The Vanishing Witch (56 page)

He’d dared not steal anything of Catlin’s. In the end, he had found some old clothes of Jan’s in a chest. It was not uncommon for women who had to toil alongside men in workshops and tanners’ yards to dress in breeches, instead of cumbersome skirts. With luck the city guards would not look twice at her.

For all that he was desperate to get Beata away as quickly as possible,
he couldn’t stop a stupid grin breaking out on his face each time he recalled the stolen kiss. She’d not pulled away from him, far from it. It had gratified him to feel the kiss returned and her body melting into his before he’d had to rush her into the kitchen.

Why shouldn’t he leave Lincoln too? He no longer felt any loyalty to Master Robert, not after the way he had banished Beata just because
she had fallen ill. It proved the master wouldn’t hesitate to turn him out in favour of a younger man, no matter how many years of faithful service he’d given. Ever since Master Robert had returned from London, he had seemed mistrustful of everyone, including his own manservant. Tenney was hurt and bewildered.

If he could just spirit Beata away, then, in a week or two, he could follow, once he
had ensured they’d given up searching for her. He would have time to make one last attempt to warn Master Robert, for he knew Beata and Godwin would never stop mithering him if he didn’t. He’d go to the warehouse and tackle the master there. Then, if he still refused to listen, Tenney could leave with a clear conscience, knowing he had done all that a man could do. Beata was all that mattered to
him now. They could move on together. He’d find work. He could turn his hand to most things, and why shouldn’t he? Other men were leaving their masters to seek a better life.

He ducked through the doorway and was about to step into the yard when he saw that the horse and cart were standing right in front of the kitchen, the side of the cart hard against the door. He frowned. He was certain he
had tethered the horse securely near the courtyard gate. What was it doing across there?

Tenney was about to hurry out, when he caught sight of someone coming towards him. He groaned. Leonia was skipping across the courtyard. He prayed that Beata had already hidden herself in the cart, for he didn’t know how he would smuggle her into it with the girl watching. Rolling the stolen clothes he was
carrying into a bundle, he tried to step around Leonia, but she barred his way.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘Who says I’m going anywhere?’ Tenney avoided her gaze, though he could feel her great owl-eyes searching his face.

‘So why did you harness the horse, if you’re not going somewhere?’

‘A few errands, is all. Wood and other things want fetching.’

‘Can I come?’ she said brightly.

Startled, he looked at her. Her eyes were shining with excitement, as if she’d been promised a rare treat.

‘Master Robert’d not take kindly to his daughter riding about with—’

He broke off. The horse was neighing and rolling its eyes. It stamped and half reared in the shafts, straining against them. Then Tenney saw the reason. Smoke was curling from under the kitchen door and billowing out from
beneath the cart. But though the horse was evidently panicked by it, for some reason Tenney couldn’t fathom, it wasn’t pulling away from the door.

He stared at it stupidly. Then, dropping the bundle, he shoved Leonia aside and sprinted across the courtyard. He tried to drag the horse forward, but the creature wouldn’t budge. It twisted its head as if someone far stronger had hold of the bridle
and was pulling it back. He caught sight of Leonia, standing in the doorway watching, her eyes fixed on something by the horse’s head. She was witching the horse! Briefly, Tenney felt himself bewitched too. He was frozen to the spot, unable to move or think. Then Godwin’s words flashed into his head. Desperately, he scrabbled in his scrip for the monkey’s paw and flung it on the ground between himself
and the girl.

He expected a flash of light, a cry of fear or rage from the girl, but nothing happened. Leonia began to laugh, her eyes flashing with mockery. The horse was neighing shrilly in fear and trying to kick out. But it was held fast.

Tenney snatched up the whip that lay ready in the cart and brought it down as hard as he could on the horse’s flank. It reared and shot forward as though
suddenly released. It was all he could do to grab the terrified beast before it bolted to smash itself and the cart to pieces against the wall. It took him several long minutes to bring the terrified creature under control.

Tenney tore back to the kitchen and wrenched open the door. A billow of dense smoke sent him staggering backwards. He scrubbed his eyes with his knuckles, frantically trying
to clear them. Then he saw Beata, lying on the threshold, her arm outstretched and limp, her head curled onto her chest. With a cry of anguish, he dragged her out into the courtyard.

