The Vanishing Witch (14 page)

Martin was on his feet and had landed a vicious kick into Gunter’s thigh, and was drawing back his boot to strike again when a wolfhound bounded across the bench and leaped straight for him, snarling and baring its teeth. He stumbled backwards.

‘Down, Fury!’ a woman’s voice commanded.

The dog sank to his haunches, growling its resentment.

The innkeeper’s widow stood in the back doorway, grasping a stout, knobbly stave, tipped with a thick band of iron. Not a man in that inn moved a muscle.

‘You’ve a choice, Martin. Take your rabble and get out or I feed your miserable carcass to Fury here. Be warned, he’s not had his dinner. What’s it to be?’

A long string of drool fell from
the hound’s mouth and he gave an excited bark.

Martin hesitated. Then, his face contorted with anger, he turned to go. Gunter, still too winded to rise, braced himself, expecting another kick as Martin passed – he would have got it, had Fury not moved between them, baring his teeth again at Martin.

Martin backed away, the others following.

He turned at the door. ‘This isn’t finished, Gunter.
Not by a long way! You won’t always have a woman’s skirt to hide behind. You’ll be sorry you crossed me.’

If in February the midges dance on the dunghill, lock up your food in the chest.

Whenever you eat an egg, you must be sure to crush the shell, or a witch can sail to sea in it and sing up a storm that will cause a ship to founder and all those aboard to drown. For the same reason, you must never utter the word ‘egg’ on board a ship.

Lincoln has many ghosts like me: Roman soldiers, who march for ever into the treacherous fens from which, in life, they never
returned; the Jews, slaughtered on the road as they were driven out of England; the nun, walled up alive for breaking her vow of chastity, who stretches her pale hand out through the solid stone into the street to drag the unwary passer-by into her vertical tomb. Only the night-watch and the beggars sleeping in church porches or huddled in archways see these phantasms. The drunks do too, of course,
but they cannot tell a whore’s scream from the cry of a vixen, much less the living from the dead. I’ve even known some of the old tosspots to wave at me and ask me to join them in a flagon of ale, as if we were old friends.

Of course, some men wouldn’t notice if a ghost galloped headless and naked through their own bedchamber, banging pots and hurling chairs. And Robert was one of them, but
on that particular day he might have been forgiven it, for he had much to occupy his mind. He was pacing his hall impatiently, every so often looking upwards at the ceiling as if he could see through the wood into the bedchamber above. He heard the sound of something being scraped along the boards – the brazier, perhaps, or a table. Was the physician bleeding Edith again?

His wife’s health was
worsening by the day in spite of all the potions and remedies the physician had prescribed, at no little expense – purging syrups of succory, dandelion, maidenhair and rhubarb; mint water to strengthen the stomach, wormwood to kill any worms of the gut, and dried grasshoppers to ease the colic. During the first week after Hugo Bayus had begun treating her, the pains had seemed to lessen. But now
they had returned, and nothing the physician could prescribe or the apothecary prepare eased them.

Robert glanced again at the ceiling. What was taking so long? A messenger had arrived before breakfast saying his son needed him at the warehouse. Infuriatingly Jan had not explained why to the dolt who had been sent to find him. Robert’s gullet burned as if he’d drunk too much cheap wine. Had there
been some new disaster?

Only last night he’d heard that a shipload of Lombards had arrived in Lincolnshire and were trying to strike bargains with the farmers and the monasteries to buy their fleeces before a single sheep had been shorn. The broggers were up in arms, for as middle men they were being cut right out of the deal and, come spring, they would have no fleeces to sell to the Lincolnshire
merchants. If the Lombards succeeded, it could spell ruin for many of the Lincoln men.

Robert stared at the ceiling with mounting irritation. Didn’t the man realise he had business to attend to? When he finally heard the physician’s heavy tread on the stairs, he strode across the hall, wrenched open the door to the stairs and all but dragged the poor man into the hall in his impatience to hear
the verdict.

Hugo Bayus was a small-boned man, with a disproportionately large, spherical head, which seemed all the rounder because he was completely bald. His grey eyes were magnified to the size of hen’s eggs behind thick spectacles, which he held up on a long handle, as he peered about the room. He was well respected in his profession, having tended the victims of the Great Pestilence without
falling prey to it. Any physician who can cure himself was thought to be worth his weight in gold, and many said, only half in jest, that that was exactly what he charged.

