The Witch and the Priest (epub)

by Hilda Lewis

  “It is for God to forgive you,” he reminded her.

  “Only if I truly repent; and repentance waits on you. You were my priest. So, if you would condemn my soul which God would save, you will shut your ears.”

  The fingers came from his ears.

  “That first Sabbath of all, Rutterkin carried me; Rutterkin swollen to the size of some great beast from foreign lands, a lion or a tiger, such as you may see, so they say, in the Tower of London. He was great and fierce and wild, roaring through the sky, high as the moon. I was frightened; I felt too near to God. I thought he must stretch out his hand and crack me like a flea between his finger and thumb.

  That was the only time I was afraid. Your god made no move towards me and I forgot my fears.

  So there I was, crouched upon Rutterkin, half-fainting with my fear, until the earth swung up to meet me and I stood for the first time in the place of the Sabbath.”

  “And where was that?” he asked, stern.

  “I may not tell you. I may confess for myself; I must not betray others. It was a bleak meadow, high up in the hills; the moon shone stark from black and tumbling clouds. There was a great flat stone in the middle, very high—as it might be a throne; and it was empty. And, facing it sat the witches, men and women, in the pattern of a young moon.”

  Samuel Fleming would have asked his question but she stayed him with a movement of her hand.

  “I may not name them; but this I will say. The servants of the Master are everywhere—castle as well as cottage; and in your monasteries and in your churches, likewise. Yes, there they stand, serving even at your high altar.”

  She saw disbelief in his face and said gently enough, “It is true and you may believe it.” He groaned at that and her hand went out towards him; without touching him, dropped again.

  “It is a hard thing for you to believe that servants of the Devil may be found at your high altars. But so it is; and why your god allows it I do not know! Perhaps he is not so strong as the Master.”

  “He is stronger; and that could be the reason,” Samuel Fleming said, and smiled again.

  “He that was Captain of the coven made a movement where I should sit and I went tip-toe to the lowest place and there I sat, hands clasped, eyes downcast, like the rest.

  And, as I sat, I felt cold come upon me and my whole body tightened, as a player tightens the strings of his viol; and I felt my neighbour tighten likewise. It was as if we were bound each one of us by the same cord.

  The great stone was no longer empty. Seated thereon like a king, but more glorious than any king—my new Lord.”

  “The Devil?” Samuel Fleming’s voice came out in a whisper.

  She nodded. “He wore the likeness of a man; but he was greater and taller and more comely than any earthly man. He was all in black and a black mask over his eyes. Two great horns went curving above his head; and, between them, was a flaming light.

  And so we sat unmoving—we looking upon the Master and He looking upon us. Then, very slowly, he stood upright upon the great stone and we rose and prostrated ourselves on our knees all naked as we were; and my hair fell over my breast and over my belly to cover my nakedness.

  Then the others rose and moved in procession to greet the Master with the kiss of homage; but me the Captain signalled to stay where I was. I was not a witch and might not share in the sacred rites and I remained kneeling. And when the rite was done the witches came again each to his place and sat down cross-legged but I remained kneeling.

  And, so kneeling, I heard his voice. ‘Where is she my new servant?’ And still I knelt and I was very much afraid. Yet, priest, had you offered to take me hence and crown me with salvation, I could not have moved.

  Then He raised his head, that head terrible beneath the branching horns and the great light burning between them. And He beckoned and I rose and went towards Him and knelt again; and all the time my heart fainted with its fear. He bent to me and I felt his breath cold; it was cold . . . frost cold, snow cold . . . and colder yet. For such a coldness, priest, there is no word.

  ‘Come you of your own free will?’ He asked.

  ‘Yes, Lord,’ I said.

  ‘No-one has threatened you nor tormented you that you should come?’

  ‘No, Lord.”

  ‘Do you acknowledge Me to be your sole and only God; to obey every order and to spread my darkness?’

  ‘Lord, I do.’

  ‘Do you give me your soul now and for evermore?’

  ‘Yes, Lord.’

  ‘Do you abjure God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit?’

  And again I said, ‘Yes, Lord.’

  ‘Do you cast off Mary and all the hosts of saints, repudiating your baptism and all promise of Paradise?’

  ‘Lord, I do.’

  ‘Then here I make my pact with you in the presence of the congregation, sealing you to my service. I will give you victory over your enemies. And I will give you happiness. Be you my good servant and I will be your good Master. How say you?’

  ‘Lord, I say Yes.’

  Then the Captain stepped forward holding a knife all of stone and very sharp; he bade me hold out my arm. Then he drew the knife across my flesh and the blood came out slow and dark. And that place never healed. It is a mark I bore to my death and after.” And as once before, she held out her arm that he might see the angry scar.

  “Then the Horned One spoke in a great voice. ‘You have renounced your Christian baptism; now I baptize you in the name I shall give you; and by that name you shall be known in the coven but in no place else.’ Then He cried out the name; and the congregation cried it after Him.”

  “And the name?” Samuel Fleming asked.

  “I may not say it. Then He drew a parchment from his breast—so sure He was of me and rightly. And He dipped his finger in my blood and wrote my new name and set it above the other. And He took my finger and He smeared it also with my blood and I made my mark . . . and, priest, it was a cross.”

