The Vanishing Witch

by Karen Maitland

  I called for the stable-boy, who was supposed to be minding the house, but he didn’t appear. The casements on the upper floor had been left wide open to cool the rooms. Suppose someone had climbed in. You heard tell of more robberies every day, and the thieves were getting bolder. The more I thought about it, the more afeared I was that we’d been robbed. I ran out to the street to find someone to help, but it was deserted. Most folk were either still in church or else lingering outside to gossip in the sunshine.

  I took the longest, sharpest knife from the kitchen and crept up to the door. It was still locked. If someone had broken in, they hadn’t left that way. I let myself into the great hall with the key on my waist chain and stood listening. The house was quiet. The only sound was the pigeons cooing sleepily on the roof and the aimless buzzing of a fly.

  I glanced around. I knew every inch of that hall for I’d swept and dusted it every day of my life since I was a girl. I could see at once that nothing was missing, not the pewter trenchers and beakers, nor the fine tapestry, which would have kept a dozen families fed and housed for a year. But the silver and jewels were upstairs, locked away in the chests. What if they had broken into those in search of rings or coins that were easier to conceal than goblets or great tapestries?

  I don’t make a habit of listening at doors, but I have learned that if you walk up the stairs placing your feet close to the wall, the boards don’t creak – I do it only so I don’t disturb the master when he’s sleeping. I inched my way up, my heart pounding and the knife gripped so tightly in my hand my fingers ached.

  The solar was empty. My heart began to slow a little as I examined the chests and found them still to be locked. I searched round. A few things had been moved. The silver candle-snuffer was not where I kept it, but Diot had probably left it somewhere else – she never put things back in their proper place.

  I sighed with relief. The ladder lying in the yard was only the stable-boy’s carelessness. Most likely one of his friends had coaxed him into a game of football. He’d sneak back before the family returned and pretend he’d been working all this while.

  Family! There was me playing hide-and-seek with imaginary thieves, when there was a dinner to be cooked. I could picture Diot’s smirk if they returned and nothing was ready. I took one last look round the solar and was about to run downstairs when I noticed the door to the ambry was ajar. It was where I put cold meats, cheese and pies in case Master Robert grew hungry in the night. Diot had left it open again, for all the flies in the city to crawl in.

  The ambry stood next to the wooden partition that separated the solar from the master’s bedchamber. As I went to close it, I happened to glance through the door of the bedchamber, which was also open a crack. By then I’d convinced myself the house was empty, so it gave me quite a fright to glimpse someone in there. Edward was standing in the master’s own bedchamber, as if his feet had taken root in the floor.

  ‘What are you doing in there?’ I demanded, flinging the door wide. ‘These are the master’s private . . . Blessed Virgin, save us!’ I staggered against the doorframe as I caught sight of what he was staring at.

  The chamber was full of feathers swirling up in the breeze from the casement. For a moment I couldn’t work out where they were coming from. Then I saw that the pillows and the embroidered cover on the bed had been slashed with a knife over and over again, as you might score a pig’s skin before roasting. But that wasn’t the worst thing. In the centre of the bed lay the skull of a seagull, with a wicked yellow beak. Two wax candles, with thorns pressed into them, were fixed upright in the sockets of the bird’s eyes. It was the most evil-looking thing I ever saw, the devil’s curse itself.

  Edward turned slowly to face me and only then did I see a knife in his hand. I screamed and backed out of the door. Edward stared stupidly at the knife he was holding, then flung it away from himself as if he had woken from a sleep to find himself clutching a viper.

  ‘I didn’t do it!’ he protested. ‘The knife was lying on the floor when I came in. I picked it up. I thought . . . I didn’t know. Not until I saw the bed. I’ve no idea who’s done this. I swear it, on my life.’

  He looked as pale and shaken as I felt and for a moment I almost believed him. ‘What are you doing in the house anyway?’ I demanded. ‘The mistress is out. Who let you in here?’

  ‘Saw a ladder propped against the casement. I thought my mother was being robbed. So I climbed in to try to stop the thief.’

