The Witch Hunter's Tale

by Sam Thomas

  Martha nodded. She had come to the same conclusion. “It will not be easy,” she said. “It is your home.”

  “What choice do we have? Joseph intends to hang Will and Tree. And when he discovers Mark Preston’s death, he will find a way to have his revenge on you and me. I do not see how we can defeat him.” I held up the letters I’d written. “We will hire a carriage tomorrow morning, and we’ll be gone before sunset. By the time we reach Hereford, my house will be ready for us. Once there, we will be safe.”

  “What about Will and the children?”

  “We will have to leave them in Helen Wright’s hands,” I replied. “If she can get them out of the city, Will can keep them safe during the journey south.”

  “And then? You can hardly keep up your midwifery in such a place.” Pontrilas was barely a village, and Martha knew it.

  I shrugged. “There are villages nearby. There will be fewer mothers, that is sure. But we have few choices.”

  “There is London,” Martha ventured.

  I laughed out loud. “A few years in York and you’ve become a city girl, have you? That is fair. Once we are settled, we will consider our options.”

  Martha helped me to bed and disappeared upstairs to her chamber. As I lay there, I considered her suggestion that we settle in London. I’d never been to the city before, and I could not help wondering if my family’s future might lie in that direction.

  At sunrise I sent Hannah to post my letters to Hereford and find a carriage to take us south. Martha and I then began gathering everything we would need for the coming journey. I sent letters to friends in the city, calling in the debts they owed me. I knew few would have enough ready money to pay me in full, but if each sent a portion we would have enough. With Will, Tree, and Elizabeth safely hidden, and a carriage coming soon for Martha, Hannah, and me, I felt for the first time in weeks as if all might be well. Indeed, I had become so hopeful that when I heard a knock at the door, I opened it without a moment’s hesitation.

  My knees buckled when I found Joseph standing in the doorstead.

  I steeled myself for his rage, but what he offered instead was far worse. He smiled.

  “Aunt Bridget, might I come in?” Without waiting for a response, he strode past me. I followed him to the parlor, suddenly feeling like a stranger in my own home. Somehow his careless manner frightened me more than his wrath. He reached the parlor and turned to face me.

  “What do you want?” I demanded. “I had nothing to do with Will’s escape, and I don’t know where he is.”

  “You are lying about his escape,” Joseph replied brightly. “But I have no doubt you are ignorant of his whereabouts.”

  I tried to imagine what he meant by this, and in a terrible moment I realized what had happened. I stood in silence as I waited for the grim news.

  “Last night, mother hen,” Joseph said, “the Town Watch found your entire brood. They all are mine now.”

  Though his message was plain, I stared at Joseph trying to make sense of his words. I wanted them to have some other meaning; I wanted to find a reason for him to lie about this. But the truth was there before me and could not be denied. He had taken them all: Will, Tree, Elizabeth, and Stephen. My entire body felt as numb as my river-dipped arm had the night before. Sorrow, horror, and fury vied for expression, but none could win the day so I stood mute.

  “What, nothing to say?” he asked. I had never seen a man so pleased with himself. “You are usually more talkative than this. Very well, I shall continue. They are taken, and they will hang, most of them anyway: Will for murdering George Breary, the ruffian Stephen Daniels for killing Will’s guards. We’ll try the boy as a witch, and I imagine he will hang as well.” A smile flitted across his lips at the thought.

  “Oh, and the girl,” he said, as if Elizabeth were an afterthought. “You’ll not have her back, for you’ve no claim to her at all. You can’t just take an orphan off the street and into your home. There are laws. The city will see to her. I will see to her.”

  I felt a presence behind me, and I recognized Martha’s touch as she put her hand on my shoulder. I glanced at her face and could tell she’d heard everything.

  “They are innocent,” was all I could say. “You killed Mr. Breary, and now you’ll see your brother hanged for it. A thousand times worse than Cain, you are.”

  For a moment Joseph seemed as puzzled as if I’d accused him of popery.

