Witch Born

by Nicholas Bowling

  The woman slumped on to the floorboards in the pool of her hair, her body emptied of breath and life.

  Alyce saw the Doctor getting unsteadily to his feet, rubbing his head and picking splinters out of his beard. Somewhere in the clouds of dust, the faintest outline of Mary’s gown was floating among the timbers. Alyce had already started down the stairs into the shadows of the house when she heard Mary’s voice, like a surgeon’s blade:

  ‘Get her.’

  Alyce bounded down the steps two or three at a time, stumbling on the last few and tripping head-first into a wrought-iron strongbox on the ground floor. Pain blossomed above her right eye.

  Don’t stop, stupid!

  She hauled herself upright, steadying herself on the passage wall. The throb in her head was nauseating. A stream of blood stung her eye and then pattered on to the floor as she staggered to the front door.

  The air felt freezing, and painfully clean, when she exploded out into the road. She spun around, panting. She didn’t recognize anything. Mortlake, she remembered faintly. Vitali had told her Doctor Dee lived upstream from London. She looked around for somewhere to hide, her head still whirling in the opposite direction to her body, making her twice as sick as she was already. The village was just marshland and few drab houses, with none of the crowds and alleyways and hidden corners that would have helped her inside the city walls.

  She tried to think.

  The river.

  Alyce ran unsteadily, hearing thunderous footsteps inside the house behind her. A little further down the road, beyond Doctor Dee’s carriage, was a jetty where a tilt boat had been moored. The rowers were nowhere to be seen – night was fast descending, their day’s work was probably done. She reached the riverbank, glancing over her shoulder just as Doctor Dee himself stumbled out of the entrance hall after her. He was slow and still dazed from the collision with his books.

  Come on Alyce, don’t tell me you can’t outrun somebody’s grandfather.

  The mooring rope was thick and tightly knotted to the stake that rose out of the river. More than that – it was so old and so weathered that the fibres had started to fuse with each other, to melt into the wood itself. When she picked at it, she just came away with damp, foul-smelling hemp under her fingernails. Her hands were numb too, and wouldn’t do what she told them to.

  She could hear Doctor Dee’s heavy tread. The rope wasn’t loosening at all.

  Alyce turned, squinting through the blood that covered her right eye, and saw his grave, implacable face. His beard raged around him like a snowstorm.

  There was no other option. She climbed into the tilt boat and scrambled under the canvas covering to the bows, which pitched violently in the cold waters. Then she clutched her mommet, held her breath, and jumped.

  HOPKINS

  The Swan’s common room fell completely silent when Hopkins and Caxton stepped through the door. That always pleased him. He took a moment to taste the air and savour the patrons’ fear.

  ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ said the innkeeper, standing stout and red-faced next to the fireplace. ‘Or is it good evening? Neither one nor t’other right now, is it? Can I get you something to eat and drink?’ There was a false, forced jolliness in her voice that Hopkins despised. It wasn’t working, either – all of her customers were still silently watching Caxton, who hovered ghostlike at the door, as though forbidden from entering the homes of the living.

  ‘Neither, thank you. But we would like to speak with one of your patrons. A Solomon Harper.’

  The woman frowned and scratched her head, a worse actor than those he’d questioned in the inn yard of The Popinjay. ‘Never heard that name before, I don’t think.’

  ‘Are you quite sure?’ said Hopkins pleasantly. ‘He may have come here in the company of a girl who we would very much like to speak to.’

  The innkeeper shrugged. ‘Don’t get many girls around here, neither. Unless you mean Martha. Martha!’

  Her bellowing was enough to break the spell cast over the common room, although the conversations that were struck up now lacked ease and laughter.

  The girl emerged sullenly from the kitchen, her dark, fine hair stuck with sweat to her forehead. She wiped her nose on her sleeve.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘That isn’t her,’ interrupted Hopkins. ‘We are looking for an Alyce Greenliefe. Very short red hair. Shaven-headed. From her time in Bedlam.’

  The innkeeper threw a glance at the serving girl, which he noted, and then bustled over, wiping her hands on her apron.

