The Vanishing Witch

by Karen Maitland

  ‘Some of the sick we can cure,’ she said, ‘but others will always be in need of our care. It’s rare that those with the falling sickness are completely cured, though we pray daily for miracles, and if it is God’s will—’

  I tried to struggle out of the bed again. ‘But I don’t have the falling sickness. I’ve not fallen into a fit once since I came here, you know that. It’s the girl. She casts the evil eye. She makes me see things, sends demons to torment my sleep. When I’m away from her I’m well, but if she’s near, she strikes me dumb, so I can’t name her.’

  ‘Then you’ll be safe in here, won’t you?’ Sister Ursula said, as if I was a simpleton who needed to be calmed. ‘Whoever you fancy is trying to harm you can’t reach you in here, not while you’re surrounded by the protection of the blessed St Mary. And, besides, where else could you go? You should be giving thanks daily to the Holy Virgin that your master found you a place here. For you’ve no work and no family. What would become of you if we cast you out? You’d become a beggar or a harlot.’

  ‘Not much danger of her becoming a whore with that face, Sister,’ one of the lay women called over. ‘You want to think yourself lucky, Pock-head. At least you spent half your life outside. Old Amice has been in here since she were a girl, and she’ll die in here, won’t you, you filthy old gammer? And not before time.’

  ‘No!’ I scrambled out of bed, shoved Sister Ursula aside and fled to the door. ‘I’m not sick. I’ll not be kept in here. It’s that witch who should be locked up.’

  I pushed against the door with all my strength, pounding on the wood and twisting the iron handle, but it wouldn’t yield. Even as I tried to smash my way out, the two lay sisters grabbed me again. They glanced back, waiting for instructions from Sister Ursula, who came hurrying up.

  ‘She needs a bath to calm her,’ Sister Ursula said.

  My legs buckled beneath me. ‘No, please, not that again,’ I moaned. ‘I’ll be quiet. I’ll sit still, I promise. Please!’

  It took four of them in the end to drag me into the small, windowless chamber, and force me, naked, into the deep wooden tub filled with cold water drawn from one of the many dark wells. I fought them every inch of the way, bruising myself as I struggled and kicked, scraping my arms on the wood. I thought I was strong from years of hard work, but the lay sisters were stronger and they forced me down. One held my head in the lock of her arm until the two halves of the wooden lid of the tub were bolted around my neck, sealing me into the icy water, leaving only my head poking out of the top.

  Two of the women took turns pouring water from a jug over my face to cool my brain, till I thought I would suffocate. I screamed, choked and swore at them, beating my fists against the wood, trying to break free, but they continued until finally I sat still, defeated and sobbing. I couldn’t win. I couldn’t fight them.

  They left me, locked in the freezing water, numb with cold and fear.

  ‘There’s nothing to fret about. With the lid fastened around your neck, you can’t drown even if you wanted to. You’ll come to no harm,’ they said. ‘What’s there to be afraid of? You’re safe here.’

  They closed the door and left me, shivering, alone in the darkness – alone, that is, until the eels came swimming out of the thick green water.

  June

  If June be sunny, harvest comes early, but a leak in June sets all in tune.

  Chapter 40

  If a spell is cast over a flock of chickens causing them to sicken, or the cows’ milk to dry up, then roast alive a bird from that flock or bury a calf from the herd alive and the spell shall be broken.

  Kirkstead Abbey

  Gunter crouched in the punt and leaned over the river, dashing handfuls of cool water over his sweating face. He and Hankin had carried a load of timber downriver to Kirkstead. It was needed as scaffolding for the repair work at the abbey. It wasn’t a great distance, but the loading and unloading had been time-consuming and hard. The river was low, and heaving the heavy poles and planks upwards onto the bank had not been easy. The lay brothers sent to fetch the wood from the jetty had been an idle and insolent pair, who’d made it plain they did not regard it as their responsibility to lift so much as a splinter until the cargo was on dry land. So Gunter and little Hankin had been forced to unload the wood between them while the lay brothers sat on the back of their wagon, swigging ale and watching them work.

