Two weeks later, I brought Ben to a halt outside Norwich’s Magdalen Gate, where we waited in a queue to enter the city. He pulled strongly on the reins, eager to get on, and I realised the horse was fully recovered. I was just a little further behind him. Though I had been confined to bed while my wound healed properly, sensation was returning every day, and now I was able to go about my work as before. The small rents had been collected and, to my great relief, no further animals had died. Slowly, as my leg improved, I began to ride the perimeter of the farm and take stock of how many sheep remained.
More reluctantly, I began to think about a return to the army. My colonel had sent the regiment home with instructions to travel back a sennight after the Epiphany. That feast had passed a week ago, but there were still matters here needing my attention. If I had to go, Esther could not be left. I was considering sending her to some of our people in Suffolk, distant cousins, though I knew little of them beyond their names. She wouldn’t want to go, I was certain, but here she would be at risk of harm and, even if she stayed, a woman alone could not manage the farm.
That was another concern. The farm wasn’t large, but Father had always been able to rely on hired labour. When I had returned it had been Christmas, and the men had been sent home to their families, just as I had from the army. But after the arrival of the witchfinder, the arrests, and what had taken place in the gaol, they had not come back. Though I had spoken to five or six other local men since, they had offered nothing but guarded suspicion. One had muttered darkly about the Gedge women and stalked off, the others had nodded along, saying they might report for a day’s work, but none had come. Who could blame them? But these matters troubled me enormously. I did not know what my father would have done in my place.
They had buried my father while I slept. Nervously, Esther had told me of how John Rutherford, arriving to search the house – a search which revealed nothing new – had found her weeping in the company of her father’s corpse, and me in a deep, drugged sleep. The witchfinder had paid the physician, ensured the death certificate was signed and funeral arrangements made. His actions had surprised me; I had not thought him so practical, nor so generous. Rutherford would be repaid every penny of his outlay – I would not be indebted to him – but I had to admit the assistance had come at the needful time. Still, I wondered what Rutherford might want in return.
The committal had been a hurried affair, with few spiritual preparations and little of the ordinary ritual. My father had had no chance to compose an epitaph. In the end, attendance was low. Rumours of witchcraft and bastardy spread quickly. Yet I comforted myself that of all the men I knew, my father was most ready for Heaven: humble, beneficent to the poor and careful of his soul. If he had hidden sins, they were well hidden indeed. Tentatively, I felt our name might recover, as people thought longer on his life and deeds.
But even so, this was the real world, where nobody could afford to take their reputation lightly. I had travelled to Norwich to protect my father’s name and, if I could, discover the truth about Chrissa Moore. I needed to know where she was from, how she had come into my family’s employ, whether she had contrived to destroy any other men, and what involvement she had had in the deaths of Joan and her mother at Walsham. Only then, with the tarnish rubbed off, could our name climb back to respectability, and we recover our credit.
But I didn’t expect to find Lucy Bennett. I suspected the Moore woman had invented this advocate in hopes of further delaying a trial, or that Bennett, if she existed, lived a life of such depraved chaos that she would be difficult to pin down. Perhaps a whore, perhaps a procuress. But I had to try. Whatever I discovered, however incomplete, it might help me to cast doubt on the claims against my father.
I had sought out Manyon once more before deciding to ride to Norwich. I wanted to question Chrissa Moore further, see whether I might encourage her to speak to me again, as she had done in the gaol. Manyon, though every bit as hospitable as before, had been regretful. ‘No, Tom,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I cannot allow it. There have already been two deaths, which – even if I discount the allegation of witchcraft – I must place at the door of the Moore girl. And she will not be induced to speak, even were I to agree.’
‘Not at all?’
‘Not one word, either in her own defence or in confession. And the women’s deaths have roused the town against her, understandably, as they are mourned by many. I am under pressure to disregard the normal procedures and apply more force in persuading her to speak. Not that I have bowed to such pressure, of course. Yet,’ he had added, ominously.
