The Blood List (24 page)

‘More likely I should have read yours,’ Barnaby snapped. ‘Thief, liar—’

Abel gave him a backhanded slap and his bony knuckle split Barnaby’s bottom lip.

The questions went on for more, long minutes. Barnaby felt his attention slide dangerously, and tried to focus, but he was tired and thirsty and in pain. He became aware of a scritching sound
and saw that Abel was writing down all that was said.

He leaned as far as he could to get into his brother’s line of vision.

‘I hope you are writing that I am bound too tight.’ The scritching paused, but Abel didn’t look up. ‘That I have been deprived of food, drink and rest, and stripped to my
shirt in the bitter cold. Are you writing that, Abel? Don’t forget now. Shall I spell “bitter” for you?’

‘Do you know the name Lolly?’ Hopkins said loudly.

Barnaby blinked.

‘Lolly,’ Hopkins repeated. ‘Is that familiar to you?’

‘No. Yes.’

Hopkins smiled. ‘Which is it?’

‘Lolly is a crow that my maid used to feed.’

‘Are you referring to Juliet?’

Barnaby nodded.

‘The confessed witch?’

Barnaby caught his breath, then said through gritted teeth, ‘Confessions drawn out by torment.’

Hopkins’s smile froze. ‘Nothing of the sort, boy. Your maid confessed freely. It was she who named you.’

‘What . . . what did she say?’ Barnaby said hoarsely.

‘We asked her if you had presided over the sabbats and she assented to this.’

Barnaby threw himself forward, straining at the bindings across his chest.

‘She would have assented to being a March hare to get you to leave her alone!’

‘Where did you make the cut with which to draw the blood to sign the contract?’

‘Give me a drink,’ he said flatly.

‘Is it the scar on your belly?’

‘Give me a drink.’

‘Whose effigy is the corn doll on your windowsill?’

The questions went on. Sometimes he nodded in the chair but woke when he was about to fall and righted himself. The pain was constant now, in every part of him that wasn’t numb with cold.
He tried to stay focused on Hopkins’s words but they ran away from him. For one long stretch that might have gone on for hours he simply said, ‘I deny everything,’ at another,
‘This is all lies,’ and another, ‘Horse shit and pig swill.’ At some point dawn broke and when he next glanced at the window the pale disc of the sun was resting on the
roofs. Where was the time going?

Scritch, scritch went Abel’s pen. He was sitting in a chair now, with a blanket about his shoulders. Hopkins too had acquired a blanket from somewhere without Barnaby noticing. His own
teeth were chattering and there was no spit left in his mouth to wet his lips. The room began slowly to revolve.

‘What form of bewitchment did you use to usurp your brother from your parents’ affections?’

Barnaby smiled and as he did so his lips cracked.

‘Handsomeness and charm,’ he tried to say, but his voice rasped like tearing paper. He was gratified to hear the scritching of the pen pause.

‘Is the devil as handsome, Barnaby?’

‘Not at all,’ Barnaby said. ‘He’s ugly as a horse’s arse compared to me.’

Hopkins gave a friendly laugh.

‘Is he dark or fair?’

‘Dark as a mole, like Abel.’

Hopkins laughed again. The scritching paused.

Barnaby was going to continue but his eye was caught by a movement in the corner of the room. Two black demons hovered by the roof beam. Rams’ horns curled from their heads and they
clacked their teeth together, grinning. Even from where he sat Barnaby could smell their stench of decay.

He stole a look at Hopkins and found he was watching him.

‘What is it, Barnaby? What do you see?’

‘Nothing. What do
you
see?’

Hopkins turned, and after a moment turned back. ‘I am of the Lord’s party, boy. I see only the wall and the roof beam.’

Something changed now. The questions became harsher, more rapid, more confusing.

Did he make waxen effigies of those he hated?

Did he stick bent pins into them?

Did he bury the foetuses of animals in hallowed ground?

Did he pray backwards?

Did he lame the horse of Lord Fairfax?

Had he sent fleas to torment Abel in his bed at Cambridge?

‘Gladly!’ Barnaby cried, jerking up his lolling head. ‘Fleas and slugs and rats and leeches – even they would find his blood too foul to suck; the devil’s pen would
melt at the touch of it!’

