No one interferes with her curses.
‘Where are you going?’ says Thomas Finglas. ‘Stay, I beg you.’
Invisible once more, she is gone.
Mistress Eleanor Goodwin, still dressed in her bridal gown, was seated staring into the embers of the fire. Her husband Gilbert stood opposite her.
He was silent, immovable. It appeared that both had said all the words they had to say.
But Eleanor returned to the round. ‘I will not leave, not without him.’
‘My love, Lord Beaumont is right,’ said Gilbert. ‘If you stay, what will become of you? Of us? Remember what Lord Rodermere did to you? Think what he might do to Lady Clare.’ Gilbert’s voice softened. ‘If Beau is seen to leave with us and Lord Rodermere decides he wants his son then our fates are sealed – he will come after us.’
‘But to go abroad, to leave him here to that monster’s mercy, how could you think of such a thing? You who love him as a son.’
‘He will follow. You and Lady Clare must have time to escape and when you are safe, I will send a message and then he will be with us again.’
‘Could we not stay in London and be closer to him?’
Eleanor looked up to see her son and daughter in the doorway.
‘Is the the carriage ready?’ Beau asked and his voice had a note of calm authority to it.
Gilbert nodded as if saying the words might reawaken the argument that had occupied their wedding night.
Beau knelt beside his mother.
‘My lady, to stay here would be folly. You are married to Master Gilbert. Best by far you leave today and go abroad. Take my sister away from here. It is what you have long wanted. Sir Percival has advised you to do as much.’
‘Only if you come too,’ she said.
The sorceress has to admit surprise at this young man’s elegance of language, his careful argument. She can see his speech holds weight. And she is wondering how she might make them stay here a while longer until the deed is done. But one look at Master Goodwin tells her it would be his knife, not Beau’s, that would pierce the earl’s heart and that would never do.
The wind whirled, the chamber door flew open and in the sudden breeze the fire flared.
Beau glanced up to where she stood as if to say, ‘You are still here?’
Beau’s words seemed to shake Mistress Goodwin into action. Her husband called for a servant.
‘Bring the carriage and my horse to the front of the house,’ he said, and he helped his wife to her feet.
This parting causes each of them great sorrow and it appears as genuine in Beau as it does in the others. Surely, thinks the sorceress, this is an actor playing his part, nothing more.
‘How will I find you?’ said Mistress Goodwin to her son. ‘When will I see you?’
‘I promise, soon,’ said Beau. ‘Now, my lady –’ he kissed her hand ‘– the quicker you are away from here the nearer you will be to seeing me again.’
An hour later saw the carriage containing Mistress Eleanor and Lady Clare leave the house, accompanied on horseback by Gilbert Goodwin. The three cloud-capped turrets stared down on the walled forecourt to the gatehouse where the porter and other outdoor servants lived. It was they who ran out to open the gates, to wave farewell. The rooks cawed against the oncoming darkness as the carriage disappeared onto the main road. Beau stood bare-headed on the drive and only when it was lost from sight did he turn and walk back to the house.
I am torn. For this boy is everything he should not be and despite of it I am enchanted with him and his girlish looks. At the grand door where once I had come with a basket he stops, turns to look at me and holds the door open as if waiting for me to enter.
I am born from the womb of the earth, nursed by the milk of the moon. Flame gave me three bodies, one soul. In between lies my invisibility.
Thomas was watching from a window in the turret as the carriage departed. He wondered why the young Lord Beaumont was not inside it, for there would be no point in the boy staying, no point at all. His heart missed a beat when he heard the door to the chamber being unlocked.
He turned and was about to say that he needed more time, when Sir Percival said, ‘What have you done?’
Thomas, without looking at Lord Rodermere, replied, ‘He sleeps.’
‘Sleeps?’ repeated Sir Percival. ‘Yes, sleeps – and he has aged. Alchemist, I much underestimated your talent. This is indeed a remarkable transformation.’
Now Thomas looked at Francis. And indeed a miracle of sorts had taken place: the ravages of time had collided with him. Gone was the youthful man and in its place a withdrawn creature whose prick had aged more than the man himself so it would in future be an impotent thing that would cause him much frustration and not one ounce of pleasure. Lord Rodermere looked nothing like the portrait, the two images hardly reflected each other.
The sorceress’s one regret is that she had not the chance to be there when young Lord Beaumont confronted his father. She would have chosen it to be different but Sir Percival was intent on having Thomas Finglas gone as soon as possible, regardless of the fact it was now night and the roads barely passable. A horse was brought that looked as reluctant to leave the stable as Thomas was to leave the warmth of the house.
‘If, Master Finglas, you mention one word of what has happened this day and your part in it, I will not hesitate to have you charged with sorcery,’ said Sir Percival.
He nodded at a servant who took from Thomas the gown he was given on his arrival. Thomas, in his nightshirt, sat astride the horse.
‘But, sir, I will freeze to death.’
Sir Percival said nothing and the great door closed behind him. Snow was falling on horse and man as they made their way on to the impassable road.
Thomas will remember nothing of his journey and only come into himself again as he crosses London Bridge and its tongue-tied waters. There, numb with cold, he will urge on his horse until he finds himself haunting his own back door.
‘Be I alive or be I dead?’ he asked.
His conclusion, dull as it is, was that he was dead. There is something so pathetic in man’s desire to know what state his flesh be in. How could he not feel the pulsing of his blood, the beating of his heart? And it strikes the sorceress that in all she has seen of him he possesses very little magic. He jumps when he hears her voice.
‘I have kept my part of the bargain, now you must keep yours.’
Again he asks, ‘Am I dead?’
Night had reached the hour when it wraps itself starless in its frozen cloth. The door was locked, the house in darkness. Thomas knocked with his fist. He knocked again. His teeth were chattering, his breath a white mist and these bodily signs comforted him and proved he was made of living parts. When still there was no reply he cursed his nick-ninny of an apprentice: