Power of Darkness
Hélie de Trevaine, exiled to the court of Provence for a youthful indiscretion, returns to his inheritance in the dark and troubled England of King John. He is at first welcomed home in triumph, but his independent and rebellious spirit soon sets him at odds with his family and neighbours. Matters reach a head when he refuses to consent to the marriage his mother has arranged for him in his absence, and becomes the champion of the outcast ‘witch’, Durande de Vallaroy, accused of murdering her brutal husband-to-be on the eve of their wedding.
Hélie is convinced of Durande’s innocence, and resolves to clear her of the charges of murder and witchcraft laid against her. He finds few allies, but adversaries are many —and redoubtable. Fulbert de Falaise is an ambitious and unscrupulous mercenary with an eye to Durande's fortune. Oliver de Collingford is a weak and vicious young man whose nobility of birth is not apparent in his character. But there are enemies far more sinister and terrible than these: in the ruins of the castle that towers above Trevaine the women of the village gather secretly by night, and among them walks a creature with the voice of a man but the hideous head and cloven hoof of a goat. . . .
This is a most unusual and exciting historical novel, set in a sombre and little-known period of English history. The struggle of Hélie and Durande against the all-pervading climate of supernatural evil that grips the countryside builds up relentlessly to a terrifying climax.
Power of Darkness
DORIS
SUTCLIFFE
ADAMS
by the same author
desert leopard (Hodder and Stoughton)
no man's son (Robert Hale)
the price of blood (RobertHale)
CASSELL • LONDON
CASSELL & COMPANY LTD 35 Red Lion Square, London JVCl Melbourne, Sydney, Toronto Johannesburg, Cape Town, Auckland
© 1967 Doris Sutcliffe Adams First published 1967
Printed in Great Britain by Ebenezer Baylis and Son, Limited The Trinity Press, Worcester, and London
F. 1266
DEDICATED TO
ALEC T. WHITE
AS AN INADEQUATE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF ALL HE HAS TAUGHT ME
Table of Contents
Power of Darkness GLOSSARY
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GLOSSARY
Adulterine:
Castles illegally built during the anarchy of Stephen's reign
Agistor:
Official who regulated grazing of animals within forest boundaries
Assart:
Land newly reclaimed from waste or forest
Bate:
In falconry, to flap wings violently while tethered
Berm:
The narrow space between wall and ditch
Chape:
The metal tip of a scabbard
Cramoisy:
Crimson
Crenellate:
To fortify with battlements, royal permission being required
Disparagement:
The marriage of a noblewoman with a man of inferior rank
Dwale:
Deadly nightshade
Fief:
An estate held by right of military service to an overlord
Flux:
Dysentery; any disease causing diarrhoea
Gazehound:
Hound that pursues its prey by sight, ancestral to greyhound
Harbourer:
The huntsman who found the deer and led the hunt to it
Langue d'oc:
The southern division of the French tongue during the Middle Ages; Provence
Lymer:
Hound that hunted by scent
Relief:
An inheritance tax paid to one's overlord on succeeding to a fief
Routier:
A mercenary soldier scarcely distinguishable from a highway robber
Verjuice:
A sour cider made from crab-apples, largely used instead of vinegar
1
DUSK was dimming the gay colours of the dancers' clothes, but they still circled blithely to the stamp of drums and twitter of pipes, singing the chorus as they linked hands. The scent of the grass their feet bruised filled the bailey. The stiffer-jointed sat on benches or the newly-scythed sward beyond their ring, gossiping comfortably between choruses, and behind them in the shadows gathered unoccupied servants and men-at-arms, watching with appreciation heightened by the fact that this was the first time there had been dancing in the bailey for five months of mourning. Yet constantly eyes turned curiously towards a bench set a little apart from the rest, with but one occupant.
The small woman in black, her face tiny and forlorn in the dose-pinned bands of the widow's wimple, had laid aside her sewing when the light faded, but her hands still plucked restlessly at the tumbled mass in her lap. She scarcely watched the dance, and her gentle voice murmured on and on to the young man sprawled at her knee, his big shoulders propped against the bench.
'Sorrows never come singly, I always say, and good reason we have to know it, your brother and father, God rest their souls, going one after the other like leaves falling, and you so young to inherit and never bred to so heavy a duty—not but that you are a good lad and well-meaning, and if you forget the godless ways you learned in the south and settle to it soberly under our guidance I doubt not that you will fill Alain's shoes very well in time, to say nothing of my lord your father’s.'
'I will try, my lady.'
‘All these years wasted, but who would ever have expected—?
No use repining, though I was never in favour of sending you so far away. But you were such a headstrong boy, and your father reckoned a feud with Warby only less perilous than an alliance—not that it could have been, and you must have learned sense enough now to realize it. But matters stand differently today, of course.’
'Differently indeed.’
