by Syd Moore
I was looping through the Middle Ages section when Felix found me, lingering on an ornate hair clasp. Woven into its design was a cluster of butterflies and moths. One of them had been darkened by some kind of chemical technique to accentuate the pattern.
‘The moth and the butterfly were Japanese symbols of the soul,’ read the accompanying text. A vision of Beryl Bennett’s mouth flashed up. But it was gone in the next instant when Felix began to speak.
He was full of the ‘bone pipe’, and told me how he had signed an ‘entry form’ and would be contacted once they’d identified it and had been able to assess its historical
significance.
‘My object,’ he repeated, chin jutting out with pride. (God, he’d taken ownership of the thing.) ‘That’s what they called it. It will be returned to me. Unless of course, I want to donate it to the museum, if it’s of any historical significance.’
‘You shouldn’t have it back,’ I said. Another shudder went through me.
‘Why ever not?’ he asked. ‘Could be old. Roman even. A little bit of our ancestors’ empire. I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t want it.’
‘Just makes me feel odd,’ I told him, expecting him to disagree or make some joke, but he nodded.
‘It’s quite an odd sort of thing,’ he said. ‘Can’t say I like it. But certain collectors may. Don’t you think it’s intriguing? If I sell it on, you can take a cut. If you hadn’t fallen I never would have found it.’
It was generous of him but I declined. ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with it. It’s yours.’
‘Spoken like a historian of witches!’ he said and winked one ironic eye.
‘It’s not that,’ I said, but it was.
‘Well, then I’ll lay claim. If you don’t mind. You don’t, do you?’ His voice was casual. I could see him in the reflection of the glass cabinet in front of me. He glanced at me from under a tuft of fringe, one hand thrust deep in his pocket, but the other reaching up nervously to scratch the back of his head. He wanted it. A lot.
‘No, it’s fine,’ I told him.
‘Fantastic,’ he said with far too much zeal.
I didn’t know how to respond so I just went, ‘Mmm.’ And he didn’t come back with anything.
A dismal sort of anti-climax trickled down over us.
Felix shrugged and offered me his arm. I threaded mine through his and thus we continued to work our way through the sections. We both tried to be bright, with quips here and there, but there was a crookedness about us that we just couldn’t shift. It felt like we were still carrying the bone pipe with us.
Despite Felix’s wit and charming company I found myself becoming nervy. As we turned a corner into the Middle Ages I came face to face with a weary-looking dummy in the stocks and screamed to high heaven. Felix thought it was hilarious and insisted on taking a photo of me next to the display. I tried to laugh it off but my chortle was fake; tension in my shoulders had forced them so far up that they were touching the bottoms of my earrings.
We were nearing the prison.
The castle, I was fully aware, was where the accused witches were transported after they had been tortured and confessed. In fact, most of the building was used as a gaol during that period.
Certainly it was here that he conducted further interrogations and here that many of them perished before trial.
It wasn’t difficult to see why.
The dungeons felt subterranean. I wasn’t sure if they were, as there was virtually no natural light. An artificial yellow haze amplified the sinister atmosphere.
We stepped down into an antechamber, which formed the entrance to the cells. It was full of information boards about torture and crime, with some interactive pieces for kids, attempting on one hand to be educational and bright, and on the other to thrill and horrify with grimly salacious details.
On one side of the wall was a feature about the Witchfinder General and the women he had sent to this place. A paragraph mentioned young Rebecca West who was indicted in March 1645. Another sentence told of how, in their village, the Wests were thought of as ‘saintly’, pious and devoted to God. Rebecca was only fifteen at the time. The plaque detailed that on the 18th of April she was interrogated alone by Hopkins. One could only wonder what happened to her when the Witchfinder took her from the communal prison into some other godforsaken part of the gaol.
Whatever occurred, Hopkins managed to bring about a heart-breaking betrayal: Rebecca West turned on her own mother.
How awful for them both, I thought. To be suckered into that trumped-up charge. It was almost like becoming an accomplice to an act of mass murder. And for the daughter it was matricide.
Some writers speculated that Hopkins may have developed a relationship with Rebecca West – she was at the time only eight or nine years his junior and probably the prettiest of the witches. If there was a sexual element motivating his persecution of the women, I shuddered to think of what she must have gone through, all alone with the Witchfinder.
Separated from those she knew, locked up in some dark corner of the castle with that man, Rebecca confessed she had joined a satanic coven on her mother’s insistence. But unlike so many of the witches’ hallucinatory declarations, this wasn’t an orgiastic witch group. No, Rebecca’s testimony began in a fluffy, teenage manner – a whimsical fantasy in which she kissed and cuddled the witches’ imps, which, funnily enough, appeared in the form of adorable kittens.
After she had pledged allegiance to the Devil, he popped up in the form of a little black dog and jumped playfully onto her lap. So, as most teenage girls would, Rebecca stroked and petted it.
Hopkins must have been so frustrated to hear of such an innocent encounter with the demonic. So on he went, drawing out more.
