John was standing in front of more of the king’s men. This lot didn’t actually have their swords drawn which I supposed was a change.
‘… John,’ Jenna finished what she was going to say. ‘We need to get John,’ she repeated.
‘Well here I am.’ He gave a mock bow. ‘Why do you need to get me?’
Jenna walked towards him. ‘I guess we need to get you for the same reason that you’ve come to us.’
‘That is?’ he said cautiously.
Jenna leaned towards him. ‘You want me to say it out loud?’
John obviously didn’t and said to her, ‘Are you the witch?’
Jenna laughed in his face. ‘You really believe that we’re witches? Then you’re more stupid than the whole lot of this village. They don’t believe we’re witches. It’s an easy way to get rid of us and they just wanted the reward for turning us in.’
Posy had told us that Elsa had been given a purse of money by Sir Henry.
‘Maybe I don’t,’ John didn’t sound convinced. ‘But how do you know why I’m here, even before I’ve said anything?’ He looked at Jenna, perhaps hoping she would explain, she didn’t, so he went on: ‘Can you help?’
By this time I was confused and getting cross. What were they talking about? How could we help with anything?
‘We can help,’ said Jenna. ‘But will you let us go if we do?’
‘Of course,’ said John.
I was taken straight back to Posy’s words. Their promises were worth nothing to people like us. I stood forward and put my arm across Jenna. ‘Don’t believe a word he says. Whatever you can do for him, he’ll let you down.’
John pushed me aside. The soldiers spread out, with their hands on their swords.
‘If you don’t help me, then we take you one at a time and burn you. The priest says any time will do, he’s done a new calculation. What I do promise is that when you hear the screams – and we’ll start with your jousting man, he didn’t fool me when he swapped – when you hear his screams as the flames burn off his skin, then you’ll help me.’
‘You’ll do that anyway.’ I tried to get at him, but a strong arm grabbed me from behind. ‘What makes this any different?’ I glared at him.
‘It might not, but can you risk that? My word is the best you’ve got.’
I knew John was right.
‘I thought the king didn’t want to see us burn,’ Jack called out.
‘He won’t, he’s …’ John stopped himself.
‘If you want the really powerful witch, it’s me.’ Mary stood up with her backpack over her shoulder. ‘Shall we get on with it? Oh and by the way, if you don’t like what I do then I’ll turn you into a toad.’
Mary couldn’t have had any idea what effect that would have. All the soldiers drew their swords. They backed towards the door with terrified faces. Even John had moved away from us. It wasn’t made any better by us all making weird pretend ghostly witch noises.
‘Come on you bunch of cowards, let’s go and do this,’ Mary snapped.
‘Alvin goes too.’ Jenna pushed me forward. I had no idea why. She didn’t normally want me to spend time with Mary. ‘Come back before dark, this time,’ she whispered in my ear.
John nodded and waved me forward. Mary gave me her backpack, it made me look as though I had something to do and we walked out of the barn leaving the others behind. I realised as I stepped out into daylight that it had been several days since I had left the barn. Did we have a chance to get out of this? I still had no idea what we were going to do.
‘He’s caught the plague,’ whispered Mary, who could see I was clueless.
‘Who?’ I whispered back.
‘The king,’ she whispered again as though I was really stupid.
‘How do you know?’ I said in my normal voice. John turned and told me to keep quiet.
Mary still managed to say, ‘The black marks.’
Then I sort of knew. The black marks must mean those black lumps we’d seen on Rosie and her family. But we’d been accused of making her disease return. Why would John believe we could help? Or did he want us to kill the king? There had been talk about assassins. Was the king’s fixer really an assassin?
We walked up the mud track towards the bailiff’s house, where we’d seen Zach. Where Zach had sentenced us to death. Was I going to meet him again? My fists clenched at the thought. Forget the threat of us burning – he was responsible for whatever had happened to Mum. This might be my only chance to get at him. I didn’t care about the king.
But John didn’t take us straight into the bailiff’s house. He led us into the house next to it, which appeared deserted. Someone had either run away or died. Someone much poorer than the bailiff.
‘Search them,’ commanded John and they did, roughly. Their hands wandered all over Mary until she mouthed ‘toad’ and they gave up. I showed John the backpack but he had lost interest in the search and sent the soldiers to wait outside.
There was only one, mud-floored, room in this house. No chance of escape, even if I’d wanted to, and I couldn’t with Jenna and the rest still locked up. I’d have no chance on my own.
John stood in front of us. ‘What is it you do?’ he sounded nervous and suspicious, very suspicious.
‘You won’t believe us,’ said Mary and turned to me. ‘You’d better tell him.’
So I did. Not all about Miss Tregarthur, the Hanging Stones, the tunnel, the blue mist and the cavemen. I told him we were witches, but good ones. That seemed to satisfy him. The real story would have put us back in the barn. Maybe that’s why Jenna had sent me – I was better at lying.
Then Mary explained what had happened to Rosie. ‘If she’d taken the mixture I gave her, then she would be alive.’
