The Return of the Witch

by Paula Brackston

  Mary-Anne was just finding me what I needed when we were all three disturbed by unfamiliar sounds outside. It began as a rumble in the distance. Not thunder, but something more earthbound. As the noise grew louder and closer it seemed to shudder through the ground beneath our feet. We hurried to the window. At the far end of the long drive, the vanishing point where the avenue of lines converged, there came men. At first they were nothing but a few dark smudges, indistinct figures, but as they came on their numbers increased. All too soon it became evident that these were not ordinary men. These were soldiers. An army, in fact.

  The kitchen maid began to whimper. “Lord save us!” she cried. “’Tis Cromwell’s men! We shall all be run through with swords!”

  “Hush, girl!” The housekeeper would not tolerate hysteria in her kitchen. “Get yourself home.” When the girl looked at her, wide-eyed and hesitant, the older women insisted. “Across the yard and through the woods to your father’s cottage. Quick about it, now!”

  The girl ran without so much as pausing to remove her apron. Mary-Anne handed me my stoppered jar. Wordlessly I took it, filled it with the vital potion, and slipped it into my skirt pocket. Whatever was coming to Batchcombe Hall now, Tegan was still in need of our help. William came striding into the kitchen.

  “Cromwell’s men!” he told us.

  “What will we do, sir?” the housekeeper’s voice trembled. This must have been a moment they had all dreaded for so long.

  “There is little we can do,” William said. He took her hand and squeezed it. “Be at ease. They have no need to harm anyone here.”

  “They will take the house?” I knew as I asked it was more of a statement of fact than a question.

  “They will. And if I cooperate there is no reason for them to treat us harshly. We have all given enough to this war. Let the generals move their armies where they will. We will bide our time and find a life the other side of this terrible struggle.”

  Outside the company had almost reached the house. There must have been close to a thousand men, some infantry, some cavalry, some drawing canon. At the rear came wagons with provisions and encampment supplies. We could clearly see a rider carrying the colors of the Parliamentarians now, and beside him a small group of soldiers whose accoutrements and uniforms suggested they were high-ranking officers.

  “I will go out and meet them. This can be done well. Stay here,” he said to me, briefly snatching up my hand and surprising me by pressing it to his lips. “I would keep you safe, Bess. You need not declare your friendship with me. A miller’s sister is far better in the eyes of Cromwell’s officers than someone who would ally herself to a Royalist family.”

  “But, William…”

  “Stay here. When you see a moment, slip away, back to Erasmus. I pray God you are still able to save Tegan.” Before I could protest further he turned for the door. As he did so there was a shout from one of the soldiers. We looked out and saw a horse being ridden at speed, charging across the parkland, heading directly for the officers at the front of the company. The rider had a musket drawn and was aiming it wildly.

  Beside me William gasped. “Richard! Dear Lord, no!” He ran from the kitchen, but even before he had reached the door shots were fired. There were furious cries and oaths. All descended into a moment of madness. Richard succeeded only in shooting a hole through the Parliamentary standard before his horse’s bridle was grabbed so violently the animal fell, throwing its rider across the dusty ground. The boy was winded and in pain but was hauled to his feet. Even from the kitchen we could hear his furious words.

  “Death to Cromwell’s unholy murderers! God save the King!”

  “Silence that dog!” the nearest officer commanded, causing one of his men to punch Richard full in the face. Still the boy struggled and swore, spitting blood as he did so.

  William appeared, his hands held high.

  “Please, let him be!”

  At the sight of him running toward them three soldiers drew their swords and grabbed hold of him.

  “He is my servant,” William explained. “He was only attempting to protect me. Richard, be still now. There is nothing to be done!”

  I wonder, even now, what would have happened if the young man had listened to his master. How different things might have been, for all of us, if he had reined in his temper, mastered his grief, and become quiet. But he was filled with years of hatred, stuffed full of the desire to avenge his family, his youthful blood up, all restraint fled. With a strength and speed that took the soldiers by surprise, he wrenched himself free, snatched a sword from an unwary musketeer to his left, and charged with it at the mounted colonel in front of him. The officer, an experienced campaigner, calmly drew his own sword and raised it. William, seeing what was about to happen, screamed out and flung himself forward, but he was too firmly held to do anything but bring his captors down upon him.

