Sing Witch, Sing Death Page 19

There was nothing to fear. Those climbing the path were intent upon their own affairs. Giggles, slaps, smothered shrieks, and uninhibited comments indicated very clearly what those affairs were. Man was about to be fruitful and multiply in earnest. Pamela spared half a thought to hope that weddings would follow the matings, before her attention was drawn back to those who remained on the ledge below her.

  This, she realized, was the hard core of the witches' coven. The others had not been adepts, but country folk joining in an age-old rite to ensure fertility. Sixteen women remained. Maud was probably the oldest of these, although half a dozen, at least, approached her age closely.

  The largest proportion were women in their late-middle years, a few were younger, but there were no girls present. Mary, whom Pamela could now see clearly near her mother, was the youngest among them. Then Potten's wife slipped away, back into the cave. Pamela turned her head toward St. Just, but his hand closed on her arm, and she remained still.

  Something more serious than the joyous dancing and leaping of the Midsummer rite was now being readied. The witches were drawing in on the ring of embers. Nine of the oldest, Maud excepted, were holding vessels of some liquid, muttering softly to themselves as they searched the circumference of the fire and finally settled irregularly around it. Maud looked up, gathering the coven together with her eye.

  "Ready?" she asked.

  "One of us is lacking," Mary Potten replied sharply.

  "There is no need for all of us to be here," one of the women holding a jar said, looking anxiously at the fire. "If we wait, we will be too late."

  "Then—" Maud began.

  "I am here!"

  It was a sharp, vicious whisper that carried with startling clarity. Potten's wife now stood at the edge of the light given by the dying fire, holding a bundle in her arms. Apparently she had come out of some recess in the cavern. Behind her was another figure, too much in the shadow still to be distinguished.

  "We have promised business to do," the witch Potten snarled. "What are we? Corn maidens? Old straw wives? We are women of power, and that power must be used to take final revenge on those who have offended the coven."

  "I know of none—outside the coven—who have offended it," Maud said.

  "You! You seek… Old, weak, and mewling that you are, bound by blood first instead of by the greater ties of power as you should be, you seek to save your daughter's nursling. The Tremaires are a family accursed! And a Tremaire still lives!"

  Once again Pamela pressed her hands to her lips. Here, out in the open, was the threat against St. Just. But where was Hetty?

  "The curse your grandmother, with just cause, laid upon the Tremaires has been fulfilled," Maud replied calmly. "She said no eldest son should inherit until the heir married a witch, and a child of that union bore the name."

  "Lady St. Just was no witch! Not once did she sing with us or dance around our fire."

  "She was witch blood. She had the eyes; she wore the colors; she had the power over life. Her voice could call the wild beasts from the woods, and her hands could heal. Who should know better than I what she was? She was sister's daughter to me."

  "There you have it." Scorn dripped in the angry voice of the witch Potten. "Sister's daughter's son! And you are tied to him instead of to the good and the power of the coven."

  "No." Maud was still calm, scornful on her part now too. "The Powers accepted me and cast you out. My torch burned with the true color. The wheel took life from me, and promised rich abundance. I walked through the fire without hurt. The Powers cannot be befooled. Would they choose me if my heart was turned from them? When you can do what I did, then you may challenge me."

  The face of Potten's wife, which had been evil enough in ordinary daylight, now crumpled and distorted until it was no longer human. Pamela understood the tales of vampires and werewolves. She was repelled and frightened, but not of the supernatural. The woman was insane, and from that point of view, something to be feared. It was Maud, however, facing that raving thing with monumental calm, who induced awe.

  "Charlatan!" the madwoman shrieked. "I know the way to real power, the path to a summoning that will bring her heart's desire to every woman here."

  She moved forward while she spoke, and laid her bundle on the ground near the fire. Pamela gasped as she saw the bundle move feebly, and realized it was the baby. The small sound that had been wrung from her was swallowed in a rising murmur from the rest of the witches. They had drawn together, away from both Maud and Potten's wife. Pamela could feel St. Just tensing, and guessed from the sounds the other men were making that they were getting ready to leap to the path and intervene.

