Montacute House

by Lucy Jago

  Sir Edward saw his son striding from the stable block across the lawn to be greeted by two pretty women. He wondered why he had needed to visit the stables during the feast. His smile faded. Drax had been in Montacute for a month already and he felt no closer to him than when he arrived. All his attempts to draw him into intimate conversation had been politely rebuffed or steered in the direction of safer subjects, such as the intrigues at court or the preparations for the Queen’s visit. He wanted to build trust between them, but all he felt was suspicion, on both sides.

  Sir Edward sighed deeply and slowly descended the shallow stone steps to join Drax. He was not prepared to give up on his son. Not yet.

  He nodded at his guests as he passed, but did not invite them to join him. He was missing his beautiful wife. After her death he could hardly bear to see Drax, who reminded him of all he had lost. Only when his son had behaved so violently that there were rumblings against him in the county had Sir Edward been forced to take notice. He had sent him to board with a tutor near Windsor, where some sense could be beaten back into him. Their estrangement had continued even after Drax was called to court.

  Now, at the end of his fifth decade, having outlived many of his good friends, he felt a strong desire to bring Drax back into the family. What had his ambition been for, if not to pass its fruits on to the generations that would, he hoped, follow?

  Drax ushered his companions into the banqueting houses and Sir Edward wondered again why it was that his son had agreed to come to Montacute now, when all previous advances had been ignored. Sir Edward suspected there was more to it than simply to ensure his inheritance. He knew from his spies that Drax was recently betrothed. To engage himself without his father’s consent was against all the rules, and Sir Edward had been furious when he first found out. However, he had held his tongue, intent on improving his relationship with his son. That did not mean, however, that he intended the identity of Drax’s bride-to-be to remain a mystery.

  ‘My Lords and Ladies!’ Sir Edward beamed as he entered the crowded banquet. The room hushed. Only the most important nobles in the country and gentry of Somersetshire had been invited, and this small banqueting house held the most select of these. Every head was bejewelled or sported a velvet cap dripping with precious stones or alive with peacock feathers. Doublets were pinked, embroidered, trimmed with gold lace or sewn with silver eyelets. Kirtles and overgowns were lined with silk or taffeta shot with gold or silver thread, ornamented with crystal beads or strings of pearls. In every ear and on every hand were rings wrought of gold set with gems, and necks were draped with chains of office or strings of pearls the length of a bridle. The room was bursting with the wealth and power of the land, its brilliance reflected a myriad times in the diamond-paned windows on all sides. Sir Edward considered it a safe place in which to pursue his son. A little gentle ribbing was sometimes necessary.

  ‘Today I introduce to you not only my house …’ a cheer went up, ‘… but to someone else of lofty and handsome elevation – my son!’ Another cheer, a little hesitant. Drax was already a familiar though mysterious figure at court. ‘And just as a house is in need of an owner, a good man is in need of a wife!’ Louder cheering, more confident now that the guests had an idea of what their host was getting at. Several of the unmarried women giggled together or looked coyly at Drax through lowered lashes.

  ‘Montacute House will one day be yours,’ said Sir Edward, looking at his son, ‘but before I die, give an old man an inkling of your betrothal plans so I know who to come back and haunt!’ Again, raucous laughter. Sir Edward knew how to please a crowd while getting results. Drax bowed to his father and smiled broadly. Only someone who knew him well would see the cracks in his jollity, and no one in the room knew Drax well at all.

  ‘Father,’ replied Drax, outwardly suave, ‘surely you should be thinking not of death but of love? You have built the most beautiful house in the land, perhaps the world, but you rattle around in it alone. So may I propose a toast? For my father … a wife!’ The crowd whooped and cheered at the clever joke-spinning of father and son. All assumed the good-natured banter was rehearsed. Only father and son knew it was not and that Drax had cleverly evaded his father’s questioning and driven another wedge between them.

  .

  .

  7

  Cess sat motionless in the little shack. The fire warmed her face, but her back was cold and stiff. She could not look at Edith.

  ‘All this time I thought you were a healer,’ she said quietly. ‘I defended you against the parson and the villagers who spoke ill of you. I helped you with your healing work. Now you are telling me that I was a fool. You are a …’ Cess could not say the word. Only think it. Witch.

  ‘Please, Cess, do not be angry with me. It is forbidden to talk about our craft to someone not from a witch family until they are thirteen. I did not want you to know until I could explain it fully. I thought you might be frightened away by the nonsense the parson speaks.’ Cess could tell Edith was speaking the truth. Edith loved her and would do nothing deliberately to hurt her. But her diminishing anger was replaced by fear. If Edith and Alathea really were witches, what did they want from her?

  ‘We are revealing ourselves now so that we can help keep you safe,’ said Alathea. Cess frowned deeply. The women’s warnings of danger seemed misplaced. The dead boy in the crypt had nothing to do with her.

