Witch Hunter (12 page)

He’s clutching another steaming mug of something I’m

guessing John made for him.

‘Welcome, Elizabeth.’ His voice is warm. ‘I’m so pleased

to see you’re feeling better.’

‘Thank you,’ I say. My voice comes out weak and timid.

I don’t like it. I clear my throat and try again. ‘I am

feeling better.’

‘I do hope I didn’t startle you with my little display.’

He holds his arms wide again. ‘I take it you’ve not seen

much magic before?’

It’s a loaded question. If I say I have seen magic, he’ll

want to know where and who performed it. He might

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assume there are other witches – if that’s what he thinks I

am – living in the king’s household. He might start asking

questions. One question will lead to another, and…

‘No,’ I lie at once. ‘That was only my second time. The

first was at Fleet.’

Nicholas nods. ‘I assure you that everything practised in

my home is harmless, if not beneficial. I know I said this

before, but perhaps it bears repeating. I promise that no

harm will come to you here.’

His words, they’re kind. But I don’t believe them for

a moment.

Peter claps his hands, moving on. ‘John and George

you also already know, but this’ – he gestures to the girl

to Nicholas’s right – ‘is Fifer Birch. She’s a student of

Nicholas’s, been working with him for years. She’s his

star pupil!’

Pupil. I take this to mean witch. She’s my age, maybe

younger. Thin, with dark red hair and pale skin dotted with

freckles. She looks me over, her eyes drifting from my

face to my hair to my shirt – which I now realise is her shirt

– then back to my face. Her eyebrows are raised,

her lips pursed. Skeptical. Finally, she turns away from me

and whispers something to Nicholas.

‘Lastly, this is Gareth Fish.’ Peter points to the man

still hovering beside Nicholas, his book still open, pen still

poised. Tall, thin, cadaverous. He wears thin-framed

spectacles and a thin-lipped pout, clearly irritated at the

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interruption. ‘He’s a member of our council and serves as a

liaison between Nicholas and, well, everyone. Mainly the

citizens of Harrow, of course, but anyone anywhere, really.

Anyone who needs his help.’

Harrow. Short for Harrow-on-the-Hill, a village full of

Reformists, of witches, of magic. It’s hidden away

somewhere in Anglia, only its inhabitants know where. It

became a refuge once the Inquisition started, and if you

had any magical power or Reformist leanings at all – and

didn’t go into exile or prison – you went there. It’s the

axis of the Reformist movement, and Blackwell would give

just about anything to find it.

Gareth gives me a curt nod before turning back to his

book. Apparently, I’m not interesting or impressive enough

for more than that. I’m glad he thinks so.

Peter turns to me. ‘Now that you’re here, we can eat.

I hope you’re hungry.’ He gestures to the platters of food

piled on the cabinet against the wall.

There’s the standard fare: chicken, bread, a simple

stew. But there’s more exotic food here, too, the kind I

used to make at court: roast peacock, redressed in its

feathers; a platter of quail in what looks like fig sauce; a

stargazer pie, the tiny fish heads poking out from under

the crust. A platter of fruit, cakes, even an assortment of

marchpane: roses, shamrocks, and thistles, all fashioned

out of sugar.

I feel my eyes go wide.

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‘I thought you might be.’ Peter laughs. ‘Shall we?’ he

says to Nicholas.

Nicholas nods and gives his hand a little wave. At once,

the platters rise and begin floating in the air. One by one

they land gracefully on the table. Once again, I’m shocked.

That level of magic is beyond anything I’ve seen before.

But when the quail lands in front of me, I decide it

doesn’t matter. I’m starving. I reach for the platter, but

John grabs my arm and pulls it back.

‘Wait,’ he says.

‘Why?’ I briefly wonder if he’s questioning my manners.

‘It’s just that Hastings – that’s Nicholas’s servant – well,

he’s a ghost. You have to be careful when he’s around.’ John

gestures at the empty air. ‘He usually wears a white hat so

we know where he is, but sometimes he forgets. I normally

wait until everything goes still before reaching for anything.

I’ve made the mistake of touching him before.’ He gives me

a sheepish smile. ‘Hurt like hell.’

Being a witch hunter, I’ve seen a lot of things: revenants,

ghouls, demons, and, yes, ghosts. But never ghost servants.

Ghosts are known for destroying your home, possessing

livestock, and suffocating you in bed, not pouring tea or

fluffing pillows.

‘I’ve never heard of a ghost servant before,’ I say.

‘He came with the house,’ John says. ‘Used to work

for the wizard who owned it before. Mostly cooking, but

other things, too. Gardening, cleaning, things like that.

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Apparently, he was so good at his job that after he died, the

wizard brought him back so he could keep doing it.’

I think of those necromancers digging up that corpse in

Fortune Green. Mossy, decaying, maggots, bones gleaming

in the moonlight…

I smile weakly. ‘Well, you know what they say. Good

help is hard to find and all that.’

John laughs. Across the table, Peter looks from John to

me then back to John again. He’s smiling.

‘Nicholas keeps offering to send him on, but he wants to

stay,’ John continues. ‘And he’s great, really. I mean, the

not seeing him part takes some getting used to, plus he’s

hard to understand. Half the time it feels as if he’s just

blowing in my ear.’

I manage another smile, a real one this time.

‘Anyway, it looks all right now.’ John nods at the table. ‘I

imagine you’re hungry.’

‘A little.’ It seems rude to say yes, especially after all the

trouble he went to brewing me those potions.

‘Dig in, then. Hastings is an excellent cook.’