  “Death to the traitors!” Richard screamed. They were to be his last words. The colonel’s sword sliced down in one expert movement, and Richard stopped. He seemed to be suspended for a few seconds, neither standing nor falling, his expression still one of fierce anger and determination. And then his eyes closed and he slumped to the ground, blood pumping from the mortal wound that had opened him from throat to groin.

  “No!!” William roared.

  I could watch no longer but ran from the kitchen, deaf to Mary-Anne’s pleas to stay where I was. Before I reached William he had been pulled up to his feet once more. Orders were being barked, commands given, but it was all nothing more than noise to poor William, who gazed, heartbroken, at Richard as the last of his blood seeped into the thirsty ground.

  At last he returned to his senses, enraged. “He was but a boy!” he shouted, directing his words to the officer in charge, who was now calmly sheathing his sword. “Is that what you truly are? Killers of children?”

  “He was man enough to fire a musket and raise a sword,” the colonel pointed out. “He was man enough to be killed for it.”

  “There was no necessity…! Did you fear he would lay waste to your whole damned army? He was of so few years, and you had already taken everyone he loved from him. What would you have him do?”

  The colonel grew tired of William’s tirade. With a sigh he stated flatly, “My name is Colonel Tobias Gilchrist, commander of the Wessex Regiment of the Parliamentarian forces. I am here to take this house for the cause. Are you the resident here?”

  “I am Sir William Gould. This is my home.”

  “You may be Sir of whatever you please, but this is no longer your home. It now belongs to Parliament.”

  “By whose authority?”

  “By the authority of war, sir. The king no longer holds power in this region. I have orders to take the house. I may do so by force, or you may surrender it to me. In this, at least, you have a choice.”

  William looked beyond the colonel and took in the massed ranks of weary, dirty soldiers. Many of them were wounded. Most would have been fighting on and off for years. The cannon their skinny horses dragged with them looked battered and worn, but still functional. This might not be a splendid army, with gleaming weaponry and the trappings of recent victories, but they were an army still. And one that was, by painful degrees, winning.

  “I appear not to have an army of my own this day,” said William. “If it is choice at all, I choose to surrender my house to you, Colonel, if it will stop you slaughtering more children. Tell me, how do you face your God when you pray, if this is your work?”

  “My conscience and my love of God are what compel me, sir! It is clear where your loyalties lie. You will be kept until such time as it is convenient to send you to Oxford, where you will be tried for treason.”

  “Colonel Gilchrist, I beg you!” Now it was my turn to be terrified. “Sir William was willing to give up the house. He told me so himself only this very morning. He is not a traitor.”

  “And who might you be, madam?”

  “Widow Carmichael.” I dipped a
curtsey. I badly wanted to show my support for William, but I knew that he was right in what he said earlier. My word would count for nothing if they thought my sympathies lay with the King’s cause. “I am recently come to live with my brother at the mill. He sent me here today on business, to arrange for Sir William’s barley and wheat to be taken to the mill tomorrow for grinding. We were to agree to terms.”

  “A miller, you say? Good. We have need of flour. My men are weary of neeps and pottage. Yes, some bread would be welcome, I’m sure of it. We shall have your brother grind his lordship’s corn, and then bring the flour here to us.”

  William could not stay silent. “Any stores I have left, and they are few enough, are to feed the servants! There are many depending of what we have harvested, else they will starve.”

  “Happily for you, your servants are no longer your concern. They will be sent away.”

  “But…”

  “Unless you consider they would prefer a trip to Oxford in chains alongside you?”

