The Familiars

by Stacey Halls

  “You may go,” I said coldly.

  She looked appealingly at Richard but his gray eyes were fixed on my black ones as intensely as if I might disappear at any moment.

  She closed the door. I did not hear her pattens in the hall, so after a few moments I said, “Mother,” and she went clacking off.

  Richard took the seat opposite mine and to both our surprise, Puck gave a low growl and then barked.

  “You have turned the dog against me, too?” Richard said in a light way, but his eyes were sorrowful.

  “He has a mind of his own. He has eyes and ears. Perhaps he saw and heard more than I did.”

  Richard swallowed and removed his black velvet hat, offering it to Puck to sniff as a sign of peace. “Remember me, boy?” I wished I didn’t but I felt doubly betrayed when Puck went to him, nuzzling into his hand and grinning broadly. “There we go,” Richard said softly, rubbing him all over and patting him in the hard way he did.

  “I forget how long a journey it is up to these parts,” he said eventually, resting his hat on his lap.

  “You do not mind when you have a hunting trip.”

  “I did not say I mind.”

  “Your journey did not take a month, though,” I said. My boldness surprised us both, but Richard more. He opened his mouth, then closed it, changing position in his chair.

  “No. I had some business to attend.”

  “That came before your wife? How could you do it, Richard?”

  “I’m sorry. Come home, please.”

  I pressed at my eyes and remembered the last four years: us riding together, shopping together, lying together, laughing together. It felt like a lifetime of happiness.

  “Gawthorpe is not the same place without you. It’s our home, we should be there together.”

  “You are never there!”

  “I am. I want to be there, with you.”

  “All these secrets, Richard. And lies.” I remembered Alice’s words: I am afraid of lies. Now I knew what she meant: lies had the power to destroy lives but also create them. “I am happy here.”

  “Happy? With your mother? You cannot stand your mother.” He did not lower his voice. “What is there for you here apart from idle servants and dusty rooms?”

  “If they are dusty it’s because you do not give my mother enough money,” I whispered. “Something I would never, never have suspected seeing as I brought most of it to this family.”

  He reached into his pocket for his purse. “How much more does she need?”

  “How much do you pay for your mistress?” He sighed, drawing open the bag and setting some coins on the mantel, as though he was paying my lodgings at an inn. “That is four women to pay for now, is it not? Two mothers and two wives? I suppose it’s no coincidence that standards slipped here when you added another household to your stable. Did you know the poverty you were keeping my mother in?”

  “Of course not. If she needs anything, she need only ask. I will make it right. Perhaps James made some adjustments to balance the books that I was not aware of.”

  “Then I will ask James why he has been sending sweet soap to Barton while my mother’s staff make hers by themselves.”

  A smile played at the corners of his lips, and I knew he was amused that I was defending my mother, and my chest churned with rage. But I did not smile, or speak, only waited with my hands clasping the arms of my chair. He could not tease me into forgetting he had taken a month to come to me.

  Dressed in his fine black velvet robe and doublet he must have been warm, and I could see the sweat on his forehead. “I have come to bring you home,” he said finally. He was not used to me disobeying him. I was not used to disobeying him.

  “How long have you kept her?”

  He pinched in his cheeks, then exhaled, blowing out his mouth as though I was testing him. “Not long.”

  “How long?”

  “A few months?”

  “So she is fertile, then. Success at last—a prize breeder. And you the sire of a fine calf, which is more than your wife can give you.”

  “Don’t make yourself ridiculous. People are not cattle.”

  “Women and cattle are very similar, actually.”

  “You are being absurd.”

  The chessboard caught my eye and I lifted an ivory pawn, holding it up to catch the light. I recognized it immediately as being my father’s set from Barton. I set it back in its place and saw it was before the queen. Using the pawn I bumped her off, sending the piece crashing to the floor where she rolled on the threadbare carpet.

  “Will you have me executed, like the king?” I said.

  “Fleetwood, I care about you. Do you think I wish to see you so ill? Every time you have carried a child you have almost died, and it is my fault for making you that way. I did not mean for this to happen—I turned to Judith as a way to stop it from happening, to protect you.”

  “To protect me? Keeping your mistress in my house was to protect me?”

  “You hate that house, I knew you would never go there.”

  “And you were right. You know me better than anyone, Richard. Except you forgot one thing—that I could read, and you thought I would never go in James’s study and find out all the things you had written down. They were there for me to see all along.”

  “How did you know to look in the ledger?”

  My heart began to beat faster. “I needed to check something.”

  “What?”

  “An order of linen. It is not important.” I tried to act dismissive but he was a hunter, and he had caught the scent. His eyes narrowed.

  “Who did you come here with?”

  “No one.”

  I stared him down, and he did not like what he saw, for he said, “You have changed, Fleetwood.” I waited, but he said no more, only impatiently, “Are we not to be given refreshments?”

  I did not speak, and turned my face to the gray window.

  Richard shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Roger came not long ago with a parcel for you.” I watched him from the corner of my eye. “The ruby necklace.”

