The Vanishing Witch (43 page)

He was making up his mind where to hide himself when he sensed he was being watched. Alarmed, he spun round to a see a gaunt man, dressed in a rag-bag of ill-fitting clothes, standing just a few yards away. Adam knew at once the man’s glance had not been casual. As soon as their eyes met, the man beckoned urgently to him. But before Adam could react, the stranger turned abruptly
away.

Adam jumped as he felt a light touch on his arm. Leonia was standing beside him. ‘Where are you off to?’

‘Work, of course,’ Adam muttered. ‘Anyway, what are you doing up so early? Your mother isn’t even . . .’ He had meant to say ‘dressed’, but the image of his stepmother’s naked calf was seared on his mind and he felt himself blushing again, which only added to his discomfort.

‘
Our
mother
,
’ Leonia said carefully, as if the shared possession of Catlin mattered to her.

‘I have to go. I’ll be late at the warehouse.’

‘But you’re not going to the warehouse. You didn’t go yesterday or the day before.’

‘I did!’ Adam said furiously.

Leonia smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell Catlin. I won’t tell anyone. Come on, let’s go down to the river before Tenney or one of the women sees
us.’

Adam felt Leonia stiffen beside him. Suddenly she turned her head, as if she, too, had sensed someone taking an interest in them. Adam followed her gaze. The man was still there, apparently engrossed in examining a stack of pots. He darted another glance in their direction, before walking rapidly away. Leonia shook herself, as if trying to get rid of an irritating fly.

‘Do you know him?’
Adam asked. ‘I think he wanted to say something to me.’

Leonia giggled. ‘Maybe he fancies you. Some men like touching boys instead of women. If I were you I’d run, if you see him again, before he tries to put his hand down your breeches.’

She grabbed his sleeve and they raced down the hill towards the river, turning the opposite way from the Braytheforde. When they knew there was no chance of
being spotted by any of their neighbours on the way to market, they slowed and ambled along the bank, watching the boats pushing and jostling to get past one another. The cottages here stank of stagnant water and burned beans. Some of the boats were moored, their owners already hard at work selling woven reed baskets, kindling wood, dead hares, live river fish swimming in buckets and hunks of meat,
black with dried blood and flies.

Trading had not yet begun in the markets and such sales were against the law before the bell had sounded, but neither the sellers nor their customers were taking any notice of that. Other things changed hands too, objects wrapped in sacking, slipped beneath the bread in a basket or under a tunic. But though a dozen eyes looked on from the squalid little houses
around, no one would send for the constable, that was for sure.

‘Do you hate working in the warehouse?’ Leonia asked.

Adam shrugged. ‘I don’t mind it. At least, I don’t think it would be so bad if . . .’

‘If Fulk wasn’t there.’

‘How do you know?’ Adam was startled. He’d never complained about Fulk to her, to anyone.

‘I could tell you didn’t like him when you tried to speak to Robert about
getting a steward.’

‘Don’t you mean
Père
?’ Adam said spitefully.

‘He’s not my father!’

Adam was startled. ‘I thought you liked him. You’re always kissing him.’

‘He likes me. That’s what you’ve got to do with adults, Adam. Make them like you, then you can make them do anything you want. That’s what Catlin did and Robert married her. But if you start liking them back, it makes you as weak as
them.’ She laughed, but her fists were clenched. ‘Anyway, why didn’t you tell Robert about Fulk?’

‘What’s the point?’ Adam said bitterly. ‘He’d never listen.’

He kicked a stone into the river, narrowly missing a boatman, who swore at them. Leonia made an obscene gesture and ran off along the bank, with Adam following. She threw herself down at the river’s edge, plucked a daisy and tore the white
petals from it one by one, dropping them into the current and watching them sail away. Adam sat beside her, careful to keep a small space between them. He wanted to press himself close to her, but he was afraid she’d recoil in disgust.

‘Fulk’ll tell Robert you haven’t been to the warehouse. You know that, don’t you?’

