The Triple Goddess (173 page)

There was a sharp intake of breath by the witches around the terrace; and, sponsored by Hecate, the flames of the torch nearest to Wanda Empiria, drawn by Brünnhilde’s own voluminous inhalation, in an exaggerated version of Hecate’s pipe-lighting made her look as though she were spouting fire.

Empiria’s bulk inflated still further, and her mouth opened as if in preparation for a Valkyrian “Hojotoho! Heiaha!”.

‘Insult!’ she trumpeted; and several champagne glasses shattered. Matching the flush on Empiria’s face, the ruby on her chest glowed, and Hotscale eyed it with interest.

Hecate frowned. ‘I do not wish to give general offence, and it may be the Jack Daniels talking, but a word of advice, Jesse: Go easy on your vocal cords, if you want to impress the audience at Bayreuth this year.

‘Actually, two words: I suggest that you moderate your manner, or the Metropolitan Opera shall sack you like it did that other woman for being such an obnoxious rhymes-with-witch.

‘Three words: Despite what, like a good hostess, I just said about the nibbles: for your own good I recommend you watch the calories; or the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, shall fire you like it did the lady who was too fat to fit into her costume.

‘By the way, that imitation ruby looks good on you, it shows off your natural colour. It’s nice that we get to see it so often.’

‘Imitation! It is a famous jewel that I inherited from my grandmother!’

‘Jesse, your grandmother Ethel was a cleaning lady. She did for me for a while, until I gave up cleaning because it was too disruptive, and on the wages I paid her she certainly couldn’t afford jewellery. If Ethel stole that thing, it wasn’t from me because I’ve never owned gems of such size, only the little ones I kept for the then Hotscale. But I doubt Granny Ethel swiped it: she was an honest enough woman to my knowledge, who never took anything more than a swig now and then from her clients’ sherry bottles.’

This time twin shrieks rent the air, not from Wanda Empiria but the two witches she was leaning upon as she lowered herself to the ground.

‘Out of my way!’ yelled the Chief Witch; and the crowd parted, as much as was possible given the crush on the terrace. Holding her arms and the dolman sleeves of her dress aloft, Wanda Empiria set sail for the other side of the balcony where Hecate was standing.

When she arrived, intending to bump chests with her, Wanda’s frontage came into contact with her ancient superior’s head.

As Empiria drew back a pace, the better to plan her next verbal or physical sally, Hecate darted up and snatched hard enough at the ruby to break the chain. Then she tossed the jewel to Hotscale, who caught it in his mouth and savoured it as if he were rolling an expensive wine across his palate.

But he might as well have been given a lemon, for his expression changed and he spat the ersatz jewel so far into the night that it pinged off one of the conveyances; which, judging from her enraged look, belonged to Wanda.

‘As I thought,’ said Hecate. ‘Paste. I’m sorry, Hotscale dear, I didn’t think it would be quite so unpleasant. It must also have been coated with spray from her atomizer of that foul scent she wears, Dangereuse.’ She leaned over the balustrade and patted Hotscale’s nose, taking care to avoid the hot plumes of disappointment that were issuing from his nostrils.

‘If you’ve dented my bodywork...’ blustered Empiria, adjusting her dress.

‘A chassis like yours?’ said Hecate, ‘I challenge anyone to do that. Or were you referring to the conveyance?’ The witches closest to Wanda groaned and shook their heads, and those who were sure she couldn’t see them tittered.

Hecate reached into her sleeve. ‘By way of apologizing to Hotscale on your behalf, and since the Phoenix couldn’t possibly wear a fake jewel, I’ve a real one here to give him in honour of the occasion that used to be worn by a queen.’ She produced a very large, not to say humungous, ruby, leaned over the stonework, and stuck it to the Phoenix’s chest like a medal. Hotscale looked down to admire it, and breathed such a long fiery flame of satisfaction that Jenny imagined the water far below bubbling from the heat.