Manyon had insisted the women’s deaths were murders and not self-destruction, so Hale had agreed to bury Joan and Goodwife Gedge in the churchyard. It was only the magistrate’s intervention that had prevented their corpses being hauled off to a crossroads and buried in a pit, pinned with stakes to prevent them wandering. For my part, I was less concerned about their return to this world than about their untimely exit. Their deaths weighed heavily on my mind. Two murders. Of people close to us. If Chrissa Moore were somehow responsible for their poisonings, she was dangerous beyond measure. But if the deaths were indeed self-murder, it spoke of their guilt, of ill-wishing, as Esther had feared. And in that case, Chrissa Moore might lose her life to a great injustice. That thought, though I kept pushing it aside, dogged me as I entered the city, persuading Ben along the cobbled road under the wall.
I had never been to London, and couldn’t imagine the capital to be much greater than Norwich. I disliked towns and cities, preferring the rolling spaces of the countryside, but I admired the ambition of the Vikings, clergymen and merchants who had turned a small fortress-town into the second biggest trading centre in the nation. The city housed thousands of souls, some even said tens of thousands. Sitting on the winding River Wensum, it boasted twelve gatehouses and six bridges, and was encased on all sides by either its solid defensive wall or the bustling hum of the river. It was prosperous, with goods ranging from worsted wool to leather, ironwork, beer, pottery, candles and stockings and hats for its well-off inhabitants.
Yet there was much poverty. The great rebellion of Robert Kett nearly a century earlier had been driven by the enclosures of vast tracts of land, land which had fed the poor, for the grazing of rich men’s animals, whose wool fed only the purses of their owners. And although it remained a tradition for a day in late August to be set aside as a holiday to commemorate the saving of the city from the plots and seditions of the rebels, I couldn’t help but think it shameful that people should live in such debased conditions, and wondered, watching children walk barefoot in the wake of fat, well-wrapped merchants, not daring to beg a coin, which side I would have joined in that struggle. Here, I saw more varmints and vagrants than I had counted in any of the towns I had seen with the army.
Pausing, I offered a coin to a passing beggar, a small girl with mouse-tail hair and round eyes. I asked whether she might know of a Lucy Bennett, of Ramping Horse Lane, but she scampered away with her prize clutched tight in hand. I realised I was being too eager; the city was vast, I was in Norwich-Over-the-Water, and the urchins on the other side of the Fye Bridge would likely know more.
I remembered coming here with my father, who always told the same story – as if he had never told it before – of a woman suspected of witchcraft, forced by the townsfolk to recite the Lord’s Prayer before being ducked off the side of the great, two-arched stone crossing. She had risen from the filthy water coughing and spluttering and cursing her captors, before taking an enormous breath and having the good sense to stay down long enough for them to decide she was innocent. My father had recited the tale with scorn, knowing the foolishness of the mob, knowing what damage they could do when riled.
I came away from the river into the city. The louring sky of recent weeks had retreated before a hard, still brightness, and as I rode I savoured the winter sun on my face. On my left the bobbled spire of the cathedral dominated the whole skyline. As I contemplated its huge nave and the width of its transepts, it seemed an impossible achievement. Its medieval builders must have harboured a great desire to impress upon their congregation the divinity of their task. But the soaring tower of expensive Caen stone impressed upon me nothing but the primacy of money in the body politic.
Next, I crossed into Tombland, moving slowly through the surging crowds, keeping my eyes trained on those nearby. There would be pickpockets, confidence tricksters, and still more beggars who doubled as pickpockets, and I kept a close watch on my purse down St Stephen’s Lane, moving away from the market. Here were several taverns, including the Ramping Horse. The road was lined with merchants’ homes: substantial, two-storeyed, with tiled roofs, some opening on to courtyards behind. Those occupied by the rich traders were smart and clean, but others were dilapidated, with crumbling walls and missing tiles, and were carved up into shanty-like tenements, housing as many of the working poor as would fit inside the ramshackle walls. It was a strange mixture. I realised I had never paid it much attention when I had visited the city with my father. It was here, it seemed, that I needed to search for Lucy Bennett.
