Caitlyn Box Set

by Elizabeth Davies

  ‘I shall do my best, my lady,’ was Herleva’s dry response.

  Arlette raised her hand once more. The knife sliced across her palm and a ribbon of red opened in her skin.

  ‘Ow.’

  ‘Keep still.’ Herleva held a bowl up to catch the drops. ‘There needs to be equal amounts of your blood and his for this spell to work.’ She saw me watching. ‘You have played your part, Caitlyn. Leave us. I will call you when we are done, if I need you.’

  I yawned. It was late and I had not slept so far this night. Although I would have liked to stay to witness the spell being cast, I was weary to the bone.

  The kitchen was too hot, so I took my blanket and the hay-stuffed pillow outside. Herleva’s herb garden was fragrant and cool. A gentle breeze blew from the south, carrying with it the heat of distant lands. A nightjar sang its trilling song, and I thought it apt to have a bird which was rumoured to have supernatural qualities living in a witch’s garden.

  Spreading the blanket next to the wall of the house and using the pillow to cushion my back, I sat with my legs out in front and my skirts hiked up to my knees to cool my skin. I imagined taking all my clothes off and lying naked under the stars for some relief from the heat. A thunderstorm was building, and the air was heavy and humid.

  Rustling from mice, or rats, or maybe a hedgehog, came from the lavender bushes, and the bark of a fox sounded in the distance, causing the tame rabbits to stir restlessly in their pen. A cat slunk past. I narrowed my eyes at it. It froze, giving me an inscrutable stare, and opened its mouth to show me its teeth, liking me as little as I liked it. Even though I was in woman form, it appeared to know me for what I was. Or did my imagination give the cat a quality it did not possess?

  Whistling, badly out of tune, came from the direction of the gate. Probably Osbern, out late like a randy tomcat, using the herb garden as a shortcut to the front door. He did not see me until he almost fell over my legs.

  Osbern was my least favourite of Herleva’s family. Younger than Walter by three years, he was a boy in man’s clothing. Unlike his brother, he was more interested in whoring and drinking than working. No wonder Fulbert threatened to let Walter have sole possession of the tannery. Osbern was a well-built lad, chunky and solid. He liked his food as much as he did his ale, and it showed, though he was not unpleasant on the eye, and had a certain swagger about him and an inflated sense of his own importance which appealed to some girls. That his father had a healthy business and an even healthier coffer added to the attraction the opposite sex felt for Osbern.

  He swore as he righted himself, then saw who had almost caused him to fall.

  ‘What are you doing out here. You should be in the kitchen where you belong. Get up and make me breakfast.’ He gave my leg a nudge.

  ‘I am not your servant.’

  He laughed. ‘Of course, you are. What else could you be? Oh, sorry, your majesty, I forgot you are a queen.’ His mock bow and the sneer on his face did not amuse me. If I was Cat, my hackles would be well and truly raised.

  I looked over his shoulder, hoping he would leave. It was not the first time he had taunted me, but he usually went away if I ignored him.

  Another nudge, more of a kick this time.

  I pulled my legs in and wrapped my arms around them.

  ‘Get up. I am hungry.’ He had his hands on his hips like a cross fishwife.

  ‘You shouldn’t have stayed up all night, whoring,’ I said, regretting the words the second they left my mouth. I knew better than to rise to his bait.

  ‘Why are you still up?’ he retorted. ‘Have you been whoring, too?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘How much do you charge? You should give it to me for free.’ He licked his lips, his gaze on my knees. Lust lit his face, his lips parted, and the growing bulge in his breeches betrayed his intention. I pulled the material down over my legs and tried to scramble to my feet. He pushed me back down.

  My head hit the wall, and for a moment the stars were behind my eyelids and not in the heavens. Unable to gather my wits, I lay on the soft earth, nausea turning my stomach. Then he was upon me, his weight holding me down, one sweaty hand across my mouth, the other fumbling with the material of my skirt.

  I lashed out with my feet, but his legs were atop mine and I could not gain enough momentum to do anything more than scuff his shins. He forced my thighs apart with his knees as I struggled and bucked beneath him.