She lay unmoving, her face white, dark smudges of smoke around her nostrils and mouth. He hauled her into a sitting position, supporting her chest against his forearm as he thumped her back, willing her to live.
‘Come on now, lass. Don’t leave me, not now. Where would I be without you to mither me? I need you, lass, I need you!’

Frantically he pummelled her back again, trying to make her draw breath. But she didn’t stir. She flopped forward across his arm, like an old pillow. Kneeling on the flags of the courtyard, still wet from the rain, Tenney rocked her lifeless body back and forth, howling like
a child.

But then came the sweetest sound in all the world: Beata gasped.

Master Robert was adamant that birds must have stuffed the wet straw into the vent to build a nest. He’d never paid any heed to the habits of creatures that did not make him a profit and, in consequence, he had little notion of when birds nested. The only thing that puzzled him was why Beata had remained in the kitchen
when it was filling with smoke, but he concluded that it was further proof of her madness.

Sister Ursula, who had arrived with a lay sister to report Beata’s escape, told him the mad were cunning and sly. It was, she said, a blessing that Beata had been rendered insensible. In her jealousy of poor Mistress Catlin, God alone knew what she might have done. She’d doubtless gone into the kitchen
to find a knife or an axe to butcher the entire family. The good nun crossed herself fervently. They’d had a lucky escape. The Blessed Virgin had surely been watching over them.

Sister Ursula declared she would take the crazed woman straight back to St Mary Magdalene’s and she assured Robert that Beata would henceforth be kept chained in fetters from which not even the devil himself could escape.
Master Robert and his family could sleep soundly in their beds, for the tormented soul would never again leave the room in which she would be kept, much less the infirmary.

Tenney uttered not one word. He listened, head bowed, to all that they said. Then, without looking at any of them, he gathered the wheezing Beata into his arms and slid her gently into the back of the cart, tenderly propping
her against a bale of hay to make it easier for her to breathe and covering her with his own cloak. He fetched a water-skin and held it to her lips. She drank gratefully, giving him a frightened smile.

Sister Ursula nodded her approval. ‘I shall ride with you.’

She walked round and stood expectantly by the front of the cart, beckoning to the lay sister to come and help her up. But Tenney clambered
into the driver’s seat, flicked the reins across the horse’s back and turned the cart so sharply that Master Robert was forced to do the unthinkable and lay hands on a consecrated nun to drag her away from the wheel before it struck her. As the tail of the cart disappeared through the gate, Master Robert found himself shouting into thin air, demanding that Tenney stop at once. For the first
time in more than thirty years, his manservant ignored him.

Tears running down his ugly face, Tenney kept driving, on and on through the streets and lanes of Lincoln, out through the city gate, down the long road until he was far beyond the sight of castle and cathedral. He was, if he had paused to think about it, a wanted man, a thief who had stolen a valuable horse and cart. That was a hanging
offence. But Tenney had gone beyond thinking. He had to get the woman he loved away from that house of death. He would keep her safe, even if he had to cross all England to do it.

A rainy August makes a hard breadcrust.

Sailors bought knotted thread from witches in case they were becalmed at sea. As each knot was undone so the strength of the wind was increased, but they took care never to undo the last knot for that would call up a violent storm.

Robert, closely followed by an armed linkman, strode along the quayside towards the warehouse, tearing open the heavy, ankle-length robe that was
suffocating him in the afternoon heat. The houppelande was the height of fashion, with its high collar and voluminous folds, and as a cloth merchant Robert felt he should set an example by wearing it. But even he was forced to admit that it was the most damnably uncomfortable garment on a day like this.

The indolent breeze from the Braytheforde brought no relief. It merely carried the stench
of the sewers and middens into every part of the lower town, for in this heat every green, slime-filled ditch was fermenting, sending out bubbles of noxious air. His foot slid on some rotting fish guts, sending up a great buzzing cloud of flies. The linkman caught his arm and managed to stop him crashing to the ground. Robert, embarrassed to be steadied as if he was an old man, shook off the supporting
hand and hastened on until they reached the door of the warehouse, where he dismissed his guard with a small coin.

