The Vanishing Witch

by Karen Maitland

  He prayed that one of the boatmen he knew would come along soon, and would agree to take them to Greetwell. Boats passed, but he didn’t know the men aboard. He let them go. He’d no money to pay a stranger.

  He’d not dared to let the carter know he was a boatman or allow him to carry them to the cottage, though it would have spared both himself and Hankin more pain. They were hunting the rebels down right across the country. Henry Despenser, the Bishop of Norwich, was leading a company of men-at-arms through the fenlands, trying and hanging rebels on the spot wherever he found them. It would take only a casual remark from the carter that he had given a lift to a wounded boy to bring soldiers thundering to their door. Safer if the man didn’t know where Gunter lived or his occupation. That way they couldn’t be traced.

  Gunter had watched the men returning from Smithfield. A long, shabby procession, wearily dragging their feet, flanked by the King’s men on horseback escorting them over the ruins of London Bridge and out of the city. People said one of the rebel leaders, a man called Tyler, had been stabbed as he presented his demands to the young King. Richard had assumed command, urging the rebels to follow him away from the town to Clerkenwell fields, but once there they’d found themselves surrounded. When they saw Tyler’s head on a pike, they’d surrendered and the King had allowed most of them to return in peace to their homes, but not for long. Now he was seeking vengeance. Gunter looked at his son. He was only a few months younger than King Richard. His youth would not protect him.

  Gunter had carried Hankin out of the city on his back, but had straightway taken a different track from the Essex men. He’d guessed what was coming. He’d begged lifts on carts, wagons and boats, and one old woman had taken pity on him and let the boy ride on her donkey. An accident, Gunter had told them all. The horse pulling their cart had been startled and bolted. The boy had fallen under the wheel. The cart and horse were lost.

  The carters had nodded sympathetically. ‘It happens. Why, there was this one time when . . .’

  Everyone had a story of tragedy or near disaster to tell. That was life. Misfortune always struck when you least expected it.

  Hankin moaned. The sun beat down on him. Gunter went to the river, wetted the edge of his tunic, came back and dabbed his son’s sweating face with it, squeezing a few filthy drops between the boy’s cracked lips.

  He rose and shielded his eyes with his hand, scanning the river for any face he knew. He’d have to invent a new story for the boatmen. They’d know he’d never owned a cart. He only hoped he could make the boy understand. His wits were wandering in his fever. If he should let slip the wrong word, they might both hang or worse.

  There was something else, something he’d tried hard to push beneath the surface of his mind, but it kept floating back. Had Master Robert recognised him on that London street? The man had seemed so dazed and terrified it was hard to tell if he’d even seen him. But suppose Robert had remembered. Suppose he came looking for Gunter. How would he explain what he was doing in London?

  Gunter cursed himself. He’d been a fool to interfere. Why hadn’t he let the man die? What had Master Robert ever done for him? If only he had turned the other way, or passed along that street just a few moments later, it would all have been over. Yet he knew that if it happened again, he would try to save him. It would have been different if Robert had been a stranger, but a man can’t just stand by and watch someone they know be slaughtered, can he?

  July

  A swarm of bees in July is not worth a butterfly.

  Chapter 54

  To discover a thief, take a cock from the hen house and place him under a pail. Let each of those suspected touch the pail and the cock will crow when the thief touches it.

  Lincoln

  ‘What do you mean stolen?’ Edward shouted. ‘You had a dozen bales of Lincoln Green cloth in that load.’

  The wagoner looked sullen. ‘Not my fault, so it’s not. You want to be complaining to the bishop, you do. That stretch of road is his responsibility. Goes through his lands. Bushes and trees so thick with leaves alongside that track, a dozen warhorses could be keeping pace with you and you’d never know. He’s supposed to see to it the branches are cut back so footpads can’t lie in wait behind them. Half a dozen of them, there was. Leaped out at me, they did, and threw this stinking sack over my head, tied me up and left me. Took me an age to free myself.’

  ‘Six?’ Edward said. ‘So you had time enough to count them before they trussed you up.’

