Sebastien did not hurry. He kissed her lips and her eyes and her throat. He held her gently, patiently, not lifting her skirts until she began to writhe against him, her desire erasing her shyness. When his body found hers, when he lifted himself so he could press into her, she gasped in wonder as if she were an untouched maiden. Her body melted beneath him, opened to receive him, welcomed every movement and every sensation.
It was nothing like lying with Morcum, that routine sense of a task to be accomplished, disposed of as quickly as might be. Sebastien took his time. He savored her, holding her thighs with his hands, kissing her breast, urging her to an intensity she had never experienced, had never known existed.
The sea sang beneath their shelter. The wind encircled it, blowing from every direction, Cornish fashion. The sand of their bed was soft and yielding. Ursule cried out, a long, ecstatic cry that made Aramis whicker from his place above them. Sebastien, too, gave a cry, deep in his throat, and it was over.
But Sebastien was not Morcum. He was not the billy who covered his doe, then turned to cropping grass as if nothing of importance had taken place.
Sebastien held her and murmured sweet things into her hair. He said her name, again and again. He stroked her belly and kissed her forehead. As darkness fell around them, he took her again, with such sweetness she thought she could die of it. They lay in their bower of sand and stone and sea grass until the stars began to prick the deep blackness above them.
Ursule shivered, and sat up to draw her clothes back into order. Sebastien did the same, and gave her his hand to help her stand. Without speaking, but with many touches and soft glances, they climbed back up the path to the lay-by. Aramis snorted when he saw them, and stamped his feet with impatience.
“He wants his box and his oats,” Ursule said. The impending farewell tightened her throat. “Sebastien, I have to go.”
“I know you do.” He spoke close to her ear, and kissed it. “Remember me, Ursule.”
She could barely speak for the pain beginning to swell in her chest. She choked, “I could never forget.”
He kissed her again, on the forehead this time. “Nor will I. My love songs will all be for you.” He squeezed her hand and looked once more into her eyes before he spun and trotted back down the road toward Marazion.
Ursule went to Aramis’s head and shed the tears of parting against his broad neck. She wept for a while, until Aramis dropped his chin to bump her shoulder, making her laugh through her tears. “All right, Aramis. I know.” She was still sobbing, but smiling, too. She patted the horse’s smooth, warm skin and thought of Sebastien’s smooth, warm hands with a piercing pang of loss. At last, resignedly, she swallowed the last of her tears and turned toward the wagon to gather up the reins. “All right, Aramis. We’ll go home.”
9
Morcum, when he heard the wagon rumbling down the lane at last, strode toward the byre to meet them. “Ursula, what happened? You’re three hours past your usual time! Your mother is frantic!”
Ursule could see that he was frantic, too, though he would never admit to such a feeling. She tried to feel some sort of shame, but it seemed she had left all such emotions in the little shelter below the cliff. With a deftness that surprised her, she lied. “It was a loose wheel, Morcum. It wasn’t safe for Aramis. I stopped to repair it, and then I got worried the other was loose, so I worked on it, too. It was hard in the dark.”
“I’m that sorry, Ursula. I should have checked them. You go have your supper. I’ll see to Aramis.”
At last a twinge of remorse wriggled in Ursule’s breast, but it flickered and died almost at once. She was sorry to have frightened her mother, though. When she stepped into the bright kitchen from the cold dark, she faced Nanette with the excuse ready on her lips.
She never spoke it. There was no need. Her mother took one look at her and her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, Ursule!” she breathed.
“What? What is it?”
“I can see—why, it’s written all over your face!”
Ursule put her hands to her hair, as if that would set things to rights. “How could that be, Maman? Nothing should show on my face. Morcum didn’t—”
“Pfft! Morcum! He sees nothing! What have you done?”
Ursule unwrapped her scarf from her head and pulled it through her fingers. Through dry lips she whispered, “I’m not sure.”
