Witch Finder

by Unknown

  It was getting dark as he finally made his way into Spitalfields. The market was long shut up, but there were small children scavenging in the piles of rubbish for scraps to take home for their dinner and the beggar men were huddled around piles of burning packing to keep warm. The sky had stayed clear and now the night was turning cold, with a bite to it like a bad-tempered dog.

  Luke’s breath was white in the air and he clapped his arms around himself as he walked, to try to keep from shivering. He wished he hadn’t left his muffler in the room above the stable.

  As he passed the Cock Tavern the door flung open and a figure came stumbling out into the road, nearly hitting Luke full in the chest before sprawling on his knees in the road.

  ‘And stay out, you good-for-nothing drunkard!’ the landlord yelled. Then he slammed the door shut, leaving Luke to help the man to his feet.

  It was Nick Sykes, Minna’s dad. He looked up at Luke with bleary eyes.

  ‘Got a penny, mister?’

  Luke turned his face away from his reeking breath and tried not to breathe in.

  ‘No,’ he said, unable to keep the disgust from his voice. If he’d had money to spare it would be for Minna, not for her worthless dad to spend on more rot-gut gin.

  ‘Ha’penny then, kind mister?’ Nick Sykes whined. There was no trace of recognition in his slumped, blotchy face.

  ‘I said, no,’ Luke snarled. He let go of Sykes’s jacket and the man stumbled to the ground. Luke wiped his hands against his shirt and carried on, into the cold night.

  He heard the forge before he saw it, the clear bell-like ring of William’s hammer on hot metal. And then he saw the smoke and sparks from the chimney disappearing into the night sky.

  Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. The words came to him unbidden and he shivered as he turned the corner into the lane.

  Even on this cold night the door to the forge stood open, trying to relieve the intense heat inside. But Luke could have crawled inside and shut the door and lain like a salamander, soaking up the good, clean fiery heat of the force and the fire, the heat and the roar of the bellow and the clang of the hammer driving out all the hatred and fear in his heart.

  He walked the last few yards across the cobbles, thinking about whether William would be glad to see him, and what he would say when he was asked about his task and how he was faring.

  And then, without warning, there was a cracking sound and something huge and heavy flew through the air, just missing his head, and smacked into the wall of the alley with a sound like a thunderclap.

  There was silence from the forge and then the sound of William swearing, long and low. He came out into the yard, wiping his hands on his leather apron. His face was full of weary irritation – and then he saw Luke and it changed to a kind of blank surprise and then, just as swiftly, a huge smile.

  ‘Luke!’ He lumbered across the cobbles to clap him on the back. ‘Luke, lad! Is it done?’

  ‘No.’ Luke shook his head, and his uncle’s face fell a little. ‘No, it’s just my afternoon off.’

  ‘Well, I’m right glad to see you, lad. But is it wise to leave so soon, do you think? The full moon’s halfway gone.’

  ‘I know!’ Luke snapped angrily. And then he felt wretched for taking his fury out on William. ‘I’m sorry, Uncle. I know. I know I’ve not got much time, but I couldn’t take it one more day. It’s all, it’s just . . .’ He stopped, horrified to find treacherous tears rising in his throat, threatening to choke him. He turned away, pretending to cough.

  ‘Never mind,’ William said kindly. ‘Never mind, lad. I’ve finished for the day anyway. That were my good hammer flew past your head just then.’ He bent and picked it up from the lane, looking at it with exasperation. ‘The shaft just split clean off in my hand.’

  ‘How did that happen?’ Luke asked, more as a way to swallow away the tears than for really wanting to know. His uncle gave a short laugh.

  ‘Who knows. It just went – a sign I’ve been working too long, I dare say. Never work hot metal when you’re tired, or you’ll end up burnt, that’s what I’ve always said, and it’s a good motto. But without you here it’s a struggle to get through the work. I won’t deny I’ll be right glad to see you back, Luke.’ He stood for a moment, the broken hammer loose in his hand, and then clapped Luke on the back again, his face full of weary smiles.

  ‘Come on, lad. Let’s get some supper into both of us. You look half clemmed yourself. Ain’t they feeding you at that place?’