'A most suitable alliance, and so fair a girl! Poor sweet child, one's heart aches for her! To lose husband and brother within half a year—ah, we who know grief too feel with her! Not that I ever heard much good of Robert de Warby, and your father, God rest his soul, never spoke of him without spitting, but when I was at his burial the poor girl was broken-hearted. As fair as ever she was, and gently-spoken. She asked news of you.’
'She was gracious,’ the young man said expressionlessly.
His mother put forth a restless hand to touch his hair. The dance was ended, the ring had broken, and men and women besieged the musicians with conflicting demands for a successor. No one approached the two who talked privately in the midst of the pleasure.
'It would be a good match,’ the woman babbled on. 'It could not have been four years ago, when you were so mad as to set all your desire on her, but now your position has changed. And she is so lovely!'
'Surely you do not imagine I have cherished a deathless desire for her these four years, my lady?' the young man asked between amusement and dismay.
'Not that, perhaps, but a fondness—you cannot have entirely forgotten—she is so very fair, and cherishing sweet memories of your wooing—'
'Safest to stay away, if she reckons that folly a sweet memory!' her son commented flippantly.
'So beautiful and gentle, and the best match in the county! Her brother's heiress, beside the Markwick dower! Hélie, it would be wanton waste!'
The young man grinned with a flash of strong teeth. 'Waste indeed, my lady. Lay it to my reluctance to resurrect a dead folly, but I can rouse no eagerness for the match.'
'No eagernes
s for fair Hermeline! There speaks folly in truth! Or did you find another love in the south?'
The young man made no answer, nor lifted his tawny head. His mother made a nervous gesture with both hands, scooping at the mass of silk in her lap so that it rustled like stirred leaves of autumn.
'It is folly indeed to set all one's desire on any woman, Hélie! Your brother was just the same, would never look at another woman after his wife died, and see where that has brought us! So it must be in the blood, though Saints only know where it comes from, for your own father had always a roving fancy, God pardon his frailties, and my father and brothers were the hottest lechers in six counties. But there is that poor child Hermeline alone, longing to meet you after all these years, and where could she find a better match now you too have inherited? Sole heiress to Warby, for Robert died only five days before his wedding—a sudden fearful sickness, taking him off in a few hours, amidst all the rejoicings for his marriage! All turned to mourning!’
‘All?’ he gracelessly inquired.
‘Hélie, for shame! But that monstrous girl dared say it was no grief of hers—her betrothed husband snatched from her very marriage-bed, and never a tear!’
‘The bride? Sounds a lass of good sense!’ said Hélie, his teeth gleaming again in the dusk.
‘Hélie, it is no matter for jesting! How must Hermeline feel, when she has treated the girl as a sister, to have her grief so cruelly flouted? No pretence at regret, no decent reverence for the dead!’
‘Had I been a maid betrothed to Robert, I should have danced for gladness,’ her son replied cheerfully. ‘Did you meet this paragon of sense?’
‘A great tall sulky wench, and Judas-haired at that. Hard as stone, I thought her, and Vallaroy heiress though she may be, the man who weds her will rue his bargain! As well beat this bench as try to school her! But she will not concern you. You will ride over to condole with Hermeline, and find her eager to welcome you. And though her marriage is in the King’s gift no doubt he will agree—’
‘At his own price,’ the young man said dryly. ‘After compounding with King John over the relief I must pay, I may find Hermeline too dear.’
‘Hélie, if I may but see you wedded, with a son to inherit, I can retire to a nunnery with a heart at rest!’
‘A nunnery? You will stay with me to birch your grandsons, lady mother—unless you wed again!’
‘I lived seven-and-twenty years with your father, Hélie.’ For once she forbore to elaborate a statement, but abruptly stood up, catching her sewing to her breast, and started for the castle steps, leaving him wondering exactly what he was to infer from her words. He jumped up to follow, but their departure was regarded by the musicians as a signal, and the tune broke off in an expiring squeak. The dancers trooped after him, laughing and chattering to their beds, making an end of private talk for the night.
Even amid all the multifarious duties that assailed a lord new-come to his inheritance after long years overseas, Hélie ruefully realized before half a day had passed that it was easier to yield to his mother's gently reiterated wishes, and visit Warby to present his condolences in person, than to deny her. Her menfolk had seldom failed to grant Avice de Trevaine her will, at the twentieth asking if not at the first. Even so, the afternoon was half gone before he could evade the demands of business, memorize some of his mother's final messages, stoop to kiss her wistfully-smiling lips and ride out over his own drawbridge.
He rode alone but for his Italian body-servant, who so sufficed his needs that he had not troubled to acquire such necessary adjuncts to his lofty station as squires and pages. Though some of his seniors had hard words for this indifference to his dignity, he was impatiently unwilling to drag a tail of attendants after him for a mere five-mile ride, most of it across his own domain. He supposed that he would in time learn to endure the burden he had never been bred to assume, but he heartily wished his brother Alain had survived to bear its weight.
