Read The Witch Hunter's Tale for Free Online

in his tower. The Warden saw to it that most women sent to the Castle found themselves in Samuel’s care. He thought that because Samuel was a dwarf, he was less likely to take advantage of the women in his charge. I do not know if he was right, but I had never heard anything to the contrary. Unfortunately, Hester Jackson was too poor and her crime too heinous to receive such courtesy, so she would be in one of the lower dungeons. If the jailors abused her, what of it? She had rebelled against God and deserved her fate.
    “Welcome, Lady Bridget,” Samuel said as we joined him around his rough-hewn table. Samuel and Tree lived in two rooms in the tower, with the luckier (and wealthier) prisoners above, and the poor or unlucky in cells belowground. “I heard you would be coming to us. The other jailors wonder how you will top the commotion that accompanied your last visit.”
    “I imagine so,” I replied with a tight smile. The commotion, as he called it, had ended in four deaths.
    Samuel must have recognized that he’d stepped out of line, for he moved on as quickly as he could. “What business brings you to the Castle?”
    “I wondered what you might know of Hester Jackson.”
    “Yes, yes, the witch,” Samuel replied. “Not very much, I’m afraid. The Warden put her in the Castle’s lowest dungeon. Her keeper’s surprised she hasn’t died of gaol-fever. Nobody down there lasts for long. She was lucky to live to see her trial.”
    “Lucky?” asked Martha. “She’ll be hanged tomorrow!”
    “Better a quick death at the end of a rope than a slow one by the fever,” Samuel replied flatly. “Believe me, I know whereof I speak.”
    “Do you hear anything of her interrogation?” I asked.
    “Ah, that’s why you’re here. Anything that brings Joseph Hodgson and Rebecca Hooke together must give you fits of the night-mare.”
    “It is not the friendship I most hoped for,” I admitted. “And I must know what they are planning. Have you heard anything?”
    “Nothing of interest to you, I don’t think,” Samuel replied. “Mr. Hodgson and some of the other Justices questioned her, and she confessed. When Mrs. Hooke found the teat, there was little left to do except wait for the judge and the hangman.” He must have read the disappointment on my face. “If I hear that anything untoward happened, I’ll pass it along,” he added.
    “No,” I replied, “I did not think they would be bold enough to announce their scheme so plainly, but one can hope. Where are they keeping her?”
    “She’s in the tower nearest the Ouse,” he replied. “I will take you there.” The three of us crossed the Castle yard to the tower where Hester Jackson was being held.
    While few of the Castle’s jailors could match Samuel in the strangeness of their appearance, Hester’s was quite a sight all the same. He could have been anywhere between forty and seventy years of age, and his wizened face had been slashed in two by a scar that ran through what used to be his left eye.
    “Good morning, my lady,” he said with an exaggerated bow. “I have been awaiting your arrival with the same anticipation I await the return of Jesus Christ himself.” I did not know whether all jailors spoke so impudently to their betters, but he already lived in a gaol overseeing the worst prisoners in the Castle. What else could I do to him? “My name is Benjamin Hunter. Welcome to my tower.” A ghost of a smile flitted across Martha’s lips at Hunter’s performance.
    “Thank you,” I replied. “We are here to see Hester Jackson.”
    “Yes, yes,” he replied. “The Warden said you would come today. Not a moment too soon, either, for on the morrow her only visitor will be the hangman, and after that she’ll be of no use at all, except for the anatomists.” He stared at me for a moment, but he made no move to unlock the door that led to the cells. I glanced at Martha, utterly confused as to the jailor’s game.
    “You can imagine the