Still Hopkins went on. The stars came out and danced for Barnaby in the little square of window. He could move no part of his body beneath his neck. Someone had opened a window and moths were
crawling all over the lanterns. One landed on his knee, fat and furry and heavy as a mouse. He could not twitch his leg to shift it. His vision blurred and blackened at the edges, as if singed. He
was covered in vomit but couldn’t remember being sick.

Hopkins droned on. Barnaby’s head lolled back and he stared at the pulsating colours on the ceiling.

And then a blast of wind blew a flurry of snow through the window. A few flakes fell into his open mouth, moistening it. It was enough to wake him briefly from his torpor. He found that a piece
of paper had been thrust onto his lap. The spidery writing scuttled across the page every time he tried to focus on it.

‘Sign,’ Abel said.

Barnaby tried to read it but his head wouldn’t stay still.

‘Just sign and this will all be over,’ Hopkins said.

Barnaby picked up the pen. A spot of ink dripped onto the paper, where it began to morph into outlandish shapes.

‘Sign it and you can sleep,’ Abel said.

Barnaby’s head swayed and he squinted up at Abel, trying to focus on his brother’s dark eyes.

‘What is it?’ he slurred.

Abel’s eyes flicked to Hopkins and back.

‘Just a transcript of everything you have told us,’ Hopkins said, behind him.

‘Read it to me.’

Abel glanced again at Hopkins then lowered his head and began to read.

‘This is the testimony of Barnaby Nightingale . . .’

But as he went on Barnaby frowned. Abel was a fluent reader but he seemed to be stumbling over the words, as if he wasn’t actually reading the testimony as it was written at all. As if he
was making it all up as he went along.

With his last ounce of strength Barnaby lifted the pen and hurled it across the room. It hit the wall and black ink spattered the whitewash.

Abel made to strike him again but Hopkins stepped between them.

‘Enough, Abel.’

He turned to Barnaby. ‘Many thanks.’ A whisper of a smile passed across his sickly face. ‘We have all we need.’

Barnaby awoke to a woman’s gentle murmurs. Soothing hands were passing over his body. He was lying on his front and the cramps had gone, but he was still freezing cold.
Why hadn’t they covered him? The hands paused at his elbow and rested there.

‘What’s this?’ the woman said quietly.

‘Nothing but an old graze,’ another said.

They resumed their explorations up and down each arm before moving onto his back.

He opened his eyes. A woman’s broad hips were before them. The skirts smelled nice. A hand came to rest on the mattress by his cheek. The fingers were plump and pink, the nails clean and
neat. He had a sudden urge to hold them. That was when he found he was still bound.

‘Try beneath his hair.’

The voice was Abel’s.

Now he could feel that he was naked. The cold breeze from the window chilled his buttocks. His balls had shrunk to peanuts. Had they already probed the other side of him? A hand moved between
his thighs, and he jerked and cried out.

‘Hush, boy,’ the woman said. ‘We are nearly done.’

‘Check the hairline,’ Abel said again, and Barnaby moved his head to try and see him but he was out of his sphere of vision.

The motherly fingers moved to his temple and began probing his hair, in just the same way Agnes had checked him for lice when he was a child.

‘There is nothing,’ the woman said. ‘His body is unblemished.’

‘The nape of his neck,’ Abel said.

The fingers moved over his scalp to the back of his head and it dawned on him what Abel meant.

Plenty of times he had sat in the kitchen with his head bowed while Juliet pressed a handkerchief to the mole that bled so easily.

The fingers stopped.

‘Bring the clippers, Grace.’

They cut away the hair at the nape of his neck.

‘It is a strange colour,’ Grace said.

‘Like a large flea-bite.’

‘It’s ragged at the edges, as if it has been gnawed recently.’

‘It’s a birthmark,’ Barnaby croaked.

‘Come and see, Mr Hopkins.’

‘No, no, ladies, this is your job. You must decide if you have seen such an unusual blemish before or whether it might perhaps be the cunningly concealed mark of an imp’s
teat.’

There was a beat of silence.

‘I believe it is, Grace.’

‘Yes, Marjorie. I have never seen such a mark before. It’s shape is . . .’

‘Infernal?’ Barnaby croaked, but no-one answered him.

‘What happens if you touch it with your nail, Mistress Tatley?’ This was Abel.

