The Wicked

by Douglas Nicholas

Molly staggered back; to Hob she croaked, “Bring me a chair till I sit down.” She was panting and disheveled, and wobbling where she stood. Hob ran back with one of the few chairs the inn had, and helped her sink into it. Joan closed her eyes with a small groan, and soon began to snore lightly.

  Molly said to Adelard, slurring her words, “Let her sleep; cover her warmly. If she’s waking before nightfall, give her broth. Nemain, burn that cup. Jack, put me to bed.”

  Jack gathered her up as he had Joan, despite the fact that Molly was a much more robust woman than Joan, and carried her toward the back door. Nemain plucked the birchwood cup Molly had used from the table.

  “And if she does not wake before then?” asked Adelard.

  Hob and Nemain were starting after Jack.

  “Bury her,” snarled Nemain over her shoulder, her fears for Molly making her cruel. She tossed the cup into the fire and went out the door after Jack and her grandmother.

  Hob turned about and showed his palms in a calming signal, at the same time making a reassuring face at Hawis, who had joined Adelard and Timothy. “She will be well,” he said quietly to them, then turned and followed his flinty betrothed.

  CHAPTER 22

  MOLLY SLEPT ALL THE NEXT day. Nemain attempted to explain to Hob what had happened.

  “It’s a portion of her beatha, her . . . vitality? life itself? that she’s giving that innkeeper’s wife, to put back what that witch stole from her, and she’s after stopping Mistress Joan from slipping away into death, and now they’re both needing to rest and come back, for it’s a dark border they’ve both almost crossed, and a long way back, with food and with rest, and the help of the Goddess.”

  At the mention of the Goddess, Hob dutifully crossed himself, but he was in no way as wary of such speech as he used to be; in truth he hardly noticed it anymore; and in his admiration for Molly and love for Nemain it had ceased to matter to him.

  Joan took nearly a week to recover, but her flesh rapidly filled out and moistened, her eyes no longer looked sunken, and she regained clarity and sense. She could remember things only as a sort of very bad dream, and shuddered, and did not wish to speak of it at first.

  Molly, however, came in from her wagon on the second day and ate everything Hawis could think to put in front of her. “It’s some strength I’m needing, and a wee bite to eat, for ’twas a great struggle to undo that witch’s mischief, and myself no longer young, and my appetite turning poor and sickly with age,” she said, sitting at the table with a bumper of ale in one hand and part of a leg of mutton in the other, tearing the meat off the bone with her strong white teeth.

  THE SECOND DAY after Joan rose from her sickbed, she sat down by Molly and the others, and began to speak. “Ah ken Ah went oot tae feed t’ hens, and then Ah’m thinkin’ tae hear someone callin’ tae me. Then it coom tae me that Ah were gangin’ across Wat’s field, and thinkin’ tae mesel’, ‘Why’m Ah gangin’ here?’ and seein’ t’ wood coom nearer an’ nearer, and Ah didna want tae enter, sithee, but Ah entered, an’ gaed in just under t’ trees, an’ stopped in t’ first shadows, and wonderin’ why Ah were theer, but ’twas as if Ah were dreamin’, sithee, and didna have ae control. An’ then that woman coom frae behin’ a tree, and she glowerin’ at me, an’, an’ . . . Ah thought, ‘What-for does she hate me sae?’ for ’twas a look o’ hatred, an’ she took a step toward me, an’ reached oot a han’ tae me, tae touch me, tae touch m’ arm, an’ Ah didna want her tae touch me, sithee, Ah didna, but Ah couldna move. Ah didna want her tae touch me, an’ Ah couldna move. Ah couldna move. Ye ken, Ah didna want her tae touch me.”

  Molly made soothing noises, for Joan was breathing more and more heavily, and her face was moist, and tears began to run down her cheeks.

  “But she did, she put her han’ on m’ arm, an’ her han’ verra cowd, an’, an’ . . . Ah remember nowt, Ah remember nowt, Ah dinna ken what she, she did tae me, Ah—”

  Molly put an arm around her shoulder, and murmured in her ear, and stroked her hair, and she became calmer. Molly gave a significant glance to Nemain, and a faint tilt of the head, and her granddaughter rose quietly and went out the back door to the innyard, where the wagons were, and reappeared with a little crockery jar. She pulled the stopper and placed the jar by Molly’s elbow. Nemain went into the kitchen and returned with a mug of ale, half-full, for Joan, and a spoon.

