Magus of Stonewylde Book One (34 page)

‘Right then,’ began Magus in his deep voice as Alwyn carefully rolled up his sleeves to expose bulging forearms. ‘Let’s get down to business. You really are a glutton for punishment, aren’t you, Yul? I seem to recall talking to you at the Stone Circle and warning you of the consequences if you crossed me again. I distinctly remember telling you before then that if there was any more trouble you’d face a whipping. Yet here we are again. You’ve
brought this on yourself and you fully deserve the punishment that’s coming.’

Yul remained silent. What was there to say? He wasn’t even sure of his crime but was gripped by a deep, sick dread. His father had his whip, the thing Yul feared the most. The snake-whip was ferocious, and when wielded by his father, potentially lethal. Perhaps, tonight, he would die at his father’s hand as Mother Heggy had predicted.

‘Before we discuss how you’ve disobeyed me,’ said Magus smoothly, ‘we must first deal with family matters. You’ve angered your father, Yul, with your wild behaviour and constant lack of respect. You know that’s not tolerated at Stonewylde under any circumstances. You’re the eldest of seven children and almost a man now, yet you continually defy your father instead of making his life easier. We can’t have that, can we, Alwyn?’

‘No, sir! He’s an insolent, disobedient little bastard and I—’

‘So would you like to teach your son some respect? Would you like to show your son just how much he’s displeased you?’

‘Oh yes, sir. I’d like that very much!’

‘Off you go, then.’

Alwyn kicked Yul to his feet and ripped the wet shirt off his back. He shoved the shivering boy up against one of the walls facing the cold stone. Yul’s insides were liquid with fear, his bare arms and torso bumpy with goose-flesh. He put his hands out and braced himself against the wall.

‘I returned home tonight after a pleasant evening, Yul, to discover you’d been up to mischief again. Mischief involving my thoroughbred horse. So I called at your home to deal with you.’

Alwyn stepped back and uncurled the whip, flexing his arms, lovingly stroking out the length of heavy leather braid. Magus spoke softly as the snake-tail cracked through the air and bit into Yul’s back.

‘But you weren’t there! Your father told me you’d disappeared several days ago. Children don’t run away from home at Stonewylde, Yul. Children honour and obey their parents. Isn’t that right, Alwyn?’

‘Certainly is, sir,’ panted Alwyn, sweat already beading his face. ‘All the other brats jump to obey me.’

He paused to peel off his shirt, revealing his monstrous, glistening body. Then he resumed the heavy, precise strokes, his great arm jerking back and slashing forward hard through the air, the whip uncoiling into a lethal line of pain as it lashed out and cut into the boy’s soft skin. Once the tip had found its tender mark, the snake curled back at a flick of Alwyn’s fist, ready to strike again.

‘So you see,’ said Magus, ‘I was extremely annoyed to find you absent from your bed. And then to go on a wild-goose chase through the woods in the rain to hunt you down …’

He paused to watch for a while, the vicious snap of leather shockingly loud in the stone building. ‘That’s enough, Alwyn. For now.’

The man lowered the whip to the floor and sat down heavily on a straw bale. His chest heaved. Yul still leant on his hands against the wall, his head now hanging down. His back was a mess of criss-cross stripes. Magus sighed, crossing his legs comfortably.

‘Turn around, boy, and look at me.’

Slowly Yul straightened up. He turned, shook the wet hair from his face, and looked Magus in the eye. His face was tight with iron control; he would not show his pain.

‘I wished to speak to you tonight about the incident involving my horse. I was informed of it on my return to Stonewylde this evening. You know, of course, what I’m talking about?’

‘Yes, sir.’ His voice was small and shaky.

‘Not only did you frighten Nightwing so badly that he threw his rider, you then had the effrontery to ride him yourself.’

‘Yes, sir, but only because—’

‘Silence!’ barked Magus. ‘I’m not interested in your excuses!
Nobody
rides that horse without my express permission. You were given no such permission and never would be. A Village lout like you would ruin a thoroughbred’s mouth in just one ride. HOW DARE YOU!!’

