‘We are all anxious to get this over and done with, and your interference only prolongs Miss Waters’ discomfort.’
‘Discomfort?’ Barnaby shouted. ‘What are you doing to her?’
He went to kick the door again but his father held him back and Farmer Waters came scrambling up the stairs to drag them back down.
They waited in silence in the cold, low room. The only sounds were the buzz of Hopkins’s voice followed by Naomi’s higher-pitched replies, hour after hour, until Barnaby’s feet and hands were numb with cold. The room grew dark and Mistress Waters lit a single tallow candle.
The loud thud as the bolt was drawn back on the door above made them all start violently. Light spilled from the covered staircase onto the flagstones and they all sprang up, but then the bolt scraped once more and the light on the flagstones went out.
A moment later Matthew Hopkins stepped into the room.
Barnaby had not paid him much attention at the lake the previous day but now he saw he was a young man, perhaps only in his twenties, with a short dark beard and elaborately curled hair. Hopkins had attempted to make himself more imposing with a black satin doublet trimmed with gold and the bucket-topped black boots of a magistrate, but he was still thin and narrow-shouldered and his yellow face ran with sweat.
Barnaby absorbed all of this in the split second it took to pull back his fist. But at Hopkins’ cry of surprise another man came barrelling down the stairs, launched himself across the room and came crashing down on him. Barnaby’s head struck the wall and he dropped like a stone.
A moment later the polished black boots appeared in his wavering vision.
‘Any man,’ Hopkins said coldly, ‘who seeks to obstruct me in my duties will be dealt with most severely.’
Barnaby could do nothing but slump against the wall waiting for his sight to clear. His father was remonstrating with Hopkins, who placated him silkily. Then he heard his brother’s voice, sharp and nasal, employing a tone he had never before used with their father.
‘Go home, Sir, and leave us to our business.’
‘Oh, and what business is it of yours, boy?’ his father snapped. ‘What qualifies you to torment these women?’
‘Experience of the world, Mister Nightingale,’ Hopkins interrupted. ‘Piety, purity of heart and the gift to see wickedness in all its forms.’
‘Nothing at all, then,’ Barnaby croaked.
But then Waters stepped forward, his head bowed. ‘Might I ask if you have finished with my daughter.’
‘Almost,’ Hopkins said kindly. ‘She has confessed to nothing but now there is just the matter of the searching.’
‘The what?’
‘My women must now search her for the devil’s markings.’
‘She has none!’ Mistress Waters cried. ‘I have known her body from birth and it is pure and unblemished!’
‘Then that is in her favour,’ Hopkins smiled, bowing slightly. ‘We will be back later. In the meantime I leave you in the care of Master Leech, in case you are the subject of any . . . attacks.’
The huge man who had knocked Barnaby to the floor stepped forward.
‘Attacks?’ Waters echoed.
‘Indeed. The villagers are afraid, and fear, I am sad to say, so often drives people to violence. I bid you good day.’
As they swept across the room to the open door Barnaby stuck out his foot to trip his brother, but his reactions were still dull from the blow to the head and Abel hopped deftly over him. His brother’s high-pitched giggle trailed back to him as the two men walked away down the path and vanished into the mist.
Barnaby struggled up and staggered to the bottom of the staircase but Leech moved quicker, blocking his path.
‘I only wish to speak to her. I will not try to enter.’
Leech stared at him, dead-eyed. The man stank of sweat and a crust of yellow warts disfigured the right side of his face.
Barnaby tried to push past him. In a movement that was surprisingly swift for such a lump of a human, he was thrust back into the arms of his father.
‘Go home, gentlemen,’ Waters said. ‘Please.’
The look of desperation in the farmer’s face deflated Barnaby’s will to fight.
‘It will go better for Naomi if we let them do what they have to and make no trouble.’
