In a dozen sconces, the tall candles burnt with a sickly flame; logs of gnarled and knotted alderwood, like ancient severed limbs, hissed and spat in the grate, and the wind, howling through the rafters, eerily stirred the tapestry of the gentleman being shot with arrows while burning at the stake.
Belladonna, waiting for her turn, was as white as a sheet under her gown and mask. Terence had taken her through her trick again and again. He’d told her that everything would be ready, laid out on a great refectory table covered with a cloth, and that he himself would be hiding underneath it, ready to hand her Rover at the right moment and prompt her if she forgot anything. And waiting behind a tall embroidered screen with the other witches, she could see that he’d been as good as his word. The table, with its candlesticks, its grinning skull and portrait of Sir Simon, looked just like one of those dreadful necromancy altars she’d seen in books. But that only made her more horribly afraid of the deed she was about to do.
‘Witch Number Seven – step forward!’ commanded Mr Leadbetter.
The secretary was looking tired and careworn. However much he argued with himself, it seemed to him that cheating was not the same as wizardry and darkness. Cheating, whichever way you looked at it, was mean. And what if Monty Moon let them down and all they’d done was make Belladonna look a fool?
But Belladonna, trying to stop her knees from trembling, was walking towards the judges’ table, and, pulling himself together, Mr Leadbetter said:
‘Announce your trick!’
Belladonna turned and bowed low to the judges. Her voice shook a little on the first words, but she lifted her head bravely and her clear young voice reached even to the furthest corner of the hall.
‘I AM GOING TO BRING SIR SIMON MONTPELIER BACK FROM THE DEAD,’ said Belladonna, allowing herself a lingering look at Arriman as he sat, brooding and a little bored, between the other judges.
But at her words, the magician leant forward, furiously frowning, and a spurt of fire burst from his left ear. Going to do necromancy, was she? A deed so difficult that he, Arriman the Awful, had failed at it again and again. A little slip of a witch, not up to his shoulder. How dared she?
For a moment, it looked as though Arriman was going to make a scene. But even as he brought his fist down, ready to bang it on the table, his curiosity got the better of him. It was impertinence, of course, the most appalling cheek. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to let her try. Perhaps she had guessed how achingly he longed for his plashing, ghostly friend.
So Belladonna stepped forward to the table with its long cloth and candle-sticks and skull, and as she did so, Terence slipped Rover’s closed box into the pocket of her gown. Then she took a pin from her other pocket and jabbing it into her finger, let a drop of blood fall, like a red pearl, into the incense pot. And immediately there was a flash, and a sheet of rose and amethyst and orange smoke rose almost to the roof.
‘Thank Gawd,’ said Lester, who believed that if you had to cheat it was best to cheat good and proper. He’d heard a van drive into the courtyard at dawn, but that was the only sign of Monty Moon and his crew, and he’d begun to have doubts.
‘Let there be darkness!’ said Belladonna. And instantly, every candle guttered and went out, and the hall was plunged into inky impenetrable night.
Belladonna let the darkness and silence stay there for a moment, making everyone’s flesh crawl a little. Then she took up the hollow skull and walked over to the magic triangle that Terence had chalked out for her below the tapestry.
‘Do you hear me, Shades of the Underworld?’ cried Belladonna, raising the skull.
They heard her. First came a low and fearful murmuring which swelled to a cacophony of cackling, screaming and screeching, and under the table, Terence sighed with relief, Mr Moon had been as good as his word – and better.
Belladonna’s teeth were chattering badly now. It seemed that Terence was right and that with Rover to help her there was no limit to her darkness. But she went on bravely, And putting down the skull, she fetched the portrait of Sir Simon and held it aloft.
‘I call upon thee, Shades, to release from eternal torment the spirit of this man!’ she intoned.
More screams and yells from the spirits, while in the rafters, the ravens hideously croaked.
‘Sir Simon Montpelier, Knight of Darkington, I command thee to appear!’ cried Belladonna.
The jabbering and screeching died away, and now, in the black silence of the hall, there appeared a series of white, disembodied lights which bobbed and flickered, giving off at the same time an almost unendurable stench of decay.
