by Cach, Lisa
“But that is not what she heard. From what she said to you just now, she blames the warts on her feet on me. She thinks I cursed her with them.”
“So what should I do?” Valerian asked.
“What would you normally do?”
“Tell her they would go away in time, although apparently these have not,” Valerian said. “Or I would have her rub her feet several times a day in fresh nettles, to bring on a severe rash, and then soak her feet in very hot water. That sometimes helps, but it’s not a pleasant cure.”
“Or?”
“Or, if the patient seemed particularly gullible, I would prescribe a ‘witchcraft’ cure, and have her do something ridiculous and frightening, like catch a cat at midnight and touch its nose to each wart three times while reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards. ’Twould scare the warts off her body.”
“Now,” Theresa asked, “which of the above seems the most suitable to our dear innkeeper out yonder?”
“Personally, I would prefer to rub her feet with nettles.” Aunt Theresa gave her a look, and Valerian pursed her lips and rolled her eyes. “But I suppose it could be just as satisfying to scare the daylights out of her. I do feel a bit sorry for anyone who has spent ten years eaten up inside over a choice she made. But why did she come now?”
“I can only guess. Whatever reasons she may say she has, perhaps she is finally ready to forgive herself. And as the guilt goes, so can the warts,” Theresa said.
Valerian got up and started searching the shelves for eerie paraphernalia to use in the cure. “Perhaps she will stop spreading so many lies if the warts do disappear.”
Theresa snorted. “Let’s not start expecting gold to shower us from heaven.”
When Valerian returned outside, she was carrying an old wool blanket under one arm, and in the other hand a basket with various animal bones and four stubby candles. She ignored Mrs. Torrance and spread the blanket on the ground, then set one candle at each corner and lit it. She stood in the center of the blanket in her bare feet, and with a sheep’s horn in hand pointed to the north, south, east, and west, all the while lowly chanting a memorized Latin passage on digestion from one of her father’s medical texts.
When she finished, she pointed the horn at Mrs. Torrance and stared for long moments, watching the color drain from the woman’s face.
“Remove your shoes,” Valerian ordered, keeping her voice low and flat, as she imagined a true sorceress might.
Mrs. Torrance scrambled to obey.
“Remove your stockings.”
When she had obeyed, Valerian stepped off the blanket, and pointed to its center with the horn. “Sit within the square of power.” Valerian could see a sheen of sweat on Mrs. Torrance’s face as she came and sat in the center of the blanket.
“Do you recognize this horn?” she asked, holding it out. Mrs. Torrance shook her head mutely. “It is the horn of a three-headed goat, killed at midnight on All Hallow’s Eve three centuries ago by the great druid queen Vama-wama. It has been twisted by the power of that which lies beyond sight.”
In a sudden movement, Valerian clamped the horn to her own forehead, over the linen bandage. She winced, then turned the expression into a grimace of agony for Mrs. Torrance’s sake. After a long moment she pulled the bandage away from her forehead, revealing the smooth white skin beneath.
Mrs. Torrance gave a little shuddering gasp of awe.
“This horn holds the power of the earth and the stars, and of the blood that flows in each creature’s veins,” Valerian said. “It knows what lives inside us, each and every one. It knows you, Alice Torrance. And it will free you.”
Valerian knelt at the woman’s feet and took one foot into her lap. “You will feel a freezing as of ice upon each wart.” She touched the horn to one of the flat warts, and Alice whimpered, tears spilling from her eyes. “You will walk home barefoot,” Valerian said as she worked, moving the horn from wart to wart. “And every morning and every evening you will scrub your feet with soap scented with roses, the scent of mercy.”
“I don’t have any rose-scented soap,” Alice whined.
“I’ll give you some to start, and then your husband must find you more. You must wash your feet twice a day for each remaining day of your life. Nine days from today, Alice Torrance, you are to go to church and pray for your soul. On the morning of the tenth day, when you scrub your feet with the rose-scented soap, the warts will fall from your body. You will have been cleansed.”
