The Daylight Gate (2 page)

He ran. Stepping out of the furze another woman blocked his path. She held a dead lamb in her arms. He knew her: Alizon’s grand-dam. Old Demdike.

He ran. The women were laughing at him. Two of them? Three of them? Or was it the Devil himself stepping through the Daylight Gate?

John Law, running and falling, collapsed through the door of the Dog in Newchurch in Pendle an hour later. His lips were foamy. Men loosened his clothes. He held up three fingers and said one word:
Demdike
.

Alice Nutter

ALICE NUTTER RODE
out from the Rough Lee.

She took her pony up towards the slopes of Pendle Hill where she could look back at her house in the beginning-sun.

It was a handsome house; stone-built, oak-lined, lime trees trained to make an avenue to the door. Hornbeam hedges surrounded the house itself, and opened in wide useful squares towards her stables, poultry pens, pike pond and kennels.

Here was wealth. Her wealth. And she had not been born to it nor had she inherited it. Her fortune had come through the invention of a dye; a magenta that held fast in water and that had a curious dark depth to it – like looking into a mirror made of mercury. The Queen had ordered vats of the stuff and Alice had worked for a long time in
London
, with her own dye-house and warehouse.

Her knowledge of plants and their dyes, her instinctive chemistry, had recommended her to the Queen’s astrologer and mathematician, John Dee. Alice had worked with him in his laboratory at Mortlake, where he used the lunar calendar of thirteen months. He believed he had succeeded in making a tiny phial of the Elixir of Life. Alice did not believe it. In any case, it had not saved the Queen or John Dee. They were both dead now.

Elizabeth had left no heir. In 1603 the English Crown had passed to James the Sixth of Scotland – now James the First of England too; a Protestant, a devout man, a man who wanted no dyes or fancy stuffs. A man who had two passions: to rid his new-crowned kingdom of popery and witchcraft.

Perhaps you could not blame him. In 1589, bringing his bride home to Scotland from Denmark, a storm had nearly drowned him. It was witchcraft, he knew it, and he had the witches tried and burned at Berwick, attending the sessions himself.

In 1605, Guy Fawkes had tried to blow him up by stacking enough gunpowder under the House of Parliament to detonate half of London … And every conspirator a Catholic.

The Witch Plot and the Gunpowder Plot.

But every good Catholic would see a witch
tortured
on the rack until her shoulders dislocated their sockets and her legs broke at the ankle and hip.

And what witch would save a Jesuit from the knife that would first castrate him, and then disembowel him, still alive?

James was fortunate that his enemies were enemies.

But Alice wondered how safe was any safety that depended on hatred?

Alice whistled. A falcon flew. One circle. One swoop. The powerful bird landed square on Alice’s outstretched arm. Her long leather riding gloves were not the kind a woman wore – hers were double-stitched and heavy. Hers were scarred with the landings of the bird. As he landed she fed him a dead mouse from her pocket.

Alice was riding astride. She would not do this to attend church in Whalley or to call on her neighbour, the Magistrate Roger Nowell, or to visit the sick or to go about her business in the parish. Then she rode side-saddle and wore a magenta riding habit on top of her copper mare.

She looked beautiful. She was beautiful, even though she was – how old? Nobody knew how old. Old enough to be soon dead, and if not soon dead, then as lined and wrinkled as the milk-and-water well-behaved wives of religious husbands with their hidden mistresses. And if not that, then as toothless
and
foul as the hags and beldames who could afford no horses but rode broomsticks … some said.

This was Lancashire. This was Pendle. This was witch country.

Sarah Device

‘DUCK HER!’

The woman on the riverbank was struggling and kicking. The man behind her held her arms back, tying her hands. Her dress was open. The man standing in front of her was tall, shaven-headed, lean-faced like a rat. He was playing with her breasts with both hands.

‘This one’s the Demdike witch that got away.’

Constable Hargreaves tying her hands was slower to be so sure. ‘If she be a witch, Tom, then it must be proved according to the Law and the Scripture.’

‘The Law and the Scripture? Her grand-dam and her sister sit in Lancaster Castle for maiming by witchcraft.’

