The Witch Hunter's Tale (31 page)

The judge demanded quiet, and the crowd complied. The charges against Joseph were announced, and the bailiff summoned Rebecca and asked her name. I should have known that something was amiss as soon as she began to speak, for she’d abandoned the stentorian voice she’d used to address the Aldermen and now sounded meek and compliant. I pushed my worries aside, but they returned in force as soon the prosecutor asked her about the book containing the names of all York’s witches.

“I thought I saw it, and that’s what I told the Council,” she said softly. “But I may have been wrong. It may have just been a bead-roll of the Town Watch or the garrison.”

I heard Martha gasp, and I am quite sure that the surprise on my face was a match for the prosecutor’s. The crowd began to murmur as well—this was not what they expected.

The prosecutor did his best to recover himself before returning to his questions. “You told the Lord Mayor himself that you’d seen a list of witches’ names, a list written in the devil’s own hand,” he insisted. “You told the entire Council that Mr. Hodgson had bewitched you!”

“That is what I believed,” Rebecca sighed. “But I am no longer so sure. The book might have been something else. And it might not have been Mr. Hodgson who bewitched me, for he is known to love the Lord above all else. Someone else may have bewitched me. I cannot say if I was bewitched at all. I am but a poor widow, and easily misled.”

With those words it seemed as if a riot had broken out in the hall. Some dashed from the room to tell those outside what had happened, and everyone present seemed compelled to discuss the matter with his neighbor.

I grasped Martha’s hand as I tried to control the panic that welled up within me. What in God’s name was Rebecca doing? I looked at Joseph and found him staring at me. When our eyes met, an infernal smile crossed his face. His mouth seemed to form the words
I told you so,
but with all the noise I could not hope to hear him.

With a wave of his hand, the prosecutor dismissed Rebecca from her testimony.

“What the Christ has happened?” Martha hissed in my ear. “Has he joined with Rebecca? What are we going to do? If he goes free, all is lost.”

She did not have to elaborate. If Joseph escaped the noose and returned to power, my family would be destroyed. I would lose Elizabeth, both Will and Tree would hang, and the trials of witches would begin once again. And with Rebecca’s hint that someone other than Joseph had bewitched her, I could not be sure that Martha and I were safe. Within weeks, we could all be dead.

The prosecutor came to me, panic clear in his face. “What has happened here?” he demanded. “The two of you are making a fool of me!”

Rebecca had disappeared into the crowd, and Joseph stood tall, his shoulders thrown back, every inch the cavalry officer he’d been a few years before. A handful of Alderman had crossed the room to speak with him, a sure sign that they thought he might go free. I considered the choice of paths that lay before me, and the toll that each would demand. But in the end the decision was not a hard one.

“Call me as a witness, and I will see this through,” I replied, and told him what I needed him to do. After I explained my plan, I glanced at Martha, who nodded in approval.

“Your scheme had better work,” the prosecutor said. “Or we’ll both suffer.”

“I know that far better than you,” I breathed.

As the Judge and bailiffs tried to return the hall to some semblance of order, I closed my eyes and said a prayer. I did not know if God would aid perjurers in their work, but if He did not I would lose all that I held dear.

*   *   *

“Lady Hodgson,” the prosecutor began. “You have known Joseph Hodgson for many years, have you not?”

“Yes I have,” I replied. “I came to York when he was a youth, and I was married to his uncle.” All the jurymen knew this, of course, but the customs of law must be obeyed. I found it curious that for the first time in my life the truth felt strange on my tongue. No doubt it was because I knew the lies that would soon follow.

“When did you begin to suspect he was a witch?”

“In truth, it was soon after he began to hunt for witches within the city. He had never done such a thing before—what could he know of witches?—yet he discovered them wherever he looked. I wondered how that could be.” As I spoke, I looked from the prosecutor, to the judge, to the jurymen. I had no desire to see Joseph’s reaction to my lies.

“My work as a midwife brought me to the Castle,” I continued. “Here I talked to women who would soon hang for their witchery. When they heard his name, they quailed in fear, and I wanted to know why.”

“Did they tell you?”

