The Maid, the Witch and the Cruel Queen Read online

  Illustrated by Helen Flook

  A & C Black • London

  This book is dedicated to the memory of

  the tens of thousands of harmless men, women

  and children who suffered horribly because of silly

  superstitions about witchcraft – Terry Deary

  Reprinted 2008, 2010

  First published 2003 by

  A & C Black Publishers Ltd

  36 Soho Square, London, W1D 3QY

  www.acblack.com

  Text copyright © 2003 Terry Deary

  Illustrations copyright © 2003 Helen Flook

  The rights of Terry Deary and Helen Flook to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  eISBN: 978-1-40811-889-4

  A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems – without the prior permission in writing of the publishers.

  This book is produced using paper that is made from wood grown in managed, sustainable forests. It is natural, renewable and recyclable. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

  Printed and bound in Great Britain

  by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading RG1 8EX.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One The Messenger in Gold and Red

  Chapter Two The Cruel Killing Queen

  Chapter Three The Cottage in the Heather

  Chapter Four The Lord of a Burning Manor

  Chapter Five Sir James’s Terrible Tale

  Chapter Six The Flying Witch

  Chapter Seven Old Nan’s New Guard

  Afterword Old Nan’s Story

  Chapter One

  The Messenger in Gold and Red

  I remember the day Queen Mary Tudor came to our town. It was the most fearsome, exciting and heart-stopping day of my life. I’ll remember it if I live to be a hundred.

  I was a serving girl at Lord Scuggate’s manor house – a small castle, really. And I was invisible!

  No, really!

  I carried the food and the wine from the kitchen to the table and all the grand folk in the great hall ignored me.

  They never said “Please”, they just held out a wine cup to be filled. They never, ever said “Thanks!”. It was as if I wasn’t there. Invisible in my shabby black dress.

  My mouth stayed shut. But my eyes could see and my ears could hear. That summer evening there was a sudden hammering on the door. Lord Scuggate looked furious.

  “Who dares to knock at a Scuggate door that way?” he demanded.

  I hurried over the rushes on the stone floor and opened the door. A young man in a coat of blood-red and gold threw his handsome head up and marched in. The hounds by the fireside growled.

  “Lord Scuggate of Bewcastle?” the young man asked, and his voice whined like a leaking trumpet.

  “Who wants to know?” his lordship asked. “What sort of slabberdegullion are you to come barging in on Lord Scuggate and his guests?”

  Sir James Marley of Roughsike squeaked and tried to shake Lord Scuggate’s arm.

  His lordship shook him off.

  “I’ll have you stripped and whipped and dragged at the cart’s tail all the way to the gallows!” he yelled at the messenger.

  He swelled like a pig’s bladder that the boys blow up to play football. His face was purple. “I’ll have you…”

  “No, your lordship!” Sir James squawked. “Look at the badge on his coat.”

  “Shut up, man,” Lord Scuggate snapped without taking his eyes off the messenger. “I’ll have you hanged by the neck and I don’t care who your master is…”

  “Mistress,” the shocked messenger mumbled.

  “Who your mistress is!” Lord Scuggate snorted. “I see by your badge you wear the sign of…”

  He stopped. Everyone was looking at the floor. Even the dogs that chewed their bones stopped crunching.

  The only sound was Lord Scuggate spluttering as if someone had stuck a needle in his pig-bladder face. “…the sign of … er … the sign of…”

  “Her Majesty Queen Mary Tudor of England,” the messenger said quietly. Lord Scuggate grinned weakly showing his broken and yellow teeth. “And you are very, very welcome to Bewcastle Hall, my dear young friend!”

  Chapter Two

  The Cruel Killing Queen

  The messenger had said that the queen would be passing through Bewcastle on a tour of the Scottish Borders. She would stop at Scuggate Hall for lunch the next day.

  When the young man in red and gold had gone, the Bewcastle men muttered over their wine cups as the invisible maid heard their terrible talk.

  “Down in London, they call the queen ‘Bloody Mary’ because she burns anyone who doesn’t worship at a Catholic church,” Sir James Marley of Roughsike said quietly.

  “She’d burn us if she found anyone who doesn’t go to church,” Father Walton of Catlowdy Church warned them.

  Lord Scuggate looked at him sharply. “It’s your job to make sure people go to church,” he said.

  The priest in the velvet cloak spread his hands and smirked. “My lord, it is you the queen will blame, and you the queen will burn.”

  Lord Scuggate’s blotched face turned pale. “Everyone in Bewcastle goes to church… Well … they go at Easter and Christmas anyway, don’t they?”

  The men brought their heads closer together.

  “We could get all the Bewcastle folk together and have a march through the town to the church, just as Queen Mary arrives,” Father Walton said.

  “All carrying crosses,” Sir James Marley added.

  “And singing hymns,” Lord Scuggate put in. “The queen will love that!”

  “Would the town people do it?” Father Walton asked, and his bald head shone yellow in the light of the torches.

  “They will if we promise them a few barrels of beer!” Lord Scuggate chuckled.

