by Niamh Boyce
The succubus had had the look of that maid – not the exact image, but perhaps it wasn’t an exact magick. She was tall and narrow with, he knew now, long dark hair and feverish skin. The bishop had been in bed, and all was quiet and very black when he discerned a foetid mix of hair, wool and civet. He was unable to move; it was as if his body were turned to stone. He tried to speak, to cry out, but could not. Yet all his senses were acute, for he heard her breathing or, now that he thought on it, perhaps feigning breath. What use for air has a phantom?
He glimpsed her then, an imitation of a woman – stark naked but for a mass of hair that trailed to her hips. She pulled the blankets from him and elicited a response from his mortal flesh. Ledrede began to pray, as strong a prayer as he had ever prayed, to the Lord, and to Christ, his son. Though he prayed in silence, the creature moved to the rhythm of his words, splayed herself above his unwilling tumescence, folding back her lips, to reveal innards that glistened with evil. At that, from somewhere, came the strength to release his voice, and he cried out to the Holy Virgin Mother. He fell into a peaceful sleep as soon as those words left his mouth. When the bishop awoke, the demon was gone, but his bedclothes showed evidence of his struggle.
‘The devil tries hardest to win he who is righteous,’ he wrote, ‘sends demons to torment him with their vile bodies, but even in his sleep he defeats them and sends them back out into the night, those whores of Satan, depraved and insatiable.’
Ledrede shivered, not because it was cold as a grave but that she should have set her eye on him while he slept – that succubus, that witch’s familiar – and dared to enter a bishop’s chamber! He felt a breath – no, a draught was all.
‘If they break into the bishop’s bedchamber, who knows where else they roam? Not everyone has the strong will of the bishop …’
The bishop had noticed a change in the young scribe, how he leant exhausted over his desk yesterday, smudging ink as he transcribed the creature’s testimony. The bishop was not blind; he knew what he saw. Ralph tried to hide it, but he was tormented, too.
‘Tonight, I will build my defences high,’ wrote Ledrede, ‘with prayer, and more prayer. And tomorrow I will fix it so the creature cannot travel here.’ He sprinkled sand on the page he had finished and set his chronicle aside.
54. Petronelle
They have chained me so I cannot fly at night. I may no longer be able to move, but I can still pray. I prayed for Líadan’s safekeeping. It brought none of the solace that prayers usually did. Was it because it was said in this cell, in this place where murderers have waited for the gibbet? The iron fetter bit my ankle when I moved, so I stayed still and tried to keep warm as best I could. My hands made a dry sound when I rubbed them, like leaves whispering. Closing my eyes, I imagined that branches creaked in the wind above me. I raised my face towards the weak light from the window. As a girl waiting for Otto, I’d seek a patch of light on the woodland floor, shut my eyes and lift my face to the warmth and listen for his footsteps.
Ralph was always with Ledrede now, arriving with his wax tablet smooth and ready, leaving with it hatched with marks. The bishop had become intent that every word be recorded. This time he brought proof that he had Líadan. He opened his palm and a length of her hair was coiled there. He shut his fist when I reached to touch it.
‘Now tell us. You are a mistress of the black arts. You have power beyond measure, more than your mistress. And Robin is your true master, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he wears the devil’s girdle –’
‘Yes, and when the bells ring at prime, nones and vespers he blesses himself backwards. And after curfew, he journeys out beneath a black cloak unseen by watchmen but not by his fellow devil worshippers. He has many disguises. Let me see my daughter.’
‘Disguises, such as –’
‘He wore masks, once the silver face of an angel and a tunic painted with stars and wings made from the feathers of a swan.’
‘He could transform?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you also, Petronelle de Midia, transformed and flew at night.’
‘Yes. We flew right over the walls. Let me see my daughter.’
‘And there amongst the wooded slopes you danced naked and chanted, used candles made from stolen wax to concoct potions, recited spells to incite people to love, hate, injure and kill.’
‘Yes, I incited you to hate me, to gaol me here, to whip me like a beast and take pleasure in it.’
