When he woke he knew exactly what he had to do.
17
The Pact
Barnaby’s bare feet slapped on the wooden floor of the empty courtroom as he walked towards the benches at the far end. The room was lined in wood and so still retained some of the warmth of the dead fire in the imposing hearth. Everything about the place was imposing, from the carved cherubs scowling down from the cornicing, to the bookcases of huge ledgers that must contain the names and deeds of a thousand dead men. He tried to take it all in so that it wouldn’t come as a shock the following day.
Abel was sitting on a kind of throne at the top of a flight of steps. The gaoler jerked him to a halt a few paces from the steps, then pulled up a stool and pushed Barnaby into it.
‘I shall be waiting outside, Sir,’ he said to Abel, bowing.
‘Aren’t you going to bind him?’ Abel said.
‘Oh. I haven’t brought any rope. He isn’t armed.’
‘Fool. This man is known to be violent.’
‘Shall I get some?’
‘And leave me alone with him? No!’
The gaoler hurried away, mumbling apologies.
‘Where’s Hopkins?’ Barnaby said. ‘I asked to see him not you.’
Abel gave a small smile. ‘He’s a very busy man. He has done what he came to do. The wheels of justice are now in motion. From now on I speak for him.’
At the sight of Barnaby’s expression his smile spread across his cheeks.
‘You can always go back to your cell. Although you seemed very keen for us to talk elsewhere. Unlike poor, brave Naomi, who refused to be interviewed in comfort.’
‘I did not want her to hear what I had to say.’
‘Oh, so you will betray her now, will you?’ Abel sneered. ‘Well, it will not save your sorry neck. We have enough on you as it—’
‘No you don’t. Not to be certain of my execution. Not without a confession.’
‘Nonsense,’ Abel snorted but his fingers twitched on the arms of the chair.
‘You need me to confess, Abel. And I need something from you.’
Abel blinked. The fingers went still. ‘What?’ he said.
Barnaby took a deep breath. ‘I will admit to anything you like if you have Naomi freed.’
Abel did not speak for a few minutes.
The cries from the market traders outside echoed in the empty hall. They had set up their stalls around the scaffold. On the way here Barnaby had watched the customers bustle heedlessly by as the rope swung in the wind above them. Would they cheer for him? Would they call for the hangman to have mercy? Would they give him back his shoes? He hoped so: he didn’t want to die like a beggar.
Then Abel spoke again, thoughtfully. ‘She has a mark and there was the business with the cat, but she did not confess.’
‘What if I say that the Widow Moone, Juliet and I wanted to get her to join our coven and we sent the cat familiar to torment her? That I made the corn doll in her image in order to bring her under my control?’
‘You would damn your precious Juliet?’ Abel widened his eyes in mock surprise.
‘Nothing I say can harm her now. Answer me, would that work?’
Abel thought for a moment, then shrugged. ‘I suppose it might. Juliet never named her, after all, only you, and the only accusation against her was retracted.’
‘That’s not good enough. Swear on the Bible that she will be freed or I will not confess.’
They stared at one another. The pupils of Abel’s watery eyes were large in the gloom, his index finger stroked the comb of a wooden cockerel carved into the arm of the chair. There was a distant cry that might have come from the cells beneath their feet, or just a gull wheeling in the leaden sky.
‘I will stand as character witness for her,’ Abel said. ‘I will say that I saw you feeding the cat, that I heard you telling a flea to go and bite her arm to cause a mark that would put her under suspicion.’
His eyes slid away from Barnaby’s to gaze out of the window.
‘Will that be enough?’ Barnaby said.
Abel chuckled. ‘They may not believe you, brother, but my word carries a great deal of weight these days.’
‘Shake on it,’ Barnaby said, rising from the chair.
Abel started as Barnaby climbed the stairs towards him, seeming to shrink and darken as Barnaby’s shadow fell upon him. Barnaby stood over him, holding out his hand.
‘Have we a pact?’
The bird cry came again, closer this time: out in the square perhaps. It was a crow. Calling to its friends, telling them that there would soon be a feast of carrion.
A white hand snaked up to Barnaby’s and they shook.
‘We have,’ Abel said softly.
When it was written and signed the gaoler took him back down to the cells. Naomi was asleep. She slept through the afternoon, not even waking when the gaoler thrust some black bread through the bars, just out of reach from the skeletal hand that stretched across from the adjacent cell.
But perhaps it was better after all if he kept silent.
He lay down on the mattress and gazed up at the roof of the cell, pitted and cracked with rot.
She was woken by a shaft of the setting sun and came straight over to the bars.
‘Where did you go?’ she said, ignoring the bread. ‘I was worried.’
He stayed silent.
‘Barnaby?’ she whispered. ‘Are you asleep?’
He snored quietly so that she wouldn’t fear he was dead.
Eventually she gave up, tugged the bread out from between the bars and shuffled away again.
Every so often throughout the evening she would come back to the bars and call his name, and he was able to snatch glimpses of her between his eyelashes, but then it grew too dark to see. He heard the creak of the pallet as she lay back down and the rustle of the thin blanket as she pulled it over herself.
‘Goodnight, Barnaby,’ she murmured.
The night crept by. At first he whispered some prayers but the words hung in the vast empty darkness, and he didn’t believe anyone was listening.
At least it wouldn’t be the pyre. Hanging was quick. If he could manage not to cry or faint then he would have made as good an exit as anyone. At least his mother would not be too distraught. His father would be inconsolable, of course. The thought of Henry’s distress brought tears to Barnaby’s own eyes. He tried to keep silent, but his sinuses blocked up and in the end he had to sniff. Immediately there was a sharp rustling from the other cell.
‘Barnaby? Are you all right?’
He swallowed to clear the thickness from his voice. ‘Yes, fine. Are you?’
‘Yes.’
She paused. ‘I’m glad we’re together.’
He blinked quickly, which made the tears dribble down his temples. ‘Me too.’
That was all that needed to be said. He rolled over to face the wall and counted the seconds to morning.
18
The Trial
They came for him early, before Naomi had awoken, passing silently down the darkened tunnel with no lanterns.
He did not recognise the voices that whispered to him from the shadows.
‘Come now, boy, it’s time.’
He felt amazingly calm as allowed himself to be led out of the cell, pausing in the tunnel while it was locked behind him.
Naomi’s cell was a sea of darkness. He touched the bars, at the place where she had pulled the bread through.
His legs only turned to water when they started leading him up the staircase. At the sight of the grey rectangle of dawn awaiting him at the top he shrank back, but one of the men was behind him, urging him on. He concentrated on lifting one foot and then the other, keeping his gaze fixed on the new boots they had given him to walk through the snow. They were too large: the dead man they had belonged to must have been a giant, and he felt like a child walking in his father’s shoes.
When they got outside he saw that the constables were good men, si
mple hard-working townsmen who didn’t like what they had been tasked with. They dawdled in the cold dawn light, scratching under their hats, discussing whether or not there was time to smoke a pipe. There wasn’t. With a sigh they led him around the side of the building towards the steps of the court.
The market square was empty but for the gallows. The rope hung straight down, utterly still. Barnaby’s chest tightened. The men must have heard his choked breaths because one of them hung back to walk beside him.
‘It may yet be all right, boy,’ he said gently. ‘You have Judge Godbold. The old man frees as many as he convicts.’
He nodded and tried to bring his breathing back under control. Naomi would win that particular fifty-fifty chance.
‘Your case is due to be heard first so you will know soon enough. Better that way. Better that it be done quick.’
Barnaby swallowed and nodded again.
The steps came into view. A small group of men waited at the top.
‘Here we are, son,’ the constable said. ‘Be brave, now. If you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.’
At this his colleague glanced at him and the man cleared his throat and looked away.
One of the figures on the steps was Abel. He wouldn’t catch Barnaby’s eye as he climbed. Another of the men said something to him and he answered in a high, brittle voice that sent a clutch of birds flying from a nearby roof.
The little knot of men paid Barnaby no attention as he passed. As if he was already dead.
The doors opened with blast of cold air that set Barnaby’s teeth chattering. The chattering carried on all the way down the corridor, gradually spreading to the rest of him, so that by the time they arrived outside the doors of the hall he was shivering violently. The constable went to announce his arrival and as he waited Barnaby forced himself to go through the routine his father had taught him all those years ago to overcome the terror of his nightmares. But no matter how hard he tried – stretching and loosening his muscles, breathing in-two-three-four, out-two-three-four – he could not stop himself trembling and panting like a dog.
He knew then that he would not make a brave end after all and his lip began to quiver as the constable returned to lead him into the hall.
The sight of the deaf boy stopped it at once.
If he had seen his parents first he would certainly have cried, but the sight of Luke sitting in the front row staring directly ahead was disconcerting enough to shake him out of his fear.
Had the boy come to gloat? It didn’t seem so. He would not even meet Barnaby’s eye and, as Barnaby passed him, his jaw clenched and his fingers tightened around a sheet of paper in his lap. Was this more evidence to damn him?
Henry and Frances were further along the front row, near the lectern behind which he would be standing. His father’s gaze burned into him for the entire duration of his passage up the hall. His mother looked down at her lap, but when he passed her she reached out and gripped his hand so tightly he almost stumbled.
‘My darling,’ she murmured.
She looked up and there was such emotion in her liquid brown eyes that his breath caught in his throat.
‘Mother,’ he said, his voice cracking, and this was the cue for the room to erupt.
The benches were filled with people he knew: tenants, workers at the Boar, his father’s business colleagues, Father Nicholas, Juliet’s family, the Hockets, the Slabbers, the Rawboods. There seemed to be an even split between those who wanted him freed and those who wanted him hanged. People he barely recognised spat curses and waved charms, the Hockets glared and muttered, a barman he had joked with during many drunken evenings threw a rotten turnip that struck his shoulder. Of all people it was Richard, for so long Barnaby’s mortal foe, who climbed over the benches and threw an ineffectual punch at the barman, starting a mini-brawl.
Griff and Flora were crying. The Waters family sat stiff and white-faced, and Naomi’s little brother, barely visible above the back of the bench in front, watched him with wide, fearful eyes. From somewhere Barnaby dredged up a smile and waggled his fingers. The boy’s fingers crept over the seat and waved back.
The furthest bench, directly opposite the lectern, was occupied by grim-faced strangers. This must be the jury. He tried to read their characters in their faces but apart from one middle-aged woman who crossed herself at the sight of him, they all looked like sober-minded towns-people.
He climbed the three steps of the lectern, to face the grand chair Abel had sat in the previous day. Seated there now was a man of about sixty: presumably Judge Godbold. He was fat, with heavy bulbous features and the purplish blotchiness of a drinker. His eyes were closed and Barnaby wondered how he could sleep through all the noise but then the man’s chest heaved in a sigh and he opened them.
‘Silence,’ he said.
Though he had not spoken loudly the single word seemed to penetrate every corner of the room and a hush descended.
‘Is this the prisoner?’
‘Barnaby Nightingale of Beltane Ridge, Sir,’ the constable said, ‘accused of witchcraft.’
The judge sighed again. ‘What age are you, boy?’
‘Sixteen,’ Barnaby said, relieved at the steadiness of his voice.
‘This is young for such a charge,’ the judge said. ‘Who is here to prosecute?
Abel stood up. ‘I, your honour.’
Godbold looked him up and down. ‘Very well, begin.’
First there was a report – this from the mayor – of all the misfortune that had befallen the town that past year: crop failures, sick animals and farm accidents, the strange deaths of infants and the elderly, the harsh winter that had killed even more. He spoke of the Widow Moone and how she had admitted her guilt in sending a familiar to kill the Hockets’ child.
‘And where is the widow?’ Judge Godbold said.
‘Dead, Sir.’
‘But we can assume she was telling the truth,’ Abel butted in from where he perched on the edge of the front bench. ‘She would have no reason to lie.’
‘Unless she had lost her reason,’ the judge said. ‘Go on, Mayor.’
‘The widow admitted that there had been a coven, and another suspect gave us the name of the accused.’
‘This other suspect? Where is she?’
‘Dead, Sir.’
The judge raised his eyes to the ceiling.
‘The accused tried to flee but was caught and questioned, and so now,’ the mayor continued quickly, as if in a hurry to be done, ‘I hand over to Master Abel Nightingale for his report on this interview and the subsequent searching and watching of the accused.’
‘Abel Nightingale?’ the judge said.
‘Yes, Sir,’ Abel said, standing up to his full height. ‘The accused is my brother. But I did not let this interfere with the exercising of my duty. The very soul of Beltane Ridge was at stake.’
He lifted his chin defiantly and there was a quiet hiss from the crowd.
The judge regarded him from beneath hooded lids. ‘How old are you, boy?’ he said.
‘Fifteen,’ Abel said. ‘But I am here on the authority of Matthew Hopkins himself.’
The judge winced at the name.
‘So, where is Hopkins?’
‘Gone to help others in their tribulation, Sir. He is most busy in these times of wickedness.’
‘Indeed,’ the judge said drily. ‘Proceed.’
Barnaby’s heart gave a little leap. Judge Godbold seemed a reasonable man and he didn’t seem to be impressed with what he had heard so far: perhaps if Barnaby insisted upon his innocence . . . but no. It was too much of a risk. According to the constable the judge still hanged half the witches he tried. He might release Barnaby and hang Naomi.
Abel’s gaze caught his and Barnaby gave an almost imperceptible nod.
Abel picked up a ream of papers from the floor and stood up.
‘I should now like to read my report of the questioning of the accused, which took place on the thirteenth
of December sixteen hundred and forty-six, led by the esteemed Matthew Hopkins with myself as deputy.’
The judge exhaled impatiently.
‘Mr Hopkins is accustomed to using the services of Grace and Marjorie Fowler, renowned experts in finding wounds where blood has been taken to sign the devil’s contract, and locating marks where familiars have supped. The accused displayed both of these.’
A ripple of shock passed through the room.
‘Are the women here?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Where were the marks?’
‘There was a scar on his belly where the blood was drawn, and beneath his hairline is a teat from which his familiars suckled.’
Seemingly unable to restrain himself any longer Henry leaped to his feet: ‘That’s a birthmark, you fool!’
‘Sit down!’ Godbold barked at him. ‘If you rise or speak again you will leave my courtroom. Now, let me see this mark.’
‘The hair has grown back,’ Abel said. ‘It will be hidden.’
The judge ignored him and beckoned Barnaby over. Barnaby stepped down from the lectern and walked across to the chair. Turning round he lifted his hair at the back of his neck. The chair creaked as the judge leaned forwards.
‘You won’t be able to see it properly, Sir . . .’ Abel said.
‘I can see it,’ Godbold said, then he gently pushed Barnaby away. ‘Show the jury.’
He went over to the bench and lifted his hair. They stood up and crowded in on him, their breaths hot on his neck. Somebody tutted. When they had sat down he walked back to the lectern.
Though he hadn’t been able to see the jurors’ expressions, his parents were now looking at one another with hope in their eyes.
But Abel was not so easily discouraged. His eyes narrowed.
‘These may seem like trivialities to some,’ he said, ‘though they are tried and tested methods for finding out witches and many have perished on such evidence alone, but in the case of the accused there is something not so easily dismissed.’
He glanced around at the crowd. It seemed as if he was starting to enjoy himself. ‘Let us talk about his beginnings.’
The Blood List Page 21