The Devil's Mistress Read online

  “’Twas such a puzzling thing to say. It vexed me all the night, ’til I heard tell of Mister Ashford’s murder. Then I remembered watching her leave with that servant, the one who stands hence.” She pointed to Jacob. “He was waiting outside. I can only imagine what they must have been planning. She must have thought that if they killed her father together, they would inherit his estate.”

  “A treacherous plan,” Sloop bellowed.

  Marianne sniffled, and for the first time, Isabella saw just how much she resembled her son.

  “I can’t help but hold myself responsible,” the woman said, looking bereft. “Isabella is a young and impressionable girl. Perhaps if I had demanded she stay and explain herself, John might yet still live.”

  Sloop was quick to her side. “Nonsense, madam. You mustn’t blame yourself.”

  The woman began to cry, turning herself into the man’s arm.

  Everyone fell silent. There were nods of heartfelt encouragement. More than a few tears from the eldest amongst them, who had known John since the town’s inception. Then the stillness was broken by a single, soft voice.

  “Liar,” Isabella whispered. The word was a garbled, mutilated thing, but it was audible just the same.

  The magistrate looked up. “What was that, dear?”

  “Liar,” Isabella said, looking at Sands. Then, fixing upon Thomas, “Liar! Liar!”

  A wave of unrest swept through the crowd. Those closest to Isabella took a step back, and a few of the elders crossed themselves. Even Sloop was put off temper, his mossy eyes flickering this way and that.

  Jacob’s elbow flew into his captor’s nose, and he tore free. “Elly,” he yelled, running across the square. “Elly, I’m coming!”

  He was almost there when Wembly, the young watchman from Isabella’s cell, tripped him with one long-heeled boot and sent him sprawling into the mud. The watchman pulled him up under the edge of his sword and grabbed ahold of his hair.

  Behind them, Sands was on one knee, holding his nose and swearing.

  The members of the crowd stirred, unsure whether or not to watch the coming debacle or flee.

  “Order,” the magistrate cried. “Order!”

  Isabella bit down upon the remains of her tongue and spat upon the table. Blood flew from her mouth, striking the magistrate, the guards, the priest. Marianne gagged as a large, red droplet landed upon her lips.

  Isabella laughed, a high tittering sound tinged with madness. In the throws of that laughter, the watchmen grabbed her and dragged her to the ground.

  “To the rope,” Sloop cried. “Get this thing from my sight!”

  The magistrate leaped to his feet. “You will not! She has yet to speak in her own defense.”

  Sloop looked at the creature on the ground, bound helpless, deformed, yet still struggling. “She cannot speak, not with any perspicacity, Mister Beauchamp. Her mind is as severed as her tongue.”

  The magistrate looked on, his face working for an answer that would not come. Then came the sound of a throat being cleared. It was a small, delicate sound, but it cut the uproar off before it had verily begun.

  At the edge of the gallows, Marianne Huxley was dabbing her face with a handkerchief, her expression as honey-sweet as a poisoned apple. “Gentlemen, it is clear the girl is not herself, though we must obey the law and allow her a defense, must we not?”

  “We must,” the magistrate said, still looking at Sloop.

  “Then perhaps we should employ a test.”

  The magistrate broke his gaze and turned to the woman. “A test?”

  “Yes, Mister Beauchamp, one embraced by our kinfolk in England.” She looked toward the shoreline. “The waters of the inlet are said to be cleansing, and so they shall be. We will employ the test of dunking. She shall be cast into the sea, and if the waters push her out, we know she is a witch, true. I had my carpenter build a chair for this express purpose yesterday. Is the chair ready, Charles?”

  The crowd parted to reveal a stocky man with orange hair and thick, muscular forearms. “Ready as steady, madam.” Then, turning to Isabella, in a lower tone, “Told you you’d rue the day, you little cunt.”

  The other men at the gallows still looked confused.

  “What do you mean?” the magistrate asked.

  Marianne sighed, gesturing once more toward the bay. “We drown her.”

