Ave, Regina caelorum,
Ave, Domina angelorum,
Salve, radix, salve, porta,
Ex qua mundo lux est orta.
These devotions of ours were the sole comfort of our lightless days, the one thing that could ease the pain pressing from every side. Our Lady, so Mistress Alice said, was the wide open door to heaven and succour to her people who fell and longed to rise again. Whilst Mistress Alice never seemed to doubt her faith or her innocence, I prayed in atonement for the pedlar falling lame, for bringing on our downfall with my unwitting confession. One question would not stop taunting me: what was the power behind the black bitch that had appeared to me? Had it, indeed, been the Devil in disguise as Nowell would claim? If I were only brave enough, I would ask her to reveal her true form so at least I might know, even if the truth tore me apart.
On and on we prayed till our chanting flowed in a tide, carrying me along, transporting me. In my fever that I'd caught from the others, it was a battle keeping my spirit tethered to my aching flesh. Without even desiring it, part of me took to flight. That world of visions that had once belonged to Gran alone opened its gates to me.
Outside the Well Tower it was May—a beautiful May as there ever was. The sun I'd near forgotten shone warm upon my face. Slender white birches bore new leaves and the undergrowth was an endless sweep of bluebells. Three paths stretched before me. I started down the middle one that led deep into a forest.
I heard a singing-ringing. Upon a white mare, a lady came riding and she was so lovely, her red-gold hair floating behind her. Her tinkling music came from bells of gold and silver tied in her horse's mane. The lady smiled with such majesty and tenderness that I sank to my knees, tears in my eyes. Joy swelled up in my breast.
"Hail, Queen of Heaven," I called to her.
The lady shook her head. "No. That name does not belong to me."
Her mantel was not the blue and gold of the Blessed Virgin, but green as the slopes of Pendle Hill. Light streamed forth all about her, dazzling me after my months of darkness. Her overpowering radiance sent me spinning, reeling and turning, till the light vanished and murk enclosed me once more. There I was left, tangled in my chains.
"She fainted whilst we were praying," I heard Alice Nutter tell Gran.
"She'll be right." Gran put her lips to my ear and whispered, "You saw her, too. The Queen of Elfhame."
"There are three paths from which to choose," Gran whispered as I tended her in her fever. "The right-hand path leads to heaven. The left-hand path leads to hell." With her manacled hand, she guided my own hand in a warding gesture. "There's another path, love, betwixt and between. That leads into the heart of the forest where the Queen of Elfhame rides."
She wasn't delirious, was Gran, but uttered each word careful and deliberate.
"She's shown herself to you," said Gran. "Call out to her and she'll come to you again."
I'd no idea what to think about any of this. Seemed too much to wrap my head round. Mistress Alice's faith was straightforward, the rules carved in stone, whilst Gran's was a twisting thing, its shape as ever-shifting as Tibb's.
I'd no chance to reflect over long on such matters, for the very next day Thomas Covell swaggered into our dungeon swinging his cat-o'-nine-tails. The guards' torchlight sent his monstrous shadow leaping over the weeping walls.
"All right, you devil's spawn," said Covell, "I've left you in peace long enough. Tomorrow I will examine you, one by one, in private."
The torchlight turned his white shirt red as he lumbered toward Gran, pointing his cat-o'-nine-tails at her. She lifted her blind eyes to him.
"Nowell says you're the worst of the lot," he told her. "The mother of all this infamy."
One of the knotted tails flicked her wrist, digging into her skin. Gran grimaced but stayed quiet as the stones whilst the rest of us stared at the bloody welt. With Covell glowering over us, not even Mam dared twitch a muscle.
"Prepare your story," Covell told Gran.
My heart sank to the deepest inferno of hell. I didn't need powers like Gran's to guess Covell's plan. After our spell in the dark, he fancied he could drag even wilder confessions out of us.
"Tomorrow," Covell said, taking a torch from one of the guards and shining it in our faces so that we cringed and covered our eyes. Chained for so long in this darkness, we could no longer bear the light.
Late that night I sat up with Gran as she roiled in fever.
"Covell's coming in the morning," she said, labouring to get each word out.
