Of Sorrow and Such (7 page)

I could tear them apart. She and he, and the heart of this town with them. Who would mourn Karol Brautigan?

Here he is, handing me the means to rip their lives into tiny shreds and set them alight with my very breath.

I could have my vengeance right now.

Or I could be kind for the sake of it.

Or I could simply say what I need to in order to survive.

I lean forward as far as my bonds will allow, give him the full power of my single eye.

“No, Master Brautigan, your sister was never like your wife.” He flinches and I see there’s a double meaning for him to what I say. “She did not know about Flora and her activities, I swear to you. Those nights when Flora said she was with Ina, she lied. Your sister is as much a victim as you were. Be kind to her, Master Brautigan, she is all you have left.”

His relief is palpable. “And Flora, my Flora, did you kill her?”

I shake my head emphatically, maintain my semblance of respect. “No, Master Brautigan, I know that Ina feels terribly guilty and perhaps that made her say what she did, but I most certainly did not kill your wife. You might look closer to home, to your houseguest. Flora complained about his insistent gaze. Perhaps,” I swallow, make my tone conspiratorial, “perhaps he tried to push his suit and Flora resisted. Whatever other faults she may have had, she would never have looked at anyone but you; she told me often of her devotion.”

He gives a small sob of surprise and I can tell he will swallow the lie, drink it down as a thirsty man does stagnant water.

“You should watch him carefully, Master Brautigan, ensure your dear sister is safe.”

“Have you proof?”

“Sir, what kind of proof might I present in here? I am unable to protect myself. I can only offer you a warning.” I sit back and look away. “Please leave me now, it humiliates me to be seen in such a state.”

He stands, opens his mouth as if to speak, decides against it and departs.

I’m content. I’ve sown suspicion and dissent, all the things needed to embroil Edda’s Meadow in a foment of
he said–she said,
a maelstrom of accusation and defence. I may yet have a hope of slipping through the cracks it causes.

“More visitors?” I croak. “I swear I never saw so many folk in a week of Sundays.”

“People wish to speak to you while they still can, desirous of answers and explanations. All are aware that soon they’ll be scooping handfuls of your ashes into handkerchiefs and pouches to ward off evil spirits.” Balthazar Cotton’s sneer doesn’t take any of the truth from his words. He’s right: all those I’ve saved and ministered to will watch the flames devour me, then try to take a little of me home with them as if I’m some kind of saint.

“And you,” I say, “what do you want?”

Cotton is alone, the men in purple nowhere to be seen. He stalks around in silence as if expecting me to ask questions like a terrified child, to beg for mercy, to show I am afraid and weak. I refuse. I refuse to watch him as he circles, refuse to crane my neck as if wary of a coming blow. I will not give him the satisfaction. I will not feed him.

“So, Mistress Gideon,” he drawls; he does not trip or stumble over his sibling’s name, does not pause as if considering it. Perhaps he has not thought of his brother in all these years. Perhaps without Gideon’s strong hand, his restraining influence, Balthazar has taken all he’s wished to ever since. Perhaps the disappearance of his brother has not been an ache in his heart. “Here we are.”

“Do the holy hounds know you’re here? Unsupervised?”

“They received word of the woman they hunt and have gone to investigate. Never fear, they’ll return this eve. It gives us time to get to know each other—and if you tell them what happened and I deny it, who will they believe, witch?”

He touches the back of my neck; I feel the calluses on his palms, digits, can almost smell the salty sea spray. In a flash I see him at the helm of a ship, hands to the wheel, yelling at his sailors, a small child in a harness is hung on the mast behind him, laughing in delight at the rocking motion. In the crow’s nest a man with a swarthy visage and the most magnificent black wings scans the horizon. And then it’s gone, this vision of Cotton’s life, though whether it be past or present I cannot tell. Here, he is cut loose from his usual bonds and responsibilities, from the concern of how others look at him, freed from opinion and censure. Here, all behaviours are open to him. He is
freed.

“You have a daughter,” I say. “You’ll not live to see her again unless you let me go.”

He stands in front of me and his thick fingers hold hard at my throat. I will neither whimper nor gasp. He puts his face close to mine so he can see the things I cannot control: how I struggle without breath, how tears come unbidden. He grins, then releases me.

“Let’s have none of that,” he says and as he begins to speak again I summon as much spit as I can and launch it into his open maw.

“You will
not
live to see her again, Balthazar Cotton, this I swear.”

And in his eyes at last is some terror. Yet in my anger I’ve made a mistake: I’ve left him no way out. A witch’s curse from one who’ll soon be dead is not to be ignored.

