The Devil's Surrogate (2 page)

'Who... who's
there?' she cried, her voice thin and wavering in her terror of the
unknown. 'Please,' she wailed, when Crawley made no reply nor moved
to reveal himself, 'please, whoever you are, take pity. I am no
witch; surely you must all know that by now. Ask in the village, as
I said, everyone will tell you.'

'Oh, people
always tell me what they think I will believe,' Crawley replied,
breaking his silence at last, though still remaining back from the
light, 'at least in the beginning.' His voice betrayed his north
country roots, though many years had softened the harsher edges of
his accent. 'Satan woos his brides to proliferate his evil lies,
but the Good Lord has bestowed on me the gift of cutting through
them.'

'Sir!' Tears
welled up in the girl's eyes and began trickling down cheeks that
were already stained. 'Sir, I am no bride of the devil, nor do I
lie. I fear God and worship our saviour and a more devout girl you
will surely never find.'

'You are
Matilda Pennywise, of the Parish of St Jude?'

The girl
nodded, swallowing hard.

Crawley inched
forward, so that his outline was now visible to her, but only as a
deeper shadow. 'Speak girl,' he commanded. 'Are you, or are you
not, Matilda Pennywise?'

'Yes!' Matilda
gasped. 'Yes sir, indeed I am... sir,' she added as an
afterthought.

'That's
better, wench,' Crawley cackled, 'you seem to be learning something
at last.' He coughed, clearing his throat. 'Then, Matilda
Pennywise,' he continued after a carefully judged pause, 'you stand
accused of several counts of witchcraft, sorcery and consorting
with unholy forces.'

'No!' Matilda
shrieked. 'No, it's all lies, as God is my witness!'

Without
warning Crawley leapt forward, his right arm swinging in a wide
arc, the open palm of his hand slapping into the girl's unprotected
cheek with such force that she would have been knocked off her feet
were the chains not holding her upright. She let out a howl of
pain, not least because the full weight of her body had momentarily
been transferred to her already tortured upper limbs.

'Silence!' he
roared. 'Heresy, to invoke the name of the Lord God you have
betrayed.' Matilda was struggling to regain her balance and clearly
scarcely heard him, but Crawley knew his words would sink in
eventually. 'You are all the same, you Devil's spawn harlots, every
single one of you,' he intoned. 'Yet I shall save your unholy soul,
mark my words. You will return to the arms of the heavenly master
cleansed of your foul wickedness, else my name be not Jacob
Crawley!'

The main action of the story takes place in and around the
fictitious village of Leddingham, near the border between the
counties of Hampshire and Surrey, set on what is now known as the
main A3, the road from London to the great naval port of Portsmouth
on the south coast. The local inn,
The
Black Drum
, owned by Thomas Handiwell, does
a brisk trade from both travellers and locals alike.

Just to the
north and west of Leddingham lies the huge Grayling estate, run in
the absence of his father, Earl Grayling, by the cruel and
manipulative Roderick, who has built up a lucrative business in
white slaving, concentrating mostly on young women trained at the
Hall by his strict overseers and then sold on to all parts of the
world.

A little south
of Grayling Hall is the much smaller farm estate of Barten Meade,
owned by Oliver Merridew, a former army major now virtually
bedridden as a result of wounds sustained during his military
career. The impoverished farm is kept going by Harriet, his pretty
and intelligent daughter, but times are so hard that she is
beginning to consider the marriage proposals she has received from
the widowed Master Handiwell. He is unaware his affection for her
has triggered a terrible hatred in his daughter, Jane, who sees
Harriet as a threat to her inheritance and who is also terribly
jealous that she was not blessed with the same fine looks.

A would-be
witch, Jane has recruited a small band of highwaywomen, including
Roderick Grayling's younger sister Ellen, and this foursome have
terrified the night roads, robbing coaches and abducting any
suitable young females to sell to Roderick. Into this trap comes
Sarah Merridew, Harriet's cousin, recently orphaned in London after
a local plague outbreak and now seeking the sanctuary of her only
remaining relatives.