Valerian put the second foot back down on the blanket, and waved the horn in a complex, meaningless pattern over Alice’s head. “Now stand up and say the Lord’s Prayer while I go get the soap.”
Aunt Theresa had the soap ready for her when she came inside. “A lifelong sentence of foot scrubbing?” Theresa asked.
Valerian shrugged, a crooked smile on her mouth. “It can’t hurt her. Her feet don’t exactly smell fresh, and they are rough with dead skin. And I like the idea of filthy Mr. Torrance going to Yarborough once a month for rose-scented soap.”
She went back outside with the soap, and Oscar flew down and landed on her shoulder. Alice’s mutilated hat lay upon the ground near the blanket, devoid of ribbons.
Valerian went to each candle and extinguished it, reciting body fluids in Latin as she did so. Mrs. Torrance was still reciting her own prayers in the center of the blanket.
“Alice Torrance, you are free to step from the square of power,” Valerian intoned.
Alice opened her eyes and cautiously stepped off the wool. Valerian handed her the soap, then picked up what was left of the hat and gave it to her. “I am sorry about your hat. That part wasn’t necessary.”
Alice clasped the crumpled straw to her chest like a talisman. “No matter.”
“I’m afraid I will have to burn your stockings and shoes. It’s part of the ritual. They’re from your old life, and you cannot walk with them into your new one.”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Remember now, morning and night with the scrubbing, and to church on the ninth day. The warts will fall off the morning of the tenth. You can go now.”
“Rrrraw,” Oscar added.
Alice lost no time in leaving them. Valerian watched her hobble off, wondering if the cure would work.
She shrugged off the thought. There was nothing she could do about it now. She had almost finished picking up her implements of sorcery when Oscar’s gleeful cry of “Eee-diot!” caught her attention. She stopped mid-fold of the blanket, and turned to see Nathaniel leading his horse across the meadow from the trail that led to Raven Hall.
She waited for him, her heart beating a little more rapidly at his approach. She loved to watch him move, this masculine presence in her life. He was tall and strong and graceful, moving with an animal confidence. It seemed like a hundred years ago that he had been arrogant with her, although he certainly still showed that side to others, given his opinion of the townsfolk.
“Your servant,” he said, bowing before her, then straightening with a devilish grin on his face. “That was a marvelous performance you put on for Mrs. Torrance. I believe you could make a fine living as a witch in a traveling production of MacBeth.”
“You saw the whole thing?” she asked, flustered. She still found it hard at times to remember that he accepted her as she was.
“I’m thinking of building a theater box in one of the trees, so I may spy in more comfort.”
“I thought you were all for the punishment of pretenders to witchcraft.”
“And who said I was not going to punish you, my enchantress?” he said, and growled menacingly.
She giggled and let him sweep her into his arms and give her a noisy kiss on the lips. He dotted a dozen more kisses all over her face, and she squirmed in his arms as he made more growling noises and lightly chewed on her neck.
Nathaniel stopped suddenly and held her away from him. “Shall I go in and greet your aunt?”
“I think she’s resting. Perhaps it would
be best not to.” She felt a twinge of guilt for the half-lie. Aunt Theresa looked even more worn down than she had two days ago, and if he saw her, he might know that there was something seriously wrong. She didn’t want him to feel the burden of her grief, to have yet another unhappy piece of her life to think on. She was too cautious of his affection to risk putting another load upon it. And besides, Aunt Theresa had already said that she did not yet want outsiders to know of her illness.
“Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Valerian went inside the cottage. Theresa was dozing by the fire, but woke at Valerian’s presence.
“Not another one, surely?” she asked, straightening up in her chair.
“No, and I think I would go drown myself if it were. ’Tis Nathaniel.”
“Ahh.” Theresa noticed what Valerian was putting in her basket and raised her brows suggestively.
