The Witch Hunter's Tale (8 page)

“Well then, Mr. Hodgson, what can we do?” the Lord Mayor asked Joseph. “Surely you did not ask us here simply to tell us of the danger.”

“My Lord Mayor,” Joseph said as he rose once again to his feet. “This is why I called the Council into session. I have a solution.” The murmuring stopped and all eyes settled on Joseph. He and Rebecca could not have planned the meeting any better.

I stole a glance at Will to see his reaction to his brother’s words, but his face remained a mask.

“Many of you have heard of witch hangings in other parts of England,” Joseph continued. “Most have been to the south, but today word reached us of witches found in Lancashire.” He passed around copies of the book I’d bought from Newcome, the book that he himself had paid to have printed.

“It is well known that witches thrive in times of disorder such as those in which we now live. And it is common knowledge that Satan has sent his imps to aid the King’s faction. And now it seems that the devil has sent his witches here in hope of overthrowing this very Council. Why would he do this? Why would he single out York from all the cities in England? Because Satan cannot tolerate our efforts to root out sin and build York into a shining city upon a hill. Gentlemen, Satan has challenged us, and if we do not accept the challenge we shall be defeated. If we do not drive these witches, the devil’s own waiting-women, out from the city, then God will have no more mercy on us than he did on Sodom. If we do not act, God will loose Satan’s hand. We will be destroyed—and rightly so.”

“Mr. Hodgson, how do you propose we pay for this hunt?” George Breary rose to his feet as he spoke. “We will have to pay the jailors, the Searchers, the lawyers … the expense you are asking the city to bear is no small thing.” Some of the Councilmen were notorious for their parsimony, and I think George hoped to give them pause. If so, he was disappointed, for Joseph was prepared for this line of opposition.

“Mr. Breary, what price would you put on defending the city against Satan’s assaults?” Joseph’s voice rose as he spoke, making his outrage at George’s words clear to all. “If news came that the King’s armies approached, would we not strengthen the city walls? Would we not build up our store of cannon-shot and gunpowder? Of course we would. The horrible truth is that the enemy is not approaching, no. He is already here; he is already within the city walls. Witches already have murdered a mother and her child. You have no wife, no small children, so you may be safe. But others among us have families. And I must ask you, Mr. Breary, how many of
our
wives and children must die before you say,
I wish we had spent a few shillings to defend the city
?”

George opened his mouth to reply, but Rebecca interrupted. “Members of the Council.” Her voice was as clear and loud as any man’s. “As you know, Richard, my late and beloved husband, had the singular honor of serving on this august body.”

I suppressed a laugh at her description of her husband. While he was alive, he was never beloved of anyone, least of all her, and his service to the city consisted of sleeping through meetings and voting as she instructed him.

Rebecca continued, her voice ringing through the hall with no less authority than Joseph’s had. “I would be doing his memory a terrible injustice if I did not take up his standard and defend his city,
your
city, against the assaults of these devils. Witches are not just murderers; they are rebels against God Himself. In Exodus the Lord commands,
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
Shall we now—even as God makes clear his hatred of England’s sinful ways—turn our backs on His commandments? As His vice-regents on earth, you will be called to account if you fail to do your duty. You must protect the city against these witches just as you would defend it against the Irish horde. Indeed the danger of witches is greater than this, for even now they are within the city, doing the devil’s work.”

She paused and looked around the table, making sure that she had every Alderman’s attention. She needn’t have worried—they were spellbound.

“I will not presume to tell you how to act in this matter. But I have seen what witches can do to a child’s body, and I have seen what trafficking with the devil did to Hester Jackson. Because of this I know all too well the depths of the devil’s depravity. But all is not lost, for I also know that you will do God’s will. I know that you will do the right thing for York.” As the Council stared at her in awe, Rebecca turned from the table and strode from the room, her cloak billowing behind her.

After such a performance, the Council’s vote was a mere formality. Even George voted in favor of beginning the hunt; else he would have been the only one to dissent. Martha and I remained in our hiding place until only George and Will were left in the hall. When we descended the steps, George had an air of resignation about him.