‘My wife,’ Robert asked, ‘how does she fare?’

The old man slowly shook his head. ‘Not well, not well at all.’

Robert could not contain himself. ‘I’d not have sent for you if I thought she
was
well.’

He knew all physicians
liked to present their patients as more gravely ill than they were, not only to increase their fees but also their reputation should the patient be cured, or to excuse failure if they died. Robert was prepared to pay a king’s ransom to help his wife, but he disliked being taken for a fool when it came to money.

‘Have the goodness to tell me plainly what ails her and what must be done to cure
her. I’ll pay for whatever physic she needs so long as the price is fair and it brings her to health again.’

‘She has a weakness of the stomach,’ Hugo said, ‘which I fear may have caused the liver to overheat.’

‘What can be done for her?’

‘I will treat it with rupture-wort, brimstone and dried liver of hare. But . . .’ He spread his hands, as if to say that he did not hold out much hope for
any of these working.

Robert raked his grey hair. ‘Edith’s in so much pain, moaning and tossing all night. I’ve been reduced to sleeping down here with the servants. Is there nothing you can do to calm her?’

‘I’ll have the apothecary make up a draught of my own devising.’ The physician tapped his nose. ‘You must instruct your maid to put three drops of it in spirits of wine and give it to her
mistress each night. It will soothe the pain and put her into a deep sleep. No more than three drops, for it contains henbane and too much will bring about a sleep from which she will never wake.’

Beata’s head appeared around the door. ‘The mistress is asking for you, Master Robert.’

The physician tugged his cloak from the chair where he had discarded it and swung it over his shoulders. ‘Go
to her, Master Robert. Your attention will do as much to soothe her as any of my physic. And, Beata, remember what I said. Your mistress is to be fed tripe, lean beef broth with no fat in it, and a little mashed sheep’s brains for strength. On no account is she to have milk, cheese, honey or any sweet thing.’

He turned back to Robert. ‘It’s known that fretting weakens the stomach. Do all you
can to keep her calm and put her mind at ease. Now I must be off, Master Robert. Have your servant call upon the apothecary this afternoon after the None bell. The draught should be ready by then.’

Beata opened the great door for the physician and he scurried out, pausing only to make a little bow to Robert. Gathering up his own cloak, Robert strode to the door, his mind still tormented by what
might be amiss at the warehouse.

‘Sir, the mistress wants to see you,’ Beata reminded him.

Robert sighed heavily, thrust his cloak into her hands and made for the door at the opposite end of the hall, which led to the solar and the bedchamber.

He jerked back in surprise to find Adam standing at the foot of the stairs, staring up to the room where his mother lay.

Robert frowned. ‘I thought
you’d left for school. You’d better hurry. You don’t want a birching for being late.’

Adam swallowed. ‘But Mother . . . will she get better?’

Robert pursed his lips. ‘Hugo Bayus is the finest physician in Lincoln. We have to trust in his skills . . . and in God, of course,’ he added hastily, feeling it his duty as the boy’s father to remind him, not that he himself had any great faith. ‘You
pray for your mother, don’t you?’

‘Every day and night,’ Adam said. ‘As hard as I can.’

‘That’s all you can do. Off to school with you, boy. You don’t want to add to your mother’s burdens by making her think she has a dunce and a wastrel for a son.’

He had meant it kindly – better that the boy concentrate on his studies and not worry about his mother – but he could see from the way Adam stiffened
that he had said the wrong thing. His son was frightened for his mother. She tried to hide her pain whenever he was with her, but too soon she had to send him out of the room.

He knew he should spend more time with the lad, but Adam was always ill at ease and tongue-tied with him. The boy prattled on freely enough with Beata and Tenney, but whenever he summoned his son, Adam stood awkwardly,
like a servant waiting for instructions, plainly anxious to get away. It annoyed and hurt Robert when he thought about it, which wasn’t often: too many other concerns jostled for attention in his head.

