Ruth Warburton - Witch Finder

‘She needs a holiday, poor old lady,’ he said as he released the foot.

‘I need a holiday an’ all.’ Minna pulled on the bridle and yanked Bess towards the waiting milk cart outside the gate. ‘And I ain’t going to get one, so less of the bleeding heart for the horse, thank you.’

He watched as she backed Bess between the shafts and hitched her up. Then she clicked her tongue.

‘Thanks for shoeing her, Luke.’ She put her hand towards her skirts where her purse hung. As she fingered it Luke could see from its lightness that it was empty, or near enough. He could have told that even without the way she chewed at her cold-chapped lips as she asked, ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Another time.’

‘I ain’t taking no charity, Luke Lexton.’

‘It’s not charity.’ He feigned irritation, showing his black hands, covered with soot from the forge and the hot metal. ‘I want to get cleaned up. Pay me another time.’

She smiled, bright and wide, relieved.

‘I owe you one.’

‘You owe me more than one, Minna.’

‘And I’ll give it yer, one of these days. Bye, Luke.’ She grinned, clicked her tongue to Bess and then they clip-clopped up the lane, towards the City and the dairy.

Luke was still standing, watching the lane, thinking, when he heard footsteps behind him and his uncle came through the gate.

‘She works that horse too hard,’ William said.

‘I know.’ Luke rubbed his hands on his apron and turned back to the yard, ready for the day’s work. ‘I told her. But she works herself too hard and all.’

‘Did you charge her for the shoe?’

‘She’ll pay.’

‘No she won’t. You’re too soft-hearted.’

‘It’s not her fault. How’s she supposed to make a girl’s wage stretch to cover four mouths?’

‘I know, I know.’ William shook his head. ‘And her dad’s as useless as they come.’

‘He’s not long for this world, neither.’ Luke thought of the last time he’d seen Mr Sykes, sitting in his own piss in a corner of the hovel Minna called home, with his youngest two running around his feet, noticed only when they came too close to knocking over his bottle.

‘There’s many a better man than Nick Sykes rotted their brain with moonshine,’ William said. ‘She should sell that horse, get a donkey, use the money for the little’uns.’

‘She never will,’ Luke said with certainty. ‘You know Bess was her dad’s, back when he were a drayman. In Minna’s eyes she’s just borrowing Bess until he’s fit to work again.’

‘And that’ll be sometime west of never,’ William Lexton said with a sigh. Then he turned to the forge. ‘Come on now, enough gabbing. We’ve got work to do before I lose you.’

‘Lose me?’

‘Well, you can’t work here and do your task for the Brotherhood, can you?’

‘But—’

‘It’s not going to be easy, Luke. I tried to tell you last night, but you were too full of yourself to listen. No, no –’ he held up a hand as Luke began to protest ‘– I know. And I would have been the same at your age. But these are no ordinary witches, Luke. John Leadingham’s told me a bit about this family. The son’s thick as thieves with Sebastian Knyvet. They went to school together, spent half their boyhood round at each other’s houses, from what I can make out.’

‘And who’s this Knyvet bloke then?’

‘Who’s . . . ?’ His uncle gave him a look that mingled surprise and irritation. ‘Do you listen to anything I tell you? I tried to tell you all this last night. He’s one of the Ealdwitan. And you know who they are, don’t you?’

Yes. Luke knew who they were. The witch elite of England. The ruling council. If they only ruled the witches – that would be one thing. But their tentacles reached into every place of power in the land. Half the MPs in the House of Commons were Ealdwitan and a good measure of the peers in the House of Lords too. If there was a prospect of money or power they were there, to get their share of the pie, and more.

‘Aloysius Knyvet is one of the Chairs who head the Ealdwitan. Sebastian’s his eldest son. Now do you see why I said this was a fool’s errand?’

‘So they’ve got friends in high places.’ Luke shrugged. ‘They’ve still got skin that burns and flesh that bleeds, don’t they?’

‘Yes, but it’s getting to that skin or that flesh. And that’s easier said than done. At least you’ve got an advantage, though I don’t know how far it’ll help. You’ll have to be careful not to let on. If you once show what you are, that you know what they are . . .’

Luke turned away. He hated being reminded of what he was. A witch-finder.

No one knew where the ability had come from. William thought he had been born with it, and that perhaps Luke’s father had had the same ability but had never known it, or had kept it secret through fear. John Leadingham thought that it had been gifted to Luke the night he watched his parents die – that that one searing experience had burnt the gift into him, so that never again could he look on a witch and see an ordinary man or woman. Except, as Luke himself often wondered, he could not be the only person to have seen a witch, nor even the only person to have seen a witch kill. But he was, as far as he’d ever heard, the only person who saw them for what they were, as clear as others saw black from white. Even in the street he could see them, dressed like ordinary people, walking and talking like ordinary people but with their witchcraft shimmering and crackling around them, marking them out as clear as night from day.

Sometimes it was nothing but a faint gleam, soft as a dying ember. Other times it was bright; bright as a gas-lamp, bright as a flame. When they cast a spell the magic flared and waxed, as the candlelight guttered and waxed in the draught from the door. Then it waned, fading back, leaving them dimmer than before.

It had taken him a long while to understand that others did not see witches as he did. It had taken the Malleus even longer to believe what they had found – a child who could see witchcraft – no need to test and prod and accuse. His word alone was enough.

‘We’ll have to get you inside the household somehow. A servant or summat. John Leadingham’s looking into it.’

‘I can’t be a servant!’ Luke said, horrified.

‘What! Too proud to sweep a floor?’

‘No! I don’t mean that. I mean, I wouldn’t know how! How could I be a footman in some great house? I wouldn’t know the first thing about what to do – I’d get the sack before my feet had touched the ground.’

‘A footman no, but there might be something else. You’re too old for a boot-boy, but a garden hand maybe. I don’t know about London, but John says they’ve got a great rambling place in the country with a hundred acres and more. There must be work for a man there.’

‘What if they’re not in the country? Don’t the gentry come up to town in the autumn?’

‘I don’t know.’ William shook his head. ‘You’re asking the wrong bloke, Luke. But where there’s a will, there’s a way. If there’s a chink in their armour, John Leadingham’s the man to find it. By fair means or foul, we’ll get you into that house. And after that . . .’

After that, it would be up to Luke.

‘I’ve got a plan.’ John Leadingham tapped the side of his nose as they walked down the narrow alleys, tall warehouses towering either side of them, their top storeys disappearing into the shrouding murk. Luke could hear the lap of the Thames on the mudflats and the bellow of a horn as a ship made its way downriver in the thick yellow fog.

‘What is it?’ Luke asked, but John shook his head.

‘Ask me no questions, young Luke. You’ll know soon enough, but for the moment I’m still working out some of the finer details. Now . . .’ He stopped at one of the furthest warehouses – a tumbledown wooden structure that looked as if it might just slide into the Thames mud at any moment – and drew a key from his pocket. ‘You’re not squeamish of a little blood, are you?’