The Witch Hunter's Tale

by Sam Thomas

  I inspected Alice and found that the child was still some hours from being born. I told the women as much, and they immediately set to gossiping. I knew they would expect me to join in the merriment, but the chill that Joseph had brought to me that morning proved heartier than the combined warmth of the room, the company, and even the wine that Alice’s husband brought. I could not help contrasting the gossips’ lightsome chatter with the dangers that threatened my household: Will faced hanging, Elizabeth had been menaced by both Joseph Hodgson and Rebecca Hooke, and I had been threatened with murder. What escape could there be?

  Throughout the day women came and went, bringing news, a bit of food to sustain the company, and good wishes for Alice in her travail. Nothing seemed amiss until the talk turned to the trials of witches.

  “If we rid ourselves of such women, it’s a job well done,” one young mother said, gazing into the eyes of the infant at her breast.

  She spoke softly and without the anger I had heard when Upper Poppleton’s women turned against Mother Lee. I realized that she said those words, words that would send dozens of women to the gallows, not out of malice, but out of the love she bore for her child. It was common knowledge children were easily bewitched, and it stood to reason that if witches thrived, infants suffered. What mother would not want to protect her children from such a malign force?

  In that moment I recognized for the first time the power behind Joseph’s decision to bring the witch-hunt to York. At a time of war and death, when God in His wisdom had overthrown all that had seemed certain, people would do anything they could to protect themselves and their families. If a man would steal a loaf of bread to feed his hungry child, why wouldn’t a kind and loving woman send a witch to the gallows to save hers? Joseph had not only taken power for himself, he had given power to the people of the city.

  Looking back I realize that this was the moment when the seed of my terrible plan to overthrow Joseph was planted. But before I could think more on it, all was thrown into chaos when another of Alice’s gossips arrived and announced that a child had been taken for witchcraft and carried to Ouse Bridge gaol.

  My eyes flew to Martha’s, and I could see the fear in her face as well. Could Joseph have acted so quickly? Would he have ordered Elizabeth’s arrest? For the second time that day, terror banished all other thoughts and feelings from my mind. Alice’s final travail had not yet begun, so I slipped from the room, scrawled a note, and found Jane, the girl who had summoned me earlier that day.

  “Jane, I need you to take this to my home and give it to my maidservant, Hannah,” I said. I could not stay with Alice unless I knew that Elizabeth was safe. “Wait there for an answer. It should not take long.”

  “Yes, my lady,” the girl replied. “What shall I do if nobody is there? Shall I put it by the door or give it to a neighbor?”

  I paused. I knew that if Hannah were not home, it would only be because Elizabeth had been arrested.

  “If nobody answers run back here pell-mell,” I replied. “I must know that above all else.”

  The girl nodded and dashed off into the gloom of the evening. I do not know how long it took her to return, but it seemed like more than forever. When I wasn’t looking out the window for Jane, I walked up and down the Potters’ parlor alternately praying to the Lord and cursing Him for abandoning me to Joseph’s wrath.

  And I thanked Him when the girl appeared out of the darkness, walking rather than running.

  “Your maidservant said all is well,” she said as soon as she entered the parlor. I felt myself breathe for what felt like the first time in hours. As I climbed the stairs to Alice’s chamber, I wondered what poor child had been taken and said a prayer for her deliverance.

  If the gossips had missed my presence, they hid it well, for I found all the women still talking merrily while Martha walked Alice about the room. Martha looked at me when I entered and I smiled weakly. I could see the relief on Martha’s face, and we were able to get back to the business of birthing.

  The rest of the evening, and the rest of Alice’s travail, were uneventful. I allowed Martha to bring the child into the world, and she acquitted herself perfectly. Custom said that she would remain my deputy for several years more, but I could not help marveling at how much she had learned in the time she’d been in my service.

  It was a few hours after midnight when Martha and I donned our cloaks and started for home. As Jane had promised, Elizabeth was safe in her bed, breathing softly, deep beneath layers of blankets. I kissed her head and retired to my chamber in hope of a few hours of rest before the day would begin.

  I was pulled from a deep and blessedly dreamless sleep by the distant sound of pounding on my door. I heard the front door slam before shouts of anger and terror pulled me fully awake. Still in my shift, I hurled myself from my bed and down the stairs to see what was the matter.

  To my surprise, Samuel Short, the dwarf-jailor from the Castle, stood in the entry hall. Martha held him tightly, apparently trying to keep him from charging up the stairs toward me. Samuel looked up. The anguish in his face turned my blood cold. Oh, God, I thought. The child they took for witchcraft was Tree.

  Chapter 18

  My knees buckled, and I felt myself sinking to the floor. Samuel tore free from Martha’s grasp and crossed the hall toward me. He looked into my eyes, his face awash in anger, grief, and despair.

  “Tell me this isn’t your doing,” he begged. “They have taken Tree as a witch and your nephew signed the warrant. Tell me this is not because of you.”

  I felt my mouth working in vain to find a response adequate to his accusation. What could I say?

  “I don’t know,” I croaked at last.

  Samuel stared at me. He did not believe my words any more than I did.

  “Yes,” I said at last. “Joseph threatened me and all those around me. I feared for Elizabeth, since she is the closest to me. I never thought he would do such a thing to Tree.”

  Tears streamed from Samuel’s eyes. “Then you must save him, my lady. You love him, and you must save him.” Samuel did not need to say that if Tree died in prison or on the gallows, his blood would stain my hands forever. I knew that truth in my bones.

  I nodded. “I will find a way.” What else could I have said?

  “Where did they take him?” Martha asked. “It was Ouse Bridge gaol wasn’t it?” Her blue eyes flashed, and I glimpsed a mercilessness that reminded me of nobody so much as Rebecca Hooke. Here was a woman who would kill when justice demanded it, the law be damned. I took a breath and swore that she would not face the coming storm by herself.

  “Yes, Ouse Bridge,” Samuel replied miserably. “They said I could visit him there before the trial.”

  “That is where they have Will,” Martha said.

  “Aye,” I said. “Arresting Tree and taking him to Ouse Bridge gaol is of a piece with moving Will there. Joseph is no fool. He suspects we tried to help Will escape and he is taking every precaution. No doubt he has his own men guarding the gaol. We’ll have the devil’s own time freeing them.”

  “But you will free them, won’t you?” Samuel asked. “Perhaps if you put things right with Mr. Hodgson he’ll relent and send Tree home to me.”

  “We will try,” I replied. “You go to the Castle and gather food and blankets for Tree. If there is anything you lack, send a boy to me and I will supply it.”

  Samuel wiped his nose on his sleeve and nodded. He seemed grateful to have something to do that might help. I gave him a handful of coins for buying clothes and bribing guards, and he hurried off.

  “Joseph is in no mood to make peace,” Martha said.

  “I know,” I replied. “He would hang Tree even if we offered him ten thousand worlds. Tree’s arrest is meant as a warning that he would do the same to Elizabeth. It is supposed to frighten me into submission.”

  “How are we going to get them out?”

  This was the question that occupied us for the rest of the morning. It did not tak
e us long to light upon the best solution, but I was reluctant to choose that path and insisted we consider other means. During dinner, I gazed at Elizabeth as she chattered on about a game of checkstones that she and Sugar had played earlier in the day. Even as I laughed I could not help thinking that if she told such a story to a witch-hunter he would see her hanged. After we’d eaten, Elizabeth nestled into my lap and we worked for a time on her letters. I sent her off to wash her hands and called for Martha.

  “You’ve decided to go to Helen Wright, haven’t you?” she asked.

  “We have no other choice,” I said. “We’ll see her this afternoon.”

