The Triple Goddess (158 page)

Alarming, however, was that, not only was there the sound of footsteps crossing the wooden floor, but as Jenny frantically looked around to see who had entered the room, nobody was visible.

‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ snapped a voice; ‘tell me who you are, who sent you, and how you got in. I’ve no idea where my diary is, but I don’t usually make appointments so late, especially on Mondays.’ The speaker sounded female and annoyed.

‘What?’ Jenny quavered; ‘I mean, I beg your pardon? Who is it?...please. If someone is here, I’m sorry but I can’t see you.’

The voice responded in a more aggrieved tone. ‘That’s two and a half questions in as many seconds, girl, and you still owe me an answer. Not such a girl either, if my eyes don’t deceive me without my glasses, wherever they may be.’ The voice turned suspicious. ‘You haven’t touched or broken anything, have you? If so, and it’s compromised or important, I’ll dock your wages for a year.’

The hidden person did not wait for a response. ‘Drat it, we haven’t even begun the interview, and already things don’t bode well for our relationship. It really is too bad that I can’t afford a decent assistant; one of the Witch Academy undergrads, for example, who needs a job during the summer vacation. I blame the employment agency for sending girls like you, who have lousy references and are invariably clumsy.

‘The few who have a glimmer of talent leave for higher wages as soon as I’ve got them trained. The last one, Felicia, was only here a lunar month, just as she’d got moderately proficient in...but that’s confidential. I could tell you, but I’d have to turn you into a tadpole. Really, I should give up and do everything myself from scratch, including all the grinding and chopping, as humiliating as that would be.

‘Anyway, I’ll ask again: who are you, who sent you, and how did you get in? And turn out your pockets and that bag, girl. Things have a habit of disappearing around here, and I don’t mean in the course of spelling. You temps are a light-fingered lot. If you’ve any item of mine on you I’ll kick you downstairs and see that you never get work.’

As flustered as she was, Jenny was not inclined either to confess her identity, or to produce the contents of her satchel, let alone explain about Plantagenet household gods.

‘No one sent me...ma’am. By the way, it’s Tuesday, not Monday. I came on my own and let myself in, and I’m not here for an interview or seeking employment.’

‘Nonsense, you don’t know the password that unlocks the front door. Already, a lie. There’s a lot of unique and valuable stuff in here that certain women would love to get their hands on, and it’s more than likely that one of them sent you to steal something while I was out.

‘I’ve got it! That meddling Monsoon woman is behind this, isn’t she? Mona! Just because she’s secretary to the high and mighty Wanda Empiria, she acts as if she were a qualified witch, though she can’t tell a rune from a rite. All Mona has is a lowly Mortar and Pestle diploma from Bideford Polytechnic, with a pass grade, not even close to a merit and miles from a distinction. That’s it, Monsoon must have looked up how to do an unlocking spell in one of her boss’s books, and sneaked you in to get some quality stuff to boost Empiria’s meagre skills. She was waiting for me to leave.’

Jenny said weakly, ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but I don’t know who you are talking about.’

‘I’m not believing.’ There was an impatient clicking of fingers. ‘Facts, I want facts. Monsoon didn’t prep you very well, did she? She didn’t even give you a story that would hold as much water as a sieve, may in a sieve she go to sea, like the Jumblies. Edward Lear. But then the woman’s got the imagination of the turtle she resembles, so I can’t say I’m surprised.’

Jenny was left with no alternative—other than to point out that turtles could swim, unlike tortoises—but to come clean. ‘The truth is, ma’am, that after the storm I wanted to come up and check for damage at the top of the castle, what with there being so much damage to the roof, or so I thought; and see if anything had opened up that might explain the three windows and the missing rooms.’

‘Storm, what storm? The weather’s been bloody marvellous for the time of year, and nobody’s worn a mackintosh or put up an umbrella for a month, which is good because I’ve lost mine. I’ve only been away a few days, and nothing’s changed since I left. And which windows and rooms are you referring to, and why and how should and could they need explaining and have come to be missing?’

Jenny, assuming that the woman was observing her, looked to them. ‘Those windows, ma’am; they’re even bigger than they look from below. Nobody has been able to account for them and the rooms they look out from.’

‘Storms, questionable windows, missing rooms…don’t riddle with me, girl, you’re bound to lose. I can out-riddle the Sphinx; and did on several occasions, much to its discomfiture.’

Irked by the unequal terms she was on with this undeclared person, and the questioning, and the accusation of intrusion, Jenny sharpened her tone. ‘Fact: whoever lives here has found a way of keeping this room or apartment secret in order to avoid paying rent. And it worked, until today.’

There was a squeal of annoyance. ‘The temerity! It’s lucky for you that I’m in my sere and yellow, and not as quick to take offence as I used to be. So again, and answer me plain: who...are...you?’

Jenny took a deep breath, and said loftily, ‘I am the Lady Eugénie Beauvais Plantagenet, and my father is Henry St John Pheasantbane Arthur Plantagenet, twenty-third Earl of Northmarch, and a descendant of the Angevin kings. In the event that you care to reveal yourself, I may invite you to call me Jenny when we are better acquainted. My mother the Countess was born Isabelle Sauce-Piquante, and she traces her lineage to the Dauphins. Dragonburgh castle has been in my family since the day it was built, and you can look it up: the charter is in the British Museum. I was born in the blue room off my mother’s bedroom, on the east side of the castle, and have lived here all my life.’

Recounting her ancestry reinforced Jenny’s sense of indisputable entitlement to be where she was, and her determination not to be browbeaten. ‘To my knowledge we’ve never taken in lodgers. If you’ve been living at Dragonburgh as long as it seems as though you have, you are greatly in arrears in what you owe me as chatelaine.

‘Not that we’ve established a rate, and unless you can prove yourself to be a hardship case, I’m not sure I’d want to formalize an arrangement. We’ve never done so before. If a member of the castle staff or an estate person is ill or needs help with a family member, we take care of them for nothing for as long as necessary, even permanently. It’s not like we’re short of rooms and cottages, and everyone rallies round. But I know personally everyone who works for us, and from the sound of your voice, I don’t believe we’ve met.

‘So, ma’am, it is only right that it is I who should be asking the questions. Your belligerent attitude is offensive, and I would also point out that it’s common courtesy for both parties to be visible when holding a conversation. I’m familiar with all the ghosts, too, and you’re not one of them.’

Calmer now that she’d asserted herself, Jenny was struck by a possibility. ‘I don’t suppose you’re my husband Otto Huntenfisch’s aunt or grandmother, are you? Someone he doesn’t want me to know about? That would explain your rudeness. This being the wing of the castle he lives in, or did, I suppose it’s possible he could have set you up here without my knowing. Though if you’ve seen his own quarters, or ex-quarters I should say—I haven’t, but his servants talk—you must be disappointed that he didn’t provide better for you than this.’

Jenny waved a hand around the room.

The woman’s voice rang out. ‘Lodger? Aunt? Grandmother? Brazen hussy! My digs have done me very well over the years, and be it ever so humble there’s no place like home. Which it has been for a very long time. I’ll have you know, young lady, that it is I who built Dragonburgh…with a little prestidigitatory assistance, of course, from others in the trade. One cannot do everything oneself.’

Jenny snorted. ‘And my husband undertook to remodel it. Such arrogance is not inconsistent with what I was just suggesting, and the results speak for themselves. Otherwise, pull the other one, it’s got bells on.’

‘Ye gods, such impudence!’

‘If you needed so little space for yourself, madam, why should you go to all the trouble of building a castle?’

‘In those days,’ returned the voice acidulously, ‘I was a personage, and had appearances to keep up. But when money started getting tight, and William the so-called Conqueror gave Dragonburgh to Henri Beauvais
et famille
in return for Henri’s saving William’s arse in 1066, by sticking his own fat bottom and breeches in the way of an arrow with the Conqueror’s name on it—he has a lot to answer for, does La Fesse Brave—I left it to the Northmarches to manage the castle and retreated up here.’

Jenny stiffened. ‘The first Earl of Northmarch was a loyal soldier doing his duty and protecting his leader. Surely you do not hold that against him.’

‘No, but consider the consequences. In the exchange of arrows, not only was it one in the eye for Harold Godwinsson, or Harold the Second, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, whom I was backing, naturally, against the Normans; but one has only to look at the succession of royal dynasties that followed down the ages, to realize the appalling consequences of Henri Beauvais’ action.

‘I was very fond of Harold, and he would have gone on to do great things, in my opinion, if he’d worn the prescription glasses with toughened lenses that I made for him the night before the Battle of Hastings. Harold was as blind as a bat, and I was worried that he’d send his men in the wrong direction. I had to do it manually, because the closest spell I could find was for a monocle, and, knowing Harold, he would have put it in the wrong eye. I only just got the glasses finished in time, owing to my first grinding the lenses for long rather than short sight, and forgetting to compensate for his double astigmatism.

‘But what was, was. After the country had settled down a bit and the Henri Beauvaises had been here for a while, I decided to let bygones be bygones and invited them up for a glass of sherry. Rather more than a glass, as I recall, and we ended up playing Snakes and Ladders, and doing imitations of William the First trying to speak English.

‘After that we rubbed along very well, and the Plantagenet generations who followed were just as friendly. You shall now understand, young lady, that there was never any question of my paying rent, on account of the castle having been taken from me. So, now that you know the history, in consideration of my position, seniority, and the longevity of my tenure, I will appreciate your according me the respect due to me, notwithstanding your heritage and entitlement.’

‘As I said, that’s difficult when one is addressing thin air and someone who hasn’t yet introduced herself.’

‘Very well. Know that I am Hecate, Triple Goddess, and Goddess of the Lower World. There’s nobody and nothing in earth or sky, light or darkness, has power to alter that and there never has been. Those who, when I stepped down as head of the Witches’ Guild, began calling me Hec, as in “What the…”, are as guilty of lese majesty and as out of line as you are.

‘You, Eugénie Beauvais Plantagenet, may call me Dame Hecate, or Hecate, or ma’am.
Ecce mulier
! Behold the woman!’

Jenny gasped and skipped back a pace: about ten feet away, next to a rubber plant, was standing a diminutive and dishevelled crone wearing a pilled shawl cardigan with sagging pockets and sleeves, a drab skirt of faded tartan, a wrinkled blouse, and scuffed pump shoes.

Hecate had currant eyes on either side of a hook nose, and whiskers on her chin. It appeared that she had come directly from the beach, for she also had a colourful towel draped over her shoulder, sand in her grey hair, and she was twirling a pair of sunglasses. There were no beaches within easy reach of Dragonburgh, thought Jenny, and it was not sunbathing weather.

Noticing the towel, Hecate pulled it from her shoulder, tossed it over the rubber plant and threw the sunglasses on the table. Conscious of her visible state, she drew herself up, thereby adding all of an inch to her height.

‘I’m still not buying your story, it sounds coached and implausible. Saucy and overbold, that’s what you are young lady, saucy and overbold. If it wasn’t Mona Monsoon who let you in, it must have been one of the witches. I’ll wager that awful Pott-Tempest woman, Camilla, has something to do with this, or Thea Toadflax. They want one of their own to get a job as my apprentice, so they can learn my secrets before I become too gaga to practise.

‘“Old Mother Hec’s pretty much lost it these days,” they say to each other; “we need to act fast, if we want to learn know how to do all those things the QuikSpells are no good for, like programming a video cassette recorder for the next five years without knowing what one will want to watch, and allowing for when the clocks go forward and back.

‘Well, they’ve got a long wait ahead of them, for the simple reason that I don’t watch television, and couldn’t do it for myself if I tried.’

Taking the ball that Jenny had come across earlier out of its cup, Hecate dropped it, and without looking down flipped it twice in the air from her foot as expertly as any soccer player, before catching it and replacing it in the cup.

‘Come on, spill the beans, how did you get in? And don’t ask why I don’t use the ball to find out. Crystal balls are for looking into the future, and this one hasn’t worked for yonks, though playing with it helps me think. It’s also good for exercise, now that I don’t get out as much as I used to.’