by Fran Friel
Late one evening after the first snowfall and a scant few days before Will's ninth birthday, a frantic knock came at the door. At his mother's urging, Will opened the door and in flew Missus McTavish, the shawl around her head as much to hide her appearance, it seemed, as to stave off the cold.
"Close the door, lad!” she nearly shouted.
Running to Maire Pennycock's side, she clutched the seamstress’ sleeve.
"Listen to me, lass. You must leave this village before dawn. The shopkeeper's wife has been ravin’ some nonsense about ye being a witch. I heard she sent word o'er a month ago to the Inquisitor General, and he's bound to arrive on the morrow."
Confused by the news, Will's mother sat silently staring into the woman's worried face.
"Come on, lass! There's no time to waste,” said the woman. “Get up from your stitching and pack up the wee boy and be off."
"I don't understand, Maggie. What are you on about?"
Missus McTavish shook her head in frustration.
"She's saying you're a witch, and she's puttin’ the fear in others to speak out against ye. They'll hang ye, Maire. Don't ye understand? Ye have to go ... now!"
"I've nowhere to go, Maggie. The family won't have me back. And besides, I'm no witch, and the King's law will prove it. I'd rather face them than run and hide like a guilty dog. I'll not sully my good husband's name with such nonsense."
"Seems the King's law ain't for the likes of us, but I done me part to warn ye. I'm puttin’ risk to me own kin for bein’ here, so if ye haven't the good sense to take me heed, than may God have mercy on ye."
The woman clutched at her shawl and bustled toward the door. Looking back, her eyes fell on Will and she began to speak, then clamped her mouth shut. She opened the door and ran out into the dark night, snow billowing in through the doorway behind her.
"Mum?"
"Hush, lad. Get me your father's coat from the sea chest. It's time I stitch that to fit you, boy. Now off to bed with you. You'll have you a new wool coat by morning."
* * * *
Will woke to a pounding on the door. The sun barely risen, he could see his mother at the entrance to the shop, men reading to her from a paper. Will put his feet on the cold floor and ran toward his mother. A large man he knew from the village stepped inside the door, blocking his way.
"Stand firm, young Will. Your mother has been charged and will be held until her trial. You'll not be seeing her until then."
Will tried to push past the big man, tears of rage and fear slipping from the corners of his eyes.
"Mum, don't let them take you! Mum?"
With tears in her own eyes, she called to her son as the men dragged her from her home.
"Will, the coat. It's yours now, lad. Keep it close, and remember, I'll always be with you. Always."
Those were the last words he heard his mother speak until the Inquisitor's trial.
He cried for days it seemed, and no one in the village would help him. No one would answer his questions about what was happening to his mother. Missus McTavish's door was closed to him, and even Mister Worthing averted his eyes when he saw Will. But true to her word, his mother had completed stitching his father's coat to nearly fit him. He had found it laying across the sea chest by the chair where she did her stitching. The coat was big, room to grow as she would have said. He had barely taken it off since the men took his mother away. He even slept in it, feeling closer to her somehow.
Now, with the trial coming to an end, he trembled with fear as the Inquisitor completed his long speech and prepared to proclaim his judgment.
The deep voice of the Inquisitor boomed through the rafters of the town hall.
"After many hours of deliberate consideration, study and prayer, I have reached my verdict. On this twelfth day of December in the year of our Lord, seventeen hundred and twenty-one, and with my strictest devotion to the Church of England, I pass judgment on Maire Pennycock. I find her guilty of sorcery and the practice of witchcraft, thus endangering the mortal souls of all the people of the Eastville parish. The sentence for her sin is to be carried out at first light tomorrow morning, when she will be hanged by the neck until she is dead and left until dawn of the third day to stand as a reminder of the Church's good works in our trials against the devil. May God have mercy on your soul, Maire Pennycock."
With three final raps of his ebony staff, the Inquisitor General stood and walked to the back of the hall, where he exited the building to meet his waiting carriage.
