The Witch Hunter's Tale(82)

“What do you want?” I demanded. “I had nothing to do with Will’s escape, and I don’t know where he is.”

“You are lying about his escape,” Joseph replied brightly. “But I have no doubt you are ignorant of his whereabouts.”

I tried to imagine what he meant by this, and in a terrible moment I realized what had happened. I stood in silence as I waited for the grim news.

“Last night, mother hen,” Joseph said, “the Town Watch found your entire brood. They all are mine now.”

Though his message was plain, I stared at Joseph trying to make sense of his words. I wanted them to have some other meaning; I wanted to find a reason for him to lie about this. But the truth was there before me and could not be denied. He had taken them all: Will, Tree, Elizabeth, and Stephen. My entire body felt as numb as my river-dipped arm had the night before. Sorrow, horror, and fury vied for expression, but none could win the day so I stood mute.

“What, nothing to say?” he asked. I had never seen a man so pleased with himself. “You are usually more talkative than this. Very well, I shall continue. They are taken, and they will hang, most of them anyway: Will for murdering George Breary, the ruffian Stephen Daniels for killing Will’s guards. We’ll try the boy as a witch, and I imagine he will hang as well.” A smile flitted across his lips at the thought.

“Oh, and the girl,” he said, as if Elizabeth were an afterthought. “You’ll not have her back, for you’ve no claim to her at all. You can’t just take an orphan off the street and into your home. There are laws. The city will see to her. I will see to her.”

I felt a presence behind me, and I recognized Martha’s touch as she put her hand on my shoulder. I glanced at her face and could tell she’d heard everything.

“They are innocent,” was all I could say. “You killed Mr. Breary, and now you’ll see your brother hanged for it. A thousand times worse than Cain, you are.”

For a moment Joseph seemed as puzzled as if I’d accused him of popery.

“You know full well that Tree is no witch,” I continued, my voice rising with every word. “And you cannot take Elizabeth. She is my charge, not yours.”

For the barest of moments I thought that my words might make an impression on Joseph, that he might relent and let his brother live, for surely he could not be such a monster. Then he smiled. It was a smile as sharp and cold as the north wind, and I knew that there would be no changing his mind.

“I cannot fathom your insistence that I murdered Mr. Breary,” he said. “But whatever the case, you and yours are over and done.”

His voice was a knife, and I could feel it between my ribs slicing through my flesh in its inexorable journey to my heart.

“If I could hang you for the murder of the guards, I would,” he continued. “And I don’t know what you did with Mark Preston, but he was my friend, and you can be sure I will have my revenge for his death. Not today, perhaps, or even tomorrow, for the law moves slowly. But from this day forward, you will go to sleep knowing that someday I will hang the both of you in the market square. And I will pay the executioner to botch up the knot so you strangle slowly. It will be a terrible sight to behold, and a worse one to suffer.”

Joseph smiled again as if his promise of a slow death were meant to reassure us. Then he strode from the room and out the door.





Chapter 22

Martha and I sat next to each other in numb silence, neither of us daring to give voice to our despair. It seemed our battle was over. The moment Joseph had taken Will, Tree, and Elizabeth, he had won. There would be no escape, no mercy from a judge. Will and Tree would hang, and God only knew what fate awaited Elizabeth. I felt panic roiling within me at the thought of losing my family again. I had buried the children born of my body, and their deaths had brought me to the edge of hopelessness and nearly murdered my faith in God. If I lost Will, Tree, and Elizabeth, Joseph would not need a hangman to see me dead. Sorrow would do that work for him.

I looked at Martha, who seemed no less stunned than I. I waited for her to speak, hoping that she would find a solution to this, that she would concoct a plan to set all our loved ones free. Instead she buried her face in her hands and began to sob. I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her to my side.

I heard a timid knock from the front door but ignored it. What visitor could I want to see now? When I heard the front door open, I assumed it was Hannah returned from the market.

“Hello? Lady Hodgson! Please, are you here?” A girl’s voice echoed through the hall. I did not recognize her, but there was no mistaking the panic in her voice. Martha and I hurried to the entry hall. There we found a young serving maid, perhaps sixteen years old, looking wildly about, desperate for help. From her clothes I could tell she was one of the poorer sort, and her cloak was entirely insufficient for the winter’s cold. Her teeth chattered as she tried to speak.