The Wicked

by Douglas Nicholas

  “And others . . . ?” prompted Hob.

  She looked right at him. “There are times when I feel that the bird, like the raven in my dreams, is Herself, and aren’t its eyes having a great distance behind them—the eyes no bigger than they should be, but . . . ollmhór—vast, immense—in some way.” She drank again. “ ’Tis hard to put in words in Irish, much less English, and any road it’s not that I’m understanding it myself. And that’s all I’m saying on it tonight, and ’tis time we were all in bed.”

  CHAPTER 21

  THE DAY AFTER MOLLY’S BAND had returned to the inn, Molly decided to have Sweetlove do a sweep of the little compound. Both Molly and Nemain could detect the traces of Sir Tarquin’s sorcery that somehow emanated from his strange rodent spies, but it was faint—Sweetlove would discover them more quickly, even if she would not deal with them. In the process, of course, the inn would also be swept of its ordinary mice and rats.

  They began in the outbuildings—the sheds, the stable. Sweetlove dashed about, wriggling into dark corners and crevices, dragging her victims out and shaking them till dead. Jack followed her with a sack and a cudgel, and removed the tiny corpses. Hob had his own cudgel, a blackthorn stick with a knob at one end. Then they moved on to the inn proper, where Joan was outraged to find several mice and a few rats hiding in secret nests underneath this and behind that in her kitchen and her pantry.

  But no sinister agents of Sir Tarquin were found. Had they never been here, or had they escaped, somehow understanding the purpose of the terrier’s hunt? Neither Molly nor Nemain could find any scent of witchcraft, however faint.

  They stood in the midst of Adelard’s tiny buttery, casks of new ale and some bottles of wine stacked against the walls. Molly looked around, hands on hips, and shook her head.

  “Nay, there’s nothing atall to be found,” she said, perspiring a bit from the effort, tucking a lock of silver hair behind her ear.

  “Mistress,” said Hob.

  “What is it, mo chroí?”

  “There is the upper level,” he said.

  “Och, sure and I’m old and forgetful!” she said. She pointed at Nemain. “And you no better, young as the springtime that you are!” She said this with a laugh, for she was pleased that they had not encountered any of the strange creatures, and—having encountered none so far—did not really think that there would be any in the sleeping quarters above the common room.

  They trooped up the crude and creaking wooden stairs, Jack carrying Sweetlove under one arm and the cudgel and sack in the other hand. The moment he set the ratter down, though, it was apparent that something was wrong. The dog sank where she stood into a crouch; a snarling growl began in her chest; her ears went flat back and her lips writhed away from her inch-long fangs, the skewed bottom fang giving her an expression of demonic ferocity. But for all that, she would not move, gazing fixedly at the back row of cots that Adelard rented to weary travelers.

  Molly and Nemain crept nearer the cots. They looked at each other; Molly took her dagger from its sheath and Nemain did the same, producing an additional dagger from beneath her skirts. Molly reached down, one-handed, and flipped a cot out from the wall. There was a scrambling burst of sound, and five rats sprang forth and fanned out across the floor. Two were transfixed by daggers hurled by Molly and Nemain; an instant later a third was pinned by Nemain’s second dagger, and Hob swung at a rat and knocked it stunned and sliding across the floor toward Jack, as though playing some game. The fifth rat was almost past Jack, when Sweetlove unexpectedly took a stand: she leaped toward it, landing in its path, her fangs clicking shut on the air as the rat scrambled backward, its escape checked for an instant. It dithered, apparently trying to decide whether to go right or left around the snarling terrier, or—it being almost as big as the dog and evil as well—whether to attack. As it stood with its hindpaws in one place and its forepaws, so much like tiny hands, dancing this way and that, its comrade came sliding up beside it, impelled by Hob’s glancing blow.

  Jack took a long step forward, raised his cudgel, and struck twice in rapid succession. The cudgel was what they called a loaded stick, the knob at the end hollowed out and filled with lead to increase the weight, and each stroke killed a rat instantly, the floorboards beneath producing a boom muffled only by the rodents’ bodies, so that Adelard, waiting below with his family, thought that “inn were falling doon, sithee, like thunder it was, and just there above oor heids.”

