The Witch Hunter

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The Witch Hunter Page 13

by Candace Adams


  “No Sir.” Harold did not meet Matthew’s inquiring eyes.

  “No?” Matthew asked.

  I shrugged, “I honestly hadn’t found the time.” I said nonchalantly.

  Matthew was agitated. His eyebrow twitched; his eyes shot daggers into mine. “My dear friend, after we had spoken yesterday, I was under the assumption that you would send my apologies and introduce Taryn by way of mouth so that Harold would know who the young lady was and why she was staying upstairs.”

  It was entertaining to watch him stumble over his words to berate me without giving the game away. “As I said, I didn’t have the time.”

  “You were here drinking all evening John. I can still smell the ale upon you.”

  “Then you know it was time for drinking, not for telling your stories.”

  I went numb. I had not meant for that to slip out of my mouth.

  “My stories?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry, Matthew. I didn’t mean that the way it came out. Alas you’re right, I did partake in entirely too much ale, and my head is pounding because of it. I meant no disrespect.”

  Matthew’s jaw clenched.

  “My friend here was supposed to inform you that Taryn is the daughter of a very good friend of mine that recently passed away. She traveled a very great distance for me to look after her. I’m sorry I was not able to properly introduce you to her upon her arrival, but she was extremely exhausted after having days on the road by horse and by sea, which is why I carried her in and put her to bed. I didn’t want any rumors started, so I asked John to tell you.” He spoke through clenched teeth and glared at me all the while.

  “Very well Sir, if she is a friend of yours, she is a friend of mine.”

  “Thank you for your understanding, Harold.”

  “Anytime, Sir,” the weather-worn old man replied.

  “Are we off then?” I said to my partner following him across the tavern.

  He didn’t respond until we had passed the doors.

  We walked quickly, covering the space in the blink of an eye. “We are indeed. Your favorite part of the hunt begins today. Interrogations.”

  I got a shiver down my spine when he said that word. Excitement flowed through my veins and my heart quickened at the thought. If only he knew just how much I enjoyed this part. I prayed the women were of strong stock. I rather enjoyed when they refused to confess. The longer it took, the more I got to do with them. For the second time this morning, my cock was erect in my pants.

  Henry had our horses saddled and ready and I was the first one mounted and on the path. I kept my mare at a slow trot, but there would be no walking today.

  I made it to the castle in record time with Matthew close on my heels. The gates were opened for us and we handed our horses over. I hit the ground running, so to speak, I spoke to no one. The guard opened the door to the cellar where the witches were kept ahead of me.

  “They each had a slice of bread and sip of water last night as instructed,” the guard said. “They were also only allowed one full hour of sleep. They were kept awake other than that.”

  I walked from one end of the bars to the other looking at each of their dirty faces. They looked delirious from the sleep deprivation, and their lips were blue from the frigid, overnight temperatures. I had not allowed them to have blankets of any kind, so they had to just huddle together in the small room for warmth.

  “Are you going to be letting us out now?” one of the women asked me.

  “You idiot!” another one said. “Haven’t you heard the stories of the Witch Hunter General? They haven’t even begun to torture us yet. There will be no letting us go until he sees us to the gallows.”

  “I see my reputation precedes me,” I said with a grin.

  Matthew joined me before I iron pen. He surveyed our captives. “Who are you taking first?” he asked.

  “I was thinking either the little one with the big mouth or the old one who ripped your leg open.”

  His expression went grim. “I had forgotten about that,” he pulled his pant leg up to look at the wound. “What the devil?” he asked.

  I came around to see what had him so upset but didn’t see anything. “What’s wrong?”

  “The wound, it has vanished,” he said. He looked at both legs from both sides seeing if maybe he forgot which leg the hag had sunk her nails into, but there wasn’t a mark on him.

  “You! Joan Fern!” I yelled into the cell. “What manner of magic is this? You grabbed his damned leg when we collected you. But now the mark is gone.”

