The Vanishing Witch

by Karen Maitland

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Take one wealthy merchant. Add one charming widow. And one dying wife.

The reign of Richard II is troubled, the poor are about to become poorer still and landowners are lining their pockets. It's a case of every man for himself, whatever his status or wealth. But in a world where nothing can be taken at face value, who can you trust?

The dour wool merchant?
His impulsive son?
The stepdaughter with the hypnotic eyes?
Or the raven-haired widow clutching her necklace of bloodstones?

And when people start dying unnatural deaths and the peasants decide it's time to fight back, it's all too easy to spy witchcraft at every turn.

Release date: January 1, 2012

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 480

Sample

Legend tells that seven hundred years before our story begins . . .

. . . in the days of the Saxons, in the kingdom of Lindsey, there was Ealdorman who had a beautiful daughter, Æthelind. She was famed throughout all her tribe not only for her knowledge of herbs and healing, but for her ability to tame animals. There was no bucking horse that would not grow calm when she fearlessly laid her hand upon its flank, or a savage dog that would not roll over like a puppy when she approached.

One day when she was out in the forest gathering herbs, the men were hunting a wild boar that had killed several villagers and trampled their crops. As their hounds trailed after it, they saw to their horror that it had changed course and was charging straight towards Æthelind. When she grasped its lethal tusks, it laid its great head meekly in her lap, and there remained until the huntsmen came to slay it. In gratitude for her bravery, her people gave her an amulet for her cloak in the form of a golden boar’s head studded with red garnets.

Æthelind’s reputation spread far and wide and many noble Saxons came to ask for her hand in marriage. Her father finally agreed to give his daughter to the son of the king himself, a match that would bring great honour to his hall, peace and prosperity to the tribe.

But the day before the wedding, Æthelind fell asleep in a grove of oak trees and a snake crawled into her mouth, slid down her throat and coiled itself inside her. When she returned to her father’s mead hall, her belly was swollen as if she was great with child. The king’s son, who was being entertained in the hall, was seized with rage that his intended bride should have shamed him by taking a lesser man to her bed.

Before all the company he drew his sword and struck off her head, but as her body fell to the ground, the snake slithered out from between her legs, like a newborn babe, and transformed into a beautiful human child, who cursed the prince. At once, the ground that was stained with Æthelind’s blood fell away and the prince plunged through the dark earth into a pit of vipers. As the earth closed over him the serpents stung him to death, then instantly revived him that he might be tormented to death again. And thus he will suffer night and day throughout the ages until the great wolf Fenris breaks the chain that binds it, heralding the end of the world.

Meanwhile, Æthelind’s kin sorrowfully gathered up her head and body and burned them on a great funeral pyre. They placed her ashes in an urn with the golden boar’s head they had given her. The urn was inscribed with the ouroboros, the snake that devours its tail, a symbol of the eternal cycle of death and rebirth. That night, when the moon rose, they carried the urn in a torchlight procession to the top of a cliff, close to the walls of a ruined city the Romans had called Lindum. There they laid it in a cave with the burial urns of her elders.

And they say that when lightning flashes from the sky and thunder roars, Æthelind rides out over the cliff, her hair streaming in the wind, leading the wild hunt. But woe betide any man who witnesses that fearful sight, for she will hunt him down until he can run no more and his body lies broken at her feet.

A killing ointment made of arsenic, vitriol, baby’s fat, bat’s blood and hemlock may be spread on the latches, gates and doorposts of houses in the dark of night. Thus can death run swiftly through a town.

‘Help me! I beg you, help me!’

The cry was muffled in the dense, freezing mist that swirled over the black river. As his punt edged upstream, Gunter caught the distant wail and dug his pole into the river bottom, trying to hold his boat steady against the swift current. The shout seemed to have come from the bank somewhere ahead, but Gunter could barely see the flame of his lantern in the bow, much less who might be calling.

The cry came again. ‘In your mercy, for the sake of Jesus Christ, help me!’

The mist distorted the sound so Gunter couldn’t be sure if it was coming from right or left. He struggled to hold the punt in the centre of the river and cursed himself. He should have hauled up somewhere for the night long before this, but it had taken four days to move the cargo downriver to Boston and return this far. He was desperate to reach home and reassure himself that his wife and children were safe.

