The Secrets of Blood and Bone

by Rebecca Alexander

  I set my eyes upon a rack of bridles, and took the largest one as it looked the most used. I took it out to the big cob, who placidly turned to me, and I held out the bit for his mouth. His great black eyes, so trusting, made me stand with my face against his flank and pray for the child’s soul, for my forgiveness, and for God’s grace in defeating my enemy. I resolved to bring the unholy creature to her grave.

  Chapter 39

  PRESENT DAY: KNOWLE CASTLE, LAKE DISTRICT

  The castle grounds had been watered with blood for a thousand years, since the first of that savage race had built the first fortress. Here the deer shuddered every moon at the creatures that hunted them, chasing them up to the cruel fence, rending their bodies, killing the calves. But sometimes, the pack turned upon their own kind.

  “You have your potion, we kept our side of the bargain. Now let her go.”

  Jack stared at the circle of Dannicks. They were a tall breed, even the boy would be lanky for seventeen if he could get to his feet. Only Callum’s father had a more relaxed posture than the upright grace of the Dannicks, a little softness to his features. His hand rested on the shoulder of the boy, slumped in his wheelchair beside Sadie. She was kneeling beside him on the floor, swaying, her face white and her lower lip caught between her teeth.

  “Is it potent?” Sir Henry was as calm as if it were a social question.

  “We have, as far as we can tell, made the mixture to Thomazine’s recipe.” She didn’t mention it was Amyas’s mixture, not the “Dannick Lion” brew. She held out the bottle.

  He nodded to an associate, a stocky dark-haired woman, who snatched it away and opened the top to smell it.

  Jack stepped forward to the teenager and no one stopped her. “Sadie.” She crouched beside her.

  “Go away. They’re planning—” Sadie choked, and Jack dragged the earthstar and hagweed potion from her pocket. “They’ll kill us both,” Sadie managed to whisper before she sipped a little of the liquid.

  Jack looked down at the boy, seeing his blue lips and shaking fingers. “Callum, we need to get Sadie out of here.”

  He looked dull, maybe exhausted himself from fighting his whole family, and slumped sideways in his chair. “They won’t let you go. They want to complete the ritual tonight, while the moon is up. They are going to force me to drink.”

  Jack looked around the room. Most of the adults were in a circle, discussing the potion she had delivered. The dark-haired woman put the bottle to her lips, and threw back her head, moaning as if in pain. Or pleasure, Jack decided, by the way the woman licked her lips and carefully stoppered the bottle again.

  “Powerful,” she said, turning her stare on Jack. “Perfect.” She poured a dose into a glass.

  “I don’t want it!” Callum waved a hand weakly at his approaching father. “Dad, I don’t want it; you said you understood.” Tears made his eyes glisten.

  “I do understand.” He crouched beside the boy, ignoring Jack as she dragged Sadie to her feet, and backed away. “But I won’t let you die, Callum.”

  Two men moved between Jack and the door.

  Sir Henry detached from the group and walked over to Jack. “We can’t let you leave.”

  “They’re—” Sadie choked again, and slumped in Jack’s arms. She let the teenager fold slowly back onto the floor.

  “Because you need to complete the ritual. Is that what you think?” Jack stood straight. “Let me take Sadie somewhere safe, and you can have your hunt.”

  “Ah. The hunt.” He smiled, without warmth or humor. “Normally, we take game, but for this ritual, we need—”

  “Human prey. That’s it, isn’t it?” She turned to stare at Callum’s father. “You believe you need your child to chase and kill another human being. Were you going to throw Sadie to the boy like a hamstrung rabbit?”

  “The girl is almost dead. I don’t understand what she is—she smells dead already. You are the quarry.” His nostrils flared as he towered over Sadie. “You can leave her here, and I will promise her a quick and painless death. Or you can take her with you and we will hunt you both. She will slow you down. It wouldn’t be a chase, it would be an execution.”