  'That path leads to hell," Maud said clearly. "If we draw such power without need, and against the innocent, it will turn and rend us." Maud's hands seemed to twitch at her skirt, and she drew closer to the child and raised her arms so that one was directly above the little bundle and one stretched toward the dying fire.

  "It will not be raised against the innocent. The power will be called in a just cause—yours and mine. Let the power be sent to me. Then it will rend me if it is ill-used."

  The new voice, high and shrill with excitement, was terribly familiar to Pamela. She did not need to communicate her recognition, however, for there was a muffled murmur of distress from her companions as Hetty moved forward into the light. She was gowned in the purple velvet dress Pamela had seen on the chair in her room, and Pamela had to admit that Hetty's taste had been impeccable in this case. The dress was most suitable for the occasion. Maud dropped her arms and turned her head.

  "What right have you at our meeting?"

  Was there a note of satisfaction, of relief, in the old witch's voice? Certainly Pamela heard a long breath sigh out of St. Just.

  "I am come to crave this summoning," Hetty replied boldly. "I am come to prove that it is right and just. Vyvyan Tremaire is evil. He murdered my brother. He has threatened to kill me. I bring witness. One of your own—Mary—heard him."

  "I heard him," Mary said clearly from the other side of the fire, where she stood with her back to the sea

  "Nor was it an idle threat," Hetty continued. "He once pushed me down the stairs. I am a woman, and weak. I need your power to protect me. Also, I am your friend, and he is your enemy. He has spoken against the coven—said you were useless, powerless old women who could be driven away at his will. I believe in your power. I am ready to be your instrument, to save us all. Give me a weapon a woman can use, and summon your power to protect me against his tools in the household."

  "You lie," Maud replied, quite unshaken. "If he spoke against the coven, the protection given him would have been broken. I saw the pentacle drawn against him change its color in the fire, black against white, to white against black. He is protected."

  "Not against the Power I will summon," Potten's wife screamed. "Give it to this woman. She is not one of us, but she offers herself for our use. If his protection holds, the Power will turn against her, not against us. Let the Powers war and decide. I have the weapon here—a poison that lacks only a baby's blood to make it perfect."

  Suddenly a long, gleaming knife seemed to leap from the witch's clothing into her hand, and she bent toward the baby. Maud's hands flew up, one of them striking Potten's wife in the face so hard that she was jerked upright. A witch on the other side of the fire shrieked, "No!" and all drew farther away from Potten's wife and closer to Maud.

  "She has violated our covenant!" Maud cried. "She would act in a death matter without the approval of the coven. Cast her out! Deny her, ye Powers who give all life! Save the child! Drive her back!"

  As the men with Pamela leaped to their feet, Maud opened her hands, which had been clenched, and shook them once, violently, over the fire. The flames roared into renewed life, leaping into the air. Pamela was also on her feet, screaming with horror, then stumbling along in the wake of the men.

  It had all happened too fast. The baby would be burned alive. Even as she thought it, Pamel
a saw that there was a dent in that roaring inferno, a dim recess in which the little bundle lay quiet and untouched.

  "You!" Potten's wife snarled, raising the knife and turning toward Maud. But Maud's hand moved again as she stepped back swiftly, and a sheet of flame raged between her and her enemy. The demented woman whirled about. "I will redeem my rejection," she screamed at Hetty. "You brought me to this. You told me he was evil. You lied."

  Hetty did not even see the danger so close to her. She was staring wide-eyed, openmouthed, at the four men running toward the fire. The knife came down, slashing across Hetty's white breast. She screamed with pain, became aware of the insane witch; she turned, stumbled, began to run.

  To Pamela came a moment in time, immeasurably short, which seemed to stretch infinitely, so that every action stood out with minute clarity. Between one step and another, she was frozen, and engraved into that moment was a picture of St. Just's face holding the knowledge that all he need do to be free and rich was to remain silent instead of warning his wife of her danger.

  "Stop!" he roared. "Hetty, stop! You are going over the cliff!"

  At the same time, he grabbed for the witch, but she struck at him with the knife and tore loose. The flames had died as suddenly as they had risen; all were blinded. Dimly Pamela saw Hetty's face, a white blur, as she turned to look behind her, and trembled, paralyzed by the black depths she saw.

