A Crowning Mercy (38 page)

She stared at him in fear and astonishment. She could feel tears coming. The question had been bellowed at her, Palley leaning forward with a face distorted by rage. The spittle from his lips specked her face. He waited ten seconds then flung an arm towards the clerks. 'Record that the witch refused to answer.'

He stared at her, his arms folded now, and he rocked back and forth on his big black shoes. 'Woman!' His voice was like something from the depths of the earth. 'It will go better with you if you confess now! Are you a witch?'

'No!' She shouted it defiantly. 'No!'

'Ha!' He spun round to face the lawyers, his face triumphant. 'The devil ever protects his own, gentlemen! You see! She denied it, which is the devil speaking in her!' There were appreciative murmurs from the audience behind Campion at this irrefutable logic. The clerks scratched on their curling paper.

It seemed that the Reverend Palley's duty was to extract a confession which would spare the tribunal the bother of longer proceedings. He threatened her with the torture chamber, ranted at her, bullied her, but she repeated her simple denial. Each denial, Palley was careful to point out, was further proof of her guilt, and though Caleb Higbed professed himself sympathetic to that point of view, he nevertheless thought it sensible to adduce further proof. The Reverend Palley, defeated, went back to the table he shared with the silent, watchful Faithful Unto Death Hervey.

Caleb Higbed shook his head ruefully. 'We have no simple denial, do we?' The lawyers agreed they did not and Higbed looked at Campion. 'We must hope for a clear truth, Mrs Scammell, you do understand that? Otherwise we must seek the truth through pain. I hope that will not be necessary. I'm sure it won't. Now,' he went back to his papers, 'perhaps we can establish some facts? I think so. Is Goodwife Baggerlie in the tribunal?'

Goodwife was, and a chair was brought forward by one of the soldiers. As Goodwife was not herself accused of witchcraft it was thought safe for the lawyers to address her with questions. Higbed smiled at her. 'You've known Mrs Scammell many years, Goodwife?'

'I have, sir. Since she was barely walking.'

'That long? Well, well! Perhaps you can tell us about her?'

Goodwife's litany of malice, honed by much repetition, was repeated to the tribunal. The pens scratched busily. Campion's childish wilfulness, her temper and all her small disobediences were now shown to be of devilish origin. Caleb Higbed prompted her, the pens duplicated the work of the Recording Angel and then the story was brought forward to the time of her marriage to Samuel Scammell. 'Did she consent to the marriage?'

Goodwife, her red face almost hidden by a new bonnet, looked at Campion, then back to the lawyers. 'Oh, yes, sir. She was fortunate. A good man, he was, better than she deserved. She said she agreed, sir, but she didn't. Oh, no!'

'What happened?'

'She ran away, sir! Ran away! Dressed as a harlot, sir! To London. And that when she should have been in mourning for her poor father, sir, God rest his soul.'

Yet all this was but an overture to Goodwife's grand theme, a theme she embellished wonderfully as she told of the marriage itself. She had been well coached, saying that the wedding had taken place in the legal hours between sunrise and noon, but claiming that Samuel Scammell was holding a service of celebration in his house by the Thames. 'Shrieking and crying she was, sir, calling out to the devil! Calling out to the devil, as my name's Goodwife! And he came, sir! He came!' She paused to let the horror sink in. 'A head of flame, sir, fire all around, sir, and a sword in his hand. And he took her, sir, right through the flames and she was unscathed. Unscathed!'

Caleb Higbed shook his head in wonder. 'You say the house was locked?'

'Tight, sir. Yet he came! The smell, sir! Oh, the smell. So long as I'll live, sir, I won't forget it. Brimstone and sulphur, just like the good book says, sir, and the next thing the Prince of Darkness was in the room, sir, right in the room! Killing, sir, burning, and her laughing.' A finger jabbed towards Campion. 'Laughing. And that poor Reverend Boolsbie, sir, you should have seen the poor old gentleman, sir...'

Caleb Higbed held up a hand. He guessed that 'Boolsbie' was Sobriety Bollsbie, a name that would not add much lustre to the prosecution. 'It must have been terrible for you, Goodwife, quite terrible. A cup of water?'

'Please, sir.'

The audience murmured as a cup of water was brought to Goodwife. One of the lawyers took off his spectacles and stared at Campion, shaking his head slowly.