‘Corpse candles,’ murmured Mother Bloodwort, drawing her skirt away from one which had come too close.
Then, all in the same second, the corpse candles went out, and over the hall there spread a coldness such as they had never before experienced: the coldness of the tomb, the grave, of death itself.
‘I wonder how he did that?’ murmured Lester, whose respect for Mr Moon was growing every minute. ‘Some sort of chemical, I suppose.’
But now the coldness was passing and everyone’s gaze was drawn upwards to the wall on the left of the chimney breast. For the tapestry of the man stuck with arrows while burning at the stake was beginning to glow and shine and shimmer with a most unearthly light.
Belladonna felt in her pocket for a last squeeze of Rover’s box. She was incredibly tired and her knees felt like water, but she wouldn’t weaken now. And taking up a wand from the table, she struck the ground thrice and, prompted by Terence, who all the time had whispered the spells along with her, she said the words that are older than any book of magic in the world:
‘Allay fortission! Fortissio Roa!’ cried Belladonna.
The glow round the tapestry grew stronger. The clock struck midnight. And as the last chime died away, there crept round the edge of the hanging, slowly and gropingly – a hand. A white hand, limp and long-fingered, with an emerald riding one knuckle.
For a few moments, the hand just hung there. Then it felt for the sides of the tapestry and with a sudden violent gesture, tore it from the wall and threw it on the ground.
And there stepped from the stone recess – wan and weary, but definitely alive – the figure of an Elizabethan knight.
A shriek of joy from Arriman broke the stunned silence.
‘Sir Simon! Is it really you?’ he cried, pushing back his chair so hard that it crashed to the ground. And dashing forward he seized the spectre’s hands in both his own.
‘Aye, ’tis I,’ intoned Sir Simon. His voice was high and reedy, like an oboe playing something sad. ‘Ye see before ye the guilty, tainted flesh of Sir Simon Montmorency Montpelier.’
‘Oh, I can’t believe it! But yes, yes, I can feel you; you’re solid! And look at that vein throbbing in your left temple! Oh, happy, happy day! What ecstasy! What bliss!’
Sir Simon removed his left hand from Arriman’s grasp and brought it up to his forehead. The plashing sound was much, much better than when he’d been a ghost: more solid, wetter, in every way more real.
Arriman was quite overcome. ‘The talks we’ll have! The confidences! The walks! The delights of nature we will share! My dear, dear fellow, this is the best day of my life!’
Then, remembering at last that this was a competition, Arriman turned to the other judges.
‘Ten out of ten, gentlemen, are we agreed?’
The ghoul nodded – he’d have liked the whole world to be inhabited by people who were dead – and kind Mr Chatterjee smiled.
But these words were never heard by Belladonna. Overcome by fatigue, terror and strain, Belladonna had fainted.
Seventeen
Belladonna woke in a four-poster bed in a room at the very top of the North Tower at Darkington. Mr Leadbetter and the ogre had carried her there after the end of the competition, while Terence hopped round her, worrying about her and congratulating her at the same time. Belladonna couldn’t remember much about it now; only that she’d been anxious abo
ut the baby rabbits and about not having a toothbrush, and that Terence had said he’d go down to the campsite and see to everything.
How long ago had that been, she wondered? It still seemed to be dark, but now she felt refreshed and very happy. She’d done it! She’d won! She was to be the bride of Arriman, to be with him always, to stroke his moustache and massage his ankles if they swelled and share his secrets, his hopes and his fears.
‘Oh, glory!’ said Belladonna, and smiling, fell asleep once more.
But a happy white witch, a white witch blissfully in love, can be a disaster. While Belladonna slept the room began to fill with exquisite saucer-sized snow flakes, each a perfect, six-pointed star and the flakes did not melt but alighted softly on the hangings of the bed, the embroidered rug, the wash stand. An enamelled musical box burst from the chest of drawers and began to play a dreamy Viennese waltz; strings of gold and silver tinsel draped themselves across the ceiling, and the window sills filled with rows of crystal goblets each brim-full of Knickerbocker Glories.
But Belladonna, knowing nothing of all this, slept on.