  Gunter had been hoping the abbey would have a load to send down to Boston or back up to Lincoln, but the lay brothers’ wagon had arrived empty and he knew that so late in the afternoon there was little chance of obtaining another cargo elsewhere. So, he’d decided to draw breath and eat a bite or two before punting back upstream.

  He shifted his weight back into the centre of the boat, frowning as the boy grabbed the edge of the punt when it rocked with his motion. It pained him to see Hankin so afraid of the water that he’d once treated as a second skin. This time last year, if they’d stopped to eat in the heat of the day, the lad would have torn off his clothes and dived over the side before Gunter had even settled himself down, plunging and rolling in the water, like a young otter, for the sheer pleasure of it. But since his near-drowning in the Braytheforde, the boy was as anxious as a minnow in a pool of pike when he was anywhere near the river.

  Gunter tried to tell himself it was as well that the scare had made him understand the danger and respect the river. Like most boys his age, Hankin had treated the water with a careless indifference, certain he was invincible. Gunter told Nonie it would do the boy no harm to learn that the river could turn from friend to enemy in a heartbeat, but he could not convince himself of that.

  Hankin had been ill with a fever for nearly two weeks after the ducking. The water had got into his lungs and he coughed it up day and night. Nonie had made warming poultices to lay on his chest and given him a decoction of herb of grace to drink, which she’d picked from their own small vegetable patch. A neighbour had offered some precious syrup of marsh poppy to ease the pains of his fever and help him to sleep but he’d woken screaming and flailing as if he were still under the green water, trying to reach the air. Sometimes Gunter had the same dreams. A man with a blanched face and sightless eyes had a hand round his throat and was dragging him down into the cold, dark depths.

  He still could not believe that the man they’d dragged from the Braytheforde was Master Robert’s son. It seemed inconceivable that the peeling lump of white flesh had once been the vigorous young man he’d seen only days before striding from the warehouse. They’d arrested some of the Florentines for murder, including Matthew Johan, but they’d had to let them go. There was no proof, except that Matthew had had a grudge against Jan, but not even the sheriff of Lincoln could detain a man for holding a grudge.

  Gunter wondered if they shouldn’t be looking closer to Master Robert’s own warehouse for Jan’s killer. If Jan had discovered that Fulk was taking bribes from Martin, and challenged either of them at the warehouse, he’d have been highly likely to take a dip in the Braytheforde, just as Hankin had done.

  Witnesses said they’d heard Jan shouting and crashing about in his own chamber, and others swore they’d seen him striding round the Braytheforde in such a temper that he’d knocked an old goodwife into a wall and cracked her head open, then cursed her roundly for getting in his way. The coroner and the twelve jury men who had examined the body could make little of what they saw. There were no marks on the body, save the four puncture wounds on the face.

  Jan wouldn’t have been the first man to drink too much and trip over a mooring rope in the dark, or slip on some fish guts and pitch into the water. The marks, so the coroner directed the jury, were doubtless made by the iron shoe at the end of a punter’s quant when the body was trapped under water, by an oar or an anchor, even.

  Later, several of the jurors, after they’d supped a mug or two of ale bought for them by curious friends, said that if the coroner had learned anything about boats, which he plainly hadn’t, he’d have kno
wn there wasn’t a quant or anchor on the river that would make wounds like that. But since they’d had no better explanation to offer they’d gone along with what he’d said, not least because every hour they went on debating the matter was an hour they weren’t out earning a living. It was agreed by all that if you were forced to serve as a juryman it was best to accept any verdict the coroner suggested, no matter how addle-pated you thought him, just to get the whole business over as quickly as possible. So, an accident it had been.

  But within hours the rumours began to spread. Friends recalled Jan telling anyone who’d listen that his mother had been poisoned by the harlot his father was to marry. But, at the time, not even his friends had thought it more than the ravings of a grief-stricken son. After all, every son regards any other woman his father takes up with as a scheming bitch. But Master Robert had wed so indecently soon after his poor wife and son had gone to their graves, which made you wonder, didn’t it?

  ‘Wait, hold hard there!’

