The Vanishing Witch (10 page)

He groped for the hilt of the sword hanging from the belt at his hip, but his foot slipped in some foul mess on the path. He struggled to regain his balance, fearful of crashing to the stones. Breathing hard, he looked up again towards the figure, but saw only a cat sniffing
at some scrap. The street was empty once more.

Rocking stones or logan are the meeting places of witches, who ride there on stems of ragwort. If a woman is desirous of becoming a witch she should go secretly to a logan at night and touch it nine times. When a child’s legitimacy is in doubt, he is placed on a logan. If he is a bastard the stone will not rock.

I peered out through the finger hole in the shutters, catching
just the wisp of movement, as something or someone passed in front of the house. But I could hear no footsteps, only the distant barking of a dog and the yelling of the husband and wife further down the street. I told myself I was being foolish. No one was out there.

But even if no stranger was watching the house, that sour cat, Maud, was certain to be. Would she report Robert’s visit to his
wife? She would if she’d seen him.

I jerked round as I heard footsteps in the courtyard, grabbing the poker from the fire, but breathed again as Edward sauntered in.

‘I thought he’d never leave. I’ve been lurking outside for hours, freezing.’

‘In the street?’ I asked, relieved it was his shadow I’d glimpsed.

‘Of course not! I was in the courtyard, or he’d have run right into me.’

A cold chill
trickled down my back. Then it hadn’t been Edward I’d seen outside.

‘So, did he tell you?’ Edward demanded.

‘About the ship? Naturally. He’s an honourable man. He looked wretched at having to confess it, but I let him think I knew nothing of it, until he broke the news.’

‘You made him feel horribly guilty, I trust,’ Edward said. ‘The question is, my sweet Maman, how guilty can he be made to
feel? Did you ask for money?’

‘I asked for nothing. I told him I didn’t blame him.’

Edward’s grin vanished. ‘You weren’t stupid enough to tell him I’d already forced the captain to give me the money back before the ship sailed?’

‘I am not stupid at all, Edward!’ I reminded him sharply. ‘I’d hardly confess that my own son had appropriated the money he had so kindly tried to invest for me. As
far as Robert knows, my money is gone with the ship.’

The smile returned to Edward’s face.

‘So you’ll ask old Hog-belly for the money, won’t you, little Maman? How soon do you reckon he can get it? I am tired of living like this.’

‘I told you,’ I said firmly. ‘I will not ask him for anything.’

My son scowled petulantly. ‘But he owes us, or thinks he does. He won’t refuse you, even if it’s
to stop you spreading gossip in the city. The longer you leave it, the less guilty he’ll feel. You must strike now.’

I brushed back his white streak of hair that had flopped across his face. ‘You already have the money,
my
money. You kept every penny you took back from the captain.’

He had the grace to blush a little. ‘We’d have it twice over if only you’d make Robert pay. And you could easily,’
he mumbled, pouting, like a spoiled child.

‘I’ve always taken care of you, haven’t I? Always given you everything you wanted. And I will again.’

He grinned, but I knew I would not be able to appease him for long. He had the patience of a wayward infant. I would have to act soon.

‘My angel, see that the courtyard is secure, there’s a good boy. I thought I saw someone watching the house again.
Are you sure you owe no money? Dicing? Wagers on the cocks?’

A slightly guilty spasm passed across Edward’s face. But he shook his head. ‘If the men at the cockpits set their hounds on you, they don’t follow you around for weeks, believe me. It takes them just minutes to grab a man in the dark, break a few bones and, if he doesn’t agree to pay up, break a few more. What did this person look like
anyway?’

I tried to think, but to conjure his image was like plaiting a rope of smoke. ‘It was more as if I saw their shadow, not the man.’

Yet even as I said it, I knew that that shadow had exuded a malevolence that was more tangible than the man himself.

Edward snatched up the stave that stood always by the street door and went out to the courtyard. I crouched beside the fire to make the
signs that would keep us safe for the night. And tonight that seemed suddenly more important than ever. Of all the work in a house that might be entrusted to a servant, this was the one task the mistress of the house must always perform herself. I wouldn’t let Diot do it, though she knew it better than I, as well she might, given what her mother had taught her.

