Previous - The Publican’s Tale (Gilbert Blexham) (July 10-11, 1643)
July 12, 1643 (Sunday) Marion Blexham’s Perspective
It was mid-morning and I was sweeping the main room floor. Last night was a tale and a half. I was grateful that Gil was home safe. My parents had been one of those families that told stories to frighten children about the Demon of the Standing Stones. To hear that it was real, but didn’t want sacrifices (or anything else for that matter) was somehow reassuring but still unnerving and I had held Gil most of the night.
Mathilda Potter, the petty school teacher and now apparently the nurse for the Vicar, pushed the door open and looked in.
“How is the Vicar?” I ventured.
Mathilda sighed. “Tired. He’s angry at everything and everyone. Do you have anything I can bring him to eat?”
“There’s some stew left over from last night. It’s more vegetables than meat at this point.”
“Thank you.”
“What is he going to do now?”
“I don’t know. He’s furious that there were witnesses that saw him just dismissed by the demon.”
“I get the feeling it’s not a demon.”
“How can it not be? Aren’t all spirits on earth fallen angels?”
“My husband said that it didn’t promise anything and didn’t want anything other than to be left alone as a good neighbor. I would have expected a fallen angel to be making promises and temptations. And I would have expected a fallen angel to have to bow down before the holy relic.”
“That’s what I don’t understand. But my father and the Vicar says there is only good and evil and all spirits are evil.”
Her father was a curate in Kendal, some distance away.
“Not everything our parents told us is true either.”
“Yes.”
“Is he going to insist on a church service today?”
“I don’t think he is going to be willing to face the village today. And probably shouldn’t be out of bed.”
Mathilda sat down suddenly at a table and put her face in her hands. After a minute she looked up at me and said.
“Would you dare to go to the Stones with me?”
My heart lept into my throat. It was like we were twelve again playing dare and each was more dangerous than the last. Did I dare? Gil had gone yesterday, leaving me and our daughter with the inn. We had both been scared, but it seemed like he had not been in danger.
“Today?”
“No, we wouldn’t be back before nightfall. We’d break our silly necks on the path. But tomorrow?”
“Let me talk to Gilbert.”
She nodded, and I handed her a bowl of stew for the Vicar. I didn’t bother asking for payment. I knew from past experience the Vicar wouldn’t pay. Mathilda didn’t have any money, but there would be a basket of vegetables for the tavern from her garden in the next week.
Mathilda smiled. “Thank you. I’ll come by in the evening. I think it’s time to meet the ‘neighbor’.” And she left.
How Gil had described what happened and what we expected was so different. Cait Rede came in with a dozen loaves of fresh bread that she and Brice had just made.
“I saw Mathilda leaving. How is the Vicar?”
“The Vicar is the same as always. Petty, spiteful, angry at the world and everyone else. And exhausted and has blisters, so I don’t expect a church service today.”
“Here’s your bread. Brice told me what Gilbert said last night.”
“Yes. Not at all like the stories my parents told. I would have been less surprised if there was nothing there. Instead, there is something there, but it’s not evil.”
Cait laughed. “My parents didn’t tell ‘Demon of the Standing Stones’ stories. They just said something is up there and if we are kind, we have nothing to worry about.”
“They didn’t say ”If you are ’good’ you have nothing to worry about?"
“No, they said ‘kind’.”
“And if you’re good, but not kind?”
“Then don’t go to the stones.”
“Huh. The Vicar survived.”
“Did he? The thing has made a fool of him twice. Maybe it thinks that is enough.”
“Mathilda thinks that since it described itself as a neighbor, we should ‘meet the neighbor’.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
It seemed like one more person wanted to meet the neighbor.
Two Hours Later
A couple of hours later, I decided to broach the subject with Gil.
“Since you met the whatever it is on the hillside yesterday and it seems safe, a couple of us are thinking about going and seeing it for ourselves tomorrow.”
“There’s nothing to see.”
“I know. But since it described itself as a ‘neighbor’, we should have a better understanding of what we are living next to.”
“We’re not living next to it. It’s a three-hour march uphill. Don’t you think you should leave this to the men of the village?”
“Did you talk to it? Or just overhear what it said to the Vicar.”
“I didn’t actually talk to it.”
“So who is going to talk to it? Are you going back?”
“No, of course not.”
“So you men won’t talk to it, even though it wants to be a neighbor.”
“Well…”
“Mary’s Mercy! If you want something done around here, you need to leave it to the women.”
