Witch Finder Read online

  ‘He’s conscious,’ said the man in the gown sternly. ‘He knows his own mind and can plead his own case. Luke Lexton, are you fit to continue?’

  Coward, whispered the voice.

  Luke was sick and sweating, but he managed to sit up straighter. He wasn’t about to back down now and shame himself and his uncle and the memory of his parents. He nodded.

  ‘I can carry on.’ His voice was strange in his own ears. His throat felt tender and raw, as if he had screamed himself hoarse, though he knew full well he’d not made a sound except for shameful pup-like whimpers. He wondered if his uncle had been this weak, or if he’d borne the brand in proud silence, and he gritted his teeth and forced himself fully upright. ‘I can carry on.’

  ‘Good man,’ said the man in the gown. ‘Now, this last trial is different. All we require of you tonight is that you accept the task and undertake to do it to the best of your abilities, or die in the attempt. Tonight the moon is full – when the full moon rises again, either they must be dead, or you. D’you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Luke, though he did not.

  ‘Bring out the book,’ said the man. There was a rustle at the back of the room and an old masked man limped slowly forward, a huge brass-bound book in his hands. The man in the gown fitted a brass key to the lock and opened the book.

  Inside was page after page after page of closely written names, some with a line through, some scratched out so harshly that the paper was rough and hollow.

  ‘This book contains the name of every witch known to this organization – some of them listed thanks to you, Luke – and every one we’ve sworn to hunt down and kill. The men and women named here have poisoned our brothers and sisters, enslaved them, enchanted them, even killed them. Every one has a heart as black as pitch and it is our sworn duty not to rest until London is wiped clean of their kind. After the trial of the knife and the trial by fire, we ask our Brothers for one more trial to prove their worth – the trial of the hammer: they must pick a name from the book and kill that witch. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Luke. And now he did. He stared at the list of names, the faded, scratched handwriting swimming before his eyes. ‘What of the ones who’re scratched out?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re the ones your Brothers have killed before you.’

  ‘How do I choose?’

  ‘We let God choose. We bind your eyes, give you a pin. God will guide you to the name. Are you ready?’

  ‘I’m ready,’ Luke said. He sat motionless while they tied a cloth over his eyes and then pushed a pin was pushed between his fingers. Then he felt for the stiff pages of the book beneath his other hand.

  He turned the pages slowly, carefully, blindly. There was only one thing in his mind: a figure. A figure he had glimpsed by firelight long ago and the tall shadow it cast on the bedroom wall behind it. It was almost fifteen years since he had seen its shape, but it was still burnt into his mind, and his eye, and all of his nightmares.

  This is for my ma, he thought, as his fingers ran down the list, as if touch could guide him to the right name. This is for my pa, as he came to a stop, the pin poised in his hand. Please God, let it be him. Let it be the right one.

  He stabbed with the pin, feeling it pierce the page deep, deep, as he ground it into the book with all the strength of his hatred.

  ‘He’s chosen.’ The man’s voice rang out in the small room. ‘Let it be witnessed; he’s chosen.’

  Luke fumbled with the bandage and opened his eyes, blinking, to the firelight and the circle of faces. Then he bent his head to the book, to see what name lay skewered by his pin.

  ‘Rosamund Greenwood,’ he read aloud, with a stab of fury. A woman. He knew nothing about her, except that she was a witch. A witch, but not the one he’d wanted, and for that alone he hated her, as if the rest wasn’t reason enough. She’d robbed him of avenging his father and mother and—

  ‘No.’ A voice was rising from the back of the room in panic. ‘No, no, no. He must choose again.’

  ‘Brother.’ The gowned man held up a hand. ‘You know the rules . . .’

  ‘No!’ The speaker tore off his mask and Luke saw his uncle standing there, his face flushed with the fire. ‘You must be mad, John! Her brother’s Alexis Greenwood, thick as thieves with the Knyvets, or so they say. To send a green boy up against witches like that—’

  ‘You know the rules.’ The gowned man spoke wearily but firmly. ‘Put your mask back on, Brother, or you’ll be thrown from the meeting.’

  ‘He’ll be killed!’ William roared.

