by Dan Davis
‘My associates shall meet with the accused over the next three days. We shall encourage her to confess her crimes. If she will not confess then we shall present other evidence of her guilt. If it comes to it, we shall have a trial by water, letting the elements themselves prove her guilt. We have sent for a very experienced and fair minded magistrate, who will listen to the evidence and then pass judgement. Shall we she set the date of the trial for four days hence?’
A trial by water? Writer thought.
‘A magistrate. Four days,’ the Guildmaster nodded at the clerk who scratched away at a parchment. ‘Er, would there be anything else?’
Hopkins turned to Stearne and said very quietly to him. ‘You may remove the witch, Stearne and start your work.’
Stearne nodded and dragged Writer back the way they had come through the hall towards the records room. On the way Writer heard Hopkins speaking to the Guildmaster. ‘Then of course there is the small matter of my expenses...’
Stearne shoved her back in the room. Before he could shut the door she quickly spoke to him.
‘I am thirsty and hungry. Please bring me water,’ she said. ‘A large jug of water and a piece of bread, at least. I have not eaten nor drank a thing since yesterday.’
Stearne stopped and stared at her with such malevolence that it took her breath away. ‘You won’t eat nor drink until your trial, witch.’
‘But that is days away,’ said Writer, confused. ‘Without water I shall die.’
‘You shall not,’ said Stearne before he shut the door. ‘You shall confess.’
Cobnut Up In Smoke
The house had burned. All that stood of Cobnut House was the blacked timber frame, bits of walls and the chimney stack jutting up from the smoking ruin. To Archer it looked like the inside was totally destroyed.
‘Think Owen and Ellen was in there?’ Archer said to Weaver.
Weaver shrugged. ‘Why don’t you go in and find out?’
‘They can’t have been,’ Archer said. ‘Can they?’
Archer had smelled the wood smoke on the wind for a few miles before they’d seen the smoke drifting over the hedgerows but actually standing there and seeing it made him feel sick. Those soldiers, the ones from the road, had done it; it was obvious. They must have set the house afire after looking for Burp and Keeper and all that stuff they’d been carrying
‘You’re right,’ Archer said. ‘I should go in and find them.’
‘I was joking,’ Weaver said. ‘If they’re in that ruin then they don’t need your help.’
‘Maybe we should go back to my family,’ Archer said.
‘I bet we can catch up to them soldiers,’ Weaver said. ‘Make them pay for this.’
‘But then what about Writer?’ Archer said. ‘We’d be abandoning her.’ His mind spun with indecision.
‘Archer!’ The powerful voice made him jump. He spun round to see Owen the blacksmith marching towards him from the separate forge building, which was intact and unburned. Behind Owen came Ellen, the other blacksmith. Owen was her husband and they had kindly taken Keeper and Burp in after the boy and dragon had escaped from Bede’s Tower to find his parents long dead. Owen’s face was angry and he had a cut on his head with dried blood caked down his face, plus a black eye and swollen lip. ‘Archer,’ Owen shouted again. ‘What are you doing here? What has happened to Keeper?’
‘We sent him into the hills to hide.’ Archer said, holding up his hands.
Owen looked shocked. ‘You did what?’
‘We sent him to you so that you could keep him safe,’ Ellen said, coming up to stand next to Owen. She took her husband’s hand in hers. ‘Why did you leave him?’
‘He will be safe in the hills,’ Archer said. ‘I promise. He’s with my brother and sister, they are looking out for him.’
‘But it was you he needed,’ Owen said, scowling. ‘Can your brother and sister control the wind, as you can?’
‘No,’ Archer admitted. ‘But they are both clever and strong. My brother Edmund knows the hills and my sister is brave and strong.’
Owen was unconvinced. ‘He thinks the world of you and you simply abandon him.’
‘He thinks a lot of both of you,’ Ellen said to Weaver. Weaver scoffed, as if she didn’t care what Keeper thought.
‘I didn’t abandon him,’ Archer said, suddenly sure of his decision. ‘You know that Writer is in trouble and needs our help. We discussed it, me and Weaver and my family and Keeper and this is what we decided.’
