Daughters of the Witching Hill (37 page)

"Run away, you scabby rotters, or I'll show you what a witch can do."

Head guard told me off, but the young guard who'd been making eyes at me seemed well impressed.

"That's some gob you've got, lass." Though he tried to act stern, he seemed to smile in spite of himself.

"Bless you," Gran whispered, pressing my hand.

Though my ruse had worked and the urchins had legged it, leaving us to pass through Waddington unmolested, I wasn't done worrying about my grandmother. She staggered with each step. Even her spirit seemed to be draining away, her skin gone chalky. We hadn't yet strayed more than ten miles from the boundary of Pendle Forest, and yet she appeared to wilt like a flower cut off from its roots.

Soon as we put Waddington behind us, our way stretched uphill. On the horizon reared a mighty fell, almost high as Pendle Hill itself. The moorland track was treacherous with mud and slippery stone, and the ground on either side was boggy. Up and up we clambered into that desolate heath. Gran foundered, her lungs sounding as though they'd soon burst. Only thing I could do was keep pulling her along, holding her upright so she wouldn't slip. Tried to ease her over every bump, and if there was a ditch or stile, I lifted her over for I didn't trust any of the guards not to bruise her. So spindly-thin Gran had grown I could almost carry her full weight in my arms and, by Our Lady, I'd bear this burden without complaint. Gran had told me how the priests of the old religion used to give folk penances to absolve their sins. Once she knew a man who was sent on a barefoot pilgrimage to St. Mary's of Walsingham. Looking down at my feet, naked and exposed now that the rags that had bound them had worn away, I thought that this was my penance, my ordeal. With each mile I helped Gran along I would prove how sorry I was, how I craved redemption for us all.

Up on the high fell there were no villages, no children to plague us, only wild hares and ewes heavy with lamb. Gran's gasping grew ever noisier the steeper we climbed and Chattox was having no easy time of it either, leaning upon Annie and swallowing her pain with bitter grunts. Then came a stone stile so high it fair overwhelmed me as I struggled to help Gran over. The iron manacles bit into my skin as I pulled on the chains, edging behind her to help push her up the footholds one by one. When at last I got Gran to the top, she nearly tumbled down the other side that plunged six feet to the muddy ground. My arms round her waist, panting in time with her, I racked my brain as to how I could get her down, for on this side the footholds were far apart and well worn away. The two of us were stood atop that stile with Annie and Chattox stuck below, unable to move till we did, and the guards bellowed, baleful and impatient.

Gran said, "Peace. That one has a good heart."

I'd no idea what she meant till I saw the young guard clear the stone wall, nimble as a weasel. But after all, he was better fed than us and he'd no iron chains to weigh him down. Now stood at the bottom of the stile, he reached out his arms to take my gran, but his eyes met mine. The lust I'd seen in them before had turned to something like mercy.

At long last the head guard let us rest a spell. Maybe he feared that if Gran and Chattox both dropped dead, his men would have no choice but to drag their corpses to Lancaster and wouldn't that be a spot of bother. Yet by some miracle we reached the top of Waddington Fell before dusk.

"Best take your last look at Pendle Hill," the young guard told me.

With him stood so close, I'd no choice but to notice his fine hazel eyes. A good-looking lad, he was, who would have made me smile had I not been shackled and shorn. Near brought me to my knees, it did, to think he could be so kind and pay me such attention as if I were still that pretty girl I'd seen in the mirror in Nowell's manor house, my unbowed head crowned in coppery tresses, my body strong and clean, my skin shining with health.

Shame-faced, I ducked away from him, holding fast to Gran's arm, then filled my soul with the vision of that great silent hill that had watched over me since I was a babe. Rising graceful against the eastern sky, Pendle Hill beckoned me like a mother with her vast green skirts. Breathless, I described the view to Gran, painting as true a picture as my poor words would allow. As the tears moved down her face, I told myself that this was my last glimpse of home.

That night there was no dungeon for us but the moon-drenched sky and the cold that forced the four of us to pile together like a litter of puppies. Annie and I huddled on the outside with Gran and Chattox between us so that the old women would be warmest. Gran slept with her spine pressed tight to Chattox's, the woman who had been her dear friend and sworn enemy. Weary to the bone, Gran soon fell into a silent sleep, whilst Chattox snored and Annie, mumbling in her dreams, called out to her lost daughter.