Yesterday he’d seen the body of a boatman fished out of the river. The poor bastard had been beaten bloody, robbed and stabbed. Whoever had murdered him had not even left him the dignity of his breeches. And he wasn’t the first boatman in past weeks to be found floating face down with stab wounds in his back.

‘Is anyone there?’ the man called again, uncertainly this time, as if he feared he might be speaking to a ghost or water sprite.

Such a thought had also crossed Gunter’s mind. Two children had drowned not far from here and it was said their ghosts prowled the bank luring others to their deaths in the icy river.

‘What are you?’ Gunter yelled back. ‘Name yourself.’

‘A humble Friar of the Sack, a Brother of Penitence.’ The voice was deep and rasping, as if it had rusted over the years from lack of use. ‘The mist . . . I stumbled into the bog and almost drowned in the mud. I’m afraid to move, in case I sink into the mire or fall into the river.’

Now Gunter could make out dark shapes through the billows of mist, but the glimpses were so fleeting he couldn’t tell if they were men or trees. Every instinct told him to ignore the stranger and push on up the river. This was exactly the kind of trick the river-rats used to lure craft to the bank so that they could rob the boatmen. The man they’d found in the water had been a strapping lad, with two sound legs. Gunter had only one. His left leg had been severed at the knee and replaced by a wooden stump with a foot in the form of an upturned mushroom, not unlike the end of one of his own punt poles. Although he could walk as fast as any man, if it came to a fight, he could easily be knocked off balance.

But the stranger on the bank would not give up. ‘I beg you, in God’s mercy, help me. I’m wet and starving. I fear dawn will see me a frozen corpse if I stay out here all night.’

The rasping tone of the man’s voice made it sound more like a threat than a plea, but Gunter had been cold and hungry often enough in his life to know the misery those twin demons could inflict and the night was turning bitter. There’d be a hard frost come morning. He knew he’d never forgive himself if he left a man out here to die.

‘Call again, and keep calling till I can see you,’ he instructed.

He listened to the voice and propelled his punt towards the left bank, eventually drawing close enough to make out the shape of a hooded figure in a long robe standing close by the water’s edge. Gunter tightened his hold on the quant: with its metal foot, the long pole could be turned into a useful weapon if the man tried to seize the boat.

The friar’s breath hung white in the chill air, mingling with the icy vapour of the river. As soon as the prow of the punt came close, he bent as if he meant to grab it. But Gunter was ready for that. He whisked the quant over to the other side of the punt and pushed away from the bank, calculating that the man would not risk jumping in that robe.

‘By the blood of Christ, I swear I mean you no harm.’ But the man’s voice sounded even more menacing now that Gunter was close. The friar stretched out his right arm into the pool of light cast by the lantern. The folds of his sleeve hung down, thick and heavy with mud. Slowly, with the other hand, he peeled back the sodden sleeve to reveal an arm that ended at the wrist. ‘I am hardly a threat to any man.’

Gunter felt an instant flush of shame. He resented any man’s pity for his own missing limb and was offering none to the friar, but he despised himself for his distrust and cowardice. It couldn’t have been easy for the friar to pull himself free of the mire that had swallowed many an unwary traveller.

Gunter had always believed that priests and friars were weaklings who’d chosen the Church to avoid blistering their hands in honest toil and sweat. But this man was no minnow and he was plainly determined not to meet his Creator yet, for all that he was in Holy Orders.

Gunter brought the punt close to the bank, and held it steady in the current for the friar to climb in and settle himself on one of the cross planks. His coarse, shapeless robe clung wetly to his body, plastered with mud and slime. He sat shivering, his hood pulled so low over his head that Gunter could see nothing of his face.

‘I’ll take you as far as High Bridge in Lincoln,’ Gunter said. ‘There are several priories just outside the city, south of the river. You’ll find a bed and a warm meal in one, especially with you being in Holy Orders.’

‘It’s close then, the city?’ the friar rasped. ‘I’ve been walking for days to reach it.’

‘If it weren’t for this fret, you’d be able to see the torches blazing on the city walls and even the candles in the windows of the cathedral.’

