Daughters of the Witching Hill

by Mary Sharratt

  "Where are you taking us?" My voice sounded strange, as if it didn't belong to me anymore.

  "Lancaster Gaol," said Hargreaves. "Where else? Did you think Nowell would suffer you on his land another day?"

  Bound for Lancaster! Never had I ventured so far from home. The journey of a lifetime, this was, and one that could end with each of us dead. Even if they decided not to hang us, we might die in prison as Chattox's daughter Betty had done.

  When the wagon set off, my eyes locked with Gran's clouded ones. Humming under her breath, she was, too low for Hargreaves and Baldwin to hear. The horses made sluggish progress down the muddy road. Again and again, the men had to unload us and heave the wheels free from the mire. A secret smile lit upon Gran's face. It was as though the land itself were rising up against Nowell and his henchmen so that we might stay in Pendle Forest where we belonged.

  Chattox's anger hung in the air like an invisible curtain, making me afraid to so much as glance her way, though she was sat, tied and bound, only inches away in the rattling wagon. Sometimes I caught Gran turning to the sound of Chattox's voice as she spoke to Annie.

  My grandmother grit her teeth in pain as the wagon jolted along. Needless to say, no one had thought to waste any straw to cushion the splintery boards. Wriggling up beside her, I tried to pillow her body.

  "Come, lean your head against my shoulder," I told her. "Rest a spell."

  But Gran seemed too troubled to lose herself in the sweet oblivion of sleep.

  "What will happen to the rest of them?" she murmured.

  I thought of Mam, Jamie, and Jennet, how their lives must go on without us. God willing, Alice Nutter would look after them.

  By daylight gate we reached Clitheroe. The weary horses dragged us up steep streets where folk pointed and stared. We passed through the market place with its pillory and then up to the grey castle. Before the castle gates closed upon us, I cast my eyes round at the hills and fells rising in every direction, green slopes dotted with sheep. Above it all, Pendle Hill brooded, bathed golden in the evening light.

  Baldwin and Hargreaves took their leave, only too glad to be shot of us. Without a backward glance, they abandoned us to our fate. They'd fare home like brave and conquering heroes—the godly men who had rid Pendle Forest of its witches.

  Dour-faced guards whose names we didn't know wrested us down to the dungeon deep beneath the castle. In that cell stinking of shit and vomit, we were locked in for the night. The four of us were given a single bowl of gruel and a bucket of brackish water. High on the wall, a rush light lit up the gloom. Annie Redfearn let out a cry when she spied the first rat, and we'd only the emptied gruel bowl to use as a weapon to beat it off.

  "At this rate," said Chattox, "we'll be dead before we reach Lancaster."

  She said this with her back to Gran and me, still giving us the cold shoulder. I looked to Gran who touched my face.

  "Pray," she begged me.

  Though I felt too polluted to mouth the holy words, I sank to my knees in the filth and murmured my Aves. Only then did Chattox deign to look at me.

  "Who do you think is going to answer your prayers now?" she asked.

  I just prayed on—what else could I do? As the words wrapped themselves round me, the light of mercy welled up from within. The vision came to me of the statue of Our Lady hidden inside Alice Nutter's secret chapel, the Virgin's tender face and outstretched arms. A woman clothed in the sun. How her blinding beauty blazed within my heart as I chanted the prayer charm Gran had taught me as a child.

  Open, heaven's gate, and stick shut, hell's gate.

  Let every christened child creep to its Mother mild.

  Opening my eyes, I started to see Annie Redfearn's face before mine. She raised her thin hand with its nails bitten down to the quick. Wrenched from the solace of my devotions, I flinched, thinking Annie would slap me for presuming to pray after landing the four of us in this pit of despair. Annie leaned so close, I could see myself reflected in eyes green as her mother's.

  "Can you pray for my daughter? My Marie?"

  I bowed to Annie Redfearn, the only one of us who had acted in true honour.

  "Course I can," I said, cracking apart to hear how she wept for the girl she'd not see again.

