Trailing the Hunter

by Heidi Eljarbo

  Clara found it useful to spend time on the market square among the villagers. Without drawing attention to herself, she wandered around slowly, getting close enough to various groups of people to eavesdrop. She had done this same thing before and always found what folks discussed enlightening and sometimes frightening. She especially wanted to know what they felt about having a witch-finder in the village.

  Before very long, someone mentioned his name. At a table laden with furs from beaver, fox, and even a bear, a trapper with a large black hat threw his head back and let out a burst of roaring laughter.

  “I will save much time with the witch-finder in town,” he said. He lifted his flintlock rifle and pretended to shoot. “No need to hunt for witches.”

  His two friends gave enthusiastic nods.

  “And I won’t be accused of selling flying brooms,” one of them said.

  The threesome clinked their pewter cups of ale and chugged the drinks, the golden brew dripping down their bushy beards and the fronts of their coats.

  Clara enjoyed a good jest and jolly laughter, but such comments were not appropriate. If Angus Hill took one of those men’s family members into custody, they would surely find the situation less amusing.

  She glanced across the square and shivered. Speak of the devil… Angus and his interpreter stood on the other side of the market square, talking with the bailiff. A woman wearing a coif and a clean white apron over her peasant gown stared with fearful eyes at the witch-finder. She pulled her little ones close and walked a large circle around where he was standing. Clara’s heart lifted a bit. At least there were those who reacted appropriately to the reality of the witch-finder’s standing in the

  village. Curious to learn more about the woman’s thoughts, Clara walked up to her.

  “I saw you avoiding the witch-finder,” Clara said.

  The woman, still looking petrified, started to walk away.

  “I don’t want to alarm you. I just want you to know you are not alone in feeling the way you do.”

  “Who are you?” the woman asked. Her face softened, but she still held on to the children as if she feared someone might snatch them away. “I have not seen you here before.”

  “I teach children to read in a cabin up the way, and I would love for your little ones to come and learn.”

  The woman kept her eyes on Clara then tipped her head and glanced toward where Angus had been standing. Clara looked across her shoulder. The witch-finder seemed to have left.

  The fear came back into the woman’s eyes. “Where did he go now? He seems to turn up in unexpected places, and I—”

  Clara touched the woman’s shoulders. “You may come and see me anytime you want to talk.”

  “I…we need to go.” The woman bowed her head, grabbed her two children by their hands, and walked off with rapid steps.

  Clara watched the woman leave, hoping she would see her again.

  Young, male laughter sounded from behind her, and she turned. Amund and a couple of boys sat by the well, chewing straws. They were spitting on the ground and horsing around.

  John Pywell headed in their direction. He grabbed Amund’s arm and pulled him to his feet.

  “Walk with me,” Pywell said.

  Amund raised his eyebrows at his friends, shrugged, then walked a few paces with the interpreter.

  Clara pretended to inspect several containers of honey at one of the nearby stands, close enough to hear their conversation.

  John Pywell lifted his chin. “How old are you, boy?”

  “Sixteen summers.”

  “Already shipped away from home, huh? Too many mouths to feed?”

  Amund nodded.

  “Where are you staying?”

  “At Ivershall. I’m a cowherd on the estate and get to sleep in the barn.”

  “I want you to bring me news.” Pywell’s voice sounded brisk.

  “What kind of news?”

  “Oh, anything. Like what are folks in Berg doing now that there’s a witch-finder in the village? What do they think of him? Also, anything you perceive as uncommon, especially women with bad manners.”

  Amund frowned suspiciously.

  Pywell placed a coin in Amund’s hand. “There is one more of these for you next time if you have tidings I find useful. Now, get.”

  The young man plodded off.

  Probably happy to be out of Pywell’s grasp. Clara glanced over her shoulder. The witch-finder came around the side of the bakery, heading her way. Oh, not again. The thought of speaking to him, of feigning interest in anything he had to say, made her stomach tighten. She lifted her skirts and fled, dashing through the crowd. With luck, he hadn’t spotted her. When she made it to the other side of the street without hearing anyone call her name, she slowed a bit and breathed a sigh of relief. She made a left at the end of the main street and headed toward home.

  ✽✽✽

  A quarter of an hour later, Clara entered her front gate. Peter sat on the cottage steps. Her heart lifted at the sight of him, and she smiled.

  “Peter, come inside. I have fresh kringle from the baker’s shop.”

  “Ah, I love kringle. I should learn how to make it.”

  “Me, too. My baking abilities are far from what a woman my age should have.” She drew the pastry out of her basket and placed it on the table. “The shape of these baked goods makes me happy.”

  He looked at the sweetbread. “It reminds me of someone strictly folding their arms.”

  “Or being prayerful. Anyway, it’s delicious. This one has hazelnuts and cinnamon. Let’s eat.”

  Peter took a bite and hummed while chewing it. He swallowed and

  placed a hand on Clara’s arm. “I need to speak with you about something.”

  She looked around the room. “Siren is not here right now. You may speak freely.”

  “Angus’s manuscript on witch hunting is being copied at the printing press in Fredrikstad. He had a few made earlier, only a handful, but they have probably been distributed already. More are planned.”

  Peter pulled a thin booklet out of his bag and placed it onto the table. “This is one of the copies he had made before arriving here.”

  Clara’s hand flew to her chest. “You have one of the first copies? How did you get hold of one?”

  “I have my ways. It’s amazing how people talk when you show an interest in them first. I traded something else for this booklet.”

  Clara shivered at the sight of Angus’s horrible writings sitting on her table. She leaned back and put her hands on her lap. “I don’t even want to touch it, Peter. I can only imagine what distribution of that booklet can do. Would it not encourage folks to share his views on women and witch hunting?”

  Peter put his piece of kringle onto the table. “I plan to destroy the printing of his booklet,” he said. “I will ride to Fredrikstad and—”

  “I want to come.” Clara leaned forward and stared intently at him, her determination overriding her fear. Angus was evil, and she was there to fight him, ready or not.

  “It’s dangerous.”

  Clara touched her warm cheeks and huffed. “Peter, everything I do here is dangerous. I know this isn’t a game.”

  “I don’t know about this. You—”

  A knock on the door interrupted their heated conversation. Clara quickly threw a cloth on top of Angus’s manuscript as Peter went to answer. Christian stood in the open doorway.

  There was an awkward pause. Christian shoved his hands into his pockets. Peter turned around and looked at Clara, his eyebrows raised as if he had a silent question.

  Clara’s skin tingled. How often had she wondered when she would see Christian again? She sprang to her feet and hurried to greet him. “Christian, how are you?”

  “I am well, thank you. I am sorry to interrupt, but my mother wants to invite you to a soirée at Ivershall tomorrow evening. Thomas Ady, a friend of our family, will be present. You may bring your…your friend.”

  “Thank you,
Christian.”

  Peter made his way past Christian. “Respectfully, I must decline the invitation. I have a pressing errand tomorrow evening.”

  Muddled thoughts rushed through Clara’s head. Angus’s booklet. Christian’s arrival. Peter wanting to leave without her. She finally put her hand on his arm. “We’ll talk more later, Peter.”

  He started walking down the front steps. “I apologize for rushing off. Goodbye, Mr. Ivershall. Until later, Clara.”

  Clara waved and looked back at Christian. She had not even introduced the two. What was she thinking? Christian now had a serious look on his handsome face. He stood straight-backed with his legs apart.

  “You have involved my mother in your dangerous affairs.” His voice was low-pitched.

  An unpleasant knot formed in Clara’s stomach. Did Christian notice her anxiety and hear her rapid breathing? What did he know? Had Dorthea told him about their private conversations? Clara swallowed a couple of times. “I…”

  Before she could continue, his stern face softened, and the charismatic creasing at the outside corners of his eyes appeared. A deep breath escaped her lips.

  “Mother told me about your goal and commitment because she knows she can trust me,” he said. “I am pleased you’ve asked for her help and advice. We need to protect the people in our area. It is our responsibility and our moral obligation.”

  She touched his arm then pulled her hand back. Should she give in and share her thoughts with him? Had he sat in council with men who supported the witch-finder’s visit? Yet, Christian seemed like a man with his own views—true and unfeigned—not one who followed the fashionable opinion.

  “Dorthea has been an amazing support,” Clara finally said. “She encourages me when I feel like giving up.”

  “That she does. She is a pearl. Being a part of your effort to serve

  has given her a purpose. I did not know how to help her before, but I see it now. By serving others, she has found a sense of value again.”

  He sat down on the stairs, his deep-hazel eyes beckoning her to join him. “Would you sit with me for a minute?”

  She nodded and sat down next to him.

  “I will ask you directly as I am not one to speak in a roundabout way. How many know about the real reason you are here in Berg?”

  She gasped and held her breath for a moment. “Why do you want to know?”

  “My mother’s safety is my concern. She is drawn into your quest, and I will support her as I will you.”

  Clara stared at the stallion tied outside the gate and was reminded of how Christian had rescued her in the woods a few weeks earlier. He had spent the whole night searching for Siren and let them—two complete strangers—stay at his home. He had come to see how the school was coming along and was genuinely interested.

  “Peter knows,” she answered. “No one else.”

  “Well, then you definitely need more friends. I think it’s a courageous endeavor you are pursuing. I’m afraid I don’t know much about this witch-finder. We haven’t had any of his kind in Berg in my time, but Mother has told me some stories from when she was younger.

  “He is a monster.” It was silly to be so blunt. She was usually careful with her words, especially when the subject was Angus Hill and witch hunting. But at this point, it did not feel as if she was speaking with the master of Ivershall, the lord of Berg. He was Christian and seemed like a good man whose company she enjoyed.

  He stretched and rose to his feet. “I’d better get back to Ivershall. What should I tell Mother about your invitation?”

  “Please tell her I would be delighted to come.”

  “Good. I will have David pick you up. And, Clara, let me know if I can do anything, will you?”

  Clara placed a hand on her chest. “Thank you so much. But as you mentioned, it’s extremely risky.”