  Molly, with one arm still around Joan, working one-handed, tapped a bit of the contents of the jar—a dun-colored powder, as far as Hob could tell—into Joan’s ale, squinting judiciously. She accepted the spoon from Nemain, stirred, and held the mug to Joan’s lips. Joan, still upset, drank as though hardly aware of what she did.

  After a bit Joan sighed, and her expression eased, and she said, “Och, weel, ’tis a’ spilled milk, sithee.” And she straightened up, and after a while she stood and went into the kitchen, and began to help Hawis with the cooking.

  ADELARD CAME TO HOB a few days later, very nervous, and said, “Yon Mistress Molly has saved ma Joan, sithee, and she’s a yem here whenever she needs un, but, but . . .” He looked over his shoulder, though Molly was outside and Nemain across the room by the window. “Tell me, young maister, be they witches? For ’twas fey doings that night, sithee, and Ah fear for our souls.”

  Hob looked at him and thought, Molly will be saved before anyone I know is saved. He gazed innocently into the innkeeper’s face, and said, “Nay, it’s by her special devotion to Mother Mary that she heals, and the Blessed Mother herself guiding her in everything.” He clapped the innkeeper on the shoulder, and said, sounding much more mature than his years, “Be of good cheer, Goodman Adelard, you are in safe hands.”

  Nemain had glided closer, making no more noise than the house cat, and now she looked at Hob, and crossed her eyes at him behind Adelard’s back, so that he had to struggle to be serious.

  Later, when they were alone, she said to him, joking a bit, but only a bit, “It’s everyone in the world you may lie to, Robert, but not to me.”

  “Never to you,” he said with utmost simplicity, and for that she clasped her hands behind his neck, and gave him such a burning kiss that he could not speak for several breaths, fearing that his voice would quaver, and distracted by his attempts to master his disobedient body’s inconvenient enthusiasm for his betrothed.

  CHAPTER 23

  TWO MORE OF THE WIZENED corpses had been found, much nearer the inn, and folk were once more keeping to their cottages. The evening was fairly well advanced, a cold rain was falling, quiet but steady, and despite the season there was a moist chill in the air. Adelard had built a small fire in the hearth to drive off the damp. Molly and her troupe sat at the north end of the large table, by the door to the innyard. Adelard was sitting with them, and Joan had just brought a beaker of ale for Jack. Sweetlove lay on her side by the fire, snoring peacefully. There came the sound of several horses and the rumble of carriage wheels, and Timothy went down the long room to the front door to see.

  He opened the door, and stepped back in, his eyes very wide, his mouth drawn down at the corners. Through the open door they could see part of a carriage, with a glowing horn-paned lantern fixed to the end of the driver’s bench; the driver’s legs; a curtained window; and a knight in mail stepping to open the carriage door. Two knights came in, and Hob realized with a shock that they were of the group of peculiar knights that had accompanied Sir Tarquin to Chantemerle. They stepped to either side of the doorway, and in walked Lady Rohese, pushing back the hood of her traveling cloak.

  Joan fainted immediately, dropping where she stood, and only partly caught by Nemain, which softened her fall but did not stop it. Adelard sprang up and, with Hawis’s help, carried his wife into the kitchen. The terrier immediately ran behind Jack’s chair and stood there, slightly crouched, her upper lip lifting and falling, baring and concealing her teeth, surprisingly long for such a small dog; from her came a faint groaning snarl, as though she wished to threaten, but did not dare more.

&n
bsp; Behind Lady Rohese came two maids, and the whole party came up to the large table, and seated themselves at the end opposite Molly and her family. Molly sat utterly still and gazed at Lady Rohese with a complete absence of expression, and Nemain, her eyes on the newcomers, sat down again, very slowly. The rough-hewn chair beside Hob creaked as Jack sat forward, gathering his feet under him, his powerful legs tense and his right hand down by his dagger.

  Lady Rohese, with her bizarre expression, fair and foul at once, sat for a long moment, looking into Molly’s eyes. Hob had once seen two cats sit face-to-face in the alley beside the priest house, staring into each other’s eyes with unfathomable meaning. Each had slowly come to its feet; backs were arched; at a signal known only to themselves they flew at one another in a squall of blood and screams of hatred. Now he felt himself in the midst of something similar: on his right Jack was coiled, watching the two knights’ every move, but it was Molly and Sir Tarquin’s witch-wife who held his attention: the air between them seemed almost to crackle with imminence.