  Grunting and swearing again, his hand on my lips gripped tighter, squeezing my cheeks so hard one of my teeth sliced the inside of it. The taste of copper flooded my mouth and I thought I might be sick. If I was, and he did not remove his hand, I would choke. I tried to tell him so, but all I managed was a muffled cry.

  Then he had my skirts up to my hips, his fingers delving underneath, and I winced when he found what he sought.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he muttered. ‘Do you like that? Do you?’

  For a second his roving fingers disappeared and he shuffled about, raising his hips to undo the ties in the front of his breeches. His engorged manhood poked at my most intimate of places. I twisted away, and he swore again.

  ‘Keep still bitch else I will-’

  ‘Osbern.’

  He froze.

  Herleva’s voice was low and calm, and all the more worrying because of it.

  Osbern stopped groping me and pushed himself to his feet, stuffing his rapidly softening member back inside his breeches and redoing the ties. He did not look at her. He did not say a word. Fear rolled off him, like heat from a fire. I could almost smell it.

  ‘What have I told you about touching my things?’ she asked pleasantly.

  She fooled neither of us with her softness and reasonable tone. I adjusted my clothing and got to my feet, the feel of his hands lingering on my skin like hot fat spat from a pan. I wanted to dip myself in the river and scrub until it came off. My head throbbed. A small lump had formed and I flinched when I touched it.

  ‘I didn’t think she belonged to you,’ he muttered, not looking at her.

  ‘Silly boy. Of course, she does’. Herleva was smiling. It scared me.

  ‘That poncy English git gave her to Arlette.’ His tone was sullen and argumentative.

  ‘Nevertheless, she is mine,’ Herleva said. ‘You will not touch her again. You will not speak to her again. If I catch you even looking at her…’

  He cleared his throat. His leg twitched. He stuffed his hands in the pocket of his tunic and found something on the ground which demanded his complete attention.

  ‘Will I have cause to talk to you again about this?’ she persisted.

  ‘No.’ It was barely more than a whisper.

  ‘Pardon, I did not hear you.’

  ‘No.’ I think he meant to shout, but it came out as more of a squeak. I did not want to imagine what she had done to him to scare him so badly.

  Herleva and I watched him leave.

  ‘His father despairs of him,’ she said, sounding like any wife gossiping at the well, bemoaning the attitude of her child. ‘I wish he was more like Walter.’

  I did not care for either of them, but at least Walter left me alone.

  ‘He will not bother you again,’ she said

  I did not, for one moment, think he would.

  ‘Come inside,’ she instructed and led me back to her embalming room.

  A new corpse lay on the table. Where did that come from? It gave a moan, and I yelped.

  ‘The casting of the spell took a great deal out of Arlette,’ Herleva said.

  I moved closer to the table. Arlette’s face looked whiter than the shroud which covered the rest of her.

  ‘She will recover soon. I have another task for you.’ Herleva held out another firmly-corked bottle.

  Witchcraft seemed to entail little more than making people drink nasty concoctions and peering into skulls filled with a rank liquid. I had thought there would be more communing with the devil and dancing naked in graveyards.

>   ‘It has to be administered to Lord Robert before first light,’ she said.

  She could not mean now, could she? I was tired. I hadn’t slept. I had already been in the duke’s chamber once during this long night, and had been attacked by Arlette’s brother. Now Herleva wanted me to return to the castle and get the poor duke to imbibe another of her potions?

  ‘It is not to be drunk,’ she said as I cautiously sniffed the top of the bottle. The smell was rank and unpleasant. ‘The potion has to be poured directly into the blood.’

  My confusion must have shown on my face.

  ‘An open wound will do.’

  Chapter 28

  The guards let me through without so much as a glance. Plenty of women and men from the town worked in the castle and for many of them their day started early. First light was almost upon us. Already the sky to the east was less dark, the stars dimming and winking out, one by one.

  The same soldier loitered outside the duke’s chambers.

  ‘What are you doing back here?’ he asked.

