The Return of the Witch (21 page)

“But, I don't understand, how did you know, about Master Grimsteeds, I mean, Mister Masters?”

“There is no time to explain now, mistress. I've come for Sir William. “'Tis him as needs you now.”

“What has happened?”

“They have taken him from the cellar. A letter arrived. The charge of treason is confirmed. You must come back to the Hall with me now.”

“What? But I cannot leave Tegan … I must…”

“He is to hang, mistress, make no mistake.”

“You mean, they are taking him to Oxford? To the jail there and the assizes?”

“There will be no trial. No justice. He is condemned. They mean to hang him now, this very morning, at six of the clock. We have but minutes.”

“No!”

“You must help him, mistress. There is none other as can save him,” he insisted, holding out his hand to me.

My mind was in turmoil, my heart aching with the cruelty of it all. If I did not go after Tegan now she might be lost. Or worse, Gideon might get to her before I did, for I could not be certain Erasmus would be able to stop him. But if I did not go to William at that very moment, he would certainly die. His need, I decided, was more urgent. Sending a silent plea to the Goddess to watch over Tegan and strengthen Erasmus's arm, I took Keanes's hand and sprang up onto the saddle behind him. I scarcely had time to catch my breath before he wheeled the plunging horse about and we were galloping across the meadow back toward Batchcombe Hall.

Keanes might have been bent and slow when on his feet, but he was still a strong and skillful horseman. We covered the ground with impressive speed, and my thoughts raced nearly as fast. I was fortunate indeed that he remembered my mother so fondly, else I would not have his trust now. It was her kindness I had to thank for the fact that I might have a chance to save William from the noose. But what was I to do? Keanes and I could not effect a dramatic rescue, and there was no reason Colonel Gilchrist would take my wishes into consideration. And in any case, what connection could I profess to have with William that would allow me to plead his case at all? I frantically cast about for some way I could persuade him to wait, to at least see that William received a trial, but I could think of nothing that would sway him. My only alternative was to use my magic, but I could not do so against an entire regiment of soldiers! It seemed an impossible hope that I could do anything to stop the execution going ahead. I was a lone woman, without money or influence, and as such I had no power. Which brought me back to my magic, for that was surely a power Colonel Gilchrist would have to acknowledge. By the time we came in sight of the great house I had formulated a plan.

I had Keanes set me down out of sight of the soldiers. He had risked a great deal by taking the horse from the stables. By now all of William's goods and livestock would have been commandeered, and horse thieves were summarily hanged in these terrible times. There was no time to thank him, and we both knew that. He dismounted and led the horse away, and I ran into the Hall through a little-used door on the west side. I tore through the rooms and passageways, exiting through the front door as if I had been in the house all night. My legs ached from so much running and I found I was dizzy from lack of rest or food, but there was not a moment to be lost. I could see William being led toward the huge cedar tree by the walled garden. A rope already hung from a high branch. Beneath it a cart was positioned, with an old grey mare in the shafts. William's hands were bound and a guard held each arm, marching him forward. Colonel Gilchrist and Captain Anderson sat at a table that had been brought out from the house. There was a hangman wearing a hood, and a priest had been found from somewhere. He read from his good book, his words lost to me as I could make out nothing but the pounding of my heartbeats and my own, exhausted, ragged breathing.

“Stop!” I cried out. “Please, I beg of you, do not continue with this injustice!” I all but fell at the colonel's feet, leaning heavily against the table to support myself, fighting to regain my breath and my composure.

“Elizabeth!” William could not help using my name. He struggled against his guards who momentarily halted, unsure if they should continue regardless of the interruption and clearly waiting for instructions from their commanding officers.

Captain Anderson got to his feet. The colonel remained seated and regarded me with impatience.

“Widow Carmichael, you are in something of a state, I see.”

“Forgive me, Colonel. I have only just heard … I made haste to get here in time. Sir William is no traitor.”

He waved a piece of paper at me. “I have an order here that tells me otherwise,” he said. “It seems his family have long been known as Royalists active against us. His brother fought beneath this misplaced loyalty.”

“And died for it, sir. Sir William does not share his brother's conviction. He is a man of peace.”

