Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
I leave the dungeons and walk to collect Ada from De-Vil’s, all the while the city still snores, and the stink of Maude’s blood clings to me like perfume.
The hour is late when I reach the brothel, but its lamps burn bright and the punters queue outside.
I don’t go in as there’s no need to disturb the girls at their busiest. Ada is tied up behind the building as arranged by Sirena, and I smile as I stroke her nose and let myself up on her back to start the journey home.
The horse’s hooves strike sparks on the cobbles as we leave the reek of gin and sweat behind.
Home.
I brush down Ada, adding in my new lock of hair to her mane and then forking hay.
I sleep like the dead, limbs heavy with the sweet ache of justice.
After folding Mad Maude into the Scavenger’s Daughter and watching Sirena slip free of the Tower’s shadow, something has settled inside me.
I’d managed to guard my girls at De-Vil’s; no one will touch them again whilst breath still rattles in my lungs.
My mind drifts to Sparrow wondering if she’s fled the brothel yet?
The memory of her abuser’s blood, warm on my hands, still makes me smile and the purse of gold I had pressed into her palm was a fresh set of wings.
Maude had tried to barter Sirena’s body for entertainment and crushing her until her ribs sang had tasted like divinity.
I can torture and I can kill.
Today, my routine comes easy. Hair still damp from this morning's bath, I eat cold mutton and bread straight from the cloth. No fuss, no lingering.
The stake waits in the square and tonight, Mad Maude will burn.
I plan to go to work early and make sure my stage is prepared for tonight, I don't want any mistakes. I built it pretty sturdy the other day but I need to collect hay piles and get torches made. On goes my hat and mask, along with my cape.
The sun hangs high when we clatter into town, midday bells clanging from the steeple.
I ease my mare to a halt and slide from the saddle, boots striking dust. Ada—my sweet, snorting Ada—nuzzles my shoulder, impatient for freedom.
I’ve never had anyone to spoil before, so as always, she gets the lot: a mad gallop across the heath, apples taken from a nearby apple tree and lots of neck strokes; she’s earnt every treat.
I lead her into the neighbourhood stables, the familiar reek of straw and warm horseflesh greeting me like an old friend. The stableboy appears, freckled and gap-toothed, and I press a coin into his palm.
He nods and Ada whickers, butting my chest. I wrap arms round her neck, burying my face in the coarse warmth of her coat. “Be good, love.”
Turning to start the walk to work, I immediately freeze.
There, by the baker’s oven, is Richard, the constable from De-Vil’s, his blue coat flashing like a warning. Two women flank him, aprons flour-dusted, mouths working faster than their hands.
“A witch killed him!” one shrieks.
“A witch did not do that!” the other snaps. “Did you see the state of him in that chair?”
Shit.
“That’s the devil’s work,” the first insists. “No human nor witch could do that!”
Richard’s head tilts as he murmurs something low. The women point east, towards the lord’s house that I’d left in moonlight and ruin two nights ago.
“There’s going to be an investigation,” the second woman says. “That’s two men now. Remember the one in the woods?”
Shit. Shit!
“I hope they catch whoever did this. I don’t feel safe here anymore. Especially now there’s witches!”
“I agree. We need to leave London.”
Richard gives a curt nod and sets off in the direction they pointed and I follow him as the women scatter like startled hens.
I keep three cart-lengths back, weaving through the midday press.
Whenever he pauses to question a vendor, I busy myself with a stall of ribbons or bend to stroke a passing tabby.
A stack of crates becomes my shield; a brewer’s dray rumbles past, and I duck behind its barrels.
My heartbeat is steady—no fear, only curiosity sharpened to a blade.
I must not be seen. Not by him.
Richard reaches the wrought-iron gates of the lord’s house, the two sentries flanking him like blue-coated bookends.
One of them I know: Lee, a thick neck, scar across the brow, the sort who’d remember a face, so I melt back into the crowd before his gaze can sweep my way.
The air feels suddenly crowded, as though unseen eyes press between my shoulder-blades.
My ghost?
I reach for the familiar chill of His presence and find only warm daylight—a pity.
Turning on my heel, I choose a longer loop to the Tower, which carries me past different tongues: fishwives haggling, apprentices whistling, beggars rattling cups, whores leaning in doorways with painted smiles and hollow eyes. Witch-fear hasn’t reached them yet; hunger always trumps superstition.