  ‘This is Master Robert’s house,’ I said coldly. ‘If anyone was being robbed it was him. And the ladder was lying in the courtyard, not against the house.’

  ‘It slipped when I kicked against it to heave myself over the sill. I’m not well practised at breaking in.’

  ‘Robbers take things from houses. They don’t come calling with gifts of skulls and candles,’ I said, shielding my eyes with a hand. I was afeared that if I so much as glimpsed that thing again, I’d be infected with the curse of it.

  ‘And it’s a gift we must get out of here before my mother sees it,’ Edward said grimly. ‘Clear that mess up quickly. If the family returns I’ll keep them downstairs until you’ve got rid of it.’

  ‘Me? You’ll not get me touching that thing for all the gold in John of Gaunt’s palace. If you don’t want your precious mother to see it, it’s you who’ll have to clear it up, Master Edward.’

  He looked at me as if I’d told him to pick up dog shit. He took a step towards me and I thought he was going to hit me. But just then the outer courtyard door banged and we heard Diot yammering and Catlin’s laughter as they crossed the yard below. She’d not be laughing when she saw what awaited her upstairs. Neither would Master Robert when I told him.

  They’d said young Jan had all but killed himself, but I reckoned Master Robert was right: someone had a terrible grudge against this family. Whoever it was had surely murdered the poor lad and now they were coming after his father.

  Chapter 33

  At Andover in Hampshire, a ghost or demon pig appears at New Year, but is also seen whenever there is a violent thunderstorm.

  Lincoln

  Adam’s back was rigid as he trudged up the narrow lane to his house, trying not to let the pain show in his face. Sweat was trickling down his nose and his tunic clung to him, but he didn’t stop to draw breath. Two barefooted children were squabbling over a steaming pile of dog dung, each wanting to claim it for their pail: they would sell it to the tanners. Adam stepped around them and for a few minutes they forgot their prize, united in jeering and laughing at him for wearing a half-cloak in the heat.

  ‘Yer mam thinks you’ll catch cold, does she? Thinks her baby’ll get the sniffles.’

  Adam tried to ignore them. He should have been on his way to the warehouse. He’d get into more trouble about that when his father came home, but that prospect was some hours off yet and was but a pebble set against the towering heap of misery that was crushing him. He knew his humiliation would be a hundred times worse if he went down to the quayside.

  He hated going there. Fulk was a pig. When Robert was close by, he’d pretend concern, showing Adam how to check the loads coming in and going out and how to assess the quality of wool, fleeces and cloth. He would pat Adam’s back, saying what a keen eye the boy had and what a good head for reckoning. But as soon as his father had moved out of earshot, Fulk would sneer and mock him, deliberately giving him the wrong tally sticks, knowing they would never match, and jeering when he tried repeatedly to count the bales. Fulk would move the counting jetons on the chequerboard so that the additions and subtractions were wrong. He’d send Adam with messages to the men that would have them howling with laughter at his expense and once even locked him in the warehouse alone after dark, telling Robert, when he eventually came looking for his son, that he had deliberately hidden in there.

  Adam knew that Fulk despised his father as much as he did him. He’d heard him talking to some of the warehouse men about how they did all the work and had no
thing but chaff to show for it, while men like Robert lived like a king off their sweat and aching backs. But Fulk dared say nothing to Robert’s face so he made sure his son suffered for it.

  Tears burned in Adam’s eyes and he scrubbed them angrily away with his sleeve. Fulk would never have dared to torment him if Jan was still steward. His brother would have thrashed Fulk and dismissed him, but Jan was dead, murdered by those Florentines. He missed him even more than he missed his mother.

  Adam knew what would happen if he went to the warehouse today. It was stiflingly hot and the stinking stacks of fleeces would make it suffocating inside. The paggers would be stripped to the waist and Fulk would be working in his short sleeveless tunic. Even on a freezing winter’s day, Adam would have been jeered at for wearing a cloak in the warehouse. On a day as hot as this, they’d most likely have ripped it off him. And then they would have seen the blood on the back of his tunic. They’d know what had been done to him. He felt sick at the thought. If he could just get home and wash his tunic without anyone seeing . . .

