Shakespeare's Witch

by Samantha Grosser

  It was true, but she felt calm and vibrant, a gift of the goddess to her followers. ‘I don’t feel sleepy,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I do,’ he returned. But he led her nonetheless to his bed, and when she stretched her body out beside him and touched her fingers and lips to his skin, he made no word of complaint.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Good Things of Day Begin to Droop and Drowse

  In the morning when they woke, John was no longer asleep on the landing but dressed and downstairs, pacing before the hearth. He refused to take breakfast.

  ‘I’ll have nothing from your hands, witch!’ he snarled, and took himself off out of the house without another word.

  So Nick and Sarah sat at the table and broke their fast without him. They were quiet with each other but at ease again; Nick’s doubts seemed to have ebbed even in the backwash of John’s vitriol, and he was reluctant to leave her for the playhouse, lingering for one more goodbye kiss at the door.

  ‘Farewell, my witch,’ he whispered finally, with a smile in his eyes and his palm against her cheek, and she could not say if he was jesting or in earnest.

  ‘Farewell,’ she replied. ‘Anon.’

  She watched him go with his confident stride towards the town, and at the bend in the lane he looked back, saw her and waved. She waved in return, watching him until he was out of sight. Then, with a sigh, she stepped back inside and began her work for the day.

  She answered the knock at the door halfway through the morning without a second thought, wiping floured hands on her apron, the pastry still in its bowl in the kitchen. On the doorstep were three men she didn’t recognise, middle-aged and poorly dressed, and at the sight of them a jolt of fear passed through her: she knew at once who they were.

  ‘Sarah Stone?’ the eldest of the men enquired. He was balding with greasy hair combed across his pate, and his face was lined with life’s disappointments.

  She nodded, fear taking her voice, and stepped back instinctively as the man’s hand lifted to grab her arm. He wasted no time, pressing forward, fingers digging into the flesh of her upper arm. ‘You’re under arrest, witch,’ he said, dragging her forward. Out of instinct, she resisted and one of the constable’s men stepped in to take her other arm.

  ‘Better come quietly,’ he breathed into her face. She turned her head away from the sourness of his breath. ‘Or it’ll be so much the worse for you.’

  ‘Joyce!’ she called out, straining back over her shoulder. ‘Joyce!’

  She heard the older woman’s hurried footsteps in the passage.

  ‘God in Heaven! What is all this fuss?’ Joyce shoved her way through and stood blocking the doorway, hands on hips, a wiping cloth still in her hands, flour on her forehead. She was not a small woman and her bulk loomed large.

  ‘She’s under arrest,’ the constable said. But Sarah noticed the change in his tone, the subtle failing of confidence under Joyce’s directness.

  ‘On whose authority?’

  ‘Master Wickham, madam. Magistrate. Justice of the Peace.’

  ‘I see. And does our master know of this?’

  ‘Your master?’ The constable was clearly ill at ease now, his authority thrown into doubt. The two younger men looked to him for leadership.

  ‘Our master. You can’t just take off servants willy-nilly, without his say-so.’

  ‘We can,’ he said, squaring up to her, finding his courage. ‘When his servant is a witch.’

  Joyce sucked in a hiss of air, a tremor of fear and shock passing across her face. Sarah locked eyes with her for a heartbeat and was uncertain what she saw there. ‘Where are you taking her?’

  ‘Master Wickham’s house.’

  Sarah suppressed a shiver and was suddenly aware of the pressure of the men’s hands about her arms, the violence of their grip.

  ‘For questioning.’

  ‘Then you may expect a visit from Master Tooley shortly. The King won’t be happy, you know, when he learns the leading actor in his company has been treated so discourteously.’

  Sarah swallowed, watching the constable’s hesitation, a moment of hope. But then he shook his head. ‘I got my orders,’ he said. With a nod to his companions, they manhandled Sarah out of the door and into the lane.

