Cruel Enchantment (Black Lace)

by Janine Ashbless

  And the dragon roared and arched and spent in ecstasy, his come gushing from him over Sheldi, exploding in her face like a bucket of water, drenching her hair and breasts. It was hot and very wet; Sheldi choked as it forced its way into her open throat and she swallowed great mouthfuls. It tasted of burned sugar, bitter and sweet all at the same time. When she finally opened her eyes, gasping, she saw that the liquid was perfectly clear; it lay on her flushed skin glittering like diamonds. The dead weight of the dragon’s prick settled on her outstretched body, limp and throbbing with the last pulses of pleasure.

  After a long, wordless pause for breath, Oromon rolled gently back on to his right flank. Sheldi, exhausted, slid down the slope of his stomach without attempting to resist the fall and he caught her above the flagstones in one foreclaw. She nestled in the warm space between limb and body, stunned by what had happened, touching the huge scales of his cradling claw wonderingly. Oromon’s head swung round on its long neck so that he could look at her collapsed form. His tongue slid out to brush her nipples, tasting his own juices mingled with her scent.

  ‘I think I must find you food, now, little Sheldi,’ he purred, ‘and I suppose you will need clothes. There is a well in the courtyard for when you want to wash. A lot of the castle remains intact … I believe there are whole rooms below which you must look into. I have seen a library. Perhaps you could fetch out the books and read to me from them later. My people are great storytellers. Or would you rather just sleep for the moment?’

  But because his tongue was probing the wet, hungry folds of her cunt and teasing her clit into fiery life again, Sheldi was unable to answer.

  Renaissance

  THE MERCHANT FROWNED at the man standing in front of him and said, ‘You’re a doctor? You don’t look like one.’ He might have added, ‘Where are your robes? Where is your gold-topped cane? Why are you so young?’ The object of his scrutiny was dressed as plainly as a journeyman of some respectable craft-guild, and the box on the strap over his shoulder could have held anything from pens to mason’s tools.

  The younger man raised his hands. ‘Well, physicians are not born with long grey beards,’ he said with a disarming smile. ‘But I am doctor, I assure you; I studied at the University of Solerno, and I came here on the word of Raoulin of Silver Street. You can send to him for my credentials, if you doubt me.’

  The merchant grunted, leaving no room for uncertainty as to his confidence in the man’s story: ‘That old trickster – fifteen silver pennies he charged me for his treatment, and not a moment’s improvement has my wife seen from it.’

  ‘I can see you have lost faith in the medical profession,’ said the young man softly. ‘Permit me to restore it, I beg you; from what I hear of your good lady’s symptoms, she suffers from a malady I have treated before with success.’

  The merchant’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. He did not doubt that the young man had treated many women to their satisfaction; a doctor that was not old and ugly must be a singular rarity, and this was a fair-featured man before him. Not what the merchant would call an impressive or memorable face, but clean-shaven with loose brown hair and intelligent eyes – a smooth, plausible fellow to whom most men would not give a second glance, and yet, the merchant suspected darkly, one who would be good enough for many weak-willed women. He frowned again. ‘What, is my wife’s illness now the gossip of the city?’ he grumbled. ‘I have consulted many physicians, and not one of them has lived up to their promises. I see no reason to let you examine my wife.’

  ‘Then she will continue to suffer until her death,’ said the man, his voice hardening somewhat. ‘And you will carry the burden of a crippled marriage.’

  The merchant rubbed his hands uneasily across the straining expanse of his tunic. There was a greasy patch on the rich fabric there resulting from this habit. ‘Well, I will not pour silver into your pockets to hear you recommend scourging her,’ he said.

  ‘Is that what you have been advised?’ the other asked with visible concern.

  ‘I’m told she is possessed, or under some witch’s curse,’ the merchant said. His expression grew heavy. ‘I have been told that I will have to have the devils beaten out of her. But I am too tender-hearted to bring myself to that yet. Perhaps that is why these devils plague me, because my faith is weak.’

