Witch Hunt (Witch Finder 2)

by Ruth Warburton

  ‘Just thinking . . . Luke, we need to make a plan.’

  ‘I know.’ He rubbed his face. ‘We can’t keep spending at this rate, or we’ll be broke.’

  ‘But not just that – what are we doing?’ She felt a desperation rise up inside her. ‘Where are we going? We’re heading north, but where?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ He stood and walked to the window, his face unhappy. ‘How far do we have to go before Sebastian can’t find us?’

  To the ends of the earth, she thought, but she didn’t say it. Instead she took a breath. It was not just Luke’s job to decide what they did; she should not be pushing the burden of decision-making on to his shoulders.

  ‘We should try to make some money,’ she said, more firmly than she felt. ‘You should look for work – they take on jobbing smiths, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes . . .’ he said slowly. ‘Though it depends. I could ask at the forge tomorrow. But can we afford to stop here longer?’

  ‘Yes, if it gets us more money. Money will give us more options, more possibilities. We push on north – it’s as good a direction as any, after all, and you’ll keep looking for work.’

  ‘And when do we stop?’

  ‘When the posters stop.’ She felt her courage returning with her words. Forming the plan was helping. ‘When people stop looking. They’ll have to give up eventually. And somehow my magic will return, I know it.’

  She did not know it. But she had to believe it – for her own sanity. The other possibility was too awful – that her magic was gone for good. But it couldn’t be.

  ‘Now,’ she said with a briskness that didn’t quite conceal the awkwardness in her voice, ‘do we have enough for you to have a pint in the bar?’

  ‘I suppose so – why?’

  ‘Because you need to put the word out about work, and I . . .’ She stopped, swallowed, feeling a stupid flush rising up her throat. ‘I need to wash.’

  ‘Oh!’ He flushed as well, his cheeks red beneath the stubble. His embarrassment should have added to hers, but somehow it did not. Instead his sudden awkwardness was strangely endearing. ‘I – I see. All right. I’ll go down; I’ll get the landlady to send up a jug of hot water.’

  Rosa watched him go, and then she began to unhook her dress.

  Later, much later, Luke climbed the stairs of the inn, holding fast to the banister as he came up the second, narrow flight. The beer had gone down well, a little too well perhaps, and he’d had more than one pint. At the door he steadied himself and then knocked.

  ‘Come in.’ Rosa’s voice came small and faint through the thick black oak, and he pushed at the door clumsily and then shut it too hard, with a bang that made him jump. It was almost dark inside, a single candle burning on the bedside table. For a long, long moment he fumbled with the bolt, and then finally it shot home, and he half walked, half felt his way to the bed, where Rosa lay with the covers pulled up to her chin. As his eyes adjusted to the candlelight he saw her, looking up at him out of the unfamiliar mass of black-brown hair that tangled on the pillow, her eyes huge and dark.

  ‘Sorry I took so long.’ He pulled off his boots, one by one, trying not to let them thump too loud on the floor and wake the sleepers below. ‘There was a man in the bar, was telling me about some work might be had at a smithy out of town.’

  He pulled back the covers, with some difficulty, for Rosa hung grimly on to her side, keeping them fast to her chin, and swung his legs into bed. And then he noticed, with a kind of lurch, that Rosa’s dress and corset were hanging on the chair by the washstand. He went very still, feeling the beer-clumsiness in his hands and limbs, and suddenly understanding her death-like grip on the sheets.

  ‘Luke,’ she said in a small voice, ‘I . . . I took my dress off. I’m only wearing my chemise. Do you mind?’

  Mind? He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry, unable to think of a single thing to say.

  ‘Only,’ her words were suddenly tumbling over themselves, unsure, ‘it was so uncomfortable sleeping in my stays. I know it’s what fashionable ladies do, but I can’t think how they bear it; you can’t imagine the relief of taking them off at night. And I can’t fit into the dress without the stays so . . .’

  She trailed off, and he lay, listening to his heart beating in his ears, wondering what he would have said a few months ago if someone had told him it would come to this, that he would be lying in bed next to a half-dressed girl – a lady – a witch – listening to her talk about her corsets. What part would he have laughed at the most?