The questioning was carried to the day of Scammell's death. Goodwife spoke of the body soaking in blood, of Campion alone with it, and she shook her head sadly. 'A big man he was, sir, and a kind man!' She sniffed. 'A man of God, sir. Only that morning he prayed with us, yes, sir! He girded on his armour, sir, and he went to do battle. And in the moment of victory, sir, he was cut down! Cut down! I found them, sir, him and her, and I looked at her and I thought she was scrawny and I couldn't see how a scrawny girl could kill a soldier of the Lord, sir, in all his armour, not unless, sir, there was a greater power in her. I thought that, sir, and then I remembered the devil coming for her, his head on fire, and I knew! I knew! I remembered all the spoiled hams, the curdled milk, and I thought of her poor dear mother's death and the sudden death of her father and I thought of her poor dear brother's twisted leg and I knew, sir! I fell on my knees right there, I did, and I thanked God that he had spared me. She's a witch!'

The crowd murmured. The lawyers were silent for a moment. Only the pens scratched.

'Did you see the witch mark?'

'Oh, yes, sir. Plain as the nose on her face! I saw it, sir. God is my witness.'

It was not necessary to call on God so long as the Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey was at hand. This was his moment. Goodwife was helped back to her place in the audience and Higbed silently signalled Hervey to stand. The tribunal was hushed now, shocked by the story they had heard, and in the quietness Faithful Unto Death Hervey slid from behind the table and walked slowly up and down in front of the lawyers. For a few seconds it seemed he would not speak, but then he jerked his head up, stopped walking, and looked at the audience over Campion's head.

'This is a sadness to us, a great and manifold sadness, that this girl, whom I numbered among my flock, should now be seen as a servant of the enemy. And no earthly enemy! No! She is the devil's spawn! Yes! He is among us as a raging lion! The devil! Lucifer! Apollyon! Beelzebub! Satan!' He stopped, eyes glaring at the audience. He dropped his voice, becoming almost confidential. The two clerks had stopped writing. 'He was in the Garden of Eden, brothers and sisters, and as we in this country try to plant a new garden, a kingdom of heaven, he is back! Yes! The devil!' He pointed a dramatic finger at Campion. 'Dorcas. Did you have a familiar?'

She said nothing. Faithful Unto Death's Adam's apple slid down his throat as he shook his head. 'She is reduced to silence, brethren, for the truth is not in her.' He shook his head again sadly, turned a pace or two up the room, and stopped again. 'In the room where we found her good husband's body, in that room, brethren, there was a cat. A dead cat. It is my belief, and it can be no more unless Almighty God wrings from this wretched woman a confession of her evil, that the cat, the dead cat, was Dorcas Scammell's familiar.' He sighed.

'You heard, all of you!' Here he swept his finger round to encompass the lawyers at their table. 'You heard Goodwife puzzle how a slim girl, of no strength, could overcome an armed man in the prime of his life. She did not, brethren, she did not!' He leaned towards the audience, in full flow now. 'The devil did it! The devil! For he had given her a familiar! It is my belief, my prayerful belief, that the cat, at her command, tore the throat from our dear departed brother. Oh, brethren! Strange are the workings of evil. Brother Scammell, calling upon the Lord, killed his assailant, thus rendering the witch powerless, but in winning this battle over the cat he lost his own life too.' He paused for effect and in the pause Caleb Higbed cleared his throat and spoke in his mild, friendly voice.

'Reverend Hervey? It is our duty to provide a full presentment to the Grand Jury, men not as conversant with demonology as yourself. Would you be good enough to describe a "familiar"?'

'Indeed.' Faithful Unto Death resumed his pacing, frowning now so as to give his lecture the full weight of academic authority. 'A witch, gentlemen, is a servant of the devil, yet the devil cannot be always with each of his servants. He is not omnipresent. In his place he furnishes each witch with a familiar. Customarily this will be either a cat or a toad. I have known it to be a goat, but normally, as I said, a cat or a toad.' He turned at the end of the room, paced back. 'The familiar, gentlemen, whispers the instructions of the devil, its master, into the ear of the witch. It can also, as in this case, act on her behalf. There is more!' He turned again. 'The familiar, though disguised as an earthly animal, cannot endure earthly sustenance for all good things come from Almighty God and thus, to provide an example, a cat-familiar, eating an earthly mouse, would be sickened by the food.' He stopped and faced the audience. 'Instead, brethren, the witch herself provides sustenance. The devil provides her with a third teat, disguised as a bodily blemish, and from this teat she will give her familiar suck of the vileness within her. That, gentlemen,' and here he whipped round to face the lawyers, 'that is the true test of a witch. The third teat!'