  “You know full well that Tree is no witch,” I continued, my voice rising with every word. “And you cannot take Elizabeth. She is my charge, not yours.”

  For the barest of moments I thought that my words might make an impression on Joseph, that he might relent and let his brother live, for surely he could not be such a monster. Then he smiled. It was a smile as sharp and cold as the north wind, and I knew that there would be no changing his mind.

  “I cannot fathom your insistence that I murdered Mr. Breary,” he said. “But whatever the case, you and yours are over and done.”

  His voice was a knife, and I could feel it between my ribs slicing through my flesh in its inexorable journey to my heart.

  “If I could hang you for the murder of the guards, I would,” he continued. “And I don’t know what you did with Mark Preston, but he was my friend, and you can be sure I will have my revenge for his death. Not today, perhaps, or even tomorrow, for the law moves slowly. But from this day forward, you will go to sleep knowing that someday I will hang the both of you in the market square. And I will pay the executioner to botch up the knot so you strangle slowly. It will be a terrible sight to behold, and a worse one to suffer.”

  Joseph smiled again as if his promise of a slow death were meant to reassure us. Then he strode from the room and out the door.

  Chapter 22

  Martha and I sat next to each other in numb silence, neither of us daring to give voice to our despair. It seemed our battle was over. The moment Joseph had taken Will, Tree, and Elizabeth, he had won. There would be no escape, no mercy from a judge. Will and Tree would hang, and God only knew what fate awaited Elizabeth. I felt panic roiling within me at the thought of losing my family again. I had buried the children born of my body, and their deaths had brought me to the edge of hopelessness and nearly murdered my faith in God. If I lost Will, Tree, and Elizabeth, Joseph would not need a hangman to see me dead. Sorrow would do that work for him.

  I looked at Martha, who seemed no less stunned than I. I waited for her to speak, hoping that she would find a solution to this, that she would concoct a plan to set all our loved ones free. Instead she buried her face in her hands and began to sob. I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her to my side.

  I heard a timid knock from the front door but ignored it. What visitor could I want to see now? When I heard the front door open, I assumed it was Hannah returned from the market.

  “Hello? Lady Hodgson! Please, are you here?” A girl’s voice echoed through the hall. I did not recognize her, but there was no mistaking the panic in her voice. Martha and I hurried to the entry hall. There we found a young serving maid, perhaps sixteen years old, looking wildly about, desperate for help. From her clothes I could tell she was one of the poorer sort, and her cloak was entirely insufficient for the winter’s cold. Her teeth chattered as she tried to speak.

  “Thank God you are here,” she cried out before falling to her knees and clutching the edge of my skirts. “Lady Hodgson, you must come! It is my younger sister. She is in travail, and the child will not come. She is all alone.”

  My first instinct was to send her to another midwife, but after a moment I grasped the meaning of her words. “Your younger sister?” I asked. “How old is she?”

  The girl’s face fell. “She is fourteen,” she said. “Our stepfather…” Her voice failed but the meaning was clear enough. I felt fury welling within me at the violation the girl had suffered, and in that moment her stepfather became the author of every abuse that the weak suffered at the hands of the strong. I knew t
hat I could not ignore the opportunity to mete out a measure of justice: The stepfather would hang for ravishing so young a child. I looked at Martha and saw that she felt the same.

  “I’ll get my bag,” I replied. “I’ll see your sister delivered and your stepfather punished.”

  Martha and I followed the girl toward St. John-del-Pyke, one of the poorest neighborhoods in York. We wound our way through an ever-shrinking series of streets until the road was so narrow that the sky was nearly blotted out.

  We reached the end of an alley and stopped in front of a tenement that seemed on the verge of collapse. The girl peered behind us as if worried we might be followed.

  “It is here,” she said. “You must follow me.”

  I glanced at Martha and could tell that she too sensed something was amiss. I reached into my apron and grasped the small knife I kept there. I used it for cutting navel strings, so it was sharp enough for ordinary flesh.