“There was little you could have done,” I assured him. “Rebecca and Joseph planned that meeting with exquisite care.”

George nodded. “Perhaps. But I should not have been taken so completely unawares. They are doing battle against Antichrist, and I am counting pennies? Of course the Council voted for Joseph’s motion!”

George and I said our farewells, and then Will, Martha, and I started for home. I slowed a bit so Will and Martha could walk alone for a while. I heard snatches of conversation and the low laughter that new lovers shared. I remembered such longing from my own youth and smiled.

The north wind had calmed, and an eerie silence settled over the city as its residents huddled indoors, doing their best to keep safe from the killing cold. The sound of our heels striking the cobbled street reminded me of nothing so much as gunshots echoing off the surrounding buildings. None of us spoke the rest of the way home.

Hannah met us at the door and started clucking over us like a hen over her chicks. She herded us into the parlor, timbered the fire, and went to the kitchen for spiced wine. Once we’d warmed ourselves, our conversation turned to the night’s events.

“It seems we were right about Joseph’s scheme,” I said. “The question now is how we can best protect ourselves.”

Will nodded. “It’s the same as always with Joseph. He sees himself as doing God’s work, and he will not be denied. If we oppose him in any way, he will cast us as enemies both of God and of the city.
There can be no opposing the will of God,
he’ll say. And after today’s performance, I have no doubt he could turn the Council against us.”

“So we must tread carefully,” Martha said. “Once the hunt begins in earnest, there is no telling how events will fall.”

“But with his seat on the Council and her position as Searcher we can be sure that they will fall in Joseph’s and Rebecca’s favor, at least at the outset,” I replied. I shuddered at the havoc such a malign pair could wreak. The three of us talked for an hour or more, until the fire was reduced to embers and the cold had begun to seep into the room. We found no answers to our dilemma. Though it galled each of us, we would simply have to wait for Joseph and Rebecca’s assault, and respond as best we could.

*   *   *

Although the Council made no proclamation about their plans to rid the city of witches, the next day York buzzed in anticipation. Soon it became impossible to go to the market without hearing the word
witch
or seeing a pamphlet about hangings elsewhere in England. Some had been printed in London or Hull, but I felt sure that a few had sprung from Joseph’s pen as he prepared the city for his bloody scheme.

The Saturday after the Council meeting, Martha and I passed Peter Newcome as he cried his wares in front of the Minster, and while he still had a variety of coversheets on his board, he shouted up witchcraft more than anything else. He raised his hand in greeting when he saw us, and bowed as we approached.

“My lady, how goes it today?” he called. Before I could answer, an elderly woman stepped in between us and peered at the board.

“Have you still got this one?” she asked. “The one about the witches?” She pointed at a pamphlet called
The Seven Women Confessors, or A Discovery of the Seven White Devils.

“Of course, of course,” Newcome said. He nodded at his boy, who dug into their pack and produced the pamphlet. The woman handed the boy two pennies and hurried off, her eyes already glued to the book.

Newcome smiled at me. “I do apologize, my lady, but when business calls I must answer.”

“I understand,” I said. “Were I summoned by a mother, I would abandon you in a moment.”

Newcome laughed at the comparison. “It’s been like this for days,” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “I’ve got stacks of murder books I can’t give away, but if it’s about witches, it sells in an instant. The printer has hired another boy, but even so, he can hardly keep up. I can’t imagine what it will be like once the hangings start.”

I could not help noticing that he did not say
if the hangings start.
A gust of wind flew through Bootham Bar and rattled the pages on Newcome’s board. One pamphlet escaped from his pack, and Newcome’s boy scampered after it. I pulled my cloak a little tighter, bid Newcome farewell, and started for home.

*   *   *

Sunday morning came, cold and dark. I stayed in my bed as long as I could, knowing that however cold I might be under my blankets, it would be worse when I climbed out. As the watery winter sun began to chase the shadows from my chamber, Elizabeth slipped into my bed and curled up beside me.