‘You got no proof of witchcraft!’ said the woman.

The man called Tom hit her across the mouth. ‘The pedlar John Law is a friend of mine. His legs is
gone
, his speech is gone. The last word he spoke was Demdike.’

‘John Law spoke nowt but pigshit and drink.’

The man hit her again. She spat at him.

Constable Hargreaves had finished his knot-work. He was a lumbering man and he lumbered round to the front of Sarah Device. He held up three fingers. ‘John Law held up three fingers. Three woman ran after him through the forest. If the third be not you, then say who.’

‘Three women never ran after John Law in his life! He is as ugly as a boiled head.’

Tom Peeper ripped her dress away from her shoulders and down to her waist. ‘Ugly? Not so ugly that you didn’t lie on your back and open your legs when you wanted ribbons from his pack.’

‘He was as mean as he was ugly and he was as fat as he was limp. If I had laid down under him all day I would have stood up at night still a virgin.’

‘Virgin? You were born with your legs open.’

‘Cats fleshed as women, that’s what witches are, tempting men to sin and damnation.’

Sarah Device smiled at him. ‘Let me go, Tommy, Harry. I’ll give you pleasure for your pains.’

The men looked at each other. Tom undid his breeches. He had an erection. ‘Do you miss your broomstick? Here’s one.’

‘Don’t look her in the eye, Tom. She’s got the Demdike eye,’ said Hargreaves.

‘Strip her,’ said Tom. ‘Search for the witch marks. A cat comes and sucks you, doesn’t he, Sarah? Tibbs, is it? Or Merlin? I’ve seen that black cat with eyes like red coals.’

‘You’ll not touch me till you untie me,’ said Sarah. ‘And then I’ll do what you want.’

‘I’ll do what I want now,’ said Tom. ‘Not when a trollop tells me I can. Stop her from wriggling, Harry.’

Tom Peeper raped Sarah Device.

He was quick. He was in practice. ‘Wet as a marsh in there for you now, Harry. They’re all dry, the Demdike women.’

A boy with a fishing rod was coming along the bank. He stopped and stared at the woman with her torn dress around her feet. He was about to run away but Tom Peeper went and grabbed him.

‘Youth has sharp eyes. Look over her for the witch marks – go on, Robert, run your hands across her. Do you like her breasts? She can’t hurt you.’ He took the boy’s hand and held it on Sarah’s breast.

‘Touch me again and I’ll curse you for it.’

Tom Peeper laughed. ‘You don’t have the power now that Old Demdike is in the gaol. Don’t be afraid of her, boy. Here …’

He went behind and shoved Sarah onto her knees, standing astride over her and pushing his weight onto her shoulders. She could feels his balls on her neck.

‘Get your cock out, boy – she’ll suck it if she wants to get home alive.’

‘Let him kiss me first. I am a woman.’

Tom nodded at Hargreaves who prodded the boy to kneel down in front of Sarah. He wouldn’t look at her. She leaned forward and kissed him. He tasted of fear. Sarah stopped struggling. She closed her eyes. She felt his tongue in her mouth. She was dizzy. She hadn’t eaten for two days. She could feel the sun on her face and a cold shadow at her back. She could hear the sound of hooves. The Dark Gentleman would come for her soon enough. Hadn’t Demdike always said so? Today, tomorrow, the next day.

The boy put his hands on her breasts, feeling the nipples. He was getting excited. She could hear voices like she was underwater. They would duck her after this. They would kill her. Today, tomorrow, the next day.

She bit.

The boy pulled back screaming low in his throat. He fainted. Sarah, with her mouth full, spat the bloody tongue onto the ground. She stood up, her mouth open, covered in blood. She started to laugh –
wild
hysterical laughter.

Tom unsheathed his knife from his belt. ‘I’ll cut your witching throat, you cat.’ His hand pulled Sarah’s neck back by the hair so that her throat was bare and skyward. She opened her eyes. Let him come.

The sound of a horse … faster now, nearer. Let him come.

