Brother Wulf, page 7
I knew a little about boggarts, thanks to peeping into Johnson’s library to learn as many spooks’ secrets as I could. The books in that library weren’t just limited to witches. They covered the whole range of evil entities that spooks dealt with. I’d learned that although most stone-chucker boggarts were simply annoying, some could be dangerous killers.
And there was no doubt about this one. The poor farmer was dead and I could well be next.
Sensing a movement on the roof of the house, I glanced up and saw the boggart.
I knew that boggarts usually stayed invisible, though some took on the shapes of animals – cats, rats, dogs or even horses. However, I also knew that stone-chuckers resembled humans in shape and stood upright on two legs – though they had six arms. There was a sketch of one of them in a book I’d glanced through. The thing balancing on the apex of the roof showed it to be accurate.
I could just see it against the darkening sky. In each of its six hands was a missile – some were small stones, but some were huge. I moved closer to the door until I couldn’t see the boggart any more. This meant that it couldn’t see me either.
Not really expecting to be successful, I turned the handle of the front door. It opened inwards so I pushed as hard as I could. There had been nothing in the book about boggarts being able to lock doors, but this one didn’t shift an inch. Somehow the house had been sealed.
How could I get it open before the boggart brained me? I wondered. Prayer was sometimes the answer, but it was important to use the correct words and find the right saint.
I searched my memory, skimming through a list of patron saints. One name winged its way into my head:
St Quentin, the patron saint of locksmiths.
I began to pray to him, begging for his help.
‘St Quentin, I beg thee to open this door. It’s been locked by a servant of Hell. Help me save that poor child!’ I called out.
As I prayed, I kept up my pressure on the handle and leaned heavily against the door. It still didn’t move. I repeated the prayer over and over again, finally shortening it until it was reduced to ‘Please open the door! Please open the door!’ – and with each repetition of ‘please’ I beat my forehead hard against the wood.
I could hear the rhythmical thumps, each blow increasing my pain, but I was also aware that the child was no longer calling out for his mam. I hoped he was all right.
At one point a rock bigger than my head came down, missing my left shoulder by inches to thud into the ground. My knees began to tremble. Had that one hit me I’d be dead, I thought. Until then I’d just been nervous, my concern for the trapped child overwhelming my fear. But now I was terribly afraid. The boggart must have moved to a point where it crouched directly above me. At any moment my head might be cracked open like an egg, my brains dashed from my fragile skull.
‘Open the door! Open the door!’ I continued, still beating my head against it.
Finally, when my head was throbbing with pain, St Quentin came to my aid.
What I saw was so faint as to be hardly visible, so grey and transparent that I could see right through it. Suddenly, over my left shoulder, a long hairy arm reached towards the door. It was holding a key, which it inserted into the lock and then twisted. Immediately the door yielded, and I fell through it onto my knees.
Muttering my thanks to the saint, I came to my feet and stumbled forward into the first of the dark rooms, calling out Bobby’s name. A little dark-haired boy wearing a grey shirt stained with tears and snot emerged from another room and tottered towards me, clearly terrified. I picked him up quickly, then ran out, eager to get clear of the house before the boggart realized what was happening.
I was almost safe when a rock caught me a glancing blow on the temple. I staggered and almost fell, but even though my legs felt like jelly, fear drove me onwards. I could feel blood, wet and warm, running down the side of my face.
Then I’d reached the wood, safely out of range of the boggart’s missiles. I handed the sobbing boy to his mother. She hugged him close, and murmured heartfelt thanks to me.
‘Is there anywhere you can go for shelter?’ I asked. ‘Do any of your family live nearby?’
‘My sister Anne is a good woman. She’ll take us in,’ Laura told me, crying with relief at being reunited with her son.
It was an hour’s journey through the dark to the sister’s house.
As Laura bathed my head over the kitchen sink, she told her sister about the boggart that had killed her husband and threatened the life of her little boy.
‘The Spook refused to help, but this boy, his apprentice, came in his stead …’ she said.
I felt like protesting that I wasn’t Johnson’s apprentice, but I was weary and my head hurt too much. I was struggling to speak.
‘He was brave and he saved Bobby’s life. Thank you!’ she said, kissing me on the cheek. I felt myself blushing, but then she rubbed iodine into my wound, and it took all my self-control not to scream out in agony.
‘What about Daniel’s body?’ Anne asked. ‘Is it still lying in the field?’
That started Laura crying again.
‘I’ll try to sort something out tomorrow when it gets light,’ I promised her.
However, despite my best intentions, I was unable to keep that promise.
It was a weary trudge back to Spook Johnson’s house, and when I got there I was in for a shock.
Even before I went inside, I knew that something was wrong. The front door stood wide open and there were drops of blood on the step.
With trepidation I crossed the threshold. The chair where Johnson sat had been overturned and the empty bottles of wine lay smashed under the table. What pooled under the chair could have been red wine – but it wasn’t. The air was tainted with the metallic odour of blood.
I went down to the cellar. The witches near the door were still in their cells, but they were agitated. They whined, rolled their eyes and hissed at me. I went further into the cellar, knowing full well what would confront me. And, indeed, the cell that had held the witch from the abandoned village was empty. In a display of incredible strength, the bars had been bent wide. She must have bided her time after Johnson released her from his silver chain, then broken out. I cursed his arrogance. She was clearly dangerous – how could he have been so stupid?
I went out into the street and followed the drops of blood far enough to see that the witch was carrying Spook Johnson away to her lair. At first I considered following her. Then I realized I could do nothing alone. I felt bad leaving Johnson in the witch’s clutches, but what chance did I have against her?
I needed help.
As before, I had omitted certain things from the account I gave Tom Ward. I’d heard of a spook called Ward because Johnson had mentioned the name, calling him ‘a young whippersnapper’ among other derogatory terms. Still, he sounded like my best bet. The only problem was, I didn’t know where to find him.
However, that night I awoke suddenly, sure that somebody had called my name. Even as I blinked away sleep, the stick figure with no face began to appear on the ceiling.
‘Get behind me, demon! Leave me now!’ I cried, filled with dread.
The demon took no notice, and I cringed both in fear and in anticipation of the pain it was sure to inflict. Sometimes it made my back arch so that I feared my spine might snap like a twig; sometimes my eyes and throat felt as if they were being pierced with hot needles.
‘Please!’ I shouted. ‘Don’t hurt me again. Leave me alone, I beg you.’
The demon laughed long and loud.
‘I’m not here to inflict pain on your body. I think you need a little help, and I know where it is to be found.’
It chuckled and I flinched, assuming that it was tricking me and would strike out at any moment.
‘Spook Ward lives in a village called Chipenden. It is in the north of the County, west of a big hill called the Long Ridge. If you start at dawn, it will take you almost two days to get there. But you might still be in time to save your master.’
The demon left me; I felt weak and I was sweating with fear.
But it was enough to send me to the house of Tom Ward.
The Pick of the Bunch
Tom came to his feet and stamped his right boot hard on the ground a couple of times. ‘That string should do for a while,’ he said, before looking at me with a frown on his face.
‘Listen – don’t feel bad about leaving Johnson,’ he continued. ‘You did the right thing. And you were brave to rescue that child, Wulf. Not many people would have dared to do what you did. You could have been killed.’
I shook my head. ‘I wasn’t brave. I just did what had to be done. There was nobody else to help, so it had to be me,’ I explained.
‘But that’s often the way of it,’ Tom countered. ‘That’s a situation I’ve faced many times – it’s exactly what I’ve told myself too. The first time was at the very beginning of my apprenticeship, when I was just a twelve-year-old boy. Being the only one there puts pressure on you to be brave. But you did have a choice. You could have walked away, and you didn’t.’
