Weyward(44)

The rector took the oath. A thin man, his face was pale and pinched from years of sermons.

‘Reverend,’ said the prosecutor, ‘would you be so good as to tell the court where you preach?’

‘Certainly,’ said Reverend Goode. ‘I am the rector of St Mary’s church, Crows Beck.’

‘And how long have you held this post?’

‘It will be thirty years this August.’

‘And in that time, have you been familiar with the Weyward family?’

‘Yes – though I am not sure that “family” is the proper term.’

‘What do you mean, Reverend?’

‘While I’ve been there, it has been just the two of them. The accused and her mother. Now only Altha remains, since Jennet passed some years ago.’

‘Has there never been a male member of the household?’

‘None that I have been acquainted with. It appears that the girl was born out of wedlock.’

‘And did the Weywards attend services, Reverend?’

Reverend Goode paused.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘They came every Sunday, even in winter.’

‘And has the accused kept up her attendance, since her mother’s death?’

‘Yes,’ said Reverend Goode. ‘For this, at least, I cannot fault her.’

I hated slinking into the back of the church, feeling the other villages shrink away if I took the same pew. But I knew I had to go, as my mother and I had always done, to avoid being dragged before the church courts.

At Reverend Goode’s last words, the prosecutor looked like a cat who’d been handed a dish of cream.

‘“For this at least”, Reverend? What can you fault her on?’

‘One hears things, in a small village,’ he said. ‘Like her mother, Altha tends the sick. Sometimes she has favourable results. She’s nursed quite a few villagers back to health in her time.’

‘“Sometimes” she has good results? What of the other times?’

‘Sometimes the patient has died.’

I remembered the last death I’d witnessed, before John’s. Ben Bainbridge’s father, Jeremiah. He’d passed ninety winters: had been the oldest person in Crows Beck for two score years. His mind had died long before, leaving only his body behind. His eyes were blue and clouded, and I remember looking into them as I sat by his deathbed, wondering what he was seeing in the world beyond this life. He had said his wife’s name with his last breath, his body shuddering like leaves in the wind. Old age, it was. And nothing more. There was nowt I could do but ease the pain of his lingering.

They could not pin that death on me. Not that one.

There had been others, too. Times when the patient’s skin was so blanched with approaching death that I knew I could do little. The Merrywether woman, who’d died in childbed, her blood lapping at my wrists, the babe a mere knot of still flesh. These ones had been past my help.

I expected the rector to produce a litany of these deaths. But he did not. After all, he had stood at their gravesides and told their families that their loved one’s passing was part of God’s plan. It would not do well for him to say, now, having taken his sacred oath, that God had planned for them to be murdered by a witch.

‘They did die, sometimes,’ he went on. ‘Though death awaits us all, along with reunification with our Father in Heaven, if we have lived well.’

I felt the gallery grow restless. They were not here for a sermon. Someone coughed, another giggled. I saw one judge lean close to another, to murmur something.

The rector had the prosecutor in a bind, now. But he needed the church to stand with him, on the matter of witchcraft.

He paced.

‘Thank you, Reverend. And thank you for the great service you have done to your country and king, in coming forward to report this crime. For it was you, was it not, who wrote to me, informing me there was suspicion of a witch in Crows Beck? And that it was suspected that this witch had had a hand in the death of John Milburn?’

‘Yes,’ said the rector slowly. ‘It was.’

‘Reverend,’ said the prosecutor. ‘Did you see the body of John Milburn?’

‘I did. He was injured most grievously.’

‘And did you bring the accused to his corpse, to see if it bled anew at her touch?’

‘No, sir.’

‘But, Reverend, would this not have been conclusive proof of murder? Why was this not done?’

‘Master Milburn had already been buried, sir, by the time suspicion fell upon the accused. It was his widow’s wish that he be laid to rest quickly, the sooner he could be reunited with his maker.’

‘Thank you for that explanation. And could you tell the court how it was that suspicion did fall on the accused? What caused you to make the report?’

‘Someone in the parish spoke to me of their concerns. They were certain that an innocent life had been taken, through a wicked contract with the devil. They wanted to do their duty, by their Lord and maker.’

‘And who was that person?’

Reverend Goode took his time in telling the court who had brought suspicion on my name. Who had consigned me to sit on the cold, hard seat of the dock by day and dream of death by night.

‘It was the deceased’s father-in-law,’ he said finally. ‘William Metcalfe.’