The Witch Hunter's Tale(9)
“She would welcome the opportunity to judge women guilty of witchcraft,” I said. “She loved the authority of a midwife, and a position as a Searcher would bring her even more. Now she can threaten death itself.”
“And you think she found the Witch’s Mark on Hester Jackson?” Martha asked.
“If it would be to her advantage, she would have found such a mark on a new sheet of paper,” I replied. “Joseph didn’t make her Searcher so she could find Hester innocent.”
“But why is he hunting witches at all?” Martha persisted. “What advantage does it bring him?” Martha and I had long ago realized that like too many of the Puritan faction, Joseph’s love of God was matched only by his love of power. The fact that doing God’s will also served his own interests would strike Joseph as another example of God’s goodness.
“He wants to show the city what a good and godly ruler he would be if only they would invest him with more authority. And if he has an unscrupulous Searcher on his side, they would be a powerful pair. There is no end to the mischief they could make. We shall have to tread carefully until we know the nature of their scheme.”
Together, Joseph and Rebecca brought death, of course. We knew they would bring death for Hester; there could be no avoiding that. But if I had known how many would follow Hester to the grave, or that those I loved would find themselves in Joseph and Rebecca’s path, I would have taken my family, fled the city, and never looked back.
* * *
Once Rebecca Hooke had found the Witch’s Mark on Hester, the City Council had to determine how to try her. Before the war, we would have waited for the Assizes, the court that tried all felonies. But the King could hardly send judges into a city held by Parliament, so the city had to handle such matters itself. During the previous year, York’s governors had tried felons themselves, with disastrous results. Now they were more cautious, and the City Council tried to create formal courts with judges who had served in the office before; they called these courts Special Assizes.
And so it was that Hester languished in York Castle for weeks before her trial. I hated to think how she suffered, for I had seen the low gaol where the city put its worst criminals. These poor souls resided in darkness and filth so complete that many prisoners welcomed their hanging if only for the few moments of sunlight and fresh air that preceded it.
When the judges of the Assizes came, the city put itself on display. Musicians and a platoon of the Town Watch met the Earl of Lancashire when he arrived at the gate, and with his judges trailing behind him he rode from Micklegate Bar to the Castle. After a few days of preliminaries, the trials began with their usual pageantry and the slow parade of criminals. Some marched from the court to freedom, others to the stocks, and a few to the gallows. There was no reason for me to attend any of the trials, so I did my best to ignore the entire process. In my youth, I would have found myself caught up in the majesty of the occasion and embraced the Court’s decisions without question, full of confidence that they offered justice. But in recent years I had seen the law go astray too many times to keep my faith in the Court. To my eyes, the law seemed to be a weapon the powerful used to plunder from the weak or to destroy their enemies. Perhaps things had been different before the war. Or perhaps I’d learned to see the corruption that had always been there.
The Special Assizes were still in session when I received an invitation to dine with George Breary. Since Will had entered George’s service such invitations had become more common, and as I dressed for supper I assumed that it would be a social visit. Will accompanied me as we made our way through the city, heads bowed against the rain that the wind whipped into our faces. I said a prayer of thanks that George lived near me in one of the city’s northern wards, rather than across the river in Micklegate. Will and I weaved back and forth across the cobbled streets to avoid the puddles, most of which now had a thin layer of ice across the top. One misstep would mean a cold and unpleasant evening.
When we arrived at George’s stately home, we found him hard at work on some business matter, but he put that aside and we retired to the parlor. He was perhaps fifteen years my senior—I would have put him at around fifty—and had the air of a man comfortable with the authority that God had given him. His clothes were of fine wool and like many who had stood by the King, he wore his hair to his collar. I sometimes wondered what would have happened if I’d married a man such as George rather than so weak a specimen as Phineas. But what use are such fantasies? As I settled into my chair I noticed the richness of the fabric. The poor were suffering from the wars, but George was doing well enough. We talked for a time of the news of the town, especially the rain and cold that fall had brought, before George suddenly turned our conversation to more serious matters.