The Vanishing Witch (62 page)

They entered a large rectangular hall and from there he was herded up another staircase. From the
slit windows he glimpsed snatches of colour from the streets beyond the walls, like the stray notes of a song, familiar yet not named. But he was not allowed to linger.

Finally the gaoler knocked on a heavy wooden door and, hearing some faint reply from within, pushed Gunter into a long room. At the far end was a dais, on which stood a table and high-backed chair, while in front of it were ranged
many seats, from highly carved and ornate chairs to crudely cobbled benches. The crest of King Richard and that of his uncle, John of Gaunt, Constable of Lincoln Castle, hung as twins above the dais, as if to show the two were equals, but beyond that there was little decoration in the room. Gaunt had not lavished any of his huge fortune on Lincoln.

A man stood with his back to them, peering out
of one of the slits, a man of some wealth, judging by his long gown and turbaned hood. The belt around his hips was wide, and fashioned from the finest red leather studded with silver stars. He turned at the sound of the door opening. Gunter blinked. It was hard to reconcile the gravitas of the man with the last time he had seen him, lying in filth, his face splattered with blood and dirt, an expression
of abject terror in his eyes.

For a long time the two men stared at one another, then Robert tore away his gaze and addressed the guards. ‘Leave us. Wait at the bottom of the stairs. I’ll call for you when I’ve done.’

The two guards exchanged uneasy glances.

‘Master Robert, we can’t leave you alone with – with a rebel. Suppose he should escape.’

‘If you wait at the bottom of the stairs, as
I instructed, you will be able to ensure he doesn’t,’ Robert said curtly. ‘Can you see another way out of this chamber? A cat would be hard put to squeeze through the window and even then he’d have to sprout wings on the other side.’

‘But suppose he attacks you. They’ve murdered—’

‘I assume you searched him before you locked him up, unless you’re in the habit of allowing your prisoners to run
around armed. Well? Then go!’

Robert waited by the window until he heard the clatter of the men’s footsteps retreating down the stairs, then took a few paces towards Gunter, turned one of the chairs to face the prisoner and sat down. He was breathing hard and looked pale, sick even.

‘You saved my life in London.’ He spoke softly, in contrast to the way he’d addressed the guards.

Gunter said
nothing, afraid that any admission would only incriminate him.

‘You’re one of my tenants. You’ve carried cargoes for me.’

He paused, but Gunter didn’t reply. He knew a question was coming, one he still did not know how to answer.

‘Why did you defend me? If you’d said nothing, they’d have carried out their execution and there would have been no witness to testify that you had taken part in the
rebellion. Did that not occur to you?’

Gunter stared down at his grimy hands. ‘I was shocked to see you there, Master Robert, and . . . what they were going to do . . . They said you were one of the Flemish merchants. I had to put them right. You didn’t deserve to die.’

‘Neither did the Flemish merchants,’ Robert said sharply.

‘I know nowt about that.’

‘Meaning you didn’t attack them or you
don’t know if they deserved to be butchered?’

Gunter was again silent. He couldn’t tell what was going on in the man’s head. Why was he questioning him? What was he trying to find out? Was he going to trick him into betraying Hankin?

Robert rose from the chair and began to pace up and down in front of the dais. ‘Why did you join the rebels in the first place, Gunter? That’s what I can’t understand.
Why would a man like you, with a wife and children, risk everything? You’re freeborn, not a villein. Did you think to become rich, was that it? To steal gold or to overthrow the nobility and live like a lord of the manor? Was that what they promised you? What did you think you could change? There will always be men who rule others, and those who do, whoever they are, will always be wealthy
because of it. Would you have us ungoverned, every man taking what he wanted, the strong stealing from the weak and our shores left unprotected, so that any foreign king who looks on this island with greedy eyes may simply walk in and conquer us?’

Robert stopped pacing and turned to face Gunter. ‘And your son. From what I recall he’s about the same age as my own, just a boy. Why drag him into
this madness? Did you have no care that at best he might be killed and at worst mutilated and hanged?’

‘My son wasn’t there,’ Gunter said fiercely. ‘Only I went. Let him go and I’ll confess to anything you put to me.’

