Viper's Blood

by David Gilman

  Blackstone went to the bars and reached his arm through, tossing the cloak to the girl. She looked surprised but grabbed it and wrapped herself in its warmth. Blackstone remained silent. The girl’s eyes widened. Perhaps she was possessed, he thought, and brought Arianrhod to his lips. Suddenly the girl chuckled.

  ‘You are frightened of me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She’s a goddess?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are a pagan?’

  ‘I am careful. I’ll seek protection where I can find it.’

  The girl was emboldened by his fearlessness and moved closer to the bars. Blackstone stayed where he was and allowed her to study him. The chains restricted her but she reached out a hand as if she could touch the Celtic goddess on the silver wheel at Blackstone’s neck.

  ‘If you want me you’d better take me now because they are going to burn me tomorrow.’

  ‘The men who tortured you, did they rape you?’

  She smiled and then frowned. ‘Are you stupid? Of course they did.’

  ‘Even though they thought you a witch?’

  ‘Even though. Perhaps they thought I would empower their cocks.’

  He smiled. ‘Did you?’

  ‘Even a witch cannot perform miracles. Acorns are not oaks.’ She retreated back to the corner and squatted down against the wall. ‘If you want me then you will have to step inside my cage.’

  The way she said it made Blackstone’s skin crawl. The enticement tested his courage, for it was a threat too.

  ‘I’m not here to rape you,’ said Blackstone and was grateful to hear the scrape of boots on the stone steps. He heard the priest mutter and Meulon swear beneath his breath. ‘Bring him closer,’ said Blackstone.

  Meulon pushed the nervous crow priest forward as the mayor stayed behind the men, putting as much distance between himself and the caged girl as possible. With a priest in the room there was hope that she could not inflict her spells on them.

  Blackstone glanced at Meulon. The throat-cutter’s eyes were nervously watching the girl.

  ‘Priest,’ said Blackstone. ‘This girl is accused of necromancy. She’s been tortured and raped. Doesn’t a witch bear a mark that shows she’s a witch?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They found none on her.’

  ‘Then she must have used magic to perform her rituals.’

  ‘Fairground fools use magic. Priests use magic when they use a relic to cure the sick. Incantations are what physicians use when they implore God to aid their healing.’ Blackstone beckoned the girl to the bars. ‘Come here, girl.’

  The priest backed away but Blackstone held him. ‘What else makes this girl a witch?’

  ‘Heretical magic… I… I cannot say… without questioning her.’

  ‘Then ask. She has nowhere to go except into the square and the stake.’

  The priest stammered but then found his authority. ‘Child, have you conjured demons?’

  ‘They say I have,’ the girl answered. ‘They made me confess through torture to such things.’

  ‘The demon was witnessed!’ blurted the mayor.

  ‘It was a stray cat that escaped from the market-day games. The boys kick them to death for sport, but I stopped them and rescued it. The creature never left my side after that.’

  ‘And you have made charms?’ said the priest.

  ‘I have. I soaked a piece of wool in bat’s blood and gave it to a man who wished his wife fucked him more. He put it under her pillow.’

  ‘And… and the charm worked?’ stuttered the priest.

  ‘It stained her linen. She beat him with a stave.’

  Blackstone grinned, the priest looked uncertainly at him. ‘Keep going,’ Blackstone insisted.

  ‘Do you heal with magic?’

  ‘With potions and herbs and prayer. But that is not witchcraft. I was taught by my father.’

  ‘Then you perform religious magic?’

  ‘Miracles are not my doing; they are God’s. It is He who changes the natural order of life and death.’

  ‘And what of prophecy and divination? Do you have that gift?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  The Mayor hid behind Meulon but pointed an accusing finger. ‘You sacrificed chickens and boiled their guts for the devil to slurp! You infused herbs to attract the devil’s snout!’

  Meulon pushed the mayor back with his elbow.

  ‘I killed chickens for their broth. And I use herbs for healing. As did my father. An innocent man who healed your sick! And you burned him alive for such kindness!’

  ‘Well?’ said Blackstone to the priest.

