‘What do you mean, you tried to make sure?’
‘Those infusions I gave you.’ She laughs. ‘Dear sister, you don’t really think I meant for you to have a child, when my own husband was incapable of giving me one, do you? And you were so pleased to be fond sisters! You drank them all up and then you conceived anyway. I couldn’t have that.’
I have a horrible image of Agnes bending over me, pressing a goblet into my hand. Drink this, Sister.
‘You killed my baby,’ I realize slowly. I feel dull and stupid.
‘What a mess you made,’ she remembers with a shudder of disgust.
‘This story of a hare with two heads – you started that, didn’t you?’
‘It could have been anything.’ Agnes shrugs. ‘It might easily have been a monster, with all the time you spent consorting with witches. She told you, didn’t she?’
‘Who?’
‘The witch. You went to see her one day, and after that you wouldn’t take anything I made. So you had a child after all, and all the gossips there to protect her. I couldn’t get rid of them all, especially that old servant of yours, Margery. She was always watching me. She knew something.’
I am cold to my core at the knowledge that my Bess has had an enemy so close since she was born.
‘You wouldn’t have hurt Bess?’
‘Babes die all the time. I nearly saw her off in her cradle, but you woke up, didn’t you? Then Margery was pushing in, interfering, and the chance was lost.’
I look into my sister’s pale eyes and realize at last that she is quite mad. My mouth is dry. All this time I thought Francis was the danger, and it turns out that my own sister was the greater.
I have to keep her talking. I will get away and take my daughter, take Jane and Rob and the cat and leave. I have been stuck like a fly in honey, when I should have been making plans to go. Without Ned, there was nothing to keep me here. Why have I stayed so long? We can take a keelboat to Hull, then a ship. We can go to London, to Hamburg – anywhere my Bess will be safe.
Agnes is between me and the door, and her empty eyes are fixed on mine. There is something awry in her. I thought it was just that she was sickly, but the wrongness in her goes deeper than that. How is it that I have never seen it before?
‘Why did you not take your chance when you had Bess during the sickness?’ I ask through stiff lips.
A sly look crosses her face. ‘Francis wants her,’ she says.
The horror of it freezes the breath in my lungs.
‘Francis is a monster,’ I say and my voice is shaking.
‘You see?’ Francis’s voice behind me makes me swing round, but he is not talking to me. He is ushering in a triumvirate of goodwives. Barbara Cook, Anne Tyrry and Marion Carter. Bitter women, every one of them.
They look edgy and feverish. Has he kept them behind the door, waiting for the right moment to bring them in?
‘See her with her familiar – mocking me, calling me a monster!’ Francis points accusingly at me where I stand clutching Mog. ‘Am I not at divine service every day? Do I not serve the Lord? I keep all His commandments, as you know. I am monstrous to the Devil she worships, no doubt.’
‘You are the Devil. Only the Devil could desire a small child.’ I turn to the women. ‘Can you not see what he is? He is abominable! You are mothers. You know it is unnatural and loathsome to covet a child the way he does.’
‘I desire only to bring up her as the Lord commands, away from her mother, the witch.’ Francis’s voice is sanctimonious.
‘You will never take her from me! I am leaving this city,’ I tell him. ‘You can be rid of me, gladly, but you will not have my daughter.’
Francis shakes his head. ‘You cannot leave now. Not now we know you for what you are.’
I laugh in exasperation. ‘For the love of grace, how many times do I have to tell you? I am not a witch!’
‘Your actions say otherwise.’
‘I do not have to answer to you.’ I make to push past them towards the door, but Francis moves in front of me to block my way.
‘You cannot leave me, Hawise,’ he says, his voice low so that only I can hear. ‘I’m not letting you go.’
I draw in a breath and set my teeth. ‘This has gone on long enough, Francis. Look to your wife. You cannot have me, and you cannot have my daughter. Ever. I’m going.’
He’s not expecting my shove and he staggers back, letting me push past him to the door.
‘Stop her!’ cries Agnes. ‘She is a witch! She will curse us all!’
