word.

  ‘Perhaps if the children were to play outside, we might discuss this matter more freely.’

  Robert ordered Beata to take the children into the yard. All three glared resentfully at him as they passed, but Robert was too incensed to notice.

  The moment the door had closed, Catlin turned to Father Remigius. ‘What was written on the banns, what impediment?’

 
The old priest sighed. ‘Crimen, the impediment of crime. It was no more specific than that. Neither did the writer say which of you he thought guilty of such a grave offence.’

  Catlin turned in agitation from the priest to Robert and back again. ‘But I don’t understand. What crime can they be talking of? I’ve committed no crime, and I’m sure, my dearest Robert, you could never have done so.’

  It was Father Remigius who answered her. ‘We cannot be sure that the writer himself has understood the implications of what he has written. The finer points of canon law on this matter are still much debated. When Pope Gregory the Ninth in his decree spoke of a promise to marry another while their spouse was still alive, are we to take it that that vow in itself constitutes adultery or that this promise becomes an impediment only if the couple are already indulging in carnal knowledge—’

  ‘Adultery! Is that what I am accused of?’ Robert bellowed.

  Father Remigius flinched. ‘That may indeed be what the accuser meant, but crimen is generally taken to refer to the crime of unlawfully killing a spouse in order to marry another. Though,’ he added hastily, seeing the violent shade of puce Robert was turning, ‘I am certain your accuser could not possibly have meant that.’

  ‘So,’ Robert said, ‘I am simply accused of adultery. Nothing to concern myself with at all.’

  ‘You spoke of “he”,’ Catlin said quietly. ‘Do you know our accuser’s identity?’

  Father Remigius stared at her, clearly bewildered. ‘I have no idea who would make such an accusation, but naturally we must assume a man. A woman would hardly have knowledge of canon law and, besides, how many could even write their own names?’

  Catlin lifted her chin. ‘I am a woman and I assure you I can write a great deal more than my name, Father. I do not think you should dismiss my sex so easily.’

  ‘Regardless of whether it was a woman or a man,’ Robert snapped, ‘I demand you find out at once who wrote such a malicious falsehood.’

  Father Remigius gazed despondently at the fire, which had already consumed the offending accusation. He glanced reproachfully at Robert. ‘Perhaps if you had not burned the notice so hastily, we might have matched the writing.’ He sighed. ‘If the wedding takes place—’

  ‘Are you suggesting we should cancel it?’ Robert spluttered. ‘Clearly someone is out to stop us—’ He broke off abruptly. Up to that moment it had not crossed his mind that the writer of such an accusation could have been anyone other than an enemy. A merchant of Robert’s standing was bound to have left a few men with grudges trailing in his wake – a fellow merchant who suspected that Robert had snatched a deal from under his nose; a brogger, who, as middleman, thought himself cheated on a price; men who were bitter because Robert had prospered while they had not. There was no counting the ways that a man might feel himself slighted or harbour murderous resentment against another. But Robert had realised he need look no further than his own hearth for the author of that vile message.

  He spun on his heel to face Catlin. ‘It must have been Jan who did this. He’s determined to prevent our marriage out of some wretched, misguided loyalty to his mother. He doesn’t seem to grasp that we’re in love . . .’ He looked surprised at the last word to escape his lips. But with it came the understanding that he had never spoken a word so earnestly or meant it so profoundly. He adored this woman in a way he’d never loved poor Edith. Her every gesture and look almost drove him mad with the longing to possess her.

  Catlin’s lips parted in a smile and, oblivious to the presence of the priest, she threw her arms about Robert’s neck, kissing him so fiercely and passionately that it was all Robert could do not to surrender to the stirrings in his crotch.

  Father Remigius coughed pointedly, and Catlin pulled herself out of Robert’s arms with some difficulty, for he was reluctant to let her go. The priest had averted his eyes and was making a careful study of the tapestry depicting the savage boar with its head in the lap of the Saxon princess. He coughed again. ‘Robert, I trust I did not give the impression that I thought your son had any part in this. Such a thought never crossed my mind. I cannot believe any son would do such wickedness to his own father.’

  Robert snorted. ‘You heard him at the Easter feast. When a son dares to threaten his own father openly in front of guests, there is clearly nothing he wouldn’t stop at.’

  Father Remigius winced. ‘He spoke in haste, as the young often do, and such words are best forgotten . . . But you must know his writing. Did you recognise his hand on the parchment?’

  Robert hesitated. He had been so incensed by the words that he hadn’t registered how the letters were formed. He shouldn’t have thrown the parchment onto the fire, but he wasn’t about to admit as much. He flapped a hand irritably. ‘It’s impossible to match any man’s writing from a few letters scrawled on a parchment when it’s pinned up on a door against those he writes carefully in a ledger. And, in any case, I dare say he took pains to disguise his hand.’