While Belladonna lay dreaming in the Tower Room, Arriman sat in the library talking to Sir Simon Montpelier. Arriman had suggested that the knight might like to slip into something more comfortable than the breast plate and leg armour he had worn for four hundred years, and though he’d murmured something about his underclothes not being quite the thing, the wife-slayer was now wearing Arriman’s second-best dressing-gown – a maroon one appliquéd with fiends and pitchforks – and was telling the magician the story of his life.
‘So the Lady Anne was the first of your wives?’ enquired Arriman, pushing the whisky decanter towards his friend.
‘Even so,’ agreed Sir Simon. ‘She was the one I drowned. Ere the cock crew thrice, I drowned her. I had to. She madeth the sleeping chamber rumble as if cleft in twain.’
‘Ah! She snored, you mean?’ said Arriman. ‘Very distressing that. Nothing worse.’
The knight nodded and plashed a little.
‘Then I wedded the Lady Mary. Her I took by the throat and fastened my foul fingers around.’
‘Strangulation.’ Arriman nodded.
‘She hath cheateth me of my victuals,’ said the knight.
‘Fiddled the housekeeping, did she? In that case she deserved everything she got. And the next one?’
‘Next I espoused the fair Olivia. Her I walled up in the privy for looking with favour upon the knave who emptied of her slops.’
Arriman shook his head. ‘Terrible, terrible. What you’ve been through!’
Sir Simon went on to tell the magician about the Lady Julia whom he’d stabbed in the buttery because she had a horrid little dog that yapped, and the Lady Letitia whom he’d thrown over a cliff because she guzzled, and he was just about to start on the Lady Henrietta whom he’d knocked off with a poisoned halibut because she drove him nutty walking in her sleep, when there was a knock at the door and the ogre entered.
‘The Kraken’s in his tureen waiting for you to say goodnight, sir, and I’ve laid out your pyjamas. Is there anything else you require?’
‘No, no, Lester, that’s fine. You can go to bed.’
‘I’ve put Sir Simon in the Green Room,’ said Lester, winking at Mr Moon, ‘on account of it being handy for the bathroom, like.’
‘Good, good,’ said the magician impatiently. There was still one more wife to go and he wanted to hear about her.
‘There was a postcard from the Wizard Watcher by the late post, sir,’ the ogre continued. ‘It has reached Skegness and hopes to be back the day after tomorrow.’
He had got through to the magician at last. ‘Now that is good news! I’m really glad about that. I wouldn’t have liked it to miss the wedding.’
But the word ‘wedding’ had a bad effect on Arriman. His brooding face darkened and he drained his whisky in a single desperate gulp. ‘You’ve no idea what women do, Lester. Sir Simon’s been telling me. They snore and have little dogs and walk in their sleep. And those are just ordinary women! I mean, this witch . . . she must be really very black to do necromancy. I should think a witch as black as that would have some pretty nasty habits.’
‘Not necessarily, sir,’ said Lester.
‘And if she’s blacker than me . . . I mean, I don’t want to be henpecked. I can’t imagine anything sillier than a henpecked wizard.’
‘Sir,’ said Lester, losing his patience, ‘you haven’t even seen Witch Number Seven. And anyway, what about your duty to wizardry and darkness? What about this blighting black baby you’re going to have? What,’ said Lester, ‘did we have this blinking contest for?’
The magician sighed. ‘Yes, yes, you’re quite right, Lester. I’ll go and see her first thing in the morning and fix the date.’
As Lester left the room, Arriman was leaning forward eagerly and saying, ‘And the last one? The Lady Beatrice, wasn’t it? What did she do?’
‘Smelled,’ said Sir Simon gloomily. ‘Most vilely and horribly hath she smelled.’
And having come to the end of his wives, the knight poured himself another whisky and began again at the beginning.
Arriman kept his word, and the next morning saw him climbing the curved steps to Belladonna’s tower.
The magician wasn’t feeling too good. Sir Simon had told him about his murdered wives not once but three times, and though Arriman understood how much the wife-slayer needed to talk after four hundred years of only plashing, he did feel very tired. Nor were the ogre and the secretary, following close behind him, exactly full of beans. They’d spent the night worrying in case the real Sir Simon burst clanking through the panelling and gave the game away, and they didn’t really like the way Monty Moon was settling into his part. That was the trouble with actors. You could get them on stage, but getting them off was another matter.