“Indeed, which is why his servant sought to kill me the instant he set eyes upon me?”

“Another who had suffered great loss in the war, Colonel. He acted out of grief.”

“And might not Sir William wish to avenge his own brother? You cannot have it all ways, mistress. Besides, the matter is settled.” He gestured at the guards to continue.

“Please, I beg of you, do not do this!” I knelt in front of him now, prepared to beg if beg I must. “Have I not been of assistance to your cause, Colonel? Could you not grant me this one thing. I understand you have your orders, but surely, to kill a man without a fair trial … is this the new world we have been hoping for? When a man can be dragged from his home on hearsay without the opportunity to speak for himself, without the chance to prove his innocence?”

The colonel raised his eyebrows. “You speak with passion for someone scarce acquainted with the man, mistress. Why would you concern yourself so with a king's man? Unless of course, that is where in truth your own loyalties lie after all?”

“It is not, sir, I swear it. But Sir William is a man I have known all my life, and I cannot stand by and see him treated so, see him die for want of justice.”

“What a noble sentiment, though I fancy I detect something else. To be a widow in these times is a lonely thing, I'll wager. Might it be that your passion is not for justice but for the man himself, eh?” Colonel Gilchrist smiled at the thought, amused at the idea of an illicit love affair, and pleased with himself for having uncovered what he believed to be our secret.

I was never a person given to weeping, but I knew the sincerity a woman's tears could sometimes be thought to give to her words. I sobbed then, drawing on my exhaustion, my fear for Tegan, my concern for Erasmus, my hatred of Gideon, my desperation for William, so that the tears I shed were indeed sincerely meant.

“Please, Colonel, I implore you. I will work on to treat your wounded, I will travel with your regiment when you are called to move on if that is what you wish, but please grant this man a little time to persuade those who stand in judgment of him of his innocence.”

I waited. The guards waited. The executioner folded his arms. The priest came to the end of his reading. Among the smaller branches of the cedar tree, high above this woeful scene, a robin sang out, bright and cheerful.

At last the colonel spoke. “I am sorry, mistress, but I have my orders. The man must hang. There it is.” He nodded at the guards once more and they manhandled William forward to the improvised gallows, lifting him onto the back of the cart.

I got unsteadily to my feet. I forced myself to keep looking at William. What I was about to do was laden with risk, so that I must do what I could to avert suspicion. I muttered beneath my breath. If anyone standing close heard me, they would in all probability think me praying.

A small cloud passed in front of the low sun, casting a shadow and a chill.

The robin fell silent.

I closed my eyes and let out a long, long breath.

Behind me the colonel uttered first a gasp, then a cry. He leapt to his feet, clutching his stomach. Captain Anderson put out a hand to steady his commanding officer, but the older man fell, writhing, to the ground. The guards hesitated. All eyes were on the colonel, who was by now shrieking as if he were being eviscerated.

“Sir!” Captain Anderson was horrified. “What is it, sir. What ever is the matter?”

“Dear Lord! My innards will burst from me. Argh! Such pain!” His face was contorted with it, his legs curled up under him, his groans increasing in volume and frequency.

“Are you wounded, Colonel?” The captain was at a loss to understand how the man came to be in such agony without apparent cause.

“You fool!” cried the colonel through clenched teeth. “This is some malady. Argh, it will kill me for certain if it is not stopped!” He spluttered, straining to see me, though his eyes were blurred with tears of his own now. Men's tears. Which might have moved some, but stirred little in me. “Widow Carmichael! Help me, woman. For the love of God, help me!”

I knelt beside him again, only this time he was the one in despair, and I was the one with the power. How quickly things could change.

“Why, Colonel,” I said, “you appear to have been taken sorely ill indeed.”

“What is it, d'you suppose?” he gasped. “What can cause such terrible pain?”

I placed my hand upon his sweating brow, and then peered into his bleary eyes, and made something of a show of lowering my head to his chest to listen, though I cannot imagine what it was those present thought I listened for. At last I straightened up, my face grim.

“I fear an obstruction in his gut,” I told them. “If it is not attended to it may rupture.”