A chill, grey dawn was breaking as they left the cottage and their breath billowed before them. The mist was slowly clearing now, coiling upwards in wisps like fingers stretching for the sky. Barnaby walked across to the water’s edge, the grass crunching beneath his feet. The hole in the ice made by the widow had healed and the only sign that anything had happened was the ridged mud on the shore. Embedded in it were hazelnut shells: remnants of the snacks of the crowd as they enjoyed her suffering.
‘What I should like to know,’ his father said quietly behind him, ‘is who accused her.’
Barnaby turned and stared at him. Above his father’s head a huge ribbon of starlings swirled across the white sky, contorting into mysterious shapes and patterns.
‘Barnaby?’ his father said. ‘What is it?’
But Barnaby ignored him and set off at a run down the path to the village.
The maid opened the door, patting her bonnet and smiling demurely when she saw who it was.
‘Is Flora there?’
‘Well, yes, certainly,’ the girl said. ‘But she is alone and I don’t think it would be seemly to—’
He barged past her into the cottage. It was only slightly larger than the Waters place but far more luxurious, with glass in all the windows and heavy tapestries to keep out the drafts. The light cast by the wall sconces bounced off the silverware to make the room sparkle.
‘Flora!’ he bellowed.
The maid’s feet pattered up the stairs and he heard the surprised screech of a chair in a room above.
‘FLORA!’
The maid reappeared and hurried down the stairs. ‘Miss Slabber will be down presently.’ She scuttled away through a door but her footsteps skidded to a halt on the other side and there was a rustle of skirts pressed against wood.
A minute or so later Flora came out onto the landing and stepped daintily down the stairs. She had rouged her cheeks unnecessarily since an angry scarlet blush was creeping up from her neck.
‘Barnaby,’ she said.
She paused on the final step and seemed reluctant to come further.
‘Naomi Waters has been accused of witchcraft,’ he said.
Her pretty lips pursed. The maid’s bonnet whispered against the door.
‘That is . . .’ she began then stopped. Her fingers fluttered at her side. She must have dressed hurriedly because her bodice had not been buttoned properly and there was a small gape at the side, like an open mouth.
‘Was it you?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘I saw you take money from my brother.’
The blush seeped away and her blue eyes turned to ice.
She stepped off the stair and brushed past him in a haze of scent. Going to stand in the centre of the room she folded her arms and tilted her chin up.
‘It is my belief that she is a witch.’
He breathed in slowly and out before speaking again.
‘Why?’
‘She has performed maleficium against us because of the manner in which she was dismissed.’
‘And how has this maleficium manifested itself?’ Barnaby said. ‘You look perfectly healthy to me.’
Flora lifted her chin defiantly. ‘She made Pockets sick.’
‘Pockets?’
‘My cat.’
Bile surged into Barnaby’s throat. ‘Have you considered,’ he said evenly, ‘that perhaps it was not witchcraft but just a rotten mouse?’
‘It was not only the business with Pockets.’
‘There were other such calamities?’ He smiled icily.
She bit her lip. The flush remained only on her chest, which rose and fell in irr
egular stutters.
‘Look . . .’ she began, then stopped and took a deep breath. ‘Look at what she has done to you.’
He stared at her. ‘What?’
She winced, as if she was looking into the sun. ‘Even as ugly and drab and viperish as she is, she has bewitched you into liking her.’
‘What?’ he laughed. ‘She is my maid, of course I like her.
‘More than me?’
‘At this moment, yes: considerably more!’
They stared at each other and his laughter died. One of the candles must have gone out because the room had grown duller somehow. The pinkness of Flora’s cheek had greyed and her hair was the colour of dry grass.
There was whispering behind the door followed by a muffled giggle: evidently the maid had been joined by others.
‘Perhaps,’ Flora said softly, ‘you should take more care of others’ feelings.’
He had gone too far. If he was not more careful she would never back down.
‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.’
‘Yes, you did,’ she hissed.
There were soft thuds on the stairs and he looked up to see a black-and-white cat staring at him with large green eyes.
‘Is that Pockets?’ he said pleasantly. ‘I’m glad he’s well.’
