Slowly hands went up around the room.
Abel gestured towards his parents. The judge looked across at them. Henry hesitated, then nodded.
‘Is that the way it happened, Mistress?’ Godbold said, gently.
Frances raised her face, which was wet with tears, and nodded.
‘And you, Father,’ he addressed Father Nicholas. ‘Did it happen as the boy describes?’
Father Nicholas rubbed his brow and nodded.
‘As you know,’ Abel went on, ‘the Church does not recognise a difference between good and bad magic. All are bewitchments of the devil. These so-called fairies that took my
so-called brother were no more than Satan’s imps. And during his time in fairyland or as we know it better
hell
. . .’ he paused for the murmurings to die down, ‘the
accused accepted the devil as his master, and when he grew old enough began to do that master’s bidding. When a list of Satan’s accomplices was found in the woods, the accused made sure
it was destroyed so that others would not read his name inscribed upon it in blood.’
The judge frowned but this time Abel did not wait for permission to go on.
‘Now, perhaps you would like to hear exactly what maleficium Barnaby Nightingale perpetrated in his lifetime . . . in his own words.’
There was a collective gasp and then the room exploded.
Abel waved a paper over his head, shouting above the din: ‘A confession!’
Griff and Richard were on their feet, spittle flying from their mouths as they hurled abuse at Abel. Flora was shrieking. His father bellowed his name. His mother’s head was in her
hands.
‘SILENCE!’ Judge Godbold roared, but this time it took several minutes for the demand to take effect. In that time Barnaby saw little Benjamin scramble out of his seat and streak out
of the doors. When a hush had once more descended the judge turned to Barnaby.
‘This confession was freely given?’
Barnaby nodded.
‘You were under no duress? No threats? No torture? Deprivation of sleep or the administration of medicine or alcohol?’
He shook his head.
The judge sighed and turned once more to Frances and Henry. ‘Is your son of sound mind?’
‘He cannot be!’ Henry cried. ‘Barnaby, what are you doing?’
The judge held up his hand to silence him, then turned back to Barnaby.
‘Read it, then, child. I wish to hear it from your own lips.’
It was fortunate that Abel had gone through it with him several times before sending him back to the cell because the words were a jumble, the letters seeming to weave and somersault beneath his
shaking grasp.
‘I, Barnaby Nightingale of Beltane Ridge, do solemnly swear that what I am about to read is the truth and nothing but the truth.’
He glanced up to check that he’d said it right. Abel nodded for him to proceed, but he felt other eyes upon him and saw that the deaf boy was watching him with violent intensity.
Momentarily disconcerted, he struggled to remember what he had to say and in that moment, rising above the sound of Flora and his mother’s sobs, he heard a distant wail of anguish from
below. Benjamin must have told his sister what Barnaby was doing. The paper shook in his hand and his eyes clouded.
‘The coven,’ Abel murmured.
Ah, yes, the coven. That was where he should begin.
He spoke of the coven he had led, with the Widow Moone as his second, and diverse other old ladies whose identities he had not bothered to learn. He knew he had written down Juliet’s name
and felt that he had to speak it if he wanted to sound convincing. When he did so there were sobs from the bench where her family sat and shouts that he was a liar. He continued. He had given each
member of his coven her own familiars and demonstrated how to feed the creatures from her own body. He had produced contracts on behalf of the devil and overseen the signing of these, with the
promises that good fortune would be delivered to each signatory and dire torments to her enemies. There had indeed been a list of those who had signed, written in the blood of a murdered infant,
but he had burned it for fear of discovery. He had promised all the things the devil told him to, in the full knowledge that these were all deceits and that the women were forfeiting their souls to
torment.
‘For eternity,’ Abel added.
‘For eternity,’ Barnaby clarified.
He had personally taken hair and nail trimmings from a five-year-old child in order to take possession of its will, then forced it to run under the wheels of a cart. He had stolen away a child
in the dead of night to suck its blood, then when the child died and was buried he dug it up and distributed its body parts for his coven to cook and eat, using the rest to make ointment that would
render them invisible.