  The moment stretched on, taut as a harp string, and then Adelard crept out of the kitchen again, quickly spread a cloth over the table, and stood waiting to serve the party. Lady Rohese sat back and looked up at him.

  “You are Adelard, are you not? I have heard good reports of your ale from my men. They are Scots,” she said, and Adelard went dead-white, “and Scots know their ale. Four fine, strapping men—do you know them?”

  “Theer’s m-mony cam’ through t’ inn, m-ma lady,” said Adelard, swaying a little from terror of those large, beautiful eyes, dark as the night, dark as the grave. “Ah dinna ken ’em all.”

  “Bring us ale, and them also,” she said, turning away, indicating the troupe at the other end of the table. Adelard scurried back into the kitchen; reappeared with birchwood mugs and set them out; scurried back for flagons of ale, cloths, and water in bowls for the guests’ hands. His wife and daughter remained hidden in the kitchen. Once, Hob thought he heard a muffled sob, but only once.

  One of Lady Rohese’s maids was a side-glancing, furtive young woman, with a long nose and snapping black eyes, slender wrists, slim flexible fingers. These last were notably deft as she attended her mistress, pouring her ale, tying up a loose riband, handing her mug and napkin and washbowl, all without spilling aught. Lady Rohese sent her on an errand out the door to the coach, and she took the long way by the fire, which necessitated her passing between Molly’s chair and the wall behind. She squeezed through the gap easily enough on her way out, but upon her return, a small jar in hand, she seemed to stumble and fall rather awkwardly against the back of Molly’s chair. A moment later she was all apologies, brushing at Molly’s shoulder and straightening the back of Molly’s veil, while her mistress scolded her in a low but intense voice from down the table.

  Molly nodded pleasantly enough at her, but her lips were set in a crooked half smile, and she looked significantly at Nemain.

  The maid returned to her place, sitting at Lady Rohese’s right hand, but a little behind her chair. Her mistress studiedly ignored her. Hob noticed that Molly and Nemain were not tasting their ale; indeed, each was toying with her mug, but each seemed to be unobtrusively watching the far end of the table.

  After a short time the maid drew something from within her gown and, leaning a little forward, put it in her mistress’s lap, below the table-line, out of sight. In a moment Lady Rohese looked down, and smiled. It was an unpleasant smile. She looked up and reached for her ale. Then she lifted her mug to Molly where she sat at the far end of the table.

  Molly sat stone-faced for a moment, then drew the ring-pommel dagger from her belt—the two strange knights tensed and watched her hand closely. She took a generous lock of her hair and cut perhaps six inches from the bottom. She dropped it on the table in front of her, pricked her thumb with the dagger-point, and returned the weapon to its sheath, her movements rapid, her hands steady. She let a few drops of blood fall upon the hank of silver hair before her. Hob, watching Molly, heard the knights’ chairs creak as the two relaxed and sat back again.

  From her bosom Molly drew a little deerskin bag, put the moistened lock of her hair into it, then pulled tight the leather laces. She tied a simple knot, murmuring over it in Irish, so low that Hob could barely hear her voice.

  “Do not be stinting yourself,” she said, and tossed the bag unerringly down the table, so that it landed just beside Lady Rohese’s mug.

  Lady Rohese looked down at the deerskin bag. She did not raise her head, but her eyes sought Molly’s face, so that she was looking up from under, and she began again to smile, a cruel delighted smile, and Hob crossed himself, thinking, If it be that Satan smiles, then this is the shadow of his smile.

  Nemain had gone rigid; she stared at Molly, appalled.

  “Seanmháthair, you—”

  “Hush, child, all will be well.” Molly was watching the other end of the table. Lady Rohese sat up very slowly, till she was straight against her chair back. She darted a hand into a pocket in the lining of her cloak and brought forth a cloth doll, with painted features and a long mane of silver threads.

  Nemain drew breath with a sharp hiss. Hob was looking back and forth from her to Molly. He was unsure what was happening, but it boded no good.