  He edged into the stableyard. It was deserted. One of his father’s horses was tethered at the far end of the stables, dozing in the heat. But there was no sign of either Tenney or the stable-boy. He tiptoed across the yard, keeping close to the house wall so that he couldn’t be seen from the windows, and peered cautiously through the open door of the kitchen, a small stone building to one side of the yard. Beata wasn’t in there. She usually was, these days, even when there was no cooking to be done.

  She slept there some nights too, saying she’d rather be with the mice than the hog. He knew she meant Diot who, she complained, snored so loudly, it was like sleeping in the bell tower of the cathedral on a feast day. Adam had heard her telling Tenney that she couldn’t be in the same room with that slattern without wanting to brain her with a pan, and begging him to stop her if he ever saw her near Diot with a knife in her hands: the temptation would be too great for even a saint to bear.

  Adam heard laughter coming from the open casement in the house. Diot was inside with Leonia, and as the voices drifted out on the hot, still air, he thought he heard Catlin’s laughter too. He always thought of her as Catlin. He was supposed to call her ‘Mother’ now, but usually he tried to avoid calling her anything.

  He couldn’t go in. They’d want to know why he’d come straight home from school and not gone to the warehouse. If he said he was sick, Catlin and Diot would insist on putting him to bed and then they would see the tunic. He couldn’t bear them to know, especially Leonia. That would only add to his shame. And Catlin was bound to tell his father.

  He slipped into the stables and crouched behind the partition. He could go to the river, but it would be crowded with boats. Suppose one of his father’s men saw him or the boys from school. Some, like him, had to help in their parents’ shops or businesses after school, but many would be swimming on a day like this.

  Then he noticed the pail of water at the far end of the stable for when his father came home. He always insisted the water for the horses be drawn early and left to stand, so any horse still hot from being ridden wouldn’t get colic by drinking it ice-cold from the well.

  Adam unfastened his cloak and sighed with relief to be rid of the weight. Then he tried to remove his tunic, but the blood on it had dried, gluing the cloth to the wounds on his back. He groaned as he tried to peel it off, but realised he would only start the bleeding afresh if he persisted. He crossed to the bucket and began dabbing water with his fingers onto the small of his back, hoping to soak the cloth free. But it was awkward to reach and every backwards movement of his arm made the stiffening lacerations smart afresh.

  The boy he’d punched was Henry de Sutton, an arrogant, spiteful child, who never ceased reminding his schoolfellows that John of Gaunt himself was his father’s patron. Even the schoolmaster toadied up to him because of it. His father had had John’s crest installed on their fine stone house, proclaiming to all the world that the King’s uncle was their protector. And there was no more powerful man in the country than John of Gaunt, as Henry was forever telling everyone. He was even hereditary constable of the great Lincoln Castle which – according to Henry – meant the whole city practically belonged to him.

  Adam and Henry had never been friends. Henry was lazy and stupid, but he always got away with it because there was no shortage of boys willing to copy his lessons for him, in the hope of being admitted to the privileged role of friend. Unfortunately for Adam, the boy whom Henry usually picked on to do his Latin preparation had not come to school that morning so Henry, knowing Adam was a good Latin scholar, demanded that he hand over the parchment he had so painstakingly written. Adam refused so Henry had tried to snatch it from him, tearing it in two and taunting Adam with the half he’d managed to grab.

  Adam had never before got into a fight. His anger always turned in on himself. He’d hide and beat his fists against a wall in frustration rather than against another boy’s head. And even under this provocation, he would probably have turned away had not Henry begun to taunt him about Jan.

  ‘My father says your brother was so drunk he tripped over his own feet and fell into the Braytheforde.’ Henry crossed his eyes, lolled out his tongue and made a grotesque mummery of a drunkard staggering. The other boys standing around him howled with laughter. ‘Jan, Jan, drunken man. Couldn’t piss straight in a pickling pan.’ Henry lurched about, pretending to grasp hold of his own prick, while the grinning boys took up the chant.