Nanette held out her arms, and Ursule, with a shuddering sigh, stepped into them. She embraced her mother and held her tight for a moment, whispering into her cloud of silver hair. “I’m not sure it was my own doing.” She felt Nanette tremble in her arms, and she hugged her tighter. “It will be all right. Don’t worry.”
“Oh, Ursule! You must make sure … You must convince Morcum …”
“I know. I will.”
They heard Morcum’s heavy tread on the porch and pulled apart. Nanette went to the stove and ladled a bowlful of soup, setting it on the table with a half loaf of bread and a crock of freshly churned butter. Ursule did her best to eat, but she felt tender, fragile, as if she had been injured in some way. She had to force herself to speak to Morcum as usual, to elaborate on the loose wheel, the place where it had happened, how hard it had been to repair. She gave an account of the market, and set the purse on the table so Morcum could count their earnings.
When it was time to retire, Ursule turned toward the bedroom with dragging steps. She felt her mother’s gaze on her as distinctly as if Nanette had put both hands on her back and pushed. Weary though she was, and still sore at heart, she tried. She washed herself carefully, and put on a fresh nightdress scented with the lavender sachet she kept in her cupboard. She brushed her hair till it flowed like ribbons of silk around her shoulders. She slipped beneath the covers next to her husband. His back was to her, but she put a hand on his hip, and slid close to him so that her breasts grazed his shoulder blades.
She felt his heavy sigh through her palm. “I’m tired, Ursula,” he groaned.
“It’s been so long, Morcum,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
“It’s been too long.” She pressed herself closer. “I can’t remember the last time …”
“No.” He yawned. “That’s the way things are, lass. You married an old man.”
At his words a faint shock ran through her, and she lifted her hand with an abrupt movement. She pulled sharply away to her own side of the bed, and turned on her side to gaze into the darkness. In moments Morcum was snoring with the resonant rumble of a sound sleeper.
Ursule lay awake for a long time, wishing the man lying next to her were Sebastien. Even the thought of him made her stomach contract and her breathing quicken. If only, if only …
But she knew better. Longing for what could never be would not solve her problem.
She had set her course. She could hold Sebastien in her memory, but she did not expect to meet him again. What she must do, somehow, was rouse Morcum to his duty.
It became a task for the two of them, mother and daughter. Nanette presented Ursule with a newly sewn nightdress, made of fine cotton so thin it was nearly transparent. Ursule bathed more often than usual, especially when she had been working in the byre. She washed her hair, and dried it in the autumn sunshine so it curled fetchingly around her face. Nanette climbed down the steep path to the beach and lugged up a basket of oysters to prompt Morcum to some marital urge. Ursule took care to smile pleasantly around her husband, to tease him, to draw him out when they were at supper or when they had occasion to be together on the moor.
None of it answered. Ursule commanded Morcum’s attention more by brushing Aramis’s mane and tail than by brushing her own hair. He took more notice of new twin kids than he did of her new nightdress. He fell into his bed like a dead man each night, and slept the heavy sleep of the tired and just.
“I suppose he has always been like this,” Ursule said to her mother as they wrapped a new batch of cheese and set it to age in the cold cellar. “I’m the one who’s dif
ferent.”
“When will you know, Ursule?”
“I know now,” Ursule said shortly. “I can feel it. I sense her.”
“Her? Are you sure?”
Ursule folded the last flap of cheesecloth under and straightened. “Oh yes. The Orchiéres do produce a preponderance of females, but it’s not that. I know her already, though my stomach doesn’t yet swell.”
“It will soon enough. There’s no time to waste.”
“I don’t know what else I can do.”
Nanette pushed the wheel of cheese into its place on the shelf, deep under the hill, where it would stay cool until it was ready. She turned, wiping her hands on her apron. “I will make you a potion,” she said.
“Morcum will never drink it.”
“Morcum will never know.”
