The Witch Hunter's Tale (17 page)

“And what of you?” Martha spat. “You’ve joined with him, haven’t you? How are you any better?”

A shadow passed over Rebecca’s face, and she stared at Martha. Martha held her gaze far longer than I could have, but eventually looked away. Then Rebecca turned back to me. “What option did you leave for me? You came to York, waving your coat of arms and jangling the cash in your purse. And what did the mothers—
my
mothers—do? Before I knew what had happened, they started crying out
Lady Bridget
this and
Lady Hodgson
that. Soon enough it was all the fashion to be delivered by a so-called gentlewoman.”

It was the first time I’d heard what might be called pain or regret in Rebecca’s voice.

“And then you called on your friends in the Minster and had them take my license,” she continued. “Did you think I would forget what you did to me? That you would take my place in this city, and I would let it pass as if it meant nothing at all?”

“No, Rebecca, I never thought that,” I replied softly. “But you were a cruel and unforgiving midwife. I regret nothing I’ve done.”

For some reason Rebecca laughed at this, and my heart filled with fear. What reason did she have for merriment?

“You might not regret it now, but soon you will,” she said. “A Searcher has far more power than a midwife, more power than you can imagine. And as a Searcher I will enjoy more respect than you’ll ever know. Bringing life is a joyful thing, and people love you for it, but now I bring death, and people fear me.”

“Why have you come?” I asked. “To display your newfound authority and lord it over me? You should enjoy it, because I promise that I will see you brought low before this business is through.”

“I know you think that.” Rebecca spoke to me as she would a child. “But before you even consider such a scheme, I would suggest you look about you. Your nephew is in gaol, accused of murder. And that red-haired girl you call your daughter … I’ve heard she is rarely seen without her cat. Your neighbor said that she talks to it constantly.” Rebecca paused. “Did you hear that in Essex they hanged a witch who was just eleven years old? Just a girl! The devil is no respecter of children, is he?”

Martha and I stared at Rebecca, unable to speak.

“You are not so cruel,” Martha managed to say at last, but we both knew that she was.

Rebecca smiled. “I am simply doing the Lord’s work. That is what Joseph would say. And I quite like the idea that God would make me the instrument of bringing you to your knees. So look to your own, Bridget, for you are not so safe as you think.” She turned and walked away, the sound of her boot heels echoing through the street.

I watched her go, hardly daring to breathe lest she return with more threats and dangers. Once she’d passed out of sight I exhaled. “Let us go home,” I said to Martha.

“Did you see James Hooke?” she asked by way of a reply.

“What do you mean? James was with her?”

“Aye,” Martha replied. “He was skulking in the alley over there, peering about like he was a member of the Town Watch.”

Such news was curious, and I knew not what to make of it. James had never been one to dote on Rebecca (not that she would have allowed it), preferring instead to keep his distance. I could not fault him in that.

When we arrived at my house I gazed at the door. Soon after I’d taken up midwifery I’d had it painted red so people could find me more easily, and for years I’d loved coming home to see it. But on this day, the afternoon sun bathed my street in a passing strange light that made the door seem darker than usual, the color of clotting blood. I pushed my way inside and breathed a sigh of relief when Hannah and Elizabeth greeted us.

“I’ve gathered all you’ll need for Mr. Hodgson,” Hannah announced, indicating a large basket by the door. “Blankets and a bolster for his bed, and enough food for days.”

I embraced Hannah and kissed Elizabeth on the crown of her head. “I’ll be back very soon,” I promised. “I need to take these to Will so that he keeps warm tonight.”

“I wrote him a note,” Elizabeth replied. “It’s in with the food. When will he be home?”

“Soon,” I said. “Just as soon as we can get him.”

In just the few minutes that Martha and I had been inside, the sun had disappeared below the horizon, leaving us with the merest sliver of daylight. We hurried toward High Petergate and then to the west side of the Minster to Peter’s Prison. The heavy wood door loomed over us, and I felt small and ineffectual when I pounded on it. When we received no response, Martha cast about until she found a loose cobblestone. She lifted the stone above her head and hurled at the door with all her might. The crash echoed through the street. A few moments later the door groaned open a few inches.

