Save Me

Tom Peeper and Constable Hargreaves finished drinking at the Dog and set off towards Malkin Tower. They each carried a net and a club. They were looking forward to using them.

Alice Nutter and the herbalist were already at the tower. Alice on her cob, the herbalist on her donkey. They had agreed that Alice would argue with the guards at the front of the tower while the herbalist made her way unseen to the north part at the rear, where she knew the secret way in and out.

The herbalist let her donkey go to eat new shoots on the hawthorn, and was not surprised to see Jennet Device sitting leaning against the tower. The child regarded her and said nothing. She was used to grown people wanting something from her.

‘Jennet! I know you can go inside.’

‘What if I can?’

‘Then go inside and get the poppet your mother has made!’

The child shook her head. ‘I can’t do that. It is enchanted.’

‘But not to you. And if you bring it I shall give you something good.’

The child looked interested. The herbalist took a chicken leg out of her pocket. She threw it to the child who caught it in one hand and devoured it, bones complete, all the while keeping her eyes on the herbalist.

‘And that was only the leg. You shall eat the whole bird. And you shall have this sixpence.’ She took out the big shiny coin that still bore the image of Elizabeth.

Without a word Jennet disappeared as if into the air. The herbalist sat down. She would have to wait.

*

At the south of the tower Alice Nutter remonstrated with the guards to let her in; it was her property. The guards refused. As this row increased, the band inside the tower crowded to the slits to watch. The head and the poppet were left untended.

Jennet, wriggling like a fish, poked up from below and saw the scene. The head was on the table. The poppet was propped behind it near to the ladder entrance to the cellar.

Jennet was as fast a thief as the rest of her Demdike clan, and smaller and lighter. In a second she had the poppet and was down the steps and out through the concealed hole and up in the ditch beyond. She threw the poppet at the herbalist who pulled out the pins, and put it into her saddlebag, and urged the donkey away. Jennet got her sixpence and her chicken. She took both with her into the bushes.

At Read Hall Roger Nowell was stirring. He could move his legs. He was still in a fever but he was no longer paralysed.

*

Tom Peeper and Constable Hargreaves rode slowly up to Malkin Tower. Neither man was pleased to see Alice Nutter.

‘We’re here on Crown business to take the prisoners to Read Hall,’ said Constable Hargreaves in his lumbering way, ‘and you may not enter the tower. If you have any argument you must address it to the Magistrate.’

‘She’ll be summoned there soon enough,’ said Tom Peeper.

Alice turned on him. ‘You have neither manners nor charm nor looks nor brains nor skill, and yet you are alive, while many women who did nothing but spin and weave and do their best have been hanged or burned. Can you explain that to me?’

‘I am not a witch, Mistress,’ said Tom Peeper.

‘As for looks, can you explain yours to me?’

Alice struck him across the face with her riding crop. He wiped the blood away and spat at her. ‘You’ll be burning soon enough.’

Before Alice could reply, the guards had planked the drawbridge across the fetid moat and opened the door into the tower. Elizabeth Device was first out.

‘She has certainly lost her looks,’ said Peeper. ‘Not that Squinting Lizzie ever had any. She should be grateful to any man that threw her a kiss the way you would throw a dog a week-old bone.’

‘Alice Nutter, save me!’ shouted Elizabeth Device.

‘You think she’ll fly you away, do you?’ said Constable Hargreaves. ‘Too late for flying work now.’

As Elizabeth came near, Tom Peeper coshed her on the shoulders. She fell down, cursing.

The other captives were led out. Constable Hargreaves threw his net over them to the front; Tom Peeper netted the rest to the rear. And so they were caught, like human fish, with a guard on either side. Miserable, ragged and afraid, they set off to Read Hall.

Alice watched them go. Elizabeth Device turned round, her face defeated and furious, blood running from her ear. ‘Alice Nutter! Save me or be damned with me!’