I

The clear August sky over Oxford was darkening rapidly as Maude Mansfield exited Christ Church College. Although she was not a timid girl, the first thunder-clap of the storm made her jump as she emerged from the college on to the crowded city street.

To her left the South Gate was busier than usual. People outside the city walls had seen the storm approaching across the fields and were moving fast to take refuge. Carts, animals and humans pushed and jostled to get through the gate.

Maude had not realised there was a storm coming. The day had been hot and humid, as had every day for weeks now. Some of the older people said 1583 was the hottest summer since a Queen sat on the throne. It was an intense heat that turned the milk and made the meat go bad. The townspeople sweated, and the city stank of excrement and decomposing rubbish.

By the time Maude reached Brewer Street the first fat drops of rain began to fall. She pulled her cloak further over her head and around her body, cursing her elder sister under her breath.

“Jane has another colic! God’s teeth! I am glad not to be such a fragile damsel of a female as she! Huh! And yet I have to play the damsel’s servant girl.” She hurried on her way towards the house of Susan O’Flaherty, the woman who sold healing potions.

The rain gave up all reserve and fell now in thundering sheets. The damp smell of fermentation from the beer brewery filled Maude’s nostrils as she ran towards the corner.

Although not a ‘fragile damsel’ like her sister, Maude cried out in shock as even louder lightning ripped across the sky, and she bumped straight in to a similarly-hooded figure rushing the other way. They both cried out in surprise.

“My apologies!” shouted Maude, over the noise of the storm.

“No mine, indeed, ma’am!”

“Susan?” Maude said, seeing it was the potion-seller herself.

“Mistress Mansfield? ‘Tis you! Why in God’s name are you out in this storm?”

“I am going to your house, Susan, for a potion for Jane!” Maude said, pulling Susan O’Flaherty out of the rain to shelter under an ornate doorway. “And surely I could ask you the same question? Why are you out in this?”

“Oh Mistress Mansfield, I cannot stop! A lady staying at the Flying Horse Tavern has called for me – she’s terrible sick and needs my help, the messenger said. But… oh Lord, Mistress Mansfield! I was instructed to tell no one and here I am telling you!” Susan put her hand to her mouth, “You must forget – I never said nothing, d’you see? Why she wants me, I don’t know. It’s not the likes of me that gets called to smart taverns like the Flying Horse, but an apothecary.”

“But you are the best potion-maker in the whole of Oxford, Susan!” Maude protested, “That’s why I was on my way to see you – to get an infusion for Jane. It’s her colic – again! I will walk with you and take your advice, if I may.”

The two women hurried back along Brewer Street towards the centre of the city, bent against the driving rain.

“Tell her to drink an infusion of the chamomile I gave you for now,” Susan O’Flaherty said as they walked, “If you come to my house tomorrow morning I’ll give you some other herbs that will help. And remember – place warm stones on the muscles. Now if you will excuse me, Mistress, the man was most insistent I hurry. God bless you and keep you dry, Mistress.”

“God bless you too, Susan! ‘Til tomorrow then, in the morning.”

 II

“What do you mean ‘she’s gone,’ Patrick?” asked Maude, looking down at Susan O’Flaherty’s little boy the next morning. “She told me especially to come at this time.”

“She said she might be gone an hour or two, Mistress Mansfield,” said the young boy, frowning against the bright morning sun, “but she has been out all night and not sent word to us.”

“But that’s not like her, Patrick. Not a word, nothing?”

“Nothing, Mistress,” the boy confirmed unhappily, “I went to the Flying Horse Inn to ask after her and they sent me away most nastily. They called mother a sorceress and said they wouldn’t allow the likes of her past the door. And they hit me, Mistress, hit me so hard my ear is still smarting from the blow.”

“The monsters!” said Maude, rubbing the poor boy’s ear. “I know she was there. She was specially asked for – she told me.”

“It’s true, Mistress, we all heard the man ask for her – urgent like – didn’t we?”

The other two, even smaller children nodded vigorously at Maude, their neat, little brows furrowed with concern.

“’Flying Horse Inn’ he said, clear as day. And then the storm, and she ain’t come back…”

Tears welled up in the eyes of the brave little boy, fists clenched at his sides as he struggled to keep control of his fears.

Maude hugged him to her and the other two instantly fell upon her skirts too. She glanced desperately around the room as the three children cried, hoping to see some explanation. But there was nothing to help her except silent bottles of herbs and potions.