  William’s shoulders sagged and he said nothing more, the fight gone from him, hopelessness swamping him. It was hard to bear seeing him so broken. My mind was racing. If he was taken to be tried as resisting the Parliamentarians’ cause and standing for the king he would certainly be hanged. There was no one but me to stand between him and such an unjust fate. I felt a terrible revisiting of the powerlessness I had experienced when my mother was sentenced to die. I had to help him, and to do so I had to stay close. At the same time I was tortured with the thought that Tegan remained with Gideon. I had to tread carefully if I was to help William and maintain my own freedom so that I could get back to her. Without William’s help we would need a new plan, but all the plans in the world would come to nothing if the colonel took it into his head I was a Royalist sympathizer.

  “Forgive my asking, Colonel,” I spoke with a calmness I did not feel, “but what purpose will you put the Hall to?”

  “For the time being it is to be barrack and command center for the southern counties. We have taken Somerset, Bristol has fallen to us, and the king’s nephew sent running. It is my task to secure Dorset, and Batchcombe Hall will be our vantage point for that.”

  “In truth I believe you will meet little resistance,” William told him.

  The colonel grunted. “The Royalists are beginning to see the futility of their resistance at last. Their loyalty to their tyrant king is fading, I think.”

  “The people are weary of war. They are hungry. They love their king, but they see no purpose served by presenting themselves as sacrifice to your musketeers.”

  But the colonel had had enough of William. “Take him into the house,” he ordered three soldiers. “The cellars should have a lock, I’ll wager. Secure him there. Out of my earshot.”

  “Colonel Gilchrist,” I said, stepping forward to address him directly, “I notice that some of your men are wounded.”

  “They have been engaged in battle these past months near continuously, madam. It would be a queer thing if many of them did not show evidence of that.”

  “Indeed. I have some experience of dressing injuries from war and of treating the ailments and debilitations that accompany prolonged soldiering. I would happily offer my services.”

  “And from where have you gained this experience?”

  I had to choose my words with care. I could hardly tell him I had spent three centuries honing my skills as a healer, nurse, and doctor. “I was at Naseby,” I told him, plucking from memory one of the most bloody and hard-fought battles of the current war.

  “You were there?” A flash of emotion past across the campaigner’s face. All who had fought there recalled the day with some anguish. “Then you may well know the reality of what my men suffer,” he agreed.

  “Might I suggest that we use a portion of the house—the east wing, perhaps—as a hospital for your men? If I could have an orderly or two to assist me, and with the help of Sir William’s housekeeper and maidservant and groom, I could effect cures for many of the injured. I am confident of it.” I hoped that by including William’s servants I had protected them from being turned out, homeless, and hungry.

  The colonel regarded me closely for a moment. I could see he wanted to say yes, to agree with my idea, but evidently the notion of accepting a woman’s plan was problematic to him. I had to remind myself in which century I was living.

  “Of course, Colonel, you know best the needs of your men and the demands of your commission here,” I said as meekly as I could.

  He stood up in his stirrups, twisting around in the saddle to survey the grounds and the house better. “We will set up camp there.” He pointed beyond the walled garden. “The main part of the house will serve for my officers, with the exception of those rooms you mentioned, madam. You will have the assistance you require. Captain Anderson,” he instructed the soldier with him, “see to it orderlies are appointed. The cook we will keep, the rest of the servants must go where they will. I have mouths enough to feed. I’ll not have the king’s supporters tending my men. I shall make an exception of Widow Carmichael. A wife who lost her husband at Naseby, on whichever side, will know the cost of disloyalty. If she seeks to redress it, let her.”

  I did not seek to correct his assumption about how I had been widowed, but merely nodded. William was marched away. Richard’s body was removed to the stables. I wondered when we would be able to give the poor lad a burial. And now what could I do to help Tegan? I had so many unanswered questions. Had Richard delivered my note to Gideon? Had the soldiers commandeered further properties in the town, possibly Gideon’s house among them? Might he decide to move her, with the war now come to Batchcombe’s very doors? How much longer could she endure the dreadful effects of his poisonous spell? I thought, too, of Aloysius and fervently hoped that he had found his way to his mistress. It might be that he could ignite a small spark of memory or recognition within her. It was torment not to be able to rush to Tegan then and there, but I could not. I had to set up the hospital, establish my right to come and go from the house. Only then would I be able to help anyone. At least the colonel had seen value in my connection with the local mill, so that I ought soon to be able to communicate with Erasmus. We two would have to formulate another plan to free Tegan. And we would have to do so quickly.