Will looked up through his tears only long enough to see the guards lead his mother from the hall. He heard her calling his name as he collapsed on the bench. The world went black, and a merciful quiet fell around him.
* * * *
It was dark when Will awoke from a dream of warm bread dripping with summer honey. He was in his own bed in the back room of the tailor shop. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he imagined for a moment that the past weeks had been a mere nightmare, that he would find his mother warm and asleep in her own bed. But as he struck the flint to the candle, he knew he was alone, completely alone for the first time in his life. He began to recall the swimming feeling in his head when the Inquisitor read the judgment. He tore his thoughts away from the image of his mother—and of the gallows she'd be hanged from.
Instead, he forced himself to ponder how he had gotten to his bed. The faint aroma of fresh bread in the room made him wonder if he were still dreaming, but the growling in his stomach brought him to the immediacy of his plight. He'd hardly eaten in days; the meager stores of their pantry had dwindled away during the trial.
Sitting up, he noticed that whoever had laid him on his pallet had draped his father's coat over the bed covers. He climbed out of the covers and grabbed the coat, wrapping it around his body. Not only seeking its warmth, he needed the closeness to his mother that it afforded him.
The scent of the bread drew him from his bed. Wandering in the dim light of the candle, he stumbled on a basket left in the shadow of his mother's chair. Will rifled through the basket and found a loaf of hard crust bread, bringing it to his nose for a deep inhale of its sweet aroma. He took a ravenous bite, knowing his mother wouldn't approve of such behavior, his heart sinking at the thought. His hunger pushed the sorrow aside as he reached into the basket to find preserves, dried meat, root vegetables, eggs—and a tin of rock candy. Mister Worthing. He must have carried Will home from the meeting hall in spite of the trouble he would see for it. Will's eyes brimmed with tears at the kindness.
He sat on the floor with his legs curled around the basket and took each item out, lining it up on the floor. This would be his sustenance until he was able to find some way to feed himself. He had learned from his mother to ration food or go hungry, but all he really wanted was to devour it all at once. He resisted, enduring the hunger pangs that twisted inside his stomach.
As he removed the last item from the basket, he spied a folded bit of paper in the bottom. It was a note written in a carefully slanted hand:
Dear Will;
It is with deepest sorrow that I offer this small token for the death of your mother. I cannot imagine your suffering at this time, and I will no doubt be judged for my part in her demise. I would bring you into my own home and adopt you as my son, but circumstances are such that this is impossible. I will be sure to leave you food from time to time when I am able. I wish I could do more for you, son. You have always been a fine boy.
Whatever you do from this time on to support yourself and find your way in the world, please keep your dear mother in your thoughts. Be the man that would make her proud.
With My Sincere Condolences,
Your Servant,
David M. Worthing
Just how long had he been sleeping? Small token for the death of your mother? Will ran through the doorway to the front of the shop. He stomped his feet into his shoes, pulled his coat tight around his chest, and threw open the door to the cold winter night. He ran down the moonlit street, t
he chill wind slicing at his skin, and there before the town hall stood the gallows, his mother's stiff body swaying in the wind.
He stumbled up the wooden stairs of the hangman's platform and tried with all his strength to pull his mother's body up from below. In his futile effort, the rough fibers of the rope dug into his small hands. The wind numbed his fingers, but he continued his work until the rope was slick with his blood. Falling to his knees on the moonlit planks of the gallows, young Will wept for his mother, Maire Pennycock.
* * * *
The boy holed up in the tailor shop for weeks. He lay curled in his bed, leaving only for a bite of food from his dwindling supplies or to relieve himself.
He finally decided to light a fire when ice formed on the chamber pot. His movements were slow and labored, the cold and hunger sapping his strength. He was huddled by the fire when a pounding came at the front door. A man had come each day, shouting to be let in, but Will ignored him. This time his shouting was relentless.
"I know you're in there, boy. I see the smoke coming from the chimney. You let me in or I'll come in after ye!"
