Weyward — Chapter 16: Altha

16

ALTHA

It had been strange, seeing Grace again. Strange to think of how we’d started off together, side by side, and had ended up with a courtroom yawning between us. She in her neat gown and me in my shackles. A prisoner.

The dungeons were silent, but for a distant wail that might have been the wind, or the souls of those already condemned. I searched for the spider, looking under the matted straw, and my heart ached at the thought that it had gone, had left me to my fate. But just as I had given up hope, and curled myself into a ball on the ground, I felt it brush against my earlobe. I wished I could see it: the glitter of its eyes and pincers, but the night was too dark, with not even a sliver of moonlight coming through the grate. So dark that I felt as if I were in my grave already.

If I were to have a grave, that was. I didn’t know what happened to witches after they were hanged. I wondered whether anyone buried them.

Whether anyone would bury me.

I wanted to be buried. If I must depart this life, I thought, let me live on in the soil: let me feed the earthworms, nourish the roots of the trees, like my mother and her mother before her.

Really, it wasn’t death I feared. It was dying. The process of it; the pain.

Death had always sounded so peaceful, when it was spoken of in church: a gathering of lambs to the bosom, a return to the kingdom. But I had seen it too many times to believe that. The sweep of the reaper’s shadow over an old man, a woman, a child. The face contorting, the limbs flailing, the desperate gasp for air. There was no peace in any death I had seen. I would find no peace in mine.

When I did sleep, I saw the noose, tight around my neck. I saw the breath choked out of me in a white vapour. I saw my body, twisting in the breeze.

They had finished with Grace, it seemed. But I saw her there in the gallery when they took me into the dock the next morning. As of course one would expect. What woman would not want to know the fate of her husband’s accused murderer?

We rose when the judges entered the courtroom. I saw one of them look at me, eyes narrowed, as if I were the rot at the centre of the apple, a canker to be cut away.

The prosecutor called the physician, Doctor Smythson, to the stand. As I knew he would.

They had brought him to see me, at the village gaol. Before they brought me to Lancaster. Though I was mad with hunger and exhaustion, I had not yielded to their questions. They asked if I had ever attended a witches’ sabbath, had ever suckled a familiar or lain with a beast. If I had given

myself to Satan, as his bride.

If I had killed John Milburn.

No, I said, though my throat was caked with thirst and my stomach groaned with want. No. It took all my strength to force the word from my body. To protest my innocence.

I had, until then, held on to hope as if it were a stone in my hand.

But when they brought Doctor Smythson to the gaol I feared it was over.

Now, I watched him take his oath on the Bible. He was an old man, and his veins made red patterns on his cheeks. That’ll be the drink, my mother would say, if she were here. He’d indulged in it as much as he’d prescribed it. Though that was by far his least dangerous method of treatment. As I looked at him, I remembered Grace’s mother, Anna Metcalfe: her milk- white face, the colour sucked out of her by leeches.

The prosecutor began his questioning. ‘Doctor Smythson, you recall the events of New Year’s Day, in this, the

year of our Lord 1619?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you able to relate them for the court?’ The physician spoke with confidence. He was a man, after all. He had no reason to think he would not be believed.

‘I began the day at dawn, as is my custom. I’d been up late, the night before, with a patient. The family had given me some eggs. I remember I ate them with my wife that morning. We had not long broken our fast when

there was a hammering at the door.’

‘Who was at the door?’

‘It was Daniel Kirkby.’ ‘And what did Daniel Kirkby want?’ ‘I remember thinking he looked very pale. At first I thought he might have taken ill himself but then he told me there’d been some sort of incident, at the Milburn farm. Involving John Milburn. From his face, I knew it was not good. I collected my coat and my bag and set off to the farm with the boy.’ ‘And what did you find when you got there?’ ‘Milburn was on the ground. His injuries were very grave. I knew at once that he was dead.’ ‘Can you describe those injuries to the court, please, Doctor?’ ‘A large portion of the skull had been crushed. One eye was badly damaged. The bones of the neck had been broken, as had those of the arms and legs.’ ‘And what, in your opinion, would have caused the injuries, Doctor?’ ‘Trampling by animals. Daniel Kirkby told me that Master Milburn had been stampeded by his cows.’ ‘Thank you. And have you ever seen such injuries, in your career as a physician?’ ‘I have. I am regularly called upon to attend the aftermath of farm accidents, which are common in these parts.’ The prosecutor frowned, as if the physician had not given him the answer he wanted. ‘Are you able to tell the court what happened next, after you viewed Master Milburn’s body?’ ‘I went inside the farmhouse, to speak to the widow.’ ‘And was she alone?’ ‘No. She was with the accused, Altha Weyward.’ ‘Can you describe for the court the demeanour of the widow, Grace Milburn, and that of the accused, Altha Weyward?’ ‘Mistress Milburn looked very pale and shaken, as you would expect.’ The prosecutor nodded, paused.

