The Vanishing Witch Read online

  Lincoln

  Lincoln has many ghosts like me: Roman soldiers, who march for ever into the treacherous fens from which, in life, they never returned; the Jews, slaughtered on the road as they were driven out of England; the nun, walled up alive for breaking her vow of chastity, who stretches her pale hand out through the solid stone into the street to drag the unwary passer-by into her vertical tomb. Only the night-watch and the beggars sleeping in church porches or huddled in archways see these phantasms. The drunks do too, of course, but they cannot tell a whore’s scream from the cry of a vixen, much less the living from the dead. I’ve even known some of the old tosspots to wave at me and ask me to join them in a flagon of ale, as if we were old friends.

  Of course, some men wouldn’t notice if a ghost galloped headless and naked through their own bedchamber, banging pots and hurling chairs. And Robert was one of them, but on that particular day he might have been forgiven it, for he had much to occupy his mind. He was pacing his hall impatiently, every so often looking upwards at the ceiling as if he could see through the wood into the bedchamber above. He heard the sound of something being scraped along the boards – the brazier, perhaps, or a table. Was the physician bleeding Edith again?

  His wife’s health was worsening by the day in spite of all the potions and remedies the physician had prescribed, at no little expense – purging syrups of succory, dandelion, maidenhair and rhubarb; mint water to strengthen the stomach, wormwood to kill any worms of the gut, and dried grasshoppers to ease the colic. During the first week after Hugo Bayus had begun treating her, the pains had seemed to lessen. But now they had returned, and nothing the physician could prescribe or the apothecary prepare eased them.

  Robert glanced again at the ceiling. What was taking so long? A messenger had arrived before breakfast saying his son needed him at the warehouse. Infuriatingly Jan had not explained why to the dolt who had been sent to find him. Robert’s gullet burned as if he’d drunk too much cheap wine. Had there been some new disaster?

  Only last night he’d heard that a shipload of Lombards had arrived in Lincolnshire and were trying to strike bargains with the farmers and the monasteries to buy their fleeces before a single sheep had been shorn. The broggers were up in arms, for as middle men they were being cut right out of the deal and, come spring, they would have no fleeces to sell to the Lincolnshire merchants. If the Lombards succeeded, it could spell ruin for many of the Lincoln men.

  Robert stared at the ceiling with mounting irritation. Didn’t the man realise he had business to attend to? When he finally heard the physician’s heavy tread on the stairs, he strode across the hall, wrenched open the door to the stairs and all but dragged the poor man into the hall in his impatience to hear the verdict.

  Hugo Bayus was a small-boned man, with a disproportionately large, spherical head, which seemed all the rounder because he was completely bald. His grey eyes were magnified to the size of hen’s eggs behind thick spectacles, which he held up on a long handle, as he peered about the room. He was well respected in his profession, having tended the victims of the Great Pestilence without falling prey to it. Any physician who can cure himself was thought to be worth his weight in gold, and many said, only half in jest, that that was exactly what he charged.

  ‘My wife,’ Robert asked, ‘how does she fare?’

  The old man slowly shook his head. ‘Not well, not well at all.’

  Robert could not contain himself. ‘I’d not have sent for you if I thought she was well.’

  He knew all physicians liked to present their patients as more gravely ill than they were, not only to increase their fees but also their reputation should the patient be cured, or to excuse failure if they died. Robert was prepared to pay a king’s ransom to help his wife, but he disliked being taken for a fool when it came to money.

  ‘Have the goodness to tell me plainly what ails her and what must be done to cure her. I’ll pay for whatever physic she needs so long as the price is fair and it brings her to health again.’

  ‘She has a weakness of the stomach,’ Hugo said, ‘which I fear may have caused the liver to overheat.’

  ‘What can be done for her?’

  ‘I will treat it with rupture-wort, brimstone and dried liver of hare. But . . .’ He spread his hands, as if to say that he did not hold out much hope for any of these working.

  Robert raked his grey hair. ‘Edith’s in so much pain, moaning and tossing all night. I’ve been reduced to sleeping down here with the servants. Is there nothing you can do to calm her?’