It didn’t work. Her eyes were cold as she bent and rubbed her fingertips together until the cat padded across to her and wound itself between her legs.
‘Please, Flora,’ he said. ‘Take the accusation back. Or they will burn her.’
‘No,’ she said coldly. ‘They will hang her.’
His chest constricted. He had wrecked his chance to save Naomi. Whatever happened next would be his fault. He struggled to keep his voice steady as he spoke. ‘I am sorry to have barged in. I bid you goodnight.’
He walked to the door and reached blindly for the handle.
‘Wait.’
He stopped. A thin, icy wind crept through the keyhole.
‘Perhaps your callous behaviour is not caused by witchcraft . . .’
He waited, not daring to breathe.
‘But just the fickleness of a silly, selfish boy.’
‘You know, Flora,’ he said, without turning, ‘you have always understood me so well.’
‘You liked me before,’ she said quietly.
‘I did,’ he said.
‘Perhaps you would again.’
He swallowed and then said, ‘I’m sure of it.’
Her motionless figure was reflected in the glass. ‘Those are just words.’
‘How can I prove it to you?’
‘The way any lover proves his devotion.’
He began to understand.
‘My father will be in this evening if you wish to speak to him.’
He opened his mouth but his voice would not come. He watched in the glass as she bent to pick up Pockets and rub its sly face against her own. She murmured something and its purr reverberated in the silence.
‘Shall I tell him you will be calling?’ she said lightly. ‘That you wish to ask him something?’
He raised his hand to lean against the door.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Please do.’
‘Very well,’ she said, ‘I will write to Mister Hopkins straight away.’
‘Thank you. Goodnight, Flora.’
‘Goodnight,’ she said, then added softly, ‘my love.’
He opened the door, stepped outside, closed it behind him, walked a few paces, then retched on the snow-crusted ground.
The village had woken properly by now and the square was criss-crossed with footprints. It was too cold to linger and no-one stopped to speak to him as he tramped home. The vomit had splashed his breeches and shoes and he’d inadvertently wiped his mouth with his sleeve, so now he stank and would have to change his clothes. Passing the church he almost bumped into the deaf boy, muffled to the eyebrows, carrying a basket full of paint tubes. They both looked away and the boy deliberately bumped his elbow as they passed one another.
The house was as warm as a bread oven and all the lanterns were lit. When she saw the state of him Juliet insisted on his having a bath, which she dragged to the fire and eventually filled. As he watched her traipsing back and forth to the kitchen with the cauldron, he grew sleepier and sleepier. The flickering firelight made his shadow on the floor grow and shrink and quaver, as if it were as insubstantial as the flames themselves.
Eventually the bath was ready and after Juliet had stripped him he stepped into it and lay back. The water was blood-warm and she laid a cloth over him so that his bent knees wouldn’t get cold.
It would all be over soon. The outcome of the nonsensical search was irrelevant now that Flora was to retract her accusation. She would do it, of that he was certain, so long as he fulfilled his part of the bargain. But what a bargain. There might yet be a way out of it. Perhaps if he grew very fat and didn’t wash, or perhaps if he feigned madness and grubbed about with the pigs in the mud. The thought made him smile, and then the pigs took on the features of Abel and Hopkins and Leech and when they opened their mouths to speak they purred like Pockets.
He was woken by an icy blast followed by the slam of the door and sat up with a cry. The bath water was cold and his limbs were stiff and goosebumped. Then his father sprang into his line of vision, wafting cold air from his cloak and spattering Barnaby with particles of snow.
‘She is saved!’
Frances appeared beside him, pink-cheeked and smiling. ‘The accusation has been retracted.’
Barnaby stood quickly, sloshing water all over the floor.
‘Already?’
‘Hopkins received the letter not half an hour ago. He will be bringing all this nonsense to an end as we speak.’
Barnaby exhaled. So soon.
Wrapping the towel around him, he stepped out of the bath and began rubbing himself vigorously to warm up.
