Of Sorrow and Such (8 page)

The archbishop’s men have sent Pastor Alhgren in, as if he might have some influence. If I weren’t so weary I’d laugh, but as it is all I can manage is a glare; that seems to be quite sufficient. He’s frightened of me, no doubt; I can smell it on him as surely as if he’d shat himself.

“It will go easier for you if you confess,” he stammers the words they’ve told him to say; he walks back and forth, wearing a path in his cellar floor.

I raise a brow. “How so?”

“God will be kind,” he says a little more firmly, as if he’s on familiar ground.

“I doubt that. Everything I’ve ever heard you shout from the pulpit, Pastor, is precisely how many times damned a witch shall be, and the sorts of torments that will be visited upon her in the hell of your God’s choosing.”

He looks stunned. Someone actually
listened
to all those sermons he slaved over and delivered with such wearisome delight, his face shining with crusading light as he thought upon the injuries that would be done to women who did not conform. How sad for him that that someone was me. Has he ever hoped his own wife might show signs of witchcraft? Give him an excuse? Yet who would ever believe a creature as timid as she would have anything of the sorceress about her? She’s as untouched as my poor Gilly, and more’s the pity. No witch would have put up with the conditions Charity Alhgren has; no witch would have put up with this sort of husband.

“So, Pastor, what else might you offer one who’s been promised a fiery road to eternal damnation?”

He splutters on a reply that doesn’t quite make it.

“And tell me, God’s best beloved, what might you give to be rid of your wife?”

He stops in his pacing, one foot raised in the air as if frozen midstride, taken off-guard. His eyes glaze, mistaking my questions for an offer, then he looms over to whisper in my ear.

“My very soul,” he hisses. “Will you divest me of her? But say it and I will save you from the churchmen!”

No you won’t, you hideous little man. You’d have me kill your wife then let them feed me to the flames all the same.
But I know now that his passion to be shot of an unwanted woman burns so hot that he would throw in his lot, however briefly, with a true witch.

He’s too cowardly to do anything himself, beyond
commissioning
his wife’s demise, but he does not wish to have any actual blood on his hands. That would make him an actual murderer and condemn him to the hell he’s preached. But perhaps he can justify it if Doctor Herbeau or I do the deed, can convince himself forgiveness will be easier to gain once he’s acquired a newer, younger, prettier wife. But newer, younger, prettier wives are not for the likes of Pastor Alhgren, had he but the wit to see it.

“When will they burn me?” I ask quietly.

“Tomorrow at dawn,” he breathes.

“I cannot help you, but I will tell you this: you’re a fool to trust the good doctor. Why would he kill his golden goose when you pay him every month for nothing more than making Charity ill? Your wife’s not so strong, Cornelius, that she’d last all these years.” I run my tongue over his name as if I find it somehow melodious. I know I am not without attraction despite my current appearance, and I still have a lovely voice; above all, knowledge of a man’s desires is the key to his mind. I see the spark in his eyes that shows he notices me, that he would have done so sooner if my fresh young Gilly-girl hadn’t been sitting beside me on the church pew all that time.

“You’re wise though you’re damned,” he says.

It hurts every part of my face, yet I smile. I’m sowing seeds as far and as wide as I can. Seeds of discord, seeds of hope, praying that one will take, will flower, will save me, will destroy my enemies.

Balthazar Cotton shows himself not long after Pastor Alhgren leaves. Has he been gathering his courage?

“Where’s Fenric? Is he safe?” I ask.

“How did you do it?” He ignores my question. “Make him into . . . that.”

I shrug. “Does it matter? I did it, that’s all that counts.”

He crouches and peers into my face, seems to find something strange there.

“Is Fenric safe?” I say softly.

“Thus far.”

“You’ve not told
them.
”

“No . . . I do not know what they might do . . .”

“But you’ve not asked me to change him back,” I say.

“When my brother disappeared, everything he had became mine. I missed him, for a while, certainly, but I benefitted from his absence. You did me a favour, in many ways, removing him so I did not have to.” He stands, turns away, hands clasped behind him, but the fingers fidget, slap into the palms. “You’ve misunderstood: I’ve not
not
told them in order to protect him, but in case they think it’s a sign of witch blood in my family. These priests, they’re quite insane, you know.”

I swallow. He’s been thinking during his absence, weighing what he has and what he might lose if Gideon were to return.