His large flat palms rock my head, from one side to the other—open-handed, not punches that might render me senseless again. Then the blows abruptly cease and my ears echo. He leaves and I think for a moment that I’ve won the round, but the reprieve is short. I mistakenly took him for a coward as well as a sadist, but he is not that, or at least not in the usual sense. He won’t back down easily; like a pit bull he will hang on all the more tightly the greater fight his prey puts up.

The door bangs back against the wall and Balthazar returns, dragging a muzzled Fenric behind him. My dog struggles, his paws scrabbling on the packed earth of the floor, making sounds of panic and rage. If he could he would tear out his brother’s throat.

Cotton kneels before me, the dog pressed between his knees, the muzzle in his left hand pulled upwards so the throat of my dearest companion is exposed to the blade of the enormous knife in Cotton’s right.

“Take it back,” he snarls. “Take it back or I swear your mutt will bleed out on your feet, you worthless whore.”

“You don’t want to do that, unless you wish to be a fratricide,” I say with a tremor.

“Are you mad?” He begins the sweep that will take my companion’s life.

The words pour from me: “Your older brother was Gideon Cotton. Your sisters were Anna and Elise, and you all lived in Bitterwood. Your parents and a younger brother died after drinking from a poisoned well. Gideon disappeared one night not long before his wedding to the priest’s niece. You lusted for your own sisters, though I do not know if you ever acted on that lust.”

“How can you know these things?” he whispers, grip on both knife and dog loosening.

“I lived for a time outside Bitterwood, in the manor house of the woman Dowsabel. I met your brother and loved him and he loved me, until the night he found out what I was. And then I made him into the creature you now threaten.” I shudder, all my determination to show him no feeling gone. “And I beg of you, do not hurt him, for all our sakes. Look into his eyes and you will see it’s true: for they are Gideon’s eyes and always will be.”

That’s a lie, but I’ve long learned that folk, men in particular, don’t really look at each other, and a gap of almost thirty years would have blurred any recollections Balthazar might have kept. Memories change and shift, ferment in our minds; they are never the same when we take them out as they were when first we put them in.

And his own eyes grow wide as he stares at the dog’s golden-brown orbs, his face a mass of conflicted emotions and disbelief. What I’ve told him seems so farfetched that it beggars belief—though they’ve called me
witch
and fear me, they don’t quite believe it—yet I can see his mind turning the problem over and over: how else could I know these things?

Cotton rises, and sheaths the knife. He considers the animal with a strange regard, and when he leads him from the room he is gentler. I’ve bought Fenric time, but condemned myself. No doubt can remain about the truth of what I am.

Charity Alhgren looks worse than I feel and that’s saying something.

“They’re setting the pyre,” she said as soon as she got in the door, didn’t wait for the clerics to leave the room. The men didn’t bat an eyelid as they passed; her words might as easily have been taken for a triumphant crowing as for a warning. She carried a tray and I could smell the warm porridge in the bowl, hear the splash of liquid in the clay jug beside it. I’ve had nothing to eat or drink in almost two days; my stomach feels as though it will feast on itself soon, and my throat is the dried-up bottom of a pond in high summer.

Charity pours water and holds the cup for me to drink. Ambrosia. I smack my lips for more. When I’ve had my fill and she’s slowly fed me the oats, made on milk and butter, with sugar and cream on the top—though how she managed to get this luxury past the watchdogs is beyond me—she dabs a handkerchief into the jug and gently works at the hard brown crust that’s been keeping my eyelid sealed. It softens and the russet fluid runs down my cheek. Charity then wipes the cloth over my whole face, is careful with the split and swollen lip, and it comes away brown and grey and black from blood and dirt, and sweat and spit and tears. I blink and find even the dim light of the torches here is painful.

Charity steps back and examines me critically. “Should have brought a brush, your hair’s a mess.”

I laugh at that, almost choke myself. When I can speak again I say, “I hardly think that will matter when they burn me.”

She’s undeterred and begins to finger-comb my tresses, starting at the bottom and untangling knots as she moves upwards. The sensation is oddly soothing. I close my eyes for an oh-so-brief moment before she whispers, “Doctor Herbeau has come.”

No wonder she looks so unwell. I suppress the thought that I have enough to worry about. “Did he make you take anything, Charity?”

“No. He’s here for you, but I fear he’ll get to me soon enough.”

“Take the remedy I gave you. Do it as soon as you leave me, Charity. You should be well enough . . .” The look in her eyes makes me feel bad. “You’ll be fine.”

“Pastor Alhgren . . .” she begins.