  ‘She’s nowt but a sixteen-year-old girl, William,’ another voice tried to put in. ‘It coulda bin worse—’

  ‘Worse? Only if she’d picked Knyvet himself, or another of the Ealdwitan! And then I might as well cut his head from his shoulders right here and save us the trouble of fetching his body. Let him choose again, I say!’

  ‘No.’ John pulled off his own mask and faced William. His face was both angry and sad. ‘The rules are the rules, William. We can’t pick and choose for our own, you know that as well as I. God knows, we’ve had hard choices before – Bates, Jack Almond, young Tom Simmonds. We’ve lost Brothers and mourned ’em but—’

  ‘Not in a lost cause!’ William’s voice broke, and he took John by the shoulders. ‘We’ve lost fights, lost men, I know that as well as you. But this is a lamb to the slaughter. Do not do this, John. You’re a good man – better than this.’

  ‘Hey,’ Luke said from where he sat. They took no notice of him. He stood and said louder, ‘Uncle! William!’

  Two faces, red in the firelight, turned to look at him. Luke thought they’d almost forgotten he was there.

  ‘It’s my choice,’ he said bitterly. ‘Mine. And I choose to take the task. A sixteen-year-old girl, you said – and you think I’m a lamb to the slaughter?’

  ‘You don’t understand, boy—’ William began, but Luke broke in. His fists were clenched so that his nails made half-moons on the skin of his palms.

  ‘I understand. I understand that every other man here’s done as I’m being asked to do, and none of them backed down. Don’t take away that right from me. I’ll not have men say I was too frightened to face a girl fresh out of the schoolroom.’

  ‘Luke . . .’ William put out a pleading hand, but Luke turned away from his uncle towards John Leadingham.

  ‘I accept the task. I’ll kill the girl. And there’s an end.’

  ‘Shh, not on the bed, Belle.’ Rosa pushed at the little dog and it thudded sulkily to the floor and shuffled over to the window seat, where it circled busily until it settled itself in a neat ring, tail over its nose.

  ‘Watch out if Mama catches you,’ Rosa said warningly. Belle let out a little whine of contentment and closed her eyes, and Rosa turned back to her sketch book and the view from the window, over the rooftops of Knightsbridge. The fog was closing in and she could just see, above the yellow shifting sea, dark rooftops and the tips of chimneys, each trickling the coal smoke that made London’s pea-soupers so deadly. Not for the first time, Rosa was glad that her bedroom was on the top floor of their tall house. Only the maids slept higher than she, in the attics, beneath the slates.

  She swapped pencils for a sharper point and began to fill in the fine detail of the slates and chimneys.

  ‘Down, you god-damn mutt!’ The voice came like the crack of a whip.

  Rosa jumped as hard as the little dog. Belle leapt to the floor and scurried under the bed, and Rosa’s pencil clattered to the floor. She knew who it was, of course, even before she caught sight of him standing in the doorway. He was dressed in riding clothes, his polished boots spattered with mud, and there was a crop in his hand. His face was red with exercise – as red as his hair.

  ‘You might knock, Alexis,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘
Your door wasn’t shut. And why should I knock in my own house?’

  Rosa bit her lip. It was true: Papa’s death had left Alexis the legal owner of Osborne House and everything in it, but he didn’t have to keep reminding her about it.

  ‘The bank’s house, don’t you mean,’ she whispered under her breath.

  ‘What did you say, little sister?’ Alexis came into her room, twitching his riding crop dangerously against his thigh. Rosa set her jaw.

  ‘Nothing. Hadn’t you better get changed for dinner? It’s a quarter after six.’

  ‘That’s what I came to tell you. Dinner will be at eight now. And Sebastian is coming, so for God’s sake try to look like something more than an insipid schoolgirl.’

  ‘Sebastian Knyvet?’ she said before she could stop herself. ‘He’s back from India?’

  ‘Yes,’ Alexis said shortly.