‘Are you able to tell the court’, he said, ‘your opinion of Altha

Weyward?’ ‘My opinion? In what respect?’ ‘To put it another way. Are you able to tell the court the nature of your acquaintance with her, over the years?’ ‘I would say that she – and her mother before her – has been something

of a nuisance.’ ‘A nuisance?’ ‘On several occasions, I’ve had reports that she’s attended to villagers, patients who were already under my regimen.’ ‘Are you able to provide an example, sir?’ The physician paused. ‘Not two months ago, I was treating a patient for fever. Baker’s daughter, girl of ten. She had an imbalance of humours: too much of the sanguine.

This led to an excess of heat in the body, hence the fever. As a consequence,

she needed to be bled.’ ‘Go on.’ ‘I administered the treatment. Advised that the leeches should remain for one night and one day. When I returned the next day, the parents had

removed the leeches prematurely.’ ‘Did they say why?’ ‘They’d had a visit from Altha Weyward in the night. She’d recommended the girl take quantities of broth instead.’ ‘And how did the child fare?’ ‘She lived. Fortunately, the leeches had been left on for long enough that most of the excess humour was removed.’ ‘And has this sort of thing happened before?’ ‘Several times before. There was a very similar case when the accused was still a child. She and her mother treated a patient of mine suffering scarlatina. John Milburn’s late mother-in-law, actually. Anna Metcalfe.

Sadly, Mistress Metcalfe passed away.’ ‘In your opinion, what caused her death?’ ‘The accused’s mother. Whether through malice or not, I cannot say.’ ‘And, in your view,’ said the prosecutor, ‘what role did the accused play in Mistress Metcalfe’s death?’ ‘I could not say for certain,’ the physician replied. ‘She was but a child at the time.’

I could hear the hum of whispers again. I looked at Grace, sitting at the back of the gallery. She was too far away for me to make out her expression. ‘Doctor Smythson,’ the prosecutor continued, ‘are you familiar with the characteristics of witches, as laid out by His Royal Highness in his work, Daemonologie?’ ‘Of course, sir. I am familiar with the work.’ ‘Are you aware’, said the prosecutor, ‘of whether Altha and Jennet Weyward possessed animal familiars? Familiars’, he spat, turning to face the court, ‘are evidence of a witch’s pact with the devil. They invite these monstrous imps – who wear the likeness of God’s own creatures – to suckle at their bosom. Thus they sustain Satan himself with their milk.’ At this question my heart hammered in my chest, so loud that I wondered that the prosecutor himself could not hear it. Doctor Smythson had never been inside the cottage.

But so many others had. So many others might have seen the crow that perched, dark and sleek on my mother’s shoulder, the bees and damselflies I

wore in my hair when I was small.

Had someone told him?

The courtroom was still, all eyes trained on Doctor Smythson for his answer. The physician shifted in his seat; mopped his brow with a white handkerchief. ‘No, sir,’ he said, finally. ‘I have not seen such a thing.’ Relief flooded my veins, sweet and heady. But the very next moment, a cold dread took its place. For I knew what question would follow.

The prosecutor paused. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘And have you, in the course of your acquaintance with the accused, had the opportunity to examine her for a witch’s mark?

An unnatural teat, from which she may give suck to the devil and his servants?’ ‘Yes, sir. I made the examination at Crows Beck gaol, in the presence of your men. The mark is on her ribcage, below the heart.’ ‘Your honours,’ said the prosecutor. ‘I would like to ask the court’s permission to make an exhibit of the accused’s body, to demonstrate that she shows the witch’s mark.’ The stouter judge spoke: ‘Your request is granted.’

One of the guards strode towards me. I was hauled, still shackled, to the boards in front of the jury. I stood queasy with fear, until I felt harsh fingers tug at the bindings of my gown before pulling it over my head.

I quivered in my filthy shift, shamed that all and sundry could see me thus. Then the fingers were back, and the shift was gone. My skin met with the clammy air. The gallery roared, and I shut my eyes. The prosecutor circled my body, looking at my exposed flesh the way a farmer looks at his cattle.

I would have prayed, if I had believed in God. ‘Doctor,’ called the prosecutor, ‘can you point out the mark?’ ‘I can no longer see it,’ said Doctor Smythson, his features furrowed. ‘Alas – what I took to be the witch’s mark in the dim of the gaol appears to be but a sore. A flea bite, perhaps. Or some sort of pox.’ The prosecutor stood still for a moment, his cold eyes blazing with fury.

Rage gave his scarred cheeks a purple hue. ‘Very well,’ he said, after a time. ‘You may clothe her.’

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