  She walked him to the gate and watched him ride off. He was right; she needed more friends. Still, the less people who knew about her plans, the better. Word should not get out that she was there to stop the witch-finder. A devious man like Angus would turn on her straight away. Then how would she help the women of Berg?

  ✽✽✽

  Peter rented a fast horse and rode off for Fredrikstad. The summer evening was long, and a shy breeze brushed him like a warm, feathery cover. Trotting at a comfortable gait, he moved through the woodland, ducking his head beneath branches and wading across clear, tepid streams.

  What would Clara say when she found out he had left without her? He could not worry about that. He wanted her protected. No one had ever touched him the way she did. What a remarkable woman she was. What he was about to do was not safe, let alone legal. He would never forgive himself if she was caught committing a crime, no matter how small, as such a thing might put in jeopardy her mission to save an entire village. Her determination to keep the villagers safe from Angus’s claws was admirable. Poor Clara. She had witnessed her friends die by order of the witch-finder’s more than once.

  Wolves howled in the distance. Beautiful, haunting creatures. They were feared and hunted, and they ran in packs. Observing them from afar when he traveled the paths of the deeper forests, he’d noticed their traits more clearly. They seemed playful and devoted to their own.

  Storytellers brought tales of wolves—the wise leader of a pack, the lone wolf, the magical or cursed wolf. Peter greatly respected these animals. He chose not to sleep in the woods that night. Accounts of wolf packs attacking both horse and rider were enough to scare any traveler. Neither did he want to encounter a brown bear. He had a large knife on his belt but preferred hunting for smaller animals. Even moose were dangerous this time of year when they had one or two calves.

  The sun would return in about an hour. The short nights of high summer in Norway fascinated Peter. The time from dusk to dawn lasted three or four hours, and even then, the sky to the north— where the sun never set this time of year—never darkened. He could easily see the trail and moved along until he reached a clearing, where he rode the horse through the moist grassland.

  By early morning, he reached the outskirts of civilization. He sighted

  the fiord and lay down to rest for a while on a grassy shelf on a hill overlooking the seafaring town of Fredrikstad.

  ✽✽✽

  After a couple of hours, Peter woke up and took the horse to a nearby stream for water. He kneeled at the bank of the creek and filled up his leather water bottle. Beeswax-coated linen covered the inside of the flask. He took a few swigs then refilled the bottle to the brim.

  The printer’s shop was probably open by now. Peter chomped on some dried meat while he walked the horse down the hill and onto the road toward Fredrikstad. The town had been established almost a hundred years earlier. People there lived off the land or worked in trade and shipping. Now, with a fortress under construction in Fredrikshald, only a day’s ride away, the merchants of Fredrikstad did a lively business, delivering meat, household goods, clothing, and strong spirits.

  Clara had told him about the need for a fortress in the area. Even after the surrender of a borderline district to Sweden in 1658, the Swedes had attacked Fredrikshald three more times over the next year and a half. A stronghold on a mountain above the town with views far into enemy territory was the king’s solution to save the country.

  Peter smiled when he thought about the influence the Danish-Norwegian monarch had. King Fredrik III already had both the towns in the area named after him. And what were they planning to call the new fortress? Fredriksten; the rock of Fredrik.

  Up ahead, a sign on a wall indicated he’d found the printer’s shop. Peter would have enjoyed the narrow streets and the bustle on the marketplace had it not been for his thoughts, preoccupied with a plan to destroy Angus’s manuscript. Peter did not know what awaited him at the printer’s, only that he would not leave Fredrikstad before he had accomplished what he had come there to do.

  The shop was situated in the center of town. Peter fastened the horse’s rei
ns to a pole on the side of the building, away from the door and window, and then went around and entered through the front. A bell above the door jingled merrily.

  Little knowledge of a language had never stopped Peter from getting his message across. Years of traveling and trading had given him enough vocabulary in various tongues to make himself understood.

  “Am I addressing the master printer? I am interested in having a book printed,” Peter said.

  The robust-looking man with a rugged beard nodded. “I am the master printer, and if you require editing, I will see to that myself. My apprentices are not learned men; only one or two of them can read. The others mostly keep the printing press going.”

  Peter looked at the shelves of books on the wall behind the counter. “Who sells the produced works? How will the books be distributed?”

  “I take care of that, also.” The master printer pointed to a stack of books. “These will be picked up later today. I have many associates, so I am often asked to distribute volumes and encourage sales.” He rubbed his fingers in front of Peter’s face. “If you need to raise capital for the venture, I can be of assistance.”

  Peter raised a brow. The man had an impressive amount of knowledge and resourcefulness.

  The master printer grabbed a pile of papers bound together with a string and placed them under the desk. “Have you traveled far?”

  “I trade and act as a diplomat between the Far East and Europe. I spend much of my time in Japan. Life there is quite agreeable.”

  “Do they have print presses there?”

  “They have printed with woodblocks for centuries and carve art into wooden stamps, before simply pressing the print in place. One of the shoguns encouraged reading and had words carved onto the stamps. I believe the Jesuits had a printing press, but I’m afraid I have never seen one.”

  “I will gladly show you how the one we use works,” the master printer said. “Come with me.”