Lavender Blue
Page 17
She sipped the kykeon again and then took a deep breath. “It was just the shock of the picture. I feel a little better now.” She glanced again at the engraving. “What exactly does it depict? I mean, the part concerning the Harvest Maiden is plain enough, because it is what I saw tonight. It is also plain to me that Sir Erebus is the figure in black. But what of the wicker cage and the Lavender Lady? If that is my part in it all, I was certainly not there tonight, nor did I see the cage.”
“The cage will be there tomorrow night, and so will you, although not to be imprisoned. Like Corinna tonight, you will just be paraded. It all leads up to the climax of the full moon the night after tomorrow, August 30th. On that night the cycle is set to come to a close, and the new one to begin. But Lethe isn’t going to succeed in his purpose, because I have very different notions about what is and isn’t going to happen this year.”
“Different notions?” she asked.
“It will be tit for tat, my Roland for his Oliver,” he said with a smile, “except that this time, if all goes as I pray it will, Roland will vanquish Oliver. Now, I will tell you everything from the beginning, and it is a long story, so we may as well be comfortable.” He took her hand and led her to a large, comfortable chair, sat down, and pulled her on to his lap. She settled against him, her head on his shoulder, and he held her tenderly.
“Anthea, I admit to always having known something of the harvest rites in these parts, but they always seemed innocent tradition, so the annual merrymaking never met with my disapproval or troubled my conscience. But then I discovered that every nineteen years, when the cycle is complete, they take a different and horrible form.”
“I have never heard of this nineteen-year cycle. What is it?”
“Every nineteen years, the moon, sun, and earth return to the same relative position in the heavens, and there are two full moons in at least one month of the final year. The cycle prior to this one ended in July 1795, so the rites were performed early that year. The new cycle that began in that same month ends on August 30th this year, so the rites will be performed again then.”
“1795 is the year Corinna was born.”
“Yes,” he answered, “and if you count back in nineteens you will come to 1738, the date of the engraving. It is always nineteen. I was eleven in 1795 and was sent away to stay with relatives so I didn’t see or hear anything that happened then. Maybe my father was trying to protect me, or maybe he just preferred not to have to deal with my childish questions. I will never know his reason. Suffice it to say that when I became duke, I was ignorant of the cycle and what it entailed. But on those fateful nineteenth years, the Duke of Chavanage has to participate in the rites, so I had to be told the truth.”
Anthea looked up at him. “Was that the reason for your sudden recourse to drink?”
“In a way, for the two things are irrevocably connected,” he answered. “My unwilling involvement commenced when Lethe bought Wycke Hall a few months after you and I came together. Everything changed with his arrival. He seemed a fine fellow, most amiable and witty, and I was fool enough to like and trust him, until one night he engaged me in conversation about the rites, and I told him what I knew.
"He feigned surprise that I did not mention what occurred every nineteen years. I said that I knew nothing of any nineteen years, so he explained that the entire population of Cathness and the surrounding area has a primitive belief that if they do not follow the ancient way every nineteenth year, the harvests will fail and there will be famine. I was shocked and left him in no doubt that I regarded it all as superstitious claptrap, and that if I really thought people on my land were indulging in pagan goings-on, I would put a stop to it immediately.”
Pagan goings-on? Anthea looked away, for she was beginning to suspect what might be involved, and it was something so terrible that she recoiled from it with every fiber of her being.
Jovian was aware of her dread and so allowed her a little more time by not describing the rites in full just yet. But they would have to be described soon, and she would have to cope with them in all their awfulness.
“Anyway,” he went on, “my expressed opposition to the nineteenth-year rites was all Lethe needed to know. If I would not be a willing accomplice, I not only had to be forced into it, but my, er ... powers had to be kept in check as well. He had already managed to give me mistletoe without my realizing it, so I was susceptible to his will anyway, but now he made finally certain of me by slipping pomegranate juice into my glass of wine. From that moment on, I was completely in his clutches.”
“What is Sir Erebus? A warlock? A wizard?” The words might have seemed foolish, were not the situation so very serious.
“He is neither, just a very dangerous and persuasive believer in old ways that ought never to have survived into these modern times. He knows about the properties of plants and how to use them, and with the assistance of Abigail Wheatley, who adores him and who certainly is possessed of supernatural powers, he manipulates those around him. It is through her that he achieves his sleight of hand with mistletoe.”
“Why did you deny Abigail Wheatley’s existence?” Anthea asked. “I know she is here in the castle, because I have seen her. She brought that tray.” Anthea pointed.
“Yes, she is here, and she is the one who administered pomegranate to me, but Abigail Wheatley is not her real name. Who she is I do not know, except that she is certainly not Corinna’s kinswoman, and be warned, Anthea, she is no ordinary woman but can shift her shape to become a—”
“—a hare?” Anthea broke in.
“Yes, she is Lethe’s familiar. It is her task to be his eyes and ears, and in her four-legged form she can travel many miles without effort. But in common with many witches before her, to change her shape from woman to creature, she must first raise thunder. That is why you hear it whenever the hare appears. She has to spy upon me, and it is far from easy to elude her, but it can be done. I have slipped away to see you on a number of occasions, and right now she is keeping a close watch upon my apartment door without knowing there is a secret passage.”
