Witch from the Sea

by Philippa Carr

  “So we found our solution, Linnet,” she said. “Pray God it was the right one.”

  THE FIRST WIFE

  COLUM AND I WERE riding to Castle Paling.

  That morning we had had a second ceremony, this time with the customary festivities.

  My father had been far from displeased.

  “You sly creature!” he shouted at me. “It’s what I’d expect of you. And already carrying my grandson. Take care of him, or it will be the worse for you.”

  “It might be a girl, Father,” I said.

  “So you’re going to be such a one as your mother, are you? Can’t get boys? We’ll see.” His chin wagged with amusement as I remembered so well from my childhood. When he had seemed to be angry and glowered at me, and shouted abuse, if I saw that movement of his chin I had known that he was secretly amused. Thus it was now.

  We rode a little together, although he wouldn’t allow me to gallop. “Remember my grandson,” had become a catch-phrase. He was pleased. He liked Colum.

  “By God,” he said, “you’ve got a man there. And went off and married him in secret, eh.” He slapped his thigh with delight. “To tell you the truth, daughter, I never greatly cared for Fennimore Landor. A good fellow in his way, but no fighting guts. It won’t be like that with your man, I’ll tell you. There’ll be fights a plenty, I doubt not, but remember, you’re your father’s daughter and fight back. Be like your mother. I’ll tell you something—she has the occasional victory.”

  I could see that he thought that his marriage was the perfect one. A peaceful union such as I might have expected with Fennimore Landor was in his eyes faintly despicable.

  How different it might have been if he had known the truth. We were right to lie to him.

  And so we had married early that morning, partaken of the wedding feast and allowed the guests to continue with it while Colum and I left for the journey to Castle Paling. As it was only some fifteen miles from Lyon Court I would not be so far from my family which was a comforting thought; and strangely enough as I rode along with Colum, although I was conscious of a certain fear, my excitement was intense and odd as it may seem I would not have had it otherwise.

  He was smiling, well content; and I could not help a little pride because he had been so eager for our wedding. It was nearly three months since that night which had changed my life, but it seemed years ago. I could hardly think of a time when I had not known of Colum’s existence.

  “Very soon,” he said, “we shall come to Castle Paling, your home, my bride. There we shall live happily ever after.”

  There was a hint of mockery in his voice but I did not heed it. It was a beautiful day, the kind we get sometimes in the West Country in February, the sort of day when it seems spring is tired of waiting and is making a premature appearance. There were tufts of new leaves on the elder bushes and yellow flowers of the coltsfoot on the banks. In the fields there was a spattering of crimson-tipped daisies and as we forded a shallow stream I noticed the purple catkins of the alder trees there, which toned with the butterbur flowers blooming near the water.

  I was smiling and he said: “So you are reconciled to your marriage so hastily enforced by circumstance?”

  “I was thinking of the beauty of the countryside.”

  “It is said,” he reminded me, “that when one is in love the grass is greener and the whole world becomes a more beautiful place.”

  “I am inclined to think it is the spring,” I said.

  “I shall soon convince you what a fortunate woman you are. You will one day bless the night you first came to Castle Paling.”

  I was silent and he went on: “I shall have to insist that you answer me when I speak to you.”

  “I did not think your comment needed an answer.”

  “It does indeed. You must answer fervently that you will always remember that night as the happiest of your life … to that time.”

  “I did not think I should begin my married life by lying to my husband.”

  “Nor would you if you said that, for it is true.”

  “How could I say I remember when I remember nothing?”

  “You do remember. There was much of which you were aware.”

  “Do you mind if we do not speak of it?”

  “I am determined to indulge you.”

  He sang as we rode along, the same hunting song I had heard before.

  “It sounds joyous,” I said.

  “It is the song of the hunter bringing home his prey.”

  “It is fitting then.”

  “Oh entirely so.”

  Then he laughed in the loud way I was becoming accustomed to and for some reason, although I feigned indignation, my spirits were lifted.

  Castle Paling! My home! It rose before us, grim, forbidding but immensely exciting. I looked up at its grey stone walls which had stood for four hundred years and doubtless would stand five hundred more and even beyond that. There was an invincible durability in those strong walls. They had been built to defend and they would go on doing so.

  Those walls forming a plinth at the base were made to withstand the picks and battering-rams of an enemy. There were four towers, two facing the land and two the sea, battlemented and with their look-outs and their apertures for pouring burning pitch down on to the heads of intruders. The window-openings on the low levels were few—narrow slits which could be well guarded to prevent intruders.

  “Welcome to Castle Paling, wife,” he said, and together we rode under the portcullis and into a courtyard.

  As if by magic several grooms appeared. Colum leaped from his horse, threw his reins to a groom and lifted me down from my horse.

  Side by side we crossed the courtyard and as we reached the small door in the great stone wall, he lifted me up in his arms and stepped into the castle.

  “The three of us together,” he whispered.

  Then he set me on my feet.

  We mounted a narrow staircase and came to the hall, which was lofty with a gallery surrounding its upper level.