  “I’ll take the chance.” Jack could see some expression on some of the people’s faces, a look of anticipation, mouths open, a few panting. A quick count numbered eight of the predators, including the boy. He was right: she didn’t stand a chance, maybe even without Sadie slowing her down. “Just give us a reasonable head start.”

  “First, I want to show you something. Bring the boy here, Michael.”

  Callum’s father wheeled the barely conscious boy over.

  Sir Henry crouched down, looking into the boy’s face. “Soon you will be free of this disease, Callum, do you understand? Healthy, strong, a Dannick Lion like your mother, like me.”

  The boy’s head flopped against the wheelchair cushions. “Let me die, Grandfather, please. I don’t want to be—like you, like them.”

  Sir Henry held out a hand for the potion. “Hold him,” he snapped to the boy’s father and, with some wrestling, forced some of the liquid down the boy’s throat. Even with spitting and spluttering, Callum couldn’t get rid of it all, and choked some down.

  The change was almost instant. He screamed as if in agony, then thrashed his head against the wheelchair headrest. “Dad!” he sobbed, and his father bent down to comfort him, but Callum found enough strength to push him away. “Don’t! Don’t let them—”

  The glass was lowered again, Callum’s head forced back, and the remaining potion tipped down his throat.

  Sir Henry stood, an impatient flap of his hand the answer. “Now, the ritual. Annis, Georgina, Thomas, you will prepare the circle. Jonas, you will lead the pack.”

  He turned to Jack and waved at her. “Let her go, but into the woods. They won’t get far.” He looked at Jack and a smile spread over his face. “And make sure Callum is in at the kill.”

  Jack scooped Sadie up in her arms. She weighed so little she was like a bundle of sticks. Callum’s father opened the door and led her around to the back of the house. He pointed at a long fence, which terminated at the gate into the forest.

  “Your best chance is to head into the woods toward the quarry. If you throw them the girl, you might get away.”

  “So you’re OK with murder?”

  “He’s my child.” He shrugged his shoulders. “What alternative do I have?” He turned to go, looking back over his shoulder. “They lock the rest of us up, for our own safety, but it will be bad out there. Don’t put up a fight, it’ll go quicker.”

  Jack put Sadie onto her feet on the gravel when she struggled. “Do you need more potion?” she asked, feeling her wobble.

  “I’ve had most of it already. Jack, can’t you hide me somewhere—” She stopped, put her head on one side as if she could hear something.

  “They would find you. What is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Sadie staggered onto the path toward the forest. “It’s calling me—the garden.”

  “The garden?” Jack put one arm around the girl, leading her over the pavers, half holding her up.

  “Yes.” Sadie choked and spat. Jack had to take most of her weight by the time they reached the gate, but once in the shade, Sadie found new strength and pulled away.

  Jack whispered quickly. “We need to get going, find water, anything to cover our scent and tracks.”

  “No—wait.” Sadie lifted her head, as if she could hear something. “Follow me.” She led the way into the darkest thickets, toward a tree looming over a group of smaller ones. “In here.”

  The sound of someone screaming stalled Jack, who stopped to hear the eerie cry echoed by more voices, yowling, wailing, screeching—the hunt.

  “We have to go.” It seemed hopeless, they were barely five hundred yards from the house.

  “You go. I’ll be safe.” Sadie drew herself upright. “Trust me: I’m the green witch, remember? But you, you are the animal one. So go, run, us
e what you have.”

  Jack hugged Sadie, felt her arms hug back. “I’ll try to lead them away. Just hide, OK? Maybe they won’t come through here.” Her eyes filled with tears. It was hopeless to try to take Sadie with her, and death if she left her in the weak state she was in. Jack’s hope was that they would follow her instead. She let go, and bounded into the woods away from Sadie. From some feral instinct, a long-buried exhilaration born of survival, she let rip with a howl of her own. Many shrieks answered.

  Chapter 40

  The fate of that child rested uneasily upon my soul; perhaps it will always fill me with guilt that I, who knew what the countess was and what she was capable of, did not warn the farmer and his wife. But, in truth, I had not yet understood fully what she was capable of until that night.