I looked about me. The passers-by were a motley crowd: merchants, men of the gentlemanly sort, some ragged boys kicking a bladder between them, on the verge of a row, and three young women – girls, really – who walked together, sending sidelong glances in my direction and giggling endlessly. They were dressed brightly, in the type of frippery that is less impressive on closer inspection. They might have been thirteen, fourteen at the most.
There was an apprentice lolling against a wall by a public water trough, watching the girls. He appeared bored, and canny. I approached him. ‘I’m seeking a woman named Lucy Bennett,’ I said. ‘I was given this street as the address, but I don’t know which house. Do you know anything of her?’
He leered at me. ‘Looking for that sort of thing, are you? Wish I had your coin.’ He spat a large gobbet of phlegm on the ground. I sighed and reached into my purse, withdrawing a groat; its recipient pocketed the money and gave the address I sought. I was surprised to be directed towards one of the better houses, a wide building no more than twenty years old, of timber and knapped flint, with its first floor overhanging the street below, and handsome glass windows. I nodded thanks to the grinning lout as I went towards the door, then struck with the heavy knocker.
After a wait of more than a minute, the door was half-opened by a grubby-looking scullery maid. She was thin, with a reddened, dripping nose, and I thought I would be ashamed to have such an obviously ill fed and unwell girl in my employ. Her condition, again, surprised me, for the outward appearance of the house was respectable. But I cleared my throat and began formally. ‘My name is Thomas Treadwater, of Worstead. I seek an appointment with Mistress Lucy Bennett, as I am acquainted with a young woman I believe she knows: a woman called Chrissa Moore. I’d like to ask your mistress some questions about her, if she is amenable.’
The maid did not pull the door further ajar. Instead, she looked me up and down, then nodded curtly and said, ‘I’ll check.’
The apprentice was still watching, seeming amused by my cool reception. He whistled something merry and, when the girls reappeared from the alley, called out something cruder that made them laugh. They looked even younger close up, gathered together like a flock of tiny, brightly coloured birds. One of them dipped her shoulder to the ground, coming up with a stone which she tossed in his direction. ‘Whores,’ the lad shouted after them, and the girls called back violent insults of their own before running away, laughing.
I decided that, perhaps, after all, Esther had not been far wrong when she had judged Chrissa Moore’s origins, and I was taken aback, for just a moment, by the disappointment that accompanied the thought. Why should I care what trade she plied?
Before I could scrutinise that question, the door opened again, and the servant gestured for me to come inside. ‘No weapons,’ she said. ‘We lock them up here.’ She had stopped beside a closet at the base of the stairs. I nodded and unbuckled my sword belt, watching as the weapon was placed under lock and key. Then the girl led me up the staircase, through two reception rooms on the first floor, and on into a larger room towards the back of the house.
I found myself in a room of contradictions. It was large and well furnished, with a table covered in sprigged silk and laden with sweet dishes. I noticed sugared apricots and rosemary, marchpane cakes and plums. There were several good chairs against the walls, two or three of them occupied by girls who, like those outside, looked better dressed and more advanced in years the further away one stood, and one rangy man, heavy-bearded, half-asleep. He was not wearing a uniform, but was still in possession of his sword, presumably for the benefit of any customer who might think of dodging his bill. There was an actual giltwood mirror – something I had never seen before – over the fireplace, but the room had simple rushes on the boarded floor, and was not often cleaned, by the look and musty smell of it. And despite the prosperous appearance of the woman occupying the seat before the table, the boy who sat at her feet looked thin and neglected, his skin pallid and his eyes, which fell on me as I entered the room, as dull and grey as week-old snow. He lowered them as I moved closer, and his hands fell to playing with a pendant around his neck; it had some small object on the end of the metal chain, but I could not see what as he turned it over and over between his scrawny fingers.
