The Name of Balthazar
Matthew Hopkins. Descendent of the last tenant of Framlingham Castle. Son of a Presbyterian vicar. Youngest of four, perfectly ordinary and God-fearing brothers. And the most lethal man in the history of witch-hunting.
Yeah right.
Well except for the bit about witch-hunting. We know that is true, for definite.
Ask the three-hundred dead women.
Summer, 1641 AD
Manningtree, Essex
Wendelin Weddell stood well into the shadows at the far end of the Lady Chapel in the Church of All Saints in Manningtree. She was peering around a column to sneak a look at the newcomer kneeling in the back pew, his straw coloured hair and sallow face giving him a haunted look which was at odds with his apparent youth.
There were only four registered witches and wizards in the area - her and the Rothburg family across the fields - so she knew what he was, the moment he walked into the church. She knew from the way he sat so uncomfortably in the scratchy trousers and baggy jacket, the way he kept pulling the ruff of his collar away from his neck. From how he had completely ignored the bowl of holy water at the door, and the missal books on a stand by the font. And from the stick of ashwood that had fallen out from under his hat and clattered onto the flagstone floor, when he had taken it off on entry.
He had hurriedly picked up his wand and slid into the last row where he had remained for the last half an hour, listening intently to the clergymen drone on and on. And on. When the Muccles rose to shake hands with each other he stood firmly at the back, rebuffing any greetings, even the vicar's. But they were ignorant Muccles, they thought he was just a reclusive oddball who'd bought himself the rundown Thorn Inn across the brook in the parish of Mistley and intended to fix it up.
But Weddell had the gift of Sight. And she could see that much death, sorrow and infamy would soon encircle the young man, with the straw coloured hair.
Christmas Day, 1630 AD
Suffolk
Four boys and two girls were gathered around the fireplace, watching the hail-stones fall outside the dining room window. They were all shivering, having been playing in the melting slush all day, since they'd escaped from their father's watch. He had been to luncheon at the Malfoy Manor with several other prominent Wizengamot Members to try and convince the Chief Warlock that his Family deserved a Hereditary Seat on the Wizengamot. But he returned that evening downcast and unfulfilled; again, he had been thwarted by the combination of the Potter whelp and the fool of a Cuffe. With their each followings, they had manoeuvred the apple-cart in every direction and successfully halted the Family Crouch's campaign against their unlimited ban from the council. If only his Great-Uncle Rubeus had not been so insolent. If only.
But when he shook his travelling cloak off on the threshold and scraped his boots against the jack, six things that were each a hundred times more precious than a Seat on any council came rushing out of the dining room to greet him. He hoisted one girl up on to his hip and threaded his hand into the other girl's, interlacing perfectly despite the size difference. He ruffled a couple of the boys' hair, but not the straw coloured one which was proffered, and shook hands with the eldest, almost sixteen and as imposing as every one of his forebears.
"Father! How did it go?" the eldest boy asked, getting down to business immediately.
"Not as good as I'd hoped. I'm still being blocked by Hampshire and Twillford, but our main opponents are Donald Potter and Scolochaix Cuffe. I fear more and more that you will have to be the one to sort this out."
The heir apparent replied, "That is if I am elected onto the Wizengamot, of course."
"If," the father said absent-mindedly, "If."
One of the little girls butted in, "Did you miss us Papa?"
All of them, yes. But not every one of them.
His wife, Katherine, called through from the kitchen that supper would be ready for them in half an hour. They had no House-Elves, but instead employed two Mudblood scullery-maids. However, as it was Christmas, they let them go home at two o'clock in the afternoon, after the Christmas Lunch, so Katherine made tea and supper for the children.
"Do you really think that I wanted to spend Christmas Day in a stuffy old house with a bunch of stuffy old men?" Crouch asked his children. They just giggled and tittered in reply.
"Come on, how about you show me how you are getting on with your magic, before supper?"
One of the middle boys, Bartholomew, said excitedly, "Ooh, yes Father. Come and look what Darwinius taught me last night."
Darwinius was the children's Negro tutor. He had come to work for King James as a scribe, but had to flee when a Lord had unfortunately caught him fixing a large candelabra with magic. Crouch's father had taken him in, and he had tutored both Crouch and his step-sister Sophia, then subsequently the next generation of Crouches: Thaddeus, Bartholomew, Thomas, Balthazar, Elena and Rose.