‘You have to give something to drink?’ John sounded even more worried. If he let us near the king and we poisoned him then he’d get the blame.
‘Look,’ said Mary. She took the backpack from me and pulled out the packet of pills. John stepped away. He’d never seen a blister pack of medication. ‘We have to give him these. Now, I could swallow one and you’d see if that was safe, or you can trust me.’
John stared for a minute before saying, ‘No choice, come and meet the king.’ And he led us back on to the track.
Bedside Manner
-16-
I hadn’t met a king before. Did you have to bow? Could you ask him questions?
I tapped John on the shoulder; he jumped. The witch story must have been convincing. Perhaps they might actually believe we had super powers. That might make escaping easier.
I drew John to one side. ‘What happens when we meet the king?’
‘He will be surrounded by his people.’ John must have seen the confusion in my eyes. ‘His physician, the priest …’
‘Oh great, the priest.’ Mary came closer. The soldiers tried to stop her, but John waved them back.
‘Yes, the priest,’ he said. ‘The others will be his ministers and secretaries.’
‘That sounds like a lot of people,’ Mary said. ‘What happens if we need to get rid of them all?’
‘Get rid of them?’ John’s face creased with a worried frown, as though the suggestion was ridiculous.
‘Might have to.’ Mary obviously had more idea about this than I did.
John gave a weary shrug. ‘Depends on the king. And by the way, refer to him as your Highness.’
We entered the bailiff’s house.
What had happened to Zach and Demelza? We needed to be ready for more trouble. They would use this against us somehow. If we did save the king, would that actually prove we were witches? Then Zach could still get the villagers to burn us alive. But I just wanted a few minutes with him – alone.
There was no time to worry any
more about Zach. We were in the hall. The king had turned it into his bedroom.
So there we were. Mary and I standing at one end of the large open room. At the other end, the king – the actual king of the country. He lay on a bed covered with huge furs – a bit like the coat from the bear we had once killed.
I shivered. Despite the fire smouldering in the middle, it wasn’t warm. But I’m not sure it was the cold that made me shiver. At first no one took much notice of us. I looked around. The walls were now hung with tapestries showing hunting scenes, all brightly coloured. John pushed us forward.
The king’s face was furrowed with pain but he remained calm, unlike the ten or so other people near him. They were doing all the worrying. The priest, on his knees, constantly muttering prayers. Another man, wearing a brown cap, stood near the bedside holding a knife and a bowl. He had to be the physician and about to operate.
‘Bleeding,’ Mary whispered and turned to me. ‘We have to get out of here. The rugs …’
‘Who is this?’ roared the king before we had time to talk anymore.
I started to step forward again. The soldiers grabbed me by the arms. John held up his hand, telling me to stop.
‘The witches, your Highness,’ he said and bowed, giving us a sidelong glance. Mary nudged me and we both bowed.
‘Dangerous scum,’ shouted the physician. ‘My lord, keep them out, let me bleed you, restore your natural balance.’
‘NO,’ screamed Mary. ‘Don’t let him do that.’
There was a groan from the group. I don’t think anyone usually shouted anywhere near the king.
‘Kill them,’ said one of the others, fawning beside the king’s bed. The rest were nodding with more muttering.
This lot were dangerous, especially this doctor with his bowl and his knife. How were we going to make this work?
Mary couldn’t do this alone. I needed to be much braver, not Alvin the kid from school. More like Alvin used to dealing with the mad, bad and dangerous that came to our house before they put Dad in prison. I needed to be in control, even if this lot were all the most important people in the land. That’s why Jenna had sent me. I needed to play the witch.
I raised my hands and sort of waved them in the air. The crowd of fawning men let out another gasped groan and seemed to shrink away from us. ‘Do I mention toads again,’ I whispered very quietly to Mary, who shook her head.
I could feel myself shaking. It wouldn’t do. I coughed to clear my throat, even that made some of them wince. This was powerful stuff, although I was sure the king had a bit of a smile on his face. And did he actually wink at me? I tried to believe he had and it gave me courage. We were going to have to take charge in here. I could guess some of the things Mary needed to do. A lot of cleaning up, like we’d tried to do in the barn.
I raised myself to my full height, at least I was taller than most of them even if they were much older. ‘You’ve dragged us here, now do you want us to cure … your king … or not?’ I pointed at the doctor. ‘We need to stop him doing his bleeding thing.’
‘Kill them,’ howled the crowd.
‘Treason,’ wailed the priest from his knees. ‘Only God can save the king.’
Mary took over. ‘Maybe God and a few antibiotics,’ she said loudly.
The faces on the crowd looked confused. It wasn’t a word they’d heard before. Mary took advantage. ‘But we need to do a lot of cleaning up, and you must get rid of all those furry rug things.’
A man in long red robes pushed to the front and spoke in a loud booming voice: ‘These furs were a gift from my people. They have been blessed by the Bishop of York. Would you go against the Lord Bishop?’
I saw the gleam in the priest’s eyes. But what could he do? We were already sentenced to burn to death. Was there anything worse? Much later Jack told me about the ‘worse’. I was glad I didn’t know about that at the time.