The balcony was briefly enveloped in vapour, but when it cleared Empiria spoke again more calmly. ‘You will recall our agreement, Dame Hecate: you promised not to undermine my authority in any way. It was on such condition that I agreed to retain your services as Spell-Maker to the Guild, and allowed you to supplement your already generous pension. You seem to have forgotten that you only serve at my pleasure. As result of your behaviour tonight, I am now informing you that you have forfeited your position. You are hereby terminated.

‘It is unfortunate that I am compelled to announce my decision at a social gathering, especially one of yours, but you give me no alternative. In future Guild members will place their business elsewhere.’

Hecate smiled. ‘Is that what my pension is, generous? A mouse couldn’t survive on the crumbs you throw me…Wanda…and I’ve had enough of your bullying and objectionable behaviour. Pray tell, where else a witch might go for a halfway decent spell? As to your firing me, you can’t, because I quit. There’s only so much a woman of my patience can take, Jesse Saunders, and I have had more than enough of your insolence.’

Cracks lined the crust of powder on Wanda Empiria’s cheeks; and the witches, enthralled by the stand-off between the pair, packed themselves even more densely, leaving only a small circle clear around the combatants. A
Macbeth
ian double, double, toil and trouble had been brewing between the two women for ages, of course, and it was common speculation that one day there would be a showdown. It appeared that moment had come, and nobody wanted to miss it; though, the many who were still inside could only strain to hear, and do their best to get as close to the glass walls and open doors as they could to hear and observe the action, and demand that word of the live action be passed back to them.

The great majority of witches who doubted Dame Hecate’s superiority over her successor as Chairperson of the Witches’ Guild didn’t have long to wait to be proven wrong.

As the contestants glared at each other, Wanda Empiria began to slowly shrink in height and width; until, a minute later, she and Hecate were eye to eye as well as toe to toe, and matched for size.

Next, lifting herself on the points of her toes, Dame Hecate began to revolve, and then spin, turning faster and faster until she was a blur.

When after some moments the whirling slowed and she came to a stop, Hecate was transformed. She had become taller than Wanda Empiria had been before her diminishment, and taller than any of the others around her. Her body had filled out, and her back had straightened. The grey pallor of her wrinkled face had been replaced by skin that was taut and fresh. Her hair, which hung loose well below her shoulders, was shining and luxuriant and black, black, black. The bones of her cheeks had heightened and become defined; and her nose, though straight, was slightly bumped at the bridge. Her lips, which had been drawn and thin, were full and glossed black.

As to Dame Hecate’s dress, in place of her former attire she was wearing, under a Renaissance patterned silk-lined jacket of printed velvet trimmed with silk braid, a creation similar to a 1920s’ black silk satin dress by Mariano Fortuny in the clinging Delphos style resembling the draped costume on Greek statuary, in which the column-like effect was achieved by the designer’s patented method of permanently pleating the silk so that it clings to the contours of the body and pools on the ground.

Jenny, as awed as she was, could have sworn that she had seen the same jacket and gown in the Victoria and Albert Museum; and she was about to blurt a comment to that effect when Hecate, glancing at her and possibly apprehending an infringement of copyright, changed into a jet black bias-cut moiré, or watered silk, evening gown, circa 1930, by Worth, which flowed from her creamy shoulders down her body to the same liquid effect as that created by the Fortuny. Charles Frederick Worth, who was born in Lincolnshire, had been a friend—he wouldn’t have minded.

What followed also happened very quickly. Hecate raised the slender ringless fingers of one hand in a graceful curl towards the moon, and a silver luminosity shone from them, as she said in a low but authoritative voice:

‘From the moon to the sea and everything thereabout, Heavens, Earth, and Underworld, know that I am Hecate. My ancient power is as it ever was, and those who do not believe in me are confounded. In the name of the Moon, and the Owl, and the Raven who obey me, I declare this Guild ended. All that is about me, howsoever distant as well as near, is henceforth now as it was and always has been and evermore shall be.’

The ballroom disappeared, and as if it were part of a moving stage the balcony sank away to leave the terrace, like John Donne’s island, entire of itself. The witches both in- and outside had vanished, and in their place hundreds of white mice piled over each other in their panic to get as far away as possible from Hecate in every direction...and fell into a dark void, as if the edges of the terrace were the margins of a flat world.

