The Chain Witch


The Chain Witch by Dom Conlon

A Story from The Witch Cord

1.

These weren’t the best of times to be meeting in secret. The harvest was in and the line between day and dark was drawn tight as a thread. But best not say that. Tight as a thread meant knots, and knots was what had caused Hilda all that trouble to begin with.

“Where’s Agnes?” Hilda looked around her little wooden hut. Truth be known it was more thatch than wood and so little of that as to barely keep the chills out. A rough-cut door rattled as it fought against the wind outside. Hilda cupped an unlit candle in her hands and asked again. “Where is she?”

Sherinda, eight summers old and already as tall as the older woman, broke the silence. “She ran, Mistress. Said she didn’t need teaching. Said she’d learn what she wanted on her own.”

Gwen hissed. “Rinda shouldn’t have said that, Mistress Hilda. Rinda should keep her trap shut.” Even in the dim light of the closing day, Gwen’s eyes could be seen glaring at her friend.

“Aggy would say it herself. You know she would. Aggy int afraid of saying what’s in her mind.” Sherinda flung the words back across the trestle table she was perched by.

Hilda shifted forward and sat, placing the candle in the nub of a much older one. “Aggy can, and does, do as she likes. I’ll settle it with her later. Now I’m lighting the candle, see, and I won’t waste a single flicker on nonsense. If this was my country you’d be learning by my side in the day and not burning good fat in the day’s waning.”

Hilda struck a flint and cast the room into a flickering panic of amber-trapped shadows. “Bickering between yourselves won’t lead you anywhere. You need to start seeing the land as yours. You need to start seeing yourselves as Queens, as surely as though your braids were crowns. So let’s be at our number learning.”

The more she spoke, the more Hilda’s way of talking came through, marking her out as different. Though ten years and all of her adult life had been spent with these people, Hilda knew things and said things many of the villagers said she oughtn’t to. Mostly this was just part and parcel of village life for any foreigner, gossip and suspicion were tied to them like a bucket on a rope. It was only when times took a turn for the worse that folk dropped the bucket down the well to see how deep it went.

“They won’t have it that way.” A gentler voice spoke out. Neither Gwen nor Sherinda this time, but Meg – the youngest of the three and daughter of Elfric, Thane of these lands. “Beg pardon, Mistress Hilda but they won’t. The new priest has been talking about things due to God and man and they won’t have us owning anything.”

“Maybe they won’t,” said Hilda. “There’s no doubt things are changing and our way is muddier than it used to be. That’s no reason to let others build the future for you.” She sighed, sending the flame into a frenzy. “But I can see there’ll be no number work done this eve though. So perhaps you three can learn to judge a measure.” She pulled a length of cord from a pocket and laid it on the trestle. The three girls gasped, Meg began to cry.

“Oh close your whining, girl.” Hilda spoke sharply, knowing the root of their anguish. “If you’re to barter at market then learning the measure will be a strength. It’s just a piece of cord.”

But no cord was just a cord. No rope or twine or wick was just what it was. Everyone knew there was power in a cord. For everyone knew there was magic in knots. It was said a knot tied in knowledge could strangle the world but a knot tied in ignorance could strangle a soul. May as well tie yourself to an ash tree for the devil to take. Or so they said.

“Forget the old ways,” Hilda said. “The only magic that matters is in learning. Learn what you need so you don’t answer to no man. Take control of your lives or others will do it for you. Tie yourself to your own boat, your own land, your own family.”

Hilda licked her forefinger and thumb and ended the candle’s dispute with the wind. There was no sense in wasting wick if all these girls wanted to do was whine.

“That’s what Aggy says too.” Sherinda went tattle-tale again. “Only she says it’s magic we own and it’s magic we must learn.”

Hilda knew full well what Agnes might say. The pair had crossed tongues many a time. “Numbers. Numbers and crops and weather and livestock and people. Those are the tricks you should be learning. Let the old ways slip by. They’re frayed and worn and will lead to nothing but trouble.”

Hilda had known it would be dangerous to teach the girls. Dangerous to teach these three and difficult to teach Agnes. But she saw the modern world and knew the old ways of knots and cords would give way to learning. She’d kept the lessons quiet, kept them here in the little hut she slept in. The sleeping pallet pushed to one side, her precious candle ready to make more of the working day.

The wind rattled at the door again. No, it wasn’t the door. It was a fist.