  ‘I’ll have the apothecary make up a draught of my own devising.’ The physician tapped his nose. ‘You must instruct your maid to put three drops of it in spirits of wine and give it to her mistress each night. It will soothe the pain and put her into a deep sleep. No more than three drops, for it contains henbane and too much will bring about a sleep from which she will never wake.’

  Beata’s head appeared around the door. ‘The mistress is asking for you, Master Robert.’

  The physician tugged his cloak from the chair where he had discarded it and swung it over his shoulders. ‘Go to her, Master Robert. Your attention will do as much to soothe her as any of my physic. And, Beata, remember what I said. Your mistress is to be fed tripe, lean beef broth with no fat in it, and a little mashed sheep’s brains for strength. On no account is she to have milk, cheese, honey or any sweet thing.’

  He turned back to Robert. ‘It’s known that fretting weakens the stomach. Do all you can to keep her calm and put her mind at ease. Now I must be off, Master Robert. Have your servant call upon the apothecary this afternoon after the None bell. The draught should be ready by then.’

  Beata opened the great door for the physician and he scurried out, pausing only to make a little bow to Robert. Gathering up his own cloak, Robert strode to the door, his mind still tormented by what might be amiss at the warehouse.

  ‘Sir, the mistress wants to see you,’ Beata reminded him.

  Robert sighed heavily, thrust his cloak into her hands and made for the door at the opposite end of the hall, which led to the solar and the bedchamber.

  He jerked back in surprise to find Adam standing at the foot of the stairs, staring up to the room where his mother lay.

  Robert frowned. ‘I thought you’d left for school. You’d better hurry. You don’t want a birching for being late.’

  Adam swallowed. ‘But Mother . . . will she get better?’

  Robert pursed his lips. ‘Hugo Bayus is the finest physician in Lincoln. We have to trust in his skills . . . and in God, of course,’ he added hastily, feeling it his duty as the boy’s father to remind him, not that he himself had any great faith. ‘You pray for your mother, don’t you?’

  ‘Every day and night,’ Adam said. ‘As hard as I can.’

  ‘That’s all you can do. Off to school with you, boy. You don’t want to add to your mother’s burdens by making her think she has a dunce and a wastrel for a son.’

  He had meant it kindly – better that the boy concentrate on his studies and not worry about his mother – but he could see from the way Adam stiffened that he had said the wrong thing. His son was frightened for his mother. She tried to hide her pain whenever he was with her, but too soon she had to send him out of the room.

  He knew he should spend more time with the lad, but Adam was always ill at ease and tongue-tied with him. The boy prattled on freely enough with Beata and Tenney, but whenever he summoned his son, Adam stood awkwardly, like a servant waiting for instructions, plainly anxious to get away. It annoyed and hurt Robert when he thought about it, which wasn’t often: too many other concerns jostled for attention in his head.

  Robert watched his son retreat out of the door, then climbed the wooden stairs. He paused outside the heavy door, steeling himself for what lay beyond. He took a deep breath and stepped inside.

  The stench hit him as soon as he entered. The windows were closed tightly against the cold and pastilles of incense and thyme bur
ned on the small brass brazier, but that did little to mask the odour of Edith’s breath, which filled the room like rotting fish guts. His wife lay in the four-poster bed, propped up on bolsters and pillows, a linen cap tied beneath her chin. Each time he saw her Robert was appalled at how thin and drawn she had become in such a short time. Her pallid skin was dry and withered, like that of a woman twice her age. Her eyes were dull with pain and lack of sleep.

  ‘Robert?’ She patted the cover beside her, inviting him to sit on the bed.

  He took a few paces into the room and forced a smile, but he did not sit down. ‘How are you feeling, my dear? You look brighter today.’ It was a lie, but he meant well.

  She smiled weakly. ‘I’m a little stronger. I think I shall be well enough to get up this afternoon.’

  ‘You must stay in bed. Hugo said you were to rest and Beata said you hardly slept last night.’

  Edith coughed in the smoke from the brazier, wincing and clutching her belly. It was several moments before she could speak again. ‘I was worried about you, Robert . . . Beata said you were sleeping in the hall, but you didn’t come to see me . . . say goodnight . . . I know Beata sometimes keeps it from me when you’re late coming home. She thinks I fret.’

  ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

  Edith jerked as a wave of pain rolled through her. Then she lay back, panting. ‘Tell me the truth, Robert. You’re not still visiting her, are you?’

  Robert rounded on her: ‘Stop this, Edith! Why are you tormenting yourself? I swear constantly gnawing on your suspicions is making you ill. Hugo practically said as much. I’ve told you a hundred times, my business with Mistress Catlin was concluded long ago. These fancies are in your head, and the sooner you banish them, the sooner you’ll be well. And now, if there’s nothing you need, I must go. I’m wanted urgently at the warehouse.’

  ‘You are wanted here too, Robert,’ Edith said softly, as he turned to the door. ‘Won’t you kiss me, husband?’

  Angry with her for delaying him and her insane jealousy, it was all Robert could do to stop himself striding from the room and slamming the door behind him. But he turned and forced himself to take the few paces to her bed. He bent and brushed his lips to her forehead with distaste. Her skin smelt sour. As he straightened, he saw something lying on the creamy linen pillow. It was a lock of dyed yellow hair, white at the root. Only then did he notice other strands caught on the bolster and covers. Edith’s hair was falling out in handfuls. Swallowing hard, and blinking back tears, he kissed her again, with a tenderness he had not shown her for a long time.

  Robert spotted his son standing near a wagon by the doorway to the warehouse. Even from a distance he could see he was in a dark humour. He was bellowing at a clerk, who repeatedly held up his tally sticks in an attempt to ward off the other man’s wrath.

  Robert leaped forward to avoid being brained by a man carrying several long planks on his shoulder, and approached the pair. ‘Trouble, Jan?’

  His son frowned. ‘Two bales short, but this cod-wit keeps telling me it was a full load.’

  ‘It was,’ the man protested. ‘You can see for yourself. The notches match. There is nothing missing.’

  ‘Except that they are missing!’ Jan retorted.

  Robert elbowed him aside. ‘I think you would be well advised, Master Clerk, to count them again or perhaps you’d like my steward to count them for you with his staff across your back. Would that teach you your numbers?’

  The clerk scooted off like a frightened rabbit.

  Jan spun round to face his father. ‘I don’t need to be told how to handle my men. I was dealing with it.’

  ‘My men,’ Robert corrected. ‘You’ve many things to learn yet, boy, before they become yours and one is to make men so terrified of your very shadow that they dare not slacken even when your back is turned. If you did that, we wouldn’t have stock going missing!’ He scowled at one of the paggers to emphasise the point. ‘Now, you sent word for me to come. Is something amiss besides those bales?’

  Jan’s cheeks flushed a dull red and his eyes were blazing as fiercely as his father’s. ‘I sent word over an hour ago.’

  ‘I was detained speaking to Hugo Bayus about your mother.’

  Guilt and anxiety instantly replaced the anger in Jan’s face. ‘What did he say? Is she any better?’

  Robert tried to push away the pitiful vision of the bright yellow hair lying on the pillow.

  ‘He says he knows what ails her now. An overheated liver. He’s treating her with a new remedy. She’ll be well again soon.’ Robert was by no means as confident of that as he sounded, but it wouldn’t help business to have Jan distracted from his work. ‘The boy you sent didn’t say why you wanted to see me, and you still haven’t told me.’

  ‘I didn’t tell him,’ Jan said quietly. ‘I thought it best that as few people as possible hear, in case it gives the others ideas.’

  He led his father to the side of the warehouse, glancing around warily to make sure they were not overheard. ‘Tom, our rent collector, didn’t return home the night before last. His wife was concerned, but the neighbours told her he was probably holed up in some tavern somewhere.’

  Robert frowned. ‘Tom’s not a man for the drink. I’d have never given him the job if I thought he was. Too much temptation having a scrip full of coins. Hugh de Garwell employed a rent collector who was over-fond of wine—’

  Jan interrupted: ‘Yesterday afternoon when Tom still hadn’t come back the neighbours agreed to help her search and took a couple of dogs with them. But they couldn’t find hide nor hair, though they searched as long as the light held. They were on their way home when one of the dogs started barking at something floating in one of the marsh-pools. They thought it was an old sack at first, then realised it was a body. It would have sunk right to the bottom except that the clothes had snagged on a dead tree half submerged in the water. It was Tom, all right. They think whoever dumped him in there had done it in the dark and couldn’t see properly where they were pitching him. There was a fair bit of mist on the marshes, the night he went missing.’

  ‘Then isn’t it likely he blundered into the bog himself?’ Robert said.

  ‘He was found too far from solid ground. If he’d been floundering in there, he’d have been able to grab a hold of the tree. Besides, a man doesn’t get marks like that on his body from falling into a bog. He’d been beaten, and I don’t just mean a black eye. He was covered with bruises from head to toe. They say if he wasn’t dead when he was thrown in, he was as close to it as pork is to pig’s meat.’

  Robert shook his head. ‘This is a bad business. You think he was set upon by footpads and robbed? They’re becoming more daring by the day. Remember that friar who was hanging round the warehouse? I swear I’ve seen him lurking in the street where Mistress . . .’

  Jan’s chin jerked up and he eyed his father with suspicion.

  ‘. . . lurking in the streets,’ Robert finished lamely. ‘He could have followed Tom, if he’d been watching men’s movements, waiting for a chance to steal.’

  Jan nodded. ‘I was followed, too, one evening, coming back from Greetwell. I reckon it could well have been the man we saw at the warehouse. But as for him attacking Tom . . .’ Jan frowned. ‘Bailiff’s certainly convinced it was thieves and that’s what the men who found Tom are saying too, but I’m not so sure. His purse had been cut from the straps, but if it was a band of robbers, they usually rip a man’s tunic off, see if he’s any ingots or valuables strapped to his chest. His shirt was still in place and his belt. He’d not been searched. And if a robber wanted to kill a man he thought might identify him, he’d stab him or slit his throat. A beating takes too long and it’s noisy. Anyone might chance upon them while it’s happening.’

  ‘A tavern brawl that went too far?’ Robert said dubiously.

  ‘You said yourself, Father, that Tom wasn’t a man for taverns or drinking. No, I think it’s more serious than that. His wife said he’d gone to
the cottages along the river at Greetwell. Three of them didn’t pay their rent for the second quarter in a row. He was following your orders, Father. Went to give them warning they’d be out if they didn’t pay up next quarter and Tom wasn’t a man to butter his words. From what I’ve heard there’d been mutterings against him before.’

  ‘You think the cottagers beat him to death?’ Robert was shocked. In the past month a number of the landowners had reported dung being thrown at their rent-collectors’ houses, their children tormented, even the odd hen killed or vegetables spoiled, especially if they were thought to favour their own kin or hounded those who couldn’t pay. But murder? No cottager would dare such an attack on those in authority.

  ‘Have the cottagers been questioned?’

  Jan nodded grimly. ‘They have, but they’re sticking together, like burrs on a dog’s backside. They’ve sworn by every saint in Christendom he never arrived at their doors that evening. The constable’s got men out searching for a gang of robbers and they may well find some too, but it doesn’t mean they’re guilty of this murder. But if the cottagers get away with it, and it looks like they will, what’s to stop others doing the same? I warned you there’d be trouble if you raised the rents.’

  ‘If they or you think I shall be intimidated into lowering them, you’d better think again,’ Robert thundered. ‘Give in to the knaves over this and next they’ll be demanding I let them live there for free and pay them a king’s ransom to punt my cargoes a few yards downriver. I’ll speak to the sheriff and see that he questions them again, more robustly this time. In the meantime, you had better find another rent-collector. Make sure he goes out well armed and takes one of our paggers with him to watch his back. They’re strong enough to hold their own against the boatmen. See to it, will you?’

  ‘If I can find any pagger willing to go once the word spreads,’ Jan said darkly.

  ‘If any man refuses to do as he’s bade, sack him! There are plenty who’d be only too willing to take his place. If you’re not to send my business straight into the ditch, you must be tougher with these men.’