“Prisoner, you are indicted with two counts of murder by witchcraft. Namely of one Mistress Anne Towneley and John Duckworth. How plead you? Guilty or not guilty, upon your oath?”
James caught sight of Master Nowell, sitting at the front of the court a little way from the judge, a frown on his face. There should have been four counts. What of John and Blaize Hargreaves?
James looked back at the judge. “Upon my oath, guilty, my lord.”
The judge craned forward. “Did he say ‘guilty’? I cannot hear for this cacophony.”
Master Nowell nodded and stood. In his hand, he held a sheet of paper. As he began to read from it, James recognized it as the one he had signed. For the first time, he would hear what he had confessed to.
The magistrate gained momentum. He appeared to enjoy himself, judging by the half smile of satisfaction on his fat face. “There appeared to the prisoner a black dog who asked him for his soul, which the prisoner did willingly and freely give.”
The boos and jeers from the people drowned out the next words of Master Nowell, and James could hear nothing more until finally the judge banged his gavel hard and the crowd fell into a loud, incessant mutter.
“The prisoner, James Device, has further said that he heard his grandmother tell him that she, his mother Elizabeth Device, and Mistress Alice Nutter had prepared a clay image of one Henry Mitton of Roughlee and caused his death by witchcraft.”
James’s heart pounded painfully. What treachery was this? He had said nothing to Master Nowell about this. Yet he could do nothing. It had been written on the sheet he had signed. Signed but not read.
He felt his knees buckle, but the magistrate hadn’t finished.
“And furthermore, James Device has sworn on his oath that on Maundy Thursday last, he stole a sheep and brought it to his grandmother’s house, where he killed and roasted it in a feast upon the day following. On that day, Good Friday, a great gathering of witches met together to plot the death by their craft of one Thomas Covell, jailer of this very prison. In addition they plotted the deaths of Master Lister of Gisburn, upon the request of the convicted witch Janet Preston.”
Roger Nowell paused for breath and the judge intervened. “And are we to try every one of those witches today. Master Nowell?”
“As many as are captured, my lord.”
“And do we have their testimonies? Have they all confessed as the prisoner here has done?”
Roger Nowell shook his head. “No, my lord, but we have a reliable witness who was there, although she did not participate in any of the proceedings but, instead, came to me of her own free will and at great risk to herself.”
“Very well. We should have her in to identify them. And is she here today?”
“Yes, my lord; she is waiting in your chambers.”
The judge nodded.
James cast his mind back to Good Friday. Master Nowell had said “she”. He called to mind the gathering that had met at Malkin Tower that day. All had taken part. All, except…
“Bring in the other prisoners,” said the judge, “and fetch in your witness.”
“As your lordship pleases.”
Loud jeers signaled the arrival of more prisoners.
Guards carried James to a wooden bench, and he struggled to sit down. Pain shot through his tortured hip joints.
Now the guards brought in the prisoners. His mother. What had they done to her? That grotesque face! Why were her eyes like that? And her nose —crooked—her face a mass of badly healed scars. Like all of them, she looked thin, malnourished. James felt hot tears stream down his face. She saw him and tried to smile, but only one side of her face managed it.
Behind her, his beloved Alizon. She limped heavily on a foot covered in a dirty bandage that stretched halfway up her leg. At first he hardly recognized her through the mass of filthy, matted hair.
His heart cried for her. He caught her eye and saw the defiance still there. She stared at him a moment and their spirits connected. In an instant, he felt transported out of the courtroom. He closed his eyes, and the cries of the audience faded as he let his spirit fly high up in the air, intertwining with the spirit he met there. Alizon.
“My beloved.”
It couldn’t last. His spirit snapped back into his body and he opened his eyes. Again his gaze met hers and she gave the slightest of nods. He knew she had felt it too, so he hadn’t imagined it. For some reason he could not yet explain, this gave him hope. A hope that stretched far beyond the confines of this court.
More prisoners now joined his mother and Alizon. He was the only one seated and being kept away from them.
Alice Nutter. Well-dressed and clean. Her position in society had no doubt afforded her certain privileges denied to the others. Maybe that had kept her out of the hands of Thomas Covell. Mistress Bulcock and her son were dragged in, and then two guards half carried old Chattox, whose mouth still worked away at an endless stream of incomprehensible words.
Next came her daughter, Anne Redferne. James felt a sudden spark of triumph, happy to have condemned those two. Now they would hang for sure. A ripple of a smile twitched his lips, and Anne Redferne scowled at him.
Still the prisoners kept coming. Alice Gray and Katharine Hewit were next, and then none followed them.
The crowd had to be kept back. They were baying for blood and cared nothing for the evidence. As far as they were concerned, every single one of the accused was already guilty. More guards were brought in at the judge’s request.
Then, to the side of the judge, a door opened and a small, slight figure entered. Only James seemed unsurprised to see her.
A gasp of surprise went up from the throng, and his mother screamed out her protest. “You cannot do this. She is only a child.”