“Mistress Hilda,” came a voice. The fist hit the door harder and the wood snapped like winter wood. “Mistress Hilda.” Where there was wood, now stood shadow. A piece of the coming night carved out of the sky.

“Lord Elfric, welcome.” Hilda’s tongue tripped across the greeting, her overseas accent tightly held at the back of her throat. “What are you wanting? Meg will be with you shortly. Your wife knows she is with me. The girls have agreed to help mend clothes with me.”

“In the dark, Mistress?” Elfric pointed at the trestle where the length of cord lay like a dead snake. “And with that as a thread? What clothes are you mending with such thick thread? Does the mountain need new breeches?”

Hilda kept her words hidden. Meg rushed to her father and began to cry. Gwen’s head bobbed between Elfric and Hilda, and Sherinda spat our words like soil. “We wasn’t mending clothes, lord. We was talking about the Cord.”

“We were talking about it being nonsense, girl.” Hilda spoke sharply. Knot magic was as dangerous as teaching a girl to think. Perhaps Elfric could be persuaded to take his daughter and go. Perhaps that would suffice. Lose Meg but keep the others.

“I see three, Hilda. Three lambs.” Elfric was not just wanting his daughter back. Hilda moved towards the cord on the trestle.

“Stop where you are.”

Damn that Agnes Sampson. Why hadn’t she shown up? Tonight of all nights? Being three was bad. Men would look at that and think it was magic.

“It’s clear what you are doing here, Mistress. You are showing them the ropes and building a witch’s coven from three souls. Father Julius said as much, and he was right.”

Telling the truth would be no good. Elfric’s blood was up and he’d be in no mind to listen to a woman, a woman with reason least of all. Hilda held out her hands.

“I’m no witch, Elfric.” Dropping his honour title was not the wisest thing to do but Hilda was angry at being caught like this. “Bind me and we’ll put it to the assembly.”

Elfric laughed. It was a laugh as brittle as Hilda’s door had been. “Bind you? Am I as old as Meg now? Bind you so you can tie a knot in my tongue?” Elfric stood away from the door.

“Smith, come in.”

With steps like hammer blows, a second man entered the little house carrying with him a set of iron chains.

They knew. Ropes. Ropes are the thing. Never tie a witch with ropes.

 

2.

Once had been enough. Once had seen an entire garrison of soldiers drained of blood before the moon could set and one of the new priests could be called. Now they used the unknotable cords to bind. No witch could weave with those threads.

“I can help. I can tie them into dreams, or turn their necks west whilst you run east. I can do it, I can.”

“Shush, Agnes. You’re too young and your knots are too small. It wouldn’t take a moment to snap through them and hunt you and well you know it. Leave this alone. Let things be as they will be.”

“But you are in there, bound in chains. And I’m out here, free. I may be small but I know things. I don’t know how I know them for all you’ve bothered to teach me but I do. Let me help.”

Hilda’s cell might have been grand, might even have been roomy for all she could see. Might have been but probably wasn’t judging by the steady trickle of water – or worse – flowing down the walls and down her chains. There was only one point of light, and that was tiny. It carried the moonlight and the whispers of Agnes Sampson through to where the condemned witch was crouched.

Hilda twisted, trying to relieve the ache in her arms and legs. She felt as sore as an eighty-year-old though she was barely out of her teens. “Run along, Agnes. Find Master Brody and ask for his protection. He’ll see you right.”

Through the tiny hole in the stone wall, Agnes’ voice pushed eager as a pick. “I will not. Let me try. Or let me get you a rope somehow and you can pull these walls back into the earth.”

“I’ll be seeing a rope soon enough, Agnes. Run along now. Run along for me.” In the dark, Hilda raised her hands and held the air in the shape of a face. “For me, Aggy. Please.” But for all her wanting, Hilda could not reach Agnes Sampson, could not hold her, could not kiss her.

Leaning against the cold stone, Agnes pulled a slender length of rope cord from around her wrist and began to work.

“Agnes. I know what you’re doing. For the love of me, stop. Run to Brody.”

The tiny hole in the stone carried no voice in return and even the thin stream of moonlight had run dry. What little light was left that night wove itself around Agnes Sampson’s hands as her fingers twisted the cord into knots. Each turn looked like the growing pain of a tree and the cord grew warm beneath her quick touch. Round and under, in and out the rope danced with the moonlight and Agnes sang a little as she worked.

In the cell, Hilda could feel the stones harden beneath her. Blasted girl. Strong she might be, but mostly headstrong. Agnes Sampson, a force from birth and most likely a force to her death. Whenever that might be.