Robert sank down weakly into the chair. ‘You’re a fool! Your son is the certain proof you were both there. That’s what they will say in court, even if I don’t testify. Neither
of you was seen in Lincoln for the best part of three weeks, and when you returned you brought back the boy injured. Any man who was there knows about the fires and explosions. Any half-competent physician or even a humble soldier can recognise the marks of burning gunpowder when they see them. They’ll examine him, Gunter, and his wounds will seal the guilt of both of you, not merely as ones who marched
to London, but as ones who fought and destroyed it. That is high treason and it merits the worst of deaths.’

Gunter felt all hope draining out of him. He had nothing left to lose. He took a pace forward, though his good leg could barely hold him upright. ‘My lad never . . . He marched to London, it’s true. He ran away from home after we’d quarrelled, meaning to join the rebels. But you said it
yourself, he’s just a boy, too young to understand what he was doing. It was all an adventure to him . . . But when he saw what happened, he was sick to his stomach. He took no part in it, I swear. Someone threw some gunpowder onto a fire afore the killings even started. He was wounded. He could do nowt save crawl into the shelter of a wall.

‘I went to London to search for him. When I found him,
he was in that much pain, he couldn’t stand. I’d to carry him home. He didn’t harm anyone, I swear on his mam’s life. Don’t let them hang him. I spoke out for you that day, Master Robert. You speak out for him – a life for a life. You can do what you want to me. I’ll say I’m guilty to whatever charges you bring against me. But let him go home to his mam, his sister and little brother. They need
him. Without a man to work for them, they’ll starve. Whatever trouble the boy’s in, I’m to blame, for I’m his faayther. I should have kept him from it. I deserve to hang for that, but not Hankin, not my son.’

For a long time Robert stared at him. Gunter’s leg almost buckled beneath him and it was all he could do to keep himself from sinking to the floor. But he would not give in to it. He would
not have any man think he was grovelling to him, begging like a coward.

At last Robert rose and climbed onto the dais, seating himself at the table. He smoothed out a parchment and ran his finger down it. Then he picked up a pointed stick that lay ready beside it and scratched at a spot on the document. He blew the dried ink away and, dipping a quill pen into a pot, he wrote two names on the
parchment. Without a word, Robert crossed the room and called for the guards. He didn’t once look at Gunter.

Gunter felt cold and numb to the very marrow of his bones. How could he walk back into the cell and tell his son that, once again, he had failed to protect him? He felt no bitterness towards Master Robert. You couldn’t ask a wolf to spare a lamb. It was in their nature to kill, just as
it was in the nature of the wealthy to show no mercy to the poor. Life had taught him to expect nothing more. His only anger was against himself for being honest, for being a fool, for not learning that you had to grab whatever you could in this life before others snatched it for themselves.

As the guards marched in and seized him, he turned once more to Robert. ‘Just the boy, spare the boy!’

Robert ignored him and addressed the guards: ‘When you’ve released this man and his son, send the bailiff to me. There are two men I wish to have arrested.’

The guards stopped dead as if they’d been struck a sharp blow.

‘Release them, Master Robert? But their names are on the list of rebels.’

‘It would appear the wrong men have been arrested. The names of this man and his son were never on the
list. Can’t you read?’

The two guards looked at each other and shook their heads. Of course they couldn’t. Why would they need to do that?

‘The men who should have been arrested were Martin of Washingborough and his son. Arrest them. Let this man and his boy go free.’

The seven whistlers are the souls of the damned that range the earth as birds. Whenever their cries are heard, death or disaster shall follow as surely as night follows day.

Godwin hid outside the city gates at the top of the hill and waited until the moon rose. The road outside the wall was deserted, save for a couple of scavenging dogs. They snarled as they caught his scent.
He hurled stones at them until they slunk away into the shadows. He crossed the track and peered over the edge of the cliff down onto the grassy ledge, now washed grey in the starlight. Far below, in the deep darkness of the valley, the cottagers’ fires glowed red as dragons’ eyes.

