Familiar Spirits (18 page)

The friends of the beaten man came forward, splashed some ale in his face, and got him to his feet. Holborn, as they called him, had two very swollen eyes and a red mouth devoid of several of its teeth. He was breathing with difficulty and clutching his chest. His eyes were ablaze with anger and humiliation. Will Simple, on the other hand, was in good condition, all things considered. While Holborn was being seen to, Will put on his shirt and jerkin, smiling with grim satisfaction. Some of the patrons patted him on the back and said he had handled himself well. The host gave him a cup, which he drained, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

Matthew knew the tanner’s foreman to be an industrious, well-behaved young man who had always managed to avoid this kind of trouble. His first question, now that the fight had stopped and the room had grown quiet enough for him to hear the sound of his own voice, was what had caused the quarrel.

“It was
him,”
said Will, thrusting an accusing finger in his adversary’s direction.

“What did he do?” asked Matthew impatiently.

“It was what he
said,
sir. He told a devious lie, sir.”

Matthew looked at the other man, at Holborn. Holborn was holding a bloody handkerchief to his mouth and glaring at Will Simple with intense hatred. “Very well, what did
you say?”
Matthew asked Holborn.

“I said his mistress practiced the black arts, that she was a very she-devil herself, and them that served her was no better than she.” Holborn spoke with a northern accent, and Matthew asked him where he was from. Holborn said he was from Norwich; he had come to Chelmsford to see the witches hanged.

“Have you no witches to hang in Norwich, then, that you must come to Essex to make trouble?” Matthew asked dryly. Holborn did not answer. He kept daubing his mouth with the handkerchief. Someone handed him another and he thrust

the bloodied one away, revealing for a moment the extent of the damage to his mouth, a swollen mass of red tissue.

Matthew turned back to Will. “And, hearing this, you flew to your mistress’s defense?”

“I did, Mr. Stock,” said Will Simple.

“I grant this fellow’s words were a powerful provocation,” said Matthew, looking first at Will Simple and then at Holborn, “yet while defending your employer’s wife is a virtue indeed, you are both guilty of breach of peace and, considering the state of things here, the host may have a complaint against both of you for damages.”

“Aye, I will indeed, Mr. Stock,” said Snitch, wiping his hands on his filthy apron nervously. “A half dozen of my stools lie beyond repair—and look at that table! The legs are flattened like a spider’s legs. And this mess upon the floor, the blood and gore—”

“That will clean up fast enough,” said Matthew, interrupting the host’s inventory of damages. “The broken stools, I grant, are another matter.”

“Why, what must a man do when his mistress is defamed by such a dunghill mouth as this fellow is?” proclaimed Will Simple, growing heated again. “Say, ‘Thank you, sir, that’s all well and good’?”

“Why, turn the other cheek,” cried the high-pitched railing voice of Ned Hodge as he came forward. “That’s what our good honest constable recommends for the town as well, while we poor Christians are forced to endure the enormities of witches and their minions.”

This remark incited the approval of many in the crowd, and Matthew had to take a barrage of complaints from perfect strangers. They maintained that no decent constable spoiled the fun of some stout fellows having a good time when he should be pursuing malefactors and traitors such as witches. Matthew had hoped Hodge had gone home. His continued presence and loud mouth were ominous.

“In faith, Constable,” cried a big-bearded man, glaring at Matthew from red, watery eyes, “why are you here when

Mother Waite makes merry with the Devil and mocks the sacraments by giving the wine and wafer to her dog?”

“Oh, Lord!” exclaimed the slattern on the stairs, “Oh, tell me not that she does
that!”

“Aye, she does,” replied a third man, whom Matthew vaguely recognized as one who had spent a day in the stocks last summer for urinating in the street. “For I have seen it with my own two eyes.”

The man, who wore a tattered leather jerkin and dirty cloths bound around his feet for shoes, came forward to the center of the room. He strutted around like a cock, proclaiming, “I have seen it with my own eyes and shudder to tell of it.”