To my amazement we were greeted not by a guard but by Will himself. A broad smile lit up his face when he saw us.

“Thank God it’s you, Aunt Bridget,” he whispered. “Come in quickly.”

“Will, what in God’s name is going on?” Martha cried.

“Keep your voice down,” Will said. “You’ll wake everyone.” Though I’d never been called to testify in the Minster court, I knew that the floor above us served as a courtroom, the ground floor housed the jailors, and the cells—where I’d thought I’d find Will—were beneath our feet. Will ushered us inside, and I struggled to make sense of the scene before us. A fire roared in the large stone hearth, bathing the room in a warm glow, and it was clear that we’d arrived in the aftermath of a particularly unruly supper. A half dozen wine bottles stood on the rough wood table in the center of the room, surrounded by glasses, tankards, and plates of half-eaten food. The capon that had provided the main course sat in the middle of the table, stripped down to its bones. I looked around the room for the guards, but the three of us were alone.

“Will, what is going on here?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, Aunt Bridget, it’s fine,” he said. “It turned out that I knew the jailors from my drinking days, and they were quite hospitable.” In his early youth, Will had lived a far more dissolute life than I or his father would have liked, drinking and fighting with the town’s lower sort. He had left that life behind (thanks in no small part to my efforts), but it seemed that his time in York’s alehouses had yielded some surprising benefits.

“Where are they?” Martha asked.

“They’ve been asleep for some time now,” Will replied, gesturing at a door that led to the jailors’ quarters. “I kept pouring, and they kept drinking. Have you brought any money? I promised I’d repay them for supper and the wine if they allowed me to sleep up here rather than in the cells below. They’re awful.”

“We’ve brought you blankets and a pillow, as well as food and cash,” Martha said. “If we’d known you would be living so well we would have come here for our supper rather than eating at home.”

“There wouldn’t have been enough for all of us,” Will said with a smile. “These poor sots have to make do with so little they’d have eaten an entire goose if I’d provided it. It’s lucky for me, though. The birth went well then?”

“Well enough,” I replied. I considered telling him about our encounter with Rebecca Hooke, but rejected the idea. There was nothing he could do to help, and I did not want to worry him unnecessarily. “We came to make sure that you were safe and in good spirits, but I see we needn’t have troubled ourselves.”

“So long as I keep my hosts in beer and bread, they’ll treat me well,” Will said. “But we do have to find a way to get me out.”

I nodded. “We will work on that.”

“What is your plan?” Will asked. “My stay here is off to a fine start, but I don’t much like where it might end.”

“We’ll find out what we can about why you were taken,” I said. “If it was simply on Joseph’s orders, there might be nobody to testify against you. He might merely want you out of the way for a time.”

“Or he might have found someone to perjure himself,” Will noted. “In which case I’m cooked.” The thought—which, I had to admit, was entirely reasonable—cast a cloud over our little reunion.

Martha reached out and took his hand. “It will not come to that,” she said. “We will testify on your behalf, and none could doubt us.”

“A maidservant and my own aunt?” Will asked doubtfully. “I wish I had your confidence. No, if you don’t free me before the Assizes, Joseph will see me convicted. I have no doubt of that.”

“We will free you,” I replied. “We have no other option. We will continue our inquiry into George’s murder. There are others who had reason to kill him—Joseph, Mark Preston, Agnes Greenbury, or the Lord Mayor himself. It is simply a matter of finding out which one acted against him.” I watched Will’s face to see how he would react when I included Joseph among the suspects. He winced, but that was all.

“I hope it is so easy,” Will replied.

“As do I,” I said. “It is late, and we should go. I’ll wait outside for a moment.”

Will and Martha nodded their thanks for this gift of time alone, and I slipped into the Minster yard. It was now full dark, and the moon hung low and bright in the sky, bathing the cathedral in an eerie silver light, as if it were crafted of ice and glass rather than stone.

