The Vanishing Witch

by Karen Maitland

  ‘Let me look at your back first.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Don’t be silly, I know you’ve been whipped. Marks are all round your sides. I only want to see if they’ve stopped bleeding. If they haven’t you’ll just spoil another tunic.’

  He felt his face grow hot with shame, as he saw again the faces of the laughing boys.

  Leonia shrugged. ‘All right, I won’t look, but wrap this round yourself first, so you don’t bleed on the clean tunic.’

  She unfolded the tunic. Inside was a long strip of linen, which she handed to him. He tried to wrap it around himself, but the welts and cuts made the twisting and turning needed impossible and, besides, his hands were too clumsy to wrap the linen smoothly. In the end he was forced to let her help him. He expected her to wince and murmur when she saw the welts on his back, as his mother and Beata had always done when dressing a cut finger or a bruised knee. But she said nothing.

  ‘There’s lots of dry blood on your breeches too, but the tunic’ll hide it till you can change them. You’d better bury them too when you do.’

  She handed him the tunic. It was warm and he blushed as he pulled it on, knowing that it had been next to her bare skin. She crossed to the barrel that held the oats for the horses’ feed, swung herself onto it and sat there, her legs dangling. The sunlight, streaming over the top of the partition, haloed her black curly hair, making it gleam. Adam noticed it wasn’t really black at all in the light. It was almost purple, like ripe plums.

  ‘Schoolmaster do that to you?’ she asked casually.

  ‘What if he did?’ Adam snapped.

  ‘What did you do to make him so angry?’

  Adam’s gaze dropped at once to the floor and he crouched, picking up a piece of straw and twisting it round his fingers. ‘Nothing. I punched a boy.’

  ‘Bet he deserved it. Did your master beat him too?’

  ‘No, he didn’t!’ Adam said furiously. ‘He’s Henry de Sutton. His father has John of Gaunt as a patron. Henry could burn the whole school down and they’d pat him on the head and say it was mischief.’

  ‘Who do you hate most? Henry or your master?’

  Adam stared miserably at the piece of straw he was twisting in his fingers.

  ‘I think we should punish the master first,’ Leonia said. ‘He’s most to blame, because he’s an adult. They have to be punished the hardest.’

  ‘Can’t punish masters or any adults,’ Adam said. ‘But I wish I could. I’d make him smart!’ For a moment, a wonderful image came into his head of his master lying bare-arsed over the whipping bench. He could hear him howling for mercy, as the birch descended over and over again. Even shitting himself, maybe. He’d known small boys do that in their terror.

  ‘Then let’s do it.’

  Adam snorted. ‘Don’t be daft. We couldn’t whip him. Can you imagine what he’d do if we asked him to drop his breeches?’

  ‘We don’t have to ask him,’ Leonia said. She slid off the barrel and picked up a handful of straw. ‘Find me some long pieces. These are too short.’

  He didn’t really know why he did as she asked, except that it didn’t occur to him to say no. He searched through handfuls of straw, handing her the longest as he found them. She carefully laid them side by side on top of the barrel. He hunted for the straw for a long time yet he wasn’t bored. If anything, he was enjoying being alone with her. If he found an extra-long piece, she nodded her approval and he found himself wanting to make her smile. Curiously, in spite of his pain, he felt happier than he had since the day his mother had fallen ill.

  ‘Will this do?’ She held something up in the light. She’d folded the clump of straw in two, twisting a piece round the neck to make a head. Another twist held the torso together at the bottom. Then she’d divided the ends of the straw into two plaits, which made the legs. A twist of straw poked horizontally through the body formed a pair of crude arms. As a final touch she poked two little burrs into the face to make eyes. But no mouth. She hadn’t given it a mouth.

  ‘You’ve made a silly poppet to play with.’

  There was no disguising the disgust in Adam’s voice. She was laughing at him, like all the others. He was on the point of running out of the stable, but she moved swiftly in front of him, blocking his way. She held up the doll again. ‘This poppet is called Master . . . What’s your schoolmaster’s name?’