Meanwhile, Jacob Crawley has arrived in the village, a
brooding, menacing figure who carries with him a written authority
appointing him as a
witchfinder
, even though the church
supposedly abandoned such practices more than a decade earlier.
Crawley has been summoned by the local minister, Simon Wickstanner,
whose spurned advances toward a young local girl, Matilda
Pennywise, have turned to thoughts of revenge spurred on by the
rumours that Matilda's grandmother, Hannah, is hoarding a small
fortune amassed by her own father, Nathan, now dead many long
years.

With a dubious
signed testimony by a local labourer, who has since mysteriously
died, Crawley arrests Matilda and subjects her to a horrifying
ordeal whose purpose he alleges is to draw a confession from her as
well as to purge her of her sins. However, when he attempts to
persuade Hannah to pay penance in gold to save Matilda from the
scaffold, he is astonished to be met with outright refusal.

Thomas
Handiwell has meantime set off for London in an attempt to persuade
the army to send men to help him search for the abducted Sarah,
while the resourceful Harriet has recruited the assistance of young
Toby Blaine and his friends to try to help her discover who is
behind the kidnapping. Unfortunately, although she succeeds in
uncovering some of the identities of the perpetrators, she herself
is captured when she attempts to pay a ransom, and is substituted
by the vengeful Jane for Matilda and left in the crypt of the
church, naked, hooded and gagged, and surely soon to be hanged
before Crawley or his assistants have the chance to discover her
true identity.

Thomas
Handiwell has meantime returned to Leddingham, completely unaware
that the hand behind the now double abduction is that of his own
daughter, Jane.

'Our methods
are now well and truly tried and tested, Sir Peregrine,' Adam
Portfield said smugly. He always enjoyed escorting prospective
clients around the estate; delighted in showing off the training
techniques he and his fellow overseers utilised, secure in the
knowledge that his employer, Sir Roderick Grayling, would have
vetted these visitors most thoroughly before permitting them access
to this, his most closely guarded citadel.

Today's
visitor, Sir Peregrine Wellthorne, was younger than most. The sort
of money the Grayling enterprise commanded for its human products
tended to be beyond the reach of all but the most wealthy and such
wealth usually took time to accumulate. Sir Wellthorne looked to be
in his early thirties, although his flushed countenance suggested a
lifestyle not conducive to longevity. Wellthorne had inherited his
father's shipping fortunes when the old man had, unfortunately,
gone down aboard one of his merchantmen during an unseasonable
storm in the Channel. Peregrine had since proceeded to employ much
of his wealth in ways that would have had his father turning in his
grave, had they ever been able to recover his body and give it the
luxury of one, that is.

'Yes, I'm sure
you know what you're doing, Mister Portfield,' Sir Wellthorne
drawled, his eyes bulging slightly as two buxom females appeared in
the doorway at the end of the long barn, naked except for stringent
leather harnesses and matching leather hoods that completely
obscured their features. Behind them, a young and lanky
sandy-haired fellow cracked a heavy whip. The wicked thong missed
the girls' defenceless shoulders by mere fractions of an inch, but
the sharp report made them flinch nonetheless.

'Tell me,
though,' he continued, swivelling his head to watch the progress of
the glistening bodies with their bouncing bosoms, 'why the hood
thing? Don't want your clients to see what they're buying, is that
it?'

Adam smiled,
but kept his face turned away so that his companion could not see
his amusement. It was the usual question, after all, and few
visitors understood without having it explained to them, sometimes
more than once, and then there were still those who were unable to
grasp the concept. 'The girls are slaves now,' Adam said very
slowly and deliberately. 'They all come from different backgrounds
- city streets, country lanes, and even, sometimes, from quite
comfortable circumstances. The only thing they have in common is
that they are comely, young, fit and pleasing to the eye. Once they
arrive here, however, they have everything and one thing in common,
the only thing that counts, namely that they are now slaves and
have no will, or choice, of their own. Neither will a pretty face
or a pleading smile avail them, not while they are kept hooded, as
you see most of them now. By hiding their faces we submerge their
individualities, indeed their very personalities. They soon come to
understand that now they are seen as only one thing, a means of
gratification and service to their masters and mistresses to be.
Here we view them only as one might view any other livestock. A
farmer doesn't value his cows by the prettiness of their faces,
after all!'