He nodded at Alwyn to continue. Whilst the tanner resumed
his terrible handiwork with the snake-whip, Magus pulled a silver hip flask from his pocket and drank deeply. He watched the boy’s horrific ordeal in a detached way. Unlike the public whippings, nobody was counting out a fixed number of strokes. The punishment went on and on until finally Yul crumpled to the ground, his back bloody and raw. Throughout the entire ordeal he’d remained silent. Alwyn, his breathing loud and laboured, gave one last slash at the boy on the floor and looked to Magus for instructions. He was scarlet with exertion, sweat dripping off his nose and jowls, his huge chest and belly gleaming wet.

‘You’ve done an impressive job,’ said Magus quietly. ‘Go round to the kitchens and say I sent you. Someone will still be up. You deserve some sustenance after all that hard work and I want a word with Yul alone.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Alwyn gasped, coiling up his whip and attaching it to the clip on his belt. He pulled on his shirt and leather coat and stomped out of the byre, shutting the door behind him.

‘So,’ purred Magus, standing up and walking over to where Yul lay, sprawled and trembling. ‘Now it’s just you and me.’

He prodded the boy with the tip of his boot and Yul groaned. He was beyond tears, his back on fire, the vivid lacerations raised and oozing blood.

‘Your father certainly knows how to use a whip. I’ll have to remember him if we ever have another public whipping. But strangely, there seems to be no call for such things nowadays. Can you remember the last time we had one? I barely can. Everyone at Stonewylde behaves themselves and keeps to the laws. Everyone, that is, except
you
!’

He knelt swiftly and grabbed a handful of Yul’s hair, yanking him to his feet. The boy stood bent over, his hair held by Magus’ grasping fist. Magus jerked Yul’s head upright, let go of his hair and then slashed him full in the face with a vicious backhanded swipe. It sent Yul reeling against the wall like a spinning top. Magus walked over and sat down in the chair again, taking another draught from the hip flask.

‘Come here and stand in front of me,’ he commanded. Yul staggered across, trying to stand upright, his head ringing from the force of the blow. He saw strange coloured dots. The stone floor and walls shifted and tilted around him. Magus noted with satisfaction that his cheekbone and eye were swelling rapidly.

He felt again that surge of pleasure deep in his abdomen and recalled the time when he’d dealt with the boy up at the Hall. Here was a real challenge; here was a force to be subdued and then harnessed, ridden as he rode his spirited horse. He noticed how much Yul had grown in the past months, leaving childhood well behind. He reminded Magus of himself at the same age – lean, long-legged and strong. Magus would never have hit a child. But he was happy to hit a young man.

‘And now we come to the final matter, brought to my attention tonight by a member of the Hallfolk. I was told about your repeated involvement with a young girl, a new member of the Hallfolk. You, a Villager.’

Yul swayed on his feet, barely able to stand. He stared at the straw on the ground, noticing how yellow and glossy it was. His heart was thumping hard.

‘In the morning I’ll speak to Sylvie and hear her version of events. Then I’ll come back here and you’ll tell me yours. The two had better be identical. I want the entire truth about what’s been going on between the two of you in the past few weeks. If you appear in the least bit stubborn about talking, I’ll bring your father in to persuade you. Maybe I’ll bring him in anyway. See you in the morning, Yul. Sweet dreams.’

He snapped off the light and went out into the wet night, locking and bolting the door behind him. Yul took a ragged breath. His back was alive and crawling with raw, searing pain. His face hurt terribly, his head still ringing from the vicious blow. There was nowhere for him to lie and he couldn’t stretch out on the straw bales because of their terrible scratchiness.

He fumbled on the floor in the darkness for his torn wet shirt, which he spread onto the stone and lay down upon. It was hard and very cold. He curled as small as he could, wrapping his arms
around himself in a vain effort to control the dreadful shivering that overwhelmed him as shock and cold set in. There were rustlings and scuttlings in the straw over in the corner that spoke of large rats. Sleep did not come quickly for Yul on the night of the Blue Moon.

B
y the time Magus arrived at Woodland Cottage the following morning, Miranda was almost beside herself with anxiety. She longed to fling her arms around him but his grim expression as he crossed the threshold made her hold back and content herself with a brief kiss.

‘I’m so pleased you’ve come – I’ve been so worried! There’s something wrong with Sylvie – she’s really ill.’

‘What? What’s the matter with her?’

‘She’s delirious, shouting in her sleep, burning up and having the most awful nightmares all night. She’s been screaming that her back’s on fire, and—’

‘Let me see her,’ he said curtly, following her up to Sylvie’s room.

She lay with the covers pushed back, asleep but very flushed and with her hair in a wild tangle all over the pillow. Magus looked down at her for a moment, then felt her forehead and the glands in her neck.

‘I’ve given her paracetamol and—’

‘And what did you say she was shouting?’

‘Well, last night it was that her back was being clawed to shreds and there was something biting into it. This morning she said she couldn’t see anything in the dark, even though the daylight was streaming in her window. Oh yes, and that something was rustling in the straw.’

‘Really? That is absolutely amazing,’ he murmured.

‘She’s delirious with a very high temperature, isn’t she?’

‘Yes, she certainly is. May I see her back? I’m assuming she hasn’t been bitten or clawed?’

‘Not that I can see,’ said Miranda, rolling her daughter over.

Magus looked carefully at Sylvie’s slim, smooth back and brushed his fingertips over the satin skin. Miranda felt a twinge of desire at the sight of those long, square-tipped fingers that had touched her so expertly only a few hours earlier.

‘There’re no marks at all, nor any swelling. Not that there could be of course.’

Miranda turned Sylvie over again, smoothing the hair from her hot face.

‘So what should I do? I’ve been sponging her down with tepid water.’

‘I’m not sure there is much you can do other than keeping her fever down. She’s obviously caught a chill or something. We’ll get the doctor to take a look if she gets any worse of course.’

‘Yes, I’m sure it is a chill. She got drenched in the rain last night coming back from the Hall. She’s been so healthy lately I’d forgotten how delicate she can be. Poor Sylvie.’

When they’d made her comfortable they went downstairs for a cup of coffee. Miranda tried hard to recapture their intimacy but Magus remained aloof, acting as if their picnic on the stone at Mooncliffe had never happened.

‘I’m sorry, Miranda,’ he said. ‘Since last night a great deal’s happened and I’m afraid our love-making will have to go on the back burner for a while. I returned home to find all sorts of problems that must be dealt with. After I’d dropped you off here last night I bumped into Clip and he filled me in on what’s been going on in my absence. I’ve been up half the night and I’m very tired.’

‘Oh dear, anything I can do to help?’

Miranda was relieved that there was a good reason for his coolness this morning.

‘Well yes, it does concern you, or at least, Sylvie, and it’s why I came here this morning. Apparently over the last couple of
weeks she’s been seeing Yul, the Village boy whom I sent here to dig the garden.’

‘Yul? But … he’s the one who brought her back here last night!’

‘
What?
They were together last night as well? I didn’t know that!’

‘He arrived on the doorstep in the pouring rain carrying her in his arms. But what do you mean, “seeing”? Do you mean they’re going out together, or what?’

‘At the moment I’m not sure. It could be innocent, but knowing Yul it’s probably not.’

She gasped, hand covering her mouth.

‘But Sylvie’s only fourteen! Surely you don’t mean …?’

Magus shrugged. ‘I warned you about him, didn’t I? He’s a nasty piece of work. I had him whipped by his father last night and—’

‘
Whipped?
Magus, that’s terrible!’

‘No it’s not! It’s a punishment we use at Stonewylde in extreme cases. I thought a threat to your daughter’s virginity to be an extreme case,’ he said angrily.

‘Well, yes, if you put it like that.’

‘So I need to speak to her and find out what’s been going on, and then I’ll hear his version. Hopefully we’ll arrive at the truth somewhere along the line.’

‘And it was Clip who told you they’d been together?’