  “Your home,” he said, with pride. “My family have lived here since the days of the Conqueror—for they came from Normandy with him. We have always been conquerors. It has changed since then for improvements have been made. My Norman ancestor came here, built a castle and took a Cornish maiden to wife. She gave him many sons and daughters and they married and bore more so that we became a clan. We have in five hundred years become Cornishmen. Of course the castle was not like this in the first place. Just a fortification—guard-room, dungeons and thick impenetrable walls. We added to it as time passed. I doubt not I shall add to it. Why, I have begun by adding a bride.”

  Then he lifted me up and kissed me heartily and said: “We are tired after our journey. We will sup quietly, and to bed.”

  Then we ate and drank together and it was like that other night in many ways.

  It was a different bedchamber, much grander, containing a large four-poster, the tester hung with embroidered silk curtains. Candles burned in the sconces and I noticed a big court cupboard boldly carved with acanthus and leaf work. There was time to notice nothing else, nor think of it, for my husband was beside me, removing my gown and my petticoats and carrying me to the curtain-shrouded bed.

  And after that I knew I would cease to think of that fateful night at Castle Paling because there were others and in time they would all merge into one and I would forget that I had been taken so unwillingly for as though by magic my unwillingness had gone, leaving me excited and eager to embark on the voyage of discovery in which this man, who was already beginning to dominate my life, was showing me the way.

  An indication of my feelings towards him was revealed to me in the early morning when I lay awake watching the dawn slowly filter through the silken curtains which shut us in.

  He was awake also.

  He said: “I arranged it, you know.”

  “You arranged what?” I asked.

  “I was determined to have you when I saw you in t
he inn. How well guarded you were! By God, your mother is a tigress of a woman. She would have fought to the death for you. I knew I had to plan and could do nothing that night.”

  “Go on,” I said. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I knew where you were going. Trystan Priory. I know it well. The Landors’ place. You were staying for a week. Your maid told one of my servants that you were coming back that way.”

  “You mean …”

  “You begin to understand. They were my men who waylaid you on the road.”

  “The robbers …”

  “Just good servants. I was ready waiting to rescue you and bring you here … where the scene was set. It was not your purse we were after.”

  “You are wicked,” I said.

  “It is well that a wife should know her husband.”

  “You deliberately arranged all that to take place … You caused us such anguish … myself … my mother …”

  “Sometimes it is necessary to suffer to be happy. All came well in the end. See, you have a lusty husband and a fine home. He has already planted his seed within you. In six months’ time our son will be born. And there will be many more, I promise you. For I like what I have, wife. I liked you from the moment I saw you. I know when I want a woman.”

  “There have doubtless been many.”

  “Oh, many. But you were the one for my wife.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Well bred, worthy to be mother of my sons. A good family, a good dowry, for your father is a generous man and a rich one. You were suitable in every way. But I wouldn’t have had you if I hadn’t wanted you. I could find a rich wife without trouble, but I had to have one that pleased me too.”

  “I should loathe you,” I said.

  “And you don’t. I know that. You couldn’t pretend to me, although you tried. Why, even on that first night … I could feel your responses. You wanted me, my girl, although you were so helpless and ignorant. You knew it, did you not? Somewhere within your mind was the thought: He arranged it. He is that sort of man. He takes what he wants and there is no gainsaying him.”

  I was silent. Had I suspected? I think perhaps I had. But the great discovery was not that he had arranged that this should happen, but that I should know it and be glad that he had.

  The weeks which followed my arrival at Castle Paling were ones of discovery of myself and my nature. Strange as it seemed I was happy—not peacefully, quietly so, but because I was in a state of continual excitement. It could never have been thus with Fennimore Landor I knew full well.

  My relationship with my husband was the dominating factor. I was completely fascinated by him. He was indeed the lord of the castle and everyone hastened to do his bidding. His anger could be terrible. I saw him strike servants with his riding whip if they displeased him; they trembled before him. When he was not in the castle an atmosphere of relief prevailed—it was a sort of respite, I supposed, from the need to be continually on the alert to please him. His loud voice could be heard echoing through those great chambers. He was indeed the master.

  It was a wonderful experience to know that I was so important to him. I laughed to myself when I thought of his planning my seduction. He must have wanted me very fiercely to have gone to such lengths. He had made this obvious to me. He was delighted with me. I was an inexperienced girl but a passionate one and he found great pleasure in teaching me. There was no doubt that he was completely absorbed in our relationship and it did not occur to me to ask myself how long it would last, for I would not remain a pupil for ever and very soon I would begin to be less shapely.

  He was delighted about the child and I could see that, like my father, he passionately wanted a son. My mother told me that her inability to give my father sons had been the cause of a great deal of trouble. She had once said that she believed that if she had given birth to a son my father would never have turned to Romilly and Penn would not have existed. Who knew?

  Colum would talk about “our boy”, and I would beg him not to talk so constantly of a boy for it could well be a girl.

  “Nay, nay,” he would say, feeling the faint protuberance of my body. “This little one is a boy. I know it.”