  12

  For the remainder of that day, and well into the night, I worked with the three soldiers and one captain who had been instructed to assist me in setting up the army hospital. It transpired that there had been a man of medicine——though nobody would actually call him a doctor—attached to the company, but he had been killed by canon fire whilst tending the wounded. His wife, who had worked alongside him, also died, so that the men were left entirely without assistance for their wounds, save what they could give each other. It was a marvel that so many had survived.

  We selected the dining room as a walk-through surgery of sorts where those in need of simple treatment could pass. The main reception room at the front of the house we used to accommodate those requiring beds. I was astonished to find how great this number was. Of the eight hundred men assembled in the grounds of the Hall, nearly one-third required treatment for minor injuries or ailments, ranging from infected blisters to cases of ringworm; over one hundred were troubled by their teeth; forty-three I classed as walking wounded, many with festering bandages and inexpertly set bones; and twenty-five were stretcher cases, with serious battle wounds or diseases, suffering all manner of torments as they were rattled from place to place on wagons and carts. It quickly became apparent to me that this army was on its knees, metaphorically and, to a large extent, literally. Parliamentarian and Royalist forces alike were known to plunder any farm or village they came upon in order to stay fed, but still the majority of these men showed signs of starvation, with wasted muscles, pasty skin, sunken eyes. How they managed to fight in such a condition was beyond imagining.

  “Mistress Carmichael, should we not close the windows against draughts?” Capta
in Anderson asked.

  To the Elizabeth Hawksmith who had lived in the twenty-first century this would have seemed a ridiculous question, but in the seventeenth century people feared ill winds and cold air, believing there was nothing more dangerous for a sick person. The grand reception room benefited from light let in by its four floor–to-ceiling windows, but none of these were designed to open with any ease. I had insisted upon them being flung wide and latched in this position to allow as much oxygen as possible to circulate. “Do not concern yourself with the windows, Captain,” I told him. “It is a warm night, and there are many souls in here struggling to breathe as it is. Let us not rob them of air. What would be helpful is more hot water and clean bandages.”

  “More?” He was at a loss to comprehend the point of all the washing and cleaning I had insisted upon, having no notion of such things as bacteria or sepsis. How could he have? My challenge was to use my modern knowledge without arousing any sort of suspicion. I knew that simply cleaning a wound properly and replacing the dressing with a sterile one could save a man’s life. If I made too big a fuss about doing so, however, my credentials as any manner of healer would be called into question. And when people questioned, they expected answers. And as I could not give them ones they would either believe or understand, there was a real danger they would ascribe any success I had in treating the sick to magic, and therefore witchcraft, and I could very well find myself joining William on the gibbet.

  “It soothes the men, to be clean, and have their wounds tended,” I told him, earning a look of such scathing it almost made me laugh. Such a sound would have been out of place in that room, for there was real suffering there. Indeed, six of the worst cases died before I had a chance to begin any treatment at all. Another began to hemorrhage so heavily my skirts were entirely soaked in blood before we were able to staunch the flow. The soldier had a leg wound which had been inexpertly stitched, and those stitches tore apart as he was moved. He would be lucky to survive the night. Time and again that day I had to tell myself I would do what I could, but I could not overreach time, not in this. What I did not have I must manage without. I was put in mind of my time at the front in Flanders during the First World War. There had been shortages and lacks there, too, and men had suffered greatly because of them. Eventually, then, tired of watching brave soldiers die or endure agony, I had fallen to using my spellcraft to help them. Oh, I remembered how wonderful it had been to feel such magic coursing through my own veins and into theirs! Healing. Nurturing. Mending. The danger then was that by using magic I would attract Gideon to me and give away my hiding place. Well, here he already knew where to find me. Here my concern was not to be observed doing a single thing that could mark me as a witch. It was another risk in an already dangerous situation, but one I had no choice but to take.