  * * *

  The wind was blessedly calm as Martha and I made our way south through the city. We said nothing as we passed the Ouse Bridge gaol that now held both Will and Tree. Members of the Town Watch eyed us as we passed through Micklegate Bar but waved us along.

  “Joseph has increased the guard,” Martha murmured. “Even if we are successful in freeing them from prison, Will and Tree will be trapped in the city.”

  “Let us clear one bar at a time,” I replied. “We will free them first and then sneak them out of the city.”

  When we arrived at Helen Wright’s house I paused to gather myself. I had no illusions that the conversation would be an easy one. I’d insulted her too often to expect easy forgiveness. She would have me groveling before the afternoon had ended.

  A maidservant I’d never met answered the door and summoned Stephen Daniels. Helen’s man smiled when he saw us, for he knew we had come a-begging.

  “Come in, come in,” he urged. “You are nearly blue with cold.” He led us into Helen’s parlor, where a fire roared in the hearth. “I’ll send for some wine. Mrs. Wright will be down in a bit. Can I tell her what brings you here?”

  I paused before answering. “It is a delicate matter,” I said. Daniels started to object, but I continued. “And one that does not lend itself to a short explanation.”

  He nodded, whispered a few words in the maidservant’s ear, and sat in one of Helen’s large and beautifully covered chairs. As was his habit, he removed a piece of wood and a folding knife from his pocket and began to carve the wood into the shape of a snake. An uneasy silence filled the room, broken briefly when the maidservant returned with three glasses of wine. Martha and I had nearly emptied our glasses when Helen strode into the parlor. Her maidservant followed close behind with a glass of wine for Helen and a pitcher to refill Martha’s glass and mine.

  “Lady Bridget, I hope the wine is to your liking,” Helen said. I searched her face for a sign of insincerity but found none. Martha glanced in my direction, no less confused by Helen’s hospitality than I was.

  “It is marvelous,” I replied. And it was.

  “I trust you are here about the recent … developments in the city,” she said. “If you continue to vex the city’s rulers, you will become as much an outcast as I am.”

  I then understood her newfound charity: The world had finally put me in my place, just as it had her. For a moment pride reared up and urged me to deny her charge. But before I spoke I realized that she was not far from the mark. A witchcraft accusation against Elizabeth would mean her death, but it would also destroy my reputation within the city. I was as vulnerable as a bawd.

  “We are here about my nephew, Will, and a boy named Tree,” I said. “Will has been taken for murder, and Tree for witchcraft.”

  “And they are both innocent,” Helen said. “But what would you have me do about it? I hold no sway with the courts, not on such serious matters.”

  I could not help feeling that she knew exactly why I had come and what I was about to ask of her. But she needed me to say the words aloud, to acknowledge my powerlessness. And in that moment all became clear. Since the day of my birth, I had done all that the world had asked of me. I married when I was told; I bore and buried my children without complaint. I hectored girls in the height of their travail until they told me who had gotten them with child. And then I delivered them for whipping. When the law saw fit to let a murderer go free, I meekly accepted the decision. I was the ideal wife, mother, and midwife.

  And to what end? What had a lifetime of compliance done for me? My nephew and my son stood on the gallows, and an Alderman and his Searcher had threatened to send my daughter to join them. My rank, my name, my coat of arms—all were worth nothing. Had I been born a man, I would have towered over York, the greatest hero it had ever known. But because I was a woman, Joseph would soon destroy the life I had built, and there was nothing within the bounds of the law that I could do to stop him.

  “I need your help to break them out of Ouse Bridge gaol,” I said.

  Helen nodded. She had learned these hard lessons years before and took no satisfaction that at long last I recognized the grim truth.

  “It will cost you dearly,” she replied. I did not know if she meant the money I would pay, or the effect that taking such a step would have on me.

  “I have no choice,” I said. “I shall also need help hiding them after they escape, and then sneaking them out of the city.”

