Eventually I heard footsteps stop outside my cell, then the door being unlocked. This was it. They had come back to question me.
My heart juddered and I felt sick, watching the door swing inexorably open.
How long could I withstand their torture before I broke as Blanche had done? Perhaps I was not as brave as I hoped. Certainly I did not feel very brave just at the moment, about to face the Inquisition.
Except it was not Miguel and his men come back to skewer me alive, but a dark-hooded priest standing in the doorway to the cell, a silver cross about his neck.
‘I bring spiritual solace,’ he murmured, and I saw that he held a small, leather-bound book of prayers. ‘Will you repent your sins, or risk an unshriven death?’
Alejandro!
For a second I was overjoyed, my heart singing with love at the sound of his voice. Even the dark little cell seemed to lighten with his presence. Then I remembered the terrible danger he had put himself in by coming to me, and I shook my head violently, groaning ‘No!’ behind my gag.
Alejandro stepped inside, his head still bowed. Beyond him I could see one of the guards looking at me with a sort of leering stare, then the man pulled the cell door shut and we were alone.
‘Forgive me, my love.’ Alejandro removed the cloth from my mouth, his gaze searching my face intently. ‘I wanted to come earlier but they were questioning me too. Have they hurt you?’
I shook my head. My mouth and throat were dry as sawdust. ‘Thirsty,’ I managed.
He looked about but there was nothing for me to drink. ‘Damn them,’ he said angrily.
I closed my eyes in despair, then opened them as a new thought struck me. ‘The Lady Elizabeth?’
‘They’re searching her rooms now for forbidden writings, anything that might link her to Dee and his accursed horoscopes. I bribed the guard, told him I could not bear to see such a young girl face the Inquisition without bringing her prayer and spiritual comfort.’ He smiled grimly, throwing back the deep cowl of his hood so that I could see his face clearly. ‘I look the part, at least.’
‘If they catch you here—’
‘I know,’ he agreed calmly. ‘We have maybe a few minutes, then I’ll go. Hush, don’t look like that. I’ll be careful.’
‘How should I look?’
Alejandro leaned forward, his gaze fixed on mine, and covered my mouth with his own. A kind of warm, glorious darkness enveloped us both as we kissed, and for that moment I forgot the horror of our situation. I was waiting to be questioned and tortured, while he had put himself in terrible danger just by coming to see me.
Yet as soon as his lips touched mine, all of that became meaningless. All I knew was that I loved him, and my soul soared as our lips and then our bodies touched.
After a moment, he pulled back and gazed down into my face. ‘That’s how you should look,’ he said softly.
‘If I wasn’t chained to this wall, I’d put my arms about your neck and kiss you back,’ I whispered.
Alejandro smiled, but I saw his restless fury grow as he looked about the room. His dark gaze paused on the brazier, not yet lit, but with thin irons poking out that would sear flesh once red-hot. Then he glanced down at the metal cuffs at my wrists and ankles, no doubt seeing how cruelly they dug into my skin. ‘What savages they are, to treat a woman worse than a dog. Let them hurt you, I’ll fetch my sword and hack their hearts out, one by one,’ he breathed angrily. ‘They do not deserve to be called men.’
‘Fire-eater! You know, this is the second time you have bribed a guard to visit me in prison,’ I said lightly, hoping to distract him from his fury.
I remembered how Alejandro had visited me secretly in my little room at Woodstock, the night before Marcus Dent came to interrogate me on a charge of practising witchcraft. How frightened I had been then! We had only left Woodstock a month ago, yet already the time I had spent there seemed a thousand years ago. Now I was at court and still suspected of being a witch, facing torture at the hands of the Inquisition.
It was like facing death.
I managed a faint smile when he did not reply. ‘You seem to be making a habit of bringing me “spiritual comfort”, Alejandro.’
‘Only because you have a habit of getting yourself into trouble.’
‘Well, you may not have noticed this, but I’m not very good at being good.’ I took a deep breath, knowing what I must do. ‘Which is why you must go, Alejandro. You cannot help me, but you can help the Lady Elizabeth.’
