David Rooke

Grand Witchhunter of the Crown and one of the few kingdom-wide terrors. His black-coated examiners are called when witchery, false miracle, blight practice or politically delicate haunting breaches the ordinary layers of order.

Britannia answers danger in layers: haunt-pacifiers, warpriest companies, witch hunters, ward-trained escorts, relic testers and anti-haunt crews, some working under diocesan approval and some by old sufferance. Above these regional bodies stand a few kingdom-wide authorities, and David Rooke, Grand Witchhunter of the Crown, is the most feared of them. When witchery, false sanctity, blight practice or a politically sensitive haunting must be treated as more than a county embarrassment, the Crown may call in Rooke and the black-coated examiners who act under his warrant.

The dread his office inspires is partly doctrinal and partly political. The arrival of his examiners implies not only that something is dangerously wrong, but that the Crown no longer trusts the local authorities to deal with it. Londoners set him in common speech as the opposite of Saint Nicholas of the Flooded Stairs: where the saint stands for the hope that drowned things may come back honestly, Rooke stands for the fear that some wrongness has risen high enough to bring official suspicion in a black coat behind it. His examiners are reputed to be patient, thorough and slow to publish, and to leave a district quieter than they found it, though not always happier.

Companies meet the Grand Witchhunter’s office when their work has gone further than anyone intended. A company engaged on a haunting, a false miracle or a blighted parish may find the matter taken out of its hands overnight, and itself questioned as witnesses. It is wise to have kept honest notes, and wiser not to have been paid by anyone the examiners are interested in.

In person

David Rooke is very tall, narrow and almost skeletal, with long silver hair swept straight back and a narrow silver moustache. His face is exceptionally long and severe, with a thin hooked nose, one cheek more hollow than the other, and very pale, almost colourless eyes. He wears a severe black high-collared coat, dark leather gloves ringed on nearly every long finger, a clutter of talismans and the insignia of his warrant, and he goes armed with a scoped crossbow and a sealed warrant case. His presence is menacing before he has said a word, and he is not known to try to soften it.