  The wagoner glowered at him. ‘There was a swarm of them, at any rate. It’s a miracle I’m not lying dead in ditch.’ The man fingered a swollen black eye.

  Edward groaned. ‘When Robert finds out I didn’t use one of our regular men, he’ll have a fit of apoplexy. Though, knowing my luck, it won’t be fatal, more’s the pity. I don’t know why I let myself be talked into trusting you.’

  ‘’Cause I charge half what your regulars do,’ the wagoner said. ‘They’re robbing you blind. You got a good bargain from me.’

  ‘Not when you lost me my goods, I didn’t!’

  The wagoner was a squat, well-muscled man, who could easily have got the better of Edward in a fist fight, but Edward had the advantage of height. He took a step closer to the man, so that he was looking down at him. ‘How do I know you’re not in league with them? You could have arranged the whole thing.’ He poked a finger at the wagoner’s bruised eye. ‘You could have asked one to give you this, just to back up your story. Worth suffering a bruise or two for your share of a heavy purse.’

  The man took a step or two back from the jabbing finger. ‘Now, you look here. I’m not in league with outlaws. Honest Jack, that’s me, ask anyone.’

  ‘Then you’ll be eager to tell me who these thieves are and where they took my cloth,’ Edward said, closing the distance between himself and the wagoner again, driving the man perilously close to the wharf’s edge.

  ‘Had their faces half covered so I wouldn’t recognise them even they was to pass me in the street. But if you was to ask me—’

  He broke off, as he caught sight of Master Robert emerging from the side of the warehouse. He came limping towards them, his arm wrapped around his ribs and brow creased in pain. Edward swore softly but so foully that even the hardened wagoner looked startled.

  Robert’s gaze darted suspiciously from Edward to the wagoner and back again. ‘Trouble?’ he demanded. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ Edward said soothingly, as if he were placating a child. ‘You should be at home resting, as Hugo Bayus advised. You mustn’t neglect your new bride, you know.’

  ‘Your mother’s out riding,’ Robert said coldly. ‘And I can hardly rest knowing my business is in the hands of a squab.’ He jerked his chin towards the wagoner. ‘Has this man been fighting with our paggers?’

  ‘I have not, Master!’ the wagoner broke in indignantly before Edward could answer. ‘I was defending your cloth from the ruffians who ambushed my wagon.’ He pointed to his black eye. ‘Got this for my pains, so I did.’

  Now that he’d started, the wagoner was determined to pour out the whole story and Edward could do nothing except watch Robert’s face turn from pink to purple, like a rapidly ripening plum.

  Robert, breathing hard, turned on Edward. ‘And what happened to the man you sent to ride with him to keep a look-out?’

  ‘Only trying to save you money,’ Edward muttered sulkily. ‘You’re always complaining about how much you have to pay out in wages. Why pay two men?’

  ‘Why pay two men?’ Robert repeated incredulously. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t just load my cloth onto an ox cart and send the beasts to find their own way to York. That way you wouldn’t need to pay any man at all.’

  Edward opened his mouth, but Robert had already started talking to the wagoner.

  ‘You said you were attacked not far from Burton? They won’t risk carrying the bales far in daylight. They’ll have hidden them somewhere close by and they’ll ret
rieve them after dark. Probably try to move them by river – that would be the safest for them. Foss Dyke’s the nearest and from there they could get them out onto the Trent and go north or south. So they’re bound to have a boat waiting north of Burton fens – the water’s too low south of that. Right, then, you’ll come with me now to Sheriff Thomas. Lead his men back to the spot where you were ambushed, so that they can hide and wait.

  ‘And as for you, you numbskull,’ Robert said, glaring at Edward, ‘you can go with them. A night lying in the fens among the midges might teach you to think in future. And you’d better pray to every saint you can name that Thomas’s men recover my cloth, or you’ll find yourself walking out of Lincoln in beggars’ rags, because I will be taking everything you own to pay for it.’

  He turned to walk away, but Edward leaped forward, grabbed Robert’s arm and spun him round, taking immense satisfaction at hearing the gasp of pain as his ribs were jolted.