The bishop stood. ‘That’s not possible!’
‘None of it is; I don’t know any demon, no one came to my bed. I mutter only to pray. I am so tired and filthy with it, with what you say. Let me see my daughter.’
‘The creature Petronelle denies the truth despite having uttered it. The devil is back in control of her tongue.’
I quelled the desire to tell this strange demented man that I had a name, and it was not the one he used over and over.
As soon as it was dark, Anthony came with a small parcel and cup. He saw my torn and filthy state and did not look away. The package contained a tart of almond and cardamom. My hunger was great but I ate and drank as slowly as I could bear. When I was finished, I lifted my amber bead from beneath the neck of my gown and studied the floating discs trapped inside. They gleamed at certain angles like tiny golden shields. I had shown them to Alice a long time ago. I was eager to share everything in those days, especially my happiness.
‘My brother wouldn’t give you those,’ she’d said. ‘You took them!’
‘He did give them to me. Look, we’re promised.’ I pointed to my ivory ring.
Alice reached towards the beads, as if to wrench them from my neck. I skipped backwards.
‘You stupid slattern,’ Alice shouted. ‘He’s heir; you have nothing. Our kind make alliances, not love matches.’
He died not long afterwards, but my stomach had already begun to swell, smooth and firm. ‘Life pushing forth,’ Líthgen had said. Our hut was crammed with baskets of coloured spools; my mother bent close to the loom, her eyes falling shut with tiredness, singing soft songs in Gaelic. She had begun the golden tapestry. Then Jose’s manservant came to cast me from the town.
‘You cannot banish her; she lives outside the walls,’ Líthgen said.
‘Like lice on the back of a beast, you live off Flemingstown. Were it not for the work you get from Jose, you would starve.’ He pushed my mother backwards. ‘The girl will leave, or she’ll lose a limb, or worse.’
‘My daughter has done nothing wrong.’
‘She smuggled ancient amber from the house of Kytler. Mistress Alice is witness.’
‘Mistress Alice is a liar,’ said Mother.
‘More insolence. I could slit her mongrel throat now, and be done with it.’
Watching my mother argue with Jose’s man, I felt as if I had already left. I saw us all from above, as if from a great distance, and we were very small, and none of it really mattered.
55. Kytler’s
The twins were in their beloved Altar Room. They had filled it with wild saffron, and its purple petals littered the floor as the sisters unpicked each other’s yellow crosses with small, sharp blades. Upstairs, in the chamber that used to belong to Jose Kytler, Sir John lounged on the large canopied bed, eating pear fritters. As he licked the brown sugar from his fingers, he assessed the hangings on the wall, the fine strip of carpet that led from the door to the bed, the lustreware on the shelves – all now his.
The door creaked open. The maid Helene stood there, her skin dusty and a cross still stitched to her gown. She did not pirouette as she once did but waited for permission to enter the chamber. She looked almost as poorly as he had before. Had the foolish wretch been gulping from that cursed poison wine, he wondered? He felt a little sorry for the maid, but she could not stay – his love would not tolerate it.
The master waved his hand, indicating that she could come closer. The maid sidled towards his bed, about to issue her thanks, when
she noticed the figure at the dressing table. A fair woman was paring her nails with a knife. The woman glanced up. She was the spit of the twins. It dawned on Helene that this was the person who had drawn Sir John so often back to Callan. His first wife – Gráinne Ní Dhuibhne – not dead at all but alive, smiling and now lifting and ringing Alice’s small brass bell.
‘Ahoy!’ John called to the maid.
He loosed his alms purse from his belt and threw it towards her. Despite herself, she was a good catch.
‘Now, leave,’ he said, ‘and do not come back.’
Ulf appeared. Gráinne ceased ringing the bell and nodded towards Helene. Taking his cue, he slung the maid over his shoulder, carried her from the chamber, down the stairs, across the hall where Stephen le Poer and another man played cards by the fire, opened the door and placed her out in the lane. Helene walked over to the steps of Market Slip, and sat. Ulf followed and joined her. They sat together in silence, he with his hands on his head, she with Sir John’s purse on her lap.
