Bitter Greens

by Kate Forsyth

  Winter passed. Each month, La Strega came at sunset on the night of the full moon, despite the gales and the snowstorms. She complained of feeling the cold as she never had before. She complained of aches and pains and said, ruefully, holding her hand to the fire, ‘Look how wrinkled they are, just like an old lady’s.’

  ‘It must be the cold,’ Margherita said desperately. ‘Isn’t it the coldest winter ever?’

  In bed at night, La Strega shoved at Margherita. ‘You’re growing so big, Petrosinella, you’re taking all the room.’

  ‘No, no! There’s plenty of room,’ Margherita said, trying to make herself as small as possible.

  A flash of memory came. Eight small skeletons laid out like the spokes of a wheel. Margherita was now taller than any of those skeletons. And it was true she was putting on weight. Every time Lucio came to see her, he brought her marvellous feasts. He loved to see her eat and he loved the changes in her body. Her breasts were full and heavy now, big enough to fill his hand. Her belly was softly rounded instead of thin and concave. What Lucio gloried in, La Strega found distasteful. So Margherita did her best to keep her body hidden from La Strega and to make her content so her hand did not come creeping in the middle of the night, searching for some tenderness.

  Although Margherita kept the tower room spotless, and never raised her eyes, or answered back, or asked any awkward questions, La Strega was cranky and short-tempered. She cut back Margherita’s rations. ‘Obviously, I’m feeding you too well. You’re getting quite fat,’ she said cruelly. If it had not been for Lucio’s sacks and barrels, hidden under the floor, Margherita could well have starved to death. For she was ravenously hungry all the time, as if eating was the only link she had to Lucio.

  In early spring, La Strega found a grey hair at her temple. She slapped Margherita. ‘Have you lied to me? Have you begun to bleed?’

  ‘No, no!’ Margherita said, and indeed she did not lie. Her blood had come only that once and never again, making her doubt Lucio’s easy assumption that all women bled every month. La Strega examined all her camìcias and sheets but found no stains. She said no more, but her gaze seemed to rest on Margherita suspiciously, so Margherita did her best to play the part of a sweet lovable little girl, who wanted only to make her mama happy. She felt as if her secret was ballooning inside her, threatening to break free from her ears and eyes and nose and mouth, like a gush of blood.

  As soon as La Strega had gone, Margherita dug out her wedding ring from the depths of the flour sack and slid it back on her finger. ‘Lucio,’ she whispered, holding the cool band against her cheek. ‘Lucio, where are you?’

  In April, soon after Margherita’s seventeenth birthday, Lucio came back. Joyously, she took off the silver snood and tossed it on the dresser, and she unbound her hair from its silver ribbon so she could lower the long plait from the window for him to climb. By the time he was framed in the window, she was already eagerly untying her bodice. He held up one hand to stop her, sitting down on the chair and drawing her to sit on his lap.

  ‘Mia bella bianca,’ he said, his breath soft on her cheek. ‘I have spoken to someone about the binding spell. She says … she says only you or the witch can break the spell. No one else.’

  ‘It cannot be broken?’ Margherita felt dazed.

  ‘No! You can! Only the one who cast the spell or the one on whom the spell was cast. Don’t you see? You can break the spell, you can!’

  She shook her head. ‘But how?’

  ‘She said you must look in your heart. She said you will know how when the time is right.’

  ‘But I don’t! I don’t know how!’

  ‘Think, Margherita! You’ve been here five years. Have you learnt nothing from the witch?’

  ‘I’ve tried,’ she whispered. ‘But what can I do? Lucio, you don’t understand! She … she sees everything, she knows everything. I cannot withstand her.’

  ‘Does she know about us?’ Lucio demanded.

  Margherita shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. She suspects …’

  ‘But she doesn’t know! She doesn’t know everything. Please, Margherita, you must think. I don’t know how much longer I can wait for you.’

  Margherita began to weep, and Lucio rocked her in his arms and begged her pardon and kissed away her tears. Soon, they were once again meshed in each other’s bodies like the cogs of a clock, which had no purpose apart from each other.