  Gunter looked up in surprise as a man came hurrying towards the mooring. He was scarlet in the face and dripping with sweat, as if he had been basted over a spit. He doubled up, panting, flapping his hand at Gunter to indicate he would speak when he’d found enough breath to do so.

  Gunter pulled a leather bottle of small ale from under the cross-plank where he’d placed it out of the sun and handed it up to the man. He took a long, thirsty gulp before returning it, his face screwed up in distaste. ‘Going sour, but my thanks. Anything’s welcome on a day like this, so long as it’s wet. Which way are you bound?’

  Gunter jerked his head. ‘Back up stream as far as Greetwell.’

  The stranger looked blank.

  ‘On the way to the city of Lincoln.’

  ‘Lincoln?’ The man beamed at him. ‘That’s where I’m to go. I’ll give you twopence to carry me.’

  ‘Fourpence, if you want to go all the way into Lincoln. It’s well beyond Greetwell.’

  It wasn’t, but clearly the stranger didn’t know that. Besides, Gunter reckoned the man could afford it. Though he was travel-stained and covered with dust, his clothes were of good quality. This was no cottager bound for market.

  ‘Threepence.’ The stranger held out a hand and they shook. ‘William de Ashen . . . from Essex,’ he added, seeing the name meant nothing to Gunter.

  Gunter spread a couple of sacks on the wooden cross-seat and steadied the stranger as he stepped down into the punt. He wobbled dangerously, like a cow on ice.

  ‘Essex? You’re a long way from home. You planning to walk all the way to Lincoln, were you?’

  ‘I was beginning to fear I might have to,’ William said, looking at little less alarmed now that he was seated. ‘My horse collapsed under me, poor beast. I’d ridden her hard and should have changed mounts miles back, but I couldn’t find an inn.’

  ‘Precious few of those hereabouts.’

  William nodded ruefully, as if he could testify to that.

  ‘Some lay brothers passed me with a wagonload of timber. I asked them for a lift, but they were only bound for their abbey. I thought of going there to ask for a horse, but they said a boat was just leaving, and if I hurried I might catch you.’

  Gunter motioned to Hankin to cast off the mooring ropes, and braced the punt with his quant, keeping it tight to the bank, so that the lad didn’t have to leap a gap to get on board. Hankin was nervous about doing that now, though he’d always jumped with reckless bravado before the ducking.

  ‘I doubt the abbey would have sold you a horse. They were badly hit by the last murrain. Lost a good many beasts and men too.’

  ‘I could have commandeered one.’ William patted his leather scrip.

  Hankin looked up sharply from the stern. Gunter knew what he was thinking. If William de Ashen had the authority to commandeer a horse, he could seize a punt too. He was lucky the man had agreed to pay anything.

  ‘I travel on the King’s business,’ William said proudly. ‘I’ve never been sent on such a journey before, but men are being dispatched with urgent news to all the towns the length and breadth of England. There weren’t enough of the regular messengers to go, at least not from Essex.’

  ‘Have the French invaded?’ Hankin said eagerly. ‘Are we to defend the towns?’

  William swivelled round, smiling indulgently. ‘Raring to fight, are you, son? I don’t blame you. I was the same at your age. But if there’s fighting to be done it’ll not be the French you’ll be up against, but Englishmen.’

  Hankin drew himself up indignantly. ‘I’d not fight my own countrymen. No man would.’

  William grunted. ‘That’s the tidings I bring for your city fathers. Essex is on the march. Essex men are raising a rebellion against Parliament. They’re pouring out of the villages all over the county and whipping up more support in every town and hamlet they pass through . . . Aah! Steady on!’

  William made a grab for the side as the punt gave a violent lurch. The corner of the bow collided with the bank, and both Gunter and his son teetered perilously before righting themselves. Gunter fought to regain his stroke and push them back into midstream.

  ‘Won’t happen again, Master William,’ Gunter said gruffly, furious with himself and grateful no other boatmen were passing to witness his clumsiness. ‘It was what you said . . . I never thought to hear . . .’

