“Alice!” she called out. It was strange, for Alice was always there. Susanna decided to look for her in Alice’s bedroom, which Henry had generously given to her as part of the terms of her employment.
A creaking sound echoed down the corridor, and Susanna glanced out of her bedchamber door to see what it could be. At the end of this hallway, there was a circular stone stairway that led down to a door. That’s strange, Susanna thought, that door leads to the inner ward. Alice never uses that door.
She followed the sounds, and crept down the cold, damp-smelling, dark stairs and down to the door, which was opening and closing with the draught. Susanna stopped suddenly. She felt as though someone was near, and then heard the sound of heavy breathing close by. There was the subtle scent of rosemary in the air. She turned tentatively and before her was the face of a Renaissance beauty. Susanna knew at once who she was, and a strong horripilation burst throughout her body.
Griselda.
“Hello, Susanna.”
***
“You’ve been gone a long while,” Henry murmured as his wife returned to the bed. As she slipped into the sheets beside him, he registered how cold her skin was. It was, however, a frosty day.
“Oh, you poor lady! You are almost as cold as I am!”
“I just need to spend some more time in bed with you, as I said earlier.”
She nestled in close to him, touching his naked skin on his arm, shoulder, and breast. Her breathing increased with her arousal, and she shrugged off her shift and took his hands and placed them on her breasts. She had wanted him for so long.
“Take me, Henry, take me now!” she exclaimed, forcing him back upon the bed with great force.
“Susanna?” he whispered, suddenly overcome with alarm. Susanna had always been meek and affectionate during their lovemaking sessions, not demanding and rough. He remembered that these were the same words that had once been uttered by another. By Griselda.
“Who else could I be, silly?”
Still, Henry was unconvinced. Something did not seem right.
“Let me see your face,” he requested. She opened the curtain slightly to let in some light. He looked at the wild mane of red hair, the soft, ample breasts, and the slightly rounded belly of the woman he loved. His eyes could not deceive him.
“Come, my Susanna,” he said, beckoning her into open arms, “If you want more, my love, I shall give you all that you desire.”
***
The mob from Coffin’s Bishop came upon Susanna as she lay unconscious upon the muddy ground in the middle of the castle ward. Griselda had struck Susanna across the face hard enough to make her lose consciousness, and then she had dragged the girl — wearing nothing but her thin shift, her shawl having fallen to the stone floor of the corridor — into the middle of the ward. They all looked at each other with some confusion, for it had been so easy to capture the witch. The way through the wood had been clear, the drawbridge lowered, and the portcullis up. It was too easy, but they were too foolish to care. They gagged and bound her before she awoke, and when she did, she was horrified with what she saw. The villagers of Coffin’s Bishop with their leering pig-faces surrounded her, and prodded her with sticks. She looked up in despair at Henry’s bedchamber window, hoping and praying he would hear them, see them, and save her! But Henry did not appear, and the foul villagers pulled her with a rope.
Henry slid into his wife’s body and screamed with shock. She was cold inside. With one hand, he wrenched apart the bed hangings and gazed in horror at the woman who sat astride him.
Griselda!
Overcome with repulsion, Henry immediately pushed her off his member.
“Lord save me! ‘Tis you!” he exclaimed, as he quickly put on his breeches and white shirt. “Where is Susanna? What have you done with Susanna?”
“Look outside the window and see for yourself,” she said, quite matter-of-factly. Henry staggered over to the window, the daylight making him instantly weak, and he saw a large and angry mob of men and women. And then he saw her, his wife, his Susanna, bound and gagged and being led towards Sanguinem Wood. He burst through the window and landed gracelessly upon the ground of the castle ward. He ran towards Susanna, but just as he was about to cross the drawbridge, he was thrown back with a great force. He scrambled to his feet and attempted to cross over a second time. He failed again. He tried to fly, but he could not because of the daylight. Had he tried at night, he would have found it impossible then, too; for Griselda had placed a powerful spell upon the castle, making it prison, and Henry, her prisoner.