  “The one that went missing?”

  “His maid found it at the bottom of Jennet Device’s bed. She is a schemer, clearly.”

  “She is a thief. But she had no opportunity—I did not leave her for a moment.” But then I remembered my journey down to the kitchen for Roger’s cold pie, and my heart sank. “Did she leave the hall at any point?”

  “I suppose she must have.”

  “I suppose you apologized to the servants?”

  A flicker of shame crossed his face, and as we sat in furious silence, the other events of that day flooded back to me—how so much had happened. “And the chambermaid Sarah—how is she?”

  “Not recovered, but better. The doctor arrived in time. She is still being cared for by her mother.”

  “Are you sleeping in our chamber?”

  He shifted again. “Yes. I have brought our carriage here, for you to take back to Gawthorpe. I have some business with my agent on the border, so I will go on to Carlisle before coming home. You can leave tomorrow.”

  I thought of Alice, upstairs resting on her truckle bed or kneeling in the garden or walking through the woods. I thought of what might be waiting for her if we went back. “I cannot come back.”

  Something seemed to stir in Richard, and he spread his fingers wide, his rings glittering, then clenched his fists. He licked his lips, picked a bit of fluff from his sleeve. “As sorry as I am, my patience is wearing thin. No man wants an unruly wife. There is a fine line between being tolerant and being made a fool of.”

  Tears sprung in my eyes, hot and angry. “And I suppose you have not made a fool of me? I am no different from one of your precious falcons. You have me on a leash, then with a flick of your wrist I am back at your arm.”r />
  At last he had the modesty to look aggrieved. Even as I spoke, I knew I was acting outside the boundaries of womanliness, of wifeliness. I did not have a beautiful face nor the manners to go with it. It was hardly a surprise he left our bed and with it our union, I thought miserably.

  “It is time for you to settle into your new role,” was all he said.

  “As a neglected wife?”

  “As a mother.”

  “I wish to stay here a little longer.”

  At that moment, as though she had been waiting for her name to be mentioned, there was a sharp knock on the door and my mother came in.

  “You have readied her things?” Richard asked. She nodded, and glanced once at me.

  “I will not go,” I said.

  Light and thin as a knife through butter, my mother’s words sliced me in half. “You will not stay here while your husband needs you. It’s time for you to leave.”

  I stood up from my chair and drew myself up to my full, unimpressive height, and said coldly, “If that is your wish, so be it.”

  * * *

  Richard went farther north on his horse, and I went to my chamber, and by the time I had reached the top of the staircase a plan had formed in my mind, and I immediately relayed it to Alice. “You can return to Gawthorpe with me, as my midwife and companion, and those are the terms on which I’ll forgive Richard.”

  But Alice looked unsure, and twisted her cap in her hands. Her hair was a mass of sprung gold, coiled and twisted like a lion’s mane. “Does he ask for forgiveness?” was all she said.

  “He betrayed me. Alice, come back with me and I will see to it. I’ll see that your name is cleared—that will be my price. Richard will meet it. We will go back to Gawthorpe and have you a bed made and in a day or two Richard will arrive home and I will lay out my terms. That for me to stay, you must stay, too. I cannot deliver this child without you.”

  Doubt was written all over her face, but I knew my husband. I thought I knew everything.

  We packed our things—or I packed mine, because all Alice had was what she wore. She had no trunk, no wedding ring, no husband calling her home, no sisters-in-law to pay calls on. No child in her stomach, no heir to produce. She could go anywhere, anytime, and if she had wanted to I would have let her, even when I knew I needed her more than anyone. But she climbed in the caroche beside me, just as she had on the way here. I decided I would give her a horse again when we got home—never mind the business with the other one, for I knew now that I trusted her—and she could ride to visit her father when Richard agreed my terms, and tell him she’d found a permanent position. But what would we find at home? For the first time since Alice told me her story, I thought of the Pendle witches and what would become of them. Perhaps Roger had not been able to build a case against the people at Malkin Tower; perhaps he was satisfied with the Devices and their neighbors, and tossed Nick Bannister’s list in the fire.

  I held my stomach, and as the carriage rocked on the uneven road and my child bucked and rolled with it, I wondered how anyone could consider coaches safer than riding. Puck whimpered at my feet, tired of the constant motion, for the journey was long. I told him we would be home soon, and I would have milk and bread brought for him, and he licked my hand with a comforting tongue.

  I lost interest in my surroundings after a few hours; the sky grew more gray, and the rain fell very lightly, making everything dull again. Alice’s eyes were closed, her head tipped back against the seat. I wondered if she was really awake, worrying like I was about what would happen when we were back. Even my child, who often made sleeping uncomfortable, was still.

  The last part of the journey became a race against the creeping dark, and eventually I felt the carriage slow and turn into the approach to Gawthorpe. The darkness had a blacker quality here, with the woods dense on both sides. The horses’ hooves clattered on cobbles: we were at the barn and outbuildings. We slowed to a stop and I heard the coachman tell someone in the yard he was instructed to take me direct to the door. By that point, thick with sleep, I’d forgotten Alice was there. We’d spent so much time together I no longer knew what it was to be on my own. The carriage was so dark I could not tell if she was awake, and I longed for my bed. I would put Alice in the room next door where Richard had slept, so that when he arrived home he might share our bed again. Perhaps he and Alice might become friends, with the necklace mystery resolved.

  We slowed to a stop. The horses exhaled and shook themselves. The coachman moved around above us, then I heard his feet hit the ground. I moved first, but the carriage door sprang open before me and I almost tumbled out.

  Richard was standing there. His face was hidden in shadow, and before I could speak or even exclaim in surprise, he took my wrist and helped me out. My feet hit solid ground, and I heard Puck jump out behind me, and then two things happened at once: Alice stepped out of the carriage behind me, and I saw Roger Nowell standing at the top of the steps.

  Neither he nor Richard had spoken, and I could not see their faces properly in the darkness. The torches flamed on either side of the doorway, twisting this way and that. I felt as though someone had poured cold water down my back. “Richard, what are you doing here?” I said. He still had hold of my arm.

  Roger’s voice came from the steps. “Alice Gray, you are under arrest for the murder by witchcraft of Ann Foulds, daughter of John Foulds of Colne, and will be a prisoner of His Majesty until your time of reckoning.” In a moment he was upon her, moving quick as a shadow.

  “Roger!” I cried. “What is this?”

  But Richard began to pull me up the steps to the open door. I twisted wildly, trying to shake him off. “Alice! What is this? Roger, Richard, tell me at once. Alice! Get off me.”

  I pushed him with all my strength and ran down the steps but he took hold of me once again, locking my arms behind me.

  “Fleetwood!” Alice cried, her cap and face the only visible things in the glow from the torches.

  Roger’s dark bulk was forcing her back into the carriage. She was sobbing, and frightened, and disappearing before my eyes, but I could still hear her, saying “no, no, no.”

  One of the horses whinnied in fright, straining against its harness. Then I was in the house, and Richard was closing the door with his free hand. It thudded shut, and I was inside, and she was out.

  PART THREE

  “A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit,

  or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death. They shall

  stone them with stones. Their blood shall be upon them.”

  Leviticus 20:27

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Richard dropped me like a hot coal and disappeared down the passage into the great hall. I threw myself at the door and felt for the handle, pulling it open to see the carriage moving away, out of the pool of torchlight. I ran down the steps, almost falling over my trunk that was lying at the bottom of them, and raced to catch up with it, shouting her name at the window, but the drape remained closed. “Stop!” I called. “Stop!”

  The coachman remained facing indifferently forward, hunched over the reins. I fell back as it picked up speed and watched the night swallow it whole, the sound of the wheels and horses’ hooves growing fainter. The trees shivered around the clearing—it was a cold night for July. It was always cold here.

  I stood for a long time in the blackness until the chill soaked right through to the deepest parts of me. My body felt as though it was submerged in water, anchored to the ground, my gown impossibly heavy. Two boys lifted the trunk behind me and carried it into the house.

  I had led her right to the center of the web, to where the spider was waiting.

  * * *

  I found Richard in the great hall, waiting for me at the empty fireplace. All I could do was stare at him. “You tricked me. You lied to me!”

  “And you tricked and lied to me.” />
  “How so?”

  “You told me the girl was not with you.”

  “You laid a trap—you had us ride into it. How could you...”

  “Alice Gray is wanted for a crime. Whether she was arrested here or at your mother’s, it matters not.”

  “It does matter. Who told you she was there—your sisters?”

  “No, your mother. Inadvertently, of course. I’m not sure even she would betray her own daughter. She wrote to me and spoke of a lively young midwife named Jill, who you had brought with you. She wanted to know if Mistress Starkie had recommended her. You might do better to cover your scent next time. I thought you were a skilled huntress.”

  I breathed in deeply, and out, trying to control my anger. “Why has Alice been arrested?”

  “I do not know all the details.”

  “Roger said she murdered a child? What nonsense.”

  “You know that, do you?”

  “Of course I do. She would not harm a fly.”

  “Then she will have nothing to fear.”

  “Roger is on a quest for power,” I said. “He is only doing this to appease the king and display his authority like some painted peacock. He does not care about the consequences, that people’s lives are at stake. How many more witches has he found since I’ve been away?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How many?”

  “About ten. It has not been difficult for him. They are giving him the names, thinking it will buy them their freedom. They are doing the accusing, not him.”

  “We must do something.”

  Richard’s temper boiled over. He had been pacing in front of the fireplace, and now he fixed me with the full force of his wrath. “We must do nothing,” he cried. “You have done enough.”

  I thought back to that rainy day in April when Roger and I stood in the long gallery. Shame on him who thinks evil of it. I reached for a chair and held the back of it, reluctant to do something so domestic as sitting down.