The Familiars Page 2

  I tried one more time. “Richard, is there anything you wish to tell me?”

  Puck yawned and settled on the carpet. Richard’s earring glinted. A deep voice called his name from a distant floor below.

  “Roger is downstairs,” Richard said. “I should go to him.”

  I put the rattle on the chair, eager to be rid of it, leaving Puck to sniff curiously at it. “Then I will come down.”

  “I came upstairs only to dress. We are going to hunt.”

  “But you have been riding all morning.”

  He smiled. “Hunting is not riding, it is hunting.”

  “Then I will go with you.”

  “You feel fit for it?”

  I smiled, and turned back to my clothes.

  * * *

  “Fleetwood Shuttleworth! My eyes, look how pale you are,” Roger’s voice boomed across the stable yard. “You are whiter than a snowdrop but twice as beautiful. Richard, have you not been feeding your wife?”

  “Roger Nowell, you do know how to make a woman feel special.” I smiled, drawing up on my horse.

  “You are dressed to hunt. Have you accomplished all your ladylike pursuits of a morning?” His voice carried to every beam and corner of the stable yard as he sat astride his horse, tall and broad with a gray eyebrow raised in question.

  “I am come to spend time with my favorite magistrate.”

  I pushed my horse between the two men’s. Roger Nowell was easy company, and I admit now that I suppose I was a little in awe of him, having no father to compare him to. He had enough years to be my or Richard’s father—grandfather, even—and as ours were both long dead, he became a friend to us when Richard inherited Gawthorpe. He’d arrived on his horse with three pheasants the day after we’d arrived and stayed all afternoon, explaining the lay of the land and everyone in it. We were new to Pendle and this part of Lancaster, with its rolling hills and shadowy forests and strange people, and he was a wealth of knowledge. An acquaintance of Richard’s long-dead uncle Richard who had been the chief justice of Chester—who provided the closest link the family ever had to the crown—Roger had known the Shuttleworths for years, and settled himself in our household like an inherited piece of furniture. But I liked him from the moment I met him. Like a candle, he burned brightly, and his mood would flicker easily from one to the next. But as wax runs down the sides, he had his way of drawing you in smoothly until you were stuck.

  “News from the palace—the king may finally have found a suitor for his daughter,” Roger announced.

  The hounds in their kennels were driven wild by the sound of us and were brought out, teeming and panting around the horses’ legs.

  “Who is it?”

  “Freidrich V, Count Palatine of the Rhine. He will come to England later in the year and hopefully put an end to the parade of jesters trying for the princess’s hand.”

  “Will you go to the wedding?” I asked.

  “I hope to. It will be the grandest the kingdom has seen in many years.”

  “I wonder what sort of gown she will wear,” I thought aloud, but Roger didn’t hear me over the whines and barks of the hounds, and he and Richard moved out of the yard to begin the hunt. With the hounds on leashes I realized the quarry would be hart, and I wish I had asked before. A hart at bay was not a friendly sight, with its antlers slashing and eyes rolling; I would have preferred almost anything else. I thought about turning round, but we were already in the forest so I followed Richard’s slim, dark green back and Roger’s wide brown one. Edmund the apprentice acted as whip, riding alongside the dogs. As we went through the trees I heard glimpses of their furtive conversation and rode silently behind them, half listening. An image from the day before came to me: spilled blood, glassy eyes and the strange golden-haired woman, and I shivered.

  “Richard,” I interrupted. “There was a trespasser on our land yesterday.”

  “What? Where?”

  “Somewhere south of the house, in the woods.”

  “Why did James not tell me?”

  “Because I did not tell him.”

  “You saw him? What were you doing?”

  “I...went out walking.”

  “I told you not to go out alone, you might have got lost or tripped and...hurt yourself.”

  Roger was listening.

  “I am fine, Richard. And it was not a man but a woman.”

  “What was she doing? Was she lost?”

  That’s when I realized I could not tell him about the rabbits because I had no words for what I’d seen. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a flash of white, like a cap through the trees, but when I looked there was only green. “Yes,” I said eventually.

  Roger was amused. “You do have a wild imagination, Fleetwood. You had us thinking you were attacked by a savage in the woods when really a woman had got lost?”

  “Yes,” I replied faintly.

  “Although now even that isn’t without harm—you may have heard of what happened to John Law the peddler at Colne?”

  “I have not.”

  “Roger, you don’t need to frighten her with tales of witchcraft—she already has nightmares.”

  My mouth fell open and my face grew scarlet. That was the first time Richard had told anyone about The Nightmare, and I would never have believed it of him. But he continued to move ahead of me, the feather in his hat trembling.

  “Tell me, Roger.”

  “A woman traveling alone is not always as innocent as it seems, as John Law found out and will never forget as long as he lives—and that might not be long, Lord have mercy.” He settled back in his saddle. “Two days ago a man came to Read, name of Abraham Law.”