‘You know it will bleed, you dog!’ Barnaby shouted but the women pressed his face into the mattress. He jumped at the sharp nick of a nail followed by a pinch. They were squeezing it
to get the blood to come, and sure enough a moment later he felt a warm trickle down his neck.

‘It bleeds for me most willingly,’ Marjorie said.

‘Enough to sup on?’ said Hopkins.

‘Certainly, for a small familiar such as a mouse or spider.’

It’s a birthmark!
Barnaby tried to shout, but his voice was muffled by the mattress.

‘Prepare him for the watching,’ Hopkins said.

After the third blow he allowed them to dress him without a struggle. They weren’t his clothes. These garments were drab and patched: the garments of a peasant farmer.
When they tied him to the chair, for some reason they left his legs outstretched. Then they went away, leaving him alone with their henchman, Leech.

He managed to catch a few moments’ sleep but woke with a cricked neck and the grumblings of cramp in his upper arms. He rolled his shoulders as much as he could and wriggled his feet to
get rid of the pins and needles.

Leech was asleep so Barnaby made a few half-hearted attempts to get out of the bindings, but when the chair legs banged against the floor the thug stirred at once. Even if he did free himself
the door would be locked, and if he did get out of the room there was the problem of getting out of the village unseen, then finding shelter before the cold killed him, then trying to make his way
to a town where he wasn’t known. But there was one deciding factor against escape: he would be abandoning Juliet and Naomi to their deaths. At least if he remained he might find some way to
save them.

His brother wanted him dead, that was plain enough, and perhaps during the interrogation he had said things that might go against him, but in a court he would deny them. True, they had found
that damned birthmark, but if he was allowed to show it to the magistrate it would surely be dismissed. Whatever this ‘watching’ was that had to come next, he would be strong and admit
nothing. He would have to try and withstand the physical discomfort for one more night. It was night, wasn’t it? He glanced at the window but they had pulled a curtain across it now, perhaps
to disorient him. Besides, his parents would be working hard for his release, talking to everyone they knew of any stature. The Slabbers must surely be doing all they could, and Griff’s
family would vouch for his good character. In fact, apart from his brother there was no-one who really disliked him.

Then he remembered: the deaf boy.

A chill crept into his bones. The furrier had no standing in the village so there was no reason why his son should be listened to, but if he repeated his story that Barnaby had killed his
mother, there might be some who believed it. Barnaby had been trapped here so long he had no idea what was going on in the village. Perhaps it had been gripped by the witch hysteria he had heard of
in other towns, with people accusing their own mothers and grandmothers, or even the village priest. If so it might be a good thing for him and Naomi and Juliet. They could hardly burn all five
hundred villagers.

Or perhaps they could . . .

He heard voices on the stairs, laughter. The key turned in the lock and the two women were back, alone this time.

Their dresses were spotted with grease stains and as they smiled he saw bits of food caught in their teeth.

‘Upsy-daisy, Mister Leech,’ Grace sang and the big man stirred and farted.

‘Let’s get a fire going,’ Marjorie said. ‘I ain’t sitting here all night in the bleeding cold.’ Her words were slightly slurred.

‘You sure? Hopkins won’t like it.’

‘Don’t be stupid; the talking bit’s done now. And besides, the creatures will be drawn to the warmth.’

‘Get a fire going, Leech,’ she said, ‘then go and wait downstairs. Any trouble and we’ll call you.’

When he had kindled the fire and gone down, Marjorie produced a bottle of wine from her skirts.

‘Heaven be praised,’ Grace chuckled.

They sat by the fire, drinking.

Every glug into the pewter cups, or slurp from the women, was agony to watch. The fire just made it worse.

‘Will you at least let me wet my lips?’

Marjorie swung her head round to him. ‘What?’

‘I’m so thirsty.’

With a sigh she got up and walked over to him unsteadily.

‘Thank you, Goodwife,’ he said, opening his mouth, but she merely dipped her fingers into the wine and wiped them across his lips. The fire dried them at once and they became more
cracked than they were before.

Crouching down beside the chair she stroked his cheek, breathing wine fumes in his face.

‘You’re a beauty, aren’t you? You got a girl?’

He nodded, trying to smile to play for their sympathy.

Marjorie sighed. ‘Poor thing.’

‘Why?’

‘Why, because she’ll be taken too, of course.’