A fifteen-year-old pauper, isolated from her mother, questioned by a higher-ranking gentleman, frightened, alone, damned; either Rebecca’s instinct for survival kicked in or perhaps she was tortured into confessing or Hopkins’ authority induced her to please him. Whatever occurred in that interview, something changed in the girl and soon her tale took on a more sensational tone as the Witchfinder retold her confession: that night however the ‘Divel’ came to her in the form of a handsome young man and pledged to marry her. When asked by the worked-up inquisitor if she had had carnal copulation with the Devil, Rebecca admitted she had. He must have wet himself. It was just what he needed.
In her later trial Rebecca told the court, amidst heckles and jeers, that she was asked ‘divers questions by a Gentleman that did speake severall times with her before and afterward (giving her godly and comfortable instructions) she affirmed that so soone as one of the said Witches was in prison, she was very desirous to confess all she knew, which accordingly she did’.
She, surely, could not have recovered from her treachery? It would have been too great a burden to bear. Like most of the women, no one knew what happened to her after the trial. Only that she was freed.
And her mother? One can only speculate what she felt. To see her daughter turn against her like that must have been more devastating than the torture she endured. Or perhaps she was prepared to sacrifice herself to see her daughter escape the noose?
I jotted down some of the details with a sigh.
The cell in which Rebecca and the witches had been held first was in front of me, through a low, arched doorway fastened with a heavy wooden door. It was wedged open with a block of wood. An iron grid was embedded at head height. I touched its metal and chilled. Part of the flaking wood detached itself and fluttered up past my face to one of the display lights. I retracted my hand immediately.
‘You all right?’ Felix had seen me shiver.
I looked again at the flake skittering about the light bulb. ‘Just another moth. Creepy.’
‘Where?’ he said, following my sightline.
I pointed to where it had been but it had merged into the metallic support beneath the bulb.
I shrugged. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit jumpy.
’
‘You’re bound to feel sensitive, given your research.’
I smiled, gratefully, pleased that he was here and stepped over the threshold.
The whitewashed room was three metres square with a fireplace near the door. This was the gaoler’s quarters.
In the corner opposite stood a small wooden cupboard. A man in his forties was explaining to his son that this was where they put you if you were too ‘loud and naughty’. His son stared at it a moment then tugged on his dad’s sleeve and asked to leave. I knew what he meant. It was nasty down here.
To the north and east side of the gaol were the cells: one for men, one for women. These were large windowless rooms, separated from the main room by a thick wooden wall. Like the door, they had metal grilles fastened across a small window. But for a slit high on a slanted wall, the grilles would have let in the only other light, and even that would have been the weak glow of the fireplace or the gaoler’s candles. The atmosphere was morbid: the air stifled by dust and our appalled gasps.
A disembodied recording told us that the occupants, despite their forced incarceration, had to pay the gaoler a penny a day for their food and water or else simply go without.
Being here really brought it home. My heart heaved with compassion for those doomed wretches. Before the July Assize of 1645 there were over twenty-nine of them in here, old, infirm or poor. They would have been shackled to the wall. Never allowed out, not even to wash or piss or shit, rats slithering between their manacled limbs, biting and nibbling at those comatose or in brief fits of sleep. Or dead. Not to mention how they dealt with periods. The stench of it all must have been awful. It was a small wonder that only four died before they made it to trial. A lot of them were kept down here for nearly four months, until they were forced out into carts and transported to Chelmsford to stand in the dock, filthy and malnourished. The spectators would have been full of hate, the magistrates and clerics repulsed by the accused’s ravaged and wasted appearance.
And the women? They must have at least been utterly bewildered. And so frightened. Perhaps knowing that the next step from the dock was to their death. What they must have gone through.
They all pleaded ‘not guilty’ but justice did not come for them.
‘Hello?’ Felix’s voice broke through my thoughts.
I turned around to find him speaking into his mobile: ‘Hang on,’ he said then mouthed at me, ‘Got to take this call.’ He pointed upstairs. ‘Back in a sec. That okay?’
Eek. I didn’t really want to be left alone down here, but what could I do? Tell him I was a pussy and ask him to hold my hand?
Not my style. I squeezed out a bright grin.
Felix gave me a thumbs up and marched out of the gaol.
I was alone.
There was, of course, nothing to worry about, I reassured myself. Thousands of tourists passed through these cells every year. Nothing untoward happened.
I straightened my shoulders and stepped over to inspect the other cell. It was only slightly wider than the first and smelled rank. Curious dark patches stained the lower half of the walls. ‘Don’t even go there,’ I told myself firmly. In a place like this it was important for a reporter to keep their imagination under control.
The documentary soundtrack came to an end. The few school kids that had been squealing in the antechamber had gone now, having exhausted all the interactive buttons. But for the sound of my breathing, the silence was unbroken.
I peeped through one of the metal grilles at the cruel i
nterior beyond. Dingy and damp. The cell was so small, barely four and a half metres square. I could imagine the moans and pleas falling on the merciless ears of the gaoler, who, I had read, liked to beat those that cried out too loudly. The corners were particularly dark. That’s where they crawled to die.
I was beginning to feel a little claustrophobic, so decided to head for the exit. That was enough for now. I had a sense of what it was like to be here and a few extra details for my research. I could meet Felix upstairs.