The judge looked down at the girl who stared defiantly at the prisoners. “How old is this child?”
“Old enough to give evidence, my lord.”
“Her name?”
“Jennet Device, my lord, daughter of the accused Elizabeth Device and sister to Alizon and James Device, also accused.”
James glared at her. So she really intended to go through with it and denounce them all. Watch them hang. The devil had been born in her the day she left her mother’s womb.
Even though, at eleven, she was two years younger than the permitted minimum age to testify, Master Nowell would call her and the judge would allow it. Anything to impress the witch-hating King James and further their miserable careers.
They swore Jennet in and Master Nowell read out her statement. They brought her a table to stand on as she was too small for many in the baying courtroom to see. All the while, his mother screamed and wept. She pleaded for them to stop using her daughter in this way. Then she went quiet.
Master Nowell had asked Jennet a question. “Were you there at Malkin Tower on Good Friday last?”
“Yes,” Jennet said.
“And did you see witchcraft being performed on that day by the persons assembled?”
“Yes.” She spoke clearly, and the audience’s jeers died down as they became riveted by this spectacle. James slumped on the bench.
“And would you recognize those people if you saw them again?”
“Yes.”
“Upon your oath?”
“Upon my oath.”
“The child doesn’t know what she is saying,” her mother said.
Master Nowell’s voice rang out. “The prisoner will be quiet. Turn and face the prisoners, Jennet.”
Roger Nowell came closer to the clutch of prisoners. He pointed at Alice Nutter. “Do you recognize Mistress Alice Nutter?”
“Yes,” said Jennet and pointed at her.
“Mistress Jane Bulcock?”
“Yes.” Once again, she pointed at the prisoner indicated by the magistrate.
James felt sick
ened. Nowell had coached her to say precisely what he wanted her to say.
Roger Nowell had reached his mother now. “Is this your mother, Elizabeth Device?”
“Yes,” said Jennet and pointed at her.
Elizabeth screamed. “Wicked, evil, unnatural child. Spawn of the devil!”
The judge banged his gavel yet again. “Silence!”
“Your sister, Alizon Device?”
“Yes.” Once again, the accusing finger pointed. Alizon spat at her. The child didn’t even blink.
Roger Nowell crossed the floor and stood in front of James. “Your brother, James Device?”
James stared hard at the sister he had never loved. His eyes bored into her, trying to find a connection. He saw into her soul and recoiled. All he found there was black and empty. A hollow shell.
“Yes.” She pointed at him.
Jennet’s damning evidence meant the judge might as well have sent the jury away and pronounced the verdict there and then. James knew he would hang, and he knew that Nowell had tricked him into confessing. He wouldn’t be alone on the scaffold, for his mother and sister would surely be there, along with most, if not all, the others accused.
Jennet’s statement accused him of the murder of Anne Towneley and John Duckworth. He had already confessed to those, but then she accused him of the murders of John and Blaize Hargreaves by witchcraft, for which he hadn’t been indicted. He opened his mouth to protest, but gave up. What did it matter? They could only kill him once, however many murders they convicted him of. The judge allowed the indictment to be altered and the trial moved on.
In a trance, James saw his young sister standing perfectly still, her small face so much older than her years. Who would look after William now? He pushed the thought out of his mind. He could do nothing to help the little boy. He hoped William would not grow up filled with the animosity his sister held.
They took James away before the trials of his mother and sister, but he drew some satisfaction from hearing his statement damning Chattox and her daughter, read in a clear voice by Roger Nowell.
They returned James to his cell, to be called back when the verdicts were returned.
The trials were short. Apart from protesting their innocence, James guessed that precious little defense would be offered against the charges. He had offered none.
As darkness fell, they came for him. Two guards carried him up into the courtroom where the other prisoners were already gathered.
The judge appeared, Master Nowell at his side. The jury shuffled their feet and the audience waited.
“Foreman of the jury. Are you all agreed on your verdicts?”
A burly man stood and avoided James’s eyes.
“Yes, my lord.”
“In the matter of Elizabeth Device. How say you on the murder of John Robinson of Barley?”
“Guilty, my lord.”
A cry of anguish from his mother. She wept and covered her misshapen eyes with her hands.
The judge ignored her. “On the murder of James Robinson?”
“Guilty, my lord.”
“On the matter of Henry Mitton?”
“Guilty, my lord.”
A huge cheer went up from the audience as the judge turned his attention to Alizon. “In the matter of Alizon Device. Of bewitching John Law, peddler from Halifax, such that he became paralyzed?”
“Guilty, my lord.”
Now all eyes turned to James.
“In the matter of James Device. On the murder of Anne Towneley by witchcraft?”
“Guilty, my lord.”
“On the murders of John and Blaize Hargreaves, by witchcraft?”
“Guilty, my lord.”
They found him guilty of the murder of John Duckworth as well, but after the first guilty verdict had been read out, James’s attention wandered to the sullen face of the woman he loved more than life itself. Alizon comforted her distraught mother. If only he could be there. If only he could hold her. One last time.