  ‘I’ll be going nowhere in rags. Have you forgotten the money you lost for us with that stupid investment on St Jude? My mother may have kept silent about it, but that doesn’t mean I will.’

  Robert jerked his sleeve from the young man’s grasp. He was shaking with rage. ‘How dare you threaten me? It was your mother’s money that was invested, not yours, and I have more than made up for it now. As my wife, she shares everything I own. But you are entitled to nothing and that is exactly what you will get from me!’

  Chapter 55

  When a woman has been overlooked by the evil eye and has the falling sickness, she may be cured if nine bachelors each give her a scrap of silver and a coin. The silver is to be made into a ring, which she must wear ever more, and the coins given in payment to the ring-maker. If a man is so afflicted, then the silver and coins must be given to him by nine virgin maids.

  Lincoln

  That hag Eadhild has found me again. I felt her scabby hand creeping round my thigh as we gathered in the churchyard in the dark of night, standing silent among the yew trees, watching, waiting.

  A girl had been newly buried there on the north side among the felons, the mad and the unbaptised babies. She had committed self-murder, hanged herself from the beam in her mother’s byre, so the compassionate and merciful priests refused her a Christian burial. They laid her face down in the earth and sprinkled her with salt to try to keep her in her grave, but we knew she would not stay. It was Eadhild who called her forth.

  ‘Killed herself for love,’ the old hag said, ‘like me, and like me she’ll take her vengeance on the faithless one who betrayed her.’

  The old hag stood at the foot of the grave, beneath the blind windows of the church and stretched out her scabby hand. There came a shrieking deep within the earth, as if a mandrake were being wrenched from the ground. The girl rose, pale as bone, from the mound, the rope still about her neck. The tears in her eyes now burned as flames and the lips he’d kissed had turned black with his treachery. From that hour, her faithless lover would sleep no more.

  But not all men are faithless. There was one man in Lincoln who had discovered too late that he loved a woman, but now that he had, he was determined not to abandon her.

  ‘I have told you repeatedly, you cannot see her,’ the nun said wearily. ‘It disturbs the women to have strangers about.’

  ‘But I’m no stranger,’ Tenney said. ‘Known Beata for years, I have, ever since she were a young lass come to work for Master Robert.’ He peered anxiously through the grille in the gate, but could see little more than the top of a wimple and a pair of eyes surrounded by wrinkles.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the nun said, in a tone that made it plain she wasn’t at all.

  The shutter that covered the grille was slammed across. But it wasn’t until Tenney turned away from the gate of St Magdalene’s that he remembered he was still clutching the basket. He raised his hand to ring the bell again, but let it fall. He’d called there nearly every day since he’d been forced to deliver Beata to the nuns. Each time he went, he pleaded with them to let him see her, if only for a minute. But they refused. He would hand over the little gift he’d brought for her – sweet-smelling roses or a bunch of ribbons, a roasted sheep’s-foot or a basket of ripe pears – and they assured him they would give them to her. But Beata had sent no word to him in return.

  He wondered if she had told them not to admit him. He wouldn’t blame her if she had. He’d lied to her. Told her she would stay there only a week or two so she could get some rest. Then he’d come and fetch her again. She’d been so tormented from lack of sleep that she couldn’t seem to take in what he was saying. But the moment the gate had closed on her terrified face, he knew he’d done the wrong thing. Not an hour had passed since when he hadn’t cursed himself for it. He should have ignored Master Robert’s orders and taken her instead to his cousin’s cottage, hidden her there until she was well. He prayed the nuns were treating her kindly.

  ‘I take it you haven’t told him.’ The deep, rasping voice came from just behind Tenney. ‘I’ve been watching the house and the women are still there.’

  Godwin was squatting against the wall of St Magdalene’s, but he hauled himself slowly to his feet, his hand pressed to the rough stone. The man seemed, if anything, more gaunt and hag-ridden than when Tenney had last seen him. He stood for a moment, bent double, catching his breath, and in his mind Tenney saw again the ghastly image of the scarred skin beneath the man’s shirt, drawn tight across the bony ribs.

  ‘You don’t care if your master lives or dies, is that it? Or is it that you didn’t believe me?’