  The crow priest chewed his lip. ‘Mother Church’s view is that religious magic is God’s gift but all else is perversion. How are we to know what else she has done?’

  ‘We don’t.’ He turned to the mayor. ‘Malatrait. Release her.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Flanked by Meulon and the priest Blackstone took the girl to her father’s house. At the sight of the girl those few still on the streets crossed themselves and slammed closed their doors. The living quarters were up a set of turned stairs over a workshop. As Blackstone pushed open the door a rat scurried across the reed floor. It was obvious that her father had been taken from this room. The single chair and trestle table were overturned; there was a spray of blood staining the wooden boarded wall. Quills, ink and sheets of parchment had been scattered. The small window gave barely any light but there were no signs of candles or oil lamps; they had probably been stolen, thought Blackstone. There was little else in the room worth taking. A half-dozen bound manuscripts had been flung onto the floor and the shelf they had once been on lay broken and hanging from its bracket. The bed’s mattress, if there had ever been one, was missing.

  ‘Priest, you look in this room and determine whether anything indicates the girl’s father was enticing the devil.’

  The priest nodded obediently and began to gather the fallen papers.

  The girl showed no sign of shock at the room’s destruction or the blood splatters evident on wall and scattered parchments. After a moment’s hesitation she stepped forward and picked up the broken-legged chair. The cloak came apart, exposing her breasts, and as she turned with the spindle chair in hand and balanced it carefully against the wall she glanced at Blackstone and made no effort to fasten the garment. It was not a brazen attempt to attract him, he reasoned; her nakedness merely bore testimony that she had had everything taken from her. A low, narrow door of solid oak on iron hinges was set into the stone wall to one side. There was a keyhole in the plate below the latch. She bent down, brushed aside the reeds on the floor, eased up a floorboard and took out an iron key. The small oak door opened and she bent to enter the room beyond. Blackstone followed her and saw that her father’s attackers had not been inside. There was a workbench of chestnut, its rich dark hue smooth from many years of the man’s hands travelling across its surface. Along one wall there were shelves of glass bottles containing tinctures and liquids of various colours and behind the door was a single bedstead. Next to it was a nail in the wall that held a threadbare cloak, a dress and an apron. The girl unhooked the cloak and draped it across the bed, and then spilled water from a jug into a bowl and wrung out a piece of linen that she used to dab on her breasts and stomach. She dried herself carefully with a bolt of cloth and then reached up for one of the coloured glass bottles. She pulled free the stopper and he saw her pour a thick, clear, slow-running liquid onto the cloth, which she then dabbed onto the tortured skin. As she applied the healing ointment she told Blackstone who had come for her father and then taken her to the cellars and raped and tortured her. How one of her persecutor’s wives had stolen her clothes, charms and potions, taunting her that she would now be the one who could charge money for their healing properties.

  Blackstone had not taken his eyes from her. She turned. ‘Who is it that has saved me?’

  ‘I am Thomas Blackstone.’

  ‘A knight or a
brigand?’

  ‘Some say both. Who are you?’

  ‘I am Aelis de Travaux. Now that we have been introduced, will you put this on where they burned my back?’

  She held out the cloth, he took it and she turned around. He dabbed her inflamed skin, which quivered as he touched each wound, but she made no sound.

  ‘It’s done,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you. Now, look in the other room and see if they have left one of my father’s undershirts. I need to cover my wounds.’

  Blackstone did as she asked and rummaged through the upturned room. He found a shirt beneath the spindle bed. He turned back. She had already pulled the dress from the hook and was pulling it up to her waist.

  ‘They’ve taken anything of value. There’s this, though it’s covered in dust from the floor and no doubt fleas,’ he said, shaking the material. ‘I have a clean shirt in my saddlebags.’

  ‘This is enough,’ she said, and eased the shirt across her wounds and then tied up her dress. She pulled a wooden-toothed comb through what was left of her hair and plucked out the detritus that had lodged there from her cell.

  She pointed to a satchel. ‘Will you carry that for me? My burns are too raw for its weight.’