Alice Nutter rode straight into Tom Peeper, knocking him down. Sarah Device got to her feet and leaned against the rump of the pony. She was shaking.

Constable Hargreaves started to mumble something about proving a witch. Alice Nutter cut him short. ‘The Magistrate decides what woman will be proved. Not the mob.’

‘She bewitched John Law!’ said Hargreaves.

‘That’s a lie,’ said Sarah. ‘I am not accused.’

Tom Peeper got up and dragged the maimed boy up with him. He pulled Robert’s hands away from his bloodied mouth. ‘You see this? What woman that is no witch-woman would do this to a man?’

‘What man that is a man would do this to a woman?’

The men did not reply.

‘Take the boy to the herbalist in Whalley and set the charge to my account.’

‘The herbalist is a witch!’ said Tom.

‘Yes and every midwife with her according to the likes of you. Get him away and see to him before he chokes to death on his own blood. Sarah Device – pull up your dress. You will come with me.’ She passed Sarah a cloth from her saddlebag to wipe her mouth. Sarah did not speak. She could not stop shaking.

‘Constable Hargreaves! Untie her.’

Hargreaves cut the cords with a single slash of his knife, not caring that he took the skin off Sarah’s wrist. Then he bent down and picked up the torn-out tongue. ‘Does she want this to take with her to her grand-dam Demdike in Lancaster Castle?’

Alice Nutter did not flinch. ‘Wrap it and give it to me.’ She stared steadily at Hargreaves until he looked away, took out his handkerchief, wrapped the object and handed it to Alice, who put it in her saddlebag.

Hargreaves looked as if he might say something but Alice Nutter was not that kind of woman.

Without glancing at Sarah, who was holding onto her stirrup leather, Alice rode off.

Hargreaves and Tom Peeper watched her go. Neither spoke until she was out of earshot. Then Hargreaves said, ‘She rides astride like a man, and she rides with the bird even though no woman is a falconer. I tell you I don’t trust her. A woman astride and a falcon following – that’s unnatural.’

‘And she took the witch’s part.’

‘I tell you they are the same.’

‘You wouldn’t be calling Alice Nutter a witch, would you, Harry?’

‘I wouldn’t call her nowt, Tom, leastways not in public, but there’s many in private have things to say about her wealth and her power, and who she favours and who she don’t – and why. Why does she let the Demdike live in Malkin Tower on her land?’

‘You can’t take her on.’

‘Not me. There’s one who would do it if he had evidence to do it.’

Tom Peeper nodded his head. ‘You’d best get up to Read Hall then, Harry, and tell Magistrate Nowell what’s happened.

Roger Nowell

ROGER NOWELL WAS
a handsome man. He could read as well as he could ride. He liked a play as much as a cockfight. He was the Magistrate of Pendle Forest and the Master of Read Hall – the finest house in Pendle.

Old Demdike and her granddaughter Alizon had been dragged before him accused of maiming the pedlar John Law by witchcraft. Evidence against them was given by Mother Chattox. She had seen them that day at Boggart’s Hole.

But Old Demdike was wily, and she had turned and faced her accuser Chattox and accused her in turn of being a witch from the womb.
Baptised twice – once for God and once for Satan. She bears the marks
.

Since they were all shouting witchcraft at each other, and since John Law was on his deathbed,
Roger
Nowell had a choice: pack them off to Lancaster to await trail or hand them over to the mob for a ducking that would certainly have meant a drowning.

He was hoping to quieten things down by committing them to trial – he disliked the slavering excitement of the mob. But the sensational news of this nest of witches spread long past Lancashire and soon reached London. Roger Nowell was obliged to receive an unwelcome visitor at Read Hall: Thomas Potts of Chancery Lane – Recording Clerk for the Prosecution and the Crown.

‘What more do you want?’ asked Roger Nowell. ‘The Demdike and Chattox will be tried at the August Assizes. There is nothing more to say or to do and I would prefer to return to my regular duties when Easter is past.’

Potts fluffed himself up inside his ruff. He was a proud little cockerel of a man; all feathers and no fight. ‘King James is an authority on witchcraft. What other monarch has written his own book on the subject?’