Her words unleash something in the air, a wrongness that makes the tiny hairs at the nape of my neck prickle a warning. I know I have to get out, now. I have my hand on the door when Francis grabs my arm, swinging me round so that Mog is thrown from my grasp, spitting.
‘Let me go!’
‘No.’ He has himself back under control, and his expression bodes ill for me. ‘No, this is All Hallows’ Eve. If we let her go, who knows what mischief she will wreak on us?’
Mog is growling now, her hair on end and her eyes fixed on Francis, who shifts back, but refuses to let me go.
‘See her familiar? No ordinary cat would growl so.’
The women huddle together in fright. They can sense the evil too, but it comes from Francis and Agnes, not from Mog.
‘Kill it,’ says Agnes, quite quietly, but there is something so implacable in her voice that silence falls abruptly and the only sound is Mog, vibrating warningly.
Agnes reaches to the chest behind her and picks up a knife.
‘No!’ I scream, pulling frantically to get away from Francis. ‘Mog! Go!’
‘Close the window,’ Agnes says calmly to one of the women, and she edges nervously towards the window without taking her eyes off the cat.
‘Mog!’ I scream again, and this time the cat reacts. She springs at Agnes, who has been advancing slowly on her. In spite of herself, Agnes jerks back, and the women screech in panic as, spitting and snarling, Mog leaps for the window and is gone.
I slump with relief, so glad at her escape that I forget the danger I am still in myself.
They have all taken Mog’s behaviour as a sign. They will not listen to me now.
‘We should call the constable,’ says Marion.
‘The minister,’ says Barbara nervously.
‘I say we deal with her ourselves,’ says Agnes.
I stare at her. Can this be my meek, colourless sister? It is as if the venom she has suppressed for so long is surging through her, making her brighter, bigger, bolder. She is unfurling like a banner snapping in the wind. Hate has made her powerful. Her madness has transformed her. Even Francis suddenly looks diminished next to her.
‘How much more proof do you need?’ she demands of the women, who blunder together, sensing her power, catching something of her madness. Their eyes are growing sharp and frenzied. They have forgotten, these goodwives, that I am a woman no different from them, that I cook and I bargain and I raise my child just as they do. They are seeing me through Agnes’s eyes, as warped and dangerous.
‘If even I – her sister – know this about her, who can defend her?’ Agnes demands. Francis keeps hold of me, but he has stepped back and is letting Agnes do the talking.
‘We cannot go through the proper channels,’ she says scornfully. ‘You know what fools men make of themselves over a lascivious woman. All she has to do is turn those eyes of hers on them and they are bewitched. They will let her go, and she will be back in the parish. Do you feel safe with your children passing her house, knowing the black arts she practises in there?’
The women shudder as one.
‘And your husbands?’ Agnes goes on. ‘One smile and they will be ensnared. They will be no good to you ever after.’
It doesn’t seem to matter that I have never once flirted with their husbands, that I have been constant to Ned. The women believe her utterly and mutter amongst themselves.
‘This is foolishness!’ I cry. ‘Think ab
out what she is saying. There is no proof of any of it.’
‘Then by all means let us prove it,’ says Agnes. ‘Husband, hold her still.’ Obligingly Francis grips both my arms behind me, and Agnes thrusts her face against mine once more. She is still holding the knife. I brace myself for her to spit at me, but instead she slices through the ribbons of my bodice and wrenches down my sleeve. The women gasp and recoil.
‘See!’ Agnes points the tip of the knife triumphantly at the mark on my shoulder. The one Ned said looked like a little hand. Sweet, he called it. Like my wife. ‘Is that not the mark of a witch?’ she demands.
I can feel Francis’s eyes hot on my skin, and I burn with the shame of my flesh being exposed. I think about the misgoverned women I have seen in the pillory, or whipped through the streets at the cart’s arse, disgraced in their smocks, their heads uncovered, their hair polled. I am one of them now, but I am too proud to let Agnes and Francis see how utterly I am humiliated.