  ‘I’ll go to the playhouse,’ she heard Joyce calling. ‘I’ll let the master know …’

  ‘Thank you, Joyce,’ she tried to call back, but the jerk on her arm when she spoke was savage, so she said no more as they dragged her down the lane between them, away from the house.

  The magistrate was waiting for her at his house just off the High Street when the constable shoved her roughly through the door. The men let go of her and she shook herself as though she could free her body from the memory of their touch. Her arms burned where the men had held them. She cast a quick glance around the room: dark wood furnishings, a Turkey rug beneath her feet and a single fine tapestry on the wall – the Witch of Endor summoning Samuel’s ghost intricately woven in the finest of wool. A good fire blazed in the hearth and the room was warm.

  The magistrate, Master Wickham, looked up from his desk and she observed him carefully. Her fate depended on this man, his kindness and credulity. He was well dressed and greying, and from his garb and the fineness of the house, she judged he was a merchant of some sort. He had a thin face and a worried look, but he did not seem to her to be unkind – there was a curiosity in his eyes that she hoped would be to her advantage. She waited, breathing deeply, searching to find reserves of peace within, but she could only feel the dryness of her mouth and the sweat between her shoulder blades. She wondered if Joyce had found Nick yet, if he knew. Then she thought of Tom – had John accused him also?

  Wickham dismissed the constable and his men, who shambled out of the room with reluctance. ‘Miss Stone?’ he spoke softly and her hopes lifted a little.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she replied, and dropped slightly into a curtsey of respect.

  ‘Do you know why you are here?’

  She hesitated. The next few minutes were crucial, her words her only source of protection now.

  ‘He …’ she began, with a glance over her shoulder towards the door. ‘They … called me … witch …’ The bewilderment in her voice was feigned but the fear was real enough.

  He nodded and sat. There was a chair next to where she stood but he did not invite her to sit in it, and she thought she must be wary; he was harder than he seemed. Kindness could also be feigned. Wickham examined her with a cool disinterest, and she submitted to the scrutiny with her hands clasped before her and her head dropped modestly. Then he spoke again and with his voice she looked up.

  ‘Who taught you your witchcraft?’ he asked. ‘When did it begin?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know any witchcraft,’ she answered. Deny everything, she thought. John’s word against hers.

  ‘Did the Devil come to you as a young girl?’ he said. ‘Did he seduce you?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Where are your familiars?’

  ‘My familiars …?’ A witch’s companions, agents of the Devil. Lines from the play echoed through her head – ‘I come, Graymalkin!’ ‘Paddock calls’ – and it was easy to believe they existed, dreamed into life by Will and given substance by the players, dark life created to alter fate. Her fate. Tom’s. ‘I have no familiars, sir,’ she said.

  ‘No pets? No small creatures you suckle and feed?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘So if I send for women to examine you we will find no witch marks? No teats for the Devil’s creatures to suckle at?’

  ‘You will not, sir,’ she replied.

  He was silent for a moment, fingers resting on the papers before him on his desk, eyes travelling across the written lines as though searching for some new truth. From where she stood she could not make out the letters, but she guessed it was the accusations against her – John’s words. She waited, head still lowered, forcing herself to breathe slowly, but she was aware of
the sheen of sweat that collected along her spine and the rapid thud of her heart. She had never thought she might die on a gallows.

  After an age, he lifted his head to look at her again. ‘You understand that you have been accused of witchcraft?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And what do you say to that?’

  ‘I would say …’ she breathed, searching for the right words, the right tone. ‘I would say … who has accused me?’

  ‘A boy that is known to you.’

  ‘I don’t understand, sir,’ she said. ‘What am I accused of doing?’

  Wickham let out a sigh, as though the whole business was a matter he wished had not come to him. ‘You are accused, Miss Stone,’ he said, lifting his eyes from his desk to regard her. She set her face carefully to betray no expression. ‘Of bewitching the boy to perform lewd acts with your brother.’

  ‘Lewd acts?’ Then, ‘What boy?’

  ‘I think you know the boy in question, Miss Stone. Your act of innocence is convincing, but I am already aware the accusations have been heard by many in the last few days and are therefore not unknown to you.’

