The Blood List (26 page)

She closed her eyes. ‘If that is what you wish to call him.’

‘Not me, Mother, everyone.’

‘Whatever he was, I loved him a great deal and when he was taken from me a part of my heart died.’

In the silence Barnaby could hear his father remonstrating with the gaoler, his voice shrill and ugly in the quiet.

Tears crept out from beneath his mother’s eyelashes but Barnaby felt no sympathy. A great pit had opened up somewhere deep inside him.

‘Enough of it remained to love Abel,’ he said.

Now she opened her eyes and gave a haunted smile.

‘He looked so much like my first darling. For a while I could pretend that he had been returned to me.’

‘Well, I am glad he has proved so worthy of your adoration.’

The raised voices had stopped and now they could both hear the footsteps approaching.

‘It was I who was not worthy of you, Barnaby. Can you forgive me?’

They stared at one another through the bars. And wasn’t this the way it had always been? There had always been a wall between them that, as a child, he had tried so hard to break through
before eventually giving up. All the love he may once have had for her had long since turned to dust. They were now perfect strangers. Or not quite strangers.

Perhaps now, at the very end, they could be friends.

He stood and went over to the bars and took her hand in his. Then he dipped his head and allowed her to kiss his forehead. And for the first time in his life his mother’s love flowed over
him, soft and warm and safe, and his legs melted and he crumpled against the cold iron.

For a long time after they had gone he lay curled up on the floor of the cell. At some point he must have fallen asleep. He dreamed he was at home; his mother was reading him a
story. Juliet was preparing dinner and delicious smells wafted from the kitchen: something warm and spicy for a winter’s afternoon – a casserole of squash and cinnamon, perhaps, or a
beef and ale stew. The heat of the fire radiated on his back.

Then something jolted him awake. For a moment he thought he was still at home, dozing in front of the fire, but then he saw that it was only the warm glow of sunset making its brief passage
across his window.

The footsteps that had woken him clacked down the tunnel. These were the shoes of a gentleman, and he was being escorted by the gaoler.

‘Just a little further, Sir.’

Fear sprang up in his heart. Had they come for Naomi?

The footsteps halted and the visitor’s black shape detached itself from the shadows.

There was a beat of silence, then Barnaby said, ‘Hello, brother.’

Abel dismissed the gaoler with a wave of his hand and the old man melted back into the shadows.

Barnaby stepped forwards and straightened up to his full height, even though it hurt his chest to do so. ‘Come in,’ he said, gesturing at the suppurating filth behind him.
‘Make yourself comfortable.’

Abel said nothing.

‘Have you come to gloat?’ Barnaby said. ‘Be my guest. I’m pissing in the corner and coughing up blood. You win. Well done.’

When Abel spoke, his voice was soft.

‘How are the mighty fallen.’

Barnaby sighed and closed his eyes.

‘The sword of the Lord is indeed swift and terrible.’

Abel came close to the bars, his mouth twisted in that familiar sneer.

‘You have deceived my parents and the rest of that foolish village for long enough. Tomorrow you will be tried, convicted and sent back from whence you came.’

‘The dung heap?’ Barnaby said coolly, though inside he was reeling from Abel’s words:
tomorrow
? His parents must have told Abel of the plan to speak to Cromwell, forcing
him to act quickly.

‘Hell!’
Abel hissed, his spittle striking Barnaby’s forehead.

‘Hell is the place for murderers,’ Barnaby said. ‘You have murdered Juliet.’

‘A confessed witch,’ Abel spat. ‘She admitted being in league with Satan.’

‘What exactly did she say?’

‘She named you as her partner in evil.’

‘Did she really? Or did you say that and then confuse her into agreeing?’

‘She had the devil’s mark, and the same diabolical raven of yours came to her when we were watching.’

‘It was a crow, Abel,’ Barnaby said. ‘They’re quite common. You will be laughed out of the court.’

‘Not at all. The evidence against you is strong.’

‘A birthmark and a hungry crow?’ He forced a laugh.

‘And the things you said.’

‘I never confessed, I never signed anything.’

‘You said things.’

‘You deprived me of sleep, starved me and stripped me.’

A sheen of sweat had burst out on Abel’s high forehead and he licked his lips.

‘Why exactly did you come?’ Barnaby said.

