Witchstruck (16 page)

‘This goose is for our Christmas dinner. Forgive me for not stopping to speak, but it will not pluck itself.’

He stood a while, watching me without comment. ‘Are you not cold?’ he asked eventually.

‘A little,’ I admitted. ‘But this must be done outdoors. Besides, I would be warmer if you did not stand in the way of the sun.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ Alejandro muttered, and shifted at once, so that I was once more sitting in sunshine.

I gave him no thanks for it, but tore savagely at the shining goose feathers. For some reason, his politeness annoyed me more than any show of open dislike would have done. Why did he not go away? Why must he stand and watch me like this? Could he not see how his presence disturbed me?

‘Doesn’t Father Vasco need your assistance?’

His brows rose, though he answered levelly enough, ‘My master is unwell again. He retired to his room straight after Mass and is sleeping now. This chill weather affects him badly.’

‘My grandfather was the same at his age. You should ask Blanche to make up a hot posset for him.’

To my surprise, Alejandro laughed at that. I looked up and saw an oddly cynical gleam in his eyes, a smile curving his lips.

‘What, after the last hot posset prepared by the skilled hand of Mistress Parry? That unfortunate man was sick for days.’

Reluctantly I laughed too, recalling how Blanche had managed to remove the guard from Elizabeth’s door by drugging him.

‘I’d forgotten about that. Well, I am sure it would not have the same effect.’

‘Let’s hope not.’ Alejandro smiled, but it was a tense smile, not quite reaching his eyes. I noticed that he no longer seemed comfortable in my presence, that the tentative friendship between us over the summer had faded with the heat. ‘Thank you for the suggestion. I will ask Mistress Parry this afternoon, before my master has to rise for evening prayer.’

‘Will he join us for dinner afterwards? We eat late on Christmas Eve, but we should have games as well as goose to take us up to Mass at midnight.’

He frowned. ‘Games?’

‘I suppose it may be hard to celebrate Christmas here, with Elizabeth being a prisoner and in disgrace,’ I murmured, and glanced cautiously over my shoulder. But the cook and Joan were too busy at their work to overhear us, and the windows above us seemed to be closed. ‘At Lytton Park, where I used to live with my father, we would gather after dinner to sing Yuletide carols, then play some games. Sometimes we would exchange a few gifts at New Year too. It is an old English custom.’

‘I have no gifts to give.’

I laughed at his concerned expression. ‘Well, you have your lips. You could sing a Spanish song for us on New Year’s Day. You must know a song or two.’ I paused, left suddenly breathless by my own bravado. ‘Or you could give a kiss.’

His eyes darkened at that, his voice deep and very Spanish. ‘A kiss?’

Was that reproof I heard in his tone? For a moment there, I had forgotten that Alejandro de Castillo was only one step away from being a Catholic priest. I looked up at him and could almost smell his disapproval, taste it in my mouth like ashes. No doubt such playfulness as games and an exchange of kisses, even at Yuletide or the New Year, would be looked on as the work of the Devil.

My temper flared. ‘Yes,’ I continued, half angrily, my fingers buried deep in the soft feathery down of the goose’s chest. ‘The exchange of a kiss is traditional.’

I did not know why I was so angry. Or perhaps I did know but did not wish to admit it, even to myself.

Then I saw Alejandro draw back from me, and realized it was not disapproval I had seen in his face, but fear. Fear and caution, strong as my own. And beyond them, desire.

It was like that moment when the circle is cast, the four directions are called, and you feel the spirits rush in on you as sharp air through a winter’s doorway.

Alejandro wanted me. Just as I wanted him. And there was nothing either of us could do about it.

I could not speak, and was grateful when Alejandro bent to move the plucking bowl a little closer to my stool, breaking the spell between us. As he straightened, I saw heat running under the olive skin, an odd haunted look to his eyes. His hand came up to steady the swaying cross about
his
neck, and lingered there a moment, as though seeking comfort from the silver.

‘I should go and—’

He did not finish his sentence, but gave a curt bow and trod swiftly back inside the house.

I sat a while in silence after he had gone, my hands stilled on the shining white feathers. Then I began to pluck them again, humming over the limp body of the goose as though it was a silver gown I was sewing.

