The Vanishing Witch Page 17

  She crossed herself, to ward off such evil from her own children. ‘Besides, if the bailiff should catch him . . .’

  ‘Lad knows to be careful and he’s got to learn. We’ll need all the fish he can catch this year, way things are going.’

  Royse exchanged a worried glance with her mother. ‘Will it be—’

  ‘Horses!’ Hankin sprang from the chair but his father grabbed him and pulled him back. Swiftly, Gunter heaved the stout wooden plank across the door to brace it shut. They all stood rigid, listening intently. Iron horseshoes clattered against the stones on the narrow track, but the riders were moving slowly, cautiously, as well they might, for the night was a dark one.

  Gunter glanced at Nonie. He could see the tension in her face. Who would be riding this way so late? None of their neighbours owned horses, and merchants or monks would keep to the road, if their business was so urgent that they were forced to travel by night.

  The hoofbeats came closer to the door, so close they could hear the creaking of the leather saddles. Gunter thought they were going to pass by. He prayed that they were. But then he heard the horses snort as their riders swung from the saddles, and the murmur of men’s voices. There were two . . . maybe three.

  As Gunter reached for his stave, he caught the look of alarm that flashed across the faces of his wife and daughter.

  ‘They could be robbers,’ Nonie whispered. ‘Same as battered Tom to death. For pity’s sake, don’t let them in, Gunter.’

  ‘Any man wealthy enough to own a horse wouldn’t trouble to steal from a cottage as poor as this,’ Gunter said, but he took firmer grip on his stave.

  Although they were expecting it, the loud rapping on the door made them jump.

  ‘Open up in the name of the King.’

  ‘Who’s out there?’ Gunter’s voice betrayed his fear.

  ‘The King’s commissioner. I’ve the King’s sergeants-at-arms with me. They’ve the power to arrest you if you refuse to yield to us.’

  Gunter spun round on his wooden stump. Dropping the stave, he crossed to the wall and pulled open a low wicket door in the thin partition between the cottage and the goat’s byre on the other side of the wall. He beckoned frantically to his daughter.

  ‘Out this way,’ he whispered. ‘Wait in the byre until you hear the men are inside the cottage, then keep low and run as fast as you can to the marsh. Hide until you hear me make the peewit’s call. Understand?’

  Royse, terrified and bewildered, for once didn’t argue, but ducked obediently through the wicket. Nonie pushed Hankin towards the opening and made to grab the sleeping Col too, but Gunter stopped her. ‘Lads must stay.’

  He fastened the wicket behind Royse, pushing a barrel across it to hide it. Nonie stared at him, evidently as frightened and confused as Royse. Gunter thought she was about to argue, but before she could protest the thumping on the door redoubled.

  ‘Do you want us to break this door down?’

  As if to demonstrate that they could do just that, someone pounded on the door with the hilt of a sword so hard that it trembled in its frame.

  Hands sweating, Gunter struggled to lift the wooden brace from the sockets. He’d scarcely laid it aside before the door burst open and a corpulent man strode into the tiny cottage, closely followed by two great hulks of men. One kicked the door shut.

  Gunter did not need convincing that they were who they had claimed to be. The two sergeants-at-arms wore the King’s colours on their tabards, which hung over thick padded leather gambesons, stout enough to protect their chests from a dagger thrust. The sheathed swords that dangled from their belts were clearly intended for battle, not ornament, and their scarred faces told Gunter their owners had found many occasions to put the blades to good use.

  The third man was not a soldier, though he, too, wore a sword, but his had a richly ornamented hilt. His clothes were finely made and even Gunter could tell his boots must have cost more than a river-man could hope to earn in a year. Given his stout girth, it was evident that he’d grown accustomed to having others fight for him, rather than soil his own costly blade.

  He fumbled in his scrip and produced a roll of parchment, glancing around for somewhere to lay it. He pushed aside the wooden bowls of half-eaten pottage on the small table, wrinkling his nose in disgust. ‘God’s blood, woman, take those away. The stench is enough to sour milk. What have you been cooking – swill for the hogs?’ He began to unroll the parchment, running a stubby finger down a list written there.