I knew that hunger once, before Bernie plucked me from the gutter. One day I’ll repay the debt.
More guards than usual prowl the Tower’s outer ward; I nod to the ones who matter, ghosting past the rest, and slipping through the side door.
My stake waits in the centre of the yard, proud and terrible. Not some crude pole, but a perfect cross. I run a palm along the grain, which is as smooth as a coffin lid. A private smirk tugs my mouth. How many will catch the jest? Crucifixion for a witch—gallows humour indeed.
I step back, eyes tracing every angle. Flawless. Malenia and Olivia would approve; it has been too long since their edges sang.
Around the base I roll the open barrels, positioning them on my stage.
Into each I pack off-cuts—splinters, shavings, anything that will catch.
From the Tower stables I drag armfuls of straw, the dry stalks whispering again, and again as they brush my wrists.
A boy’s voice, long ago, stuffed with yellow, painted red. I shake the memory off and keep piling.
Hours bleed away, the sun sliding down and gilding the cross in bloody light. Evening settles, thick with river mist and the promise of smoke.
Soon, the bells will toll. Soon, old Mad Maude will dance in the flames I have built.
I cannot wait.
The square heaves with bodies, thousands packed shoulder to shoulder, breath fogging the night air like a single living beast. Torches gutter in every fist and candles tremble in pious hands.
Guards ring my stage in a wall of steel and flame, their weapons catching the light like a crown of spears.
High above, the King watches from his velvet box, face half-shadow, eyes bright as coins.
The sky is black glass pricked with stars and a lone crow circles the battlements, cawing once.
It’s time.
Two guards kick open the wooden door that leads onto my stage and drag Mad Maude forward.
The white dress they’ve forced on her hangs in tatters, stiff with old blood and worse, and her arms—bones I had personally splintered—are bound in front with frayed rope, yet she walks upright, smiling that cracked, defiant smile.
Shadows cling to her like oil; deeper, darker than torchlight allows.
Doubt and Desire have been busy. Her jaw sits straight again, the swelling gone, the skin unbruised. They must want their plaything lively for the finale.
Bare feet slap the cold floor as Maude is hauled up the steps. The guards split, each seizing a wrist, stretching her along my cross. Rope creaks; wood groans. Arms spread wide, she hangs like an angel of soot and ruin, like the son these fools kneel to every Sunday.
Hay follows, armful after armful, piled high around her ankles until the mound reaches her shins. The dry stalks rustle, again, and again, and for a heartbeat I see the boy: mouth stuffed yellow, eyes wide, red blooming through the straw like poppies. I blink and the vision passes.
Maude is ready.
The crowd falls silent, a held breath thick enough to choke on, as the guard’s voice rings across the square, clear as a cracked bell.
“Maude Taylor, you have been found guilty of witchcraft and the black arts, abhorrent to our Lord and Saviour. You confessed the truth of these crimes yesterday when the judge stood before you. For this, you shall burn until death, your body reduced to ash and dust so that it may never again walk this earth. Have you any last words?”
Silence.
Maude lifts her head, torchlight sliding across her face, catching the cruel tilt of her smile.
Then she opens her mouth.
The sound that tears out is not human. It is the voice I had first heard in the cell last night—low, grinding, layered with a thousand throats.
It’s a growl that rises into a screech, echoing from every shadow around the square: the alley mouths, the crevices between stones, the hollows beneath the King’s box.
The torches gutter as if blown by a wind no one felt and the crowd recoils, a single shudder rippling outward.
The shadows answer her, pulsing, thickening, as though the night itself leaned in to listen.
“Oh, my sweet darlings. Do you think this fire will finish me? I’ll be back before the ashes cool, wearing your priest's skin as a cloak and your children's blood as perfume!”
The crowd erupts in a frenzy, a chaotic roar that shakes the very ground beneath us.
“What sorcery is this?!” a burly farmer bellows, his face twisted in terror and rage.
Women scream and flee toward the edges of the square, clutching their children, whilst men surge forward like a tidal wave, thrusting their torches toward the haystacks piled high around the stake but unable to reach.
The guards hesitate, exchanging wide-eyed glances, their weapons trembling in uncertain grips—loyal to the crown, yet paralyzed by the unnatural horror unfolding.
“Burn her! Burn the witch!” the King thunders from his dais, his voice cutting through the din. His eyes lock onto mine, fierce and unyielding. I nod sharply in return; a silent pact sealed in the heat of the moment.