  Chapter 17

  Upon the shore was built an apparatus in the shape of a child’s seesaw, with a wooden chair dangling above the water at one end, and a counterweight tied to land at the other. In the center was a long wooden pole attached to a primitive fulcrum, and though a certain beauty rested in the device’s simplicity, the haste of its construction left the observer with the impression of flimsiness more than strength.

  “Will it hold?” Sloop asked doubtfully.

  “’Twill hold as surely as the gallows,” the carpenter huffed. “’Tis my work.”

  The court stood in a semicircle near it, the members of the town milling about in open fascination. Isabella stood at the center, bound in rope and secured by Sloop’s cronies. Following the outburst at the gallows, she was once more a placid, docile thing. Blood ran freely from her mouth to her chest, and she paid it all the mind of a babe drooling at the feeding table.

  “You cannot do this.” Jacob was on his knees at the far end of the circle, his hands bound behind him and a rope round his neck.

  “Shut it, dog,” the young watchman said. “Watching God’s work, you are.”

  The magistrate approached the contraption with his small hands upon his hips. “This is most irregular.”

  Marianne appeared beside him. She towered over the magistrate by at least a head. “If the girl is innocent, she has nothing to fear. We shall pull her up before her body has grown cold.”

  The two watchmen hauled Isabella toward the rocky shore. Her body was limp as they navigated the path, her feet dragging through the mud behind her. Jacob renewed his struggle and was again shut down by the young watchman, who laughed as the boy choked and sputtered.

  The men forced Isabella down upon the chair and bound her to it. The stocky carpenter gathered several men from the crowd to hold the counterweight.

  Though Sloop was getting on in years, he was not about to waste the opportunity, and thus climbed unsteadily upon a protruding rock, holding his hands high before the murmuring assemblage. “Friends, you have come to witness expiation, and expiation shall be done. If she be of God above, He shall hold her near beneath the drink, and if she be of the pit, He will cast her out and spit her from the waters.” He took a breath. “For those who believe we are not watched, that we are not judged, I ask you to look no further than this poor, wretched soul. Mark this day. This be what happens when you stray from the path. Attend, fair children, and see His will.”

  Sloop motioned to the men at the counterweight, who were in such a hurry to obey that they removed their hands completely, allowing the opposite end to drop with full force into the water.

  “No,” Jacob yelled.

  Isabella sank beneath the water in a violent splash. Her mouth opened reflexively beneath the tide, and she sucked in a full measure of brackish water. She screamed into the gurgling silence.

  The magistrate paced back and forward as the seconds passed. “Isn’t that quite enough?”

  Sloop ignored him, looking toward the water for any sign of spellcraft. ’Twas not long, however, before the crowd grew restless, and he was forced to relent. “Enough. Raise her up.”

  The men bore their weight down against the pole, and the chair rose above the water. But where there was once a girl sat a wild demon, thrashing and choking and spitting water over the shore.

  “It does look as if she’s quite possessed,” Marianne observed.

  “I agree.” Sloop motioned to the men. “Again.”

  “Sir,” the magistrate pleaded.

  “Again!”

  The men relea
sed the pole, and Isabella once more sank from view. A minute passed.

  “She’s drowning,” the magistrate huffed. “Raise her. I demand you raise her at once.”

  Sloop waved him off. He couldn’t understand why the device wasn’t working. Like Marianne, he had read the trials and tribulations of many a devil’s concubine. The Malleus Maleficarum, the Daemonologie of King James VI, the account of the hangings in Massachusetts. All of them pointed to a clear and concise means of discerning guilt, and no matter what else had transpired on this day, he was certain Isabella was guilty. Even more guilty than his Gwendolyn.

  “Raise her,” he said at last.

  The men pushed down, and the girl rose from the waters. She still struggled, but not so much as before.

  “Release her,” the magistrate demanded. “I should never have allowed such a primitive experiment. It is not Christian.”