Anthea thought of Corinna. “So my stepsister doesn’t have an aunt after all?”
“Not surviving. The only aunt she ever had was her mother’s twin sister, Flora Pranton, who ... er, died the year Corinna was born.”
Anthea could not help but notice the hesitation about Flora’s death, but she did not press for an explanation; instead she asked another question. “So there aren’t Pranton records after all?”
Jovian hesitated. “Not as Corinna was promised, but I know a great deal about the family.”
“You do?” She sat up to look at him. “Actually about the Prantons?”
“Yes, and I will tell you in due course.”
Again, she saw something in his eyes, a forewarning of things to come that would not be pleasant to know, so she endeavored to postpone the moment. “Why does Sir Erebus use mistletoe? And why pomegranate?” she inquired.
“He uses mistletoe to make someone malleable, but with Abigail’s assistance disguises it as another plant so that the act of giving it will not seem odd. He then has to use pomegranate to impose complete servitude. Only pomegranate; nothing else will do. Generally Abigail is the one to administer it.”
“How did they disguise the mistletoe for you?”
Jovian smiled in spite of himself. “Do you have visions of Lethe presenting me with a lover’s posy?”
She blushed. “Such a thing had not crossed my mind.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. Actually, he stirred a mild argument about whether a particular plant was a gray speedwell or a field speedwell.”
Now Anthea was the one to smile. “Aunt Letty would say that you surely mean veronica polita or veronica agrestis!”
“Whatever. He picked the wretched thing and gave it to me to inspect. At least, that’s what he seemed to do; in actual fact, he merely handed me a sprig of mistletoe. Anyway, that is by the by, for the fact remains that he brou
ght me into his web and kept me there constantly so I would do what would otherwise have appalled me. So you see, my darling, I could not help but drink too much and alienate everyone I held dear. It broke my heart to know what I was doing to you, but there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop myself. I had no idea that my Achilles’ heel was the pomegranate juice continually administered in my food and drink; it was just that, for some reason, I was Lethe’s lapdog.”
Jovian leaned his head back sadly. “I was such a fool, Anthea. Why didn’t I see through his false friendship from the outset? Because of him I lost you, my freedom, and my self-respect, just because he needed my cooperation on one single night, August 30th of this year.”
“Oh, Jovian ...” She linked her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly.
He rested his cheek against her dark hair. “Another effect of that abominable pomegranate juice was that it relaxed my control of my gift; hence the tales of flying up to windows and wine bottles that came to my beckoning. Until then I had always been careful to hide the truth, because people have been branded witches for far less. You were the only person with whom I ever knowingly and willingly tossed caution to the winds.”
“That night at Carlton House?” she inquired.
He nodded.
She felt very guilty. “And to think all this had befallen you; yet, I accused you of being a beastly drunkard. Can you ever forgive me?”
Jovian’s lips brushed her hair. “My darling, there is nothing to forgive. To all intents and purposes I was a beastly drunkard, so how could you be expected to know the truth? All I could pray was that redemption would fall my way, and with it the chance to win your love again. My chance came when at last I discovered how Lethe was manipulating me. I saw Abigail add the juice to the bottle of wine that was placed to my hand every night at dinner. I managed to dispose of the vile concoction without them realizing it had not been consumed, and by the next morning I was very much my own man again. But I pretended to remain Lethe’s puppet in order to stand a chance of spiking his damnable guns.”
“Jovian, there is something I don’t understand. If you are trying to make Sir Erebus think you are still under his control, why on earth did you knock him down tonight?”
He smiled. “You saw that little episode, did you?”
“I watched it all. What did he say that provoked you so much?”
There was a pause. “He ... insulted my honor. I was rash to tell him, but he taunted me too far. I did it while still pretending to be inebriated, however, so I fancy his suspicions will not be aroused.”
“Well, drunkards are often violent, are they not?” she said.
“Maybe, but a cruel tongue and selfishness beyond belief have been the extent of my sins.”
“It was enough,” Anthea murmured, as the night of the Farnborough ball returned to her memory yet again. “Oh, go away, my lady, for I have h-had enough of your whining complaints. I’m s-sick of your face, your voice, your person, and—hic—your prissy standards. I vow you will be as comfortless as a prayer b-book between the sheets! A man can drink as he pl-pleases and should not be expected to do otherwise, simply because a damned w-woman doesn’t like it!”
Again he knew her thoughts and closed his eyes ashamedly, but she stretched up to kiss his cheek. “Now I know that it wasn’t the real you, those awful days do not matter any more,” she whispered.
Being together like this made it only too easy to want to forget everything else. Desire had burned between them for so long that this present intimacy was almost too much for him to endure. He wanted to carry her to the bed and make sweet love until the dawn, but now was not the moment to let passion rule.
“We must talk while we have the chance,” he said, gently but firmly, “because I have so much more to tell, and a plan to divulge that involves you. You will need all your courage if you are to help me end Lethe’s odious reign.” Unexpectedly he smiled. “And you may need that courage all over again if another of Lethe’s plans is to be halted as well.”
“Another plan? What do you mean?”
“Simply that the pretense that your aunt has brought you here for me to negotiate a match for you with Lethe is not, I fear, a pretense at all. Lethe really does intend to marry you.”
With a gasp, she straightened and looked at him. “Tell me you jest!”
“Would that it were so, but I fear it is fact. He lusts after your person and your inheritance, for both are irresistible to him. Not that he will succeed if Abigail has her way, for she is very jealous and, I suspect, hates the very sight of you. She will assist him with the rites but not in his desire for you.”
Anthea recalled Christmas Eve, and Abigail’s look of absolute loathing. So it was jealousy that lay behind it....
Jovian drew her close once more. “Lethe isn’t going to have you if I have anything to do with it either, because you are mine. At least, I hope you are.”
“Of course I am,” she replied, and raised her lips to his. They kissed lovingly, and then he looked into her soft eyes. “We were always meant for each other, Anthea,” he breathed, “and having lost you once, I do not intend to let you slip through my fingers again.”
Talk of love slipping through fingers reminded her of her aunt and Huw Gadarn. “Jovian, the man who was with you tonight, the one you called Huw … ?”
“Huw Gadarn? He is my head gardener, and my one staunch ally since I decided to set myself against these savage rituals.” He raised a curious eyebrow. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, I ...” She wasn’t sure whether to say anything more, for the secret wasn’t hers to tell.
Jovian studied her face and read her thoughts. “So Huw and Lady Letitia were once more than they should have been, and she now wonders if he is married with a family? Well, he isn’t, nor have I ever known him to court anyone.”
“Aunt Letty loves him still and deeply regrets allowing herself to be separated from him all those years ago.”
“Maybe all is not yet lost. Now, where was I in the tale?”
“You had discovered how the pomegranate was being administered and became your own man again,” she said.
“Ah, yes. Well, the obvious way to pit myself against Lethe was to prevent you and Corinna from leaving London.”
“Corinna would not hear of staying in Berkeley Square, no matter how I tried.”
“He knew she would be desperate to learn more of her family, so he chose well when he sent Abigail to pose as her aunt.”
Anthea’s thoughts returned to the harvest rites. “Jovian, how can Sir Erebus possibly think he will get away with all this?”
“The same way his predecessors have perpetuated the rites throughout history—subjugation through supernatural assistance and the imposition of forgetfulness. If he succeeds in his purposes, Lady Letitia will not remember anything of her stay here except that it resulted in your betrothal to him, and if you had been as beguiled as your aunt, you would be very happy with the match. You will both believe Corinna stayed behind in London, so it will not be until your return to Berkeley Square that her disappearance will be discovered. The servants will say she accompanied you to Gloucestershire, but you will both insist she didn’t. You will suspect them of knowing what happened and covering up to protect themselves.
"The authorities will be called in, and it will soon be revealed—through the ever helpful Lethe, of course—that Corinna took passage back to Ireland. It will be assumed that she was unhappy here and simply returned to the land in which she had lived most of her life. That will be the end of it. Her true fate will never be discovered.” He looked deep into her eyes in the candlelight. “And it will have been a terrible fate indeed,” he added softly.
She knew the moment had come to face up to the truth. “What is that fate, Jovian?” she asked in a small voice, then hid her face against his shoulder as she awaited his answer.
“I think you already know,” he said gently.
“She ... will die?”
Chapter Twenty-four
Sacrificed. Anthea’s blood ran cold, for Jovian’s answer was what she had dreaded in her heart of hearts, but she fought against it. “No! I won’t accept it! If you were able to escape the effects of pomegranate, then Corinna can too. Surely we can do something to free her? Can’t we go to wherever it is she is being kept and—?”
“We can do nothing until the rites begin on the night of the full moon, because I have no idea where she is. It might be at Wycke Hall, or the Cross Foxes, or any other of a hundred places in and around Cathness. The entire population has fallen to Lethe because the people hereabouts have a primitive belief in the rites. They are convinced that if they do not follow the ancient way every nineteenth year, then the harvests will fail, and there will be famine.”
“But—”
“Listen to me, Anthea. All this is what Lethe intends to do, but he can only achieve it if the rites proceed without error. That is where we come in, for I mean him to fail abysmally.”
“Meaning something and actually managing it are worlds apart, Jovian!” she cried accusingly. “Oh, why did you leave Corinna in the field tonight? Why did you allow her to be taken away again?” She started up from his lap, but he caught her hand to hold her back.
“Anthea, you must hear me in full!”
“Let me go this instant!” she cried, struggling against him.
He tightened his grip and clamped a hand over her mouth. “Be quiet! Do you want to bring them running?” But still she squirmed furiously to break free, so he shook her. “Damn it all, Anthea, be sensible! Do you honestly imagine I’d have left her with him if there were any other way?”
For an angry moment her lavender eyes blazed at him, but then common sense rushed back, and she stopped fighting him. “Tell me the rest, then. Tell me why you and Huw Gadarn saved yourselves tonight but left my stepsister behind.” She knew she was being unfair but was too frightened for Corinna to be reasonable.