Green Darkness (61 page)

“What does she want them for?” asked Celia half laughing.

The old woman said, “Witchery,” and snapped her gums shut.

Celia and Dickon started out, she on Juno and he ahead with the hamper slung over his back.

There was no road; there was seldom a discernible path, but Dickon knew his way with the certainty of any primitive. He skirted the worst drains, though they sloshed through others; he avoided the quivering bogs, and finally led her along a sandy ridge until she could hear the lapping of sea water on the shingle.

“Yon’s witch hut,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. “Dickon goos no furder.” He dumped the hamper down by a large clump of samphire.

She stared at the bushes, at the sandy dune beyond them, then saw a thin trickle of gray smoke. “The witch lives down there?”

Dickon gave his odd cackle, which meant assent. “Dickon goos hoom,” he said, “Gran’s a-waitin’. Her got a rasher o’ bacon fur me.”

Celia’s good sense suddenly asserted itself. “Look, Dickon,” she said. “You bide here. Stop
here
until I come back. You’re clever—I’m not. I’ll be lost in those fens. I
need
you to guide me.”

She saw that she had not reached him.

“Gran’s a-cookin’ me bacon,” he said, “an’ dumplin’s to goo wi’ it.”

He turned and began to walk.

Celia was seized by panic. She slid off Juno, and twined the bridle quickly around a hunk of driftwood. She ran after Dickon. “Halt!” she said grabbing his arm. He looked at her in alarm.

“Have I doon wrang?”

“Aye—” she said, “
nay,
not if you stay here! You shall have bacon, a whole flitch to yourself at Skirby Hall, I vow it.
If
you do as I say . . .” She saw that this did not reach him either, yet as she stood there holding his arm, pressing against him in her urgency, she saw something flicker in his blank eyes. His lids narrowed, and his nostrils distended. She pulled his head down and kissed him on the lips. “See, you can have more o’ these, if you wait for me!”

He licked his mouth and gaped at her. She kissed him again, uncaring by what method she could force him to stay.

He gave a strangled gasp, and grabbed her, while slobbering on her cheek. She knew that she had won.

“Loose me, Dickon,” she said in a voice of calm control. “Loose me ’til I return to you. Bide with the horse!”

His grip on her slackened, his arms fell limp. He put a tentative dirty hand on Juno’s saddle. “Dickon bides here?” he said, and when she nodded sternly he gave his mindless giggle and squatted by Juno’s browsing head. As Celia stumbled towards the dune she heard him crooning, “Dickon bides . . . Dickon bides . . .”

She had picked up the hamper to insure her welcome, nor minded the weight—before the last years of soft living, she had lifted many an ale keg—besides, the bite of the wooden handle under her clenched fingers emboldened her, kept down the edging fear.

She reached the top of the dune and realized that the hut was not immediately below, where every high tide would have swamped it, but set cannily back in an unexpected crevice of brown rock, which was further protected from the sea by still another large dune, dotted with scrubby shore bushes. The hut was made of wattle and daub, like all those in the fens, but as Celia neared it she saw that the hard clay between the wattles was studded with cockleshells. The smoke rose from a small squat chimney—a refinement which astonished Celia.

She floundered on, then stopped as she saw the plank door open and a gray seal come slithering through it, giving sharp little barks.

“The familiar,” Celia thought, and stifled a spurt of hysterical laughter when a woman’s clear voice called out, “
Ne va pas trap loin, chéri!
”

Celia didn’t understand the words, but the meaning was plain, just like her own admonitions to Taggle when she let him outdoors.

She walked resolutely up to the shut door and knocked.

There was dead silence inside. She knocked again, crying, “Good day, mistress, I’ve got your hamper!”

Again silence, then a muffled “Go away!” which held a note of outrage.

“No,” said Celia, “I’m alone, I came to see you, brought your provisions.”

The door opened a crack, Celia trembled a little for she knew she was being inspected, but could see nothing except a long, billowing, whitish mass.

“
Damoiselle
. . .” said the voice, “you are brave . . . Enter, then!” The door was flung wide, and Celia shrank back.

The water-witch was naked, except for thick, wavy white hair which partly covered her as it fell to her thighs. The nakedness was Celia’s first shock; she saw the outline of firm breasts and belly, slightly rounded like a young woman’s, and there were certainly two legs—not a mermaid. Shock mingled with disappointment until the woman tossed back her hair, swept it back with a defiant movement of her long arms, and advanced a step into the sunlight.

Then Celia saw the scars. The knotted yellow welts on the legs, the distorted feet, where several of the toes were only stubs. And the face—ravaged on one side by livid bumps, the mouth twisted up towards the right ear.

“Holy
Jesu
. . .” Celia whispered. The hamper fell from her limp hand. “St. Mary . . . what happened to you?”

“
Le feu
. . .” said the woman quite casually. “
Us m’ont brûlé pour une sorcière. Ah, j’oublie
. . .” she paused, searching for words. “
Longtemps . 
.
 .
long time I ’ave not speak Eenglish, no speak to anyone except Odo—my
phoque
—” she gestured towards the shore where the seal had disappeared. “I was burned for being witch in France,” she said. “My English lovair save me.”

Celia started, her mouth went dry. “Horrible,” she whispered. “The cruelty . . .”

“
Cruauté,
” repeated the woman as though examining the word. “Possibly
justice,
” her large brilliant eyes fixed ironically on Celia, “since I
am
a witch!”

Celia expelled her breath on a long gasp. This was no prank, no interesting venture undertaken for a reason she could not remember. She wanted to flee, and yet her feet seemed rooted. She was terrified, fascinated. “I—I brought your hamper . . .” she said feebly.

“Ah-h—” said the woman. “You came not only for
zat
reason—you want my help.” Her twisted mouth could not smile, but her eyes softened into a gleam of amusement. “You need not fear me,” she said quietly, “if your heart is pure.” She had beautiful tapering hands, they were unmarred, for they had been tied behind the stake as her burning began. She put one on Celia’s arm. “Enter,” she said softly. “It is good to talk . . . so many years I have not.”

Celia slowly followed her into the hut, which smelled of the sea and was very clean; the floor was covered with sand only a trifle yellower than the witch’s abundant white hair. There was a wide couch in the corner made of sacking stuffed with crumbled dry kelp. The little fire was burning driftwood, the flames flickered blue and green. On the hard mud hearth there stood an iron pot and skillet. Celia’s eye was then caught by the round central table and an X-shaped folding armchair, because both were so incongruous in the isolated little hut. They were exquisitely carved, and had been painted, though the gilding and the colors were faded now. Even at Cowdray, Celia had seen no furniture so delicate.

The woman watched Celia, and nodded. “Milor’—from love—then pity, tried to give me some comforts. Afterwards, he left. He was
noyé
 . . . drowned, sailing back.”

“How could you know?” Celia, puzzled, tried to fight a growing sense of helplessness. She understood that the lover who had managed to rescue the woman from the stake was an English lord, that he must have had this hut built for her and then abandoned her.

“I know much, I know much others cannot, I am Melusine,” said the woman with a proud lift to her chin.

Celia thought the name pretty, though she did not comprehend why it was spoken with such meaning. She now saw that the long eyes that were fixed on her—mockingly, tenderly—were not dark, as she had thought. They were green, the yellowish green of a cat’s, and the pupils too seemed long instead of round.

Again fear touched her, a wish to escape.

“Nenni . . . 
ma
belle
—” the pretty hand tapped her arm. “We will know each other better when we have shared. . . . 
les fleurs de rêve.
”

Melusine brought the hamper indoors. Celia noticed how she teetered on her deformed feet, lightly touching the wall for balance. This no longer seemed pitiable. The nakedness had ceased to shock her, but Melusine went to a huge oaken coffer which stood in the shadows, and took out a filmy gown. It was gray, and decorated around the neck with little pearls—made, Celia recognized, in a fashion long forgotten, like an old one of Ursula’s. The looseness, the flowing sleeves bordered with pearl bands, the demure cut of the bodice. “This is how I
was,
” said Melusine, “many men loved me.
Alone
I feel better to be nude.”

Celia stood tentatively by the table, watching as the woman slipped into the gown, then said, “
Alors,
m’amie—Take and eat!” She opened the hamper and extracted the packet which Dickon’s grandmother had said was hemp leaves, they were mixed with dry flowerets. She poured some in Celia’s palm. “Lie down,” said the woman, “put them in your mouth!”