  Sebastian. How long since she’d seen him? Four years? More? Her stomach curled and she shivered, thinking of those strange, far-seeing blue eyes that seemed to look right through you. He and Alexis had been friends at school and he’d stayed often in the holidays. She remembered the boys swimming in the great lake at Matchenham, their bodies lithe and brown, shining in the sun. And Sebastian, charming a kingfisher out of the tree by the lake, bringing it up to the house with Alexis, the two of them marvelling over the colours of its wings. She’d been charmed too – until she’d realized it was dead.

  ‘You’re not wearing that dress, are you?’ Alexis broke into her thoughts. Rosa looked down at herself, at the white lawn, and her hand went nervously to the locket hanging at her throat.

  ‘Yes. What’s wrong with it?’

  ‘Nothing, if you want to look like a twelve-year-old novice nun. For God’s sake, Rose, you’re sixteen. It’s time you acted like it. Other girls are wedded by your age – and bedded too. You’ll be lucky if you get either, looking like that.’

  ‘I’m not changing,’ Rosa said furiously. She closed her fingers around the pencil, feeling its point dig into her skin, concentrating on the pain in her hand to distract her from the pain in her heart. Why was Alexis such a beast? Why couldn’t he smile and compliment her as other girls’ brothers did?

  ‘I’ll see you in the drawing room at half past seven. Unless you want bread and dripping for supper, make sure you’re smiling. Wear the green dress; at least that’s passable. And get Ellen to re-lace your corset. You look like a scrawny boy.’

  He turned and stalked to the door. Then he turned back, as if with an afterthought.

  ‘Oh, and take off that bloody locket. It’s ugly as hell – and morbid.’

  He slammed out, the door crashing shut so hard that the picture on the wall of the stag at bay leapt and clattered against the paper and the gas-light flickered.

  ‘Lúcan!’ Rosa shouted after him, and the door lock shot across with a sound like a gun, so hard that for a minute she feared she might have damaged the frame.

  She sat for a long moment, her heart thumping with fury, waiting for Alexis to come roaring back and shout at her about using magic within earshot of the servants. But he didn’t come. There was only silence on the landing outside, the hiss of the gas and the rush of blood in her ears.

  Rosa opened her hand, where the pencil lay clenched in her grip, digging into her palm.

  She put the point to the paper but, as she pressed, the lead snapped, skittering across the page, leaving an ugly hole in the paper. The sketch was ruined.

  She ripped the page from the book and flung it furiously to the floor.

  At the sound of the paper fluttering down, Belle’s little, pointed, wet nose peeped out from beneath the curtains of the four-poster bed. Rosa scooped her up and buried her face in the dog’s warm, shivering back, feeling her breath come quick, catching in her throat like a choke. The locket pressed heavy and warm between them and, at last, when Belle began to whine and wriggle, Rosa set her gently to the floor and drew a deep, shaky breath.

  Morbid.

  How could it be morbid to want to remember your father?

  She held the locket in her palm, looking at the heavy silver scrolling, shiny where it rubbed against her skin and dark in the cracks between. The brass was showing through around the edges, where the plate had worn thin. Papa had given it to her on her tenth birthday and she remembered how sophisticated she had felt – her very own jewellery! Now she saw the cheapness of the thin plate and the old-fashioned moulding. But it didn’t matter.

  Gently she put her nail to the catch and prised it open. Papa looked out at her, his dark eyes twinkling above his long, dark beard. It was only a pencil sketch. She’d done it one wet afternoon in front of the fire. Alexis had said it made Papa look like Charles Dickens crossed with a potato, but Papa had praised it. To the very life, Rosa! You’ll be an artist some day.

  Rosa shut her eyes, remembering the softness of his beard, the feeling of being hugged against his silk waistcoat, the sound of his laugh.

  She sighed and clicked the locket shut.

  The crumpled paper lay at her feet and she stood and picked it up, smoothing it out with her palm.

  ‘Gestrice, léaf,’ she whispered. The paper shivered as if a breeze had passed through the room, and where her palm had passed the page was smooth and whole again. Even the hole she’d torn had knitted back together, but as she looked closer she could see it was not quite perfect. There was a faint scar, like a healed wound; a sort of watermark made by her anger. Nothing would get that out. The drawing was spoilt – like everything Alexis touched.