The colonel uttered another cry of agony.

I explained further. “His body has most likely weakened through years of the exertions of battle, poor quality of food, and a surfeit of cheap wine. These things have taken their toll, and now there is a failure to function…”

The colonel's only comment on this diagnosis was a long scream.

Captain Anderson whispered urgently in my ear, “Mistress, what is to be done? Can he be saved?”

I responded only after a moment's thought. A moment which passed more slowly for the colonel than for the rest of us, I believe.

“The putrid piece or blockage must be removed, and quickly.”

The captain looked horrified. “Have you ever performed such a task yourself?” he asked.

“More than once,” I told him.

“And was it successful?” he wanted to know.

I looked the colonel in the eye as I replied, “More than once.”

“Then get to it woman, for pity's sake. Do what you must, and do it quickly!”

The captain barked orders for a stretcher to be brought, for a space to be made ready in the house, for whatever I needed to be given me, and every assistance made available. I stood quite still while all this activity swirled about me. It was only as the colonel was lifted onto a hastily fetched stretcher that I spoke again.

“I am sorry, Colonel Gilchrist, but I cannot help you.”

“What?” All color had by now drained from his face, the relentless pain leaving him increasingly breathless. “What's that you say?”

“My place is here. With Sir William.”

“God damn it, woman, you will do as I instruct you! Captain Anderson, bring her along!”

I held up my hand to stop the captain taking hold of me. “You may drag me to your sickbed, sir, and you might hold a musket to my head or a knife to my throat, but would you truly wish to have a reluctant surgeon open your belly?” I let this thought settle and then continued. “How much better to be in the care of someone grateful. Someone who believes you a just and fair man. Someone who, perhaps, is in some way in your debt?”

For a moment the only sound to be heard was the rapid and shallow, pain-filled breathing of the poor colonel. Even in extremis I could see his fury at being so manipulated. But a good soldier knows when to attack, and when to negotiate. He raised a feeble hand.

“Take him back to the house,” he said. “We will address the matter later.”

“He will go to Oxford?” I wanted to be certain. “He will get a proper trial? I have your word on it?”

“Yes, yes! By all that is holy, woman, yes. Now, to the house!”

And with that we all hurried back inside, William to the cellar, the rest of us to what was now the treatment room. High up in the cedar tree the robin began to sing again.

 

15

I knew I had only bought a little time for William, but he was, for now, safe from the hangman. My more immediate concern was how to treat Colonel Gilchrist without the word
magic
ever entering anyone's head. It had not been difficult to summon a spell to inflict pain upon him, even though it went against my natural inclination to cause suffering in a situation other than self-defense. But I was defending William, and that had been justification enough, I believed. I noticed one or two of the guards and soldiers standing close to the incident had looked at me with suspicion and even fear. I would have to take great care with my remedy. If the colonel underwent a swift and miraculous cure that nascent suspicion could grow into a conviction that witchcraft was involved. After all, it was very convenient that the officer had been taken so ill at that precise moment. It would not go well for me, no doubt, if the patient died under my care, but if I were to make him well without apparent effort … And yet I could not submit him to surgery. The risks were far too many and too great. We had no anesthesia, no antibiotics, no way of working in sterile conditions, no possibility of replacing lost blood, and no skilled practitioner of medicine to assist me. No, I would have to find another way.

My relief at being able to help William was overshadowed by my distress at the thought of Tegan and Erasmus still at Gideon's mercy while I could not go to them. If I left now I would be abandoning William to the noose. It would have been impossible to choose between him and Tegan, but the choice was not, in truth, mine to make. I would not be permitted to leave until I had treated the colonel. I told myself that the sooner I did what had to be done at the Hall, the sooner I would be free to go in search of Tegan. Until then I could only pray to the Goddess that the enchantment upon her was continuing to lift, so that she would regain some of her own protecting magic. I instructed the orderlies to put the colonel onto the bed in the small room off the reception hall and undress him. I insisted we first try a draught to see if we could not shift the obstruction without the need for use of the knife. The possibility of avoiding surgery naturally found favor with the patient, so I hurried to the kitchen.