‘Naomi? Has she been sick?’
Very quietly Naomi said, ‘It doesn’t smell like sick.’
Barnaby swallowed hard.
Then another voice threaded through the darkness: an old woman’s.
‘Tell your friend to keep away from that blood.’
Barnaby stared wildly in the direction of the voice. ‘But she might be able to help her!’
‘’Twill poison her. I kept away from the poor old dear as shared this cell, while the other tended her. They were both dead in a week. Once you have the marks of the devil’s kiss upon you there ain’t no hope.’
Barnaby took a deep breath. ‘Get away from her, Naomi,’ he said loudly, ‘Right away. To the other end of the cell.’
‘No!’ Naomi cried. ‘I could not be so cruel.’
‘GET AWAY, NOW!’
She gave a small sob.
‘Are you away from her?’
There was a rustling and then she said, ‘Yes.’
‘What a fool I was to hide from those black kisses,’ the old woman continued. ‘By now I should have been enfolded in His warm embrace!’
‘Hush, Goodwife,’ Naomi called softly. ‘Do not let them hear you speaking that way.’
‘Oh, I care not, child! Either the fire will warm me or the rope will hug my poor empty throat. Whatever happens it will soon be over and I will be with my master.’
‘Your Lord,’ Naomi said. ‘Call him your Lord or they will think you mean Satan.’
‘Ahh, sweet girl, it is too late to care what men think of us.’
A dreadful gurgling began.
‘There,’ the woman said. ‘’Twill soon be over.’
There was a low rustling from the cell opposite.
‘Stay where you are, Naomi!’ he snapped.
‘I must go to her. I can’t let her die alone.’
Barnaby squeezed his fists, pressing the nails into his own palms. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s too late for Juliet. Please, Naomi,’ he lowered his voice, ‘please.’
Though his ears strained in the silence there were no more rustlings.
But the gurglings went on, hour after hour through the night. He sat on the wet floor and rocked backwards and forwards, pressing his palms against his ears, though it did little to help. Then, just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, the gurgles became horrible choking grunts, like an animal trying to give birth.
He couldn’t help the prayer that rolled around in his head:
Please let it stop, please let it stop . . .
Eventually the prayer was answered. The grunts were replaced by a strange rattling sound, like a stone grinding across a washboard. Between these awful rattles he could hear Naomi weeping.
Then another voice drifted through the darkness.
‘Through his own most tender mercy may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins or faults thou hast committed. May He who frees you from sin save you and raise you up to His side.’
Barnaby lifted his head. ‘Amen,’ he said.
‘Amen,’ said Naomi.
There were faint amens, from all along the corridor.
Juliet took another breath and this time the rattling exhalation seemed to go on forever: like pebbles endlessly tumbling across the seabed as the wave ebbs.
And then there was silence.
16
The Beetle
When Barnaby opened his eyes the cell was filled with a damp, grey light.
A figure was hunched in the corner of the cell opposite. On the bed was another shape, contorted and somehow inhuman.
He pulled himself to his feet and Naomi raised her head at the sound, gazing at him with hollow eyes.
‘Gaoler!’ he shouted. ‘Get this corpse out of here.’
A few minutes later the gaoler’s slow footsteps came splashing down the aisle.
He reached Naomi’s cell and peered in.
‘Get the corpse out,’ Barnaby said, ‘before it putrefies and infects us all.’
The man turned on him with a sneer. ‘I don’t have to answer to the likes of you.’
‘You do if you want to keep getting generously paid for my keep,’ Barnaby said.
The gaoler went off grumbling and returned with a wheelbarrow.
Barnaby flinched as Juliet’s body hit the ground and the gaoler began dragging it out. He knew he should not look at her but he couldn’t stop himself.
Her face was like a clumsy wax impression made by fairies to be left in place of the real thing: grey of flesh with sunken, malformed features. Her chin was covered in blood and black lumps clustered around her throat. Her nose was black, as were the tips of her fingers, screwed into claws at the ends of her stiff arms. Only her hair was the same. He remembered the smell of it, brushing his face as she bent to plump his pillow or fasten his collar. The man heaved her into the barrow like a rotten tree trunk.
