Enchanting Cold Blood

by Petya Lehmann

  “The people are glad you are come home,” she said softly.

  He closed his eyes, and a more easy look settled on his face. An hour more, and Sabia left her place: Estercel had sunk into a sleep, and she could hear him breathe. The cattle-doctor and three old women sat round him. Sabia went to her nurse who was pounding drugs in a mortar at the far end of the hall.

  “Nurse, dear,” she whispered in her ear, “I am afraid of old Ronnat. She has got up very close to him, and I am afraid she will be rubbing gunpowder into him.”

  “I will have her buried in Aughanee Bog with nothing but her head out if she touches him with a finger,” said the nurse.

  “Look at her now,” said Sabia. “I want her sent away from him.”

  Sure enough, the old woman was slyly raising the coverings of the bed. Nurse Phaire went directly to her, and old Ronnat drew back her hand and sat hastily up with a false smile upon her face.

  “Ronnat,” said Nurse Phaire, with a manner of deep respect, “a person of years and experience is required below at the barn. A bullock has been killed, and many cakes of wheat and oaten meal are being baked, that all the people may be decently fed and entertained.”

  “A thousand blessings on the mistress of the house and the liberal hand,” said old Ronnat, getting up with the greatest alacrity and hobbling out of the hall.

  When she was gone, Sabia pressed close to the side of her nurse. She laid her head on her shoulder and wept long and bitterly. Nurse Phaire patted her head kindly.

  “Cease crying and trust in your old nurse,” she said.

  “I will,” said Sabia, “if you will promise not to hurt him with salt or any other form of torment.”

  “Very well,” said the nurse; “I will do all to please you, but do you be of a smooth temper and not get in a passion. A lady must keep her face whatever happens. Now listen and well attend. Those wounds are not clean, and I have well washed them with the liquor of the ground ivy. Now, of this pounded wych-hazel bark and well tried lard, I am making a healing ointment which I will spread over the smaller wounds. With this piece of transparent skin thoroughly washed in the juice of the nettle, I am going to cover his hip that it may not be rubbed. With such a wound as that, it will not be long before fever will come upon him. For that, I have ready a decoction of goose-grass, betony, and other herbs. As for his sore mouth, I intend presently with the help of God to catch a toad by moonlight, the head of which I shall cause him to suck.”

  “That, nurse,” said Sabia firmly, “I will not permit.”

  “There now,” said Nurse Phaire reproaching her, “what did I tell you? You are angry again directly!”

  Since the day of the coming of Tyrone, there had not been such excitement anywhere in the north as was provided by the return of Estercel. The news of it, and of the baking and roasting, spread far and wide and drew more and greater crowds. There was a continual coming and going. To and fro, although the fair promise of the morning had not held good, and a light rain was falling, the people travelled between the courtyard of the castle, the hillside, the haggard where the feast was preparing, and the spot by the wood side where Tamburlaine still lay. Crowds surrounded the horse, praising him, speculating, prophesying. It was a fine treat for them to watch his quivering limbs and helpless head and wonder what were the causes that had brought him to this. And every man there proposed his own system of treatment and told it aloud to Murrough the horse-boy.

  For Murrough never left him, but sat beside him in the rain rubbing him and talking to him encouragingly. Seeing how the rain wetted the horse-cloths and chilled the trembling beast, the men who stood round fetched stakes and the boughs of trees and soon ran up a rough three-sided shelter about him where he lay.

  Towards nightfall, Estercel awoke. His eyes were steadier. The mists were clearing away, and the floating outlines growing firm. Seeing his more sensible look, Nurse Phaire came to his side. He took some drink from her hand, and she looked to his wounds. When that was done, she spread over him a gorgeous covering of crimson cloth embroidered in a Spanish convent. Her helpers made up a mighty fire of logs, and two men with flaming torches took their places: one at his head and one at his feet: Sabia sat by the hearth in the great chair, her nurse at her back. The doors of the hall were opened to their full extent of seven feet, and a messenger sent to the people who waited without.