III

Out on the street Maude lifted her face to the sun. The storm had cleared the air. She headed uphill, away from the marshy streets and re-entered the city through the breach in the city walls between the west and little gates. She walked east along Great Bailey, towards the great carre-forks at St Martin’s Church.

Deep in thought about Susan and wondering why she had not come home, Maude jumped as she heard,

“Penny for your thoughts, pretty lady!” close to her ear.

She looked up in to the face of a smiling, handsome young man in a smart green doublet.

“Oh Harry!” she smiled to see her favourite Oxford scholar at her side. “I was miles away – I didn’t see you.”

“I could see that,” said Harry Hopetoun, turning to walk along Great Bailey with her. “So – what about those thoughts? I meant what I said, Mistress Mansfield, I’d give a penny to know what you were thinking. You looked as if you were wrestling with an interesting problem?”

Maude pursed her lips and frowned a little. Harry’s expression softened at this familiar expression of hers, for he was as fond of Maude Mansfield as she was fond of him, although he was better at hiding it.

“A strange business, Sir Harry. Worth more than a mere penny, I think. Maybe nothing to worry about. You remember the woman Susan O’Flaherty?”

“The potion-making woman?”

“Yes, the one who helped us clear John de Courcy’s good name last Yuletide, when he was so falsely accused*?”

Maude recounted her meeting of the night before and Susan’s strange disappearance.

“Maybe it was another tavern,” Harry suggested. “Maybe she has gone straight to another sick person.”

“That’s a lot of maybes, Sir Harry.”

“Supposition, Mistress, is an integral part of the legal process.”

“And like so many things, Sir Harry, you take it too far. So you will not help me?”

Harry looked at Maude’s expression and realised she was genuinely worried.

“Of course I will help you. I will always help you.” He bowed before her. “Permit me to make some enquiries about town and we will no doubt discover what has happened to Susan O’Flaherty. But please... can’t we go back to calling each other ‘Harry’ and ‘Maude’, like we used to?”

Maude cuffed Harry gently on the arm.

“No, Sir Harry. I have told you. Father has been most stern with me – now we are older, we must address each other properly. Otherwise people might think that we have an improper friendship.”

Harry tried to compose his face and suppress a smile as he accompanied the pretty girl on through the crowds.

* See The Fortunes of John de Courcy by Philippa Boston in the Paper Planes collection.

I

“Susan O’Flaherty is locked in Bocardo, Maude,” Harry informed her the next morning, he and his friend John de Courcy having made enquiries about town.

“Bocardo?” Maude frowned, “But why? No one is locked in Bocardo anymore unless they must be quarantined?”

“She is accused of witchcraft, so they say,” he explained. “And is confined in Bocardo away from other souls so she cannot use her satanic powers on them. They say only the presence of a Bishop can guarantee people will be safe from her.”

“But who accuses her?” Maude asked in horror.

“The Reverend Stoneworthy, who preaches out of St Clement’s Church.”

“That black-feathered, humourless fellow that shouts about sin in the Corn Market?”

“The same,” Harry confirmed. “He is her main accuser, and he has witnesses, of course, townspeople suspicious of poor Susan.”

“I knew it! Didn’t I say, Harry?”

“You did.”

“And I was right!”

“You were.”

Maude was so fired up with excitement and indignation that she was unaware of the effect she was having on the young man. Striding to and fro in her well-cut morning gown, her undressed, chaotic curls tumbling down her back and the flush in her cheek made Harry quite forget why he was there.

“We must talk to her, Harry.”

“To who?”

“To Susan, you goose. Who did you think: Queen Bess?”

“We cannot. She is locked up all alone and none may go near her. They say her witchery has made her mad and ill with a sweating sickness – she rants about the plague.”

“What tosh! She has caught a cold in the storm, that is all, as any woman would who gives all her food to her children and then gets soaking wet. I’d bet my life on it. I will find a way to see her, Harry.”

“But what if it is the pestilence?”

“You may stay with the guard creating a distraction. I will see the situation with Susan.”

“And did you talk to the people at the Flying Horse Tavern?”

“Of course – I have not told you! The tavern keeper is willing to swear on the great Bible that there was no one sick in the tavern that night.”

“He said that?”

“To me, yesterday. Nobody with any sickness at the tavern since last Spring’s ague. No knowledge of Susan being there either. I could not speak long with him as he was travelling on his cart and was in a hurry. But he said he would swear on the great bible.”

“Which is worth nothing if he is a closet papist,” added Harry cynically.