“I just don’t think it’s safe.”
“You don’t think what’s safe? Talking to an invisible voice that can’t do anything?”
“I need you here at the tavern.”
“You left me alone here with Jenefer yesterday.”
“That was because I had to go with the Vicar.”
“You could have refused!”
“You can’t refuse the Vicar!”
“The thing up there did!”
“What happens if you get lost?”
“Gil. Are you scared for me or yourself?”
“I’m scared for you that the Vicar will find out and accuse you of witchcraft. You’ve heard the stories from travelers about the witch-hunts going on in Northumbria.”
“Northumbria’s a long way away, but you’re right. He accused poor Sussana Beckworth last year on the stupidest of accusations by Laetitia Forgell. Do you think he will return to Carlisle?”
“No. He told the Bishop he was returning to the village of his birth, and this isn’t it. I don’t know what he is going to do.”
“I’ll talk to Mathilda and Cait and get Mathilda to back off. Cait doesn’t think it is dangerous, but she wasn’t thinking about the Vicar. Mathilda knows the Vicar better than the rest of us.”
Mathilda had said she would come by the tavern this evening, so I decided to chop more vegetables and chunks of lamb for the stew and moved the pot closer to the fire.
“Marion.”
“Good Evening.”
“Well?”
I looked around at the dozen or so people in the room and decided to move the conversation to the store room.
“You know the Vicar better than anyone. If he finds out we’ve gone to the Stones, he’ll denounce us to the witch finders.”
She sighed. “True. He’s already playing a dangerous game with the Bishop. I don’t know how he is going to get the holy relic back to the Cathedral. He already has a fever. I noticed it when he arrived two days ago, and yesterday’s exertions only made it worse.”
“He didn’t demand we all show up for church services today.”
“That’s because he didn’t get out of bed.”
“We haven’t done anything yet. Cait seems interested as well. Maybe we wait a couple of weeks and see what the Vicar is going to do.”
“Alright. But at some point, I’m going up that hill.”
July 14, 1643
I saw Cait in the morning.
I told her “Gilbert is afraid we might get lost. What do you think of your brother Hume or Ruderfurd accompanying us?”
“You mean going to the Stones? It’s not a bad idea if they can. But we have to ask when.”
“Gilbert and Mathilda are both concerned about the Vicar denouncing us to witch hunters if we do it and he finds out.”
“Hmm. I suppose you are right. You will have heard more news at the tavern than I would, and Mathilda knows the Vicar. So we aren’t going?”
“Mathilda says the Vicar is really sick. Sicker than he was when he arrived. Fever and chills.”
“Contagious?”
“No. Mathilda said he admitted to gangrene before they cut off his leg. So it might be from that. And his traipsing all over the hills three days ago didn’t help.”
“So we wait and see?”
“Yes.”
July 22, 1643
The Vicar died today. Gil read his diary to the rest of the village. Everyone is talking about the entry that the Vicar had stolen the holy relic from the Cathedral and, since it had no effect on the whatever it is at the Standing Stones, the Vicar decided it was a fake. No one knows what we should do. We can’t keep a holy relic, but if it’s fake, then it isn’t a holy relic. Do we tell the Bishop or not?
Gil is suggesting we burn the diary, send a letter to the Bishop saying that the Vicar died here and asking what to do with his things without saying what is there. That way, if the Bishop wants them, we return everything untouched, and if the Bishop doesn’t want them, we hide what may or may not be a holy relic inside the church somewhere.
Luke Rawson, the blacksmith, and Brice Rede think we should hide the diary with the relic.
After lots of arguing at the inn, it was agreed to send the letter to the Bishop and hide the diary and the finger bone.
July 23, 1643
We buried the Vicar today.
I think the Beckworths came just to make sure he was dead. They are still angry that he accepted Laetitia Forgell’s false accusation that their daughter Sussana was a witch.
Gil led a few prayers, but everyone was there mostly because it was expected. The man was an ass while he was alive, and the whole finger bone/relic situation is making us all nervous.
Cait caught Mathilda and me after the burial and said she had talked to her brother Hume (Valcar). He would take us to the Standing Stones the day after tomorrow. Lucy, his wife, would also come so that there wouldn’t be any tongues wagging in the village. She hunts as well so she knows the hills, is a friend of Cait, and about as talkative as a stone. Just like her husband.
Next - Mathilda’s Diary of the events (July 23, 1643)