  Molly sat, still as a cat crouched in ambush, and watched the witch-woman at the far end of the table. Lady Rohese tore open the pouch strings and brought forth the bloodied lock of hair. At this moment, Molly sat back with a bleak smile, and took a sip of her ale.

  Lady Rohese thrust the wad of hair and blood into a hollow in the doll, muttering to it the while, then turned swiftly in her seat and threw the doll into the fireplace. It fell on the topmost log and was afire at once, as though soaked in pitch: the mane of silver threads went up in a burst of light, and the cloth followed, and even down the table Hob caught the faint acrid smell of burning hair from within the doll.

  Lady Rohese swung back and glared at Molly.

  But Molly just sat and smiled at her. Molly’s only discernible discomfort was a slight sheen of perspiration upon her forehead; she patted delicately at her face with a hand cloth.

  “Seanmháthair,” said Nemain again, her voice anguished, her eyes wide with horror. Sweetlove, hearing the fear in Nemain’s voice, shifted her feet, turned in a circle, and peeped around Jack again, alternating between whines and faint growlings.

  Molly waved a hand at her granddaughter. “Away with your fretting! Would you ever be setting a kitten on a panther, and you thinking you’d have a panther-skin cloak on the morrow?”

  Nemain nodded toward the head of the table. “Yet this kitten has claws. . . .” She turned back to Molly.

  Molly sighed. “Nay, she does not. Look upon her, child.”

  Hob and Nemain followed Molly’s gesture toward the other end of the table.

  A thin stream of blood, like a dark little ruby-colored snake, slid from Lady Rohese’s left nostril. She did not notice at first, and kept looking round at the fire, where the doll crisped and blackened till nothing of it could be discerned. Then she would look back, stunned, at Molly, who sat smiling grimly.

  Lady Rohese suddenly put a hand out to steady herself, and with a panicky motion scrambled upright. There was a collective gasp. The white linen over her thighs was sodden red, and even as they watched, the stain spread downward with appalling rapidity: Hob realized that her lifeblood must be pouring out beneath her gown. There was a lock of Molly’s hair that had not fit in the doll. The fear left Lady Rohese’s face and she snatched at the gray wisp, her face a mask of frenzied malignance. But she could not seem to grasp it, and the outstretching of her arm had put her off-balance, and she toppled sideways, striking the table edge, her last frantic clutch pulling part of the table linen and its burden of mugs and bowls down upon her.

  The maid sprang to her side with a shriek and knelt, and the other maid and the knights crowded about her and her fallen mistress. The maid sprang up again. She put her palms
on her cheeks; she looked about distractedly. “Dead! Dead!” she cried. She looked at Molly, and her lips curled in a grim leer. “Sir Tarquin, Sir Tarquin! What will he not do to you!” she snarled.

  Jack bent a little, put his hand on his dagger, out of sight, and Hob unobtrusively loosened his own new dagger. But the two knights, with their oddly detached manner, seemed uninterested in hostilities; they bent and cradled their mistress in their arms, and forming an impromptu litter, slowly shuffled their way to the door.

  At this moment a trembling hand was placed on the jamb of the kitchen arch, and Joan peered around the edge. When she saw what was happening, she broke into a vengeful smile, composed of equal parts glee and hatred. Hawis took her by the shoulders and tried to turn her back into the kitchen. Joan shook off Hawis’s hands and went step by slow step after the knights, keeping a certain distance, but still with that savage grin of triumph on her face.

  The maids scurried ahead, one opening the inn door, the other going out and holding the door to the carriage. There was a stifled exclamation of dismay from the driver as the knights came into his view with their burden. Through the open door Hob could see the knights placing Lady Rohese within the coach, and placing a robe over her body.

  Joan crept down the room. She reached the door, and slowly, silently, swung it shut, and shot the bolt. She put both palms against the door and leaned on it, as though pushing, and she stared at the wood before her face, grinning, grinning. From the road outside came muffled orders, the jingle of harness, and a rumble of wheels, as the coach got under way.

  SOME TIME LATER Hob made himself ask, “But, Mistress, what did you do to her?”

  Nemain was sitting quietly beside him, looking drained.

  “I’m after putting a spell of loosening on the drawstring,” said Molly, “and a hidden spell it is, so that she should not be aware of it, though she saw it done, and myself doing it right before her eyes.”