I fumbled with my bag, opening the flap to replace my notebook.
A loud clattering bang echoed about the room.
Looking up I saw, in the entrance arch, the heavy wooden door had slammed shut, leaving me locked inside the gaol.
For a moment I stood still, hesitating. Perhaps I should phone upstairs to reception? One glance at my mobile told me there was no signal in here. Bugger.
So instead I took a wavering step towards the doorway then stopped: something rustled in the straw of the cell behind me.
Surely a mouse. This was a dungeon. In a castle. Of course they had mice. And rats probably too.
Nevertheless, the thin stretch of hairs on the back of my neck prickled to attention.
The unseen thing rustled again. Though this was less of a rustle as such – more like the lurching sound of something heavy dragged across the dungeon floor.
Although I didn’t want to, I felt a compulsion to turn my head in its direction. So, slowly, feeling like I was trapped in some kind of surreal horror film, I moved my shoulders and body to face the sound. It was coming from the furthest corner of the cell, where the dying were chained.
I couldn’t see through the grid, so took a step forward.
The rustling receded and stopped.
I stopped too. And strained my ears.
Nothing.
Twenty seconds passed as I held my breath and listened.
Nothing.
Whatever was there it had shuffled off into the gloom.
I was just about to go back again and try the door handle when I heard another noise. This time I froze.
At first I thought it was a hiccup, but it repeated itself; a high, faltering sound. Quiet but clear.
A sob.
A woman’s sob.
To convey the fragility of the noise and the emotion it was steeped in, to describe it fully is impossible. All I can say is that it was like a whimper quivering with endless misery, the sound of utter dejection.
And it was coming from the corner of the cell.
The lower portion of my throat made a muffled squeaking noise, like the surprised yelp of a wounded dog.
‘Get a grip, Mercedes, it’s the recording. It’s started again but with effects.’ I said it out loud. My voice was reassuring: it was real, a product of cause and effect, the words vibrating on my vocal cords and then issuing into the air.
But then another voice reverberated through the cell. ‘Are you there?’
I was fixed to the spot.
No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. Not here. Not now. This wasn’t real.
I was imagining it. It was some kind of aural projection.
Then it came again. ‘I can hear you.’ Fragile, young, female. ‘I’m sorry.’
I clapped a hand over my mouth and for a moment the bang bang of my heart overwhelmed all other senses. I took a gulp of air through my fingers and was filled with an intolerable stink: sulphuric, stagnant, death-bringing.
But still the sobbing went on: ‘Mercy.’
Then another voice cut through, louder. A kind of throaty gurgle. Far more horrible than the one before. Nasty, ill, wheezing.
My breath was coming in quick pants. Beads of sweat ran down the sides of my face.
Then the dark voice came again, harsh, full of bass and resonance: ‘Leave us.’
As I recoiled from the awful sound a dark horrid sensation came up from my stomach. A tense, knotted emotion – displeasure, fear, repugnance, disgust, horror – all of that, all at once, rising up from my very soul like the spasm of an unflexed muscle or a memory, long-forgotten.
Something in the prison made a creaking sound and suddenly very real terror was upon me.
There was a footfall in the cell.
Fear spilled over and I thrust out my hand, ready to defend myself, reflexively rotating my head to the sound, tensing myself for a fight. Through the cell window I was just able to see a glimpse of something that looked
like a stained sack moving against the far wall.
And then the lights went out.
Something screamed from within the gaol. It could have been me. I don’t know. But it triggered a charge of chemicals that flooded my body, commanding my limbs now to flight. I raced over to where I hoped the door would be and met the cold, hard curve of the fireplace. My hands, shaking up to the elbow, felt along the wall, as I sidestepped, crablike, until I reached the wood of the door. My breathing was becoming fitful, the air harder to take down into my tense closed lungs, whilst all the time that awful scratching, lurching sound was getting closer and closer. Heart hammering right up against my ribs, trying also to escape its cage, I pounded on the wooden planks, a dreadful uncontrollable hysteria overtaking me.
‘Help me. Let me out,’ I howled through the grid.
I can’t be sure as I recollect now, as at that point the light of consciousness was dimming, but I thought something touched me on the leg.
There was an icy blast on the back of my neck, and then nothing as I blacked out.
When I came round I was in the antechamber. Felix and one of the staff we’d seen earlier had me propped up against the wall. The attendant was holding a glass out and urged me to drink.
I squinted at them and straightened my body. My brain was still wonky, thoughts random, scattered about by the overload and consequential shutdown.
What had happened there? The door had closed, then I’d heard a man’s voice, then – what? I couldn’t remember.
The officer held out a hanky. I took it and dabbed my face. I was still hot.
‘I’m sorry about that, dear,’ she said. Her face had a worried look, Health and Safety rules probably fleeting across her official brain. ‘Must have given you a fright. Bloody kids, they do that all the time. Usually to each other, though.’
Felix was standing above me with his hands on his hips, his expression half bemused, half concerned, like he was struggling with which one to go with. ‘I think you fainted. Do you usually faint?’
I shook my head, too confused to talk, glad to be out of the room, but not totally reassured. I could see the cells opposite. Danger still clung to the air around me.