  ‘Please, do not resort to torture,’ the doctor said. ‘I am sure that I can bring about a happier cure.’

  The merchant weighed his protective instincts towards his wife with the prospect of further years living with her frenzies and her silences. ‘You may come upstairs,’ he said at last, ‘though I will attend the examination.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the younger man. He hefted his box and followed the anxious husband up the stairs out of the shadowy hall and into the interior of the opulent townhouse. His eyes missed nothing: not the rich embroidery of the merchant’s ample robes; not the fashionable frescos on the plaster of the large rooms he was led through; not the tasteless but expensive glassware that was on display on every shelf or chest. It was a house too big for its occupants to fill comfortably and must keep a small army of servants in employment.

  The merchant led the way down a corridor and into a room that faced south across the red-tiled roofs of the city. The room was large with a very high ceiling, and the scale of the place was emphasised by the fact that every stick of furniture bar a narrow bed and a small stool had been removed. The afternoon light slanted in through the arched windows, unimpeded by shadow or barrier, and the whole space was filled with dust-motes and tiny muttering echoes. There were two occupants in the room: a middle-aged female servant who stood up respectfully from the stool when her master entered, and a smaller woman who sat upon the bed, her knees drawn up before her. This one did not so much as stir in response to the newcomers.

  ‘This man,’ said the merchant to the servant, waving one hand behind him as they approached, ‘is, ah, Michel …’

  ‘Dubois.’

  ‘Michel Dubois, a physician of this city, whom I have engaged to treat Annette. Fetch him a goblet of wine, woman. Will you be needing a bowl for the examination of my wife’s urine, sir physician?’

  ‘No,’ said the doctor. ‘That won’t be necessary.’ He placed his box down carefully, his gaze all the time on his patient. She was rather short and slightly built, as far as one could tell through the shapeless tunic she had been bundled into, with pale skin. Probably two decades younger than her husband, as was to be expected. Her hair was a matted tangle, dark as a blackthorn bush in winter, her long lashes and rather full lips the only generous touches in her unpainted, somewhat pinched-looking face. Her expression was blank.

  The servant ducked her head and hurried off.

  Annette’s hapless husband folded his arms and watched as Michel leaned over his wife, took her chin in one hand and turned her face up towards his so that he could look into her eyes. Their gazes did not meet; Annette’s vision was elsewhere, her dark eyes turned slackly away from the man in front of her as if he did not exist. When he released her face, she returned to her previous position. Michel took up both her hands from her lap and examined them, turning them over. Again she showed neither resistance nor response. Her husband felt a tiny twinge of something he did not consciously identify as satisfaction.

  ‘She’s not always like this, is she, though?’ said Michel, sinking on to the stool so that he was face to face with her.

  ‘No,’ the merchant said. ‘This will last another few days.’

  ‘And what then?’

  ‘For a little while she will be normal, or close to normal, like other women. I will be able to show her at balls and dinners, if I like. She will talk and dance and dress like a human being. Then in a few weeks she will change again; that is the worst of her times. She will become uncontrollable, break things, attack people. She is so filled with rage, I don’t think she knows who or where she is, or that she can recognise us. That will last a week.’

  ‘Rage and fear, f
ollowed by a slide back through acceptable behaviour into this dark fugue,’ the doctor mused.

  ‘That is right,’ the merchant said. ‘You have seen this before?’

  ‘I said that downstairs,’ he agreed absently, still watching the woman. ‘What is her appetite like?’

  ‘When she is like this, she does not eat at all. When she is in her frenzy, she eats like a furnace. Anything we let her get near. She killed a cat once and tore it up with her teeth,’ he finished with a shudder.

  ‘Hmm. And her carnal appetite?’

  The merchant coloured. ‘Well, you can see,’ he stumbled. ‘I can approach her now, or when she is able to talk, but later on … she becomes like a lamia. I fear for my life. She has drawn blood from me. I wouldn’t dare go near her at the height of her frenzy.’

  ‘Obviously,’ Michel agreed. ‘Tell me, how long has she been your wife?’

