Suffer a Witch Read online

  He’d been more than happy to share his learned techniques with his new friend John Stearne. Their mutual benefactor Sir Harbottle Grimston was committed to purging his sphere of witchcraft and to this end, Hopkins and Stearne became a team. For the past several weeks they had scoured the countryside, the towns, the villages. Mutterings of suspicion had been drawn to the surface to be examined in the light of righteousness.

  The yield had been surprising.

  On a cold night in March, the men found themselves in old Widow Elizabeth Clarke’s hovel. The room was chilly with a single window open to the elements. The noises of nighttime could be heard on the other side of the wall. Hopkins waited, along with Stearne and their search-women, because Clarke was going to call her imps.

  Imps. All witches had familiars, demons that appeared to be farm animals. Hopkins had some protection from the spirit world in the sleek form of Elspeth, but she was tied up outside the gate for fear she would make the imps too nervous to approach. Everyone was on edge. A low fire burned in the crooked fireplace and the crusted remnants of pottage soiled a tipped-over cauldron on the floor. Hopkins raised a lip in distaste. Cleanliness was the neighbor of godliness and Elizabeth Clarke was neither.

  The old lady sat on a rickety wooden chair. She was one-legged, decrepit. Her eyes were bright as though glazed with illness and she kept licking her dry lips. Everything about her posture spoke of desperation, which was proof to Hopkins of her moral lassitude. Hopkins felt the fear of such creatures, fallen into the sin of which their sex predisposed them.

  Suckle and touch me, bathe me, enslave me, said the voices. Hopkins blinked.

  It was always women. The few cases of male witchcraft could almost always be traced to the original sin of a woman. Hopkins fought the twinge of the black desires that plagued him … those thoughts in the night of hot flesh and a long-haired woman, moving like a serpent above him. Of women using him, placing their clawed hands around his throat and holding him tight. Of women’s whispers, carried on the wind of a Friday night. Of the many-eyed, many-legged things that lurked in forgotten corners of his mind.

  “Shh,” said Widow Clarke. “He be here, back from ’is work.”

  The silence in the room was so heavy it pressed on Hopkins’s temples. He strained to hear the noise of imps. He suppressed the urge to cough.

  Clarke gave a rasping laugh and rocked back and forth on her chair.

  The motion made Hopkins want to slap her. Filthy old woman.

  In that silent and stuffy room the watchers could hear their own breathing, the buzzing of their own thoughts, and then … a fluttering, a movement … jaws clenched tight as the thing approached the door.

  “Sacke and Sugar,” said Clarke. That was the imp’s name. “Me blackie Sacke and Sugar, ’e’ll rip ye apart.”

  The grass outside the widow’s door rustled and Hopkins’s heart pounded against his ribcage. The watchers peered into the moonlit yard and beheld “Sacke and Sugar.”

  It was a rabbit. The rabbit made leisurely hops and appeared interested in a discarded piece of rotten cabbage.

  “That be ’im!” said Clarke, still rocking.

  “The Devil takes many harmless disguises,” whispered Hopkins, his eye still on the rabbit.

  “Clarke has the teats, there’s no doubt,” said Mary Phillips, one of the search-women. “And now here is the imp.”

  “Proof is had,” said Stearne.

  And the Widow Clarke was arrested.

  It was with triumph that Hopkins returned home alone in the night, skittish Elspeth at his side. The charges ran through his head. To name them gave him a sense of control over their horror. Witchcraft. Satanic pact. Intercourse with the Devil and the suckling of his creatures on her body. Ill will against her neighbors and against holiness itself.

  In the feisty March winds, Hopkins shivered and coughed. There was something in the air that made him feel feverish. Elspeth’s hackles were up. On the dark road, his feeble lantern cast an inadequate circle of light around him.

  He spun around and was startled by his own shadow. The voice of caution spoke. To go against witches was to invite their attack. The witches had secret ways of communicating, Hopkins knew, else how could they coordinate their sabbat meetings? At this very moment they could be warning one another of his presence.

  The fear began to press inward. “Come, Elspeth.” He meant it to sound authoritative but it came out as a rasp. “Heel.”