‘Oh, not to see you,’ he smiled. ‘No-one cares about your fate any more. I have come to speak with Miss Waters.’

Abruptly he turned away. Walking across the aisle he almost tumbled into the stream of filth and gave a yelp of distaste. On the other side he straightened his back and clasped his hands behind
his back – evidently trying to look imposing and authoritative. But Naomi didn’t raise her head and when he cleared his throat to speak she interrupted him in a hollow voice.

‘I do not wish to hear what you have to say.’

She was huddled in the corner, her bare feet drawn up close to be out of the blood congealing on the floor.

‘Miss Waters,’ Abel said, ‘you were kind to me once, and I did not intend it to go so badly for you.’

‘And what did you
intend
, Abel Nightingale?’

Abel shifted from foot to foot and the fingers behind his back knotted.

‘When I heard that Mr Hopkins was on his way to try the Widow Moone, I spoke to him of my fears of my brother’s origins and he agreed to investigate them.’

‘Shame on you.’

‘It is not my fault that . . .’ He tailed off and began again. ‘Mr Hopkins is very thorough in his investigations and he discovered a nest of wickedness I had heretofore never
even suspected.’

Even in the gloom Barnaby could see her eyes flash with fury.

‘Not you,’ Abel added quickly, then he glanced over his shoulder and his eye caught Barnaby’s. He turned back.

‘Perhaps we can speak somewhere more comfortable.’

‘I would not accompany you anywhere.’

‘As you wish.’ His voice became even quieter. ‘I wanted to make a . . . a suggestion to you.’

‘Juliet was my friend.’

‘A suggestion that might save your life.’

If he expected his announcement to be greeted with enthusiasm he was disappointed. Naomi’s dry monotone did not waver. ‘
You
are the devil, not Barnaby.’

Abel took a deep breath and continued as if he had not heard her. ‘You could leave this foul pit and be home at your farm by the morning.’ He took a step closer to the cell.
‘With your dear little brother.’

She did not reply to this but her breathing quickened, as if she was about to cry.

‘To my mind,’ Abel murmured, ‘there has only ever been one of Satan’s servants in Beltane Ridge. Somehow, with his wiles and his infernal bewitchments, he managed to
ensnare poor innocents like Juliet. If you will agree to testify against him – only what you know to be true – that he is vain and arrogant and crushes those weaker than him. That you
believe he set his familiars upon you to injure you in such a way that it made suspicion fall upon you. That he sent the cat to make us think—’

‘You brought the cat,’ she said.

He stammered a little as he continued, ‘If you do these things then the magistrate will pardon and release you. My master, Mr Hopkins, has arranged such bargains many times in the
past.’

Naomi stood up and walked through the blood until she stood directly in front of Abel. Though she was shorter, pale as a ghost, and shivering with cold, he started back.

‘Shame upon him, too,’ she said.

‘I’m trying to help you,’ Abel hissed.

‘You do not wish to save me, only to damn Barnaby.’

Abel straightened and took a step back.

‘I will give you until tomorrow to think on this, thereafter your fate will be in the hands of the magistrate.’

He walked a few steps away from the cell, then turned. ‘The scaffold has already seen much use.’

His footsteps receded up the corridor, like the clicking of a beetle.

When he had gone, Naomi leaned against the bars and sobbed.

The last flares of daylight illuminated the full horror of their situation. The blood on the floor of her cell was bright scarlet, clotted with crimson. The water in the stinking runnel was
brown and flecked with rat shit. Green slime covered the walls. Naomi’s skin was grey and waxy, her once glossy hair dull, her dress stained and torn. Barnaby did not need to turn around to
see for himself that the man on the bed behind him had developed the purplish buboes of the sickness – he could hear it in the man’s cough and gurgling chest.

Eventually Naomi’s sobs subsided to sniffles. She wiped her eyes on her dress and began running her fingers through her shorn hair, tearing savagely at the clumps and knots.

‘When Abel comes back,’ Barnaby said, ‘you must agree to testify against me.’

She stopped what she was doing and stared at him as if he had spoken in a foreign language.

‘What’s the point of both of us dying?’ he went on. ‘Go home to your brother.’

She paused before replying and somewhere far away the death-watch beetle continued its clicking, up the steps and out into the chill winter air.

