Sunwise: The Newcastle Witch Trials Trilogy, #2

On God’s Errand

JOHN

Instead of sweltering in the hellish heat of a Newcastle dungeon, I was now on the coastal path to Berwick. It was God’s will and my heart eased with every mile put between me and the cursed town of Newcastle. Now that the great tract of Northumberland was largely behind me, the land began to look more akin to Scotland than England. To the right was the huge sea and to my left were gentle hills. Yet even the plentiful forests with their silver brooks and the vast expanse of the sea with its briny air failed to buoy my spirits. Although I’d escaped with my hide intact, it still irked me that Jane Driver had escaped the hangman’s noose.

Had Driver gone to her death as intended, I’d be in Newcastle now, hanging witches at twenty shillings a piece. Instead, that snatcher of unborn infants roamed free to practise her dark arts. She’d cost me my good name and much silver. At the thought of these losses, rage suffused my blood. That witch must not be allowed to live and pollute the good earth. This would mean going back to mete out justice. But Driver would keep a whilst. Her powers were so great that I must strengthen myself for the final onslaught else she best me again and her powers be increased. For now, it would be wise to conserve my strength and replenish my coffers. Once strong enough, I would return to relieve the witch of her duties, the imp in her belly and the air in her lungs.

It amused me to consider her end. Might it be possible to put her to the flame in Scotland? That would despatch her immortal soul straight to the great fire, and a pyre was always good for deterring innocents on the cusp of darkening their souls. But it was futile to dream of home, for great English armies had marched ahead of me and my country was not presently a safe haven. It wouldn’t do to return there and become embroiled in a war commissioned by men. Besides which, God still needed me to fight His war in England. I would bide in Berwick a whilst. After my recent travails, God would forgive me for indulging myself a little.

My path was gilded by fields of barley swaying in the sea breeze. But this shallow beauty didn’t deceive me. Aye, the countryside might look innocent enough on the surface, but beneath, for those prepared to use their eyes, it brimmed with evil potential. Witches waited for the celestial bodies to align and then used the power of God’s earth for their own ends. Even simple food crops were not safe when hags like Driver would pick plants and enchant them for use in their wicked deeds.

On closer inspection, the crops were somewhat sparse. Might this be due to hordes of hungry soldiers? Surely the English would never let their men march on empty bellies. Was it the result of a poor harvest? If so, this might be a good sign. When harvests were poor, townspeople tended to be more willing to point fingers at the women responsible. The fields were scattered with serfs, who looked up from their toil as I rode past, but they didn’t tug their forelocks or offer any greetings. Doubtless, my fine boots and cloak made them commit the sin of envy. Or more likely, they saw the fervour in my eyes and were awed.

When I paused to enquire about any queer happenstance of late, the cross-eyed dolts just gazed at their feet, afraid to give up their womenfolk. These rural fools were not worth my breath. In any event, towns were always better for unearthing witches since people forced to live in close proximity were more inclined towards gossip and spite. Berwick was a town smaller by far than Newcastle, so my gain would be considerably lower, but its coffers would be deep enough to suffice for now.

When my mare clattered over the bridge crossing the Tweed, my heart began to hammer at the sight of the massive ramparts looming before me. There would be guards at the gate. What might they make of a Scot entering their town? Might they see me as a spy? Berwick’s people were currently for England, but might they hold a secret sympathy with Scotland in their hearts? That might bode well for me. Added to which, the soldiers of the realm were so light of pocket of late that it lightened their consciences also. The prospect of being once again trapped within a fortified town troubled me, but the travelling papers resting against my chest soothed my racing heart.

A lanky guard addressed me. ‘Halt! What brings you here, stranger?’

‘God brings me.’

‘God brings you, eh? Then He’ll have given you papers. Let me see them.’

‘I am John Sharpe, witchfinder, on God’s errand.’ I presented my papers for inspection. With luck, the oaf wouldn’t be able to read.

The guard took the papers and ran a finger across the town seal. He frowned at me. ‘These papers are from Newcastle. So what brings you to Berwick?’

‘I’ve recently shown Newcastle a glorious sight and given them a spectacle that none will forget. Seventeen witches – foul servants of the devil – all hanged by the neck in a single day at my behest.’