  The door space was filled with the twilight and the sweet scent and sound of the rain. Up through it came the people in an orderly line. Stooping without the door, each one pulled off his shoes of hide and on bare and silent feet stole round the hall. In silence, each one approached the low bed and took one glance at the grey thin face, the bandaged head and wrapped-up hands that lay on the gorgeous counterpane, the half-open mouth that had as yet spoken no word. Each one then stooped on his knee, kissed a corner of the drapery, then rising in silence, stepped away to the door. Now one would whisper a blessing, one would cross himself, one would drop down a tear, and more than one went out sobbing.

  To Estercel, it was like the wildest dream he ever dreamed. Familiar faces floated by him, bright for a moment in the torchlight, wearing an unfamiliar look. Why did some of those faces work and twist as they looked at him? Why did the tears run on some cheeks? Where had he been that they all bid him, “Welcome home.” They wearied him at length. He closed his eyes and presently, feeling again the motion of the wild horse beneath him, he sank away in a half-sleep.

  When the last of the long stream had left the hall, a chosen watch of fifteen persons was set, half to sleep and the rest to guard. About midnight, the fever of Estercel came upon him like a clap. That one glimpse of the visible world, unstable as it had been, was the last he was to have for many a long day. The poison of the prison had entered deep into him and infected his blood.

  More fortunate was Tamburlaine lying in his shelter away down by the trees. If Estercel had fifteen nurses, he had a score. They built a fire about thirty paces from the shelter and sat round it in their mantles, making nothing of the rain. Their wise heads were waiting for the rise of the fever, warning that the mischief in the lungs they expected had set in. Every now and then, they would turn in the direction of the prostrate horse, on whose strange outline heaped with coverings the starting flames shed broken yellow lights. The horse looked worse than the man. A man lies down and his limbs fall into positions of natural grace. But a horse in extremity is a painful sight. That bulk of body, those inflexive limbs have an uneasy look, a stupid look, as though some prehistoric beast without intelligence was there smitten down. In addition to that, Tamburlaine's four legs were bandaged by a cunning hand from hoof to shoulder and stretched out straight and stiff and uncomely as four broom-handles.

  Now and then, a man would get up from his place and would stoop to feel the pulse in the horse's pastern above the hoof — but no fever was there, only the weak slow pulse of exhaustion. A heap of straw had been thrown down on which his head rested, Murrough the horse-boy sitting beside, his head sometimes nodding on his breast, but for the most part pretty straight on his shoulders. A strange feeling ran through the minds of them all and was passed on in whispers from one to the other: that the lives of horse and man hung on the same thread; that if that pulse of life, now so faint and weak, ceased then and there in the horse, so in the man it would fail also, and they two go out of life together.

  All was silence till the early dawn. Before the light of dawn was strong enough to paint in the true colours of things, the birds awoke. Though they filled the air with their wildest harpings, the tired men slept on. Murrough, too, slept within the shelter. So there was no one to see the ear of Tamburlaine rise up on his head. He was better; the life was coming back to him. Moreover, his other ear was to the ground, and he had heard something, far away as yet. The ear on his head pricked up and listened. Yes, there was the tread, four-fold, of Eliza, the brown mare that he loved; and there was the double tread of Owen, with whom he was something offended; and the others were with
them; but how their feet trailed along; the men were walking with the horses. Nearer and nearer they came, and still the weary men slept.

  The wind had been from the north-west, so that the open side of the shelter faced south, away from it, and Owen and his men could see from far away the hut where no hut had ever been and the group of men lying in all attitudes about the still smoking fire. They stopped and consulted together, then, understanding nothing of it, they came cautiously on.

  Then at last, Murrough awoke. He dashed out of the shelter. With a shout, he awoke the sleeping men, then away down the path with him, and the rest were not long behind him. Owen had the whole great story to tell; the watchers had the story of the return to give in exchange; there was between them enough material of conversation to last the whole of the summer; but like spendthrifts they all talked at once, blurting out the whole of the news as fast as possible and all together, each one racing to be the first with it. At length, the weary Owen desired to behold Tamburlaine with his own eyes. Leaning on Murrough's arm, he came along by the wood path and reached the sad object in the shed. A great amazement in his heart and a tear in his eye, he crept into the shelter. He felt the horse and found him at a fair natural heat; he felt the pulse, which was stronger now.

  “He'll do,” he said, “he'll do; thank God! He's made himself immortal now.”

  The horse heard every word; he knew right well Owen's meaning. Half he remembered his grudge against Owen, half he forgave him. He partly opened his eye and shed a strange light out of it while a dubious grin wrinkled the corner of his mouth. Owen drew back amazed while the crowd pressed about him.

  “Oh, saints preserve us!” he cried, “did ever you see the like of that? It's himself sure enough. Holy Mother, did you see the look he gave me?”

  But the eye of Tamburlaine was already shut, and there he lay as innocent as a child.

  Chapter XXVII. - The Shadow of the Red Woman

  The recovery of Tamburlaine was the matter of a minute, little more. It came about on the following evening. The horse had been restless with a twitching of his limbs, and Owen bade them strip off the bandages that he might see if the swelling of the legs had gone down.

  “These legs are as good as two pair of new ones this minute,” said Owen, looking them carefully up and down. “I always said there was nothing to equal that white mixture. But do you, Dermot and Murrough, give him a good rub down. It's well to be on the safe side.”

  And then he turned round to watch the long string of cows coming down from the milking, the sun lighting up their rounded sides, brown and red roan and white. A dismal yell caused him to turn about just in time to see the two men thrown violently to the ground and the four legs of the horse in the air at once. Down they came with a plunge, and the horse's head rose and his shoulders, while Dermot and Michael ran away on all fours as fast they might. The ground under the animal was slippery because of the rains, and down he went with a frantic struggle of his four hoofs that smashed out the side of the shelter. The men shouted and ran this way and that. Owen got hold of some straw and tried to put it down for his feet, but he could not get near so furious was the kicking. He would not let any man come near him.

  That night he went away with himself altogether. He had had enough of men and their conversations. Travelling by short stages during the night, he went up into old Slieve Gallion. There the rain washed him, and the young grass fed him, and the sweetness of liberty and the mountain air cured him altogether. During that time he was not unwatched. The fame of his doings travelled far and wide, and people went up the foot of Slieve Gallion to see the white speck that travelled the upper slopes or lay still at the foot of the tall grey precipice.

  When he came back, he was new made altogether: white and sleek, and thoroughly cleansed, carrying his head high, while a strange black mare pressed close at his side. It was at night that he returned, and the two were found feeding in the pasture in the morning. Though Tamburlaine was fresh and healthy, he was not yet rounded out to his full size. Owen went to him in the field with a bag of oats, but he would not let him near. He came readily enough to Murrough though and fed from his hand, with one eye on the mare who fed near by. For a week, they stayed, and then they both were gone together. The white horse seemed to have vanished away.

  No one dared to tell anything of this to Estercel who now lay weak and sunk in deep dejection on his bed. His wounds were very slow to heal. Three long weeks his fever had lasted. His ravings were fallen silent. He lay, skin and bone, on his bed. June was now wearing her new robes of full splendour: up to the very doors she was strewing her flowers; sweet gales of summer's incense visited the hall.

  But nothing, not the summer wind with its old remembered perfume nor the low of the cattle, not the eyes of the hound that lay beside him and looked in his face could reach at all to his heart. All his tortures, his humiliations, his sufferings had bitten deep into his soul. He had not thought that life could be so cruel, men so atrocious. Where were Christ and His saints, where was the gentle Mother of all men, that they could let things be so hard? He felt himself stricken in the very centre of his life, his manhood was crushed within him. There he was left: the wretched prey of a handful of old women.

  In black misery, he lay there wasting. Twice, the charmed ring had fallen from his finger. The nurse had put it back, not daring to mention to Sabia that she had done so. For Sabia, too, was afflicted and went about like a white ghost, scarcely daring to go near to the sick man; and this ever since Owen had come home.

