by Sam Thomas
“That is why I sent Tree out,” Samuel replied. “The judges are moving forward with Will’s trial. It will start within a week.”
I stared at Samuel, my mouth agape. I could see the blood run from Martha’s face.
“A week?” I cried. “How so?”
“It is a blessing he has that long,” Samuel replied. “Joseph wanted to hold the trial today, but the judges denied him. They said they had been summoned to try witches, and would have those cases first. Thank God for small mercies.”
“And thank God there will be no trials on the Sabbath,” I agreed. “We have a few days at least.”
“A few days?” Martha cried. “What can we accomplish in that time?” Her eyes darted about the room, as if the keys to Will’s freedom were hidden somewhere within. “God only knows what evidence Joseph has conjured. You know that if Will is tried he will hang! What will we do?” She nearly shouted these last words. I tried to put my arms about her, but she shook me off and began to pace the room.
“We will save him,” I replied, though in truth I did not see how we would. “We must.”
“To hell with the trial,” Martha replied. “I’m leaving. They can hang Mother Lee without me.” She threw open the tower door and started across the Castle yard.
“If the bailiffs come looking for me, tell them you don’t know where I am,” I said to Samuel and raced after her.
I caught up with Martha, and together we hurried toward the gate. I did not know what she intended, but the look in her eyes told me that she would not be stopped for anything in the world. That is what I thought, at least, until Matthew Greenbury appeared before us, resplendent in the Lord Mayor’s finery. To my dismay, Joseph Hodgson stood at his side and Mark Preston loomed behind them both.
“Good morning, Lady Bridget,” said Greenbury with a bow. “It is a pleasure to see you.” I searched the leathery contours of his face for some sign of insincerity. Despite James Hooke’s belief that Joseph had arranged George Breary’s murder, the sight of the Lord Mayor reminded me that he, too, had his reasons to see George dead.
“Good morning, my Lord Mayor,” I replied. “I trust the winter cold is not discomforting you overmuch?”
The Lord Mayor smiled thinly. “It is hard on these old bones, but the Lord has his reasons, doesn’t He, Mr. Hodgson?” He cast a glance toward Joseph, who nodded solemnly and muttered something that sounded like Amen. “What brings you to the Castle?” Greenbury continued.
“My deputy and I have been summoned to testify in a witchcraft trial,” I replied. Even as I spoke, my mind raced to find a way to explain our hurried departure. “But it seems the trial will not be held until the afternoon. We will return then.”
“Oh, dear, I am so sorry for the inconvenience,” Greenbury said. His disappointment seemed genuine, but I could not be sure.
Joseph stepped forward and whispered a few words in the Lord Mayor’s ear. I could not hear them, but my stomach sank, for I knew they could not work in our favor.
“Excellent idea, my boy,” the Lord Mayor cried, and beckoned for one of his men. “Tell the sergeant that we will try Mother Lee first.” The man nodded and hurried toward the Warden’s offices. “It will take some time, but we will search out the other witnesses and try your case this morning,” Greenbury announced with a smile. “Come and sit with me until we are ready to begin. It has been too long since we talked.”
I risked a glance at Martha and saw panic rising within her. “Thank you, my Lord Mayor,” I responded. What else could I say?
“The sooner we can dispose of this matter, the better,” Greenbury continued. “And with you and Mr. Hodgson here at the Castle, nothing of import can happen in the city, can it?” The Lord Mayor chuckled at his own flattery. I could offer only the thinnest of smiles.
So Martha and I joined the crowd crossing the Castle yard to the courtroom where we would await Mother Lee’s trial.
* * *
To their credit, the Lord Mayor’s men gathered the witnesses against Mother Lee far more quickly than I would have thought possible, and in only an hour the witnesses, bailiffs, and jurymen gathered in the hall. Dried flowers had been strewn on the floor to prevent the spread of gaol-fever, so—for the moment at least—the room smelled curiously of spring.