  Her face flushed with humiliation, Nonie pulled Hankin gently aside and hastened to collect the bowls. She stood with them in her hand, unable to decide where to set them down.

  ‘I’ll take them out.’

  But as she attempted to squeeze past the commissioner, he shot out an arm and barred her way. ‘Stay where you are,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t want you running off alerting your neighbours.’ Only then did he lift his head, and what he saw seemed to arrest his attention for he stared at her. ‘Stay in here, sweetheart,’ he repeated, but this time almost under his breath.

  Nonie darted a frightened look at Gunter and backed away a few paces until she collided with the small bed on which their son slept. Col had sprung awake and curled himself into the furthest corner, his eyes wide, gazing up fearfully at the men towering above him.

  ‘You’re known as Gunter?’ the commissioner said briskly. ‘A boatman by trade, is that correct?’

  Dumbly Gunter nodded. Was this about Tom’s murder? No, the constable or Sheriff of Lincoln would come if they wanted to question him about that. Maybe this was to do with a cargo. Were they claiming it was stolen or the tax on it had not been paid? His heart began to pound as he tried to remember each and every load he had carried these past few weeks.

  ‘What is it I’m accused of?’

  The commissioner lifted his hand from the parchment on the table, which promptly curled up into a roll again as if trained to conceal its contents. ‘Guilty conscience, is it? What have you been up to? Smuggling? Creaming off some of the cargo before you land it?’

  ‘Nothing . . . I’ve done nothing.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know you’re all as innocent as the angels,’ the commissioner said wearily. ‘That’s what they all claim. You boatmen would rob a blind monk of his last farthing, then swear you’d given him charity. You’ve probably broken the law so many times, they could hang you a dozen times over and you’d still have crimes left unpunished. But you needn’t fret yourself this time. I’m not here to investigate your felonies. My business is the poll tax.’

  Words swelled in Gunter’s mouth, words so full of anger and outrage that for a moment it was all he could do not to vomit them over the man.

  Nonie must have seen the fury in his face, for she whispered urgently, ‘Gunter, please, don’t!’

  Gunter knew his wife was right to urge him to silence. Experience had long ago taught him that railing at men in authority only brought down more trouble on your head. He swallowed hard and tried to sound humble even though the effort nearly choked him. ‘Sirs, I know I didn’t pay all that was due at Christmas, but with the bad weather and the rebellion in Flanders, loads were hard to come by. It’s a lot to find and we had precious little notice. But with spring coming, there’ll be more work . . . I can give you a little now but it’s not all that I owe. I haven’t got that yet . . . I just need more time. In June, at the next collection, you shall have it all.’

  Even as he spoke, Gunter could tell the commissioner was barely listening. He flapped his hand at Gunter to silence him. ‘Do I look like a tax-collector?’ he said scornfully. ‘But since you raised the matter you may as well know that, because of men like you who refused to pay what they owed in December, Parliament has brought the date for the next collection forward to the twenty-first of April. I suggest you find more work quickly for you’ve less than a month remaining to pay the whole amount in full.’

  Gunter felt as if the man had just punched him to the floor. He saw the
shock on Nonie’s face. They had been able to pay only a quarter of the tax demanded at Christmas instead of the two-thirds required. Nonie had been worried enough about how they were to pay all that was owed in June, but he had kept trying to reassure her that work was bound to increase by then. But to find the rest in under a month? It was impossible.

  He was dimly aware that the commissioner was still talking and forced himself to concentrate on what the man was saying.

  ‘. . . check the records. The bailiff in Greetwell was supposed to have made returns listing all those men and women eligible to pay taxes in each household. But if this’ – he flicked the roll of parchment with his forefinger – ‘is a correct reckoning, then Greetwell has either been smitten by some terrible pestilence or those French pirates are coming further inland than we’d thought. According to this return, half the population of this village seems to have vanished in the last two years, and most of them women. How do you account for that?’

  ‘I don’t . . . I can’t . . .’