  The dog whined and with her ears flat against her head, she slunk next to Hopkins. He thought he saw shapes moving behind the line of trees, black-and-white shapes like Sacke and Sugar. The imps of other witches could be following him. Oh, dear Lord, preserve me, he thought. The night had eyes, thousands of eyes, and without further regard for his dignity he bolted towards home.

  He could not bear to look around his yard at the blackie shapes masquerading as bushes. The key was in his hand when he reached his front door. Elspeth barked and Hopkins’s fingers shook—open, open, he prayed—and then he and Elspeth were inside. He slammed the door behind him, slid the iron bar across it, lit all the candles in his bedroom, and opened the Bible that lay on the table.

  Murmuring a familiar verse, Hopkins began to calm down. Sweat tickled in his mustache and beard. He was doing the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on this flawed earth. He had no business losing faith and giving in to fear. The weakness in his blood would not triumph over the Holy Spirit in him … as long as he worked hard to purge it from himself. This was the lance to the boil of his beginnings. His father’s words echoed: “Work hard … remain strict … overcome the stain …”

  The law, too, was on his side. On Judgment Day, he, Matthew Hopkins, would be remembered for using the laws of man to enforce the laws of Heaven.

  He’d found a witch and discovered her name. She would be jailed because of him. No matter what happened to scraggly Elizabeth Clarke after this, she was on his master list. The relief was a warmth throughout his body, a restless and wild jubilation.

  I’ll remember you, Clarkie, he thought. Inspired, he opened his leather bag and pulled out one of the bodkins used for testing the Devil’s teats. Hopkins held it by the wooden handle and twirled it in his hand, watching the bright glint off the tip. One witch, two witch. Deborah, Elizabeth.

  Panting, he took the bodkin in a hard grip and began to scratch at the wood beam on the wall. Shush, scritch. The point dug in to the hard seasoned oak. Tiny flakes fell off. One long line, up and down, up and down. Another shorter line, back and forth, back and forth. That was for the original witch. That was the scratched cross that Hopkins had to bear.

  He scored another cross next to hers, for Elizabeth Clarke. It was off-kilter, crooked; the grain of the oak was tough to rub against.

  Two witches named. Two crosses to mark the work he had done for Heaven.

  After recording his success, he felt strong enough to ignore the creaking timbers of the house and the groaning wind outside. With trembling fingers he undressed for bed … then he had Elspeth curled at the foot of his bed, and the covers tucked up to his nose.

  The next morning, however, contained the comforting promise of spring. Birds sang in the sunshine, new grass made the landscape bright, and the shrubs outside his window were just shrubs that waved in the breeze. It put Hopkins in mind of the Book of Revelations, and the new earth that would be made after the Apocalypse.

  He breathed a little easier. There was good work to be done.

  PIPPA WAS IN HER house dress, which she did not want to stain, so she stood a foot back from the cauldron. With a long wooden spoon she stirred what was inside. The window shutters were closed, as was the door. A shame, thought Pippa, for it was a nice day. Lillibet was careful about who saw them about their business.

  “Why must we be so secretive, Lillibet? Everyone comes to you for remedies.”

  “Pippa, you must learn discretion. Here, ’tis time to add the horsetail.” Lillibet measured out a scoop of the dried herb an
d poured it into the cauldron. It hissed in response. Lillibet sighed. “Knowledge is not always good. People don’t understand our ways. The traditions of our mothers are being lost to those who think we do evil.”

  Pippa scoffed. “How could you be evil?”

  “They don’t know the land as we do. The old ways are called witchcraft, and we cunning-folk are driven to caution.”

  “But I cannot understand! Even this,” Pippa gestured at the bubbling concoction, “is at the request of Isabel Moore. She cannot conceive again, and so she comes to you to brew her a potion.”

  “That is because she has no other choice,” said Lillibet. “If we advertise ourselves, we become open to attack.”

  “You have the midwifery license.”

  “No license to be cunning-folk. ’Tis a deeper thing. It must be kept quiet.”

  They were interrupted by a soft tap on the door. Pippa dashed over, knocking down a wooden cup that fell to the earthen floor.

  “Careful, child!” Lillibet said.

  “Who goes there?” Pippa whispered through the door.