‘So you decided that this other girl needs your help more than our Keeper does?’ Owen said. ‘Those men that did this to our home are going after Keeper and Burp, now. They told us that. Gloated about it. They said some man called Hopkins has big plans for the dragon. What will they do to them when they find them?’
‘They won’t find them,’ Archer said but felt a terrible sinking feeling in his guts.
‘And you decided that Writer was more important to you than Keeper,’ Owen said, flatly. The old man looked like he wanted to punch Archer in the face.
Archer did not know what to say but he had a dreadful feeling that Owen was right. ‘I didn’t think of it like that. This plan seemed like the best way to help everyone.’
‘Boys,’ Owen said and he spat downwind. ‘Foolish boys and pretty girls, always the same.’ He shook his head, wearily.
‘Owen,’ Ellen said, quite forcefully. ‘Leave him be.’ Ellen looked over Archer’s head at her ruined house. ‘We are going to our son’s place up in Bures. He will take us in until we get back on our feet. Right, my love?’ She patted Owen on the shoulder. ‘We’ll come back and rebuild when this is all over.’
‘If it ever will be over,’ Owen said, grinding his teeth. ‘They stole our silver. Some of my finest work, gone now. Gone for good. That silver was our nest egg. Now some filthy outsiders are going to be getting fat off our years of hard work. Come on, Ellen, let’s be off. It’ll be dark soon.’
Ellen looked back once more at the house as Owen strode off.
‘You two walking all the way to Morningtree?’ she asked them.
‘That’s right,’ Archer said, feeling utterly miserable.
‘Owen’s right,’ Ellen said, nodding at the pale setting sun. ‘It will be getting dark soon. And so cold this time of year. Where will you spend the night?’
Archer and Weaver traded a look. ‘We hadn’t thought about it,’ Archer said, embarrassed. ‘But there’s plenty of daylight left to find a little hollow to bed down in. We have our cloaks and it’s not snowing or anything.’
Ellen looked disapprovingly at them. ‘So when it gets dark you go to sleep in a ditch?’ When they did not answer she made a noise like humph. ‘Children never plan ahead, do they. Look, please sleep in the forge tonight? It’s not alight any more but the stones will keep the heat for a long time yet and you’ll have a dry roof over your head. You can set off afresh in the morning.’
Weaver shrugged. Archer nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Sorry about Keeper but he’ll be safe. I wouldn’t have sent him off if I thought different.’
‘I know,’ she said and she kissed each of them on the top of their head. Archer could see she had tears in her eyes.
Archer watched them walking off toward Bures.
Weaver scuffed at the earth with her boot. ‘You worried about your family’s place?’ she asked.
Archer hesitated. ‘They’re tough,’ he said. ‘And there’s loads of them. They won’t let this happen to our home, no way.’
The sun was almost setting and it was colder every moment so they went into the forge. Out of the bitter wind and sitting with their backs to the warm stones it was a comfortable place to eat and then lay down to sleep.
‘I hadn’t thought about it like that. Like it was Writer’s safety on the one hand and Keeper and Burp’s on the other,’ Archer said to Weaver, though speaking into the total darkness. They were in their bed rolls right up next to the warm stones of the forge. The air was dry
and tasted of metal.
‘Ain’t like that,’ Weaver’s voice said, sounding close in the dark. ‘They’re miserable because their house got burned down and they was too old and weak and useless to defend themselves. They’ll get over it. You heard them. They even got family down in Bures, that’s only couple miles away, ain’t it? How lucky’s that, they got family to go to? More than me or Keeper had. It’s not like they’ll starve. And as for us and our plan, well who cares what they think? They’re just a couple of old idiots.’
‘They took in Keeper and Burp when they needed somewhere to live,’ Archer said. ‘Not many grownups would let a dragon move in, just like that. The amount of cabbages and stuff Burp must get through every day. They’re good people. They didn’t deserve what happened to them.’
‘No one does. Anyway, we didn’t do it,’ Weaver said, yawning. ‘It was them soldiers.’
‘I know it was them but they were here in the first place looking for us,’ Archer said.