  He didn’t feel like laughing now. Anything but.

  ‘Luke?’ she said again. He shut his eyes, not trusting himself to speak, but knowing that he had to.

  ‘No,’ he said at last. ‘No, I don’t mind.’

  ‘Good,’ she whispered. Then she blew out the candle and turned on her side.

  They lay in the darkness, Luke staring wide-eyed into the blackness above, and listening to Rosa’s breathing and the scratch of the starched sheets as she huddled them closer around herself.

  He was drunk, but not very drunk. Not drunk enough to reach across the narrow gap between them and touch her hand.

  But drunk enough to think about it. Drunk enough to lie there stiff and shaking with the thought of it.

  He clenched his hands into fists and turned his back on her, screwing his eyes shut in the darkness, trying to shut out the picture of her warm soft body beneath the sheets, just inches away.

  She’s not yours. Not yours to touch, not yours to kiss. Remember that, you fool.

  ‘Are you asleep?’ Rosa’s whisper cut through the silence.

  ‘No,’ he whispered back, though there was no need to keep their voices down.

  ‘I can’t sleep.’ He heard the rustle of the sheets as she turned.

  He rolled on to his back again, and turned his head to face her in the darkness. The curve of her hip was silhouetted against the embers in the grate, but he could see nothing of her face in the shadows that lay between them.

  ‘What’re you thinking about?’ he asked.

  ‘About . . .’ She stopped and swallowed; he heard the movement of her throat in the silent night. ‘About my magic. Luke, I’m frightened.’

  He sighed and rubbed his face, feeling the rough three-day beard that had started to shadow his cheeks and chin. He wished there was something he could say to make it all right, something to chase away her fears. But he had no answers – how could he? He knew nothing of what she was.

  ‘Have I done something?’ she asked desperately. ‘Do you think by betraying my family and Sebastian, I somehow broke something inside me?’

  ‘More likely he did something to you. If every witch who betrayed their lover lost their magic, I doubt there’d be many left. Is there a spell he could have put on you, d’you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve never heard of such a thing, but he knew a lot of dark magic. So did his father.’

  ‘When did you first notice?’

  ‘I don’t know. The last couple of days, mainly. I just never seemed to recover from the factory. It should have come back, but instead it seemed like every spell was just draining an emptying well.’ There was silence, only the wind moaning softly in the chimney and the dying coals guttering in its draught. ‘Maybe before that, if I’m honest,’ she said slowly. ‘I haven’t felt right since – well, since . . .’

  ‘What?’

  She swallowed again.

  ‘Since I kissed you,’ she said very low.

  ‘No.’ Luke turned his body to face hers. ‘Is that what you’ve been afraid of, that you did this? That we did this?’

  ‘Maybe.’ Her voice was a whisper in the black.

  ‘No! God, no! You can’t tell me you’re the first witch ever to kiss a man, surely?’

  ‘N-no . . .’ Rosa said slowly. There was something a little more hopeful in her voice. ‘No, that’s true. God knows, Alexis has kissed enough outwith servants.’

  ‘Well then.’

&
nbsp; ‘I just . . . I feel naked without it. I never knew how much I relied on it, even when I wasn’t using it, just the knowledge that it was there, and now – now it’s not.’ There was a sob in her voice as she said the last word.

  ‘It’s still there,’ Luke said fiercely. He gripped her hand in his, feeling her fingers, small and pliant, in his grasp. ‘It will come back. It’s Sebastian, it must be, and if we put enough distance between you and him . . .’

  Maybe it was the beer that gave him courage at last, or perhaps the touch of her hand in his, but he put his free arm out, beneath her neck, and she curled into his arms where she had slept the night before, her head on his shoulder, her face pressed into the soft crook of his neck. He felt her breath, warm against his collarbone, and the beating of her heart against his ribs. And at last he slept.

  A long way away, perhaps a hundred miles to the south, a man was awake, crouched over a silver bowl of water that glimmered in the light of a single candle. He stirred the surface with the tip of his finger, watching as the ripples shivered out from his touch and bounced back from the polished sides of the bowl, making a thousand reflections and refractions in the dim light.

