Roal moved closer. ‘It looks almost dead to me. Bet it won’t last until nightfall. And, oh,’ he called, as the soldier turned to leave, ‘this wasn’t of my making, neither. I didn’t even know the blasted thing was there.’
The soldier shrugged, jerking me slightly, making me hiss with the agony of it. He ignored me and continued to ignore me as he searched for Sir Remin, finally finding him and then chatting for a lifetime, before eventually remembering the scrap of pathetic fur under his arm.
‘What should I do with this?’ he asked, with a jerk of his hand. This time I was too far gone to make any kind of sound.
‘It looks like Lady Arlette’s creature. Is it?’
‘How do I know. I don’t want to take the chance that it is,’ the soldier said.
‘Take it to the Duke. Let him decide.’
My soldier stopped off to find William and he found the next best thing – Walter.
Walter took one look at me and his eyes nearly flew out of his head. ‘Cat? Er… Cait… er? What happened to her – it?’
‘It really is Lady Arlette’s pet, then? I did right to bring her to you?’ The soldier shuffled nervously.
‘You did, but I thought she was in Br—’ Walter shook his head. ‘With my lady, in Fecamp, I mean. Give it to me.’
He had taken a moment to recover his wits, but once he did, Walter lost no time.
The soldier handed me over, more roughly than he needed to, and I let out a thin wail of torment.
‘Careful,’ Walter warned, ‘Lady Arlette would not want her pet hurt any more than she – it – already is.’
The soldier took a hasty step back, as if to remove himself from the situation, and when Walter signalled for him to leave, the man withdrew with haste.
I stared up at Walter, willing him to read my mind, uttering soft mewling pants, uncertain how much longer I could hang on.
‘I think I had better take you to the Duke,’ he said.
Good man. I nodded, and Walter’s eyes bulged even further. There could be no doubt in his mind now, as to what – or should I say who – I really was. Despite the slip when he first saw me dangling from the soldier’s grasp, I don’t think he truly believed it, though the suspicion was clearly there.
He peered closely at me, his face inches from mine, and stared into my eyes. I stared back. I wasn’t sure what he gained from the experience but, with a huff, he turned and strode swiftly across the bailey towards the main keep.
I drifted, unable to maintain my focus, and it was not until I heard William’s voice, first harsh, then full of concern, that I regained my sensibilities.
‘Fetch a cushion. Stoke the fire – I need hot water, lots of it.’ He barked instructions, and when a cushion was hastily fetched and placed in front of the fire, he gestured for Walter to lay me down on it, which he did so with great care.
‘What happened, little one?’ William crooned, as with a great effort I rolled onto my back to take the pressure off my wound.
His fingers probed through my damp and matted fur, and I hissed.
‘Quiet now, I know it hurts.’ The worry on his face was clear, as he said to Walter, ‘Send for my mother. No, go yourself. Make all haste, for I fear our little Cat is not long for this life. If anyone can save her, my mother can.’
Walter nodded, whirled on his heel, and was out of the door before William had even finished speaking.
A huge tremor wracked me, and I mewed in consternation. Not now, please not now… I knew what was coming, and I had no control over it. Get rid of these people, I tried to say, for what was about to happen was for no one’s eyes. Another tremor ran through me and my whole body spasmed.
‘God forbid! Where is that water?’ William yelled.
His fingers reached for the wound again, and this time I raked him with my claws. I needed to get his attention. Now!
It worked, though for a heartbeat he thought it was the pain that caused me to lash out. When he saw the shake of my head though, his eyes widened. I glanced at the door, then at the servants bustling to and fro, then back to the door again. He was quick to understand.
‘Leave me, all of you. I will send for you if I have need.’ He waited for the servants and those few nobles who attended him, to vacate the room, before turning his attention back to me and asking, ‘Is that what you were trying to say?’
I nodded once, then lay back and let the magic do its work.