The judge sat at an elevated table and peered at the crowd gathered before him. If the Lord Mayor qualified as aged, the judge was positively ancient.
“My god, where did they find such a huddle-duddle?” Martha whispered. “It’ll be a miracle if he lives through the trial.”
“They were in a hurry, I suppose,” I replied. “And not in a position to be particular.”
The judge looked around the room as if he was not entirely sure why he was there or what he should do next. Joseph apparently saw the same thing, and he crept to the judge’s side to whisper something in his ear. The judge nodded his approval, picked up a small wooden silence, and knocked it on the table three times before the hammer fell from his hand. A few men glanced at the bench, but the hubbub continued unabated. Martha covered her mouth to hide a smile.
“He is a clownish one to be sure,” I said. “But who do you think will be the true master of these trials?”
Martha’s smile disappeared. “He’ll do Joseph’s bidding.”
“Aye. Joseph has planned every step in his journey, from the pamphlets to hiring Rebecca as his Searcher. Of course he’ll find a malleable judge to oversee the trials.”
“And if he’s the one who oversees Will’s trial…,” Martha said. I could hear the fear in her voice.
I finished her dreadful thought. “He’ll demand that the jury return a guilty verdict.” Though I had never seen the practice myself, I had heard of judges who kept the jurymen without food for days on end until they rendered the desired verdict. While such cases were rare, I had no doubt that Joseph would bend the law to meet his ends.
“Quiet!” a voice cried. “The court is in session!”
My pulse raced as Mark Preston strode toward the jury, his mere presence threatening great violence against those who did not heed his words. The jurymen, and everyone else in the room for that matter, fell into complete silence.
The judge looked up at Preston as if surprised to see him, but he said nothing. With an exasperated sigh, Joseph crossed the room and whispered in the court clerk’s ear.
“The first case we will hear is that of Mother Lee,” the clerk announced. “The charge is the most damnable sin and crime of witchcraft.”
A door behind the bench opened, and two bailiffs led Mother Lee, shackled hand and foot, into the courtroom to begin what would be her last day on earth.
Chapter 16
Mother Lee’s time in gaol had done her no favors. Though some life remained in her eyes, she was far more pinched and gaunt than when I’d last seen her. When she entered the room she inspected the faces of the jurymen and the judge before turning her gaze on the rest of us. Perhaps she hoped to find a friend or a neighbor who had not turned against her. One of the bailiffs nudged her, and she shuffled forward, her shackles clanking and scraping as she crossed the room. I could not help noticing the cuts and scabs on her wrists where her aged flesh had been scraped raw and bleeding. Mother Lee turned to face the judge, who stared back, utterly unsure of what to do. Joseph climbed up onto the bench and gave the judge his orders.
“The clerk should charge the accused,” the old man said.
The court clerk stepped forward and announced the grand jury’s charges against Mother Lee, that by witchcraft she had murdered Lucy Pierce’s infant son.
“What is your plea?” the clerk asked.
“Not guilty.” Mother Lee’s voice echoed through the hall with surprising strength.
I did not for a moment think the plea meant much. The trial was not about determining guilt or innocence. It was a play to show all the world, and God as well, that the city’s magistrates had taken up arms against Satan and were marching under the Lord’s stan
dard.
“The first witness!” The judge’s voice creaked like a wooden axle one turn from breaking.
The prosecutor stepped forward. His clothes made clear his wealth, and he preened before the crowd like a peacock: a fine wool cloak layered over a blue silken doublet, leather boots in the latest style, turned down just below the knee to show expensive silk stockings. He was quite a creature. The first few witnesses were Mother Lee’s neighbors from Upper Poppleton. Some had been present when I delivered Lucy Pierce, and some had not, but all told the same story. Mother Lee had long been suspected of trafficking with the Devil. She had cursed her neighbors’ crops, their cows, their sheep, their butter churns, their ale pans. And finally, she had bewitched Lucy Pierce’s son, and he died even before he’d been born. Lucy herself told the jury of this crime, and they hung on every word as if it might be the last they’d ever hear.