  The pale face was blotted out in the same instant by a shadow that leaped toward it. Sir Harold cried out; then there was an unbelievable, ululating double scream that ended sickeningly in dual thuds.

  "My daughter! Die, Tremaire! Die!"

  Pamela saw the mad witch dart forward toward St. Just, who did not even turn his horror-filled eyes away from the bluff edge, saw the knife rise, saw George leap across the fire. St. Just staggered back, fell with George on top of him—George, shielding his cousin's body with his own.

  William Allenby, who had halted long enough to snatch up the child and thrust it into Maud's arms, and Sir Harold were now advancing on Potten's wife. She backed away from them, knife raised, darted to the left, toward the path. She was clear of the men and would have run free, but suddenly her way was blocked by the witches.

  Blank-faced, in a solid phalanx, shoulder-to-shoulder, they advanced toward her. Not one sound was uttered; not one hand was raised in threat. When they were between her and the Allenbys, they stopped. They stared, silent, demanding. With a single despairing cry, Potten's wife turned and leaped out into the night.

  Helplessly, Pamela retched, but she found there was no time even to yield to the body's demands and be sick. George was struggling to hold St. Just, shouting, "No! No! Damn you, it's too late. You can't go over that cliff. You'll just be another body to fish out of the sea." And Pamela went to help him hold his cousin.

  "Stop that!" Sir Harold ordered sharply. "We need ropes and torches and boats, not another corpse."

  After that, memory yielded nothing but vignettes: the witches calmly forming the irregular circle Potten's wife had interrupted, pouring the contents of their jars on selected places in the fire; Maud singing softly, circling the embers, pulling fagots from the quenched spots and wrapping them tenderly in her skirt.

  Pamela found herself with the child in her arms, rocking it, and listening to a heated argument between St. Just and George. St. Just wanted to go down on the ropes. George opposed him, saying he was too heavy and that the cut the witch had inflicted on his arm would hinder his agility. Who went down, Pamela never knew, nor could she remember feeling any apprehension on the subject. Whoever did found nothing.

  The tide was coming in, and the bodies could have been forced into any one of hundreds of crannies, caught under the rising waters. Certainly none of the three women was alive. Morning, when the fishermen could bring the boats around from the port of St. Just and there was light to see, would be soon enough to institute a more thorough search.

  That was Sir Harold's reasoning. There was a heated argument about that, too, St. Just's voice rising in near-hysteria and Sir Harold barking remonstrance and orders. Pamela rocked the child and wept, not with grief or horror—there was no grief nor horror left in her—only because she was so tired and she could not see how she could ride home carrying the baby.

  Then a witch came and tried to take the child, and although she wanted to be rid of it, Pamela clung to it fearfully until Maud made her understand that she would return it to its mother. And then she was weeping in George's arms, begging his pardon for what she had thought of him. Nothing, it seemed, could discompose George. He held her gently, patted her sympathetically, and uttered his light laugh.

  "Nonsense, m'dear. Knew what you thought. Silly. Told you I was fond of Vyvyan. Understood, though. Was acting odd. Knew that. Knew what Hetty was about, you see. Trying to stop her without raising a dust. Besides, loving a man makes a woman silly. Nice that Vyvyan has a woman to love him again. Needs it. Take you back to Allenby Manor now."

  "St. Just?" she asked anxiously.

  "He's all right. Sir Harold will keep an eye on him. Won't leave here, though. Can't blame him."

  And then Pamela was up on her horse, clinging to the saddle with the desperate instinct of habit. Somehow, next, there was Sarah, thrusting a warm cup into her hand, peeling off her clothing. And bed. And oblivion.

  Chapter 16

  "Get up now, love, do," Sarah said caressingly, and Pamela opened her eyes in surprise. She had not known the grim maid could use that tone. "There's a pretty," Sarah added, pushing a pillow behind Pamela to help support her, and placing a tray across her lap.

  For a moment Pamela blinked at her, wondering, but content. She started to stretch her hand toward the tea, and her eyes widened. "St. Just!" she exclaimed.

  "Down below." Sarah gestured with her head, her expression changing.

  "Hetty?" Pamela faltered.

  "They found her—what was left of her. Drink your tea. Miss Pam."