The guard’s eyebrows rose. ‘Seventeen witches? In a single day?’

‘Aye man, seventeen.’ I indicated my papers. ‘And in several confessions, the town of Berwick was mentioned as a place thronged with sister witches.’

The guard shifted his feet. ‘There are witches here? Behind these walls?’

‘Indeed there are. Stone walls cannot hold the devil at bay, no matter how mighty. For that, you need my help. The Lowlands of Scotland are infested with witches. As is Newcastle. Berwick’s proximity to both lands must mean that it is likewise infested.’

The man regarded me for a long whilst, then walked over to consult a fellow guard. Together, they pored over my papers. These liminal counties and shires were prone to infestations – due to being neither flesh nor fish. People from the marches were typically untrustworthy and so would need to be carefully watched. Their allegiance could shift in the blinking of an eye if it suited their need for survival. The lack of principles meant the women of this town would be highly immoral – maybe more so than the women of Newcastle – and who knew what evil this weakness might have allowed in. But it struck me that these men wouldn’t suffer to hear ill of their kinfolk and so I held my tongue.

Finally, the guard returned, holding up my papers. ‘How long do you intend to stay here?’

‘For as long as God needs me.’ I plucked the papers from his hand and folded them back inside my jerkin. ‘Now, delay me no more.’

He looked at his comrade, who nodded, and they stepped back to grant me entrance. It was hard not to snort my contempt as I entered the town. Berwick’s guards had required little convincing. At least the venal sergeants of Newcastle had possessed wit enough to demand silver. It spoke volumes that the very men who were charged with protecting the town had restored my liberty, albeit at a steep price. But my purse had been heavy with English silver and I’d been pleased to purchase my freedom.

Once inside Berwick’s walls, it became obvious that the streets were too narrow to ride through with a cart and a bellman. No matter. I would settle myself in the town and learn the lie of the land. Tales of witchcraft would reach my ears once word of my presence spread. And if none came, then it was short work to set people thinking. Folk were often ignorant of witches’ practices until I brought them to light. It pleased me greatly to share my learning in the service of God. Now that I was back on my righteous path, nothing would deter me.

As long as there was breath in my body, I would use it to find witches and bring them to justice. God needed my help, of that much I was certain, and it might yet be possible to return home with a heavy purse.

I Am for Hell

JANE

The sun had defeated my efforts at sleep once more and I lay in bed, awake but exhausted. My nights were filled with dark dreams and even in the sunlit hours shadows came and went. But this darkness was something outside of me and I couldn’t face it yet. The best course was to pretend at living, for my daughter’s sake, if not my own. It was only Rose who made me want to stay alive. It was wrong to feel this way, to wish away my life when Mam had lost hers, but it was impossible to change my feelings. Perhaps it was as well I must remain married to Andrew. It was a form of penance.

Rose was fast asleep in her basket, clutching her poppet, so I got up and went out to the kitchen garden. The back end of August was always busy, and there wasn’t much time to gather all the herbs needed to keep everyone hale through the coming white months. For my remedies, I still relied on the woods and on the gardens at the manse. But there were the makings of a herb garden here at the back of the Drivers’ kitchen. It was not as rich or varied as that at home but it sufficed for the family’s needs.

For now, I’d cut some rosemary. The spiky plant had started into its second bloom of the year and it was adorned with violet flowers. The rosemary in the manse garden only flowered once a year, it being high on the hill and exposed to the elements. Here in the valley, the sheltered garden allowed the more delicate plants to thrive.

I took the fragrant sprigs into the kitchen and sat at the table near the window to make the most of the weak morning light. The rosemary would make a fine wreath of remembrance. When Rose awoke, we’d go and lay it on the wooden cross in the graveyard. Mam’s remains lay in Newcastle, and it would be a long time before I set foot in that town again, but Bill Verger had created a place to remember my mother, next to the memorial cross he’d created for Tom when we’d thought him lost at sea.

My heart skipped at the thought. Tom was alive and coming home! A strange thought entered me now. Despite seeing my mother’s execution, somehow it might not have happened, and she might yet return as well. But this was madness. It couldn’t possibly be so. It pained me to puzzle over it and so my mind shifted back to Tom. What would he do when he got home and found me married to Andrew Driver? Surely, he wouldn’t be able to bear living so close by and I would lose him once again.

Rosemary was a difficult herb to work with sometimes. It was used for remembrance because it opened the memory and brought old feelings to the surface, but these feelings were too hard for me to face. I wondered whether it was the same for Reverend Foster. I’d not seen him in recent days and we’d not spoken since returning from Newcastle. I should go and check on him and maybe ask him to come and lay the wreath with us later.

My musings were interrupted by a gentle tapping at the kitchen door. It was barely dawn so such an early visitor must mean a birthing mother in trouble. I put down the wreath, shook away my thoughts and went to the door. It was May Green.

‘May! What brings you before the sun’s half up?’

‘Oh Jane, sorry to trouble you so sharp in the day, and so soon after...’

Her gaze went to my shorn head and she put a hand to her own blonde curls. It sent a sharp feeling through my heart and I drew my shawl tighter.

‘Please May, it’s all right. Come, tell me what ails you. You’re very pale and sweating far too much – even for a summer morning.’

She wiped her forehead with a trembling hand and cast down her eyes.

‘May? You can tell me anything, you know that.’

But my oldest friend shook her head. I stepped outside, quietly shutting the door behind me so as not to wake Rose or the Drivers. She glanced quickly behind her so I took her arm and drew her into the herb garden but May put her hand to her mouth and shook her head.

‘Sorry. I should have thought...’ My own sickness had passed now, and it was easy to forget how overpowering some plants could be. ‘Here, come to the barn, you should be all right there.’ I drew her into the ivy-covered barn. ‘No one will disturb us in here. Please tell me, May. Let me help you.’

She took my hand and pressed it to her belly. There was no curve there, nor yet any hardness, but her chin quivered and her blue eyes were glazed with tears.

‘You have to help me, Jane. There’s... well...’ May slid down the wall and buried her face in her hands.

I crouched down beside her and put my arms around her. Poor May. It was terrible to see her so unhappy. I held her until her sobbing abated.

‘Come, May. There’s nothing in the world so bad that you cannot tell me.’

She rubbed the tears from her face and blew her nose on her pinny. ‘I’m sorry to bother you when you... when you have so many problems of your own. It’s just you’re the only person who can help me.’

‘It’s all right, May. I’ll help in any way you want me to.’ It was clear to me now what she wanted but it was best to let her find the words to tell me.

‘I... I just can’t have this child.’

‘But whose is it?’

‘I cannot say.’ She wouldn’t meet my eye. ‘Please don’t make me say.’

My mind raced. May seldom set foot outside. And since her youngest brother’s birth, she’d hardly put her nose out the door. In fact, for some time before then she’d scarcely left her house. I hadn’t stopped to consider what might have been going on. But now it seemed all too clear. Oh, how could I have been so naïve?

‘Don’t worry, May. You needn’t say another word. I’ll mend what ails you. Now, tell me how many moons have passed.’

She looked up at me, her eyes reddened from crying. ‘One moon. Not yet two.’

‘So, no sign of the quickening yet?’

She shook her head. ‘No, not yet.’

‘Then that makes an easier task for us.’ I placed my hand gently on her shoulder. ‘Just sit there a whilst and I’ll be as fast as I can.’

I tiptoed back into the house to collect Mam’s satchel. When I opened it, I breathed in the musk of old leather and herbs, the perfume of sweet summer roses and the tang of early autumn berries.

My entire childhood had been spent gathering flowers, seeds, herbs and barks, drying them, pounding them into powders, preserving them in honey and brandy, and sealing them in beeswax. Now, the satchel bristled with the resulting linctus, unguent and tincture, and I ran my hand along the rows of crocks, bottles and vials.

Tears choked me as my eye rested on a bottle of elder linctus tied with red thread. Mam’s final batch. We’d picked the early elderberries and made syrup to sell to the apothecary. That was August. It was still August, yet so much had changed. How could something so innocent cause so much trouble?

