Page 29 of Burying Venus

Dermot could not quite come to the purpose. He watched the witchfinder’s assistant clasp the scissors menacingly, torn asunder like two knives as they shot through the air. Their silhouettes were answer enough. Dim as the meagre light was, flesh was made shadow, and the scissors came on her like aweapon. Such a thing was horror enough for a woman. Weston tore at her hair like he might cut out a man’s heart. Greying as she was, her locks had been long and thick, and she cried as they disappeared from her. Dermot could hardly keep hold, for she’d started thrashing again. He heard Robert laugh.

‘Take the rags, man, they may yet hold the mark,’ Weston said.

Unused to being called a man, so familiar was he with Robert’s way of speaking, Dermot stood stupefied as he held the woman. It was only when that same lord came to his side and took her in hand that he, horrified, stepped away and let them unclothe her.

Her hair now lay ruined on the floor, what had been cared for so well separated from her in but a moment. Blearily, he saw Amy lingering next to the steel bars that separated them from the rest of the world.

‘Here we go,’ Weston said, laying a finger on her head. She was now almost entirely bald except for a few clipped curls that remained. ‘A mark just a few inches off her forehead. Does this not speak of a pact?’ No one replied. ‘I hope this sates you, my dear.’

‘I cannot…’ Thorne murmured. Dermot glimpsed him sitting prone and helpless, arms huddled against his knees. The coughing fit brought him down, and Dermot wondered how he had not realised how gaunt he was above earth.

‘Don’t strain yourself,’ Weston said immediately.

‘And here we have another one,’ Robert said, plainly disinterested. ‘A mole just above the shoulder. Surely this is evidence enough for your partner.’

Thorne only coughed. The air must’ve affected him somehow.

‘Now we secure the confession,’ Weston said. Dermot eyed him warily, inclined as the man’s head was towards his set of tools.

‘Torture,’ Thorne started before another fit racked his body. He threw his head against stone, managing to bite out, ‘Torture is not permitted. Even in spite of…’

‘We have swam a witch, haven’t we? Did you care then?’ Weston spat. ‘Forgive my partner, Lord Robert. He has been melancholy as of late, given his condition.’

Robert smiled. He plainly did not like Thorne and probably would’ve enjoyed watching the man splutter to death in front of him. Eyes flitting about the woman’s naked form, he said, ‘In the absence of my father, I am lord of this castle, and we are separated by a whole sea from the mainland. We are in another country. I say the torture of witches is legal.’

The woman screamed. Her tongue did not twist with curses now, terror perhaps rendering her incapable of speech. Dermot thought only that Robert’s father was upstairs and the family were naught but vassals, their island denied status as a country, labelled as but a bitch for the mainland crown.

‘You are a lord better than any in the mainland,’ Weston said. He grasped the knife’s handle and laid it against bare skin, rolling it across the woman’s back until the first drops of red could be seen against white. A thin smile cut his face like a scar. ‘Confess,’ he said.

‘I am not a witch!’ the woman said, surprising even Dermot in her vehemence.

‘Hag,’ Robert said, slamming her against the table. What disturbed Dermot most was that he did it all in cold indifference. ‘What else is there to do in the countryside? You certainly are a thief, living in a field my family owns and not even paying your tax.’

In her pain, the woman slammed her head against the table. Weston’s tools could be heard clattering with the weight of her, and Dermot shied even further away. Soon blood began pooling, spotting Weston’s fine trousers.

Robert, far from cowed, hauled her up by the sad remains of her hair. Though she screamed again, he did not waver. ‘Tell us you are a witch, else I go to that cell and torture your nephew instead.’

Dermot could not observe the woman’s face, head bent as it was over the table, though she ceased moving at once.

‘No,’ she said, ‘not my boy. He is eighteen, a child!’

‘I’ve had a few stableboys of an age with that,’ Robert said. ‘Not that I asked them beforehand, of course.’

‘Monster!’ the old woman cried. She, not having seen the men Robert actually set his sights on, might think him stoop so low as to have his way with a mousy-haired, slight boy.

Weston said nothing, though he watched Robert with an admiration so blatant Dermot thought him nothing but a pervert. Casting his eyes briefly to Thorne, he realised the witchfinder was near catatonic.

‘So, should I pay your nephew a visit?’ Robert said. His voice was deceptively light and, as he turned away, the woman howled in protest.

‘No! Please, I am a witch! But not my boy, just me!’ she cried.

‘The truth at last,’ Weston said. ‘The things we must do to secure a confession, Lord Robert.’

Even after this victory, Robert was discontent. He did not so much as laugh, instead reaching across the table to take the weapon from Weston’s hand. ‘A witch does not work alone,’ he said.

‘He is innocent. Damn you, what must I say? I am the witch, my nephew is but a boy!’ she cried.

‘Right though you may be,’ Robert said, casting the weapon down onto her back as to secure a new wound. ‘Witches have a coven. Did you not hear Mr Weston? Hunts do not stop at but one witch. There are always more, hiding in your quaint little huts. Tell me, who else in your village is a witch?’ Here hishand shook with all the vehemence of a man denied nothing, contorting and mangling until all that came from her were screams. ‘I will work this knife hard into your nephew.’