  “Be at the ready,” I said.

  We followed the girl up two sets of rough wooden stairs. As we climbed, my concerns abated somewhat, for the building was full of life. Children played on the stairs, and we could hear their parents talking behind ill-hung doors. If someone intended to ambush us, he’d have plenty of witnesses.

  The girl paused when we arrived at the top of yet another staircase. The voices from below suddenly seemed far away, and I gripped my knife once again.

  “She is in here,” the girl said. “My sister.” She took a step back and gestured for us to enter. “Go on in.”

  There was no question that the girl was lying about something, but Martha and I were in no mood to run.

  I glanced at Martha, and she nodded. We were ready. Martha reared back and kicked the door with all her strength. The door flew open and with a screech pulled loose from one of its hinges.

  A woman stood just inside—the door must have nearly struck her in the face—and she stared at us in astonishment. Martha and I returned her gaze, no less thunderstruck. Of all the people in York, the last I’d expected to find behind the door was Rebecca Hooke.

  * * *

  “You know how to enter a room, I’ll admit that,” she said with a cold smile.

  I turned to face the girl who’d summoned me, but she’d already fled down the stairs.

  “You might as well come in,” Rebecca said. “Neither of us wants this meeting to become common knowledge.”

  I peered through the doorway and saw that Rebecca was alone. I stepped inside with Martha close behind. Martha wrestled the door closed as best she could while I looked around the small room. The only piece of furniture was a rough wooden bed, and the small horn window provided scant light. If Rebecca had not brought her own lamp, I might not have recognized her at all.

  “What is it?” I asked. I did not bother trying to conceal the hatred or fury in my voice. “You’ve gone to a great deal of trouble, so you must want something of significance.”

  “I want nothing,” she responded. “Rather, I have an offer. And after the news you received this morning, you’ll want to hear what I have to say.” She paused. “I can save your nephew and the children.”

  For a moment, hope leaped in my breast, but I choked it down. Rebecca Hooke would sooner see me hanged than do me a favor.

  “And why would you do such a thing?” Martha demanded, giving voice to my own suspicions. “Because it is for the good?”

  Rebecca laughed, high and cruel. “Of course not,” she replied. “Let’s just say I have my own reasons. Do you want to hear my offer or not? There are other ways to achieve my ends, but this is the easiest for me, and it is the only one that will save your litter of pups.”

  “What do you propose?” I asked at last.

  “I should like to see Joseph Hodgson hanged before the week is out,” she said. “But I need your help to for it to happen.”

  How long did I stare at her trying to make sense of her words? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?

  Martha broke the silence. “Why would you do that?”

  “I’ll not tell you that,” Rebecca replied. “Obviously I would not undertake such a task lightly, so you may rest assured that my reasons are good ones. The problem is that I cannot hang him myself. As much as it galls me, I need your help.”

  “I would never.” I forced my words through clenched teeth.

  Rebecca laughed. “Well, I know in ordinary times you’d sooner hang me than help me, but we hardly live in ordinary times, do we? Hear my offer and then consider your options. If you’d rather see your family hang than accept my bargain, I’ll send you on your way.”

  “Never,” I repeated.

  “No?” she asked. “Lady Bridget, you cannot be insensible to how desperate your position has become. You have made an enemy of York’s most feared man, and tell me, what friends do you have left? And I don’t mean the women—they will stand by you come Judgment Day. But it is the men who matter, and what man will hazard all for your sake?”

  She paused for a moment, knowing full well I could not refute her claim.

  “All your friends are fled or dead,” Rebecca continued. “The very best you can hope is that Joseph Hodgson will only drive you from the city. But even that may be a fond hope. His fury at Mark Preston’s disappearance was something to behold. He will have his revenge. If you do not join me, he will hang the both of you for murder.”

  She paused for a moment and let her words sink in. I still could find no answer that would not choke me.

