‘That’s Greeba Keep,’ he continued. ‘You might just live to see it again!’
The other yeomen laughed. ‘But once in there you’ll wish you’d died! It’s the lucky ones who are pulled out dead!’ said one.
I didn’t bother to ask him what he meant and remained silent until the cart finally came to a halt. We seemed to have reached a village. It was surrounded by trees, and hills rose up on either side. We were pulled down from the cart and taken past a large, curious mound of earth. It was shaped like a barrow but had four tiers. I’d never seen anything quite like it. Beyond stood another stone tower – this one much smaller than the first. I wondered if it was for holding prisoners, and was soon proved correct.
We were dragged up some steps to a door about halfway up the tower, and after our hands had been untied we were thrust inside. The door clanged behind us, a key turned in the lock and the guards went back down the stairs, their footsteps echoing off the stones.
I looked about me. A single candle stood in a recess in the wall, flickering in the draught from a narrow window far above. The cell was circular, with no furniture and only dirty straw covering the damp flags of the floor.
‘Don’t like this place much,’ said Alice, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
‘You may not like it, girl,’ said a voice from the shadows to our right, ‘but you’d better make the best of it. It’s the most comfortable you’ll ever be again. This is the Tynwald witch tower – after you leave here, there’s only pain and death to look forward to.’
Someone stepped out of the shadows to confront us. It was a tall girl of about eighteen or nineteen with dark glossy hair which reached down to her shoulders. She wore a pretty blue dress and her skin was clean and shining with health. She didn’t look much like a prisoner.
‘Came across the water from the County, did you?’ she asked.
I nodded. ‘My name’s Tom Ward and this is my friend, Alice.’
She glanced at Alice then gave me a warm smile. ‘My name’s Adriana Lonan,’ she said. ‘I was born and bred on Mona and they’ve left me alone until now. But everything’s gone crazy and they’re testing even their own folk to see if they’re witches.’
‘Are you a witch?’ I asked.
Adriana nodded. ‘I’m a bird witch,’ she said.
‘You mean you have a bird for a familiar,’ Alice corrected her.
The girl tossed her hair and frowned. ‘I don’t have a familiar. Don’t give my blood to anything. Not dark stuff like that. I’m a bird witch. Birds are my friends. We help each other. What about you, Alice? Are you a witch?’
Alice shook her head. ‘I come from a clan of Pendle witches and I was taught the dark craft for two years. But no, I’m not a witch. Ain’t right that we’ve been brought here, especially Tom. He’s a spook’s apprentice and fights for the light. They say he’s a warlock, but that ain’t true.’
Adriana stared at me, her face very serious. ‘Did Horn sniff you out?’
‘The abhuman? Yes,’ I told her. ‘He said Alice had darkness inside her and that I had a sliver of dark too.’
‘Then maybe you do,’ Adriana murmured. ‘None of us are perfect. But whatever we are won’t count for much when we’re tested tomorrow.’
‘What’ll they do?’ asked Alice. ‘Will they swim us? Ain’t going to use the press, are they?’
Swimming was the most popular way of testing to see if someone was a witch or not. Your hands were tied to your feet and you were thrown into a pond. Sometimes your right thumb was bound to your left big toe, left thumb to right toe. It was a funny name for the test – how could you swim like that? If you sank and probably drowned, you were innocent. If you somehow managed to float, then you were considered guilty, taken away and burned at a stake.
Pressing was even worse. You were chained to a table, and over a period of time heavy stones were placed on your body, often as many as thirteen. After a while you could hardly breathe. If you confessed because of the pain, they burned you. If you didn’t, you were slowly crushed to death. And if you managed to stay alive for more than an hour it was assumed that the Fiend had saved you and you were burned anyway.
‘No, we islanders have our own way of doing things,’ Adriana replied. ‘Someone suspected of witchcraft is taken to the summit of Slieau Whallian, a large hill to the south, and sealed inside a barrel – one with sharp iron spikes inside. Then she’s rolled down the hill. If she’s still alive at the bottom, they think she’s been protected by the dark and she’s taken away and …’ Her voice faded away before she’d finished the sentence and I saw that her eyes were filled with fear.
‘Do many survive?’ I asked.
‘The guard told me that two survived – and one of them was badly spiked – out of the seven who were rolled yesterday. I tried to tell them what to do. There is a way to get to the bottom without being cut too badly. Not all the barrels are the same so you’d need a bit of luck, but if you can find space between the spikes, you can use your arms and legs to brace yourself against the inside. As the barrel spins, centrifugal force presses you into the spikes so you have to hold yourself clear. Then, providing the barrel doesn’t hit a big bump on the way down, you don’t bounce around inside and get jolted onto the spikes.’
‘How do you know it works?’
‘I know a man at the brewery who makes some of the special barrels to order. When a new apprentice cooper starts, they have a ritual. They put him in a spiked barrel and roll him slowly from one side of the workshop to the other while all the other craftsmen bang their hammers on the bench tops and cheer. But first he’s shown how to wedge himself in. At the worst he might suffer a few cuts, that’s all. But I’ve never managed to talk to anyone who’s survived to the bottom of Slieau Whallian. If they’re still alive, they’re taken away immediately.’
‘Big difference between being rolled slowly and bounced about,’ said Alice. ‘If you told them what to do, why didn’t more survive yesterday?’
‘Some were probably too scared and upset to listen to what I told them,’ Adriana explained. ‘Maybe they wanted to die in the barrel …’
‘Why would they want that?’ I asked.