  ‘I don’t wonder it put you off your stroke,’ William said. ‘I never thought to see such a thing either. I was there when it all started at Brentwood, though I never dreamed it would come to that. Sir John de Bampton and Sir John de Gildesburgh were there to preside over the Whitsun Assizes. I wasn’t in the court myself, but from what I hear there was a man called up from one of the villages, Baker his name was. Bampton said he’d not declared all the people in his household eligible to pay the poll tax and that he must pay what he owed there and then.’

  His gaze fixed on the river, Gunter’s jaw clenched. He was reliving the night he’d been accused of the same thing. He dared not turn, but he guessed Hankin was remembering it too. William carried on blithely with his account, apparently failing to notice the effect his words were having on Gunter and his son.

  ‘Baker said he’d already paid what the taxmen had asked of him and they’d accepted it. He wasn’t going to pay any more. You can imagine how the King’s commissioner reacted to that. They don’t take kindly to being told no by a commoner. So he ordered the sergeants-at-arms to arrest him. There were near a hundred men or so at that court, not just from Brentwood but all the villagers around who’d been summonsed. When the sergeants-at-arms went for Baker, they just pushed between him and the sergeants, to shield him. They wouldn’t let them take Baker, and the more Bampton threatened, the more belligerent they got. In the end the whole lot of them declared they’d not pay a single penny they owed in poll tax and they’d not recognise his authority either.

  ‘So Bampton ordered his sergeants to arrest the ringleaders. Have you ever heard anything so cod-witted? It might have worked if he’d had a whole troop of men with him, but he had only two sergeants. Even a drummer boy could have told him they were no match for a hundred riled men.

  ‘The crowd attacked them, drove Bampton, Gildesburgh and their two sergeants out of the town. I saw that part with my own eyes, the royal commissioners galloping away as if the hounds of hell were at their heels, a great mob of men and women brandishing staves and firing arrows at them. It’s a wonder none of the townsfolk was hit, the way those arrows were falling. Their blood was running so hot that if they’d caught up with the commissioners they’d have beaten them to death.’

  ‘Have the villagers been arrested?’ Gunter asked. He shuddered to think what punishment would be meted out to the men and their families who’d turned on a royal commissioner.

  William shook his head. ‘They spent the night hiding in the woods. I suppose they thought armed soldiers would come looking for them, but none did, and after word spread, other villagers declared they’d pay no poll tax
either, but that’s the least of their demands now.’

  ‘Is no one stopping them?’ Hankin asked, from the stern.

  ‘Parliament’ll send men soon, lad. They must. The men-at-arms in the places the rebels are marching through take one look at them and flee. The mobs are just too large for a handful of men to deal with. I even heard that some of the men-at-arms are deserting their posts and joining the rioters. Anyone who tries to stand against the rebels gets their workshops and houses smashed up. They’re even attacking abbeys, forcing them to pay a fine to be left in peace. Parliament will have to do something, but I don’t know what. They say half the fighting men are occupied with the French and the rest are with John of Gaunt up north, trying to parley with the Scots. If Gaunt was here, he’d soon have every rebel dangling from the gallows, but I doubt word’s even reached him yet.’

  ‘Is Lincoln to raise men against them? Will we be sent to fight the Essex men?’ Hankin asked.

  William craned around again. ‘I know nothing of that, boy. I’m sent to bring news of the rebellion to Lincoln. Warn the city fathers and royal commissioners in these parts that they’ve to make ready in case the same thing happens here. They’ve to put the guards on alert and organise the good citizens to defend their streets and property, ’cause if this takes hold the whole country’ll go up in flames.’

  Chapter 41

  Let any who have been cursed with the falling sickness mix grated bone from a human skull with their food or else drink from the skull of a suicide, and they shall be cured.

  Lincoln

  They say that a naughty imp once flew into Lincoln Cathedral to make mischief. When he refused to leave he was turned to stone and forced to listen to every dreary sermon preached in that great edifice until its walls come tumbling down. And that must be counted as the harshest of penances even by the sternest judge. But if the wicked imp was listening on that particular day in June, he would, for once, have heard gossip to gladden his little black heart for there was only one topic on everyone’s lips that day – the great Essex rebellion.