‘And witchfinders,’ Chevie added.
Garrick was enjoying the feisty exchange. ‘My words droppeth from heaven, witch, while your vile utterings are whispered into your ear by the prince of darkness.’
Cryer thought it was time to stick his oar in. ‘It will take more than water, Jeronimo Woulfe, to aid this witch. More than water indeed.’ And he giggled then, hunching with mirth, and seemed less a man and more a malicious goblin.
‘Leave Master Mason be,’ Garrick admonished his acolyte. ‘Perhaps he is wheedling a confession from the witch. Betimes water will crack a stone more effectively than fire.’
Woulfe allowed Chevie one more draught, then stepped down from the pyre. ‘This girl was deprived of a trial. Should she be deprived of sustenance too? And water itself?’
‘Witch-lover!’ spat Cryer. ‘I have said it before. Once this matter is dealt with, we will come calling on you, Master Woulfe, and your pretty Elizabeth.’
This was too much. Woulfe hurled the jug at Cryer with some considerable force and it happened to clip the constable’s injured shoulder, causing him to stumble backwards, cursing in a most ungodly fashion, which made Chevie smile for the first time in a while.
‘What time is it, Mr Woulfe?’ she crowed, which probably seemed like a straightforward question to anyone who had not been brought up playing the game in gym class.
Even Garrick laughed. All these matters were childish to him now. An entertaining distraction from the main event, which was not to say he was growing complacent. He had made that mistake once before and would not commit it again. There was no doubt in his mind that Riley would attempt some form of rescue, but for the life of him he could not imagine a way that the boy could thwart him on this occasion. After all, Garrick was virtually invulnerable now and soon even the creatures of the wormhole would bow before him.
Cryer held his shoulder gingerly; the fresh blood seeping through his clothes spoke of a reopened wound. ‘You will pay for that, Woulfe. You and that girl of yours.’
Jeronimo Woulfe was in no mood for the constable’s threats. ‘I ride to Huntingdon at first light. I will petition the council there for some assistance. The constable has gone mad, I will testify to it. He threatens good English women and all because he cannot get for himself a wife.’
Cryer’s face was purple with rage. ‘This is slander. This is heresy.’
Woulfe turned his anger on Garrick, past caring now. ‘This is who speaks for you, Master Witchfinder? This buffoon? I have seen things, I grant you. Monsters and perhaps witches. But this zany halfwit would burn the wheat with the chaff. He will not rest until Mandrake is a town of men. Were your mother present, Master Witchfinder, he would accuse her.’
‘I never would,’ swore Cryer. ‘Never.’
Chevie chimed in. ‘He would, Garrick, and you know it. The man’s a wack job.’
Albert Garrick patted the air, calming his audience. Enough was enough.
‘Very well. Now, now, everyone. The gates to hell hover above us and that must be the priority. Let there be no discordance among us.’
‘But, master,’ objected Cryer. ‘I bleed. My very blood issues forth.’
Garrick’s character had never been that of placator and, though he was of buoyant mood, his patience for fools was limited.
‘Constable!’ he barked. ‘Offer up your suffering. It is a small price to pay to witness the wonders that will happen here. The gates to hell itself shall be forever sealed, using this witch as our vessel.’
This was news to Chevie. ‘Wait a minute. I thought I was being burned alive and you were firing a silver cannonball. That’s what the goons said.’
And now Cryer ceased in his mewling, for he wished to observe the witch as she was told about the changes to the Witchfinder’s great plan.
Garrick laced his fingers and strolled to the foot of the pyre until his long face was inches below Chevie’s.
‘Burned at the stake, aye, that was the initial sentence. However, much as I have always been a man of my word, there have arisen some new circumstances, and it is a fool who ignores the truth, so the sentence of burning has been commuted.’
‘Praise God,’ cried Jeronimo Woulfe. ‘Good sense prevails, for I feel certain there is no evil in this poor wretch.’
Chevie did not waste a second on relief. If Garrick wasn’t going to burn her, it was only because he’d thought of something worse. If there was a fate worse than being burned at the stake.
‘What new circumstances?’ she asked.
‘Various,’ said Garrick, teasing her.