  “You’ve thought this through,” Helen replied. “Give me a moment.” She motioned for Stephen Daniels, and the two of them withdrew from the parlor. Martha and I sat in nervous silence. After a few minutes Helen returned alone.

  Without preamble she named the price of her help. It was high, but seemed appropriate given the magnitude of my request. I agreed.

  “I will put some clothes and money for both Will and Tree in a bag in my stable,” I said. “It will be enough to keep them comfortable until they can escape York.”

  “Good,” she replied. “I will tell Stephen. For now it is best if you go home and stay there. Tonight you should invite friends to dine with you, the more powerful the better. No doubt Mr. Hodgson will accuse you in this, and you should have witnesses ready to deny your involvement. I will send word after it is done.”

  It was good advice, and as Martha and I walked home we assembled a list of supper guests. I did not know how I would remain calm while Will’s and Tree’s lives were at stake, but what choice did I have? In one of the strangest moments of a strange day, Martha and I stopped at several stores and purchased the meats, breads, and cheeses that we would need for the evening. What a world we lived in, thinking of dinner with so many lives hanging in the balance! When we arrived home, I filled a canvas bag with clothes, blankets, and money for Tree and Will and put it next to the feed bin in my stable.

  If you had asked me the next morning who had come to supper, I could not have told you. I imagine I invited some of George Breary’s friends, along with their wives. I probably sent for one or two of the women I’d delivered, but I could not say for sure. Nor could I tell you what we talked about or even what I served. Once the guests had gone, I lay awake for hours, sometimes praying, sometimes listening to the wind whistling outside my window. A few times, hours apart, I was sure I heard gunshots, but I knew that even if something had gone wrong, I was too far from Ouse Bridge to hear anything. News of Will’s death, or Tree’s, would come in the morning with a knock on my door, not a gunshot in the night.

  I abandoned my chamber well before sunrise and made my way to the kitchen where I found Martha kneading dough and shaping it into loaves. I did not think she had slept either. Without a word, I joined her in the work, and together we baked enough bread to feed the parish poor for a week. I did not know if Martha prayed—I doubted it—but if ever there were a time when she would appeal to a loving and generous God, or at least hope for His existence, this was it.

  The rising sun found Martha and me sitting in the dining hall, nervous and completely exhausted. I felt like nothing so much as an anxious father awaiting the outcome of a difficult birth. Soon a door would open, and someone would give me news of life or death. When the knock I’d both feared and hoped for came, Martha and I raced to the door, but Elizabeth bounced down the stairs and arrived before we did. She pulled open the door and let o
ut a small cry at the sight before her.

  Stephen Daniels stood before us, leaning heavily against the doorpost. Though he was wrapped in a heavy wool cloak his deathly pallor made it clear he’d been grievously wounded. Martha and I stepped past Elizabeth and threw Stephen’s arms over our shoulders. We dragged him to the parlor before Martha dashed back to close the door behind us.

  “Was anyone following me?” Stephen asked. His voice barely rose above a whisper, and in his weakness he seemed an entirely different creature than the one we’d seen the day before.

  “Nobody was in the street,” Martha replied. “You’re safe for now.”

  Stephen closed his eyes, and his body relaxed. Whether he slept or fainted I did not know, but it was clear that he had drifted away and would not return for some time. I could only hope that when he came back he would explain what had happened.

  “We cannot keep him down here,” I said. “Call for Hannah and help me take him upstairs.”

  My mind raced as the three of us wrestled Stephen’s lifeless body up the stairs. I worried for Will and Tree, and I wondered if we could expect a visit from the Town Watch. If the constables came, how would I explain the wounded man—or corpse, if it came to that—in one of my bedchambers?

  We half carried, half dragged Stephen into the room where Tree usually slept, and lay him on the bed. I opened Stephen’s coat to find his doublet soaked with blood. Martha ran from the room, returning a moment later with a pair of scissors. As she cut away Stephen’s clothing, I turned to Hannah.