As the man's children led him into the drawing room, he reflected that 'Darda', as Elena and Rose affectionately called him would not be around for much longer. Even with a wizard's magically enhanced lifespan, he had been almost seventy years old when he first started to work for the Stuart King and would probably see few more Christmases.
Bartholomew started the show by pointing his larch wand at the window and flinging it open, drawing the sleet inside. It coalesced in a ball in the centre of the room, which then he cooled to absolute zero, not so much freezing the semisolid water as crystallising it. He then began to sculpt it, using nothing but his wand, into a large ice-statue of a griffin with its wings resplendently unfurled, nearly touching the ceiling.
"Oh well done Bart, well done," his father roared from the arm-chair he had positioned himself in with Rose on his lap. Elena, who was seated on the floor next to the sculpture, began to reach for the animal, before Balthazar called out,"Don't touch Ellie! It would stick to your hand and burn as it is so cold. No touch!"
The toddler stuck out her bottom lip in defiance, and shuffled over to Thaddeus, wrapping both arms around his ankles in infantile contentment. While all this was happening though, Thomas, who was only a year older than Balthazar, had been screwing up his face and muttering under his breath until steam seemed to begin pouring out of his ears. But it was something else entirely that was causing the room to fill with water vapour.
With one hand outstretched, palm towards the ice-sculpture, and the other resting on his diaphragm, Thomas was wandlessly heating Bartholomew's griffin back up to melting temperature and beyond. With the beads of sweat on his forehead far outnumbering the water droplets on the beast's body, it took five minutes for him to boil off the head, after which Crouch Sr called, "Stop! That's enough Tom lad. You don't want to exhaust yourself, now?"
Thomas nodded in silent agreement, and Crouch pulled out his own wand to banish the steam out of the still open window, which then swung shut again.
"Papa," Rose asked. "Can I show you something, please?"
At only six years of age, Crouch was surprised that she would be able to perform any controlled magic, but in the spirit of things, consented. Rose then scurried off to find 'her magic' as she called it, and Crouch turned to his youngest son, Balthazar.
"You still struggling then Boy?" Crouch asked, none too kindly.
"Yes Father, I'm sorry Father, but I tried every single wand that you brought back from Hanover, but none of them work."
"It's not the wands that don't work, it's you," he snapped. "You! Try harder, or I'll have to take my belt to you again."
"I do try," he mumbled, downcast. "But I am only ten years old, Sir, give me more time."
Crouch sighed in desperation and said, "Your brother Thaddeus could conjure anything of reason by the time he was your age. How about you show us something then, Thaddeus?"
"But you said I could show you first," whined Rose as she wandered back into the room. "I've got my magic now."
"All right then, Petal, you first." Crouch shot a grin at Thaddeus who removed the now sleeping Elena from his lap and took her out to give to their mother.
Rose's magic, to speak of, was a white winter-lily which was clearly swiped from the bowl in her father's bedroom. She then screwed up her face, not unlike Thomas had done, and concentrated so hard on the flower that it suddenly burst into flames, and she into tears. However, with two taps of his wand, Crouch restored it to how it was, and handed it back to her, with a word of encouragement,"Try again sweetie. Try again"
This time, the lily slowly changed colour, from its winter white, to a mottled red, flecked with black spots. She then presented it to Crouch and said,"For you, Pa."
"SUPPER!" came Katherine Crouch's cry from the other side of the house.
"Quickly then, Thad," Bart and Tom said. "What are you going to do?"
"This," he said with a grin. "If I may."
He reached out and plucked the red lily from Crouch's hands and said, "Duplicatus." The flower copied itself, over and over again, until about a hundred lilies floated in the air in front of him. With a wave of his lengthy yew and fir construct, the flowers all merged and condensed into what looked like a small semiprecious stone, which it was. With two pieces of coal from the bucket, he fashioned a small, diamond casket to sit the lilystone rock in, and attached chains on either side, so someone could wear it around their neck. He then turned to his family and said, "Well then, dinner."
With one hand holding the necklace and the other lighting the way with his wand, Thaddeus led them through the house to the kitchen. When they arrived, his mother turned and saw the priceless necklace resting in his hand, and letting out a gasp, asked, "Errm," Thaddeus said, calculating in his head. "A shilling for the flower and ha'p'ny for the pieces of coal."
"Oh my talented boy," she said, hugging him. "No wonder the goblins want you working for them as soon as possible."