  ‘And neither, it seems, can anyone else in these parts. Strange, that. But never fear, the bailiff’s been arrested. A few days freezing in Lincoln Gaol and I dare say he’ll soon be only too eager to tell us who in the village bribed him to keep their sisters, mothers and daughters off this list. In the meantime, I’ve been sent to make a thorough and complete return by inspecting every cottage and searching every stinking byre and barn too, if I have to, to find these invisible women. So, let’s start with your return, shall we?’

  Gunter forced himself to keep his gaze fixed on the commissioner’s broad chest and not to glance towards the wicket door behind the barrel, and he prayed Nonie and Hankin had not done so either. He only hoped Royse had run and hidden as he’d told her to, even if she didn’t understand why.

  The bailiff knew every family in those parts. He hardly needed to be told how many people lived in each croft. But suppose he hadn’t written it down correctly. Gunter couldn’t read. He had merely put his mark where the bailiff had instructed, trusting that his own neighbour wouldn’t trick him. But he remembered the bailiff complaining about having to pay for his own family. If they get recorded, he’d said. Was that what he’d meant, that he wasn’t going to record them?

  ‘I told the bailiff honestly when he came here asking, just me and my wife, that’s all. We’ve no one else living with us. No parents or kin . . . What does it say on the record?’

  ‘Gunter and his wife Annora,’ the commissioner answered, without bothering to look.

  Gunter felt the tension in his chest easing. ‘That’s right, then. That’s my Nonie . . . Annora.’ He pointed to her, in case the commissioner should be in any doubt as to her identity.

  The commissioner nodded. ‘Gunter and wife Annora . . . Good . . . good . . .’ he added thoughtfully. ‘But that presents me with a problem, because it’s not true that you have no other kin living here, is it? Let me see, I count one, two of your kin right here, unless, of course, they are river sprites.’

  He turned to the two sergeants. ‘Can you see them too or did I really drink too much of that horse piss the innkeeper in Lincoln had the effrontery to call wine?’

  The men grinned. ‘You want me to pinch them, see if they’re real?’ one asked.

  ‘Don’t you dare lay a finger on my lads.’ Nonie took a step forward, the dishes clenched in her hands as if she meant to use them as weapons. ‘You can see clear as well-water they’re just bairns. Bailiff said we had to give the names of those over fifteen years, didn’t he, Gunter? Hankin’ll not be thirteen for two months yet. Even a blind man in a fog can tell he’s still just a bairn. His voice isn’t even broken steady yet.’

  Hankin glared furiously at his mother’s back and, for a moment, Gunter was afraid that he would protest he was a man, but he had the sense to swallow his pride and keep quiet.

  ‘But we have been informed you have another child. A girl?’

  A look of alarm flashed across Nonie’s eyes and Gunter felt his stomach tighten.

  ‘Royse . . . she’s just turned fourteen.’ Gunter tried to sound as if he was merely listing the number of bales in cargo. ‘I’ve none other. You ask anyone.’

  The commissioner gave a faint smile. ‘Fourteen, is she? That’s not what we’ve been told.’

  ‘Who? Who told you that? They’re mistaken. You can ask our priest. He baptised her. He’ll have a record of it for we had to pay him the scot for it. He’ll have written it somewhere in his books. He’ll have put the year, won’t he?’

  Gunter was suddenly uncertain about what the priest might have written down. If you’d asked him yesterday he’d have sworn that every scratch and mark written on parchment must be the truth. Now, he no longer knew.

  ‘If you imagine I have time to waste looking up the baptism of every brat in this village and the scores of others I have to visit, you’re a fool. Besides, her precise age is immaterial. As the bailiff should have told you, every person over the age of fifteen must pay the tax, but also everyone who is married, regardless of their age. The law says if your daughter is married, she’s no longer a child and must pay the tax, however young she is.’

  ‘But our Royse isn’t married.’ Relief showed plainly on Nonie’s face.

  Gunter cursed himself. Every muscle in his body was as rigid as stone. He should have warned Nonie. But he’d only half believed the rumours and hadn’t wanted to worry her or terrify Royse.

  The commissioner snorted. ‘I know that most of the commonality never trouble to marry before a priest. They merely hand-fast and often not even that. A girl simply takes up with a man and lives with him, like a vixen and a dog fox. She bears his cubs and calls herself his wife. Is that not so?’

  ‘But our Royse’s not taken up with any man,’ Nonie said hotly. ‘I’d never allow such a thing. She lives here with us.’

  ‘And how do I know her mate is not away at sea or on the road? Is your daughter still a virgin?’

  Nonie stepped forward, her eyes blazing with indignation. ‘She most certainly is so. I’ve never let a man touch her, nor would I. She’s still only a child.’

  ‘And what else would a mother say about her daughter? Every woman claims her daughter is as chaste as a nun, but there’s many a nun who could teach the town whores a thing or two about men. Girls have a way of slipping off and making free behind their mothers’ backs. I want to question her. Where is she?’

  Gunter saw Nonie’s gaze flick towards the wicket in the wall, and he prayed that the King’s men hadn’t noticed. ‘My daughter’s gone away to tend an ailing relative,’ he said quickly.

  Unlike most men in this world, Gunter was not practised in lying. Even as a boy, his mother had always known when he was trying to cover something up and, believing her to be as all-seeing as the eye of God, Gunter had always betrayed himself even before he’d opened his mouth. A woman does her son no favours by teaching him to be an honest man.

  The commissioner grinned at his two men-at-arms. ‘That’s the strange thing about these parts. One day the women are living here, and the next,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘they’ve vanished into the mist. So, pray tell me, when did your daughter go to visit this unfortunate relative?’

  Gunter thought rapidly. ‘She went this morning.’ He was afraid to say it was any earlier in case a neighbour or friend had seen her near the cottage yesterday.

  The commissioner raised his eyebrows and turned back to the men-at-arms. ‘Another thing you should know about these boatmen is they can’t count. I dare say he hasn’t even noticed he’s got a leg missing, since he wouldn’t know how many he’d had to start with.’ He gestured to the bowls, which Nonie still clutched in her hand. ‘Five bowls, but strangely only four people to eat from them. How do you account for that?’

  ‘We had a neighbour called round,’ Gunter said, flushing as he realised his stupidity.

  The commissioner laughed. Then, without warning, he pushed Nonie aside and grabbed Col, hauling him from the bed and hold
ing the terrified child in the air, legs dangling, as he pushed his face into the boy’s.

  ‘Your sister, Royse, where is she, brat?’

  ‘Mam!’ Col twisted frantically round.

  Nonie dropped the bowls and tried to reach for him, but one of the men-at-arms was ready. In his experience, women were far more trouble than men, turning into raging hell-cats if their kittens were threatened. He moved swiftly and seized Nonie by the arms before she could touch the boy.

  The commissioner shook the child violently. ‘Tell me the truth, brat, unless you want me to roast your backside on the fire.’

  Col screamed as the man took a menacing step towards the hearth. Gunter launched himself at the commissioner, seizing his son and ripping him out of the man’s hands. He set the boy on the floor behind him and sensed Hankin moving swiftly to his little brother.

  But even as Gunter turned back, he felt the point of the second sergeant’s dagger at his throat. Gunter was no trained soldier, and even had he not been lame, he realised that this man could cut his throat long before he could stretch out a hand to grab his stave. Nonie was still held fast by the other man, her eyes wide with terror.

  Although it cost Gunter every grain of pride he possessed to surrender to these scabby bastards, he knew he could do no other to keep his family safe. When it came to defending himself or others against river-men like Martin, Gunter would have pitched himself into a fight without hesitation, but the King’s men had all on their side. No common man could afford to stand against them, if he had anyone in this world he loved and feared to lose.

  He held up both hands. ‘There’s no cause for you to speak to Royse. Record her, if you must. I’ll pay the tax for her.’

  The commissioner gestured to the sergeant-at-arms, who reluctantly lowered the blade. ‘Come, man, you’ve admitted you can’t even pay the sum you owe for you and your wife. Where are you going to find another twelve pennies by April?’

  ‘I’ll find it somehow,’ Gunter said fiercely. ‘But however we do, it’s no business of yours so long as Parliament and the King gets their money. Now take your dogs and get out of my cottage. You got what you came for.’