“Susanna!” he cried in vain. “Susanna!”
Griselda appeared behind him. She had acquired new skills during her time away, for this force field was as strong as it was invisible.
“You must understand,” she said, “You belong to me. You have misbehaved, and therefore, you are not allowed to leave this castle until I allow you to do so.”
***
The two men who had been fiercely holding on to her arms now pushed her onto a splintered wooden chair. Sitting before her were the most influential men of the town. Their faces were grim, and full of disapproval. She had been hauled to Coffin’s Bishop with great hostility, and the villagers pushed and pulled her like chattel. Her slippers had fallen off and she had been forced to walk through Sanguinem Wood barefoot, and the sticks and stones she had stepped on made her feet quite painful.
“You have been accused of witchcraft and of the murder of your brother, Samuel, and his wife, Belinda, daughter of our magistrate, George Winthrop. What say you to these charges.”
She shook her head, exclaiming, “What? S-S-Samuel’s dead?” she shrieked in disbelief.
“They were murdered in the most foul and depraved manner. You were witnessed by Goody Miller leaving the cottage, wielding a bloody axe.”
“That is impossible. I was not even here — I am not guilty!”
Two of the six men chuckled. “It comes as no shock that you would reply thus.”
“And where, pray, is Goody Miller?” Susanna asked, looking around the makeshift courtroom. Miller was nowhere to be seen, and a few of the villagers recalled that they hadn’t seen her since she publicly accused Susanna in the village square.
“Goody Miller saw her with a bloody axe!” exclaimed Winifred Baker, pointing a trembling finger at Susanna. “Belinda often said how ungrateful Susanna was.”
“I did not commit murder!” cried the unhappy wretch.
“You are the only one in the village who held a grudge against Belinda. You are the only one with a motive!” said the vicar.
“Nay! I have done nothing wrong, I tell you!” Susanna saw the hatred in the faces of all around her. Their eyes burned with their loathing. They had always treated her badly, and now they had the means to destroy her.
“I love my brother and would neither harm him nor his wife! However badly she may have treated me — no one deserved that kind of death!”
“You say you loved your brother Samuel,” said Winthrop. “Is that what this is about? Was he your bedfellow? Even though he could not walk, how are we to know he wasn’t a full man? Was he the man who fathered your bastard child?”
“How dare you! We are not like you!” Susanna declared, thus openly shaming them for their secret. “Why do you think none of you could bear children? I was the only woman of my generation in this village to conceive and deliver a child. Why do you think that was? I’ve seen you,” she said, pointing to some of the faces she knew, “shaming me, cursing me, when all the while you were doing unnatural things with your siblings.”
The whole room gasped and some covered their monstrous faces in shame. Susanna continued, “I have been treated most unkindly for several years now due to malicious slander about my character. I have ever been a respectful and dutiful member of this community. Never have I been lacking in deference to those above me. People have shunned me in the streets, and now, this. All because of one woman’s lies.”
“Wha
t, you persist in your accusation that my daughter was a liar? Your impudence knows no bounds, Susanna Edmonds! I should have you flogged for such a remark!”
“I am telling you the truth, Sir! And what’s more, I was never a wanton, but one terrible day I fell prey to the villainous actions of your son, Peter Winthrop, Mark Thomas, and Geoffrey Smith. Any one of these three were responsible for the child I bore — a child which you, Vicar, refused to bury in the churchyard.” She cast the vicar an indignant look.
Farmer Smith stood up, aghast, “Then it was you who killed them as well! Murderous witch!”
George Winthrop stood up next and said, “Then you must have killed not only my daughter, but my son as well. You flaunted your ill-begotten beauty before their eyes; you tempted them into what you say they did. The fault lies with you.”
“Belinda Edmonds saw you in the act of fornication with an incubus — a devil!”
“These are lies!” She knew that if she told them about Henry, her undead husband, they would not believe her, but she knew she had to say something. “Belinda has never liked me!”
