Cauldron of Fear (25 page)

Shivering, his
stomach aching, he turned away, stumbled towards the door again and
there, as he lurched into the passageway beyond, he was violently,
noisily sick.

Jane Handiwell
sat staring into the crackling flames for a long while after Hannah
Pennywise had gone on her way again, her thoughts wandering as the
sparks floated up from the slowly burning wood and the smoke
drifted in small coils on the night breeze.

At last, as if
breaking out of a trance, she snapped upright, her eyes darting
around the perimeter of darkened woodland and then travelling
upwards, to where myriad stars twinkled in the moonless sky.
Pursing her lips she shook her head and smiled grimly.

Let the old
woman attend to her own problems, she thought. After all, her
granddaughter, Matilda, was nothing to her, just another young
woman she would sometimes see walking through the village or out
along the country lanes. Why, Jane thought indignantly, they'd
never even exchanged more than a couple of polite words in passing,
so why should she put herself out now?

Of course it
was ridiculous, what was happening back there in the village, but
someone would be bound to stop things before they got too far out
of hand, probably her own father once he returned from the coast.
Matilda Pennywise a witch? The idea was laughable and Jane
snickered to herself at the thought.

Now, if
Wickstanner and this Crawley fellow had accused Hannah herself,
well then, Jane smiled, that would have been an entirely different
proposition, though to actually describe the old harridan as a
witch? Well, she did have some curious powers, that much Jane knew
at first hand, but then Jane herself was capable of picking up
emotions, feelings, signals and also quite expert now at using her
own powers in order to persuade certain, more susceptible people,
to do what she wanted them to do.

Hannah
Pennywise, for all that air of mystery with which she liked to
surround herself, was probably not any different from herself, Jane
thought. Certainly, when Jane had first begun to experience the
unsettling feelings, to feel the auras that surrounded some people,
Hannah had been quick to notice that there was something wrong with
the then gawky teenage girl and she had, true, taken her aside and
tried to explain, but that did not give her the right to demand
things of her now, surely?

Except, Jane
mused, she had the uncomfortable feeling that the old woman knew a
bit more about her than she was letting on. No. Jane shook herself
mentally. No, that was ridiculous, there was no way Hannah could
know anything about what she and her friends were doing, save that
they met out here in the woods each month and...

Well, if
people wanted to think of that as some kind of witchcraft, then let
them. In truth, they were nothing more than simple rites that came
from centuries in the past and meant nothing whatsoever. Jane and
Ellen Grayling had only started it in the first place as a dare,
when Ellen, then only fifteen and seemingly as innocent and naive
as a puppy, had looked up to the older girl with whom she romped in
the woods.

Then, one
night, when they had both sneaked out to rendezvous in the
darkness, giggling, nervous and rapidly becoming drunk on the
bottle of rum Jane had liberated from her father's cellar, Kate
Dawson stumbled across them, and the twosome became a trio after
that. Quite why Kate had been out here, in woods that were part of
the fringes of the Grayling estates, they never did discover, but
it mattered not, for she quickly proved herself a loyal and
trustworthy friend.

It had been
Kate who introduced them to Mary Watling, the near giant of a girl
who could wield axe or pitchfork to match almost any man and whose
stature had first given Jane the idea that the four of them might
dress up and pass as men in order to rob the coaches on the London
to Portsmouth road.

Not that
either Jane or Ellen needed the money that their nefarious
enterprise brought them; indeed, rather they did what they did for
the pure excitement, for the feeling of power it gave and for the
sheer joy of being able to thumb their noses at so-called masculine
controlled authority. It was also the same, though to a lesser
extent, for Kate and Mary, though in their respective cases an
extra few guineas every now and then did not come amiss.

No, Hannah
couldn't know anything about that side of their lives, or she would
surely have said something by now, Jane was certain. She laughed,
this time out loud.

'So, why
should I help you, Mother Pennywise?' she cried, her voice echoing
back from the circle of trees. 'Think you can scare me, the way you
manage to scare most of the other poor fools? You want to find your
precious granddaughter's beau, then you go right ahead. Don't
expect—'

She stopped
suddenly, her narrow brow furrowing deeply.

'Except...'
she breathed, her eyes gleaming brightly. Except, she thought, that
maybe there was a way in which she and her friends could help the
old baggage save her granddaughter and, at the same time, deal with
Jane's other little problem. Of course, the fact that it would also
discredit that bumbling fool Wickstanner and that awful creature
Jacob Crawley at the same time, that was indeed a bonus!

'Indeed a
bonus,' she repeated, in a harsh whisper. She looked up at the
night sky again, trying to calculate the probable hour and how much
time remained before daybreak. The timing would be tight - very
tight - but then maybe it would be possible to persuade Crawley to
delay his planned noon deadline. A guinea, maybe two?

If he could be
made to think that the money had come from Hannah herself, as a
gesture of good faith, and that the rest of his demanded tithe
might yet be forthcoming, Jane felt confident he would agree.
Slowly she rose to her feet, dusted the seat of her breeches and
turned to walk back to where she had left Marquis.

By the time
Sarah recovered her senses sufficiently to take stock of her
surroundings again, she found herself laying on a massive, canopied
bed, alone and in a room that was different and far larger than the
one in which Prudence and Justine had dressed her and Kitty
earlier.

Sitting up,
Sarah examined herself morosely. She still wore the corset,
stockings, boots and gloves, and the stiff lined collar was also
still about her neck, but her hair, which had been so meticulously
prepared earlier, now hung about her shoulders in a tangled mess,
damp with her sweat and cold on her naked shoulders.

Tentatively
she swung her legs over the side of the bed, lowering her feet to
the thick rug and stood up, swaying slightly at first as blood
rushed to her head, so that she was forced to reach out for the
nearest upright bedpost for support. Closing her eyes, Sarah tried
to breathe in and out as deeply as the strictures of her corset
would permit, and slowly the dizziness passed.

She opened her
eyes again and looked about, studying her latest surroundings. It
was, as she had first noted, a very large bedroom, the walls draped
as elegantly and fussily as the earlier bedroom, dark rosewood
furniture, including two chests and a long dressing table upon
which stood an ornate gilt framed mirror.

Slowly,
wobbling on the unaccustomed heels, Sarah swayed across and leaned
forward, studying her reflection and wincing as she saw the picture
she now presented. The earlier powders and paints, so skilfully
applied at the time, were now a sad wreckage, black smudges beneath
both eyes merging with the white foundation to form various grey
rivulets that had, mercifully, dried.

Sarah groaned,
not so much at her appearance, but at how that ravaged countenance
reminded her of what had happened to produce that effect and more
so because of the memory of how she responded to her mistreatment.
She closed her eyes again, unwilling to face the travesty of what
she now imagined she had become, and turned away, feeling blindly
back towards the bed.

'I see you are
back in the land of the living?' The new voice, female,
aristocratic, youthful and also mocking, brought Sarah up short.
Her eyes flew open again and she stopped short, staring at the
newcomer in a mixture of guilt and shame. The girl, seeing this
reaction, smiled crookedly and stepped further into the room,
closing the door behind her.

She was, Sarah
realised, even younger than herself, slightly smaller in build
though scarcely less tall, once the height of Sarah's heels was
discounted. Her long, strawberry blonde hair was tied back into a
loose ponytail, revealing a face that was lightly freckled, pretty
and surprisingly innocent looking, with wide, unblinking green
eyes.

Her mode of
dress was curious for a female; tight male riding breeches, a pale
blue silk shirt, unbuttoned to display the beginning of her modest
cleavage, and soft black kid leather, wrist length gloves. Over her
left arm she carried a black velvet jacket and Sarah realised,
suddenly, that she was actually wearing an outfit designed for
riding, though she had discarded her boots somewhere and her feet
were bare.

'Who are you?'
Sarah said, eventually finding her voice when it became clear that
the girl was in no hurry to break the silence that had descended
between them. The girl smiled again, crossed to stand on the
opposite side of the bed from Sarah, and carelessly tossed the
jacket onto it between them.

'My name,' she
said easily, 'is Ellen Grayling, and this house belongs to my
father, Lord Grayling, though the way my dear brother acts you
would think it were he that owned it.'

'That terrible
man is your brother?' Sarah gasped. 'But I thought he was Lord
Grayling!'

'No, my papa
may be getting on in years and totally disparate, but he is not yet
dead, at least not to my current knowledge,' Ellen Grayling said.
'However, the servants all address darling Roderick as if he were
already the viscount and he does nothing to discourage them, but
then such is the vanity of men.' She sniffed disdainfully and then
the smile returned once again.

'You are Sarah
Merridew, I suppose?' she said. Sarah nodded, but said nothing.
'You look a little different from when I last saw you, but then it
was dark then and you were attired, shall we say, a little more
modestly. I must say, however, that you really do have a perfectly
splendid body, though your make-up does leave a little to be
desired right now.' She giggled and Sarah felt herself
blushing.

'Oh, don't be
such a silly and modest little goose,' Ellen said scornfully. She
began walking around the end of the bed. 'I know exactly what goes
on here whenever Roddy brings a couple of slaves up to the house.
Those two little heathen serpent bitches of his can't wait to get
their snake tongues into fresh fanny!'

She stood only
a foot or two away from Sarah and was once again looking her up and
down appraisingly, a superior yet softening expression on her
youthful features.

'I'll say one
thing for my brother and dear prudence,' she said at length, 'they
do know how to present woman flesh to its most appealing
advantage.'

'I find little
appealing in my current state of dishabille,' Sarah returned
softly. 'And I doubt whether you would, either, if the boot were on
the other foot.'

Ellen gave a
little sigh and reached out a tentative hand. Sarah's immediate
instinct was to recoil from her touch, but at the last moment she
held her ground. The soft gloved fingers stroked her left breast
gently, a feathery, butterfly wing caress. 'Not as big as your
little friend's,' Ellen whispered, 'but then I never have had a
taste for overly big boobies.' With her other hand she flicked open
two more buttons on her shirt, pulling the front apart to reveal
her own unfettered breasts, smaller than Sarah's by some way, but
with firmly pointed nipples.

'Small titties
are so pretty, don't you think?' she whispered, staring straight
into Sarah's startled eyes. 'Wouldn't you just love to take my
teats into your pretty mouth and suck on them?' Suddenly she broke
the contact and stepped back, pulling the front of her shirt
loosely together again.

'First,
though,' she said, 'I think we should wash your face and make it
pretty again.'

Unlike the
hapless Sarah, Kitty had survived their joint encounter whilst
retaining most of her senses, though when the time finally came for
Prudence to release her from the fiendish horse contraption, her
legs did feel very weak and unsteady. As she stood meekly, while
her wrists were strapped behind her back, she looked down at the
unconscious figure still on the second horse and wondered which of
them was better off.

Prudence had
made them both some thinly veiled promises as she supervised their
earlier preparation, but it was perfectly clear, at this moment,
that Sarah was in no fit condition to carry on with anything. The
prolonged excesses visited upon them had taken a heavy toll of her
lesser experience and she would be of absolutely no use for
anything the older woman might have in mind.

Roderick
Grayling stooped over the motionless form, bending further to look
at her face and shook his head. Turning to the two black girls he
clapped his hands and made a series of signals, which they seemed
to understand, for they immediately began unstrapping and unlocking
Sarah's bonds and, as soon as they had freed her, lifted her easily
between them and carried her towards the door.

No such
reprieve was forthcoming for Kitty however, although at least, she
realised, any chance of the despicable Lord Soberton being given
the freedom of her body had been averted, if indeed it had ever
existed. Instead, after a hurried and whispered conversation
between Grayling and Prudence, the latter turned back to Kitty and
pointed in the direction the two girls had just taken Sarah.