  Blackstone peered around the door and saw a leather satchel, bigger than his saddlebag. He lifted it and heard the clink of bottles.

  ‘We will start with what we have there. Where is your friend who needs me?’

  Blackstone almost replied but the shock of realization stopped him. He had not mentioned the wounded Killbere.

  She smiled at his uncertainty. ‘It is not magic, Sir Thomas. It is reason. Why would a man who does not wish to rape me have me released? Why would you and your priest question me about healing? Someone is injured. Now, take me to him.’

  Henry Blackstone had swept away the soiled reeds on the mayor’s floor. They contained a winter’s worth of fleas and lice, dog shit trodden underfoot and spilled food and wine.

  ‘We lay new reeds in spring,’ moaned the mayor’s wife, hands clutching the crucifix that dangled from her neck.

  ‘Get fresh covering now,’ John Jacob had ordered the frightened woman. ‘Light fires. Get warmth in here.’

  ‘Lord, there is little dry wood. We eke it out as best we can.’

  ‘You had enough to burn a man to death. Light the fires,’ Jacob snarled. The mayor’s wife scuttled from the room, bleating for a housemaid’s help.

  Will Longdon had pulled the rope-corded bed frame over to the window. ‘Bring that mattress, Jack,’ he called as Halfpenny manhandled a straw mattress taken from one of the other rooms. ‘On here. Sir Gilbert will need warmth and air.’

  By the time Blackstone and the rescued woman arrived, Killbere was lying on the mattress covered with blankets near a fire that burned in the hearth. Those men who lingered in the passageway stepped back and made the sign of the cross as Aelis swept past them. The fresh reeds underfoot crackled as she approached the wounded knight. Men crowded in the doorway watching the sorceress as she quickly peeled back the blankets.

  ‘The wound?’ she asked.

  ‘On his side,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘Turn him,’ she commanded.

  Blackstone knelt and eased his friend over. She lifted off the dressing put there by the crow priest and the smell of rotting flesh was unmistakable.

  ‘Who put the maggots in the wound?’

  ‘I did,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘It is likely your action has so far saved his life.’ She turned her face to Blackstone. ‘If he lives until dawn tomorrow then he will likely survive. What will you pay me?’

  ‘You bargain for a man’s life?’

  ‘Why should I not? I don’t know what it is you plan for me. A woman must use whatever bargaining skills she has. Every healer must be paid.’

  ‘If he lives I will grant what you ask for,’ said Blackstone.

  She smiled and delved into the satchel and began taking out pouches and small bottles. Then she turned to the men, held out a pouch to no one in particular, and said, ‘Boil water, soak these herbs and then bring the water to me.’

  The men gaped, their nervousness plain to see. None would accept her instruction. A moment before Blackstone was about to order Will Longdon to obey, Henry stepped forward and took the pouch.

  ‘Bring it in an earthenware jug, boy,’ she instructed. She stood and took a step towards the men in the doorway, who all shuffled back. She smiled at their fear of her and tossed a handful of powder into the flames: a mixture of sulphur, arsenic and antimony, used for its aroma and effectiveness against rat fleas. The sudden burst of sparks made the men even more nervous.

  ‘The air is foul and a wounded man will suffer more from it. As foul almost as your stench,’ she said to the men.

  ‘We’ve fought and ridden for days,’ said Will Longdon defensively. ‘I’ll wager that close up you smell as ripe as a cowpat.’

  She took another step and once again the men stepped back, pressing against those behind them. ‘You would like to get closer?’ she taunted.

  ‘Sweet Jesus on the Cross, you’re Satan’s gate if ever there was one,’ said Gaillard, pointing an accusing finger.

  Aelis made a swift feint forward and this time the men nearly fell over themselves as they shuffled backwards. She laughed. ‘Stay away from me and let me get on with what I have to do. Go!’

  ‘My lord?’ John Jacob said. ‘We cannot leave this woman alone with Sir Gilbert.’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ Blackstone told him. ‘See to the men and horses and have the women heat water for us all so we may bathe. Gaillard, search out their provisions. We need food cooked for us. No man walks alone out there, always two at a time. They may have declared for Edward but they have not for us.’

