In the very centre of the pentagram Herleva unrolled a lamb’s fleece, skin side up, and smoothed it flat, then withdrew a drawstring bag from her bodice and placed it in the middle. The bag was made of a leather so fine it was almost translucent.
Herleva sank to her knees and sat on the edge of the fleece. When she stopped chanting, the silence was unbearable.
‘Do you feel it?’ she asked, looking up at us with glittering eyes. Her face was deathly pale and shone with a pearly luminescence. She looked like something from another realm, not of this earth. I dreaded to think where she really was, despite apparently sitting in the centre of her wicked circle like a black spider in her web. The light itself seemed to be drawn to her, bending towards her, and a steady minuscule breeze flowed past my shoulders as she sucked the very air from the corners of the room and into the centre of her circle.
All that remained was Herleva. All that mattered was Herleva. She was the centre of everything.
‘I feel it,’ Arlette whispered. The reverence in her voice made me sick. She wanted this; Arlette actually wanted this. Her longing was palpable.
Herleva reached out a hand and stroked the bag with the tip of her finger.
‘What animal is it? Calf? Baby rabbit?’ Arlette dared to ask.
The being in the centre of the circle, who looked like Herleva and sounded like Herleva, but did not feel like Herleva, spoke.
‘Baby human. The bones it contains were fashioned from the same infant.’
I recoiled, shrinking back as far as I dared, hoping the shadows would conceal me, but knowing they were Herleva’s to command. The thought of a bag made from the skin of a baby made my stomach roil and churn.
Herleva smiled. My reaction had not gone unnoticed. When she saw Arlette’s nod, her smile widened further.
‘You have not shown me this before,’ Arlette said.
‘You were not ready to see, my child. Now you are. This babe was the stillborn daughter of someone far more powerful than I. These bones are ancient, passed down through the centuries. At present they are mine and some day they will belong to you.’
Arlette sighed. It sounded like a lover’s caress.
‘You are my successor, my chosen one. I saw you in the skull and you called out to me, remember?’ Herleva said.
‘I remember.’ Arlette had not taken her gaze from the bag. She stared at it like a mother gazing at her new-born infant, rapturous and enthralled.
‘The first time you bled I sensed you,’ Herleva continued. ‘Let that blood show you the way now.’ She held out a hand.
Arlette placed a stained rag in it, one of the rags we both used to soak up the flow of blood during our moon-time. It was dark with her menstrual blood.
Herleva examined it, then nodded once. She picked up the bag, spread the rag out on the lambskin and opened the drawstring.
‘I am going to ask the bones one question. Only one question per casting gives a truthful answer. Choose your question wisely, and do not make the mistake of asking two questions in one. The bones are not so easily fooled.’
‘You speak of them as though they are alive,’ Arlette said.
‘Mayhap they are, my sweet…’
The possibility made my skin crawl, but I did not discount it, not after what I had been turned into.
‘If Edward dies, will Alfred become king of England?’ Arlette asked, after a long pause.
Herleva closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and began to chant, her hands weaving patterns in the air, as if she were spelling out the words she sang.
Caer heol, carder, caer heol.
Pen wraeth arhoch drewarth abant,
Caer heol, carder, caer heol.
When she opened her eyes again, they were black, all black. Not a hint of white remained.
Then she cast the bones, allowing them to fall where they wished.
Despite my fear, I leaned forward. They were smaller than I expected. Such tiny shards holding so much magic. The colour of fresh cream, each one was hardly larger than a finger nail and just as thin as the wafers at mass. Some were painted and others not. I suspected the ones with no markings had landed face down, their pictures hidden. Was that of any significance, or were they to be ignored because they could not be seen? Perhaps the pictures which could not be seen were as significant as those which could, the hidden ones telling their own story, contributing to the reading as a whole.
I did a quick count. At least seventy pieces of bone lay scattered on the rag. The pictures on them were so small I had trouble making them out, though the colours were as vibrant and as strong as the day they were painted. One was a sword, another a scaffold, a crown was painted on a third. There were two tiny people entwined, a horse, a horned figure with a pointed tail, and many more, all delicately drawn. I marvelled at the skill, even as my soul shuddered and cried out.
Herleva studied them for many heartbeats. My knees hurt long before she lifted her head. When she finally did, I gasped. Her eyes were pale and sightless, her features more like a skull than a living woman, white and drawn, the skin cleaving tight to the bone. Her mouth opened in a death grin.
‘Alfred, son of Aethelred, will never be king,’ she said.
‘But if Edward dies-?’ Arlette interrupted.
The corpse-head whipped to its left, pinning Arlette with its sightless glare. ‘One question, one answer. You have yours. Take it and do with it what you will.’
Arlette shrank back. The voice was Herleva’s, but it was more than the woman I knew. Something else was behind it, something male and malevolent, brimful of hate and power.
I stopped breathing, for fear it would turn its unholy attention to me.
Then it was gone, as swiftly as it had appeared.
Herleva sagged, drooping over the bones, the breath wheezing in her chest as she panted hard. When she raised her head, her face was still as pale as the bones in the centre of the circle, but the flesh had returned to it, and she no longer looked like a skeleton. I had not realised how rigid I had been holding myself until she opened her eyes. I sagged too, with relief when I saw they were her usual dark brown.
Arlette was motionless, her expression rapt. She reminded me of a penitent in church who had just heard the word of God.
Herleva sat straighter and gathered up the bones with infinite care, placing them one by one back into the pouch. She gave Arlette a thoughtful look.
‘Did you think my calling to be limited to love potions and scrying?’ she asked, in a dry tone.
‘Of course not. I saw what you did with Caitlyn.’
‘But you did not truly understand the extent of my power, or from whence it comes.’
‘No, I did not.’
‘Now that you do,’ Herleva said, ‘do you still want to follow on the same path? It is not yet too late for you to step off it. I have taught you much, but it is little more than the knowledge you would glean from a wise woman who is skilled in herb-lore. You have seen much, but seeing is not doing. You know much, but you know only a fraction of what there is to learn. Do you want to step off the path, little dove? Or do you want to see how far it will lead you?’
Arlette shot me a glance.
‘Do not worry about the familiar. I will take her with me if I leave. She is no use to you.’
‘Leave?’
‘If you are too afeared to walk in my footsteps, then I will seek another who is not.’
‘I am not afraid.’
‘You should be. You will be – if you continue along this path. There is afraid and too afraid. Afraid will breed caution and respect; too afraid will breed cowardice and flight. Time to choose. Do you stay or do you flee?’
‘I stay.’
‘You are certain?’
Arlette nodded.
‘Good. You will someday be a grand lady, with more power than you know what to do with.’
‘You have seen it?’
‘I have.’
‘I am confused. If Alfred is not to be king,
and Edward is not for turning…?’
‘There is another. I saw him in the bones. Tall, handsome, young,’ she smiled, ‘wifeless, and already a ruler.’
‘Who?’
‘Robert, Duke of Normandy.’
Chapter 22
The scream turned to a mewling snarl. I writhed on the flagstones, searing heat melting muscle and bone, dissolving skin and blood, vaporising and transforming it all into something new.
Did the caterpillar feel the same pain, trapped in its chrysalis, when the stew of its body was mixed and stirred until it became another being entirely? Or was it oblivious to its transformation, unable to imagine what it might be like to be winged, and unable to remember what it was like to crawl.
I wished I was oblivious. Each time I changed from one form to the other the pain consumed me, and each time the transformation was complete I swore I would never go through it again. I did not care if I had to remain a cat for the rest of my days – at least the days would be fewer than if I were a human.
‘That’s right, missy, keep practising. It will become easier with time.’
How do you know, I hissed at her, wishing I could form the words with my cat-mouth. I am your first familiar. This is as new to you as it is to me.
‘It will,’ Herleva insisted, reading my mind.
I did not truly believe she could do so, but sometimes she came a little too close to the truth. I bet she could not tell what I was thinking now, I thought, imagining her dead at my feet. I stood in one fluid movement and turned my back on her, tail held high, showing her my behind.
‘Remember, you cannot harm me,’ she said.
Damn. Was I so obvious?
‘I would want to kill me too, if I were in your shoes. Or should I say “fur”?’ Her cackle drew a snarl from me, the hair on my back fluffing out, and I whirled to face her, claws extended.
‘Ooh, what a scary kitty,’ she taunted.
Breathing deeply, I sat, curled my tail around my paws and slowly blinked.
‘Remain here,’ she said. ‘You need to practice changing. The more you do it, the quicker you will get, and believe me, some day you might need to be very fast indeed.’
I gave her a cat-stare.
‘No, I have not foreseen it. I am using common sense, not magic.’
She sat on the low stool by the fire and stretched out her hands to warm them. I would have thought she should be warm enough already with the fires of hell licking at her feet, but Herleva was often chilled. Today she wore a thick shawl about her shoulders even though it was mid-July and the temperature outside was hot enough to cook an egg on the dry-stone wall around the vegetable plot. Arlette and the rest of the tanners would be resting in the shade of the beech trees not far from the river, waiting for the heat to drain out of the day, and enjoying a meal of left-over sheep’s tongue and rough, dark bread. I had taken it to them myself, before Herleva decided I needed some training in being a cat.
She might well be right, because I was not sure I acted particularly cat-like. I recalled a troupe of mummers I had once seen, where two of them wore a horse costume. One was the head, the other the arse, and though they were so funny I had tears streaming down my cheeks and my sides ached from laughter, everyone could tell it was not a real horse. I felt like that – a woman dressed in a cat costume. But I would bet my life no one would be laughing at me.
‘Have you looked closely at a cat?’ she asked.
My ear twitched.
‘I have. A toad or an owl is no use to me.’ She saw my blink of incomprehension. ‘Those animals, along with cats, are the traditional forms for familiars, though I suppose any animal can be used.’ She sniggered, ‘But I have yet to see a horse or a sheep sneaking into a castle.’
I gazed at the fire, unamused.
‘I wanted an animal who no one notices, an animal who will not be remarked upon, one which is a common sight and is small enough to slink and scurry, yet will usually be left in peace. A rat would not suffice, neither would a weasel, nor a stoat. Not even a dog. A cat is perfect. You are perfect.’
I hated the self-satisfied smirk she wore. I wanted to slice it off her face and make her eat it. One day I would, I vowed.
‘You can go anywhere you choose, and no one will see you. Oh, they will see you with their eyes, but not with their brains. Cats are a common sight, a necessary evil to keep the rats and mice in check, but no one will truly notice you.’
She shifted on her stool, a tiny shiver running through her. If I had been Caitlyn I probably would not have noticed, but as Cat, the slightest of movements caught my eye. Might she be ill? I sincerely hoped so. If I had fingers I would have crossed them.
‘If Arlette is to be successful in ensnaring Lord Robert, she will have need of you. And before you give me that ridiculous stare of yours, no, I did not foretell this when I summoned you.’
I shot her a look full of surprise and questions.
‘Did you not realise you had been summoned? You cannot still believe you came to me of your own free will, or that it was fate or coincidence which brought us together?’
I bared my teeth in a silent snarl at her incredulity.
‘Good. I was beginning to think you had fewer wits than Fulbert, and that would take some doing.’
Poor Fulbert. I almost felt sorry for him. He had no idea what he had taken on when he’d wed Herleva. Or perhaps he had no choice in the matter, either. Whatever Herleva wanted, Herleva got. But if she had all this power and magic, why had she not magicked a better life for herself? There was something I was missing, I was sure of it.
‘I saw you when you first bled,’ she said. ‘The skull showed you to me. The time when a girl becomes a woman can be one of great danger to her, when the veils between worlds are lifted. It is a magical time, a time of great significance, and though most girls travel from childhood to womanhood without any incident, sometimes, just sometimes, there will be a girl who is chosen, a girl whose power comes alive and calls to one such as me.’
My eyes were wide and staring. I could not take my gaze off her. I hardly drew breath, and the only movement to show I still lived was a tiny twitch of my tail. I swear the thing had a mind of its own.
‘Arlette was such a one,’ Herleva continued, and I let out a sigh. She was talking about Arlette, not me. I had no power, only what my position and birth had granted me, and I certainly had no magic. Not really. Having visions of my mother when she was absent was surely nothing more than imagination and longing.
‘You were another,’ she added, ‘though your call was weaker and less demanding, and I would not have answered it at all if it were not for those three bloody pieces.’
I leapt to my feet, tail straight out behind, the hairs all along it standing on end. I quivered and shook. What had happened in the chapel had been real – she had seen me and knew what Rhain had been reduced to, though how she knew what I secretly called the portions which were all that was left of him, was beyond me. I had mentioned it to no one, not even Idris. Those three bloody pieces were the beginning of my downfall. Those three bloody pieces had changed my life.
‘Go,’ she said, rising with a small groan, a hand pressed into her side. ‘Be a cat. We have spoken enough for one day.’ She lurched to the door muttering, ‘Damned knee,’ and held it open.
Without hesitation, I bolted through it before she changed her mind and decided to turn me back into Caitlyn. I was not ready to face the pain of transformation again quite so soon.
I ran, flattened against the ground with my tail streaming out behind, until my breath rasped harshly in my throat and my sides heaved. When I came to a halt, Falaise was out of sight and I was in the middle of a small clearing deep in the woodlands of the gentle slopes which lay to the west of the castle and its town.
Now what was I supposed to do? What did cats normally do? Catch mice, sleep in the sun? I had no idea how to be a cat. A scent wafted across my nose and I lowered my head to the dry earth. Last year’s fallen
leaves tickled my face, and the smell they held was enticing.
All at once I knew what it was – another cat. A large male had sprayed here at the base of a birch. I followed the aroma with my nose, tracing it from the leaf litter to a good two feet above my head, reaching up to place my front paws on the rough bark for a better sniff. Dominant, in his prime, he advertised his prowess for all to witness.
The part of me which was all cat and feline instinct found it intriguing. The human part was both disgusted to find piss so fascinating, and incredulous that so much information could be gleaned from a spray of urine. ‘You are Caitlyn in your head,’ Herleva had said. I might be, but I was Cat too, else I would not have been able to read the smell. There was more cat inside me than she realised. I would have to consider if this knowledge could be used to my advantage.
I moved away from the tree and crouched in the undergrowth, thinking. A woman was considered old by the time she reached her fifth decade, though many did live beyond, and even to their allotted three score years and ten. A cat, however, was much shorter lived. I could only guess, not having paid a great deal of attention to cats before I was forced to become one, but I suspected they lived not much more than ten years.
So, which part of me had the most influence – the cat part or the human part? Did it depend on how long I remained in one particular form? If I stayed as a cat for the next ten years, would I age as a cat does, or would I continue to age as a woman, regardless of the form?
I needed to find out the answer. I did not wish to die, but I did not wish to continue living under Herleva’s spell for the next thirty years either.
Another thought occurred to me. When I transformed I became a fully grown adult feline. Did that mean I was at the same stage of life as a cat, as I was as a woman? I had already lived roughly a third of my natural span; if I was the same distance along the path of life when I became a cat, it meant I might only have seven or less years to endure.
Caitlyn Box Set Page 17