The Hermeporta Beyond the Gates of Hermes

by Hogarth Brown

  Celeste rested the wheelbarrow near the Abbess before she scuttled back to the door to close it. When she returned, the Abbess said some words over the steaming water in a language the Professor found familiar but hard to understand. When Lucia had finished her Yiddish prayer, she bid Celeste to take the wheelbarrow into the side room. The plain witch obeyed but turned the wheelbarrow with some difficulty into the chamber, her thin arms wobbling before she returned. The Abbess addressed the professor as the other two witches looked on:

  ‘Take off your clothes, Winston, and use the water and sponge to clean yourself. Please keep your feet on the white muslin provided to catch the drips.’

  The Professor paused, almost refusing before he looked either side of him, then nodded and stood before he began to take off his clothes. Celeste turned away, but Arcangela waited for more garments to come off. The Professor took pride in his body, even after many years, and many lovers, it had served him well: through his own innovation and discipline, he enjoyed having the physique of a much younger man. Once bare-chested he tossed his slashed shirt aside, revealing the sculpted shadows of his torso in the light, and made a start on his stockings that clung to his muscular thighs - he began to peel them down: ‘you may step into the room now’ said Lucia. Celeste still faced away, but Arcangela swore under breath.

  The Professor gave a wry nod and strode into the doorway of the side room, before half yanking down his stockings to moon his onlookers. Lucia tilted her head: the suggestion of a smile on her lips for a moment. He then strode forward to continue to undress. Arcangela craned her short neck after him: her eyes drinking in the powerful grace of his body. The Abbess looked at the little witch and wagged her finger, ‘not yet’ she whispered.

  After the Professor had dragged off his stockings in the side room he luxuriated for a while as he washed his hands and forearms. The Professor then wobbled for a moment, somewhat light-headed, but regained his balance to dip the sponge into the hot soapy water, the colour of milk, which gave off a heady scent of herbs. He stood on the square of white muslin that Celeste had placed on the floor of the side room and soaped himself to lather suds all over his body. He didn’t care that anyone watched: and delighted in the clean and perfumed feeling as he scrubbed away at his armpits, groin and backside, and felt the blood, grime, and sweat of the previous day get washed away.

  The Professor wobbled again, as he scrubbed his feet, but continued to sponge himself with the soapy liquid, covering him in frothing suds, until he finished. Winston, standing warm, wet, and naked, raised his palm to his flushed face: 'it's hot in here' he muttered to himself. He yawned, clutching at his forehead, and struggled to stand. His vision began to blur as he clung to the side of a table. He reached down for the muslin to dry himself, but almost toppled over. Maps and recipes stuck to the walls began to go out of focus. He dropped the sponge. He tried to shout out in protest: ‘you… you’ve…’ he mumbled, but could not formulate more words as the room spun. The Professor then staggered and weaved closing his eyes as he fell, down into darkness, and into the braced arms of Lucia and Arcangela that caught him before he hit the floor.

  ‘Well done little one’ smiled the Abbess, ‘help me put him on the bed.’

  …

  Antonio steered the carriage as best he could over the rough roads that lead to Bologna on their way to Padua, as they sped for his mother’s house, for her exile, and the refuge of the Venetian Republic.

  ‘We’ll have to stop soon’ he whispered to himself, as the sun started to set with a coppery glow that stained the clouds to the colour of honey. The burnished light mingled with the autumnal display of the trees - except the Cypress pines, evergreen and unchanging, standing like sombre spears in a cauldron of fire coloured leaves.

  The carriage rattled on as the wind blew, at times cool and others cold, as winter began to breathe and rouse herself from sleep. Winter would awake before long to kiss the leaves with frost, turn puddles into glass, and spider’s webs to necklaces - exchanging her sister’s coloured pallet for whites, silvers, and greys.

  Hermes and Illawara looked out of their windows and watched the leaves blow, and the countryside roll away. They said almost nothing and sat like strangers to one another, and strangers yet to themselves. In a short time, so much had changed.

  …

  The Cardinal had gone to the Roman Embassy in Florence, that evening, with his head hung low. News of the debacle had reached every inn, tavern, trattoria, and brothel by the time he had returned. He had sent off his henchman to find Illawara and the others soon after their escape. The Cardinal rubbed at his brow and heaved up a deep sigh that made the Embassy spaniel, Lupo, cover his long ears with his paws, and look up from the floor with eyes like boiled eggs. Orsini croaked out the odd word to his attendants that fussed around him.

