John’s gaze darted from face to face in the courtroom, all watching him, waiting. He looked terrified but she felt no sympathy as she watched him along with all the others, curious for the details too.
‘There was a whore,’ he began. ‘We went to the playhouse. I didn’t know, I didn’t realise … and she tried to kiss me … and touch me down there … but I threw her off.’
‘You felt no desire for the whore?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Had you ever felt desire for a whore before?’
‘No.’
‘Had you ever had relations with a woman before?’
‘No.’
‘Tell the court what happened.’
‘Tom sent the whore away. Then he took her place … He kissed me … he kissed me down there …’
‘He … kissed your private parts?’
The hush in the room was uncomfortable, a new tension entering.
‘Yes.’ John’s voice was a whisper.
‘And did you like it?’
The boy nodded. ‘I tell you, I was bewitched … corrupted. Sinful, sinful … I never would have … never would have done something so wicked …’ He broke off into incoherent sobs and mumbles and the lawyer waited.
After a moment, he spoke again. ‘And the next occasion?’
‘At my master’s house, sir …’
Sarah stopped listening, her mind drifting. The room was hot with so many people and she wished again that she could sit. She let her eyes graze the jury once again, looking for kindness, but she could not seem to read any of their faces and she forced her thoughts back once more to John’s evidence. It was coming to a finish, John rambling now about the night at the brothel and Jane’s last breath, but he was barely coherent and his madness was plain to see. Sarah’s life hung by a thread.
When it was clear that he would make no more sense, the judge dismissed him and the physician took his place, confirming all that John had said, declaring the boy had surely been bewitched. When he was done, Sarah’s friends were allowed to speak for her at last.
They went in one by one. Nick, Will, Sarah’s mother, Joyce. All of them spoke of her good character – a dutiful servant, a hard-working seamstress, a loving daughter, an honest friend.
Tom went in last, though she had not asked for him to speak for her, and he saw from her face as he took his place at the table that his presence was a surprise. He held her eyes for a moment, recalling them bright and full of fire for him in the night, his own pleasure reflected in their depths. Then he gave her a smile and turned to face the court.
‘Please state your name for the court.’
‘Thomas Edward Wynter.’
‘And your relationship to the defendant?’
‘Half-brother. We share the same mother.’
There was a sudden tightening of attention in the room, all eyes drawn towards him. He breathed slowly, deeply, and held himself straight, upright, allowing them to look and make their judgements. It mattered not. They could judge him as they wished: he had chosen his course.
‘What would you like to tell us about your sister?’
It was now or never, and for a moment all his resolution threatened to leave him, his love for his sister giving way to the natural urge to life in all its barbarous, chaotic glory. Sliding a glance towards her, he took another deep breath and remembered the daemon he had conjured in the night, and the bargain struck. Sarah was watching him, her gaze fixed and tense as though with the first glimmer of understanding of what was about to come. He held her look, tears beginning to burn behind his eyes as he took his final breaths of freedom and set his foot upon a path he could not change. Still he hesitated, sniffing back the tears, wiping at his eyes with impatient fingers – he had not come here to cry. He felt the tension of the court begin to harden round him: everyone was waiting, expectant. Dragging his gaze away from Sarah, he looked out across the court towards the judge, though the man was nothing but a blur through the tears that filmed his eyes. Then he took the first step onto the path.
‘My sister is innocent of all these charges.’
‘You know her so well?’
‘I know she is innocent,’ he said. ‘Because although John was indeed bewitched, he is mistaken in the author of the curses against him. It was not Sarah who bewitched him.’ He kept his eyes trained away from her. He could not look at her again. ‘It was me. I am the one who bewitched him.’
Sarah’s scream cut through the sudden hubbub and he watched the court’s reaction with a strange and weary detachment. It was done: his life in payment for hers. The shewstone had spoken truly after all, and the daemon would see that it was done.
Sarah was still screaming, her cries of no repeating and reverberating through the room. The officer beside her held her back as she fought to reach her brother, kicking and beating with her arms, hysterical. Tom turned to her and formed his lips to shush, but it made no difference: her grief was inconsolable. He wanted to hold her and stroke her hair and love her one more time, but it was over, and this would be his final act of love.
Gradually, the court came to order. Someone fetched a stool for Sarah and she sat obediently, but her eyes never left her brother’s face. He could feel her gaze like a caress and he turned his head to look at her. She was beautiful in her wildness and her grief, her tear-stained face, her hair awry, and every fibre in him screamed with the pain of leaving her, of leaving the world, but he could not let her hang. He had dreamed of it, the coarse fibres of the rope tightening round her throat and squeezing out her life, the fear and pain in her eyes as she fought for her final breaths. Better that he should take her place – it was his doing after all that had brought them here, as Nick had said, witchcraft or no.
The judge was still conferring with his officers, but the rest of the court had settled again to subdued murmurs. Tom could feel the eyes of everyone upon him, but his eyes remained locked with his sister’s. At last, the officers moved away from the judge’s bench and the judge spoke, dismissing the case against Sarah, adjourning the court. Then with a flick of his hand toward Tom, he said, ‘Commit him to the Marshalsea until we set a date for the hearing.’
