The Thief Taker (18 page)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Pain had tightened Charlie’s awareness to a narrow dim tunnel. It throbbed through his savaged feet, bit at his strained muscles and pulled down at his eyelids. Ahead the slice of dark highway jarred in his vision as he took step after exhausted step.

‘Hold!’ A frightened voice sounded from up ahead, and
Charlie
realised that he had reached Walthamstow and the village was guarded through the night.

In the dawn light Charlie made out the weary face of a young man. He was staring at Maria’s lolling body and blue face.

The guard’s eyes bulged and he kicked a sleeping form lying out on the grass. A second sentry looked up blearily then rose to his feet.

‘He tries to bring with him the plague,’ he said.

‘No, no,’ Charlie held up tired hands. ‘It is the bloody flux she has. She is from your village. I only ask you to let her rest somewhere warm.’

Maria was unconscious and her skin had turned an even paler blue. Her breathing came in short rapid breaths.

‘Get back!’ shouted the first guard.

‘Please,’ said Charlie. ‘Her name is Maria. Anna-Maria. She used to be of your village. She has an older sister, Eva.’

The sentries exchanged glances and receded into muttering. Eventually one disappeared back towards the village and the other spoke up.

‘We have sent for the wise woman,’ he said cryptically.

Charlie’s mouth set tightly, realising what they meant. They had called for the witch.

His mind raced. Likely the villagers thought to have him
cursed.

Before he could make up his mind to turn back a female voice rang out. He squinted into the gloom to see a tall woman stalking towards the gate.

She matched the height of both guards, and her simple wool dress was crowded by the jumble of scissors, knives and leather pouches strung from a belt on her hips. Her hair was like an explosion. Coarse red curls corkscrewed down to her waist and out at the sides in munificent chaos.

Charlie momentarily forgot the peril of Maria’s health to regard the statuesque woman with undisguised fear. He had never seen a witch before and wondered what she was capable of.

Herbs and greenery were stuffed beneath her belt beside the assortment of cutting implements.

The woman sniffed the air and gave a quick nod. Her sun-
dappled
face and bright brown eyes settled on Charlie.

‘It is dysentery that she has,’ she confirmed. ‘Bring her through.’ She turned quickly without any notion her orders would not be immediately attended to.

One of the young guards stepped forward to take the reins of the horse, holding a handkerchief over his mouth.
Charlie
made to go along behind it, but the other guard stopped him uncertainly.

‘Have him bring her through,’ called the woman without turning around. ‘If he has made it this far then most likely he has not taken the bloody flux.’

The wise woman’s cottage was set a little apart from the other smaller huts. It was made of wattle and daub and perfectly round with a hole belching chimney smoke through a blackened circle of thatch.

A glimpse of white flowers brought a sudden image of Maria’s slaughtered sister. There was a hawthorn tree growing in her garden of odd-looking plants.

‘Bring her in,’ came the command from in front, ‘and we will see what can be done.’

Charlie carried in Maria’s slumped form. Her face was flushed now and her breathing was laboured.

The wise woman worked quickly to spread a thick hessian sack on the floor and lay Maria gently onto it.

‘What is this?’ she tapped against the solid bodice. ‘Better to do without foolish clothes of this kind. Look away,’ she added, gesturing to Charlie, ‘I will take off this rigid thing so she might breathe more easily.’

Looking around the cottage Charlie had the strangest feeling that he had been there before. The cottage was lined at the sides with three enormous tables, each packed with a chaotic array of containers.

There were large flagons from which leaves and branches poked, ceramic dishes filled with different coloured grease, lolling heads of opium poppies, thickly-tied clusters of liquorice root and many pestle and mortars in various stages of pounding.

Charlie had heard of witches who lived in the country, riding pigs and worshipping the moon. But there was also talk of magical folk who could cure with potions and spells. This must be what she was about to perform on Maria.

‘The pulse of the blood is steady and that is a good thing,’ said the woman. Charlie turned back to see Maria dressed in a white shift, her
thick bodice lying beside her. The wise woman had moved to a table.