  ‘I brought Lord Robert breakfast,’ I simpered, thrusting out my breasts, which were safely covered this time, and fluttering my eyelashes. I hoped I was doing a good enough job – flirting did not come naturally to me.

  The guard looked me slowly up and down. Hurry I wanted to say. Outside the night was not as dark as it had been even a few moments ago.

  ‘Where is it? I don’t see anything?’ he said.

  I smiled sweetly and licked my tongue across my top lip. ‘Me,’ I said.

  ‘Oh. Did he say he wanted you back?’ The man was speaking to my chest again.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I breathed, marvelling at my acting. I had never played the temptress, and I found it…liberating? Fascinating? For the first time in my life, I experienced the power a woman could wield over a man. I stuck out a hip, and thrust my chest out even further. His eyes widened and he cleared his throat.

  ‘Well?’ I demanded.

  The poor man nodded, and shuffled to the side, adjusting his nether regions as he went. I gave him a wide smile, opened the door and slipped through, careful not to make a sound. The duke’s ante-room was empty, the door to his bedchamber closed. I had left it open but mayhap a maid had closed it. He must still be abed, and hopefully still asleep. Just how long should it take for a sleeping-draught to wear off?

  I crept across the wooden floor, treading with infinite care, my breath held against the creak of a floorboard, as I made my slow way across the room until I came to his chamber door. I pressed my ear against it and listened for the gentle rhythm of the duke’s breathing. I thought I heard it, but it might have been my wishful imagination.

  The latch lifted with a slight click, then the door swung open. I pasted a seductive smile across my lips in case he was awake. He wasn’t.

  He was on his side, facing away from the window, his left arm tucked under his pillow, his right resting on the coverlet. Good. At least I could get at the wound on his thumb without having to turn him over, or fish around under the bedclothes.

  With footsteps as noiseless as any cat’s, I moved closer. He sighed, and I paused, glancing anxiously at the window. A flat greyness with a lighter tinge coloured the sky at the horizon.

  I lifted his hand, and turned it so the thumb faced me. The small wound had long since stopped bleeding and was beginning to heal. Frowning, I jabbed my nail into it. For the second time that night Duke Robert unconsciously tried to reclaim his hand.

  I held it firm, and worked my nail into the cut until the blood welled once more. I put his hand down on the coverlet and brought the tiny bottle out of my pocket. The cork took a fair amount of wiggling before it pulled free with a little pop.

  The foul stench issuing from the open bottle made me retch. I swallowed, bile threatening to rise up my throat, and I turned my face away. Taking a deep breath of less tainted air, I returned to my task, lifting his hand once more and tipping the bottle so its neck hovered above the cut. Glossy black tar oozed thickly at the lip, slowly, almost reluctantly, as if it preferred to stay hidden from the light of the candles and remain in its container.

  Then it seemed to sense the blood. Before the first drop even touched Duke Robert’s flesh, it gained momentum, becoming less a gloopy slime and more liquid, as if it could not wait for the contact.

  For a heartbeat it hung above the duke’s flesh, as if savouring the moment, then a droplet entered the wound. It bubbled and hissed, dissolving on contact, the reek of rotten blood and decaying flesh filling the room, and I tipped the rest of it into the tiny wound.

  I coughed and gagged at the thick smoke rising from the Duke’s thumb. Two figures entwined and moved within in it, their mouths open in a silent scream. I watched their skyward dance until the stinging smoke made my eyes water too much to see.

  When my tears had cleared both the figures and the smoke had gone. So had any trace of the black tar I had poured into the duke. All that remained was the faint smell of death.

  My task was done, just in time.

  A cockerel crowed. Outside the window, the first slanting rays of the sun rose over the distant hills. Life had come to the donjon and the rest of the castle and I became aware of the sounds of the morning.

  I returned his hand to the coverlet, and something caught my attention. I bent my head for a closer look.

  The wound was gone.

  There was no trace of the slice to his thumb. Not even a scar.

  I straightened up to find the duke staring at me.

  ‘Breakfast?’ he murmured, sleepily.

  ‘Er, no, I-’

  He raised himself up on one arm, fully awake now, every part of him if the bulge under the bedclothes was what I thought it was. His gaze roved over my body before returning to rest on my face.