  She swallowed and ran her tongue across lips that felt dry. Panic started to well up from her belly and she forced herself to breathe, to remember the calm of last night and the power of Hecate. All would be resolved, she told herself. Trust in the goddess and all will be well.

  ‘But …’ she started. John’s charge at the playhouse had not been so specific – he had accused her of bewitching him, of making him do evil things, but he had not given details. She must remember how much she should know, how much to keep hidden.

  ‘I thought he was raving …’ she said. ‘I didn’t know what he was talking about … lewd acts with Tom? What lewd acts?’

  ‘You have recently left your father’s house?’ he said.

  ‘Aye. I wanted to go into service.’

  ‘And not marry your father’s choice of husband for you?’

  She nodded. There was no point in denial – he had obviously done his research and her position was not so uncommon. Most girls of her class went out to service before they married.

  He sighed again and she could not read the meaning behind it. Boredom, perhaps? Impatience? Disbelief? She was starting to feel weak, the sleepless night beginning to tell at last. Her legs felt unsteady beneath her and she wished he would invite her to sit. The sweat was still gathered along her spine.

  ‘You will not confess, then?’

  ‘I have nothing to confess, sir,’ she said.

  ‘As they all say.’ He stood up and stepped out from behind the desk. He was tall and thin, and when he stood before her he towered over her by more than a head. She dropped her gaze but she could smell the perfumes in the velvet of his tunic and the wine on his breath.

  ‘Well,’ he said then, cupping a hand under her chin and tilting her head up towards him. ‘Let’s see if you’re telling the truth. Take off your bodice.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Are you deaf?’

  ‘No … but I am a maid, sir …’

  ‘Or should I do it for you?’

  She shook her head and fumbled at the laces of her bodice with fingers that trembled and could not prise the tie loose. Finally she managed to work it free somehow and let it gape open. He nodded at it, gesturing with his hand and, hurriedly now, wanting to get it over with, Sarah pulled it loose and dragged it free of her body. Then she stood before him in her linen shift and waited for what he would tell her to do next. Did he truly want to look for witch marks? she wondered. Or did he plan to rape her? She could sense his eagerness and his impatience to see her body, but his intentions she could not guess.

  ‘Pull down your shift,’ he ordered.

  She shrugged it down so that her shoulders and breasts were exposed, shivering as the air touched her skin, despite the warmth of the room. He came close and though she kept her eyes averted, she recognised his lust. ‘Do you see any witch marks, sir?’ she asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘But the Devil is cunning – he places them secretly, in the hidden parts of the body.’

  She swallowed, all senses alert and tingling, breathing short and shallow. He was not interested in witchcraft, didn’t care a fig one way or the other, but she could hang just the same if she played this wrong. She forced herself to be calm and to slow her breathing. As she closed her eyes, her thoughts travelled unbidden to Tom, always her protector, but with a sudden burst of clarity she understood he had no power this time to keep her safe; there was nothing he could do to help her here, and she was on her own. Turning her attention inward, she searched her spirit for peace, finding memories of the Grove, a connection to the moon, bringing her thoughts to rest in its immortality. Her body he could defile, she thought, but her spirit he would never touch.

  He stood close and trailed his fingers across her throat, across her breast. She could feel his breath against her hair, and it took all the force of her will not to shudder. Slowly he moved around her, the velvets of his tunic brushing her skin, his fingertips tracking across her shoulders and down the line of her spine. Tears pricked behind her eyes and she blinked to stop them falling.

  ‘You don’t like that?’ he murmured.

  ‘I am a maid, sir,’ she whispered.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he replied. Then abruptly he turned and moved away from her, retreating behind his desk, his back turned.

  ‘Get dressed,’ he commanded.

  She bit back the bile that rose in her throat, nausea threatening in her gut. She pulled up her shift, shrugging her shoulders into it rapidly, anything to cover her body and hide her flesh from his gaze. Her bodice took longer, the laces hard to tie with trembling fingers, and when she was finally dressed he turned to face her again. She stood silently in front of him, hands clasped, head still modestly lowered though her spirit was bright with her fury and humiliation. Words of evil gathered in her throat – curses she had never spoken, spells she had never cast – and she swallowed them down, aware they would not help her here. He nodded in approval and resumed his seat behind the desk, tidying up the papers, brushing it down, making it neat.

  ‘Did you find any marks, sir?’ she asked. She was surprised she could find the words, that she still had a voice.

  ‘I did not,’ he said. ‘But I will have women sent to examine you further. Your examination will be on Friday. You will face your accusers and I will hear all the evidence. Until that time you will stay at the Marshalsea.’

  She nodded, forcing down her fear of what the prison held, keeping her thoughts off her face. Then he went to the door, opened it and called the constable back in.

  ‘Take her,’ he said, and the constable grasped her arm to lead her down the passage and out of the house, before escorting her through the busy afternoon streets to the prison. She was conscious of the attention of passers-by, peering and curious, but she kept her eyes fixed on the ground a yard before her feet, jaw set firm against any desire to cry until finally she was shoved into a tiny, barely lit cell that contained nothing but a dirt floor strewn with filthy straw and the figures of three other women who sat with their backs against the wall. They lifted their eyes briefly at her entrance, and the despair she saw in them turned her heart with dread and pity. She stood still for a moment, struggling to breathe, while the gaoler retreated and locked the door, then she sank onto her knees in the straw and buried her face in her hands to weep.

  Nick was surprised to see Joyce at the playhouse. She had never come there before, having no interest in plays, and he knew straight away from the crease above her eyebrows and the pucker of her lips that she bore bad news. She stood at the edge of the yard, uncertain, and he got up from his place on the side of the stage where he was watching the rehearsal and crossed the yard toward her. Taking her arm, he guided her into the lower gallery, where they could sit and talk undisturbed. A sense of foreboding crept through his limbs, and the memory of a forgotten dream wavered at the edges of his thoughts. />
  ‘Mistress Curtin,’ he said. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘Sarah’s been arrested,’ she answered. ‘The constable’s taken her to the magistrate’s house.’

  ‘On what charge?’ he asked, though he already knew. He could feel the thud of his heart in his chest, fear that she might hang.

  ‘For witchcraft.’ She gave him a searching look, but he said nothing and his eyes scanned the theatre instinctively for John before he realised he hadn’t seen him all day. So the boy had made good on his threat. Had he accused Tom also? He brought his gaze back to Joyce. She was still watching him, still trying to understand. ‘It isn’t true, is it?’ she said. He met her gaze and saw his own doubts reflected in her eyes.

  ‘Of course not,’ he replied, automatically. ‘Why do you even ask?’

  ‘Because …’ She hesitated, reluctant to give words to the thoughts. ‘Because her mother is a cunning-woman, a midwife … and some say there is witchcraft in such things …’

  He shook his head. ‘Nonsense. A knowledge of herblore and experience is all. Nothing evil.’ He gave her a smile of reassurance that he hoped would convince her though his own doubts remained. He remembered again the taste of Sarah’s wine and the passion that had passed between them. ‘I’ll go to her,’ he said. ‘’Tis a misunderstanding, nothing more. Do not fret.’

  She stood up then and with a hurried curtsey took her leave, eager to be gone and away. He turned and watched her go, skirts swinging, then went to seek out Will to tell him. Tom, he could not find.

  They went together, he and Will, guessing she would be taken to the Marshalsea, and weaving through the late-morning streets that were crowded with stalls and carts and livestock. Cutting through the market, the stench of fish caught at his nostrils, and though Nick breathed through his mouth it made no difference. To distract himself he tossed a coin to some beggar children who had followed them from the playhouse. The boy who caught it ran off, chased by the others with wails and howls of protest. A slate-grey sky glowered overhead, low and pregnant with rain, and the dampness fingered his neck beneath the collar of his cloak, chilling him.