  ‘Warner,’ Adam said sullenly.

  ‘Master Warner,’ Leonia repeated slowly. ‘We must baptise him properly if he is to have a name.’ She carried the poppet over to the pail of bloody water. ‘Come here. You shall be the priest.’ She held out the doll to him and Adam found himself taking it from her. He held it awkwardly, sure she was mocking him, but uncertain what she meant to do.

  ‘Go on, Adam, dip the poppet into the water three times, right under. Then say his name. Say, “I name you Master Warner.”’

  Adam plunged the straw figure into the bloody water. ‘Master Warner,’ he mumbled.

  ‘No, you must say “I name you” or it won’t work.’

  Adam felt utterly foolish, but sensed she would not stop tormenting him until he repeated the words exactly as she’d instructed.

  The first time he said it was almost under his breath, but by the third time he found he was laughing. For some reason he could never have explained, he was suddenly elated, as if he really was ducking old Warner himself under the water.

  Leonia was laughing too. When he’d finished, she tipped the scarlet water away in the corner. ‘Don’t want anyone finding that and asking questions.’

  Adam gazed at her with admiration. He’d never have remembered to do it. She took the wet poppet from him and placed it on the top of an oat barrel, standing the little straw manikin upright so that a little puddle of bloody water pooled at its tiny straw feet.

  ‘Now, Master Warner, how shall we punish you?’

  ‘We could hang him,’ Adam said eagerly, entering into the game. He was already casting about for a piece of cord.

  ‘He’ll die in time, but you don’t want to kill him yet. That’s too quick. You want to hurt him first.’ Leonia searched the stable floor, scattering the straw with her shoe, then pounced on something. ‘I knew there’d be one somewhere.’

  It was an old iron horseshoe nail, bent and rusty. It had evidently lain in the straw for some time. Leonia was right: the stable-boy didn’t make a good job of mucking out. She handed the nail to Adam. ‘Choose where you want to stab him. Not in the heart, though.’

  Adam glanced up, aware that it was growing dark. The air was still as hot as Beata’s baking oven, but thick clouds were rolling in, obliterating the sun. Leonia’s eyes were glittering in the strange sulphurous half-light and he felt uneasy. It was as if she really believed they could kill old Warner. ‘I think it’s going to rain. We should go in before we’re missed.’

  ‘No!’ Leonia was not smiling. ‘Adam, remember what he did to you. Think about what it felt like when you were lying there as he flogged you. Think about how much he hurt you when you’d done nothing. You have to go to school tomorrow and they all saw you being whipped. They all know. What do you want to do to him now?’

  Blood rushed into Adam’s cheeks as he relived being forced to take down his breeches in front of the whole school, being made to lie across that bench, shaking as he waited for the first blow to fall and the next and the next, biting his hand so he wouldn’t disgrace himself and cry. Warner hadn’t let him explain. He should have listened. He should have listened!

  Seizing the nail in his clenched fist, he threw the poppet face down on the barrel. He raised the nail as high as he could, then plunged it into Warner’s buttocks, his legs, his arms, his back. It was not the straw he was stabbing, but flesh – flesh that could hurt and flesh that could bleed. Adam stabbed again and again, until he was exhausted.

  Somewhere in the distance he heard the long, slow rumble of thunder.

  Chapter 34

  A cat’s heart or a frog,
pierced with pins then dried and hung in a house, is a remedy against witches.

  Lincoln

  One of the delights of being dead is watching men and women torment themselves over the petty irritations of life – the bread that won’t rise, the horse that’s gone lame, the pots that crack in the firing, the shopkeeper who passes them a bad coin. It takes but a handful of these mischiefs to make a man fancy he is having a bad day or even year. And all the while their eyes are fixed on their broken shoelace, they don’t notice the great mountain teetering above them, ready to crash down on their heads.

  But that sweet child, Leonia, had learned long ago never to fret about what annoyed her. She simply resolved to remove the source of the irritation when the time was right. In consequence, her sleep was never troubled by the puny coughing of a mouse, unlike the rest of the household, whose days and nights were constantly troubled by the pitter-patter of their own thoughts and the gnawing of their own imaginations.