The crowd grew attentive, and the brawl and the host’s complaints were immediately forgotten.

“I was walking in the street, I was. There she were, sitting in the window. It was Mother Waite herself, upon my oath. ‘Good morning, Mistress,’ says I in a friendly way, expecting no more from the woman than a Christian greeting in return. But does she speak to me? Nay, not a word she says. Instead, she screws up her face like a bloody mackerel.” The man twisted his face into a grotesque scowl. “Then she takes a cup and pours it and gives the same cup to her dog.”

“Pray, what color was the dog?” called the slattern on the stairs in a harsh, guttural voice.

“Why, it was black, black as night.”

“Ah” went the crowd, and some blessed themselves.

Matthew started to say that Margaret Waite kept no dog, but he knew the denial would be useless. The crowd in the Saracen’s Head, restless for some new novelty, had become quite caught up in the shabby man’s story. He was urged from all sides to continue, by drunken, drawling voices hoarse with impatience and too much use.

“She gave it to her dog to drink,” the shabby man continued. “Then she takes a bit of bread and breaks it. I heard her mumble something.”

“What was it, fellow?” asked Will Simple skeptically. ‘“Come, beast, drink this milk, eat this bread’?”

“Nay, it was not milk she gave the creature but wine, and the words she spoke were in the Latinish tongue.”

“Oh, in Latin,” moaned the slattern on the stairs. She hugged her bony knees and tipped from side to side. “Lord have mercy upon us!”

“What meaning had her words?” asked Hodge, looking more sober now and thrusting himself to the forefront of the discussion.

“It was the Mass, such as Papists say.
Bonum, bonorum, honororum, sic,
and so forth,” entoned the man.

“Why, that’s the Paternoster backwards!” exclaimed the bearded man.

Matthew knew a little Latin, enough to know that what the man had said was perfect gibberish, but the rest of his audience was obviously impressed.

“It was Mother Waite who did it, you say?” asked the host, a note of concern in his voice. “She who lives on High Street . . . the glover’s wife?”

“Where have
you
been, host?” growled Hodge, regarding Snitch as though he had just said a most foolish thing. “Is there anyone who doesn’t know she buried her husband this very day—and in the churchyard too? Some say she killed him with a dreadful curse that made his bones and heart dissolve the way a waxen figure melts in the fire to a shapeless puddle. Others that she raised the spirit of Ursula Tusser— that famous witch—from its grave and caused it to appear to her husband, so that his heart would stop from the sheer horror of the spectacle. Oh, he was a good man, Malcolm Waite was. A decent man. Now his wicked widow makes merry with his money.” Hodge’s voice trailed off and terminated in a stifled sob of sorrow. The crowd murmured with discontent and horror.

“Malcolm Waite was out at heels when he died,” said Matthew, unable to restrain himself any longer. “And I have seen the widow both the day of her husband’s death even until

now. A more grieving widow you will not find—no, not in Christendom.”

“See, friends, how our constable speaks the witch fair, defends her boldly in the face of such powerful testimonies!” cried Hodge. “Mother Waite’s husband lies in his grave, hardly cold, while
she
lives
—she
and her sister, corrupt both, to work their spells on the rest of us brave enough to denounce their wickedness.”

The temper of the crowd had now turned dangerous again and Matthew was berated all around. Holborn, his bleeding staunched at last and feeling himself vindicated, joined forces with Hodge to denounce Matthew. The whole room seemed to be against him. They yelled in his face; they pushed close with their bodies and shook their fists, defying him. In all the room, Matthew’s only ally was Will Simple, who was also enduring the onslaught of insult and complaint. Now the little carpenter leaped upon one of the tables and commanded the attention of all by commencing a diatribe against the freemen of the town. His speech was rough but effective. He claimed the only honest ones among them were those of modest means. The freemen lived upon the backs of the poor and kept them in the dirt for the benefit of the rich. He stormed on, his eyes flashing wildly: “See this merchant-con-stable before you with his brave worsted hose and fur-faced gown. Why, attired as a gentleman he is, though no better a man than the rest were he laid bare to the buttocks. Comes he to spoil the innocent pleasures of the poor—those among us who must sweat for our bread—charging us with disturbing the peace. Whose peace? ask I. Why, the bread-and-butter peace of the constable and his friends. Yet will he do nothing about the real evil that threatens us, threatens us all, every soul here?”

