The woman known as Sybil Jackman, he said, had at first been accused of entering the Ferris household for the purpose of prying into the personal correspondence of Mr Walter Ferris. Picklocks had been found in her possession, and it was possible that she had also intended to commit theft. Sybil and I exchanged startled glances, wondering what at first could possibly mean. But we were not left wondering for long.
‘It was discovered, however,’ said the chaplain, ‘that the reverse was very likely the case. She was caught in the act of putting a letter into the document box, and Mr Ferris has testified that he has never seen the letter before. It contains matter that reflects upon Mr Ferris himself, and it seems that the woman Jackman in fact came to plant a forgery. Mr Ferris says he will produce it if required.’
Sybil gasped. I felt as though I had been kicked in the stomach by a mule. I had clung to the thought of that letter and had been alarmed by Sybil’s suggestion that Ferris would destroy it. That he would have the audacity to admit to it, and invert its meaning and turn it into evidence against us, had never entered my head.
‘Finally,’ said the chaplain, ‘the woman Jackman comes from a household that harbours at least one known witch. I will now proceed to the allegations against Mrs Ursula Stannard.’
The woman Ursula Stannard, read the chaplain, was a known defender, protector and associate of a convicted witch by the name of Gladys Morgan. Ursula Stannard was suspected of supplying a love potion to bewilder the wits of Christina Cobbold, a potion for which Thomas Ferris, son of the said Walter Ferris, had paid.
‘And Thomas will testify to this under oath!’ announced Ferris. ‘Will you not, Thomas? Speak up!’
Oh no, I said inside my head. I don’t believe it. I CAN’T believe it! First Anne Percy’s letter to Ferris is turned from a help to a disaster, and now this! It can’t be happening!
But it was happening. Once more, I recalled the dreadful closing words of Countess Anne’s letter to me:
Trouble and dread will overtake both you and your servant . . . and when they have wrung the last juices of hope and happiness from you, death and damnation will complete my vengeance.
I did not want to believe that curses could have power, but once more I remembered that night in the garden at Hawkswood when I had known the fear of evil. It seemed to me that I could feel Anne Percy’s ill will grasping at me from across the sea like a pair of cold hands, their nails grown into curving claws. Those claws were sinking deep into me now, as if I were a mouse in the power of a cat.
All eyes had turned towards the inglenook and Thomas. ‘Well?’ said Ferris to his son. ‘What have you to say?’
‘Yes, it is true.’ Thomas’s voice shook, and he did not look at me. ‘I feared that Christina was growing cold towards me. I wanted a potion to . . . to change that, and I thought of Mistress Stannard, since the witch Gladys lives in her house. People say that Gladys is careful these days, and so I thought she might refuse me, but Mistress Stannard could have . . . have . . . learned from her, and if I offered gold . . .’
‘How much?’ said his father remorselessly. ‘Say it. How much gold did you give?’
Thomas said nothing. His pallor changed to a flush.
His father repeated the question, more loudly. ‘How much? Out with it, boy!’
‘Twenty pounds,’ said Thomas miserably. ‘In gold angels.’
‘Enough to pay my chaplain’s annual stipend,’ said Walter venomously. ‘And it’s my money, as it happens, money I give you to play with, spoilt, undutiful brat that you are.’
Sybil choked in shock. Bridget half-rose, as if jerked into it, but caught Ferris’s eye, bit her lip, and sank back into her seat again. Panicking, I shouted: ‘It’s all lies!’ but Heron ordered me to silence, threatening to have me removed if I would not wait until I was asked to speak.
I subsided, shaking. All the same, I had noticed something. In that moment, that brief moment when Thomas had not answered the question about how much gold he had paid me, I had seen Ferris’s face show fury, but not just that. I thought I had seen astonishment too. Margaret said he had beaten Thomas yesterday, and he had probably believed that the boy was completely under his control. He had not expected even that momentary resistance. But I recalled how, when I came on Thomas with Christina under the bay tree, I had noticed how mature he had become.
It was likely that Walter had been bullying his son for years. But yesterday, he had needed the help of two other men. He could no longer master Thomas on his own. Just now, Thomas looked dreadful, as though he might be sick at any moment. He was still in fear of his father. But soon, I thought, the time would come when Walter wouldn’t be able to control him any more. Though whether it would come soon enough for me or Sybil was another matter.