Morcum announced he would drive the goats up to the moor for the last of the summer grass. Ursule prepared a packet of bread and cheese and beer, and sent him off with a smile. The instant he was gone, Nanette brought out the grimoire and opened it on the kitchen table. Ursule puzzled out the archaic French as her mother ran back and forth between the pantry and the garden, now beginning to sleep for the winter, but still offering a few fading herbs and a clutch of garlic scapes. She found mistletoe and coltsfoot, lovage roots and lady’s mantle and mullein. The potion simmered on the stove all day, reducing to just a few tablespoons of pungent syrup. It was supposed to rest on the altar for a night, but there was no time. Nanette stewed a rabbit with onions and potatoes and carrots. She hid the potion inside a cupboard, and at supper she slipped it—all of it—into Morcum’s serving of stew. It amazed Ursule that he didn’t rebel at the flavor. Perhaps the beer he had drunk with his packet of sandwiches had dulled his taste, or perhaps the onions in the stew masked it.
He woke Ursule very late that same night, after she had been asleep for hours. She cried out in surprise and alarm as he fell upon her. He used her with less ceremony than a moor stallion mounting one of his mares, violently, quickly. When it was over he fell back, pushing her away with an expression of disgust, as if it had been she who’d savaged him instead of the other way round.
She thought, for a moment, that all would be well. It had been unpleasant, but it was done. It had been accomplished just in time for him to be convinced he was the father of the baby that would come in the spring.
But Morcum was as shocked by his sudden passion as she had been. As she lay back on her pillow, breathing hard and trying to straighten her nightdress, he seized her wrist. “What did you do, Ursula?” he growled. “What have you done to me?”
“Morcum,” she protested, trying to tug herself free of his big fist. “I did nothing!”
“What was it?” he demanded, his voice rising. “Something unnatural!”
The fury in his voice, the hate in the gleam of his eyes, half-seen in faint moonlight, chilled Ursule’s blood. All her mother’s warnings came back to her in a flood, and she struggled away from Morcum with her heart racing. “Where did you get such an idea? Why should a husband not want to lie with his wife?”
“I do want to lie with my wife. Sometimes. Not wake from a sound sleep with an urge to rape her.”
“You didn’t—it wasn’t like that.” She put her hand on his arm, but he threw it off.
“They warned me,” he said. He shoved back the quilt and stood up. He was naked, his body a dully visible shape in the first light of coming dawn, bulky and beast-like.
The contrast to Sebastien, with his fine bones and slim hips, was unbearable.
Ursule, with a tiny groan, averted her eyes.
Morcum, who she would have sworn was sensitive to nothing, took notice.
“Don’t like what you see?” he spit at her.
A wave of revulsion swept her, and left her trembling with anger. “No,” she said tightly. “At this moment, Morcum, no.”
“All these weeks you’ve been after me, trying to tempt me with your fancy nightdress and your oysters. You got what you wanted, and now you can’t stand the sight of me.”
It was true enough. She fussed with her nightdress, then stood up on her side of the bed, keeping her eyes away from him. When she looked at him again, he had pulled on a shirt and trousers, and stood with his hands on his hips and his jaw jutting.
Ursule turned her back, but he came around the bed in two swift steps to grab her with his heavy hands. The delicate nightdress tore along the bodice, but he paid no attention. He shook her hard, the way a terrier shakes a rat. He grated, “They warned me, all those years ago! I should have listened!”
Ursule was strong, a woman used to lifting and digging, but Morcum was stronger. She tried to pull free of his iron grip, but he held on. “Tell me!” he commanded, and shook her again.
“Tell you what, Morcum? Let me go!”
“What did you do to me?”
“Nothing, I’ve already said!”
“Then your mother! Just as they said!”
Ursule felt the first shivers of real terror, and her voice scraped in her throat. “What are you talking about? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
He released her with a little shove, so she stumbled and stepped on the hem of the nightdress, which tore again. They glared at each other. Beyond the window the stars had begun to fade, and the air in their bedroom was ice cold.
Bitterly Morcum said, “My brothers said you were witches, all of you, descended from witches, birthing witches. That’s why they wouldn’t come to our wedding, though I swore it wasn’t true.” He leaned toward her, his hot breath sour with fury. “But it is true, isn’t it, Ursula? Your mother is a witch, and she poisoned me so I—so I would act like an animal!”
Ursule’s temper flared at that. “So you would act like a husband!” she snapped, then gasped, and covered her mouth with both hands. At the movement her nightdress parted into two pieces, and fell in shreds around her feet.
Morcum, with a hoarse cry of triumph, pointed his thick finger at her. “You admit it!”
“No!” she shrilled. “I do not! It’s ridiculous!”
His hand closed into a fist, and he raised it as if he would strike her. She stood, naked and shivering, and closed her eyes. Let him do it, she prayed. Let him hit me, and then he’ll feel better. Let all this be over. Oh, Goddess, I didn’t mean to say it, I didn’t mean to …
If there was anyone to hear her prayer, she would never know. The blow didn’t come, and when she opened her eyes, Morcum was gone.
She ran to the door, still naked, to follow him. She met only Nanette, standing in the hall barefoot, clutching her dressing gown around her. The front door stood open to the freezing dawn. Of Morcum there was no sign at all.
10
I have to stay, Maman,” Ursule said, her voice tight with tension. “I can’t leave my animals.”
“No, Ursule,” Nanette whispered. She was throwing things into a valise so ancient it looked as if it might have come over on the boat from Brittany. The gray cat leaped up onto the bed and paced from side to side, his tail twitching. Nanette closed the valise and tied its frayed ribbons. “You must come with me. Morcum won’t let the animals come to harm, but you …”
“He would never hurt me, Maman. Not really.”
“You think not? I heard him shouting at you!”
“He lost his temper.”
“Ursule, listen to me.” Nanette leaned on the valise with both hands. Her voice shook. “You haven’t seen them coming after us, their faces full of hate and their torches burning. You haven’t heard the screams of women being stripped and searched for signs of witchcraft, the shrieks of women burning alive.”
“Maman—you haven’t seen such things, surely!”
“I have heard the stories all my life,” Nanette said, so hoarsely Ursule could barely hear her. “I was a child, but I remember those people, hunting for us, searching for someone to blame, someone to accuse. They hated us—or hated the idea of us.”
“Even if that’s true
—”
“Of course it’s true!”
“But this isn’t Brittany, it’s Cornwall. Farmers and villagers we know. Neighbors!”
“Who never speak to us if they can avoid it.”
“They speak to me!”
“You can’t trust them.” Nanette lifted her valise and turned to the door. “I’ve had nightmares about burning all my life,” she said.
“You never told me that.”
“I never thought you needed to know.”
“I’ll protect you, Maman.”
“You can’t. I did what I did, and Morcum knows it. They will come after me, and there won’t be anything you can do.”
Ursule hugged herself against the cold. “But where will you go?”
Nanette turned in the doorway, and Ursule saw that her face was gray with fear. “For now, up the tor. I’ll hide in the temple. Come with me!”
“I can’t,” Ursule cried. “My goats, and the ponies …” She was interrupted by the sound of hooves on the dirt lane, and the ringing of bells on a jingle, deeper than the sound their own jingle made. She covered her mouth with one hand as her heart lurched.
Nanette slumped against the doorframe. “Too late,” she moaned. “Oh, Goddess, they’ve caught me …”
“No, no! Go now,” Ursule reached for Nanette and urged her toward the door. “Go down through the garden! Use the paddock gate. I’ll … I’ll talk to them. Tell them you’ve gone away. I’ll come up to you later.”
Nanette, though she trembled so she could hardly stay on her feet, gathered up her bag and turned toward the kitchen door. Just as she reached for the latch, the door exploded inward, jarring off its lower hinge. Morcum, glowering with fury, filled the doorway with his bulk.
Nanette fell back, and her legs crumpled. She sagged to the floor, her valise in her hands, tears of terror streaking her face. The cat pressed itself against her.
A Secret History of Witches Page 14