Adam nodded miserably. ‘He’ll enjoy doing it. But Fulk doesn’t want me there.
I think it’s his fault these barrels and bundles are going missing. Once I saw him dividing up money with one of the boatmen. He caught me watching and pushed my head into the horses’ drinking trough. He held me under till I nearly drowned. He said if I started telling tales at home I’d be going for a swim, like – like my brother.’ Adam swallowed hard. ‘But I don’t know why he bothered threatening
me. Fath—
Robert
would never listen to anything I say anyway.’

‘Do you want to make another poppet?’ Leonia asked, as if she was offering him an apple.

Adam sprang to his feet. ‘No, I don’t!’ He’d tried to push out of his head the guilt and fear over what he’d done to his schoolmaster, but at night when he lay in the dark, it came flooding back. His father had said he’d known men to become paralysed
from pains in the back and never recover. Master Warner was getting no better. In fact, Tenney had heard he was much worse. Was he going to be paralysed? Adam had never dared talk to Leonia about the poppet, not after that day in the stables. As long as they didn’t speak of it, he could try to convince himself it was nothing to do with him. But now she’d spoken the words, he had to know.

‘Did
we . . . did we hurt Master Warner?’

‘You wanted to hurt him, didn’t you? Remember how he beat you when it was the other boy he should have punished? He whipped you in front of the whole school. He had to be punished.’

‘But I didn’t want him to be paralysed . . . not for ever,’ Adam protested.

‘You stabbed the nail into him. He can only be as hurt as you wanted him to be.’

Adam turned away
from her, feeling wretched. He wanted to ask her how he could make the schoolmaster’s pains stop, how he could make him well again. But he knew before he asked that she’d only laugh and tell him it was too late, far too late.

‘I don’t want to make another poppet,’ he whispered.

‘Then we won’t, but we don’t want Fulk to tell Robert you weren’t at the warehouse, do we?’ She rose gracefully to
her feet and smoothed out her green skirts. The sunlight glinted on her long, shining black curls. ‘Fulk is a wicked man, isn’t he?’

Adam took a pace back, gazing at her anxiously. ‘What are you going to do?’

She held out a hand to him and smiled. ‘You’ll see.’

A witch may take the form of a magpie, for it would not enter the Ark with Noah, but remained outside to cackle in glee at the drowning world.

The flames from the blazing torches writhed in the darkness, making the eyes of the great crowd of men glitter like a thousand jewels. Hankin stood in the centre of the track, legs astride, and faced the armed man squarely,
though his head came up only to the man’s chest.

‘With whom holds you?’ Hankin demanded.

‘With King Richard and the True Commons,’ the man bellowed, loudly enough to be heard all the way over the city to London Bridge. He punched the air triumphantly to the cheers of all those crowded around him, then broke into hearty laughter, clapping Hankin on the shoulder. ‘Well challenged, lad, well challenged
indeed. I see we have a true commoner here, Giles.’

‘That he is, Thomas,’ said a gruff voice behind Hankin. ‘We found him on the road. From Lincoln he is, come all the way by himself. Wanted to join in the fight in Essex, but we told him that was already won. It’s London we take next. Isn’t that right, lads?’

There was another answering cheer from those standing close by.

Giles gave a grin.
‘Meet Thomas Farringdon, lad. He’s the man who leads us.’

Hankin was too awestruck to speak. Farringdon was a name he’d heard uttered many times since he’d joined the Essex men on the march to London, but among so many thousands of men he’d never thought to meet him. He made a clumsy half-bow, but snapped up straight as he heard several men laughing at him. But, to his relief, he saw Farringdon
wasn’t among them. Instead, the man gravely nodded his approval. ‘Brave lad. It’s men with your mettle that England needs. Are they rising yet in Lincoln?’

‘They will if you were to go there,’ Hankin said eagerly. ‘I know it. I’ve heard them talking. They’d rise up in a minute if you were to lead them.’

Farringdon smiled. ‘After tomorrow, we may all go back to our homes in peace and there’ll
be no more need for any rising in Lincoln or Essex.’

Hankin felt as if his stomach had just fallen into his shoes. All this way, so many men, and they were just going to give up?

Farringdon chuckled. ‘You look as if you were promised roast hog and given burned peas. We’ve won, lad, or we will have by this time tomorrow.’

