The Witch Hunter's Tale (22 page)

I heard a soft cry behind me and found Elizabeth standing there, her eyes wide with fright.

“Will is going to hang?” she asked before breaking down entirely.

I rushed across the room and scooped her in to my arms. “No, no, he is not going to hang,” I said. I felt tears on my cheeks as my fear for Will and hatred of Joseph overwhelmed me. “I will find a way to save him. I promise.” It took me nearly an hour to regain myself and bring Elizabeth back from the edge of despair. Eventually she accepted my assurances, and thanked me for keeping Will safe. My heart broke as she wandered off in search of Hannah, and I feared that I had just told the most horrid lie of my life.

*   *   *

But try as I might—and I did not sleep that night—I could find no way to free Will from the snare that had been laid for him. Joseph had spread so many rumors, all indicating Will’s guilt, that everyone in the city thought him a murderer twice over, culpable in George’s death as well as his and Joseph’s father’s. It was not until an hour before sunrise that I remembered the pamphlet that Martha and I had penned a few days before and that the printer had said would be finished soon. If it were read by enough people, perhaps George’s friends and allies on the City Council would rediscover their courage and act against Joseph. It seemed our only hope, and I resolved to go to the printer’s as soon as the sun rose and take the pamphlets throughout the city myself.

At breakfast I told Martha of my plan. “Let us go to the printer’s and see how many we can distribute today,” I said. “I’m sure Peter Newcome will help us as well.” She nodded sullenly, utterly unconvinced that it would make any difference. I could neither disagree with her sentiment nor propose another scheme.

Even before we had gathered our cloaks, someone began to pound on the front door. Martha peered out the window. When her face paled my heart began to race.

“It is Joseph,” she said. “And Mark Preston with him.”

“Ah, God’s blood,” I swore. What could he want? To this point Joseph and I had battled each other from afar. What did it mean that he now stood at my door?

He continued to knock. “Hollo! Aunt Bridget! I know you’re in there! And I saw your maidservant looking through the window!”

“Let him in,” I said. I did not see any other option.

Martha opened the door, and without awaiting an invitation Joseph and Mark bulled their way into my entry hall. Joseph smiled as soon as he saw me.

“There you are, Aunt Bridget!” He spoke as if we were the closest of friends. “I hope I haven’t pulled you away from more pressing work.”

“What do you want?” I demanded.

Joseph reached out and seized my hand before I could snatch it away. “I told you there’d be no ink, Mark,” he said as he inspected my fingertips. “She is tip-toe nice, even when she stoops to scribbling.”

“Perhaps she had her maid do the writing,” Preston replied, and reached for Martha’s hand.

With shocking speed, Martha pulled her left hand back and lashed out with her right, punching Preston squarely in the throat. He made a gugling sound as he fought for air, and his hands clawed at his neck. Martha followed her first blow with a second, this time striking him on the face. Preston toppled like a windblown tree and lay on the hall floor gasping for breath. Martha stood over him, fists clenched, daring him to continue the battle. It had been some time since I’d seen this side of her, and I thanked the Lord she’d not lost her skills in a fight.

I turned to Joseph, unsure how he would react to seeing his man humiliated, and found him on the verge of laughter.

“Very nice,” he cried, hauling Preston to his feet. “Mark, I hope you will be more careful of this one in the future. She’s of a different sort than her mistress.”

Preston stared at Martha, his eyes blazing as he tried to recover himself. He dropped his good hand to the dagger he wore on his belt, and my stomach roiled. Joseph grasped Preston’s arm and held it tight.

“None of that,” Joseph said. “You cannot murder a maidservant in her mistress’s hall simply for making a fool of you.” Preston relaxed, but from the look on his face I knew he soon would return for his revenge.

“Now, Aunt Bridget, back to business,” Joseph said. He brushed me aside and strode into the parlor. Unsure what to do and bewildered by his mention of
business,
I followed him. He crossed to the hearth and warmed his hands on the fire before turning to me.

