The Vanishing Witch

by Karen Maitland

  Shaking his head despairingly, Father Remigius shuffled from the chamber.

  The moment the door closed behind the priest, Jan let out a bellow of frustration and rage. He swept his arm across the remains of his supper on the table, sending trencher, goblet and candlestick crashing to the floor. He roared curses on all priests, his father and Catlin in such savage tones that two boatmen ambling past his casement peered in, sure that a fight must be taking place.

  Jan was in such a fury that, before he knew what he was about, he found himself striding round the Braytheforde, then realised he’d left both sword and cloak on the floor of his chamber. A cold wind was blowing off the water, but he did not return for them: he must find that friar. He’d search all night if he had to, but he would find him. And when he did, he would force the man to tell what he knew, even if he had to duck him in the Braytheforde and drag him by his heels to the sheriff.

  Jan collided with an elderly goodwife, almost knocking her over, but for once he didn’t trouble to apologise. He worked his way around the wharf. It was growing dark and rain was pattering into the water. The beggars were settling down for the night, hurrying to claim the most sheltered spots before some usurper wormed his way in. Those men fortunate enough to have money were making for the inns and alewives’ houses. Jan peered into every gloomy corner and yard. The friar had first been seen near the warehouse. He might return there.

  A man can be so consumed by hunting for something he is sure lies ahead that he does not notice what is behind him. Jan was so intent on searching around the warehouses that he was oblivious to the shadow that slid out from the cavern of a nearby courtyard and followed him silently, in friar’s sandals, along the street. He jerked round as he felt someone touch his shoulder.

  ‘Master Jan?’ The words sounded as if they were being dragged through gravel. ‘I’ve waited for you for far too long.’

  Jan reeled backwards. The hunter had become the quarry. ‘I’ve been trying to find you,’ he gabbled. ‘I’ve searched everywhere these past two days.’

  ‘You could have found me easily enough, if you’d trusted Pizzle that night you were in Butwerk. I’d sent him to bring you to me. But you were intent on telling Diot you would see Catlin hanged. That was foolish. Diot does not take kindly to anyone threatening her daughter. You didn’t guess? Diot is not just Catlin’s maid, she’s her mother.’

  Chapter 28

  On St Mark’s Eve, a witch must walk backwards three times around Thoresway Church in Lincolnshire, then look through the keyhole and recite a charm. In this way she renews her pact with the devil. If she ever fails to do it she will lose her powers.

  Greetwell

  Gunter shoved Hankin out of the cottage, followed him and closed the door softly behind them. After the warm fug of the tiny room, the damp chill of the breeze from the river was sharp enough to make even a hardened boatman shiver. Hankin, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, glared mutinously at his father. Somewhere an eager cock was crowing, but the sun had not yet risen. Only a faint silvery ribbon running along the distant line of the dark marshes showed where dawn would break. Gunter heard the door open again and glanced round as Nonie emerged, clad only in her shift and fumbling to tie a shawl about her shoulders.

  She thrust a package wrapped in sacking into Hankin’s hand. ‘A bite of bread for your dinner. See you share it with your faayther.’ She looked up at Gunter. ‘Can’t you wait till I’ve heated the pottage? You both need something hot afore you start out.’

  Hankin looked longingly at the warm cottage, but Gunter shook his head. ‘I haven’t had a load for two days. If I can get there before the others . . .’

  ‘But you can’t work on an empty belly.’

  ‘If I can’t get a load, we’ll all be working on empty bellies,’ he snapped. Then, seeing the pained expression in his wife’s eyes, he ran his hand through his matted hair and said, more gently, ‘You know we must find the money. If the King’s men return, we’ll not be able to hide Royse a second time.’

  ‘But she’s recorded now,’ Nonie said. ‘They’d have no cause to . . . examine her.’

  ‘There’s no knowing what they’d do to force us to pay up. They’ve seen I’d do anything to protect the bairns, so it’ll be them they threaten first.’