The wheel of the barrow squeaked under the weight of her and her protruding feet rattled against the bars of the other cells as he pushed her away.
‘Oh, Barnaby,’ Naomi whispered when she had gone. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He gripped the bars between numb fingers.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said thickly. ‘Her suffering is over.’
Then he sat heavily on the ground and covered his head with his hands.
Things began to happen. During the course of the day there were various visitors, muttered conversations with the gaoler: people were taken up and didn’t return. From outside came the rhythmic thud of a hammer against wood. A little later feet jostled about the window as a crowd formed in the square above. They were hushed at first, but exploded into life at the crack of a rope. The remaining prisoners prayed and moaned. The man on the mattress died and his body was removed as unceremoniously as Juliet’s. Barnaby developed a cough and phantom twinges in his arms and neck. He kept feeling for lumps, but his fingers could not be trusted and beneath them his flesh seemed to creep as if insects burrowed through it. The cough became worse and, trying to clear his chest, he hacked a few drops of blood into his hand. Please let it be quick, he thought.
While he was devouring the congealed pottage that would be that day’s only meal his parents came.
He heard rapid footsteps and raised his head to see Frances running through the stream, heedless of the filth splashing up her dress. Henry came tip-toeing along behind with his handkerchief pressed to his nose.
‘I have spoken to my father,’ she said, breathlessly, pressing herself against the bars. ‘And he believes he can get an audience with Cromwell himself!’
‘What’s the point?’ Barnaby said. ‘Cromwell approves of what Hopkins is doing.’ He went back to his pottage.
‘Yes, but you are just a boy! And from a respectable family!’
‘And what of Naomi?’ he snapped. ‘And the other poor wretches rotting down here?’
His father lifted the handkerchief from his nose. ‘We cannot hope to save everyone. Good God, what is that you’re eating?’
Barnaby stared at him, then shovelled another handful of the lukewarm slop into his mouth. ‘It tastes pretty good to me.’
‘Something must be done. I’m going to speak to the gaoler.’
Barnaby called after him: ‘Lobster cocktail followed by spitted lark!’
His bitter laugh died as his gaze met his mother’s. She looked old and ill. Without Juliet to do the linen her dress was grubby and creased. But there was something else: an air of defeat, less fitted to a merchant’s pampered wife than a broken old drudge in an almshouse.
‘I’m sorry I failed you,’ she whispered.
His breath caught in his throat. All that stuff about Cromwell had been for his father’s benefit. She was saying goodbye.
He laid the bowl down on the floor and wiped his hands on his shirt. He could not catch her eye when he spoke. ‘You didn’t fail me. I wanted for nothing.’
‘Except love.’
He swallowed hard. ‘I had my father’s.’
&nbs
p; ‘You deserved your mother’s.’
‘Then why . . .’ He had to pause and begin again. ‘Then why was I not worthy of it?’
Her voice became almost inaudible. ‘There was another child, Barnaby.’
‘The changeling.’
She closed her eyes. ‘If that is what you wish to call him.’
‘Not me, Mother, everyone.’
‘Whatever he was, I loved him a great deal and when he was taken from me a part of my heart died.’
In the silence Barnaby could hear his father remonstrating with the gaoler, his voice shrill and ugly in the quiet.
Tears crept out from beneath his mother’s eyelashes but Barnaby felt no sympathy. A great pit had opened up somewhere deep inside him.
‘Enough of it remained to love Abel,’ he said.
Now she opened her eyes and gave a haunted smile.
‘He looked so much like my first darling. For a while I could pretend that he had been returned to me.’
‘Well, I am glad he has proved so worthy of your adoration.’
The raised voices had stopped and now they could both hear the footsteps approaching.
‘It was I who was not worthy of you, Barnaby. Can you forgive me?’