  Later, over celebratory bumpers of sweet ale, Molly inclined to the somber. “For there’s no telling what reports of our doing in this inn that these rat-fiends have made to those devils, Sir Tarquin and his witch-wife, and when we return to Chantemerle, it’s Adelard and his family we’ll be taking with us, for I swear before the Great Mother I’ll not have them suffering on our account.”

  She drank again, but she was moody for the rest of the night, and retired early.

  TWO DAYS AFTER THE RAT hunt, Hob was making the acquaintance of Hawis’s herb fritters, made with parsley and savory and marjoram from the inn’s herb garden, and a bit of salt from the salterns by the coast, the batter fried in oil and served with honey from Mistress Joan’s hives. Hob was thinking that Hawis had the gift of making simple food, familiar food, surprisingly good: some variation in the ingredients, or the length of time they were cooked, came instinctively to her, and the result was delicious.

  Hawis, tending a pot of heated oil over a small fire on the hearth, scooped out a second bowl for him with a slotted spoon, and placed it shyly before him. To her, Molly’s troupe was a miraculous irruption into her quiet life—a life she had not thought of as drab, till contrasted with these women who played music such as must be played at God’s court.

  Hob was waiting happily for the fritters to cool enough for his fingers when Timothy burst in the door and ran the length of the common room, skidding to a halt at Molly’s table. The ruckus brought Adelard from the kitchen, wiping his hands on the cloth tucked into his belt, and Hawis swung the pot of oil on its iron arm away from the fire. The boy’s narrow chest was heaving, and he tried to gasp out something of importance, but could not, and they all had to wait till he could obtain breath enough to speak.

  “Master,” he said to Adelard, “I were by Wat’s field, and Mistress were gaan by me and said nowt, and didna deek me atall, nae sae much as ane look, and she seemin’ all fey-like, an’ her eyen verra odd-like, deekin’ summat Ah couldna see, an’ she ganged reet past me, an’ ganged toward t’ woods.”

  Here he stopped, taking in more air. Adelard was clearly puzzled, wondering what was happening; nor did Hob know what to think. Was the innkeeper’s wife in some danger, or had the boy misunderstood? Nemain was looking to Molly to see what she thought, and Molly was plainly thinking hard. Jack had been eating as well, sharing every fifth bite with Sweetlove; now he stood up, still chewing, brushing crumbs off his hands, watching Molly for orders. There was a moment’s tense silence, and into this silence Timothy said, low, hesitant: “And Ah’m nae sartain, but theer may ha’ been someone, mayhap a woman, at the edge o’ t’ woods.”

  Molly blinked, and then leaped up; the bench she sat upon went over with a crash. She pointed a finger at Hob, then pointed to Jack. “Hammer! Run!” To Nemain she said, “Hazel staves!” The two young people ran toward the back of the common room, Hob first. He flew at the back door—a blurry impression of aged gray-brown wood, rough-textured—and banged it open, and then he was out in the warm spring air, running to the wagons. He dashed up the stairs of the main wagon; through the door and two steps to the war hammer in its wooden clips. He slapped it up out of the clips and was bounding down the stairs when Nemain emerged from the midsized wagon, with a hazel staff in each hand. He had a moment, almost immediately forgotten, when he noted how much older, how much more authoritative, Nemain looked holding the staves.

  Then they were back into the inn through the rear door. No one was there but the terrier. They pounded down the long empty room and ou
t the front door into the road, closing the door on Sweetlove, who showed every inclination to follow. The inn was on the northeast corner of the crossroads; Wat’s field was on the southwest corner, bordered on the south and part of the west by forest land. Molly and Jack Brown, Adelard and his daughter, were already in the field and making for the woods, Timothy leading the way and pointing. Nemain sprinted for the field, going up and over the split-log fence like a deer, a leap up, one foot to the top bar and down again without breaking stride. Hob, with his longer legs, was right behind her, albeit less graceful in clearing the fence.

  Hob caught up with Jack and passed him the hammer, and the dark man began to increase speed, intending to be first in case there was danger, but Molly, taking her staff from Nemain, called to him.

  “Jack,” she said, “stay behind us a bit, stór mo chroí, but not too far. I’m thinking ’tis more work for Nemain and myself than for you.”