  As the ripples died away a face looked back at him from the surface of the water, pale and distorted by the shimmering light. But it was not his own. It was the face of a girl, her eyes closed in sleep, her dark hair straggling over her cheek. Dark hair? The man frowned and leant closer, trying to see better, and his eager breath disturbed the water so that momentarily the picture dissolved. When it coalesced again, he saw that the image had changed; she had turned to lie on her side and her cheek was pillowed against . . . against . . .

  The blow sent the silver bowl scudding across the mahogany table, the water splashing and hissing as it drenched the candle. It rang like a bell as it struck something in the darkness and came to rest – and as the sound died away the man stood in the inky blackness, his breath tearing in his throat, the smell of smoke and spilt wax from the fallen candle filling his nostrils as he panted.

  Without the candle, the room was utterly dark. But the image still burnt in his mind’s eye as he fell to his knees. A girl, her cheek pillowed against a man’s shoulder, her lips against his skin.

  The man stood, shaking, and ground his heel on the shadowy white shape of the fallen candle, hearing the wax crack and snap beneath his sole as he ground the slim white column into the carpet.

  ‘Rosa,’ he whispered through clenched teeth, the sharp edge of his boot grinding the wax into splintered shards. ‘Oh, Rosa. What have you done?’

  ‘It’s all right, boy.’ Rosa stroked Brimstone’s neck and pulled the shawl more closely around her shoulders. ‘He’ll be back in a bit.’

  She wished she had a watch. It felt like hours since Luke had left for the forge. Overnight someone had put posters up in the marketplace with her description, so they had agreed that Rosa would wait near the woods to the north of the town where neither she nor Brimstone would attract too much notice. Then, depending on what Luke found, they would either carry on north, or try to find a cheaper lodging in Baldock while he earned enough to build up their dwindling stock of money.

  The wait had to be a good sign. Maybe he had found work, or was showing them his skills.

  Her stomach rumbled, but she had eaten her half of the bread long since. And she was thirsty too. She looked around her, but there was no river to be seen, just fields and woods. Did she dare risk the drinking trough in the town centre?

  Then she remembered the bottle she had seen Luke tuck inside the blanket roll at the base of Brimstone’s saddle.

  She felt a prickle of something as she undid the strap that held the blanket roll. Not guilt exactly, for Luke hadn’t told her not to touch the bundle. But he had not shown it to her either. In fact, quite the reverse. She’d almost forgotten it was there, after the flurry of getting away from the house, and since then Luke had taken care not to leave its contents lying about. But this morning, as he saddled up Brimstone, she’d seen the shape of a bottle inside the blanket and heard the slosh of liquid. Was it alcohol? Spirits, maybe?

  At last the girth came free. The bottle slipped out of the pack first and she caught it before it could fall to the ground, but the rest tumbled on to the frozen mud at Brimstone’s hindquarters. They lay there, glinting up at her in the winter sun. A sliver of wire with a metal bar at each end. A rope. A shiny syringe. A piece of metal with a leather strap either side, ending in a buckle – she had no idea what that could be. But the long knife, with the hammer design embossed into its hilt, and its blade sharpened to a wicked point, she could be in no doubt about what that was for. It was designed to kill.

  He is a witch finder. The words pounded in her head – a truth she had tried to forget. These are the tools of his trade.

  And the bottle? She knew even before she uncorked it that it was no drink. The fumes made her reel back, dizzy and sick. If her magic had been any better than a spark, it would have quailed at the stink of that stuff, she knew it.

  She shoved the cork back in and stood, panting and dizzy and trying to work out what this meant.

  This was Luke. Luke. Whatever he had tried to do, he was not a killer. She knew it in her bones, in her marrow. He had not been able to kill her, even when she lay in front of him bleeding and helpless, even though it would have saved his life.

  But this bundle was horrible proof of his past – and perhaps of his present too, for why else would he have gone back for them, when they were running for their lives?