I watch him pile his plate high with food. After a minute

I do the same, taking huge helpings of strawberries and

cake. If Caleb saw this, he’d laugh and tell me to save room

for supper. I always eat dessert first.

The mood at the table is relaxed, everyone eating and

making small talk. No one speaks to me directly, and aside

from the occasional glance from John, no one even looks at

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me. I relax a little, look around. Still amazed at what I see.

Before, whenever I thought of Nicholas Perevil, I

imagined him holed up in a dank, draughty cottage

somewhere. Tattered robes, matted hair, living off grubs

and acorns and tea made from leaves. A fugitive. The most

wanted criminal in Anglia.

The table in front of me tells a different story. I glance at

my plate. Pewter, definitely valuable. The silverware. Finely

wrought and highly ornate. A tablecloth made from soft-

spun linen instead of coarse muslin. Fine candles made

from beeswax instead of rushes dipped in tallow with a

flame stinking of animal fat.

He’s not foraging for food. He’s not selling his

possessions to raise an army. He’s not wanting for anything.

This is the kind of information Blackwell would want to

know. Information he’d pay a king’s ransom to know.

Because he’ll know, as I know, it means Nicholas is receiving

help – and money – from somewhere. But from where?

And from who?

I pick up my glass and examine it. It’s thick and heavy,

probably crystal. The stem is made up of three intertwined

snakes, the bowl perched on top of their heads. I’m

wondering what the disadvantage of the glassblower was –

aside from having questionable taste – when Gareth speaks.

‘Have you told her yet?’

Her. I set my glass down on the table with a thud. ‘Told

me what?’

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‘I was going to wait until later to tell her, in private.’

Nicholas’s voice is low, full of warning. Gareth seems not

to notice.

‘Tell me what?’ I repeat.

Peter clears his throat. ‘The thing is, Elizabeth, Gareth

just came in from Upminster,’ he says. ‘And things there,

well, they’re a little worse than they were three weeks ago.’

Three weeks ago there were protests, burnings, and I was

accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death. How could

things possibly be worse?

‘I know Nicholas already told you about Veda, our seer,

that she sent us to find you,’ Peter continues. ‘But while she

gave us your name, she didn’t give us much else. Not where

you were, not what you looked like. It was down to us to

figure it out.

‘We managed to locate two people named Elizabeth

Grey. You and a witch from Seven Sisters. We thought for

certain Veda meant her. I don’t know what kind of magic

she can do, but she was certainly more…formidable than

you. She weighed about fifteen stone.’

Beside me, George lets out a snort.

‘So we let you go. A mistake in hindsight, of course, but

we’re not in the business of rounding up people for

interrogation.’ Peter’s dark eyes flash with sudden anger.

‘But if we had, we could have avoided’ – he waves his hand

– ‘all this.’

‘My arrest,’ I say.

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‘Among other things.’

‘What other things?’ I look around the room. Gareth,

suddenly interested in me; George, suddenly interested in

the ceiling; John, turning his fork over and over in his hand;

Fifer, looking somewhat gleeful.

Finally, Nicholas speaks.

‘Your arrest, your escape. Your story, unfortunately, is

all over Upminster. More unfortunate is what that story

has turned into. That you’re not just a kitchen maid, but

a spy and a witch. A secret Reformist in league with me,

spying on the king and queen while feeding us information.

Conjuring spells against them, using herbs in an attempt

to poison them. You’re now the most wanted person

in Anglia.’

I gasp at this litany of accusation.

‘They say this?’

Nicholas nods. ‘It’s quite a scandal. The queen is said to

be distraught, completely inconsolable.’ He smiles then:

hard, ironic. ‘They’re generating a lot of sympathy for it.

Even to a public who is angry with their monarch, it’s too

much. They’re calling for blood. Only this time, it’s not the

king’s, the queen’s, or even Blackwell’s. It’s yours.’

I drop my head into my hands, stunned. That Blackwell

accused me of this, that Malcolm believes it. That it went

this far, this fast. And I know, with dreadful certainty, that

whatever hope I had about regaining Blackwell’s favour is

gone. Maybe I should have known better; maybe I did. But

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it was the only thing I had to hope for. It wasn’t the job I

loved so much; it was never that. It’s that it was the only

home I had. Now there’s no going home for me.

Ever.

‘We know it’s a lie,’ John says. I lift my head to find

him watching me closely, his eyes dark but sympathetic.

‘They just needed something to divert the public’s attention

from the burnings. A scapegoat. You’re safe with us. We’ll

protect you.’

‘But who will protect us?’ Gareth says. Everyone’s

attention shifts to him. ‘She’s exposing us to a great deal of

danger when we don’t know what she can do.’ He gestures

at me with a long white hand. ‘Whatever it is, it better be

worth it, considering the price on her head.’

‘How much?’ I blurt.

‘A thousand sovereigns.’

George lets out a soundless whistle, then leans over to

pour me a glass of wine. The most Blackwell was ever

prepared to pay for Nicholas was five hundred. I reach for

my glass.

‘Yes, she’s very valuable,’ Gareth continues. ‘But she’d

better deliver on it. Otherwise, what’s to stop us from

sending George to turn her in and collect that reward? We

could fund a nice army with that.’

John drops his fork to the table with a thud.

‘We’re not going to turn her in,’ Nicholas replies, a sharp

edge sliding into his voice. ‘There’s no need to make threats.’

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‘The charts—’ Gareth begins.

‘Are inconclusive,’ Nicholas finishes. ‘Veda will tell us

what we need to know.’

‘The witch hunters—’ Gareth tries again.

‘Will come,’ Nicholas says. ‘As they always have. And