  ‘Bedlam? Well, I’m sure I don’t know who it is you’re talking about. Not seen Solomon round here for weeks, and if I’d served a lunatic I’m sure I’d remember it.’

  ‘I see,’ said Hopkins, his eyes still on Martha. ‘This is a shame. Well, since we’ve had a wasted journey, I suppose I should stay for an ale after all.’

  ‘I am sorry, sir. Was the girl a relative of yours?’

  Hopkins smiled. ‘A relative, no. Her mother and I were very close friends, though.’

  The innkeeper looked at him oddly, at least three different expressions fighting for control of her face. ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘like you say, things won’t seem quite so bad after an ale or two. Would your friend like something too?’

  Hopkins shrugged. ‘Possibly. He can’t say one way or the other. I think he’ll be happy to stay outside.’

  ‘Very well.’ The innkeeper smiled unconvincingly and went back to the kitchen, and Martha followed her, muttering something.

  Hopkins surveyed the other patrons. Everyone was taking stiff, tentative sips at their drinks, snatching glances at him over the rims of their tankards. Their eyes darted away again as soon as they met his. He smiled back at them and straightened the pearl buttons on his doublet.

  While he was getting the measure of every man in the inn, Martha came over and threw his mug of ale heavily down on to the table. The frothy stuff sloshed over the brim and nearly soaked his lap.

  She said nothing. He rather liked how unapologetic she was. Just as she turned to go, he took her gently by the arm.

  ‘Careful, sir,’ she said, ‘it’s not that kind of place.’ She didn’t try to move away, though.

  ‘What does she pay you?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The innkeeper? What does she pay you?’

  ‘Mrs Thomson? Not enough, by half.’

  ‘How much? Tell me.’

  ‘Sixpence. A day. And she feeds me.’

  ‘Sixpence,’ said Hopkins, digging into the purse that hung off his belt. ‘Then how about I keep things competitive, and offer you a gold sovereign for your services.’

  ‘Services?’

  ‘Tell us where the girl is. We both know your employer is lying.’

  Martha’s eyes widened, the bright, yellow coin reflected in them. Then she blinked.

  ‘Double it,’ she said.

  Hopkins laughed. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Double it. Two sovereigns, and I’ll take you straight to her.’

  ‘Look in her pockets!’

  ‘Don’t feel right about this Jack . . .’

  ‘Leave her then. More for me.’

  ‘She’s still breathing, look.’

  A pair of hands rolled Alyce on to her back, and groped around the sodden folds of her dress. The fingers closed around something and withdrew.

  ‘Well, there’s a pretty thing . . .’

  ‘Look, Jack, she ain’t dead.’

  ‘What are you talking about? That’s the deadest face I ever seen.’

  Alyce forced her eyes open. Two faces, dirty, unshaven, were peering down at her. The man closest to her, Jack, she assumed, was counting the coins he’d stolen in his palm – the payment from Vitali to Mrs Thomson. He stopped when she started to move.

  ‘By God, you’re right! This fish is still wriggling!’ He showed her a mouthful of brown teeth. ‘We’ll have to throw it back in then, won’t we?’

  Grinning,
he knelt down to haul Alyce up from under her shoulders.

  No, she thought, not now. Not like this. She squirmed clumsily in his arms. A dizziness overtook her – she was cold, she was tired, the wound on her head still felt raw – but there was something else too. The world throbbed and rippled. Figures crowded around her, hundreds, thousands, darkly luminous. She heard their voices. Urgent, whispering, dead voices.

  She struggled free of the man’s grasp and lurched to her feet, fearing the enclosing shadows more than she feared him. Then, as though her movements weren’t her own, she seized him by the wrists. He gasped as though he had been branded with a hot iron. His face was a mask of horror, but he didn’t pull away. Or couldn’t.

  The other man was backing away down the pier. ‘Let her go, she ain’t right, this one.’

  Alyce felt herself drawn upright, taller than she thought she was. Her attacker’s limbs collapsed like dry stalks until he was kneeling in front of her, eyes bulging, mouth agape, his arms still caught in Alyce’s fingers.

