The Fiends in the Furrows Read online

  Croft went on. “I’ve no doubt Rosamond dabbled in such things. She was no woman of the church. No one ever called her goodwife by mistake.” At this, he chuckled. It was a dry, ugly laugh. “She was a heathen of the forest.”

  “I loathe Puritans,” Wolfric muttered. And it was no empty remark. He’d had run-ins with their kind, even in Saxony. He found them joyless hypocrites.

  Croft rubbed his face with the nub of his left wrist, a motion that probably appeared as unnatural and frightening as a scarecrow to children. He was such a thin wraith of a man. “Witchcraft is not the reason you’re here, as you know.” The comment had the ring of disappointment. “Rosamond murdered her child when it was but a newborn.” He stopped and turned. “That much you know. There’s more to it. She drowned the child in earth,” he said. The preacher paused, allowing the gravity of this to sink in.

  Hutter found the idea repulsive. It was, in his mind, the worst of the crimes he encountered. The perpetrator was worthy of a hard death. He thought of his own sons and wife. He couldn’t fathom the depth of such an act. He grimaced.

  “She stuffed dirt in the boy’s mouth until he choked. She clamped his mouth with the palm of her hand. Drowned in his own body.” Croft’s eyes widened. “Then she buried him in the woods. Thank God one of the local girls saw her. No one ever even knew Rosamond was pregnant. She showed no signs. Satan can manipulate what we see, though. Then again, she came and went. I believe the heathen begged on the forest road. Probably sold her flesh.”

  Rattled, Hutter asked, “She hasn’t confessed?”

  “The threat of Hell didn’t sway her,” Croft admitted. “We’re hoping your tools will. Of course, with a witness, a confession isn’t fully necessary. The drowning will go on tomorrow, regardless. But a confession would make things cleaner for the Earl, Lord Allingham. What with a young girl being the witness. Women lie, as you’re no doubt aware. Products of weak Eve. I’d like you to work her over today, see what you can extract.”

  “We’d like to see her,” Hutter said.

  “We’ll start now,” Wolfric added.

  Croft nodded.

  A rudely constructed shed, built from scrap, roofed with insect-ridden thatch, housed Rosamond. At the rear of the village, on an incline where the hill started upward again, the shed was largely removed from the daily bustle. The forest loomed over the structure, casting shadows. The surrounding weeds were thick with dew. Normally, the shed housed garden tools, but now it was a jail, and a young man with a cudgel stood guard at the entrance. The boy stepped aside as Croft approached. He looked away when Hutter greeted him.

  “It stinks of her,” Croft said. “Gird yourself.” He removed a cross bar and pulled open the door. The shed was dark on the inside, save for a few lances of sunlight that pierced gaps in the walls. The interior stank of earth and sweat and urine. When Croft called to the girl, his voice deepened with authority. Hutter wondered if the Puritan had commanded when he was a soldier. He had the natural air. “Rosamond Wise,” he said. “Stand, girl.”

  Hutter moved closer for a better look.

  Rosamond was a pitiful sight. She stood from the dirt on wobbly, malnourished legs. She was thin as ropes, and just as unsteady. She looked like a starved dog. Life had left her eyes, leaving an abyss in her clouded gaze. She wore a burlap sack for a dress and nothing more. Her feet were bare and blackened. Her hair, dark as ink, hung in knotted clumps, and dry mud braided the locks. Her mouth was a thin line, betraying no feeling. Her nose was wide and swollen and discolored where she’d been struck with a fist. The bruises spread into her eyes.

  “Looks like you already worked her over,” Wolfric said.

  She isn’t strong enough to torture, Hutter thought. But then he forced himself to remember her crime. Again, he pictured his children. If dispassionate, he could never do his job well. Anger was a must. He won Croft’s respect by taunting the girl. “Shall we have a talk?” he asked.

  Rosamond, as if her eyes were painted stones, looked ahead without seeing, emotionless. Though she was a young woman, her hands trembled like those of the elderly. She was ready to die.

  “It can’t be done in there,” Wolfric told Croft. “We need space.”

  “Of course,” Croft said. “We’ve prepared a spot for you in the woods.” Cruelly, he looked at Rosamond. “I’d hate for her screams to disturb the womenfolk.”

  “Doesn’t look like she speaks or screams,” Wolfric said.

  “She screams,” Croft remarked.

  Hatchet the roots, wither the tree.

  here Strattonwick met the forest, a thin trail began its labyrinthine route. The trail was wide enough for a single horse and rider, no more. Walk the trail far enough and you’ll end up in the stables of Lord Allingham, Croft had said, noticeably proud of his lord. The Puritan, bedecked in coat and wide-brimmed hat, led Hutter and Wolfric to a clearing a few hundred yards from the village. There was a scummy pond here, crowned with the refuse of frogs, and there was a pad of trimmed grass surrounded by ancient oak trees. Our little oasis, Croft had said. Idyllic. Then, as if a busy man, he left the executioners with Rosamond. The Puritan whistled as he went away on the trail, a tuneless hymn, but soon the cavernous forest ate up his melody. It was as if he were making a point.

  Rosamond, wrists and ankles bound with twine, backed awkwardly against one of the oaks and slid to the ground. She had yet to make a noise.

  “What do you make of Croft?” Hutter asked.

  Wolfric shook his head. “One of the truer bastards I’ve met. Too bad war didn’t take more than his hand.”

  Hutter laughed. “He’d say God spared him.”

  “Of course, he would. What would the world do without Israel Croft? How would this pile of shit function without his one steady hand and guidance? Reminds me of my time in the lowlands. Did I ever tell you—”

  “—He’s no soldier.” The voice was so alien and unexpected that both Hutter and Wolfric turned, startled.

  Rosamond stared forward, still and emotionless, and said no more. It came to Hutter then that the woman never blinked.

  “I’ll be damned,” Wolfric said. “I’ll get a fire ready.”

  Hutter walked to the woman’s side and knelt. He had the sick feeling that this woman was capable of lurching and biting him. There was something of the wild animal in her. Still, he remained at her side. “What do you know of Master Croft?” he asked. “What do you make of him? Could it be he chopped off his hand to see what was inside?” This was, he would admit, a highly unusual approach to a quarry one was prepared to put through the pain of torture, but the entire journey had been odd. Strattonwick was odd.

  Rosamond did not answer. Being so close to her was like stepping over a corpse. The only life in this woman was vegetable life. No spirit, he thought.

  Hutter, out of an unwieldy fear more than wisdom, let his next question die without expression. It was irrational and he chastised himself for the thought. He wanted to ask the woman about the mound he’d seen on the forest road, of the sticks moving in the shape of an infant. Why that had come to him, he could not say, but Rosamond inspired the same feelings the mound inspired. She drew him now. The gravity of Rosamond’s presence could wither a man’s bravado.

  Wolfric, eager, had already gone to work building a small fire. Diligently, he raked flint. Soon, smoke curled around his shoulders. When the fire could sustain itself, he retrieved the iron pincers from his satchel. While smiling at Rosamond, he placed the tongs in the flame, letting the utensil roast and turn orange.

  “That will happen only if you don’t speak,” Hutter said, in a tone he generally used on children. In a lower register, he went on. “Ol’ Wolf will raise your arms up and pin them. And then he’ll take the pincer and put it to your armpit. First the left. When it’s hot like that, skin comes off with the slightest pinch. The right arm is next. Is that worth your silence, girl? He’ll take a chunk of skin the size of a coin.”

  Rosamond, despite her effort, be
gan to breathe heavily. The thin line at her mouth trembled. Tears rimmed her eyes.

  Wolfric made a show of monitoring the pincers. He gripped the tool and held it aloft, as if testing its readiness. He seemed more ogre than human, and it was an act he enjoyed. Wolfric was capable of great cruelty when his inhibitions were lowered.

  Rosamond’s next words were almost a chant, spoken like a lyric. “You have the hatchet. Are you its sire?” Rosamond asked. She pointed to the woodsman’s tool at Hutter’s waist.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Sire of the Hatchet,” Rosamond said, her voice singsong.

  “You’re speaking nonsense.”

  Wolfric stood with the glowing pincers.

