The Witch Hunter's Tale(3)

“What in God’s name is a ‘Witch Finder’?” asked Martha.

I shook my head. While we’d heard of the trials and hangings—who in England hadn’t?—I’d never heard of such an office.

“For that, you can buy the book,” Newcome said with a wolfish grin. “But I’ll tell you this—it is said that he strikes such fear in the hearts of witches that when he comes to a town, they search out a Justice and confess of their own free will. They say that hundreds have been executed. After today’s hanging I shouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happens here.”

“Here in York?” Martha asked. “Are you sure?”

“Sure?” Newcome asked. He turned the word over on his tongue as if it were new and entirely unfamiliar. “Who can be sure of anything in such unsettled times? But it is what I have heard. And once the hanging starts…” His voice trailed off, and I looked toward the gibbet. Hester’s body swayed slightly in the wind. I suddenly felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the winter weather.

I glanced at Martha and saw the concern on her face mirrored my own. I thanked the chapman for his offer, and we resumed our journey home. As we walked away, I could hear Newcome crying out his pamphlets, selling blood to a bloody-minded people.

When we turned onto Stonegate, the street that would take us home, the north wind howled against us, seemingly intent on ripping our cloaks from our backs. I pulled mine more tightly around me, but it made no difference. I gave thanks when we turned out of the wind and onto my own little street. Though I’d lived in my house for nearly ten years I still found wonder in how much had changed in that time.

I’d made the long journey from Hereford to York as a young widow—could I have been just twenty-three years old?—promised in marriage to Phineas Hodgson, a man I’d never met. As it turned out, Phineas was among England’s least competent merchants, and from our first day as husband and wife until he died in 1642, I spent most of my waking hours defending my estates from his foolish schemes. My two beautiful children, Birdy and Michael, were the only good that came of the union  —God’s way of balancing the scales, it seemed. But Michael died soon after he was born, and in the months that followed, death visited my home with terrifying frequency. After Michael, he took Phineas, and a few months later he returned for Birdy. In less than a year, my maidservant Hannah and I found ourselves the only survivors of this dreadful reaping.

It was midwifery that kept me afloat when I feared I might slip beneath the waves of melancholy that battered me so, as I threw myself into that work with what little strength I still had. When a mother was in travail, I could not think about my own lost children, and the friendships I made as a midwife kept my spirit alive. Soon after, Martha appeared at my door begging for a position as a maidservant. I took her in and began to train her in the mysteries of midwifery. A few weeks later, we met an orphaned boy named Tree, and he became a son of sorts. While he still lived at the Castle in the care of one of the jailors, he often came to my house for a meal or to spend the night in a feather bed. Though they did not know it, Martha and Tree, my newfound sister and son, had begun the work of healing my grief-ravaged soul.

When we opened the front door to my home, the newest member of my household raced out of the kitchen and, with masses of red hair streaming behind her, fell into my arms. “Ma,” Elizabeth cried. “Hannah has made cakes, and they are almost done!”

Elizabeth’s mother had been one of the doxies murdered the previous summer, and Elizabeth had come to live with me in the aftermath. When she first came to my house, she had been entirely unsure of what to call me. Lady Bridget seemed too formal for such a little one, better suited to friends than family. She’d called her own mother Mum, and wouldn’t use that name. I had told her that she could call me whatever she liked, and eventually she settled on Ma. I could not have been happier. In her first months with me, Elizabeth kept a safe distance as she mourned her mother and the life she’d lost. But gradually her wounds healed, and while I still found her crying from time to time, such occasions had become far less frequent. Elizabeth took Martha and me by our hands and led us into the kitchen, where Hannah was indeed removing cakes from the oven.

“I thought you would need something sweet after such a day,” she said. Hannah had been with me for over twenty years, and she knew me well. I gratefully accepted one of the cakes.

“Can I give one to Sugar?” Elizabeth asked. A small cat had entwined himself around Elizabeth’s ankles and was meowing plaintively. Without waiting for an answer, she broke a corner off her cake and offered it to the cat. Sugar sniffed the crumb, concluded it was not to his liking, and stalked off with Elizabeth close behind trying to convince him to try it. Once Elizabeth had left the room, Hannah looked at me expectantly.