  “While you consider my offer, I must ask you one more thing.” By now Rebecca’s smile seemed to cover her entire face. I’d never seen her so satisfied. “What did you do with Preston’s body? It is an impressive feat to kill such a man, but to dispose of his corpse as well? It is not as if you could simply cast him into a privy.”

  In an instant I knew that she was jesting about the murder of her infant grandson, who had been thrown into a public jakes and left to die in a pile of shit. A roar fit for a beast tore from by throat as I gave voice to the fury I’d held inside ever since that killing. I flew at Rebecca, my arms flailing wildly, bent on exacting justice for the lost child. Blood cried out for blood, and I would have hers. My hands found Rebecca’s throat, and my muscles sang with joy as they tightened on her neck. It was not the hangman’s noose, but it would do.

  Rebecca fell backward onto the bedframe behind her, and I threw myself on top. I felt her hands battering my face, but for all the effect they had, they might as well have been striking someone else. I was dimly aware of a voice shouting my name, and through the fog of my anger I wondered how Rebecca could speak with my hands clamped on her gullet. I redoubled my effort to choke the life from her body, thankful that the years of delivering children had strengthened my hands for this task.

  I could feel Rebecca’s strength beginning to fade when I was knocked from on top of her. I screamed in rage as I lost my hold of her neck and tumbled to the floor. I fought to regain my feet so I could resume my murderous work, and only then realized that Martha sat on top of me, holding my wrists. I twisted my arms in desperate hope of freeing them and lashed out like an unbroken colt, but she would not be thrown.

  “Bridget, you must stop.” I do not know how many times she said the words before I heard them. Eventually I ceased my struggles and peered past Martha to see if I’d accomplished my goal. To my dismay, Rebecca had pulled herself upright and sat on the edge of the bed, her head between her knees. Her shoulders heaved as she tried to regain her breath. I tried once again to free myself from Martha’s grip but could not.

  “You must stop,” she repeated. “Your revenge can wait. For Will’s sake, and Tree’s, we must hear her out.”

  I breathed deeply and nodded.

  Martha looked at me distrustfully and did not release my wrists.

  “I’m done,” I said at last. “I won’t hurt her.”

  Martha helped me to my feet, and we turned to face Rebecca. My assault had knocked her hat askew, and a thin trickle of blood ran
from one nostril to the corner of her mouth. Even in the dim light of the room I could see the marks my hands had left on her neck—by morning she would have terrible bruising. Her breathing was quick and ragged; every few breaths she would cough and then spit blood onto the floor. After a moment she looked up at me with hooded eyes. In my time as a midwife I had made more than a few women into my enemies, but none had ever stared at me with the pure hatred I saw in Rebecca Hooke’s face.

  She tried to speak, but only a weak mewling sound escaped her throat. She paused and tried again. “Now, if we are to hang Joseph Hodgson we must be wise as serpents,” she croaked.

  * * *

  After Rebecca explained her plan, she went downstairs to give Martha and me time to consider her proposal.

  “It would work,” Martha said.

  “It might,” I admitted. “But what is her game? Why would she help us?” I was loath to say so aloud, but I could not help admiring the cold brilliance behind Rebecca’s scheme. She seemed to have considered every possibility. God, what a dangerous man she would have been!

  “That’s what worries me as well,” Martha replied. “Could she intend to turn the proceedings against you?”

  “It is possible, but why discuss it with us ahead of time? If she intended to hang the two of us as witches, she’d have conspired with Joseph. It would have been much easier than this.” I paused. “I wish I knew why she has turned against Joseph.”

  “So you will accept her offer?”

  “If we are going to save Will and the children, I don’t know what choice we have. I presume that if you had a better scheme you’d have mentioned it already.”

  Martha smiled wanly. “No. This is the best chance we have.”

  We descended the stairs and found Rebecca waiting just inside the front door. She had recomposed herself, and her scarf covered most of the wounds from our battle.

  I nodded as we approached. “We will do it,” I said.

  “Good.” Rebecca nodded and opened the door. “You should leave here first. I do not think that Joseph suspects me, but this is not the time to be careless.”