Willow Witch

by Patty Jansen

  That may already have happened.

  She met his eyes, but said nothing.

  “Saarland needs court magicians.”

  She nodded, really confused now about what he was trying to tell her. Nothing he had said so far convinced her that he didn’t know who Roald was. He came to conclusions similar to her own, and now—was he saying Hey, if you need to employ a magician, I’m available?

  She wanted to believe he was being honest with her, about his father, about his mission to capture Loesie. He sounded too naïve, unbelievable for someone with as many powers as he seemed to have.

  The little voice inside her said, This is all a trap. You need to leave as soon as possible if you don’t want to end up dead inside the ice cellar.

  They arrived in the upstairs corridor. Nellie opened the door to the kids’ room while Johanna and Sylvan manoeuvred Loesie through. They dragged her onto the bed.

  Sylvan left, and Nellie helped Johanna take Loesie’s dress off.

  Loesie’s eyes were no longer white, and followed Johanna’s hands as she undid the laces.

  “Do you feel better?”

  “What are we doing here?” Loesie asked.

  “I just told you when we were coming up the stairs.”

  Loesie frowned.

  “She’s almost cured,” Nellie said.

  “I’m not sure. Loesie speaks in eastern dialect, and she doesn’t seem to listen to anything we say.”

  “Well, she’s better than before. I’m sure this man can cure her.”

  Johanna shrugged. She still didn’t trust the duke. As some point she was going to have to ask him bluntly what his business was with an ice cellar full of dead bodies. Until she knew, and probably even after, she wouldn’t trust either him or his son, who seemed all too keen to offer his services.

  “You’re sure you can handle being with her in the room?” Johanna asked.

  “I can manage. A wife should be with her husband anyway.”

  Johanna vacillated between telling Nellie off for always worrying about what was appropriate and letting it go. In the end, the easy option won. She was too tired to argue.

  Loesie was already half asleep, so Johanna went with Roald to the other bedroom.

  Someone had been in to light the fire, which burned with a healthy glow. Neither Johanna nor Roald said anything when entering the room. Roald hadn’t said much even at dinner or during that horrible magical performance. She worried about what went on in his head. Eventually, he would have questions about it.

  When Johanna closed the door, sounds in the room became muffled. The room had a thick carpet and heavy curtains. It would have been quite cosy if not for the fact that the furniture was sparse and dusty.

  Once, many people had lived in this house. What had happened?

  A small table with a carafe of wine and two glasses on it stood near the hearth. The church frowned upon the consumption of alcohol, and wine had to be imported in Saarland, so there was rarely any at the table. She found it strange that other sections of the church allowed wine. It was as if all the districts had different interpretations of the book.

  Johanna poured wine in the glasses. “I don’t really know what to think of the duke. He seems kind enough, but . . .” She shrugged and went to the fire. Her hands were still cold from the magic, and she couldn’t quite dispel the memory of those spiders. And then Sylvan’s spell. Should she accept the help of the son of a man who had tried to kill his half-brother? He was right in that Saarland needed a court magician. They needed many other people as well. It was high time that they found survivors and started establishing the position of the royal family.

  Roald sat staring at some point across the room. Johanna picked up the cups.

  “Roald, look at me.”

  He turned his head. “Oh yes, I love to look.”

  Not like that. Heavens, was that what he had been thinking all night? “No, that’s not what I mean. I want to ask you a few things.”

  “Oh?”

  He took the glass from her.

  Johanna sat down and took a sip. The fluid’s taste was quite sharp and it made a little burning track inside her all the way down to her stomach. “When you went away with the order in Burovia, were they people of the Church?”

  “I don’t like going to church. My father says I have to go. The monks want me to go every day, but I like much better to work in the fields. I get the horses, I feed the horses. I pick the grapes. I weed the garden.”

  “So this place was a monastery?”

  He frowned at her.

  “A monastery is where monks live and pray. You said they were monks.”

  “But it wasn’t a monastery.”

  “There are no women in a monastery.”

  A slight frown. “Yes, it was like that and it’s very sad, because there are no women to look at. You know these monks have never looked at a woman? They don’t like talking about it either. Probably because they don’t know.”

  For crying out loud. Was there anything he could get excited about other than women and the family tree of various royal families?

  “The monks in this . . .” She almost said monastery again. “. . . place go to church?”

  “Every day.”

  “What does the church look like?”

  He frowned. “Like a church?”

  “Is there anything in the church?”

  “Benches to sit, and for the choir. They tried to get me to join the choir, but I don’t like the music. It’s boring and too slow, but I can’t sing that slow. I get out of breath.”

  She chuckled. “Are there any statues in the church?”

  “Like the one in the big church, with the dog-heads?”

  “It has only one dog head, but yes, that’s the one.”

  He frowned. “It has two.”

  “No, there is one. The other heads are the ghost and the holy god.”

  “There are two.”

  “One.”

  “Two.”