  The old woman cackled, “Perhaps you are mistaken, Sir.”

  “Lies,” Matthew said.

  “No Sir, you must have me confused with another poor old lady,” she cackled again.

  “Take her first. She needs to be taught a lesson.”

  Matthew pulled his pant legs back down over his boots and crossed his arms over his chest. The guard put his key in the door and the cell door opened with a groan. Two more guards entered the tiny cell and took the woman by each of her bony arms and dragged her out kicking and screaming. The others threw themselves against the walls of the cells, not wanting to be brought out to us. They knew that as bad as it was inside, it would be much worse once they were brought out.

  “Let me go!” Joan Fern screeched. “Damn all of you to Hell, you will pay for this!” She kicked her bony legs out at the guards and tried to slip out of their grips, but they held fast to her. She looked all the more repulsive with her badly shaven head, with tufts of hair sticking up in patches. For the first time I noticed she had one gnarled tooth in the front of her mouth that stuck straight out. Even when her lips were closed, this one tooth protruded. She was a witch if ever I had seen one.

  “Why are you resisting?” Matthew asked. “If you are innocent, I would think you would be in a hurry for us to find you so.”

  The gate guard locked the other women inside their cage, and they all moved back against the back wall like a flock of sheep being herded. The little one, Anne, was in the middle of them looking a lot less confident than she had the day before. She shivered and clung to another witch that looked to be attempting to shield her from seeing what was happening. The girl had streaks on dark red fluid staining the insides of her legs, her monthly visitor had come and she had no way to clean herself up.

  I thought of Elizabeth and her maiden blood standing out starkly against the color of my flesh. What a shame I didn’t have the opportunity to be alone with Anne before today. I wouldn’t hesitate to stick my cock between that little one’s thighs and wring her screams from her throat. In fact, I would rather have enjoyed inflicting as much pain as I could on her tiny body. I would have to wait to deal with her on a day Matthew did not attend. It would be a shame to send her to Hell as a virgin. Sacrifices had to be made.

  “Bring her to the interrogation room and tie her down,” I snapped.

  “Aye, Sir,” a guard replied.

  Matthew exited the cellar back out into the fresh air and sunshine. He followed the guards with the old woman. She breathed in deeply, savoring air that was not tainted with the smell of feces and urine.

  “Don’t get used to it, witch,” one of her captors said. “You won’t be smelling anything once that rope is around your neck.”

  “Someday the rope will be put around your neck for all the murders of innocent women that you have lent your services to,” she threatened.

  He laughed, “I have never seen an innocent woman come through here.”

  “That’s because you only see what you are told to see,” she snapped.

  The second guard wound a long strip of fabric around her head and tied it, effectively ending her monologue. “I’ve had quite enough of her blasphemy today. Time to shut up now!”

  Once in the interrogation room, they tied her thighs and arms to the big wooden chair but left her muzzled. She scowled at them menacingly and pulled at her bindings. I entered the room and crouched before the creature. She wouldn’t turn
her head to me, but she followed the guards through the room with her stare. I slapped her hard and got her full attention.

  A nice red handprint marred her pale cheek. Her body went rigid and her head slowly turned towards me in a menacing manner. Her pupils dilated to pinpricks and I swear the room dimmed as she fixated in on me. I swallowed the huge lump that formed in my throat and fear took my body over. I began to sweat profusely, the room was spinning around me, dimming and brightening and then dimming again. All I could see was her eyes fixed on mine.

  I felt powerless to move a muscle, paralyzed by a fear I could not rationalize. I could not scream, I could not speak, but I tried desperately to break the mental hold she had on me.

  I was shoved off balance. “Don’t let her get in your head, John!” It was Matthew. He saw the evil was had infested me and broke the spell. I wiped my sweaty forehead on my sleeve and filled my lungs with air.

  “Thank you, my friend. She nearly had me.”

