Page 30 of Burying Venus

‘The family I get my eggs from…’ the woman said finally. Her words were garbled and barely audible. ‘They are witches. We work together.’

‘Chicken keepers,’ Weston scoffed. Suddenly recalling the absence of his partner, he cast his eyes back to Thorne. ‘Are you quite alright?’

The witchfinder groaned, still sat amidst dirt and debris. His affliction seemed to have cooled somewhat but he was still hunched over and wheezing.

The woman began murmuring. In pain, the body rendered them all useless, mere animals able only to cry or bare their necks. The names she listed were all native, primarily the lilting ones of women called for some flower or object of beauty, the most prized quality in girls. She faltered, taking leave of her brief description of their occupations, to say, ‘There is a woman at the far end of the village with the best cottage of them all. Huge hair she has, big woman at that, with one son but no husband. They say the father was a mainlander, that he sent funds for the child but never came himself, but no one has seen the boy in years.’

‘Funds for a conquered woman? Abhorrent. I had no idea my countrymen could be such fools,’ Robert drawled, bringing the knife up imperceptibly before plunging it into her again. Cries were his only answer. ‘And what is this she-beast’s name?’

‘Breesha Skelly, Lord Robert. A right mean woman, a witch like me. But just the women of the village, mind,’ she said.

Cold submerged him, rendering his hot blood frigid. It ran through him like a stroke of summer on those rare days the Stanleys bade him and Will take the bedsheets out to dry. Yet unlike that brief spell of warmth and happiness, it was as if Robert had plunged a knife into him and felled him where hestood. He could scarcely remain upright as the shock took his legs, his body convulsing like a man in the midst of a fit. It was all he could do not to collapse.

‘I do not like this mixing,’ Robert said, with a sudden vitriol absent when he lay with his conquests. Perhaps it was only permissible to him when one party cursed and fought, rather than took their pleasure with him.

‘Lord Robert, if you would permit me to speak. My partner seems to have taken ill. I dare say we have little need of your man now. Might I suggest he take him up to our chamber?’ Weston asked. He, still stood over the woman’s head, watched with ill-disguised interest as Lord Stanley’s heir tormented an elderly woman.

Robert beckoned Dermot closer. Quietly, he said, ‘Control yourself and do nothing I wouldn’t.’

Taking advantage of the witchfinder was truly his most lamentable ambition. Nodding as best he could, Dermot trailed forward and found the beginnings of Thorne’s cloak, draped in dust, and brought his arm underneath so the man’s hair coiled around him. He did not even run his hands down Thorne’s thighs as he heaved him up, other arm supporting his legs in a bridal carry. But the witchfinder did not clutch at him like a wife, instead his form lay prone in Dermot’s grasp, lying like the dead. It was only his weak little coughs that gave any indication that he still lived.

‘Matthew…’ Weston murmured, before his face reddened enough for both him and Dermot. He gave a great cough, watching Dermot for only a moment before turning back to his prey. ‘Lord Robert, with your consent I will record the names in my notes.’ As if Thorne’s identity were loftier than those poor men and women destined for the noose, their bones left unconsecrated and scattered together, if not already burnt to ash.

‘It is a wonder you haven’t already,’ Robert said. His knife was fixed in the woman’s back, and he had the audacity to raise his brows at Dermot as if they shared some jest. Perhaps he wanted an accusation to come out of it, that a mere scullion had molested the infamous witchfinder.

Nodding to Amy, Dermot said, ‘Lord Robert, can I bring her up as well?’

‘Her?’ Robert asked, looking about until he spied Amy at the door.

Dermot near dropped Thorne and ran upstairs himself, leaving them all to rot. If he could’ve turned the key on them, he would’ve done so in an instant. Those dark eyes saw all of him, tying the noose around his neck, coming to him waking and asleep like an incubus. Dermot could no longer bear it, instead carrying Thorne out into the passageway.

‘You may, of course. I had forgotten her,’ Robert called.

‘Thank you, Lord Robert,’ Dermot said. He winced at his manner of speaking, the accent that permeated every word, and his legs quivered with every step won. But all he could discern were the murmurs of Robert and Weston, alone at last in their machinations.

Amy said nothing, which was a blessed relief. Even Thorne’s infernal coughing stopped. Dermot shifted him about in his arms, minding the witchfinder’s head did not hit a stone as they came up. He could only endure it, even as his arms ached with Thorne’s meagre body, for the man was heavier than the produce and meals too often foisted on him.

‘Can you manage?’ Amy said. Her closeness surprised him. Had he been her, he would’ve kept a distance between them.

‘Just about,’ Dermot grumbled, cursing as Thorne’s long legs scraped against the wall. The witchfinder flinched in his insensibility, and Dermot stared down at him blankly, fancies flitting through his mind. Robert had all but encouraged it. WereDermot to act while Thorne lay senseless beneath, it would do nothing but prove the perilousness of witchfinding. Thorne was in a land not his own, at the mercy of a lord, and with troubles waiting on the mainland, so even a manservant might assault him without fear of reprisal.

‘Please, we are coming up,’ Amy said, startling Dermot from his imaginings. He’d been in the midst of the act, and now his cheeks burnt for shame. The dreams involving himself and Will had never been so cruel or grotesque.

One great eye peered down at them. The striking blue of one of the guardsmen, his bulbous nose pressing against metal. ‘Where is Lord Robert?’ he demanded, fat fingers already prying at the opening and flinging it away. His companion laughed beside him.

‘With the prisoner,’ Dermot said, twisting as to best manoeuvre himself and Thorne out of the dungeon. The same guardsman huffed a few breaths of amusement, the pair watching them like hounds, tails wagging as they waited for their master.

‘And who’s this?’ the guard to the right said. The men had matching misshapen jawlines and sallow complexions so that they might’ve been brothers. ‘Woman or man? I can’t tell.’

‘It’s the bloody witchfinder!’ said the other. He looked as if God spared him but a cursory glance in creation. ‘Dermot’s carrying the witchfinder!’

Dermot turned away. The guardsmen thought themselves above the staff so they might’ve said anything, confident it wouldn’t be whispered into the ear of Robert or Tristan, unlike with even a maid.

As their gruff, cruel laughter resounded, one said, ‘Faints like a maiden and looks like one too. Why’ve they sent Lord Robert such a fool?’

Neither seemed to know Robert asked for the fellow himself. After making sure Amy hadn’t been set on by the louts, Dermot hurried down the corridor, Thorne senseless in his arms.

‘Dermot!’ one guard called, making him halt. ‘Just what are you going to do with him?’