‘If you think I would consider it for a moment you do not know me at all.’

She got up and went to lie on the bed, facing the wall.

He tried again but she said nothing more that night. Eventually he crawled to the back of the cell and lay down on the dead man’s straw. Though he was freezing cold and his chest ached, he
fell asleep almost immediately.

When he woke he knew exactly what he had to do.

Barnaby’s bare feet slapped on the wooden floor of the empty courtroom as he walked towards the benches at the far end. The room was lined in wood and so still retained
some of the warmth of the dead fire in the imposing hearth. Everything about the place was imposing, from the carved cherubs scowling down from the cornicing, to the bookcases of huge ledgers that
must contain the names and deeds of a thousand dead men. He tried to take it all in so that it wouldn’t come as a shock the following day.

Abel was sitting on a kind of throne at the top of a flight of steps. The gaoler jerked him to a halt a few paces from the steps, then pulled up a stool and pushed Barnaby into it.

‘I shall be waiting outside, Sir,’ he said to Abel, bowing.

‘Aren’t you going to bind him?’ Abel said.

‘Oh. I haven’t brought any rope. He isn’t armed.’

‘Fool. This man is known to be violent.’

‘Shall I get some?’

‘And leave me alone with him? No!’

The gaoler hurried away, mumbling apologies.

‘Where’s Hopkins?’ Barnaby said. ‘I asked to see him not you.’

Abel gave a small smile. ‘He’s a very busy man. He has done what he came to do. The wheels of justice are now in motion. From now on I speak for him.’

At the sight of Barnaby’s expression his smile spread across his cheeks.

‘You can always go back to your cell. Although you seemed very keen for us to talk elsewhere. Unlike poor, brave Naomi, who refused to be interviewed in comfort.’

‘I did not want her to hear what I had to say.’

‘Oh, so you will betray her now, will you?’ Abel sneered. ‘Well, it will not save your sorry neck. We have enough on you as it—’

‘No you don’t. Not to be certain of my execution. Not without a confession.’

‘Nonsense,’ Abel snorted but his fingers twitched on the arms of the chair.

‘You need me to confess, Abel. And I need something from you.’

Abel blinked. The fingers went still. ‘What?’ he said.

Barnaby took a deep breath. ‘I will admit to anything you like if you have Naomi freed.’

Abel did not speak for a few minutes.

The cries from the market traders outside echoed in the empty hall. They had set up their stalls around the scaffold. On the way here Barnaby had watched the customers bustle heedlessly by as
the rope swung in the wind above them. Would they cheer for him? Would they call for the hangman to have mercy? Would they give him back his shoes? He hoped so: he didn’t want to die like a
beggar.

Then Abel spoke again, thoughtfully. ‘She has a mark and there was the business with the cat, but she did not confess.’

‘What if I say that the Widow Moone, Juliet and I wanted to get her to join our coven and we sent the cat familiar to torment her? That I made the corn doll in her image in order to bring
her under my control?’

‘You would damn your precious Juliet?’ Abel widened his eyes in mock surprise.

‘Nothing I say can harm her now. Answer me, would that work?’

Abel thought for a moment, then shrugged. ‘I suppose it might. Juliet never named
her
, after all, only you, and the only accusation against her was retracted.’

‘That’s not good enough. Swear on the Bible that she will be freed or I will not confess.’

They stared at one another. The pupils of Abel’s watery eyes were large in the gloom, his index finger stroked the comb of a wooden cockerel carved into the arm of the chair. There was a
distant cry that might have come from the cells beneath their feet, or just a gull wheeling in the leaden sky.

‘I will stand as character witness for her,’ Abel said. ‘I will say that I saw you feeding the cat, that I heard you telling a flea to go and bite her arm to cause a mark that
would put her under suspicion.’

His eyes slid away from Barnaby’s to gaze out of the window.

‘Will that be enough?’ Barnaby said.

Abel chuckled. ‘They may not believe
you
, brother, but my word carries a great deal of weight these days.’

‘Shake on it,’ Barnaby said, rising from the chair.

Abel started as Barnaby climbed the stairs towards him, seeming to shrink and darken as Barnaby’s shadow fell upon him. Barnaby stood over him, holding out his hand.