  Sloop continued to stare, turning over the events in his head. He was not the only one. Members of the crowd circled the contraption like vultures, confused at having been so denied their meal. Some even appeared to have lost their appetite.

  “If I might offer a suggestion?” Of all those present, Marianne was the only one still smiling. “Perhaps the Dark One has not intervened because she is not in any true danger. If we were to rectify this, he would make Himself known.”

  “Madam Huxley,” the magistrate began, “I should hardly think—”

  “What do you suggest, madam?” Sloop asked.

  “We tie a rock to the chair and let her sink. That way, no man can raise her. When the Devil realizes she is in true danger, he will expel her from the water.”

  “Perhaps,” Sloop said, ruminating. “If she does not perceive the danger, she must not be using her powers.”

  The magistrate stepped between them. “Tiberius, you shall do no such thing, or I shall remand you to the state. I am in charge of this prosecution, not you, and I shall not be ignored.” He turned to one of the men at the counterweight. “You there. Get you down to the other end and release that girl.”

  The man looked on dumbly, not at all sure he wished to obey the will of the magistrate over the will of God.

  Sloop considered his options. The last thing he wanted was for Beauchamp to return with a contingent of the queen’s soldiers. “Oh, very well.” The magistrate started forward when Sloop said, “But if we are not to put the girl in true danger, I think we can agree upon one more dunk?”

  The magistrate looked about, then seemed to consider his own position, standing amidst a restless and hostile crowd. “Mm,” he said at last. “One more dunk, I think. Then we shall be done with this horrible business.”

  Sloop nodded, and with the wave of his hand, the chair collapsed into the water for the third and final time.

  Chapter 18

  The pole made a terrible groaning sound. Isabella felt herself drifting to the right. She struck the water with a cry, mistiming her breath and letting loose the air in her lungs too soon. Water rushed into her nose and mouth. She lurched upward, coughing and heaving in a desperate attempt to breathe. To her surprise, she expelled the water into open air. The chair had come to rest upon a rock, leaving her nose just above the surface.

  “There! There,” Sloop yelled. “See how the Devil saves her!”

  The crowd erupted in shouts and jeers. Mothers pulled their children away. Grown men sank to their knees in terror.

  “Draw her up,” Sloop called. “To the rope with her!”

  The men near the deck rushed to the counterweight and pushed down upon the pole. There was a long, splintering crack. The beam burst at the fulcrum as if struck by lightning, and the pole split into two lolling halves. The chair tilted sideways, and Isabella’s face slipped below the water. She cried out, inhaling another mouthful of water. The beam shifted, and the chair drifted back to its previous angle, allowing her a moment of respite.

  “The Devil’s work,” someone shouted.

  “Save us,” yelled another.

  Sloop motioned to one of the men at the counterweight. “You there,” he called. “Fish her from the water. Go on!”

  There was another problem, however.

  “There he is, the whore’s servant! Hang him!”

  Two men had managed to procure the leash from the young watchman and were now dragging Jacob across the grounds. The leader of the little band—a balding mill worker with a missing front tooth and arms like hardwood logs—tossed the loose end of the rope over a tree branch and jerked it down. Jacob was hoisted into the air by the neck.

  The magistrate’s eyes darted back and forth as if unable to comprehend the sudden pandemonium that had descended upon his trial. With a mouse-like squeal, he turned to run. He tripped over a piece of driftwood and crashed head-first into a rock.

  Sloop, whose eyes had been elsewhere, turned to find the man lying motionless upon the ground. There was a ghastly lump on his forehead. “Mister Beauchamp? Geoffrey! Wake up!” Though he would not.

  There was another yell by the tree. The leader of the small band had gathered more to his side. Jacob was now ten feet in the air, strangling and kicking.

  “Stop,” Sloop shouted. “You’re killing him!”

  At the shore, the carpenter’s contraption gave another groan. The end of the wooden pole snapped clean off and splashed into the water. The current sucked the chair into the tide, where it cracked and bounced upon the rocks. One of the chair’s arms splintered and broke free.

