The Witch Who Faced the Fire Read online

  ‘It will be poisoned just as the potion you used to poison Oswin was poisoned.’

  I turned to the mob. ‘Sorry we can’t invite you all inside but it’s a small house. I just want a word with the priest before he murders us.’

  ‘Executes,’ he said fiercely. ‘It is not murder if I am doing the will of God.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ I said. ‘Executed or murdered. Will I end up just as dead?’

  ‘Yes... erm... I mean...’ he spluttered.

  ‘Come in... and Oswin’s wife can come too as she is the one who has suffered. And Brecc who has sharp eyes.’ I turned to Oswin’s wife. ‘How is dear Oswin?’ I asked as I took her plump arm and half-dragged her through the front door.

  ‘A little better,’ she said.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked her.

  She frowned. ‘Garyn,’ she said.

  ‘What a pretty name,’ I said in a voice as soft as a dove.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘A pretty name to go with a pretty woman, Garyn. Oswin must be very proud of you.’

  ‘He should be proud of me,’ she agreed as she pursed her lips. ‘But he can say some very harsh things. And when he orders me around I have to stop myself from hitting him with a stool.’

  ‘Poor you,’ I moaned.

  The priest cut in, ‘Stop this chatter. Why do you want us in here?’ he snapped.

  ‘Ah, I wanted to explain why it will be so difficult for you to murder us... sorry, execute us.’

  ‘We will simply bar the door, lock you in, and throw our torches on your roof thatch,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded, ‘but how will you know we are inside the house when it burns?’

  He gave a laugh as harsh as a saw on hard wood. ‘I can see, you, witch.’ The room was lit by a single, smoking tallow candle and it was more dark than light.

  I nodded again. ‘And can you see Wilfrid?’

  ‘No-o,’ he said. ‘But that’s because he isn’t here. He must be upstairs.’

  ‘Or... he could be right here in this room. It may be that you just don’t see him,’ I said.

  ‘There is only a table and two chairs in the room,’ the priest argued. ‘I can see he isn’t underneath the table. So he isn’t here.’

  ‘He is sitting at the table,’ I said.

  ‘I can’t see him either,’ Garyn grumbled.

  I looked at her. ‘Garyn, have you ever heard the tale of Siegfried? And how he kidnapped Brunhild?’

  Garyn folded her arms across her chest. ‘Of course. We all heard that tale from when we were babies.’

  ‘How did he do it?’

  ‘He stole a cloak from the dwarf Alberich. When he wore the cloak he became invisible.’

  I gave my warmest smile and said, ‘He did, Garyn. And Wilfrid and I have cloaks just like that. Wilfrid is sitting at the table right now, wearing his cloak. Can you see him?’

  She peered. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘And that proves it works,’ I laughed and clapped my hands.

  ‘Oh, it does,’ Garyn gasped. ‘It does.’

  The priest nodded. ‘I suppose it does.’

  ‘We wear our cloaks often to walk the streets of York and do good deeds,’ I explained. ‘If you set fire to our house we would be outside and invisible – but alive. We’d have nowhere to sleep. Maybe we’d have to shelter in the church. It would be funny if you burned our house down and we were clumsy and knocked over a church candle and burned down your church... or your house, Sir Priest, when you were inside asleep,’ I said.

  ‘Dreadful,’ he agreed and his dark, hooded eyes were pools of fear. ‘And the people would be left with no cunning man and no priest. What would they do without us?’ I asked. ‘How sad that you plan to burn Wilfrid’s house down,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe we were hasty,’ Garyn said. ‘The poisoning of stupid Oswin was an accident, I’m sure.’

  ‘It was,’ I said. ‘See? Wilfrid is nodding.’

  The priest and the good wife squinted at the table and nodded.

  ‘Then we’d better leave you in peace,’ the priest said and backed towards the door.

  Then Brecc the beggar spoke up. ‘It’s all a lie. You can’t see Wilfrid because he isn’t there.’

  He was telling the truth, of course. Our friend Brecc had betrayed us... just as I told him to.

  6

  The Trick

  Are you confused? Let me explain. Every true Saxon has heard the tale of Siegfried and the cloak of invisibility. It was easy to fool the priest and Garyn.

  But some time later... the next day or the next week... away from the gloom of our room with its spice smells and smoky air, they would start to wonder. They would wonder if they had been tricked. They would come back for proof.

  So I told Brecc to betray us. I wanted to give them the proof right then.

  ‘Oh Brecc, how could you doubt us?’ I said.

  ‘Because I am not as stupid as I look,’ he replied.

  ‘But how can we prove Wilfrid is sitting at the table?’ I asked.

  ‘There is a knife and spoon at the table,’ he said, ‘beside the bowl. If he’s really there he could move them.’

  I spread my arms, ‘Then try him.’ I turned to the empty table. ‘Are you ready, Wilfrid?’ I asked.

  There was no reply. I turned to our guests. ‘As you know, when he wears that cloak his voice is invisible too.’

  They nodded and swallowed the lie like a trout swallows the fisherman’s hook.

  Brecc cleared his throat. ‘Wilfrid... if you are truly sitting at the table then lift your knife.’

  We peered through the gloom. There was a moment of nothingness. Then the knife rose in the air. The priest gave a small choking sound. Garyn just gave a tiny squeal and said, ‘Now lift up the spoon.’

  And the spoon lifted off the table then floated gently back down.

  ‘Why not pick up the bowl, Master Wilfrid?’ I asked. It rose, turned around, spilled a little thin soup and settled again.