And then it was my turn. I strode to the front of the room and stood next to the bench. I had no illusions that I could do anything to change the course of the proceedings, but my heart hammered in my chest all the same.
“Lady Hodgson,” the prosecutor began. “You delivered Lucy Pierce of a stillborn child, did you not?”
“Yes,” I replied. Better to say as little as possible, I thought.
“How would you describe the child?”
I knew the answer he sought, of course. He wanted me to say that the child’s death had been unlike any I had ever seen, and thus unnatural. If he could show the jury that the child’s death had been unnatural, he’d have won the day; witchcraft was the only other possible cause.
“Mrs. Pierce had reached her full term,” I replied. “The child had his fingernails, which happens just before birth.”
The prosecutor grimaced. He’d been hoping for a bit more cooperation from me. I could also see some of Lucy Pierce’s friends looking at each other and whispering behind their hands.
“Have you ever seen a birth such as Mrs. Pierce’s?” the prosecutor asked.
“A stillborn birth? Of course. I’ve been a midwife for many years, and attended hundreds of women in their travail. It is the Lord’s will that some children live while others die.” The prosecutor seemed to have developed a twitch near his left eye. He looked at Joseph, unsure how to proceed. Joseph’s only reply was a slight shrug. I warned you about her, it seemed to say.
“Lady Hodgson, was the death of Lucy Pierce’s child natural or unnatural?”
“It was the Lord’s will,” I replied. “The devil can do nothing on this earth without His permission.”
The prosecutor furrowed his brow at my answer. While it was undoubtedly true (for who would deny God’s omnipotence?), it did turn the jury’s eyes away from Mother Lee. After a moment’s consideration, he crossed the room to consult with Joseph. He whispered in Joseph’s ear and nodded in Martha’s direction.
Joseph’s eyes bulged.
“No, you shouldn’t call her. Not if you have a brain in your head,” he hissed. “She’s worse than her mistress.”
I had to suppress a smile.
“Thank you, Lady Hodgson, that is all,” the prosecutor said. He did not sound particularly thankful. I returned to Martha’s side, and she offered a hint of a smile.
“Mrs. Rebecca Hooke!” the bailiff called out, and I felt my stomach drop. Of course she would appear—she had searched Mother Lee’s body—but I had been so concerned with my own testimony I’d not thought on it.
Rebecca strode forward from the rear of the hall and took her place where I’d stood just moments before.
“You inspected the body of the accused witch, did you not?”
“Yes, my lord, I did,” Rebecca replied. Her voice echoed strong and clear through the hall.
“And what did you find?”
“It was a difficult search, my lord,” Rebecca replied. “At first she refused to be inspected.” She paused to let the jury consider what such resistance might mean. Would an innocent woman refuse to be searched? “When we stripped her bare, I found three long teats in her secret parts. They seemed to have been sucked of late.”
The prosecutor nodded in satisfaction. “And what do you think those teats were?”
“They were wholly unnatural,” Rebecca said. “They could only be the teats from which her familiars suckled.”
“And what did Mother Lee say when she was confronted with this evidence?”
“At first she denied it. She claimed that they were hemorrhoids and that she’d suffered from them for many years.”
“What did you say to this?”
“I told her that they were no hemorrhoids, that she’d had traffic with Satan’s imps. She denied it, but I pressed her further and again. I told her that such marks could only have come from the devil and that she must tell the truth. It took many hours and much pressing, but she soon saw that I spoke the truth. She told me that the imps must have come to her in her sleep and suckled then. It was the only way she could have gotten such teats.”
“So she confessed to you that she is a witch?”
Rebecca nodded emphatically. “Yes, my lord, she did.”
The prosecutor smiled, clearly pleased to have regained control of the trial. “Thank you, Mrs. Hooke.”
The last witness was Mother Lee. The bailiffs led her to the front of the hall and left her there. She looked around the room at her neighbors, the women who had just condemned her to death. I saw no sign that she hated them for it.
