The Vanishing Witch (11 page)

Edith had fallen ill four days ago. Robert was sure it was nothing more serious than bad gripes of the belly, caused by something she had eaten. True, none of the rest of the household had become sick, but a fragment of spoiled meat had been known to affect one person while others were left untouched, and gentlewomen were known to be more delicate of stomach than menfolk or servants.

Jan wrenched the parchments, now in the wrong order, out of Robert’s hand. ‘You didn’t have to come today, Father. You could have stayed with Mother. I told you I could manage.’

Robert grunted. ‘She sent me. She said I disturbed her, pacing about. Besides, I want a word with Tom. He must make plain to the cottagers that the rents will be rising next quarter, no exceptions.’

‘I’ve told him that
already,’ Jan snapped. ‘You want me to be firmer with the men, but how can you expect them to take any notice of me, if you keep—’ He broke off as they heard two pairs of feet ascending the stairs outside.

There was a timid knock at the door, and Robert, assuming it was one of the men, strode over and wrenched it open, prepared to bark at whoever was standing there. But, to his delight, he saw
Catlin and behind her the diminutive figure of Leonia. Beaming, he stepped aside, ushering them in. Leonia went to the edge of the platform to peer down into the warehouse with undisguised fascination at finding herself so high up.

‘Do take care, my dear. It’s a long way down,’ Robert warned.

She smiled up at him and obediently stepped back. ‘Is this all yours, Master Robert?’

He nodded, gratified
to see the awe and delight in her eyes. ‘All mine, and one day, it will all be Jan’s, won’t it, my boy? Mistress Catlin, I believe you know my eldest son, Jan?’

She bestowed one of her enchanting smiles on the lad, and Robert saw a red flush creep across Jan’s face.

‘Mistress Catlin’s late husband was a member of the Guild.’

Robert didn’t know what had possessed him to say that, except that
it seemed to justify his continuing acquaintance with her. Not that he should need to explain his actions to his son, or anyone for that matter, he told himself. But guilt always makes a man feel he has to say more than is wise.

Catlin smiled. ‘Your father is such a shrewd businessman, Jan. I don’t know what I would have done without his guidance.’

‘Is that so, Widow Catlin?’ Jan said, darting
a sharp look at Robert. ‘But if you will excuse us, we have work to do. My mother’s sick. My father’s anxious to return home to her as soon as he can.’

Catlin nodded earnestly. ‘Of course. I won’t detain you either, Master Jan. I understand how busy you must be. Your father has told me how hard you work and how much he relies on you. But it was because I heard your poor mother is sick that I
came. A neighbour of your wife’s cousin mentioned it and I thought perhaps a jar of sweet oil might comfort her. It will help her sleep if she rubs a little on her temples. I always find it soothes me to have such oils to perfume my chamber.’

She bent and pulled something from her basket. It was a small clay jar, sealed with wax. Even though the seal had not been broken, a heavy fragrance hung
about it of lavender and other herbs that, though vaguely familiar to Robert, he had never troubled to identify. She set the jar on the table.

Jan muttered something that might have been his thanks, while Robert beamed at her. It would never have occurred to either of them to buy such a thing for Edith. Only a woman would think of it. Robert decided it might be prudent not to tell Edith who had
sent her the gift. Better to pretend he had bought it himself.

‘And how is that little dog of yours, Leonia? I trust he is behaving himself.’

‘I’m afraid he’s rather naughty,’ Catlin said, with a tiny laugh. ‘He seized Leonia’s favourite gown when it was drying and tore it, then nipped her when she tried to stop him. But as I told her, he’s only a puppy and will learn.’

Robert was about to
say that he’d buy the child a new gown but, catching sight of his son’s face, he thought better of it. He’d have one made up and sent to her. There was no reason for Jan to know.

Leonia was once more edging close to the edge of the platform and Robert could see that she was fascinated by the hooks and pulleys, as the men swung them to lift great barrels and bales onto the stacks below.

‘My dear,
do be careful!’ he warned again. ‘Jan, why don’t you take the child and show her the warehouse before she tumbles into it?’