  It was Tuesday evening when Robert finally returned from Wainfleet, tired, dusty and decidedly irritable from the long ride. His business had, he supposed, gone tolerably well, for he would never allow another man to get the better of him in a deal, but he’d been anxious to reach home before dark. You increasingly heard tales of travellers being attacked by gangs of robbers who, relying on numbers, didn’t even bother to conceal their faces, but simply swarmed out from the trees or rushes and overwhelmed their victims, beating them half to death even after they had surrendered their valuables.

  After Jan’s death, Robert found himself him more nervous than he’d ever been previously. If a fit young man, who was skilled at defending himself, could be overpowered, then anyone could be struck down. Robert was painfully conscious that his sagging body was ageing and was no longer as quick or agile as once it had been.

  He still could not believe that a lad with so much life in him should be rotting in his grave. It happened, of course, to countless others, but not to his own son. He refused to accept it had been a foolish accident. He didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t want others to believe it either. He couldn’t bear the thought of half the city gossiping that he had raised a drunk and a wastrel. Even as he grieved for his son, he found himself seething with rage against him. If the lad hadn’t been so stubborn, he would have been safely enjoying a supper with his family that night, instead of wandering round the Braytheforde putting himself in mortal danger.

  Robert had not stopped at any of the inns on his way home. He’d eaten a few roasted snails and some dried meat as he rode, which had only served to give him a thirst and his leather bottle of ale had been drained to the last sour drop long before he reached the city gate. He’d been eagerly anticipating a quiet meal with his new bride, just the two of them, Catlin pouring him a goblet of hippocras, massaging his temples and asking with soothing concern about his arduous journey. In consequence, he found himself unreasonably annoyed by the sight of his family sitting at the table in his great hall, finishing the last of their meal.

  Why had Catlin not waited for him before dining? Edith always had for, as she used to say, it was what a dutiful wife should do. Now he’d be forced to eat alone from pies already cut and meats that been cooked too long. No one could have known the hour of his arrival, or even the day on which he was returning but, angry, he dismissed that.

  The moment the door opened, Leonia ran to him and flung her arms about him, pressing her face into his chest. He ran his fingers through her long silky curls, and kissed the top of her head. He was gratified by her delight, but it emphasised his new wife’s failure to come running the moment she had heard his horse in the yard. Indeed, he doubted she had heard it at all for as he entered he’d seen Catlin’s head inclined towards a young man, so engrossed in conversation, that the house might have burned down around them and they wouldn’t have noticed.

  The man was three-quarters turned away from the door and Robert’s heart gave a little jolt. For a moment he believed it was Jan, sitting in the chair he had always occupied since he was a little boy. But instantly the image of his son vanished like a wraith at cockcrow to be replaced with the face of Catlin’s son, Edward.

  Catlin rose and came towards him. ‘Robert, you’re home. We didn’t expect you until tomorrow at the earliest.’

  ‘Evidently,’ he snapped.

  Catlin seemed not to notice the curtness in his tone, or his stiffness as he received, but did not return, her tender kiss. ‘I hope your business was concluded well, my sweeting.’

  ‘Well enough.’ Robert strode to the laver set ready in the corner and washed his hands in the bowl of rose-scented water, splashing some over his face. Beata, who could move faster than Diot, handed him a clean linen napkin to dry his hands, smiling triumphantly at the tiny victory over her rival. Catlin poured her husband some wine, handing it to him as gracefully as a virginal bride on her wedding day, but he offered no thanks to either woman. Beata was used to that, but a frown creased Catlin’s brow.

  Robert strode to the head of the table, still clutching his goblet of wine and flopped into the great carved chair. The wooden joints groaned under his weight. Edward rose and made a courteous enough bow, but Robert was indignant that he resumed his seat without waiting for the master of the house to give him leave, as if he thought he was more than a guest. Robert hadn’t agreed to Catlin’s son taking up residence in his house.

  Adam and Leonia glanced at one another. Leonia’s eyes were glittering with excitement. The boy sensed she knew some secret, but wasn’t going to tell, not yet. He was quickly learning that Leonia enjoyed playing a watching game. He hugged himself in a thrill of anticipation.

  Robert helped himself to a large portion of veal pie and ate in silence for a while. Then he turned to Edward.

  ‘I’m surprised to find you here, Master Edward. I’d thought that since you no longer had to care for your mother and sister you’d be eager to seek your own way in the world, perhaps returning to your father’s kin. That is customary for a son.’ Not, Robert thought sourly, that there had ever been much evidence of Edward ever doing his duty by his mother. Rather, he had dangled from her, like some bloated river leech.

  Edward opened his mouth to speak, but Catlin motioned him to silence with a slight shake of her head. ‘As I told you, Robert, after the evil my late husband, Warrick, committed, I couldn’t allow my children to remain there and suffer the cruel tongues of our neighbours. Even when sons are innocent they are always blamed for the wrongdoing of their fathers.’

  And fathers for the behaviour of their sons, Robert thought bitterly.

  Adam glanced curiously at Leonia from under his long lashes, desperate to ask her what her father had done, for it must have been something terrible. But he knew he couldn’t ask her, not even when they were alone. Leonia did not like to be questioned. She bestowed her secrets as a queen rewards her servants with gifts, only when they had pleased her.

  ‘There’s something else,’ Catlin said, leaning forward, ‘though I hadn’t intended to tell you so soon after your return, knowing it would distress you. While we were at mass on Sunday, someone entered our bedchamber. Beata insists that whoever did it must have broken in, climbed up a ladder and through the casement. It might have been the Florentines or even that friar who was watching the warehouse. They slashed our bed, Robert. And I’m sure it was meant as a threat against us, a warning that they could break in and murder us as we sleep.’

  Robert’s knife clattered to the floor as he stared at her in shock. It was one thing to fear an ambush on the darkened street or out on the open road, but for someone to break into his own bedchamber, the one place he had thought himself safe . . . ‘Did they steal anything?’

  Catlin shook her head. ‘They did nothing but slash the bedding.’

  ‘They did far more than that, Master Robert!’ Beata interrupted. ‘The worst of it was that evil thing they left on the bed. Tell him about the skull and candles, Mistress. It still gives me the shivers just to think o
f such a curse in our house. It was witchcraft, that’s what it was.’

  ‘What?’ Robert demanded, now thoroughly shaken.

  But Edward and Catlin were staring at Beata as if she was raving.

  ‘There was no skull, Beata,’ Catlin said gently.

  ‘There was! You saw it same as me, didn’t you, Master Edward? A seagull’s skull with two candles wedged into it all stuck with thorns.’

  Edward shook his head. ‘I saw nothing like that.’

  ‘And I came in shortly after you discovered the damage,’ Catlin said. ‘I should have been terrified if I’d seen anything so hideous but, as Edward said, there was no skull or any candles, save the usual ones Diot had set on the spikes and trimmed ready for the night.’

  Diot had been staring fixedly at Catlin, bewilderment and alarm on her plump face. Now she jerked, as if woken from a trance, and nodded vigorously. ‘Candles . . . on spikes . . . set them there myself, same as always. I always tend my mistress’s chamber. I know how she likes things arranged. Wouldn’t trust it to no one else.’

  Beata looked in puzzlement at the faces round the table, as if they were babbling in some foreign tongue. ‘The accursed thing was there, Master Robert, I swear it,’ she protested. ‘I saw it with my own eyes, right in the middle of the bed.’

  ‘Are you calling my mistress a liar?’ Diot said indignantly. ‘Witchcraft, curses, my mistress knows nothing about such things, nothing!’

  Catlin grabbed the old woman’s hand, squeezing it so hard that Diot’s eyes opened wide in pain. ‘I will tell you if and when I require you to speak remember!’ The old woman looked as if she was about to retort, but was silenced by a furious glare. She waddled out of the hall, massaging her hand. Her lips were compressed into a sullen pout, but there was a trace of fear in her faded eyes.