‘Please continue,’ said Heron to the chaplain.
‘The next accusation against Mrs Stannard,’ read Parkes, ‘is that of casting spells to create a epidemic of smallpox to bedevil and endanger the members of her household, and others besides, and also of unlawfully entering the Ferris premises at night, to take away the woman Sybil Jackman and thus obstruct the processes of the law.’
It went on and on. Picklocks had been found in my possession as well as in Sybil’s. These had been removed, but I had still passed through a locked door, taking the Jackman woman with me. The final count against me was that I had used sorcery to undo the lock.
At that point, with my knees threatening to give way, I fairly gaped at Walter Ferris and Peter Maine, but neither reacted, even by a twitch of an eyebrow.
‘There is also evidence,’ creaked the chaplain, whose sermons must have been quite painful to listen to, ‘that when the woman Ursula Stannard came to the house last night, she had a companion, who has escaped. We shall ask the name of this person, and Mrs Stannard would be well advised to answer truthfully.’ He let the scroll roll up.
Sir Edward said: ‘That completes the details of the accusations. They are not charges as yet. I will proceed with this enquiry by first asking Ursula Stannard what she has to say in answer to them. The accusations against her are more serious than those against Mrs Jackman. Parkes, you will take notes of her testimony.’
The chaplain moved to the little writing table, selected a quill and opened the ink pot in readiness.
Sir Edward said: ‘Well, Mrs Stannard?’
I had taken a hold on myself now. I had grasped Ferris’s strategy. He wanted me convicted of witchcraft, and he had been manufacturing evidence, which had finally taken the shape of a pitchfork. One prong was the lie that I had sold love potions to Thomas, who had been forced to confirm it. Yesterday’s beating had probably not been all on account of Thomas’s illicit love affair. Ferris had planned ahead and paid Dorothy to try and arrange for me to make a medicine – any medicine – for Christina. The other prong was the smallpox-laden cloaks, which he had hoped would start an epidemic. As they had.
Where, oh where, was Hugh? Why hadn’t he come to help me?
Well, as yet he hadn’t. Somehow or other I mastered my failing knees. I cleared my throat. ‘It’s a long story,’ I said, looking at Heron as steadily as I could. ‘It begins when I received a letter from the Netherlands, from Anne Percy, the exiled Countess of Northumberland.’ I couldn’t see Edward Heron as likely to sympathize with her. He was no Catholic supporter. ‘The letter in question contained threats against me, threats of trouble and dread, death and damnation . . .’
‘Ah! A letter from Countess Anne. Like the forgery placed in my document box?’ said Ferris. ‘Can you produce it, madam? Have you perhaps prepared another forgery?’
Unexpectedly, Heron now revealed the side of him that Jane Cobbold had once described as a man of integrity and a great upholder of the law. He frowned at Ferris and said: ‘Please allow Mrs Stannard to speak.’
A little encouraged, I did so, explaining that during the recent Catholic rebellion in the north, Countess Anne had been involved and I had helped to defeat her part in the business.
‘Also,’ I said, ‘she made prisoners of me and my servant Roger Brockley, but we escaped. We were chased as we left the house where she was keeping us, by her and others. We threw pepper in their faces and spilt oil on a floor, which caused them to lose their footing. I think the Countess felt I had made her look absurd.’
That pleased Heron, as I had hoped. I saw a glint, just a glint, of amusement, in both his eyes and those of Parkes. I went on, gaining confidence.
There had been the threatening letter from Anne Percy, and then things had begun to happen. My manservant Roger Brockley was nearly accused of theft. Master Ferris, with whom my family had no quarrel, had burst into my daughter’s marriage feast and flung accusations of witchcraft at me. The potion he spoke of was nothing but a harmless medicine I gave Christina Cobbold to calm her when she was upset over her hopeless love affair. My own servants would confirm this, as they had seen me make it. It certainly wasn’t a love potion, and I had never been approached by Thomas Ferris to supply such a thing.
‘And whatever Master Ferris may say, I don’t believe that if it comes to it, if Thomas finds himself in a real court of law, giving testimony on oath, that he will swear to buying any kind of potion from me.’ I felt was on firm ground here. ‘If he does, he will be committing perjury!’