  “Did you not think then of the cross?” he asked, pale. “And of Him Who died upon it.”

  “The cross is older than Christ, priest. I went back to my place and we sat at his feet and we learned of Him. He told us what He would have us do and how we might do it.”

  “Were you not afraid?”

  “How should I be afraid? Your god had no more power. The Old God protected me.”

  “But—” Samuel Fleming spread his hands. “The wicked­ness. The wickedness you had just done; the wickedness you were to do!”

  “When you have done a good thing, priest, you are glad. It is a gentle gladness and it grows upon what it feeds. So with evil; but it is not a gentle gladness, it is a strong, wild joy. And that, too, grows upon what it feeds, so that you can never do too much of evil and you are mad with the joy of it.

  Then, one after another, each man and woman stood up in his place and told of the wickedness he had done. Little things they were, very small evils. And I sat there listening, and despising such small evils, and thinking of this thing I might do, or that, to be outstanding in his eyes so that He would love me best.

  And so we came to the end of our telling and it was time for the feasting. I saw tables spread with a fair cloth laden with smoking meats. Such food, priest! The Devil knows how to lure souls.”

  “Through the belly—both food and lust.”

  “Since men are what they are, the Devil is wiser than God.”

  “But God wins in the end. He will win even you in the end.”

  “Perhaps my Master will win you. You smile; but you may smile too soon!

  So we sat down and we said Grace as is seemly. We bless this food in the Devil’s name—that is our Grace; and then began the feasting. Three great tables set together in the shape of a horseshoe; and every witch sitting in order. Those that had done great wickedness next to th
e Master; those that had done least, at the bottom of the two tables. As for me, though I had as yet done nothing, my seat was by the Master.”

  “Because you purposed great evil?”

  “Because of that. And because I was new received. And because I was not uncomely—the Master likes a pretty face; a pretty face and a pretty tune. So there I sat; and Rutterkin leaped from nowhere to sit upon my shoulder and I fed him with fat bits. And I drank the wine, the sweet wine from hell; and I ate the fat flesh, the fat flesh from hell. And every now and again the Master would bend and kiss me upon the lips; and I was no longer afraid.

  When we had eaten and drunk and thanked the Master from Whom all good things come, He rose in his place; and, leaning upon our arms, we listened to his commands.

  First and foremost we must bring new souls to his service. That is the chief thing. It is our first duty; but it is not our last. He spoke to us one by one laying his commands upon us. This one to bewitch a certain man; another to kill this child; a third to go grave-robbing for bones to make our powders; a fourth to steal infants as yet unbaptized . . .”

  Samuel Fleming lifted a white, sick face.

  “Yes.” And she nodded. “It is well that mothers and nurses keep good watch. What we do with these infants I will not tell you now. Everything in its place! To some He gave poisons; to others receipts to make their own poisons. . . .”

  “And to you?”

  “No command. He said I had wit to seek my own evil. And, priest . . . I had.

  When the Master had made an end of speaking, the Captain blew upon his horn and the Master cried out in a great voice, ‘Do ye my commands or die the death!’ And we answered him, crying out, ‘Har, Har!’

  Then the Captain cried out bidding us take our places for the dancing. We stood up in two rings, the women in the inner ring, the men in the outer, back to back; and the Master sat on his high stone in the middle and the Captain played upon the flute. It was a wild, sweet tune to keep your feet itching. And forwards we would go; and then backwards, knocking our buttocks against those of the men in the outer circle, and nodding our heads and crying out loud. What the words were, I will not tell; but they give one strength and joy; and you leap and leap, higher and still more high, until you leap, so it seems, higher than the moon.

  Then, at the command, the Captain put down the flute and the rings broke. We moved, then, into a long line, the Master at the head and the Captain at the foot.

  The Master began to move—a hand here, a foot there, twisting and turning and leaping; nodding and laughing; mewing like a cat or barking like a dog or roaring like a beast of the forest. And what the Master did, that we copied; and the Captain watched that not one witch missed one move. Faster and faster, twisting and turning and leaping widdershins; and the Master whose hand held mine turning now and again to kiss me . . . upon the mouth and upon the breast, so that all did likewise with their partners; all except the Captain who danced with his whip for partner; and this long whip he brandished to catch those that were slow in the dance.

  Then the Master let go my hand and every man did so by his partner; and we stole, one by one, into the dark of the bushes. And there—never hide your eyes, priest, for this is a thing you must know—we lay and a spirit with us to be our lover; to each man and each woman, a spirit. As for me I lay with the Master.”

  “Woman,” Samuel Fleming groaned, “are you so lost to shame? Is there no lesson for you here? Do you worship a god that couples with a woman?”

  “Do you not worship the Son of God that was conceived of a woman? And why not? Gods have done so since the beginning of time. Such a lover I have never known; or did know, ever again. For the Devil when he lies with you is cold as well water. And it is a cold that makes you faint with desire so that you pray the moments not to pass and you swoon with the joy of it. Nor is the desire ever satisfied; for it is a net to keep you snared until the next Sabbath.”