When the last of the mice, which was larger and fatter than the rest, stopped to look back, an eagle owl swept out of the night, and without pausing in its flight picked the mouse up and bore it squeaking shrilly into the night.

Hecate turned to Jenny. ‘There, that’s taken care of that. And now, Jenny,’—she took her hand and pressed it—‘this is goodbye. You may call upon me in spirit, however, as you contend with what life holds in store for you.’

After her many questions of the last hours Jenny was speechless, knowing that the time for them was over just as she wanted to ask the greatest of them all, and this time receive a frank answer.

B.J. waved. ‘A fond farewell, Jenny.’

With a swirl of her gown and train, Hecate was seated beside B.J. on the Phoenix’s back. As she took the reins, the brume that had arisen around Hotscale rolled away, and he was flying away from the castle with measured beats of his wings.

Jenny watched as the Phoenix climbed higher and higher, and grew smaller and smaller…until he was no bigger than a
Parvus esmeralda
, a miniature dragon; and then a single red glowing jewel; and then nothing, against the great bland pitted face of the moon. When she looked around to confirm that she was alone, the torches went out. When the moon too was extinguished, it became not just dark, but dark-dark: darker than pitch, the sort of dark that makes it seem as if it might never be light again.

But it was, suddenly, and after Jenny’s eyes had readjusted she saw that she was no longer on a terrace with a giant urn and a fluted classical column. Nor was she in a ballroom filled with guests, and exotic musicians, with chandeliers, an ice-sculpture, an endlessly bubbly champagne fountain, and an all-you-can-eat buffet; nor in an empty room with empty glasses, burnt-out cigarettes, and perhaps a dropped handkerchief, loose sequin, or feather on the floor.

Nor was she in an apartment filled with old furniture and bric-à-brac, with bookcases and pictures, stacks of papers, a gigantic birdcage with the bars bent apart, a desiccated witch hanging from the ceiling who told the time, and the paraphernalia of spell-making.

She was not even in a dusty cobwebbed room, unfurnished but for a small low table with a piece of tallow on a flowered ceramic flat candlestick.

She was in an attic, however: one with three ordinary windows matching the ones that had been visible from the outside. The interior was very bright, owing to a bolt of lightning that had cleaved the roof, from underneath which a square-cut oaken beam had collapsed and broken through the floorboards. And she was wearing her original garments of corduroy jacket, cotton blouse, wool skirt, and sensible shoes; and carrying the old satchel that, lightened by the bottle of whisky that the Clerk of Works had taken away with him, contained the remains of her exploration kit.

The broken rafter was sloping down through the hole in the attic floor at a shallow enough angle for Jenny to clamber on top of it, and work her way farther down until she was standing in the same corridor where Jenny and Jock McJoist had searched for evidence of hidden rooms; in vain, until whatever might have happened, happened, and until Eugénie Beauvais Plantagenet found whatever it was that she might have found.

Discovered only later were the earrings and the pearls around her neck.

”

’

Chapter Thirty-Seven

‘This lacuna in, or out, of her life concluded,’ said Sorias, ‘as she told it to me, Jenny went downstairs and resumed her life, the sorry remainder of which I summarized at the beginning of this story. She never wrote down a word about her adventure that day, or told anyone other than myself about it. And you gentlemen, you Impatients, are the only people I have shared it with.’

For fully five minutes, in the dull light of an indeterminate morning hour, all was quiet on the ward. Then, with a phlegmatic crackle Speaker Steerforth eased himself with difficulty into a sitting position, and spoke in a thick voice.

‘Someone was talking. At least I think so...though perhaps I’ve been asleep and dreaming. I feel…well, it’s difficult to say how I feel or whether I feel at all. Steerforth pinched the flaccid skin of his arm. ‘Hm. Not conclusive. Whether I’m alive or dead, difficult to say. Is there anyone here other than myself, and if so are they awake? My eyes are only just beginning to focus.’

After a long pause there came from one bed, ‘I am here’; and then from elsewhere, ‘Here,’ and, ‘Yes, here.’