She then looked to her husband and said, "Tobias, do not let him say no to them again, you understand?"
He just chuckled as she turned back to their firstborn, saying, "But it can't be for me, surely?"
"Yes Mother, it is for you. Happy Christmas."
Another merry Christmas for the Family Crouch.
But not for all of them.
Summer, 1641 AD
Manningtree, Essex
As soon as the service was over, the Stranger quickly left the church, seeming oddly fearful that someone would approach him and talk to him. He looked like he was almost flying over the cobblestones, and then over the dusty track. But Wendelin was aware that he would try to flee from the Muccles, and as he hadn't seen her hiding in the shadows, she followed him out of the church and along the main street. As soon as they reached the village gate, out of earshot of the congregation who were sunning themselves in the rare rays of heat, she laid into him, vengefully.
"What in the name of Prometheus were you doing in there, boy?" Wendelin hissed. "That was one of the most stupid things I've ever seen; what if THEY had seen your 'hat-trick'?"
"You were in with the Muds too," he pointed out savagely. "And I don't see anyone random berating you."
"I stuck to the shadows, you blithering idiot. Not making a scene and a fool of myself."
Weddell had taught at the Hogwarts School for several years, before moving on to write and tutor privately, so she possessed a fierce tongue and a fiercer sense of discipline. Aged 94 summers, there were few who could contest that in the east of the country.
"Who are you anyway? Why are you here?" Wendelin asked.
"Balthazar Crouch," the straw-haired boy said, ignoring the proffered hand. "As for why, my business is my own, so please don't bother me any further."
He was about to turn away, and storm off in the direction of Mistley, when the old Seer halted him in his tracks.
"YOU LISTEN HERE, BOY! YOU CANNOT JUST BARGE INTO THIS QUIET, LITTLE VILLAGE AND PUT NOT ONLY YOUR OWN LIFE, BUT MINE AND THREE OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES AT RISK." Crouch visibly flinched at every spittle-laden syllable. "You. Are. Going. To end up, dead."
"I wish I already were, you have seriously no idea."
"Good. Now you tootle off back to your drinking pit and remember that I, Wendelin Weddell, will be watching you now."
He looked like he was about to answer back, but lapsed into silence.
"Go on, shoo!" Weddell said, "Be off with you"
And he did. He trudged the mile or so along the riverbank, muttering all the while,"Wendelin Weddell. Wendelin Weddell, oh you won't be forgotten about by me."
"Wendelin Weddell," the mayor reads. "You have been tried and found guilty of using witchcraft to kill the sexton, Howard Johnson. Your punishment is death by hanging. Do you have anything to say?"
"No, your honour, other than that I beg you not to judge to quickly of others, as we are not the ones permitted to judge. I commit my soul to God."
"The Lord won't have you, ya hag," the hangman leers. "You may not even be good enough for the fires below."
She ignores the vile man, instead making looking directly at a pale-faced man standing to the left of the platform, wearing a wide brimmed hat and a rapier on his belt. He glares back, the glint in his eye shouting revenge, not just on her, but everyone who ever misjudged him, or thought bad of him or tried to make him look foolish.
She turns herself back to the hangman and lowers her neck into the noose.
'I've lived too long,' she thinks. 'But the Pendleton family didn't. And those girls in Salem shan't. And all cannot.'
'Because, in the end, they are all victims of the victim.'
Nobody knows where Matthew Hopkins truly came from. He turned up in Manningtree one day in 1644.
He died three years later, on 12th August 1647, with the blood of 300 young women on his hands.
In the entire history of England, there have been less 500 recorded cases of executions for witchcraft.
Matthew Hopkins killed more 'witches' than all other witch-hunters in the land put together.
Finite
Author's Notes:
- Muccle is the old form of Muggle.
- Wendelin Weddell is NOT Wendelin the Weird, but probably some descendant by a couple of hundred years.
- Hopkins did have three brothers, all older than him.
- The Pendleton witch trials are as notoriously famous in Britain, as the Salem Trials in the US. In 1612, nine women and two men from Leicestershire were tried for witchcraft.
- It is speculated that Hopkins' witch hunts were the basis for the Salem Witch Trials fifty years later in Salem, Massachusetts.
- The Salem Trials are widely regarded as the final straw that drove wizardkind underground, by the Statute of Secrecy in 1692 AD.
- Please leave a review and tell me what you think. :)