Witch Pricker - part 1

Josiah Lytton continued to sit at the table in his kitchen. He had been there since sunrise, but he felt no compulsion to move and in some ways, he was relishing this time before action.  This was the in between time where he was not yet late and he had completed everything he needed to in preparation for the day.

The fire had gone out and he had not called Martha in to mend it.  The consequent damp, sooty smell hung low in the air, clinging to the beams in the dark room and this added to his sense of slow anticipation.  The time before he set out was always like this.

There were three things on the old oak table he was sitting at. There were the remains of his porridge, thin and congealing in the wooden dish.  There were the astonishingly blue hyacinths that Martha had brought in from the garden and arranged in a cracked, earthenware jar, adding a necessary vitality to the stark winter of the room.  And there was the witch pricker.

Josiah traced his fingers along the smooth, ancient grooves of the table, then clasping his hands together, he covered the witch pricker with them.  He shut his eyes for a moment and then magician-like, he lifted his hands upwards and opened his eyes.  The witch pricker was once again revealed.

It was a long, thin blade with a brown staining on the tip of its dull metal and its handle was rough, gnarled wood.  Josiah picked it up with his left hand and raising it parallel to his ear, he stabbed it down sharply into the table.  The thud of the impact cracked the air of the room, but as he lifted his hand up, the handle only was in his fist.  The blade was concealed and secret in the hollow of the haft.  Josiah’s dexterity of hand never failed him, this along with the tool of his trade.  Man and tool with the same title.  Witch pricker.

Josiah got up from his chair at last and sheathing the implement in its leather pouch, he went to prepare his horse for the journey.  Before he shut the door, he looked round the kitchen and smiled at the similarity of this room to many of the women’s rooms whose lives he had altered.  The pools of candlelight, the sides of meat hanging from hooks in the beams, the herbs drying over the mantle, the esoteric books.

 It was a judicious thing for him that he believed in nothing, this upright man without family, living in the farmhouse of his father, still being served by his wet nurse.  He caught his reflection in the washing bowl by the window and he looked grave and purposeful.  The witch pricker working in God’s name against the Devil and believing in neither.

The day was a cold one and too early yet for any early spring sunshine to placate the sharp air.  Josiah had saddled his horse, his bag with his books and devices slung over its chilly, dappled flanks.  He mounted the horse and rode down the track, past the enclosure where he saw Martha feeding the chickens.  Ahead of him were the woods that surrounded his house on all sides and he observed the denseness of the trees and the profound black of the woods they formed.  His business on this day was leading him through the woods and out to the village of Grindleshaw about a mile on the other side.  In the misty distance, the Lancashire fells loomed, allowing no expanse of sky in and enclosing the wildness of this part of England.

Josiah’s horse was a sullen one, never eager in its movement and its slow, wary clip clop gave Josiah time to think.  He was a man who carried out his work with care and precision, but what really counted for him was the money.  Six pounds a witch plus maintenance, when most men were lucky to earn a shilling a day.  He was hired by the church to hunt them out, the witches, the noncompliant, the outlaws - and the superstitious rich paid well.

He always wore gloves when he was pricking, cracked leather gauntlets up to his elbows, but when he undressed at night, the scars on his upper arms gleamed pink and silver.  Although they were unsightly, these bite marks were tributes to his work, to his craft.

What he was astute at discovering was the women’s humanity, the human imperfection in their birthmarks and their moles.  In their secret flaps of skin, their warts and the black beginnings of their cancers.  And when he found it, it was this imperfection he could use.  With the witch pricker, he would scratch and jab their blemishes, their devil’s marks and if they bled, they were innocent, albeit ugly and flawed.  But if no blood flowed, guilt was confirmed and the price had to be paid.  But Josiah was a cautious man and left nothing to chance – his retracting blade and his legerdemain ensured there was no blood when there needed to be no blood.

Josiah had  convinced himself he was a fair man, who always explained what he was going to be doing, what the process was and he did not like to think about what happened to the women afterwards as they were led away, their ropes exchanged for chain and fire.  In any case, he comforted himself by questioning the true morality of these women when he considered the wild crudeness of their curses tossed in his face, their spit running down his cheeks.  Afterwards, the weight of the money in his pouch comforted him more.  Josiah Lytton, righteous man and conjurer.

It had begun to rain, suddenly and heavily, and Josiah put up the hood of his robe against its driving relentlessness.  The journey was short, mercifully and on the road ahead, he could already see the outline of the houses of Grindleshaw emerging from the curtain of water.

As he approached the square in the centre of the village, the priest was waiting for Josiah.  He had appeared from a doorway in a small house opposite the church and had clearly been looking out for him.  He was old, but stood tall and his face was shrewd and calculating. Despite the incessant rain and the hurry of the villagers to finish their business and go back inside, there were many long looks at Josiah talking to the priest.  They knew what he did and what he was here for.

Josiah tied up his horse and slung his bag over his shoulder and then the priest led him across the square, back to the low, stone house he had come from.  Through the door opening, Josiah could smell the ghost smoke of past fires and the new born baby yeastiness of recently baked bread.  The priest beckoned him in to what he saw was a cramped, dark kitchen.  Beneath the rounded smell of domesticity, there was another note – something sour and slightly rotten.  Josiah wrinkled his nose in distaste, turning his head so the priest did not see him do it.

Between them, they moved a spindle back bench away from the far wall and closer to the empty fireplace, as if this would help them capture some lost, residual heat.  As they both sat down, the priest inclined his head towards Josiah and began to speak.

“You are most welcome here, sir.  We are in sore need of your wisdom and judgement.  The house we are in belongs to Mother Wright.  She prepares food for her family, but along with two other women, she also prepares it for the men of the village who work in the fields.

In the last weeks, many men have fallen ill with fever and agues.  Some of them are unlikely to see another morning.  There are children too.  The blacksmith’s daughter has already died, bleeding from every hole in her body.”

Josiah shifted his position on the bench and it creaked loudly.  Embarrassed by the inadvertent sound, he met the priest’s eye as he continued.

“Our animals, our pigs are dying too.  Found lying in their filthy sties.  Again, they had bled and their meat is corrupted and foul.

These women baked the bread to feed the men and the children, throwing the leftover crusts and scraps to the pigs.  This horror is at the women’s door and now they need to stand to account for what they have done.  They are ungodly.  They are the devil’s bitches.”

Josiah knew that when he stood up, his time would begin.  He had noticed a loaf of bread on the dresser in the corner of the room and gesturing to the priest and thinking about the reports he would need to make later, he got up and put it deep into his bag.  “Show me where they are”, he said.

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