It took several attempts before Godwin could summon the courage to lower himself into the darkness. He dropped the
last foot or so. The grass was slippery after the rain and he slid to the edge of the ledge before he was able to stop. He lay there, his limbs trembling at the thought of how close he had come to falling. The friar’s robes were cumbersome, but he’d returned to wearing them tonight. They sanctified the execution he was about to carry out. It would be Divine Justice.

Afraid to stand up in case
he slipped again, Godwin crawled to the bushes and, forcing his way behind them, burrowed into the cave. He could see nothing inside, as if an invisible curtain were shutting out the moonlight, but he groped around until his fingers encountered one of the urns. He traced the pattern on it – a great serpent encircling the jar, devouring its own tail – the ouroboros. He smiled to himself. That his
hand had been guided to this particular symbol was a good omen, for it was the same design as the ring the witch had used to trick his father into believing his only son was dead. It was fitting that her daughter should die here, among the burial urns. Pavia would have her child ripped from her as his own father had. He wanted her to feel all the pain of a parent’s grief, before he dragged her from
this world into the sulphurous fires of Hell. For her, there would be no release from that torment, no ransom paid, just as she had plotted for him.

Godwin had planned exactly what he would do. He’d contemplated using a dagger, but he knew that, in the dark, he could not be certain of striking a fatal blow. Besides, he couldn’t risk being seen with blood on him in case he ran into the watchmen
or someone else who might remember. But, most of all, he was afraid of the girl’s blood: a person’s spirit lives in their blood and hers was an evil one that might leave her body and possess anyone her blood touched.

He would have to strangle her. But a man cannot easily throttle anyone with just one hand, not even a child. Godwin drew the cord from his friar’s scrip. It had taken time to fashion
it into a wide noose, but he had grown accustomed to using teeth and a single hand to do deftly what most men did with two good hands. He was relying on the darkness to conceal his movements from the girl, attack before she realised what he intended.

Fling the noose over the child’s head. Pull the end down with his good hand, until it fastened about her slender throat. Keep pulling until he’d
dragged her to the ground. Pin her down with his knees and, using the stump of his right hand as a lever, push against her body, pulling the cord tighter and tighter with his good hand until she was dead.

He’d practised many times until he could pull the cord tight so quickly she wouldn’t have a chance to throw it off. When she was no longer moving, he would take his time. Make quite sure she
was dead. Then fling her body off the cliff to crash down onto the roofs of the houses far below, her bones shattering, like clay jars. They’d carry the broken remains to Pavia and he would be watching from the shadows, waiting to hear her scream.

Godwin started as he heard the rattle of loose stones that meant someone was scrambling over the edge of the cliff and suddenly there she was, standing
on the silvered grassy ledge, silhouetted against the moon. He could see the glint of starlight in her eyes, but nothing of her expression.

‘You received . . . my message.’ In his excitement, Godwin was struggling to breathe.

By way of an answer, Leonia held up the golden boar’s head between her thumb and forefinger. It glittered in the bone-white light that haloed her shorn head.

Godwin beckoned
to her to come closer. ‘I knew your mother long ago . . . We are kin, you and I . . . I wanted to meet you, after all these years. I have a gift for you, little sister. Your mother might not want you to have it. But I know you can keep a secret.’

He was relying on Leonia’s curiosity and greed. But if she grew suspicious, her only way out was to scramble back up the cliff face, and the moment
she tried, he would be behind her with the noose.

But Leonia did not attempt to run. Instead she slowly paced towards him, parting the bushes until she stood right in front of the cave. It was as if she was inviting him to kill her, daring him to do it. Another step and she was within his reach. But even as Godwin raised his hand to fling the noose about her slender white neck, he caught sight
of something moving above him on the lip of the cave.

At first he thought a bat was hanging there. The bulging eyes were bluish-white in the moonlight, opaque, dead. But the wet black snout wriggled as if it was trying to smell what it could not see. A thick purple tongue protruded between sharp white teeth, tasting the air. The creature was small, its head no broader than Godwin’s hand, but
even as he watched, it began to swell, as if it were engorging with blood. Its claws were as sharp as death.