  I looked at the old lady, she no longer looked like evil incarnate, she sat tied to her chair silently sobbing with her mouth tied closed. I knew what was in that shell of a woman though. I had seen it. I had felt the evil emanating from her emaciated form. Her feigned innocence could not fool me.

  The fires of Hell raged behind those eyes, demons danced, and souls screamed. It was hidden from those that looked at her, but from the moment my hand made contact with her face, she dropped her guard, and for a moment I saw who she truly was. It was terrifying. “Did you see what was behind her eyes?” I asked Matthew.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Fire. There were black shapes writhing in fire behind her eyes,” I looked at him in fear. He took a step and back and looked from me to her. Her innocence evaporated and her true form broke through. She began pulling on the binds that held her arms to the chair, shaking her head back and forth. The chair was rising off the floor with her efforts, but by the strength of God, the rope held.

  “It isn’t an interrogation we need, it’s an exorcism,” Matthew whispered. He crossed himself in defense.

  “Joan Fern, do you confess to the crime of witchcraft? Do you confess to taking Satan as your unholy lover and doing his bidding here on earth?” I said to her over her snarls. I ripped the cloth from her mouth to hear her responses.

  Her wrists were bleeding from the rough rope cutting into them while she struggled. “No! I am an innocent woman!” she screamed.

  “Then why do you struggle so, why do you try to frighten us the way you do?” Matthew asked her.

  She whipped her head around at him, “You will hang me no matter how I plead, Witch Hunter. My response does not matter.” She shook the chair with all her might and toppled it over on its side. The guard by the door rushed over and righted her. “Leave me to the ground!” she ordered him. “I don’t want your bloody hands upon me!” He disregarded her and placed the chair back on all four legs.

  “Confess and this all ends,” I said to her.

  “This ends when I am dead,” she spat at me.

  “Guards! Remove her from the chair,” I ordered the men. They looked at each other in disbelief, seemingly afraid of the woman. I didn’t blame them.

  “Are you sure?” one said.

  I raised my hand and gestured for them to come. “Tie her hands together so she cannot further slice her wrists. I won’t have her bleed out before we can hang her. Tie her ankles together and put her on her face.”

  The men were reluctant but moved forward and did as they were told. They got one hand free of the chair and began working on the other. The old woman swiped her hand at the closest guard's face catching him across the eye with her long sharp nails. Blood welled up from the three long scratches and the guard reared back clutching his face in pain.

  I leaped on top of the woman as she made a try for the other man’s face and held her face to the floor while the man worked on getting her wrists together behind her back. Matthew sat on her legs while she kicked out trying to make contact with our bodies.

  The rope was finally secure, and the woman was prostrate. Her white shift had ridden up and her flabby arse cheeks protruded from beneath it. “Cover her. I will not subject my eyes to that,” I demanded.

  The guard without injury obeyed. The other could be heard in the hallway muttering curses while he wiped the blood from his eyes.

  She wiggled like a cockroach on the floor still trying in vain to be free of her constraints. The guard had done his job well. There wasn’t enough wiggle room for her to get free much less injure herself. “Let me go, you bastards, you don’t know who you’re messing with!”

  “A wicked witch who is going to put a curse on me?” I asked. “What are you going to do? Make my balls shrivel up and fall off? Or maybe you’ll make my teeth fall out? What’s it going to be?”

  “Don’t mock me! I’m not a witch. But God will deal with you!”

  I kicked her in the shoulder. I couldn’t help myself. She yelped in pain and tried to recoil but couldn’t move herself more than an inch. I kicked her again and heard the sickening sound of the bone leaving the joint. Her arm looked horribly disfigured where it joined her body and she writhed in pain. Saliva trailed from her mouth coating the floor and smeared across her face.

  “Confess, demon so we can send you back to hell, whence you came!” Matthew knelt on his haunches before her. His eyes were on fire. This was the Matthew I missed, full of passion and desire to punish this pestilence.