As I waited, I wondered what Will and Martha could be talking about. The future to be sure, but what kind of future could they expect or even dream of? Will had lost his father, then his godfather, and now he faced hanging for a murder he hadn’t committed. I would try to protect him, but my encounter with Rebecca had made clear just how vulnerable those around me had become.

Not long before, I had assured Martha that midwives were safe from witchcraft accusations, but what if I was wrong? If Rebecca Hooke could make Elizabeth into a witch, we all could be charged, Hannah included. In my first years after coming to York, Phineas and I had made a family, and then I watched in horror and helplessness as death took my husband and children one by one. In the years since, I’d rebuilt my life, and now it was threatened, not by fevers or coughs, but by men. I knew there was nothing I would not do to defend my family, but as I gazed at the cathedral’s majesty I realized that I had never been so powerless.

*   *   *

The next morning came, clear and calm. When I stepped outside, for a moment I entertained the hope that the cold had broken, but within moments the chill had worked its way beneath my cloak and begun to dig its fingers into my flesh. The only change was that the wind had died down. I thanked the Lord for this small blessing.

I left Martha, Hannah, and Elizabeth at home and retraced the route to Peter’s Prison. I wanted to visit Will, of course, but also to speak with his keepers. The previous night’s bacchanal showed that they could be more agreeable than many of the city’s jailors, and I wanted to impress upon them that Will was not merely their friend, but a friend who had a wealthy, powerful, and (most important) free-spending aunt.

When I entered the Minster yard I was pleased to see that Peter Newcome had set up his movable shop against the cathedral wall, for I knew that if there was any news about the witch-hunts, he would have heard it first. As I crossed toward him, he raised his hand in greeting.

“Lady Hodgson,” he called out. “It is a strange time to be here in York, is it not? First the city is overrun with witches, and now an Alderman is murdered as he walks the streets? I cannot but wonder what bloody crime will follow.”

His tone was light—and why not? Each murder would increase his profits. I thought to reprimand him, but I realized he could not know that George had been my friend or that my nephew had been taken for the murder. No good would come from pointing out his misstep, so I did not correct him.

“And it seems the city has regained its appetite for hanging felons,” Newcome continued.

This brought me up short. “What do you mean?”

Newcome smiled when he realized that, once again, he knew more than I. He drew such pleasure from spreading news, good or bad, that he truly was the perfect chapman. “Nothing is settled, but there are plans to convene another Special Assize. Too many witches, too many murders, too long to wait for the Parliament to send out judges.” He held out a pamphlet. “It’s all here if you read closely enough.”

Bloody Murder in York,
the title shouted above a crude woodcut showing a two figures, one lying on the ground, the other standing with a hammer in his hand. Beneath the picture, the title continued:
Or, an Ungrateful Son Butchers His Father.
My stomach roiled as I took the pamphlet and began to read. While it did not mention Will by name, the author claimed that George’s murderer had been captured, and now awaited trial and execution. When I reached the end of the little book I found a passage that worried me all the more.

In a city so overrun with Satan’s agents, can we delay our efforts to restore order and bring justice? If God’s will is to be done, we must not tarry, but act on His behalf. Our magistrates cannot, must not, wait to do their duty or the Lord shall strike them down as He has promised to strike down all those who are lukewarm in their love of Him.

“And from this you think that the city will start trials soon?” I asked. “How can you know this?”

“I was right about the witch-hunt, wasn’t I?” Newcome replied. “And it is not just this, but what people are saying throughout the city. They say the witches must be tried and murderers must be found out and punished. As they say,
Blood cries out for blood.
What is more, the man who killed the Alderman has murdered before—his own father, if the gossip is to be believed.”

“He never did,” I whispered, but my words could not turn back the fear I felt within my chest. Joseph had convinced so many people that Will was to blame for their father’s death, my opinions would carry no weight.

Newcome shrugged at my feeble protests. “Whatever the case, the city will not allow him to escape the hangman a second time. Besides, if the Lord Mayor did not intend to make a court, why would he allow the printing of such a pamphlet?”

I turned back to the cover of the book and saw that, like the pamphlet describing Hester Jackson’s fate, it had been approved by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. This discovery only doubled my fear, and I cursed under my breath.