The whole village had turned out for the show. A three-inch layer of ice on the lake had to be broken before they could begin and several of the younger men had been delegated
for the job, including Patrick, who had stripped to his waist in the bitter cold, to display a back covered in purple spots. Naomi glowered at him as he hammered away at the ice with a wooden
mallet.
They had all come up together, but while Barnaby and his parents and Juliet remained on the near side of the lake, Naomi had gone across to the other side where the Widow Moone stood tethered to
her guard. The Hockets glared at her, but the widow seemed to have no idea of their attention, nor anyone else’s. She muttered to herself and occasionally tried to turn and speak to some
invisible presence behind her. Once when she did this the gaoler slapped her across the face. Naomi flew at him shouting and he raised his hand again. He would have inflicted the same correction
upon her but for a sharp reprimand from Barnaby’s father, who had gone to stand with the mayor and Father Nicholas. She settled back into silence but a moment later reached out and took one
of the old lady’s hands. The widow didn’t seem to notice.
Barnaby marvelled at this show of support: when witchcraft accusations flew about like plague spores it was dangerous to take the side of the accused. Especially since Naomi did not know the
widow any better than they did. And yet it was also brave. He couldn’t imagine himself having the courage.
Soon the men had managed to open up a jagged patch of water and the mayor stepped forward to address the crowd.
Behind him stood Abel and his friend, Matthew Hopkins, and the two women Barnaby had taken to be their mistresses. He saw now how wrong he had been. They were very fat, and old enough to be
Abel’s grandmothers. Abel looked better than Barnaby had ever seen him. He had filled out and his face was flushed as he listened to the mayor’s words. Because of the wind Barnaby could
hear very little from where he was standing but on the bank opposite Naomi’s face was set with fury. The speech ended and the guard had set about binding the Widow Moone’s waist with a
long stretch of rope when Naomi attacked him. The big man threw her off into the mud, to laughter from the crowd, and some hisses of disapproval. She struggled up and turned on the mayor.
‘You approve of this nonsense?’ she shouted. ‘You consider this a wise course of action, Mayor Strudwick?’
The men ignored her and the widow was dragged towards the edge of the water. All eyes were on her as it finally seemed to dawn on her what she was about to undergo. Then Barnaby happened to
glance at his brother. Abel’s attention, and that of his friend Mr Hopkins, were focused not on the Widow Moone, but beyond her struggling figure, to Naomi.
Abel said something and Mr Hopkins listened. Abel said something else: Mr Hopkins thought for a moment, then he nodded. Hopkins turned his attention back to the widow, but before Abel did
likewise his black eyes swept across the crowd until they met Barnaby’s. The two brothers locked gazes for the merest second. Then Abel smiled.
Barnaby’s blood ran cold and for a moment he was frozen to the spot.
Then he turned and began pushing through the villagers behind him. They grumbled and pressed together, unwilling to give up their view even for a moment to let him pass. He forced them violently
aside, breaking through the line to the clear ground behind, his heart banging. Abel had changed, that was certain. Gone was the wretched air of defeat that made people so despise him. But there
was one thing that would never change. His loathing of Barnaby. He would do anything to get back at his brother: even if it meant harming others.
Barnaby skirted the perimeter of the lake, catching an occasional glimpse between the press of bodies. One end of the rope around the widow’s waist was held by the guard, but the other had
been passed to someone on the opposite bank and they were drawing it tight, pulling her inexorably into the water.
Naomi stood close to the water’s edge. Her brother was there now too, clutching her and crying, and she patted him absently, her gaze fixed on the widow, whose wails had become hysterical
shrieks as the water swallowed her.
‘Swim the witch!’ someone nearby shouted, and soon the cry was taken up by others.
‘Swim the witch! Swim the witch! Swim the witch!’
It found its rhythm, like the beat of a funeral drum, and the widow’s wails could barely be heard over it.
‘Naomi!’ he bellowed. ‘Come away!’ but she could not hear him.
The widow was flailing in the water now, her mouth a gaping black O as she went under and came up and went under again, veering between sinking and floating, like weighing scales finding their
balance. The men at either edge of the rope strained and skidded on the slimy mud. And then a cry went up: ‘She floats!’