  "I must go down." Pamela made to thrust away the tray, but Sarah pressed her back and shook her head.

  "Not now. Sir Harold is taking depositions. When they are finished, you can be ready. And pay no mind to what Master Vyvyan says. He's in a rare state."

  "Is he taking her death hard?"

  Sarah shrugged. "He blames himself—more, of course, because he is glad of it. That makes it worse, but he was always was the kind, from a child, who felt that his actions made the world turn. He cannot understand that some things are meant. I told you, that woman brought a death wish into the house. Death wishes are dangerous things."

  Pamela lifted her cup, but found her hand was shaking and set it down again. "Does he blame me too?"

  "For what? You only tried to help."

  "Oh, I did help," Pamela said bitterly. "Once he was ready to send Hetty and me away to Plymouth, and I convinced him to let us stay."

  Sarah laughed. "I did not give you credit for so much sense. Don't fret yourself. Master Vyvyan never blames those he loves—only himself. Whatever you said, it was his decision to make, and he made it."

  "But she is dead!"

  "Good riddance. You know, Miss Pam, I have no proof, but I think that wife of his arranged his father's and brothers' deaths."

  "That's ridiculous," Pamela whispered. "Hetty was not even in the country. There was a storm."

  "A storm, yes, but Master Arthur and Master Charles had sailed through many a worse storm. I have no proof, and never you tell Master Vyvyan, or he'll go mad. I only know this. A special messenger brought a letter from that woman saying Master Vyvyan was dying of yellow fever. Why send a messenger? The letter would have come as fast or faster by the regular mail. And that messenger went on board the yacht with the Tremaires—to tell them more of Master Vyvyan's condition, he said. Only the dinghy that went with the yacht was never found, and we heard through the covens that a man in a dinghy came ashore at Sennen. Only we heard it weeks later, when it was too late to catch him. What's more, Master Vyvyan never had y
ellow fever, never at all."

  "Oh, God," Pamela breathed sickly, and closed her eyes.

  "Now, you forget it," Sarah advised. "I told you because I didn't want you to get any ideas about giving Master Vyvyan up. She got what she was owed."

  "And the Pottens?"

  "Good riddance to them too. The daughter wasn't so bad, but she was bound to try to avenge her mother. Maud wouldn't have hurt her, but she was just as glad when she went."

  "Maud! Why, Maud is your mother," Pamela exclaimed, matters that had been submerged by Hetty's death coming to mind. "And St. Just's… St. Just's great-aunt. Heavens! Why are you a servant in Tremaire, Sarah? That is a disgrace."

  "I am not exactly a servant, Miss Pam, but I have no right to be more. Madam—Master Vyvyan's mother, I mean—was not ashamed of us, and always wanted us near. She was a proper gentlewoman. Don't think the late earl married beneath him, because he didn't."

  "But how could that be?" Pamela asked, distracted in spite of herself.

  "It was all Grandam—my grandmother. She was a gentlewoman, but wild—wild as bedamned. She had the blood in her, though where she got it…well, her mother wasn't all she should be either, perhaps. Anyhow, we only know about Grandam. She took a lover. That wasn't so strange for those days."

  "Nor for these, either."

  Sarah glanced at her and half-smiled, but then she shook her head. "Oh, that wasn't good enough for Grandam. She didn't have a nice, proper lover. She took up with a horse coper, a gypsy witch's son."

  Pamela's lips pursed in a soundless, appreciative whistle.

  "My mother, Maud, was born of that union. It was kept quiet, of course, and later Grandam married, all right and proper. Lady St. Just's mother was a child of that marriage, and Lady St. Just was a true gentlewoman, nor mark or stain on her. She was no witch, either, only a large-hearted woman who would not turn her common relations away."

  In spite of the weight of tragedy hanging over her, Pamela burst out laughing. "Oh, Sarah, are you trying to prove to me that St. Just is respectable? Dear Sarah, I don't care if his mother was ten times a witch. I wouldn't care if he took to capering around Midsummer Eve fires himself." The laughter left her. "I would be a witch myself, if that was what he wanted. I am afraid that he won't want me. There are so many ugly memories I would bring back to him."