‘Leadbetter, you wouldn’t lie to me,’ said Arriman, turning round. ‘Is she covered in warts? I mean, covered?’
‘No, sir. Not at all.’
‘What about her fingers and toes? All there, are they? No . . . stumps, for example? Nothing webbed, or anything? Nothing clawed?’
‘No, sir.’
The magician climbed a few more steps and turned again.
‘And . . . er . . . nothing personal, you understand, because yours is charming. I mean, it’s part of you, but it could be awkward in a wife. In short, Leadbetter, has she got . . . a tail? You know, one of those forked jobs, a bit black and bushy?’
‘No, sir,’ said the secretary. ‘Witch Number Seven is tail-less.’
‘And her name is Belladonna?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Belladonna Canker. Ah, well.’
And reaching the top step, Arriman paused, took a deep breath – and threw open the door.
Belladonna was sitting up in bed. The sun, streaming through the East Window, had turned her hair into a shower of gold; her eyes were bright with happiness and blue as a summer sky and she was singing a sweet and foolish little song: the kind with roses in it and springtime and love. Rather a lot of love.
Arriman stood stock-still in the doorway, unable to move.
‘Who . . . is this?’ he stammered.
‘That is Belladonna, sir. Witch Number Seven. The winner of the contest!’
‘You’re not pulling my leg?’
‘No, sir.’
‘She’s not . . . er . . . in an enchanted state? I mean, she hasn’t taken on another shape just to bamboozle me? She looks like that all the time?’
‘All the time, sir.’
Belladonna, meanwhile, was gazing rapturously at Arriman, her heart in her eyes. This was the closest she had ever been to him and she was drinking in the flaring nostrils, the tufty ears, the curve of his noble nose.
‘Belladonna!’ said the magician, stepping forward. His voice throbbed, his eyes burnt and his chest heaved like a pair of bellows.
‘Arry?’ murmured Belladonna shyly, from beneath lowered l
ashes.
‘Arry! All my life I’ve wanted someone to call me Arry.’
Lester and Mr Leadbetter exchanged glances. Things were turning out exactly the way they’d hoped, but they hadn’t reckoned on being quite so embarrassed.
‘Leadbetter, we must be married at once! To morrow at the latest!’ said Arriman, who was now sitting on Belladonna’s bed and grasping both her hands.
Mr Leadbetter sighed. It was just like Arriman to spend weeks grumbling about having to get married and then fall in love like a ton of bricks and make trouble for everyone.
‘I’m afraid that’s impossible, sir. There are the wedding invitations to be sent, the food to be ordered, the bride’s clothes to be bought. Three weeks is the shortest I can manage it in.’
‘Three weeks! I can’t wait three weeks! Can you wait three weeks, my pretty?’
‘Oh, my Gawd,’ murmured Lester. He had forgotten how absolutely ridiculous people sounded when they were in love.
But now at last the really peculiar look of the Tower Room had got through to Arriman, and without letting go of Belladonna’s hands, he looked with surprise at the exquisite snow flakes, the strings of gold and silver tinsel, the shimmering moonstones now dripping from the mouth of the wash jug.
Catching every movement of her Beloved’s eyes, Belladonna flushed and said, ‘I’m sorry about all this. It happened while I was asleep. You see, Arry, I feel I should tell you that I used to be white.’
‘No, no, my treasure,’ said the magician dotingly. ‘That’s quite impossible. Your hair is so golden, your cheeks are so pink, your eyes are such a lovely, lovely blue.’
‘I don’t mean that,’ said Belladonna. ‘I mean, my magic was white. I was a white witch.’
She had got through to Arriman at last. A spasm crossed his face. ‘My dearest love, you musn’t say such things!’
‘Oh, it’s all right. I’m not white now. I’m very, very black. Well, you saw how black I was. Rover made me—’ She broke off with a little cry. ‘Oh, how dreadful of me! How selfish and cruel! I left Rover in his matchbox all night! Oh, poor, poor Rover; he’ll be so dry and sad – Terence will never forgive me.’