  “’Tis us,” said Sybil Yates’s voice. “Alice and myself. We’ve brought the cream.’

  Pippa pulled the door open to admit her friends.

  “Oh! The s-s-smell is … in-interesting,” said Alice.

  Sybil grinned and twitched her nose.

  Lillibet glared at Pippa. “What are they doing here?”

  “They want to help! Don’t worry, they’ll never tell. This is a bound secret, just like our times in the forest.” Pippa gave meaningful looks to Sybil and Alice.

  “Please, Lillibet?” added Sybil. “We want to be cunning, too.”

  Lillibet sighed. Sybil was a favorite of hers, and Pippa had heard her say that Sybil had a gift. And Alice was quiet and kind, the last person to judge the ways of others. “All right. And may God bless you with children, Alice, so that you never need brew it for yourself. I know how you adore the care of little ones.”

  Alice smiled, dipped her head, and then peered into the cauldron.

  “The cream is added last,” said Lillibet. “It masks the pungency of the herbs. Cream and milk … both represent the nursing of children. Go ahead, Alice. Pour in four of these.” She handed over a pewter cup.

  The cream was poured with a cautious hand and allowed to bubble for a few more minutes.

  “Now,” said Pippa, hoisting up her skirts and snatching a small clay jar shaped like an hourglass, “the vessel.”

  “This is important because it births the idea of fertility,” added Lillibet. “Here, Sybil. Use this to draw a spiral upon it.” She produced a fine horsehair brush and an inkwell.

  Sybil sat on the floor next to Pippa and stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, concentrating as she dipped the brush into the inkwell. With a few quick strokes on the jar, she drew a spiral where a woman’s stomach might be.

  “Seed takes hold, the child grows,” Pippa murmured the rhyme. Her mother nodded approval.

  The ink was brushed into a spell, into further spirals and waving lines. When Sybil was finished she blew lightly over it, to help it dry. “Ready,” she said, holding it out to Lillibet.

  “Now we pour it in,” said Pippa. “May I?” she asked Lillibet. She wanted to have the important job.

  Sybil passed her the jar. The potion was taken off the fire and Pippa used a ladle to pour the mixture into the vessel.

  “This is the proper look,” said Lillibet.

  It was dim inside the cottage but the cracks of light through the shutters was enough to show the pale liquid. Sybil said, “I feel confident should the need arise. Thank you, Lillibet.”

  “But not for you!” said Pippa.

  “No.” Sybil laughed. “I fear my sister Elizabeth may find difficulty in her marriage, whoever the unfortunate man shall be. Her manner is hostile to growth of any kind. Perhaps this would sweeten her womb!”

  They all laughed. “Here, take some hot water,” said Lillibet, using a cloth to take a smaller pot off the fire. “Good for your selves.” She sat in her rocking chair and took a long, slurping sip. “Do take heed of this charm cast, for it be the same I cast upon meself for the birth of Pippa.”

  Pippa sat down slowly to hear her mother speak, careful not to spill the scalding water from her cup. Then she took too big a sip and burned her tongue.

  “Yes,” Lillibet reminisced, “I was too old, so they said, but John and I wanted a child, and prayed so many times for God to grant us a little one. But the Lord helps them that help themselves. At the height of summer I set to bring meself fertility, and the planting of a child, and used these same herbs and charms, and so it worked. Nine months later, in the spring, when the lambs were birthing their own, Philippa arrived in the world. I be using this method ever since, and never has it failed.”

  Lillibet’s eyes held light when she spoke of Pippa’s origins. She had been the miracle baby, the one so unlikely, and Pippa was glad that Lillibet had someone to carry on her knowledge. Sometimes Pippa felt more like an employee than a daughter, but she enjoyed the honest banter and hard work she shared with Lillibet, rather than someone else’s idea of how a mother and daughter should be. She even called her mother by her given name, and that made her feel closer, as though they were not just kin, but friends by choice.

  Later, as the girls were leaving, Lillibet said, “Please, young misses, say nothing about your time here. I’ve explained to my Pippa that women’s knowledge must be quiet knowledge.” Lillibet’s fingers were laced together, drumming anxiously against each other.