  Johanna realised: this might well be a different statue of the triune. She had not known Roald to be wrong about anything.

  “So there is a statue like that in the big church in Saardam?” Would that church still be standing?

  “Yes, I just said so.”

  “It’s at the front of the church, with the pulpit to one side and—”

  He shook his head. “It’s in the middle and all the benches are around it.”

  Yes. A different church, obviously. Now she was getting somewhere. “Do you remember the names of any of the monks?”

  “Peter.”

  “They were all named Peter?”

  “No, there were others.” He held up his hand and counted on his fingers. “David, Johan, Anselmus, Bernhard—”

  “Was there one named Alexandre?”

  He frowned. “He is not a monk. He is . . . ooohhh, you don’t mess with him.”

  “If he’s not a monk, then what is he?”

  “He says he’s a prince of Burovia, but I don’t believe that, because the king has no sons.”

  No legitimate ones at any rate. Illegitimate ones were another matter.

  With a lot of difficulty, she managed to get out of him that someone named Alexandre was also a guest at the order where he had stayed. It had been a church farm of sorts, where they also grew herbs for making concoctions. Other guests included two of Baron Uti’s cousins, both of whom, Roald said, spent a lot of time in the dungeons as punishment for being inebriated and disorderly.

  The place seemed like a home for troublesome royals. The young men were subjected to a punishing schedul
e of hard work and prayers when they weren’t in the fields.

  They had an elaborate system of punishments that seemed quite excessive. Lashes for a lot of minor transgressions like being late in church or forgetting to tidy one’s bed, time in the dungeons for more serious missteps, such as failing to recite prayers properly or making fun of figures of authority. The most serious of crimes, blasphemy, attracted a punishment of a week in chains without food, and a hundred lashes every morning.

  “They used a belt on me, not a chain, because of the scars.” He said this proudly.

  “You mean they locked you in the cellar and hit you every day?”

  He lifted his shirt. “See? No scars.”

  Johanna looked at that bronzed skin with renewed awe. “Why did they punish you?”

  “They said Prince Richert of Estland stole bread from the kitchens but he didn’t. I know that for a fact. Because I stole the bread for Tomas, who was sick and couldn’t come to the hall to eat. The monk wouldn’t believe me so I called him a prick.”

  Somewhere in that distant mind of his was a very strong sense of justice.

  “What was this Alexandre doing there?”

  “He was friends with the monks. He never made his own bed. He never worked. I wasn’t afraid of him, but many people were.”

  Alexandre, Roald further informed her, came from the Burovian river town of Lisseau. This was on the Saar River and Johanna had been there. A pretty town, not very big, but it did have a fair bit of money. Apparently the Nielands used creditors in Lisseau to finance their bid to go into ocean trade.

  This whole situation was becoming more complex by the day.

  Eventually, the fire died and the glasses were empty. The wine had made a warm spot in her stomach. Somehow, the problems of the world seemed far away and not so important. It was comfortable and warm in this room, and Loesie would get better. They would get out of here, and would never know about the bodies in the ice cellar. Maybe the reason they were there wasn’t for her to know anyway. She put her glass down. “We should go to sleep.”

  Roald turned to her, an eager expression on his face. “Now do I get to look at you?”

  “If you want.” She didn’t feel like any awkward acrobatics, but he was her husband now, so it was his right to ask.

  She let herself out of the horribly stiff dress. Roald’s intense gaze made her feel uncomfortable so she went to the window, dressed in her underclothes, and pushed the curtain aside a crack. It was very dark outside, the sky spotted with stars. The room was at the front of the house, looking out over the clipped bushes and neat beds of the gardens.

  “I like looking at you.” Roald had come up from behind and put his hands on her hips. His palms felt warm through the underdress. He tugged at the fabric. “Take this one off, too.”

  Johanna slipped the underdress over her head. A cold draft from the window made her shiver. She pulled the string around her waist and dropped her drawers. Roald stepped a little back, staring at her.

  “Yes, I really like looking at you.”

  Johanna took off his jacket and undid the buttons to his shirt. He sat down on the bed, pulling her onto his lap and pressing his face between her breasts.

  “They’re so soft.” His breath tickled over her naked skin.

  He slid his hand over her back, pressing her closer to him. She could feel him through his trousers. The thought of that first night came with a slight shudder.

  “Wait.” She rose, undid his belt and peeled open the front of his trousers. His member stood straight up, like an overgrown gherkin. And thinking about gherkins made her laugh.

  “Heeeee!”

  He pulled her back on his lap, nuzzling the white skin on her belly. She breathed the scent of his hair. It was getting quite long and unruly.

  “You’re quite tanned. Did you spend a lot of time outdoors?”

  “All the time. They had cows. Real ones, not sea cows. I learnt to milk them. I worked in the field, harvesting grapes. The monks make wine.”

  “You liked that kind of work?”

  “It was nice. My father says I have to be nice to all these boring people. Do I really have to? They don’t like me.”