This time the agony was far, far greater than I had ever known, and I lost my wits for quite some time as the change swept through me. Being burned alive at the stake could surely not be worse than the horror of that transformation.
I yowled and screeched, sounding as though a demon had been brought forth from the bowels of the earth, but as my cries became more human, the screams less cat-like and more like those a woman in child-bed would make, William placed a cushion over my face to attempt to muffle the noise.
I had no idea if it worked. I had no idea if the whole castle had heard and were even now building me a witch’s pyre. The only thing I was conscious of was the torment, and William’s harsh breathing.
When the deed was finally done and I was Caitlyn once more, he lifted the cushion from my face. His expression was a curious mix of horror, repulsion, wonder, and worry.
I think my own might have been of anguish. Never in a thousand years had I wanted him to witness what had just taken place.
To be fair to him, he did not shrink from me, but gathered me to him, cradling my torn and heated body in his arms, and stroked the mess of my hair.
‘Who did this to you, Caitlyn?’ he asked, his tone level and calm. He did not fool me – I felt the rage coming off him in waves so hot that it surpassed even my own burning skin.
‘He is dead,’ I rasped, my throat dry and painful. ‘But the ones who sent him to kill me are not.’ The effort of speaking left me panting and weak, and my head lolled back over his arm.
‘Stay with me, Caitlyn, I cannot lose you.’
It seemed that the duke was not going to have any choice.
With a great effort, I forced my listless arm to move, and I willed it towards my breast. William watched me intently, as my hand crept up my bodice and reached bare flesh, scrabbling feebly under the fabric to find the letter. I had neither the strength nor the time to recount Godwin’s plan to seize the throne of England, but the blood-daubed parchment told the story for me.
William, ever the pragmatist, lowered me gently to the floor and retrieved the letter. He scanned it quickly. His eyes sought mine when he came to the end of it, and I saw that he understood the danger.
‘Thank you, Caitlyn,’ he said, and his hand cupped my face and he sighed. He well knew that bringing him this information had cost me my life.
It didn’t matter. I was ready to go and as the darkness which had been nibbling away at my mind finally claimed me, I murmured, ‘You will make a fine king.’
My last thought was not of love, nor regret, nor even relief that I was finally free of the enchantment which had claimed me for the last twenty-five years.
It was of how on earth William was going to explain a dead woman lying in front of his hearth, when there had been a sickly cat in the exact same place moments before.
Chapter 13
Surprised, I handed Arlette five black candles from the armoire, and watched cautiously as she lit one of them from the normal-coloured ones near the fireplace, then she blew those out, leaving just the one flame to flicker darkly. I had seen her use magic often, but this time her dark art had a different feel. It was rare for her to begin a spell in such a way. In fact, I was unsure whether she had ever done so. The last time these demonic candles had seen the light of day had been when Herleva had read the future in a pile of tiny, painted bones… Oh.
‘Fetch me the silver casket,’ she commanded, ‘and the lamb’s fleece.’
A dread settled over my soul, a cloud of fear drifting down the mountain of my mind to settle above my heart. I
knew what she was about to do, and I wanted no part of it. It had been bad enough the first time I had witnessed it.
I removed the casket and the fleece from the armoire with shaking fingers, then watched as she poured water into a bowl, dipped a cloth in it, and wrung it out. The tinkle of water reminded me how Herleva had washed her face and hands when she had prepared to read the bones. The rasp of cloth on skin was preternaturally loud in the silence of the room, as was Arlette’s muttered chanting. The crackle and snap of the hungry flames was muted and I had not heard a single sound from the castle beyond these four walls for some time, and certainly not since Arlette had sent her servants away and bolted the door behind them. The only other noise came from the armoire itself, and it filled me with an uneasy dread.
Once she had cleansed her hands and face, Arlette brushed the floorboards, the rhythmic sweep, sweep, sweep of the broom keeping time with the pounding in my head, before she put it to one side to light the other four candles, chanting under her breath all the while. Then she painted the circle within a circle, and finally the symbols, using the charcoal and salt, before pouring the precious powdered silver out with great care, to make a five-pointed star.