A gasp rippled through the crowd.
Barnaby was transfixed. It was true. The Widow Moone’s entire upper torso was bobbing above the water as if she was made of cork. The water had rejected her. It was a sure sign of
witchcraft. The old woman herself had gone limp and her head lolled forwards, curtaining her face with clumps of matted black hair.
And then there was a cry as one of the rope-holders slipped onto his backside. For a moment the rope slackened and the widow plummeted up to her neck in water, but the man swiftly righted
himself and she bobbed to the surface again.
Then another cry went up. ‘This is deception! They are pulling the ropes taut deliberately to make sure she floats!’
It was Naomi.
‘Tell them to slacken the ropes and we shall see the truth!’
What the hell was she thinking? The faces that had turned towards her were uniformly hostile.
The rope-bearers shouted angrily that she was lying and the crowd took up their anger with jeers and thrown clods of mud that spattered her dress.
The mayor called for silence. Abel and his new friend were now standing beside the old man, and while Hopkins’s face was an expressionless mask Abel’s fury was easy to read. He spoke
something in the other man’s ear and Hopkins glanced sharply at Naomi again.
Barnaby set off at a run. Even as he did so he could hear a woman screech that Naomi must be one of the widow’s accomplices. The drab colours of the peasants’ clothes merged into one
brownish-green smear as he tore through the reed beds and leaped the tussocks. A cheer went up but he did not stop to find out its cause. The lake was much broader than he remembered and it took
agonisingly long minutes to skirt around to the opposite side. Once there his way was blocked by an even greater crowd.
He thrust through them, cursing them under his breath at first, and then out loud, deliberately elbowing soft parts and kicking feet out from under their owners.
Finally he burst out into the open. At first he wondered why they had not crowded this part of the bank too. Then he saw the cause. The widow’s motionless body was being hauled from the
water. Weed trailed from her boots and the sulphurous stink of rotting mud made those near the front cover their mouths. Others crossed themselves and made the sign to ward off the evil eye.
Naomi was on the other side, her eyes locked onto the scene by the water’s edge. One of the rope-bearers slapped the widow’s face and she groaned. The wretched sight of her vomiting
up lake water a moment later dispelled the crowd’s fear and soon they were chatting amongst themselves about whether or not she would be burned, and how long it would take her to die.
‘Naomi, come away! It’s not safe!’ he cried. But he had to call her name three times before she looked up and when she did it was as if she did not recognise him. And then, for
the briefest of moments, her eyes lit up.
‘Talk to your father!’ she cried over the hubbub. ‘Get this nonsense stopped!’
He nodded. She held his gaze a moment, then turned and was gone.
That evening, in need of something to calm his nerves, Barnaby called on Griff and persuaded him out to the Boar. It wasn’t the best idea since he might very possibly
bump into his brother. But if Abel were to venture into such an ungodly place he would certainly stick to the dull, silent dining room with its smoke-blackened oil paintings, not the
spit-and-sawdust bar which would be full of drunken villagers celebrating the day’s excitement. Though Barnaby didn’t feel much like socialising tonight. When he got home from the lake
he did as he had promised and spoke to his father, but was shocked by his reaction: he had never seen Henry so angry.
When Barnaby told him that Naomi thought the rope-bearers had pulled it tight to keep the widow from sinking, his father threw down the pen he had been using to mark his accounts.
‘I heard what the idiot girl said!’ he roared. ‘And it was as good as accusing the mayor!’
‘Well, it did seem as if—’ Barnaby began, but his father shouted over him.
‘I will not be drawn into this! The old woman has been accused by upright people of the village, she has confessed her crime, and she has failed the swimming test.’
‘She confessed?’ Barnaby said.
‘Indeed! To Abel’s friend, Mr Hopkins. That is, I believe his job – to extract confessions from witches.’
‘Let’s hope he will soon be on his way then,’ Frances said from the doorway.
‘Of course he will,’ Henry snapped. ‘The witch has been discovered and will be punished. He has done his job.’
‘Let’s hope so,’ his mother repeated faintly.
When Naomi finally appeared back at the house she was sent home in disgrace for the remainder of the weekend.
But the atmosphere in the Boar was lively enough to cheer him up. In fact it was positively carnival as the drinkers compared recent misfortunes that had befallen them and discussed whether or
not the Widow Moone had been responsible.
‘I had a boil come up on my backside a couple of weeks ago,’ Griff said thoughtfully over their first pint of ale. ‘Perhaps it was because of Mother refusing her the vegetable
scraps.’
‘I should think it more like you caught it from Mary behind the smokers’ shed,’ Barnaby said, starting to feel better.
They drank steadily and after an hour or so Barnaby headed to the yard to relieve himself. He picked his way through the smoky, crowded room and out into the cold night air. Usually he preferred
to pee up against the stable wall rather than use the privy, but tonight his spot was taken by an amorous couple who clearly did not mind the sharp tang of ammonia that rose up from the sawdust
beneath their feet.
Reluctantly he turned his steps towards the far side of the courtyard, taking a deep breath before kicking open the rickety door and stepping gingerly into the gloom.
The sawdust squelched beneath his feet. The dampness seeped into the leather of his shoes and he prayed the soles would not leak. God knows what was festering down there. The board was so rotted
that no-one dared sit on it any more for fear of falling into the cess-pit below, the smell of which was so deadly you had to keep the door open.
Keeping as far as possible from the ragged hole in the wood, Barnaby took aim and peed quickly. He was rearranging his clothes when he heard voices outside.
It was Abel.
‘Your reward will be in heaven but in the meantime . . .’
There was a soft clink, as of coins being passed hand to hand.
‘Thank you, Abel. But it was only my bound duty as a Christian.’
‘It was, Flora, it was.’
Flora.
As quietly as possible Barnaby moved to peer through the crack in the door. Directly opposite, above the entrance to the dining room, there were three floors of guest accommodation. Standing on
the first-floor balcony were Abel and Flora. Something in her palm flashed in the lantern light as she tucked it into her skirts.
‘And you will not tell it was I?’
‘By no means,’ Abel said. ‘We would not wish to expose you to the risk of injury.’
‘You believe she is dangerous, then?’
‘All witches are dangerous, Flora.’
‘Well, goodnight, then.’
Abel gave an obsequious bow as she turned and made her rather hurried way down the stairs to the courtyard. As she passed the privy door and was lost to the sight of those above, her smile
drained away and she wiped her fingers on her dress.
Afterwards Abel stood for a long time in the shadows, utterly still. Even though Barnaby was lit only by a sliver of grimy lantern light, he felt as exposed as if he were standing in a shaft of
noonday sun. After a few minutes Abel walked back up the landing towards a door to one of the guest rooms. As he did so his face briefly passed into the lantern light and his smile made every hair
on Barnaby’s body rise up.
The next morning at church, although neither Abel nor his new friend were present, prayers were said for Mr Hopkins: that he might be guided to root out all that was rotten in
the village. There were lots of intercessions for the sick and dying; far more than usual. Barnaby’s attention wandered.
The church seemed more cheerful somehow and he remembered that the deaf boy had finished his frescoes. He was not a bad artist, Barnaby mused as he peeped out from behind his clasped hands. The
folds of the disciples’ garments and whorls of their beards were so realistic you might grasp them in your hand. This eastern wall dealt with New Testament stories and the colours here were
the bright blues and golds of day. The western wall depicted Old Testament scenes and here the mood was darker: Adam and Eve trudged through barren wastes, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were
thrown into the fiery furnace, Elijah prayed by the widow’s dead child, Lucifer was hurled from heaven.
Barnaby did a double take.
The falling angel looked nothing like the demons Barnaby had seen in books or paintings. It wasn’t black and hairy, or even scaly like a serpent. It was a man; peach-fleshed and perfectly
formed. He tumbled head first, his yellow hair streaming out behind him. White light radiated from his body but his face was stained red by the scarlet flames that licked up from the base of the
painting, waiting to receive him. Barnaby turned in his seat and bent his head sideways to try and make out more clearly the features of the Lucifer figure.