‘Father, I have these bills of sale to check. Besides, a warehouse is no place for a little girl – she may easily be crushed.’

‘All the more reason for you to go with her. After Mistress Catlin has come all this way to bring a gift for your mother, the least you can do
is show her a little courtesy.’

‘Please will you take me?’ Leonia beamed eagerly up at Jan. ‘I’m sure you know everything about how it works and I’ve never been inside a warehouse before.’

Jan, it appeared, could no more resist her large brown eyes than his father could, and his expression softened as he held out his hand to her. ‘I can spare only a few minutes.’

Robert waited until he heard
their footsteps reach the bottom of the stairs outside, then positioned himself on the stool behind the table close to Catlin. They were seated right at the back of the loft, where he knew they couldn’t be seen from the floor of the warehouse.

‘You’re tired, Robert,’ Catlin said. ‘You’ve been exhausting yourself worrying about poor Edith and the business. You must rest else you’ll fall sick too.’

Beata, Edith or even his physician might have said exactly the same thing to him for there was nothing intimate about the words. But a look of wondrous tenderness shone in her eyes as she said it, as if she were deeply concerned for him.

He caught again the sweet, heady perfume from the jar of oil, as she leaned closer and whispered, ‘I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you, Robert.’

He edged his hand towards hers beneath the table, reaching out until he touched her delicate little fingers. For the first time since he had known her, she did not pull away. He felt her thumb stroking the back of his hand, like the caress of a feather. Neither spoke. They had no need for words as they gazed entranced at one another. It was as if they were fifteen again and this was their first and
only love.

If a person is possessed of the evil eye against their will and does not wish to do harm, let their first glance in the morning, which is always the most deadly, fall upon some tree or bush. In this way the tree will wither and die instead of a man or beast.

Snow was whirling in the darkness as Jan stepped out of the last cottage in Greetwell. After the warm, smoky fug of
the tiny room, the biting wind seemed unnaturally cruel. He shivered, drawing the long point of his hood across his mouth and nose. The snow was not falling in soft flakes, but as frozen powder that stung the skin and eyes, like blown sand.

He cursed himself for having left it so late to start for home. It was still early evening, but he’d forgotten how quickly a winter’s night closed in on the
bleak marshes where no burning torches lit the streets or warm candlelight spilled from the houses. He was relieved, though, to have finished the unpleasant task. He’d dreaded telling the tenants their rents were going to rise, but it had had to be done.

Tom was his father’s rent-collector, but Jan could hardly send the man to deliver such unwelcome news. Such tidings must come from Master Robert’s
steward, the sooner the better to give the cottagers a chance to earn the extra coins. The news had not been welcomed, of course, and Jan had been obliged to listen to the shouts and wails, the pleas and arguments in every cottage he visited.

We can’t find the money, not with the poll-tax too. Our bairns’ll starve
.

Jan pitied them, but all he could do was listen to their angry protests. He was
not a man to give them false hope by promising he would try to change Robert’s mind. His father would not be moved, he knew, and deep down, he understood Robert’s reasons. Their own business had suffered badly this past year, with the weavers’ revolt in Flanders and the loss of
St Jude
. If their business failed, the very men who were shouting at him now would be put out of work and out of their
cottages too. Yet it made Jan cringe to see the fear in the eyes of the women and know he had caused it.

He stumbled over to where his horse was tethered. She had turned her head from the driving wind, pulling the leather rein tight against the tree branch. His numb fingers could scarcely undo the knot and the old mare was stubbornly refusing to give him any slack, not that he blamed her with
the snow stinging her face. He tried to position his own body between her and the wind to shield her eyes as he fumbled to loosen the tether.

As he struggled, he half glimpsed a movement behind him. He spun round, peering intently through the swirling white. Had one of the cottagers come out to argue with him again, or even attack him?

‘Who’s there?’ he demanded.

He thought he heard an answering
shout, but the wind was shrieking through the dried marsh-reeds with such force that a herd of bulls might have been thundering towards him and he wouldn’t have heard them. Unnerved, Jan hauled himself up into the saddle and turned his horse towards the distant torch-lights of Lincoln Castle and the cathedral high on the hill. But even those lights, which could usually be seen for miles in the
dark, kept vanishing behind the swirling snow.