  ‘I suppose you expect me to clear up after you?’ I moaned. A cloth at the edge of the table rose and dabbed at the spilled soup.

  Garyn and the priest tumbled out of the door and I heard them telling the people how wonderful we were and that York should treasure us. That we were true magicians... but performed only good magic.

  And so the crowd flowed away like the River Ouse under the bridge. I spoke softly. ‘You can come down now, Master Wilfrid,’ I said, and the old man climbed stiffly down the ladder from the low loft.

  ‘It worked,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks to Brecc,’ I said and patted the beggar on the shoulder.

  ‘But how did you do it?’ the boy asked. ‘I saw the spoon and knife and bowl and cloth move. But you said you have no real magic.’

  ‘I took strands of my hair and lowered them through the rafters. I tied a couple to each of the things on the table. In the dim tallow-light you couldn’t see the hair. Master Wilfrid was in the loft. When he heard the orders he pulled the ends of the hair and made them lift.’

  Brecc looked disappointed. ‘It isn’t magic when you see how it’s done,’ he said.

  ‘No, and we mustn’t ever tell the people how we managed it.’

  Brecc’s freckled face screwed up tight. ‘Oh, I never would, Miss Ardith. I never would.’

  And he never did.

  *

  Winter came and the dank air from the Ouse was too harsh for the old body of Wilfrid. He died soon after Christmas.

  The old crone Elli took him – the old age that even the strongest cannot defeat.

  The priest made sure he had a fine burial in the church and spoke of the wonderful man we had all lost. Then he said that, while Wilfrid was gone, Wilfrid’s wisdom had not been lost. He said the folk of York should rejoice – the cunning man was dead, but the cunning woman called Ardith would take his place.

  And so I did. He had saved me from the flames when I was a child. I had saved him and his books
from the flames and repaid him. Wilfrid left me his books and I studied them well.

  But the work of visiting the sick, mixing the potions and growing or gathering the herbs was too much for one young woman to manage alone. I needed a helper who would learn the trade – an apprentice.

  It had to be someone I could trust with the greatest secret of all... the fact that some of the old cures worked, if you knew what you were doing, but that some were as real as the steam from a boiling pot. They were trickery, fraud, deceit and as magical as my left foot.

  Still, so long as we did no harm, it didn’t matter.

  Did I find my apprentice? I did. He was poor but honest, had a sharp wit and a good head for learning. Above all he was a good friend.

  His name was Brecc. Of course.

  We shared the house quite happily. It was snug and warm when the north winds blew. But you will never get me sitting too close to the fire.

  You’ve bought me a slice of the innkeeper’s best pork pie and I have told you my tale. Thank you for the mug of warming mulled wine. Warm wine doesn’t scare me the way those hot logs do.

  Maybe now you understand why?

  Epilogue

  Many Saxon towns had their own cunning man or woman. They studied the books of cures and potions – books like ‘The Leechbook’ by Bald. We can still read it today.

  There were magical words the cunning folk said as they used the cures, but they made no difference. It was what was in the bottles and jars and pots and bowls that mattered.

  It was a dangerous life for the cunning healers. They were loved when they helped the sick. But when things went wrong a town could turn against them and punish them cruelly.

  No one could really make a cloak of invisibility like the dwarf Alberich. It made a good story of the sort that Saxons loved on a long winter’s night in front of the fire when ghosts and magic seemed to hide in every corner.

  Some of the herb medicines really worked and they still do to this day. Many ‘cures’ had no real effect but they helped people who believed they would get better. No one could cure the dreadful plagues which struck cities like York in Saxon times.

  We are lucky we live today when so many diseases can be cured and we all live twice as long as the Saxon folk.

  Still no one can defeat Elli, old age. Maybe one day...

  YOU TRY...

  1. The play writer William Shakespeare put witches into his play ‘Macbeth’. They stirred some disgusting things into a pot to make a spell. The spell let them see into the future. The spell went like this:

  Double, double toil and trouble;

  Fire burn and caldron bubble.

  Fillet of a fenny snake,

  In the cauldron boil and bake;

  Eye of newt and toe of frog,

  Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

  Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,

  Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,

  For a charm of powerful trouble,

  Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

  Double, double toil and trouble;

  Fire burn and caldron bubble.

  Cool it with a baboon’s blood,

  Then the charm is firm and good.

  What magic would you like to do? Make your own spell from disgusting things you might find in a dustbin. For example, if you want your spell to let you win the race in school sports day, then the spell might be ...

  ‘Mouldy custard from school dinners,

  Make my weak legs into winners’

  2. Imagine you met a wizard in your local park. He says he will grant you three wishes. What would you wish for?

  3. Witches in stories are usually old women. This is very unfair to old people and to women. Anyone with magical powers could be a witch. Can you draw or paint a picture of a witch who is not an old woman? It may not even be a human. You can use all the usual signs of a witch... a pot for mixing spells, a pointy hat, a black cat and, of course, a broomstick.

  Terry Deary’s Saxon Tales

  If you liked this book why not look out for the rest of Terry Deary’s Saxon Tales?

  Terry Deary’s Shakespeare Tales

  Meet Shakespeare and his theatre company in Terry Deary’s Shakespeare Tales.

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  This electronic edition published in 2017

  Copyright © Terry Deary, 2017

  Illustrations copyright © Tambe, 2017

  Terry Deary and Tambe have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author and Illustrator of this work.

  Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

  This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  ISBN

  PB: 978 1 4729 2936 5

  ePub: 978 1 4729 2937 2

  ePDF: 978 1 4729 2938 9

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