Lifting my chin, I look from Barbara to Anne and then to Marion. ‘It is not so,’ I say clearly. ‘I am no witch. I am a mother, as you are.’
‘Well, then, there is only one way left to prove it,’ says Agnes before any of the women can react. ‘We all know water will reject a witch,’ she says and the room falls quiet. ‘Let us see whether she floats or no.’
‘Agnes, for God’s sake!’ I cry at that and she turns on me.
‘How dare you call on God? You, who are in league with the Devil!’
‘Oh, this is nonsense.’ I actually laugh.
This is a mistake. The women gasp and shuffle back even further, and Agnes’s smile is triumphant.
‘So, this amuses you? Let us see if you laugh when we put you in the water! You can call on the Devil to save you then. Come.’ She turns to the women, all business. ‘Let us do it straight away. You are righteous women, and you know your duty to rid the streets of Satan and his accomplices. Will you help us?’
‘Aye, aye.’
Infected by her madness, they surge forward suddenly, pushing and prodding me from Francis’s grasp. ‘Let’s put her to the test!’ They bundle me out of the door, bearing me out into the street before them. ‘To the river!’ they cry.
Desperately I try to hold up my sleeve, but the hands shoving at me throw me off-balance, and I stumble and fall heavily onto my hands and knees.
For a moment I couldn’t move. I hung my head in despair, sobbing for breath, while the rain beat pitilessly around me. All I could do was wait for them to drag me back to my feet and prod me onwards to the river.
But no one did. Slowly I realized that the shouting had stopped too. All I could hear was the skirl of the wind and the rain drumming onto the ground. The women had gone.
Still I didn’t move. I was afraid of some trick. My eyes flickered from side to side, calculating my options. It wasn’t long since we had left Agnes’s house, but I was exhausted, and my chest was heaving like a beaten horse. I couldn’t outrun anyone in this state, but it wasn’t far to the house. If I could make it back there, we could shut ourselves up until the women calmed down, as they would without Francis and Agnes whipping them into a frenzy. When the rain stopped and folk started about their business once more, everything would return to normal.
Except for me. I thought of the coins in the box in Ned’s study. I would take what I could, and Rob could get us onto a boat. We would all go to Hull, to London, to the Baltic. Anywhere Francis and Agnes could not follow. The thought of them made my whole body clench with horror.
All I had to do was get back to the house and I would be safe.
Cautiously I got to my feet. I put my hand to my head instinctively to straighten my cap and was horrified to find my head uncovered. It was the final humiliation and my eyes pricked with tears of shame, before my mind cleared and I remembered.
The house in Coney Street was no longer there. There were no women. No Bess. There was no one to run from, and no one to run to. I slumped with relief. No one was going to force me to the river. I had woken from the nightmare just in time.
Only to find myself in a different one. The realization hit me like a slap. Sophie was still out there somewhere, by the river. And the rain was rank with the smell of rotting apples.
I turn and hands jab at me, but as I lift my head I can see Jane standing behind the crowd. Her eyes are wide with horror. Mog is by her side and I know without being told that the cat has fetched her, but what can Jane do? She is barely more than a child herself, and I need her to look after Bess.
I don’t dare cry out to her, but our eyes meet. ‘Take Bess,’ I will her. ‘Go.’
But she doesn’t understand what I am trying to tell her. She just stands and watches, her hand to her mouth, her expression despairing.
Francis grips my arm. ‘You think that urchin will save Bess?’ he sneers, following my gaze. ‘She can do nothing. Agnes and I will take Bess. We will make her our own. I will do what I like with her, Hawise.’ He puts his face close to mine and his breath is foul. ‘She will know that her mother was a witch, and she will shudder at the thought of you.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ I try and wrench my arm away, but he holds it fast behind my back. ‘You cannot get away with it!’
‘Can we not? Do you see anyone rushing to save you? Why should they? It’s all your own fault,’ he said, almost peevishly. ‘All you had to do was love me, but you wouldn’t.’
‘I will love you now,’ I say desperately – anything to get back to my daughter and Jane. ‘I will, I promise.’