‘I’d never have been able to live with myself if I’d done that. Oh – and there was something else,’ I said, suddenly remembering. ‘After the witch had carried Spook Johnson away, there was no sign of his bag or staff in the house. I can only think that she took them with her. But why would she do that?’ I asked.
Tom frowned. ‘I don’t know, Wulf,’ he said. ‘That’s very unusual behaviour for a witch, and usually they’re unable to touch a staff made of rowan wood.’
We fell silent for a few moments. We were approaching Salford now, and I could see buildings in the distance shrouded by low grey clouds and drizzle. The scene was dismal. Then Tom asked me something.
‘When you prayed to get the door open, why did you bang your forehead against it?’ he said curiously.
‘Some monks use flagellation as a way to punish themselves – they whip themselves in the hope that it will somehow cleanse their souls of sin,’ I explained, ‘or they wear shirts made of coarse itchy cloth under their habits to make themselves uncomfortable. I would never do anything like that – I think it’s senseless. But in extremis, when the situation is so dire that it warrants it, I’ve found that banging my head against something and hurting myself makes it more likely that my prayers will be answered.’
Tom didn’t look convinced, but he gave me a friendly smile before suddenly frowning again. I glanced sideways and saw that he was deep in thought.
‘Do they treat you badly at the abbey?’ he asked. ‘Is that why you want to leave?’
I shook my head, and then I told him something I’d never told anybody else before. ‘It’s because I’ve lost my faith,’ I said. ‘I no longer believe in God. What’s the point of being a monk if you don’t believe in God?’
Tom gave me a sympathetic smile. ‘I’ll wager you aren’t the only monk who doesn’t believe in God,’ he told me. ‘At least as a monk you eat regular meals, have a roof over your head and sometimes do some good. Copying books preserves and shares knowledge. And no doubt you help the poor. But explain one more thing to me, if you don’t mind. If you don’t believe in God, then why do you bother to pray?’
‘Because it works,’ I replied. ‘The Church teaches us to use saints as intermediaries – they intercede for us and pass our prayers on to Him. We aren’t actually supposed to pray directly to them. But I do the opposite. I don’t pray to God, I pray to the saints. And sometimes they help me.’
‘So you don’t believe in God, but you do believe in the saints?’ Tom chuckled, clearly amused by my logic. ‘And did you really did see the arm of St Quentin unlocking that door? Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?’
‘It was very faint – but, no, it wasn’t just my imagination. When the saints help me, they don’t always make themselves visible like that, but their help is real enough,’ I insisted.
Tom grinned wryly and I felt my face growing hot.
‘And what about you?’ I demanded angrily. ‘You fight creatures from Hell. Do you believe in God?’
He looked thoughtful. ‘That’s a good question, Wulf, and the truth is that I’m not sure. John Gregory, my master, once said something that sums up the position I’m moving towards. He told me that once or twice he’d faced such extreme danger that he’d had little hope of survival. But then – right in that impossible moment – he felt as if he’d been helped by some unseen presence.’
‘He thought that was God?’ I said, astonished.
‘That or maybe God’s messenger.’ Tom Ward shrugged. ‘Well, Wulf, that’s enough theology for today. Now for more practical matters. When you left Johnson’s house, did you tell that old man to feed the captive witches?’ he asked me.
‘Of course I did,’ I huffed. ‘I knew I’d be away for some time. Even if they’re witches, I wouldn’t like them to die thanks to lack of water or food.’
‘Right you are! In which case, lead me to Johnson’s house and we’ll take a look at them.’
Soon I was taking Johnson’s front door key out of my pocket and letting us in.
Wasting no time, we went straight down to the cellar. It smelled terrible – of urine and worse. Even though the torch was still flickering on the wall and the witches had been fed, I don’t think Old Henry had bothered to slop out the buckets for at least a couple of days.