  For a long time there were no words, just Luke and William side by side at the table, spooning the good hot broth into their mouths and tearing off hunks of bread to dip into the soup. At last, when his spoon had scraped the bowl clean for the second time, Luke spoke.

  ‘I saw Nick Sykes being chucked out the Cock earlier. How’s Minna?’

  ‘Bad.’ William wiped out his bowl with a piece of bread. His face was troubled. ‘She’s got laid off at the dairy.’

  ‘Laid off?’ Luke put down his spoon. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Her horse is sick. She can’t do the round without Bess. I told her she should have sold the nag while the going was good. Now she’s stuck with a sick horse and no money to pay for its keep.’

  ‘What’ll she do?’

  ‘Lord knows. I’m afraid it’ll be the streets. Or the match factories. I don’t know which is worse for a young girl like her.’

  Luke thought of it, chewing mechanically on a mouthful of bread that seemed suddenly dry and tasteless as chalk. He thought of Phoebe and Miriam touting themselves outside the Cock, and the idea of Minna dressed in scarlet petticoats, selling herself to any passing stranger for a few pennies, made him flush hot with rage. But William was right – what was the alternative? The match factories: where the young girls worked hour after hour after hour, until their faces rotted from the phosphorus and they died in agonies, their brains eaten away by the dreaded phossy jaw, unable even to speak.

  ‘Come on, lad, don’t take on.’ William was watching his face. ‘Bess has been sick before, she’ll pull through. Anyway, that’s not what was eating you before this, was it?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Luke swallowed the dry bread and kept his eyes on his plate, afraid of what he might see reflected back at him in William’s gaze.

  ‘Whatever brought you back here. It’s not Minna that’s been troubling you since you walked through that door, you didn’t know about her until ten minutes ago. What is it, lad? You look like a dog that’s been whipped.’

  ‘I . . .’ Suddenly it was a relief to let it out and the words came tumbling. ‘Oh God, Uncle, I tried to do it. I weakened the buckle on her girth and it snapped, but she wasn’t going fast enough. She fell, but she wasn’t killed, or even hurt bad. I risked everything and I screwed it up like a fool.’ He put his fist against his forehead, grinding the knuckles against bone.

  ‘Hey, hey.’ William put his hand on Luke’s arm. ‘Don’t take on. It was a first attempt. There’ll be others.’

  There’ll be others.

  Yes. He would try again. He would have to try again.

  He swallowed.

  ‘I didn’t think . . . I didn’t know . . .’

  ‘What?’

  But how could he say it? That he didn’t think she would be a girl? He didn’t know she would have red hair that twined in curls at the nape of her neck? That he didn’t think she would have a dusting of nutmeg freckles across her nose, or that her eyes would be golden-brown, or her wrist small enough to encompass with his hand?

  ‘I didn’t think she’d be kind,’ he said. He heard his own voice crack and despised himself for his weakness. ‘She looks so . . . so innocent.’

  ‘She’s not kind,’ William said. His voice was steady but his eyes were troubled. ‘And she’s not innocent. You know the trut
h of it, Luke. She’s a witch – and she’s learnt to dissemble and twist and deceive from her cradle. This is all part of the test. But you must hold fast to your faith, just as you held fast to the hilt of the knife when you drove it into your own side. You didn’t flinch then, did you? Though you knew yourself to be innocent and you knew it would be your own death to push the knife home. Well then – don’t flinch now. Drive the knife home. Don’t worry about guilt or innocence; let God and the Malleus deal with the consequences.’

  ‘I’m not a killer,’ he found himself saying. ‘I wish I could be – but—’

  ‘You are not a killer,’ his uncle said firmly. ‘Listen to me, Luke. You are not the hand here, you are the hammer. Remember that. You’re just an instrument. It’s for God and the Malleus to guide you, show you where to strike. You’re no more guilty of murder than the hammer itself.’

  Be the hammer.

  Luke swallowed. And then he found himself asking the question, the unthinkable, the unaskable.

  ‘Who was your first, Uncle?’

  William didn’t need to ask ‘First what?’ He just sighed.