Gunter pushed the punt steadily upstream, trying to peer through the mist at the water in front. He knew every twist and turn of the river as well as he knew the face of his own beloved wife. He didn’t expect other craft to be abroad at this late hour, but there was always the danger of branches or barrels being swept downstream and crashing into his craft.

‘So what brings you to Lincoln?’ he asked, without taking his gaze from the water. ‘You’ll not find any of your order here. I heard tell there was once a house belonging to Friars of the Sack in Lincoln, but that was before the Great Pestilence. House is still there, but none of your brothers has lived in it for years.’

‘It is not my brethren I seek,’ the friar said.

They were passing between the miserable hovels that lined the banks on the far outskirts of the city and the mist was less dense. Gunter was anxious to drop off his passenger as soon as he could: he was impatient to get home, but there was something in the man’s voice that unnerved him. There was a bitter edge to it that made everything he said sound like a challenge, however innocuous the words. Still, that was friars for you, whatever order they came from. When they weren’t shrieking about the torments of Hell, they were demanding alms and threatening you with eternal damnation if you didn’t pay up.

‘So,’ Gunter said, ‘why have you come? I warn you, Lincoln’s going through hard times. You’ll not find many with money to spare for beggars, even holy ones. You’d have done better to make for Boston. That’s where all the money’s gone since we lost the wool staple to it.’

The friar gave a low, mirthless laugh. ‘Do you think I walked all these miles for a handful of pennies? Do you see this?’

Using his teeth and left hand, he unlaced the neck of his robe and pulled it down. Then he lifted the lantern from the prow of the punt, letting the light from the candle shine full upon his chest. What Gunter saw caused him to jerk so violently that he missed his stroke and almost fell into the river. He could only stare in horror, until the man dragged his robe into place again.

‘You ask what I seek, my friend,’ the friar growled. ‘I seek justice. I seek retribution. I seek vengeance.’

To guard against witches, draw the guts and organs from a dove while it still lives and hang them over the door of your house. Then neither witch nor spell can enter.

While I lived I was never one of those who could see ghosts. I thought those who claimed they did were either moon-touched or liars. But when you’re dead, my darlings, you find yourself amazed at what you didn’t see when you were alive. I exist now in a strange half-light. I see the trees and cottages, byres and windmills, but not as they once were to me. They’re pale, with only hints of colour, like unripe fruit. They’re new to this world. But I see other cottages too, those that had crumbled to dust long before I was born. They’re still there, crowded into the villages, snuggled tight between the hills, old and ripe, rich with hues of yellow and brown, red clay and white limewash. They’re brighter, but less solid than the new ones, like reflections in the still waters of a lake, seeming so vibrant, yet the first breeze will riffle them into nothing.

And so it is with people. The living are there, not yet ripe enough to fall from the bough of life into death. But they are not the only ones who pass along the streets and alleys or roam the forests and moors. There are others, like me, who have left life, but cannot enter death. Some stay where they lived, repeating a walk or a task, believing that if only they could complete it they might depart. They never will. Others wander the highways looking for a cave, a track or a door that will lead from this world to the one beyond, full of such wonders as they have only dreamed of.

Many, the saddest of all, try to rejoin the living. Sweethearts run in vain after their lovers, begging them to turn and look at them. Children scrabble nightly at the doors of cottages, crying for a mother, any mother, to take them in and love them. Babies lurk down wells or lie under sods, waiting their chance to creep inside a living woman’s womb and be born again as her child.

And me? I cannot depart, not yet. I was wrenched out of life before my time, hurled into death without warning, so I must tarry until I have seen my tale to its proper conclusion for there is someone I watch and someone I watch over. I will not leave them until I’ve brought their stories to an end.

Robert of Bassingham gazed at the eleven other members of the Common Council, slouching in their chairs, and sighed. It had been a long afternoon. The old guildhall chamber was built across the main thoroughfare of Lincoln city, and the bellows of pedlars, the rumble of carts and ox wagons, the chatter of people clacking over the stones in wooden pattens meant that the small windows of the chamber had to be kept shut, if the aged members were to hear the man next to them.