The damp air began to cough its way into the cell as one stone ground slowly against another. “Agnes,” Hilda called. “Agnes Agnes. Aggy.” Chance of reasoning with the girl was less each passing moment if it was ever possible, and so Hilda struck out best she would with her hands bound and no rope of her own. “AGNES.”

The little girl outside either could not hear or would not listen and her rope grew long enough to take each new knot as it came. The magic came naturally to her. There was much about Agnes Sampson that not even her mother knew, and all of that mystery focussed itself on the cord and the knots. A cold rain began to fall and sizzled as it became tied into the magic.

Still, Agnes worked.

Chains rattled. Stones shook. Hilda stopped calling for Agnes to stop. She was proud, despite herself. And then everything fell silent and the cell held strong as the cry “AGNES SAMPSON” struck out once more.

Only this time it was not said in Hilda’s voice. It was said in the voice of a man, Lord Elfric’s voice. “AGNES SAMPSON.”

Hilda pulled at the chains. “LEAVE HER BE. RUN, AGGY, RUN.”

Hilda threw her weight into the night and risked broken bones and shredded skin to shatter the unknotable iron holding her. She screamed out, even simple words now lost to the earthly rage.

The chains held. The cell remained.

Elfric spoke again and his voice carried clear through the tiny hole in the cell stones. “Agnes Sampson. You’ve been caught in the act of witchcraft in plain sight of God and Father Julius. The next knot you’ll know will be around your neck for tomorrow you will swing.”

In her cell, Hilda let the chains take her.

“You are undone, Hilda Sampson.”

 

3.

By morning the rain had stopped and the wind had run to ground. A wooden platform, no bigger than the little hut Hilda and Agnes had lived in, creaked in the newness of itself before the earl’s hall. Farmers and labourers, potters and weavers stood waiting beneath the steel-white sky.

Father Julius prayed for the souls of Hilda and Agnes Sampson and Lord Elfric took his seat with Meg close by. Elfric’s wife had recently died in childbirth but a new woman was beside him dressed in clothes too fine for such a day.

Sherinda and Gwen were nowhere to be seen, but their parents were there, stood heads down near the back. The two girls had begged to stay home and their fathers had agreed. Silence and obedience would be best from now on. From there they might still marry well, once tongues had stopped wagging the tale of mother and daughter.

One noose was placed around the neck of Agnes, and a second around her mother’s. As her noose tightened, Hilda saw how the twines were wrapped roughly, a hurried job to appease Lord Elfric. You did not keep the lord waiting. You did not fail the lord. His wife had died in childbirth and no amount of knowledge could have saved her. Not even Hilda’s knowledge at the time. And Hilda Sampson’s knowledge was deep.

Hilda Sampson knew many things. She knew enough numbers to manage a farm and prevent hunger in the lean months. She knew how many count of breaths it took to birth a child. She knew the herbs it took to ease a pain. But she knew other things too.

Like her daughter, Hilda Sampson knew the way of knots. Though she believed in the future, she was in touch with the past and when she saw a hurried knot she knew. A knot tied in ignorance could strangle a soul.

Singing softly to herself, Hilda Sampson turned her head this way and that. Her friends watching might have thought she was taking a last look around the village she had tried to make her home but she wasn’t. She was working the knot. The hurried knot. The bad knot. She was working it into the one cord which still tied her to Agnes. The cord she herself had cut and tied when she had delivered her first and only child on the morning of her adulthood. That cord was the most powerful cord of all. The cord between mother and child held true year after year. It was knotted with generations and burned with the life of ancestral power.

The white sky appeared to slump and a mist weaved its fingers through the village.

“Have you any last words, Hilda Sampson?” asked Elfric.

The mist curled around the people and reached up to Agnes Sampson. It was a silent cloth which offered no warmth.

“Have you any words of repentance, Hilda Sampson?” asked Elfric.

Hilda’s neck embraced the rope as she felt the bad knot on her spine. “Run, little Aggy. Be free.”

The knot-born mist wrapped Agnes Sampson in itself and then she was gone, sent into another time, another place. There she’d be hidden from Elfric and Julius and Sherinda and Gwen and Meg and even Hilda.

When the mist parted only one woman was left standing on the gallows. Hilda Sampson, chain witch after all.

The Chain Witch by Dom Conlon

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Illustration courtesy and copyright of Carl Pugh.