Though I was aching-tired, my eyes stayed open, gazing out at the moon, half full, spilling her silver on the moor. March hares capered in her light. Soon they'd bear their young. Life would go on without us.

My body went rigid to see a dark shape steal toward us. My mouth opened in terror but no sound came out. Then I saw it was the young guard. Noiseless he sat himself down a few feet away. For a spell neither of us spoke.

In that silence I could pretend that I was not his captive nor was he my guard. I could dream that we were two free souls, a girl and the lad who fancied her, and that he could take my hand and off we'd race across this moonlit moorland where his adoring eyes on my face and body would make me beautiful again and so happy that I'd throw my arms around his neck, that I'd start kissing him and never want to stop.

"Are you really a witch?" he whispered.

Was I, indeed? I saw the pedlar falling lame, saw the Yorkshireman's face constrict at the sight of me.

"I can't fly, if that's what you mean," I finally whispered back.

He laughed under his breath and inched closer. Just when I thought he would reach for my hand, his head jerked at the noise of another guard off in the distance.

"What's your name?" I whispered before he could slink away.

"William." Fast as a hare, he was gone.

By morning, mist enclosed us and rain fell, but the air was mild and sweet. I filled my lungs, half drunk on it, for once we reached Lancaster, I knew I'd never breathe such wholesome stuff again. I fair longed to throw myself face-down upon the heath to kiss the heather and bracken, every weed and wort. I'd rather be chained on this fell top, exposed to wind and weather and left here to die, than rot in some prison bristling with rats and fleas. The fog was so dense we lost sight of the way before us. There was nowt but the winding track and the sheep moving in and out of the mist like ghosts. Day bled into day as we trod the remaining thirty-odd miles through the Trough of Bowland. All the while I prayed that we would be lost and stumble round and round in the fog and never reach Lancaster.

Three days after we first set out from Clitheroe, the moors and fells dropped away in long slopes to the sea. Straddling a river in the land far below lay the city with its castle rising mighty and imposing, built to be seen from miles away.

Down off the moors we walked, crossing pastureland where crocus sprang from the damp earth and robins sang in the hedges. How I longed to hold that sunlit morning forever like a perfect stream-washed agate. But the guards drove us along like cattle to market, yanking at our chains if we balked. My feet blistered and raw, I limped past fresh-sown fields, through villages where yet more children came to gawp till I pulled such a fearsome face that they scarpered, howling in their fear of us witches.

The cottages grew ever more plentiful till there were long rows of them. Housewives pattered to and fro with buckets of water and milk. An old man herded goats. Chickens trotted across our path. All these homely things that I would never again lay eyes on.

When the cobbled lane curved past a windswept place where gluttonous crows circled and cawed, I stopped in my tracks.

"What is it?" Gran asked.

She must have felt how my hand on her arm had gone stone cold. Then she gagged, for though she was blind, how could she not smell the rotting flesh, the bodies left to dangle from the gibbet, spinning in the wind?

"Keep walking," William said, marching me along before the head guard could punish us for dawdling.

As I tottered onward, a phantom rope closed round my throat, choking me. So many awful tales I'd heard about hanging. Some folk died quick, their weight causing their neck to snap, whilst others took an age to die. The lighter the body, the longer the suffering. I considered Gran's frame, dwindling ever thinner. How I wished I could charm the manacles off her, transport her through the air back to Malkin Tower and her bed by the fire.

The lane twisted toward Lancaster Castle, towering above us. In its shadow I beheld an apparition of hell. Severed heads stared with frozen eyes from the iron spikes girding the castle grounds.

"Them are Jesuits," William whispered to me.

The sight was enough to make Chattox herself sob aloud. Forgetting myself, I began to pray beneath my breath, mouthing my Aves and Pater Nosters as fast as I could, till William clapped his hand over my mouth and Gran begged my silence.