As a consequence, the air was stale with the sour breath of old men and the lingering odour of the mutton olives, goat chops and pork meatballs on which the councillors had been grazing. It being a warm day, they’d been compelled to wash down these morsels with flagons of costly hippocras, a spiced wine, which had already worked its soporific magic on several. Three of the sleepers had carefully positioned a hand over their eyes so that they could pretend to be concentrating, while a fourth was lolling with his mouth open, snoring and farting almost as loudly as the hound at his feet.

Robert was inordinately fond of hippocras but had deliberately refrained from imbibing, knowing he, too, would doze off. He was painfully conscious of the heavy responsibilities he had now assumed as the newly elected master of the Guild of Merchants, the most powerful guild in Lincolnshire and still the wealthiest, even though it was not as prosperous as once it had been.

Robert was a cloth merchant of the city of Lincoln, well respected – at least, by those who measure a man’s worth by the size of his purse and influence. He made a good living selling wool and the red and green cloth for which Lincoln was justly famed. Having only recently been appointed to serve on the Common Council he was one of its younger members, still in his early fifties.

He had acquired his wealth painstakingly over the years, for though he was a numbskull in matters of love, he was shrewd in business. He’d bought a stretch of the land on the bank of the river Witham from a widow after her husband’s death, having persuaded her it was worth little, which you could argue was the truth: the ground was too marshy even for sheep to thrive on it. But a Lincoln merchant must have boats to send his goods to the great port at Boston and boatmen must have somewhere to live close to the river: Robert had built a few cottages on the wasteland and earned a good sum renting them to those who carried his cargoes. If ‘earn’ is the right word for money that a man demands from others but never collects in person. And, believe me, there were many men in England that year who had cause to resent all such landlords . . .

Robert banged his pewter beaker of small ale on the long table. The slumbering members jerked upright, glowering at him. Had not the newcomer the common courtesy to let a man sleep in peace?

‘I say again,’ Robert announced, ‘we must petition King Richard to give us leave to raise an additional tax in Lincoln to rebuild the guildhall.’ He gestured to the ominous cracks in the stone wall, which were almost wide enough to insert a finger in. ‘If another wagon should crash into the pillar below, it will bring us all tumbling down into the street.’

‘But the townspeople will never stand for it,’ Hugh de Garwell protested. ‘Thanks to John of Gaunt whispering in the young King’s ear, the commonality have already been bled dry to raise money for these pointless wars in France and Scotland.’

Several council members glanced uneasily at one another. It was hard to determine how far you could criticise the boy-king in public without being accused of treason, and while King Richard might yet forgive much, his uncle, John of Gaunt, had spies everywhere and was known to deal ruthlessly with any man who so much as muttered a complaint in his sleep. And since Gaunt was constable of Lincoln Castle, no one in that chamber could be certain that one of his fellow council members was not in that devil’s pay.

Robert regarded Hugh sourly. They were, for the most part, good friends, but it irritated him that Hugh seemed convinced a city could be run on pennies and pig-swill. He heaved himself from the chair and paced to the small window, trying to ease the cramp in his legs, as he stared down at the crowds milling below.

‘See there! Three carts trying to barge through the arch at the same time and none of them willing to give way to another. The people may not want to pay, but if this building collapses on top of them, dozens will be crushed in the rubble. Then they’ll be demanding to know why we didn’t do something sooner.’

‘So tax the guilds to pay for it, not the poor alewives and labourers,’ Hugh said. ‘The Guild of Merchants alone is wealthy enough to build a dozen new halls, if they were to sell some of the gold and silver they have locked away. They’ve grown as fat as maggots on the carcass of this city, so they . . .’

But Robert wasn’t listening. His attention had been caught by a woman standing quite still among the bustle of the crowd, staring up at the window. She was clad in a dark blue gown, over which she wore a sleeveless surcoat of scarlet, embroidered with silver threads. Even at that distance, Robert could tell from the way the cloth hung, accentuating her slender figure, and from the vivid, even quality of the dye that it was of the best. His thumb and fingers twitched as if they itched to feel the weave.

Ever the merchant, Robert always took more notice of the cloth a woman wore than her face and he probably wouldn’t have taken another glance at her, except that she was gazing up at him intently. He stared back. He couldn’t distinguish her features clearly enough to determine her age, though the gleaming black hair beneath her silver fret suggested youth.