  “I do not know him.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t because he is a cloth dyer from Halifax. The lad has done well for himself, considering.”

  “And he found a witch?”

  “No, listen.”

  I sighed and wished I hadn’t come; wished I was sitting in the parlor with my dog.

  “John was traveling on the woolpack trail at Colnefield when he came across a young girl. A beggar, he thought. She asked him to give her some pins, and when he said he would not...” He paused for effect. “She cursed him. He turned his back and next thing, heard her speaking softly behind him, as though she was talking to someone. It sent a shiver up his spine. He thought at first it was the wind, but he turned back, and her dark eyes were fixed on him, and her lips moving. He hurried away, and not thirty yards on, he heard running feet, and then a great thing like a black dog began attacking him, biting him all over, and he fell to the ground.”

  “A thing like a black dog?” Richard asked. “You said earlier it was a black dog.”

  Roger ignored him. “He held his hands to his face and begged for mercy, and when he opened his eyes the dog had disappeared. Gone.” He held his large hands up. “And the strange girl with it. Someone found him on the path and helped him to a nearby inn, but he could barely move a limb. Nor could he speak, and one of his eyes stayed shut to the world, and his face was all fallen down on one side. He stayed at the inn, but the next morning the young girl appeared again, bold as brass, and begged his forgiveness. She claims she wasn’t in control of her craft, but that she did curse him.”

  “She admitted to it?” I remembered the girl from yesterday and goose bumps covered my skin. “What did she look like?”

  “She certainly looks like a witch. She is very thin and rough-looking, with black hair and a sullen face. My mother says never trust someone with black hair because they usually have a black soul to match.”

  “I have black hair.”

  “Do you want to hear my story?”

  My mother always said I was a pain for interrupting, and threatened to sew my mouth as a child. She and Roger’s mother would have plenty to discuss.

  “I am
sorry,” I said. “Is the man well now?”

  “No, and he may never be again,” Roger said gravely. “That is worrying in itself, but there is something that troubles me more—the dog. While it is free to roam Pendle, no one is safe.”

  Richard was far ahead by now, keeping up with the hunt. The thought of the animal did not frighten me—after all, I had a mastiff the size of a mule. But before I could point that out, Roger began again. “At the inn, a few nights after it happened, John Law woke to the sound of something next to him, breathing over him. The great beast stood over his bed, the size of a wolf, with bared teeth and fiery eyes. He knew it to be a spirit—it was not of this earth. You can understand his terror—a man who is unable to move or speak save for groaning out. Then who should be standing over his bed in its place, not a moment later, but the witch herself.”

  I felt as though my skin had been brushed with feathers. “So it turned into the woman?”

  “No. Fleetwood, have you knowledge of a familiar spirit?” I shook my head. “Then I will direct you to the gospel according to Leviticus. In short, it’s the Devil in disguise. An instrument, if you will, to enlarge his kingdom. This witch is a dog, but they can appear as anything—an animal, a child. It appears to her when she needs it to do her bidding, and she told it last week to lame John Law. A familiar is the surest sign of a witch.”

  “And you have seen it?”

  “Of course not. A creature of the Devil is hardly likely to appear to a God-fearing man. Only those of questionable belief might sense its presence. Low morals are its breeding ground.”

  “But John Law saw it. You said he was a good man.”

  Roger waved me off, impatient. “We have lost Richard. He will not be happy with me for lagging behind indulging you. This is what happens when women come on hunts.”

  I did not point out that it was me indulging him—if Roger had a story, he wanted it heard. We set off at a canter, and slowed down again when the hunt came back into view. We were a long way from Gawthorpe now, and I was not in favor of the thought of a full afternoon riding.

  “Where is the girl now?” I asked as we fell behind again.

  Roger adjusted his grip on the reins. “Her name is Alizon Device. She is in my custody at Read Hall.”

  “In your house? Why did you not put her in the gaol at Lancaster?”

  “She is not dangerous where she is. There is nothing she can do—she would not dare. Besides, she is helping me with some other inquiries.”

  “What kind of inquiries?”

  “My, my, you are full of questions, Mistress Shuttleworth. Must we talk the quarry to death? Alizon Device is from a family of witches—she told me so herself. Her mother, her grandmother—even her brother—all practice magick and sorcery, no more than a few miles from here. They are also accusing their neighbors of murder by witchcraft, one of whom lives on Shuttleworth land. Which is why I thought Master Shuttleworth over there ought to know about it.”

  He indicated his head at the expanse of greenery before us. The hounds, Edmund and Richard were again nowhere to be seen.

  “But how do you know she is telling the truth? Why would she betray her family? She must know what it means to be a witch—it’s certain death.”

  “Your guess why is as good as mine,” Roger said simply, although I detected something below. He could be forceful and bullying when he wanted; I had seen it with his wife, Katherine, who was a tolerant sort of woman. “And the murders she claimed her family are responsible for all happened.”

  “They have murdered?”

  “Several times. You would not want to cross a Device, as all the people who died did. Do not fear, child. Alizon Device is safe in custody, and I am to question her family tomorrow or the next day. I shall have to notify the king, of course,” he sighed, as though it was an impediment. “He will be pleased to know it, I’m sure.”

  “What if they escape—how will you find them?”

  “They’ll not escape. I have eyes all over Pendle—you know that. Not much gets past a high sheriff.”

  “Former high sheriff,” I teased. “How many years has she? The girl with the dog?”

  “She does not know, but I would say she is seventeen or so.”

  “The same as me.” After a moment of thoughtful silence, I spoke again. “Roger, do you trust Richard?”

  He raised a bushy eyebrow. “With my life. Or what’s left of it—I am an old man now, with my family grown and the best days of my work behind me, most regrettably. Why do you ask?”

  The doctor’s letter I’d tucked into my pocket, deep beneath my riding clothes, beat against my ribs like another heart. “No reason.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lent was not yet over and though my appetite was poor, I longed for a cut of stewed beef or a strip of soft, salted chicken. Roger stayed for dinner and rubbed his hands together as the servants brought out silver platters of pike and sturgeon. I knew I wouldn’t touch any of it, even though I was hungry after the hunt, from which we had come back empty-handed as a chill mist descended. It pressed in now at the windows, and the dining chamber was cold. I broke my bread into pieces and sipped my wine, wondering when the time would come when I would be able to eat everything on my plate again. I hadn’t told any of the servants, including Sarah who helped me to dress, but a cook is always the first to know of her mistress’s condition. The other servants would have seen me hold my fingers out to Puck, offering him bits of things on my plate, but I had done that since he was young. My dog was growing fatter as I seemed to shrink. Richard once remarked Puck ate better than most of Lancaster.

  When I could take the sight of the fish heads no longer, I went to my chamber to lie down. At the top of the house it was quiet, away from the clatter of sauce dishes and knives, and the fire had been lit. Usually I would have drawn the drapes to help my headache but I felt too sick and tired, so I kicked off my slippers and lay down, staring out the window with my hands on my stomach. There had been too much to think about this morning, but the doctor’s letter came back to me, pressing in like the mist. I suppose in the end it came down to who would survive in the end: would it be me, or the child, or both, or neither? If the doctor was to be believed—and no doubt he was—the child was fattening like a conker in a spiked green shell, and eventually would split me open. A child was what Richard wanted more than anything, and where I had failed before perhaps I would not this time...but at the cost of my life? Women carried life and death in their stomachs when they conceived; it was a fact of life. To hope and pray I might not join the departed was as useful as wishing the grass blue.

  “Will you stay there and kill me?” I asked the empty room. “Or will you let me live? Shall we try to live together?”

  I must have fallen asleep because when I woke there was a jug of milk next to the bed. I reached over to dip in my littlest finger and lick it. My mother used to say the most beautiful girls had skin like fresh milk, plump and creamy. Next to it, mine looked like old parchment. The fuss she made when Richard came to Barton for the first time with his uncle Lawrence; she wouldn’t settle, fluttering around me like a moth. “Show him your hands,” she said. “Keep them folded.” She didn’t need to say my face wasn’t my best feature—I knew that already. Still, none of it mattered, because we both knew my best feature was my name and the money it brought. Mother said Father was closefisted, but when I asked why we lived in a drafty house and had to share a bedroom, she drew her lips into a thin line and said an old house was better than a new one.

  The night of Richard’s coming, as Mother and I got into our beds, she asked me if I liked Richard.

  “Does it matter?” was my petulant reply.

  “It matters greatly to your happiness. You will spend every day of your life with him.”

  He will save me from this miserable life, I thought. I could not like him more if I tried.

 
I thought of his pleasant, unlined face and light gray eyes. The beautiful jewelry he wore in his ears and on his hands, a piece of which I would take so he could lead me to my new life, away from the path that had been trimmed and swept for me by my mother, with a monster lurking at the end of it.

  “Do you like the playhouse?” he asked me in my mother’s parlor.

  His uncle and my mother stood at the window, talking and glancing over at us. I knew my mother had tilled the ground for this marriage, but if Richard refused, nothing could be done.

  “Yes,” I lied, for I had never been.

  “Excellent. We shall go every year to London. That’s where the best ones are. Twice, if you wish.”

  How could I not be charmed and delighted by this young man, who did not treat me like an infant as everybody else did? I thought of his face every waking hour and every dreaming one, too. The wedding date was set in the parish church, and I could not wait for every morning to arrive and the nightfall after it, because each one drew me closer. I thought about what sort of mistress I would be: kind, and wise, for I wasn’t beautiful. A mother, one day, adored by her children and her husband. Whatever Richard wanted I would give him. His comfort would be my occupation; his happiness my life’s work. For he had bestowed the greatest gift on me: accepting me as his wife, and I would live out the rest of my days with gratitude.