‘We only work one way.’ I was really pushing this. ‘Our way. It works but we can’t do it with all of you here.’ That drew another gasp, this lot were good at gasping. Most of them must have seen the king as their way to fortune. ‘Don’t you want your king to get better?’ I gave them all a challenging stare.
The muttering and calls for our deaths grew louder. The king raised himself on one elbow. One of the rugs slipped and I saw the black lumps on his leg, the same as I’d seen on Rosie and her family. At least we knew he had the plague. The king clapped his hands and the muttering stopped. He beckoned John to him and whispered something in his ear. It took some time. The others in the room were craning in to listen. The king shot them a dangerous glance and they pulled back.
John had been given his instructions. He moved away from the bed and called to the soldiers. ‘Clear the room.’
All the ministers and secretaries started calling out their reasons for staying.
‘Out,’ John commanded and waved to the soldiers.
Still no one moved until the king nodded. Even then they still tried to give reasons why they should stay. The rug man said he had prayers from his bishop that needed to be said, someone else said they had fruit that cured the pestilence, I even heard someone say they needed to whip everyone for their sins and that would work.
Slowly they left. All except the priest on his knees and the doctor with his instruments. There was no way we could get rid of them. The king shook his head when John pointed at them. Three of the soldiers stayed behind as well. We weren’t trusted. I doubted that they ever trusted witches – not if they believed the toad story.
John came over and quietly asked us what we needed to do. Mary said that first we needed to take out all the rugs and bedclothes and wall hangings. John was more worried when Mary said, ‘Then we need to wash him completely.’
The king had lain back on his bed. He looked tired and with most of the people gone perhaps a little scared. The doctor saw this as his chance to advance. The priest started praying louder.
‘You have to stop all this,’ Mary pleaded. ‘It doesn’t work. This bleeding.’ She pointed at the priest. ‘And all this muttering is really hopeless.’
‘You go too far girl.’ The king spoke but I could hear the hesitance in his voice. Mary stepped forward towards the bed. She was stopped again by the soldiers but the king waved them away and beckoned to Mary. She went a little way further towards the bed but stopped short ...
‘Closer,’ demanded the king.
‘Sorry but I’m not coming anywhere near those rugs,’ she said quietly. ‘They’re crawling.’
‘Explain!’ cried out the king. ‘Explain why you think all these cures are nonsense, all the things that my people have sent to keep me safe.’
I could see Mary shaking. She needed help.
‘Have you seen a lot of people get better from this plague – I mean pestilence thing?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ called out the doctor.
‘No,’ said the king.
‘But the village I went to last week,’ stammered the doctor. ‘I bled them all and they survived.’
‘They didn’t have the pestilence. Did they?’
Was the king asking a question or telling the doctor? John told me later that the so called cure had been put about to try and reassure people. The doctor just hung his head.
‘They all die,’ said the king. He turned to Mary. ‘So it doesn’t matter if I let you do what you have to do.’
Mary sort of smiled.
‘But tell me why.’ The king sounded a bit more hopeful.
Mary tried to give him a lesson in diseases. How the rats had fleas and the fleas carried germs. But while the fleas made sense, the idea of microscopically small bugs drew a compete blank.
‘Just do it,’ said the king, obviously tiring of the explanation.
I pointed to the doctor and th
e priest. They had to go. The king waved his hand in a weary gesture.
‘OUT,’ called John.
They left without much complaint. What Mary had said was probably just too frightening. The priest kept mumbling, ‘They must burn, they must burn,’ as he left.
Mary moved on with her orders. First to the soldiers to take everything out. ‘And then you have to burn your clothes and don’t come back here,’ she demanded. The men didn’t look too unhappy about not having to return.
The king said something to John, who asked if they could bring different soldiers.
‘If you must.’ Mary sounded exasperated, which I thought was pretty weird given who we were with, but she had grown in confidence. I guess she’d decided that this lot were so primitive that she could get away with it.
Mary put her hands on her hips and demanded, ‘Then he has to be washed.’
The king gave a laugh at that.
‘Any chance you could say His Highness or His Grace,’ John whispered in her ear.
‘Then His Highness has to be washed,’ she said and pulled out the bottle of shampoo. By that time I suppose they’d been too overwhelmed with information to care about seeing a yellow plastic bottle with a blonde model on its front. Still a bit strange, her holding it up in some ancient hallway with a hole in the roof instead of a chimney.
The washing was difficult. There was no bathtub. Mary had them fetch a cauldron of hot water. There was a long discussion about who was going to do this. It wasn’t going anywhere until Mary rolled her sleeves up, lathered her hands and set about him, getting me to do the more sensitive areas. Luckily the black lumps and boils hadn’t burst yet so most of the smell just came from the king’s unwashed body. I guess washing didn’t happen much.
‘The priest wouldn’t have let you,’ murmured the king, who also liked the smell of the shampoo. ‘He says washing weakens the body.’
Tregarthur's Revenge: Book 2 (The Tregarthur's Series) Page 15