Witchstruck (29 page)

If I was to die today, I was determined to do it alone.

‘I shall tell them to bring your brother Will out from his prison to watch your execution,’ Marcus Dent added, and turned me round so he could smile down into my face. ‘For it will be his turn next. Your brother attacked my men when they were doing their holy duty by burning a proven witch and heretic, and his punishment is death. You can show him how to die.’

I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to bring my knee sharply up into his groin.

Marcus would only make my death more painful and torturous if I annoyed him. And that might tempt Alejandro de Castillo to act like a hero instead of doing what I wanted him to, and running away.

TWENTY

Blown Away

DENT’S MEN PUSHED
and prodded me down to the village pond, a deep stretch of water straddled by an ancient willow. There, they jeered at me, stripping off my gown until I stood all but naked in my underclothes. My face burning with anger, I tried not to listen to their whistles and impertinent comments.

Someone came running with some spare lengths of rope. The owner came after him a moment later, demanding their return immediately following my death, and was promised he would not have to wait long. One of the men ordered me to touch my toes, then clumsily bound my wrists to my ankles so that I was bent double in my flimsy undershift. Then a rope was passed twice about my waist, pinching my skin cruelly.

Several men in sombre black suits came to inspect how well I was secured, their faces full of contempt.

‘How do you like your punishment, witch?’ one of them asked, checking that the ropes were tight.

Not very much, I felt like replying, but did not wish to draw this out any longer. My shoulders and hamstrings ached desperately and my back was in torment. Drowning would at least stop the pain.

During all this meticulous knotting and checking of my
bonds
, Marcus Dent stood on a table at the edge of the pond, higher than everyone else and making the most of his moment of triumph. He called lengthily on Saint Mary Magdalene to guide them, and preached to the crowd until I wondered if he would have been happier as a priest than a witchfinder.

Suddenly there was some commotion, and I saw Dent turn his head. His eyes were no longer fixed on me but on the narrow, grassy road that led to Woodstock.

Straining to turn my head, I caught sight of my brother, his hands manacled, his face very pale and dirty, walking between two of Dent’s men.

‘Ah, young Will Lytton!’ Marcus Dent exclaimed, his triumphant smile broadening. ‘Bring the boy here. He has come just in time to witness his sister’s death.’

Two men took up the ropes and walked me out into the duckweed-infested water. Then there was a hard tug on the rope, and I tumbled over into the pond – not surprisingly, given that my wrists were bound to my ankles. Two of the men lifted me into position in the deepest part of the water, which was when I suddenly saw a hooded figure fleeing across the village square.

Alejandro!

So Alejandro had finally taken my advice and was on his way back to the relative safety of Woodstock Palace before he too could be seized by the vengeful Marcus Dent and his men.

My mind stuck hard on the thought of being parted from Alejandro. It was like a bone wedged in my throat, stopping me from breathing. But not from thinking. Anger filled me. All this was because I had refused to marry Marcus Dent. He had never felt anything for me, of that I was sure. But perhaps he had sensed my power and decided to control it by marrying me, by making me one of his possessions, like the cruel book of hatred to which he clung so fervently. What a worthless man Dent was, obsessed with his own lack of power, forever trying to frighten people into obeying him.

‘Do you think it ends here?’ I flung at Marcus Dent. ‘That I can be so easily removed from this world?’

I noted with satisfaction how Dent’s face paled and his pious speech died away. ‘Put her in!’ he demanded instead. ‘Dunk the girl. Let’s see if she floats.’

The men began to lower me in a sitting position, still bound hand and foot, into the chill dark water. The greenish scum on the surface parted to admit my limbs. I shivered, seeing my own helpless reflection in the water, and threw back my head as far as the ropes would allow me so I could still see Marcus’s face.

‘This is what you wanted all along, isn’t it?’ I shouted defiantly as the water began to cover me. ‘To see me die just because you didn’t get your way. But I shall come back, Marcus Dent, and have my revenge. My spirit will haunt you night and day until you run mad and your own men turn against you.’

Dent’s eyes narrowed at that. ‘Shut the witch up!’

At his furious command, one of the men shoved my head under the water. I shut my mouth tight and held my breath. It was dark and chilly beneath the surface. No wonder pike were such silent, mournful-looking creatures, I thought.

I struggled against the desire to breathe, flailing and churning up the mud and weed.

This was so cruel and unfair.

I had felt childishly secure in my gift, able to twist any man to my will. Yet I had not been able to influence Elizabeth, nor Alejandro, nor even Marcus Dent when it mattered.

It was time to stop pretending and face the truth. I possessed no special power at all. My ‘magick’ had been nothing but the tricks of a village witch, and now I would die for my arrogance.

If she sink, she be no witch and shall be drowned
.

If she float, she be a witch and must be hanged
.

Would this be considered sinking? Yes, I thought simply. I am no witch and I am sinking. Let them drown me and prove me innocent.

Slumped in my bonds, I opened my mouth wide and breathed the dark greenish water. It burned and seared my throat like a flame and I enjoyed the agony of its caresses. It would be the last sensation I ever felt, so I clung onto it lovingly. Pain, pain, pain. Sweet, mortal pain.

‘Meg!’

The voice tugged at me, like a bird tugging at a worm.

‘Meg, don’t leave me!’

Damn it.

It was my brother’s voice. Will was in trouble and he needed me.

His voice came again, waking me from my nightmare of dying. My heart was bursting and I was no longer content to perish at the hands of these ignorant men. The pain in my lungs was not beautiful; it was cruel and intolerable. I had to get out of the water. I had to breathe again, to survive this torture.

My mind spun these thoughts, then my eyelids shivered open on the dark underbelly of the pond.

Through the rippling water, faces seemed to swim against the light: Dent’s, contorted with triumph; the pale-faced men who were holding me down, talking to each other over my submerged head; a crowd of villagers, gathered about the water’s edge to watch me drown.

I remembered my aunt’s death, her pleading eyes across the smoke of the bonfire.

Help me, Aunt Jane. I could not help you, but is there any way I can help myself?

The words came to me suddenly, clear and sharp as the sound of a bell. Had her unquiet spirit put the spell into my mind or had I seen the words in one of her books? I did not consider the question long, but thrust my head up above the water as hard as I could, dislodging the hands that held me.

As soon as my mouth broke water, I cried aloud in Latin, ‘
Lift me, Dark Mother! Free me from my bonds, O Queen of the Night!
’

The men fell back in horrified surprise, staring down at me as though I had grown two heads.

A sudden panic in his voice, Dent shouted, ‘Push the witch back in! Hurry, before she curses us all!’

But I was too quick for him. Before the men could recover their wits, I intoned the Latin charm three times in a voice of power.

I began to rise from the village pond, my legs dripping and covered in green weed. Slowly and majestically, the sodden rope unravelled itself from me and fell back into the water. I straightened my aching back and stretched out my hands towards the villagers, continuing my spell of protection.

I was free, and the pond was several feet beneath me as I rested on the air, floating on nothing.

‘Let the waters rise,’ I said clearly, ‘and the winds blow the evildoers from this place. Lady of Darkness, I beg protection for your faithful servant.’

Marcus Dent had climbed down from his table and was glaring at me, his face red with fury.

‘Bow to your fate, witch,’ he commanded me coldly, ‘and cease this demonic prattle.’ He gestured angrily at the men guarding me. ‘Don’t just stand there, you fools. Pull the witch down from there. Gag her to stop her spells.’ When
they
did not move, Marcus Dent looked about the crowd of staring villagers and raised his voice. ‘Pay no mind to these tricks and illusions. They are nothing that need concern good Christian men like ourselves.’

‘But the witch . . . she’s floating in mid-air! This be no illusion, Master Dent,’ the younger man stammered, then turned and fled.

At his heels the wind I had called began to rise. Dusty and inexorable, it whipped at the aprons and skirts of the housewives, and blew the men’s caps away. Below me, the water had begun to circle in a whirlpool; now it rose from the pond until it floated in a wobbling line just below my feet, a muddy, wet, impossible floor on which I set my bare toes and laughed.

Dent was shouting at the crowd now, insisting that God would protect them if they dragged me down and hanged me. I begged the wind for more force, and the willow tree creaked and bent, its delicate green tendrils thrashing the air. The sky darkened as though it was night, all the trees and hedgerows around the village green shaking violently. Then the church bell began to toll behind me, swinging in the wind I had raised.

The girls’ hair flew about their faces and they screamed, hanging onto their mothers’ dishevelled skirts. The women seized their children and dragged them home, almost blown there by the wind that pursued them. Their men ran behind with shouts and curses, struggling to
secure
their doors and windows against the unearthly gale.

Dent was hanging onto the willow, both arms clasped about its trunk. His rage was palpable. ‘You will suffer for this, witch! I shall not forget.’

I muttered a single word in Latin under my breath and watched in satisfaction as Marcus Dent was lifted from his feet. The witchfinder clung to the willow with desperate hands, but the wind was too strong for him. Seconds later, it took him like a piece of clothing snatched from a clothes line. With a last furious cry, Dent flew backwards and was consumed by the dark whirling chaos of the storm.

At the very instant that he disappeared, something small and white came spinning towards me out of the storm. Instinctively I reached up and caught it, one-handed. It was my little white charm-stone, the one my aunt had given me as a protective amulet. Dent had taken it from me at Woodstock and now it had returned to its rightful owner.

At once the village green was calm again. Empty, calm and eerily still.

‘Meg!’

Lowering myself slowly back to the damp, blossom-strewn earth, I embraced my brother Will. The enchanted wind had not touched him, but had swept everything from around him like a stream racing around a rock.

‘Are you hurt?’ I whispered.

I could see astonishment in his face as he stepped back. No doubt he had found it hard to witness his younger sister
floating
on the air and whipping up a dark storm to blow our enemies away. Yet my brother did not seem shocked by what he had seen here today. It was as though Will had always known in his heart that I was no ordinary girl. I only hoped he had not lost his love for me now that I had openly marked myself out as a witch.

He shook his head. ‘Not a whit,’ he replied.

‘I’m glad.’

‘That was some performance. You must be exhausted. Come, your Spanish friend is finding us horses.’ He slipped an arm about my waist as I staggered.

I suddenly remembered seeing Alejandro out of the corner of my eye, a dark figure fleeing the village green as I was lowered into the water.

Or rather, going to fetch horses.

‘How did Alejandro know . . .?’

Will smiled grimly and showed me the pistol under his jacket. ‘Oh, we had a plan to rescue you. In the end though, we didn’t need it.’ He sounded almost admiring.

‘Trust a Lytton to have a plan,’ I managed.

Will laughed, then pointed ahead. Alejandro had appeared in his priest’s robes at the mouth of the lane, leading two frightened-looking horses. Behind him came Juan on the cart, who stood and waved his whip at me with some jubilant but unintelligible cry in Spanish.

‘What did his servant just say?’ Will whispered in my ear.

‘I have no idea,’ I replied, but waved back cheerily enough
at
the swarthy Spanish groom. ‘Though “You’re alive!” seems like a good guess.’

Despite the pains in my legs and back, I felt like grinning triumphantly myself. One minute I had been facing my death, the next I had been putting my enemies to flight. I had not understood the extent of my power until that moment when I had felt the icy grip of death and chosen to shrug it off. So the game continued, and this round had gone to me. Though I had no doubt that if Marcus Dent had survived being cast into the heart of my magickal storm, he would be back soon enough. And intent on revenge.

I would have to find some way to silence him and his men, I realized. For in ruining me, Marcus Dent would ruin my mistress too. When it came to her ears that Elizabeth was harbouring a witch in her household, the zealous Queen would be quick to have both me and her younger sister interrogated by the Spanish Inquisitors whose methods of torture and interrogation had so terrified the entire country.

We reached Alejandro and the horses. He had thrown back his hood, his expression forbidding.

I looked at him, unsure what to expect. ‘Alejandro?’

‘Short hair suits you,’ he remarked, and smiled when I ran a hand over my shorn locks. I had forgotten that Marcus Dent fancied himself as a barber. ‘Just don’t ever try to pass as a boy. There are a couple of things that might get in your way.’