The gates opened to us, then clanged shut behind us, banishing any thought of freedom. Armed watchmen stalked to and fro with lances and pikelets, and how their eyes raked over us disgraced women, us witches. I turned my head to gaze at the blue spring sky one last time before the guards herded us through a huge door and into the dark tunnels of that castle. They goaded us down passageways, gloomy and cold, where my shackles weighed heavier with each step.

We shuffled by a group of turnkeys, just stood there, idle. "Never fear, lass," one of them called out to me. "I'll save you from the hangman if only you let me get you with child."

I was set to spit in his face, but William, glaring at the turnkey, urged me along till at last we reached a windowless chamber where a heavy-set man awaited us. A black leather doublet he wore over his white Holland shirt. His polished black boots rose above his knees. Upon his little finger he'd a gold and ruby ring that twinkled in the torchlight. A right lordling, he looked, but when he opened his gob, his yellow beard bobbing, he sounded as lowborn as any of us grimy women paraded before him in our chains.

Fat and common, but full himself, this man was. When he cast his piercing eye upon our guards, those hardened men cowered and even William quailed. Seemed the man was accustomed to striking fear into everyone under his command.

"You're late!" he told the guards. "I expected you two days ago."

The head guard grovelled like a beggar. "Not easy to make good progress, Master Covell, sir, with two lame old women in tow."

Covell waved a dismissing hand to silence him. "What a sorry lot you are," he said, looking us prisoners up and down. He'd a good gawp at Gran and Chattox, then threw Annie Redfearn a passing glance before staring at me long and hard. I made myself go cold inside so I wouldn't flinch.

"I am your gaoler," he said. "You whores of Satan took the Devil as your lord, but he has no power here.
I'm
your master now." He thumped his chest. "And it's proper humility you'll learn. It's I who has the final word on how you're kept and what you'll eat, if indeed I grant you leave to eat."

He paced before us, his polished boots echoing on the stone floor, his muscled arms swinging as if to prove how easy he could smite us.

"Our sovereign majesty King James holds witches such as you in deepest contempt and that's how you'll be treated. You're to be closed prisoners. That means no visitors."

Under her breath, Chattox laughed, no doubt in bitter amusement at the thought of anybody being daft enough to seek us out in this place.

Hearing her smothered chortle, Covell's face creased. Flew up to her, he did, with long sweeping strides, and backhanded her across the face. Him, a man in his prime, striking an old woman. Chattox seemed too stunned to even wipe away the blood that ran from her nose. Her daughter wept.

"I'll tolerate no disrespect," Covell told us.

How he loved this, I thought. Bullying the helpless. A mighty wrath took hold of me and I wished horrible things on Master Covell—wished that Gran's Tibb would cause boils to erupt on his pocked, oily cheeks and knot his bowels till he doubled over in torment. I wished that those heads impaled upon the spikes outside would appear in Covell's dreams to deliver the night terrors, that those who had been drawn and quartered, their innards yanked out whilst they were still alive, would stand over him, dripping blood upon him till he drowned in it. I wished him to sup on all the agony he had ever dished out.

Covell addressed our guards. "Take the witches down the Well Tower."

Meek as clipped ducks, the guards rushed us out of his sight.

"You'll not want to cross Master Covell," William whispered as he marched me along. "Edward Kelly was in here and him a gentleman, a friend of Dr. John Dee, the conjurer to the old Queen. Made no difference to Covell. Kelly was in for forgery. Covell had him put in the stocks and slashed his ears off himself. Nasty business, that man. Mind yourself, Alizon. Keep your head down and your mouth shut except when he asks you a question. That's the only way you'll preserve yourself here."

Down spiralling steps they drove us, down and ever down into the bowels of the castle till we, whom Covell called Satan's whores, were delivered into the depths of hell. A tower is meant to be a lofty thing, rising into the sky. Even our lowly Malkin Tower had the wind and starlight pouring through its glassless windows. But this Well Tower sank beneath the earth. Its dank walls seeped and dripped with water. Its only light came from a tiny window at the far end, but the floor sloped down into utter murk. At the very bottom an iron ring was set in the slimy stone floor, and we were chained to the ring and to each other. Then, taking their torches with them, the guards abandoned us in utter darkness.