  Rosa opened her wardrobe and began to look through her dresses again.

  ‘You look charming, Rosa.’ Alexis’ smile showed his teeth. ‘Quite charming.’

  Rosa’s stays cut into her waist cruelly, so cruelly she could hardly sit, but, remembering Alexis’ threat about bread and dripping, she smiled back, trying to ignore the pain. Ellen had put her hair up and in the mirror above the fire she saw the long white line of her throat, made whiter still by the dark-red curls behind her ears and at the nape of her neck. The neckline of the green dress plunged far lower than she liked and she fought the urge to tug nervously at the bodice.

  She had not taken off the locket though – one thing at least Alex couldn’t dictate. It lay cold and heavy, just below her collarbone and she shivered; she wasn’t used to the chill air on her shoulders and throat. Alexis had moved to look out of the window, and she put out a hand towards the fire, whispering a spell under her breath so that the flames blazed up, licking hungrily at the blackened firedogs.

  ‘Rosa!’ Mama’s voice rang out like a shot and Rosa jumped guiltily. She turned to see her mother standing in the doorway, her black eyes snapping fire and brimstone. Even the plum-coloured silk of her skirts seemed to crackle.

  ‘What, Mama?’

  ‘Don’t say “what”, it’s horribly vulgar. And you know perfectly well what I mean, Rosamund.’

  ‘But it’s so cold in here!’

  ‘Nonsense, it’s barely November.’ Mama flickered a glance over her shoulder and lowered her voice. ‘What if the servants had seen?’

  ‘If we had proper servants . . .’ Alexis said. Mama thinned her lips.

  ‘If your father hadn’t left us knee-deep in debt then perhaps we might. As it is, we’re fortunate to have a roof over our head and any servants at all. Now, let me straighten your tie, Alexis darling, and, Rosa, any more foolishness from you and you will be eating in the kitchen with the servants. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ Rosa muttered.

  It was so stupid anyway, she reflected as she pushed past Alexis to the window, to peer into the foggy darkness of the street. She was certain the servants knew what kind of people they worked for – even if they didn’t care to put a name to it. Witches. Sorcerers. Demons, some called them. And Mama was hardly one
to talk. Ellen would have to be blind not to notice that rents and tears in her best frock disappeared overnight. And did she truly think that anyone would believe dye had transformed her old canary-yellow hat into that ravishing plum-coloured one?

  But no. Mama might transform her wardrobe and charm away the lines on her face, and Alexis might seduce Becky the parlour maid with whispered love spells, and heal his lame horse with a poultice of who-knew-what. But she, Rosa, must not even let the fire flare a little higher for fear of watching eyes.

  It hadn’t always been so. Before Papa’s death they’d had servants like them, proper servants as Alexis called them. And there had been no need to hide. Rosa had watched enchanted as Papa made her dolls waltz across the nursery carpet and Alexis’ toy soldiers marched into battle down the landing runner with their guns puffing smoke. If the bath water turned cold then Rosa’s nanny muttered a few words and steam rose up again and she could play with her ducks and boats an hour longer. And when she fell and bumped her knee, a charm was all it took for the pain to lessen and the skin to heal to a silver scar.

  But then two years ago Papa had died and the money had vanished, as insubstantial as a dinner magicked from air.

  The problem was, magical servants, being what they were, cost money. Money that they did not have, and which the law forbade them to forge. One by one the servants had begun to leave, and two-a-penny outwith replacements had come to take on the work until at last, unwilling to work in a house where even the simplest charm was a danger, they had all left, even Papa’s valet, even Rosa’s nanny. Now all the servants were outwith. And they were prisoners in their own home.

  Rosa stared out into the thick, pressing fog and the darkness, seeing nothing but her own pale face reflected in the glass, white against the gloomy red wallpaper of the room behind. It was only when she heard the clip-clop of horse’s hooves that she shook herself, and peered into the murk. A hansom cab drew up beneath the feeble gas-light, and a tall, top-hatted figure alighted. It was a man and he was smoking a tiny thin cheroot – she saw the glowing red ember of its tip and the swirl of smoke against the lamp as he took a last draught of smoke and ground it beneath his heel.