Of course, it wasn’t the fault of the linctus. Nor was it the fault of my mother’s vials and their contents. The apothecary’s wife had almost certainly reported us to the witchfinder for sending babes to sleep in their mothers’ wombs. A tremor passed through me and I forced my thoughts away from what had come next.

In my mother’s old satchel were the mysterious vials. I took one and weighed it in the palm of my hand. These vials had come and gone all my life, changing hands from one cunning woman to another, without my ever truly knowing their contents.

My poor mother. She’d tried to protect me from the darker practices of midwifery, maybe knowing how her work might be viewed in some quarters. She’d given me a gentle childhood and one with no need to bear witness to life’s terrors.

As thoughts began crowding into my mind, I shrank from them before they overwhelmed me. It was important to keep my mind on May, who’d suffered the hardest of childhoods without my ever realising. No longer was I a child. I was a woman. A mother. Someone capable of seeing life as it truly was. I would help May now and others like her. This would be my life’s work. But who would stop these men? I sighed. One ailment at a time. First, help May.

I opened a vial and inhaled the bitter notes of rue, the undercutting mint from pennyroyal, the fresh notes of rosemary and the funereal sweetness of tansy. Although my own morning sickness had abated, the smell caused my gorge to rise. It was an ugly aroma for an ugly task.

When I returned to the barn, May was still slumped against the wall and weeping into her pinny.

‘Don’t weep, May.’ I knelt down beside her and put an arm around her. ‘All be will be well.’

‘Do you promise?’

I nodded. ‘Promise. Look, here’s the remedy.’

She took the vial from me and held it up to the light. ‘Will it make me bad?’

‘It’ll sicken you but it will help you. Are you ready?’

She stared at the vial in her hand. ‘Aye.’

‘Come, then.’

May looked up at me with baleful eyes. ‘I fear for my soul, Jane. This is a wrongful deed.’

‘You’ve done naught wrong, May. It’s you who’s been wronged – much wronged.’ I placed a bowl beside her in case she couldn’t stomach the tincture. In that case, my task would become more difficult. I crossed my fingers behind my back. ‘There’s no wrong in this act we’re about to do.’

I wished she’d told me or Mam last time. We might have helped her then and spared her suffering, although it was wrong to wish away little Henry Green.

‘May, do you want me to help you take it?’

‘There’s no helping me.’ She removed the stopper from the vial and tipped its contents into her mouth. At first, she gagged and retched, but kept swallowing, wiping away her tears as she drank. ‘I am for hell.’

‘You’re not for hell, May. None of this is your fault.’

She raised her head sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean nothing. Only, don’t blame yourself. Many girls – including me – end up in your position out of wedlock.’ I crouched down and hugged her. ‘You’ll need to repeat the dose in a quarter hour, if you manage to keep it down. Then you can go home. You’ll need to come back each day to repeat the dose until... until we know it’s worked. Can you manage that?’

She nodded. ‘What’ll happen to me, Jane?’

This was a difficult question for I’d never administered these herbs but I’d witnessed many women losing children at different stages. Now, I wondered how many of those had been accidental and how many had been ordained by my mother’s hand.

‘You’ll have cramping pains within a couple of days, or a week or so. Much like those you have at the time of the moon. Only stronger. There’ll be more blood than usual so I’ll give you some extra rags to take away with you.’

She put her head in her hands and rocked herself. ‘And what about the baby? I can’t bear to see a tiny dead baby.’

‘There won’t be any tiny dead baby, May. It’s much too early.’ I took my suffering friend’s hands in mine. ‘Whatever passes from your body, you must burn. Burn your rags and burn them without looking too closely or thinking too hard. Or bring them to me and I’ll do it for you.’

She nodded. ‘And you’re sure it’ll work?’

‘Yes, it’ll work. Very soon, your womb will be empty.’

‘But my heart will fill with guilt and anguish. Jane, I fear for my soul. I cannot go through this again. Can you stop my courses coming?’

‘Well, you could take wild carrot seed, and that would disrupt your courses.’ I pondered a whilst. ‘But really, it’s your... it’s the baby’s father who needs to be prevented.’

‘That would be better. But how could I bring that about?’

‘Could you tell the sergeants about him?’

‘No, never!’ She stared into the empty manger. ‘They wouldn’t believe me. And even if they