‘But her breathing is bad,’ she concluded, cutting up herbs and garlic with a rapid hand and throwing them into a pot with a pinch of salt and a spoon of honey.

Charlie watched her with disappointment. So far her potion had been pitifully peasant-like. He’d expected a few shavings of unicorn horn at least. Even the lowliest alchemist in London had a dried lizard to stir the pot.

‘Do you not have any special ingredients for a cure?’ he asked, looking at the basic contents of the cauldron bubbling away. The woman shook her head. ‘If there was a cure for bloody flux then all would know of it,’ she said. ‘It is the body that fights the illness and all we can do is give it the means to clean itself.’

She handed him the cup.

‘Have her drink all of this in little sips,’ she said. ‘She must drink all, no matter how difficult it is for her. Then she will rest a little and in an hour we will give her another cup to drink.’ The woman looked at the ill girl. ‘We will try our best to keep her alive,’ she said. ‘Anna-Maria’s family has a sad enough history.’

‘What do you mean?’ Despite the circumstances, Charlie’s curiosity was piqued. He’d always assumed Maria to come from a family of plenty.

‘She was bedded with a local boy, but the marriage did not take place,’ said the wise woman, frowning at the half-conscious girl.

‘Bedded?’

‘It is a country practice. The young people who are betrothed spend a night together before they are wed.’ She pointed. ‘Give her the liquid.’

‘But what if the girl becomes pregnant?’ said Charlie, half distracted from the task. He set the cup against Maria’s lips. To his relief she opened her mouth a little.

‘They do not make relations of that kind,’ explained the wise woman patiently.

‘Of what kind then?’ Another tilt. Another sip.

‘Of the kind which a couple might like to know before they are wed.’

Charlie let his eyes fall on Maria’s face, trying to imagine her as the kind of girl who would roll around in a country grope. He found that he couldn’t.

‘So why did they not marry after they were . . . bedded?’ he asked finally, letting the final few dregs of the cup tip into Maria’s soft mouth.

‘No one knows. They were betrothed even as children. It would have been a good match. Here,’ she added, taking the cup and refilling it. ‘Give her this as well, if she will take it.’

Charlie took it, feeling his throat grip into a tight fist as he looked on Maria’s face.

In sleep her perpetual expression of disdain had vanished. The oval of her pale face looked like an ink-drawing, with eyebrows and nose sketched straight and lashes curved in dark semi-circles. Her wide mouth looked smaller. It was strange, he thought, to notice these details when they mattered least.

The eyes slid open a crack to reveal a mass of burst vessels.

‘Eva?’ she whispered.

Charlie shook his head. ‘Try to rest,’ he muttered, feeling like an impostor suddenly. Someone else should be at her bedside. A friend or relative.

He brought the cup again to her mouth and she took a little mouthful. Then her head slumped back, letting the broth trickle out down her chin.

Suddenly the woman was by his side.

‘You should rest again now,’ she said. ‘Things will look better in the morning.’

He moved to a corner of the hut where the woman had laid down some straw for him to sleep on. Charlie slumped back down, falling into a dark slumber where images of Maria’s pale face slunk through his mind.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Charlie awoke to find a pair of light-brown eyes staring down at him and blinked awake in shock.

‘You snore very badly,’ said the wise woman. She stood, unleashing the clattering sound of the implements at her hips. ‘But you may go and take your thanks from Maria, for you saved her life.’

‘She is . . . she is well then?’

‘Not yet well. But she is out of danger. She was asking for
you. Com
e.’

The wise woman walked away from his makeshift bed, and he stumbled up to follow.

Maria’s skin had changed from blue to white, and her eyes were open and alert. A half finished dish of soup by her side suggested she’d been able to take some food.

To his great surprise Charlie felt the breath rush out of him
in rel
ief.

‘Joan says you saved my life by bringing me here,’ she said in a tight little voice. ‘And so I suppose I owe you great thanks.’ She clenched her eyes shut as if the admission pained her. ‘For you might have left me on the road.’