Stephen slammed the door on the icy cold and cursed the giant for leaving it open. He stamped his feet and went back to playing cards.
‘How much do I owe you now?’ he asked his companion.
‘Almost as much as the town owed the dame.’
‘She’ll collect no more debts now.’
‘Is she really gone?’
‘They all think she is,’ Stephen whispered, ‘except Sir John, the constable and that giant fool. But she’s not gone, not yet.’
‘So where does she hide?’
‘Not far away at all,’ Stephen said, smiling at his comrade’s sudden frown.
56. Basilia
Alice noticed how I stared at the trapdoor. She came over, and knelt amidst all her skirts on the floor beside me. She moved slowly, placing her hand over mine. Ulf watched from the steps.
‘Why so good to a maid’s daughter?’ he asked.
Alice frowned at the guard’s impudence, but his question was a good one. Close though we were, I was not a person of any importance. Alice saw my confusion.
‘Otto was my brother, so she’s my niece. She belongs to me.’
She smiled at my expression. ‘So your mother never said. You really do know nothing.’
Yes, I knew nothing, except that I did not belong to anyone.
Alice leant back and instructed Ulf to light more candles. She said no more of what she had told me. I looked at my mistress. Did we resemble each other, I wondered? I felt a warm kinship towards her; something of my father was here in this room. I felt it as I curled up on my green cushion and shut my eyes.
That night, though maybe it wasn’t night at all … whether or not, I had a dream, and in it I was running through a stone maze of lanes and alleys, and steep steps, slipping through a series of narrow gates. ‘Asylum Lane, Blind Boreen, Gaol Street, Red Lane …’ a voice chanted, fading beneath a hammer’s beat. A glow pulsed in the distance, a smith at his forge. I stopped and caught my breath, then I heard a sound that chilled me: the chime of keys from Alice’s girdle. I began to run – the smith was soldering a key, and I must reach it before my mistress did.
When I woke, I saw Alice had dragged a bench over to the brazier. She closed her eyes, but she sat rigid, as if in a proper chair, tapping the gems about her neck. I leant against the cellar door: it was strong, made from thick beams of ash, but clumsily fitted, and there was a gap between it and the earth. From far above, I could hear the murmur of voices. Spoons rasped against tin, a bench creaked. They were in the kitchen. The talk was low, cautious. After some time, the room quietened. They had gone, perhaps back to the hall to guard Kytler’s against the bishop and other robbers. A shadow broke the weak line of light beneath the door. A man cleared his throat. It was Ulf, come back down. When his voice came, it was as if we were right next to each other.
‘The women have all been released, you know,’ he whispered, ‘all but your mother …’
How did he know it was I who listened, not Alice? Suddenly she was right beside me. She tugged my sleeve.
‘Come away,’ she snapped, when I didn’t move fast enough.
I backed away from the door. Alice didn’t look surprised at what Ulf had said but she was white-faced, angry. Through the door she cautioned him for talking. Anyone could be listening, she chided, anyone. We could be captured if he wasn’t careful. He pushed a piece of parchment under the door. Alice opened it and read what it said. She lifted her skirts and came back down the steps; held the note over the flames and dropped it in.
She sat and held her head. Why was she crying? What had the message said? Why didn’t she ask Ulf about my mother? Would the women come here? Would I soon hear Esme’s voice, Helene’s? Would I be hiding from them, too? Alice pointed at me, and then patted the bench. I was to sit alongside her. She put her arm around me when I did.
‘I mean only to protect.’ Her lips were cold against my forehead.
She’s your aunt, I thought. I’d never had an aunt. Why, then, had we not visited her sooner, why all those hungry winters in the mountains when I could have been warm, fed? Why did my mother wait till we were desperate? Alice’s head drooped as she dozed off. I got up and went to the trapdoor, lifted it up – darkness, cold air. The thud, when it fell back down, roused her.
‘Close it; she won’t come at this time of night.’