  Later, he told her about the old woman. She had been an ugly old crone, gathering tufts of sheep’s wool caught in the brambles at the edge of the forest. She had been so old and bent, struggling to carry her basket while leaning on her distaff, that Lucio had hurried to help her. She had thanked him, and blessed his handsome face, and wished she could do something to repay him. That is when he had asked her.

  ‘But I don’t know how to break the spell. Oh, couldn’t she have told you more?’

  ‘That’s all she said. That only the one who cast the spell or the one on whom the spell was cast can break it. And that you must look in your heart, that the answer is within.’

  Margherita said angrily, ‘Do you think I would not have left long ago if the answer was so easy? That old woman was spinning you moonshine!’

  Lucio got up and got dressed, every line of his body taut with anger. ‘Margherita, I love you, I truly do, but this is no life for me. I am sick with longing all the time I am away from you, and sick with frustration all the time I am with you. I want a wife, someone to share my life. I am going to Limone now. I’ll be back in a few weeks. If you have not managed to find some way to leave this tower by then, I’m never coming back again. Do you understand?’

  Margherita nodded, white and tearless. When he had gone, she lay huddled in her bed all day, unable to find the will or the energy to get up.

  It was the sight of the moon, swollen as a body louse on the horizon, which at last gave her the strength to rise from her bed. Margherita could not bear the idea of the witch’s cold hands touching her again. She took the dagger Lucio had given her from under her bed and held it to the scars on her wrists, then laid its silver sharpness against the golden softness of her hair, billowing unbound about her. Dead girls’ hair. If she cut it off, would that break the spell? But what if it didn’t, and La Strega came and found her with her head shorn? What would she do? Kill her, Margherita was sure.

  But then she would rather die than lose Lucio, her lover, her love.

  She sat on her windowsill, looking at the dark horizon, the snowy peaks of the mountains edged with the last rays of the sun. An eagle was flying high above the lake, soaring and swooping with the motion of the wind. Every fibre of her being wished she too could be free. She tried to remember the spell that the witch had used to bind her. There had been words, a rhyme, nine drops of blood, hair bound into her hair.

  Her breath coming fast, like a cornered animal, Margherita lifted the heavy burden of her hair and cut a single strand, at the back, close to the scalp. It came free in her hand, long and sinuous as a golden ribbon. Carefully, she examined it till she found the place where the other girls’ hair had been woven into hers, whether by magic or artifice Margherita had never known. She cut it away from her hair, whispering under her breath, ‘Goddess of the rock, hear my words. Give me the strength to fly free like a bird.’

  Courage lifted her up. She threw the shorn end of the lock of hair out the window and watched the bright strands blow away in the wind and disappear. She was left holding a lock of her own hair in her hand.

  She coiled her hair in a ceramic pot and anointed it with oil scented with rose, then lit the squat red candles, setting them into a triangle about the bowl of hair. Then, as the sun set and the full moon rose, she pricked her finger and squeezed nine drops of blood into the bowl:

  With my own blood, three by three,

  No longer shall I be bound by thee.

  No longer bound to this dreadful tower,

  Never again to cringe and cower.

 
As I burn this hair, a part of me,

  Let my heart and soul be free.

  She hardly knew where the words came from – a dark secret place deep within her. As she chanted them aloud, she lit a taper from one of the candles and held it to the hair until it shrivelled and burnt away into foul-smelling ashes. She then tipped the ashes out into the luminous night. They were gone in seconds.

  Her heart was beating fast now, her hands shaking. Hurriedly, she packed a sack with provisions and got out her warmest shawl and her sturdiest shoes. She then rolled back the rug and began to frantically chip away at the paste of flour and water she had made to smooth the edges of the trapdoor. The rope was hidden down there. She could not escape without the rope.

  ‘Petrosinella, let down your hair so I may climb the golden stair.’

  Margherita sat back on her heels, as still as a girl turned into a pillar of salt. The chant came again, the witch’s voice angry. Margherita scrambled to her feet, almost falling as a wave of dizziness swept over her. She kicked the dagger under the bed and dragged the rug back into place over the trapdoor. Her dress lay discarded on the floor. She stepped into it and dragged it up over her body, but her fingers were so stiff and clumsy that she could not do up the laces. She knotted them as best she could and hurried to the windowsill. The great length of her hair was all in a tangle, but she had no time to comb it. As she wound it about the hook and let it drop, a flash of gold caught her eyes. She wore Lucio’s ring. Desperately, she tugged it off and dropped it in the nearest sack.