‘But there is a stay of execution, Master Witchfinder?’ pressed Woulfe. ‘Is that not the essence of it?’
Garrick steepled his fingers, one of his favourite stage poses. ‘Of burning at the stake, yes. And of death? Who can say what will happen to a witch in the realm of hell? Perhaps her master can save her, perhaps not. My plan is to send the witch back from whence she came.’
Woulfe glanced towards the rift, which had grown visibly larger in the last minutes.
‘Simply release her?’
Chevie doubted it.
‘There is a little more to the strategy,’ Garrick admitted, drawing it out.
‘Please, Master Witchfinder. Won’t you reveal your machinations? You are employed by the town council, after all.’
‘Oh, we are far beyond cash and prizes, good Jeronimo. We are in the realm of souls now. Souls and their saving, I say to you. Every soul in England.’
Woulfe paled and his hands clenched by his sides, but to the mason’s credit he asked again, ‘Your strategy, Master Garrick, if you would?’
Then suddenly Garrick switched personas, from indulgent father-figure to absolute ruler. ‘You would know my plans, Master Woulfe? You would share my burden? Have you the stomach for what needs to be done?’
‘If it needs to be done, absolutely. Yes, my resolve is firm, Master Witchfinder.’
Garrick took three quick steps and suddenly he loomed over the mason, and it seemed to Woulfe that the air grew colder.
‘Look to the heavens, good Jeronimo. What do you see?’
Woulfe’s eyes flickered skyward and he could not help but flinch, for the rift was growing larger and seemed closer, with sinister flickerings within. ‘I see hell, Master Garrick. Hell being visited upon us here in Mandrake.’
‘I would cut short that visit, Master Woulfe. I would snuff out the flames.’
Chevie had a point to make. ‘You’re gonna shut down hell, Garrick? Where are the sinners supposed to go? Vegas?’
‘Indeed, Witchfinder,’ said Woulfe. ‘Where now must the freshly damned dwell?’
Garrick scowled, as this was a legitimate question that he had been hoping Woulfe would not happen upon. Bluster was his only response.
‘You would prefer the sinners from ages past to inhabit our bodies?’ he demanded. ‘You would prefer your Elizabeth to succumb to the forces of evil?’
‘Nay,’ said Woulfe. ‘Never.’
‘Then the gates must be sealed.’
‘And how then? By cannon-shot? Burn the witch, and fire the ordnance, is it?’
‘That was indeed my plan, but I had misgivings. The entire strategy was entirely too fraught with uncertainty, in point of fact, and I was more than a little perturbed, but then my constable, godly Godfrey, happened upon a surer strategy.’ Garrick graciously yielded the stage with a sweep of his arm. ‘Enlighten the witch, Constable.’
Cryer was proud of his plan and delighted to share the details. ‘As you command, master.’ He elbowed past Woulfe and clambered along the base of the pyre until Chevie could smell his fetid breath.
‘You are, witch, familiar with the tale of Troy?’
Chevie planned to ramp up the attitude and say something along the lines of: Yeah, sure. Brad Pitt inside a horse? That Troy?
But just at that moment she became overwhelmed by the entire situation. Funny how she had held it together reasonably well until the constable’s breath hit her nose and tipped her over the cliff. Perhaps her subconscious had already figured out what Cryer’s plan was.
‘If you remember your classics, witch, the Greeks could not breach Troy’s defences. Wave after wave of their finest warriors they sent crashing against the mighty walls, only to have them cut down by arrow and spear, until at last Odysseus had the notion to build a giant wooden horse with a band of soldiers inside, and through such chicanery the Greeks tricked their way inside the walls.’
Woulfe stepped up behind the constable. ‘Please, Cryer, is there a need for such relish? Make your point. It is the very devil of a job to wring details from the pair of you. Might I remind you, that you are public servants both.’
Cryer, emboldened by the supernatural situation, actually pushed the mason roughly. ‘I am a servant of man, Woulfe. The time for councils and governments is past. Judgement Day is upon us, I say to you, and we shall all be judged by our actions this night.’
‘Enough!’ shouted Woulfe. ‘You posturing buffoon. Hell is bearing down on us, man. Speak plainly.’