  “Had you no moments, however fleeting, when you came to your right mind?”

  “My mind was my Master’s mind; my body, his body. It ached for his caresses; and ached indeed. For after the Sabbath it is as though you have been beaten and bruised from head to foot. You long to sleep until the Sabbath comes again.” Her arms went out in a yawn. “It wearies me even now to think upon it, so that I long to seek the grave again.”

  “Your unquiet grave,” Samuel Fleming said thoughtful. “Do you not see you had done better to die the death. Then you would have risen again in Our Lord.”

  “Dying is never pleasant, priest, as you will find out. And, if your god is merciful as you say—which I take leave to doubt—why then, even I, damned as I am, may come at last to his mercy.”

  “Yes,” he said, “you will come.”

  “You will come,” he said and lifted his eyes and found himself talking aloud in the empty room. It was a habit that had grown upon him this last year. He looked about him in the gathering dusk. Was she a creature born of his imaginings or had she truly stood with him in this room? He did not know. The things she had said—the flight through the air, the Sabbaths and their orgies—he had known of them before. Others had testified and good men written them down.

  He sighed deeply.

  He did not know. If what he had heard was born of his own knowledge, he would pray for her soul; if spoken by her dead lips, then he would wrestle for it, wrestle until he had won her again for God.

  He rose to his feet; and facing the window where she had stood, went slowly to his knees.

  Chapter Five

  “Are you afraid, priest, that you pray so long in your church; and shun the empty cottage by the dark wood, and shun the comfort of your own room?”

  He was sitting in Hester’s parlour, holding the skein of her wool, for she was knitting him warm stockings against the winter. From the floor the little cat raised a paw and scrabbled at the wool. “Down, naughty one!” Hester said and tapped it lightly. She did not see how the cat glowered at her with red eyes.

  Presently Hester said, shivering a little, “Such a house for draughts I never knew. Here we are almost into June and I must get me a shawl.”

  It was when the door had closed behind her that he heard Joan Flower’s voice, saw her eyes openly mocking.

  “Are you afraid, priest?” she asked again.

  “Yes,” he said, “I am afraid. Not of you, but for you. I pray for your soul.”

  “Then it is for me to be afraid,” she said quickly. “I had rather be with the Master than with God.”

  Hester came back hurrying, the shawl awry about her shoulders. “Jennet, the silly creature, has lost one of our grandfather’s spoons; and I must find it at once,” she told him. “What a pother!”

  “Find it tomorrow.” He put out a hand to keep her; he was in no mood for the witch.

  “Tomorrow is too late,” Hester said and was gone.

  He heard Joan Flower laugh again and knew that the loss of the spoon was a magpie trick to get Hester out of the way. She walked across to the spinning wheel and stood flicking at it with her finger so that the wheel turned lazily and stopped.

  “I was never a housewife,” she said. “When I see this thing I am content to be a ghost!” She struck the treadle a violent blow with her foot so that the wheel whirled viciously.

  “Have a care!” he cried out, but the damage was already done.

  He came over to the wheel and taking the snapped ends began to splice them. When he had joined the wool to his satisfaction he said, “Living and dying are part of the same thread.”

  “I have snapped my thread,” she told him.

  “It may be mended again.”

  “How shall it be mended? One joins white to white, or red to red; or—as you have done—grey to grey. Colour to colour. You cannot join white to red.”

  “Though your sins be scarlet . . .” he reminded her and said no
more.

  In the silence there was nothing but the ticking of the clock, and the crackling of the fire, and the little sound of the cat dragging her claws over the wool of Hester’s rug.

  “There is a thing I cannot understand,” he said, breaking the silence at last. “You sold your soul that you might be for­ever young. But if you did not grow old it was because you died first; died horribly.”

  “That I died as I did was my own fault. I broke my pact and denied my Master.”

  “He had promised you all good things, besides; beauty and power.”

  “The things He promised, He gave. Beauty; I knew it at the Sabbath. Power; I held it in my hands to make or mar; to kill or cure.”

  “Such power is from God alone,” he said.

  “You know better than that, priest! As for your god, he, too, promises all that heart can hope. Yet there is misery and yet there is sin; and men and women hate each other; innocent creatures come to the rope and little children die in torment. And you; what do you say? The ways of God are passing strange. And, strange indeed they are! Or you will say God’s ways are not our ways; and certainly they are not the Devil’s ways. For the Master’s ways are clear to be seen and his promises easy to understand.”

  “Then tell me this,” he said very quick, “when he promised you wealth, why were you so poor; so poor that you must hire yourself out for work; so poor that when there was no work, you must steal or starve?”

  “Heaven helps those that help themselves!” She laughed. “So it is with us. When I asked for meat and wine and fine white bread, the Master said, It is yours for the taking. Take it then.”

  “Meat and wine stolen from your master,” he said.

  “Meat and wine given me by the Master! It was a good life while it lasted!”

  “A good life.” And he remembered again the sound of drunken laughter curdling the peace of the quiet night. “Your house was a scandal, an open sewer.”

  “You Christians find it hard to be merry! They scandalized my name and spat when I passed. But I had worked no harm . . . as yet; and I had done them some good.”