He barely heard the remaining verdicts, hardly aware of the differing reactions of the recently convicted. Most wept; one or two screamed their innocence. Only Alice Nutter remained impassive. A strong woman. Courageous even. Out of all of them, only Alice Gray was pronounced innocent. Now it remained for sentence to be pronounced.
“James Device, Elizabeth Device, Alizon Device, Anne Whittle, Anne Redferne, Alice Nutter, Katherine Hewit, Isabel Robey, John Bulcock, Jane Bulcock. You have been found guilty of the most foul crime of witchcraft. The sentence of this court is that you be taken from this place to a place of incarceration, there to stay until you be taken to a place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck until you be pronounced dead. May God have mercy on your souls.”
A rousing cheer almost lifted the roof off the court as the audience stamped their feet and waved their hats in the air.
James’s eyes held Alizon’s. Their spirits entwined in a loving embrace.
His spirit spoke to hers. “Soon we will be where no man can separate us.”
He felt her lips on his. Now it mattered not that they would die the next day.
Dark clouds gathered in the early morning sky. Despite the threat of a storm and the early hour, a large crowd had gathered to watch the ten convicts, bound hand and foot in an open cart pulled by an old, disconsolate-looking horse.
Elizabeth sat between James and Alizon, in a state of virtual collapse. Chattox clung to her silent daughter, who stared straight ahead of her. Strangely, Alice Nutter seemed to be murmuring Hail Marys, while the other women wept and John Bulcock cradled his mother’s head.
They set off up the road to the gallows hill called Golgotha, pursued by the crowd who had come to watch them hang. Some threw rotten vegetables. Some spat. Many crossed themselves as the cart wheeled past.
James closed his eyes. He found Alizon’s spirit and embraced it. In his mind, he spoke to her: “Through all eternity I shall search for you among the living, and we shall be together. And the evil sister who has brought us to this shall pay. Down the years I will pursue her, and whatever form she takes, I will destroy her. A curse be on those who have brought us to this day, but one day we will find each other again. We shall be as we were meant to be. For eternity. I love you, Alizon, my beloved.”
He opened his eyes and met Alizon’s smile with his own. His mother looked from one to another as the tears dried in her eyes.
“What is it you do now? Magic to take with you to the next life?”
“Yes, Mother. Magic that will help us to find each other again.”
“Magic that will do harm to our enemies?”
“If they try and stop us,” Alizon said.
“Yes, Mother,” James said. “I have seen the face of our enemy—the one who has brought us to this. I will hunt her down and destroy her. It may take all our spirits to defeat her, but we will grow in strength in the other world. She cannot prevent that. We need to find each other. Watch. Listen. Call across time and space. And one day, we will join together and the time will be right. We will prevail.”
The image of the young woman with long blonde hair flashed into his mind. Now he understood what must be.
His mother drew a heavy sigh. “Your grandmother always believed this could be done.”
“And it can. You know it to be so. And Grandmother will join us too.”
Alizon and his mother nodded. The cart stopped, and James could see the row of low stools placed one under each noose. He took a heavy breath. The short drop. They would slowly choke to death. A longer drop and there would be a good chance death would be instant, as their necks would break, but there would be no such mercy for them today.
They stood him next to Alizon, and he ached to hold her one last time, but his hands remained bound behind him. Guards stood on stools either side of him and held him up as the no
ose slipped over his head. The coarse rope cut into his throat as they tightened it. Great drops of rain started as a trickle and then became a torrent.
James closed his eyes. “Goodbye, my love, until we see each other again and I hold you once more in my arms.”
Someone kicked away the stool. He fell. A fierce, rushing wind bellowed through his head and he gagged. His throat closed as his last breath died and Alizon’s sweet voice echoed through his mind.
“Until we are together in eternity, my only love.”
Lightning forked and formed a halo of light around the gallows. A gasp went up from the crowd, and one by one they crossed themselves. Some fell to their knees.
Master Nowell’s face turned ashen. “Lord preserve us. The devil has come to claim his own.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Martin folded the sheets of A4 paper and handed them back to me. In the morning, my nighttime doubts seemed groundless. Martin loved me. He would do anything for me. He had already proved that, so I’d ignored the warning not to tell anyone. I’d told Martin. After all, it couldn’t apply to him.
The lights flickered. He looked up. “Faulty wiring. Or a fuse maybe. I’ll take a look tomorrow.”
“Never mind the lights. What do you make of this?” I tapped the paper.
“Coincidence. Strange, I’ll grant you, but stranger things happen every day.”
“But don’t you see? This is why I had all those experiences in Pendle. Probably why I dreamed about the hill in the first place. Some sort of psychic memory, handed down through the bloodline. I’m a direct descendant of Demdike and the Devices.”
Martin picked up the transcript of the letter. “Where did you find this?”
The Pendle Curse Page 23