  ‘Three years now. She was from a good Burgundian family.’ The merchant thought of disclosing her dowry and then decided better of it.

  ‘And has she been suffering from this malady all that time?’ asked Michel.

  ‘No – not for the first year. It came on gradually after her fourteenth birthday.’

  ‘So, has she borne you a child yet?’

  ‘No,’ the merchant sighed. ‘I am without an heir. If I were a cruel man, I could divorce her; she is as barren as the sea-sand and it seems clear at the worst times that she is possessed by a devil from Hell. The Archbishop would be sympathetic to my plea, I’m sure.’

  The servant came back into the room as he spoke these words and the merchant fell silent. She presented a goblet of brilliant blue Venetian glass to the physician, who took a few sips of the white wine within and passed it back to her.

  ‘Do these attacks coincide with the onset of her courses?’ Dubois asked the husband.

  He went red, and protested, ‘I have no idea!’

  ‘Well?’ said Michel, turning to the servant. ‘Is she bleeding now?’

  The woman glanced quickly at her master. ‘Yes sir,’ she said.

  ‘And is the flow heavy or light in your opinion?’

  ‘Very light, sir,’ she said. ‘It always has been for her.’

  Michel nodded. ‘The diagnosis is clear,’ he said. ‘The treatment, however, may not be. Your doctors with their whips and cudgels were right about one thing; it is a malady beyond their repair.’

  The husband was alarmed. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that the disorder, though it has a physical cause, does not have a cure in our meagre store of knowledge.’ He sensed the protestations rising in the merchant’s throat and moved to explain. ‘Imagine wrapping a cord around a man’s arm tight enough to prevent the ebb and flow of the blood. What would happen if that cord were not removed?’

  ‘The limb would blacken and die, of course. I imagine that the man himself would succumb, if the limb were not amputated.’

  ‘Well, your wife is in a situation analogous to that one. The tides of the humours within her are blocked, so that the blood pools and grows stagnant, and the rancid fluids poison her and drive her mad. She is not possessed by any devil, for which you may be grateful. But the disorder is serious, and she will die of it if it is not cured.’

  ‘You suggest that we bleed her? It did not cure her before, though it does keep her quieter when her frenzy comes upon her – is that all the cure you recommend?’

  Michel stiffened. ‘I’m not suggesting bleeding her,’ he said, his calmness fading for a moment before he regained his equilibrium. ‘I’m saying that I do not have the remedy for your wife. Her cure is with the Church.’

  ‘The Church? Is there nothing to do but pray?’

  Michel raised a hand to forestall his client. ‘Have you heard of St Veronique the Virgin? No? She is little-known, a poor rural saint that only the peasants revere. However, God has granted her through His grace the cure for this malady that your wife suffers from. It is a sure miracle; I have sent several sufferers to pray at her shrine and every one of them has returned cured. That is all your wife need do; make a pilgrimage to the shrine and pray there.’

  ‘I have never heard of this saint,’ the merchant said shaking his head.

  ‘Nevertheless, her shrine is less than a day from your own door. It is a little chapel on the estate of the Châtelaine Marguerite, niece to the Duke. She permits the passage of pilgrims across her land, though there are few of them. As I said, it is not a famous place, but it is a holy one.’

  The merchant mused, ‘The Châtelaine? I sold her an entire glass service, once, and two bolts of silk for a summer gown. I suppose it cannot do my Annette harm if I take her to this chapel.’

  Michel shook his head. ‘Listen to me. The procedure is laid down by the Church. She must go alone, unaccompanied; do you understand?’

  ‘Alone?’ he snorted. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘I mean it, or you will get no cure. It is less than a day’s walk, and she will be under the protection of the Châtelaine, as well as St Veronique herself. There is nothing to fear for her safety.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ the merchant said. ‘The roads are lawless places.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to like it,’ Dubois said curtly. ‘She must go alone. She must wear the white garb of a penitent and a wooden cross upon her breast, to mark her for a pilgrim. Her head must be bare. Plain shoes. Nothing else; no jewellery or relics. She is to walk to the house of the Châtelaine, and there she’ll be directed to the shrine. And she should start as soon as she is able, before the choleric rage rises in her. A week from now, if she is capable of the journey. She will spend three nights praying at the shrine, and then she will return. I swear, she will be cured if she asks St Veronique with a pure heart. I know no other way for her.’