  ‘Your Eminence, where were you last night? Your hosts had feared the worst for you. They refuse to believe the rumours – but they heard there was a great tumult and disturbance near the river – and feared the worst’ said the chief of security. Orsini gave no reply to the question. Orsini’s Chef hurried to his side when he heard that his master had returned. But Orsini only asked for chicken broth to eat, much to the surprise of his Roman chef - accustomed to providing hearty evening meals to the robust Cardinal.

  He knew better than to question his patron. The Cardinal refused the company of his hosts, requested his bedroom shutters be closed with curtains drawn, and asked to be left alone. He heaved his body up a broad stairway embellished with a tangle of Baroque paintings - on which the paint had yet to dry. The Cardinal looked on unmoved. When he had entered his lavish private apartments, the Cardinal kicked off his shoes, not caring where they landed, skipped his evening prayer, and eased into his bed like a snail.

  Orsini then lay on his back, after adjusting his pillow, and groaned as he looked up to the dim painted ceiling. The Cardinal grimaced as he tried to wriggle himself to comfort. Orsini struggled with the heaviness of his body, and his shoulders deflated as the sounds of whispering, gossip, and muffled laughter played in his ears. He looked up to the fresco painted above and replaced the faces of the feasting scene with those of his rivals, that looked down and sneered at him. Orsini, with effort, turned himself in bed to rest on his side, and hide his face from the imagined critics above.

  He would have to answer to the Pontiff when he returned to Rome. He groped for the pillow next to him and held it close until Illawara was in his arms, smiling, warm, dazzling, and beautiful. He clutched at his pillow until he danced with her again, breathing her into his heart, while the years and his cares fell from him like coins into a fountain. Orsini sneezed and shook his head, but she had vanished, and the full weight of his life returned.

  'You've lost her, old fool, you've lost her' he mumbled to himself before he coughed again and fell into a weary sleep. A while later the snoring Cardinal did not hear the nervous tap of an usher to bring him his chicken broth.

  …

  The Professor awoke to find himself tied naked to the bed. He fought and struggled, but to no avail. His mind began to clear its fog. He looked around to find many candles burning, a dozen at least, which illuminated the room. The colours of the tapestry of Diana had become clear and vibrant, and the Professor then saw even more of the curious assortments that filled the rooms. Small orreries that showed Copernicus’ view of the heavens, others Kepler’s, many vellum scrolls of spells written in different languages, books on Natural Philosophy, and almost fifty carved figurines from the known world. He turned his head around to look for the Golem, which sat there lifeless as before but wearing a different habit. Celeste sat next to it, on another chair. Celeste stared through the Professor, looking half dead herself.

  ‘Who’s tied me to the bed?’ he asked her,

  ‘They did’ said Celeste, in a faint whisper.

  ‘Can you untie me please?’ he said, but Celeste shook her head like a little girl and looked to the far door,

&nbs
p; ‘I can’t touch you’ she said, ‘not until they finish the ceremony.'

  ‘What ceremony?’ said the Professor as he again struggled at his bonds.

  ‘You’ll see’ said the deadpan witch. The Professor wriggled and shook, but his bonds would not yield.

  ‘You have to help me’ he said, but the witch just sat and watched the far door.

  ‘You’ll have to be quiet’ said Celeste, ‘they’ll be here soon.’

  ‘I don’t want to be QUIET’ shouted the Professor, giving a wild struggle. The bed creaked, but the leather bonds at his wrists and ankles kept him spread-eagled on his back.

  ‘No one can hear you’ she said, ‘the walls are thick, and the nuns are asleep, it’s not long till Matins.' The Professor then thrashed his head about and wailed. The pallid witch sat and watched the door until He had finished.

  ‘I’m dreaming. This must be a nightmare?’ he said. Celeste looked at the man with concern and seemed to him more nun than witch, but she made no move to help as the door at the far end of the room creaked open.

  The Professor shook himself to convulsion when two nightmarish figures walked in and closed the door behind them. The pair stood covered head to toe in wolf skins with the canine jaws hanging over their brows, fierce eyes staring, ram’s horns at either temple and long black robes like ragged burkas that covered their faces and bodies. Both figures held long clubs in each hand and held them aloft, and glided like two monstrous apparitions to the side of the Professor’s bed.