  ‘Give it to me,’ she said. Her voice sounded distant, deeper, slower.

  ‘Do what she says, Jack, she got the Devil in her!’

  Jack moaned and swayed on his knees, sounding like a terrified infant.

  ‘Give it to me,’ Alyce said again. She released one of his arms.

  The man named Jack opened his fist and dropped the coins on to the boards of the pier.

  ‘No. The other thing.’

  He frowned, reached into his leather jerkin and withdrew her mommet, soaked and bedraggled and not looking much like a person any more. He threw it at her feet.

  As soon as Alyce let go of his other wrist, he crossed himself and ran like a man hunted into the darkness of the storehouses. His accomplice followed, and the pair of them disappeared.

  Her heart slowed, her blood cooled. The sounds and the shapes of the dead were carried away on the breeze, and the pier fell silent. She stared at her hands. What was that feeling, that lightness in her head and chest? It wasn’t fear any more – that had passed, leaving this other feeling in its wake. Pride? Power? There was something else mixed in, though – shame? But why should she feel ashamed?

  She bent down and picked up the mommet, which was soaked and fraying and missing the lock of hair from its head. The currents of the Thames had done their work. She was suddenly very weak. All of the weight of the day now seemed to fall upon her at once, and she could no longer bear it. She sank on to the wooden walkway and began to cough and shiver violently, a pool of stinking water slowly spreading around her.

  It was nearly completely dark now. The lights on London Bridge were reflected prettily in the river, and the docks, while not completely empty, were much more subdued. London seemed almost peaceful.

  Alyce’s teeth were chattering so uncontrollably that she bit her tongue. She cursed, but the pain and the hot taste of blood woke her up a little. She prodded gingerly at the cut on her eyebrow. What a wreck she was. It seemed the currents had carried her all the way from Mortlake to the Legal Quays – she’d gone under the waves just before London Bridge, and been spat out on the bank with a mouth full of river water and no immediate memory of how she had got there.

  Visions of Mary Stuart and Doctor Dee rose to the surface of her swimming head, but she forced them back down. She didn’t want to think about them now. She didn’t want to think about them ever. She hoped they would simply fade and disappear with time, like an unpleasant dream. All she wanted was dry clothes, something to eat, and maybe a couple of stitches. The Swan couldn’t be too far away, if she retraced her steps from the bridge. With any luck – and she must be due some by now – she might still be back in time for supper.

  She wondered what sort of mood Mrs Thomson would be in.

  Soaked, frozen and barefooted, she trudged in the vague direction of the inn, quietly thankful that she still had the hard callouses on her feet from her time in Bedlam.

  After a few minutes’ wandering, she emerged on to a broad street that she thought she recognized as Little East Cheap. But every building looked familiar in the half-light. As she tried to get her bearings, she heard someone coming towards her. Their steps were slow, deliberate, a bit flat-footed.

  She peered through the gloom. She would recognize that stride anywhere.

  ‘God’s breeches . . .’ said Solomon, grabbing her freezing hand. ‘What happened to you?’

  Alyce looked into his dark, tired eyes and immediately thought of the wretched woman in Doctor Dee’s cage. There was no doubt about who she had been. How on earth could she begin to tell him? She should have tried to help her. But she’d left her behind – left her body behind – at the mercy of Dee and Mary. The guilt made her sick and silent.

  ‘Hello?’ said Solomon, waving a hand in front of her face. ‘What happened? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Do you care?’ she said at last. It wasn’t the answer she had been expecting to come from her mouth, but there it was. ‘I haven’t seen your face in more than a week.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ll explain later. Right now, you’ve got to turn around and walk away.’ He pulled her into an alley.

  ‘What?’ Alyce’s lips were numb from cold, and could barely form the words. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Saving your life again. What is this,’ he said, counting on his fingers, ‘the third time? Fourth?’

  ‘Saving my life? I’ll die of fever if I don’t get back to The Swan before nightfall. In case you hadn’t noticed, Solomon, I’ve had rather an eventful day.’ She stopped and splayed her sopping wet dress.

  He surveyed her. ‘Your face . . .’

  ‘My face? What about my face?’

  ‘You’re bleeding.’

  ‘Am I? I didn’t know you were a physician, Solomon.’ Oh yes, she was angrier than she’d anticipated.

  Solomon shook his head. ‘Listen, there’ll be plenty of time to make fun of me later. Just come with me. You can’t go back to The Swan.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They are there. The witchfinders. I was coming to find you when I saw them going into the inn. They’re talking to Mrs Thomson right now. Looking for you and me.’

  The cold on Alyce’s skin now burrowed into her heart. A memory flickered into life – Queen Mary had said the witchfinders were still at large on the streets of London, looking for her.

  ‘What did Mrs Thomson say?’

  ‘From what I could hear she did her best to mislead them. But I couldn’t get too close, in case they recognized me. It’s definitely the same two men. That strange man in the mask. I went round the back, checked the kitchen, checked your bedchamber. I noticed your letter was gone, so I thought maybe you’d gone to Bankside. It was the only thing I could think of.’ He pinched at her wet sleeve and frowned. ‘You know there’s a bridge across the river don’t you? It’s easier than swimming.’

  Alyce couldn’t begrudge him trying to lighten the mood. She made an unimpressed half-smile. ‘Like you said – making fun can come later.’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that. Come on. If we don’t get to Ludgate before it closes, I’m not sure we’ll have anywhere to sleep tonight. It might even be closed already . . .’ He removed his cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  ‘Ludgate?’ said Alyce as he set off again through the alleyway. ‘We’re leaving the city?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve been thinking. You should stay in my lodgings.’

  Alyce suddenly realized she had never thought to ask Solomon where he lived. She tried to picture his home, but based on the evidence of his tatty doublet and moth-eaten hose she could only envisage some poor, damp hovel outside the city walls. But a roof over her head, even a leaking one, would be welcome enough after the day she had endured.

  When they reached Thames Street, they turned right and walked westwards across the city without speaking. Alyce occasionally tried to find the words to explain the day she’d had, to talk about Vitali, about Doctor Dee and Mary Stuart. About his
mother, kept in a cage like an animal. She’d been right there, in Bedlam, with Solomon a matter of yards away in the gatehouse. It was too awful. She thought of her own mother, and of Solomon’s, and she wanted to cry, more from frustration than from sorrow. It wasn’t a feeling she would wish upon anyone.

  I can’t tell him, she thought. I won’t tell him. It will ruin him. And he’ll hate me for it.

  She stayed quiet, at least for the time being, furiously blinking away the tears before they could appear. Besides, she needed time to digest everything herself, to separate truth from imagination. On top of all of this, her head still felt like it was full of silt from the Thames, and she was putting most of her energy and concentration into simply staying conscious and upright.

  London Bridge quickly came and went on their left-hand side, and they continued past the various guildhalls of vintners, joiners and blacksmiths until the spire of St Paul’s was just visible over the tops of the houses, silhouetted against the purple sky.

  They turned towards it and quickened their pace past the cathedral and the beggars congregating outside. Alyce’s heart sank when they saw the great iron portcullis barring their exit from Ludgate, but as they approached they noticed that a handful of the city’s watchmen were still clustered around a postern gate, which was still open.

  After a little negotiation, and a number of suspicious sideways glances at the barefooted Alyce, they were let through.

  ‘They’re probably glad to have a vagabond like me outside the walls,’ said Alyce once they were the other side of the gatehouse, and the air was fresher. ‘I must look terrible.’

  ‘Hmmm . . .’ Solomon nodded, apparently lost in thought. ‘I hadn’t really thought of that. You’re going to have to dress in something different once we’ve arrived, or they won’t let you in.’

  ‘Let me in? Where? Who are they?’

  ‘You’ll see when you get there,’ he said. Alyce began to sense he was rather enjoying all this secrecy. ‘I’ll probably need to go inside and fetch you some clothes, you should keep out of sight.’ He suddenly stopped, and looked Alyce up and down. ‘Yes . . . you’re nearly as tall as me. That’s good.’