Ruth Warburton - Witch Finder

‘You know what you must do.’ Her expression was unsmiling.

Rosa closed her eyes. Yes, she knew.

‘Come.’ Mama put a cold hand on Rosa’s cheek, against the worse of the purple bruising. Rosa steeled herself, forcing herself not to flinch away. ‘It’s not pleasant, I know, but it must be done. You’ve done well; don’t falter at the last fence.’

She nodded.

‘Go now, before he goes into the kitchen.’

‘Yes, Mama.’

She looked at the carpet, refusing to meet Mama’s eyes. She could not bear the reflection of herself that she would see there.

Mama turned and left, and Rosa stood, letting the blood come back into her stiff limbs. Before she left the room she turned, quite deliberately, to the mirror over the dressing table. For the journey back to London she had worn a veil, for there were limits to what magic could heal. She had done her best – the bruises were purple, not black and blue. Her eyes were bloodshot but the bones in her nose had started to knit. The kink would remain, a broken ridge to remind her, always, of Sebastian’s power.

A fall out riding, Mama had told Ellen. Most unfortunate. Miss Rosa will keep to her room for a few days while the bruises heal.

But she would not hide herself from Luke. He had seen the worst already.

Her own eyes met her in the mirror, gold-brown and red-rimmed.

It was time.

Luke was sweeping Cherry’s empty stall as Rosa entered the stable and did not immediately hear her above the slow rhythmic swish of the brush. She stood in the shadows, watching him, wanting to remember this moment always. A single lamp burn in the window and the light glinted from his straw-coloured hair, catching the small golden stubble on his cheek and at his jaw as he turned. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and she could see the muscles in his arms move and flex as he methodically worked his way across the small space. Brimstone nuzzled at his shoulder as he came close, more trusting and affectionate than she had ever seen him with Alex. A lump rose in her throat and she stepped forward into the light, before she could think better of this.

He turned as he heard her footsteps and his breath caught in his throat.

They stood, neither of them saying anything, and then he crossed the stall to her and took her shoulders, turning her face to the light.

‘My God.’ She could feel him shaking. ‘I’ll testify against him if you want to prosecute. I’ll speak for you in court, tell ’em what he did.’

She would have laughed if she hadn’t felt so like crying. Testify! He would never even get to the court. It would be his death.

‘I came to tell you . . .’ She tried to make herself hard, cold, as Mama would be. ‘I came to tell you . . .’

She couldn’t finish. The words stuck in her throat, choking her.

‘Rose . . .’ he began. There were tears in his hazel eyes. She could not bear it. Then his gaze went to her finger, where she was still wearing the ring. The colour left his face. ‘Why . . . ?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said stupidly. It was not what she had meant to say. This was turning out all wrong. ‘Luke, oh Luke, I’m so, so sorry.’

‘Take it off.’

‘I can’t.’ It was true. The ring had shrunk, the metal band biting into her finger until it could not be removed.

‘What?’ He took her hand and his eyes widened. ‘We’ll get pliers – nippers. I’ll get it off, I promise.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ She swallowed. ‘I’m not . . . I’m not going to take it off.’

‘What?’ He gripped her very hard and she fought against the stupid treacherous tears. ‘Rose, don’t do this – there must be another way. Are you afraid of him?’

‘Yes,’ she said. At that one word, as if he couldn’t help it, he pulled her into his arms. They stood for a long moment, clinging together, her face against his chest, listening to the frantic pounding of his heart. She could feel him trying to form words, trying to speak, and she knew that she must speak first, before he broke her resolve. She rested her cheek against the soft roughness of his shirt and drew a breath.

Like this, not looking at him, she could do it.

‘Listen, Luke, there’s no way out for me. I have to do this – for Mama, for Alexis, for Matchenham.’ For you, she added silently in her head. She swallowed, trying to make him understand. ‘I have no choice – there’s no escape except through him.’

‘He’s no escape, Rosa, can’t you see that? He’s just another prison and a worse one. Please . . .’ His arms tightened around her. ‘Come away with me. We’ll start again.’

‘Can’t you see, it’s impossible? The difference between us . . .’ She couldn’t finish, but it hovered there, the impossible chasm of identity and class and magic that lay between them. He was a stable-hand and, worse, an outwith.