  The men laughed, and held out their wine cups for me to fill.

  “Old Nan doesn’t drink,” Father Walton said.

  Lord Scuggate sighed.

  “Who’s Old Nan?” Sir James asked as he cleaned his fingernails with his knife.

  “A wise woman who lives out at Butterburn in the hills,” Lord Scuggate snapped. “Some say she is a witch. But the truth is she just mixes herbs and cures made from the plants on the moors. I use them myself,” he said. “But you wouldn’t get her into a church or singing hymns.”

  “Perfect!” Sir James cried and waved his knife. “Queen Mary likes to see her sort burned.”

  “So?” Lord Scuggate growled.

  “So … burn her! Tomorrow at noon in the market square. Queen Mary will thank you for the rest of her blood-soaked life!”

  “Perfect!” Lord Scuggate chuckled. “Tomorrow at dawn we find Old Nan.”

  “She could be out on the moors, collecting herbs at this time of the year,” the priest reminded him.

  “We’ll track her down. That’s what my hunting dogs are for,” he said, and threw a scrap of meat to the snapping hounds on the floor.

  Lord Scuggate raised his wine cup and clashed it against the raised cups of the other two.

  “Here’s to good Queen Mary … and a death to all her enemies – especially Old Nan!”

  Chapter Three

  The Cottage in the Heather

  I cleared the tables after their lordships had staggered to t
heir beds. Then I crept back down to the main hall and found the two shaggy hounds asleep by the guttering fire.

  I fed them with plates of meat till they could eat no more. They groaned, rolled over and slept.

  But I couldn’t sleep. I had work to do.

  I took a black woollen cloak from the stables and slipped out into the cool light of the quarter moon. Rats scuttered out of my way as I padded across the yard in my bare feet and on to the dusty road.

  The church clock creaked and chimed one. Dogs barked at me but no one lit a candle or looked to see who was passing their door. At the edge of the town I turned off the road and on to the trails that led over the moor to Butterburn.

  The heather was tough and tangled, but I followed the twisting sheep trails up into the hills. If I stepped on an adder I’d have died. But if I didn’t go on then poor Old Nan would die.

  After half an hour, I saw her tiny cottage of tumbled stone with a roof of heather.

  Everything was silent. I didn’t want to disturb her. I sank onto the heather, pulled the cloak over me and slept.

  When the sun rose three hours later, I woke with a start. A woman was looking down at me. She was probably about forty years old but the harsh life had turned her hair grey and wrinkled her skin dry like tree bark.

  “Nan!” I said.

  “Young Meg,” she nodded. “Come for a cure? At this time of the morning?”

  “No, I’ve come to warn you about Lord Scuggate,” I told her.

  “I remember him when he was young. An idle and vicious lad,” she said, shaking her head. “His father spoiled him – oldest son, you see?” Suddenly she looked at me sharply. “What’s he up to now?”

  I rose stiffly to my feet. “It’s a long story.”

  “Then come inside,” she said and walked towards the cottage without looking back. “A tale is better told when you have goat’s milk and oatcakes inside you … with heather honey.”

  Far away, the Bewcastle church clock struck five. Hounds howled. I didn’t have much time.

  Chapter Four

  The Lord of a Burning Manor

  When the clock struck twelve noon that day, Queen Mary rode up to the gates of Scuggate Manor. Her captain hammered on the great front gate. A kitchen boy tugged it open a crack and looked out.

  “Where is Lord Scuggate?” the angry captain growled.

  The kitchen boy wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  “Snnncccct! Dunno, pal! Lord Scuggate went out hunting on the moors at sunrise. He’s never usually this late, though. His dinner’s getting cold. He never likes to miss his dinner.”

  The poor people of Bewcastle had come from the fields and the houses to stare at the queen and her soldiers and servants.

  Children with runny noses threw mud at the polished breastplates of her guards...

  ...then ran and hid behind their mothers’ skirts.

  The queen turned her flat, pasty face to the captain of the guard. “What sort of greeting is this for a queen?”

  The captain shrugged. “A messenger was sent to warn Lord Scuggate last night, Your Majesty.”

  She looked at the barred gate and her voice rose. “So? Where is Lord Scuggate?”

  Along the road ran a man, dripping water. He raised clouds of dust from his boots and stumbled when the sole of one flapped and let in stones. His breeches were torn and tangled with brambles. His cap slipped down over his sweating red face and his jerkin was muddy.

  “I am Lord Scuggate, Your Majesty; sorry, Your Majesty, I was delayed.”

  The queen looked at him with disgust.

  “Delayed?”

  “I was trying to catch a witch, Your Majesty,” he whined and mopped his face with a muddy sleeve – just wiping streaks of brown on his purple cheeks.

  “Where is this witch?” the queen demanded. She wrinkled her nose as if he stank like a tramp – which he did.

  “She escaped, Your Majesty. I was planning to burn her in the market place, as a sort of welcome for Your Majesty! We people of Bewcastle know how much you enjoy a good burning!” he said, flopping his hands weakly.

