The Witch Hunter's Tale by Sam Thomas

Author:Sam Thomas [Thomas, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466845374
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-01-05T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 14

Martha looked up in surprise when I arrived at home. She had been sweeping the parlor, but she stopped as soon as she saw my face.

“What is it?” she asked. “What has happened?”

“They intend to try Will along with the witches,” I said.

Martha paled and sat on the edge of the couch. “When?”

“I don’t know. They might wait until all the witches are tried. Or they might not.”

“Are you sure?” Martha asked.

“Not entirely,” I replied. “It is just a rumor now. I heard it from Peter Newcome, but he seems to know as much about the city as any man could.”

Martha nodded. “We should have seen it coming. Is it the Lord Mayor’s doing?”

“In some way, it must be,” I said. “If he hired a man to kill Mr. Breary, he’d certainly want to see Will—or anyone for that matter—hanged for it, and the sooner the better.”

“And if Agnes jumbled enough men she could find one to kill Mr. Breary,” Martha said. “And that would put the old goat in a bind.”

I nodded. “If he had to choose between seeing his wife hanged, or finding someone to die in her place, there’s no question which he would select. So he could hang Will in order to hide his own guilt or Agnes’s. And that doesn’t even account for Joseph…”

“Who would leap at any excuse to see Will on the gallows, no matter who killed Mr. Breary,” Martha finished my thought.

“Lord help us, we’ve found ourselves in quite a web,” I said.

“I’d rather we not wait for the Lord’s help,” Martha replied. “We must make our own way out.”

As we considered our options, Sugar wandered out of the kitchen and meowed. His appearance reminded me that our problems went much further than Will, the Lord Mayor, and Joseph.

“And then there’s Rebecca Hooke,” I said.

“What are we going to do?” Martha asked. “There are so many threatening clouds.”

“I don’t know,” I said.

In less troubled times, if the city were visited by the plague or some other disaster, I’d simply hire a carriage and send Elizabeth and Hannah to one of my estates. I would stay in York if I thought I could help, or go along if Elizabeth needed me. Martha could do as she wished. But either way I knew how to keep my family safe.

The problem, of course, was that a witch-hunt was not the same as the plague or a flood, and we did not live in ordinary times. Martha and I could not flee the city so long as Will remained in gaol, for without us to defend him, he would surely be hanged. And with the lawlessness that had overtaken England thanks to our civil wars, robbers and thieves haunted the roads like never before. Sending Elizabeth and Hannah away would be no less dangerous than keeping them in York. We were trapped in the city as surely as we had been during the siege of 1644.

“We must find an advantage over Joseph,” I said. “He is the keystone to both the witch-hunt and Will’s arrest.

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