“Not one word,” Valerian warned.
“But I think it’s a very nice idea.”
Valerian grunted.
“And I’m certain the baron will find it—”
“Aunt Theresa.” Valerian’s tone said she’d gone far enough.
“I don’t know why you’re so squeamish about these things. I thought you’d been loosening up a bit of late. You’ll see, you’ll prove to be a true Harrow wench yet.”
Valerian stuck out her tongue at her aunt. “You are a dissolute woman, do you know that?”
“Thank you, my dear. Do have a nice time.”
Valerian kissed her aunt on the brow. “You’ll be all right?”
Theresa waved her away. “Of course I will. Now go, git, before that lusty young man wanders off in search of less troublesome game.”
Valerian put a cloth over the contents of the basket, and hurried out the door.
They left Darby hobbled in the meadow, grazing on the tender grasses. Nathaniel insisted on carrying the basket as Valerian led him through the woods and up the rocky trail. Oscar flew in and out of view, but his appetite for hats had been satisfied for the day, and he kept his distance from the baron.
“Where are we going for this picnic?” Nathaniel asked.
“I never said it was a picnic.”
Nathaniel gestured to the basket. “What is in this, then, if not food?”
“I believe ’tis true what they say of men, that they think only of their bellies.”
“Wherever did you hear such drivel?” he asked, offense in his tone. “Everyone knows that food is second in a man’s mind.”
“Second to what?” she asked, turning around.
His eyes traveled over her breasts, and he made exaggerated leering grimaces until comprehension dawned. She made a shocked noise. “And here I thought it was drink that had taken first place,” she said.
Nathaniel started to lift the corner of the cloth in the basket.
“If you peek, I shall stop right here and not bring you any closer to the surprise.”
“I don’t like surprises.”
“If you don’t like them, then why are you following me up this trail?”
“Ah, my dear, do you truly need to ask that question?”
Valerian rolled her eyes and continued up the trail.
A few minutes later they left the path, and Valerian led him to the shadowed opening to her cave.
“A cave! You know, I once explored a cave with my sister Margaret, when we were children,” Nathaniel began to babble beside her, in that excited, boyish tone he had used when she first introduced him to Oscar. She lit the lamp while he continued to talk.
“It was disappointingly shallow, but we were convinced we would find treasure or even a dragon somewhere deep within. Scared ourselves silly with our imaginings, really. When my mother found out where we had gone—my God, I had never seen her so angry. She forbid us ever to return, and had the backing of my father, sad to say. She was convinced we would fall into a crevasse and disappear.”
“And did you obey?”
“Of course not. It was a cave. What child could resist? As I said, though, it was rather shallow, and there were no treasures except some old animal bones that were almost as good. We told ourselves they were human, or at the very least left over from some troll’s supper.”
Valerian laughed, and led the way into the cave, cautioning him on places where the ceiling was low, or where he should be particularly careful to watch his step. She told him about how she had found and explored the cave on her own, and how she had kept it secret from all but Aunt Theresa.
“Weren’t you frightened, going in alone?” he asked her.
“Yes, at first. But I wasn’t so creative with my imaginings as you and your sister. I eventually decided that whatever was in here couldn’t be worse than what had already happened to me.”
“You felt that way a lot after your parents died.”
She paused, holding up the lamp so he could see the colored stains of minerals on the walls. “I was braver then than I have ever been since. Once I learned that life still had moments of sweetness, I wanted to be here to taste them. We all die soon enough. I would like to go on a full belly.”
She glanced at him, and although he did not touch her, she felt as if he caressed her with his eyes. His pupils had dilated in the darkness, making his eyes look black, and yet there was a softness there that unnerved her. She was learning what to do with his lust and his lighthearted affection. This softness, though, that looked as if for this moment she could see into his heart, was a more private emotion and she did not know how to respond.