This was particularly inventive of Abel, Barnaby felt: perhaps he had read of such a thing in one of his pamphlets, and his brother couldn’t resist a smirk at the shouts of consternation
produced by his words. The jury muttered behind their hands.
Barnaby ploughed on.
He had opened the chicken coop of Farmer Tilly and sent an imp in the guise of a fox to tear apart his whole brood. He had given the cooper’s wife a tumour on her leg the size of a turnip.
He had transformed himself into a piebald dog and attacked the tanner.
He paused to take a breath and cast an eye around the crowd.
His parents were in one another’s arms. Griff and Richard scowled. Flora hid her face in her mother’s shawl. And the furrier’s son just stared at him, the paper he held
becoming limp in his hands.
Barnaby went back to the sheet. Where was he? Had he mentioned the bit about bewitching his parents against Abel?
It was too long. People grew restless. He began to get his words wrong: misreading
wicket
for
wicked
and
spit
for
spirit
. Abel had to prompt him more and more. He
started to sweat. Down below, Naomi was shouting and banging on the bars of her cell. He decided to finish up. He had probably said enough.
Raising his head, he stated clearly that he had no remorse for what he had done and looked forward to the day when his soul would be united with his master in hell.
Nobody spoke.
He flicked a glance at Judge Godbold, who turned to the jury, his expression unreadable.
‘Is there anything you would like the boy to repeat?’
They shook their heads.
‘Very well.’
Barnaby gripped the top of the lectern. His mouth had gone bone dry.
‘We have heard from the accused’s own mouth,’ the judge said to the jurors, ‘That he committed acts of maleficium against his neighbours, denied God and contracted his
soul to Satan. You have seen the markings that some take to be infernal, and you have heard the strange story of his birth in which he first became acquainted with the devil and his imps.
‘It is my experience that none of these factors in isolation can be trusted to indicate guilt, but when taken together, as in the case of the accused, you must use your discretion as to
whether you think this a case of madness and malice, or of true maleficium. You must now come to a verdict, whether you believe Barnaby Nightingale to be guilty or not guilty.’
After a moment’s discussion one of the townsmen stood up, ‘We are united in our decision, my Lord.’
‘Are you certain?’ Judge Godbold said. ‘A child’s life is at stake.’
‘We are certain, my Lord.’
The judge pulled something from his pocket: a piece of black fabric. Barnaby’s heart stuttered. This was what Judge Godbold would place over his head when passing the sentence of
death.
‘Very well, you may sp—’
But before he could finish, there was the screech of a bench against the floor followed by an inarticulate cry.
The voice was strangely thick and guttural but Barnaby understood what the deaf boy had said.
Wait.
‘What?’ the judge said, turning to face him. ‘Is this some new evidence? Why was it not put forward earlier?’
‘I am sorry,’ said the boy, ‘I am deaf. It was dif . . . difficult for me to follow what was happening.’
‘Is this important?’ the judge asked impatiently.
Luke nodded and held up the piece of paper. ‘Yes. Important.’
‘I shall be the judge of that.’ Godbold waggled his fingers and Luke walked forward and handed it to him, then waited while he read. Barnaby looked down at him from the lectern. He
was tall and well-built, with dark hair as glossy as a conker. Barnaby realised now that Luke could easily have hurt him that day in the churchyard if he had wished to.
The judge looked up at the boy and then to Barnaby, then he frowned and reread the paper. A moment later he passed it back to Luke.
‘Read it. Take your time. Make sure everyone understands.’
Luke nodded, turned to face the courtroom and, in that odd, thick voice of his, began to read.
‘My name is Luke Armitage and I am sixteen years old. I was brought up by James and Susannah Armitage. But they were not my parents. I only discovered this after my mother’s death,
two months ago. She left me a letter explaining my true origins. My real parents, she said, were rich and of high standing, and if I chose to do so I could go to them and demand my birthright.
‘I did not choose to.
