Gallows at Twilight (28 page)

A lone drummer standing at the foot of the gallows began to beat out a dirge. The heavy rhythm caught at Jake’s heart. He twisted his neck and stared at Lanyon through tear-blind eyes.

‘Please … ’

Matthew Hopkins’s brow furrowed. His curious gaze slipped between Jake and the vicar. Lanyon shuddered and kept his eyes on the ground.

‘Make way there!’ Monks shouted at the crowd.

They parted and a narrow path was made for the cart. An expression of self-importance on his face, Monks turned to Hopkins and the Earl.

‘My lord,’ he bowed, ‘Mr Hopkins, sir—might I lead the cart?’

‘You have been a faithful assistant, Mr Monks.’ Hopkins nodded. ‘Indeed, you shall have this last honour. Go now, put an end to the Cravenmouth witch.’

Grinning from ear to ear, Monks hauled himself down from the cart and waddled around to the front. A guard placed the reins in Monks’s podgy fist. Jake felt the cart move beneath him. His bare feet slid back across the coffin lid and the noose tightened around his throat. He snatched at the air and filled his lungs. It was now or never.

Every day since his imprisonment Jake had tried to summon his magic. Every day he had failed to find it. His last desperate attempt had been in the cellar of the Shire Hall just before Lanyon had come to talk to him. Yet again he had delved deep into his soul, conjuring memories that might inspire the Oldcraft. Memories of anger and fear and dread. Now, in his dying-hour, he strove with every psychic fibre of his being to locate that hidden place where the magic was stored.

The mob had fallen silent, the drummer had ceased the dirge. The sound of Monks clicking his tongue, the rattle of the bridle, the creak of the cart, even the pad of the pony’s hoof upon the dusty ground sounded out, crisp and clear in the stillness. Jake’s feet slipped back another few inches across the coffin lid. He gasped as the noose hitched tighter, tighter …

No longer able to turn his neck, he hissed through gritted teeth, ‘
Pllleeeassseee
.’

The plea was addressed to both Leonard Lanyon and himself. As fear and desperation mounted, he continued his search into the dark and twisting avenues of his mind. He found … nothing. The Khepra Beetle, that strange creature that perceived all of time and space, had seen what was to come and had abandoned its host. There was no hope of Jake escaping his fate.

The old pony whinnied and the cart rumbled forward.

Jake’s toes scraped to the edge of the coffin. His legs scrabbled, desperate not to lose their footing. Glancing back, Monks saw that another cruel inch would do it. He slapped the whip against the pony’s flank and the cart jolted forward.

Jake dropped.

The noose snatched at his neck and his body swung back and forth like a grisly human pendulum. A roar went up in the square; a ragged cheer that was troubled at its edges by a few isolated cries of horror. Behind him, Jake’s hands clenched into fists. His toes curled and his knees bent as he struggled to breathe. Little sparks of pain crackled along his stretching spine. His mouth gaped and his tongue lolled over his teeth. He could hear the blood pounding in his head as it tried to squeeze below the stranglehold of the rope. In the barrel of his oxygen-starved body, his lungs fluttered like the crippled wings of a bird.

The rope began to twist in steady circles. Jake could feel the unbearable pressure of blood building behind his eyes. The pain of it blasted his vision into shards until it was like seeing the world through the facets of a diamond. The laughing, jeering, haunted and sorrowful faces of the crowd came to him in jagged pieces. He saw Earl Richard, posy still held to his upturned nose; Lanyon on his knees, eyes tight shut, praying with all his might; the Witchfinder, nodding and smiling, gratified at a job well done. Through the blood roaring in his ears, Jake heard the euphoric cry of Matthew Hopkins:

‘WOE UNTO THE ENEMIES OF GOD! DEATH TO ALL WITCHES!’

A long and sickening rattle worked its way down the length of Jake’s spine. His teeth clamped together as the tarred rope burned into his neck. Still he struggled. Still he fought.

A young woman stepped forward from the crowd. Her face wet with tears, she tried to fight her way through.

‘Let me catch at his legs!’ she screamed. ‘For the love of God, let me pull him down and shorten his suffering!’

Another woman joined her, beating her fists against the guards.

‘Have mercy, you knaves!’

