“Oh, that. An accident, yes. I stumbled and fell and hit on the table.”
“It must have been a strange fall that placed your neck on the table,” said Father Escrove, and then there was more silence, which the minister ended.
“So, your husband says the girl is practicing wicked matters. What do you say to that?”
Then there was the longest silence of all, after which Elizabeth spoke, quietly.
And she said, “He is right. She is a wicked girl.”
Then Father left, striding out of the smithy, but not before he said one last thing.
“Be careful how you stumble, Elizabeth.”
The children watched his black dress switching away through the trees by Gaining Water, and then he was gone.
They understood nothing.
19 FULLER’S MILL
Father Escrove walked along Golden Beck, taking the tiny path by the river bank, stepping over the hefty tree roots that crossed it from time to time, shaded from the heat of the day by the oaks and the steep valley sides.
He was satisfied with his morning’s work, but in order to bring things to a head, there was one more testament he wished to obtain.
It took him a quarter of an hour to come to Fuller’s Mill.
The sound of the hammers pounding the wool in the baths of piss came from inside, and something of the smell, too.
There was no one in sight.
Maybe she was here. This was the place she worked. But there was no sign of her, nor anyone else. The place seemed deserted, free of people, as if the mill itself was alive and running things ably.
Father Escrove approached and peered in a window. There was a man and a woman tending the fulling. But not her.
He walked around the side of the mill to the house and rapped his peeling knuckles on the door.
Nothing.
He rapped again, and now the door opened and the wife, Helen Fuller, was there.
“Father Escrove,” he announced. “I am Rural Dean. You may have heard of my presence.”
Helen nodded dumbly.
“Is your husband here? I wish to speak to him.”
The woman seemed confused.
“Your husband, madam? He is the tenant of the mill?”
“Yes—yes,” she stammered. She turned back into the house. “John!”
* * *
It didn’t take much.
It didn’t take long.
Within half an hour, John Fuller was where the minister wanted him to be, although the minister was surprised, and a little irritated that it had taken that long.
The man who employed Anna Tunstall, and who had employed her father, seemed reluctant to bear witness against her. And he was cleverer than the others. He managed, for twenty minutes, to avoid the traps that Father Escrove set him, always just avoiding condemning the girl, without condoning her either, and damning himself in the process.
But there is an Achilles heel to everyone, Escrove believed, and John Fuller’s was one of the first he had discovered on his arrival in Welden.
So it had been a very easy matter to convince John Fuller of the seriousness with which Sir George wished to pursue the roots of evil in the parish. That the Father not only had his full backing, but that Sir George had explicitly stated that everyone in his parish should lend their full support to these investigations, or be deemed to be preventing the minister from doing his good work.
And, seeing the fear in John Fuller’s eyes, it had been a very easy matter indeed to make one last step. It was something Father Escrove dropped lightly into their conversation, as if it were a passing matter, something irrelevant but somehow just worth mentioning, and he saved it for the end.
“Of course,” he said to John Fuller. “You are the tenant of the mill? Sir George is your landlord? I assume it would not do, it would not do at all, to anger your landlord? Especially at a time when the rent is to be discussed…”
John Fuller wept openly then.
He wept, thinking of the gentle man who used to work for him, William Tunstall, who had not been evil, but who had taken some weak decisions in life and ended up a laborer in a mill.
And he thought about William’s daughter, Anna.
“So,” said Father Escrove. “I can assume you will not obstruct my work?”
John Fuller shook his head, just the slightest movement.
Father Escrove wasn’t done.
“And the girl is not to work here, not while her innocence is in question.”
John looked up.
“Not work here?” he said. “Innocence? And if her innocence is proven, then she can come back and work?”
Father Escrove smiled.
“Certainly,” he said. “Certainly.” Then he added. “Though I very much doubt that will be the case.”
20 WITCHCRAFT IN ENGLAND
Anna was on the tentergrounds and England lay beneath her feet and her fingertips as she hung the damp cloth on the tenterhooks to dry in the sun. Cloth that she had already hung flapped and beat in the breeze that wisped across the dying grass of the fields, and she knew it was a perfect day for drying.
The poles on which the tenterhooks were fixed were planted in the ground at a slant, leaning away from the wet weight they had to bear. The hooks were fixed to the top of these poles by short lengths of twine, and for the first time Anna saw the twist in this twine, how the threads spiralled around each other, like the tendril of the vine winds around whatever it can find to cling to.
Tom was at home, resting, she hoped.
His fits had come more often than before and it seemed he was keen for sleep through the long hot days. She wondered if she would ever be able to help him. Her mother never had found the solution, and Joan had been a far more skilled woman than she.
She wondered if she could earn enough money at Fuller’s Mill to pay for a doctor to come from Deepdale to look at Tom one day, and that thought gave her hope, a hope for the future.
* * *
If she could, Anna kept her back to the sun as she worked. Her skin burned easily and this summer seemed to want to do her harm, just as it was scorching the world around her with the onslaught of heat, day after day after day.
