‘I think you are mistaken. You are dealing with our lives.’
The Widow Bott pulled at the sorceress. But no one talks that way to her and she turned to leave.
‘Wait,’ said the widow. ‘Wait. You know there is a reward for anyone with information about Lord Rodermere that would lead to his safe recovery?’
‘They will never find him – of that I have no worry.’
‘You may have no worry, but I do. They may never find him unless you will it but what you have done this day will bring to leaf a tree of questions that fools and mountebanks will try to answer, their brains baited by the riddle of the boy’s unholy beauty. I will be marshalled and again accused of witchcraft. The monks feared nature’s beauty, seeing it as a seducer, a tormenter of men. Even in the soft petals of the rose, they thought they saw the face of evil. Do you believe this child will go unnoticed, that his very looks will not be brought into question? How far do you suppose the news of his birth has already travelled?’
The sorceress said, ‘Your word is enough, I am sure, to confirm that the child is the son of Francis Thursby, Earl of Rodermere. No one will question his parentage.’
‘Again, you are mistaken.’
The sorceress had no interest in this. What concerned her was the star.
‘Keep yourself to yourself, widow,’ she said, ‘and you will be safe.’
‘Perhaps. But for how long?’
‘Near seventeen years,’ said the sorceress.
She was in no mood to contemplate consequences and as she lifted the latch on the door, she congratulated herself that her powers had not waned.
The sorceress returns to her dwelling deep under her angel oak, whose veiny tendrils weave the domed roof of her chamber. Here stands her bed – raven black, the colour of dreams – with its canopy of stars. Fireflies light the room and gather, as do the moths, round one golden orb, a heavy pendant that swings slow across the chamber. She sleeps suspended between the streams of ages. Her spirit barely stirs to hear minutes passing. It is a parcel of time put to good use.
A moth’s wing flutters and almost seventeen years are gone.
Something gnaws at the edges of sleep. Not the rhythm of the days but her passion for Herkain, the King of the Beasts. It is not wise, she knows, to let herself visit him even in dreams for it brings her to the well of her own emptiness. He who had the sorceress’s very heart where all her love lay, who sunk his glorious teeth into its arteries, pulled it beating from her breast, left her heartless. He did not take her power, only her reason. She conjures the memory of Herkain’s tongue licking the flesh from her to reveal her pelt in all its lush resplendence. Once, she longed to return to him, ached to feel his prick deep inside her, to feel his strength contain her, the howl of his whole being released into hers. When they lay together they were one, she his dark, he her light.
Memory can disturb even the deepest sleeper with its incessant chimes upon the mind. Does the sorceress deceive herself when she dreams again of Herkain? Or is it the infant’s beauty that so enchants her that she cannot rest until she has the measure of the boy, knows what kind of fiend she has created?
Though he be half of faerie blood, all of him will be his father’s child. His beauty will corrupt him and the years will make a monster of the man.
And she wakes. By the lantern light she sees that the hem of her petticoat is torn, a scrap of the precious fabric gone, her very inner sanctum violated.
A tear in her petticoat is an unbearable weakness. It wounds her as if it is her flesh that is peeled from her for that piece of fabric is a charm that would give the thief power over her.
Who would do such a thing? No mealy mouthed mortal could part the watery curtain that divides the world of man from faerie. No spirit would dare come near her. Was this Herkain’s mischief? No, no, it was not he, of that she is certain. Then who?
Such was her fury, such was her malice, that she howled with the pain of it. And her faithful trees stayed silent and gave no clue as to who the thief might be. Her rage was uncontainable, she rocked the earth with it and heard winter shiver.
The sorceress dressed to hide the tear and against the season of snows she wore a gown made of summer gold, sewn with the silk of spiders’ threads, embroidered with beads of morning dew. Its rubies ladybirds, its diamonds fireflies, hemmed with moonshine’s watery beams; yet it was the tear in the hem of her petticoat that weighed her down for some mortal held its threads and by such stitchery, she was tied to them. She smelled blood, she smelled the shit and the fear of mortals.
She hardly noticed the cold or winter’s white mantle. Rage kept her warm and fury brought on a blizzard. Only in the icy breeze did her balance return to her. All was frozen, held tight against nature’s cruelties.
The Widow Bott, she will know. She will know who committed this crime.
She reached the clearing where the widow’s cottage stood. A papery yellow light glinted through the slatted windows. The wind whirled the snow as she knocked on the door.
‘Who is it?’ said a voice.
‘You know it is I.’
The widow unbolted the door that had never before been locked for she had no one to fear, not even the black wolf. She was wrapped as tight as her cottage, her clothes quilted against the cold. The fire flared in the draught of the open door and she closed it quickly, and moved to her chair.
‘So, mistress, you come at last,’ she said.
‘I told you it would be near seventeen years,’ said the sorceress, ‘and true to my word I am here. What is wrong, old widow?’
The widow’s hollow eyes as good as told her that something was amiss. She took the chair opposite her and the widow turned her face away. Where, thought the sorceress, was the widow’s bright, piercing stare that dangled challenge in its light?
She thought to ask a simple question.
‘The babe – what did Lady Rodermere call him?’
‘He is called Lord Beaumont Thursby, but all that know him call him Beau.’
‘He is now near grown, is he not? Ruined by the knowledge of his beauty and its power?’
‘If that was your design then you will be disappointed. He has grown to be the sweetest of young men. If his beauty has any consequence it is to those who look upon him for, man or woman, it makes no difference, all are enchanted by him.’
‘So, I am right,’ the sorceress persisted. ‘He uses his looks to make slaves of those who his beauty entraps.’
‘Again you are wrong.’
‘Impossible.’
The Widow Bott leaned forward and poked at the fire as if she had no desire to speak the truth.
‘His sister,’ continued the sorceress. ‘That toad-blemished creature: surely she is bitter with jealousy?’
‘Again, no. Powerful is the bond of affection between brother and sister. And tomorrow, their mother, Lady Rodermere, is to marry Gilbert Goodwin.’
‘But she is still married to Lord Rodermere, is she not?’
‘Not. The queen was petitioned to annul the marriage as Lord Rodermere has not been seen, alive or dead, for eighteen years come May. Please, mistress, I beg of you, let this be. Do not return Lord Rodermere to them.’
The sorceress looked at the widow more closely as she repacked her pipe and lit it, sucking in her