I used the fire irons to rake the
glowing embers into a round disc, like the sun. I divided the circle into three equal parts and laid a dried peat in the centre of each segment before covering it with powdery grey ash, banking it down to seal in the heat. Finally I traced a circle in the ash and drew a cross through it so that the arms projected to north, south, east and west.

I rose and crossed to the five-flamed oil lamp.
Standing beneath it, I unclasped the silver necklace set with the polished green stones, flecked with madder and cold as a toad to the touch. I ran my fingers around the setting of one stone until I found the little groove and pushed on it with my thumbnail. A shallow oval tray slid out from beneath it. A lock of hair lay inside, tied with thread. I looked at it for a long time in the flickering lights.
I stroked it softly with my finger. It was as baby-fine and silky as the day I had placed it there. My first. It’s always special, isn’t it? You can’t help feeling a bond of affection with the first, can you? It brings a delight that none who come after may ever quite match.

I pressed the strand of hair to my lips, holding it there for a while before replacing it in the little tray and sliding
it back into position beneath the bloodstone. Then, one by one, I extinguished the flames in the little lamp, until only the red veins of fire beneath the ash in the hearth pulsed in the darkness.

If it freeze on St Thomas’s Day, the price of corn will fall. If it be mild the price will rise.

On St Thomas’s Day, the witches gather at the church in Dorrington, Lincolnshire, to gossip, sing and amuse themselves. If the moon is shining brightly, and you look through the keyhole, you will see Satan himself playing marbles.

Royse pushed her head round the door. ‘Mam, bailiff’s here. Just seen him walking up the track.’

Nonie and Gunter exchanged anxious glances. If
the village bailiff paid a visit it always meant trouble somewhere, a killing or a robbery. Gunter sighed. They’d be rounding the men up to make a search for the felon – just when he was about to tuck into his supper too.

‘Fetch him in, lass . . . quickly,’ Nonie said, wiping her hands on a sacking apron.

She pulled out a stool, gesturing towards it as a large man filled the doorway. He ducked
in, nodding solemnly to Nonie and Gunter, then heaved his great hams onto the too-narrow seat.

With another worried glance at Gunter, Nonie poured their visitor some small ale, and set it on the table in front of him. The bailiff took a swig from the beaker and wiped the beads of liquid clinging to his beard.

‘Has the hue and cry been raised?’ Nonie demanded, too anxious to wait for the man
to come to the point in his own time.

The bailiff shook his head. ‘It’s news from the King as brings me here.’

Nonie’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Have the French invaded?’

The bailiff shook his head impatiently. ‘Hold hard, will you? You women are all alike, never let a man get his words out afore you’re asking questions.’

‘Yes, let the man speak,’ Gunter said, knowing quite well he’d never
have got away with saying that to Nonie if they were alone.

She glowered at him.

The bailiff took a second gulp of ale. ‘There’s to be another poll tax. I’ve to record all the families and register them that has to pay in every cottage.’

Gunter groaned. ‘How much this time?’

‘Twelve pennies. We’ve to pay eight by January and the rest by June.’

‘But last time it was only four pennies all told,’
Nonie said indignantly. ‘And it was hard enough scraping that together.’

‘You can’t have heard right,’ Gunter said. ‘It’ll take weeks to earn enough, that’s if I can get the cargoes, and there’ll not be many of those afore the new shearing in spring.’ He looked round the small cottage despairingly. ‘And if I pay it all over to the King, where am I to find food to put in the pot or money for rent?
Rushes and candles too. The King expects us to sit in the dark, does he?’

The bailiff grunted. ‘King doesn’t give a pig’s fart where you sit, so long as you pay up. And it’s more than the twelve pennies you’ll have to be finding. I’ve orders to register every soul in the house over fifteen years.’

‘The lass isn’t fifteen yet,’ Nonie said hastily. ‘So that only leaves me and Gunter to divide
the tax between us same as last time.’ She gave her husband a frightened smile. ‘At least you’ll not have to raise more for Royse.’

The bailiff lifted the beaker and drained it. ‘It’s not like last time. It was only one sum between husband and wife then. This time it’s twelve pennies for each and every man and woman that draws breath, no exceptions.’