  Early the next morning the guards prepared to fetter us for the onward journey. Thinking they would bind our hands with rope as Baldwin and Hargreaves had done, I was stood there with my hands behind my back. But it was cold iron these men laid on us. Manacles were fastened round our wrists and rings round our necks, and to mortify us further, we were chained together like a string of pack horses: me in front, followed by Gran, Annie, and Chattox at the rear.

  "Now move your lazy arses," the lead guard told us. "It's onward to Lancaster."

  We climbed out of the dungeon and into the forecourt where Baldwin and Hargreaves had handed us over the night before.

  "Where's the wagon?" I asked, looking round and not seeing one.

  "You'll be walking," the lead guard told us.

  "All the way to Lancaster?" I couldn't contain myself. "Sir, my gran's eighty years old. Chattox, too. Sure you can't make them walk so far."

  The guards had a good laugh.

  "If you witches can fly," said the young guard stood close to me, "then you can walk right enough."

  He couldn't have been much older than I was, that lad. Even though I was ugly as could be with my hair shaved off and my kirtle stained with prison dirt, I could sense the lust coming off him. I burned to feel his eyes moving up and down my body just as Nowell's had when he forced me into the corner. Still chuckling to himself, the young guard pinched my cheek. If it weren't for the manacles binding my wrists, I would have belted him. Shackled though I was, I was fair tempted to curse him till his ears bled. Instead I swallowed my anger, for if I lost my temper, I could get the lot of us into more trouble. The lead guard looked like a severe one, just itching for an excuse to wield that club he carried.

  Least the chains that bound us were loose enough so that I could take Gran's arm and guide her along, the way I'd always done. If it wasn't for the cold iron biting into my skin, I could almost pretend I'd travelled back in time and was leading her out to bless one of the Holdens' calves.

  ***

  First our journey was downhill. We descended the snaking road leading from the castle and out of Clitheroe, then headed alongside pastures full of new lambs, just like the meadows of home. The birds trilled sweet as any I'd ever heard. Wild primrose and dogtooth violets bloomed on the beckside, and every tree was crowned in buds set to burst into new leaves. A lovely and tender time of year, this was, to be marching toward our ruin. Another two Sundays and it would be Easter.

  My heart jolted to spy a hare bounding by, seeming to linger near Gran's shadow till it leapt through the hedge, free and away. Gran's face went rapt as though Tibb had appeared to offer her comfort. So sweet her reveries must have been she no longer seemed to hear the clanking iron or cursing guards. Miles away, Gran was, with only my arm on hers to bind her to this earth.

  The enchantment faded when we reached Waddington, the next village on our way, where a gaggle of children stormed out, chanting witch. Only a matter of time before they started throwing missiles at us, and it looked as if the lead guard had no mind to stop them if they did. Gran's hand in mine went cold and slick, and I saw how the gash on her scalp still wept with pus. Before any of those imps had the chance to hurt her, I drew myself up and yelled for all I was worth.

  "Run away, you scabby rotters, or I'll show you what a witch can do."

  Head guard told me off, but the young guard who'd been making eyes at me seemed well impressed.

  "That's some gob you've got, lass." Though he tried to act stern, he seemed to smile in spite of himself.

  "Bless you," Gran whispered, pressing my hand.

  Though my ruse had worked and the urchins had legged it, leaving us to pass through Waddington unmolested, I wasn't done worrying about my grandmothe
r. She staggered with each step. Even her spirit seemed to be draining away, her skin gone chalky. We hadn't yet strayed more than ten miles from the boundary of Pendle Forest, and yet she appeared to wilt like a flower cut off from its roots.

  Soon as we put Waddington behind us, our way stretched uphill. On the horizon reared a mighty fell, almost high as Pendle Hill itself. The moorland track was treacherous with mud and slippery stone, and the ground on either side was boggy. Up and up we clambered into that desolate heath. Gran foundered, her lungs sounding as though they'd soon burst. Only thing I could do was keep pulling her along, holding her upright so she wouldn't slip. Tried to ease her over every bump, and if there was a ditch or stile, I lifted her over for I didn't trust any of the guards not to bruise her. So spindly-thin Gran had grown I could almost carry her full weight in my arms and, by Our Lady, I'd bear this burden without complaint. Gran had told me how the priests of the old religion used to give folk penances to absolve their sins. Once she knew a man who was sent on a barefoot pilgrimage to St. Mary's of Walsingham. Looking down at my feet, naked and exposed now that the rags that had bound them had worn away, I thought that this was my penance, my ordeal. With each mile I helped Gran along I would prove how sorry I was, how I craved redemption for us all.