“And rightly so! Have you no shame? Consorting — having congress — with a incubus is a very grave thing indeed!”
“What I do is my own affair. It has nothing to do with you, nor the village.”
“Incorrect! Headstrong, immoral, woman! Have you no notion that where there is one rotten apple, the whole of the barrel rots in due course?”
“I am no rotten apple…”
“Nay! You are worse — a harlot who has opened up a portal to Hell. By your actions you may have started the Apocalypse, right here in Coffin’s Bishop!”
“I have done no such thing! I am a married woman now!” she exclaimed, rising to her feet and showing the wedding ring around her finger. “My husband owns Sanguinem Castle. If you fools had only gone inside, you could have seen him. He would have confirmed that I was in his company all night.”
“Everyone knows that the Castle has been abandoned for hundreds of years. It is also forbidden for anyone in this village to go thither, but you, reckless woman, have broken yet another of our laws. You used your witchcraft to transport you there to make us think that you could not have committed the murders in Edmonds Farm.”
Susanna shook her head. “This is madness!”
Winthrop, at the top of his voice, cried, “If any of you have borne witness to this woman’s actions, I charge you now to speak!”
“I saw her fly away on a broom!” cried an old woman from the back of the room.
“And I saw her turn into a black cat!” shouted the baker.
“She bewitched my goat, and I can milk her no more!” cried another.
“Yet more have come forth who have witnessed your witching ways! Oh! If only Matthew Hopkins, that expert Witchfinder-General who once graced us with his wisdom, could be here now. He would get a list of your imps from you!”
“I have no imps, for I am no witch!” exclaimed Susanna.
“Then you worked for Satan on your own? Your mother, Mary Edmonds, was a notorious concubine of the Devil who tempted most of the men in this village. She caused lust in good men, and she was justly punished. But you, Susanna Edmonds, you have her witch blood in your veins. Why deny your true nature? Why deny the truth? We have means of extracting the truth from you…”
“I am Mistress Susanna Stuart now! And my mother was not a witch, and as God is my witness, I also am none! Why could you not have left me alone? I am a married woman and I no longer live in this village, nor do any of you have any right to hold me here now.”
“Enough of this!” Winthrop exclaimed suddenly, rising to his feet. “I refuse to listen to any more of this accursed woman’s ranting. Coffin’s Bishop was, is, and shall ever be a respectable community, and I seek justice for my daughter’s death. I demand the Bier Right!” It was an old custom that held that the corpse of a murder victim would bleed anew near the person who had perpetrated the foul deed.
The mutilated corpses of Samuel and Belinda Edmonds were brought in and laid upon the floor by Susanna, who shrieked and felt sick at such a ghastly sight. A gust of cold wind made a shudder run down her spine. To her added shock, their multiple stab wounds began to bleed as though freshly attacked. This had been part of Griselda’s plan.
Susanna screamed in horror.
“They accuse you without words,” said Winthrop, coldly. “Since you failed to confess to your crime, you shall be interrogated properly back in your cell. You do know that we have all of the same instruments that the great Matthew Hopkins himself used when he came hither in sixteen-forty-five. But before that begins, we must investigate the accusation of witchcraft against the murderess, Susanna Edmonds.”
She knew what this meant. She could see Winthrop’s meaning plainly in his angry, pained eyes. He believed that she had murdered his beloved daughter. He was the worst man in the village to have done this to, for he had the means to make her suffer.
“We have the right to inspect your person,” he continued, with a malicious glint in his eye. “Strip her. Shave the hair of her head as well, so that we can see her flesh clearly and without hindrance.” He signalled to the men and they raised her up onto a table and roughly ripped the clothing off of her trembling body.
“No!” she pleaded in vain, as they next began to remove her hair. Within minutes, all of it was shorn and shaved off, and her beautiful red-gold curls lay in heaps upon the wood floor. Susanna’s hands were bound and raised up high above her head. The embarrassment, the indignity of it, was too much for her. There she stood, naked before their dissolute gazes. George Winthrop and the rest of the elders were after her complete humiliation.
