Testimony of Children (Alice Gray Book 2)

24

"Everything changed that day." Thomas spoke quietly from the doorway. Without looking at me once, he sat at the bar on the other side of me and poured himself a Scotch.

I winced as he threw it back and then slammed the tumbler onto the wooden counter. Miraculously it didn't shatter. I was now encased between two dangerous vampires. One with a power that equalled, if not exceeded my own, and the other, who had the power to inflame me with desire to the point of distraction.

The magic didn't like it.

My life-force throbbed uncomfortably through my body, my organs engorged with the power that travelled through my blood. Yet my determination to hear the story overrode the impulse to assert the dominance of my power. And for once, the energy did my bidding.

Thomas looked at his hands, clasping his empty tumbler. His knuckles were white with strain. "I had been such a blessed child. Everything had been handed to me, and I'd never thought to question from where it came, or if I deserved it. Other boys came and went from Knyvet House, it became just a part of life. It sickens me to know what happened to those children. That it happened in the next room. And I didn't lift a finger to stop it."

I took his hand intending to offer comfort. He had been a child himself, and at the mercy of Knyvet and his wife. To object would have been to die.

Thomas looked at my small pale hand against his own, strong and powerful. He withdrew quickly, as though the reminder of his strength now made his inaction four hundred years ago worse somehow. I tucked my hand away in my lap feeling my incompetence at soothing his pain.

"Then I found something that I wanted. And it was denied to me."

I bristled at Thomas's words. He was talking about my ancestor, Alice Gray the Pendle Witch. He viewed her as a possession back then, an inanimate object with no will of her own.

"Yes love," James said, joining the conversation again with a chuckle. "That's how she viewed it too. I don't think Tommy had ever been refused by a woman before. And to think, a pauper from the wild lands of Lancashire. In the gaol at that. You'd have thought that she would be grateful for the attention of such a grand man!"

The look that Thomas gave him in response was dark as thunder. James held his palms up in surrender, and then indicated for Thomas to continue with a little flourish of a wave.

"Alice Gray was poor, but there was something about that woman that drew me to her before she'd ever got close enough to influence me with her magic."

Thomas looked me in the face for the first time since he entered the room. I knew what he was trying to say. He thought something other than witch magic created the bond between us. He thought we were fated to be together. I looked away, unwilling to concede the point.

"I was a spoilt boy. I knew the worth of my face, I understood why women looked at me, and I was used to having my pick of lovers. That all changed the moment that I saw Alice, in that cramped and filthy cell. There must have been ten other prisoners between the entrance and her, but somehow my eyes travelled straight to her face, and wouldn't leave it."

Thomas paused, his eyes taking on a dreamy quality as he lost himself in the memories. "She met my eyes once that first day, and then turned away. It was as if she read my entire being in that moment, and didn't care for what she found."

I hung my head while Thomas recounted the rest of his story. I'd seen all this before in the history that my ancestor showed me in my dreams.

Whatever I thought of Thomas now, however I felt about him, I knew that the first Alice Gray had despised him. She'd used him and then abandoned him, and I was ashamed to say, that on hearing the words from his mouth, I didn't blame her.

Thomas had investigated the charges against Alice and the evidence that James and Jennet Device had given. He followed the trail of authority to Roger Nowell and then back to his benefactor Knyvet. He bribed gaolers to get Alice on her own. But he didn't do any of those things out of kindness or sympathy for Alice because she was innocent. He did them because she had refused him, and he couldn't stand it.

Thomas shook his head, as though he couldn't believe his arrogance. He looked so crestfallen, broad shoulders hunched over, head hanging low. His dark hair fell over his eyes, but he didn't bother to push it away.

I wanted to comfort him, but this description of a spoilt, boorish man, reminded me of what a bully he could still be. Despondency slithered through my veins making me feel cold and numb. If Thomas hadn't managed to overcome his pride and arrogance in four hundred years, how could I expect him to do so now?

I threw back my own tumbler of whiskey, spluttering when the liquid burnt my throat.

Thomas's words blurred together as my addled brain struggled to cope with the alcohol. I still managed to catch the drift. Knyvet had refused to intercede on Alice Gray's behalf. Even worse, jealous of the attention of his favourite he brought in the gunpowder plot.

Instead of the less easily proven crime of witchcraft, the plan to blow up Lancaster Castle practically guaranteed a conviction. Fawkes's gunpowder plot was still so present in the minds of all, and that was treason at its most dastardly.

But Thomas would not be turned away from his heart's desire then, much like now. He sold off his grand toys, gifts from Knyvet, to bribe the warden of Lancaster Castle into keeping Alice in a separate cell. It was a straightforward matter, Thomas's connection to Knyvet was well known, and people were eager to please the King's defender. The position of Assize Clerk made changing the records before the trial easy.

Unbeknownst to him, Knyvet had given Thomas all the tools he needed to make Alice a Samlesbury Witch instead of a Pendle Witch.

Everything went to plan until the second day of the trials. Knyvet was furious when he realised that Alice Gray would not be tried as a Pendle Witch. Thomas offered him anything he had to give and more to keep quiet and let the deception play out. Finally Knyvet relented, and extracted from Thomas a promise.

"That I would return to him, and serve him for the rest of my life."

So, a deal was struck! But Thomas was not such a hero back then, even if he did save the first Alice Gray...