The prosecutor stepped to the middle of the room and placed his hands on his hips. He sensed that victory was near and was enjoying the moment.
“When did Satan first come to you?” he asked.
“Some years ago,” she replied. “Six or seven. It was about a year after my husband died. My son had gone to London in search of work.”
The prosecutor strode forward and looked into Mother Lee’s eyes. “And you lay with the devil when he came to you. You let that infernal creature have carnal knowledge of your body.” It was less a question than a statement.
Mother Lee held his gaze. “Why do you want to know that?”
“We must have the truth,” the prosecutor responded. “Tell me—did the devil have use of your body?”
“Aye,” Mother Lee said at last. “He promised he would protect me, and send his imps to act as my servants. My house was in such disorder, and food was so dear. So I lay with him.”
The prosecutor smiled. Mother Lee was as good as hanged. “What was the devil like? What form did he take?”
“He was tall and handsome with black hair. He was a proper gentleman, more proper than you are.”
The prosecutor’s smile faded for a moment as the jurymen enjoyed a laugh at his expense. Rather than risk further humiliation, the prosecutor turned to the judge and announced that he had finished. The judge nodded—or perhaps fell to napping—and the bailiff led Mother Lee from the room. The prosecutor then announced the name of the next woman to be tried. Martha and I edged toward the door and slipped into the Castle yard.
“They will find her guilty,” Martha said as we hurried to the gate.
“Aye, with her confession there can be no doubt of that.”
“Will all the women hang? There are so many…”
“It will depend on how strong they are and how far they were pressed. If they confess before the jury, they are finished to be sure.”
“What are we going to do about Will?” Martha asked. “If they try him in that sort of court, he will receive the same sort of justice.”
“I have been trying to find a solution.…” My voice trailed off.
Martha’s laugh had a bitter edge. “And have you discovered a lawful escape for him?”
I shook my head. “The law is set against him, and there is no lawful thing we can do to oppose it.”
“What?” Martha cried, fury visible on her face. “So we let him try his fortune in court? Have you gone mad?” Martha made no effort to hide her anger, and passersby looked shocked that
a maid would address her mistress in such a fashion. I could only image the gossip that would run through the markets after such a show.
“Of course not,” I replied, taking her arm. “We will smuggle him out of the city. With a good horse and a full purse he’ll have no trouble making his way to my estates in Hereford. Joseph’s writ won’t run so far as that. Eventually we can join him, or—if Joseph falls from power—he can safely return to York.” I could see the tension run from Martha’s body at my words. “Surely you didn’t think I’d let him hang, did you?”
Martha thought for a moment before answering. “I know you favor the law above all else. You’ve caused bastard-bearers to be whipped, sent ravishers to the gallows, and felt no sorrow along the way. You love the part you play in keeping order—it is why you sided with the King even as your kin chose Parliament. Last summer you stood ready to see a murderer walk free because the law could not act.”
She paused once again, perhaps wondering how far she could go. I nodded for her to continue.
“In the past you have been guided by what is lawful rather than what is right. Most often I cannot call this a fault, for I’d see ravishers hanged as soon as you would. But at times you love the law too much. It is the law that whips an unwedded mother, but exacts no such price from the man who fathered the child. There is no justice in this, but you have seen it done and thought it right. I could not help wondering if you would ever oppose the law in so open a fashion. If you help Will escape, you will become an outlaw.”
By the time Martha finished speaking we had drawn to a stop. I took her hands and looked her in the eye. “We live in a world turned upside down,” I said. “Parliament has its foot on his Majesty’s neck, and the true worship of God has been overthrown by plain men and their sermons. Worse, the law has become a weapon for the strong to destroy the weak.”
“It has always been thus with the law. You simply closed your eyes to the truth.”
“No,” I replied. “The times have changed, and we must change as well. We have no choice but to pluck Will from his prison and see him out of the city. I will not let him hang for a murder he did not commit.”