  The captain of the guard drew his sword and strode towards Lord Scuggate.

  He smacked the lord on the back with the flat of the sword. “How dare you!” he hissed.

  “Her Majesty’s judges may send some evil men to be burned. But Her Majesty does not like to do it.”

  The captain slapped Lord Scuggate on the backside and the fat lord howled.

  “Ouch! Sorry! We had heard about Bloody Mary and...”

  Smack! “Never call her that! How dare you!”

  Smack! “Ouch!

  Sorry, Queen Bloody...”

  Smack! “Ouch!

  Sorry...”

  The queen turned in her saddle and looked at Scuggate Manor.

  “Is this pitiful pile yours?” she asked.

  “Yes, Your Queenness,” Lord Scuggate babbled and burbled.

  “I will show you who enjoys a good burning!” She turned to her captain. “Burn down his house!”

  Before the clock struck quarter past, the stables had been emptied of horses and the hay set alight. The servants fled as the fire spread. The powder in the gun-room exploded and the sky was filled with crimson flames and black smoke.

  Queen Mary nodded. She turned her horse and led her followers away from Bewcastle.

  A sobbing Lord Scuggate was led away to the stocks to be pelted with rotting fruit.

  There is a hill that looks down on the town. A grey-haired woman in a black dress stood on the top and shook her head.

  Old Nan.

  Chapter Five

  Sir James’s Terrible Tale

  I went to the Cross Keys Inn when the queen had gone and was given a job as a serving maid.

  I was invisible, as ever, as I served ale to Sir James Marley and Father Walton later that evening. I sat at a table and listened to the tale Sir James had to tell.

  “I’ll never go out on those moors again,” he groaned.

  Father Walton’s nose, sharp as a starling’s beak, twitched. “Tell me about it.”

  Sir James began and I, the invisible maid, listened and smiled.

  “We’d just crossed the stream at Butterburn at dawn when we saw Old Nan. She sat up on the ridge and looked towards the sunrise.

  “‘Hag!’ we called her. ‘Hag!’ and ‘Witch!’

  “Lord Scuggate threw stones. They all missed and that just made him angrier. ‘The Devil’s wrapped her in his hand. We’ll never hit her with a stone,’ he said.”

  Father Walton made the sign of the cross. “The Devil can do that,” he breathed.

  “That’s when Scuggate said we’d have to hunt her down just like a fox. He said it would make good sport. We set off through the bracken and heather.

  “The sun was getting higher and it was hot work, but we didn’t mind. Old Nan looked at us and hurried off over the hill. We followed her.”

  Father Walton nodded. “A witch can’t fly her broomstick in the daylight.”

  “We reached the top of the hill and we could see Old Nan’s cottage below us. We slipped the leashes off the dogs. The dogs leapt forwards while the witch lifted up her skirts and ran.

  “She reached the battered wooden door a moment before the howling hounds. They crashed against it just as Nan threw in the bolt,” Sir James said, and his eyes glowed with the memory.

  “We reached the dogs and pulled them away. I called, ‘Come out, Old Nan! We won’t harm you!’ and Scuggate hissed, ‘No, we won’t, but our dogs will tear you flesh from bone.’

  “I heard her shout back through the door, ‘If you don’t want to harm me, leave me alone!’

  “We pulled some bushes from the garden and he piled them up against the door. I took a flint from my pocket and he started up a fire.”

  Father Walton nodded again. “Best thing for a witch. Fire.”

  “The bush was dry...”

  “It hasn’t rained for weeks.”

 
“Exactly, so the bush began to crackle and the gold flames took hold. Then the door began to smoulder – its ancient wood was as dry as the dust on the daisies in Old Nan’s garden. The woman screamed as the door burned through.

  “We stepped back to keep from being roasted alive. They saw the woman’s figure, head down, burst out through the charcoal ruins of the door.”

  “So, you set the dogs after her? They love to hunt a running animal. They tore her into fifty pieces, I’ll bet,” Father Walton crooned and licked his thin lips.

  “Ah, no,” Sir James groaned. “That’s when she used the witchcraft, isn’t it?”

  Chapter Six

  The Flying Witch

  Sir James Marley gripped his beer mug tight as he told his tale.

  “Old Nan was fast as any hare. She had a start on the dogs. We lost sight of her as she ran up to the hill top. The dogs seemed too fat and full of flesh to chase her hard!”

  I smiled as I listened. I’d fed those dogs well the night before.

  “Then Old Nan stopped on the crest of a hill and looked back down at us. She dropped out of sight. Then the strangest thing happened. We heard a cry. ‘Leave me alone!’ a woman screamed. But the sound didn’t come from over the hill.

  We looked back at the smoking ruin of Old Nan’s house. And there she stood beside the doorway!”

  “Witchcraft,” Father Walton groaned and crossed himself again. “What did you do?”

  “We lumbered back down the hill to the cottage, of course. The dogs’ noses told them she was over the top of the hill. Their eyes told them she was running downhill from the house. They ran round in circles then followed us back down the hill.”