“I—I don’t wish to,” Celia said, but she obeyed. She found her mouth filled by brown morsels. They were little different from the drying sage or thyme she occasionally tasted in her herb garden. One part of her thought, this is ridiculous, the poor woman is mad—so long here alone . . . and yet she obeyed.

She lay down beside Melusine on the kelp mattress. She chewed and swallowed the hemp leaves. Melusine did the same.

She did not touch Celia.

Presently, a soft dreamy state overcame Celia, she ceased to think at all, she raised her head on an elbow to see the twinkle of colored flames as they became vivid jewels, more lovely than any she had ever seen. She smelled amidst the fragrance of the sea, what must be perfume from Melusine’s gown, a sweet musky smell, sweeter than any rose. She heard Melusine’s voice, and did not know in which language the soft languorous tones were being uttered. They had become a distant music which needed no translation. She knew that the woman was talking of herself. Melusine de Lusignan, that there had always been a Melusine back and back beyond the reaches of time. Melusine was born of a fountain, but she took mortal lovers. Melusine knew many enchantments, but she had received a mortal soul. She went daily to Mass, she did no harm, she resisted the blandishments of the devil. Until one day she was tempted—tempted by a promise. There was a duke who wished to be king. If Melusine, using her great powers, would insure the king’s death, then coffers of gold would be hers, and the duke would raise her to be his
maîtresse en titre—
even, perhaps, his queen.

So small a matter it was, she had but to make a waxen image of the king, pierce it through the heart with a needle which had been dipped in the brains of a hanged murderer, then say certain holy words of power backwards. Well, she had done so. And the very next night the king began to sicken.

Melusine’s voice ceased. She took another pinch of the dried hemp, chewed on it slowly, voluptuously. Celia stirred a little. It was like hearing the old time romances Ursula used to read her at the priory. They, too, had kings, and murders and fairy spells, and was there not even a water sprite called Melusine in one of them?

Her languorous gaze moved from the fire and rested on a pattern of seashells on the opposite wall. The shells formed a star, and there was a rosy whelk in the middle. How beautiful it was—the glossy convoluted pink shell! It glowed and pulsated. She stared at it.

Melusine began again to speak. Now the voice had more urgency, the tone disturbed Celia’s trance.

The king would have infallibly died, Melusine said. But they caught her with the wax image. That Medici woman caught her, for she, too, was versed in the black arts.

“The Medici woman?” said Celia, jolted from her dreams.

“
La reine
. . .” answered Melusine, “Catherine . . . the pawnbroker’s daughter . . . she had me burned . . . 
c’etait juste
.”

Celia swallowed hard. Her head cleared. The expanding walls, the rosy shell, the colored flames all turned dull, ordinary, as her own chamber at Skirby Hall. The woman’s story was real, the king was real—he was King Henry who lived in a palace called the Louvre in Paris on the other side of the water which washed the shores below them right now. And this strange woman, mutilated, half crazed by the horror she had undergone, whether witch or not—Celia jumped up from the couch.

“’Tis getting late,” she said, “Dickon’s waiting, I didn’t mean to stay so long.”

Melusine’s eyes widened to their sad, mocking look. “First . . . the love philtre you came for! Some gallant who spurns you, even though you are so fair?”

“No, no—” cried Celia, “not that. My husband . . . he can’t . . .”

“Ah-h—” said Melusine. “
L’impuissance
 . . . you came to
help
him?”

Celia bowed her head, though at that moment she could not see John’s face.

“Do this!” said Melusine. She took a faggot from the hearth and drew a pentacle on the sand. “Five points like this. Then take this powder—” she drew a tiny vial from a sack near the window. “Put it in the center, then say, ‘Ishtareth, Ishtareth’ three times. Place the powder in his drink. He will lust for you . . . 
avec tout son corps,
he will make a son in you, for this powder is from the mandrake root.”

Celia frowned, she stepped back, staring from the vial to the pentacle. “It might harm him . . .”

“Ah, you fear
me,
and what I have done,” said Melusine, “but God has forgiven me, believe me . . . 
voyons petite—
you have a crucifix in your pouch—ah, you jump. But I know these things . . . Take it out!”

Celia, whose heart had resumed the hammering she had not felt since entering the hut, slowly did so.