  ‘Alathea is our Witch Queen, Cess,’ said Edith in a quiet but urgent tone. She poked the fire and put on more sticks, making sparks fly up. Alathea sat back, allowing Edith to introduce her properly to Cess. ‘She is the most powerful witch in this land and has foreseen that we will defeat the evil we face only if you live.’ Cess shifted uncomfortably. It had not occurred to her that she might not live. In the glow of the fire, Edith’s face was patched with dark shadows that made her look rather frightening. ‘Alathea comes from a sighted family that traces its heritage back to long before the Bible was written. There are such families across the country whose bloodlines are very ancient and powerful. Their members are born with the power to see ahead of time. Many can also communicate using thought alone. Other witches learn these skills in their coveys, and now we ask you to learn them too. To save your life.’

  ‘You see ahead of time?’ asked Cess, incredulous.

  ‘Not as clearly as Alathea,’ said Edith, nodding towards her friend, ‘but well enough to save my skin when the villagers tried to burn me alive. It is a common enough talent, only people do not recognise it. Think of the dreams you have, foretelling the sex of unborn children and seeing where objects are hidden. Those are scrying dreams. With practice you can do it while awake.’

  ‘I have other dreams these days,’ said Cess hesitantly. She turned to Alathea. ‘I saw you in one.’

  ‘I know,’ replied Alathea. Cess stared. She wanted to like Alathea, but found her unnerving. ‘That is why you braved the darkness to come here tonight, as we hoped you might.’

  ‘We called your spirit to us, to cast a protective spell over you after Alathea saw you in her scrying,’ explained Edith gently, ‘but we had not realised how close the evil had come. In your vulnerable state you felt it too, and were rightly terrified.’

  ‘Why am I closer to it than others?’ asked Cess, not at all sure she wanted to know the answer.

  Alathea sighed. ‘I am afraid we do not know. Scrying is not exact – the things I see are often strange or unconnected and unclear – but do not ignore our warning, Cecily,’ she said with such solemnity that Cess felt the hairs on her forearms tingle. ‘Has anything out of the ordinary happened in the last day or two?’

  ‘Yesterday morning,’ said Cess immediately. ‘I saw a face, watching me from the great house. And in the coop I found this.’ She pulled the pendant out of her bodice and passed it to Edith. Edith caught her breath sharply when she held the pendant towards the lantern and saw the woman in the painting. She handed it to Alathea.

  ‘Where did you find it?’ ask
ed Edith.

  ‘Under a hen. Do you know who it is?’ Cess saw that Edith was weighing up what to tell her.

  ‘It is the Countess of Montacute, Sir Edward’s wife, now passed into spirit. I helped in the delivery of her children. This crest in the painting is hers, a raven on a white hart. The raven is the bird of prophecy – she chose it herself.’

  ‘The white hart is a symbol of good fortune, isn’t it?’ asked Cess.

  ‘Nowadays, yes. In the past it symbolised the need to go on a quest to avert doom.’

  Cess swallowed. Her excitement at finding the pendant was fading.

  ‘This was hidden in the coops, you say?’ Edith asked. Cess nodded. ‘Then someone must have placed it there for you.’ She frowned. ‘The threat Alathea has seen was from a living being, not one passed into spirit.’ Edith took the portrait back from Alathea and looked at it again. Cess noticed her rubbing her mouth with her fingers, something she did when she was worried or deep in thought. She handed the pendant back to Cess.

  ‘Beware of that pendant, despite its beauty. It may hold the power to harm you. In our craft we have certain Laws or Principles that have been observed to be true. The Law of Contagion states that any object that has been in contact with a person will maintain that contact through the ether until it is ritually cleansed. Your pendant will thus maintain contact with Lady Mortain even though she is dead.’ Cess remembered how it had burned her skin outside the church. But she was not ready to give it up. Since finding it she had gazed at the portrait whenever she was alone. Now she had a name to go with the face.

  As she put it back down her bodice, Alathea pulled a small, very sharp black dagger from a leather pouch tied to her belt. Cess moved away in alarm.

  ‘You have no need to fear me, Cecily, and never will have. It was your birthday yesterday, and this athame is my gift to you.’

  Cess hesitated. It was a strange gift.

  ‘It is one of the witch’s tools and will provide powerful protection. It is fashioned from obsidian – see the light coming through the edges?’ As Alathea held the knife to the fire, the blade seemed to flicker and move with the flame. ‘This knife can increase your strength when you use it for a correct purpose. It was given to me when I turned thirteen and has never been entrusted to another person until now.’

  ‘Thank you, Goodwife Woodeville,’ said Cess, taking the knife gingerly.

  Alathea laughed, a rich, warm sound. ‘You need not be so formal with me. After all, we have already seen each other. Call me Alathea.’ Cess smiled back at the pretty woman, who looked far too normal to be a Witch Queen.

  ‘It is late and you will have to go home soon,’ Edith said as she smeared a little honey on to Cess’s cuts and scratches with a dock leaf. ‘I shall make you a purse for Alathea’s present and a healing syrup for the cordwainer’s boy, who is sick; it must be his mother who sent the honey. Can you leave it by their door in the morning?’ Cess hesitated. She would be agreeing to become the go-between for a witch. On the other hand, she was the only means by which the villagers could contact Edith for her cures.

  Edith did not press Cess for a reply, but when she had finished she stood up to put the honey on a high shelf and pulled a long linen apron from a peg on the wall. She poured cups of warm milky caudle for them all and spooned pottage into a wooden bowl for Cess, who was always hungry. While Cess ate, the two women worked together to concoct the sick boy’s medicine. From leather pouches, sacks and clay pots Edith pulled a root, a bulb, a pinch of powder – garlic, sage and marshmallow. From the drying herbs that festooned the roof beams she broke a twig, stripped a leaf, pinched out a tip – mint, St John’s Wort and elderberry. Cess marvelled at Edith’s knowledge of the secrets locked in every plant, tree and fungus in the forest. All were put into a small iron pot with water from a covered bucket. Edith then sat beside Cess with a piece of worsted to sew while Alathea stirred the concoction, moving her lips as she did so.

  ‘Are you casting spells?’ whispered Cess to Alathea.

  ‘I am,’ replied Alathea cheerfully. ‘They are prayers to bring health, just as you have heard your parson utter.’ It was true that the parson prayed for people and even for cattle and the apple crop sometimes, although reluctantly, for he would have preferred the villagers to concern themselves with sin and repentance. ‘We cast spells to heal the sick, help the broken-hearted, strengthen those in trouble or to find things lost. A true witch does not harm others, our services cannot be bought and we seek to work with Nature, not against it. We do not believe in a Devil – he is for Christians, not for witches,’ said Alathea.

  Cess watched the women carefully. Had she missed clues that they were witches? Marks, deformities? But no warts disfigured their faces; their limbs were intact. Edith had no cat, fowl or animal familiar at all. She did not mutter curses and, as far as Cess knew, had never wished harm on anyone.

  ‘Do you believe in God?’ asked Cess, regretting her question the moment it left her mouth. To deny God’s existence would condemn Edith and Alathea to Hell and Cess did not seek that, however amazed she was by Edith’s revelation.

  ‘We believe in a God and a Goddess,’ Edith replied. ‘For us, the Divine is male and female. There are as many male witches as female.’

  ‘Men? I have never heard of that.’

  ‘There is little of truth that you will have heard about witches, for we have to keep our secrets well,’ said Alathea. ‘We are now hated in the land, where once we were honoured and revered. There will come a time when witches will return.’

  ‘But do you fly on a broomstick?’ asked Cess, her eyes wide with interest.

  Alathea chuckled, and Edith broke into her characteristic laugh, a guffaw followed by small noises, like hiccups. ‘Oh Cecily!’ Edith wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her smock. ‘We use a broom for sweeping, like everyone else. We worship in a circle, made fresh each time, and we sweep it clean with brooms, that is all.’ Edith bit off the thread as she finished her sewing and handed the purse to Cess, who placed the sharp black knife inside it. With the long strings she tied the purse round her waist, between the layers of her kirtle and smock.

  ‘We can talk more as we accompany you home,’ said Alathea, standing. She took Cess by the shoulders and Edith came to stand beside her. Cess felt her legs tingling as they had in the church as the women stared into her face.

  ‘You have heard things tonight of the deepest secrecy. The knowledge is a burden that you too must now keep safe and never reveal to anyone.’

  It was easy for Cess to agree; she did not want to see these women hang.

  ‘For your own safety we beg you to improve your scrying and learn silent speech,’ Alathea continued, ‘but we cannot help you unless you swear allegiance to the covey. This will make you not a witch but a novice. You will learn the craft and when you are ready you can be initiated. If you do not want to join us when you finish your novitiate, you do not have to.’

  Cess felt a wave of panic muddle her thoughts. Her heart told her to trust Edith and Alathea, but since her earliest days she had been told that witchcraft was evil and no one should dabble in things forbidden. Pictures filled her mind of women hanging, her mother weeping as she was dragged away, the villagers looking smug as if they had known all along that she was a child of the Devil.

  ‘Stop! You will frighten yourself with such imaginings,’ said Edith. ‘Follow your heart. Then you will find the courage you need.’ Edith bent down to the iron pot and strained the syrup through a piece of loose linen into a jar with a clay stopper. Cess thought back to the previous morning when she had wished so hard for her life to be different. Here was a chance for it to be so. Edith bound the stopper to the jar with yarn and held it out to Cess.

  Cess took it. ‘I will do as you wish,’ she said quietly, praying as she did so that she had not just signed her death warrant. Both women smiled broadly.

  ‘Let’s go outside,’ said Alathea, taking her cloak from behind the door. Edith removed her a
pron, covered the fire and doused the lanterns. Cess pulled her shawl over her head and followed the women as they walked out into the cool night. The moon was low and the breeze had passed on with the clouds, leaving the air still and radiant with stars. They moved to the middle of the clearing where Alathea directed them to hold hands. Then she spoke.

  .

  You who seek me, the Goddess,

  Know that your seeking will avail you not

  Unless you know the mystery;

  If that which you seek you cannot find within you

  You will never find it outside you,

  For I have been with you from the beginning

  And I am that which is attained at the end of the desire.

  .

  ‘A witch’s power comes from within,’ said Alathea to Cess. ‘She must come to know herself, listen not to slander or praise, but seek to appear truthfully to herself and others. Though we are human, every part of us is divine.’