His face already felt as numb and stiff as a block of wood and he hadn’t even reached the outskirts of the city yet. The horse was old and standing out in the bitter cold had made her joints stiff. Buffeted by the wind, she was pushed sideways on the path. She rolled her eyes nervously as the long, thin branches of the willows snaked out towards
her. Jan kept a good grip on the reins, holding himself alert. This was a treacherous stretch of track, squeezed between the icy black river and the oozing marshes. He didn’t relish falling into either, especially not in the dark. Several times he twisted in the saddle and peered behind him, still convinced he had seen someone. But now he forced himself to face straight ahead, knowing that if he tugged
on the reins or unbalanced his horse they could both plunge to their death.

Jan’s mood was as dark as the bog pools. If only he’d come to Greetwell earlier in the day, as he’d planned, he’d be safely back at his lodgings by now or, better still, in a tavern, enjoying a stewed hare and a jug of wine before a roaring fire. It was all his father’s fault, entertaining Mistress Catlin at the warehouse
and insisting that Jan act as nursemaid to her brat. He didn’t dislike the child, but she was a strange creature, asking questions about how this pulley worked and what that tool was used for, matters he had thought no girl would be interested in. She had a disarming way of looking up at him with those great tawny eyes, as if every word he uttered was enthralling. But there was something about
her that disturbed him, as if a woman was looking at him through the child’s eyes and mocking him.

As for Mistress Catlin, Jan could see only too plainly why his father was drawn to her. She was handsome, charming and graceful, all the things his mother was not. Much as he loved Edith, he had to admit she didn’t help her own cause, nagging her husband continually, like a beggar picking at a sore.
Though Jan had never admitted as much to his parents, it had been a relief to move out of their home to have some peace from her constant fretting and ill humour. But even so, it embarrassed him to see his father behaving like a lovelorn minstrel around Mistress Catlin.

Jan’s horse gave a whinny of distress and stumbled. Jan steadied her, and felt her trembling. Had she cast a shoe or lamed herself?
Clicking soothingly to her, he swung his leg over her back and dismounted. Between the darkness, the falling snow and eye-watering wind, he could barely distinguish the shape of the horse’s leg, never mind what might be amiss with it. He ran his hand down over her knee and fetlock, then lifted her hoof. But he could feel nothing wrong and the shoe was still in place. Maybe something had been
driven into the hoof, but whatever it was he didn’t want to go digging around blindly with his knife, risking more damage.

He contemplated returning to one of the cottages to borrow a lantern, but knew none of his tenants would do him any favours tonight. They’d probably dump a pail of water over his head and hope he froze to death. Better to keep heading towards the safety of the city. Sighing
and muttering a stream of oaths that would have made his mother swoon, he pulled his cloak tighter and trudged on down the track, leading the horse behind him.

‘Jan! Jan!’

This time there was no mistake. Someone was calling to him. The voice, though muffled by the wind, was as harsh as the grinding of a stone millwheel. Was it an angry tenant who had followed him, or one of the thieving bands
of river-rats luring him into a trap?

Jan turned, shielding his face with an arm and blinking in an effort to clear his blurred vision as the frozen shards of snow rasped his eyeballs.

He thought he saw a dark shape forming on the track behind him, the outline ragged and flapping in the wind, like the wings of a giant raven. Again Jan heard his name drifting out of the darkness towards him,
taunting him.

Grasping the hilt of his sword in numb fingers he struggled to draw it from its sheath as his cloak billowed around him. His horse, unnerved by the wind, was shying and pulling at the reins. If it came to a fight, Jan knew he couldn’t wield the sword and hold the beast still with his other hand. There was no time to find a tree to tether her, so he let her go.

Even in the darkness,
the creature on the track must have glimpsed the steel blade for it halted some distance from him.

‘. . . father . . . revenge . . .’

Jan could only distinguish odd words as the stranger shouted through the wind. But he caught ‘revenge’ clearly enough. There was no telling if the man was carrying weapons, or indeed how many might be concealed in the tall reeds that fringed the track.