  “I sh-shall say n-n-nothing,” said Alice, “f-for I have no others to t-t-tell.”

  “I only talk to my friends and my dolls, and the trees,” said Sybil. Her voice was high, like that of a much younger girl, or a songbird.

  “God bless, then, children,” said Lillibet. “And Sybil, take no advice on matrimony from your sister Elizabeth!”

  Sybil, laughing again, departed down the path toward her own home with Alice’s arm linked through hers.

  “I’ll be taking this to Isabel Moore now,” said Lillibet. “Open the windows, this place needs air.” She paused. “Pippa, I mean this. Discretion. Discipline. You may someday regret sharing this part of our lives.”

  “But, Lillibet, they’re my friends! You said yourself that Sybil is … different. And Alice, though she hardly gets time away from her work, has the kindest heart of us all.”

  “You should have asked my permission before inviting them.”

  Once again she’d stumbled into disapproval from Lillibet. Sighing, she resolved to do better next time, and ask permission for things. Although Lillibet was so strict about their magic, Pippa couldn’t be upset with her.

  While her mother was gone Pippa ate a piece of buttered brown bread as a lunch, swept the floor and cleaned out the cauldron, and pinned her hair up into its coif. She wanted to take a walk and would need to look proper. “If only I could wear my hair as a man,” she said to herself. Men cropped their hair short and did not need to fuss with it.

  Her mother’s errand did not take long—the Moores lived down the lane—and on Lillibet’s return Pippa asked permission to go for a walk. The lively air was like a restless spirit, and the woods and fields called for attention.

  “Go, child, go!” said Lillibet, waving her off with a smile, her mood passed.

  Strong legs took Pippa across country. She wandered with the brook for awhile and skirted the woods. The trees sighed contentment in the breeze. The buds of new leaves tipped the branches. The fields, plowed and seeded, showed exuberant shoots of green. Pippa was careful to tread along the edges of the new fields. When a family of rabbits emerged from their warren near an oak tree, she greeted them with a loud call.

  “Ho, there, rabbits!”

  She broke into a run downhill toward the main road. Errant strands of hair escaped her Dutch-style cap but she did not care. Beneath her petticoats her legs were bare and free.

&
nbsp; When she saw the figure walking on the road ahead of her, her heart stuttered.

  The man stopped when he saw her, and she stopped a few paces away, breathing heavily.

  “Hugh Felton,” she said. “Good day.” She made an absurd curtsey, with her hair half-tumbled and her skirts awry.

  “Pippa.” He might have tipped his hat but he was bareheaded, burnished gold hair shining in the sunlight, and in working clothes. A pale wool shirt rested on his broad shoulders, and his dark breeches were tucked into muddy boots. He walked with an air of casual ownership for this road, this land. That was something Pippa liked about Hugh: he was a wealthy landowner’s son, but he took involvement in the everyday working of that land.

  There was a moment of silence, lightened by the chirping of birds, and then Pippa was startled when Hugh burst out laughing. “My apologies,” he said, bent over with his hands on his knees, “but you’re ridiculous! What are you doing, running like the Devil’s at your heels?”

  “Perhaps the Devil is,” she said, laughing too and trying to get her hair back up. Oh, those horrid pins, she thought. She’d lost several of her wooden hairpins while running. “I hope I don’t frighten you with my mad pace.”

  “You don’t,” said Hugh, taking a step closer. “Walk with me? I’m to the smithy. Father’s needing a new bit for one of the horses.”

  He wants to walk with me! she thought. “Gladly,” said Pippa. “Thank you.”

  “Do you know,” said Hugh, “my mother was speaking the other day about decorum in young ladies. She thinks they have too much.”

  “Indeed?” Pippa didn’t have much decorum. Perhaps Lady Felton would like her, if only she knew her.

  “Yes. A very proper young woman from Lavenham refused to greet my brother. Later it emerged that she felt it would be imprudent to speak to a man. Any man. Too much piety at the sacrifice of Christian hospitality.”

  “She’s not used to our country ways,” said Pippa. It was a recognized fact that country people were friendlier and more casual about things. She doubted that she could walk with Hugh in a city. “Or, your brother’s not used to the ways of towns.”