He touched my cheek, his expression intense. ‘I have a plan. Let me marry you. Tell them we are betrothed. I can protect you once we are man and wife.’
‘No,’ I whispered, though it nearly killed me to refuse such an offer.
It was sweetly tempting to agree and let him protect me, in the hope that being betrothed to a Catholic novice in the King’s service would restore my reputation and save my neck. But in truth it was more likely to do neither of those things, but stretch Alejandro’s neck instead. And I would not drag him into this dangerous hotchpotch of guilt and suspicion.
‘It would do no good. Señor de Pero has already warned me to stay away from you,’ I told him, ‘and I think he warned you too. He’d be more likely to want me dead if I said we were betrothed.’
His eyes flickered, but he did not press the point. So I was right and Miguel de Pero had spoken to him about me, perhaps instructed Alejandro to steer clear of English country girls like me, so clearly beneath his status as a Spanish nobleman and a novice. But whatever had been said, he was still here beside me. I had to give him that. And he knew me well enough not to waste his time trying to change my mind once it was made up.
‘Then my advice is to confess straight away that you dabbled in the dark arts, but only at your aunt’s insistence. That she led you astray with her cunning witchery, and now you repent. Tell them you renounce the Devil and wish to be a good Catholic.’ He frowned when I shook my head. ‘No, hear me out. They’ll be more excited by a confession of witchcraft than this other business with John Dee, which seems to be leading nowhere. You will not be tortured if you confess straightaway, and if you can demonstrate true repentance they may even release you without trial as an example to other transgressors. Then once you are free I will take you away from here, somewhere they can never find you.’
‘And what will happen to the Lady Elizabeth?’
He hesitated, then lied. I needed no magick art to tell me that he was lying. ‘She will come to no harm. Your mistress need not be implicated in your confession.’
‘A witch in her household, and you say she will not be implicated?’
His voice became strained. ‘I love you, Meg Lytton. I will not leave you here to be tortured and abused. I know it sounds bad, but a confession will save you the worst pain.’
‘Alejandro, you know I cannot do that. A confession would destroy the Lady Elizabeth.’
I loved him back fiercely but I could not make myself say the words. Not now, not here in this cell. To use those words would glue him to my side as surely as if I had used a spell of cleaving.
‘Now leave me, Alejandro. For my sake, you must say nothing of our betrothal to anyone. You will never become a priest if you openly associate with me, especially now that I have been arrested by the Inquisition. And if you are found here, what can your masters think but that you are somehow involved in my wickedness?’
He stared at me despairingly. ‘At least protect yourself then. I know that you are capable of it.’
I almost laughed, but did not quite dare, seeing his grim expression. ‘Are you giving me permission to use magick?’
‘I do not believe a just and loving God would wish to see you suffer under the instruments of the Inquisition,’ he muttered, and glanced about the walls of my cell where vicious metal tools and contraptions hung, waiting to be used on unfortunate prisoners like myself. ‘Nor remain locked up in this cruel place, though you had cast a thousand witch’s circles.’
We both
heard the sound of footsteps coming up the tower’s circular staircase. Alejandro turned to look at me, his eyes very dark.
‘Please go,’ I managed huskily. ‘And put the cloth back in my mouth. Hurry!’
By the time Miguel de Pero stepped into my ugly cell, ducking his head to avoid the low doorway, my betrothed had disappeared – probably slipping higher up the stairs to avoid meeting the Inquisition as they climbed to my tower room.
The black-robed Spaniard loomed above me, holding a torch aloft to banish the growing shadows. I blinked up at him and his men in the torchlight, unable to hide my fear of what would come next. Now that I no longer had to appear strong in front of Alejandro, my inner defences began to crumble and I could not seem to hold a single spell in my head.
How could I withstand this man’s methods when I already felt so weak, so alone and vulnerable? My arms ached from hanging in chains, and my body was deeply uncomfortable, my belly cramping like a woman’s in labour. His eyes were cold as he looked me up and down, examining my captive body; they froze the blood in my veins.