“I married his betrothed, though she didn’t last long. Weak. I inherited his goods and chattels, the money, the reputation, the holdings. All of it. I married again, another weakling, though this one managed to live long enough to give me an heir, though she’s only a girl.” He gives a fond smile at the mention of the child, then looks at me as if I am stupid to have thought things might go any other way. “Everything I have is because Gideon was gone—and I should thank you for that. Why would I want him back?”

He tells me this because he believes that tomorrow I’ll be ash, because he thinks it doesn’t matter how many of his secrets I have because all the things I hold in my heart and mind will be nothing more than soot on the wind soon enough. I wonder at this man who has such contempt for women, yet such a softness for his daughter. I wonder at the daughter, what stripe of woman she might become if her life were no longer lived beneath his hand. Then I recall the gaze he used to bestow upon his own sisters; I think of Karol Brautigan and his love-hate for his own sister; I think of these men and the suffering they heap upon us all to hide their own shame, and I feel sick.

“You. Now,
you
are powerful. In other circumstances I might be able to use you and your talents.” He shakes his head, amused. “But here’s the rub: you’ll obey no one. You know too much and you’re wild as a storm—unpredictable, too. It would be like trying to contain lightning. I won’t insult us both by pretending I will save you for my own benefit.”

I have no answer; he’s right. Nothing I might say could appeal to any better nature, for he has none.

“Tell me,” he says as if it’s a question that’s plagued him for some while. “Tell me, what will happen when you die? To him, I mean.”

“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully, for I have no idea whether Fenric will be released from my magic. Would he wake, a man in his fifties with no more memory of his beast years than the beast has of his human life? Or, or, or? “I’ve wondered many times. There is a chance he may become himself again . . . but I cannot say with any certainty.”

He pauses, then nods as if a momentous decision has been made for him. “Then you will not be alone on the bonfire. A witch’s familiar must burn with her.”

Last night the churchmen and Pastor Alhgren spent a good few hours praying over me before finally deciding that a hearty dinner and a good sleep were a better use of their time than attempting to salvage my soul. Not Cotton, though; prayer is obviously not of interest to him.

Exhaustion has made me lose all sense of time. I doze though I don’t wish to and dream of fire licking at me, all orange and blue and gold, bright and sharp as a heated blade. When I jerk awake I realise it’s because I’ve heard the bolt being thrown and think the day has dawned, that it is time for my death. That all the seeds I’ve cast have landed on barren fields and there never was any chance for me. I see my end rising and with it comes a wave of hatred for all and sundry, those who will not burn beside me, those whose actions and inactions have led me here. Then I am calm: there’s no one to blame but myself. Any number of times I could have made a different choice. Any number of forked paths and I might have selected an alternative route. These choices, all mine.

All leading here: to an inferno.

Almost playfully Selke peeks around the heavy mass of the door as if she’s won a game of hide-and-seek I’d stopped playing long ago. She pushes into the room, and behind her are Gilly and Charity and Ina. Relief and disbelief swell my heart. Then there is the briefest moment of doubt: will the god-hounds appear behind them?

“Are you all caught?”

Selke snorts. “Those idiots catch me? Did you become a credulous fool in the time I’ve been gone, Patience Gideon?”

Charity remains at the door, keeping watch.

“I found her, Aunt Patience,” says Gilly breathlessly, her face shining. “I followed the old roads and I found her.”

I swallow, find I cannot speak for the emotion stuck in my throat. Gilly and Ina start on my bonds, unpicking the knots my gaolers have taken such care to tighten each day. A single burning tear rolls down my cheek; Gilly does not see it for she is too busy with the ropes. But Ina notices and does me the kindness of wiping the weakness away.

Selke places a shallow pan and a ewer on the floor, then tips the contents of a black pouch across the bottom of the former. It is dust, grey and black, but heavier than gillings. Slowly, she upends the pitcher and dirty-looking water flows. As soon as the liquid touches the dry matter a reaction begins, enthusiastic and violent. The admixture hisses with alchemical vigour and a mist lifts, silver at first, then pink deepening to red, and at last it takes on the colour of pale unhealthy flesh, flesh that’s not seen the sun in days. The column goes higher and higher, pinching in here, filling out there, until there are black dirty locks sprouting and tumbling down to a wasp-waist, and the round frying pan of the face develops dimples and depressions, peaks and slopes that mirror my own, though the skin lacks my blemishes and breaks.

Gilly and Ina help me to stand, and I lean on my foster daughter, wincing as the blood begins to quicken in a body that’s been immobile for far too long.