  ‘But does Jan know of any impediment?’ Father Remigius persisted. ‘If he does, I beg you to confess it. It may not be insurmountable. There are several occasions I recall when a dispensation was—’

  ‘Of course he doesn’t!’ Robert thundered. ‘Because there is no impediment. This accusation is based on nothing but malice. Jan knows Catlin and I will not be dissuaded, so he is attempting to frighten you into refusing to perform the marriage.’

  Robert reached out and took Catlin’s hand, pulling her round so that they stood facing the priest, looking so much like young lovers defying a disapproving parent that Father Remigius might have smiled, had he not been so troubled.

  ‘Father, my wedding will take place exactly as planned,’ Robert declared. ‘And if that boy tries one more trick to prevent it, I swear I shall kill him.’

  Father Remigius sighed. Weddings were supposed to be such joyous occasions, bringing families together – at least, that was what he’d believed when he was ordained. But experience had taught him that not even wars between nations could match weddings for the discord and bitterness they generated. He always reminded the couple that marriage was blessed by God, yet he sometimes wondered if it hadn’t been invented by the devil. It certainly gave rise to enough mischief. He crossed himself hastily, repenting at once of this blasphemous thought, then thanked God fervently for the gift of celibacy.

  Chapter 27

  To spill salt brings bad luck. To gather up the spilled salt brings worse. Instead, a pinch of salt must three times be thrown over the left shoulder, but never over the right. For the devil sits on your left shoulder and you are throwing salt into his eyes, but an angel sits on your right.

  Lincoln

  I hear that putrid old hag, Eadhild, is in evil humour because I have managed to hide from her these past few nights or so. She no longer confines herself to grabbing the ankles of those walking up the Greesen to bring them crashing onto the steps but walks behind those coming down and gives them a violent shove. She likes to do it when they have their arms full of goods to take to the market, a basket of hardboiled eggs or a tray of fresh loaves. But some good comes from every ill: the beggars are delighted, for they feast well on the spoils.

  Old Father Remigius, it seems, was in no better humour than Eadhild and that evening, as soon as he had finished conducting an unusually perfunctory service, to the bewilderment of his small congregation, he hurried from the church and arrived, somewhat breathless, at Jan’s lodgings.

  The elderly priest tried to avoid telling Jan exactly what his father had said about him, but he was obliged to reveal that Robert suspected his son of writing the accusation on the banns. The matter, whoever had raised it, must be investigated and Father Remigius was not a man to shirk his duty. ‘After I spoke to your father this afternoon, I was unable to banish the idea from my mind, not even as I said Compline,’ he added ruefully.

  ‘What am I supposed to have written on the banns?’ Jan demanded. ‘That my father’s future wife and her maid mu
rdered my mother? If that was what appeared on the parchment, it was nothing less than the truth.’

  Father Remigius’s head sank into his hands and he groaned. ‘My son, why must you continue to torment yourself with such evil thoughts? I visited your mother often where she lay sick. If I’d had the slightest suspicion anyone was trying to harm her I would have prevented it. Mistress Catlin could not have been more solicitous to her or more devoted to her care.’

  ‘But I followed her maid, that old woman Diot, and I saw her—’

  ‘Enough!’ Father Remigius heaved himself from the chair, flapping his hands at Jan. ‘It was my duty to ask if you knew what lay behind the accusation that there is an impediment to the marriage, but I see you are as ignorant of its meaning as I am. That being so, unless the accuser comes forward, I must agree with your father that it is nothing more than baseless libel, born of malice, and I shall ignore it.’

  ‘Father, wait!’ Jan moved swiftly between the priest and the door. ‘I swear I didn’t write it, but I think I know who did. I’ve been searching for him these past two days and I won’t stop until I find him. I’ll bring him straight to you and he’ll tell you what it means. He’s a brother of yours in Holy Orders.’

  ‘If he has knowledge that the law of the Church or the King has been broken or is about to be, then he should have come straight to me or the sheriff and reported what he knew,’ Father Remigius said sternly. ‘A man who’s afraid to show himself has his own guilty secret to hide and his word is not to be trusted. I regret that many liars and rogues take Holy Orders only as a means of escaping punishment for their own wickedness.’

  The priest’s dry, wrinkled hand grasped Jan’s arm. ‘In the name of Christ, I beg you, Jan, to reconcile yourself with your father by dancing at his wedding. If the rift between you is allowed to widen any further, it may never be closed. Young Adam has already lost his mother. Do not deprive him of his only brother too.’