“He did not seem the type.”

“What is he like, this tavern keeper?”

“He is a charming man, most polite. He was very apologetic that he did not have the time to speak to me, and invited me, with such a very friendly smile, to return to take a mug of something and talk more if I wished. And he is an Associate of the Mayor too – at such a young age…”

Harry noticed that Maude was blushing slightly and fixed her with a hard stare.

“What do you mean ‘young age’?”

“Well he can’t be more than thirty years of age…”

“That old?”

“It’s not that old.”

The door opened and Jane Mansfield entered, halted when she saw Harry in the room and instinctively raised a hand to check her hair. She smiled up at him through her eyelashes.

“Why, Sir Harry, you are come so early to visit?” She smiled her most winning smile at the handsome legal scholar.

“Good morning, Miss Mansfield,” said Harry with a bow. “Yes, I am come to inform your sister of the location of the apothecary…”

“You have found her finally? There, Maude – didn’t I tell you she would come back?” Jane smiled triumphantly at her sister.

“Not exactly, Miss Mansfield. My friend John de Courcy made enquiries on her behalf and discovered she is held in Bocardo.”

“Mr de Courcy?” gasped Jane, indifferent to the news that Mrs O’Flaherty was in gaol. “Why would such an important man as Mr de Courcy be making enquiries about that woman?”

“Because she helped prove his innocence when we all believed him innocent and the rest of the world did not? Do you remember, sister? And ‘that woman’, as you call her, testified on his behalf, even at great personal risk to herself and her children?”

Jane blushed at the memory of her own lack of belief in John de Courcy’s innocence and her willingness to listen to the venomous lies of his enemies.

“Of course, I remember. It is kind of him to give his time to the woman, even so.”

“I suppose my friend John feels that he must repay the favour. He is that sort of a man, Miss Mansfield: full of integrity.”

Jane frowned slightly, unsure whether Harry too was making fun of her or not.

II

Maude, swathed in her dark cloak, too hot for the end of summer, but necessary to preserve her identity, emerged from the door that led from the back of the Master’s lodgings on to the lane at the south side of Christ Church College.

She made her way up South Street and battled with the carts and people fighting their way through the carre-forks, and on down the Corn Market towards the North Gate.

She spotted Harry and John waiting as planned, by the New Inn. As she approached Harry was telling John about their teasing of Jane.

“Poor Jane!” said Maude. “She looked as though she had swallowed an artichoke! We must stop persecuting her on Mr de Courcy’s behalf, Sir Harry.”

“Indeed you must!” said John, a little too vehemently. Maude and Harry turned curious expressions on him.

“Must we, Mr de Courcy? And why might that be? I thought that now you were courted by so many smart maids of Oxford, you no longer thought of my sister?”

“Indeed, Miss Mansfield, I am not courted, indeed I am not, by anyone – who are these maids you speak of? And your sister – well, of course I think – I mean… why, I don’t know what – I am surprised that – well, I don’t believe in making fun of people…”

Maude and Harry laughed at John’s stammering embarrassment. Harry clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Now don’t you worry, Johnny, we are only making fun of you too. You think about whatever or whomever you want to think about. Now – to the job in hand.”

“Are you decided on your part, Mr de Courcy?” asked Maude.

John nodded and gestured to a man along the street from them, waiting with a basket of bread.

“I will be ready to distract the gaoler when the time comes, Mistress Maude,” he said.

“Good luck! I’ll be as quick as I can. Sir Harry – lead on to hell on earth!”

III

The guard snorted, waking from his sleep and lifting his head as Harry approached him.

“Eh? What? Who?” he grunted, shuffling to his feet and rubbing his red, bulbous nose.

“A cooler morning since the rains, guard, wouldn’t you say?” Harry said, moving past the guard to look out the window at the street below.

“I would, sir, but tell me your business here.” The guard squinted at Harry, then at the window.

“I hear you have a certain goodwife here, guard, Susan O’Flaherty?”

“The witch? Aye, she’s here. But no ‘good’ goes with her and none may speak to her or go near her.”

“No witch also, I believe,” Harry said. “Simply a wise woman with a gift for healing. I’m sure you have heard this of her?”

The guard looked to left and right even though the room was empty and leant in towards Harry. Harry felt his stomach turn at the odour coming from the man’s rotting mouth.

“Why I have, sir,” the guard whispered. “She came to my own wife, Sarah, when she had a sore on her leg that had plagued her for months, sir, all filled with puss and ….”