Her lungs were heavy and sore, filled with such a weight of fluid that she said it reminded her of Jamie's tales of great hares pressing down upon his chest.
"If he questions you," she rasped, "blame me. You were innocent, but I led you astray. Maybe he'll go easy on you."
"Easy?" Chattox cut in, for there was no privacy in that place. "Nothing's easy in this hole."
"Gran," I whispered, "I betrayed you once. I'll not do it again."
"Not even if I beg you?" Gran's hand clasped mine with as much strength as she seemed to have left in her. "Save yourself."
Before I could protest, she pressed on, her words coming quick and urgent.
"There's something you must know about Roger Nowell. My mam was a servant at Read Hall when Nowell's father was young. He took a fancy to her, and before long she gave birth to me."
Though I'd always known that Gran was a bastard and though it was nothing unusual for the poor to claim a father from a wealthy house, the revelation that we descended from the Nowells left me legless.
"Roger Nowell's my half-brother. Your great uncle. When next you see him, love, remember that. You're his flesh and blood."
I near spat at the memory of Nowell smiling at me, pretending to be so kind whilst plotting my family's destruction. I sickened to remember his hands groping my flesh.
A fit of coughing kept Gran from saying anything more. Clenching her mouth, she hacked and hacked. When I eased her hands free, they were coated in slime. Using my sleeve, I cleaned her as best I could, murmuring my prayers over her.
"Bless you, Alizon," she said. "It's time you had a rest."
Soon as I lay back and closed my eyes, I drifted off.
I passed through a gate of graceful-twisted iron into a rich man's garden with countless rose beds, with bushes trimmed into the shapes of beasts and lords and ladies. Everything was blossoming and fresh, the lawn a carpet of tiny daisies, for it was May, the most beautiful month. Off beyond the yew hedge I caught a glimpse of Read Hall in its grandeur, the sun gleaming on its many windows, smoke curling from its chimneys. With a curse, I turned my back on Roger Nowell's manse and made my way toward a splashing fountain with a statue of a naked boy. Round that fountain children played, their laughter ringing out. Blameless, they were, Roger Nowell's happy grandchildren, who knew nowt of our lice-covered bodies or the gaoler with his cato'-nine-tails. Our little Jennet sported with them, and she was decked out in a new kirtle of yellow stuff with lace at the collar and cuffs. Her mousy hair had been curled with hot iron tongs. How she sang and how she danced, hand in hand with the others. No longer the bastard of Malkin Tower, she shone like Sunday's child, her cheeks glowing rosy and plump from the roast lamb and beef and cakes and pies they'd stuffed her with. Our Jennet's dream come true, this was, pretending to be a daughter of the gentry, lisping along to mimic their soft accents. At last she was shot of her cock-eyed mother and idiot brother; of me, her ill-tempered sister; of her family of witches and misfits. That girl would be only too willing to do and say anything Nowell asked of her. His instrument of God, he called her.
Our Jennet. Baldwin's seed. The cuckoo in our nest. Our little grey-eyed Judas.
I saw the years fly past like the wind blowing through the pages of Nowell's books. Before my eyes, Jennet Device grew into a woman, homely and graceless, as ragged-poor as she'd ever been, discarded by her wealthy protector. Left to beg and scrape, Jennet had a hounded look in her eyes, for the chil
dren chased her and pelted her with a rain of horse dung and cried out, Witch, witch, dirty witch.
No, our Jennet, I called out to her through the chasm that yawned between us. You'll never be shot of us or our memory.
I awakened to hear Gran trading hushed words with Chattox.
"Forgive me," Gran was pleading. "I was your false friend."
This shocked me, for I'd always thought that Chattox had first laid her curse upon us. But Gran seemed so intent on speaking her mind that I forced myself to keep quiet and pretend to sleep on.
"Asking my pardon, are you now?" Chattox's voice was dry as snakeskin. "Them fever dreams maddled your brains?"
"Our Anne, I loved you. I'm so sorry."
By going soft and sentimental, Gran only vexed Chattox.
"Show some backbone, Bess. You were never this wet before. Covell will wring you out like a rag and wipe his boots with you."
"I'll go," said Gran, "before I can do any more harm."
"Will you now?" Chattox laughed, hoarse and raw. "Oh, aye, I'd love to see you charm them shackles off. That would be a sight, our Bess."
No longer able to just lie there and listen, I sat up.
"Gran, what are you talking about?"
I reached for her hand only to find it entwined with Chattox's.
"Peace, Alizon," said Gran. "Let us be."
IV. ASSUMPTION DAY
Alizon Device
20
IN THE FAR-OFF COUNTRY of my dreams, my friend Nancy still lived. How we laughed together, and I was ever welcome in her mam's kitchen. My second family, the Holdens were. Nancy's mam sat me down to a trencher heaped with spring chicken and tender garden greens, and there were fresh strawberries with cream and more buttermilk than I could drink. Made a game, Nancy's mam did, of seeing how much I could eat, with Nancy looking on and grinning. My friend and I put our heads together, whispering of the men we might one day marry, and I teased her that if she married Miles Nutter of Roughlee, she would have to embrace the old religion. Except Nancy didn't want to marry. She gripped my wrist and gave it a shake. Chattox saw me for what I was. Do you believe in heaven, our Alizon? Do you believe that any of us are bound for heaven?
Before I could answer, bony fingers clawed my wrist where Nancy's hand was meant to be. Chattox's green eyes cut through the gloaming to peer into mine. Caught as I was between sleeping and waking, my old dread of her reared up.
Chattox was weeping. "Wake up, lass. Your poor gran's snuffed it."
I crawled to Gran and held her face, then placed my cheek over her mouth and nose so that I might feel her breath, but it never came. Her skin was cold as the floor beneath me.
"Come back," I begged her, refusing to believe that she had deserted us like this without saying goodbye.
Her mouth was frozen wide open as if she had wanted to tell me something. Her eyes were open, too, and I'd no coins to lay upon her lids to keep them shut. An unearthly scream split my ears. Mam was wailing loud enough to topple the Well Tower. She swooped down upon Gran to cradle her rigid body.
Soon enough the guards came scuttling in to see what the skriking was about. When they shone their torches upon Gran, their faces went as corpse-grey as hers. She lay before them, stone dead. But what seemed to terrify the guards most was the shimmer of light rising off her skin to touch us all. There was something holy about her. With her eyes fixed open, she looked as though she had glimpsed paradise from the depths of this hell in which we were mired. The bliss upon her face undid me. Her air of joy and rapture seemed a secret message for us. No matter what Covell and the rest were saying, we weren't damned. We weren't Satan's whores. Gran had wanted to give us hope. Taking her chill hand in mine, I kissed it.
Whilst the guards stood round, frozen as Gran, their torchlight illuminating her, the others stared, full dumbstruck. Annie Redfearn, Mouldheels, Meg Pearson, Alice Gray, and the Bulcocks gazed half in horror, half in awe, whilst Alice Nutter prayed and Mam sobbed and convulsed. Chattox keened over Gran as though they'd been sisters.
Our Jamie was too fevered to take notice of Gran's passing. I laid my hand upon his brow, which burned hot as a brand-iron.
"Bring him a blanket," I told the guards. "Or else you'll soon have another corpse on your hands."
Before they could think of what to say to that, in thundered Covell himself, panting and charging round like a mad dog. Gran, that blind old beldame, had clean escaped him. The most notorious witch of Pendle Forest had up and popped her clogs before he could strong-arm her into another, more damning confession. She'd cheated the hangman. Nowell would be furious to hear that Gran had died under Covell's watch. Her passing might put a damper upon the whole trial.
I ducked my head so Covell wouldn't see me smile at how Gran had bested him, ever the wily cunning woman.
Finally running out of curses, Covell ordered that Jamie be taken away for questioning, never mind that my brother was too weak to stand and had to be carried by two guards.
Chattox's hand found mine. "Let me tell you this before Covell comes for me. Your parents always did think the worst of me, but I swear upon your gran's body that I never cursed your father, Alizon."
Only feet away, Mam muttered in derision, but I knew from the breaking pain in Chattox's voice that she spoke from the heart. I shrank in shame to think how I'd given her the devil at the Holdens' gate, leaving her to limp away hungry and reviled, an old woman with nowt but clay to fill her belly. May God forgive my mean heart.
"The only one I ever wished to harm," she said, "was Robert Assheton and only on account of what he did to my Annie. She was just a girl then, hardly older than yourself."
The rumours I knew—how Chattox and her daughter had cursed their landlord's son after he tried to force himself on Annie. Against my will, I remembered my tussle with Nowell—how he'd shoved me into a corner, his hands voracious as the Devil's. By all accounts, Annie's ordeal had been far worse. How could I fail to understand the hard bargain her mother had struck? Gran would have done no less for me. My grandmother's wisdom and compassion filled me then, like purest well water filling a dry dusty bowl till it overflowed.
"I'm sorry I ever spoke against you," I swore to Chattox. "Can you forgive me?"
"It's gone well beyond that," she said. "We've no time left for grudges or misgivings."
When the guards delivered Jamie back into the dungeon, his jaw bloomed with bruises and his nose was flat and bloodied. As Mam and I bent over him, trying to still his panicked shaking, Covell summoned Chattox to be questioned. My eyes locked with hers before they dragged her off. I offered a silent prayer for her.
Hours later she was returned to us, blue in the lips and sagging so limp it looked as though she might soon go the same way as Gran. So Covell had little choice but to end the interrogations and command his men to bring us decent food, blankets, and fresh straw besides, for he didn't want any more of us escaping justice by dying before the August Assizes.
That very day, after Covell's men had borne away Gran's body, they brought us hot pottage in the place of cold gruel and small beer in place of the unclean water that made our bowels run. They gave us bread, only a day old and still soft to chew. The better rations were Gran's gift to us, and I whispered her name, full reverent, before breaking my piece off the loaf and passing it on as though it were communion bread. Bound together in our circle, we partook of Gran's invisible company. Her spirit quickened inside me, settling into my bones, and I knew that she bided with us, lingering close, ghost and angel, to look after us. When I slept, I fancied that her wraithlike hands stroked my hair and that she whispered in my ear, telling me to hold fast to my courage.
It was courage we needed. Chained to that ring in the floor, we couldn't stand, much less walk. Though we were given better food, paid for, as it turned out, by Alice Nutter, our muscles shrivelled from want of moving. We who lived became ghostly as Gran. Still we struggled along as best we could. Alice Nutter passed her hours in prayer, whilst Mouldheels
and Alice Gray sang songs bawdy enough to make the guards blush. Jamie, ailing and weak, clapped his hands over his ears and said that his head would split from the racket. Old Meg Pearson was growing ever madder, raving as Jamie did though she'd no fever.
Chattox could not stop reminiscing about Gran, spinning yarns of the two of them in their younger days. She told me of a private feast she and Gran had once shared at Malkin Tower before I was born. The pair of them had supped upon roasted pheasant and roast beef, the finest cheeses, fresh bread and sweet butter, all washed down with wine and beer. I knew that out of love and yearning she was exaggerating, but I only encouraged her, for her fantastical tale gave me comfort. Her and Gran's familiars had waited upon them like servants, so Chattox said. A great number of dancing imps had lent their magical lights so that Malkin Tower at midnight had been as striking-bright as noontide upon Midsummer's Day, the light far-shining in the darkness.
21
AT LONG LAST came the August Assizes. For the first time in nearly five months, the guards unchained me from that ring on the floor. Up the long-winding stairs they heaved me whilst I hobbled as an old woman would do. Though I was the youngest imprisoned in the Well Tower, those months in shackles had left me almost as feeble as Chattox. Our Jamie was so wasted he could neither speak nor stand. Two strapping guards, it took, to bear my brother along, lugging his limp frame between them.
When they hauled us into the courtroom and lined us up at the bar, the sea of staring faces left me stunned. Our trial was public, open to any soul who could squeeze into that chamber. A fair wonder that those many bodies crushed together still had air to breathe, for the room sweltered in the August heat. Pointed at us and shouted, the onlookers did, as we shrank before them like underground creatures goaded into the daylight. After being manacled down the cold, dank Well Tower for so long, I toppled and swayed, fighting to keep my eyes open and bear the light upon my face.
Daughters of the Witching Hill Page 29