  When La Strega climbed through the window, she was angry at the delay in answering her call, angry at the untidy room, with the bed unmade and the snood and ribbon and comb lying discarded on the dresser. She glared at Margherita, who stood with hands folded and eyes downcast like a little girl caught stealing sweetmeats.

  ‘What took you so long? What were you doing? Why is this place in such a mess? You lazy layabout, what have you been doing all day? Look at you! Do up your gown properly!’

  Glancing down, Margherita realised her laces had broken and her dress was gaping open over her breasts. She gasped and pulled her bodice closed. ‘I’m sorry, it just burst undone. My dress is too tight, I don’t know why.’ Anxiety made her words tumble out.

  La Strega reached out and grasped her wrist. Her face was white, her eyes glittering as she scanned Margherita from head to toe, noticing the round swell of her belly, her heavy breasts. ‘You little whore,’ she whispered. Her eyes darted to the unmade bed then back to Margherita, who shrank back in terror. ‘You slut!’ the witch cried. ‘You’ve betrayed me!’ She slapped Margherita so hard that she fell to the floor, sobbing, her hand to her cheek. ‘Who is he? Who have you let in?’

  ‘No … no one.’

  ‘You liar! How long? How many months? I knew something was wrong! I knew the spell was not working as it should. I thought you were grown too old but all the time you were lying to me.’ La Strega drew her dagger. ‘You’ll pay for this!’ She seized Margherita’s hair, wrapped it three times about her left wrist, and slashed at it with the knife. The knife sliced through her hair, so that Margherita tumbled back to the floor. The witch was left with a waterfall of fiery tresses cascading from her hand. She brought it to her mouth and kissed it, then let it fall.

  ‘I will never forgive you,’ La Strega said icily. ‘You’re worthless to me now.’

  And she raised her knife to strike.

  FUGUE

  Let down your hair,

  That cloudy-gold lure,

  The delicate snare

  That holds me secure.

  Delight and despair

  War with me now –

  Let down your hair.

  Shake out each curl

  Swiftly, and be

  Like Spring, a wild girl

  With her hair flying free.

  Bury me there,

  And be buried with me …

  Let down your hair!

  ‘Rapunzel’

  Louis Untermeyer

  THE AFFAIR OF THE POISONS

  The Abbey of Gercy-en-Brie, France – April 1697

  The abbey bell sounded out, wrenching me away from Sœur Seraphina’s story and back to the real world of the convent and its high enclosing walls.

  ‘Oh, no, not now,’ I cried, looking back towards the church and its bell-tower.

  ‘To think how reluctant you were to first come out into my garden. Now, you never want to leave,’ Sœur Seraphina teased.

  ‘It’s so beautiful here.’ I looked around at the neat squares of earth, misting over with green as seeds sprouted. Birds sang with gusto as they darted about the enclosure, pulling at worms in the earth or carrying straw in their beaks to build nests, and bees hung above the lavender. ‘But it’s the story, you know that. I want to know what happens next.’

  ‘There is a good reason why St Benedict counsels us to be patient,’ Sœur Seraphina replied. I rolled my eyes and she smiled. ‘We will come to the garden again tomorrow, never fear. Though I must finish planting out these cuttings of rue before we go to vespers, else they’ll wilt. Will you help me?’

  I emptied my bucket of weeds onto the compost heap and came to kneel beside her. Sœur Seraphina had taken cuttings from a silvery-grey plant and now she passed me a great bundle of them. I flinched away, dropping the bundle of rue to the ground. A strong unpleasant smell wafted up from the bruised stems. ‘What a horrible stink!’

  ‘It’s a powerful smell. That’s why it’s so effective against fleas and devils. I make rue water for the servants to scrub our floors with in summer, and rue water for the priest to sprinkle the altar with before High Mass.’

  She smiled at me but saw no answering gleam of amusement in my eyes. The smell of the rue made me nauseous. I stood up and stumbled away, my hands held out in front of me. ‘I cannot stand the smell. How do I get it off me?’