‘Is she . . . is she a witch?’ Charlie lowered his voice. As far as he could see the woman had brought Maria back from the brink of death, but if Satan had been involved in the process he’d rather know sooner rather than later.

‘I am a believer in God just as you are,’ came the voice of the wise woman. ‘But I choose to listen different to some, for I do not like cold churches. Though they put me in prison for it,’ she added.

‘Can you tell us something of Wapping?’ asked Charlie, thinking the information might be useful.’

The wise woman shook her head. ‘I saw only the prison,’ she said. ‘It is a dreadful place.’

‘Could you not use your magic to enchant the guards?’ asked Charlie.

‘It is no dark thing we do here,’ replied the wise woman. ‘Herbs and roots and berries. That is all.’

‘The Church would not agree with you,’ said Charlie.

‘No they would likely not,’ she said. ‘And I tread a careful path. For if the wrong person takes a dislike to me I might still be burned as a witch. But I find I have a gift for healing and so I take the risk to share it.’

Charlie considered this. Mother Mitchell’s words came floating back to him.

See you lightning strike me down or the ground rumble beneath me when I enter a church? A woman works the laundry, she sells her body. Men beg on the streets, they sell their bodies. God minds not which part you sell boy. The only disgrace to Him is not being paid enough for it.

‘Whoever gave you that key knew something of the old ways,’ the wise woman was saying.

Charlie’s hand moved to his neck in surprise.

‘It is tied in the colour of enchantment,’ she added, indicating the aged purple ribbon looping through the key. ‘It was a close friend who gave it to you?’

‘I was found holding it,’ said Charlie, ‘as an orphan. I think my mother gave it me.’

‘Did she wear willow?’ the wise woman tapped the plait around her neck.

A sudden, unexpected image forked into Charlie’s mind. A purple ribbon. A voice.

The willow is a maiden whose tresses sweep the water. From it she takes great powers. A magic tree.

Charlie shook the image away, feeling an urgent need to change the subject. He didn’t want his scant maternal recollections to be muddied with ideas of witchery.

Something else occurred to him suddenly.

‘I want to know about something which grows in your garden,’ said Charlie. He had remembered the hawthorn growing outside. ‘I will fetch it to you.’

Crossing the cottage he ducked out through the little door, and spotting the hawthorn waving in the wind he tugged free a little branch of it.

As he returned to the doorway a blood-curdling shriek went up and he froze in his tracks. The wise woman stood guarding her door. Her hand was struck out towards him.

‘Do not bring it within!’ she bellowed.

Charlie paused looking to the hawthorn branch.

‘It is the smell of death!’ she shouted. ‘It is bad luck to bring it within the home!’

In his shock Charlie dropped the branch entirely, and as the wise woman was still frozen in the attitude of pointing he kicked it away for good measure.

‘But. You grow it in your garden,’ he returned uncertainly.

‘Did you not know that hawthorn should not be brought
into the home?’ she said. ‘Is this something Londoners know
n
othing o
f?’

The wise woman shook her head as if in pity at the ignorance of city dwellers. She disappeared momentarily and reappeared with a bowl of salt and sage leaves.

‘Clean your hands in this before you come back within,’ she said. She was still shaking her head at his idiocy.

He followed her to where a wide-eyed Maria was still reclined in bed.

‘I . . . I wanted to ask her about the hawthorn.’ He explained, feeling he had been caught committing some kind of crime.

Maria’s face set quickly in recognition.

‘It was found on my sister’s body,’ she explained.

‘I heard about Eva,’ nodded the wise woman. ‘We lit candles for your poor sister. And we heard rumours of another death,’ she added. ‘The witch-murders, people are calling them. We hear talk of nothing else but the dreadful details.’

‘We think he makes a master spell,’ said Charlie. ‘A death for each corner. Hawthorn for earth.’