  Timothy had stopped, and was pointing into the woods. Hob, trotting along, tried to see what the boy was indicating, away there amid the shadows between the tree trunks. Was that white shape, a little way into the forest, a woman, and was she . . . bent over something?

  “Timothy,” said Molly sharply. “Go back to the inn. Hawis as well.”

  Molly and Nemain still advanced, but slowed to a walk. They lifted their hazel staves before them, at arm’s length, the wood held vertically so that the upper part was in front of their faces, constituting some kind of shield. What it protected them from, or how, Hob could only wonder: they did not share such things, things that pertained to their Art, with him, or with Jack, or indeed with any man, nor with most women.

  They were coming to the tree line. The woman straightened unhurriedly, and now they could see that it was Lady Rohese. She sneered at them; she turned slowly; she moved away at no great speed. It was very dark under the canopies of the trees, though, and within a few steps she was lost to view. And now from behind separate trees stepped two of the wraithlike knights, with their underwater movements, and Jack increased his speed: this sort of enemy was his meat.

  But Molly and Nemain were coming on relentlessly, and began to chant in unison, in Irish, and the knights turned as one and stepped into the forest as Lady Rohese had, and vanished into the gloom.

  Now Molly and Nemain had come to the edge of the wood, and there, a few feet inside the forest line, lay Joan, collapsed on the ground. Her eyes were open, and she moved her hands and feet feebly, and she spoke, though not to any purpose. Hob, coming up with Jack, Adelard right behind, heard Nemain gasp. He crowded around her to see.

  Joan had aged twenty years, her eyes sunken, her skin like parchment, her limbs thin, almost withered.

  “Ochone!” said Molly, shocked. She knelt beside Joan, and just then Adelard came up, and saw what was toward, and gave a loud wordless cry, and buckled at the knees. Jack just managed to catch him, and after a moment he steadied, but began to pull at his hair, his eyes wide.

  “Jesus, Jesus, what hae they done tae her?”

  Molly stood up. “It’s back to the inn she must go, and that as swift as swift can be! Jack, it’s you must carry her, ’twill be the faster.” She took Adelard by the arm and forcibly turned him around; Nemain took the innkeeper’s other arm, and they began walking him back rapidly across Wat’s field. Jack handed Hob the war hammer, went down on one knee, and scooped Joan up like a sleepy child, an arm under her shoulders and one under her knees. Her head lolled on his chest, and she said incomprehensible things in a hushed unhappy voice.

  Hob and Jack made a swift march across the field; Hob opened the gate near the corner, and Jack went out into the road, almost trotting, up past the crossroads to the inn, where Nemain was already holding the door open.

  As soon as everyone was into the common room, Molly looked around. Just now there was no one else at the inn: no traveler, no passerby, no villager, no guest. The first thing Molly said was to Hawis, who stood near the hearth, two fists pressed against her mouth, her eyes fastened on what had so short a time ago been her mother.

  “Bolt the doors, front and back. Now, lass, now!” This last got Hawis moving, although slowly, as one in a dream, or a nightmare. Molly had Jack lay Joan on a table near the front doors, and bade Adelard and Timothy steady her, and guard her from rolling off the table, for she was still making random movements. Adelard looked stunned. Molly went back to the hearth, and stood, her hands opening and closing into fists. Nemain and Hob and Jack joined her.

  She said to Nemain, “These people, it’s we who are under their roof, and it’s they who are under our protection. It’s myself who swore to protect these innocents, and the Great Queen listening the while, and I’m not to be going back on it. It’s myself who’s after letting down my guard over them, and letting this cailleach phiseogach come nigh them, and here she’s done this to that poor woman.” She said something to Nemain in Irish.

  “Nay, seanmháthair, ’tis too dangerous.”

  “ ’Tis more dangerous to lose your way,” said Molly, “and that’s begun with the first step off the path of virtue.” She put a hand on Nemain’s shoulder and gave her a gentle push toward the back door, the innyard, the wagons. “It’s not to be said that I’m an oathbreaker, not among men and women, not among the phantom councils of the Great Queen.”

  Nemain undid the bolt and went out the door. Hob was unsure what was happening, as was so often true when the women worked their Art. Jack was nothing if not stolid, but if Nemain was afraid for Molly, he was bound to be uneasy, and he did seem restless, limping about here and there. Molly bade Hawis to fetch a pillow, and then went to Joan, and arranged her on the table, and when Hawis reappeared, lifted Joan’s head and slipped the pillow beneath it. Joan appeared to be worsening; her skin seemed darker, drier, her muscles more withered; striations began to appear beneath the skin of her face and neck and hands. Hob thought of the corpse in the rhine, and felt a shudder of distress, which he managed to conceal.

  Here came Nemain, bolting the back door again behind her, trotting down the room to Molly, a ceramic flask and a stone bottle in her hands. She gave her grandmother the flask, sealed with wax. Molly took her dagger from her belt and pried the wax loose. Nemain had procured a birchwood cup, and was pouring uisce beatha from the bottle, a half cup. She put the bottle down on a table near the one on which Joan lay mumbling at the ceiling. Nemain looked at Joan and said, low, “She is failing.”

  Molly said through her teeth, “I will be pulling her up; by the Great Queen, I will be pulling her up!” She pushed Hob back a bit, saying, “Hob, a chuisle, stand back a pace; I’ll not have you breathing of this powder.” She poured an amount into the cup of Irish spirits. She held out her hand, and Nemain placed a spoon in it, and Molly stirred the cup. She looked into the cup a moment; she looked over at Joan. “Bíodh sé amhlaidh,” she said.

  Molly drained the cup.

  Hob noticed that Nemain had clenched her hands together, and the fingers were interlaced so tight that her knuckles had whitened. He had been growing used to the idea that nothing daunted Nemain, and though his betrothed strove to conceal it, he had not seen her this agitated since she was a little girl.

  Molly began to breathe heavily. She put the cup down awkwardly; it clattered onto the table. She went back toward the hearth a bit, and began to walk up and down, slowly at first and then somewhat more rapidly. She swung her arms back and forth, out and back so that her arms came together and her hands gave a clap. She did this several times, as one who is overheated, pacing up and then down. Her hands went up, removed pins, and her veil came off. A few more pins and the thick glossy river of gray and silver that was her hair poured free down her back, well past her waist.

  Hob remembered old Father Athelstan, the priest who had raised him, and his tales of the Christian martyrs, given to the lions by the old Roman folk, and the priest’s descriptions of the iron cages with the lions and lionesses, pacing back and forth, looking out from the cage shadows into
the bright sandy space where their victims awaited. Molly reminded him of those lionesses, striding back and forth in the narrow space between the two rows of tables, breathing more and more heavily, her face reddening, her breathing horribly labored.

  Molly began to chant in Irish, striding up and down. Adelard and Timothy looked on, terrified to numbness, from beside the table where Joan lay mumbling in delirium. Nemain pulled Hob and Jack to the side of the room; Hawis had retreated to the kitchen doorway. Sweetlove, her tail tucked between her hind legs, crowded behind Jack’s legs and peered out at Molly.

  Molly was chanting, louder, louder; her voice, usually so musical, had grown harsh. Her hair by some force seemed to stand out from her head, increasing her leonine appearance. She began to run a few steps, turn, run back, her head thrown back, shouting in Irish, looking up at the ceiling. Hob had never seen her so out of control, her eyes blazing, her whole aspect like a demon, or like a goddess. She had left mere womanhood behind and was quivering with some force that rippled through her, troubling her breathing and her limbs.

  She ran toward the fire in the hearth, skidded, spun, and ran at Joan roaring incoherently, Adelard instinctively taking a step or two backward as she approached. Molly gave a great whooping inhalation, clapped her hands together on Joan’s cheeks, making the half-conscious woman open her mouth. Molly stooped like some savage lover, clamped her mouth to Joan’s mouth, pinched the woman’s nostrils shut, and blew into her lungs, a long, long, groaning exhalation; to Hob it seemed as though it went on longer than any human being could manage.

  Molly straightened, inhaling gustily, and in a flash she had covered Joan’s mouth and nose with a big white hand. She held it there for a long moment; Joan’s eyes widened and rolled this way and that. Molly released her and Joan took a long breath on her own.