The Witch (The Witch Trilogy Book 1)

by Cheryl Potter

  ‘I betrayed her,’ she murmured. ‘You were right, she knew she would hang, like so many more. I could not accept ... I prayed. Then he came to me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The gaoler. He gave me food and said I could save her. If I said she had done things, she would be beaten and allowed to live.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘His breath stank of ale. He had a great wart under his eye, and his fingers – fat as swollen sausages – crawling over my arms and legs. I let him touch and poke because I wanted her to live. He talked about devils who came to women as animals or men, to suck their privates and make them slaves. Fat fingers drew pictures in the sawdust; vile pictures – a man and a woman, a dog and a woman, a ram.’

  ‘Until you were convinced it had truly happened.’

  ‘He put the pictures in my mind. My mother had lain with the Devil, had made an effigy of the old man at his command. It was not her fault. Evil would be beaten out of her, and then we would be as we had been before they came for her.’

  She lay listening to the leaves stirring like a gentle sea, powerfully aware of his closeness, of his raw strength. She swung her legs round to sitting.

  ‘I was made to repeat my story to the judge at the assize court. I could see her in the corner of my eye, sitting ... head bowed ... there was a faraway look in her eyes ... I swear that until I saw her eyes I did not know what I had done.’

  ‘The twist of the knife,’ he said coldly. ‘An old trick. Not enough that they had condemned her, they must have her spirit broken – penitent before she reached the gallows. You were the only weak link in her armoury.’

  Kate said thickly, ‘I denounced them all; the judge, the gaoler, the mob who leered as she hung in the gibbet. I hated them all.’

  ‘And God?’ Again his voice seemed no more than the rustle of leaves.

  ‘Yes,’ she said grimly, ‘even Him.’

  He stroked her hair, saying quietly, ‘Then it is settled. You shall be absolved of guilt.’ He walked pensively towards the water’s edge, hands clasped behind his coat.

  Kate rose from the log. ‘Tell me how.’

  He sighed heavily, then held the knife out to her. ‘Go fetch me a hazel rod.’

  ‘For what?’ she asked unsteadily.

  He put the knife handle into her palm and closed her fingers around it. ‘Kate the child offended. The child shall be duly punished. Fetch the rod.’

  Kate shivered. She was to be beaten. The certain knowledge set her heart straining against her rib-cage. Her legs weakened under her as she moved through the trees, yet she obeyed his command. She trusted him, as she had never trusted anyone before.

  The gnarled hazel tree by the stream was bathed in silvery light. She stepped into the light and cut a strong branch. With deft sweeps of the blade she stripped it of leaves and nipped out the bright new growth.

  He was waiting for her by the lake. His jacket lay across the log and the full sleeves of his white shirt were rolled back to the biceps. She gave him the branch and he ran his hand down it.

  ‘Kneel over the log,’ he said quietly. Kate stepped out of her boots and dropped trembling to the springy grass. There was a moment of absolute still. No wind in the trees, no animal cries, nothing. She turned her face to the moon, the silence pressing against her ears.

  Out of the void there came a sudden wave of euphoria. The fear and uncertainty snuffed out. She was on the threshold of rebirth. He had brought her there, would take her beyond. All that barred her way was this baptism of pain. The realization exploded in Kate. Blood seared red-hot through her veins.

  He thrust the rod to her lips and she kissed it. He pushed her over the log so that she came to rest on her forearms on the other side and whipped back the dress to expose the white flesh of her buttocks. With his left foot squarely planted in the middle of her back he unleashed six merciless strokes. Then paused.

  Over her quiet groans he said, ‘Kate Gurney, you are absolved of your childhood folly, by these strokes I free you.’

  He delivered six more stinging blows.

  ‘Denounce all those who have ever harmed you, Kate, damn them to everlasting hellfire!’

  ‘I damn them,’ she laughed and sobbed at once. ‘Damn them all!’

  Through the consuming pain of the last six strokes, she was dimly aware of his voice.

  ‘Tuum nomen sanctificetur,’ he intoned. ‘Caelis in es qui noster Pater.’ The words echoed incomprehensively in her mind. At last he said, ‘And now Kate, you are mine.’

  An hour later....