A murmur of excitement ran through the crowd as his words were passed
back to those who weren’t close enough to hear. The men pressed forward, almost trampling Hankin into the ground, so eager were they to hear the news. Giles grabbed him just in time and wrapped a brawny arm around his shoulders to brace him. He turned to face the crowd, shouting over their heads, ‘Make way. Let Thomas through to that old wagon, so you can hear him speak.’

After a deal of confusion
the men parted just enough to allow Farringdon to squeeze his way through them. He was lost to sight, until finally Hankin saw his head and shoulders rise above them. Farringdon motioned them to sit, and there was a great deal more shuffling as they each found their own patch of grass. Hankin looked round for Giles. There were thousands camped here at Smithfield and he was desperate not to lose
sight of the few men he had come to know.

‘So many here, they’ll never hear him,’ Hankin said.

‘Don’t worry, lad,’ Giles said. ‘Any news he brings will spread through the whole camp quicker than fleas in a pack of hounds.’

Hankin squeezed into a narrow gap and sat down next to him, then wished he hadn’t: he was on a thistle. He quickly rocked forward into a crouching position.

It had been
early evening when they’d arrived. They were heading for Aldersgate, one of the great gates in London’s fortified walls, but it was firmly barred against them. At the head of the procession, men were arguing with the watch that the curfew bell had not yet rung and the gate should be open, but it remained shut. Dozens of arrows had suddenly appeared, poking through the slits of the two round bastilles
on either side, with the threat that they would be loosed if the Essex men attempted to smash their way in. Not that they could have done, for even Hankin could see that nothing short of a battering ram would force those great gates to yield, but the arrows were real enough and there was panic as those at the front tried to scramble back through the crowd pressing behind them to get out of range.

The men had occupied Smithfield, the great open space behind the Hospital of St Bartholomew. The few trees that stood there were quickly stripped of branches and the smaller ones cut down to provide fuel for the fires the men lit as darkness fell. Sparks rose into the sky and the shadows of the men moving around in the orange glow of the flames made it seem as if a ghostly army was camped with
them.

Meanwhile more and more men were pouring into Smithfield. What provisions they’d managed to carry from home or seize on the road they shared among their friends. Raiding parties, each of a hundred or more men, had been sent to the complex of buildings that lay around the field. The grounds of the priories of St Bartholomew, St John of Jerusalem and St Mary Clerkenwell had been stormed and
the raiding parties had seized as many chickens, ducks, pigs and milk cows as they could find. Now the creatures were spit-roasting over the blazing fires, made hotter with the wood from the shattered byres and barns that had once housed them.

The smell of roasting meat and woodsmoke filled the air, making Hankin’s stomach growl and his mouth water. He hugged himself with delight at the thought
that those who lived in the vast buildings now knew what it was like to have their goods seized. The thought of eating
their
meat made the prospect even sweeter.

Farringdon began to speak. All those who were close enough to see him at once fell silent. ‘I’ve had word from the men of London who support our cause and from Wat Tyler who leads the men from Kent. Sixty thousand Kentish men are camped
south of the river.’

A great cheer went up. Hankin was breathless with excitement. Sixty thousand! He had never imagined there were so many people in the whole of England, never mind here, and all ready to storm London.

‘The Kentish men have already broken into the prison of Marshalsea with the help of men of London and liberated the prisoners held there.’

Another cheer rang out. Hankin thought
that only murderers and thieves were confined in prisons, but surely they would not have freed those. ‘Who were held in there?’ he whispered.

Giles shrugged. ‘Poor men, men unjustly accused, no doubt, but whoever they are they’ll be certain to swell our ranks.’

Farringdon was still speaking. ‘They have also entered the palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Sudbury, the Chancellor of
England, the very man who imposed this vile poll tax upon us and all the other hardships used to beat the honest working man to his knees. Archbishop Sudbury is a traitor to the common people!’

‘Is the traitor taken?’ several men in the crowd shouted, among the hissing and cries of hatred.

Farringdon held up his hand for silence. ‘Sudbury was not there. They say he’s fled into the Tower with
King Richard. But his palace was ransacked, his vestments torn, every record and document burned on a great fire. Everything he owned has been utterly destroyed. You who’ve had your homes invaded by his men, you who have had your goods seized, you who have seen all you have worked for destroyed, know that you have been avenged!’