“Aye. It took some doing, but I convinced a few of them to tell me the truth. They did not deny their crimes, but they claimed that my nephew, Joseph Hodgson, had tricked and enticed them into witchcraft with false promises and feigned affection. I then realized that
he
was their imp, sent by Satan himself to lure them into damnation.” The jurymen glanced nervously from my face to Joseph’s. I knew they would be torn: They would not want to hear that a man such as Joseph had fallen into the Devil’s hands, but they would believe my words because I was a gentlewoman and a midwife.

“And more than one woman told you this?”

“Half a dozen,” I replied. I sounded so sure of myself, I could almost believe my own lies. “They came from different cells in the Castle, but they told similar tales, so I believed it to be true.”

“Are these women still living?”

“No,” I said. “Joseph saw to it that they were hanged before they could expose him for his crimes.”

“If you believed that Joseph was a witch, why did you not accuse him?”

I laughed at this in the same way I imagined Rebecca would. “Because I saw what happened to those who opposed him.”

“What do you mean?”

I turned to address the jurymen directly. “When George Breary tried to stop the witch-hunts, Joseph murdered him.”

As I’d hoped and expected, the jurymen stared at me in amazement. A great hubbub broke out within the hall, and I heard a strangled cry from my left. I took this to be Joseph’s objection, but I kept my eyes on the jury. The prosecutor waited until the judge had quieted the room before he continued.

“Joseph Hodgson murdered George Breary?” he asked in amazement. His surprise was feigned, of course, but nobody who heard him would have known. “How do you know?”

“Because George told me this before he died.”

Once again the crowd began to murmur, and Joseph tried to object, but the judge demanded silence.

“Tell me what happened.”

I told the jury the story of George’s death. I omitted his awkward marriage proposal, of course, but when I told how Will, Martha, and I had found his body, my lies began in earnest.

“When we discovered him, he had been beaten most terribly,” I said. “We carried him to my home and comforted him as best we could. It was then that he told us what happened. He said that he had been in his home when Joseph Hodgson came to his door and asked to speak to him outside. George thought it strange given the late hour and the cold, but never suspected Joseph might kill him.

“Once they were outside, Joseph struck him. George fled, but he could not escape. We heard his cries, but by the time we arrived, Joseph was gone and George could not be saved. He lived for an hour after we returned to my house. When he first told me who had done this, I refused to accept it. What woman wants to believe her beloved nephew is a murderer? But he swore on his soul that it was the truth.”

“So you believed him?”

“No dying man would imperil his soul by telling such a lie. The danger is too great and the profit too small.”

“Was there anything else that convinced you of Mr. Hodgson’s guilt?” The prosecutor was playing his part admirably. The only shame was that he was aiding perjury.

“Aye. When Joseph and the other Aldermen came to my house to view the body, a strange and wonderful thing happened. It could only be a sign from the Lord.” I paused for a moment, knowing that I held the jury in my hand. “Mr. Breary had been dead for some hours, and his wounds had long stopped bleeding. But as soon as Joseph entered the room, his wounds began to bleed afresh, as if he’d only suffered them moments before.”

The jurymen nodded to themselves. There could be no surer mark of Joseph’s guilt.

After I’d finished, the prosecutor summoned Martha, who echoed my story, adding a few details to secure Joseph’s guilt and execution. Joseph protested as the bailiffs dragged him from the room, but none paid him any mind.

Martha and I waited while the jury considered the case.

They found Joseph guilty both of witchcraft and of George Breary’s murder. He was, of course, sentenced to be hanged.

Tears froze on my cheeks as Martha and I walked home.

Chapter 25

By the time we got home my tears had stopped, but Martha and I had not yet spoken. She broke the silence when the door shut behind us.

“It was the right thing to do,” she said.

“My nephew is going to hang for a murder he did not commit,” I replied. “How can that be the right thing to do?”

“If an innocent man is going to hang, better Joseph than Will. Better that icy-hearted beast than someone we both love. And do not forget that he threatened to hang us, or that your lies saved Tree’s life and kept Elizabeth in your home. Those may have been lies, but they were among the finest words ever spoken and the world is better for them. This was a war, and you cannot lament the enemy dead. Not until they are safely buried.”