Harry held up his hand to stop the man right there.

“As I said, she is no witch. But how is it then you hold her here?”

“Not I, sir, I am simply the guard. It is them. She is accused of witchery, plain as day, by the Reverend Stoneworthy, as speaks out of St Clement’s Church. He says she has cast spells on his horses and fouled his dairy, and has witnesses to say other acts of witchery too.”

“His horses, you say?”

There was a noise in the street outside.

“What goes in the street below, guard? Do you hear?”

The guard moved eagerly towards the window to look down upon the North Gate, always a lively spot. Below, a young gentleman scholar – none other than John de Courcy – had collided with a baker carrying a tray. Bread was rolling in the street and an entertaining scene held the attention of all around.

As the two men watched from the window, a dark-cloaked figure moved swiftly across the room behind them toward the cells.

IV

Maude stood with a handkerchief over her nose to help with the stink that came from the cells.

“Susan!”

“Eh?”

“Ssh! Susan! It is I, Maude Mansfield! Can you speak with me?”

A face appeared a way back from the iron grille in the door of the cell to Maude’s right.

“Oh my lady! ‘Tis you. Do not come near me. I fear I am diseased, Mistress.”

“With the plague, you mean? But why would you have the plague?”

“I cannot say, Mistress! I cannot! But I fear it is true. I fear so many things. They threatened me so. There is a sweating upon me. A fever.”

“A fever is not the plague. You know that.” Maude’s eyes were becoming accustomed to the half light of the passage. “Oh my Lord! Your face, Susan! What have they done to you?”

The poor, dishevelled figure on the other side of the grille touched her fingers to her face and winced in pain as she did so.

“Tell me, Susan, all that happened. Why are you here? Some say witchery – is it true that you are accused?”

“Aye Mistress, it is true that I am accused, but it is not the truth, Lady, you know…”

“Ssh, of course I know. And I am here to help you. But you must tell me…”

“But no one is allowed near me – how are you come?”

“No time for that. Enough that I am here. What happened after we met in the storm?”

“I cannot say, Mistress. They have said they will kill my children if I do. I dare not. I cannot. They say they’ll burn my babies in their beds…” Susan stopped talking and disappeared from view.

“Ssh, Susan. Do not upset yourself. Your children will not be harmed if we can help it. But you must tell me what happened. Did you reach the Flying Horse after we parted?”

“I did, Mistress, although I now wish I had not.”

“They deny you were ever there.”

“Oh I was there.”

“And the sick person?”

“The poor lady with the Virgin’s mark.”

“The what?”

“Where the Virgin Mary strokes a person’s head, their hair turns white – a streak of white in the darkest hair. I am afraid I am diseased by her.”

“How is she?”

“I have already said too much. I have put my children in danger.”

“But you must let us help you.”

“They say I may not be helped – by no-one, Mistress Mansfield. That’s what they said. And they will find me guilty and hang me for a witch. But at least my soul will be pure in the eyes of God and my three young ones will be safe, God willing.”

“Hell’s teeth Susan! No! You cannot say that. You are not a witch. You are a good woman. I will not let these mad ministers spread such lies. Answer one thing – did you treat the woman you speak of at the Flying Horse?”

“I did. Although, Lord help me, there was little I could do for her by then. I was seized on my way home before dawn. I say no more. Stay away from me. I am not clean. I would rather die than see harm come to my children. They are so very small…”

Maude could hear the muffled sobbing through the grille.

“Here, Susan, I must go before I am discovered, take these – your own potions, they will help, and this food. Quick, before I am found out and we both suffer. Come – take it.”

As Susan appeared again at the grille, Maude looked anxiously for signs of disease but there were none amongst the bruises on her face and arms.

“When you are gone from here, boil sage in strong wine, Mistress. Drink it and gargle it in your throat. It will help keep you safe. God bless you Mistress.”

“And you, dear Susan.”

Maude moved nimbly back down the dark corridor and ran silently behind the guard and Harry, who had his arm around the man’s shoulder as they roared with laughter at something in the street below.

V

The Reverend Stoneworthy, dressed all in black, his long hair clinging to the sharp angles of his head, stood in the pulpit high above the small congregation in the church. He pushed down on his large, fat hands, shoulders hunched and glared at the anxious flock below him, like a wolf deciding which one he would eat first.

“Which of you miserable sinners will feel the flesh-burning agony of damnation?” he began. “Which of you has a conscience clear of the sins of mankind?”