‘Hawthorn can mean earth. But it has many good magical uses besides,’ said the wise woman. ‘They are under the May moon. The moon of disenchantment. The moon of hindrance. It brings with it the corpse smell which is bad luck.’

‘But what does it mean?’ persisted Charlie.

‘Disenchantment can be used for many things,’ said the wise woman. ‘To turn away the desires of a suitor. To thwart the power of a great enemy, or halt some event. Those with proper knowledge would never make the spell indoors,’ she added.

Charlie gave a half smile, not really understanding.

‘Are white ribbons part of the spell?’ he asked, remembering the decorated corpses.

The wise woman nodded. ‘White ribbon is to bind tight and to hinder.’

‘Then we thought right,’ said Charlie. ‘He makes some spell against the King. To aid an uprising.’

‘Only the person who has cast the spell would know their reasons,’ said the wise woman. ‘They will carry with them an emblem or a charm that the spell had been accomplished. Some charm or other thing to keep the magic alive. If you found that it might be possible to know what the spell was for. But without it the reason is a mystery.’

The wise woman’s expression hardened.

‘Death is a powerful seal on a spell. But it is for dark ends only. This is an older magic.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘The second girl was found with a birdcage was she not?’

Charlie nodded. ‘With feathers on her.’

‘Then I agree that there is some master spell at work,’ said the wise woman. ‘Hawthorn is of the earth. And birds are of the air.’ She counted on her fingers. ‘Fire and water are left. He means to make some powerful spell of the elements. And for that,’ she added, ‘two more must die.’

‘We must make haste to get back on the road,’ said Maria. She was struggling to sit upright. Sat on the edge of the bed she leaned forward for a long pain-wracked minute. ‘We have lost half a day, but we may still reach Wapping ahead of him.’

‘Maria you cannot think to travel?’ Charlie looked at her in alarm.

‘I am quite well now.’ She was looking straight ahead, but had not yet attempted the move to stand. Leaning on her hand she pitched forward slightly and then staggered upright. To his amazement she reached to scoop up her reed bodice which the wise woman had cast onto the floor beside her bed.

‘It is better we wait,’ protested Charlie. ‘And you cannot think to wear that ridiculous bodice?’

Recovery from dysentery could be rapid. But taking a rough horseback ride on a dusty track seemed reckless.

Maria gritted her teeth and began to strap the rigid garment around the outside of her shift. She tightened the laces single-
handedly
, with a gasp of pain. ‘I am practised enough with horses to sit easily for a few hours,’ she said, battling to control a grimace. ‘We can still overtake him if we ride hard. But we will lose any advantage if we do not go now.’

Maria clambered to her feet. The wise woman rooted around in her store of herbs.

‘Here is a little parcel of food and a flask of ginever to protect you from plague,’ she said, stuffing a flask and a bulging handkerchief into Charlie’s hand.

‘Plague is thick in Wapping. It roams the streets and all is deadly. You must be most careful,’ she added. ‘Maria is not
yet well. And the way from here is thick with men trying to kill Londoners.’

Something else occurred to her, and she stooped to retrieve it from underneath a table.

‘This was left by a Civil War soldier, and I have never had a use for it.’ She was holding out a heavy looking pistol.

Charlie took it.

‘It only has one shot,’ she explained. ‘But one shot could be all you need if those vigilantes get hold of you.’

‘Thank you.’ Charlie handed the gun to Maria. ‘Best you have this,’ he said. ‘I have other ways to defend myself.’

Maria took the pistol uncertainly.

‘Then you must have something,’ insisted the wise woman, looking at Charlie. She unhooked a pair of scissors on her belt and passed them to him.

‘They are for trimming candlewicks,’ she said, ‘to light your journey.’

Charlie nodded his thanks, wondering where on earth he would be lighting candles.

They both headed for the door.

‘God Bless your father Anna-Maria,’ said the wise woman, ‘and his forgiveness to your mother.’

Charlie saw something inscrutable pass through Maria’s eyes and then it was gone. She kicked open the door harder than he’d thought possible in her feeble state and made out ahead of him.