“Your printer friend nearly made a very poor decision,” Joseph said. He produced a cheap pamphlet from his pocket and unfolded it. He read from the cover. “
The Murderous Son Turn’d Murderous Brother
. Aunt Bridget, I have to admit it’s a brilliant title. The town would have snatched these up in mere hours, even with the witch-trials. There’s no sating their appetite for scandal or blood, and this one has both.”

My heart sank when I realized what must have happened.

Joseph turned to the fire and tossed the pamphlet in to the flames. “That was the last copy, of course. And the printer now knows better than to even consider printing such scurrilous words about one of the city’s Aldermen.” He turned to face me. “The question, of course, is what I am going to do about you. You set yourself against my witch trials, you pen a pamphlet accusing me of murder, and you allow your maidservant to assault my man. Obviously, I cannot allow this to continue.”

“Will did not murder George Breary, and I’ll not let him hang for it,” I replied. “And you both should know that I’ll not rest until I see George’s true murderer dead and buried.”

I’d hoped my reply would give Joseph pause, but he laughed out loud.

“I have no desire to hang Will,” he replied. “At least not if he is innocent. But if it does come to pass, it
would
be just. I’ve neither forgotten nor forgiven his role in our father’s death. My brother might not have murdered Mr. Breary, but he is far from guiltless.”

“Whatever the case, you should not concern yourself with Will,” Mark Preston said. His voice rattled thanks to Martha’s blow. “He is safe enough in Ouse Bridge gaol.”

Joseph nodded in agreement. “Were I in your place, Aunt Bridget, I would look to my little ones. They are so vulnerable. Mrs. Hooke reminded you of that, but perhaps you forgot.”

Fury roared within me and tore at my throat for release. I felt my hands fly up and watched my fingers, now claws, slash at Joseph’s face. If my work as a midwife did not demand short fingernails, I might have had his eyes out. As it was, I did woefully little damage before he seized my wrists and forced my hands to my sides. Then he infuriated me all the more by laughing.

“Now
this
is a side of you I’ve never seen!” He squeezed my wrists and twisted my arms with such force that I had no choice but to sit. He leaned over me, and his smile vanished. “Because of your rank and your work as a midwife, the city’s women look to you for guidance. I cannot have you working against me. If you continue to do so, I will take your family, I will take your work, and if that is not enough I will kill you myself. When my father was alive, you had his ear, and that made you a powerful woman. But he is dead, and I am in his place. His power is now mine.”

Joseph released my wrists and stepped back. My body so trembled with fear and fury I did not dare rise.

“You will let the law run its course.” Joseph spoke softly, but there could be no mistaking the steel edge to his words. “The witches will be tried, and the guilty will hang. Then my brother will face a jury. I will not interfere in their verdict, but if he is convicted, he too will hang. And you will do nothing about any of this, or you will feel my wrath.”

Without waiting for a response, Joseph turned on his heel and strode from the room with Preston close behind. As if to show their contempt, or perhaps my vulnerability, they left the door wide open. They could return any time they chose, and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

After Martha locked the door we sat in silence. What action could we take that would not result in further mayhem? I asked the Lord for guidance. He kept His own council.

After a few minutes Hannah bustled in from the kitchen, and she immediately felt the dread that had filled the room. “What is it?” she asked. “What has happened?”

I shook my head. “I do not know.”

The rest of the morning passed with torturing slowness. Martha and I attended our work only halfheartedly and with dread as our constant companion. We knew we had to find a way to save Will, but neither of us had the slightest idea of how we might do so. It was as if we awaited some awful and unavoidable news, and could not act until we knew the worst.

A knock at the door pulled us from our state. Hannah answered and called me downstairs where I found a girl of perhaps eleven years standing in the street. She had wrapped herself in a ragged wool cloak that billowed around her.

“Lady Hodgson?” she asked. “My mother sent me for you. She is in travail.”

For a moment I considered sending her to another midwife, but I realized that I was doing no good to anyone by staying home. I sent Martha for my valise, and we followed the girl into the bitter cold of the day. The girl told me her name was Jane Potter, and that her family had only recently come to the city. She had one sister, and they lived above her father’s tailor shop in Coney Street parish. Her mother had heard from her neighbors that I was a ready-handed midwife, and she sent for me when her travail started.