One of Higbed's companions, who had not yet spoken, leaned forward. 'You are an expert, Brother Hervey?'

'Alas, sir, yes. It is a miserable field for study, strewn with thorns, serpents, and constantly threatened by the evil one, yet there are those of us, a few, who labour in that foul vineyard for the better protection of the people of God.'

The lawyer took off his spectacles. 'You saw this witch mark?'

'I did, sir!'

The lawyer smiled. 'How can you tell, brother, what is a witch mark, and what is a normal bodily blemish?'

Hervey smiled. 'The Good Lord has provided proof, sir, and I will show you that proof.' His Adam's apple was going up and down. He turned again to the audience, walking past Campion towards them. 'The third teat, brethren, is a protuberance, as you might expect, for how else will the familiar take hold!' His voice was close behind her now. He paused. 'Your assistance, soldier.'

She screamed, she fought with the man, but she was hopelessly weak. The soldier had one foot on her feet, his hands on her right shoulder, while Faithful Unto Death leaned over her and slit her filthy dress open. It had been sewn up during the journey to London, but now he ripped it open, helping with a small, pointed knife in his hand.

Faithful Unto Death could feel the excitement thick within him. He had wanted this girl, thinking she was unattainable, but it had come to him, as if in a blaze of light, that the study of witchcraft could be the way to many women's bodies. This girl was filthy now, stained and stinking, her ribs showing, but even so he felt the heavy thrill of this act. He pulled the tattered edges of the dress apart.

'There!' The lawyers stared.

She jerked, twisted, hearing the soldier's breath loud in her ear as he leaned over to look at her breasts. Only the Reverend Palley did not look, staring instead at his clasped hands on the table.

'There!' The Reverend Faithful Unto Death Hervey slid his left hand down her skin until his index finger pointed close to the mole above her navel. 'A protuberance, gentlemen!'

The clerks had stopped writing and stared instead. Two soldiers sidled down the wall for a better view.

Campion screamed again, the scream turning into sobs. She pulled at her bonds, hurting her wrists, but she was unable to move, unable to hide herself from this humiliation. She felt the Reverend Hervey's left hand spread itself on her stomach, pushing into her skin, and then she saw, in his right hand, the knife going past her eyes.

'No! No!'

His voice whispered in her ear. 'Stay still, Dorcas, quite still. You won't be hurt if you're still. Quiet now!'

She was frightened. Her breath heaved in great gasps. She looked at Hervey, his face close to her left shoulder, and he smiled. The knife in the right hand went lower. He looked away from her eyes, down to the mole, and suddenly she felt the cold tip of the knife on her belly. It stayed there, quite sharp, and she heard him grunt and it seemed to her that he had pretended to force the knife into her belly. She felt no pressure, only the cold, needle-sharp tip of the blade on her skin.

Suddenly he leaped away from her, holding the knife in the air. 'See? No pain! You saw me, gentlemen, you saw me! You saw the knife on the witch mark, you saw me dig it in! Yet did she cry out? Did she struggle? No! And that, gentlemen, is the way to distinguish a witch mark from a natural blemish. The first will not feel pain, the second will! The devil frees the teat from pain, for it might be clamped by a cat's teeth or clawed by a toad! Yes!' He sheathed his small knife.

Campion's head was bowed now, the tears running down her cheeks and falling on to her naked breasts. Hervey came back to her, stood behind her, and his hands came over her shoulders and clamped on to her breasts. They were cold and dry. His fingers kneaded her, holding her still, and he groped and pressed, rubbed and squeezed as he talked over her filthy hair. 'See, gentlemen! The mark of the devil!' He tilted the chair back, began turning it, and she wrenched her body uselessly. He swung her round, staying always behind her, until she faced the benches on which the audience sat. He took her right nipple in his fingers. 'See, brethren? A teat, a woman's teat, provided by God for the sustenance of the young. And here!' The hand slid to her belly again. 'The devil's mark!' He took his right hand away, leaving his left hand to stroke her left breast. The audience stared. They were mostly men, mostly friends of the lawyers or of the officers in the Tower's garrison, and it was for this that they had come. A witch was not uncovered at a trial, only at the tribunal that gathered the facts for the Grand Jury. They stared. Those at the rear stood up. Faithful Unto Death put his dry, cold hands on her breasts again and rubbed his palms down her body, either side of the mole, until his fingers were probing at her pelvic bones. 'Look well, brethren! The body of a witch!' He brought his hands up again, right to her shoulders, and then tipped the chair once more, swung her, and she again faced the lawyers. Hervey stepped away.