She was nearly done with the new bundle, and began to hook up the last damp cloth, looking forward to the cool walk back down through Callis Wood, with the dry cloths to take back with her, much lighter than the ones she’d fetched up from the valley floor.
* * *
They came from all sides.
Jack Smith and his violent boy came along the wall of the churchyard, where Anna’s mother lay rotting.
John Fuller came up from the Mill on the track that kept Callis Wood from Horsehold Wood, and from the trees of the latter came Adam and Maggie Dolen. Others followed, word having been spread by the mouths of those without thought: the Smith twins, Ma Birch, Anne Sutton.
But it was John Fuller who Anna saw first as she turned, heaving the dry bundle onto her back.
“John?”
“Anna. You’re to come with us.”
He didn’t look at her, but at a spot near her feet.
Anna stared at him. She tried not to look at the others, for they filled her with fear.
“John?”
“To the manor. You’re to come to the manor. Leave the cloth here, Anna.”
So, this time, Anna walked quietly with her captors.
She led the way. They followed behind her, as if she were the priest leading her flock, and though she walked quietly, inside she was screaming.
21 DAMNATION
The hall of the manor had become a courthouse.
The dining table had been moved to one end of the room under the high window, and behind it sat Father Escrove, flanked on one side by Sir George, on the other by Samuel Hamill, Sir George’s heir.
Lady Hamill, Robert, and Agnes sat in chairs to the side of the table, their servants behind them.
The room was packed, and the villagers stared about them, fo
r almost none of them had ever been privileged enough to be invited over the front step of the manor house, never mind the hall.
In a small clearing of the people, in front of the table, Anna Tunstall stood with her hands clasped together to try to stop the trembling.
The man in black didn’t look at the girl in black.
He had his eyes turned down to some papers on the table before him, and was writing slowly and carefully with a quill.
The whole room waited while he completed his task, methodically.
Finally, satisfied, he looked to Sir George on his right-hand side.
“These things must be done true. Yes, Sir George?”
The old knight closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw that Father Escrove was at last looking at the girl before them.
“Her hair,” Father Escrove quoted, “‘in wanton ringlets waved, as the vine curls her tendrils.’”
His words fell onto the floor between him and the girl, who wanted to do nothing but run, though she knew that was impossible. Twenty strong men stood between her and the door.
The minister made his opening address.
“This land is full of witches; they abound in all places. I have hanged five or six and thirty of them. There is no man here who can speak more of this than myself. Few of these witches would confess it. Some of them did, against whom the proofs were nothing so manifest as those that denied it.
“The Devil is a spirit of darkness; he deals closely and cunningly. You shall hardly find any direct proofs against such a case, but by many presumptions and circumstances you may gather the truth in. They have on their bodies diverse strange marks at which the Beast sucks; for they have forsaken God, renounced their baptism, if ever they had it, and vowed their service to the Devil. And they have inflicted their powers upon the innocent.
“Therefore, we call forth witnesses, they who have reason to know that the girl before the table today is guilty of these many perverse crimes.”
Here Father Escrove pointed at Grace Dolen.
“Come forward,” he said solemnly. “Speak.”
Grace did as she was told.
She found a good deal of that sadness she had summoned before, and so she made a pitiful sight as she made great show of being unable to look at Anna, for terror.
“She killed my baby,” she whispered, and the congregation gasped.
Anna shook.
“No,” she said. “No.”
The minister screamed across the table.
“Silence!”
And Anna fell silent.
Encouraged, Grace had more in her that she wanted to say.
“She killed my baby. Her and her mother did it. They made it sicker every day.”
“We were trying to help!” cried Anna, and Father Escrove roared at her again, scaring her into silence once more.
“They smeared potions on him. They said it would cure him, but they killed him!”
Grace’s eyes were alight now and she no longer seemed scared of Anna.
Father Escrove pointed at the accused.
“You smeared potions on the infant of this girl. Do you deny it?”
“No,” said Anna. “No, but it was to help him.”
Father Escrove bent to his quill and paper.
“She does not deny it.”
He lifted his head.
“Your mother was a cunning woman, yes?”
Anna nodded.
“And you are a cunning woman, yes?”
“We only ever tried to help people—”
“Answer the question! You are a cunning woman! And you practice evil crafts for that!”
“No!” cried Anna. “No. We only ever helped people. That’s all. Nothing more.”
“Be silent!”
Father Escrove pointed his finger at her again.
“Be silent. Bring forth the next witness!”
He swung his hand at Maggie Dolen and her husband.
“Your daughter’s babe was killed, just as she describes?”
Maggie Dolen seemed to have lost her tongue, a rarity that the village was amazed to see. But Adam Dolen had not.
“She did kill the boy,” he said. “Her and her mother.”
“My mother is dead!” cried Anna. “Let her be!”
“She does all sorts of evil up there—everyone knows it.”
“What sort of evil?”
“There are pots,” said Adam Dolen. “There are things in pots, and herbs, and liquids. And all to do harm.”