  Gunter had lain awake night after night cursing himself for what he’d done. Only a fool gave in to blackmail. Once you’d done that, they knew where your weakness lay, what to do to hurt you most. And if fit, strong men like him didn’t stand up to them, what hope was there for the frail and the old?

  Aware that Hankin was listening, he gave the boy a little shove. ‘Start getting the reed mat off the boat, lad.’

  The boy stood his ground and folded his arms. ‘I want some pottage. Too hungry to work.’

  Nonie glared at him. ‘You heard your faayther,’ she said, raising her hand as a warning. For a moment it looked as if he would defy her too, but he sulkily turned away and went down the track. ‘What’s got into him?’ she said. ‘He’ll not do a thing he’s told without arguing the moon is the sun.’

  ‘We both know what ails him,’ Gunter said angrily. ‘He saw his own faayther give in to the King’s men and agree to pay them, like some frightened old woman handing over her purse to footpads. What kind of a man does that make me in his eyes?’

  ‘A good one, who’d do anything to protect his family,’ Nonie said. ‘Besides, they were armed. What could you have done, except get us all killed?’

  What was the use of talking about it? Gunter thought. They’d been over this a hundred times, Nonie stoutly protesting that he had done the only thing he could. But words are so many fallen leaves. You never find the truth in words, only in a person’s eyes. And he would carry to his grave the reproach in the eyes of his wife and son that night.

  Gunter trudged along the bank to the boat. Nonie followed him a little way and stood watching, her fists clenched, as if she was struggling to find words to span the chasm that was opening between them.

  Hankin had stripped the punt of its protective mat and sat inside, his head resting on his hands, his shoulders hunched. Gunter ignored him and loosened the mooring ropes. Then as he stepped into the boat, Nonie raised a hand to shield her eyes from any glimpse of him and hurried back to the house. They both knew it was bad luck for a woman to watch her husband’s boat depart, even on the river. It was a measure of how worried she was that she had followed him as far as she had.

  Gunter pushed off and expertly turned the long punt upstream. He stood up in the square bow, pushing the long wooden quant down to the river bottom, feeling the flat iron shoe on the end pressing against the bed. Then he walked towards the stern as he poled the punt forward. In spite of his wooden leg, Gunter could balance on a moving punt as easily as other men could on dry land. Hankin was almost as skilled as his father, though being small he lacked the power to make the boat move as swiftly. Gunter glanced at him. His son was still squatting on the cross-bench making no attempt to lift the other pole. Gunter itched to cuff him out of his sulk, but he didn’t.

  Just a few weeks ago he’d been a hero in the boy’s eyes, his father, strong as an ox, the equal of any man on the river. But in the space of an hour he’d turned into a pathetic coward. He knew Hankin despised him, not simply for his failure but for tricking him into believing his father had ever been a man.

  ‘Eat what your mam gave you.’

  Hankin’s head jerked up. ‘Then there’ll be none for the noon bell and I’ll be hungry again by then.’

  ‘You can have my share.’

  ‘I don’t want it!’

  ‘As you please.’ Gunter tried to ignore the lad’s tone. ‘But if you’re going to have a bite, eat fast. I need your quant in that river. We’ll be coming up to the bends shortly.’

  Hankin hesitated, then unwrapped the sacking. He tore pieces off the chunk of bread and shovelled them into his mouth, rewrapped the remains and, without looking at his father, took his place in the st
ern, dipping his pole into the water.

  It was hard work pushing upstream. Through the wooden shaft of his quant Gunter could feel the currents tangling with each other as the rising sea-tide barged its way up, fighting the river water pouring down for possession of the channel. He tried to keep the boat in the upstream, but the current twisted away from him almost as soon as he found it.

  Sometimes, when they were further downriver, and if the wind was blowing right, they could hoist the small square sail to help them shift a heavy cargo, but he wouldn’t risk that so close to the city. The waterway was too crowded, and if a gust of wind should catch the sail at the wrong moment, the boat might ram another craft or the pillars of a jetty. Better to trust to muscle on this stretch of the river.