  ‘They’ll not let me alone with him,’ Tenney said. ‘Those women put the evil eye on my Beata, I’d swear it. It was as if there were hands about her throat, choking her, when she tried to speak out against them. Master Robert had her put in here as if she were a stranger to him instead of a woman who’s cared for him and his own for years.’

  Godwin came closer, his dark eyes bright as black flames. ‘So you do believe me. You’ve seen their sorcery for yourself.’

  ‘Aye, and I’ve seen what happened to a poor innocent woman who tried to stop them.’ He gazed up at the grim high walls of St Magdalene’s. ‘I tried to ride with Master Robert to London, thinking I’d be able to tell him all then, for if I was far enough away, their curses couldn’t reach me. But she put a stop to me going, as if she knew what I meant to do.’

  ‘Then I must try to speak to your master again,’ Godwin said. ‘What more can she do to me that she’s not already done?’

  Tenney plucked at his thick beard. ‘You can try, but I don’t reckon you’ll get near him, never mind make him tarry long enough to listen to your tale. I don’t rightly know what happened in London, but he’s been as wary as a whipped hound ever since, shies from his own shadow. Seems to think every man is out to do him harm, everyone except her, of course, and that brat of hers. They’re the only ones he trusts now.’

  Godwin reached into his shirt. He stumbled closer to Tenney, holding out a blackened object, about the size of a walnut. Tenney bent over and peered at it. Then jerked his head back.

  ‘Looks like the hand of an imp! Wherever did you get it?’

  The thing resembled a tiny human hand with five curled fingers, but the back of the hand was covered with dense hair as black as the wrinkled skin on the palm.

  ‘A monkey’s paw,’ Godwin said. ‘A sailor aboard the ship I came home on gave it to me. Saw the wounds on my chest and my arm and said I could do with a change of luck. It is a powerful amulet. It was only through its help I tracked the witch Catlin down. It will protect you. Throw it on the ground between yourself and the witch when she is casting any spell and it will break the enchantment.’ Godwin again held it out to him. ‘Take it.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do with it? Wander around behind the master, day and night, flinging this down every time I fear mischief?’

  ‘Fool,’ Godwin said impatiently. ‘Use it to protect yourself while you warn him.’ He thrust it into Tenney’
s hand.

  Tenney recoiled. The fingers were cold, leathery, but the palm was unexpectedly soft. It was like holding the hand of a dead baby. He hesitated. It looked more evil than the witchcraft it was supposed to guard against. But that was often the way, for Father Remigius said the Almighty had fashioned each herb to resemble the sicknesses it had been created to cure so that man would know which to use. And God had certainly created monkeys, or Tenney supposed He had.

  Tenney hastily thrust the monkey’s paw into the leather scrip that dangled from his belt. It could do no harm, and he was sorely in need of any help he could get, no matter where it came from. He slid his arm from the basket and held it out to Godwin. ‘A pie in there.’ Then, seeing the wary expression on Godwin’s face, he added, ‘Don’t fret, I bought it myself in the market. It’s not been near the house.’

  Godwin impatiently thrust it away. ‘Don’t want your charity,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘I brought it for Beata, but the nuns’ll not let me give it her. Not taking it home for that gannet, Diot, to thieve.’

  Seeing that Godwin still would not take it, Tenney set the basket on the ground and walked away.

  ‘The girl . . . Beware of the girl more than any of them,’ came the gruff voice behind him. ‘Her powers grow stronger by the day and with them grows her hunger.’

  Chapter 56

  The hand of a man hanged on the gallows has healing powers. If it be stroked across a sore, tumour or goitre, the evil shall pass to the dead man and the sick will be cured. If a woman be barren she should go to a gibbet at night, climb up and reach through the bars and draw the corpse’s hand across her womb three or seven times and her curse will leave her.

  Lincoln

  Tenney heard the two horses in the stable whinny as they sensed Master Robert’s horse approaching down the street. He’d been listening all morning for his master’s return. His horse always gave a distinctive snort as it came close to the gate, as if it knew it would soon be relieved of its burden and be able to bury its nose in a bucket of oats.