  “Bring me the leathers,” I said. The unscathed guard put a club in my hand that was wrapped in tanned leather that had five long strips of the skin hanging off the end of it. I walked around the back side of her where I could look down the length of her body. I swung my arm and brought those straps down upon her. She flopped like a fish, her legs and torso rising off the ground under the stinging force.

  “Tell us who your master is!” I demanded. I struck her back again, letting the leather wrap around the side of her rib cage.

  She flopped to the side, “I have no master,” she screamed back. I snapped the leather against her again.

  “Who is in your coven?” The leather ripped a slit in her dingy slip and the crisscrossing red welts were visible beneath.

  “There is no coven, you bastard!”

  The door opened and closed behind me. “Excuse me, Sir.” It was a guard I had not yet met. As he approached me, the old woman decided it was a fine time to urinate, it soaked through her underclothes and pooled onto the floor. The guard side stepped to avoid the fluid getting onto his shiny black boots.

  “I’m busy here, what is it?” I hit the old woman once more.

  “I’ll handle it.” Matthew said following the man to the hall. I bent down and took the old woman’s chin in my hand and twisted her face around to look at me.

  “You will tell me what I want to know. I don’t care if I have to beat it out of you. Or maybe we will just take you out back and swim you.” She started laughing like I had just told the funniest joke. “What’s so funny, whore?” I asked, as I dropped her face-first into her own piss. She spat at it and tried to keep it out of her mouth.

  “John.” I turned to Matthew as he came back into the room. HIs face belied a troubled expression. He gestured for me to join them in the hall.

  “Now don’t you go anywhere; I’m not finished with you yet.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll wait here,” she retorted.

  I followed Matthew to the hall where the guard that summoned us and two other men were waiting. “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “We may have viable leverage on Joan in there to get her to confess much faster,” Matthew said. He had his hat in his hands and a wary look upon his handsome face.

  “Ok, I’m listening. Even though you assume I want her to confess quicker. You forget, dear friend that this is the part that I rather enjoy,” Matthew nodded and put his hat back in place.

  The guard I had never seen before stepped forward. “Sir, we we
nt back to this miscreant’s hovel to confiscate her possessions since she has been formally accused and all. We found something very curious there,” the man said.

  “Was it a great big orange cat? Matthew here is already very well acquainted with that beast,” I joked.

  His eyes shifted down, “No Sir, no sign of the cat, but we found a girl.”

  “A girl? What do you mean a girl? Matthew and I searched that place up and down and there was no one else present.” I clearly remembered the shambles of that small house. The herbs hung to dry across every inch if the ceiling, clutter everywhere, but no sign of a child living there. I had been so sure that the witch lived there completely alone.

  “The child claims that Joan is her mother,” he said.

  “Where is she?” I asked him. I looked down the hallway behind him trying to get a glimpse.

  “She is downstairs waiting,” Matthew said. “If we tell the hag we have her girl, she’s bound to do or say whatever we tell her to,” he said.

  “Is she old enough to hang?” I asked him. An extra witch, even a young one, would be a much bigger pay day.

  Matthew shook his head, “We could try, but I don’t think it’s a battle we could win. She is only nine years old. However, I was thinking we could get her to testify against her mother. They allowed children to testify at a witch trial during the Pendle trials and King James himself noted in his book that it was acceptable for this kind of thing.”

  “That’s a very interesting idea,” I said. “Keep her in a holding cell for now. Let’s see where this goes.”

  “Very well, Sir.” The guards proceeded back down the hall presumably to where the child was.

  Matthew and I went back to our witch. We circled her, one on either side of her. She whimpered and twisted, her mouth and nose smeared with her own piss. She struggled to try to look up at us to gage what we were about to do to her. “Well Witch, there has been an interesting little development.”

  She was more concerned with keeping her face off the floor than she was with my words.

 

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