The Familiars

by Halls, Stacey

  I nodded and dislodged a salmon bone from the back of my mouth, trying not to gag.

  ‘Sir Edward, however, did obviously pardon her at Lent, so her life was graciously extended by some months.’ He spoke to his colleague. ‘I wonder if you had an idea then of how very disparaging her supporters were, and that was how you reached your verdict.’

  Sir Edward’s eyes twinkled.

  ‘I knew nothing of the sort. They’re a loud bunch, the Prestons,’ he explained to the rest of the table. ‘Poor Altham here has been vilified at every town from York to Gisburn. And that’s quite a few.’

  I tried to imagine people crowding the streets in Padiham and Colne to protest against the arrest of the Pendle witches, and could not imagine so much as a single raised fist.

  ‘And have you tried a person for witchcraft before this year?’ I asked.

  The pair looked at one another, considering for a moment.

  ‘Never,’ said Sir Edward in a tone of surprise. ‘In fact, this is the largest group of people to be tried for witchcraft in this country.’

  ‘Ever?’

  He nodded. I could not help but glance at Roger, who had been waiting for his turn to speak.

  ‘They have successfully hidden themselves all over the country, until now,’ he announced. ‘It’s like catching mice: when you find one, you know there’s a nest. The king has long suspected Lancashire to be the hiding place of delinquents and sorcerers, so I am only happy to help root out the evil before it spreads and infects the rest of his kingdom, delivering it into your capable hands.’

  ‘Would that imply you think evil is like a plague?’ asked Sir Edward.

  ‘In certain neighbourhoods. Look at the Devices and Redfernes: they live not a hundred yards away from each other. Whether one household began with witchcraft and the other took it up to protect themselves, or something else, it’s no coincidence. But old Demdike has been practising for, oh, decades.’

  I realised I was glaring at him and lowered my eyes. Thomas Potts spoke.

  ‘Why do you think the old woman has avoided detection until now, if that is the case? Has no one accused her before this?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  Our plates were removed and the second course of oyster pies was brought. I had three more courses to persuade the justices to … What, exactly?

  ‘Where are you staying tonight?’ asked Richard.

  ‘A modest inn not far from here.’

  ‘Oh, but I insist you stay here.’

  ‘We will not intrude. We leave very early in the morning.’

  ‘Although a feather mattress would be quite welcome after so much straw,’ said Thomas, leaning in conspiratorially. The men laughed. I cleared my throat.

  ‘I suppose you were relieved to cross the border and escape Jennet Preston’s supporters,’ I said.

  I could feel Richard’s eyes on me, but did not look.

  ‘Quite, yes.’

  ‘And you have met no such protest on behalf of the so-called Pendle witches?’

  ‘We have only just crossed into Lancashire,’ said Sir Edward, spilling open his pie with his fork. ‘We are not so familiar with those cases yet, with Westmoreland to come first. How many women are accused?’

  ‘A dozen or so. But unfortunately one passed away,’ said Roger, without a hint of regret. ‘However, I am investigating another case of a woman at Padiham.’

  ‘Another one?’ I failed to control my voice.

  ‘A woman named Margaret Pearson. My colleague Mr Bannister is taking evidence tomorrow from her servant, who swears that she has seen Mrs Pearson’s familiar spirit.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A toad.’

  There was a pause, in which I’m sure a sound like suppressed laughter escaped from Thomas Potts. Roger ignored it.

  ‘Mrs Booth, the servant, says she was carding wool at her employer Pearson’s house and asked her for some milk. They added wood to the fire to warm the milk pan, and when Mrs Booth removed it, a toad – or a spirit disguised as a toad – came out of the fire. Margaret Pearson removed the creature with a pair of tongs and carried it outside.’

  ‘I am curious to know,’ I began mildly, ‘if you have yet seen any of these familiar spirits yourself, Roger?’

  There was an awkward silence, in which Roger chewed thoughtfully.

  ‘The Devil appears only to those who crave his company,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Did you not say,’ I went on before I could stop myself, ‘that a familiar spirit is the surest sign of a witch? Does this mean if a witch does not have a familiar spirit, they are likely to be innocent?’

  Roger regarded me through heavy-lidded eyes. He took a sip of his wine.

  ‘Or they keep it well hidden.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ I addressed the table, ‘I have a very large dog, who accompanies me everywhere. Should I not be accused of witchcraft?’

  The table went silent, and my gaze landed on Roger, who watched me coolly.

  ‘It sounds almost as though you are inviting accusation, Mistress. I would be very cautious, if I were you. You have your husband’s reputation to consider. His name, Sir Edward and Sir James have told me, has already been heard of at Whitehall for the right reasons, so let there not be a wrong one.’

  The two men exchanged an uncomfortable glance.

  ‘Is Padiham in the forest of Pendle too?’ Sir Edward asked politely.

  ‘The boundary is that river there.’ Richard indicated with his knife. His tone was generous, but his mood unreadable. ‘So you are safe in this house.’

  ‘You cannot swear to that,’ Roger said. He was looking directly at me. ‘Seeing as one of them has been a guest here.’

  Several powerful, intelligent gazes turned on me at once, and my voice died in my throat. Roger’s presence commanded the table, and the men peeled their eyes from me to look at him in disbelief.

  ‘One of the accused is a woman called Alice Gray, and she was Fleetwood’s midwife.’

  He said the word with the same incredulity as if she’d claimed she was a mermaid.

  Sir James pulled a puzzled face.

  ‘How very unusual.’

  ‘Quite.’

  Roger did not move his eyes from my face. In that moment, I despised not only him but Richard for inviting him, when he knew my mission. Things would have been entirely different with them both out of the way. I could have pleaded Alice’s case and perhaps made some difference. But here we were, all together like one unhappy family. At that moment, the main course was brought out: a huge pike curled gracefully on a platter the size of a carriage wheel. Richard’s eyes met mine, and there was danger in his look, but also something that looked like guilt. Perhaps he realised now the consequences of what he had done.

  ‘Gentlemen, before we enjoy our next course, may I speak with my husband’s permission?’

  I glanced again at Richard, who gave a quick, solemn nod. Roger cleared his throat, but I went on.

  ‘The woman who has been a guest here was my midwife, and friend, and her name is Alice Gray. She is arraigned at the Lancaster assizes, accused of murder by witchcraft.’

  An attempt at a protest came from Roger, but I continued. My voice was high, and nervous, and I prayed it wouldn’t falter.

  ‘Alice was working for me for some months, and she is an exceptional midwife. She is highly skilled, and learnt her skill from her late mother.’

  I swallowed and looked at each of them directly. They were all staring back at me, rapt. I knew I was standing on the edge of a cliff with one foot dangling over.

  ‘Alice is very generous, and obedient, and kind. A long time ago she was … She …’

  I faltered, then I felt the most curious thing: waves of encouragement radiating from somewhere close by, like heat from a fire. I breathed in and carried on.

  ‘A long time ago she found herself in a terrible situation no woman should be unlucky enough to experience. She has few family and friends; her on
ly friend is sitting with her in the dungeon at Lancaster. I hope that …’ I blinked as tears came to my eyes. My throat was thick with emotion. ‘I hope that you will not punish her for the tragedy she endured, because she has already suffered immeasurably.’

  Roger cut me off, shooting up in his chair.

  ‘I think we have heard quite enough. This is not a courtroom and the woman’s own statement will be heard where and when it is appropriate.’

  His face was puce, his eyes little beads of malevolence.

  I nodded and turned again to the others.

  ‘I invited these men to my home, and I hope they do not consider it impertinent of me to talk fondly of my midwife, who they will soon meet in different circumstances. Are you offended, gentlemen?’

  They shook their heads, bewildered but polite. Silence covered the table like a dust sheet.

  ‘Gentlemen, when we are finished eating I will show you around the house, if you would like to see it,’ Richard said.

  Everyone was glad of the change in atmosphere, and the mood lifted as Richard served the fish and told a brief history of his uncles. Only Roger and I sat like dark clouds, wondering which of us would burst first.