  ‘You know I can’t tell you that, not outside the meeting house. Not until you’re a Brother.’

  If I’m a Brother, Luke thought. I must make it. I must.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said aloud. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

  There was a long silence while the fire crackled and shifted in the grate. Luke stared at it until his eyes hurt. At its heart it was pure white gold, the colour of iron when you’d overheated it, almost to the point of melting. Above it flickered little orange flames, the same colour as metal when it was forging heat and ripe for working. And at the outside, a smoky, guttering, deep red that flickered and shimmered in the draught from the window. It was so exactly the colour of Rosa’s hair that he closed his eyes, trying to shut it out, shut out the memory of the first time he’d seen her, standing in the stable like an avenging angel, a halo of fire around her head.

  It was into this darkness that William spoke unexpectedly, his voice quiet but quite clear above the crackles of the fire.

  ‘It was an old woman. She’d been selling potions to young girls, spells to rid them of their babies. Sometimes they worked, killed the child. Sometimes they killed the girl. What she didn’t say was that even if the girl lived, her womb was poison. Nothing could live there. The old witch-woman didn’t just take the unwanted babe, she took them all, all the children those girls might have had and loved. I asked her to stop and she laughed at me. Said she’d see me dead along with all the others and my loins as dried up as those girls’ wombs.’

  ‘She didn’t kill you though,’ Luke said. William shook his head, staring into the flames of the fire.

  ‘No. I killed her. With a rag over her face, full of that chemical stuff that John brews. She didn’t get more than two words of the spell out her mouth before she fell in a heap like a pile of rags.’ Then he sighed. ‘But I never did father a child.’

  Something inside Luke went cold and still, and the hairs on his arms and neck shivered in spite of the warmth of the fire.

  ‘When did it happen?’ he asked, very low.

  ‘Near fifteen years ago, I suppose it must be. I joined the Malleus right after your parents were killed.’

  ‘Is that why . . .’ Luke stopped and swallowed, and started again. ‘Is that why you took me in then? Because you couldn’t have a son of your own?’

  ‘No.’ William put his big, heavy hand on Luke’s shoulder and turned him around, forcing Luke to look him in the face. ‘No, Luke. Never think that. I took you in because you were my brother’s son, and I loved him, and I kept you because as you grew I loved you too, and you were mine. The thing with the witch – it’s completely separate. And who knows,’ he gave a laugh, one without real mirth, ‘maybe I never had it in me anyway. There’s many a man never fathers a child, and witchcraft nothing to do with it.’

  ‘But you never married?’

  ‘No.’ William let his hand drop and took up his pipe from the mantelpiece. He knocked it out, packed the bowl very carefully with tobacco, then struck a match on his boot and lit the pipe with a hand that was almost steady. Then he threw the match into the fire and watched it dwindle to nothing. ‘No. There was a girl I might have married. But I didn’t think it was fair to the lass. All girls want a baby of their own, don’t they?’

  ‘You could have given her the choice . . .’ Luke began. But William was shaking his head.

  ‘No. What kind of choice is that? Give me up, or give up the babe you’ll never have? That’s no choice. That’s asking for one sacrifice over another, and neither of them fair for a woman who’d done nothing wrong herself. Why should she suffer for my sins? No. This way the sacrifice was mine, as it should be. I gave her up.’

  Silence fell in the little room and Luke watched the fire and listened to the suck and pull of William’s pipe. Blue smoke wreathed in the rafters.

  ‘Can you stay the night?’ William asked, as the church clock tolled ten. He rose and put his pipe on the mantelpiece.

  ‘I’m supposed to be back tonight. But I sleep over the stables, so there’s no one to see me come and go. If I start before four, I can be back before the rest of the house wakes.’

  ‘Good.’ William put his hand on Luke’s shoulder as they turned to the stairs. ‘It’ll be good to have you under your own roof, even if it’s just for the one night. It’ll give you heart for the task, heart for what you need to do.’

  What I need to do . . .

  ‘It was a good plan, lad. Don’t blame yourself. And maybe it didn’t work, but you walked away in one piece, didn’t you? There’ll be another chance. Providence will give you a chance.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Luke said. He tried to smile.

