The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga)

by Thorne, Nicola

  ‘It is not Randal’s child,’ Analee said, deep inside the cohani’s tent.

  Reyora nodded as though she’d known already. She looked very wise, squatting on her haunches with her shawl round her head half obscuring her face. On every finger she had rings, and on her bare ankles Analee could see the glow of gold bands. She’d sought out the cohani after the noonday meal when Randal had gone off with the men to look for hedgehogs and pigeons. The women would think she was asking the cohani for a spell, maybe to make her fertile. They would not know the reason.

  But Reyora had been waiting for Analee to come to her; she had not known why, but she had known it would be Analee and not Randal who would come. Everyone could see that after the wedding they had been happy and could not wait to go to their tent at night. They would creep away from the fire even before it was dark.

  ‘It is the child of a gadjo,’ Reyora said after a pause. ‘A blond, handsome gadjo. Maybe a lord?’

  Analee looked at her, marvelling at the skill of the cohani who could tell not only the past but the future as well.

  ‘You see I cannot have the child of a gadjo, Randal would kill me if he knew. If the child is dark as we are, then ... but I will not know until it is born.’

  Reyora nodded again. She was often asked for potions or philtres to abort gypsy women, usually when they were with child before marriage or when they had too many. Such was her skill that she did it for the gadjo women too, and often would depart for Carlisle in answer to an urgent summons carrying with her her bag of herbs and ointments.

  ‘If you do it now, early, he will never know,’ Analee said, ‘and then we can have his child.’

  Reyora looked enigmatic and, for a moment, Analee thought she was going to tell her to clear out, to expose her before the whole camp. She had lain with a gadjo and then married a gypsy. But Reyora was merely looking at her, swaying backwards and forwards on her hips, her face leaning sideways on her hand.

  ‘You are not full gypsy are you Analee? You are didakai – half gypsy?’

  ‘You have known all the time?’

  ‘Pretty well,’ Reyora said, swaying. ‘There was so much about you that I did not understand. You look like a full blooded gypsy and behave like one, but I know.’

  ‘My father was not a gypsy,’ Analee said slowly, quietly, fearing that anyone should hear. ‘That is all I know for my mother died when 1 was born. Her mother brought me up and all she would say was that my father was a gadjo, but that as he was dark like my mother no one could tell. It was said I was her child, my grandmother’s, because otherwise my mother would have been cast out from the tribe. My mother was only sixteen when I was born. That is all I can tell you.’

  ‘And now you have a child by a gadjo,’ Reyora smiled softly. ‘Was it someone casual you met, or do you love him? That was why you were so reluctant to wed Randal.’

  Reyora nodded, rocking back and forwards slowly. It was all making sense now.

  ‘I knew him hardly at all, we met in an extraordinary way. But we had affinity; it was like love.’

  ‘Then the child was conceived in love, that is good.’

  ‘But I don’t want the child ...’

  Analee looked with bewilderment at the cohani. Surely she realized that?

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘I don’t know where the gadjo is, or even if he is alive. Randal injured him when he saw us together. I cannot have his child. I know nothing about him.’

  Reyora got up and went to the corner of her tent. She took a taper from a box and went outside to light it from the fire that burned in front of the tent. Then she came back and, lighting the candle, put it on a box beside the palliasse on the floor.

  ‘Come and lie here,’ she said to Analee, and she busied herself with a box that stood by the palliasse.

  Analee felt frightened but she did as she was bid. She lay on the straw and watched the cohani taking powders from different boxes and mixing them in a howl. Then she spat into the bowl and said some sort of incantation over it and left it in front of the candle.

  She took a jar from some vessels by the box and brought it over to Analee.

  ‘I want you to make urine in this for the spell,’ she said passing her the jug. Analee obeyed her knowing quite well the power of urine in gypsy magic. It was sometimes used for weddings when the man and the woman urinated into the same bowl, and the produce was mixed with brandy and earth and used in the ceremony. Diseases of the lung, it was said, were often cured by drinking urine and it could heal skin and eye diseases. Some women even washed their faces in it to have good skin.

  Reyora took the jar and bade her lie down again. She poured a little of the warm liquid into the bowl and added some more powder until she had a paste.

  Then she took it to Analee and told her to spit into it and the paste became runny like thick syrup. Reyora brought cushions over to the straw and put them under Analee’s buttocks.

  ‘Now roll up your skirt,’ she said, ‘and make yourself as high on the cushions as you can.’

  Analee did as she was told while Reyora removed her rings and washed her hands in water. Then she knelt by Analee and put her hand gently between her legs smiling encouragingly to still her terror and telling her to relax. But Analee’s heart beat fast and the groping caused her pain and made her uncomfortable. She could tell by the slow delicate way that Reyora probed and her solemn expression that she was very experienced, that she knew what she was doing.

  When Reyora had finished she bade Analee rest.

  ‘You are already big,’ she said, ‘have you had a child before?’ Analee was silent wondering what to say. She felt hot and uncomfortable and there was a little pain inside her.

  ‘It is not like the womb of a woman who has not given birth,’

  Reyora said turning to her, ‘it is soft and slack like a womb that has already been stretched in childbirth.’

  ‘I did have a child,’ Analee said. ‘It died.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Reyora nodded, as if in understanding and knelt down again. Then she told Analee to be as she had before, and stirring the ointment in the bowl with a wooden spoon she gently, slowly poured it between Analee’s legs. Analee felt it fiery and burning inside her and cried in pain; but Reyora went on relentlessly, holding Analee with one hand while she poured with the other until all the liquid was gone or had spilt over onto Analee’s stomach. Then she held her firm looking at her, while Analee sobbed with the pain and she bit her hand to hold back the screams.

  Suddenly the burning stopped and Analee felt calm. She looked at Reyora and took her hand out of her mouth. The hand was covered with the marks of her teeth, where she had bit deeply.

  Reyora removed the cushions and gently wiped Analee’s belly with a cloth, then she pulled down her skirts and covered her with a rug.

  ‘Now you will feel tired for a while,’ she said. ‘Rest.’

  ‘When will it work?’

  ‘If it works,’ Reyora said, ‘it will be within two days.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t?’

  ‘Then you will have a child.’ Reyora turned to her blandly and smiled. ‘That is the strongest philtre I have. But you are a hardy woman, Analee, good and strong for child-bearing, and it will be difficult to dislodge.’

  Analee felt her eyes closing with drowsiness; as she went off to sleep Reyora was kneeling beside her, smiling and stroking her face.

  That night as she lay against Randal pressing again for warmth, Analee felt a searing pain in her belly. She cried out and bent up her legs to try and ease it; then she felt something sticky and wet come out from between her legs. She started to sweat and, putting her hand there, knew it was blood. The philtre had worked. She felt both relief and dismay; a curious emotion she had not expected – not the dismay. Then the pain started again, only twice as bad and she called out to Randal to help her. Randal turned and clasped her.

  ‘What is it, Analee?’

  ‘I have a terrible pain in my bell
y.’

  ‘But what is it?’

  ‘I ...’ Analee nearly screamed with the pain and thrust her legs up to her chin. Randal jumped off the palliasse, and hastily putting on his breeches flew out of the tent without another word.

  Within minutes he had returned with a candle and Reyora who had her little bag of ointments in her hand. She looked at Analee stretched out, and covered her top part. Kneeling down she put her hand again between her legs to examine her.

  Randal hovered anxiously by, the candle guttering in his hand as the thin wind blew around the tent. Reyora finally completed her examination and sat back on her heels, her hand on Analee’s belly.

  ‘Have you had any movement in the belly? Any cramps’?’ she asked. Analee shook her head.

  ‘I just get the waves of pain ... you think’?’ She looked at Reyora, her expression a compound of fear and hope. ‘The blood ... ?’

  Reyora looked onto the palliasse.

  ‘There was only a little blood, there is none now.’

  ‘Blood ...’ Randal said stepping forward, ‘she is injured?’

  ‘She is with child,’ Reyora said shortly, ‘maybe losing it. It is hard to tell.’

  Randal gave a cry that nearly put out the candle and knelt beside Analee.

  ‘Oh, Analee, a child. Do not lose our child.’

  Reyora looked away and Analee pursed her mouth grimly through the pain. Her eyes caught those of Reyora.

  ‘Is there anything else you can do?’ she said.

  Reyora knew Analee was asking her to do more to remove the baby. She shook her head.

  ‘I can relieve the pain in your belly, but inside ... I can do nothing.’

  She opened her bag and took an ointment that smelt strongly of dung which she massaged on Analee’s aching stomach. The strong firm hands went back and forwards and slowly Analee began to feel a delicious relief, a calm that swept away the pain and left her free. Randal grasped her hand and cradled her head in his arms. ‘Do not lose our child, Analee. Reyora, stay with her ...’ Reyora nodded soothingly and went on rubbing up and down, from side to side. Then she crooned a little song and Analee’s eyes drooped and her head lolled against Randal’s arm.

  Two hours later the dawn came and still Analee slept while Randal held her head and, from time to time, clasped her in his arms. Reyora sat watching them, occasionally swaying back on her haunches, getting fresh ointments and soothing the flat brown belly.

  Analee sighed and opened her eyes. She stared at Randal and looked at her stomach and then questioningly at Reyora.

  Reyora smiled and shook her head, ceased the rubbing and drew the covers back over Analee’s naked thighs and legs. Then she got up and looked down at her and Randal. ‘You will be all right now. There will be no more pain. You will have the child. It is ordained.’

  Analee didn’t know whether she was happy or sad and pressed her head into Randal’s arm, so that he should not observe such confusion.

  On a cold January morning in the year 1745 Sir George Delamain set out from his newly acquired house in Essex Street for the long drive to his northern home. Sir George was pleased with his visit to the capital. Not only had he acquired a home which was well fitted to the important station he intended to assume in life from now on, but he had made an inroad in Whig politics by dint of skilful social climbing. He had made the acquaintance of the Prime Minister, The Duke of Newcastle, and had almost got for himself a bride.

  Almost. Sir George Delamain had been introduced a year before to Lord Dacre who had immediately selected him as a fitting escort for his daughter Henrietta who, although plain, had much to commend her for marriage: she was an heiress. Her mother, Constance Dacre was, like Henrietta, an only child and had brought with her all the wealth of her family, the Farthingales, on her marriage to the third baron Dacre.

  The Dacres had an estate on the borders of Lancashire and Lord Dacre and old Sir Francis Delamain had been acquaintances, but George and Henrietta had never met until George was asked to deliver a message to Lord Dacre in London some months before his grandfather’s death.

  In George Delamain Lord Dacre saw a marriageable proposition for his plump, gawkish daughter. The Delamains, Dacre knew, did not lack wealth or possessions and they had the acquisitive instinct – that is, they always wanted more than they had already. It was a well known Delamain trait. Henrietta, married to George, would be free from the adventurers who courted her solely for her prospects, aimless good-for-nothings with nothing but the sort of dashing good looks which appealed so much to someone as ill favoured by fortune as poor Henrietta Dacre.

  In his way George Delamain too would be a fortune hunter, but Henrietta would have as much to gain: a husband with an old family background, large estates and plenty of ambition. Lord Dacre knew of George’s singular wish for a barony, he felt he could help George in every way.

  It was he who had introduced George to the Prime Minister and leading figures in Whig politics, who had given balls and soirees at which George was an honoured guest. Above all, it was he who had warned George about the danger of a Jacobite rebellion; the effect it would have on their fortunes, possible confiscation both of the Delamain and Dacre estates if the Stuarts were restored to the throne. London was full of rumours of a Jacobite invasion. The Earl of Traquair known to be sympathetic to the Stuart cause had been in London that very winter sniffing out the support among suspected Jacobites. There was intelligence of his activities, and the fact that he had gone to France to see Prince Charles to bring – who knew what tidings?

  The Delamain connection with the Stuarts was well known; above all their close relationship with those traitors the Allonby family – Robert Allonby who had been beheaded on Tower Hill and Guy Delamain, his brother-in-law, who had died in exile in France. George was perpetually anxious to shed this painful association with the Stuart cause. He thus became more pro Hanoverian than the King himself, and did everything to make his own antipathy towards the Stuarts clear to all concerned. Had he not expelled his brother Brent, and his more notorious brother Tom, from the house the instant his grandfather died? Had he not hastened to London to establish a house, ingratiate himself with the Hanoverian politicians, with the court itself? No one was more anxious to stamp out any trace of Jacobitism than George Delamain and he was thus regarded, perched as he was at a strategic point in the north of England, as an important recruit by those who intended to preserve the Hanoverian Succession at any cost.

  Looking out of the windows as his coach rumbled mile upon dreary mile northwards, George had plenty of time for reflection, for planning the future. There were frequent stops to change horses, and five nights were spent in inns on the way as the roads got worse and more narrow and the journey more tedious.

  Yes, he was well pleased with his visit – Dacre had become not only a prospective father-in-law, but a good friend. He was a powerful man. He would help to remould George’s image from that of a farming squire to a land-owner and politician of importance. The part George did not altogether like was the role that had been urged upon him of spy. Even he, a man of few scruples, did not relish having to ingratiate himself with his Allonby cousins to try and discover what was afoot in France. But he had promised not only Dacre but the small circle of serious-minded men, men of power and political importance, who had gathered at Dacre’s house in Covent Garden to discuss the importance of the visit of the Earl of Traquair and the threat of Jacobite invasion.

  George, they had pointed out, was a pivot – through no fault of his own he had access to traitorous elements. Why, by getting the information they sought he could not only pay a lasting service to his country but, who knows, maybe elevate himself to the peerage at the same time?

  Baron Delamain – The Baron Delamain – George rolled the name round his tongue. It suited him well ... Baron Delamain in the county of Cumberland, and Baroness Delamain ... George felt a little less easy when he reflected on the charms, or rather lack of them, in his intended bride. He mad
e no bones about it either to himself or Dacre – it was a marriage of convenience. It suited Dacre and himself that he should take Henrietta for a bride: what the girl herself thought about it was of no concern to either of them.

  She would breed well, George reflected. She had ample girth, too much in fact, and good broad hips. The trouble was there was a history of only children in her family, and girls at that ... but still, the woman was merely the vessel, it was the man who decided the nature and sex of the progeny, and everyone knew Delamain men were good breeders, breeders of sons.

  Yes, it was time he had a son, got rid of the menace of the whippet Brent taking over the title and estates should anything happen to him. Pity he had recovered from the injury that his folly had inflicted upon him ... hit over the head by a gypsy! Even George, who seldom laughed, smirked at the thought. Thank goodness no one in London knew, or could ever possibly find out, about that peculiar piece of idiocy.

  The coach rumbled northwards and no one, neither Allonby, nor Delamain nor even the Buckland gypsies in their camp near Carlisle knew what a momentous year 1745 was to be for them, and how fundamentally the fortunes of so many concerned were to change.

  9

  From the distance Brent Delamain could see the outline of the slate cliffs that meant Maughold Peninsula and journey’s end – or nearly journey’s end. From the beginning he had proved a good sailor. ‘A natural affinity with the sea,’ Ambrose had proclaimed proudly when Brent was the only man still on his legs after a particularly severe voyage from Port Rush. But this comparatively short journey from Whitehaven in Cumberland to the Isle of Man had provided seas such as Brent had never before seen or wanted to again.

  Once again he was the only man on his legs and, because the hold was almost empty, the boat had rolled about until at one stage he had thought it would turn turtle, and that would be the end of them.

  Now the waters were calmer and the sailors started to stagger up from below, all except the master who had drunk himself into a stupor through sheer fear and was out cold in his bunk. Brent had just been down to see. He would have to bring the ship into the cove himself with the help of the mate, a dour fellow called Quiggan.