In the inglenook, Thomas moved uneasily. His father glanced at him, and he was still once more.
‘I think not,’ said Ferris, though whether he was denying that such testimony would be perjury, or denying that Thomas would withdraw it, wasn’t clear.
‘And,’ I said, ‘Master Ferris brought what he called wedding gifts for my daughter and her bridegroom. They were cloaks. Used cloaks. A studied insult – or so we all thought at the time. Later, we – my husband and myself – came to suspect something worse. The smallpox broke out after the wedding. There had been smallpox in the Ferris family, just before. And a Woking physician has confirmed that the clothing of a sufferer can carry the sickness with it.’
‘But where does the Countess of Northumberland come in?’ Heron asked.
‘I’m coming to that,’ I said hurriedly, nervous again, afraid I would be halted before I had finished. I described Dorothy Beale’s deathbed confession, our bewilderment at finding that Ferris had been spying on us, and how we had begun to wonder if he was Anne Percy’s instrument. I had set out with my manservant to find out from Cecil if they were related, and Brockley had been attacked on the way. However, we had reached Cecil eventually, and he had confirmed the existence of a relationship.
‘And after all,’ I said, ‘Ferris is a Catholic.’
Whereupon, Ferris interrupted me yet again. ‘My relationship with Anne Percy’s family is remote, and as for my religious views: I keep the laws of England as regards attendance at my parish church, and my private opinions are my own affair. Sir Edward respects them, though it may be with regret.’
‘It is with regret,’ said Heron. ‘But it is true that you conform to the law, at least in public, and it is also true that on other matters, we are at one. That counts for much, in my eyes. However, Mrs Stannard may continue.’
‘The attack on my manservant was made with a crossbow,’ I said. ‘I believe you are skilled with the crossbow, Master Ferris?’
It was a direct question, and with a nod, Heron indicated that Ferris should answer it.
‘Many men practise archery, with longbow and crossbow. Many are skilled,’ he snapped. ‘As far as I’m aware, it is not an offence.’
It was best not to reply to that. ‘That’s nearly all,’ I said, sensing that Heron was growing impatient again. I went on to say that Sybil – ‘her real name is Sybil Jester; Jackman was her maiden name’ – had set out to discover whether Walter Ferris had had instructions from Anne Percy. ‘She tells me that she found a letter containing such instructions. The one that Master Ferris claims is a forgery.’
‘Hm,’ said Heron, non-committally.
I couldn’t tell what sort of impression I was making. Heron was being fair to me, making sure I had a hearing, but how far was I being believed? If only Hugh would come!
Heron had turned to Ferris, eyebrows questioningly raised.
‘The letter is quite definitely a forgery,’ said Ferris. ‘There is no doubt of it, sir. When I came upon the woman that we now know is called Sybil Jester, she had the letter in question in her hand, folded, and was in the act of laying it into my document box, which she had unlawfully opened.’
‘I was putting it back!’ Sybil protested.
‘I see.’ Heron looked at me sharply. There was no trace of amusement now. He addressed me as though he and Ferris were two divisions of an army, attacking in a pincer movement. ‘There are still points you have not covered, Mrs Stannard. Please tell us how you escaped from a locked cellar when your picklocks had been taken from you?’
‘I had a second set, as Master Ferris knows very well! When we were caught at the boundary fence, he accused me escaping from the wine cellar by using witchcraft and I brandished them at him. He took them from me! He has both my sets of picklocks. If he is ready to speak the truth, he will bear me out.’
‘Of course I am ready to speak the truth. Mistress Stannard is the liar,’ said Ferris, with raised eyebrows and a glint of triumph in his round pebble eyes. ‘She did not have a second set of picklocks. You were there, Maine, when we caught up with her last night. Did you see her flourish any picklocks at me?’
Maine, sleek and pale in his long black gown, gave me a self-satisfied glance and said: ‘No, sir. I did not.’
‘There you are, then. She got herself and her confederate out of that cellar by sorcery, Sir Edward. I demand that she be charged with it and Sybil Jack— Jester with her . . . Maine, I can hear a disturbance of some kind out in the entrance vestibule. I thought you left your escort outside, Sir Edward. Why didn’t they stop uninvited callers?’