  CHAPTER 22

  One dreary, rainy afternoon a few days later, I was lying in my silent confinement when Richard knocked on the chamber door. He told me Lord Montague’s players were in the area and would perform at the house that evening. Usually this would thrill both of us, but things were different now.

  ‘Why in heavens would James agree for them to come at a time like this?’ I asked, moving to sit upright.

  Richard sighed. ‘I asked him to invite them months ago. They only announced their arrival this morning.’

  He left, and wearily I forced myself out of bed to get dressed.

  I should have been surprised to see Roger sitting in the great hall a few hours later, his hands knitted together, resting on his large belly. But when I walked in, with Puck at my hand, my eyes were drawn not to Katherine, pale and drawn-looking on his left, but instead to the dark-haired woman sitting on his right. Her eyes were cast down into her lap, but her white collar lifted her features and pulled them from some distant corner of my mind. Behind the table, she had attempted to conceal her huge stomach beneath folds of brocade and taffeta. My head swam.

  ‘Mistress,’ Roger said pleasantly. ‘May I introduce Judith, the daughter of my great friend Jeremiah Thorpe of Bradford; not to be confused with the Thorpes of Skipton, but perhaps a distant relative?’

  There was a stunned silence, broken moments later by footsteps in the passage. Richard appeared in the other doorway. It took less than a second for him to take in the scene before him, and the colour drained from his face.

  What little courage I had – the kernel of hope that had embedded inside me and had got me this far – vanished, like some minuscule object being pulled into a great, powerful river. I knew it the moment it went, and I knew too that it was gone for good.

  ‘Roger,’ Richard managed to say.

  But he was not angry; he was as breathless and surprised as if his friend had stabbed him.

  Then several things happened at once: Puck began barking, unsettled by the awful feeling in the room; James arrived in the doorway to announce the Lord’s Players, who could be heard assembling in the hall; Richard regained his colour and turned an unsightly beetroot purple; and Judith looked up. As I watched her, all the noise in the room and in my head quietened. Her heart-shaped face was the colour of cream, and her plump cheeks the delicate, warm orange of roses. Her liquid dark eyes gazed fearfully at Richard, but there was also guilt there, and respect, and I could not deny it: love.

  The chaos of the room returned and I put my hand to Puck’s head, which silenced him instantly. He whimpered once and stood still. James teetered in the doorway, his mouth a perfect hole of surprise.

  Richard strode over to where Roger was sitting at the table, a thorn between two trembling roses.

  ‘Roger, what do you mean by this?’ he roared. ‘What on earth possessed you to do this?’

  Katherine looked tearful. She had lost more weight since the last time I saw her. With a distant pang of guilt, briefly I wondered what it had cost her to defy Roger for me. Judith looked terrified, her lovely features arranged in an expression of anguish.

  ‘Answer me now before I get that sword down and run it right through you. Damn you, Roger, answer me!’

  Roger’s eyes travelled uneasily to the monstrous weapon that glittered above the fireplace.

  ‘As you know, Richard, Judith is a friend of the family, and I invited her to stay at Read Hall for a spell. So when Lord Montague’s men announced their arrival in Pendle and enquired as to whether I would enjoy a private performance at Read, I found out they were also performing at Gawthorpe, so naturally I saw the opportunity to bring our families together for the … occasion.’

  He spread his hands wide to encompass everyone in the room.

  ‘Master?’

  James tried timidly to thaw the frozen scene before him. The only person at ease was Roger, drumming his ringed fingers. Behind him, where the low voices of the players had buzzed a minute before, there was a hush as they awaited instruction.

  Very slowly and stiffly, Richard turned to look at me. His face was a mask of grief. It probably mirrored mine.

  ‘Fleetwood, will you join us?’ he asked, his voice thick with emotion.

  I blinked through tears at Judith, the woman with whom I shared a husband and now a home. She had returned her gaze to her hands, which were folded in her lap. I sniffed and nodded, taking a seat next to Richard.

  While wine and sack were brought, six or seven men trooped into the gallery and took a bow.

  ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.’ A young, handsome one in the middle spoke. He had a wide mouth and a clear, gentle voice. ‘Mr and Mistress Shuttleworth: thank you for inviting us into your splendid home. Tonight’s play is a national favourite from one of the greatest living playwrights, and it is certainly one of our favourites to perform. A tragedy of ambition, a maze of morals and with a touch of magick, cast your imaginations to deepest, darkest Scotland – which should be relatively easy in these climes.’ He paused in anticipation of a titter of appreciation, which did not come. ‘Ladies and gentlemen: William Shakespeare’s Macbeth!’

  With a flounce of his cloak, the assembled men left the gallery, save for three, who had pulled their cloaks up over their heads and sat hunched in a tight circle. I was vaguely aware of all this, but my mind was occupied by a dull kind of numbness. I had seen the play before.

  ‘When shall we three meet again

  in thunder, lightning or in rain?

  When the hurlyburly’s done,

  when the battle’s lost and won.

  That will be ere the set of sun.’

  While the players chanted, from the corner of my eye I was aware of Judith, sitting still and upright, her face turned towards the players but perhaps looking about at the room too: at the china vases in the cabinets, the polished sconces on the walls, the portraits – all ordinary things, but no doubt of great interest to her eyes. She would be drinking in every detail of Richard’s house to savour and think of later. Unless, of course, she had been here before.

  Rain lashed at the windows; the players could barely be heard and were raising their voices, sounding slightly hysterical.

  ‘I come, graymalkin! Anon! Fair is foul, and foul is fair: hover through the fog and filthy air.’

  The rain kept coming, and Judith’s presence too was loud as a bell. I could feel her casting glances at me, but I kept my eyes on the gallery. How lifeless we must all look, how dull and bored. The clock ticked loudly. I thought of the stairs down to the dungeon, and the door closed on the darkness. Tick, tick, tick.

  When the battle’s lost and won.

  A servant taken ill. A rag poppet on a bed, tied with black hair to a child. A bowl of blood, vanished. A falcon ripped to death. A night
dress in the dark, floating palely, coming ever closer.

  ‘Stop!’ I shouted. ‘Please, stop.’

  Richard leapt up in alarm and clapped his hands.

  ‘Gentlemen, my apologies, but my wife has been taken ill.’

  I was vaguely aware of confusion, and the gathering up of things. I sat staring at my hands that were ice-cold and dead-looking. Soon I might actually be dead, and Alice too, but this room and these people would remain, and the year 1612 would become a distant memory. Wine would be poured for Richard and his new wife, and Roger and Katherine would play with their pink-cheeked child. I could feel the other child’s presence in the room too, feet away from me, waiting to be born, waiting to claim its place, and Judith mine.

  Even in life I had been the little ghost, and now I was consigned to death. I held my stomach, and imagined disappearing. It would come soon, no doubt, but it would not be gentle, like the light leaving the sky. It would be painful, and terrifying, and lonely, with no cool hand on my head, no amber eyes willing me calm. There would be a trial, and Alice would die, then I would die, both of us killed in an outbreak of misfortune. I closed my eyes, and thought of my child, of how much I wanted us both to live. My earthly life was coming to an end, and the end was nigh.

  CHAPTER 23

  It was the day before the assizes opened, and almost every man and woman in the county and those surrounding it had come to see the fates of the Pendle witches unfold. The streets of Lancaster were thronged with horses and carts and people and dogs and cows and chickens and children and all kinds of obstacles that led our carter to curse audibly and repeatedly behind Richard and me as he navigated the trap carrying our luggage and a travel-weary Puck. I kept my eyes down as we crossed the cobbles on our horses to join the throng moving up the hill, feeling my skin prickle with stares. I wanted to disappear, but with the size of my stomach I was as conspicuous as if I’d grown a beard. The narrow streets were a mass of brown clothes, white caps, black hats and unwashed skin. I watched a little boy of one or two stumble into the road in front of me and be wrenched back by his mother before my horse’s plate-sized hooves claimed him. She caught my eye, and I think she was surprised at how indifferent I seemed, how un-motherly.