Would it not be less painful to follow Alejandro’s suggestion, confess to having ‘dabbled’ once or twice as a witch, then plead a contrite and heartfelt repentance?
But that would leave the princess open to accusations of harbouring a witch in her household, I reminded myself.
De Pero handed the torch to one of his men, then unfastened his cloak, watching me.
‘I trust the long wait has not been too tiring for you. I’m afraid it could not be helped. I had more questions to ask and rooms to search. But now, Meg Lytton,’ Señor de Pero said pleasantly, picking up a hooked metal tool from a side table, ‘I aim to discover what steel you are made of.’
I woke to darkness for the fourth or fifth time, my head hanging. There was something sticky on my chin: spittle perhaps, or it might have been blood. My mouth had been gagged again, no doubt to prevent me from casting a spell against my tormentors. Under my gown, my thighs were damp and sore, and I suddenly remembered the humiliation of wetting myself after a futile and nauseating battle to control myself. That embarrassment seemed the least of my troubles though. I knew there was more to come, and worse. Far worse.
I stirred painfully against my bonds. The sky outside the window grating seemed to be lightening. How long until dawn?
I had no idea what the hour was, nor even how long I had been asleep. The night seemed to have been one long round of torment, broken only by the marvellous absences and horrifying returns of the Inquisition.
There was something lying on the filthy straw at my feet. An unidentifiable blur of white. As my eyes struggled to make out what it was, the door opened and someone came in, a flaming torch in his hand.
I did not need to look up to know who it was.
‘Well, señorita?’ Señor de Pero demanded, dragging the soiled gag from my mouth. ‘It will be daybreak in another hour. Are you ready to speak to me yet?’
‘Go to Hell,’ I muttered.
He came closer, thrusting the smoking torch into the wall bracket so he could look into my face. ‘What was that you said?’
But I said nothing more, my bravado abruptly deserting me. Previous remarks like that had been rewarded with pain, and I was tired of hurting. So desperately tired I knew it could not be long before I weakened and began to give him, word by stumbling word, the confession he craved. It did not seem to matter what I confessed to having done, so long as it would incriminate the Lady Elizabeth and allow them to arrest her. That had been clear from his questions, which always seemed to return to my mistress in the end.
He had come at me gently enough the evening before, one of his men merely pricking the soles of my feet with a hot needle at each ‘wrong’ answer. ‘Are you a witch, Meg Lytton? You can tell me the truth, I shall see that your death is not a painful one.’
‘I am no witch, sir.’
‘What does the Queen’s sister know of your powers?’
‘I am no witch,’ I found myself repeating, wincing as the hot needle was pushed deeper into my bare sole.
‘Is the Lady Elizabeth a witch too? Have you heard her call upon dark spirits? What spells does she perform against the Queen?’
‘None, no spells.’ I cried out as the needle bit into me again. ‘The Lady Elizabeth is a devout, God-fearing Catholic. She is no witch.’
A resounding slap round the face sent my head lolling. Miguel came close, spitting in my face with venom as he spoke. ‘Don’t lie to me, witch. Everyone knows what the Lady Elizabeth is, she will burn in Hell for her sins.’ He changed his tack, stepping back. ‘Tell me, have you met the conjuror and astrologer known as John Dee? Have you ever seen him in company with the Queen’s sister?’
‘No!’
‘Letters, then. Have you brought your mistress secret communications from him or seen her reading any privately? Charts, perhaps, folded into a book to hide them? The Queen’s own horoscope?’
I would shake my head at all these questions, then groan as the chains that held my arms were inexorably shortened, drawing me higher and higher up the wall until I was perched on the far tips of my toes. My terrified mind grasped at spells I could work to prevent him hurting me again, but it was useless. I knew there would be no hiding from a charge of witchcraft after that, for no one would believe me innocent if I showed my power so openly. And then the princess would suffer for my weakness.
‘Tell me everything you know, Meg Lytton, and I will spare you pain. Keep lying, and I will tear your fingernails off and leave you bleeding in the dark.’ He had turned away to the lit brazier while I hung shaking. A hot needle pricked under one of my nails, making me hiss with excruciating pain. I had struggled to drag my hand away, but was held grimly in position by one of his men. ‘Speak the truth now, girl, have you ever taught the Lady Elizabeth how to work magick?’