But there was no mercy. Not for Jake and not for the women. One of the guards raised his musket and dashed it against the first woman’s head. Blood splattered the guard’s face and the woman dropped to the ground. Kneeling beside her, the second woman shrieked in horror:

‘You’ve cracked her skull wide open! She’s dead! Murderer! MURDERER!’

The news caught like wildfire: one of the guards had killed a woman—butchered her—smashed her head to a pulp and was now laughing over the corpse. Even Jake, his ears filled with the dull thud of death, could hear the hollers of outrage. Fired by calls for justice, red-faced men took the clubs and cudgels from their belts and marched on the gallows. Women and even children joined them, breaking heavy branches from trees, picking sharp stones from the ground, finding weapons where they could. With their fury fixed on the circle of guards, the crowd seemed to have forgotten the witch.

The first stone struck the guard who had killed the woman and he fell screaming to his knees. A barrage of stones followed. Three more guards dropped, their faces bloodied. Jake felt the rocks hit his legs, but against the agony of the gallows the pain was dull and distant. The rope twisted and he turned to face the platform. Always alert to danger, the Witchfinder was already beating a retreat to the safety of the Shire Hall. Earl Richard had followed Hopkins’s example. The nobleman was halfway up the steps when a large brick hurtled through the air and smashed against his skull. Like the peasant woman before him, the Honourable Richard Rake was dead before he hit the ground.

Only Leonard Lanyon remained. In the chaos that had erupted, the vicar saw his chance. He took a dagger from his belt and made a dash for the gallows rope. Just before he reached it, a hand locked down on his shoulder and spun him around.

‘And where do you think you’re going?’ Monks panted.

‘For God’s sake, have pity!’ Lanyon bellowed.

‘For God’s sake, I will not.’

Monks drew back his big fist and slammed it into Lanyon’s stomach. The vicar gasped and the dagger fell from his hand. Sergeant Monks took his own knife from its scabbard and pressed the tip against Lanyon’s throat.

‘Master Hopkins had the measure of you, sir. He told me that you were a filthy witch-lover; probably even a sorcerer yourself underneath all that godliness!’

Jake’s vision dimmed. The rope righted itself and he turned again, away from Monks and Lanyon. The square was now a seething mass of people, a rabble fighting against the guards and each other. Screams and musket fire echoed on all sides and the smell of gunsmoke filled the air. To the west, the sunlight scattered in blood-red shafts while the heavens sank into a deep and desolate black.

Twilight had come.

Darkness crept from the corners of the world and Jake’s pain slipped away. The noise of battle, the fear of the future, the terror of death—none of it mattered any more.

The light was waiting for him.

Jacob Harker—his true self—was going home.

Wrapped in this sense of peace, Jake looked out into the square and saw the figure coming towards him. She moved with ghost-like ease through the warring mob. The people didn’t seem conscious of her presence, and yet they moved aside to let her pass. Her pace was swift and assured. Within seconds, she had slipped between what remained of the guards and was at the foot of the gallows.

Jake’s legs ceased to twitch. His heart slowed. Stopped. His head fell forward and, with his last scrap of energy, he looked down on the figure in grey. The light of her soul burned around her with all the fire of the setting sun.

The girl pulled back her hood and lifted her face to him.

Jake felt his heart throb once more.

Her name creaked between his lips.

‘
Eleanor
… ’

Chapter 24

Fight and Flight

Hearing her name spoken by Jake, the girl’s cool, determined expression broke apart. She looked at him with such grief in her eyes that Jake forgot the pain of his execution and felt the twist of a deeper agony in his soul. Words came to him, both familiar and strange—

My Eleanor of the May. My own sweet girl
…

She swung herself up onto the platform, sweeping the short sword from her belt as she did so, and landing noiselessly behind Sergeant Monks. Her movements, so smooth and dextrous, stirred a memory. Jake had once known another nimble warrior with golden hair and bright wide eyes, but with his senses fading he could no longer recall the girl’s name.

Eleanor jabbed her sword between Monks’s shoulder blades. The sergeant squealed like a stuck pig. Then he looked over his shoulder and his expression switched from terror to amusement.

‘But you’re just a girl!’

‘A girl with a sword,’ Eleanor corrected.

She flipped the weapon and brought its heavy handle crashing down on Monks’s head. The man dropped the dagger that he had been holding to Lanyon’s throat and keeled over onto his back. Eleanor kicked the unconscious sergeant aside.