I opened it. If Alice wished, she could shut it herself. Why shouldn’t my mother come in the middle of the night? We had. I sat and poked the brazier so the ash fell. I added a piece of wood, watched it catch. Sparks fell to the ground. Alice did not rise from the bench to shut the hatch. The embroidery on her bodice looked jaundiced in the dusk of the cellar. Her locket ring gleamed like an extra knuckle.
57. Petronelle
Anthony brought clean straw and another blanket.
‘I’ll come before dawn to remove them. The bishop does not know; you must never tell him.’
‘I’ll pray for you.’
‘Don’t.’
There was a heated stone inside the blankets. I spread the straw and pulled the covers over me. I lay back slowly, shivering. It still felt as if every inch of my back had been lacerated. If penance frees us from sin, cleanses our souls, surely I must be clean by now. I pictured Alice’s armoire of furs in my mind’s eye, opened the door and caressed the pelts one by one, furs of deep, dark brown, of blue-black, fox-red and mink-white. I lifted each one over me and lay back under layers of skins, remembering my father, laid out in death, with all his possessions about his remains.
I could end this. I could tear strips from my skirt. I saw myself hanging. Where did that vision come from? Had some demon sneaked in? Was it he, not God, who listened to my prayers? For it did not feel that any god dwelt here. The blanket rippled in the darkness like the skin of a river. I felt a wild longing to scream it all out – the demons, the sorcery, the filth, the evil, the bishop’s mouth opening and closing.
I had weakened – for, despite the cold, I was constantly falling asleep, if it could be called sleep; sometimes it was more akin to falling back into life again. Before all this, I had loved Alice’s garden. It wasn’t just the bees and the orchard but the river, too, how the trees and sky were reflected in the water. It was like a second Kilkennie, an upside-down watery one. Was that where I went in the dreams that felt so real? What if this, all this – the bishop, his mouth moving, his mad eyes – was a night terror? What if that which I had thought was real was the dream? Then nothing Ledrede could do would ever hurt, because sooner or later I must wake up.
The next time Ledrede came, he was alone. There was a change in him. He whispered in an almost confiding manner and addressed me only as ‘creature’. He spoke of a monk he saw burn, and his voice slowed as he described how the demons cried out as they had left the man’s body.
‘Afterwards, there was a great peace. The silence was beautiful. You could tell that God was well pleased.’
He droned on about the frantic movements of
the monk’s head, the stuttering denials, the pleading, the weeping; the glorious silence.
Was there no one to release me from the relentless hell of Ledrede’s imagination? I tried to drown out his words with ones from inside my head – ‘I’m not chained to the ground; I am in Alice’s house, and sit by her side.’ I saw Helene serve steaming pies, black pudding and spiced sausages. The comb on my dish was white with honey; I broke it with my thumb, and, as I ate, its sweetness trickled down my wrist. ‘I’m not chained to the ground; I sit by Alice. I smile, and she smiles back. When I reach for my cup, my skin is unbroken, and I am a person. I am a person.’
That night I walked the streets of Kilkennie, my upside-down one. A path appeared beneath my feet: it was riddled with small bones, as if birds had fallen from the sky and been picked clean. I saw a narrow slipway, and sensed it led somewhere safe. I entered – the steps were steep. It was dark, and the way out was not within sight. I heard a splash from above and looked up to see ripples overhead, circles moving outwards, as if the sky were a river. I could not breathe but it did not discomfort me; somehow I was walking under water, and the splash was a pebble thrown by my daughter.
In the morning, the bishop arrived with a scroll and announced that my testimony was complete. As he read, his voice seemed very far away.
‘In their unholy art, she, Petronelle, was mistress of the ritual. Yet she was nothing, she claimed, in comparison with Dame Alice, from whom she learnt all she knew. There was no one in the kingdom of England more skilled than Alice, nor was there anyone in the world her equal in the art of witchcraft …’
‘Those are not my words,’ I told him, ‘those are not my words and that’s not my name.’
‘They are and it is. We made a record, it is written. Don’t dare look at me as if I were the evil one! You who sent a succubus to a bishop’s chambers!’