The crowd cheered. They glared at Matthew menacingly. “We’d best get out while we can,” Will whispered to him.

“Is there an honest Christian who will abide such wickedness,” Hodge continued, fully sobered now by his own rhetoric. “Who will not take up his cudgel or staff, his torch and

sheaves and come with me to burn this wickedness away? When Ursula Tusser was hanged, I heard our parson, Mr. Davis, say, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ The words were from the Holy Book. What, shall we dispute with God? Shall we deny His Word?”

“No, no, no!” answered the crowd in a raucous chant that seemed to shake the house on its foundations and drown Matthew and the tanner’s foreman in a flood of hostile noise.

Matthew nodded to Will, trying to remember if there was a back door to the tavern. The signal was effective. A moment later, the chanting subsided when some men who had gone out a few minutes earlier to fetch torches came stomping into the tavern to the welcoming cheer of their comrades. For a brief period all heads were turned on the newcomers. It was enough. Will plucked Matthew by the sleeve and mouthed the words “Follow me.”

Will thrust his way toward the stairs, Matthew following. The movement was unexpected and caused more surprise than organized resistance. They pushed by the slattern. Matthew stepped on her foot and she cried out in pain.

“Oh, you devil!” she screamed. “What, trying to get away, are you?”

At the top of the stairs Matthew paused to glance below. The woman’s scream had now alerted the mob to the escape. Hodge was pointing his finger and yelling, “Stop them! Stop them!”

“Come, Mr. Stock, for God’s sake!” shouted Will, pulling Matthew down a dark passage off which were several rooms. One door was unlocked. They flung open the door and saw a man and a woman in bed. The couple, illuminated by a single candle, sat up at once, too amazed by this sudden invasion of their privacy to speak. The man was in his shirt but the woman appeared to be naked. Not bothering to apologize for their intrusion, Matthew bolted the door while Will used his strength to shove the bed with its startled occupants against it for added support. As he did so, Matthew could hear the sound of angry voices in the passage, then a terrible pounding and cursing.

“Come forth, you friends of Satan!” screamed Hodge.

The man in his shirt, trusting in some vague sense that his advantage lay with the defenders, now leaped from the bed to lend his strength to the cause while his terrified female companion hid beneath the covers.

“Break it down, put your shoulders to it!” barked another voice.

Now came the assault. The door shook but held. It was of solid oak, but with every blow Matthew’s heart sank and his pulse raced madly. Soon the mob gave over, and the carpenter’s voice could be heard commanding his followers below, urging them to put their muscles to a different purpose. Stamping and scuffling could be heard as the mob retreated down the stairs.

When they were apparently gone, Matthew left his post at the door and rushed to the window. He threw open the casement and looked out into the darkness. The crowd that a few moments before had laid siege to the door was streaming into the street, hooting and howling as it went.

“Where are they bound, do you suppose? Will asked, coming up behind Matthew.

“To the town,” said Matthew, watching the last of the rout emerge into the street.

“New mischief, I warrant,” said Will.

“Without a doubt,” Matthew answered. He turned sharply. “Fly, Will Simple. Make haste and redeem yourself for your ill behavior this night. Raise the town. The mob is headed for the Waites’ for sure, and will doubtless give trouble to your master as well. If you cut across the meadow, you can be at the church before they get to the tanner’s house. Have the parson ring the church bell. With all those torches in the hands of drunken men there’ll be a fire at best—at worst a murder. Go now, lose no time.”

Matthew helped the two men get the bed away from the door, and Will Simple went off at a run. Matthew lingered only long enough to thank the bewildered fellow whose amo-