Weaver tutted. ‘They were looking for Burp. That dragon’s nothing but trouble.’
‘Burp and Keeper are us,’ Archer said. ‘We’re all in this together. We have to look out for each other. If one of us gets picked on then the rest of us have to stand up and help, right?’
‘You think about stuff too much,’ said Weaver, yawning. ‘We already made a decision about what to do. All you’re doing is worrying about it over and over again. That’s pointless, ain’t it. What you do is you make a decision and then you stick with it.’
‘Even if it was the wrong decision?’ Archer countered. ‘Carrying on doing something even if you know you’re wrong is mad, isn’t it?’
‘Go to sleep,’ Weaver sad. ‘There’s a long way to go and your precious Writer ain’t going to save herself.’
‘Fine,’ Archer said, hardening his heart and deciding to stop thinking about it any more. ‘We stick with it, right or wrong.’
In the morning they walked on, along Sweetwater Street towards Morningtree. But when they got as far as Bede’s Tower they found it surrounded by soldiers.
The Witch’s Confession
It had been less than a full day since they locked her back up and already she was weak from hunger and her mind was wandering. The mechanical clang of the door locked turning snapped her out of her reverie.
Writer stood, expecting to see Stearne’s hideous face but instead two women walked in. They were dressed in plain black dresses with white lace at the hem and neck. They were not old but they did not appear to be very young either and looked so alike that surely they were related. Both had flaky skin on their scrawny faces. They seemed mean and sour as they strode into the room.
The door closed and was locked behind them from the outside. One put down a tall but very small round table in the centre of the small room and the other placed a cloth bag on top of it. The three of them together with the table filled the small space up. She was a bit taller than either of them and she stood as straight as she could and looked down on them with all the contempt she could muster.
‘Think you’re a tough nut, do you?’ said the first one...
‘We’ll learn her,’ the other one said, smirking.
‘Who are you?’ Writer asked them, warily.
‘I’m Barb,’ the first one said. ‘This is my sister, Malice.’
‘We are come to interrogate you,’ Malice said.
‘We are come to gather what is called evidence,’ Barb explained.
‘You’ve come to ask me questions?’ Writer said, relaxing somewhat.
‘Questions,’ Barb said. ‘Eventually, I suppose.’ She snorted a laugh and undid the latch of the top of the bag and pulled out a small, rolled up cloth and unrolled it on the table. Inside were a row of little brass needles and spikes.
Writer swallowed. ‘What are those for?’ she asked, not really wanting an answer.
‘Hopkins,’ Barb said. ‘Used to get confessions out from witches his self, back in the day when it was just him and Stearne. But people got to talking and quite rightly said it weren’t the right and proper way of doing things. So he come and found us, didn’t he? Now it’s us what does the witch pricking.’
Writer took an involuntary step backwards. She smacked into the shelves behind her. ‘The witch... what, did you say?’ she asked.
‘Witch pricking,’ Barb continued, and picked up one of the thin shiny brass instruments and inspecting it closely. ‘It is a fact known by one and all that witches got a part of their body which will not bleed when you stick a pin in it.’ She jabbed the brass pin in the air so that it reflected the light from the narrow slit windows around the top of the rear wall. ‘Our job, see, is to stick you all over to find that one bit which don’t bleed none, and then we tell Stearne and he tells Hopkins and Hopkins tells the court and the court tells everyone that you is a witch, see?’
‘I do not,’ Writer said. ‘Why should any part of me not bleed? That seems to be absurdly illogical.’
‘Oh, get you,’ said Barb. ‘You talk like an alchemist, alright. You go talking like that in your trial and you’re done for.’ She cackled.
‘All witches have a patch of skin like that,’ Malice said, ignoring the other. ‘Witches and only witches have one. It’s common knowledge, sweetheart.’
‘And we’re legally allowed to search for it,’ Barb said. ‘By the law of the land.’
Writer took a deep breath. ‘If you try to stick a pin in me I promise you that both of you shall regret it,’ she said but her voice came out a little shaky and she felt herself trembling which ruined the effect somewhat.
‘Told you she was a tough nut,’ Barb said to Malice, winking. ‘We better be careful.’ She snickered.