Maude and Harry, in a back pew, exchanged glances of surprise.

But this was only a gentle beginning. Reverend Stoneworthy’s rantings rose from this low to became stronger and louder and more graphic, until the rasping voice of the preacher and the graphically painted visions of the agonies of hell, made the congregation scared even to twitch or scratch.

“And at this time, the end of the wicked summer when wantons sully our streets with their uncovered flesh, we must be vigilant to the ways of Lucifer himself! When our own town has been touched by sorcery!”

Some of the congregation gasped as the word hit them like a whip. They glanced anxiously this way and that as if one of their number were about to be exposed as the witch.

“The devil is walking amongst us, but we have discovered him and will strike him down, by the grace of God…” Reverend Stoneworthy crossed himself and the congregation enthusiastically followed suit. “We will uncover each and every agent of the devil and they shall feel the heat of the Lord’s anger upon their skin.”

Reverend Stoneworthy was staring out from the pulpit, his eyes filled with a palpable excitement at the thought of torturing these supposed sinners. Maude felt some of her natural courage escape her in the face of this man, his face livid, his eyes wide, licking his dry lips at the thought of torturing and killing a good woman like Susan O’Flaherty who had never done any harm.

After the sermon, Maude said she would wait at a distance while Harry talked to the Reverend Stoneworthy. She stood near a big oak tree and watched the two men. Harry was his usual calm self, but the Reverend gesticulated wildly as they talked. Eventually, Harry took his leave.

“The man’s as mad as a hatter, or putting on a very good show of it,” he informed her. “He says Susan made his horses lame, she turned the milk sour, the butter to curdle…”

“But how did she have access to his horses or his dairy?”

“Apparently she did it all from a distance as she had a grudge against the Reverend’s wife, Agnes.”

“That man is married? Poor Agnes!”

“He says Agnes took some potions from Susan and they were no good, so Agnes told Susan so. He says Agnes is not the only one – apparently he has several witnesses who will speak against Susan O’Flaherty.”

“All stupid townswomen, I’ll warrant, who mistrust anyone that isn’t born within the city walls. Idiots! Dangerous, misguided idiots! How can they play with a good woman’s life like this?”

“These are strange times, Mistress Maude. How can the simple people tell what is right and what is wrong? In the past fifty years our rulers have told us that black is white and white is black. It is difficult even for us with our books and our education to know what is true anymore. That is where this rash of witch hunting has sprung from. When truth is no longer set in learning and tradition, truth belongs to those who shout loudest, and they are often not the ones who should be listened to.”

“I wish all the world were as wise as you, Harry – Sir Harry.”

– And I wish all women were as remarkable as you, thought Harry, fighting the urge to take hold of Maude’s gloved hand in his own as they walked back in to the town.

VI

Maude’s father was standing in front of the fireplace, his hands behind his back, waiting for her. His normally twinkling blue eyes were almost hidden by his frown. She knew she was in trouble.

“Come in. Shut the door. Sit down.”

Maude did as she was told.

“Jane tells me you have been out alone again, this very day, quite openly with Sir Harry Hopetoun and no chaperone.”

“We went to church sir, and I was fully veiled – Jane said that...”

“No matter where, how and what Jane said, Mistress Maude! I see that in spite of my commands, you have carried on as if you were still twelve years old. When will you listen, tell me? You are now sixteen, Maude. You are old enough to marry and certainly old enough for people to talk and ruin your reputation and your chances of making a good marriage.”

“But it is only Harry, sir – “

“Sir Harry, Maude! For pity’s sake, girl! Do you not hear what I say? Do you not understand plain English any more? Your friendship with Sir Harry is no longer seemly.”

“But one cannot discard a friendship, sir, as if it were last year’s style of ruff. It is not fashion, sir, it is friendship.”

This made Sir Michael Mansfield draw breath, but only for a moment.

“There is an age, Maude, at which such friendships either become a path to a marriage contract or are not suitable. No more, no less. You are of that age. So tell me – which way does your friendship with Harry fall?”

Maude was furious to feel herself blushing under the stern, but affectionate eye of her father as he scrutinised her. No one knew her as well as he. No one supported her as he had always done.

Because of the death of her mother, Mansfield had allowed Maude liberties of education and experience unknown to girls of her position. She did not wish to make him regret it.

“I see from the rosy glow of your cheek, Maude, that friendship is not all that you see in Sir Harry Hopetoun.”

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Philippa Boston