“I beg you, stop this!” she pleaded as she sobbed.
“And what are these marks here?” asked the vicar, pointing to the puncture wounds from where Henry had bitten her during their lovemaking.
“Look you! Here are more!” they had found the same marks upon her inner arm, her thigh and her wrist.
“Confirmed! Confirmed!” shouted old Mister Baker. “This witch hath indeed been fornicating with an incubus! The proof is staring us in the face!”
Susanna knew she had to prepare herself for anything. They hauled her up roughly and escorted her down the stone steps and into the gaol. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light of the lantern a man carried before her. The smell of damp is overpowering, and she could scarcely breathe. There were rats in the gaol, squeaking and scratching as they scurried about looking for food.
They threw her into an open cell, slammed the rusty door and locked it.
Her mouth was dry with fear, for she could hear them sharpening their instruments of torture, the metal swish of the blades echoed off the stony tunnel walls. It was so dark, and the foul smell of mould and old excrement made her retch. With nothing in her belly, and weakened by another night in her vampire husband’s arms, she vomited only saliva and then bile.
***
“I learned a great deal during my imprisonment in Purgatory. I learned things that I thought I would never have to use, but then I came back and found that you had betrayed me. And, well… the tricks turned out to be useful after all.”
Griselda now had the ability to turn into any living human, and this is what she had done with Goody Miller, Alice, and finally, Susanna, to glorious effect. She smiled malevolently as she recalled how she had killed first Samuel, then Belinda, and then Goody Miller, and then adopted the form of the latter in order to raise the alarm against Susanna.
Her plan had been quite simple. She was to plant evidence to convince the superstitious folk of Coffin’s Bishop that Susanna was a witch and things would naturally lead to the young woman’s death. With her rival conveniently out of the way, and not directly by her hand, she could have Henry all to herself.
“Susanna is innocent, spare her! Let me save her, I beg of you. Griselda, my Begetter,” he implored her, now upon his knees, “I beseech you to release me and allow me save my wife.”<
br />
She looked down upon him as he knelt there supplicating him, pleading in just the same manner that Adolphe had ninety-six years before. Adolphe had loved Elissa in a way he never had for her, and to see the same look of pure desperation now upon Henry’s face as he begged for Susanna was more than Griselda could bear.
“I was to be your wife!” she howled. “For seven long years, I was forced to listen to the screams, the wailing of thousands of souls every day. But all this, I endured because I knew I would one day return to you. I was imprisoned because I Begat you without the Council’s permission. You were Begotten because I wanted you to be always by my side. Do not you see that you were never supposed to look for another? This Susanna is nothing.”
“She is my wife, and I swear that if any harm comes to her, you will pay twofold,” Henry threatened, scrambling to his feet and towering over her now, his eyes blazing green-yellow.
“You can threaten me all you like, but she will get what she deserves.”
He gave her a smoky look. “Cuorenero. Black heart. Your name suits you perfectly, Madam, for I have ne’er known a more black-hearted creature than thee.”
He could hear her screams as they tortured Susanna again and again. That was part of Griselda’s plan; he had no doubt, for she wanted him to pay for thwarting her plans. She knew how excruciatingly painful it would be for Henry to listen to his beloved’s shrieks and sobs, knowing he was unable to rescue her from the agony the foul villagers were inflicting upon her. How much more she could endure, he did not know.
***
She lay motionless upon the floor, her body broken. Two days and nights had passed, and with them the horrors of torture. She had been subjected to thumb screws, to their endless prodding, her legs had been broken, and finally, in the depths of the night, George Winthrop had come. No one else was in the gaol then, and he took advantage of this opportunity. Susanna was unable to move, unable to defend herself at all. He came into her cell with a torch, which he placed in the slot upon the wall. In the flickering light, she could see his what his intentions were. As the son had been, so was the father.
The Stuart Vampire Page 20