The Vanishing Witch

by Karen Maitland

  ‘One by one my companions left for home as their families settled their ransom demands, but not one word did I receive from my father. I didn’t know whether he’d not received the demand or if he’d sent the ransom and it had been stolen. But I told myself that eventually it would come. Fool that I was, I never stopped believing so. As the weeks dragged past, the French grew impatient. They thought I was lying to them about my father’s wealth or else I was a spy. So they questioned me.’

  Godwin pulled back his sleeve and held out the stump of his arm towards Tenney. ‘They crushed my hand slowly in a press till it was nothing but pulp and splinters of bone. And after that they amused themselves by doing this.’

  With his teeth and practised left hand, Godwin unfastened the cords that tied together the front of his shirt. Tenney gasped and winced – he could almost feel the agony of it himself. He was staring at a painting, like those on a church wall. But what was on the man’s body had not been made by paint and brush. Godwin’s chest was covered with raised black welts. The scarred skin had healed so tightly over his ribcage, it was a wonder he could move his ribs enough to breathe. Lines had been painstakingly etched to form a picture of two fighting ships, one of which was in flames and sinking, while all around men drowned in the sea or were devoured by monsters and scaly sea-serpents, whose long tails coiled round Godwin’s sides.

  ‘It’s to remind me and all who see me that the French will defeat the English,’ Godwin said dully, pulling his shirt closed. ‘You want to know how it’s done? Each line was first carved into my flesh with a knife. Then hot wax, soot and sulphur were dripped into each wound and set afire, so that the marks would be etched deep. It took many . . . many weeks to accomplish every last detail.

  ‘There were days when I feared I should never see another night, and nights when I prayed I would not live to see another day. But dawn must come even to the eternal night and finally there was another ship taken. This time it was one of the King’s own ships. The Crown paid the ransom for all the officers, and the French soldiers who came to escort them to the port, through carelessness or ignorance, swept me up with the rest and herded us aboard a vessel bound for England.

  ‘As soon as we had landed, I set off at once to my home, knowing that my father would be overjoyed to see me, but when I arrived I found strangers there. “Master Fycher’s son is long dead,” they said, “and his bones are buried in the church.”

  ‘They threw me out of my own manor. I thought it was some kind of cruel trick to deprive me of my lands until I went to the church and stared down at my own tomb, with my own effigy carved upon the stone – Here lie the mortal remains of Godwin de Fycher.

  ‘I discovered that an old servant by the name of Aggy still lived in the village. She’d been wet-nurse to my sisters, and in my face she recognised the vestiges of the beardless youth who had sailed away so long ago. As she said, I was now so much like my father, I could have been his ghost. It was a miracle old Aggy didn’t drop dead on the spot when she saw me, for she had watched my remains laid in the church.

  ‘When she recovered from the shock, Aggy told me that the ransom demand had indeed reached my father and he had quickly despatched the messenger back to France with the considerable sum demanded. Pavia had waylaid the messenger as he left and handed one of her jewels to him, which she told my father was to buy me fresh clothes, good food, physic and anything else I might need to make my journey home more comfortable. My father kissed her and told her she was the most generous and tender of women. Pavia eagerly began to prepare to welcome me home with great festivities.

  ‘But some weeks later, when my father returned from his business, he was met by Pavia and his two little daughters in tears. They led him into the hall where a casket lay on the table. Pavia gently broke the news to my father. The ransom had arrived too late. I had died of prison fever just days before. But the French had honoured the payment by returning my bones to my family. As is the custom when a man dies far from home, they had buried my heart and innards in a French churchyard and boiled my skull and bones clean before wrapping them to be sent to England. In the bone-casket they had also placed the ring I was wearing when I was captured, as proof of my identity.

  ‘As soon as he saw the ring my father recognised it at once and fell to weeping, for it was the very ring in the form of a serpent that he had given to me the night before I sailed. The one I had confessed to Pavia I had lost.