They stared at one another through the bars. And wasn’t this the way it had always been? There had always been a wall between them that, as a child, he had tried so hard to break through before eventually giving up. All the love he may once have had for her had long since turned to dust. They were now perfect strangers. Or not quite strangers.
Perhaps now, at the very end, they could be friends.
He stood and went over to the bars and took her hand in his. Then he dipped his head and allowed her to kiss his forehead. And for the first time in his life his mother’s love flowed over him, soft and warm and safe, and his legs melted and he crumpled against the cold iron.
For a long time after they had gone he lay curled up on the floor of the cell. At some point he must have fallen asleep. He dreamed he was at home; his mother was reading him a story. Juliet was preparing dinner and delicious smells wafted from the kitchen: something warm and spicy for a winter’s afternoon – a casserole of squash and cinnamon, perhaps, or a beef and ale stew. The heat of the fire radiated on his back.
Then something jolted him awake. For a moment he thought he was still at home, dozing in front of the fire, but then he saw that it was only the warm glow of sunset making its brief passage across his window.
The footsteps that had woken him clacked down the tunnel. These were the shoes of a gentleman, and he was being escorted by the gaoler.
‘Just a little further, Sir.’
Fear sprang up in his heart. Had they come for Naomi?
The footsteps halted and the visitor’s black shape detached itself from the shadows.
There was a beat of silence, then Barnaby said, ‘Hello, brother.’
Abel dismissed the gaoler with a wave of his hand and the old man melted back into the shadows.
Barnaby stepped forwards and straightened up to his full height, even though it hurt his chest to do so. ‘Come in,’ he said, gesturing at the suppurating filth behind him. ‘Make yourself comfortable.’
Abel said nothing.
‘Have you come to gloat?’ Barnaby said. ‘Be my guest. I’m pissing in the corner and coughing up blood. You win. Well done.’
When Abel spoke, his voice was soft.
‘How are the mighty fallen.’
Barnaby sighed and closed his eyes.
‘The sword of the Lord is indeed swift and terrible.’
Abel came close to the bars, his mouth twisted in that familiar sneer.
‘You have deceived my parents and the rest of that foolish village for long enough. Tomorrow you will be tried, convicted and sent back from whence you came.’
‘The dung heap?’ Barnaby said coolly, though inside he was reeling from Abel’s words: tomorrow? His parents must have told Abel of the plan to speak to Cromwell, forcing him to act quickly.
‘Hell!’ Abel hissed, his spittle striking Barnaby’s forehead.
‘Hell is the place for murderers,’ Barnaby said. ‘You have murdered Juliet.’
‘A confessed witch,’ Abel spat. ‘She admitted being in league with Satan.’
‘What exactly did she say?’
‘She named you as her partner in evil.’
‘Did she really? Or did you say that and then confuse her into agreeing?’
‘She had the devil’s mark, and the same diabolical raven of yours came to her when we were watching.’
‘It was a crow, Abel,’ Barnaby said. ‘They’re quite common. You will be laughed out of the court.’
‘Not at all. The evidence against you is strong.’
‘A birthmark and a hungry crow?’ He forced a laugh.
‘And the things you said.’
‘I never confessed, I never signed anything.’
‘You said things.’
‘You deprived me of sleep, starved me and stripped me.’
A sheen of sweat had burst out on Abel’s high forehead and he licked his lips.
‘Why exactly did you come?’ Barnaby said.
‘Oh, not to see you,’ he smiled. ‘No-one cares about your fate any more. I have come to speak with Miss Waters.’
Abruptly he turned away. Walking across the aisle he almost tumbled into the stream of filth and gave a yelp of distaste. On the other side he straightened his back and clasped his hands behind his back – evidently trying to look imposing and authoritative. But Naomi didn’t raise her head and when he cleared his throat to speak she interrupted him in a hollow voice.
‘I do not wish to hear what you have to say.’
She was huddled in the corner, her bare feet drawn up close to be out of the blood congealing on the floor.