The chanting grew louder until I could make out the words.
Am roth, am gaer, am chorion
Dwl eich gobion pwca
Droth amen mar.
She took hold of the lamb’s fleece, unfurled it and placed it in the centre of the diabolical star. By mutual silent agreement we seemed to have left the most important thing in its wooden prison until the very last moment. Arlette had not asked for it, and I’d be damned if I was going to lay my hands on it until it was demanded of me.
‘Fetch it,’ she rasped, and she did not need to explain what she meant. The look on her face was explanation enough. Arlette was as terrified of that delicate bag and its hideous contents as I was.
With my hand pressed to my side and feeling the pull and ache of stitches in the newly-knitted flesh, I made my way gingerly across the solar to Arlette’s armoire, and all the time I thought I could hear the bones calling to me, as though they knew they were about to be released from their grisly pouch.
I took one step, then another, my feet reluctant, the rich carpet on which the armoire sat muffling the sound of my shuffling gait. It could not muffle the slight noise issuing from behind the wood; a dry clacking as though those baby bones were restlessly stirring, eager for release.
I had not seen them for years, not since Herleva had read them, and I remembered her coming out of her trance with hell in her eyes and a prophecy on her lips. I had hoped I would never see them again. In all the years in between, Arlette hadn’t used them once, not even when her son’s life was at its most precarious, when Walter and I were forced to drag the poor, bewildered mite from his bed and flee for his life.
I guessed that if there was a time to use them, it would have been then.
So why now? What had changed? William had faced far greater dangers than Godwin and, after all, Godwin was in Bruges, the Irish army was still in Ireland, and William was about to be married to one of the most eligible maids in Christendom, and he had finally been summoned to Edward’s side to be announced as England’s heir. There was no immediate danger. Things were better now than they had ever been, although Arlette had become more fractious as the days passed. Or maybe she had already been fractious, but I had been too ill to realise it until now.
Another step, and the stink of thyme grew stronger. For a heartbeat I thought Herleva had risen from the dead, until I heard the crackle of flames in the hearth as they greedily devoured the herbs Arlette had fed them.
I risked a glance at her, almost too scared to take my eyes away from the armoire’s doors in case they opened of their own accord and a skeletal hand emerged from the darkness within.
Arlette had the wooden bowl in her hands, the one whose carved figurines moved and shifted of their own accord, and she held it to her lips and drank, her eyes closed. The yellow flame from the candles bathed her face with a sickly glow. For once, she looked her age, the skin of her cheeks pulled tight across the bones underneath, her eyes hollow, her mouth a thin-drawn line, and the cords in her neck were raised columns.
My heart gave a lurch. It wasn’t so much that she looked otherworldly, it was that she looked as though death had already claimed her, and for a ragged-breathed moment I wished it had, despite her having saved my life. Whether she had done so by fair means or foul, I had yet to ask. All I knew was, that when I awoke, William and Arlette had been hovering beside my bed, relief in William’s eyes. I had failed to read what had been in Arlette’s – satisfaction, annoyance, curiosity?
The realisation that I was not dead had been a two-edged dagger. Intense relief at not being forced to confront God’s judgement was tempered by the fact that I was still in thrall to a witch.
My hand reached for the armoire without conscious command from my brain, fingers touching the golden key already in place in the lock and at the feel of the cold metal, I snatched my hand back, my soul crying out in dismay. A barely-heard rustle had come from inside, I was certain of it. I could sense the glee emanating from those painted fragments of skull which were desperate to be released. The power inside the armoire was palpable, and I knew Arlette felt it too when she gasped as my fingers slowly and reluctantly turned the key. The lock clicked, and the door swung open as if pushed by something inside, eager to get out.