That night, after we had stuffed ourselves silly with goose in a piquant sauce, and pigs’ trotters roasted with the last of the autumn’s sweet, wrinkling apples, and our rough cook’s brave attempt at a courtly delicacy – a syllabub – we played traditional Yuletide games such as Blind Man’s Buff and Hunt the Thimble. For a while, breathless and giggling as we played our Christmas games, we could almost forget that Elizabeth was a prisoner under the constant threat of execution for treason. But every now and then she would stop by the window, staring longingly out at the darkness, and I would realize that Elizabeth must have spent some very different Christmases when her young brother Edward was King, showered with costly gifts and treated like a princess in the great courtly palaces of London. Cooped up here in the grim dampness of Woodstock’s ruins, she herself could never forget the injustice and tedium of her imprisonment, not even for a moment.

Father Vasco came to pay his respects to the princess after dinner but was quickly fatigued by our noisy antics, seeming to disapprove of people enjoying themselves on a holy festival. The old priest excused himself soon after the midnight Mass, and was helped to bed by Alejandro.

We celebrated the coming of the New Year in traditional English style too. The weather had turned bitter by the last few days of December, with a thin scattering of snow on the ground, so we huddled together by the fireside in the narrow smoky room overlooking the park and took turns to exchange gifts. Elizabeth gave me one of her oldest gowns, with only a plain silk edging on the sleeves, for I was not noble and by law could not wear too much by way of finery. In return, I gave her a handkerchief which I had embroidered with her initials entwined with a spray of her favourite flowers, the white eglantine. To my surprise, the princess seemed delighted with this and took it at once to show Blanche Parry, whose gift from Elizabeth had been a leather-bound book of psalms.

I had also made a small gift for Alejandro, a neatly stitched purse for his coins. This I gave to him unspeaking, a little embarrassed, remembering our conversation outside the kitchen on Christmas Eve.

‘Happy New Year,’ he whispered, and leaned across to kiss me. ‘Here is my gift to you.’

I think he had truly meant to kiss me on the cheek, in a brotherly Christian way. But I shifted at the last moment,
startled
and surprised that he had taken me at my word, and his kiss landed on my lips. That fleeting contact burned with a sudden ferocious heat that made me lose my head for a moment.

I gasped, as did he, both of us springing back from each other with hot faces.

Alejandro muttered something in Spanish, then seemed to groan. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . .’

One of the window catches was broken and a chill air blew in constantly from the river below, barely warmed by the heat of the roaring log fire. I hurried to the window and pretended to fiddle with the broken catch, though in truth I was letting the night air cool my cheeks.

If we had been alone . . .

But we were not alone, and already the Lady Elizabeth was staring across at us through the firelight, surprised, and Blanche was reading one of the psalms aloud to herself in a low-pitched voice, unaware of any atmosphere in the small room.

We celebrated a quiet midnight Mass for the New Year with the princess, Blanche Parry, and even Sir Henry, who had risen specially from his bed to share the body and blood of Christ with us. Father Vasco’s authoritative voice echoed about the chapel as he intoned the Latin prayers, his young assistant following behind with the wine chalice. This time I did not catch Alejandro’s eye, but bent my head in prayer after receiving the Host.

After Mass, I made my way to my chamber, which I now shared again with Joan. The dark-haired kitchen maid was already asleep and snoring as I pulled the covers over my chin and tried not to think of Alejandro.

It had been an amusing game at first, the young witch teasing the would-be Catholic priest with mysterious smiles and stares. But now the game had grown serious and tasted of danger. I had too many secrets to hide and I could not rely on the young Spaniard to keep them all for me. There was risk all around us at Woodstock. The closer the sharp-eyed Alejandro came to me, the nearer I moved to the hangman.

Early one morning, three days after New Year, my father came unexpectedly to Woodstock Lodge. My aunt had fallen seriously ill over the holy season and my father begged Elizabeth to spare me to nurse her back to health.

Elizabeth was annoyed to lose me, as I had become a help about the house as well as in her chamber. But she could see the fear in my face, and relented at last, giving me her blessing to return to Lytton Park.