I bowed. The girls snickered. The woman at the table shooed them out with a single word and they fled, still giggling. I turned my attention to their mistress. This, then, was Lucy Bennett. She was monstrously fat, and draped in coloured fabrics of the better kind. The style was not particularly ordered, as if she had layered one bolt of cloth over another until she was covered, rather than bother to put on an actual dress, and, above the rainbow of silken flaps and folds, she had a coarse and pockmarked face. She did not rise to receive me, but I believed that, if she did stand, she would be as tall as I. For a moment I wondered whether I looked upon Chrissa’s mother, but on closer examination, I saw that, beneath the flesh of her face, there was nothing of Chrissa’s refined bone structure; her chin was non-existent, her nose disproportionate against her flabby cheeks, and her mouth ungenerous. Her eyes were hard where everything else about her was soft.
‘Who might you be?’ she said. Her voice, like her movements, was languorous and honeyed.
I had given my name at the door, but could be turned out at any moment and so spoke with more patience than I felt. ‘My name is Thomas Treadwater, mistress. I was given your name and the location of your house by the woman Chrissa Moore, who wishes you to provide her with a… character, of sorts.’ The explanation was weak, and I added, ‘I am aiding the Walsham Justice, Christopher Manyon, in this matter.’ It was a half-truth, but I hoped the mention of the magistrate might make her more receptive.
It seemed to have the desired effect. ‘Manyon? I know the name,’ she said, absently, but her grey eyes were sharp beneath their puffy lids. ‘What news have you of Chrissa, then?’
‘She worked for you?’ I said, bluntly. The procuress raised her over-plucked eyebrows. I waited, unrepentant.
She reached out to the table, set to the side so she did not have to bend too far to pick up a sugared apricot. She placed the fruit into her mouth with obvious pleasure. At her feet, the silent boy watched the food go over his head and past her blackened front teeth.
She chewed unevenly, moving the food around her mouth in search of the best tooth with which to address it. Finally, she swallowed, then picked at one of her back molars and licked the resulting morsel from her finger before answering. ‘Chrissa was never one of my girls in that way,’ she said. ‘Oh, the clients would have liked that. She would have earnt well, and for a long while – she was only eleven or so when she came to me. As lovely as the night, she was. Fresh.’ She leant forward again and selected another fruit. ‘But she would have none of it. Not her. I don’t force my girls, you know,’ she said, with pride. ‘Not like some in my line of work. I offer them the choice: earn your keep on your back, or find another way to pay. Chrissa chose to use her other skills.’ She shrugged, as if to say, such is the way of things.
I said, ‘What skills were those, then?’
‘Oh, this and that,’ Lucy said, vaguely. ‘We’re a broad church under this roof. Plenty of things a person can do to get coin without opening their legs for it.’
Yes, like selling young girls to old men, I thought, revolted.
Lucy continued. ‘I told her when she turned up, skinny as a pole and lugging this loiter-sack along with her,’ she said, nodding to the boy at her feet, ‘I’d only space for her, only room for those who could pay. She swore she could bring in enough for both of them. I’m not responsible for whatever she was doing – none of my concern. She would be out all hours. Still, she paid on time, and that’s all that mattered to me.’
‘And that went on for several years?’
After an uncertain sound I took as a ‘yes’, she chewed for a few more moments, then began again. ‘Until earlier this year,’ she said. ‘She went as usual – and sometimes she might be gone for several days, so I didn’t worry – but she didn’t come back.’
‘This was when?’
‘Around Easter-time. Can’t be exactly sure. I was just set to turf this lump out on to the street when a letter arrived from her, with her arrears, and a promise she’d send money again, regular, for the boy’s board.’
‘And did she?’
‘Until a few weeks ago, she did,’ Lucy acknowledged.
‘What age is he?’ I said, looking at the boy.