“Must we go to church?” she asked.

Elizabeth’s mother had never been a regular churchgoer, and like so many children Elizabeth found the ceremonies and sermons tedious at best and vexing at worst.

“It is the law,” I said. “And it is good to pray to the Lord. He shall be very pleased to see you.”

“But it’s so
cold
,” she said. “Hannah says that God is in all places. If that is true, He can see me even if I am in the parlor next to the fire.”

I bit my lip to keep from laughing.

“We’ll be no colder than anyone else,” I said. “And it is best that all the parish shivers together. If we do not, we might forget the poor entirely, and if that happens, where will the nation be?”

Will had spent the previous night at Mr. Breary’s, and sent word that he would attend church with him. As a result, Martha, Hannah, Elizabeth, and I had my pew to ourselves for the service. A few months earlier we’d buried old Mr. Wilson, who had served the parish for decades, and since that time we’d been visited by a variety of ministers. Those who came to us from neighboring parishes were not so bad, but most had travelled north from Cambridge with godly zeal boiling their blood. On this day, our minister was one of these. He was not much more than a youth by the look of him, but what he lacked in years he made up for in enthusiasm and volume. From his first words, he roared and shook, moaned and cried. Elizabeth grasped my hand as she stared in apprehension at the spectacle. I glanced at Martha from time to time, and I could see her growing impatient with the preacher, particularly when he finished the second hour of his sermon without showing signs of fatigue. He continued on for another half hour before setting us free.

“My God, I thought he would never finish,” Martha whispered once we were safely on our way home. Elizabeth delighted in such blasphemy, of course, and even I had to suppress a smile when the two of them took to aping the preacher’s frantic arm waving, each one trying to surpass the other in outrageousness.

When we returned for the afternoon service, we discovered that the same minister would preach again, and their smiles vanished. Martha moaned as he strode down the aisle and whispered that she hoped to get home before dark. And while none in the congregation was so vocal as she, I did not have to look far to find expressions of dismay on my neighbors’ faces. At the outset, his sermon seemed little different than the one he’d delivered that morning, full of hellfire and sin, but of little interest to any who were not already among the godly. I sat back in my pew and began to compose a list of medicines I would need from the apothecary.

“All men know that God has revealed himself to man through his prophets, his patriarchs, and his apostles,” the preacher bellowed. “Today He reveals Himself through the Ministers of the Gospel. And because he is God’s opposite in every way, just as God has his preachers and prophets, Satan has his soothsayers, his pythonesses, and his witches. Where Ministers of the Gospel provide council to the weak and succor to the weary, witches provide only deceit, damnation, and death.”

At the mention of witches I sat up in my seat and glanced at Martha. She had heard him as well and stared raptly at the preacher. To my relief, Elizabeth paid him no more mind than she had in the morning, choosing instead to play with the ribbons on her dress.

“If any man in York thinks it merely a curiosity that such evil creatures have come to so godly a city, he is mistaken. Such visitations are never mere happenstance. Rather, we must take it as a sign from God Himself. By permitting the devilish sin of witchcraft, He means to rouse the godly from their slumber. He means to tell us that our work is not yet done, that man still wallows in his sinful nature. God has set a question before us. Will we cleave to Him and His Word, or will we seek comfort in Satan and his wicked spirits? In Exodus, the Lord God tells us,
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live
. Will we heed Him? Or will we show ourselves to be rebels of the worst kind?”

When the preacher paused to let his audience consider the question, I realized that Joseph had commissioned this sermon as surely as he had commissioned the pamphlets that now flooded the city. Together the pamphlets and sermons would drive the city into a state of alarm, and once the fear had reached its peak, Joseph would begin his witch-hunt. He would offer the people a fire that would cleanse the city of all malignancy.

As I looked at the crowd around me, I prayed that my friends and neighbors would not fall under this mountebank’s spell. But by the look on their fevered faces and the angry glint in their eyes, I knew that the minister’s words had done their job. York’s residents would do the minister’s bidding. The only question was, what would he demand of them?