Chapter 2
Three months before Cybil’s twenty-third birthday, she was pressing herself against a window on the first floor, watching the fog of her breath stretch across the glass.
It was evening, and the sun was setting.
In the orchard below, a sparrow flitted from tree to tree.
The apples were coming in, despite the unseasonable chill of this year’s autumn.
Cybil amused herself by pinching her fingers together around each fruit, imagining that she could pluck them in miniature from the branches.
‘Greensleeves was my heart of joy,’ Cybil sang to herself, voice sharper than a knife. She always sang loudly, to see if someone would come and complain; no one ever did. She drew a jagged line in the condensation left on the glass by her breath. ‘And who but my Lady Greensleeves?’
There was movement in the garden. Lifting herself onto her toes, Cybil saw a procession of horses marching down the gravel path.
Visitors. Cybil was so astonished she almost laughed.
It had been years since anyone of consequence had stopped at Harding Hall.
Her parents had not told her anyone was coming, but then again, why should they?
She hadn’t seen either of them in days; they ate at different times, in different rooms, and the Hall was large enough that their paths rarely crossed.
When she would press her ear to the door of her father’s study, she could hear him mumbling in languages she did not understand, and there was an awful smell that seeped from the gap over the threshold: burnt hair and vinegar and salty sea air, as if Christopher had bottled up the ocean then spilled it upon the floor.
One of the horses in the garden whickered.
It had heraldry on its saddle: the Harding three-headed hawk, black-eyed, wings outstretched.
It was as familiar to Cybil as her own face, a symbol that was carved into every mantel and stained into every window.
Three heads, for past, present, and future, her mother had once told her.
The Hardings persevere. Was this a relative, then?
She knew there were more members of the family, scattered through England, although few bothered to come to the Hall.
Cybil went back to her chambers, where she painted her lips red with cochineal and put powder on her eyelids.
She wrapped her neck in pearls, and studded her fingers with rings.
After pulling a few strands of red hair from their pins to frame her lead-white face, she dripped belladonna into her eyes to dilate her pupils.
They blew so wide she could hardly see the gold-brown of her irises—could hardly see anything but the pupils themselves, staring back at her, wide and dark as the bottom of a well.
The belladonna made her vision cloudy and uncertain.
The walls trembled, the glass of the mirror distorting her reflection.
She used two more drops, just in case. When she stood from the mirror, and turned to the door, there was a human-shaped shadow on the wall watching her, cocking its head at an impossible angle.
‘Leave,’ Cybil snarled. ‘I do not want you here.’
It turned its head to the other side.
‘Leave,’ she said again. She took a pot of cochineal from the dressing table and threw it at the shadow. The pot shattered against the wall, flinging red paint across the tapestry there: a peaceful garden scene of a lady riding a unicorn. The lady now appeared to have suffered a terrible accident.
The shadow, with a distinct petulance, faded away. Shuddering, Cybil left the room.
She had to fetch her mother, had to prepare her for the visitor. But when she knocked on Lady Harding’s door, no response came. This was typical. Cybil had had the lock of the door removed years ago, and so it was no trouble to enter the room.
Bess was sitting up on the bed, staring out of the window, the virginal on the mattress in front of her. She was dressed—unusual—and she had even applied paint to her face: a thick layer of white lead, cracking in the creases of her forehead like the impasto of a painting.
‘Mother,’ Cybil said, ‘someone has come calling.’
Bess plucked a discordant note on the virginal.
‘Mother,’ Cybil said again.
‘Yes, I am coming,’ Bess told her, pushing the virginal away. She slipped off the mattress—Cybil lurched forward to steady her—and together, they left the room and descended the steps to the foyer.
Her father was standing by the front door, already in conversation with their visitor.
He was a tall man, pinch-faced, with dark, greasy hair, and deep lines carved into his forehead—somewhat younger, mayhap, than Cybil’s parents.
There was something vaguely familiar in his countenance; Cybil had the impression they might have met when she was young.
The stranger paused in his speaking to watch them as they approached. ‘Ah. Bess. It has been years, has it not?’
Bess gave him the same distant sort of smile she always used—as if he were standing very far away, a dot on the horizon. ‘Gilbert.’