  Without thinking what he was doing, Adam launched himself at Henry. The boy, assuming that no one, especially not that little squab, would dare to attack him, was caught unawares and, more by luck than skill, Adam’s flailing fist caught Henry squarely on the nose. The blow sent him tumbling backwards, scarlet blood gushing down his face. Adam did not follow up the attack. He stood there, more stunned by what he’d done than Henry was by his assault.

  Before either boy could say anything, a hand grabbed Adam’s ear and he found himself staring up into the furious countenance of his schoolmaster. ‘Well, boy,’ he thundered, as Henry’s friends helped him to his feet, ‘why did you attack Master Henry? And don’t dare lie to me and say he struck the first blow. I could see you both from the casement and it was plain to me Master Henry had done nothing to warrant such a punch. To attack someone without provocation is the act of a cur and a coward. I’m waiting! What is your explanation?’

  He pinched Adam’s ear so hard it brought tears to his eyes, but before he could even utter a word, Henry stepped forward, holding out the torn parchment covered with his blood. ‘Please, sir,’ he said thickly, ‘Adam tried to steal my Latin copy from me, and when it ripped, he lost his temper.’

  ‘No, it was—’ But Adam was not given a chance to finish.

  ‘Is that what happened?’ the master demanded, turning to the boys gathered round. A few shuffled their feet and studied the ground, but Henry’s friends nodded vigorously.

  Adam was forced to strip in front of the whole school. He was given three times the usual number of strokes of the birch for he had, or so the master roared, committed not one but three heinous crimes: failing to do his Latin copy, attempting to steal that of another boy and carrying out a vicious and unprovoked attack on a fellow pupil.

  Adam had rarely given anyone cause to punish him, let alone birch him. He was completely unprepared for the searing pain and humiliation. Henry, after he’d had the satisfaction of witnessing the flogging, was sent home to nurse his injured nose, but Adam was not permitted to run away and cry. He was forced to sit the whole day at the front of the school wearing the fool’s cap, as his cuts and welts burned and throbbed, Henry’s friends grinning and pulling faces at him each time the master’s back was turned.

  His eyes screwed up in pain, Adam pulled the sodden tunic over his head and plunged it into the horse’s drinking pail. Blood ran out, staining the water red, yet when he pulled it out there still seemed to be as much dried blood on it as before and, if any
thing, the wetting had only made it spread. He put it back into the water, rubbing it clumsily.

  ‘You’ll never get it out dabbing at it like that.’

  He spun round, wincing as he did so. Leonia was standing by the horse stroking his nose. Adam stood up, backing away into the corner. Leonia came over and peered into the bucket. Wrinkling her nose, she plucked a corner of the tunic between her thumb and forefinger, and inspected it before dropping it back into the water. ‘Dried in. You’ll need to soak it, then scrub it to get it out.’

  ‘Go away,’ Adam said. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘And how are you going to dry it? Take ages if you can’t put it out in the sun.’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Adam muttered, through clenched teeth.

  But Leonia didn’t move. ‘Want me to fetch you a clean tunic? I can do it without them seeing and we can bury this one. If they notice it’s missing, Beata’ll blame Diot for losing it and Diot’ll blame Beata. They’ll argue about it for weeks.’ She smiled, as if the prospect amused her. ‘Well, do you want me to fetch a tunic or not?’

  Adam hesitated. ‘Are you going to tell . . .?’

  ‘Why should I? There’s lots of things I don’t tell.’ She smiled again. ‘I’ll be back as quickly as I can. Bury that tunic under the straw in the corner. The stable-boy never mucks out properly, not to the edges. If they find it before the mice eat it, it’ll be so filthy they’ll think it’s just an old rag.’

  Using the rake to scrape back the soiled straw down to the beaten-earth floor below, Adam threw the sodden tunic into the hole, then heaped the straw back over it. He’d only just finished when Leonia slipped back inside and brought out a folded tunic from under her skirts. He held out his hands for it, but she shook her head.