‘I have never wanted more than the loving family who brought me up. But the events of the past several weeks have forced me to bring the contents of her letter out in the open.’
He paused.
Barnaby’s eyes flicked to his parents and he was surprised to see they had both turned white.
‘As you can hear from my voice I am deaf. This was a defect from birth.’
A tiny whimper made Barnaby glance back at his parents: his mother was pressing her handkerchief to her mouth.
‘At the time, however, it was not recognised as that. My parents, along with the priest and my nursemaid, believed I was not a real child at all, but a fairy changeling that had been left
in the place of the true child. They agreed upon a well-known method to retrieve the true child – to leave the changeling upon a dung heap. Supposedly unable to watch their own kind torn
apart by wild animals or frozen to death, the fairies would swap it back with the true, human child.’
He paused and swallowed.
There were now moans coming from both his parents but Barnaby could not tear his eyes away from Luke’s lips as they parted to continue.
‘News of the plan passed around the village and came to the attention of the furrier, James Armitage, and his wife. They had recently been blessed with a son of their own: a fine
golden-haired boy who had already grown fat and pink with health.’
Silence.
‘But much as they loved their son, they could not bear to see an innocent child murdered for the sake of superstition and ignorance.’
Barnaby tried to swallow but his throat was too dry.
‘For pity’s sake they decided to give up their own, perfect child, to save the life of the deaf child. They followed the family to the forest and watched them leave the child, they
sheltered it and comforted it for the whole of the long cold night, and in the morning, when they heard the sounds of the returning parents, left their own golden-haired boy on the dung heap and
took the deaf one home with them.
‘They brought me up as their own and the golden-haired child, the true child of the furrier and his wife, grew up the lauded son of the esteemed Nightingales.’
He looked up from the paper and cast a cold eye around the paralysed court.
‘Barnaby Nightingale was never stolen by fairies, he never visited Fairyland. He was given as a gift to rich fools who should have known better and I pity him for the love he did not
receive from a far nobler and better family.’
Something had gone wrong with Barnaby’s vision. It was as if he was looking at a picture of the courtroom and the picture had begun to pucker and burn at the edges.
The hand holding the paper dropped to Luke’s side and he looked up at the judge.
‘These are the facts. It is my opinion that Abel Nightingale, my own brother in blood, developed a violent jealousy against Barnaby and determined to destroy him. I only came forward to
prevent this great wrong, as my parents came forward sixteen years ago to prevent a similar one.’
Finally he turned to Barnaby and their eyes locked.
For a few minutes nobody moved or spoke. And then somewhere to Barnaby’s left there was movement. The square of black that had dominated his attention for the past long minutes disappeared
from sight. The judge cleared his throat.
‘Barnaby Nightingale,’ he said and Barnaby swayed round to face him. ‘For perjuring yourself with a fabricated confession I sentence you to three months in prison. As for the
charge of witchcraft,’ he turned to the blinking jurymen, ‘I instruct you to find the defendant innocent.’
There was split second of absolute silence, then all hell broke loose.
Barnaby fell backwards and was caught by strong arms and passed from person to person until the constables arrived. Hooking his arms over their shoulders they carried him down the central aisle,
thrusting aside the shouting people, the grabbing hands, the waving shawls and hats. A fight broke out, a woman screamed. His father’s face swam into view, twisted and wet with tears.
But this man was not his father.
His mother was there, her mouth moving, her eyes wide and shocked.
But this woman was not his mother.
And then Luke was there. His brother? No, not his brother. His saviour? His . . .
Tearing himself from the constables’ grasp, he threw himself onto Luke’s shoulders and clung there, as if this poor, deaf boy was driftwood on a heaving sea. Luke’s chest
shuddered against his own and the arms that clamped around him didn’t seem to know whether they wanted to embrace him or squeeze the life out of him.
Barnaby wanted to say something –
thank you, sorry, forgive me
– but his chest was a churning sea and his mouth was numb.
And then the two boys were wrenched apart and Barnaby was propelled out into the violent whiteness of the December morning.