  “Wait,” Hutter said. Looking into Rosamond’s eyes, he felt the tang of copper at the back of his throat. The tears, when they moved over her bruises, began to change. He saw it happen. He couldn’t believe it, but he saw it. The tears turned into dark fleas and leapt from her skin. Instinctively, Hutter jumped back. “What are you?” he asked.

  “What’s wrong?” Wolfric moved forward with the tongs. “Did she bite you? Lift her arms, damn it.”

  Breathing heavily, Hutter said, “Wait, I told you. Put it in the fire, Wolf.”

  “You’ve lost your mind,” Wolfric said. “Or she’s hexed you,” he muttered.

  “What are you?” Hutter asked, inching forward again.

  “Hatchet the roots, wither the tree. Sire of the hatchet. Cutter of the cross.”

  “She’s playin’ a witch with you,” Wolfric said. When the pincers lost their glow, he placed the tool once again in the fire. “You’ve seen her kind before. A game of the mind,” he said. “No doubt that works with Master Croft, but not here, girl.”

  Hutter could no longer contain his question. “What of the mound?” he asked.

  “Codswallop,” Wolfric said.

  “What of it?” he asked Rosamond.

  Rosamond’s blank eyes stared forward. She had not blinked and she had not looked at Hutter. It was as if the eyes were blind. “The mother’s belly,” she said.

  “You knew of our journey here?”

  Rosamond said nothing.

  “The roots?”

  “The children.”

  “Wolf saw the roots following us.”

  “Indeed, he did. They’re worried about me. They’re with you more than you know. They were with you in the church.”

  At that, a great rustling of leaves arose from behind the oaks. The noise formed a circle around the clearing.

  Wolfric dropped the pincers. “Jesus God,” he said, staring into the shadows. His face went ashen.

  At the brink of losing his nerve, Hutter asked, “Did you kill your child?”

  “It was not my child,” Rosamond said.

  “Did you kill him?”

  “I did not.”

  “Did you bury him?”

  “Yes. And Croft killed him by digging him up. Croft knows,” she said. “Long ago he chopped his wrist to find out.”

  Unabated, the forest moved around them. Hutter chanced a look behind the oaks. He saw the hard line of a root move like an arm out of sight.

  “She confessed to burying it,” Wolfric said. “That’s enough.”

  Hutter agreed. He yanked the girl to a standing position. Then, without a word, shoved her towards the trail. Wolfric, unsatisfied with the pace, lifted Rosamond and carried her back to the village.

  She said nothing more. Her eyes were dry of tears.

  What disturbed you, Puritan?

  The site of execution was a large rock that formed a platform by the riverside. The locals, Croft said, called it the Raven Stone, naming it for the carrion that fed on criminals here. There were three sharp pikes stuck in the ground beside the rock, empty of heads, but a reminder to those inclined to malfeasance. “Peasants don’t come here,” Croft said. “They believe it’s haunted.” He laughed.

  “Who carved all these names?” asked Hutter. He pointed to the myriad etchings that lined the stones: names, mottos, phrases from the Bible, marks like runes.

  “Brave children,” Croft said. “Children dare each other to come down here at night. It’s a rite of passage in Strattonwick.”

  Hutter stepped onto the unnaturally flat stone. It was not a high perch, but it did give one a more commanding feel over the river. There was peace in the slow current. In the distance, Hutter spied men fishing from the shore, bulking up a feast that would accompany the execution. A breeze moved over the black water and pressed him, carrying the familiar tang of dead fish. From here one could see where the river curled around the forest at the opposite side. On his own side: the plain, the gardens, the hovels of Strattonwick looming above. Croft stood on the ground, peering up with a hint of animosity, accusatory about something. God knew. He blocked the sun with his knobbed forearm. Rosamond had drawn attention to this deformity.

  Hutter had left Wolfric behind, allowing the man to get drunk in the quiet of the church. He understood the desire.

  “Are you a family man?” Croft asked.

  Hutter wished the Puritan would go away. He’d come here to be alone, to think, to be calm after what he’d seen and heard in the forest. He still felt shaken. The image of Rosamond’s tears turning to fleas kept him ill. He paced on the stone, like an actor on a stage. “A wife and two sons,” he said, noncommittally. “You?” Puritans, he thought, usually have large families. He’d met Puritans with twenty children. It was sinful to be alone and not reproduce.