‘They had no instructions to do so, Mr Ferris. This is not my house; I wouldn’t dream of taking such a thing upon myself.’
‘Maine,’ said Ferris, ‘go and find out what that noise is.’
I looked towards the door. There was indeed a disturbance. And then, out in the entrance vestibule, I heard a familiar voice. It was that of Roger Brockley, ringingly raised in a demand to see Mistress Stannard.
SEVENTEEN
Stark Unreason
I was thankful to hear him, but also concerned. Last night, Ferris had suspected that Brockley had accompanied me. I didn’t want Roger Brockley seized on suspicion. I stared at the hall door, praying that Hugh had come with him. Hugh had a standing that Heron might respect.
But when Maine led the new arrivals in, Hugh was not there. Instead, Brockley was with tall, grey-haired Adam Wilder, who was for some reason carrying a hamper. They saw me and Sybil at once, and Brockley made unceremoniously towards us. I noticed he was implying peaceful intentions, since he wore no dagger, but there was aggression in his step. There was also a limp. His ankle must be giving trouble again. His attention, however, was all for me and Sybil, and if his manner was aggressive, it sprang from his concern for us.
‘Madam . . . Mistress Jester . . . are you unharmed? When young Jacky came back last night and said he’d had to leave you here, I was most alarmed.’
‘Who is Jacky?’ Ferris demanded.
Good, clever Brockley. Like a skilled chess player, he had moved himself out of danger and put a useless pawn into it instead. An invented pawn. We had no manservant, young or otherwise, by the name of Jacky.
‘He is a lad in our employment, and he accompanied me last night,’ I said shortly. ‘Though you could hardly expect me to tell you so, Master Ferris. I am glad that he returned safely to Hawkswood. But Brockley, where is Master Stannard?’
‘He couldn’t manage the journey here, madam. He can only travel by coach, as you know. Jacky got the wagon home, but the horse can’t be used today after being out all night. Master Stannard has sent Arthur Watts off on the other coach horse, to find
Sir William Cecil and tell him what’s afoot.’
This was absurd. It would have been perfectly possible to hitch the plough horses to the coach. Hugh was ill, I thought, feeling panic rise again. He must be ill or he would be here.
Brockley dropped his voice so that only Sybil and I could hear. ‘Wilder and I rode over on Roundel and Mealy. We’ll have to ride double to take you two home, madam.’
I opened my mouth to ask about Hugh, but Brockley had been surveying the dishevelled state of myself and Sybil with obvious disapproval, and he now swung round to address Ferris.
‘These are gently reared ladies, and they look as though they have been treated very ill. Why?’
‘Who is this man?’ Edward Heron’s voice rang out. ‘And what is he doing, interrupting the interrogation of a witch and her associate?’
‘Quite,’ said Ferris. ‘What, sir, do you imagine you are about, marching uninvited into this hall?’
‘Your steward brought us in,’ said Wilder with dignity. ‘This is Roger Brockley, Mistress Stannard’s personal manservant. I am Adam Wilder, steward to Master Stannard.’
‘And,’ said Brockley, ‘you, Master Ferris, are in no position to complain about people marching uninvited into your hall. I’m sorry to intrude on an interrogation, but it was necessary. I’m here on behalf of Master Hugh Stannard, to ask why his wife and her gentlewoman are being kept here, and, by the look of them, not in the most hospitable of conditions.’
‘You can ask that?’ barked Ferris. ‘When one of them has opened my document box with picklocks, read my private correspondence and was caught depositing a forgery into the midst of it, while the other was found preparing to break into the house at night, also with the aid of picklocks?’
‘And the evidence of witchcraft,’ said Sir Edward, ‘is distressingly convincing. I have listened to Mrs Stannard’s defence with due attention, but there is too much against her. There is a young man who admits to buying a love potion from her; there are two men who testify that she got herself and Mrs Jester through a locked door and must have done so by magic. There are the deaths among those who have lately visited her home. Alas, there is so much hidden sorcery in the world; so many people, often women, who have dealings with demons and secretly seek to harm their fellow creatures. It is an offence to God and all righteousness . . .’
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