by Dan Davis
Copyright
I’m Not a Witch!
Soldiers on the Air
In Deep Water
Cobnut Up In Smoke
The Witch’s Confession
A Commotion at the Tower
The Witch’s Trial
Cut the Air with a Knife
A Watertight Argument
Smashing Ralf and Radish
The Trial by Water
A Failed Rescue
Cold Waters Rising
Cedd’s Full of Hot Air
Throwing Cold Water on the Plan
Into Thin Air
The Scinnlac
Sow the Wind, Reap the Storm
Black Waves Crashing
The Wyvern’s Hole
Coalschester Castle
The Dragon’s Cage
All Water Under the Bridge
Castles in the Air
Through Fire and Water
What is Power?
Shattered Plans
Burning the Moon Forest
Breaking Up
We Have to Fight
Stealing the Wicungboc
The Battle of Bures
The Guardian Wolves
Rebellion
A Reanimation Transmutation
Keeper’s Fire
Know Thyself
The Battle of the Vale
The Sweetwater Rising
The Return of Hopkins and Stearne
In Troubled Waters
That Cromwell Bloke
Dark Water Breaking
Gunpowder and Alchemy Book 2
By Dan Davis
Copyright © Dan Davis 2015
All Rights Reserved
Plot Summary
In 1640s England, a young girl known as Writer is prosecuted by the Witchfinder General and must free herself before facing his murderous trial by water.
Keeper and his dragon are kidnapped on the orders of General Oliver Cromwell, leader of the rebellion against King Charles I.
The ancient Alchemist Cedd arrives in the Vale and becomes a powerful ally but is he all that he seems? And if so who is he truly here to help?
Archer and Weaver battle against both sides to save their friends, fight the alchemists, the redcoats and their steam-powered landships and realise they must start a rebellion of their own...
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For Nadine
Witches deny nature. Water being the element of purity and truth it is a fact therefore that when they be heaved into the water, the water refuseth to receive them and suffers them to float, as the froth upon the sea.
– The Witchfinder General Hopkins from the Discovery of Witches
The ship sped safely with favouring winds till it were halfway between Jarrow and the Kingdom of the East Saxons to bring to them the alchemy of the Nazarene. Suddenly it was assailed by storms and darkened sky. The sails could not support the fury of the winds. The tempest gathered strength and the ship, overwhelmed by the waves, was ready to sink. Then the blessed Cedd, showing himself resolute in proportion to the greatness of the danger, called upon his spells and powers and so quelled the raging waves. A cloudless calm ensued, the winds veering about set themselves again to forward their voyage, the sea was soon traversed, and they reached the quiet of the wished-for shore of Essex.
– The Alchemist Bede from An Alchemical History of the English People
I’m Not a Witch!
‘Get in there, witch,’ the bailiff said as he shoved Writer hard through the doorway.
She staggered into the tiny room.
‘And don’t try no witchy business, neither. We got your magic spell book so you can’t do nothing. We’re going to be watching you.’
‘You ignorant great brute,’ Writer said, spinning round on him and the other bailiff who stood with him just outside the door of the Guildhall records room. ‘How many times must I say it? I’m not a witch,’ she said while rubbing her upper arm where he had gripped her so roughly. ‘You fools are going to regret this.’
The first man’s face twisted in anger and he took a step inside the door and raised his fist.
‘I don’t like you should speak to me like that,’ he said looming over her, blocking the light from the doorway.
Writer knew from the blank look in his eyes and his garbled speech that he was truly stupid. But he was also enormous. He filled the small room almost from wall to wall and floor to ceiling.
She backed away ready to defend herself. Flashes of half-remembered enchantments raced uselessly through her mind. If only they had not stolen Bede’s spell book from her.
‘Hold up, Ned,’ the other bailiff said and reached up from behind to grab the stupid giant on his shoulder with his right arm. The arm moved awkwardly and made a strange whirring sound. He wore a glove over that hand. ‘Hopkins says you can’t do anything to her until after the trial. You remember that, don’t you, Ned?’