  Owen had not been backward with his tales and his stories. Sabia knew all now. She knew the whole tale of the red-gold maid, of her beauty, her high stature, her love for Estercel, the spells she had cast on him, her betrayal of him. Only of her repentance, Owen did not tell, for he wished it to be widely understood that none but he had saved Estercel from the prison. He would not actually say what was not true, but he would nod his head and draw his lips tight together and leave all his great deeds to be imagined.

  So time went on, day after day, week after week; news came in of Essex in the south. Messengers came and went; the men drilled daily. Sabia's father returned. There was coming and going in the hall, but always there was the curtain and the screen, and the recess and the sick man lying with his face to the wall. There was no one but believed that he lay under a spell. Owen said it, and he must know. Murrough the horse-boy had seen a tall lady in green raiment with fiery red-gold hair that covered her like a mantle moving swiftly up the castle hill at sunset time. As she went in at the door, the sun dropped down, and the light died, and Murrough fled away for his life. Some women had seen her in the early morning light standing on the battlements of the castle with the first sunbeams on her bright hair and the birds flying round her head. But when they looked up and cried out, she faded away in a mist.

  Still Estercel lay in his dark misery and weakness, and the people whispered about him.

  “She's got him,” they said. “She's laid her spell on him; she'll never go without him. She's waiting for his soul.”

  Sabia heard them and shuddered. Day by day, she grew more fearful. In the evening sometimes, the women would linger down at the milking, waiting to coax the story of yet another adventure from Owen. Then Sabia would crouch by the hearth watching the red and yellow flames darting among the logs and the shadows that danced about the hall and crept in at the door. In the fire, she would see the grasping hands and the hair of the witch. A moan or a sigh from the sick man or a restless movement would thrill her to the heart. Then she would fly to his side, fearfully glancing this way and that. Bending anxiously over, she would gaze into the grey thin face where the sunken eyes burned with one small far-away spot of flame. Her own face was a picture of white despair from which Estercel received small comfort.

  Many and many was the charm against witches that had been employed by Nurse Phaire and her regiment. Above his bed a large crucifix hung on the bare stone wall, also three rosaries. A large and beautiful
copy of the psalms supported his head, with a hare's foot beside it. Young vervain and the leaves of the mountain ash were strewed over him and around. Many were the obnoxious potions which he had swallowed. Far and wide, messengers were searching for a wise man who was said to have an adder sodden in garlic preserved in a bottle which came from Palestine. And this adder, when she got it, Nurse Phaire was determined to make him eat. Last and not least, Father Machen had been sent for to Dungannon, but he had not yet arrived, though messengers were out to seek him each morning.

  Chapter XXVIII. - The White Day

  One morning, awakening after a late sleep, Estercel felt in a manner refreshed. There had been rain during the night, and Estercel had lain and listened in a half dream to the streaming sound. It had brought him thoughts of the movement of the long waves of the sea, of the trampling of horses' feet, of the wind in the top of a wood. The sound was in some sort a liberation. The inner man of his thought had got free and walked abroad and had had joy of it too. When on his awakening Sabia came with her white still face to his bedside, he smiled at her. She laughed back at him with a sudden colour and life as surprising as if a rose had bloomed in his hand.

  About nine of the clock, when Estercel lay resting in the quiet hall, Sabia went out and sat on the hill to listen to the singing of the larks. All about her bloomed the tiny flower of the wild thyme, the large flower of the yellow rock-rose. Sabia picked one and laid it in her palm, a lovely thing like a burnished sun, with fashioned petals and plumy centre. As it lay, it scattered a golden light in a circle upon her hand. Then of a sudden, it wilted. She touched it with her fingers, it melted away. Built only of sunlight and dew, it could not bear to be taken from its root. She closed her eyes, and there it was again before her: the beautiful fashioned thing with its fringe of golden light.

  “I will keep it alive in my memory,” she said to herself. “I would not have pulled it if I had known.”