  Something woke Polly the taproom girl. She surfaced through heavy layers of sleep and lay listening to the sharp pattering against her window. That fool Jabez come alley-catting no doubt. Well she was going to deal with him once and for all. She pulled a woollen shawl around her shoulders and threw back the shutters.

  ‘Go home to your wife, Jabez you old mongrel!’ she yelled at the dark figure below. ‘Coming here at this ungodly hour.’ She went to slam the shutters closed again, but checked. The figure had not moved and as her bleary eyes focused she realized her mistake. ‘O-oh, it’s you,’ she stammered. ‘I thought ... Master Sutton, he said you’d paid up and gone.’

  ‘Unfinished business, eh Polly?’

  The girl giggled nervously, pulling the shawl tighter round her shoulders. Fond of rough sport was this one. More than that, there was something about him; something she could not fathom, something that frightened, yet intrigued her. Still he rewarded her more than generously.

  ‘Ah,’ he concurred, ‘an ungodly hour ... I shall leave you to your sleep.’ He turned to go.

  ‘No!’ Polly urged, fingering the emerald scroll brooch pinned to her shawl. ‘Wait, I’m coming down.’

  He glanced across the street. The house fronts were ghosted with the shadows of trees and in the moonlight a cat stalked some unseen prey. Polly emerged from a side entrance, a froth of loose curls and billowing cloak. She padded barefoot towards him, the wind parting the cloak to her nakedness beneath.

  Possession ...

  Basking in his sleepy warmth, Kate trailed her fingertips over his shoulder muscles and down to the base of his spine. A laugh, soft and wondering gurgled in her throat as she contemplated his nakedness, their nakedness.

  Glimpses of the night’s events taunted her – disjointed images as in a dream; a watery moon, grave words that had no meaning, and pain – searing, yet welcome. But she had no memory of coming back to the cottage, nor of how she came to be sharing her pallet with him.

  She lay quite still, afraid to disturb him, tuning her breathing to the slow rise and fall of his shoulder. The muted light of dawn filtered through knotholes and crevices in the window shutter, outlining the dresser and the pile of fleeces she had stacked in the corner, the discarded clothes draped over the high-backed chair under the window.

  And him. His presence – the very smell of his skin, dominated the room. It breathed new life into things familiar; into Kate herself. She rolled on to her back and stretched awakening into tingling limbs. A slight stiffness in her thighs and buttocks triggered another glimpse of the night’s dream and with it a shiver of exhilaration.

  ‘Are you cold?’ he asked, without turning.

  Kate released the stretch, startled by his awareness. ‘No, not cold ... not now.’ She brushed her lips against his shoulder and peered over the tousled dark hair at his sleep-creased profile. Not cold, she reflected, new, reborn, vital – anything but cold.

  ‘You are woman, made new. Virgin soil ready to be planted,’ he breathed, his eyes set in an unseeing stare. In one vicious movement he spun into her and trapped her hair against the bolster ticking. ‘Take me to you now and I will demand all. Do you hear me Katharine Gurney, witch’s bastard? All.’ With rough hands he kneaded her breasts, the well of her stomach. His dark eyes bore down on her, lips stretched into a thin smile.

  ‘All,’ Kate acquiesced. She was fixed in his unrelenting stare, tormented by hands that se
emed to burn her flesh. ‘I know.’

  ‘Know what?’ he demanded, gripping her chin in between his fingers. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘That you will own me.’

  ‘Body and soul.’

  ‘Body ... and soul.’

  ‘You will do my bidding in all, as mistress, servant, slave if need be?’

  ‘I vow it.’

  ‘And if you abide by all this, Kate, I shall cast down your enemies and raise you to riches, the like you have never dreamed of.’

  ‘I’ll gladly swear my pact on the Book,’ she urged, flicking a glance at the dust-laden Bible on the dresser.

  ‘This?’ Springing from the pallet, he knocked the book to the floor with a derisive blow. The thud set Jack snuffling and whining outside the door. ‘I’ll have a binding seal on our pact or none at all.’

  He snatched a knife from the pile of clothes on the chair and rubbed his thumb across the keen blade. Gripping her wrist, he swung her up to kneel on the blankets. Then holding the blade upright between them, he pulled her tight against him, trapping the sharp edges between his chest and her heaving breasts.

  ‘There will be no turning back,’ he growled.

  ‘I know,’ she answered hoarsely.

  ‘Ah,’ he smiled slowly, circling his arms around her trembling shoulders, ‘I think you do.’ Their mouths locked in a savage, biting kiss. Then he jerked her shoulders forwards.

  Kate collapsed breathlessly to the bed, lightheaded with new sensation. She reached up to touch the oozing gash on his chest, tasted the blood – warm on her fingers. Strength welled within her; strength and confidence. Clasping his head between her bloodied hands she drew him down to her own fresh wound.

  His voice, strangely far off, whispered her name over and over again. His tongue caressed and cleaned the cut. Bloodied lips and chin came up to her neck forcing her head back. Hands trembling with restrained power, explored breasts and inner thighs. Fiery pangs shot through her loins, her ribs, even her neck. A strange numbness crept up the base of her skull and Kate’s parched senses quivered with expectation. But just as she reached the brink of this new sensuality, when she feared she must explode, he pulled away from her.

  Confused, she searched his face. His eyes, concealed beneath closed lids flicked once, then stayed quite still. His lips, slightly apart and streaked with blood, sank towards each other, as though he were drifting asleep.

  Trembling, Kate clawed her fingers past his chest wound, down to the dark hair of his lower abdomen. She saw the eyelids snap open, met with defiance the wildness in his eyes and laughed as he seized her shoulders, not caring that his fingernails bit into her soft flesh, that his teeth gnawed at her neck, throttling the laugh out of her. Then a tumble of arms and legs, his weight bearing down on her, a rushing like waves crashing on rocks and cries, very much like her own, as the waves lapped over her head, drowning her.

  Afterwards, lying in the crook of her arm, she snatched greedy breaths until the weakness in her shaking limbs gradually subsided. He lay quietly staring into the shadows of the ceiling timbers, his rage spent. From outside the latched door came Jack’s soft howling.

  ‘He knows I must up and tend the ewes,’ she said at last. When he did not reply she swung her legs to the floor and padded barefoot across to the window, flinging back the shutters.

  ‘The dog grudges you a lover,’ he said, sitting up to study her. She was staring across the ridge and furrow grassland to the wooded hillside where she had first met him. Her elbows rested on the uneven windowsill, fingers linked, her chin resting pensively on her thumbs.

  ‘I know Jack better than that,’ she said, smiling softly at the half-reclined figure on the bed. ‘Not you though ... for all I’ve tried to see you. You’re just not there. A name would do ... anything.’

  ‘What use is a name?’

  ‘Something to call you by, at least.’

  ‘No need for titles, no given names. Feel me, woman. Sense me. You are part of me now.’ The intensity of his words compelled her to turn and face him. She moved towards his outstretched hand and knelt beside the pallet, obeying his wordless command. She forced her head into hands that gently massaged her neck and temples, and brushed her lips against his thick wrists. His eyes, dark and unswerving, lured her thoughts from everyday concerns. New folds, fresh grazing, hooves and fleece to be checked – all this drifted from her mind as his voice, like gentle waves breaking on shingle, filled her head.

  ‘Feel the strength in me, Kate. You are an empty vessel. Take me into you. Feel the fire of my strength in your shoulders ... your arms ... the tips of your fingers and toes. Know me. For good or evil, I am your master.’

  He seized a handful of her hair and flung her so hard that her skull banged against the floorboards. Kate choked with pain and tried to lift herself up but was forced down to her knees under his weight. The second coupling was as unexpected as it was savage. A hand clamped her screaming mouth, another clawed at her hanging breasts. Kate’s nails splintered the wooden floor. She felt herself drowning in a frenzied, stormy sea. Overwhelmed by pain and nausea, gasping for air – for life itself, the room, the floorboards swam out of focus....

  The morning light suddenly gave way to silvery moonlight. Above her head was a canopy of leaves. Below her she saw a young woman; eyes bulging with terror, her mouth twisted into a soundless scream, spread-eagled half-naked in the undergrowth....

  It was a fleeting vision – no more than a glimpse, but the horror of it stretched the moment. Then, at last, reality thrust itself back upon her consciousness. The room rushed back at her. And he now lay heavily on her doubled body, impassioned groans stuttering in his throat.

  ‘Where were you?’ he rasped, throwing himself off her at last. Kate bit her bottom lip to stop it trembling and rolled on to her side, hugging her knees. Her eyes followed him from the window where he had filled his lungs with air, to the chair where his clothes lay. ‘Well?’ he demanded, buttoning his shirt.

  The image of the girl in the wood was still vivid in Kate’s mind. Her brain reeled with it. ‘I – I’m not sure ... trees ... a girl.’

  His fingers ceased buttoning. In one easy movement he lifted her on to the edge of the bed and roughly pushed the hair from her eyes.

  ‘What of this girl?’ His eyes shone with interest.

  Kate shook her head. ‘She was so afraid.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered, with a shiver. He scrutinized her for several seconds, then turned away to finish dressing. Kate eased her cramped legs down to the floor. Her shift and woollen stockings lay in a crumpled heap by the chair. She pulled them on, taking deep breaths to ease a wave of nausea.

  ‘Did you know this girl?’ he asked, casually straightening his cuffs. Kate knelt down by the door and rummaged through the contents of a chest under fleeces stacked in the corner.

  ‘There was death in her face,’ she said, staring distractedly into the chest. ‘Poor wretch, she was out of her wits.’

  ‘Did you know her?’ he repeated dryly.

  Kate shook her head, ‘No, I didn’t.’ She pulled a beige day dress from the chest and shook out the folds before stepping into it.

  ‘These visions,’ he said, lacing the back of her bodice for her, ‘do they come to you often?’

  ‘They come when they will,’ she answered softly. ‘Sometimes three in a week, sometimes none for a year. Mind, I rarely understand what I see. Only now and again, a face I know, or maybe a place.’

  ‘Like Blackwood Top?’ he remarked.

  Kate lay her head back against his chest and sighed, ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are no longer alone with your gift, Kate. From this hour forth you will tell me everything you see. Withhold the most trivial of details and I shall know, believe me.’ With peculiar tenderness, he folded her into his arms and pressed his cheek against her uncombed hair. ‘Strength comes out of pain, Kate ... remember that.’ He exhaled warm breath into her hair. ‘And you are
rare among women, or I would not have chosen you.’ He tilted her face up and stared steadily into her searching eyes. ‘But you know that, don’t you?’

  Kate gave a ragged sigh. ‘Stay with me.’

  ‘You have your flock to tend – even the dog knows that, listen to his whining. And I have matters of my own to attend to.’ He moved to unlatch the door.

  ‘When will you come back?’ she urged, recalling his prolonged absence after their first meeting, with dread. ‘There’s room enough for us both here....’

  ‘Be strong, Kate. If I stayed under your roof, how long before tongues began to wag? Secrecy is a powerful ally,’ he said deliberately. ‘I shall come to you soon enough. Come-‘ he said, back-handing boisterous Jack aside and guiding her along the shady landing to the narrow stairs, ‘it is many hours since last ate.’

  Kate scraped what little she had from the larder; bread, some butter and fat bacon, a jug of frothy ale from the cask. They breakfasted in silence at a small table by the range, Jack forcing his head ingratiatingly against Kate’s legs.

  After he had eaten the best part of a loaf and swallowed the last drop of beer, he sighed and leaned back in his chair. Wiping his greasy fingers on a towel she had brought to him, he asked, ‘What do you know of Samuel Grafton?’

  ‘That he is the eldest son of Sir Hilary Grafton,’ she offered. ‘They say the old man is a bit touched in the head these days. Spends most of his time locked in his London house, or taking the waters at Bath.’ She added ruefully, ‘Master Samuel runs this estate now.’

  ‘The old man, Sir Hilary, wasn’t he the justice who condemned your mother?’ He cast her a sideways glance.

  Kate pushed her plate away and wiped her mouth clean. ‘Yes,’ she said, meeting his gaze, ‘he was one of them.’ She snorted ironically.

  ‘What of the son?’ he demanded.

  ‘Samuel’s bailiff rode up here a month back. Tom Clarke, tipped chin and starched collar these days he is, doing his master’s dirty work. No more than a ragged-arsed bully when we sat in the parson’s schoolroom together.’ She laughed scornfully. ‘Master Samuel thinks three shillings an acre a meagre enough return on this land. He’ll have another shilling or come autumn I’ll be out.’