Most of the witches were asleep when we entered, and the room echoed with the drone of their snores. Perhaps snoring was a disease they’d caught off Spook Johnson, I thought to myself. One or two were awake and they stared at Tom malevolently. One sniffed loudly three times. His cloak and staff would give him away, but I wondered if, even without the flickering light from the torch, they’d still be able to sense that he was a spook.
He walked along the cells, pausing at each one, then coming to a sudden halt at the cell from which the witch had escaped. He examined the bent bars carefully and shook his head.
‘That shows incredible strength!’ he exclaimed, but I felt the remark was addressed to himself rather than to me.
He moved on, only to halt again outside the final cell next to the wall. The woman inside was watching him carefully, but there was no hatred or anger on her face – just sadness.
‘What’s your name?’ Tom asked her, his voice very soft.
‘They call me Jenny,’ she replied in a whisper.
He flinched, as if the name was a blow. He even took a small step backwards, and I wondered if he was thinking about the apprentice who’d died.
I went up to him. ‘This is Mrs Chichester, the witch I told you about,’ I told him. ‘Her husband is always protesting her innocence and begging Spook Johnson to set her free. He’s the one I told you about – he hired those thugs to accost Johnson in the High Street.’
Tom nodded, and then beckoned to Mrs Chichester. She left her bench and approached the bars tentatively.
‘Mrs Chichester, would you mind if I held your left hand for a moment? There’s something I need to know. Doing that will help me to make up my mind,’ he asked her gently.
Without hesitating, the woman did so, and he grasped her hand for no more than a couple of seconds. Then he released it and smiled at her. ‘I’m sorry that you’ve been imprisoned. It was a mistake and should never have happened. You’ll be back with your family soon.’
She smiled at Tom and tried to speak, but no words came out, and tears ran down her cheeks.
Tom turned to face me. ‘Let Mrs Chichester out and escort her home,’ he said. ‘She’s no malevolent witch. She may use a little magic, but she’s benign.’
‘But what about Spook Johnson?’ I protested. I was pleased that Mrs Chichester was being freed, but I could only imagine how angry Johnson would be. ‘He’ll go berserk when he finds out what we’ve done!’
‘Leave Johnson to me,’ Tom said. ‘Now, once you’ve reunited Mrs Chichester with her husband, come straight back here and—’ He halted mid-sentence and smiled sheepishly. ‘I’m sorry, Wulf. I seem to be snapping orders at you as if you were my apprentice. I’d like you to do those things. It would help me a lot, but they’re requests – not orders.’
I smiled back. ‘Of course I don’t mind. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
‘Thank you, Wulf. One more thing – where does the old man live?’ he asked me.
‘Henry Miller? On the main street, number thirty-seven,’ I replied. I wondered why he wanted to know, but instead I took the bunch of keys, unlocked the cell door and did as Tom had asked.
It was still drizzling outside. I walked beside Mrs Chichester in silence. I wanted to speak to her but didn’t know where to begin. What could you say to a woman who’d been wrongly imprisoned for many months? I now saw the contrast between Tom Ward and Spook Johnson. They were both spooks, but they approached the job very differently. Johnson was bad-tempered, judgemental and impulsive. Ward was quiet, thoughtful, as well as kind and just.
Half an hour later I’d left the husband and wife hugging each other on the step of their cottage. Both were crying with joy, and I was struck again by how terribly Mrs Chichester must have suffered and how unfair her imprisonment had been.
Back at Johnson’s house, Tom Ward was still in the cellar; he was talking to the witch in the sixth cell on the right. Her name was Gwen Raddle, and I couldn’t abide her. She was always picking her nose and spitting onto her left shoe. I spied Old Henry busily slopping out the cells, muttering to himself as he did so. Tom had clearly wasted no time in bringing him here.
Catching sight of me, Tom came towards the stairs and beckoned for me to follow. We went up into the kitchen, and I saw tomato soup simmering in a pan on the stove – he had been busy! He gestured for me to sit down, then ladled it into two bowls and brought them across to the table.