“What of the guards who died when Will and Tree escaped?” I asked. “What wrong had they done? Why should they die while Will and Tree live?”

“Because death was their lot. Because Will and Tree are yours, and the guards were not. Mourn them, comfort their families, pay school fees for their children, do what you must. But do not think you took the wrong course.”

“School fees will not bring back their fathers or replace the love their widows have lost,” I replied. Without warning I was overcome by weakness and tumbled into a chair. I felt as if every drop of blood had been drawn from my body. “School fees will not salve my conscience.”

“Your conscience needs no salve.” Martha knelt next to me and took my hand. “You did nothing wrong. The preachers tell us we live in a fallen world. So much of what they say is mere baggage, but in this they are right. This week we all drew lots. The guards drew Death, as did Mark Preston, Joseph, and all the women he hanged. You were lucky. You drew Life. Do not forget that it could have been otherwise.”

I felt a sad smile cross my face. “When did you start listening to ministers?”

“It is the one sensible thing they’ve said,” she replied. “And I don’t need a sermon to tell me the world is a cold and heartless place that has no regard for the weak.”

I sat for a time, considering her words. Although I knew it was too late to change course, I tried to imagine a way to save Will, Tree, and Elizabeth that did not require Joseph’s death.

I could not find one.

*   *   *

The next day—the day Joseph was to be hanged for witchcraft and murder—I stayed in my house. I prayed that the Lord would wash my hands of the guilt that I still felt, but that prayer only put me in mind of Pontius Pilate, and I felt all the worse. That afternoon a boy from the Castle came to us and told us that Joseph was dead.

In the days that followed, York’s gaols slowly emptied of the women accused of witchcraft. Without Joseph or Rebecca to push them, the courts had lost their thirst for blood. The women who could not repay the city for the cost of their imprisonment languished in their cells until their relatives could gather money enough to satisfy the Warden. I later learned that half a dozen women died of gaol-fever because they were too poor to buy their freedom.

I sent nearly twenty shillings to the Castle in hope of speeding Will and Tree’s release, and the day after Joseph’s death Samuel Short wrote with the joyful news that Tree had been restored to him. As soon as the note arrived, Martha, Elizabeth, and I dashed to the Castle. We brought with us a new suit of clothes for Tree and as much food as we could carry.

“Do you think Will is there as well?” Martha asked as we wove through the crowded streets. The fact that we’d heard nothing of or from Will worried us both, and we did not know what it could mean. Perhaps he’d fallen ill—or worse.

“He could be with Samuel and Tree, waiting to surprise us,” Elizabeth suggested. I prayed that was the case.

When we entered the Castle, the sight of a three-legged mare greeted us, nooses still dangling from the crossbeams.

“They must have hanged Joseph here,” Martha ventured. “More private than the market at least.”

I looked away from the gallows. I had no interest in dwelling on my role in his death.

As soon as we arrived at Samuel’s tower, Tree dashed into our arms. When I was able to free myself from his embrace, I looked him over. Samuel had shaved his head to free him from lice, but aside from that he seemed as fit as could be. There could be no doubt that the Lord had watched over him with especial care. While Tree and Elizabeth devoured the cakes I’d brought and talked of their separate adventures—Elizabeth’s visits to the market seemed no less remarkable than Tree’s time in gaol—Martha and I turned to Samuel.

“Have you heard any news of Will?” Martha demanded. “Why wasn’t he released with Tree?”

Samuel’s brows knit in confusion. “All three of them—Stephen Daniels, Will, and Tree—walked out of the gaol together, nearly three hours ago,” he replied. “Will told me he’d go straight to your house. You haven’t seen him?”

Martha and I looked at each other. The relief I’d felt upon seeing Tree turned to concern for Will.

“How did he seem?” I asked Samuel. I could not imagine where he could be.

“He was distant, to be sure,” Samuel replied. “He wandered as if in a daze, following close behind Daniels. He didn’t even bid Tree farewell.”

“We must find him,” Martha said. She nearly managed to keep the worry from her voice. “There aren’t many places he could go.”