  They pushed on in silence. A pale pink light was flooding the river and the banks were stirring to life. Men were making ready their own small boats and women were dipping pails into the water and staggering back to cottages where smoke meandered through the reed-thatched roofs.

  Gunter worked the quant harder, and was relieved to see Hankin was also putting his back into it. Although the lad was not strong enough to make much difference to the speed of the craft, he helped to keep the course steady and could push away any floating debris that might crash into them, without Gunter having to break his stroke.

  As they reached the outskirts of the city, the cottages huddled closer together. Those on the edge of the city, outside the walls, were threadbare hovels cobbled together from pieces of salvaged wood, lost nails and whatever else their owners could find to keep out the worst of the weather. In the dark shadows of the open doorways, half-naked infants with swollen bellies and bandy legs listlessly threw stones at passing boats or at the gulls fighting for scraps on the water. Their older siblings were already busy with their day’s work, hooking anything they could salvage from the river as it swept the city’s leavings past them – a bobbing onion, lumps of tar, bits of wood, rope, rags, sacks of drowned puppies – anything that might be eaten, sold, burned, or used for fishing bait. Even the meanest object was a prize worth fighting over.

  Further into the city the shacks stepped aside for wooden cottages, then small houses with roofs overhanging the river, shading it from the sun. You had to keep your wits about you. This stretch of water was teeming with craft. Some river-men were already moored along the bank, cooking their breakfast over small braziers, ready to trade goods from their boats as soon as the market bell rang. Gunter caught the smell of roasting herring, and his stomach growled in protest. He saw his son’s head turn towards the sweet smoke.

  ‘Keep your eyes on the boats, lad,’ he warned. He needed Hankin to be alert for any craft that might swing too close to theirs and be ready to push it away.

  There was a sudden splash in the water next to them as a pail of night soil was tipped out of a casement above. The filth just missed him, and Gunter gave an angry bellow. A young maid with a round face peered down at him. She blew him a cheeky kiss, grinning unrepentantly. It was against the law for citizens to empty their night soil into the river, but they did so anyway – it was easier than trailing with it to the midden.

  They passed under Thorn Bridge and then beneath the great vaults of High Bridge. A couple of women were crouching on the steps that led to the water’s edge between the arches, pounding their washing, though the water was so dirty that Gunter wondered if it was worth the effort.

  It was cold and dank under the bridge. All around him water oozed down the walls, leaving trails of green slime, and dripped into the rushing water with an echo like a hammer hitting iron. Above him, he could hear the clatter of horses’ hoofs and the grinding of cartwheels. No matter how many times he passed under the bridge he always hated it. He had lived all his life beneath great wide skies, and solid though the bridge appeared, he always feared that one day it might collapse under the weight of the wagons above, trapping him in the icy darkness of the water.

  He breathed easier as the bow edged into the light again and before long the river mouth widened into the teeming harbour that was the Braytheforde. Gunter’s experienced eyes scanned the water’s edge for a mooring. To his relief he saw that several spaces were as yet unoccupied along the wooden jetty closest to Master Robert’s warehouse, but other craft were already nosing out of the river, and several more across the other side of the harbour were pushing towards the same moorings.

  ‘There, Bor, over there, we’ll make for that one. Push as hard as you can, afore someone else beats us to it.’

  Glancing back, he saw another of the flat-bottomed boats catching up fast. His heart sank when he recognised Martin and his hulking son, Simon. Martin’s wife had done what every man wished for and had borne him a son first instead of a daughter. The lad was now a strapping sixteen-year-old and little Hankin was no match for him. But Gunter was determined not to be beaten this time.

  Weighing up the distance between his punt and Martin’s, he stepped to the opposite side and, with his next push, slewed the boat at a slight angle while still sending it shooting forward. He was gambling on Martin being alert: if he wasn’t, Martin’s punt would plough right into his. But the trick paid off and, with a stream of curses, Martin was forced to turn his boat and slow it down to avoid a collision.