‘Miss Waters,’ Abel said, ‘you were kind to me once, and I did not intend it to go so badly for you.’
‘And what did you intend, Abel Nightingale?’
Abel shifted from foot to foot and the fingers behind his back knotted.
‘When I heard that Mr Hopkins was on his way to try the Widow Moone, I spoke to him of my fears of my brother’s origins and he agreed to investigate them.’
‘Shame on you.’
‘It is not my fault that . . .’ He tailed off and began again. ‘Mr Hopkins is very thorough in his investigations and he discovered a nest of wickedness I had heretofore never even suspected.’
Even in the gloom Barnaby could see her eyes flash with fury.
‘Not you,’ Abel added quickly, then he glanced over his shoulder and his eye caught Barnaby’s. He turned back.
‘Perhaps we can speak somewhere more comfortable.’
‘I would not accompany you anywhere.’
‘As you wish.’ His voice became even quieter. ‘I wanted to make a . . . a suggestion to you.’
‘Juliet was my friend.’
‘A suggestion that might save your life.’
If he expected his announcement to be greeted with enthusiasm he was disappointed. Naomi’s dry monotone did not waver. ‘You are the devil, not Barnaby.’
Abel took a deep breath and continued as if he had not heard her. ‘You could leave this foul pit and be home at your farm by the morning.’ He took a step closer to the cell. ‘With your dear little brother.’
She did not reply to this but her breathing quickened, as if she was about to cry.
‘To my mind,’ Abel murmured, ‘there has only ever been one of Satan’s servants in Beltane Ridge. Somehow, with his wiles and his infernal bewitchments, he managed to ensnare poor innocents like Juliet. If you will agree to testify against him – only what you know to be true – that he is vain and arrogant and crushes those weaker than him. That you believe he set his familiars upon you to injure you in such a way that it made suspicion fall upon you. That he sent the cat to make us think—’
‘You brought the cat,’ she said.
He s
tammered a little as he continued, ‘If you do these things then the magistrate will pardon and release you. My master, Mr Hopkins, has arranged such bargains many times in the past.’
Naomi stood up and walked through the blood until she stood directly in front of Abel. Though she was shorter, pale as a ghost, and shivering with cold, he started back.
‘Shame upon him, too,’ she said.
‘I’m trying to help you,’ Abel hissed.
‘You do not wish to save me, only to damn Barnaby.’
Abel straightened and took a step back.
‘I will give you until tomorrow to think on this, thereafter your fate will be in the hands of the magistrate.’
He walked a few steps away from the cell, then turned. ‘The scaffold has already seen much use.’
His footsteps receded up the corridor, like the clicking of a beetle.
When he had gone, Naomi leaned against the bars and sobbed.
The last flares of daylight illuminated the full horror of their situation. The blood on the floor of her cell was bright scarlet, clotted with crimson. The water in the stinking runnel was brown and flecked with rat shit. Green slime covered the walls. Naomi’s skin was grey and waxy, her once glossy hair dull, her dress stained and torn. Barnaby did not need to turn around to see for himself that the man on the bed behind him had developed the purplish buboes of the sickness – he could hear it in the man’s cough and gurgling chest.
Eventually Naomi’s sobs subsided to sniffles. She wiped her eyes on her dress and began running her fingers through her shorn hair, tearing savagely at the clumps and knots.
‘When Abel comes back,’ Barnaby said, ‘you must agree to testify against me.’
She stopped what she was doing and stared at him as if he had spoken in a foreign language.
‘What’s the point of both of us dying?’ he went on. ‘Go home to your brother.’
She paused before replying and somewhere far away the death-watch beetle continued its clicking, up the steps and out into the chill winter air.
‘If you think I would consider it for a moment you do not know me at all.’
She got up and went to lie on the bed, facing the wall.
He tried again but she said nothing more that night. Eventually he crawled to the back of the cell and lay down on the dead man’s straw. Though he was freezing cold and his chest ached, he fell asleep almost immediately.
The Blood List Page 20