  She was still standing stock-still, her heart beating hard, when a low wolf whistle came from behind her in the woods.

  It was a strange man in a cap and overcoat, a shotgun broken over his arm. She turned away, back to the blanket and its spilt, horrible contents. She did not want to touch them, but she could hardly leave them here, in the field, for anyone to see.

  After a moment she pushed them into a pile and flung the blanket over the top. Let Luke deal with them later, if he liked.

  The whistle came again, but this time she didn’t turn back. Young ladies do not speak to strange men: her mother’s voice rang in her head. A gentleman awaits an introduction.

  Something told her that this man was no gentleman. She certainly didn’t want an introduction.

  ‘Oi, miss,’ his cry filtered through the trees. ‘Yes, you. Too hoity-toity to talk to a fella, are ya?’

  Rosa bit her lip. Damn Luke and his bundle. She half wanted to jump on Brimstone’s back and ride away, but she couldn’t leave that knife in the field, still less that stinking, poisonous bottle. She began to pack them up, carefully at first, and then faster as she heard the man’s footsteps striding through the undergrowth, twigs cracking under his feet. There was another man too, she saw as she glanced over her shoulder. They were calling to each other now.

  I have no magic. The thought was like a drumbeat in her heart. No magic. No means to defend myself. I have no magic.

  The man came closer and closer . . .

  ‘Listen, miss,’ his voice was very near now, ‘don’t run away, I just want to talk.’

  At last she had the pack done up, and she began to buckle it beneath Brimstone’s saddle. Then she swung her foot into the stirrup, ready to heave herself up.

  Too late. She heard pounding steps as the man ran the last few feet and then a hand grabbed for Brimstone’s bridle and another for her skirts, hauling her firmly back down to the ground even as she tried to scramble for the saddle.

  ‘Din’t your mother teach you it’s not polite to walk away when someone’s speaking to you?’ his voice hissed, close to her ear. Rosa winced.

  ‘Let go of me. I’ll – I’ll . . .’

  She stopped. There was no threat she could make that had teeth. Call out? They were alone. Fetch the police? How, when he had hold of her dress?

  I have no magic.

  She turned to face him. He was a labourer perhaps, or a small farmer. Someone who worked on the land. His
face was deeply tanned and there was a scar on his jaw that showed white when he smiled. He was smiling now. She was more afraid of the smile than his anger.

  ‘Don’t be afraid. Like I said, I just wanted to talk. What’s your name?’

  She kept silent, and the other man came up close behind them both and grinned.

  He said, “What’s your name? Cat got your tongue?’

  ‘Minna,’ Rosa said wildly. It was the first name that came into her head.

  ‘Minna what?’

  ‘Minna S-sykes.’

  ‘See, I hate to call a lady a liar,’ said the first man. He took a step closer and put his hand on her shoulder. ‘But I seen a poster in the town square. Sixteen years old. Slight build. Brown eyes. And a horse, a nice bay with a white blaze.’

  ‘He’s got no white blaze,’ Rosa said fiercely. ‘And take your hands off me.’

  ‘And I wasn’t born yesterday, girl.’ The man twisted at her shoulder so that she gasped with pain and her knees gave way suddenly. She knelt in the mud in front of him. ‘I bin stealing horses since before you were born and I know a cheap dye job when I see it. Women, as well as horses.’ He flicked contemptuously at her hair. ‘Red-head, are you, Miss Rosamund Greenwood? I know a way to tell.’

  Rosa went utterly cold.

  ‘A hundred pounds,’ she managed. ‘For safe return. Safe.’

  ‘There’s safe and then there’s safe. I don’t reckon they’ll quibble.’

  Her heart beat in her breast like a panicked bird, and from somewhere very, very deep, a thin thread of magic flickered in time with her panic.

  She shut her eyes, nursing its tiny flame, concentrating every atom of her being on the single fragile spark . . .

  Her hands clenched at her side.

  She drew a breath.

  ‘Fýrgnást!’

  ‘Argh! You bitch!’ The man let go as if he had been burnt and wrung his hands helplessly, holding them between his legs in an agony of pain. ‘She shocked me! The little—’