‘No, sir! I swear it!’
‘I know that you are lying just as I know dusk from dawn. You will weep blood before this night is out, Meg Lytton.’
I had screamed then as he prised one of my fingernails off, then plunged my hand into a bowl of steaming hot water so that my whole body shook violently in shock.
Then darkness had come but no rest from the interrogation. There had been visits by torchlight, repeated demands that I should tell the truth, and then more pain when I refused.
Now Miguel de Pero had come to examine me again in the pale early dawn, his fingers tilting my chin up to look into my face. ‘Did you sleep? No, I imagine not in that position. Few can.’
Carefully, he removed the gag which had held me silent and unable to work magick – an important precaution when examining a witch, as I knew from my mock trial in Oxfordshire. I had survived that ordeal. But would I survive this?
My lips had begun to bleed where the rough cloth had rubbed against the corners of my mouth. I licked at them painfully.
‘It would go better with you if you were to speak to me, Meg Lytton. Do you fear to betray your mistress, is that it?’ When I said nothing but looked him in the eye, he smiled wearily. ‘Such loyalty is commendable. I am not an ogre, I would not wish to see the Queen’s sister in this cell. But it is my duty to uncover the hidden sources of evil in this court and destroy them. And it has come to my ears that your mistress not only knows Master Dee, but met him secretly when she was at Woodstock.’
My eyes widened but still I said nothing. Had someone betrayed us?
‘However,’ Miguel continued smoothly, ‘I have no evidence of this, no proof whatsoever. All I have is the word of a man who has some old score to settle, I would guess.’
He held up a letter. I stared, but in the flickering torchlight I could not make out the handwriting, let alone read what the letter contained.
Miguel noted my interest. ‘Yes, even the young and beautiful Lady Elizabeth has enemies. And not just at court. This letter comes from Oxfordshire.’
My heart was thumping now. Oxfordshire?
‘It is probabl
y all true, what this fellow writes to me. Or enough of it to put your mistress in the Tower for treason. Except that another player has entered the game. The King heard testimony last night from one of the men who was with the Lady Elizabeth in Oxfordshire. He swears on his life that your mistress never left the palace of Woodstock and was never seen in the company of Master Dee, that this letter contains nothing but hearsay and lies.’ He smiled unpleasantly. ‘One man’s word against another. The simplest contest, and yet often the hardest.’
I waited to see what else he might reveal, though my tired mind could not fully comprehend what he was saying to me. Some enemy from Oxfordshire had written to the Inquisition about us. But who?
It was far easier to work out who had spoken to the King on her behalf. It had to be Alejandro de Castillo. Who else in this palace of hatred and suspicion would have risked his reputation and his own neck to stand up to such an accusation?
I felt unaccountably angry at the thought. What could have possessed Alejandro to risk his chance to become a priest by defending the princess? He must know such a connection would mark him out for ever as a traitor to his own countrymen, for this was a court where all Spaniards followed the Catholic King and Queen, not the little half-sister whom many still believed to be secretly Protestant.
Miguel came closer, looking down into my face. ‘You have nothing to say?’
I shook my head, and watched in a kind of exhausted stupor as he nodded to the Spanish guard on the door to unfasten the manacles about my wrists and ankles.
‘In the absence of further evidence, His Majesty the King has sent orders for you to be returned to the Lady Elizabeth’s service.’ His voice crackled with frustration. ‘But I still have my suspicions about you, Meg Lytton. Do not think this means we will not be watching you and your mistress.’
Released at last, I fell forwards onto the filthy straw with a cry, for my legs were too weak to support me, my arms prickling with pins and needles from having been raised so long above my head. The white blur that I had seen was my cap, trampled into the straw and spattered with blood. I lay beside it like a corpse, incapable of movement despite the appalling stench, and hardly daring to believe that I was being set free just at the point when I had thought the end had come.
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