The constable’s grip on Tom’s arm tightened grimly as he manhandled him towards the door. Sarah slid from her place and rushed forward, blocking the way for a moment, standing close. Tom leaned near to her and her proximity was intoxicating.
‘You were the only girl I ever loved,’ he said, softly, so that only she would hear. Then the rough hand that held him dragged him on through the door and into the cart that would take him to the prison.
Sarah sat through his trial mute and grieving. John had obliged the court by shifting his charges from sister to brother, as Tom had desired and planned he would. Witchcraft and sodomy – perversions of the Devil and punishable by death.
He had been misled, John claimed.
He had known at first that it was Tom that had bewitched him, he said, and there were others who could vouch he had named Tom witch on more than one occasion. Witnesses were called – men of the Company, worshippers at St Saviour’s – willing to confirm the accusation, though Nick and Will were not among them.
Then Tom had beguiled him, using cunning spells that deceived and seduced him.
He had corrupted him and tempted him to sin.
He had forced him into sodomy and lured him into murder.
The Devil was in his hands to strangle Jane, his thoughts possessed by daemons raised and sent by Tom.
His mind had been poisoned: it had not been his own will to commit such a heinous sin. But he had been blind to the truth, for who but Tom would bewitch him to do such things?
Who indeed?
Sarah’s mother sat with her through all of it, straight-backed, tight-lipped.
When Tom came to answer at last, he spoke not a syllable of truth: no mention of the Grove nor the magic of their sex; no word about divining with the shewstone or the rites they performed for Hecate. Instead he wove tales of tryst
s with the Devil who came as a tawny owl named Solomon to suckle blood from a mole on his hip. He dropped his breeches to show it to the court, and briefly, Sarah turned her head away – it was too painful to witness his nakedness now: she preferred to remember the lines of his body in the night, when his hips had entwined with hers.
He had bewitched the boy, he told them, in revenge for John’s rejection – he knew he couldn’t win him otherwise – and he recounted the seduction in all its lurid detail. It was everything they wanted from a witch, meeting their belief, and the whole court hung on every word, lusting for more, their prejudice and prurience aroused. So he kept on talking, feeding their hunger in his final performance. No one from the Company came to speak for him and she hated them all for their cowardice.
Sarah’s eyes never left his face, willing him, begging him in her mind to turn and look at her one more time. But he kept his eyes resolutely turned away and her mother’s hand remained tightly held in hers. Only after sentence was pronounced and there could be no more doubt that he would die did he slowly turn his gaze towards her with a small and sorry smile on his lips, and a slight half-shrug of his shoulders. The sad beauty of the smile and the pain behind his eyes unravelled all her self-control, and then the tears flowed unchecked, sobs heaving, as her mother’s arms wrapped around her and drew her into their embrace. She did not see her brother leave the court.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Borrower of the Night
With nowhere else to go, she returned to her father’s house after her trial, her parents arguing long into the night to decide her future. She could hear the rise and fall of the trade of their desperate voices in the room below her attic chamber, but she did not attempt to make out the words. Instead, she stood huddled by the window staring blindly into the darkness beyond with her forehead pressed hard against the smooth, cool glass, and her only thoughts were of her brother in a prison cell awaiting his death. It was the fate she had seen for him, the fate he had chosen, and she would willingly have tumbled through the glass to plummet to the earth below: without Tom she could not bear to live and her future did not interest her.
So when finally, close to the dawn, she heard her father’s footsteps on the stairs beyond her door, she did not even turn her head. He had no power to frighten her now – she was utterly bereft of feeling. He could beat her senseless for all she cared. He opened the door without knocking and she heard him close it behind him. Then he waited and it took her a moment to realise he was waiting for her to turn around and pay him respect, but she was almost paralysed with grief and sorrow, unable to bring herself to move, and so the silence continued for long awkward moments until he took a step closer.
‘Look at me when I speak to you,’ he said.
Reluctantly she turned herself to face him. He seemed a stranger to her now and she observed him with detachment, this man who possessed such power over her. Then she remembered his bluster at the playhouse and her fear of him, and felt nothing at all. He must have sensed her indifference because he drew himself up and took another step closer.
‘For your mother’s sake I have agreed to take you back.’
She waited.
‘But I will expect obedience from you,’ he continued. ‘The playhouse, Bankside, Master Tooley – all of them are forbidden to you. Do I make myself clear?’
She nodded. It made no difference. She had lost all interest in the playhouse now: in her despair at Tom’s fate, it was hard to understand how such make-believe worlds had ever possessed so much power to enchant her. Like a spell that had held them all in its thrall, and Will Shakespeare the master magician. Perhaps it was Will that should be on trial – it was the magic of his words that had set events in motion, his witches that sent John mad.
‘Answer me when I speak to you.’ Her father’s command cut into her thoughts.