‘We ain’t going to prick you, love,’ Malice said, her voice softening. ‘Stop scaring the poor girl,’ she said to Barb.
‘Just having me a bit of fun,’ Barb said and laughed.
‘Oh,’ said Writer, relief washing over her. ‘I should have known that witch pricking could never truly be a legally sanctioned practice. What an absurd notion.’
The two women froze and the humour drained from their faces. ‘Oh, it is very real indeed, young lady,’ Barb said.
‘We just ain’t going to do it to you, is all,’ Malice said.
‘I am very relieved to hear it,’ Writer said, and she meant it. ‘But why?’
‘Well, we done hundreds of these now,’ said Barb, sighing. ‘And to be honest with you, sweetheart, we stopped bothering a long while back, didn’t we?’ The other woman nodded. ‘Probably last one we done was up Yarmouth way. One time we forgot our instruments and Hopkins, he was in a black rage, he was. But he says to us, just pretend you found a spot and the court will never know. And after that we thought to ourselves, why bother with all that horrible business when you can get up in court and just say that you done the witch pricking? It don’t matter none when they all get found guilty anyway. If it ain’t us, it’s the trial by water and that never fails.’
‘So don’t you worry, little miss,’ Malice said. ‘We’ll not be hurting you, none. We’ll just tell Stearne and Hopkins you got a witchy spot, say, up there on your shoulder and we’ll stand up and say it in court, under a proper oath so everyone will know it to be true and that’s us done our job and we can get paid.’
‘Hopkins pays you?’ Writer asked.
‘Ah,’ said Malice. ‘That’s the beauty of this whole gig. You pay.’
‘Your village or town or neighbours pay,’ Barb said. ‘They pay Hopkins his fee and then he pays us. Enough to get by for a few days or couple of weeks until we can travel to the next village and get paid for dealing with their witches.’
‘Surely you cannot speak truly,’ Writer said. ‘Why on earth would anyone pay to have their own villagers put on trial? And, what is a trial by water?’
‘Listen, love,’ said Malice, ignoring her. ‘In every village there’s a few old crones no one likes. And perhaps a couple of young ladies that everyone gossips
about. Someone else in the village always has a grudge against someone and they get a message to Hopkins.’
‘That’s what they’ll be getting up to now,’ Barb said. ‘Looking for your friends.’
‘What?’ Writer said, aghast. ‘You’re going after my friends? Why?’
‘Thurloe told him too,’ Malice said. ‘Thurloe is sort of Hopkins boss, only he ain’t really. But Thurloe tells Hopkins he has to come to this here Vale now and collect up a bunch of children and some sort of monstrous beast. He could have had Stearne and the bailiffs just take you off to Coalschester but Hopkins wants to get paid, see. He has to put you on trial or else your folk won’t think he’s doing them a favour.’
‘I don’t believe this is happening,’ Writer said. ‘And what does a trial by water mean in -’
‘Now, you listen here, right,’ Malice said, talking over her. ‘If anyone asks, you tells them we pricked you and we found a spot on your left shoulder, right?’
She stared at them. They wanted her to be complicit in her own fake evidence. It was absurd. However, they could so easily have stuck her all over with brass pins and then lied about her having a witch’s spot that did not bleed, so she supposed she should be grateful. And perhaps they would go further. ‘You have to help me,’ Writer said.
‘Look, love, just because we don’t want to hurt you, don’t mean we can help you,’ Barb said. ‘Don’t beg. It ain’t pleasant.’
‘I’m not begging,’ said Writer. ‘I’m threatening.’
They both laughed. ‘What you got to threaten us with, blondie?’ Barb grabbed a brass spike from the table.
‘I’ll tell the court that you didn’t prick me and that this whole thing is just about Hopkins and you all extracting money from us. And I’ll tell them how you haven’t truly tested anyone since, Yarmouth, was it?’
‘That’s not a very nice thing to say, dear,’ Malice said.
‘You’ve forgotten something,’ Barb said, brandishing her spike in Writer’s face. ‘We can prick you for real and then what can you say?’