When we arrived at the tenement, Jane took us straight to the birthing room where we found her mother, Alice, and a half dozen of her gossips. I knew most of the women, and we fell to talking as Martha went to the kitchen to make the caudle to sustain Alice during her labor. Every midwife has her own recipe for caudle—some start with wine, others with ale, and there can be no agreement on how much sugar, ginger, or saffron to add—and Martha had begun to create her own. When Martha returned, I could see the strain of the day on her face, and I recognized how out of place it seemed in a room filled with joy and laughter. I wondered if the gossips could read my face as easily as I read Martha’s.

I inspected Alice and found that the child was still some hours from being born. I told the women as much, and they immediately set to gossiping. I knew they would expect me to join in the merriment, but the chill that Joseph had brought to me that morning proved heartier than the combined warmth of the room, the company, and even the wine that Alice’s husband brought. I could not help contrasting the gossips’ lightsome chatter with the dangers that threatened my household: Will faced hanging, Elizabeth had been menaced by both Joseph Hodgson and Rebecca Hooke, and I had been threatened with murder. What escape could there be?

Throughout the day women came and went, bringing news, a bit of food to sustain the company, and good wishes for Alice in her travail. Nothing seemed amiss until the talk turned to the trials of witches.

“If we rid ourselves of such women, it’s a job well done,” one young mother said, gazing into the eyes of the infant at her breast.

She spoke softly and without the anger I had heard when Upper Poppleton’s women turned against Mother Lee. I realized that she said those words, words that would send dozens of women to the gallows, not out of malice, but out of the love she bore for her child. It was common knowledge children were easily bewitched, and it stood to reason that if witches thrived, infants suffered. What mother would not want to protect her children from such a malign force?

In that moment I recognized for the first time the power behind Joseph’s decision to bring the witch-hunt to York. At a time of war and death, when God in His wisdom had overthrown all that had seemed certain, people would do anything they could to protect themselves and their families. If a man would steal a loaf of bread to feed his hungry child, why wouldn’t a kind and loving woman send a witch to the gallows to save hers? Joseph had not only taken power for himself, he had
given
power to the people of the city.

Looking back I realize that this was the moment when the seed of my terrible plan to overthrow Joseph was planted. But before I could think more on it, all was thrown into chaos when another of Alice’s gossips arrived and announced that a child had been taken for witchcraft and carried to Ouse Bridge gaol.

My eyes flew to Martha’s, and I could see the fear in her face as well. Could Joseph have acted so quickly? Would he have ordered Elizabeth’s arrest? For the second time that day, terror banished all other thoughts and feelings from my mind. Alice’s final travail had not yet begun, so I slipped from the room, scrawled a note, and found Jane, the girl who had summoned me earlier that day.

“Jane, I need you to take this to my home and give it to my maidservant, Hannah,” I said. I could not stay with Alice unless I knew that Elizabeth was safe. “Wait there for an answer. It should not take long.”

“Yes, my lady,” the girl replied. “What shall I do if nobody is there? Shall I put it by the door or give it to a neighbor?”

I paused. I knew that if Hannah were not home, it would only be because Elizabeth had been arrested.

“If nobody answers run back here pell-mell,” I replied. “I must know that above all else.”

The girl nodded and dashed off into the gloom of the evening. I do not know how long it took her to return, but it seemed like more than forever. When I wasn’t looking out the window for Jane, I walked up and down the Potters’ parlor alternately praying to the Lord and cursing Him for abandoning me to Joseph’s wrath.

And I thanked Him when the girl appeared out of the darkness, walking rather than running.

“Your maidservant said all is well,” she said as soon as she entered the parlor. I felt myself breathe for what felt like the first time in hours. As I climbed the stairs to Alice’s chamber, I wondered what poor child had been taken and said a prayer for her deliverance.

If the gossips had missed my presence, they hid it well, for I found all the women still talking merrily while Martha walked Alice about the room. Martha looked at me when I entered and I smiled weakly. I could see the relief on Martha’s face, and we were able to get back to the business of birthing.