He heard a crash and the tinkling of glass on the floor in the front room. Fearing for his life, he forced his cold body to move. He grabbed a thick piece of firewood, as heavy as his small hand could grip, and crept forward, peering through the doorway into the shop. A man's hand snaked through the broken pane of glass in the door and turned the key. Will rushed forward with his stick of wood and struck the man's hand as he was pulling it back through the broken window.
The man screamed and burst through the door, his hand dripping blood, cut by the loose shards in the window pane.
"Ye little bastard. I'll break yer neck."
Like a wild animal cornered in its den, Will ran for the safety of his bed with the man following in hard pursuit. As the stranger entered the back room he stopped cold, covering his mouth and nose with his good hand to stave off the stench from the un-emptied chamber pot and rotting food. He looked around at the filth and complete chaos of the room Will had been hiding in for weeks. The man walked to the side of the bed and struck Will so hard that his head snapped back against the wall.
"What have ye done to my shop, boy? Not only was your bitch of a mother in arrears for the rent, now I'll have to pay to have this shit hole cleaned because of the swine she left behind."
He looked around in disgust and eyed the boy trembling under the bedcovers.
"Get up, pig, and get yer clothes on. I'll have the missus clean the stink off ye', and you'll work off yer mother's debts at the inn."
Will didn't move.
"Go on before I drag ye through the snow and mud in that wretched coat and yer underclothes."
Slowly, Will reached for a pair of britches, already too short for him. He shrugged out of his father's coat, folding it carefully and laying it on the bed with reverence.
"What did I tell ye, boy? Get movin’ or I'll call the constable. It's only my good Christian charity that'll keep ye out of jail for the witch's debts. I'll be lucky if I can ever rent this hovel of a shop again, knowin’ what yer bitch of a mother had been doin’ here."
Will pulled a sweater over his head, shrugged back into the heavy coat, and shoved his hands in the pockets. He felt a fold of paper—Mister Worthing's letter. He remembered the words, Be the man that would make her proud. He turned to face the angry man.
"Sir,” he said, trying hard to steady his voice, “I'm deeply sorry for the trouble I've caused you. I'll work hard and pay off all the money owed you. It's what my mother would want me to do."
The man rolled his eyes and scowled, but Will thought he saw a flicker of softening in his hard expression.
"Come on then. The missus will be none too happy with the state of ye."
* * * *
He was right. The innkeeper's wife, Missus Cavender, was loathe to have a young boy to look after as well as running the only inn found in the Village of Eastville. But after a good scrubbing, a bit a food, and a full night's sleep, she put Will to work. He was true to his promise to work hard. Aside from her displeasure with his constant wearing of the heavy wool coat, the Missus seemed pleased with him. And from Will's perspective, Mister Cavender and his wife gave him a warm place to sleep and breakfast and supper. Compared to being on his own, he found his lot quite tolerable.
Thoughts of his mother often crept into Will's mind and darkened his heart against the villagers of Eastville, but in those moments he touched Mister Worthing's letter in his pocket to remind himself of his duty. After such a painful stretch in his young life, many months passed with Will content to live day by day, honoring his mother's memory.
His tenth birthday came to pass at the inn and the missus offered a sweetcake with his supper by way of celebration. She'd become fond of him, though Will could tell her husband did not share the sentiment. To Mister Cavender, Will's presence simply marked a debt being paid.
Late one night, a ship anchored at the docks. The rough crew came ashore, as they always did, to the Eastville Inn for a meal and a warm bed with feminine company, if it could be had. The innkeeper stayed up late drinking and singing with the men, his long-time acquaintances in trade, the kind outside of the King's jurisdiction.
The missus ran herself and young Will ragged, keeping the ale flowing and serving heaping platters of meat and potatoes to fill the seemingly bottomless stomachs of the sailors. She held her tongue when the wagering began, but she knew her husband's weakness. Soon her worries were realized when the ship's mate began a drunken rant.
"I shoulda known ye haddena silver a’ hand. Pay up ye thievin’ bastard, before I gut ye fer me supper,” he shouted. He unsheathed the dagger from his belt, twisting it slowly as he pointed at the innkeeper's girth.