  Croft took a seat on the edge of the Raven Stone. He fiddled with one of the pikes, twisting it in the loose soil. “In another life,” he said. He stopped there, though, and Hutter didn’t care to push the matter.

  “I can’t imagine Strattonwick has much use for this stone,” Hutter said.

  “About once a generation,” Croft admitted. “These pikes are dry-rotted, just for show.” He was silent for a moment. The breeze picked up, bending the distant garden. The stench of the river invaded one’s senses. “What disturbed you out there?” he asked. “Was it just because you have children? Or did she say things?”

  Hutter kept pacing. He refused to look at Croft, to betray his thoughts. It occurred to him that the Puritan wanted to ask, What did she say about Israel Croft?

  “She admitted to burying the boy, as I told you.”

  “Did she show you things?”

  Guardedly, Hutter asked, “Like what?”

  It was clear that Croft was battling his thoughts. He stood and began to walk away, but stopped. “Witchcraft,” he said, his voice barely audible in the wind. There was something desperate in his tone, as if, in his life, he’d seen the princes of Hell.

  “She’s just a frightened girl,” Hutter said. “As well she should be.” He simply couldn’t bring himself to form words about what he’d seen. It was absurd. It couldn’t be spoken.

  Hutter’s reply was not an answer, but Croft didn’t push. “At dusk,” he said, “we’ll begin the feast. I want the deed done with now, not tomorrow. Are you willing?”

  Hutter nodded, relieved. He dreaded another night of waiting. They were with you in the church, Rosamond had taunted. “We’ll be ready,” Hutter said.

  Croft began a trek towards the gardens where young men toiled, leaving Hutter alone on the Raven Stone. The old man moved so oddly, so disjointed.

  She said you weren’t a soldier, Hutter thought, but then reminded himself that Croft never claimed to be. She was in my mind. Not yours. Hutter turned to the river. What disturbed you, Puritan? he thought.

  There was once a woodsman.

  Hutter opened the door of the church and stepped into the shade. A haze of heat hung in the air. The air was stagnant and smelled of sweat. “Wolf?” he called, scanning the pews. “The Puritan wants it done today.” And thank God for it, he thought. He moved up the aisle to the altar, where there stood a simple wooden cross, unpainted and austere with splinters. The cross was the only ornamentation in the entire buildi
ng. From the front of the room, he looked about for Wolfric, but there was no sign of the man. The church was silent, save for Hutter’s breathing. He walked again towards the sunlight of the open door, checking on the floor for an unconscious, drunken Wolfric. There was no sign he’d been here at all. Their satchels remained undisturbed in the Harlot Pews.

  Outside, Hutter saw a youth watching him. He waved the boy over, but the child, taught to be ashamed of speaking to such a man, ducked his head and turned away. Perturbed, Hutter followed. “Boy,” he said. “Just a question for you.”

  The child, no more than ten, with a moon face and unkempt red hair, halted. He kept his back turned.

  Hutter spoke to him without looking in his face. “Have you seen the man I travel with? The large man with a blond beard.”

  The boy nodded.

  A woman, stout and crusted with filth, hurried towards the boy. Without looking at Hutter, she took the child’s hand. “Don’t speak to him,” she said. “You’ll soil all of us.”

  “Where’d you see him?” Hutter asked, trying to keep his temper down in the face of such an insult.

  “He went to the forest,” the child called. The woman smacked the boy’s face, hard.

  Hutter stood alone, a waft of smoke obscuring his vision. The forest? he thought. Not even Wolf would be such a fool as that. Hutter started towards the trail at the rear of Strattonwick, the trail that led to Lord Allingham, the trail that led to the spot where Rosamond had called him Sire of the Hatchet. In haste, he cut through a pit of mud between two hovels. The muck nearly ripped off his boots.

  The child had not been lying. Indeed, there sat Wolfric, on the incline where the trail began, his back to the shed that housed Rosamond, his arms draped over his knees. The guard with the cudgel was nowhere in sight. Hutter approached. Wolfric didn’t seem drunk; his gaze was too aware, too inward.