Sir Peregrine
guffawed and nodded enthusiastically. 'Indeed not! A good point,
and well made, sir. Though a good brood mare may oft times be
judged by the lines of her muzzle and not just by her flanks.'

'Which is why
we always give our buyers every opportunity to view the goods
properly before buying,' Adam said. 'Meantime, however, we keep the
bitches masked and their hair shorn, so that even when they are not
wearing the hood for bathing they all feel as if they look alike.
Besides, for those we send abroad, the lack of hair is an advantage
when it comes to ensuring they don't become flea-ridden during the
long voyage.'

Sir Peregrine
retorted, laughing, 'Well, a few fleabites never hurt a wench,
that's for sure! But I daresay you fellows know your trade.'

'Indeed we
do,' Adam muttered. 'The easier it is to keep our cargoes clean,
the more of them survive to reach their destinations. Lost stock is
lost money, Sir Peregrine, and I was raised to abhor waste in any
shape or form.'

'Well, I must
say, the shapes and forms about here are most pleasing.' Peregrine
leered as another pair of hooded and harnessed slaves appeared at
the end of the barn, followed by an even younger groom. These two
girls were very pale-skinned; evidently their bodies had never been
exposed to the elements.

'These two,'
Adam said, noting Peregrine's renewed interest, 'come from the
north, probably from the Norse lands. They were purchased cheaply
from a Scandinavian sea captain who needed money to affect some
urgent repairs to his vessel after a storm forced him to turn into
Harrogate two weeks since.'

'But you'll
not be offering them on so cheaply, I'll venture.'

'Business is
business, Sir Peregrine,' Adam smiled at him again. 'Besides, the
prices are none of my business. Sir Roderick sees to that side
himself.'

'When he's not got one or another of his little
piccaninnies
sucking on
the end of his cock, that is?' Peregrine sniffed, and then let out
a raucous laugh. 'Damned if I can see what he finds so attractive
in that pair of black wenches. Not one of them stands any higher
than this!' He raised a hand to about the level of his heart.
'Probably only keeps them because nobody else would pay good money
for such freaks!'

Adam refused
to be drawn out. Like Sir Peregrine, he found little he considered
attractive in the two diminutive African girls, but then he knew
that tastes varied, and he was not about to decry those of his
employer, who very much enjoyed the doglike devotion and willing
mouths of Popsy and Topsy, and would not willingly swap them even
for the most alluring white beauty. 'Perhaps you see something you
might like to sample yourself? With our compliments, of course,' he
suggested, deftly changing the course of the discussion. 'We have
several girls now who are suitably broken, and they're all clean
enough once we sluice the dust of the day off them. Perhaps I could
show you some possibilities and then offer you some refreshments
while the lads prepare your choice?'

Harriet
recognised the gaunt figure of Jacob Crawley even in the near
darkness of the crypt room into which she had been cast by Jane
Handiwell's cohorts, but she knew he would not have recognised her
even if the room had been bathed in bright sunlight. The thick
leather mask concealed her identity completely, and the barbarous
spike from the metal cage that had been locked onto her head over
the hood dug viciously into her tongue every time she tried to move
it, making intelligible speech completely impossible.

'Ah, dear
little Matilda,' he grunted, stooping over her prone figure and
reaching out a bony hand to stroke her naked left breast. 'What a
shame to waste such youthful perfection, but the work of the Lord
allows little room for personal gratification or preferences.'

The man was
clearly insane. Harriet was sure now of what she had already
suspected as she saw the strange light burning deep in his eyes.
That he would assume she was Matilda was no surprise, but that he
could pretend, let alone evidently believe, his evil actions were
even remotely excusable or connected with religion proved to her
beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was completely mad. However, mad
or not, she was now totally in his power, and judging from what she
had heard from the villagers, in imminent danger of her life.