The Familiars

by Stacey Halls

  “You have left me without a midwife,” I said eventually.

  “There are plenty of others, Fleetwood. I do not know why you insisted on using some local slattern who may or may not have killed a child—is that who you want delivering our child?”

  “Yes.”

  “We will send for another one.”

  “I will not have another.”

  “Then you will die. Is that what you want?”

  “Perhaps. It’s what you want.”

  “Don’t be so ridiculous.”

  I gripped the chair harder. “Alice is not easily replaced. Tell me, Richard, why are you allowed to keep a woman and I am not?”

  Blood pounded in my ears. My knuckles were white. I waited. When he didn’t say anything, his face tight and furious, I went on. “Alice Gray saved my life, not just once but many times. When I itched, she brought me plants to rub on my skin. When I was sick, she made me tinctures. She kept me company when I was at my lowest. She planted a garden for my health.”

  “Sounds like a witch to me,” Richard said bitterly. “How else would she know those things?”

  “She is a midwife, like her mother before her. Are you like the king now, thinking all wise women and poor women and midwives are carrying out the Devil’s work? Why, he must be the largest employer in Lancaster.”

  I suddenly felt very tired, and had to sit. My gown was dusty from traveling, and part of my mind was still in the carriage with Alice and Roger, journeying into the darkness. My head ached with it all.

  “Richard, where will Roger take Alice?”

  “Perhaps Read Hall. Perhaps straight to Lancaster.”

  “But the assizes aren’t until August.”

  I heard his boots on the flags and the next thing, he was kneeling beside me, his gold earring glinting in the candlelight. “Forget Alice,” he said. “You have done enough for her.”

  “Forget her? I have done nothing for her! What can you mean? The only thing I have done is lead her directly to the trap you set for us.”

  “It was not a trap. My only concern was your safety. Once I heard who Alice was I acted straightaway, of course I did. What has happened to you, Fleetwood? You are a different person since she came along.”

  He sounded so hateful. I wiped my nose with my sleeve and wanted desperately to lie down.

  “I want to go to Read Hall,” I said.

  “You will do no such thing. It’s late,” Richard said.

  Again, I was thwarted, bound by my invisible leash. It was strange: I was sitting in my house with my husband and dog, but had never felt more wretched. For a long time they had been enough, but now I felt like a visitor in my own life. I looked around at the dark windows, the shiny panels and the gallery where players and minstrels performed in happier times. There were the coats of arms above the fireplace, mine included; there were the pair of doors so two people of the same rank could enter at the same time. Was this really my house?

  Richard helped me to my feet and I kept one hand on Puck’s head to go upstairs. The staircase was dark, and I was already half-asleep.

  So much had happened since the last time I was in my chamber it felt like a new room. I stared at the bed I designed as a fanciful young bride, with its frame decorated with knights’ helmets, crowns and serpents. In the center, two crests were carved in one: the three shuttles and the mullet for Shuttleworth, six martlets for Fleetwood. I had refused to use the Barton crest.

  Richard slept next to me that night, whether in solidarity or guilt, it did not matter to me. Puck slept on the floor at the foot of the bed, snoring loudly, and for once Richard did not complain. I stared for a long time at the canopy, and my thoughts raced from one side of my head to the other. Alice was accused of killing the daughter of a man named John. Had the child died in birth while she was delivering it? Or could it be a tale, borne of revenge from the tongue of Elizabeth Device? Perhaps John Foulds was a friend of Roger’s with a long-dead daughter in the churchyard, made richer for agreeing to pedal his lies.

  I waited for sleep, and knowing there was no curled figure at the foot of my bed, it did not come easily.

  * * *

  The next morning I took my time getting ready, washing properly after so much time on the road. I soaped my hair and combed it, letting it dry down my back before I dressed. Prudence and Justice watched vacantly as I got into my things: I had little need for a maid now I did not wear a corset. I took a clean collar from my wardrobe and a pearl headdress and fixed them in place. I tied my silk stockings above and below my knees even though my swollen legs kept them up easily, and I put on my slippers. A dab of rose oil went behind my ears and at my wrists, and I rubbed my teeth with linen and spat into the used bathwater that was scudded with sweat and grease and dust from traveling. Then I opened the door for Puck to go with me to breakfast.

  I was still tired and sick from my journey, and all I could think of was Alice. The food here was bland and I picked at it, thinking of the cherries and gingerbread and butter pies we’d eaten at my mother’s. Everything was duller here.

  On the other side of the table Richard breakfasted with his Turkish falcon on his shoulder like some mythical knight of the realm. If he was trying to provoke me after I’d compared myself to his bird, it was working. I watched him, not touching my plate. He seemed cheerful and occupied, oblivious to my presence. Perhaps he had grown used to my absence, like I’d had to with his.

  I swirled my spoon around in my oats and pretended to sip my beer. “I wish you would not bring that creature in the house.” Though I’d attempted to sound concerned, it came out spiteful. The bird regarded me with one serpent-like eye.

  “I am getting her used to me. She likes to see where her master lives—don’t you?”

  “What if it breaks free of its leash and flies up into the rafters?”

  “Be ever well in blood, for otherwise she will not long be at your commandment but make you follow her.” I stared at him, and he grinned. “The first rule of falconry and hawking. All it takes is a bit of meat to coax her down.”

  “What if that bit of meat is a servant’s finger?”

  Richard winked; he was in a careless mood.

  “I will go to Read Hall this morning,” I announced.

  “To see Katherine?”

  I licked my dry lips. “Yes.”

  “I won’t join you. I have leases to draw with James.”

  “What for?”

  “I am buying up some land left by a farmer. Do you know, his son said he buried a cat in the wall of his house when he built it?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  He shrugged. “To ward off evil? These local folk can be very queer. Glass windows would do it just as well.”

  I realized he’d made a joke and forced my face into a smile. He had given me an idea.

  I rode slowly on horseback to Read, taking my time, glad of the fresh air and space to think. Passing the same old dwellings and farmhouses on the same old roads, I saw face after face, all of them wearing their hard lives like a hood. Everybody went trudging along, their heads wrapped, their shoulders hunched against pain and illness and grief. Their houses were made of mud; their backs stooped from work. I hoped they had moments of brightness in their lives: I hoped they bit into cherries and felt the surprise of the stone. If they built a playhouse here, there would be no need for witch-hunting. Perhaps I would build one.

  The sky was white and the land green, and once you grew tired of looking at one or the other there was not much else to see on the road to Read. I drew up to the house, and apart from a boy carrying hay to the stable, there was no one about. I gave him my horse and went to the door, knocking and waiting what felt like a long time before knocking again. When the door opened, I expected to see Katherine but no one was there—then I realized the person who opened it only reached my chest, and I
looked down into wide, watery eyes.

  “Jennet,” I said, trying to hide my surprise. “I am here for Master Nowell.”

  The little girl stared. “’E int home. ’E’s gone,” she whispered. Her skin was so pale it was almost silver.

  My stomach twisted. “Gone where?”

  “Jennet?” came a voice within the house. Katherine appeared behind her. Her green eyes were wide, her face tighter and thinner than when I’d last seen her.

  I swallowed. “Hello, Katherine.”

  “Fleetwood.” She wrung her hands together and stopped a few feet short of the door. “Jennet, get away from there, I told you not to answer the door. Get upstairs now.” Although her words were scolding, her voice was desperate.

  The child leaped away and disappeared into the house.

  “Katherine, is Roger home?”

  “No, he’s gone to Lancaster.”

  “With Alice?”

  “Alice?”

  “Alice, my midwife, Alice.”

  Katherine blinked, her white hands clutching at each other. “I don’t understand. Would you come in? I’ll fetch some wine...”

  “No, thank you. I need to know if Roger has taken Alice to Lancaster.”

  “He went out last night and hasn’t returned—he told me that’s where he was going.”

  So he didn’t put all his charges up in his house like an innkeeper. Just the ones he wanted something from. I took a step back and sighed, thinking of what to do. “Do you know a man named John Foulds?”

  Her face crumpled in confusion. “I’m afraid not. Should I?” I shook my head. “Roger said you were with your mother in Kirkby Lonsdale for a spell?” Katherine asked pleasantly. “Was it...enjoyable?”

  “Very. I have to go. I’m sorry, Katherine.”

  She wavered at her door like a woman on the edge of a drop, as though she might jump and come with me. “Don’t go. You’ve just arrived! Stay for dinner.”

  I called goodbye again and went straight to the stable, where my horse was still drinking from the trough. I waited for it to finish before going back the way I’d come.

  My head was thick with trying to understand how I’d got us into this mess and how I could get us out of it, and the ride back to Gawthorpe was a slower one. I dismounted and stood in the yard with a frown on my face, my hands still holding the reins. But there was something I needed from the house before I went on the road again.

  Richard was in the great hall with James, surrounded by papers. “You are back early,” he said. “Was Katherine well?”

  “Fine,” I said absently. “I am looking for the dog. Have you seen him?”

  James cleared his throat and told me he’d last seen Puck in the parlor.

  “I am going riding.”

  “Is that wise?”

  “Alice said so, and she has not steered me wrong thus far.” I held his stare. “I’ll be back in a few hours.” I would be much longer than that, but far away enough for them not to be able to do anything about it.

  Richard’s face was half amused, half annoyed. “Do you know, James,” he said to the steward, “I wonder if the king has some sense in wanting to tighten the reins on Lancaster’s women. They are lawless, are they not?”

  There was a hint of malice about him as he looked closely at me. I’d seen the same glint of it at my mother’s in the moment he decided he would tell me what to do, for the first time in our marriage. Now he was exercising his authority like a muscle, testing my limit and his, and never failing to remind me who was master.

  “I know not, Master,” James replied soberly.

  “They are wild, are they not?” he asked me.

  “They are also harmless,” I replied carefully.

  “And who will be the judge of that?” Richard did not look away, so I smiled clumsily and left the room, but before I disappeared he called me back. “I am on business in Ripon today and will be away for the night.”

  I paused with my hand on the door. “When will you be back?”

  “Late tomorrow, or the morning after. But worry not—James will be here to keep an eye on you.”

  I wished him a successful trip and went to find the dog. With him away, I could flap about on my leash, and when he was at home I would return to his arm. James did not concern me, for there was nothing he could do apart from tell tales when Richard got home, and by then I’d be installed in my parlor amusing myself like a good little wife.

  I found Puck in a warm spot beneath the window and roused him from his nap to go with me. Walking across the bottom of the staircase, I felt the presence of my mother’s portrait at the top of the tower, as though she was standing on the gallery looking down at me. I shuddered and stepped back out into the chill morning with my dog at my side.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was market day in Padiham, and the village was thronged with horses and carts and people. I rode into the stable yard at the Hand and Shuttle, barely registering the curious glances that fell on my dog and me. I took him inside with me and asked a young boy with a rag in his hand for the landlord. He went off down the corridor I walked down not so long ago, before Alice told me to open my eyes. Now I wished I could close them. The same man as before with a ruddy face and rotten teeth appeared, his expression lively and inquisitive. “I did not introduce myself last time I was here,” I said quietly. “My name is Fleetwood Shuttleworth. I live at Gawthorpe Hall.”

  “I know who you are,” he replied, not unpleasantly. “I’m William Tufnell the landlord.”

  That was when he noticed Puck at my side and almost jumped out of his skin. “No dogs allowed in here, Mistress, I’m sorry. Even yours.”

  I nodded, glancing around and noticing the fireplace Alice would have swept and the tables she’d wiped. “I won’t take a minute of your time. I only have one thing to ask,” I said. “Have you ever heard of John Foulds or his daughter Ann?”

  He looked blankly back at me. “No one of that name in Padiham. And if he’s got a hand to lift a tankard he’ll have been in here.”

  “There is an inn in Colne, the Queen’s Arms?”

  “Aye,” he said warily.

  “I believe one of your employees came from there to here, looking for work.”

  “My brother-in-law passed on a girl, aye. She’s not here anymore, though.”

  I regarded him coolly and nodded. “What is your brother-in-law’s name? Is he the landlord?”

  “Peter, Mistress. And yes.”

  * * *

  The Queen’s Arms was on the edge of the village a few miles upriver, and I imagined Alice helping a feeble and petrified John Law along the pack road and into the doorway. It was a small inn, no bigger than an alehouse, with the same smell of damp beer once I crossed the threshold. The place was empty, the benches and tables were old but well scrubbed, and there was fresh sawdust on the floor.

  I left Puck outside, tying his leash to a post. A woman with a broom stood in a doorway behind the bar, talking loudly, telling a story. I waited for her to finish, my hands clasped in front of me.

  The woman realized she was being watched, as anyone does after a while, because the skin sees things the eyes do not. Her mouth fell open in a rude way. “Can I help you?” She looked me up and down, clasping the broomstick in her red hands.

  “My name is Fleetwood Shuttleworth. I am looking for Peter the landlord.”

  She could easily have called, but she went through the doorway and I heard her whispering. A moment later, a great barrel of a man with a shock of white hair stepped through the door. He was so large I felt his boots hit the packed earth floor. “Can I help?”

  “Are you Peter, who employed Alice Gray?”

  “If I had a feather in my hat for every person came in here asking for Alice Gray, I’d look like a chicken. What’s she done now?”

  Hi
s choice of words surprised me. “She has done nothing. I wondered where I might find her father.”

  “Joe Gray? What do you want with him?”

  “I wish to speak with him.”

  “He don’t say much worth listening to.” I waited. “He lives about a half a mile that way, along the woolpack trail then right, a little way up where the trees stop. What’ll you want with him?”

  “That is my business. Who else has been asking for Alice?”

  “Oh.” He waved a large hand. “Some magistrate, t’other week. I said are you sure you’ve got right person? Before that all’t’remnants of society, some right creatures in here all hours. God knew what they wanted with her.”

  “You mean Demdike? And Elizabeth Device?”

  “Demdike, aye. It means demon woman, did you know that? Two families around here have been locked away for witchcraft now, would you believe—the Devices and old Chattox and her daughter. Some folk were telling me they’re neighbors at war with each other, both of them in with the Devil. And that little’en who was here a few month ago, asking after that poor boor she’d cursed. Good riddance, the lot of them. I’m not having their sort in here—folk won’t come if they know witches have been in. That’s why I had to let Alice go, they were always asking after her. Years, she worked for me. But she were scaring the customers, that ugly wench who kept coming in.”

  “So you let her go,” I said coldly.

  “She were caught up in it, rightly or wrongly.”

  “All she did was bring that poor man back here.”

  “I wish she hadn’t bothered. Brought me nothing but grief, he did. Wailing and weeping about dogs in his room and needles and curses. He’s the one needed locking up but she begged me to let him stay.”

  I looked around at the empty tables and chairs, the full barrels waiting to be drained into men’s bellies. He had a business to run, and there might have been some truth in what he was saying, but he was wrong to get rid of Alice, because in doing so he’d implicated her of wrongdoing.

  “Do you know John Foulds?” I asked eventually.