But Francis shakes his head. ‘It’s too late,’ he says. ‘I will take Bess instead. She will love me.’
‘No!’ My voice rises to a howl. ‘A curse be on you, Francis Bewley!’ I cry, and there is a gasp from the women. ‘May you rot in Hell for what you have done to me and mine. May your arms droop and your pizzle wither. Your bones will ache and rattle in your skin, and your sinews crack. I call on the Devil himself to cast you into torment!’
There is one moment when the women waver at my curse, but Agnes moves quickly. ‘You see?’ she says. ‘She cries out to her Master!’
I ignore her. ‘You will never sleep easy again,’ I tell Francis as he pushes me forward. ‘And when you arrive in Hell, I will be waiting for you.’
I reeled from one side of the street to the other, so tired that I was weaving over the road as if I were drunk. I was lucky there was so little traffic around that night. The grazes on my palm stung and my knees throbbed as I stumbled on between the present and the past, hardly knowing or caring where I was going, until I turned down High Ousegate and saw the bridge ahead.
It looked bare and exposed without the buildings I was used to seeing, and I stopped. Everything in me told me to turn back, but I dragged the thought of Sophie to the front of my mind and forced myself on.
The nearness of the river repelled me. My chest was tight with terror, my breath wheezing thinly in and out of my lungs. I made it to the top of the steps leading down to King’s Staith, where I had stood so often with Rob watching the loading and unloading of the keels from Hull, but the quay had gone, swallowed by the swollen Ouse. It surged high under the bridge, glistening malevolently in the lights from the buildings lining its banks, an obscene mass of black, swirling water bearing relentlessly onwards.
There was no way I could reach the Millennium Bridge that way. I should have thought about the river flooding. With a sob of frustration I stumbled blindly back the way I had come.
Still cursing Francis, I am bundled onwards, out of the postern where the officer is huddled over a brazier and doesn’t even look our way, and down to St George’s Field. When the sun shines the laundresses work here, but it is too dank and dirty today and there is no one around. The path is slick with mud, and I slip and slide as the mob hustles me further down the river. It is scrubland here, too close to the river to be tilled. The cattle stand against the hedgerows, their bellies encrusted with mud, resigned to the rain, watching us incuriousl
y as we blunder past.
I don’t now remember how I found my way to the bridge at last. No longer even aware of the rain, I stumbled along the streets that ran parallel to the river, my boots splashing through the puddles, my breath rasping in my ears. I was beyond thinking. I just knew I had to get to Sophie before the river carried her away. I kept making false turnings, only to be baulked by a river swelling grotesquely by the minute, and when I finally staggered into the field that Hawise had known as St George’s Field, I could hardly believe it.
There ahead of me, just discernible through the gusting rain, was the arch of the suspension bridge. I bent over, retching.
‘Sophie!’ My thready voice was lost in the wind.
Dragging oxygen into my lungs, I forced myself upright. A mess of twigs, leaves and litter barrelled over the grass, while at the edge of the darkness the river heaved like a great, greedy snake. If I got too close, it would snatch me up. Every instinct ordered me to retreat, but I went closer.
‘Sophie!’ I called again.
The river was creeping high over the banks. I pushed my way along under the willows, splashing through the water, feeling it tug remorselessly at my knees.
‘Sophie! Sophie!’
I almost missed her. Grabbing at the trailing branches of the willows to steady myself, I kept an eye on the water that sucked and swirled around my legs, until a glimpse of white made me turn my head, and there she was, huddled beneath a bush.
‘Sophie!’ I splashed frantically towards her, dropping to my knees beside her. Her eyes were blank with fear and shock, and she was completely naked.
‘Oh, God . . . Oh, God . . . what have they done to you?’ I crouched beside her. ‘Sophie, we have to get away from here,’ I shouted in her ear. ‘The river’s rising fast.’
For answer she latched her arms wordlessly around my neck and clung to me. My throat was so tight I couldn’t speak. I just held her close and fought the horror of the river grabbing at me.
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