‘The Preacher said you’d help me.’ She eyed Lanyon with a trace of distrust. ‘And the Preacher’s never wrong, so move yourself.’

Lanyon nodded and raced across the gallows. He caught hold of Jake’s legs and hauled him to the platform. Although the noose was still tight around his throat, the relentless pressure of gravity that had stretched Jake’s spine was gone. Meanwhile, Eleanor took a run up and used the unwary Lanyon’s back as a springboard. She rolled into the air, the sword held against the side of her body. At the apex of her leap, she struck out and, with a single blow, cut the rope.

Lanyon tightened his hold around Jake as the boy dropped. Together, they collapsed onto the platform. With Jake still struggling for breath, Lanyon retrieved his dagger and started cutting away at the noose. The rope was thick, the knots drawn taut, and the vicar’s fingers fumbled with fear. Eleanor pushed him aside and went to work with her own, sharper blade. Beneath the rope, she found a raw and ragged collar of skin. Air creaked into Jake’s lungs.

‘M-my Eleanor of the May … ’

‘Don’t call me that! Those are not
your
words.’ She turned to Lanyon. ‘Get him to his feet.’

Jake’s heart burned. A few cruel words from this girl and he wished that he had been left on the gallows. Better to hang, to die, than to be unloved by
her
.

Lanyon tore the sleeves from his shirt and quickly bandaged Jake’s throat. The three figures on the gallows stood together in the darkness after twilight. Less than five minutes had elapsed between Eleanor’s arrival in the square and Jake’s rescue. In that time, the fighting between the guards and the mob had reached a lull and now all eyes had turned once more to the Cravenmouth witch.

‘It’s the vicar!’ one of the guards shouted. ‘The vicar stands with the witch!’

‘I can get us out of here,’ Eleanor whispered. ‘The Preacher has given me the means, but … ’

‘But?’ Jake wheezed.

‘It is a magical pathway, designed to carry only us two.’

The mood of the crowd was like quicksilver. Within the blink of an eye, they had turned from self-righteous citizens back into a superstitious mob. Seeing their chance to escape the crowd’s mercurial anger, the guards spoke up.

‘Mr Lanyon has always been a friend of the witch!’

‘Master Hopkins told us so!’

‘Aye, I’ve seen it with me own eyes.’ This was Constable Utterson, his voice ringing through the square. ‘The vicar always spoke very prettily on the witch’s behalf. Now he has brought another of their coven to save the boy!’

The crowd surged forward, swords and pikes, bricks and torches, stones and halberds in hand. Their twisted mouths and narrowed eyes told their intention very clearly. There would be no trial and no tidy execution for these damned witches. The mob planned to tear them to pieces, here and now, and leave the scraps for the dogs.

‘You must go,’ Lanyon said. ‘Leave while you still can.’

Eleanor nodded sadly. ‘It’s as the Preacher foretold. You are a brave man, Mr Lanyon.’

‘No. I’ve been a coward all my life, but now I have the chance to make my mother proud.’ He smiled at Jake. ‘Goodbye, my brother in Oldcraft.’

The vicar turned and walked to the front of the platform. A few stray stones struck his face, but the man held his ground. The mob had started shaking the legs of the gallows and climbing the ladder when Jake made his dash. He caught Lanyon’s arm and dragged him back.

‘If we’re going, we’re going together.’

‘But it’s his destiny to die here,’ Eleanor objected. ‘The Preacher has foreseen it.’

‘Yeah, well, we have a saying in the twenty-first century,’ Jake licked his bone-dry lips. ‘Destiny-schmestiny. He’s coming with us.’

The girl’s frosty expression thawed. Her hand, small and strong, went to Jake’s chest and pressed against his heart. She studied his face and her voice cracked with emotion.

‘It’s what
he
would have done.’

Jake covered her hand with his. Their eyes met and he felt the spark of some forgotten fire in his soul. It was her and it always had been. The mover of his magic …

‘If I may?’ Lanyon interrupted. ‘Whatever you’re going to do, you better get on with it.’

‘When I give the word, you must close your eyes.’ Eleanor’s gaze remained fixed on Jake. ‘Do you understand? You
must not
see what happens. If you catch even the slightest glimpse, the Preacher has told me that the war with the demons will be lost before it has even begun.’

‘But why? What’re you gonna do?’

‘No questions. Just promise me.’

Jake gave a reluctant nod.