‘So that’s it? That’s what it comes down to, he has money and I don’t?’ He pushed her away and she heard the crack in his voice as he turned, as if he couldn’t look at her. ‘You’re selling yourself for a house, Rosa.’

I’m selling myself for you, she cried in her heart. If I don’t do this, they will kill you – do you understand that? I can’t save myself – but I can save you.

But she could not tell him that.

She only nodded, and swallowed against the pain in her throat.

‘I want you to go away, forget me.’

‘How can I forget you?’ He turned, his face full of anger, but she was not afraid, not like she had been at the sight of Sebastian’s fury. Luke might hate her, for a while, but he would never hurt her, she knew that. He would hurt himself, first. ‘How can you ask me that? I love you.’

The words were spoken almost before she had time to realize what they meant. There was silence in the stable as the words hung between them, like a spell. His eyes held her. She could not look away.

She moved across the space between them and put her hand on his cheek, feeling the rough stubble of his beard beneath her fingers, drinking in his clear hazel eyes, the way his brows were dipped in anger or incomprehension, the lines at the corner of his mouth and eyes, the dusting of straw fragments in his hair and on his shirt.

With her other hand she took his collar and pulled him down to meet her. His lips were soft against her bruised ones and he kissed her gently, carefully, as if afraid to cause her any more pain.

‘Don’t worry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m tough.’

His lips on hers, his hands around her waist, lifting her up, holding her to him. She never wanted him to let go. Her hands were in his hair, caressing his face, smoothing away the lines and the dust and the pain . . .

Then she steeled herself and pulled away.

‘You have to forget me.’

‘I will never forget you,’ he said fiercely.

‘Oh!’ She put her hands to her face, pressing against her eyes, feeling the bruises that Sebastian had left flare with pain. ‘I wish that were true.’

She moved across to the lamp standing in the window, high above the straw, and opened the tiny glass door that shielded the flame. Luke watched her for a moment, puzzled, and she took out the rosemary from her skirt and began put it to the burning wick.

As it flared up his face changed.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I want you to forget, Luke. Forget everything that happened. Forget my family. Forget Sebastian and Southing and this house. Forget everything you ever knew about witches, forget—’ She stumbled and choked, and forced herself on. ‘Forget me.’

‘No!’ Luke’s face was full of a blank horror. For a minute he stood, frozen, too horrified to move. Then as the rosemary twigs flared up he seemed to come to his senses and leapt across the few feet between them, his hands outstretched, reaching desperately for the lamp and the burning sticks.

‘Oþstille!’ Rosa screamed before he could reach her, and Luke dropped like a felled tree, his head hitting the flags with a crack that made her cry out.

He lay very still and for a moment she could only stand, her breath sobbing between her teeth as the rosemary twigs burnt. At last the flame died away and there was nothing but ashes left.

‘Luke?’

He lay face down, unmoving, but when she put her hand to his back she could feel he was breathing, his shoulder moving almost imperceptibly beneath her palm. There was fresh blood soaking the white bandage across the back of his head. Brimstone gave a whicker of concern and shifted uneasily in his stall.

‘Luke?’ Rosa asked again. He didn’t answer. She knelt on the cold stone floor and kissed him, once, very gently on the cheek. ‘Goodbye, Luke. Be happy. I hope you get your forge.’

Her throat swelled suddenly with unshed tears and she straightened and turned to go.

‘Two days? I don’t care if there’s only two hours to go, he’s not well!’ William’s angry voice filtered up the stairs to where Luke was lying in his narrow bed, his face to the wall.

‘He promised, William.’ John Leadingham’s croaking rasp. ‘In a few days it’ll be out of my hands. I’ll have to pass the matter up to the Inquisitor and he ain’t likely to be—’

‘I don’t. Bloody. Care!’ William spat, his voice rising on the last word. ‘I’m telling you, the lad barely knows his own name, let alone who he’s supposed to be killing. There’s a clot on the back of his head the size of a potato – Phoebe Fairbrother found him in the gutter outside the market at chucking-out time, did she tell you that? Lying in a pool of filth in the clothes he went away in. She hardly recognized him and he was too far gone to recognize her. He’s been in that room for three days and nights and he’s yet to manage more than “Yes, Uncle” and “No, Uncle”. He doesn’t remember anything of the last month, not even the meeting. What do you want me to do? Turn him out in the street with a knife and tell him to get on with the task?’