Wiping his sweating brow, he stepped inside. It was scarcely any cooler in the building, but at least he was out of the sun’s glare. He removed his turbaned hood and tossed it onto a stack of kegs, glancing around. To his great annoyance the warehouse seemed deserted.

‘Adam!’

His son did not appear, but his shout brought the watchman hurrying from somewhere in the back recesses. He bobbed up and down in little bows as he scurried towards Robert, like a bird pecking for worms.

‘Master Robert . . .’ he panted, scarlet in the face from the heat. ‘I didn’t expect to see you, not so late in the afternoon. Last load’s been brought in. I was about to brace the doors.’

‘My
so-called steward sent word to meet him here.’

The watchman looked around as if he wanted to be quite certain of Edward’s absence before he replied, ‘He’s not here, Master Robert.’

‘I can see that,’ Robert snapped. ‘And my son?’

The watchman shuffled uneasily. ‘He was here.’

‘When did he leave? He hadn’t come home when I left.’

The watchman looked increasingly uncomfortable. ‘I – I don’t
rightly know. I didn’t see him leave. But the girl was here earlier. I saw her round the back near the stairs. I thought she’d come to fetch Adam. She’s been here before looking for him.’

‘A girl?’ Robert asked sharply. ‘What girl?’

‘Your stepdaughter, Master Robert. They go off together sometimes. I thought maybe . . . she’d come to tell him he was wanted at home.’

Robert frowned. ‘Are you
sure it was Leonia?’

He’d been convinced Leonia had not set foot out of the house since her mother had cut her hair. No girl would venture out in public looking like that. Catlin had given her a voluminous cap to wear, but Leonia had stubbornly refused it. She’d come to the table with her head bare and her chin raised defiantly, as if she wanted her mother to be constantly reminded of what she’d
done. Not that she had spoken a single word to either Robert or Catlin since that night.

The watchman considered the matter for a long time before he said, ‘Aye, I’m certain it was her. Though with her hair shorn and wearing those breeches, I thought at first she was a boy. She had such lovely hair . . . Physician cut it, did he, Master Robert, to keep her strength up?’

‘Yes . . . she had the
summer fever,’ Robert said, grateful to be handed an excuse. ‘The physician thought it might lead to a fever of the brain if her hair wasn’t cut.’

‘Holy Virgin be praised that she’s well again, Master Robert.’

The sound of footsteps behind them made them turn. Edward sauntered through the door, and behind him four of the bailiff’s men escorting two sullen-looking captives.

When he saw Robert,
Edward grinned. ‘I have a gift for you, Father.’

Robert’s hand clenched into a fist, which he might well have used had the watchman not been present. He struggled to control himself. He did not care to have his family business bandied around the city, which it would be if he told the young cur exactly what he considered their relationship to be.

‘You,’ Edward said to the watchman. ‘Shut the
doors and admit no one.’ Turning to the bailiff’s men, he said, ‘Bring this pair up to the counting office. Then you can wait down here till we decide what’s to be done with them. There’s a cask of small ale in the corner. You can quench your thirst with that. This way,
Father
.’

Robert glared at his back, sure he was deliberately using the word to provoke him into losing his temper. Edward swaggered
out into the bright sunshine again, up the wooden staircase outside and through the door to the open platform above the warehouse floor. He dragged two stools behind the table, seating himself on one and offering the other to Robert, with a wave. Robert felt his temper rising with every passing moment. The bailiff’s men pushed their two prisoners in front of the table, then clattered back
down the stairs, desperate to ease their parched throats with the ale they’d been promised.

Robert, ignoring the proffered stool, studied the pair, who slouched before the table. Both men appeared to have been dragged there without warning. They were clad only in short, filthy breeches, their chests bare and greasy with grime and sweat. The older man had a crooked nose, probably once broken in
a fight, for he had the muscles to indicate he might be handy with his fists. The younger one was evidently his son, for he had the same mud-brown eyes and hound-like face. Robert recognised them as boatmen who often delivered cargoes for the warehouse, but he’d never said more than a few words to them in passing.