  Johanna chuckled, and then a feeling of sadness came over her. “Yes, you have to be nice to them.” At least the ones who were still alive.

  He leaned back on his elbows. “I want you to touch me now.”

  “Shift a bit further back.”

  He did. The whole thing was strange, an oddly rational and mechanical process. People said she was meant to feel something while doing this. Like you really want it, Augustina had confided, but she felt nothing.

  Johanna climbed onto the bed, put one leg over him, took his member, lifted it up in the right position and pushed down. He went deep into her. He groaned.

  “You find that pleasant.”

  “Ooooh, very nice.” He rocked his hips.

  “Don’t do that, because it hurts me.”

  He frowned. “It hurts?”

  “Not like this, but it does when you try to lift me in the air.”

  “Oh.” He frowned. “Does that mean we can’t do it anymore?”

  “No, it doesn’t mean that at all. Just that I would rather you didn’t try to lift me off the bed anymore.”

  “Oh.” His frown deepened.

  A waft of cold air drifted through the room, making Johanna’s naked skin crawl with goosebumps.

  “But hurting people is bad.”

  “It doesn’t hurt if you stay like this.” She leaned on her outstretched arms on either side of his shoulders and rocked backwards and forwards. For a while neither of them said anything. Roald leaned his head back in the pillow, his eyes closed and mouth slightly open.

  Each time she rocked, he gave a soft groan.

  She wanted to feel what he felt, because she didn’t understand this. Helena said that it was easier if you pretended to enjoy it, and that pretending to enjoy it sometimes led to enjoying it. And Johanna figured that she’d better learn to enjoy it or otherwise this part of her life would be very miserable.

  She didn’t want to be miserable, she wanted to enjoy it. She wanted to feel something.

  Johanna kept rocking her hips. She closed her eyes. Why hadn’t she noticed how tight it was, and how each time she pushed forward, she rubbed a very sensitive spot?

  Roald grabbed her thighs with white-knuckled hands. He groaned with each time she rocked back. Johanna remembered the noise he had made the previous time. She had the vague notion to tell him to be quiet, but part of her didn’t care, and that part was taking over her mind. She rocked harder and faster, because it was pleasant, and because she was married and they could do this.

  And then Roald arched his back and did his huhhhh! thing, almost lifting her. It would have hurt but she didn’t feel it anymore, he was that deep inside her.

  He relaxed, his chest heaving with fast breaths.

  “That was good,” he said.

  She nodded. She didn’t think it was as good as it could be, but this was obviously something they could work on. Something that didn’t require him to use words.

  She went to sleep next to him, in the warm hollow made by his body in the mattress and enveloped by the peculiar smell of his seed that flowed out of her and made wet patches on the sheets and her underdress. She didn’t care. He might have snored, but she didn’t notice. She had done her duty. The future of the Carmine House would grow inside her.

  * * *

  Johanna woke up sometime in the night when it was still pitch dark. She lifted her head off the pillow, aware of the coldness on her back. Roald sat up in bed.

  From somewhere outside came an un
familiar crunch, crunch sound.

  “What’s that noise?” Her tongue wouldn’t cooperate.

  Roald didn’t reply, but she recognised the sound. Footsteps on gravel. Horses.

  At this time of the night?

  She climbed out of bed and tiptoed over to the window. A cold draft worked its fingers around her legs and under her underdress.

  A half-moon had come up. It faint blue light silvered the perfectly-tended garden, the hedges, the clipped trees, the benches and ponds. A group of people stood on the drive, one of them leading a horse by the reins. The animal tossed its head and snorted as if it had been running.

  The other two people looked like they were house servants, but not Hans or the woman Johanna had seen. The three spoke with raised voices, too far away for Johanna to hear.

  Roald came to stand behind her, a warm presence at her back.

  “Who is that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Does he always receive guests in the middle of the night?”

  “I have no idea, but it’s odd.” Especially since there would have been little light for the traveller’s horse to see by.

  One of the servants took the horse in the direction of the stables; the other accompanied the traveller up the steps to the house.

  At the top of the stairs another man came out of the house. Johanna recognised the long hair of Sylvan. He met the newcomer on the paving in front of the door. The two spoke briefly. Sylvan gestured wildly with his hands and then the other man raised his voice. Sylvan shouted something at him. The visitor walked past him towards the main door. As he did so, he raised his head, and Johanna could see his face.

  It was Kylian.

  ‎

  Chapter 12

  * * *

  JOHANNA AND ROALD went back to bed. Roald fell asleep immediately, but Johanna was too disturbed to sleep. What in all the heavens was Kylian doing here?

  She still saw him on that night Saardam burned, first when their eyes met across the crowded hall, when she could feel his magic, then him wanting to dance with her, having followed her, perhaps, into the deserted gallery. Admitting that he could sense her magic. The kiss—no, she didn’t want to think about that. Then he’d asked her to come with him to Florisheim. And then, when the fire started, he’d jumped over the wall and disappeared without trace while his father was still in the hall.