I crossed the room to Samuel’s desk and glanced at the list of prisoners he’d admitted that day. One caught my eye: Mother Lee, Upper Poppleton.
“You have Mother Lee?” I asked.
Samuel looked at me in surprise. “You know her?” he asked. “She came in with two other witches from north of the city.”
“Martha and I were there when her neighbors decided to accuse her,” I said. “I’ll likely be called as a witness.”
“She’s upstairs if you want to see her,” Samuel volunteered. “You’re a friend, so I’ll not charge you more because she’s a witch. The amount other jailors are charging makes me blush, and that’s no mean feat.”
I looked at Martha, and she shrugged. “I suppose there’s nothing to be lost by talking to her,” I replied. “But I should have thought she’d be in the low dungeon.”
“Don’t remind me,” Samuel said. “The low dungeon is full, so I had to put some of the witches above. And do you think they are paying the customary fee for such a room? Not in this world.” Samuel shook his head at the injustice. “Well, come on then.”
I handed Samuel his pennies, and he led us up the stone staircase.
* * *
Samuel opened the heavy door into the upper cell, and though the women had only been imprisoned for a day, a horrid stench met us at the door. Samuel cursed under his breath and pushed past us into the cell. Martha and I followed for a few steps before we stopped, awestruck at the scene before us. A dozen women had been crowded into the small room. One occupied the narrow wooden bed, and the rest sat on the rush-covered floor, or stood staring at us. If these were the conditions above, I could not imagine how those living below were faring.
Samuel had crossed the cell and now examined the figure on the bed. He swore again, more loudly this time. “Well, I’ve found where the smell is coming from.”
I crossed the room and looked down at the woman. By my guess, she’d been dead for some hours, and when she’d died, her bowels had loosed, fouling both her skirts and the thin mattress beneath her. Her waxen flesh had taken on a bluish hue, and her toothless mouth gaped at the ceiling. None of her comrades had taken the trouble to close her eyes. With a brief prayer, I reached down and did her this small service.
“This isn’t the one you wanted to see, is it?” Samuel sighed.
“I don’t know.” I turned to the other women. “Which of you is Mother Lee from Poppleton?”
One of the women—hardly distinguishable from those around her—stepped forward. “I am.”
“Why don’t you talk to her downstairs,” Samuel suggested. “And, Martha, could you find a guard and tell him what’s happened here? Send him to the Warden for some help fetching the body and dragging out the mattress.”
Martha and I agreed and, with Mother Lee close behind, we descended the stairs. Martha stepped outside and sent a guard for help before returning. I took a moment and looked over Mother Lee. Despite the conditions in the cell above, she seemed healthy enough—she’d only been there a day, I reminded myself—but it was abundantly clear that she had lived a life of poverty and want long before her arrest. Her skirts hung loose around her waist as if she’d once been a more substantial woman, but hadn’t bought new clothes as her frame shrank. I could also see that they had been mended many times over the years. There was a cruelty in her expression that I found profoundly unnerving.
“Who are you?” she asked. “And what do you want with me? I’ve already been searched, so there’s nothing more to find.”
“Rebecca Hooke searched you?” Martha asked.
Mother Lee nodded.
“And she found a teat?”
“She said she did.” Mother Lee would give us no more than she had to.
“I was with Lucy Pierce when she was in travail,” I said. “I delivered her of a stillborn child.”
“You’re a midwife then?” the old woman asked. “Makes sense. I saw you come and go.”
“The neighbors say you bewitched the baby.”
“Not the baby, the mother.” Mother Lee spoke with barely controlled fury. “She deserved everything that happened to her, and worse. I cursed her for her want of kindness, and it killed the child. So be it.”
“You murdered the child?” Martha asked, amazed by such casual cruelty.
Mother Lee smiled at the memory, and it made my skin crawl. She was a foul woman indeed.
“She invited all the neighbors except me to her travail,” Mother Lee said. Poison dripped from every word. “All save me. She offered them food, drink, and a well-fired hearth, while I watched from the cold. How would you have me repay such unkindness? I threw a few stones, cracked a window, and said a few words. I had my revenge.”