The Witch Hunter's Tale(68)

* * *

The wind was blessedly calm as Martha and I made our way south through the city. We said nothing as we passed the Ouse Bridge gaol that now held both Will and Tree. Members of the Town Watch eyed us as we passed through Micklegate Bar but waved us along.

“Joseph has increased the guard,” Martha murmured. “Even if we are successful in freeing them from prison, Will and Tree will be trapped in the city.”

“Let us clear one bar at a time,” I replied. “We will free them first and then sneak them out of the city.”

When we arrived at Helen Wright’s house I paused to gather myself. I had no illusions that the conversation would be an easy one. I’d insulted her too often to expect easy forgiveness. She would have me groveling before the afternoon had ended.

A maidservant I’d never met answered the door and summoned Stephen Daniels. Helen’s man smiled when he saw us, for he knew we had come a-begging.

“Come in, come in,” he urged. “You are nearly blue with cold.” He led us into Helen’s parlor, where a fire roared in the hearth. “I’ll send for some wine. Mrs. Wright will be down in a bit. Can I tell her what brings you here?”

I paused before answering. “It is a delicate matter,” I said. Daniels started to object, but I continued. “And one that does not lend itself to a short explanation.”

He nodded, whispered a few words in the maidservant’s ear, and sat in one of Helen’s large and beautifully covered chairs. As was his habit, he removed a piece of wood and a folding knife from his pocket and began to carve the wood into the shape of a snake. An uneasy silence filled the room, broken briefly when the maidservant returned with three glasses of wine. Martha and I had nearly emptied our glasses when Helen strode into the parlor. Her maidservant followed close behind with a glass of wine for Helen and a pitcher to refill Martha’s glass and mine.

“Lady Bridget, I hope the wine is to your liking,” Helen said. I searched her face for a sign of insincerity but found none. Martha glanced in my direction, no less confused by Helen’s hospitality than I was.

“It is marvelous,” I replied. And it was.

“I trust you are here about the recent … developments in the city,” she said. “If you continue to vex the city’s rulers, you will become as much an outcast as I am.”

I then understood her newfound charity: The world had finally put me in my place, just as it had her. For a moment pride reared up and urged me to deny her charge. But before I spoke I realized that she was not far from the mark. A witchcraft accusation against Elizabeth would mean her death, but it would also destroy my reputation within the city. I was as vulnerable as a bawd.

“We are here about my nephew, Will, and a boy named Tree,” I said. “Will has been taken for murder, and Tree for witchcraft.”

“And they are both innocent,” Helen said. “But what would you have me do about it? I hold no sway with the courts, not on such serious matters.”

I could not help feeling that she knew exactly why I had come and what I was about to ask of her. But she needed me to say the words aloud, to acknowledge my powerlessness. And in that moment all became clear. Since the day of my birth, I had done all that the world had asked of me. I married when I was told; I bore and buried my children without complaint. I hectored girls in the height of their travail until they told me who had gotten them with child. And then I delivered them for whipping. When the law saw fit to let a murderer go free, I meekly accepted the decision. I was the ideal wife, mother, and midwife.

And to what end? What had a lifetime of compliance done for me? My nephew and my son stood on the gallows, and an Alderman and his Searcher had threatened to send my daughter to join them. My rank, my name, my coat of arms—all were worth nothing. Had I been born a man, I would have towered over York, the greatest hero it had ever known. But because I was a woman, Joseph would soon destroy the life I had built, and there was nothing within the bounds of the law that I could do to stop him.

“I need your help to break them out of Ouse Bridge gaol,” I said.

Helen nodded. She had learned these hard lessons years before and took no satisfaction that at long last I recognized the grim truth.

“It will cost you dearly,” she replied. I did not know if she meant the money I would pay, or the effect that taking such a step would have on me.

“I have no choice,” I said. “I shall also need help hiding them after they escape, and then sneaking them out of the city.”

“You’ve thought this through,” Helen replied. “Give me a moment.” She motioned for Stephen Daniels, and the two of them withdrew from the parlor. Martha and I sat in nervous silence. After a few minutes Helen returned alone.