“No!” cried Anna. “They do no harm. And you know it. You came to my mother yourself. You came to get a paste for your sore foot! You came!”
Anna turned to the room, desperately.
“You came! You all came! You all came for something. Tell him! Tell him you know it’s for good.”
But none spoke. Not one of them, though some had the decency to look at the floor when they felt Anna’s eyes settle on them.
In the silence that followed, Adam Dolen felt a clever idea appear in his head.
“All sorts of things in that cottage,” he said. “And there are books.”
“Books?” asked Father Escrove, leaning forward.
“Books. Books that have evil in them.”
“Why, I can’t even read!” cried Anna. “What would I want with books?”
“Silence! The accused will be silent!” screamed Father Escrove, and his anger was so terrifying that Anna was struck dumb.
“Let us speak,” said Father Escrove, “of the brother of the accused.”
Anna’s head flicked up. Tom? What of Tom?
“I have it here recorded,” Father Escrove was saying, “from the witness of several persons here present, that Thomas Tunstall, brother to the accused, is prone to strange shakings and disturbances of both body and mind. That is so.”
And that, no one denied. Not even Anna, but Father Escrove wasn’t finished.
“And that these disturbances and symptoms, far from being natural, are indeed of unnatural origin, and do show nothing more or less than the truth that the boy is possessed by spirits!”
Father Escrove rose to his feet and pointed at Anna.
“You have caused this! You have dallied with the Devil and your brother has suffered! Possessed! Infected! And you cannot deny it!”
“I do!” shouted Anna, her voice hoarse from screaming. “I do! I deny it. Tom has a sickness. Nothing more! He has a sickness. That I will cure!”
“With your wicked potions, no doubt! You play God with your own flesh and blood! You invite Satan into him, and then would run for fear when you are unable to send him out again! You foul creature!”
The minister thumped the tabletop with his fist, over and over again, as he assailed Anna with words she could not refute.
He dropped back into his seat, his chest heaving for breath in the sweltering room. Sweat ran freely from his brow.
The room seemed to hover for a moment, held in thrall, and then Father Escrove said, in little more than a whisper, “bring forth the next witness.”
He lifted that dreadful finger again, and this time the crowd was struck with awe as they saw on whom it fell.
Agnes Hamill, only daughter of Sir George.
“Step forward, child,” said Father Escrove, and the terrified child stepped forward.
“Please, Father,” said Sir George, but the minister cut him such a look as to send him slumping back into his chair.
Agnes stared at the minister, who smiled in return.
“Agnes, my child. Will you please tell the court what you heard your brother say to Lady Hamill’s wet nurse in the night? Tell us, child, tell us loudly and clearly.”
Samuel Hamill was staring at his little sister.
Robert Hamill shifted uneasily in his chair.
Agnes spoke.
“He said she was a witch.”
“I did not!” said Robert, and then all eyes were on him, including those of Father Escrove.
“You did not
?” he said, his eyebrows raised. “Did you not say ‘she has bewitched me’?”
Robert stared wildly at Grace, then quickly lowered his eyes.
“What did you mean by that? ‘She has bewitched me’ You have lately been sick, have you not? You did not dine with us, for this sickness. Do you deny that?”
“I do not,” said Robert, quietly, “but I did not call Anna a witch.”
“Anna? You know her name?”
“We all know her name,” said Robert quickly.
“I see,” said Escrove. “So what did you mean when you said she had bewitched you?”
Robert’s mouth opened, but he said nothing. He fought to find an answer.
“Please,” cried Anna. “Tell him! Tell him what you did.”
Father Escrove leaped.
“What? What is this? What is she speaking of? Have you spoken with this wench?”
Robert was shaking his head. His mouth was a grim thin line. The minister’s eyes held him and Robert could not look away, of which he was glad, for it meant he could not look at Anna, who he had desired.
“No!” he said then. “Of course not! Why would I ever have spoken to a girl like her?”
“Quite so!” said Father Escrove. “She lies, just as they all do. To use lies against the innocent. The court will witness this!”
Anna broke into sobs, and her head hung as her tears fell.
Escrove stood.
“Enough!” he declared. “We must try other means. Such evil women have marks upon them—the place where the Devil sucks. It is merely enough to find these marks to have proof of malice. Strip her.”
The room tensed, and a terrible silence descended.
No one moved.
Escrove pointed at Elizabeth Smith, Anne Sutton.
“Strip her. Find the marks.”
So it was that Anne Sutton stepped forward eagerly, and Elizabeth Smith less so, and with the help of the men, they began to silently wrestle Anna from her dress, in a soft dumb silent theatrical of a fight, in which hands groped and feet scuffled on the wide floorboards of the hall.
They had the dress ripped at the back and pulled down, and Anna stood covered only by her shift, and suddenly Samuel Hamill stood, pointing, and said one word.
“Stop!”
The dumb dance stopped and Anna stood hunched over, breathing hard, Swinging from her neck was a silver locket in the shape of a heart.