  There was a long pause while Annette’s husband stood staring down at the physician, weighing his words. He noticed absently that the younger man had rather curious, light-hazel eyes, now that they caught the afternoon sun. He thought of future months lying in ambush before him, the long seasons waiting for Annette to choke on her own choler or drown in her own melancholy, until he might be free to find a sane and comfortable wife once again. And so, with reluctance, he finally nodded his assent. Dubois’ mouth crooked in a smile.

  ‘Do you agree, too, Annette?’ he said gently, turning to the woman and addressing her directly for the first time. He took one of her pale hands between his long brown fingers and leaned forwards to look into her eyes. ‘You must want to be free of this, too. Will you go to St Veronique?’ And, to the considerable surprise of her husband and her maid, Annette’s withdrawn gaze slowly focused on his face. Though she did not smile or change her empty expression, she nodded very slightly.

  Annette stood at the side door to her house in the morning sunshine. It was still early enough for the street-sweepers to be visible clearing horse-dung and vegetable peelings from the cobbles in front of those houses that retained their services, early enough for bread-vendors, out with their baskets of loaves, and fish-sellers, still on their way from the docks to the market place. Early enough for her white penitent’s gown, made from the finest wool, to feel comfortable on her. In another few hours, when the sun was up, she thought unemotionally, the sheer unbelted robe would be too hot and heavy and she would have to find shade. A pilgrimage at the height of summer was a foolish notion; had she been driven by anything other than dire necessity, her husband would never have let her go. As it was, he had kissed her farewell a few moments ago – but chastely. She had made her confession in the Church of the Blessed Virgin at dawn, by special arrangement with the priest, and it would not do to besmirch her shriven soul now.

  Annette stared up the street for a few moments, gathering her thoughts and her strength for the journey ahead. The hopeless lethargy of the week past was mostly lifted now, but lingered like a veil that separated her from the bright world before her. Everything felt unreal; she knew that if she did not force herself to
act then she could easily stand all day by the wooden gate, watching the city without interest or active thought. She knew her duty, but it was a deliberate effort to apply herself to the task. She wasted some minutes staring at her feet, clasped in flat shoes she had never previously worn, before pulling a deep breath and stepping on to the road.

  The gate she needed lay to the north west, across the breadth of the city. The route was direct enough that she need spare it little thought. She knew the way to the market place and the Great Square beyond it; skirting the Cathedral, she would then have to climb the hill to the gate. She watched her feet move on the cobbles, and the road in front of her, not sparing a glance for the buildings she passed – fine houses, the famous Library, the Archbishop’s Palace – or for the people. She attracted many curious looks but was only dimly aware of them. To those onlookers, she must have appeared the very image of penitence, but in fact she was sunk in indifference, her awareness all turned inward. She let her mind dwell on the strange feel of her new shoes, and the harsh rasp of the woollen robe against her bare skin – for she was wearing nothing beneath it – and the oddness of being outdoors with her head bare. She had not gone bareheaded in public since she was a child; no other woman in the city would be walking as she did that day, not even the prostitutes down on Grope Lane. Now that it was cleaned and combed her rich, dark hair fell upon her shoulders like a cloud of darkness. Her inner darkness was invisible to all but herself.

  She reached the gate without being challenged by any but children who were not old enough to restrain their surprise at the sight of such a strange figure, though some people crossed themselves – perhaps in response to her piety, perhaps to disassociate themselves from her sins. The streets were filling up now and around the gate the crowds bottlenecked and came to a standstill. Soldiers on the gate were taxing incomers based on the goods they were carrying and the number of legs in their party; a flock of sheep blocked the way now.