Selke examines me minutely, then takes her fingers to the double’s features. Whispering words I can barely hear, she rubs her thumb under the simulacra’s left eye: a deep purple bruise appears. She pinches the bottom lip and a crust-edged split erupts. Finally she clasps both hands around the creature’s throat and the marks Balthazar Cotton left are replicated there. Selke nods, satisfied that the effect will be sufficient to fool any observer.

I gaze at the thing: it appears for all the world like a woman who’s given up hope; the eyes are almost dead. It—
she
—looks much as I must have not five minutes ago. I touch the cheek: the skin is clammy, doughy, unpleasant. I turn to Selke, who looks pleased with herself. “How? How did you get all the . . .”

She nods towards Charity, who smiles shyly, proudly. I think of how she brushed my hair and took the strands, the rag she used to wipe away my blood, tears, sweat, and spit. All the components Selke needed to make this . . . thing. I wonder if she used any of the living clay in its makeup.

“It won’t speak, but they’ll simply take that for your natural contrariness. Now, my friend, I suggest we leave, unless you’d like to be here when the gentlemen wake from their enhanced slumber?”

I shake my head, and refrain from asking why they didn’t just poison the bastards entirely. I stumble away from the chair and Selke manoeuvres my twin into the vacated space. “Carefully, Gilly, tie her just the same as they had Patience.”

Soon it is done and I feel a strange tugging in my chest, to see myself there, to see her made in my image and left behind. It’s foolish, I know: she’s just an aggregation of cast-offs. I should have no more attachment to her than I do the skin cells that slough off daily, the hairs that fall from my head each time I brush it.

And yet . . . and yet . . .

“Come along, Aunt Patience, we must hurry.”

“Where’s Fenric? They want to burn him.” I wrap my fingers around the plumpness of Gilly’s upper arm. She winces.

“Safe, Aunt Patience, safe. You’ll see him soon.”

And I must be content with that as they push me towards the open door.

Almost at the top of the steps, almost into the kitchen, I stop and feel the others bump against me. Beside the stove is a wizened woman, her back to me, and in front of her Pastor Alhgren, his mouth moving.

We are betrayed.

We are undone.

Then I realise he’s not saying anything, his lips merely working from habit, not forming words. His eyes are glazed. The tiny woman raises her hands, presses one gently to his side while the other pulls at his arm; she turns him thus, speaking low.
Go to bed, my boy, you are but dreaming. Slumber, my dear son, lest you go astray in the night.

He is obedient, directed from behind by her fingertips as she pushes him away. She waits in the doorframe and watches. We hear his heavy tread up the stairs, the sound of a door opening and closing, the thud of a body on a mattress, and then the saw of snoring begins, low and persistent.

The woman turns and I see that any resemblance Mother Alhgren might have had to her child has disappeared into the furrows of her face. The thought that a few days in the custody of the men of God have made me so fearful enrages me. That I was afraid of one little old dam.

Charity gently moves past me and goes to wrap an arm around the shoulders of her mother-in-law, whose dark eyes regard me with what I now recognise as something like admiration. Surprise unfurls in my chest like a warming flame. And I realise, too, that Charity will remain here. For some, home is not to be deserted quite so easily.

“Will you not come with us then?” I ask stupidly.

She smiles brightly. “No. This is our place. You’ll take care of him, though, won’t you?”

Oh, yes, I will.
I’ll take care of them all right; however, my actions cannot throw suspicion on Charity or Mother Alhgren. But, somehow, I will take care of those men. “Yes.”

“Then here we shall stay.” She presses a pouch of waxed grey calico into my hand. “What you asked for.”

The old woman gives me an easy grateful smile and I think, more and more, that mothers do not like their sons any more than they like their husbands.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Ina?” Selke’s voice is soft and I look at Ina Brautigan’s sallow face.

“Ina, you must come,” I say. “It’s the only safety.”

“No. You’ve told Karol I was innocent. He’ll fight for me. He—we—have lost enough. Whatever else you might think of him, he will fight for me.”

We hold each other’s gaze for long moments.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and take her hand. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry for Flora.”

“As am I. If I’d not sent her to you, if I’d just let her die at her time, then we’d all be safe. I’m sorry to have put so many at risk.” She squeezes my fingers painfully, but not spitefully. “We do not always love wisely.”

“You do not know the half of it.” I clear my throat, speak low to her for this is between us. “I will kill them: the god-hounds, Cotton, and Alhgren. Karol?”

And she pauses, to her credit, considers before she says, “No. That is a choice I must make, a responsibility that is mine alone and I shall not abdicate it. I’ll make my decision later, when Edda’s Meadow is quiet again.”

And then we bid her farewell, asking but one last boon.