‘I understand, Father,’ she said mechanically. She would have agreed to anything he asked, and her thoughts trailed out once again beyond the glass across the Southwark rooftops towards the prison and her brother’s cell. The memory of her own time there was etched in acid through her core – the stench, the cold, the hunger and despair – and she could see Tom standing by the tiny barred opening just as she had, gazing out to the sky beyond it and drinking in every inch of the world he could see, the world he had renounced to save her. The image lit a physical pain, guts clenching, breath coming short. He would barely sleep these last few days of his life, she knew, grasping every last and precious moment even in that foetid, brutal place. Sending her thoughts out through the night towards him with all her love and sadness, she wished that he had loved her less so she could die instead of him.
‘Then we will say no more about it,’ her father said then, in a gentler tone. ‘And I am glad you are returned to us, a dutiful daughter at last. Perhaps you will be saved after all.’
She was silent. There seemed to be nothing more to say. Her father hesitated, uncertain in the face of her silence. Perhaps he had expected more gratitude. Then he backed out of the room, the door rattling on its hinges in his wake, boots thudding loud on the stairs, and she laid herself down on the bed and finally allowed herself to sleep. For the first time in weeks, she did not dream.
The journey to the gallows seemed to be never-ending. She walked beside the cart as it was dragged through the streets, oblivious of the onlookers’ jeers and the cold rain that swept into her face, the mud that churned underfoot, aware only of the still, pale face of her brother as he held her gaze with sad and steady eyes. Once or twice he tried to smile but she could see his tears behind the mask, and her own tears ran unchecked with the rain across her cheeks. A minister walked before the cart, but his words were lost amidst the splatter of the rain against the road and the roofs of the houses and the catcalls of the people they passed.
Twice the cart stopped to allow the prisoners to dull their fear with drink, and she passed him the cup of wine with trembling hands. He took it without a word and drank it off, and when he gave her back the cup his fingers lingered, brushing hers for a brief and final moment. His touch seemed to suck all the breath from her body and she staggered briefly. But still it seemed impossible that he would die: his light had always shone for her and the world would be a dark place without him.
The procession reached Tyburn at noon, and though she had heard tell of it before, nothing had prepared her for the sight of the great hanging tree with its three monstrous beams and the noise and clamour of the crowd of thousands who had come to watch, despite the storms. Her spirit threatened to fail, and she saw the fear that flickered in Tom’s eyes as he stepped off the hurdle into the mud and took his final steps aboard the cart that would bear him to the noose. He moved awkwardly with his hands bound tightly before him, and she followed the cart in close, eyes locked with his as the hangman arranged the rope around his neck and swung the end up to the boy who was balanced on the beam to fasten it.
When all the prisoners were ready, the crowd quietened to hear any final speeches and the last words of the minister for the souls of the condemned. Two of the prisoners offered a short prayer for forgiveness, but Tom held his silence, a multitude of words contained in the look he shared with Sarah. Then the cart lurched forward as the horse was whipped away, and when the rope snapped taut she dropped her eyes for a moment, unable to bear to watch his final gasps for breath, the frantic kicking of his legs. When she lifted her face to him again, gathering her courage to pull on his legs to hasten his end, she saw he was already peaceful – his body swinging lightly, still turning gently from the force of his death. He must have thrown himself against the noose to quicken his own death, she realised. His eyes were closed and his neck was askew, and she knew there was nothing left of the man she loved inside the broken shell that hung before her. It was the fate she had foreseen. Lifting her eyes to the cloud-darkened sky, the cold, hard rain whipped into her face as she whispered her final farewell.
‘Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and ep
itaphs …’
In rehearsal at the playhouse, Nick gave a sudden shiver, an icy cold crawling over his skin, and he lost the train of his thought. He paused in the line he was reading.
‘What’s the matter?’ Will asked.
‘Nothing,’ Nick answered with a shake of his head. ‘I just thought I heard something …’ His eyes trailed over the theatre as though looking for clues. But all seemed as normal. The hired actors were practising their swordplay for the afternoon performance, and small groups of players rehearsed their lines together as he was doing with Will and John Heminges.
‘I heard it too,’ Will murmured. ‘The cry of a woman?’
‘Aye.’
‘’Tis done, then.’
‘It was a good thing he did,’ John Heminges said. ‘To save her.’
Nick nodded. In spite of his hatred, he could only applaud the depth of such love, for he knew he wouldn’t have given his own life for hers. But still he would not mourn him, and unconsciously he rubbed at the wound on his arm. Tom’s doing, he was sure – how else could the blades have been switched?
‘I’ll miss him,’ Will said. ‘I’ll miss them both.’
John Heminges smiled his agreement, and Nick said nothing. He did not know what to say.
The night of Tom’s death Sarah’s dreams returned so vividly she was sure that they were real. Sleep had come as a blessed relief at the end of another day of grief, the moment of his death playing over and over in her mind: the fear and pain in his eyes and the frantic kicking of his legs no longer a fate foretold but a destiny lived, unchangeable. Now it only remained for her own death to come, the slow withering from grief she had foreseen in the shewstone.
In the sweet oblivion of sleep that night, her brother came to her again, his ghost reaching out across the void that lay between them now, and his silent presence ushered in a chill that hinted at the coldness of the grave. But she felt no fear as he lay beside her in the bed, only reaching out her hand in surprise and delight to caress his cold, pale cheek and touch the brutal bruise and welts that scarred his neck.
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