Always quick thinking, even saturated with drink, the innkeeper didn't blink at the threat.
"I've got somethin’ far better than a few coins, mate. I heard you're short of hands after the last haul to the Carolinas. Crew took quite a beatin’ with the fever is what I heard."
The ship's mate bristled at the comment, leaning forward he pressed the tip of his dagger against the innkeeper's gut.
"Cheat me, and now ye insult me. Aye, a guttin's too good for ye."
"Aw, now don't be frettin', Mister Rutt. You know my word is good. Look here.” He pointed to the exhausted boy carrying a heavy load of greasy dishes back toward the kitchen. “There's your prize, man."
"What are you on about? That bairn can narey hold a stack of plates. He's no use to me."
"Oh, but he's a pretty one, ain't he, mate?” asked the innkeeper with a wink.
The ship's mate took another look at the boy as he pushed through the kitchen door.
"Aye, he is that, but that still ain't no rightful settlin’ of our wager. Add tonight's meal and lodging to the pot and I'll not carve a hole in yer bowels this time."
Missus Cavender emerged from the kitchen to the hush in the room and the dagger pointing at her husband's belly.
"Martha,” said her husband, “bring the boy here. The first mate of The Queen's Promise will be his new keeper."
The missus staggered where she stood, but forced herself to stand her ground.
"I'll do no such thing, Mister Cavender. That boy is me hand and I'll not part with him."
The ship's mate leaned across the table and flicked the tip of his dagger across the innkeeper's cheek. Blood beaded from the wound and trickled to his chin.
"Martha,” said the innkeeper in measured speech, “the mate will see the boy ... now."
Missus Cavender knew the ways of these men, these pirates. She turned and fled through the kitchen door, grabbing the bewildered boy up into her arms. She squeezed him tight, her voice trembling as she spoke.
"I'm sorry, dear Will. I'm so sorry."
"What is it, missus?” said Will, his own fear beginning to rise.
The woman stood, avoiding his eyes. Without another word, she took him by the hand and led him into the
dinning room. The place was nearly silent except for the snoring of a sailor face down on a table near the warm hearth. The ship's mate, Mister Rutt, turned his dagger, admiring the firelight reflecting from the blade. He smiled at the innkeeper, clearly enjoying his discomfort.
Eyeing the blood dripping on the front of the man's shirt, Mister Rutt said, “Sorry about the stain, Cavender.” He laughed and snorted at his own joke, breaking the tension in the room. The rest of the sailors joined in, laughing and slapping each other on the back. One of them shouted to the mate when the missus appeared with the boy.
"Hey, Mister Rutt, yer new girl's arrived.” He smacked his lips and blew the boy a lusty kiss.
"Bring the boy here, Martha,” said the innkeeper.
Will had no idea what was happening, but his instincts told him he was in danger. The feral looks of the men terrified him. Before, they had barely noticed him, but now they stared and reached out to pinch him and touch his red hair as the missus guided him to her husband's table. Together they stood before the pirate, Duncan Rutt. Missus Cavender pulled Will closer to her hip and put her arm around his shoulder.
"Come here, lad,” said the pirate.
"Won't you change yer mind, sir?” asked the missus. “He's just a wee boy and will only be in the way on yer fine ship. He's a right dolt, he is."
Rutt ignored the woman.
"I said, come here."
Sensing the danger to the missus, Will stepped away from her trembling hands and stood before the dark skinned man.
He bowed his head respectfully. “Sir."
The pirate leaned forward and grabbed his face in a huge rough hand and pulled Will within inches of his nose. The man squeezed Will's cheeks so hard that the pain made his eyes water, but the stench of his breath would have been sufficient.
"You're mine now, laddy! Or better still, I'll bring ye’ as a prize to the cap'n. He be sorely in need of a cabin boy. Anyways, we shares and shares alike!"
The men roared at that and drank to each other's good fortune. The singing commenced while Mister Rutt continued his inspection of his new cabin boy, turning him around, poking and prodding.