  —EDWARD KELLEY, 1586, Venice

  I led the bridled and saddled horses back into the yard, and inspected the countess’s horse for injury. One of his shoes was loose, so I hammered it back on, my ribs protesting as I lifted his foreleg. The hoof had split a little above, small wonder after such a fall, and I could only hope that a few extra nails would help hold the poor creature’s foot together. The countess appeared, a bag slung with stolen goods over an arm, a dagger secured in her belt.

  As I stood there, the farmer’s fate—and that of his child—weighed heavily upon me. The countess paused for a moment, then shouted at me in Latin. “Quickly, we must go. They are coming!”

  With my injuries I could not mount the cob by myself, so led him beside an upturned barrel and climbed upon his back with as much haste as the memory of the monsters howling and snarling could give me. The countess, astride her charger in a moment, slapped my horse’s rump and set it trotting, then grasped my reins. And so we fled.

  —

  I wondered that she did not leave me to our pursuers, so slow was the cob. With a gait between a trot and a canter that rattled my teeth and juddered my ribs, we struggled to keep up. Soon we passed approaching parties of travelers who gave us strange sidelong looks, from the hunched servant to the wild-haired mistress astride her great charger. All fire had gone from him, he obeyed her, but his head was low and his gait uneven. As we reached the main road the spires and roofs of Venice set in the sapphire lagoon gleamed ahead. Finally, the countess allowed the horses to rest and crop fresh grass. The road ran over a small bridge crossing a stream. I led the horses off the road and down the bank to drink, and took a cool draft myself. My shoulder felt better, the fever seemed gone, and I was suddenly grateful that I was still alive. In the company of my greatest enemy, yes, but still breathing, and the early sunshine seemed to shine into my very soul.

  As we remounted, the sun was already overhead, a force of heat, and she indicated that we would stop to eat at a large inn. It was beset with urchins selling fruit, begging to take our horses, or to carry my lady’s cloak. Each approach by a child to the lady caught my breath in my throat, and I drove them away. She laughed at my efforts and indicated that I should attend her myself. To the landlord, a stout fellow full of his own importance, she spun a tale in mingled Latin and Italian much of which eluded me. But I did gather that we had been attacked upon the road by a great band of ruffians, and it was only with my courage and ingenuity that we survived.

  I eschewed the many congratulations, and made the countess’s quarters as livable as I could, acting as the great lady’s maiordomo. I found fault with the bedding, demanded to taste the wine and otherwise suggested my lady’s great status. Finally, with a few golden crowns bestowed upon me by my new mistress, I managed to find some simple raiment more suited to a lady than a boy. Ordering great ewers of hot water and the attention of a maidservant, my lady vanished into her quarters to emerge radiantly restored an hour later. Meanwhile, I had sat at the table in the inn’s kitchen and been regaled with cutlets of hare, fresh breads and a flagon of well-cooled wine.

  While I was there, horses galloped up to the inn, creating a commotion of shouting. It drew me to one of the room’s open windows. Men, who were in some sort of uniform, bellowed orders and questioned the landlord.

  The cook, whose origins were in Frankish Metz, translated some into German for me. “There is a foul murder upon the highway,” he said, bustling about the room, with a placid expression. “Terrible.”

  “Murder?” I rapidly reviewed my story. “Perhaps of my companions, who were attacked upon the road, and followed the villains into the forest?”

  “No,” he said, pouring wine and water into a large flagon, ahead of the soldiers’ needs, I guessed. “The farmer and his wife, of a small farm some leagues west of here. They were stabbed, it seems, but the soldiers also found a slaughtered child, much mutilated.”

  My mind conjured a memory of the child, her throat rent and torn, the eyes staring.

  “How dreadful,” I answered, in the same placid tone as the man, but my stomach lurched at the thought of the countess’s work. The image would not be banished, like looking away after seeing the sun.

  “Poor child,” he said, a frown wrinkling his broad forehead, as he listened to the outcry outside the window. “They say she was attacked by a wild animal, her throat torn out.”