  “And if it is a girl are you going to dislike her?”

  “I’ll accept her. There’s time for boys. I know you will give me one.” He bit my ear rather sharply. “You wouldn’t dare do aught else.”

  And he went on talking of our boy.

  He would insist on my taking care. It was very important that I should produce a healthy boy. He wanted nothing to go wrong during my pregnancy. “A man can get lusty boys on serving wenches but by God, often the fates are against him when he wants a legitimate son. It must not be so with us,” he added, as though if it did it would be my fault.

  That was how my father had been with my mother, I dare-swear, and she had longed to please her husband as I did mine.

  The castle itself was a strange place to be in. There was so much to know about it. There were so many servants that I could not keep track of them.

  The four towers with ramparts and battlements formed the main structure. In two of these towers, the Crows’ Tower which faced the land and Nonna’s Tower which faced the sea, we lived with our personal servants. I wondered about the other two. From the Seaward Tower—on a level with Nonna and which also looked out to sea, I had seen men and women coming and going. I supposed they were servants but I had rarely seen them working in that part of the castle where we lived. But the place was so vast that there would naturally be many servants and it would take a long time to get to know them all.

  Sometimes I would go to the ramparts of Nonna’s Tower and look through the battlements to the sea. There the great black rocks known as the Devil’s Teeth could sometimes be seen, but only when the tide was out. They were a group of cruel, sharp-pointed rocks. Teeth was an apt description, particularly if they were seen at some angles. Then their formation could be likened to a grinning mouth. At high tide they were not visible, lurking as they did just below the surface of the water. They were about half a mile out to sea and almost in a straight line with Castle Paling. Some people called them the Paling Rocks.

  The great wall of the castle on the sea side rose up starkly straight, and looking down at the surf below, I thought what a well chosen spot it was for a fortification. It would have been almost impossible to attack from the sea and there was only the landward side to be protected.

  I found the desire to stand up there and lean on the battlements and gaze down irresistible and dangerous. It seemed to me symbolic of my life here.

  Once when I was up there I was seized from behind and Colum lifted me off the ground and held me high. He laughed in that way of his which I could have called satanic.

  “What are you doing up here?” he demanded. “You were leaning over too far. What if you had fallen? You would have killed yourself and our son. By God, I’d never have forgiven you.”

  “As I should have been past your vengeance why should I care?”

  He put me down and kissed me hard on the mouth.

  “I couldn’t do without you now, wife,” he said.

  I put my hand up and touched his hair. “Why do you always call me wife? It sounds unromantic … it is as an innkeeper might call his spouse.”

  “What else are you?”

  “Linnet.”

  “Bah!” he said. “A silly little bird.”

  “Names change when you are fond of people. You might get to like it.”

  “Never,” he said. “The day I call you Linnet you will know I have ceased to love you.”

  I shivered and he noticed.

  “Yes,” he said, “you should take care to keep me warm. You must always do your wifely duty. You must give me sons and sons.”

  “Beauty is impaired by too much childbearing.”

  “That may be. But the sons are a man’s compensation.”

  “But if she no longer arouses his desire?”

  “Then
he turns elsewhere. A fact of nature,” he said curtly.

  “I would not wish that to happen.”

  “Then you must see that it does not.”

  “And what if a wife is neglected? She might turn elsewhere. What of that?”

  “If she were my wife that would be the time to beware.”

  “What would you do to her if she were unfaithful?”

  He lifted me up suddenly and set me on the parapet. He laughed and it did indeed sound like the laughter of devils. “I should take my revenge, you may be sure. Mayhap I’d give her to the rocks.”

  He lifted me down and held me against him. “There, I alarm you and that is not good for our boy. Why should you speak of such things? Have I not given you proof that you are my choice?” He took my chin in his hands and jerked up my face. “And you, are you a wanton then that you talk to your husband in this way? What of Fennimore Landor, eh? Did you not once think of marrying that man?”

  “It was mentioned,” I said.

  “Did he ask you?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “I am amazed that you did not accept such a model of virtue.”

  “It was after …”

  That amused him. “After I had taught you what it meant to bed with a real man, eh?”

  “Remember I was not conscious.”

  “Enough though to realize, eh?”

  “I knew that I had been deflowered.”

  “What a foolish expression! Deflowered! Rather have you been flowered. Have not I given you fertility? Our son will be the flower and the fruit. Deflowered! I did you great honour and much good as you will admit.”

  “Yes,” I said, “I think I will admit it here, where none can hear but you and the choughs.”

  Then he kissed me again and in his hands which caressed my body was that tenderness which was the more precious because it was so rare.

  Then he held me against the stone wall and he talked about the castle, how it was his stronghold and how he had walked the ramparts when he was a boy, how he had dreamed of possessing it and had played wild games in the dungeons and on the winding spiral staircases.

  “There are stories of my ancestors which we pass on from generation to generation,” he told me. There was in his eyes a yearning and I knew he was seeing our boy playing in the castle, learning to grow up like his father.