  ‘My father fell ill shortly after. He was gripped with violent pains of the belly and began to waste away. His hair and nails grew brittle and fell out and at times he scarcely had the energy to draw breath. The local physician said it was the green sickness, which often follows grief, but Aggy refused to believe it.

  ‘She told me she had learned that Pavia was the daughter of the woman who lived on the seashore, whom the priest had accused of leading the village woman back to the old ways. But it was not her mother who led the women when they went out to dance about their bonfires on the cliffs. It was Pavia. She had learned all her mother had taught her and far more besides, for unlike her mother, an unlettered woman, Pavia had learned to read.

  ‘It was Pavia who taught the women how to make candles from human corpse fat and call out the names of all those men they wanted to harm. She would pronounce the great sentence of excommunication against their victims to stop their mouths, so they couldn’t confess their sins to a priest or swallow the sacred Host. Then the women lit the candles, pierced them with thorns, and let them burn. Those they’d named would feel as if their very flesh was afire and running like wax from their bodies.

  ‘Aggy said that if Pavia gave the candle the name of a person and let it burn down till it went out, the person would surely die and nothing could be done to save him. She swore Pavia was at the bonfire on the cliff top with her mother the night they sent for the priest to give my father the last rites. And he had died at the very hour she named him.

  ‘I am convinced that it was Pavia who, through de Ponte, ensured that the ship was captured, for he was well placed to see that the information of its whereabouts and cargo would reach the French pirates. And I am certain Pavia obtained the bones they buried in place of me. Who knows? She might even have boiled down a corpse herself to get them. God’s blood, I’d swear she was capable of doing so, without so much as a shudder.’

  Godwin stared down at the table, his face twisted in grief.

  Tenney shuffled his great buttocks awkwardly on the bench and averted his eyes from the man’s misery. He still couldn’t see what any of this had to do with Mistress Catlin and was beginning to think that Godwin was one of those demented creatures who insisted on telling their story to any stranger who’d listen, when their friends had long grown weary of it. Not that he felt anything but pity for Godwin. The torture those foreign dogs had inflicted on him would be enough to turn the wits of the most battle-hardened soldier. Now he knew for certain that, if those French bastards could do that to an ordinary seaman who’d never done them any harm, there wasn’t a man, woman or child in England who’d be safe if King Richard failed to stop the French invading.

  Tenney eased himself sideways along the bench, intending to slip out while the man was still sunk in his own thoughts, but Godwin grabbed his arm to stay him. ‘I’ve not told you all yet.’

  Had any other man been bent on cornering him, Tenney would have made some excuse about the master wanting him at home and walked away, but he couldn’t wipe from his mind what he’d seen beneath the man’s shirt. Sighing, he settled himself down to humour Godwin just a little longer.

  ‘Aggy told me that since my father believed me dead and had no other close male relatives, he’d left most of his money and his estate to my two little sisters for their future dowries. His beloved and trusted widow, Pavia, was to be given an allowance so that she should not be in want and was to act as guardian for her stepdaughters, managing their portions until they were of age. But the wreath on his grave had not faded before Pavia s
old everything and left the manor, taking my sisters with her.

  ‘As soon as I learned that, I set off to find them and confront Pavia, for if even a tenth of what the old woman had told me was true, I’d no wish to leave those two helpless girls in her care. And, yes, I freely admit I went to claim what was mine. Since I’d returned alive I was certain that the Consistory Court would overturn my father’s will and grant me my inheritance.

  ‘I’d little idea of where to start looking, but I went through the village, cottage by cottage, asking everyone if they knew where Pavia had gone. The women refused to tell me anything, though I suspected they knew, and her mother’s hut on the seashore had long been abandoned. Eventually I came across a wagoner who thought he’d seen Pavia a year or so after my father’s death at the Thirsk fair. He’d recognised her, for she was a striking woman who stood out in the crowd.

  ‘So I set off at once for Thirsk. No one there had heard of a woman called Pavia, but I described her to everyone I met and it seems a woman resembling her, calling herself Margaret, had arrived there shortly after my father’s death and married a local landowner, Sir Richard, who had a manor in those parts. They said she had come to Thirsk alone, accompanied only by a maid, a woman old enough to be her mother. There were no little girls with her. I was certain then that she’d cruelly murdered my sisters somewhere on the road so that she could keep all of my father’s money.’

  Tenney shook his head in exasperation. The tale had grown wild beyond belief and Godwin was sorely trying his patience. ‘Even if it was the same woman, your sisters could have died of the Great Pestilence that took so many young ones when it returned, or some other sickness. You’ve no proof that murder was done. Besides, the description of one woman may fit a dozen, a hundred, even. Why should Margaret and Pavia be the same woman? It seems more likely she wasn’t, if she had no children with her. Did you see her, speak to her?’

  Godwin, without waiting to be invited, refilled his beaker, emptying the flagon to the last drop. ‘Sir Richard had died long before I arrived in Thirsk and his wife had vanished shortly after. But the proof is this.’ Godwin leaned forward eagerly, his eyes blazing in their dark hollow sockets. ‘Sir Richard also died of the green sickness and it took exactly the same progress as my own father’s.’

  ‘As well it might,’ Tenney said, ‘if it was the same sickness.’

  ‘Just listen to me!’ Godwin snarled, his face twisted into such hatred that Tenney was afraid he would attack him. ‘I discovered another husband after Sir Richard who died at that witch’s hands, a man called Warrick. She bewitched him into madness, so that he killed himself by riding into a tree.’

  ‘Men die every day after being thrown from a horse,’ Tenney said. ‘There’s no witchcraft in it, only the carelessness of the riders. You should have seen the way young master Jan used to ride, especially after a night in the tavern. His poor mother used to fear every day he’d be brought home on a bier.’ He crossed himself, thinking it was a blessing Mistress Edith hadn’t lived to see her son dragged out of the Braytheforde.

  Godwin groaned. ‘What will it take to convince you? I followed Pavia’s trail here to Lincoln and this time I caught up with her. I’ve seen her with my own eyes, not once but many times. I watched her until I was absolutely sure, not trusting to looks alone, for it has been many years since I laid eyes on her, but observing the way she walks, her gestures, her manner. Those things don’t change in a woman, though her face may age. I even called at her door once, begging for alms, so that I could hear her voice. I would swear upon my life, upon every saint in Christendom, that the woman who now calls herself Catlin is my father’s wife, Pavia. And Catlin’s maid is the woman who lived on the seashore, Pavia’s mother. If Catlin and Diot are those two witches, then your master’s life is in grave danger, his son’s too.’

  Tenney tugged his thick beard. ‘If you’re that certain of it, you should take this tale to the sheriff. See what he makes of it. He’s a great friend of the master. He’d act soon enough if he thought his life were in any danger.’ Another thought struck him. ‘And that’s another thing that makes no sense. You said you wanted your inheritance so why didn’t you go straight to the justices as soon as you returned? Tell’m you were still alive. I’ve heard of men that were thought certain dead in battle, returning months, even years later and reclaiming their lands. This Aggy would surely have stood witness that you were who you claimed to be.’

  Godwin gave a bitter laugh. ‘You think that wasn’t exactly what I intended? But I’d underestimated Pavia, as all men do. Aggy told me that, shortly after I set sail, a young girl’s body was found down a well, battered beyond recognition. They only realised the corpse was down there when people started getting sick and complaining about the stench of the water they drew up. The girl was probably a beggar or traveller’s brat, for no one from the village had been reported missing, else they’d have searched long before.

  ‘The hue and cry was raised, but there were no clues as to who’d killed her and no relatives to press for justice, so the search was abandoned. But at my father’s funeral, Pavia broke down sobbing, saying that as he lay mortally sick my father confessed to her that I’d raped and murdered the girl. He’d discovered what I’d done and that was why he’d sent me to sea, so that he’d be spared the shame of having a son convicted of murder.