  With one swift push, Gunter had his boat back on a straight course heading for the vacant mooring closest to the warehouse. With a practised hand he brought the punt alongside. Hankin knew what was expected of him. He made the leap for the short, slippery ladder that hung down the side of the jetty, bounded up it like a squirrel, deftly caught the rope his father flung up at him and made it fast.

  ‘We beat them, Faayther!’ Hankin grinned for the first time in days.

  Gunter glanced back. Martin and his son were arguing with another boatman as both tried to force their craft into the same mooring further along the jetty. Gunter knew he had the edge, but not for long. ‘Make the other rope fast, so she doesn’t swing out. Then wait for me on the punt. Don’t go running off.’

  Gunter knew the temptations of a crowded port for a young boy, never mind the excitements of the marketplace beyond. It was only too easy for a lad like Hankin to become engrossed in watching the boat-builders cutting the great logs with saws twice as long as a man, or lose all sense of time wandering among the colourful stalls, dancing bears and storytellers. As a lad, he’d done so often enough.

  Gunter pressed his hand to the side of the jetty, measuring the gap between the high-water mark and the river. They were so far from the sea that the tide only made the water level in the Braytheforde rise and fall a couple of inches. But in the lower reaches of the Witham you could feel the effects of the tide’s strong pull and push. By his reckoning, the tide would be high within an hour or so. If they were travelling downstream when it was ebbing, it would speed their journey.

  Gunter hoisted himself up the ladder and limped along the jetty towards the warehouse. Fulk, the overseer, known behind his back as Fart, was standing at the door. He was a small, stocky man who made up for his lack of height with aggression. He lost his temper easily if forced to think about two things at once, and his attention was now focused on berating the few warehousemen who’d arrived late. But Gunter could already see the familiar figures of other boatmen wending their way round the wharf towards the warehouses. He couldn’t afford to wait. If there were no loads at the first, he’d have to hurry to the next, and by that time their cargoes might already have been assigned. Fulk was still snarling at one cowed youth when Gunter interrupted. ‘Beg pardon, Master Fulk.’

  ‘What is it?’ Fulk snapped, turning away from the youth, who slid inside and disappeared.

  ‘Any loads going out this morning?’

  Fulk ignored him and peered into the dark interior of the warehouse.

  ‘You, boy,’ he bellowed. ‘I’ve not finished with you yet. I’ll see your wages docked for this. I’ve warned you, there’s plenty ready to take your job, if you can’t haul your carcass out of
your kennel of a morning.’ As he turned to Gunter, the men inside made obscene gestures at his back. ‘There’s precious little going anywhere, with the trouble those Flemish weavers are causing in Flanders. Scum want hanging, the whole pack of them.’

  ‘But the warehouse is open,’ Gunter said desperately. ‘There must be something.’

  Fulk tugged at his lower lip, apparently considering the matter. He derived a cruel satisfaction from making other men wait. ‘There’s one cargo going out today, only one, mind. Wool to be taken down to Boston.’

  Gunter’s stomach surged with relief. The full length of the river – that would pay well.

  ‘But ship sails in two days. You sure you can get it there in time?’ Fulk looked doubtfully along the jetty to where Hankin was sitting, swinging his legs and staring across the harbour. ‘You’ve only a little lad with you. He’ll tire afore you’re clear of Lincoln.’

  ‘He may be small, but so’s a weasel and that can tackle a rabbit three times its size. Come on, Master Fulk, you know me. I’ve done that run since I was boy. Have I ever got a load there late?’ Glancing around, he saw Martin in conversation at a warehouse further round the wharf. ‘I’ve never lost so much as a single barrel or bale neither, not like some.’ Gunter jerked his head pointedly in Martin’s direction. ‘Please, Master Fulk. I need this. I’ll keep going all night if I have to, but I swear it’ll reach the ship in time.’

  Fulk plucked at his lip again. ‘I suppose I could let you take it. But you’ll not get paid until you bring me back the tally from the ship’s quartermaster so I know he’s had the full load and it’s not been spoiled.’

  Gunter was aghast. ‘That’s not right. It’s always half now and half when I get back with the tally.’