The interior was black and shadowed, with only a smidgeon of light from the candles to pierce the almost complete darkness. For once, I wished I was Cat with her extraordinary vision; groping around on the shelves to feel for the pouch did not appeal, yet that was exactly what I was forced to do.
My questing fingers brushed against the three tomes, fat and replete with the secrets they held, but for the life of me I could not locate the pouch. I knew it was there, I could feel it, yet I could not recall seeing it when I had fetched Arlette the lambskin or the silver casket. I could not remember seeing it in there at all. Ever.
Ugh!
A shudder travelled through me as, without warning, my fingers dipped into the slimy, wet contents of the skull. I yanked my hand back, but not swiftly enough. Something had moved in the liquid, something alive.
Dear God, spare me, I prayed, but I feared God had nothing whatsoever to do with this.
‘Hurry,’ Arlette urged.
Finally, I found what I sought (or had it found me?) and I picked it up, holding the pouch between my thumb and my first finger. The less I touched the hideous thing, the better, but I swear the bones roiled and wriggled in their baby-skin sack, as I carried it back to where Arlette was sitting in the centre of her devilish circles and gave it to her.
She closed her eyes and chanted again, waving her hands in the air, making signs and sigils as she spoke.
Caer heol, carder, caer heol.
Pen wraeth arhoch drewarth abant,
Caer heol, carder, caer heol.
Eyes still closed, she opened the bag with reverence, tipped up the pouch, and cast its beautiful, grisly contents onto the lambskin, and asked her question. ‘Will my son, Duke William of Normandy, become King of England?’
The ensuing silence was overpowering, threat and dread hung heavy in the air, and the evil roiled and churned.
When she opened her eyes, it took me a few panicked breaths to realise there was no difference to them. No black orbs without a hint of white stared out from Arlette's pinched, white face, and when I gathered enough courage to look at the lambskin I realised there were no tiny painted pictures. Each and every piece of bone had landed face down.
I realised before the witch did, that her efforts had been in vain. Arlette was Arlette and nothing more.
Her magic had failed her.
Or, she had failed it.
The evil presence had gone – if it had ever been there in the first place.
Chapter 14
A secret, quiet joy filled my heart. Arlette
was weaker, less able than Herleva had been to summon the dark magic and the one who lurked inside it. Surely that could only be to my advantage? Not yet maybe, but sometime in the future, I might be able to use the information…
I remained in the corner, a part of me wishing she had dismissed me before she had started, another part was so very glad I had witnessed her disappointment. She sat there, surrounded by failed magic, the life gradually returning to her eyes, and I bet she too was now wishing that she had sent me away.
She did not react as I anticipated. I expected rage, a tantrum, tears even, but she was calm, or was it defeat in her expression, because we both understood that Arlette was not the witch her step-mother had been. Did this mean that the enchantment which Herleva had cast on me all those years ago, and which Arlette now wielded over me, must certainly die when my mistress did?
There was no other to pass me on to, no witch, no sorcerer that I knew of who could inherit me. Arlette had no one, and although I knew little enough about the spell that bound me, I knew enough to understand that it had to be controlled by another magician and not an ordinary mortal.
William was out of the question, and I was no trinket to be passed around. I had to be owned by someone who was familiar with the dark arts and who had the power to use them.
My soul sang with unaccustomed happiness – when Arlette died I would finally be released from this living hell. And as for Arlette, she did not have the power that Herleva had enjoyed and the bones must have known it, and had failed to respond to her summons.
Arlette would have to content herself with the words of a dead woman and hope that the prophecy didn’t play her false.
My mistress got to her feet, less agile than usual, and slowly crept to the nearest chair, lowering herself into it with all the difficulty of a woman twice her age. Knowing what was now expected of me and steeling myself to do it, I let her sit quietly for a while to allow her to gather her thoughts and her composure, and to give me time in which to gather mine. And my courage.
Caitlyn Box Set Page 35