  ‘Aggy, bless her, didn’t believe a word of it, for she’d known me all my life, but who listens to an old woman? Everyone in the village suddenly remembered wondering at the time why a wealthy merchant should send his eldest son and heir to sea. To them the explanation made perfect sense. They were convinced of my guilt.

  ‘Since everyone assumed I’d died in a French dungeon, there was nothing more the bailiff could do about it, save say that God had meted out His own justice. But if I were to turn up claiming to be Godwin, I’d be arrested for the girl’s murder with no way to prove otherwise. It would be my word against the deathbed confession of my own father. Pavia was clever. She’d made quite certain that if, by some miracle, I survived, I could never go to the justices anywhere in England for I’d be a wolf’s head, an outlaw.

  ‘I had to track her down myself. I tried to stop her marriage to your master by scrawling a message on the banns nailed to the church door. And I warned Pavia her secret was discovered by leaving her own curse on her marriage bed, the same one she had used to murder my poor father, the candles stuck with thorns.’

  ‘Hold up!’ Tenney said. ‘Then it was you who broke in and slashed the bed.’

  ‘To frighten her away.’

  ‘Beata swore there were candles and a bird’s skull left in the chamber, but Edward and Mistress Catlin denied it and Master Robert wouldn’t believe my poor lass.’

  Godwin grasped Tenney’s wrist fiercely. ‘But you must believe Beata and you must make your master believe before it’s too late. The woman you call Catlin is a witch, like her mother, only far more powerful, and her own daughter has learned from the pair of them. I’ve been watching her. That child is growing up to be as evil and ruthless as the dam, perhaps more so. Leonia is bewitching Adam, as her mother enchanted my father and your master. And Leonia will destroy Adam, just as surely as her mother murdered my father. I beg you to believe that. The mother and daughter have fastened their talons around father and son and they will devour them both, unless you stop them.’

  Chapter 38

  Sorcerers and witches are able to inflict the falling sickness on their victims by burying an egg in a grave with a corpse who was of one of their own kind. When the egg is dug up, it is concealed in the food or posset of the person they wish to harm, and charms are recited under the breath as the victim eats it. Then the falling sickness shall come upon them and they will be seized by fits whenever the witch wills it.

  Lincoln

  ‘But, Tenney, you’ll have to tell the master,’ Beata said. ‘You must find a way to get him alone, away from them.’ She peered out of the stables across the dark cour
tyard. The lights in the hall had been extinguished, but the glow of candles in the solar upstairs showed that the family had not yet retired to bed. ‘I knew there was something evil about all three of those women. I told you, Tenney, but you wouldn’t have it, you stubborn old goat. “Master Robert needs a new wife to take his mind off his troubles,”’ Beata mimicked Tenney’s gruff tones. ‘Well, he’s more troubles than a chicken in a foxes’ den now. If you’d listened to me—’

  ‘Supposing I had,’ Tenney grumbled, ‘what difference would it have made? The master would’ve no more taken notice then than he will now.’

  Beata pounced. ‘Aye, but it’s different now. What this Godwin told you – that’s proof, that is. He’ll have to believe it.’

  Tenney shook his great head. ‘Believe what? Some fanciful tale spun by an outlaw the master already thinks is out to rob or murder him? I don’t even think I believe it. And even if any of it’s true, we’ve only Godwin’s word that Catlin and Pavia are one and the same. Remember your old aunt who kept thinking other women’s bairns were her own? She even came up to you in the marketplace when Master Jan was little, saying he was her babe stolen away from her. Swore blind she recognised him, even though you’d cut Master Jan’s cord with your own hands. No amount of telling her convinced her, though, did it? And if you’d seen what those French did to that poor wretch of a man . . .’ Tenney shuddered. ‘No one’d be in his right mind after that.’