  They then began to tap on the ground with their heavy clubs, thud, thud, thud and started to chant. The mass of wolf skins flopped about in bedraggled motion and seemed to take on the life of a hunt in the candlelight - chasing, leaping and ready to tear flesh. The figures began to howl, wild and animalistic. The pair gained more intensity, babbling and chanting and continued to hit the ground, harder and faster than before: crack, crack, CRACK. The Professor looked on, helpless, tied, naked, and exposed - the whites of his eyes like shattered porcelain - he then let rip with a guttural howl that would have moved any living wolf to compassion: the bellow coming from the very depths of his being. The wolf skinned pair carried on their motions, the horns on their heads threatened to gouge, their fangs threatened to rip, and their wolf eyes glinted with the flash of death. Celeste rocked backwards and forwards in her chair and joined in with the incoherent mumblings.

  The Professor writhed and flayed at the bed, his wrists and ankles rubbed raw with his efforts. The Professor, his eyes wild and head thrashing from side to side began to jabber to himself as his body slicked with sweat: 'they want to kill me' he mumbled. Then the chanting intensified, and the three figures spoke in one tongue, with one voice. The ghoulish figures then raised their clubs high above his body. An extended shriek escaped through the Winston's gritted teeth - he tensed his muscles to resist a bludgeoning. The horned pair joined their clubs above him in the sign of the cross, in a fever of incantation, before they tossed their clubs aside with a clatter. The two figures then tore off their wolf skins and attire.

  Lucia and the little Arcangela stood in front of him nude.

  ‘Oh God’ said the Physics Professor for the first time in his professional life and would have prayed if he had known what to say. He stared up defenceless at the sorceress and witch that stood above him unrobed and free. Lucia’s figure could not be faulted and would have attracted him if the circumstances had been different. As for Arcangela, he looked upon her figure with horror staring at the lopsided, wrinkled, heap of her body: with her two uneven breasts that dangled, between her chest hairs, like dried oranges in stockings. He saw her untamed grey pubic hair, that almost hid a fleshy protrusion that peeped out from her crotch, and ran up from her groin, along the sides of her layered torso, ravaged by time, to join with the tangled wig of her armpits. The Professor had never seen the like before - the wolf skin showed more mercy to his eyes. 'I'm in HELL' exclaimed the Professor, his eyes searching and frantic for escape spied the faint bald patch through Arcangela’s thinning grey hair, which fell lank and brittle upon her stooped shoulders. Without her clothes, he could see her built up shoe and saw how much that one leg was shorter than the other.

  The little witch stood legs akimbo, relishing Winston’s fear, and tossed her hair about as if it were a mane of gold - she did not care a crumb for the Professor's thoughts. She bent to loosen her shoe-strap, her torso a concertina of flesh, and then kicked off her shoe to take a lopsided stance. Arcangela stood there, holding herself with pride as if she were a prize-winning squash at the village fair: bold, vulgar, and alive. The Professor resisted weeping but had no choice but to accept whatever came his way.

  ‘Fetch our headdresses and unguent’ Lucia said to Celeste, who then got up and went to the wooden case with iron trappings to retrieve one of the glass jars filled with a buttery mixture, a crescent moon headdress made of silver and diamonds, and a bandanna made of woven gold. Celeste stood to one side with the glass jar and opened it. A sweet, waxy, and pungent aroma filled the glowing room. Lucia put on her crescent moon headdress and said: ‘I am Diana’ before scooping a handful of the ointment from the open jar Celeste held and used her hands to rub it over her face, her hair and her body. The Professor struggled to believe his eyes as Lucia’s figure became even more alluring when her skin, almost in an instant, took on a silvery glow of its own. The sorceress shimmered like a shaft of moonlight where she stood and gave extra illumination to the walls and furnishings. Lucia then untied the lower braid of her blond hair until it fell loose about her shoulders – her hair alternating in colour from gold to silver and back again. The stunned Professor struggled to move his eyes from her. Arcangela took up the bandanna of woven gold, tied it around her head and said:

  ‘I am Circe.' The little witch then reached up to Celeste to take a scoop of the ointment, and like Lucia rubbed it into her face, scalp, hair, and body. Lucia handed back the jar to Celeste. The Professor looked on to see what effect the unguent would have on such a dilapidated figure. Nothing happened, at first, although Arcangela stood erect with her eyes closed and arms held aloft. Then the witch began to change.