‘Come back to us as soon as you are able,’ she insisted, and told me to take food and drink for the journey, for she knew I had not yet breakfasted.

Alejandro met me in the shadowy hallway and frowned down at the bag I was carrying, hurriedly packed with all my belongings.

‘How long will you be gone?’ he demanded.

‘My aunt is unwell,’ I explained tensely, not looking at him. ‘Please let me pass. I shall not return until she is better.’

Alejandro had thrown out an arm as though to bar my way. His voice seemed to deepen, echoing in the hallway. ‘Meg.’

I raised my eyes to his, then. ‘Yes?’

‘I . . .’ He stared at me for a moment, his gaze very dark. ‘You cannot go. The Lady Elizabeth needs you here.’

‘Her ladyship has given me consent to go.’ Stubbornly, I looked past Alejandro to my father, who was waiting in the narrow doorway to the lodge. My stomach hurt. I felt sick with fear that my aunt would die and leave me alone in this world. But I would show him none of that. ‘Please, I have to leave. My father is waiting for me.’

Reluctantly, Alejandro stood aside and I moved past him through the shadows.

‘I shall pray for your aunt,’ Alejandro said softly. ‘As I shall pray for you too, Meg.’

I clutched my ramshackle bag to my chest, its handles cracked and broken, and tried not to cry. I felt his gaze on my back like a brand, and knew Alejandro must be examining my father too. But he said nothing and did not follow us out to say farewell.

I should have been ecstatic. I was being released from my long servitude at Woodstock; I was going home to see my
beloved
aunt and nurse her back to health. Instead, it felt as though my heart were breaking.

As I shall pray for you too
.

I turned my face to the darkening skies as the cart lurched forward over the snowy ground. There had been no answer to that.

ELEVEN

Flesh and Blood

I FOUND MY
aunt more seriously ill than I had imagined, and gave up all hope of returning to Woodstock before the spring. I immediately set about gathering the wild plants I would need to restore her to health, and preparing the solution according to her own spell books. With the ground still icy in places, I was not able to gather all the plants on the list, but found some dried amongst her stores, and substituted others with those that grew abundantly in the winter months. Soon Aunt Jane was able to sit up and sip the bitter-tasting draught from a bowl. But she did not recover her full strength, nor did I think she ever would. There was a sickness at work in her body that no potion could cure, however skilfully mixed, and we both knew it.

In February, she began to speak again, and I told her in whispered snatches of how I had been discovered by Joan, casting the circle, and how Marcus Dent had come to interrogate me at Woodstock Lodge.

She seemed frightened by this news of Marcus Dent’s continuing obsession with me, yet her blue eyes sparked with some of their old power in her ravaged face, and she managed a fierce smile occasionally.

I did not wish to believe there was nothing I could do to
cure
her wasting sickness, even with the evidence in front of my eyes. My aunt had become horribly thin since the last time we had met. Her ribs poked through skin as fragile as paper, a delicate blue tracery of veins spread across her throat and arms, and her persistent cough grew harsher and more ragged each day.

One afternoon, while my aunt was sleeping, I cast a circle about her bed, lit the four sacred candles and softly began a Latin incantation against sickness which she had taught me the year before.

‘Meg, stop.’

I faltered in my spell, looking up to see that her eyes had opened and she was watching me across the candle flame.

‘Hush,’ I told her. ‘Go back to sleep and let me finish. You know this spell will counteract your ills.’

Aunt Jane shook her head. ‘It is no use, Meg.’ She smiled weakly. ‘Did I teach you nothing? You can mend the sick if your power is strong, but you cannot work magick against the deepest law of nature, which is death. To attempt such a spell would mean the destruction of your own soul, for nature would take your life in place of mine. It is the law of our kind, and we break it at our peril. There must be balance in all things.’

‘No, I can do this. Listen—’

‘I am dying, child. It is my time. Snuff out the candles and I will tell you something important.’

I did not want to believe her. But I could not continue the spell in the face of her refusal, so I did what she had asked me, blowing out the candles and reluctantly lifting the magick circle I had cast about us.

‘Good,’ she breathed. ‘Now, is there anyone outside the door? Go and look.’