  The men nodded, accepting their orders. The passageway was soon empty.

  ‘You do not trust me to be alone with him?’ Aelis asked.

  ‘I trust only those who have stood at my side over the years. You do not frighten me, no matter what incantation you chant or spell you cast.’ As he spoke he knew the words to be a lie. Serpent-like fear crawled inside him. Perhaps the townspeople were right. Aelis de Travaux and her father may have been dabbling in the dark arts. It would take little imagination to see her as a witch. ‘And if I see any action that I believe will cause my friend further harm I’ll cut your throat.’

  She studied him for a moment. ‘Then before you put a blade to my neck make yourself useful. Order a chicken broth to be made for him and tell the mayor I need a candle, one that adorned the altar from the church.’

  ‘A church candle has power to heal?’ he asked, uncertain of what ritual might follow.

  ‘It has the quality and thickness to burn slowly. It holds no other significance than that,’ she answered. ‘Then get more firewood. Put a blanket on the floor so I can lay out what I need. You’re ignorant of what I do so do not attempt to interfere. I will attend your friend but I do not have the power of life and death. Get us food and drink and be prepared to stay through the hours of darkness because that is when he will either be taken by the angels or cast back into this world.’

  Blackstone looked down at her and she met his gaze fearlessly. ‘Bring the devil into this room and I’ll make you scream loud enough for him to turn tail and run back to hell,’ he threatened.

  ‘Perhaps the devil’s agent is already here and standing in front of me,’ she said and bent to the task of preparing the herbs and potions she needed for the dying man. She placed a smooth-edged crystal, the size of a small rock, about the size that could fit comfortably into the palm of her hand, on the blanket. Once again he saw the swell of her breasts and felt the urge for her settle on his tongue. He had not been with a woman since Christiana’s murder.

  He turned on his heel and dismissed the thought. Lying with a woman like Aelis could do more than bewitch a man: it might snare his soul. He felt the cool touch of silver at his throat. Perhaps it needed a Celtic goddess to ward o
ff such charms.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Meulon had brought cheese, bread, smoked fish and a jug of wine for Aelis and Blackstone. The woman ate hungrily and when she was satisfied pushed aside the plate and wiped her hands on the mayor’s cloak. She knelt next to Killbere and raised his head, ready to trickle the herbal liquid that Henry brought between the wounded knight’s lips.

  Blackstone gripped her wrist. ‘What is it you give him?’ he said, and took the jug, sniffing its contents.

  ‘It is rye steeped in hot water. It breaks down the humours,’ she said.

  Blackstone held her a moment longer and then released her.

  ‘Have the bowl ready,’ Aelis ordered Henry.

  The boy did as instructed without seeking permission from his father. Blackstone saw that the boy’s courage had not deserted him. The young page seemed not to care that some thought the woman employed black arts. After a few moments Killbere convulsed and spewed black bile.

  ‘You purge him?’ said Blackstone as he bent to restrain the shuddering knight.

  ‘I prepare him,’ she answered. She nodded for Henry to remove the bowl and its foul contents. ‘I have a preparation of sage that will soothe his nerves and help put strength into his paralysis.’ She spoke without looking at Blackstone, taking oil from one of the bottles in the satchel and trickling it into the palms of her hands. Her voice lowered as she rubbed the oil onto Killbere’s chest, murmuring as if treating a sick infant. ‘Almond oil is good for his chest and will ease any cough.’ She turned her face to Blackstone. ‘He must be able to breathe freely.’

  ‘When will you bleed him?’ Blackstone asked. ‘The priest said it was best done on a saint’s day.’

  ‘What happens when a man is wounded in battle? Is he not weakened by loss of blood? I can see he has already been bled. He needs no more.’ She looked at Henry, who stood in the doorway. ‘Boy, you know what plantain is?’

  ‘I do,’ said Henry. It was a common enough weed Old Hugh, his father’s overseer, had ordered cleared from his mother’s potager when they lived in Normandy.