  Up on the high fell there were no villages, no children to plague us, only wild hares and ewes heavy with lamb. Gran's gasping grew ever noisier the steeper we climbed and Chattox was having no easy time of it either, leaning upon Annie and swallowing her pain with bitter grunts. Then came a stone stile so high it fair overwhelmed me as I struggled to help Gran over. The iron manacles bit into my skin as I pulled on the chains, edging behind her to help push her up the footholds one by one. When at last I got Gran to the top, she nearly tumbled down the other side that plunged six feet to the muddy ground. My arms round her waist, panting in time with her, I racked my brain as to how I could get her down, for on this side the footholds were far apart and well worn away. The two of us were stood atop that stile with Annie and Chattox stuck below, unable to move till we did, and the guards bellowed, baleful and impatient.

  Gran said, "Peace. That one has a good heart."

  I'd no idea what she meant till I saw the young guard clear the stone wall, nimble as a weasel. But after all, he was better fed than us and he'd no iron chains to weigh him down. Now stood at the bottom of the stile, he reached out his arms to take my gran, but his eyes met mine. The lust I'd seen in them before had turned to something like mercy.

  At long last the head guard let us rest a spell. Maybe he feared that if Gran and Chattox both dropped dead, his men would have no choice but to drag their corpses to Lancaster and wouldn't that be a spot of bother. Yet by some miracle we reached the top of Waddington Fell before dusk.

  "Best take your last look at Pendle Hill," the young guard told me.

  With him stood so close, I'd no choice but to notice his fine hazel eyes. A good-looking lad, he was, who would have made me smile had I not been shackled and shorn. Near brought me to my knees, it did, to think he could be so kind and pay me such attention as if I were still that pretty girl I'd seen in the mirror in Nowell's manor house, my unbowed head crowned in coppery tresses, my body strong and clean, my skin shining with health.

  Shame-faced, I ducked away from him, holding fast to Gran's arm, then filled my soul with the vision of that great silent hill that had watched over me since I was a babe. Rising graceful against the eastern sky, Pendle Hill beckoned me like a mother with her vast green skirts. Breathless, I described the view to Gran, painting as true a picture as my poor words would allow. As the tears moved down her face, I told myself that this was my last glimpse of home.

  That night there was no dungeon for us but the moon-drenched sky and the cold that forced the four of us to pile together like a litter of puppies. Annie and I huddled on the outside with Gran and Chattox between us so that the old women would be warmest. Gran slept with her spine pressed tight to Chattox's, the woman who had been her dear friend and sworn enemy. Weary to the bone, Gran soon fell into a silent sleep, whilst Chattox snored and Annie, mumbling in her dreams, called out to her lost daughter.

  Though I was aching-tired, my eyes stayed open, gazing out at the moon, half full, spilling her silver on the moor. March hares capered in her light. Soon they'd bear their young. Life would go on without us.

  My body went rigid to see a dark shape steal toward us. My mouth opened in terror but no sound came out. Then I saw it was the young guard. Noiseless he sat himself down a few feet away. For a spell neither of us spoke.

  In that silence I could pretend that I was not his captive nor was he my guard. I could dream that we were two free souls, a girl and the lad who fancied her, and that he could take my hand and off we'd race across this moonlit moorland where his adoring eyes on my face and body would make me beautiful again and so happy that I'd throw my arms around his neck, that I'd start kissing him and never want to stop.

  "Are you really a witch?" he whispered.

  Was I, indeed? I saw the pedlar falling lame, saw the Yorkshireman's face constrict at the sight of me.

  "I can't fly, if that's what you mean," I finally whispered back.

  He laughed under his breath and inched closer. Just when I thought he would reach for my hand, his head jerked at the noise of another guard off in the distance.

  "What's your name?" I whispered before he could slink away.

  "William." Fast as a hare, he was gone.

  By morning, mist enclosed us and rain fell, but the air was mild and sweet. I filled my lungs, half drunk on it, for once we reached Lancaster, I knew I'd never breathe such wholesome stuff again. I fair longed to throw myself face-down upon the heath to kiss the heather and bracken, every weed and wort. I'd rather be chained on this fell top, exposed to wind and weather and left here to die, than rot in some prison bristling with rats and fleas. The fog was so dense we lost sight of the way before us. There was nowt but the winding track and the sheep moving in and out of the mist like ghosts. Day bled into day as we trod the remaining thirty-odd miles through the Trough of Bowland. All the while I prayed that we would be lost and stumble round and round in the fog and never reach Lancaster.

  Three days after we first set out from Clitheroe, the moors and fells dropped away in long slopes to the sea. Straddling a river in the land far below lay the city with its castle rising mighty and imposing, built to be seen from miles away.

  Down off the moors we walked, crossing pastureland where crocus sprang from the damp earth and robins sang in the hedges. How I longed to hold that sunlit morning forever like a perfect stream-washed agate. But the guards drove us along like cattle to market, yanking at our chains if we balked. My feet blistered and raw, I limped past fresh-sown fields, through villages where yet more children came to gawp till I pulled such a fearsome face that they scarpered, howling in their fear of us witches.

  The cottages grew ever more plentiful till there were long rows of them. Housewives pattered to and fro with buckets of water and milk. An old man herded goats. Chickens trotted across our path. All these homely things that I would never again lay eyes on.

  When the cobbled lane curved past a windswept place where gluttonous crows circled and cawed, I stopped in my tracks.

  "What is it?" Gran asked.

  She must have felt how my hand on her arm had gone stone cold. Then she gagged, for though she was blind, how could she not smell the rotting flesh, the bodies left to dangle from the gibbet, spinning in the wind?

  "Keep walking," William said, marching me along before the head guard could punish us for dawdling.

  As I tottered onward, a phantom rope closed round my throat, choking me. So many awful tales I'd heard about hanging. Some folk died quick, their weight causing their neck to snap, whilst others took an age to die. The lighter the body, the longer the suffering. I considered Gran's frame, dwindling ever thinner. How I wished I could charm the manacles off her, transport her through the air back t
o Malkin Tower and her bed by the fire.

  The lane twisted toward Lancaster Castle, towering above us. In its shadow I beheld an apparition of hell. Severed heads stared with frozen eyes from the iron spikes girding the castle grounds.

  "Them are Jesuits," William whispered to me.

  The sight was enough to make Chattox herself sob aloud. Forgetting myself, I began to pray beneath my breath, mouthing my Aves and Pater Nosters as fast as I could, till William clapped his hand over my mouth and Gran begged my silence.

  The gates opened to us, then clanged shut behind us, banishing any thought of freedom. Armed watchmen stalked to and fro with lances and pikelets, and how their eyes raked over us disgraced women, us witches. I turned my head to gaze at the blue spring sky one last time before the guards herded us through a huge door and into the dark tunnels of that castle. They goaded us down passageways, gloomy and cold, where my shackles weighed heavier with each step.

  We shuffled by a group of turnkeys, just stood there, idle. "Never fear, lass," one of them called out to me. "I'll save you from the hangman if only you let me get you with child."

  I was set to spit in his face, but William, glaring at the turnkey, urged me along till at last we reached a windowless chamber where a heavy-set man awaited us. A black leather doublet he wore over his white Holland shirt. His polished black boots rose above his knees. Upon his little finger he'd a gold and ruby ring that twinkled in the torchlight. A right lordling, he looked, but when he opened his gob, his yellow beard bobbing, he sounded as lowborn as any of us grimy women paraded before him in our chains.

  Fat and common, but full himself, this man was. When he cast his piercing eye upon our guards, those hardened men cowered and even William quailed. Seemed the man was accustomed to striking fear into everyone under his command.