“What? The pastor what?”

“He’s done with me. I heard him talking to the doctor this morning. Asked for a last thing, a finisher.” She licks her lips. “I’m too scared to eat or drink.”

I push out a breath of air and blink. “I would you’d listened to me before, my dear.”

She stops grooming me, and winds around and around the strands that have come loose, coiling them between her palms until there’s a thick ball of dark hair. She rolls it into the cloth stained with my blood and tears and sweat and spit, and stuffs it into the pocket of her apron. “I do too. I thought . . . I just thought he’d . . .”

“Charity, take what I gave you. If I can help you further, I will. I expect the same promise from you.”

She looks me straight in the eye and gives a strange smile, then nods. As she picks up the tray she leans close and I whisper, “When Ina brings you what I asked for, dry it by the fire and then grind it to a fine powder. We shall talk again.”

In a normal voice that might be heard by anyone listening at the door, I say, “And why is Doctor Herbeau here?”

“To see how many you’ve killed by your so-called healing,” she replies with the same volume, the timbre stronger than I’ve ever heard from Charity Alhgren. It confuses me: has she achieved some task or does a sense of hope swell within her? For myself, I feel one part uneasy, the other lighter, as if I might see a chance of salvation—or if not that, then at least the opportunity to wreak havoc before
and
after I’m turned to ash.

“Your potions,” says Doctor Herbeau as he steadfastly refuses to look at me. I think I offend his discerning taste in my current state. I definitely offend his nose: with no chance to bathe, still tied to this chair, I’ve soiled myself more than once and have no shame in it. I refuse to feel any more humiliated than a cow kept in a byre or a pig in a sty—this plight has been forced upon me.

“Yes?”

“Your potions, where do you keep them?”

“If you have been to my home then you’ll have found them in the workroom next to the kitchen. In the kitchen itself there are canisters with the herbs I use most commonly. You have everything.”

“You’re lying,” he says tightly.

I raise a brow. If he thinks I’ll tell him where to find items like gallowberry, what to do with troll-fat distillations and elf-breath leaves, how to make
aqua
nocturna
with tears of nightmares and gravedust, then he’s mad. He cannot read Wynne’s great book, written in the language of witches; he’s already demanded I translate it. As if I will give up such secrets; bad enough that Balthazar Cotton already has my deepest and darkest, though it seems he’s keeping it close to his heart. I’ve not seen him again and the churchmen have made no mention of it. I wonder if he fears what they might do to Fenric. Or if he is merely contemplating which path to take? Might he ask me to turn his brother back?

I query the good doctor. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I can find nothing lethal there!”

“Oh. Doctor Herbeau, that is because I do not use anything lethal in my healing. And I will point out that no one under my care has died this past six years in Edda’s Meadow.” I do not mention Flora Brautigan, for I did not kill her by the means he has in mind. “Or is it that you’re looking for something to use for your own ends?”

His thin face drains, then flushes with outrage and his nostrils pinch in as if an invisible hand has hold of his nose. He opens his mouth to draw in a breath that he will propel out with a yell.

“Charity Alhgren looks unwell again,” I say smoothly. “I cannot help but notice that she always suffers after your visits.”

Herbeau splutters and stutters. He gathers his dignity as he turns to the men in purple who’ve been waiting quietly during his attempted interrogation. “I will not give this creature any more of my time and have my reputation impugned thus!”

He marches past them and throws the door open—or rather tries to. The gesture would be more impressive had he not missed the handle on the first and second attempts. The churchmen exchange glances, and the conciliator approaches.

“It doesn’t matter, you know. None of this. It doesn’t matter if you say it or not.” He smiles and it might be mistaken as kindly. “Simply confess how you worship and obey Lucifer, the fallen one.”

“You fool. I worship none, and what woman with a brain in her head obeys anyone, let alone a failure?”

“We have the book, that will be enough to light the flames beneath you. And Miss Brautigan will bear witness that you had reason to kill her dearest sister-in-law.”

“Flora, who was undoubtedly a witch—I’m told you witnessed her transformation yourself.”

“We will burn you one way or the other, witch.”

I return his smile, feel one of my canines wobble loosely. “Then what incentive for me, hound of God? Get out. Go and build a pyre, then see if you can set me on it,” I hiss. “Let us see who dies, priest, thee or me?”

They scurry from the room like terrified mice and it makes me laugh a little madly. They don’t need my confession, no, but they
want
to hear it. No matter how they extract it, they will sleep better if the words come from my own lips, if I condemn myself. It will ensure them a dreamless and righteous sleep. How curious.