  First, her shorter leg grew to the correct length to match the other, and then her stoop straightened out to take the diminutive witch to just over five feet tall. Arcangela then began to swing herself into a dance. As she moved her body changed, and every sweep of her arms turned back the years and bestowed grace upon her jaunty frame. Lucia and Celeste began to clap out a Spanish style rhythm as Arcangela continued to weave and move in circles - her speed increasing with the clapped rhythm. Her once drooping flesh grew taut and smooth, her shrunken breasts became bountiful, every hair on her body grew dark and supple, and her face then changed from prune to peach. The little witch then stopped her spinning and declared with arms flung wide:

  ‘I’m magnificent, I have power, I am beautiful.’ The Professor observed, slack-jawed, the plump impish prettiness of the little witch, even with her overgrowth of hair. Celeste looked on, unmoved it seemed, but Lucia smiled and wiped away moisture from the corner of her eye.

  ‘It’s time we made ready’ coughed Lucia, ‘the Sabbat will begin soon, we must hurry before the nuns wake for Matins.’ Lucia then focused her attention on the Professor. Her eyes then searched his nakedness before they settled on his loins. ‘Fetch the sheers’ Lucia said to Celeste. The Professor’s face turned white. The sullen witch shuffled back to the wooden box with iron trappings, and pulled out a pair of silver sheep-sheers studded with opals and amethysts: the edges of the razor-sharp blades caught the light. Lucia walked forward.

  The Professor’s teeth chattered, and he fought with all his might at his bonds, as Lucia spun the sheers in her hands, before slicing the blades in the air and pointing to his loins. ‘No, no. You're crazy. You can’t do this to me’ he screeched as Lucia drew closer. The Professor wailed and twisted himself away from her, before half freezing when Lucia drew the open sheers across his taut stomach to his g
roin. ‘No...NO, you evil, depraved bitch’ he squealed, ‘please don’t do this I beg you!’ But Lucia gave out a shrill laugh, her smile and skin flashing in the light, and she twitched the blades together to make a slicing sound, before putting her warm palm on his groin to grip his manhood. The Professor gave out a deafening cry and writhed and wrung his body away from her touch to try and free himself.

  The Professor felt his flesh tug under her grip. The sheers sliced and the Professor felt part of himself become removed. He screamed – a blood chilling scream. Lucia laughed, before she shook her prize aloft above her head. She brandished a tuft of his red-blond pubic hair. The Professor looked up at her prize before he lost any self-composure he had left and sobbed. Hot tears streamed down his face, while his ribs convulsed and his nose began to drip.

  ‘Fetch my locket’ said Lucia to Celeste, who obeyed and reached again into the wooden chest to pull out a bejewelled silver locket that dangled from a silver chain. Lucia opened the locket, once handed to her, and put the Professor’s pubic hair into it, and then closed it again with a click, before she wore the item next to her glowing skin. The Professor turned to hide his face away, that burned pink, and to shun the white salt lines of his tears and the gaze of the witches. Lucia looked at him where he lay, as his body still spasmed with emotion.

  Lucia then turned her attention to Arcangela and took up her sheers again: ‘bless the Madonna' she said in mock surprise, 'you have sprouted like an unruly hedge - let me prune you, my dear.' The little witch offered herself up to the sheers without fear and allowed Lucia to trim down her armpits and pubic hair to more tidy proportions. When Lucia had finished her work, Celeste gathered up the pile of Arcangela’s shorn hair and stuffed it into a velvet bag before putting it back into the chest. ‘More unguent please’ said Lucia, and Celeste fetched up the jar again. Lucia scooped a modest quantity into her palm and then climbed onto the Professor’s bed. His heart pounded as he looked at the witch with her crescent moon cradled in her hair, with her skin glowing like moonlight upon water, and wondered how a thing as glorious as she could be so wicked. She rubbed some of the ointment into his genitals and the rest into the cleft of her bottom. To the Professor’s disgust and humiliation, his manhood responded, drawing admiration from Arcangela: