Bewitching the Baron (17 page)

Paul narrowed his eyes. “If she comes to your bed, search her body for witch marks and signs of the devil.”

“Like hooves, perhaps, where her feet should be?”

“Look for moles, Nathaniel, where she suckles her familiars. Prick her with a pin, and see if she bleeds the red blood of a mortal.”

“ ‘Tis not a pin with which any sane man would wish to prick her.” He did not add that there was a small smear upon his sheets to prove she bled as red a blood as himself.

“God’s foot, Nathaniel, will you not take this seriously?”

He finally lost his good humor. “Take seriously the superstitious conjectures of a drunken imagination? Why should I? What I do take seriously, and indeed am most concerned about, is how quickly you have slipped from being a man of reason to one indiscernible in thought from the ignorant, dung-brained villagers with whom you drink.
That
does concern me most sincerely. There are no witches, Paul, and you are a fool to believe there are.”

“If you will not listen to me on behalf of yourself, then at least be aware that the townsfolk grow increasingly distrustful of her.”

He went cold at that. “Explain.”

“The mood is turning against her and her aunt.”

They were neither of them too young to remember the gruesome ends that women found guilty of witchcraft had met in the not-so-distant past. “They will not harm her,” Nathaniel stated, his voice filled with both menace and determination.

“I have heard no plans to do so,” Paul admitted. His tone became softer. “Do not listen to me about Valerian’s nature, if you will not, but at least pay attention to the threat of scandal. What will your family say if they hear you are caught up with a local witch, whether she is one or not? Will they be pleased to hear you have the citizenry of your town set entirely against you? They will hardly think you have mended your ways.”

“I will set this out for you a final time, Paul. One: My family will hear nothing of what I do in this piddling backwater. Two: They do not care for the gossip of farmers. Three: Valerian is not the manipulator that Laetitia was, if that is what you are trying to imply, and there is no family that will be brought to ruin because of any involvement I may choose to have with her. And four: I do not have to explain myself to you.”

“And you would not have, unless you knew I was right.”

They glared at each other for a long minute, and then Nathaniel sighed. “We are neither of us going to convince the other.”

Paul gave a crooked smile. “Which is not to say that we will stop trying.” He rubbed his temples. “Agh. This has done nothing for my head.”

“You enjoy spending your time at that inn. I think you fancy you would have been happier born the son of a sheepherder.”

“Maybe. Then I would not have had the job of protecting the good name of such a pig-headed friend.”

“I am sure you would have found yourself a similar companion to attempt to correct. You seem unable to stay out of affairs that do not concern you.”

“Aunt Theresa, are you certain you are up to this?”

“I will not be treated as an invalid. I am not on my death bed yet, you know.”

“But it is such a miserable morning.”

Theresa fastened her cloak at her throat, and lifted the hood of the woolen garment up over her head. “And it is not likely to get any less so for us standing here discussing it.” She paused, and reached out to cup Valerian’s cheek in her hand. “Do not worry so, child. It will do nothing to hasten my end, and you know I could never be confined indoors, just as you could not.”

“I know.” Valerian bit her lip, restraining herself from saying more. She wanted to wrap her aunt in blankets and hold her until she was well again.

“I understand how difficult it is to sit by and do nothing,” Theresa said, “But that is what I ask of you. You will be doing me the greatest of favors by allowing me to follow the course I choose.”

“You want me to pretend that nothing is wrong, that nothing has changed?”

“For a little while yet, in action if not in thought. Soon enough there will be no pretending possible.”

Valerian lifted her own hood over her hair and followed Theresa out the door into the drizzling rain. The cloud-heavy sky cast little light over the dripping trees and meadow.

Oscar flew on ahead, giving them a raucous caw as he flapped past, and then the two walked in silence, their footsteps squishing in the muddy path. After a time the quiet became an invitation to speak.

“I went to my hot spring this morning, before you awoke,” Valerian said hesitantly.

“I thought you might have.”

A silence stretched again, and Valerian felt an intuitive certainty that her aunt knew how she had spent her night. “It was not entirely how I had expected.”

“The water?” Aunt Theresa asked innocently.

Valerian could not see her face, as her aunt walked in front of her, but she thought she heard a smile. “No.”

“The cave, then?”

“You already know, you awful woman.”

Theresa cast a glance over her shoulder and blinked at her in a grotesque mockery of naïveté. “I do not know to what you are referring, young lady.”

“Do not try to play the innocent with me. I have never encountered a woman with a less chaste mind.”

Theresa laughed. “Dearest, we are all wantons at heart. It simply takes some of us longer to realize it.” She put her arm around Valerian, and walked beside her. “I do hope he was not a disappointment.”

“I am not at all certain I want to discuss the particulars,” Valerian grumbled.

“Come now. Who else can you tell? Did you take the Queen Anne’s lace seeds afterward?”

“Yes, after the hot spring.” The chewed spoonful of seeds would keep her from getting pregnant. “I sometimes wonder what Mother would have thought if she heard our conversations. She was so much more restrained.”

“She was not always so, or at least not to such a degree. Our mother’s murder had a sobering effect on her, and she had certain ideas of what a village doctor’s wife should be like. When at long last you came along, she thought to give you a different life than the one she had led as a young woman. She may have been happiest if you never knew that your grandmother made her living as a kept woman, but it is in our blood to follow such a path.”

“Charmaine has not.”

“Charmaine has contorted her natural passions into a most uncomfortable form.”

“I do not see how you can argue that it is in my blood to be a man’s mistress, just as it is in my blood to be a healer.”

“When at least four generations of women before you have followed that course, it does not seem so unlikely that you will as well. It seems to be one of the family talents, and it is no shameful thing. Your grandmother was a woman of importance because of her choice of lovers.”

“Not so important she could not be killed.”

“Yes, well, one must be careful when one also has gifts of a more spiritual nature. Now tell me, how was your encounter with the manly baron different than you expected?”

She sighed, and gave in to Theresa’s curiosity. “It was not different so much as it was not as important as I thought it would be. I mean the act itself. Given the fuss that is made of it, I expected something more dramatic emotionally. I thought I would feel like a different person afterward.”

“You mean you are still the same Valerian, after allowing a man to know your body? I do not believe it!”

“Stop it. You know what I mean.”

Theresa squeezed her shoulder. “Of course I do. I have sometimes thought that the true loss of innocence is not when a maidenhead is broken, but when a woman realizes she cannot change who she is inside by putting a man in there with her. There is something frightening when he pulls out of you and you discover you are as alone in your body as you ever were.”

“Do you suppose married women feel the same?”

“It is one of the truths of life that no words or ceremonies can blend two people into one.”

“What about love? Can that do it?”

“Love. Now that is a tricky one. Love casts the illusion that two people are one, but it is the nature of illusions to be false. Eventually, if you are fortunate and wise, you are glad to break the illusion and remain as yourself.”

Valerian did not answer. The idea of not being alone in her own skin appealed to her, and she could not understand how the wise choice could be separateness.

When they reached Greyfriars they parted company. Theresa needed to tell Charmaine about her own illness, having decided in the night that it would be unfair to keep it from her. About Valerian’s sense that the baby might not be well, however, she would say nothing.

Valerian herself headed for Sally’s home. The boil she had lanced had healed quickly, but she wanted to check on the children and bring Sally a fresh supply of St. John’s wort. The woman had suffered from melancholia for years, and the herb was showing signs of helping to lighten her mood, as well as helping to impair her fertility and give her body a needed rest from childbearing.

She felt the eyes of passersby on her as she walked down the street, stronger than usual. Gwen’s father, the miller, actually stopped and stared at her as she went by.

She was frowning when she reached Sally’s home. She called in to her through the open shutters, and Sally quickly came to the door. Her eyes were wide and searched the street nervously from behind their curtain of stringy bangs. “Inside!” Sally whispered urgently, and all but yanked Valerian into the dark little house.

“What is it, Sally?” Valerian asked. The small room reeked of old cooking fat, all but obscuring the fresh scent of wood shavings from the attached carpentry shop out back where Sally’s husband worked.

Sally pulled her to the wooden shepherd’s chair by the fire, the best seat in the house. The baby sat under the table, gnawing the head of a wooden figure carved by his father.

“What is going on?” Valerian repeated. “People were staring at me like I had grown another head.”

“What dealings have you had with Eddie?” Sally asked.

Valerian rolled her eyes. “Not
that!
I thought surely it must be over by now. Are people still talking about that kiss he gave me?”

Sally waved away her words. “After that.”

“Sally, tell me what has happened. Do not make me guess.”

Sally dropped onto the low stool beside Valerian. Her face looked paler than usual in the grey light from the window, her lips colorless. “Eddie has had a spell cast upon him.”

“A spell? What nonsense. Who would have put a spell on Eddie?” Even as she spoke, the answer came clear. “Oh, no.”

“He says you did it, or he did say that. He is not saying much of anything now, but Gwen is going about spreading the tale of how you cursed him, that you said that she would get no joy from him as a husband. That same night an owl came and snatched Eddie’s cock.”

“An owl?”

“Swooped down and snipped it off.”

“How would an owl even get to it through his pants? Or was he not wearing pants?”

Sally stared blankly at her, and then some of the tension slipped from her shoulders, and she smiled. “I did not think you had done it.”

Valerian felt a quiver of alarm. If Sally could have seriously doubted her, then what must the others be thinking? “You thought it possible I might have.”

Sally looked away, her head slightly bowed. “You have never shown me anything but kindness. I did not want to think you would do such a thing, however provoked.”

“But you thought that I had the power to cast such a spell.”

“We all know that you and Mrs. Storrow command more than earthly powers. How else could you heal so many when even the surgeons cannot? And Mrs. Storrow, she sees into the truth of one’s soul.”

“It is not witchcraft, Sally. It is knowledge and perception, that is all.” She could see in Sally’s eyes that she was not believed, as well she should not be. Both she and Theresa did call on powers most others could not, though there was nothing demonic about it. “I do not cast spells.”

Sally did not answer.

“Where is he?” Valerian asked. “I want to see him.”

“At the smithy. Surely you do not mean to go over there?”

“Indeed I do. I intend to put a stop to this nonsense.” Valerian stood, and Sally scrambled to her feet, her eyes wide and anxious.

“You cannot go over there, it might be dangerous.”

“Oh, yes I can. What are they going to do? Throw rocks at me?” she said with false bravado, for in truth she was frightened by this turn of events; but the best thing would be to stop this before it went any further. She took the little jar of Saint John’s wort from her basket and put it on the table. “For the melancholia,” she said, then hoisted the basket over her arm. “We will just see what is missing from Eddie’s breeches.”

She marched out into the rain and headed down the street. She was vaguely aware of the attention of those few people out and about, but her mind was focused on the smithy and what she would find. She did not pay attention when they stopped to watch her pass, and then turned to follow her.

A man leaving the smithy stumbled out of her way when she stomped up to the door, then stood and stared as she pushed her way inside.

The heat hit her face with a blast, making her eyes sting. She blinked them clear and scanned the interior for Eddie. The rhythmic beating of metal on metal ceased, and Eddie’s father, Jeremiah, approached. He was a large man, black-haired and bearded, wearing a leather apron over his work clothes. A heavy hammer dangled from one of his huge fists, and his fingers were black with grime. He looked a living embodiment of Hephaestus, angry god of fire and forge.

“Good day, Mr. O’Connor. I have come to see Eddie,” Valerian said firmly. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest, and she could feel nervous sweat under her arms.

The burly smith adjusted his grip on his hammer and said nothing. Valerian could see his uncertainty. She knew him as a kind man who made decisions by the promptings of his conscience, but he was clearly in conflict at this moment.

“I would not be here in the middle of the day if I intended to harm him,” Valerian said.