The Familiars

by Stacey Halls

  “You want him as well, then, do you? She has bad luck with men, does Alice, what with her old dad and John Foulds.”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. “I beg your pardon?”

  “He comes in here, now and again. Well, he used to until... He’s not been in a while. I don’t know where he is.”

  “Until what?”

  Peter reached round to scratch the side of his large belly. “His daughter died not long ago. How long would it be now, Margaret? Six months or so, I reckon.”

  “And he and Alice...”

  “Well, they were courting. He’d been married before—his wife died. She kept her cards close to her chest did Alice, never did let on much. But they never did marry. You’ll not find Alice around here anyway, sorry to disappoint. If you’re asking her dad he might not have much idea either. You could try at the Hand and Shuttle, that’s where she works now, in Padiham.”

  “What does he look like?” My mouth was dry; a cup of beer would have been welcome.

  “John? Dark hair, tall. Handsome chap, until the drink takes hold of him, eh, Margaret? I’ve seen you having a look.” Margaret rolled her eyes and slapped his arm.

  So the man who’d upset her in the passage at the Hand and Shuttle was John Foulds. The idea that Alice had murdered his daughter was impossible. And she his lover? He had a fine face, but idleness and wastefulness radiated from him like light from the sun.

  Soon news would get out of Alice’s arrest and Peter’s tables would fill up again with people wanting to know. I thanked Peter and his wife flatly, and before I went to get my horse I looked up at the little windows on the second floor of the inn. I wondered which one John Law the peddler had looked out of from his sickbed, if he had at all.

  The road at the side wound down to Colne one way and ran out into open fields and copses of trees on the other. Birds sang around me, and the joyful chorus they made rang empty in my ears as I rode slowly away from the town into wide green pastures. The road was muddy underfoot, and my horse’s feet were unsteady. Puck padded heavily beside me, and in the quiet and clear air I had time to think.

  I knew so little about Alice, and she knew so much about me. She told me once that she came close to marrying, and that must have been John. She missed her mother dearly, and found a kindred spirit in her old friend Mouldheels. She did not speak often of her father, and when she did, it was not with warmth. All these little things I knew, but they were like details at the corners of a picture: I could not see the full thing.

  The road cut through a wooded area, with trees as tall as houses. I shivered as I thought of John Law meeting Alizon on this same path. It was darker here, and noisy with the rustling of the leaves and calls of the birds. I kept my eyes straight ahead until it opened into wide fields, trying to shake off the feeling that I was being watched. Just as Peter had said, the land began to rise up on the right, and a low, dark house squatted on the hillside. A mud track led up to it, so we squelched through, trying to avoid the worst of it. A thin thread of smoke drifted briefly out of a chimney into the air, only to be carried in all directions by the wind. The house was not much taller than I was, smaller even than the buttery at home. It was made of wattle and daub with a thatched roof, and the windows were not glazed but had shutters that were open to let the light in. A low wall surrounded the cottage, and flowers lay dying or dead in their beds. A few colorful heads peered from beneath the weeds like lanterns. I remembered Alice talking of her mother’s herb garden and thought it must be round the back. The house was exposed on the hillside: it would have been difficult to protect growing things from the wind and driving rain here.

  I rapped smartly on the door and a few moments later it opened. Joseph Gray was older than I expected: older even than Roger. Or it might have been that he looked that way because he was poor. Hunched over, he gave the impression of constant movement even when he was still: his body shook and his mouth worked, speaking silent thoughts. His cream-colored hair was tinged with gray and hung in spirals like Alice’s down to his shoulders. His eyes were a clear blue, and he was thin. His clothes hung off him and looked as though they needed leaving in lye for a week. “Mr. Gray?” I said. “I am Fleet—”

  “I know who you are,” he muttered. “She worked for you, didn’t she? Come in. I suppose you’ve got summat to tell me.”

  It was very warm in the house: the fire in the middle of the room burned as merrily as if it was December, not July. The rising smoke escaped from a hole in the center of the roof of the cottage, and I thought how cold and drafty it must be with an opening to the weather. Two low beds stood on either side of the fire—one unmade—and lengths of cloth hung over the earth walls that would no doubt be damp and cold to touch. A table, two stools and a cupboard were the only furniture. By the fire on the rush-covered floor lay some pewter pots and pans that looked used but not washed. So Alice and her father cooked, slept and lived in this house full of holes that the wind whistled through all hours.

  “I suppose you’re here about the nag?” Joseph spoke.

  “The nag?” I asked.

  “The nag you give our Alice. You’ve got it back though now so I don’t want no trouble.”

  I stared blankly at him. “The horse I lent her, that went missing?”

  “Aye.” His mouth did not stop moving even when he was not speaking and I wondered if he was chewing tobacco. I had no idea what he meant, and said so. “I gave the money back. And was she grateful? Was she fuck.”

  He ambled over to his bed and sat on it. I remained where I was, struggling to breathe in the oppressive heat from the fire. Joseph licked his lips and picked a tankard off the floor, examining its contents and throwing them into his mouth.

  So that’s what happened to the gray draft horse: Alice’s father had sold it. And she, somehow, had got it back. My chest felt heavy suddenly, and for a brief moment I felt overcome with emotion. But I straightened my skirts and continued. “Mr. Gray, I am not here about the horse. I have it back now, so no matter. I am here because Alice has been arrested by the magistrate Roger Nowell, who seems to be under the impression she has murdered a child.”

  His eyes were glazed and vacant, resting on the fire, and after a few seconds he pulled them with difficulty toward me. “Eh?” he said.

  “Mr. Gray, your daughter is in a great deal of trouble. I will do everything I can to help her but I thought you must know about these fatal claims. She has been taken to Lancaster gaol to await the assizes next month, but it can’t get that far. I won’t let it. Mr. Gray, are you listening to me?”

  “Bet you don’t even need that horse, do you? What’s one more nag to you? Bet you have a whole stable of ’em lined up like soldiers, waiting to be called to attention.” He gave a half-hearted salute and again tipped his grubby tankard into his mouth, though it appeared to be empty.

  “Mr. Gray! Are you listening to me? Your daughter is accused of being a witch and is in gaol. Do you know anything about this?”

  He burped. “Guess she’ll be going same way as her mother, then.” He drew a line with one finger along his neck.

  My mouth fell open. “She could be hanged, and you don’t care? You have no interest in helping her?”

  “What I have an interest in...is...” He lost his words and grew vacant again. “Where is my ale coming from? Cos it int from her! Or that closefisted bugger Peter whatever-his-name-is. He is only down the road, but now I have to go farther cos he won’t serve me. I’m an old man, Mistress What’s-Yer-Name.”

  The heat was so intense, the fire blinding and Joseph Gray so infuriating and strange, I felt I couldn’t stay for a single second longer in his hovel. But I had come for a reason, and I owed Alice everything. I moved slowly to go to the unmade bed in the dampest corner of the room. Even the great barn at Gawthorpe was warmer, and drier—no wonder she had taken so easily to the idea of going with me to my mother
’s.

  There was something lying on her bed—a bundle of rags, though it might have been something a cat dragged in. I lifted its damp, lifeless form—not a creature, but old wool, crudely sewn. Made as though from a handkerchief, it appeared to be a human form, stuffed with hair, with a head, and two arms and legs. There was a curious mass attached to it, and though the smoke and the heat were overwhelming, my skin went cold when I realized it was the figure of a child bound with hair to a woman. Black hair. I remembered the strands covering my pillow, and how they disappeared. Inexplicably, my eyes filled with tears, and I set the poppet back on the bed. There was the faintest scent of lavender, then it disappeared.

  “Mr. Gray,” I said, going back to where he sat jerking and muttering. “Alice told me about her mother. Jill.” I waited for a response, and something stirred in his blank blue eyes. His head snapped as though he was dreaming. “She misses her very much, as I’m sure you do. You have already had one member of your family taken away—would you not do everything in your power to stop it happening to Alice? She is the only family you have.”

  He was staring wildly at something I could not see. With difficulty, I crouched down, my skirts bunching around me. “Your daughter has been very loyal to me, and helped me greatly over the past months. I am sorry that I took her away from you,” I lied. I was not sorry that I had taken her from this damp, smoky cottage on its lonely hill, nor from her useless father or brutish employer. Not one bit.

  “I will help her. She has helped me and now I must return her kindness.” The smoke was stinging my eyes; perhaps Joseph thought I was moved to tears, when really I was full of a terror I had never known. I wished for sadness: that was easy, and came with things past rather than uncertain things ahead. “Mr. Gray,” I said again.

  His bland gaze cleared and he focused again. His lips parted and I thought he would speak, but he showed all his brown teeth, and it was a moment before I realized he was laughing. “They burn witches, don’t they?” he wheezed, pointing at the fire.

  “What?” I stood, even more alarmed.

  He pointed at my skirts. “They burn witches!”

  Flames were licking the bottom of my gown. Puck began barking, and horror hit me with such force I was almost blind with it. I ran to the door and flapped my skirts desperately in the open air, and the flames seemed to falter but did not go out. I looked around in desperation for a trough, anything, and found an old bucket against the wall filled with rainwater. With Puck barking and tearing around me, I tipped the whole thing over the side of my gown, and as the brown water puddled around my feet I looked for the bright flames, barely visible in daylight, but they were gone.

  Inside, Joseph Gray was laughing. I stood there panting, and Puck was circling with his back to me as though fending off an invisible army, his jaws snapping and his barks echoing down the hillside. The wind pulled at me from every angle and drew fine, dark threads of smoke away from my ruined gown. The ruby red of my skirts had gone black and gaped in a horrible wound. I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but Joseph Gray did not come out, and it took me a long time to stop shaking enough to climb onto my horse. When I was up, I broke into a canter, with Puck streaking behind me, and I could not have gone faster if I was running from the Devil himself.

  * * *

  That night, something visited me in my chamber where I slept alone. I woke up because I felt warm fur brush against my hand. It was pitch-black, and all I could hear was my own breathing. I felt a weight shift on the bed somewhere near my feet. My breath died in my throat, my ears sang, my skin prickled. It moved again, as though getting comfortable. I imagined Joseph Gray standing in my dark chamber with a dead rabbit hanging from his dirty fist.

  I closed my eyes and willed my heart to stop hammering.

  It was only a dream. I knew it was not. I felt the weight disappear from near my legs, then there was the softest, slightest sound of something landing on the floor. It was too light to be Puck, too silent. I knew it was not Puck. My hands stayed where they were on top of the bedclothes, frozen. I knew there was something in the room with me just as I knew there was a child in my stomach and Richard was not beside me. The child kicked.

  I can feel it, too. I waited: either nothing would happen or I would die of fright. Though everything was black, I saw it move toward the door, and then it was gone, though the door was shut. I saw it. Black has different shades, just like white.

  Earlier, I’d crept into the house and hurried upstairs wrapped in my cloak like a smuggler. After shoving it into the wardrobe, I’d gone to my chamber and noisily pretended a candle had fallen, burning my dress. “Oh!” I shouted, hearing myself and almost believing it. “Oh, oh!” I blew it out so it would still feel hot and placed it on the floor by my feet. “My gown!” I cried when one of the chambermaids came in.

  She was frightened; she probably thought I was losing the child. She guided me to sit down, and I puffed and panted and pretended I was scared, which wasn’t difficult: all I had to do was think of Joseph Gray’s wide, glassy eyes and his house, which was like something from a nightmare.

  I lay awake as my sweaty face dried and my heart slowed and the child inside went back to sleep. I thought of Alice. My nightmare happened when my eyes were closed. Alice’s was happening when hers were open. Her father’s words came to me in the darkness: They burn witches, don’t they?

  I tried to picture Alice as a child, growing up in that drafty house with her strange father and kind mother. Though I’d met two people from her life, I had no better understanding of her, the girl who did not know her own birthday and could not spell her name, but who had a masculine intelligence, and knew the properties of everything in the earth, and bargained sold horses back like a tradesman. I closed my eyes and prayed she was safe.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The next morning I rose in the moments before sunrise and dressed quickly in the near dark, trying not to come across any servants. I unlocked the front door and slipped outside, closing it gently behind me and pocketing the key. The summer morning was before me, and I would have thought it glorious in another year, another lifetime. I yawned and watched the trees rustling awake, then I went to the stables. The cattle were lowing in the great barn, eager for their feed. The river sighed behind the house. I had to walk much more slowly now, so I noticed these things. One of the stable boys was dressed, a bucket in each hand, and I sent him to saddle my horse. When he came back, I thanked him, and told him I had a message to pass to him.

  “Please go and find James later, and tell him I will be out all day, and he is not to tell the master about it when he returns. Tell him if the master finds out, I will throw his precious ledgers on a fire and he will have to rewrite them from memory. Can you remember that?”

  The boy, whose name was Simon, and who was probably only three or four years younger than me, nodded gleefully, thrilled at the prospect of delivering a threat to his superior.

  I strapped on a pack of food I’d taken from the kitchen and wrapped in a napkin: bread smeared with honey, cheese and grapes, with biscuits for later, and before the light had come up fully I was on the road north. If Richard was back tonight, I would need to be back, too.

  * * *

  Several hours later, I welcomed the sounds of a town thronged with people and sellers and animals. It was a bright summer’s day, and warm, and the way uphill to the castle was slow, for the streets were crammed with carts and carriages. Before I reached the gatehouse I looked back behind, where the town was spread far below, down a steep, winding street. Buildings were crammed in everywhere, with the hills rising up in the distance hemming in the town. From the castle, you could see everything: every window and cobble and pair of lovers and hungry child. On my horse I approached two helmeted guards standing with swords at their thighs like suits of armor. “I am here to visit a prisoner,” I said. They regarded me lazily.

  “Name,” one s
aid.

  “Mine, or the name of the prisoner?”

  Though he had all the time in the world to gaze at the skyline and feel the weight of the sword at his hip, he looked at me as though he did not have a single second to spare for me. “Your name.”

  “Fleetwood Shuttleworth, of Gawthorpe Hall near Padiham.”

  He looked me up and down, taking in my swollen stomach. Then he turned and was gone under the great yawning gate. My back ached and my legs burned from the long ride, and if I dismounted I thought I might never get back on the horse again.

  Just as I did not think he would come back, he came striding out with a plump, slightly younger man with black hair, who was dressed finely in soft black boots, breeches and a black doublet with silver buttons fastened over his well-fed belly. Wide sleeves billowed at his wrists. “Mistress Shuttleworth?” he asked politely. “Should I be expecting you? My name is Thomas Covell. I am the coroner and keeper of the castle.”

  I decided to stay on my horse to keep the advantage of height. “I am here to visit Alice Gray, Mr. Covell, if such a thing is possible?” When he looked no more enlightened, I said, “She was recently arrested by Roger Nowell, who is a dear friend of mine. I was in the area and wanted to...inquire after her welfare.”

  Clearly prisoners’ visitors were not a daily occurrence at the castle gatehouse. Mr. Covell was intrigued and suspicious in equal parts. He placed his fingertips together. “Ah, we do not permit callers at the castle, I am afraid to say.” His eyes slipped to my stomach. “Especially under certain circumstances—the prisoners can get quite excited by it, and it does no good for their dispositions.”

  I swallowed. “Mr. Covell,” I said. “I have traveled a long way—over forty miles.” His face was impassive, as were the two guards on either side, gazing into the distance, reminding me of my bedfellows Prudence and Justice. I realized I may be able to exercise one if not the other. “My husband, Master Shuttleworth, would be very disappointed to hear I had been turned away, especially considering his late uncle Sir Richard’s generous contribution to the crown not fifteen years ago—that and the fact he was chief justice at Chester, and knighted at court. So I am not sure that my late relative would look with agreement at his nephew’s wife being refused entry. I would hate to have to take the matter further.”