She lowered the lamp in confusion and continued through the passageway, explaining side passages and the sound of rushing water. He added his own information on the types of rocks and formations, adding that after that bit of cave exploration, he had had some interest in geology.
“Am I mistaken, or is it growing warmer in here? And more humid?” he asked.
“You aren’t mistaken,” Valerian said, and she took him around the last bend to her private pool. The lamplight reflected off the uneven surface of the pool; the gurgle of water from the stone face rebounded in echoes from the curved walls. “Let me light the other lamps, so you don’t fall in.”
“A Roman hot spring.” The boyish excitement was back, coupled with awe. “Look at that carving, think how old it is. And it’s been under here, faithfully pouring water, for centuries.” He knelt down and swished his hand in the water. “Hot enough for bathing.”
“Of course,” Valerian said. “Otherwise, why make the pool?”
“You have a smart mouth on you, wench.”
“No one ever called me a wench until I became involved with you. You have had a most damaging effect upon my innocence.”
“So I have.”
Valerian took the cover off the basket, revealing the soaps and towels within. She hoped he could not see the color in her cheeks. “Do you, ah, care to do a little more damage?” She cringed inwardly even as she said it. She sounded like an idiot.
He looked at the contents of the basket, then at her, then back at the basket. He picked up a bar of lavender-scented soap, and examined it. “Just what, exactly, did you have in mind?”
“Well, I thought perhaps we could, well, we could both…” She saw that he was laughing at her floundering attempt at seduction. “Cad!”
“Wanton.”
“Scoundrel.”
“Goddess.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but then he had his arms around her legs, and had buried his face in the front of her skirts. She took his hat off and ran her fingers through his thick hair. She felt a push at the back of her knees and suddenly she was on her back, and he on top of her, kissing her soundly.
“Of course I want to bathe with you,” he said when he finally let her up for air. “And I’m sorry I laughed.”
“No you’re not.”
“I would be if it meant you wouldn’t be making me such offers in the future. I wish to do nothing that would inhibit you from thinking up such unusual—and enticing—ren
dezvous.”
She rolled her head and looked over at the basket of bathing accessories. “You don’t think I’m ridiculous?”
“My dear, no invitation to frolic in the water with a young, beautiful, naked woman will ever be seen as ridiculous by any man. Add in the exoticness of a secret Roman bath, and you have created an event that he will pull from his memory to relish to the end of his days. He could be moments from death, and the memory would still give life to his dying old bones.”
“Well then.”
“Well then, indeed.”
She ducked her head shyly, and began to unfasten the laces of her bodice. She peeked up as she heard Nathaniel undressing as well. She had staged this encounter, but it was still only the second time she had been naked with a man, and as soon as the last garment was removed, she slid gratefully into the concealing water.
Nathaniel joined her a moment later, and she pushed out into the center of the pool. He followed, his head and shoulders dark shadows above the water, despite the three lamps placed about the small cavern. She felt disoriented for a moment, the situation unreal and dreamlike. Was this the scene Aunt Theresa saw in the scrying, with the lamps and her own hair spreading in the water?
When alone here, she had fantasized about making love to a man, had brought herself pleasure with her own hands, Nathaniel’s image in her mind. And now he was here. This place was hers more than anywhere else, and some primitive part of her felt that she was marking him as hers by making love to him here, under the eyes of the Roman carvings, deep in the heart of a mountain.
The dream state vanished when his hands came around her waist, sliding up over her breasts. The pressure of his touch sent her floating backwards, and he laughed and held her more firmly. She let her own hands wander down his back, to stroke gently at his buttocks. Her palms were greedy for the feel of his skin.
He kissed her, their mouths wet from the hot spring water, and Valerian pressed herself against him as well as she could. She felt his manhood hard against her belly, the sack at the base soft in the heated water. Her nipples brushed against the hair on his chest, but the lightness of her body in the water kept her from getting the strength of contact she wanted.