She seemed to make up her mind about something and, with a nod towards him, she threaded her way through the jostling pedlars to the door that led up to the council chamber and disappeared.

A merchant who prides himself on his calm and calculated reasoning is not a man to act on impulse but, to his surprise, Robert found himself striding rapidly to the door and out onto the staircase, leaving Hugh staring after him open-mouthed.

Robert, descending the steep spiral stairs with care, fully expected to encounter the woman on her way up, but he reached the bottom without passing anyone and found only the watchman squatting in the doorway, picking his teeth with the tip of his knife blade. On sensing Robert behind him, he hauled himself upwards against the wall, and made a clumsy half-bow.

Robert eyed him with disgust. His tunic was open and covered with the stains of ancient meals and his hairy belly was so large that it hung over his breeches. Robert was portly, but a wealthy man was expected to look sleek and well-fed. A watchman, on the other hand, was supposed to be as fit as a battle-hardened soldier, ready to defend his betters against danger. This blubber-arse looked as if he’d collapse if he was obliged even to lift his pike, never mind fight with it.

‘Did a woman come to the door a few moments ago?’ Robert demanded.

‘A woman, you say?’ The watchman scratched his navel, gazing absently at the passing crowd. ‘Aye, there was a woman. Matter of fact, she were asking for you, Master Robert. But I told her, I says, Master Robert’s an important man. He’s in council, and he’ll not thank you for disturbing him and the other gentlemen.’

Robert frowned. It was not unheard of for women to buy or sell in the cloth trade, especially if their husbands were absent, but why should she come to the guildhall, rather than his place of business? Robert’s son, Jan, who was also his steward, would still be hard at work in the warehouse at this hour, which was why Robert could afford to waste an afternoon on the city’s affairs.

‘Did this woman leave a message, her name? Where am I to find her?’

He had asked the man three questions at once, which was like throwing three sticks for a dog: it wouldn’t know which to chase first. The watchman pondered for an age, then admitted he couldn’t answer any.

‘You should have asked her business,’ Robert snapped.

The watchman gave Robert a resentful look. ‘They pay me to keep people out as shouldn’t be in there, not to ask their business, which is their own affair.’

Frustrated, Robert lumbered back up the stairs, steeling himself to re-enter the stuffy chamber.

The debate had not moved on by a jot or tittle since he’d left. He wondered, not for the first time, whether the Common Council ever managed to reach agreement about anything. He pictured them still sitting round that table in a hundred years, their beards grown to the floor, cobwebs hanging from their ears, wagging their gnarled fingers and repeating for the thousandth time what someone else had said not five minutes before.

Robert had never been accustomed to consulting others. Once he had made up his mind to do something, he began it at once. He’d no more patience for these endless discussions than he would have to stitch a tapestry. Perhaps that was why he found his thoughts constantly wandering to the still figure who’d stared up at him so intently. He couldn’t drive her image from his head.

If you fear that you are in the presence of a witch, clench both your hands into fists with the thumbs tucked under your fingers. Then she cannot enchant your mind.

I did not intend to fall in love. In truth, I had not set eyes on Master Robert before that hour when I stood outside the guildhall. I didn’t know then that he was the man looking down from the window. But on that sultry September afternoon, Robert of Bassingham and I were about to find ourselves both pieces and players in a game of romance, both slayer and sacrifice. But of all the players who were to be drawn with us into that dangerous game, none could have guessed who would finally call checkmate.

Although I did not know Master Robert, I knew well his reputation and had come to the guildhall that day for the sole purpose of speaking with him. My children and I were newly arrived in Lincoln and I had no kin in the city to whom I could turn. Many men, and women too, delight in seeking out the vulnerable to gain their trust, only to rob them of all they have. I was determined not to become their prey.

But if I had believed the gossip of my neighbours, as they waited for the butcher to slice a piece of cow’s tongue or the fishmonger to knock a live carp on the head, I would have concluded there was not a single man of sound character left within the city walls. A woman called Maud, who lived in the same street as I, was the worst of the tale-bearers, with a tongue as sharp and malicious as the devil’s pitchfork. Before long I knew which men drank, who beat their wives and who had a string of whores. I learned the name of every feckless husband who’d lost his money in wagers on the fighting cocks, and all the miserly fathers who made their children wear splintered barrel-staves on their feet to save on shoe-leather.

But I knew how to sift the words of others and so it was that, in spite of what the witch, Maud, had said about him and his little weaknesses, or perhaps because of what she had said, I came to believe that of all the men in Lincoln the one I should seek out was Robert of Bassingham.

I thought carefully about how I should approach him. A merchant like Master Robert would be pestered by all manner of people begging for his precious time and I feared I might be brushed aside. But if you want to capture the attention of a thief you flash a gold coin, if a scholar a rare book, so I had taken care to dress in a gown that would gladden the heart of any cloth merchant.

I’d meant to wait patiently outside until the meeting of the Common Council ended and ask someone to conduct me to him, so we might speak in the privacy of the empty chamber, but as I waited a man came to the window and stared down at me so fixedly that I was ashamed to be seen loitering and approached the watchman to ask if Robert was within. I was dismissed as though I were a stew-house whore.

A weaker woman might have given up. Not I. I’d already discovered that Robert of Bassingham had a warehouse on the Braytheforde harbour so I made my way there, hoping he might return.

The banks of the Braytheforde were crowded with warehouses and taverns, chandlers and boatyards. The screams of the gulls mingled with the shouts of the workers, the hammering and sawing of the boat builders. Men strode past, carrying long planks on their shoulders, and women hurried by, with panniers of fish on their backs. Everyone was scurrying about, so it was hard to find anyone who would stop long enough to point out Robert’s warehouse. Finally a boatman gestured towards the largest and busiest building on the quayside, a great wooden structure facing the jetty where little boats were moored.

A man with red-gold hair was standing with his back to me in the doorway, directing the men who were offloading bales from a nearby boat and hefting them into the warehouse. He turned as I approached and his mouth stretched into an easy smile, as if he was always ready to call any stranger ‘friend’. I realised he was far too young to be the man I sought.

‘Forgive me for disturbing your work,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for Master Robert of Bassingham. Is he within?’

‘My father? No, mistress. He’s one of the Common Council and they’re sitting this afternoon, but he’ll probably call here before returning home. He usually does, to be sure I haven’t burned the place down or struck some ruinous deal.’ The young man grimaced. ‘I may be his son and his steward, but he watches me closely.’

I couldn’t help smiling. ‘I’m sure he trusts you, but a good merchant keeps his eye on every detail. No doubt that was how he became successful.’

The young man laughed, showing fine white teeth. ‘You know my father well, mistress. That is exactly what he says.’

‘I know him not at all, but that was what my own late husband used to tell me.’ I hesitated. ‘Do you think your father would spare me a few words on his return? I seek his advice in matter of some investments. I’m told there is none better, unless, of course, you can assist me.’ I touched his sleeve. ‘I’m sure you must know as much as your father.’

He flushed with pleasure. I had no intention of taking counsel from such a callow youth, but men are always flattered to be trusted. Compliment them on their handsome appearance – as I might have done now without a word of a lie – and they grow suspicious. Ask a man for his advice and he purrs and preens like a tom-cat.

Robert’s son gave a modest shrug. ‘I’ve worked with him since I was a boy and have run his business for some time now. And I do know—’

‘And what is it you know, Jan?’ a voice boomed.

Jan’s chin jerked up and a flicker of annoyance crossed his face.

I turned to look at the man standing behind me and saw the expression of surprise on his face that was undoubtedly on my own, for he was the man who had stared down at me from the guildhall window.

There was no mistaking that he was Jan’s father. Master Robert’s hair, though greying, showed the same red-gold threads as his son’s. Both were tall and broad-shouldered, but while Jan had the trimness of youth, his father’s waist had thickened. Maturity enhances the features of some men’s faces, though, and it had done so for Master Robert. He carried himself with the confidence of a man who knows he has achieved more than most in his life.

He inspected me as if I were a bale of cloth or a fleece to be graded and priced. ‘Mistress, I believe you came earlier to the Common Council and were refused admission.’

‘Please forgive me,’ I said, ‘I’d no wish to interrupt. I merely hoped to speak to you once your di