This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © Syd Moore 2012
Syd Moore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Version 1
FIRST EDITION
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Source ISBN: 9781847562692
Ebook Edition © October 2012 ISBN: 9780007478484
Version: 2018-06-29
For those who were prevented from telling their story. And for Granddad York.
‘Besides, when any Errour is committed
Whereby wee may Incurre or losse or shame,
That wee ourselves thereof may be acquitted
Wee are too ready to transferre the blame
Upon some Witch: That made us does the same.
It is the vulgar Plea that weake ones use
I was bewitch’d: I could nor will: nor chuse.
But my affection was not caus’d by Art:
The witch that wrought on mee was in my brest.’
Sir Francis Hubert Quoted in Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England by Alan MacFarlane
‘The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, ideas, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy. A thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own for the children yet unborn.’
Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone and civil rights activist
They told me not to come.
He said ‘Twill do no good. Nay more.’ And he tried to touch my shoulder and bring me back into the court but I was too quick and ran pushing through the crowd. Some saw me and stepped aside, unwilling to be touched, as if they might catch my sin. Others shrieked.
I made off through the side lane.
And then I came here.
I have put on my cap and wrapped a shawl over too. So none may see me.
Though I see all.
And I see them: bound and tethered in a pen.
Like sheep.
Then there are the others, the eager spectators.
So many cluster before me, edging their way forward, craning to get a good view, that I can only catch glimpses through the space between my neighbours’ shoulders. On their faces some have smiles. The girl beside me, only two or three years younger than I, licks her lips and stands up on her toes. Her father, in starched lace and black, pulls her back down and, with a stare, admonishes her excitement. But the woman beside him, whom I saw at a stall selling nuts for the crowd, has a face full of glory. Her eyes are wide in anticipation. In her hands she has a knife and fingers it greedily. She will try to get some hair from the dead for keepsakes to sell on.
A hush falls over the crowd as the first is helped up to the scaffold. I can see from the way she stumbles it is Old Mother Clarke. Her ancient face is creased with lines of age and knots of confusion. Two of the men assisting the execution have taken an arm each to support her, for she cannot stand firm with but one leg. She staggers forward and clutches the man on her right to steady herself as the hangman puts the noose over her head.
A woman at the front of the crowd near the gallows hurls something rotten. It hits Mother Clarke on the chin and she looks about to throw some rebuke back but before she can open her mouth comes the push. Her wizened frame drops and cracks as the noose does its work. Quickly. Thank God. And she is turned off.