Nonie gaped at him, as if she couldn’t make
sense of what he was saying.

Gunter smashed his fist on the table. ‘They can’t expect us to pay that. It’s chicken scraps for the likes of Master Robert, with his great warehouse and all his properties, but my Nonie earns nothing save for what food she grows for the pot, and that’s not enough to feed us, never mind have any spare to sell. And what about the likes of Alys’s faayther? Is he to
pay ’n’ all? He can’t even find his rent and Martin won’t pay for him. You’ve got to tell them – tell them none of us can pay.’

The bailiff clambered to his feet. ‘It’s no good you ranting at me. If you’ve a complaint about the poll tax take it up with the Parliament and the King. I’ve to pay for my wife and she earns nothing either. I’ve two girls and the wife’s mother living with us as well.
I’ll have to find the tax for all them, if they get recorded. I’m sorely tempted to take the old woman out one dark night and dump her in a bog pool. At least that way I’d not have to pay for her or put up with her mithering night and day. Your wife’s right. You’ll not be as hard hit as some. Be thankful for that much.’

He paused with his hand on the latch. ‘If I were you, Gunter, I’d take one
of your goats to the beast market in Lincoln. It’s a waste feeding two over winter anyway, when they’re not in milk. But you’ll have to find the tax somehow, or they’ll come and take the worth of it from the cottage. And trust me, Gunter, it’s better to pay up, even if you have to sell your bairns to do it, than have them smashing your home.’

If a maid desires to see the man she shall marry, let her go at midnight to the graveyard and throw hemp seed over her left shoulder and recite, ‘Hemp seed I sow. Hemp seed I grow. He that is to marry me, come after me and mow.’ If a man appears behind with a scythe, it is him she shall wed. If no man appear, she shall remain a maid, and if a coffin lies behind her, she shall die before
her wedding day.

The problem with life is that you can never tell where those insignificant decisions are going to lead, not while you’re alive, that is. Once you’re dead, you can see the living setting off blithely down a path that will take them straight into the jaws of a wolf. There are ghosts who try to warn the living, but the living pay no heed, so why try? If you ask me, my darlings,
the dead should sit back and enjoy the entertainment the living provide for them, especially when they’re cheering for the wolves.

Robert hurried towards his warehouse through the stream of paggers staggering under the weight of kegs, bales and baskets as they hefted them to and from the waterfront. Horses and oxen stood between the shafts of wagons and carts, flicking their ears and waiting
patiently for cargoes to be loaded or unloaded. Merchants and tally clerks bustled between them, each believing himself a person of importance to whom others should give way. But men are as stubborn as bulls in refusing to step aside and collisions were so frequent it was a wonder the Braytheforde wasn’t bobbing with bodies.

To a visitor, the city’s frenetic activity along the waterside would
have given the impression that trade was flourishing, but it was not. Ever since Lincoln had lost its wool staple to its rival Boston two decades before, the city had been in decline. Wool, the very cornerstone of England, was no longer compelled to pass through Lincoln, and as the foreign merchants had moved on, so had Lincoln’s prosperity. There were, Master Robert reflected bitterly, only half
the boats in the Braytheforde today that there had been when he had started in the business.

His mood was not lightened when he climbed the stairs outside his warehouse and entered the tally room, an open loft suspended high above the ground, from which those who did not have to sweat for their supper could look down on those who laboured for them.

Jan was already seated at the small table,
moving jetons around on the counting board, as he checked the sums against a sheaf of parchments. He glanced up, cursing as the gust of freezing wind from the open door threatened to sweep everything from the table. He made a grab for the slips, shoving them under weights and measuring sticks to secure them, before turning his attention back to his father.

‘What brings you here? It’s not Mother,
is it? Has she got worse?’

Robert picked up one stack of parchments and flicked through them, oblivious of his son’s furious glare. ‘Your mother’s no worse, but she’s no better either. I’ve sent for the physician. No doubt he’ll charge a barrel of gold for telling her to keep abed and drink a posset to soothe her, but Beata kept pressing me to fetch him. Seems to think Edith should have recovered
before now.’