Robert watched his son retreat out of the door, then climbed the wooden stairs. He paused outside the heavy door, steeling himself for what lay beyond. He took a deep breath and stepped inside.

The stench hit him as soon as he entered. The windows were closed tightly against the cold and pastilles of incense and thyme burned on the small brass brazier, but that did little to mask the odour of Edith’s breath, which filled the room like rotting fish guts. His wife lay in the four-poster bed, propped up on bolsters and pillows, a linen cap tied beneath her chin. Each time he saw her Robert
was appalled at how thin and drawn she had become in such a short time. Her pallid skin was dry and withered, like that of a woman twice her age. Her eyes were dull with pain and lack of sleep.

‘Robert?’ She patted the cover beside her, inviting him to sit on the bed.

He took a few paces into the room and forced a smile, but he did not sit down. ‘How are you feeling, my dear? You look brighter
today.’ It was a lie, but he meant well.

She smiled weakly. ‘I’m a little stronger. I think I shall be well enough to get up this afternoon.’

‘You must stay in bed. Hugo said you were to rest and Beata said you hardly slept last night.’

Edith coughed in the smoke from the brazier, wincing and clutching her belly. It was several moments before she could speak again. ‘I was worried about you,
Robert . . . Beata said you were sleeping in the hall, but you didn’t come to see me . . . say goodnight . . . I know Beata sometimes keeps it from me when you’re late coming home. She thinks I fret.’

‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

Edith jerked as a wave of pain rolled through her. Then she lay back, panting. ‘Tell me the truth, Robert. You’re not still visiting
her
, are you?’

Robert rounded
on her: ‘Stop this, Edith! Why are you tormenting yourself? I swear constantly gnawing on your suspicions is making you ill. Hugo practically said as much. I’ve told you a hundred times, my business with Mistress Catlin was concluded long ago. These fancies are in your head, and the sooner you banish them, the sooner you’ll be well. And now, if there’s nothing you need, I must go. I’m wanted urgently
at the warehouse.’

‘You are wanted here too, Robert,’ Edith said softly, as he turned to the door. ‘Won’t you kiss me, husband?’

Angry with her for delaying him and her insane jealousy, it was all Robert could do to stop himself striding from the room and slamming the door behind him. But he turned and forced himself to take the few paces to her bed. He bent and brushed his lips to her forehead
with distaste. Her skin smelt sour. As he straightened, he saw something lying on the creamy linen pillow. It was a lock of dyed yellow hair, white at the root. Only then did he notice other strands caught on the bolster and covers. Edith’s hair was falling out in handfuls. Swallowing hard, and blinking back tears, he kissed her again, with a tenderness he had not shown her for a long time.

Robert spotted his son standing near a wagon by the doorway to the warehouse. Even from a distance he could see he was in a dark humour. He was bellowing at a clerk, who repeatedly held up his tally sticks in an attempt to ward off the other man’s wrath.

Robert leaped forward to avoid being brained by a man carrying several long planks on his shoulder, and approached the pair. ‘Trouble, Jan?’

His son frowned. ‘Two bales short, but this cod-wit keeps telling me it was a full load.’

‘It was,’ the man protested. ‘You can see for yourself. The notches match. There is nothing missing.’

‘Except that they
are
missing!’ Jan retorted.

Robert elbowed him aside. ‘I think you would be well advised, Master Clerk, to count them again or perhaps you’d like my steward to count them for you with
his staff across your back. Would that teach you your numbers?’

The clerk scooted off like a frightened rabbit.

Jan spun round to face his father. ‘I don’t need to be told how to handle my men. I was dealing with it.’

‘
My
men,’ Robert corrected. ‘You’ve many things to learn yet, boy, before they become
yours
and one is to make men so terrified of your very shadow that they dare not slacken
even when your back is turned. If you did that, we wouldn’t have stock going missing!’ He scowled at one of the paggers to emphasise the point. ‘Now, you sent word for me to come. Is something amiss besides those bales?’

Jan’s cheeks flushed a dull red and his eyes were blazing as fiercely as his father’s. ‘I sent word over an hour ago.’

‘I was detained speaking to Hugo Bayus about your mother.’

Guilt and anxiety instantly replaced the anger in Jan’s face. ‘What did he say? Is she any better?’