Cauldron of Fear (2 page)

Ye gods, she
chuckled, he was at least as old as her own father, if not perhaps
a year or so older, and his own daughter, Jane, had been at least
three years old by the time Harriet had been born, as Jane herself
had been quick enough to point out on more than one occasion when
the two young women met.

'He's becoming a silly old fool,' the sallow complexioned
innkeeper's daughter had remarked, shrewishly, when Harriet
delivered the last pig carcass to the
Drum
back at the beginning of June.
'Marry you indeed. He'll make himself an even bigger laughing stock
and probably kill himself into the bargain.' Her thin lips curled
maliciously and there was no disguising the hate in her
eyes.

'If the stupid
oaf must take himself another wife,' she had continued, her narrow
nose wrinkling in distaste, 'then he should look to someone more
his own age, someone who'll keep his feet warm in bed and not tempt
him to racing around the bedchamber.'

'Someone who
will possibly die before he does, you mean?' Harriet suggested, and
immediately regretted her words, though she knew she had hit the
nail squarely upon its head. Jane Handiwell did not want her father
dying and leaving his well-gotten gains to a wife who might even
outlive herself. She had not remained at the inn, cooking, cleaning
and managing the house just for some flighty usurper to march in on
her pretty heels and snatch away her inheritance.

'Poor Jane,'
Harriet whispered to herself, as she opened the top drawer of the
heavy oak chest and began rummaging through the clean underthings
there. 'Poor plain Jane with your twisted humour and silly
jealousies. Why you won't believe me when I say I have no
intentions of marrying your father, heaven above knows, but then a
mean spirit bleeds itself hardest, and no mistaking.'

Her name was
Miranda Parkes, but the people here persisted in calling her Kitty,
not just refusing to acknowledge her real identity, but actively
punishing her with their cruel whips if she dared try not
responding to the name they had given her, let alone when she tried
to insist that they use her correct title.

'Here you are,
Kitty,' the young overseer had told her, gripping her jaw between a
powerful thumb and forefinger and jerking her face up towards his
own. 'You're Kitty here and you'll be Kitty from now on, unless
your new master decides to rename you.'

'But I'm not a
slave,' Miranda squeaked, defiantly. She clenched and unclenched
her fists in desperate frustration, but her wrists remained
strapped to her hips as they had been when she first recovered
consciousness in this awful place. 'I'm not a slave,' she repeated,
futilely.

The overseer,
Adam, released his grip and pushed her away. 'Is that so?' he
smirked. 'Well, you look like a slave, right enough, for no free
woman I ever knew would stand before men shamelessly showing off
her titties like you do.'

Miranda felt
her cheeks redden, for she had almost managed to forget that she
was kept so terribly near naked. 'It's not my choice to be like
this,' she whispered, lowering her eyes, grimacing as she saw how
hard and extended her nipples appeared. 'If you would permit me,
I'd cover myself suitably.'

'I think your
appearance is suitable enough,' Adam laughed, 'for a slave girl.'
He slapped the short leather crop against his high boot, making
Amanda wince. 'And that's what you are, Kitty, whether you like it
or not, so the sooner you start learning how a slave should
properly behave, the easier it will be for you.' He flexed the crop
meaningfully.

'So,' he said
silkily, 'what's it to be, or shall I add a few more stripes to
those rosy little bottom cheeks?'

Kitty winced
again, for if the immediate pain of the whipping he had given her
that first evening had faded, the memory had not, and she did not
have to try too hard to recall each of the six burning stripes he
laid across her buttocks. She let out a long breath. 'I don't want
to be whipped again,' she said, quietly.

'Master,' Adam
reminded her.

She sighed
again. 'I don't want to be whipped again, master,' she corrected.
'What is it you want me to do?'

'Whatever I
tell you,' he said, smiling now. 'It won't be that hard to learn, I
promise you. Now, step up closer and present those slave girl
titties for my inspection.' Swallowing hard, Amanda took a pace
forward and forced herself to draw her shoulders back, thrusting
her generous mounds into even greater prominence. Adam's free hand
reached out, hefting the left breast carefully, kneading one side
gently with his thumb. To her chagrin, Amanda felt a tremor run up
and down her arched spine and an involuntary squeal escaped her
lips before she could check it.

'Very good,
Titty Kitty,' Adam purred, evidently pleased with the reaction to
his touch. 'Look down now, see how your teats swell to my caresses.
Why, I swear that if you weren't wearing your slave harness you'd
throw yourself wantonly upon me, you brazen little trollop.'

He let the
whip drop at his feet and his left hand began to explore, but this
time much lower down, pushing between the stiff leather strap
between her thighs and searching, first for her recently denuded
mound and then for the swollen lips that had begun to throb as
though developing a will of their own.

'Ah, naughty
Titty Kitty,' he breathed, his mouth close to her right ear.
'What's this then, are we all wet down here? And so hot, too. Would
you like me to take care of this hungry little cunny, Titty
Kitty?'

'Yes, master.'
Amanda could not believe she had said that, and was on the point of
drawing back when commonsense and self-preservation interceded. To
resist, even to object, could only bring one inevitable and painful
result and after all, she told herself reasonably, she was no
virgin. Besides, she had to admit, he was handsome, even if his
manner was brutish.

Slowly, she
raised her face until her eyes met his. 'Yes, master,' she
repeated, quietly but surprisingly calmly, 'I think I should like
that very much.'

Matilda hung
awkwardly against the unforgiving stone blocks, shifting her
position every now and then, at least as far as her chains would
permit, in an effort to bring a measure of relief to a few
different muscles in turn. However, with her toes barely touching
the floor, there were few options and gradually her limbs were
beginning to feel numb through their agonies.

'Dear God,'
she whispered, half opening her eyes to peer into the gloom,
suspecting that the gaunt, black-garbed man was there somewhere,
watching her ordeal, 'dear God, why is this happening to me? You
know only too well that these are nought but foul lies.' She closed
her eyes again, groaning and trying to draw more air into her
lungs.

Was this, she
wondered, what it felt like to be crucified? She had heard,
somewhere, that it was not the nails through hands and feet that
killed, but the position of the condemned, whereby the chest
finally collapsed and no air then reached the head. James - James
Calthorpe, the miller's son - had told her that, hadn't he? James
had been educated, sent away to London, his father's money buying
him a future that wouldn't involve humping heavy sacks of grain and
flour and long hours toiling to keep the unreliable mill machinery
grinding.

James
Calthorpe knew many things, Matilda knew. He knew about other
countries, Europe, the new cities in the new world across the
ocean. He hadn't visited them personally, of course, though he had
assured Matilda that he would - and soon - but he told her of the
books in the universities and libraries, shelf upon shelf of
learning and knowledge, where a man could spend a lifetime of days
reading and still not have touched upon one tenth of what was
there.

And James knew
of many things much closer to home, especially of those secret
places that Matilda thought were known only to her, and just how
and when to touch, caress, kiss these places and invoke in her
sensations that drove her to forget everything her mother and aunts
had ever told her. Perhaps, she reflected mournfully, this was her
punishment; the wrath of God unleashed upon her for those stolen
moments of passion in the various small barns behind the
watermill.

They had done
things that Matilda knew were wrong, sinful, against the teachings
of the Church, things the pastor had told the entire congregation
would be certain to condemn their eternal souls to the fires of
everlasting Hell. She had been wicked and now she was being
punished.

'No!' she
cried out, her eyes snapping open. 'No!' It was not right, she was
not right. The Crawley man had said she was a witch, that she had
consorted with devils and imps. James Calthorpe was no angel, to be
sure, but he was no devil, that much Matilda knew beyond doubt. No
man could be more flesh and blood than he.

'Please!' she
cried into the echoing darkness. 'Please, you must believe me. I'll
swear on the good book, I am no witch. Let those who accuse me do
so to my face and swear their oath likewise and in the church
itself, before the altar!'

Francis
Calthorpe regarded the old woman quizzically. Everyone in the
village knew Hannah Pennywise, but no one could ever really say
they 'knew' her, as he was want to tell his wife on frequent
occasions. Of course the majority of the locals, little more than
ignorant peasants in Francis's eyes, regarded her as a witch and
openly said so, though never, naturally, within her hearing.

Francis did
not subscribe to this point of view, though he had to agree that
Hannah was slightly odd. She was old - very old - though nobody
could say her exact age and nobody dared ask her directly, and she
looked stiff and frail, though she walked briskly everywhere,
banging her cane into the ground as she went. Moreover, though the
passing of the years had taken its inevitable toll, enough remained
to indicate that, in her younger days, Hannah Pennywise had almost
certainly been a handsome woman.

That evidence
was also reflected in her granddaughter, Matilda, a fine looking
young woman, if also slightly unconventional in her ways, a trait
that Francis proscribed to her earlier upbringing in London, where
women, so he heard, were beginning to behave slightly more
independently, despite the supposedly strict Puritan regime of the
Protector, Cromwell.

This
combination of beauty and wilfulness was doubtless what had
attracted Francis's son, James, to the girl - that and her obvious
intelligence and an education far better than the average village
female was ever likely to have benefit of. Given her character,
Francis could see his son was quite possibly courting trouble for
himself in the future, but then James was a strong character in his
own right and was of an age whereby he was entitled to make his own
choices - and mistakes.

'Mistress
Pennywise,' Francis said at last, dusting down the front of his
apron, but simply creating a further cloud of flour between them,
'my son left for London yesterday, to the best of my knowledge. Of
course,' he added with a wry smile, 'you may be in a more
privileged position than I.'

Hannah sniffed
and leaned on her long staff, shaking her head.

'He may have
left for London, Master Calthorpe, but he was supposed to be
calling in to see my lass before he travelled,' she said. 'They
were to meet at the crossroads and dine at the inn, but I am told
that neither of them ever arrived there.'

Francis raised
his eyebrows. 'I see,' he replied slowly. 'Well, perhaps he decided
to delay his departure. Perhaps, well, perhaps many things. Young
people today do not necessarily observe the proprieties of past
ages.'

'Yes, well I
know what you're thinking, Francis Calthorpe,' Hannah growled, 'but
in this particular case you're quite wrong, I think. Besides, where
would they go? They would hardly ride to London together on the one
horse, would they - unless you're going to tell me your lad had a
spare mount with him?'

'No, that he
did not, I can say for sure,' Francis said, shaking his head.
'Though he could, perhaps, have hired another mount at the
inn.'

'No,' Hannah
said, 'I already told you. He never went to the inn.'

'Then I don't
know,' Francis admitted, holding up his flour-covered hands. 'But I
shouldn't worry overly much. It was a warm night last night, so
they could - well, they could easily have fallen asleep
somewhere.'

'They could,
aye,' Hannah said, 'but I'm damned certain they didn't. Something
is very wrong and I can feel it. Trouble is,' she added, turning to
leave, 'I don't know what and I don't know where. Not as yet,
anyways.'

'That young
woman could do a lot worse for herself, I'm telling you,' Thomas
Handiwell grunted. 'There b'ain't so many eligible fellows around
these parts, in case you hadn't noticed.'

From the other
side of the well-worn oak bar counter, Ned Blaine tried not to
smile. Ten years younger than Thomas, Ned had been happily (for the
most part, anyway) married to his childhood sweetheart for getting
on for two decades, a union that had brought forth nine surviving
offspring, six of them male, and the eldest two female children
were now both around marriageable age and themselves not that much
younger than the object of Thomas's desire.

'Fair enough,
Ned,' Thomas continued, 'there's a difference of more than a few
years—'

'More'n a few,
Thomas,' Ned interjected, but Thomas appeared, or chose to appear,
not to hear him.

'A few years,
I'll grant you,' he said, 'but I have good health and a good home
to offer here.'

'Wench has a
home already,' Ned pointed out. 'Barten Meade's a fine house.'