  I stilled my shaking hands by clasping them in my lap. I muttered a quiet prayer in English, for mercy upon her soul and upon mine. The maidservant entered the kitchen and addressed me in her own language, which the cook, turning slabs of meat upon a hot griddle, translated.

  “Your lady asks for your attendance.”

  My heart was like a stone in my chest as I trod the stairs to her chamber.

  “Ah, Master Kelley,” she greeted me when I was called into her presence. “I have ordered fresh horses to take us back to the city in the morning.” She sat on a padded bench before a polished metal mirror.

  I spoke, my gaze downturned. “There are soldiers here who seek the killer of the landlord and his family.”

  “Ah.” She gazed at me from the mirror, her face slightly distorted.

  “Did you have to kill the child?” My sickness made me bold.

  “The question should be, did I have to kill the farmer and his wife.” She turned back to her grooming, drawing a brush through the lustrous strands of hair.

  “But the child—” My words were strangled in my throat by my horror.

  “Sustains my life. Look at me, Master Kelley, look at the pink in my cheeks, the light in my eyes. I would be weak unto death without the sacrifice of one peasant child. Now, sit, take a drink of wine, and we will plan our return to Venice.”

  “I do not understand,” I muttered, still surly at being forced to accept the charity of my enemy.

  “And it occurred to me that now is a good time to have that conversation that I wished to have in Venice.” She turned to me, eyes sparkling like a girl’s. “How you saved my life.”

  I shrugged. “I do not know what I can tell you. I assisted Dr. Dee, certainly, but his is the wisdom and knowledge. And none would have been done without your own Zsófia’s help.”

  “Witch magic. By itself, it could not save me.” She smoothed her hair, as lustrous and curly as a head of snakes, from her broad forehead. “My spies tell me that you are becoming renowned for your interest and knowledge in sorcery.”

  “In its ability to transmute metals, certainly, in the science of alchemy. Not in the transformation of people.”

  She laughed softly. I was reminded of the first time I had spoken to her, a weary and frail but very human lady, whose plight had touched my heart. “I am still the same Báthory Erzsébet, Edward.”

  “The lady I knew could not have—” I choked at the memory of her lovely face smeared in the blood of the witch Zsófia, and the dead child laid in the stable.

  “I was ensorcelled, and by you, Edward. Such was the flush of strength into me that I craved life.” Her eyes were intense upon me, making me blush. “You enchanted me with your incantations. But with life, came the curse.”

  “Curse, lady?” I was intrigued against
my will, looking at the woman I had seen exultant at the kill, now so soft and womanly.

  “You saved me with blood, Edward. And my life can only be sustained with blood.”

  I bowed my head. “Blood was no part of the cure we designed, my lady.”

  “You knew.” An expression, at once more seductive and cruel, fluttered over her features and was gone. “You knew that Zsófia was sustaining me with herbs and blood.”

  And, in truth, I did. In my heart I knew that the ritual we subjected her to—at swordpoint, in fear of our lives—was ordained not by heaven but by the machinations of a creature whose nature was unknown to me. A creature I had believed to be an angel had haunted me, and spoken to me with the countess’s own lips.

  “I did what you asked. I did not make you a monster that would kill a child.”

  She lifted a goblet, and touched it to her lips. “You see, today, I can be refreshed with good wine, fine meats, because I am freshly restored by the blood of that child.”

  I shrank from the thought.

  “But tomorrow, or the next day, I shall be repelled by the sourness of wine, and meat shall taste of ashes and dung.” She turned to me, her expression twisted perhaps by sadness. “You have given me life, Eduárd, but I live the life of what the Venetians call a revenant, a creature caught between life and death.”

  “Yet you live, and can cradle your own child.”

  “I can,” she breathed, so softly I almost did not hear her. “And yet, the voice in my heart craves that babe’s blood the most.”

  “Voice, my lady?” At the word, I felt a shock of cold through my veins, as I recalled the words she had spoken to me on the hunt back in Transylvania, the hunt for two Englishmen and their allies.