  ‘Much better than bread and honey. Come here,’ he commanded.

  I made a move to step away. He reached out, caught hold of my arm and pulled me down onto the bed

  ‘Have I seen you before?’ he asked, his nose buried in my neck. ‘Mmm, you smell nice.’

  Should I remind him? Should I confess and throw myself on his mercy. I’d had these thoughts before and look what had happened. I had obviously not made too much of an impression on him, if he could not even remember who I was, or what I had once been.

  ‘No,’ I said, protesting at both his lack of recall and what he hoped to do to me.

  ‘My lord,’ he prompted pulling back to look at me with narrowed, alert eyes.

  ‘My lord,’ I repeated, obediently.

  ‘If you have not brought me my breakfast, then why are you here?’

  Why indeed – I could hardly admit I was in his bedchamber at the behest of a witch who wanted to bind him to her apprentice for all eternity.

  I said nothing and closed my eyes as he pulled me to him.

  At least he was gentle.

  Chapter 29

  Arlette hit me a stinging slap. ‘I know what you did. I can smell it on you. Harlot!’

  ‘Do you want him, or not?’ I retorted, lifting my hand to my face, heat radiating from my cheek where she struck me. My skin stung nearly as much as my feelings. Did she think I had enjoyed it, teased him, encouraged him? Her desire to own him had over-shadowed common sense.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied with sullen annoyance.

  ‘Then I played my part. I did what was necessary, whatever it took. I did it for you, not for me.’

  ‘Admit it, you would make him yours if you could.’

  ‘If it meant freedom from you and that witch, then yes, I would. Now, I am going to bed. I have done more than my fair share this past night.’

  ‘No, you are not.’

  Arlette and I jumped. Fulbert stood in the doorway, eating a slice of cold meat, a hunk of bread in his hand. I wished he would close his mouth when he chewed. He swallowed noisily.

  ‘Both of you have work to do. Go to the river. Those hides won’t turn themselves.’

  Arlette opened her own mouth
to argue. Her face was wan and she looked tired. When she lifted a hand to poke a stray lock of hair back into her plait, I saw how badly it shook. I was glad I did not know what had happened during the time between Herleva taking Arlette’s blood and handing me the little bottle.

  I noticed something else – the cut on her palm had vanished too.

  ‘Of course, Fulbert,’ I said, and dragged Arlette outside.

  ‘What are you doing? I must wait here for Lord Robert,’ she cried.

  ‘Did Herleva say the duke would come here for you?’

  ‘She has said nothing,’ Arlette admitted.

  ‘Then until Lord Robert makes you his lady, you must obey your father, and he wants us to tan leather today.’ I yawned hugely.

  ‘He always wants me to tan damned leather. I am sick of it. I hate those pits, I hate the smell of them, the sight of them. I never want to see another hide again. I hate leather.’

  So did I. I hated cats too.

  ‘What do you like?’ I said, to distract her, knowing full well what her answer would be.

  ‘Brocade and furs, cloth of gold and silk.’

  No surprise there. ‘What will you wear on your feet when you are a rich lady?’

  ‘She gave a small smile. ‘Lambskin slippers, the very finest, and ones I have not dyed myself.’

  Early morning mist rose from the river, spilling over onto the banks. The castle beyond was suspended on white spiralling water vapour, its towers levitating above the earth as if they had no substance. Boats emerged, gliding on quiet dipping oars, to disappear once more, ghost-boats manned by shadowy wraiths. By mid-morning the heat of the sun would burn it away – it was dissipating even as I watched.

  The river ran silent and deep, with barely a ripple. A fish rose to the surface, jumping for flies. Too late I heard the splash, and searched for the expanding rings in the mist.

  Fulbert had others in his employ, not just me and Arlette, but I bet they had not been up all night. I gave the three workers a rather sour look as I hoisted my skirts about my knees, tucking the material into the girdle at my waist. Our job today was in the trenches, and by the end of it our feet and legs would be stained and stinking. Only a good scrub with lye soap would remove the smell and the soap stung.