  Sœur Seraphina stood up creakily, dusting away the dirt on her skirt. Her honey-coloured eyes regarded me in puzzlement. ‘Come along in. I’ll give you some lemons to rub on your hands. It will help get rid of the smell.’

  But the disagreeable odour lingered on my skin and in my clothes all evening, and I could smell it still as I closed my eyes that night to try to sleep. It smelt of prison.

  Versailles, France – 1679 to 1680

  The witch La Voisin was arrested by the police on 12th March 1679.

  I heard the news at the gambling table, and it caused such a disagreeable twisting sensation in my stomach that I felt quite sick. I got up and hurried towards the door. I had to warn Athénaïs.

  As I pushed through the crowd, I heard snippets of conversation from all sides. The court was abuzz with the news.

  ‘I heard they found an oven in her summerhouse with the charred remains of babies’ bones.’

  ‘And dug up thousands more in her garden.’

  ‘Holy Mother Mary!’

  ‘They say she used to sacrifice babies in satanic rites.’

  ‘She had a laboratory where she made poisons.’

  ‘Did you hear they’ve arrested a hundred or more witches in Paris alone? They have a list of names …’

  ‘I’d like to see that list. I’d wager I know half the names on it. There’s barely a lady at court who hasn’t gone to have her fortune told at least once.’

  ‘They’ll torture her, of course, to find out who her clients were. They’ll break her on the wheel or crush her legs in the boots.’

  ‘She’ll burn at the stake for sure.’

  All I heard from all sides was ‘poison’, ‘murder’, ‘sorcery’, ‘torture’; the court could talk of nothing else. I scratched on the gilded panel of Athénaïs’s door. She screeched at me to go away, but I insisted she must see me. When her maid let me in, I found Athénaïs lying on her pink velvet couch, beside a small gilded table laden with an empty decanter of wine, a golden goblet, a vial of hartshorn and various medicaments and cure-alls. She held a damp cloth drenched with lavender to her head.
‘Whatever it is, I cannot help you. I have troubles enough of my own,’ she said.

  Athénaïs was not looking her best. Her waist was nearly as thick as it had been before the birth of her son the previous summer, and heavy jowls dragged down either side of her mouth. The battle between Athénaïs and Françoise over the affections of the King had been raging all winter. The King tried to intervene between the two women, which only made things worse. Françoise said that all her best efforts were misunderstood, and that perhaps it was best if she resigned from her position as governess and retired to Maintenon. The King ordered Athénaïs to apologise, but she refused. She retired to her rooms for two days, but for once the King did not hurry to comfort her.

  Eventually, Athénaïs rose, had her stays tightened as much as she could bear, put on her most gorgeous gown and sallied forth to win back the King’s good will. He was cool to her and made a point of visiting Françoise for an hour after lunch, instead of his habitual sojourn in Athénaïs’s apartment. Françoise’s maid said coyly that they were reading sermons together; it was a testament to the strength of Françoise’s character that we all wondered if that was true.

  Desperate to break Françoise’s inexplicable charm on the King, Athénaïs pointed out a beautiful young girl who had only recently come to court as lady-in-waiting to the Duchesse d’Orléans.

  ‘Look, sire, at that statue,’ she said, pointing to Angélique de Fontanges, who was standing, stiff with shyness and awe, by the wall. ‘Does she not look as if she was carved by a master sculptor? Would you be surprised if I told you she was alive?’

  ‘A statue, perhaps,’ the King replied, ‘but good God! What a beauty!’

  By the next day, it was all over court that the King had presented the beautiful eighteen-year-old with a pearl necklace and earrings. A few days later, it was whispered that he had discreetly made a visit to the Palais-Royal, the Duc d’Orléans’ residence in Paris, where the young lady-in-waiting resided. There, the King was quietly shown to Angélique’s room. I don’t know whether Angélique expected him, or even if she wanted him, but it was not long before she was given an apartment of her own at Versailles, a new coach with eight grey horses (two more horses than poor Athénaïs ever got), and a bevy of servants to wait on her hand and foot, all dressed in grey to match the celebrated colour of her great grey eyes.