  Isabella tried to swim with one arm and found herself powerless against the tide. Her body began to move downstream, weaving up and down as the current carried her from the shore. The water strangled her at intervals, pulling her beneath the surface and then floating her to the top. Try as she might, she could not suck in enough air to scream.

  Before she was carried round the bend, she thrust herself upward, catching one final glimpse of the shoreline. The last thing she saw was her servant boy, turning purple as he was hoisted high into the air and left to dangle like a broken marionette.

  Chapter 19

  She awoke on the shore of some distant place, surrounded by driftwood and a clutter of seaweed which had washed in with the tide. Before her lay the vast expanse of an unknown forest. Behind her was the empty sea, which disappeared into a low and rolling mist as it stretched toward the horizon.

  It was nearly dark.

  The wind, which had earlier been chased by the bright light of the sun, had returned in force, howling across the beach in a low, mournful wail. She held no protection against its bite. Her meager rags had been swallowed by the deep, ripped from her body at some point during her journey.

  Nevertheless, the waters had been cleansing. The dirt, the grime, the blood and filth that had so painted her were gone. Even her bleeding tongue, which had been a ragged and heinous thing upon the morn, had been staunched by the coarse salt of the bay.

  What was left was a hollow shell, a collection of skin and hair that had once been a girl named Isabella, and was now Nothing. All the things which had come before—her family, her home, her friends—they were part of a life she could no longer reach. Her father was gone. Her home was gone. Her servant boy… He was gone, too. Without these things, she could not even feel herself.

  And so she stood upon the beach, watching the sun slip from the sky and the orange orb of the moon rise in its place, having no thought to guide her, nor instinct to satisfy.

  A measure of time passed—minutes, or hours; it was impossible to say—and then a low, gray shape appeared at the tree line. It found a log at the edge of the forest and sat, observing this odd human who had come within its territory. The Isabella of old might have recognized the creature, might have remembered its sharp teeth, its vicious snarl, the blood of her father’s livestock matted upon its fur. But the Nothing saw only a shape which may or may not have been a wolf, and whose ability to rend flesh concerned her not at all.

  The beast stared at
her for several long minutes, then turned and left. It returned a short time later with something dangling from its mouth. It dropped the gift twenty paces from where she stood, then ran back to the forest and disappeared.

  The Nothing regarded the object: red upon one side, matted with fur upon the other. Without knowing why, she began to walk toward it. The smell of a fresh kill came wafting toward her, and she found herself growing hungry even though she had no particular desire to eat.

  She picked the offering off the ground. It was tattered and torn. A leg of some sort, perhaps from a doe or a small elk. After a moment’s consideration, she pushed the meat past her missing teeth and took a tentative bite. And then she was not just tasting it, but devouring it, ripping it, swallowing hair and skin and meat alike. The juices ran down her chin, and she scooped them up with her hands and sucked her fingers.

  When the leg was but strings upon the bone, the wolf reappeared. It came as far as the log and turned to face the forest. She understood she was to follow, and having no particular prejudice against such an action, dropped the remains of the leg and began to walk in its footsteps.

  She followed it into the line of trees, where the canopy blocked the moon. The creature was barely visible in the dark. It began to stop every twenty paces or so to let her catch up.

  The night grew thicker, and the beast began to disappear for longer and longer periods of time. Then it disappeared for good, and she found herself wandering alone in a vast and empty darkness. There was no light, no direction, no purpose. Even the wind had all but quieted, broken upon the backs of the knotted pines which twisted and rose into the sky.

  At last, there came something. A sound. A thrumming, steady beat, like the timber of a hollow drum. A small orange dot appeared on the horizon and began to flicker. The fire of an encampment, some miles ahead.

  Both grew in intensity with each passing step. Soon, there were whispers and laughter. The fire projected upon a circle of moving figures whose shadows twirled about the flames. Ten, or perhaps a dozen people, danced to that steady drum which thumped and thundered like the ticking of an ancient clock. Naked they were, heedless of the dark, the cold, and the dangers of the forest.