Carelessly, Lucy Bennett raised her eyes, as if trying to remember. ‘Nine. Ten,’ she said. ‘He was but three or four when he came here.’
Ten summers old. I couldn’t believe it. The boy was tiny. Shaggy black hair surrounded a round face. He had eyes of an odd shape and appearance, as though their maker had placed forefinger and thumb on either side and stretched. His expression was of the utmost innocence: superficially interested in me and my – relatively – fine clothes, but equally fascinated by a piece of muck he had found on the floor, which he now crumbled between his fingers. He reminded me of an idiot I had seen baited on the green at Ivinghoe when I had stopped there on my way home from Newbury.
I thought for a few moments, watching as the boy lost interest in his scrap of dirt and simply squatted on the floor, looking as though he had always been there.
‘I have a proposition,’ I said, finally. Lucy looked up with a gambler’s curiosity and nodded for me to go on. ‘I would like to take the boy off your hands. We are several workers short at my farm, and there are plenty of jobs to go around. We can put him to work in the kitchen.’
Lucy laughed unpleasantly, her large bosom heaving with private amusement. ‘You’d like that, would you?’ she cackled.
Not immediately understanding, I said, ‘The boy needs to be provided for, and there is work to be done. And for fair pay.’
She continued to laugh as she eyed the boy. ‘Him? Work?’ Wiping a mirthful tear from her eye, she shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, with exaggerated regret. ‘No. Henry might not be my own, and he might only be fed what his sister can afford…’ She looked the skeletal child over from head to toe and shrugged. ‘Perhaps a little less,’ she acknowledged. ‘But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sell him to the first catamite who offers me a shilling for him. I’m a Christian woman.’
Now I received her meaning. ‘God’s blood, woman!’ I said. ‘Have you no decency? I want to help the boy, not… Not anything like you said. I know his sister – that is, I know where she is.’
At this, Henry’s head rose from his chest. He stared at me and his round face showed a glimmer of agitation, but he said nothing.
Lucy seemed to be weighing this new information, considering whether it might be played to her advantage. ‘Is that right? You might wish to tell her she missed her last payment for this creature.’ I winced as her slippered foot jolted the boy’s backside. The child barely reacted. ‘But,’ she continued, ‘she’ll not thank you, even if you do take him; she’s as proud as a Pharisee, that one. Where did you say she was?’
‘I didn’t,’ I said, shortly. ‘But I can describe her for you.’ I did so and it was easy. My waking moments since seeing Chrissa Moore had rarely been completely free of her face.
When I was finished, Lucy nodded slowly. ‘That’s her, all right,’ she said. Her eyes gleamed with greed. ‘Still, my duty as a Christian is to stick by my word and keep this boy in my house; unless, of course, you can undertake to pay me in Chrissa’s stead, and compensate me, also, for the very small portion of her payments I take for his care.’
I suspected that was most of whatever Chrissa paid, and despised the old hag for her avarice. ‘I will compensate you,’ I said. ‘The boy will come with me to my farm, and work, and perhaps in time,’ I added, in a clearer voice, so that the boy understood, ‘he will be reunited with his sister.’ I hated myself for the hope I saw in the boy’s eyes, a hope I had kindled for my own profit. Really, I thought in disgust, was I any better than she?
We haggled for some minutes over the exact amount, and then Lucy kicked Henry with her foot again. ‘Get your things, boy,’ she said. He scrambled to his feet and went to a filthy corner, from which he took a pathetic bundle of cloth and a stick. He disappeared for a few seconds into a side chamber, then returned, looking perfectly ready to leave.
‘Does he have no shoes?’ I asked, looking down at the boy’s blue-tinged toes.
‘Never needed them,’ Lucy said, stoutly.
Shaking my head as I handed over the coin, I motioned to the boy to follow. He offered Lucy Bennett neither thanks nor farewell, and before long I had mounted him before me on Ben, and, thus laden, the horse picked his slow way through the centre of the city, back towards the Magdalen Gate.