The man’s gaze then fixed on Cybil. He had the same gold-brown eyes as her and her father.
He said, ‘This is the girl.’
‘Yes,’ her father replied. ‘Cybil, this is Sir Gilbert Harding, your uncle.’
Cybil dropped into a curtsey to hide her confusion. She had known that her father had a younger brother who had taken a position at Court; but she could not recall Gilbert ever visiting the Hall or taking an interest in their affairs.
Sir Gilbert swept her a stiff bow. Afterwards, there was an awkward, expectant silence, which was interrupted only by the bell ringing for supper.
That night, for the first time in years, Cybil ate at the same table as her parents.
The cook had reacted to the prospect of visitors with excitement, and there was a vast array of dishes, far more than the four of them could eat: chicken stewed with plums and caraway seeds; red wine spiced with cinnamon; candied roses, so delicate they crumbled to powder when pressed with the blade of a knife.
Her parents had known, clearly, that Gilbert was coming.
And yet Cybil had not been informed. She did not know if that was a result of ignorance or malice.
Once the plates were cleared and the servants gone, Gilbert said, ‘There has been a witch trial in Ipswich.’
Cybil’s father looked mildly betrayed. ‘This is the reason you came?’
‘A witchfinder came to investigate the accusations and found them credible. Four women have been accused of maleficium.’
Maleficium: the legal term for witchcraft.
Cybil knew, now, why Gilbert had come. For all his insistence on an angelic origin for his gifts, her father’s work often resembled the satanic.
Cybil had seen Christopher break the neck of a rabbit then bring it back to life, had watched him stir water and whisper over it until it thickened and reddened into blood.
When he had tried to teach Cybil the same, she had felt the darkness reach for her and pushed it away.
The rabbit remained dead, and the water remained water.
‘These are peasants,’ her father said to Gilbert. ‘Women, as you say.’
Gilbert replied, ‘They had formed a coven. I heard they killed almost an entire herd of cattle. The cows grew great buboes on their feet and could not walk.’
‘What a pointless curse,’ Cybil said. ‘For what cause would anyone bother?’
Bess flinched at the word curse, crushing her napkin in her fist.
Gilbert looked at her archly, his face that of a stranger’s still, but his familiar eyes as cold as her father’s. He replied, ‘According to the prosecution, merely for mischief. The farmer said he saw them digging in the field, laying down charms for their magic.’
‘So they were judged guilty?’
‘Yes. All four are to be hanged.’
Bess crossed herself and whispered, quietly, ‘God save their souls.’
‘Surely, if they are capable of killing a cattle herd, they could find some manner to escape the execution,’ Cybil said. ‘If they go to the gallows, would that not prove their innocence?’
Her father clicked his tongue. ‘That is not how the authorities see it, Cybil.’
‘How do they see it, Father?’
He scowled at her, clearly considering the question impertinent.
‘Regardless,’ Gilbert said, ‘none of these women were actually witches; that much is obvious. But they were scolds and gossips. The village wanted to remove them. If not through the courts, it would be done by some other method, and no doubt more cruelly.’
Cybil pictured the women’s dangling feet as they hanged. ‘More cruel?’ she asked. ‘How could that be possible?’
Gilbert shrugged. ‘At least they had the privilege of a trial.’
Cybil said, ‘From what I have heard, once someone is accused of witchcraft, they are as good as dead. In that case, is a trial a privilege, or a pointless delay?’
‘That is not something for you to decide,’ her father snapped at her. ‘Nor discuss, Cybil, in civilised company.’
It was Gilbert who had brought it up; but Cybil fell silent regardless, plucking at the tablecloth.
‘The issue remains,’ Gilbert said. He steepled his fingers beneath his chin, leaning with both elbows upon the table.
There was a sudden earnestness to his expression, perhaps calculated, perhaps not.
‘Suspicions are rising, Christopher. We live in a time of fear: Papists at home and abroad; the Crown’s succession uncertain.
I hardly foresee things will improve. Already I have been questioned in regards to your activities. With our family’s reputation…’
Christopher snapped, ‘The queen herself granted me funds for my research. We are richer, more protected, than we have ever been.’