‘Perhaps we can persuade the Hockets to retract their accusation of the Widow Moone,’ Frances was saying as she removed her hat and cloak. ‘And then that beastly man can go back where he came from.’
‘With Abel preferably,’ Barnaby said, fastening the towel around his waist.
His mother’s lips pursed. ‘I think perhaps Abel should remain here, don’t you, Henry?’
‘Oh certainly,’ Henry said. ‘I shall take pleasure in knocking some sense back into him.’
‘Hmm,’ Frances said faintly, adjusting her bonnet.
‘What o’clock is it?’ Barnaby said, stepping into the clean clothes Juliet had left out for him.
‘Late afternoon,’ his father said. ‘And none of us even breakfasted yet. Juliet!’
‘I won’t eat directly,’ Barnaby said. ‘There’s something I must do.’
‘Oh, very well,’ his father said. His mother looked at him quizzically.
‘Nothing important,’ he said, concentrating on the buttons of his shirt cuff. ‘I won’t be long, and then I might go up to the Waters place and see how Naomi is.’
‘Wait till the morning,’ his mother said. ‘Give her some peace and quiet to recover.’
The door was snatched open before the echoes from his rap had died away.
Flora stood before the fire in a bright yellow satin dress trimmed with fur. Her parents flanked her and Pockets sat primly at her feet with a smug look in his reptilian eyes.
‘Master Nightingale!’ her father cried.
‘Mister Slabber,’ Barnaby said with a bow.
The butcher clapped his hands. ‘Wine, Sara!’
Though the whole ordeal could not have taken more than ten minutes from start to finish, by the time he emerged from the house he felt as if he had run a hundred miles.
He had never seen three happier people. Even the damned cat kept jumping on him and digging its claws into his thighs.
There was no need to rush things, so the marriage would take place in the year each of them became eighteen. It would have to be a summer wedding, of course
, since Flora did so suit light, summery colours (pretend exasperation from Flora; a slap on her father’s wrist). Her little hand was as perfect as a doll’s in his. There was no reddening or roughness of the skin and the nails were long and unchipped. She smelled like sugared fruit. Hours seemed to pass before someone remarked that the snow had begun again. Barnaby saw his chance and got up to leave, promising that his father would be round in the morning to seal the arrangement. He produced a ring he had taken from his mother’s jewellery box and slid it onto her finger. It was too big. When they kissed goodbye her lips were hard and eager.
The snow became heavier and heavier until he was walking blind, and by the time he got home it had piled up so high on the front step he could barely open the door. He told his father what he had done and gave no explanation. His mother was furious. He accepted her remonstrations in silence then, once he had secured his father’s promise to visit the Slabber house in the morning, he went to bed.
For a while he lay awake and stared at the ceiling. Would Naomi guess why he had done what he had done? Would she be sorry to lose him to another? Had she ever felt about him the way he did about her? It had never seemed so, and yet he had tethered himself to a girl he felt nothing for to save her. Perhaps Flora had been right all along. Perhaps she had bewitched him.
To regret his actions would be a base and cowardly thing to do and he really tried not to. But it was clear to him that there would be no getting out of this. If he dared try and break the arrangement, Flora’s father would have him in court. A nasty little thought insinuated itself into his mind that perhaps she would die in childbirth. He was disgusted with himself. All the pride over his noble act turned to shame and foreboding. Tugging the blanket over his head, he put his fingers in his ears to block out the soft whispers of snow against his window.
13
Milk
Barnaby was woken by Juliet, with hot milk and fresh scones with damson jam. He had slept deeply and felt refreshed and altogether more optimistic about his situation. She stoked the fire and laid out his clothes while he yawned and stretched and finally swung his legs over the side of the bed. The floor was too cold to walk on without stockings so she got him some from the drawer and then opened the curtains. The sudden glare made him wince. The entire countryside was blanketed with snow. Each cottage was iced like a cake and only smears of grey from the chimneys broke up the uniform white. Through the ice-crusted panes he could just make out the shadow of the forest. Nothing was moving. The village must still be in their beds.
The Blood List Page 16