Manly Wade Wellman - John Thunstone 02 (6 page)

           
Thunstone was on his feet at once.
“Of course,” he said. “Please sit down with us. We’re having lunch, will you
have something?”

 
          
“Thank
you, but no.” Grizel Fian shook her head vigorously. “I don’t eat lunch, I
never do.
Well—perhaps a cup of tea?”

 
          
“I’ll
get you one,” said Thunstone. He pulled out a chair for her, and she sat down. Then
he beckoned to the waiter and he ordered the tea. “
Sharon
, may I present Ms. Grizel Fian? And this is
the Countess Monteseco, Ms. Fian.”

 
          
Sharon
nodded and smiled. Grizel Fian looked at
her keenly. She almost stared.

 
          
“This
is a pleasure,” she said. “I’ve heard of you, Countess. I’ve heard that you
were beautiful, and you are.”

 
          
“Thank
you,” said
Sharon
.

 
          
“And
I listened to you this morning,” Grizel Fian almost burst out at Thunstone.
“You said you’d encountered werewolves and vampires, and that strange race of
the Shonokins. You sound as though you’ll accept wonderful truths, believe in
things that many people just scoff at. I came here—intruded here, really—to
tell you something about the founding of this university.”

 
          
“I’ll
be glad to hear about it,” Thunstone assured her.

 
          
The
waiter brought their lunch and set a cup and a small teapot before Grizel Fian.
She poured her tea. Sharon and Thunstone began to eat.

 
          
“What
I have to tell is laughed at sometimes, but the story hangs on here,” said
Grizel Fian. “It’s about Samuel Whitney, who founded the school, and how he was
taken strangely ill when he got here to Buford.”

 
          
“Professor
Pitt mentioned that interesting tale to me,” said Thunstone.

 
          
“A
tale, you call it.” She leaned toward him, bright-eyed. “Calling it a tale
makes it sound like some sort of a myth, a legend. But there’s evidence—”

 
          
She
broke off, and her full lips trembled.

 
          
“What
sort of evidence?” prompted
Sharon
.

 
          
“The
town used to say, Samuel Whitney had made certain people up North angry,” said
Grizel Fian. “He found himself to be suffering, to be sick, and he came here
from wherever he’d been living, to get away from it. But whatever the plague
was, it followed him and struck him down, and some kind people of Buford cared for
him.”

 
          
“Kind people?”
Thunstone repeated after her. “What kind of
kind people were they?”

 
          
“They
were a group of Buford women who followed the Old Religion,” said Grizel Fian.

 
          
“A
coven of witches,” supplied Thunstone, and
Sharon
’s wide blue eyes grew wider.

 
          
“All
right,” nodded Grizel Fian. “A coven, if you want to call it that. You know
what a coven is, Mr. Thunstone. There have been covens, like the one at
North Berwick
in
Scotland
.”

 
          
“Yes,
that famous one at
North
Berwick
,” he said.
“By way of coincidence, the chief of that coven was named Fian, the same name
as yours.” He looked at her face, paler now than ever. “Could he have been a
relative?”

 
          
“Who
could know that, after four hundred years?” she said. “But those women here,
they were kindly women, wise women. They prayed. They performed rituals. They
saved Samuel Whitney’s life. And in gratitude he founded the college here.”

           
“Yes,”
Sharon
half whispered.

 
          
“Tell
me, what agreement was made?” Thunstone asked. “They saved Whitney from whatever
danger threatened him—did he promise them the college then, or did he found it
later, in gratitude?” He smiled, ever so thinly. “In other words, was the
college founded in the name of witchcraft?” “Who knows that for certain,
either?” asked Grizel Fian in turn. “I’ve told you this story to show that the
Old Religion can help. It can heal. It can do good deeds.”

 
          
“I’ve
been told that there are at least two active covens here in Buford,” said
Thunstone. He chose not to add that Lee Pitt was his informant.

 
          
“Two?”
said Grizel Fian after him.
“At least two?
Did you
come here to see that they’d be investigated—prosecuted?”

 
          
“As
I understand the interpretation of
United States
law by high federal and state courts, no
coven can be challenged for what it believes,” said Thunstone. “That happens to
be guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution— free exercise of
religious belief, right along with freedom of speech or of the press, or of
peaceable assembly. I’d say that a coven could meet and worship at high noon on
the
Main
Street
of Buford or any other town, if it didn’t break any of various other
laws, say a law against public nudity.”

 
          
“Yes,”
said Grizel Fian, finishing her cup of tea. “Yes, of course.
Now,
another question.
How well did you know Rowley Thome, Mr. Thunstone?”

 
          
“I
knew him very well indeed. As I said at the meeting this morning, we didn’t
like each other.”

 
          
“Do
you know if he’s alive or dead?” Grizel Fian prodded.

 
          
“I’m
not sure. As I said, I saw him disappear.”

           
“Disappear,”
Sharon
repeated in what sounded like awe.

           
“Before my very eyes,” Thunstone
went on. “What happened to him is beyond my comprehension.”

           
“So there’s something beyond your
comprehension, after all,” said Grizel Fian, and she seemed to mock.

 
          
“There
are many things beyond my comprehension,” said Thunstone, smiling.

 
          
Grizel
Fian leaned at him.
“If you should see him come back to meet
you, might you possibly make peace?”

 
          
Again
Thunstone smiled. “That would depend on the peace terms,” he replied. “I
wouldn’t expect unconditional surrender on either side. Why do you ask that?”

 
          
“You
must forgive me for wondering about things,” said Grizel Fian. “I do so much
wondering.”

 
          
“You’re
with the Department of Dramatic Arts here, aren’t you?” asked
Sharon
.

 
          
Grizel
Fian shook her head.
“Not exactly.
I’m not a bona fide
instructor,
I draw no salary, if that’s what you mean.
But they let me be actively interested. I direct plays sometimes—once or twice
I’ve written plays, and staged them, too.”

 
          
“I
hear that you’re actively interested in students, too,” put in Thunstone. “That
you let some girls stay in your home, and charge them no rent.”

 
          
Grizel
Fian opened her green eyes at him. “Mr. Thunstone, you seem to have asked
questions about me.”

 
          
“Let’s
say I’ve only listened to what people tell me,” he said, still smiling.

 
          
“Very
well,” she said quickly. “I’ve tried to be a friend to girl students who need
help here, who deserve it. Isn’t that all right?”

 
          
“I
haven’t suggested that it wasn’t,” said Thunstone evenly.

 
          
“But
now I must go. I have a show to present tonight. I hope you’ll both come.”

 
          
“We’ll
be there,”
Sharon
promised.

 
          
Grizel
Fian stood up. She fixed her eyes on
Sharon
.

           
“I wish you could be in a scene
tonight,” she said. “You’re so pretty, you’d do so well.”

 
          
“Oh,
but I don’t even know the show,” protested
Sharon
.

 
          
“It’s
Shakespeare, three scenes from Shakespeare. I could find you a costume—you
wouldn’t have to speak lines—”

 
          
“This
is flattering, but I must say no,” said
Sharon
firmly.

 
          
Thunstone
was on his feet, too. “We expect to enjoy the performance.”

 
          
“I
hope it will go off well,” said Grizel Fian. “There are some good effects—the
sets, the lights, certain dramatic emphases. Well, thank you for talking to
me.”

 
          
She
winnowed away.
Sharon
rose from her own chair.

 
          
“Good-looking,
isn’t she?”

 
          
“Very,”
said Thunstone, “but not as good-looking as you. Let’s go now, hear my friend
Reuben Manco.”

 
          
They
met Manco in the lobby. Again he wore his beaded hunting shirt, and in his
headband he had stuck an eagle feather, which stood erect like an exclamation
point. It was tufted with red at the top, and on the white expanse below the
dark upper end were strange devices, also in red.

 
          
“You’re
looking at a medicine plume,” said Manco. “It was given to me by John Blackfeather,
of the Oglalla Sioux. He told me that it was once worn by Red Cloud, the great
chief of his tribe, and that it’s a strong charm against evil magic. You two
are going to listen to my sermon this morning? Come on, then.”

 
          
The
three went out into bright sunlight, crossed the street on to the campus, and
approached Whitney Auditorium. People thronged in at the door. Lee Pitt greeted
them at the head of an aisle inside.

 
          
“I’ll
introduce you, Chief Manco,” he said, “and then I’ll get clear off stage and
leave you to massacre the palefaces. You’re going to have another full house,
it seems. Countess Monteseco, Mr. Thunstone, find yourselves seats.”

 
          
He
went away with Manco. Sharon and Thunstone found places on the aisle well to
the front. Father Bundren came and stood there, “May I?” he asked.

           
“Please do,” said Thunstone, and he
and Sharon moved in to let Father Bundren sit down, “Where’s Shimada?”
Thunstone asked.

 
          
“I
don’t know. I’d expected him to be here.”

 
          
All
around them
rose
a buzz of chattering voices from the
waiting crowd. The auditorium was filling up fast. Toward the rear sat Grizel
Fian, vivid in that red dress she wore. Among a press of people at the back,
Thunstone made out a bald head and bulky shoulders, oppressively familiar to
him.

 
          
He
glanced at his watch. It was exactly
one o’clock
. Lee Pitt and Reuben Manco came on stage,
side by side. A lectern had been set there, with a lamp and a microphone upon
it. Pitt came close to the lectern. His amplified voice rose in the chamber.