Ned twisted half around and looked at the bailiff who was in charge. Writer could see Ned’s tiny brain working; his ugly face screwed up in concentration.
‘Hopkins says not hurt the witch until after trial?’ he said, his voice as thick as a dollop of mud. ‘That what you be saying to me, Stearne?’
‘That’s right, Big Ned,’ the other brute called Stearne said, with a sigh. ‘Come on out now, leave her be.’
Ned thought about it, looked back at Writer with a sneer, turned, and ducked out of the room.
‘Thank you,’ she said to the other brute, Stearne.
‘Shut your face, witch,’ Stearne said, and spat on the floor. ‘You’ll get what’s coming to you soon enough, don’t you worry.’ He laughed at her and stepped inside. He had a long face, pockmarked and scarred and a nose broken and reset all wonky. His teeth were the colour of rotten sandstone.
She raised one hand, as if she was going to cast a spell. ‘Don’t try anything,’ she said. ‘I’ll kill you.’
Stearne laughed. ‘If you could do magic you’d have done it last night when my lads kicked your door in. I hope your old dad wasn’t hurt too bad. Fancy putting up a fight, at his age? I bet he’s having a right moan at Hopkins right now, for all the good it’ll do him. Nah, you can’t do magic, girl. Pull the other one.’
He had seen through her feeble lies. It was infuriating.
‘You’re a prisoner now,’ Stearne said, his both hands on his hips, the strange one twitching inside its thick glove. ‘You’ll be here a couple days while Hopkins gets everything ready for your trial, like talking round the locals and getting folk fired up. Don’t worry about Ned or the other lads. Torture is against the law in England so we’ll get your confession without hurting you.’
‘Confession?’ she said. ‘Why would I confess if I am not guilty?’
Stearne laughed. ‘You’re guilty if our court finds you guilty. And it will. Hopkins will see to that.’
‘I am not a witch,’ she said, defiantly.
‘Everyone denies it their first night,’ Stearne said, grinning. ‘What do you reckon they’re saying by their last night?’
Who did these outsiders think they were? They had hammered on her parents’ front door in the middle of the night and barged in, knocking her elderly father to the floor. Four large men armed with cudgels and a sheet of parchment that war barely legible and written in the most appallingly sloppy hand stating that she, Maerwynn of Straytford was to be taken for trial to answer accusations of the malicious practice of witchcraft and for fraternisation with alchemists and treason
against the Parliament of England. Fraternisation, she knew, meant associating with someone in a brotherly fashion. Fraternising with Bede? It was utterly, ludicrously absurd.
‘Who even are you people?’ Writer demanded. ‘You are outsiders, are you not? You are not of the Vale. By what authority do you arrest me in the middle of the night and drag me here to Morningtree? Why am I being locked in the records room in the Guildhall? What have the Guildsmen got to do with anything? You claim to be bailiffs but bailiffs for whom? And who is this Hopkins, is he in charge of you brutes? I must speak with him.’
Stearne grinned. ‘By the authority of the Parliament of England. We’re bailiffs for Hopkins who is the Witchfinder General and who carries warrants and writs and passes commanding him to root out all those who practice alchemy or malicious witchery or support the traitor king Charles Stuart. So you put that in your pipe and smoke it, girl. As for Hopkins, well you’ll meet him, girl, all in good time.’
‘I have some information about you here.’ Stearne pulled a rolled up piece of paper from one sleeve and opened it. His right hand was stiff and the fingers continued opening and closing almost at random for a few moments while he held the paper with his left hand. ‘Now, it says you lived and fraternised with the Alchemist of the Vale, a renegade of the Guild called Bede, for many years. That true, girl?’
‘Lived with him? Fraternised?’ she asked, astonished. ‘I was his prisoner. He made me copy out text all day long, day after day.’ She had written out books, codices and scrolls and translated texts and treatises. She did not see how she could be responsible for anything criminal when it was she that had been the prisoner. She had never had a choice.
‘I see,’ Stearne said, nodding and looking at the paper. ‘And he taught you alchemy.’
‘He taught me nothing. Everything I learned, I learned by myself. In spite of him.’
‘And yet we found Bede’s Codex, his spell book, in your possession.’
‘I took it when I escaped.’ Then she had kept the book, which Bede had always called his Wicungboc under her bed at home. Stearne and his brutes had found it when they tore through her home and arrested her. The Wicungboc had been the first thing she read after she woke and the last thing she read before she fell asleep. She had been determined to master the spells within and had been practising every day.
‘You took it to do magic with,’ Stearne said.
But the Vale folk had been talking these last few weeks since she had returned. The story of how she had defeated the Alchemist with one of the spells in his book had been repeated up and down the Vale and that must be why she was now accused of practising alchemy. ‘But me trying to do spells isn’t practising alchemy. Alchemy is about metallurgy, chemistry, history and herbalism and engineering and politics and the great mysteries of the world. I am no alchemist, no matter what anyone says.’
‘You admit to casting spells on people?’ Stearne sneered. ‘So you are a witch after all.’
‘I have never cast a spell on a person, other than Bede who had it coming. I am not even certain what a witch is.’ She assumed from stories that witches were old women who lived alone and healed people with herbs and potions but there were no witches in the Vale.
‘We’ll just see about that, won’t we,’ Stearne said. ‘And you’ll see how that charge of Treason goes.’
‘Treason? Against what?’
‘Against England, dear. Against her Parliament.’
‘I know the Vale is within a land called England but I have never left the Vale. The only person I ever met from outside was a soldier called Pym. He attacked me and my friends in the Moon Forest after we escaped the Tower. How could I owe allegiance to somewhere I have never been? I have sworn no oath to it. It has done nothing to me but this.’ She gestured at her tiny cell.
‘Sounds like treasonous words to me, girl.’ Stearne grinned.
Her spirits sank, suddenly. The records room was cold. Outside it was winter and the stone walls were like ice and freezing air poured in from the strip of window high on the rear wall. Yesterday, she had seen the edges of the Sweetwater freezing and the river had been running lazy and thick as treacle. How she wished she were out there now. She pulled her cloak tight around her shoulders, feeling tired. It was a mere five paces from that rear wall to the only door, which was blocked by Stearne. Dim lamplight poured in from the corridor outside. There was no way out.
Stearne coughed. ‘Tell me about your friends.’ He glanced at the piece of paper he was holding. ‘What about this one; little blond lad, uses a bow and arrow?’
How did Stearne know about Archer? Archer would have thought of a way out by now, she thought. He would come up with a way to break through the window or prise the door open or something. It was strange that despite all her knowledge she could not think of a way to do those things.
‘I hear he got an ear shot off. Memorable, a one-eared boy. I know what it’s like to lose an important body part. That stays with you.’
She shook her head. During their confinement, the Alchemist Bede had somehow administered to her and her friends something called the Elixir of Life. Archer had regrown his destroyed ear in a single night so they knew he had it inside him for sure but Writer would not know unless she received an injury. And she would rather not.
‘Denial, is it? Quick learner.’ Stearne said, and looked at his sheet again. ‘Tell me about this girl. Another witch, sounds like. Dark hair, green eyes. Good with a knife.’
Weaver. How did he know about her? Weaver was always angry, for some reason but she was tough and would never have let herself be taken away without a fight. Writer had only spent a few days with Weaver but she felt sure the small, skinny girl would have fought the four brutes for all she was worth, even if it meant being hurt. Writer was forced to conclude that she herself was more of a coward than Weaver.
‘No?’ Stearne sighed. ‘Waste of time but there’s another lad. The one with the dragon.’
Of course he knew about the dragon. All anyone in the Vale wanted to ask her about was the dragon. The boy called Keeper and the dragon he had named Burp had been locked up together in Bede’s Tower and become inseparable. Keeper would have said something to cheer her up if he were here. Writer missed Keeper. He always trusted that things would turn out well.
She felt angry at being asked about her friends. ‘You’re not from the Vale,’ she said. ‘I know how you got in, the Alchemist’s protection spells failed. But how are you here? The Guildhall is a meeting place for tradespeople. My mother and father are members of the Brewer’s Guild and there are the builders and cobblers guilds, and the bakers and millers and the weavers and rest. This is where the most well-respected and powerful people of Morningtree and the whole Vale make their decisions. And this is the records room, the scrolls of who owns what in the Vale and only the Guildmaster and Record Keeper are allowed access.’
‘So what?’ Stearne asked, sneering.
‘That means you have the support of the Guildmaster.’ It was an awful thought.
‘Hopkins is good at persuading people. With your alchemist dead, Bede’s Vale has no protection at all. Your Guildmaster knows which side his bread is buttered. There’s no one to stop us from taking everything we want. You peasants have no defences at all. You ain’t even got a militia. No alchemist. Just a baby dragon and when we get our hands on him we’ll be very well rewarded. I shall finally retire to the country.’ He turned and banged on the door with his strange arm jerking and whirring. The key turned from the other side.
‘I shall prove my innocence in court but even if I do not I shall stop you.’ Writer said to his back.
‘You still don’t understand, girl,’ Stearne said, turning back to her as Big Ned pulled open the door from the other side. ‘You won’t be found innocent. And then you won’t be stopping anyone.’
Soldiers on the Air
‘Do you smell that?’ Archer said, catching a familiar smell on the wind.
‘You been eatin
g those pickled beans again?’ Weaver said.
‘Smells like soldiers,’ Archer said, not laughing.
‘Where?’ Weaver asked, looking round.
‘Upwind,’ Archer said, gesturing up the road. ‘A mile away?’
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Weaver said, scoffing. ‘You can’t smell people from that far away.’ She shook her head. ‘Let alone whether they’re soldiers or not. The things you come out with, Archer.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Archer said even though he didn’t want to admit it.
They walked the long Sweetwater Street down the Vale from Archer’s farm towards Morningtree in the winter sun. The river was over to the south, on their right hand side. To the left the tall, dense hedgerow thick with holly and chattering dunnocks hid the bare fields but through gaps in the hedge Archer could see sheep in the hills. Above them was the dark band of the northern Moon Forest. The road underfoot was hard but pitted with icy puddles. Among the reeds by the side of the road a heron stalked, peering into the murky waters for prey. Beyond the reeds the river ran fast and white and cold as ice.
‘Do you think Keeper and Burp will be safe?’ Weaver asked.
‘Why would they not be?’ Archer said. He had his bow slung on his back and his quiver full of arrows on his hip, banging reassuringly against his leg with a familiar rhythm. They both carried food and water for the journey in satchels. It was very cold and, despite wrapping his woollen cloak as tightly as he could, he was shivering, his cheeks were numb and his nose was running.
‘Because Keeper came looking for you to keep him safe, didn’t he?’ Weaver said. ‘Came all this way from Cobnut Forge to tell us that soldiers were about looking for a dragon and that Writer was arrested for being a witch. And you just sent him off with your brother.’
‘Them soldiers will never find Keeper and Burp in the hills,’ Archer said. Burp had grown since Archer had last seen him, just a few months before. Burp had been the size of a small sheepdog but now he was twice the size. And since the blacksmith Owen had broken the chains holding the dragon’s wings closed, they were now able to be unfurled much more than before and Burp seemed to be walking quite well on them. ‘Edmund will keep them safe. It’s Writer who needs our help, she’s already been captured.’