  ‘Goodnight, lad. Sleep well.’

  As Luke shut the door to his room behind him, he knew that he should feel full of zeal and determination, galvanized by William’s words. He was a fighter, a member of an elite band of warriors, fighting against the devil’s work. But he didn’t feel any of that. He felt only weariness and dread and a kind of sickness at the thought of going back to his task.

  He sat on his own familiar bed and unbuttoned his shirt. As he pulled it off it chafed at the bandage over his shoulder and, in a fit of impatience, he tore at it, ripping off the dressing. There was a sharp jolt of pain as it stuck and then it peeled off, crusted and bloody, and he spat on his fingers and rubbed at the dried blood beneath. The mark was smaller than he’d thought, not much bigger than a sovereign, but it flamed like an angry sore and the skin around the burn was raised and red.

  Still, there was no pus on the bandage, no infection to be seen. He threw the bloody dressing in the grate and lay down between the cold sheets, feeling weary to the bone.

  He would go back.

  He would go back and he would kill the witch. Because there was no way out of this, save one: death. Hers . . .or his.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Becky hissed as Luke ran through the open back door, smoothing his rumpled hair and trying to stifle his panting breath.

  ‘I overslept. Had to run all the way from Spitalfields. Did anyone notice?’ Luke gasped. The clock chimed seven as he slid into the chair. He was sweating in spite of the cold, frosty morning and he needed a shave.

  ‘Mrs Ramsbottom was asking where you was at breakfast, but I said you were held up in the stables. Lucky for you, we’re all at sixes and sevens. An invitation arrived last night, if you please, and sent the whole house into a spin.’

  ‘An invitation?’ Luke poured himself tea from the enormous pot on the table and bit into a piece of Mrs Ramsbottom’s soda bread. The tea was lukewarm, but the bread was hot and very good.

  ‘It seems that Mr Knyvet enjoyed playing the gallant knight on horseback to our Miss’s damsel in distress.
’ Becky was enjoying the moment of power, spinning out the information as long as she could. ‘He’s only invited Miss Rosa and Mr Alexis to his house in the country for a hunting party.’

  ‘Miss Rosa?’ Luke said, startled. ‘But how can she ride?’

  ‘Seems her ankle’s made a miraculous recovery overnight. Must be love. Or magic.’

  Luke said nothing.

  ‘They’ll want the horses, of course. I don’t know whether they’ll go down by the same train or an earlier one.’

  ‘Horses? By train?’ Luke put his cup down.

  ‘Yes, ninny.’ Ellen came sweeping into the kitchen, her skirts rustling. ‘How else did you think they’d get there? You can hardly ride two horses all the way to Sussex, can you?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Well, you’re the stable-hand, or so they say.’ She banged down the tea tray she was carrying. ‘The horses won’t look after themselves on the journey.’

  ‘When are we leaving?’

  ‘Tomorrow. So you’d best look sharp and see that everything’s in order. Now, I can’t be standing here gabbing, I’ve got trunks to pack and dresses to mend and stockings to darn. Becky, I’ll need you to give me a hand with things when you’ve finished the beds, so no shilly-shallying, please.’ She swept out.

  ‘Hark at her!’ Becky said crossly. ‘Who’s died and made her queen? As if I spend my days shilly-shallying. I’d like to see her do twelve grates in . . .’

  Luke chewed his mouthful mechanically, barely listening as Becky listed her grievances against Ellen. His mind was racing, wondering what this delay would mean for his plans, and how he could possibly accomplish the mission so far from home.

  Rosa sat in the window seat, Belle in her lap and her sketch book in her hand. Every so often she touched her pencil to the page, but she wasn’t really drawing, she was thinking. Thinking about Sebastian, about that unexpected invitation and what it meant. A strange tangle of feelings twisted inside her. Some parts of it she could pick out, like unravelling snarled-up skeins of embroidery threads – there was pleasure at the prospect of hunting and a sickness at the thought of her old threadbare dresses. The invitation had mentioned a ball. She had no ball dress.