Hélie had intended to present himself at Warby in ample time for supper, but as he descended the stony track through Thorgastone waste his horse cast a shoe, and he was obliged to dismount and lead him as far as the hamlet, since his bulk would have foundered his servant's proffered pony. The blacksmith was drunk and his forge cold. By the time they had sobered him by sousing him in his own tempering-butt, fetched his son from the threshing-floor, and stood over them until the task had been completed, the sun's edge was touching the ridge behind them. The valley was already filling with creeping shadow, but a mile away the walls and roof of Warby on their slight rise caught the last sunlight.
Another man might have returned home rather than arrive at so inconvenient an hour, but Hélie was not given to turning back within sight of his destination, nor to postponing difficult encounters. Also, as a reasonably dutiful son, he would fulfil his promise to his mother. So he spun the blacksmith a contemptuous penny, carefully failed to see the shrewd kick bestowed by his servant, and let his chestnut stallion stretch into a canter. The pony scuttered along behind.
He turned aside from the village to avoid the stone-hard ruts of its straggling street, and struck across the stubble-fields for the manor-house. As the watchman's horn blared its challenge he reined to a walk, his shadow stretching long and gaunt to touch the gate. There had been changes since he last rode through it; a squat tower with a crenellated parapet guarded it now, and a new drawbridge spanned the ditch. He had been long away, too long.
In that brief moment as he advanced to the bridge Hélie recognized his reluctance to enter again what had once been a place of enchantment. He was no longer the wild, eager boy who had loved Hermeline de Warby, worshipped her all one magic springtime, insanely demanded that she should wed him in the teeth of her father's and brother's opposition. He was certainly not the same boy who had ridden out of the old gateway, crazed with betrayal and humiliation, to face his own father's unleashed fury, and banishment to the far south. With a faint wonder at the magnitude of a lad's folly he recalled his jealous despair on hearing, of her marriage. It was all no matter now. He could laugh at his own madness, long since scorched out of him by fiercer love in sunburned Provence, and at passion that was dead ash.
He ducked his tall head to ride under the gateway arch and dismounted in the bailey, a tawny young man in fine black broadcloth, his only ornaments the amethyst on his left hand and his father's silver cloak-brooch enamelled with the scarlet lion of his house. One of the guards led away his mount. He unbuckled his sword-belt, and the porter bobbed out of his lodge like a cony out of a burrow, bowing and grinning as he took the weapon.
'Lord Hélie, Lord Hélie, it is good to see you riding again to Warby!'
Here was one who had not changed by so much as a wrinkle or another grey hair, and his welcome warmed Hélie. 'Why, did you ever doubt I should return, Edmund? Only the virtuous die young! How does your wife, and how stands the tally of your brats?'
'Eleven now, Lord Hélie, but still trying for th' round dozen. Granfeyther too, twice over.’
'Old ram!' Hélie cheerfully abused him. 'But we can gossip when I am not late for supper.’ He clapped him on the shoulder and strode briskly across the bailey to the hall steps, where the Warby steward, warned by the horn, was waiting to receive him, his face one wide smile of welcome.
He was indeed very late for supper. The servants were clearing the last course from the board, and the women, about to withdraw to the bower, were clustered near its door. The talk and bustle hushed, all faces turned towards him, and before the steward could announce him, a slight black figure started from among the women and joyfully cried his name.
'Hélie! Oh, Hélie!'
She came to the edge of the dais, reaching out a hand in eager welcome. It was small and white, cool to his lips as he stooped his head to it, and it held fast to his, drawing him round the table to the single high chair. She cut short his apologies for his late arrival. 'At any hour you are most welcome, Hélie.’ Three men stood to greet him there; two faces
were vaguely familiar, one strange to him. Hermeline assumed formality like a becoming garment to present them. 'My lord, you will remember Lord Eustace de Collingford and his son Oliver as old neighbours, but Sir Fulbert de Falaise is newly come to lordship of Whittleham.’
'I am happy to renew our acquaintance, my lords, and to make yours, Sir Fulbert.’
They murmured courteous greetings but regarded him with unwelcoming eyes, while the steward and marshal headed the household knights and officers who came forward to meet him again, and pages converged on them with water, napkins and dishes. The women wavered indecisively until Hermeline waved them away into the bower and resolved the confusion with a charming authority.
'Let us show some thought for a hungry man!' She settled her wide black skirts about her in the great chair and smiled at her guests. 'Hélie shall sit here beside me, because he is my old friend and has been long away.’
The eldest guest stood back from the stool on her right hand with just sufficient ostentation to indicate that he relinquished his place only at her bidding, and joined his fellow-guests at her other side. Hélie, ignoring their barely-concealed displeasure at his arrival, hastened to offer his condolences on the successive deaths of her husband and brother. She thanked him in a voice that trembled a little, tears spangling her downcast lashes, and then spoke with gentle sympathy of his own bereavements.
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