The Witching Hour

  But please be assured of our love and high regard for you, of our concern. We are of the opinion that if you disobey only misery awaits you in the West Indies if not worse. We judge this as much from your own words, and confessions, as from our premonitions regarding the matter. We have laid hands on the letters. We see darkness and disaster ahead.

  Alexander, who as you know has the greatest power to see through touch of any among us, is most adamant that if you go on to Port-au-Prince, we will never see you again. He has taken to his bed over this, and lies there, refusing food and speaking only in strange sentences when he does choose to speak.

  I should tell you further that Alexander went into the hall at the foot of the stair and laid hands upon the portrait by Rembrandt of Deborah, and withdrew near to fainting, and refusing to speak, and was helped by the servants to his room.

  "To what purpose is this silence?" I demanded of him. To which he responded, that what he saw made plain that it was futile to speak. I went into a rage at this and demanded that he tell me. "I saw only death and ruin," he said. "There were no figures or numbers or words in it. What do you want of me?" And then he went on to say that if I would know how it was, look again to the portrait, to the darkness from which Rembrandt's subjects are forever emerging, and see how the light strikes the face of Deborah only partially, for that was the only light he could divine in the history of these women, a partial and fragile light, forever swallowed by darkness. Rembrandt van Rijn caught but a moment, no more.

  "One can say that of any life and any history," I persisted.

  "No, it is prophetic," he announced. "And if Petyr goes on to the West Indies he will vanish into the darkness from which Deborah Mayfair emerged only for a little while."

  Make of that lovely exchange what you will! I cannot withhold from you that Alexander said further that you would go to the West Indies, that you would ignore our orders and you would ignore the pronouncement of excommunication, and that the darkness would descend.

  You may defy this prediction, and if you do indeed defy it, you will work wonders for the health of Alexander, who is wasting away. Come home, Petyr!!!!

  Surely you are aware, as a sensible man, that in the West Indies you need not meet with daimons or witches to endanger your life. Fever, pestilence, rebellious slaves, and the beasts of the jungle await you there, after all the perils of the sea voyage.

  But let us leave the matter of common injunctions against such travel, and the matter of our private powers, and look at the documents which you have laid before us.

  An interesting tale indeed. We have long known that "witchcraft" is a great concoction of judges, priests, philosophers, and so-called learned men. That by means of the printing press they have disseminated this fantasy throughout Europe, and into the Highlands of Scotland, and perhaps into the New World.

  We have long known as well that the peasant populations of the rural districts now see their cunning women and midwives as witches, and the bits and pieces of custom and superstition once held in high regard by them have now been woven into fantasies of goat-footed devils, sacrilege, and preposterous Sabbats.

  But where have we ever perceived a more exquisite example of how the fantasies of these men have created a witch than in the simpleton Suzanne Mayfair, who taking guidance directly from the demonologies has done what one in a million women could do--conjured up for herself a true spirit, and one of redoubtable power, a fiend which was passed on to her clever and embittered daughter, Deborah, who has gone further into the practice of Black Magic to perfect her hold over this being and now has passed him on, along with her superstitions no doubt, to her daughter in the New World.

  Who among us does not wish that he or she had stood with you at Montcleve to see the great power of this spirit, and the ruin of the lady's enemies, and surely had there been one of us at your side, that one would have stayed your hand and let the good Father Louvier meet his fate without your help.

  I should say further that no one among us fails to understand your desire to pursue this fiend and its witch to Saint-Domingue. What would I not give to speak to such a person as this Charlotte, and to ask what she has learnt from her mother, and what she means to do.

  But Petyr, you yourself have described the power of this demon. You have related faithfully the strange statements made in regard to it by the late Comtesse Deborah Mayfair de Montcleve. You must know that this thing will seek to prevent your coming between it and Charlotte, and that it is capable of bringing you to a bad end as it did with the late Comte de Montcleve.

  You cannot be other than right in your conclusion that the thing is more clever than most daimons, if only in what it has said to the witch, if not in what it does.

  Aye, it is quite irresistible to us, this tragic story. But you must come home to write your letters to the daughter of Deborah, from the safety of Amsterdam allowing our Dutch ships to take them over the sea.

  It may interest you to know as you prepare for your return journey, that we have only lately heard that word of Father Louvier's death has reached the French court.

  That a storm struck the town of Montcleve on the day of the execution of Deborah de Montcleve you will not be surprised to know. That it was sent by God to show his displeasure over the extent of witchcraft in France, and his condemnation in particular of this unrepentant woman who would not confess even under torture, you may be very interested to learn.

  And that the good Father Louvier died attempting to shelter others from falling brickbats will no doubt touch your heart. The dead numbered some fifteen, we are told, and the brave people of Montcleve burnt the witch, thereby ending the tempest, God willing, and the lesson in all this is that the Lord Jesus Christ would see more witches discovered and burnt. Amen.

  How soon I wonder will we see this in a pamphlet replete with the usual drawings, and a litany of untruths? No doubt the printing presses, which forever feed the flames that burn witches, are already hard at work.

  And where, pray tell, is the witch judge who spent a warm night by the fire of the cunning woman of Donnelaith, and showed her the dark drawings in his demonology? Is he dead and burning in hell? We shall never know.

  Petyr, do not take time to write to us. Only come home. Know that we love you, and that we do not condemn you for what you have done, or for anything that you may do. We say what we believe we must say!

  Yours Faithfully in the Talamasca,

  Stefan Franck

  Amsterdam

  Dear Stefan,

  I write in haste as I am already on board the French ship Sainte-Helene, bound for the New World, and a boy is waiting here to take this to be posted to you at once.

  Before your letter reached me I had drawn from our agents all that I required for the journey, and have purchased what clothing and medicines I fear I shall need.

  I go to Charlotte as I can do nothing else, and this will not surprise you, and please tell Alexander for me that I know he would do nothing else were he in my place.

  But Stefan, you judge me wrongly when you say that I have been caught up in the evil of this daimon. True, I have broken the rules of the order only on account of Deborah Mayfair, both in the past and in the present; but the daimon was never any part of my love of Deborah, and when I struck down the witch judge I did what I wanted to do.

  I struck him down for Deborah, and for all the poor and ignorant women I have seen screaming in the flames, for the women who have expired on the rack or in cold prison cells, for the families destroyed and for the villages laid waste by these awful lies.

  But I waste time with this defense of myself. You are good not to condemn me, for it was murder, nevertheless.

  Let me also say in great haste that the tale of the storm of Montcleve reached here some time ago, and is much garbled. It is ascribed to the power of the witch in one breath, and put down to simple nature on the other, and the death of Louvier is judged an accident in the melee, and there is much tiresome and endless argument over w
hat actually took place.

  Now I can speak of what most concerns me and that is what I have lately learnt of Charlotte Fontenay. She is much remembered here as it was at Marseille that she arrived and from Marseille that she sailed. And what has been told me by various persons is that she is very rich, very beautiful, and very fair, with flowing flaxen locks and bewitching blue eyes, and that her husband is indeed deeply crippled by a childhood illness which has caused a progressive weakness in his limbs. He is a wraith of a man. It was on this account that Charlotte brought him to Montcleve, with a great retinue of Negroes to attend him, to appeal to her mother that she might cure him, and also detect any sign of the illness in Charlotte's infant son. Indeed Deborah pronounced that the son was healthy. And mother and daughter devised for the husband a salve for his limbs which gave him much relief, but could not restore the feeling altogether, and it is thought that he shall soon be as helpless as his father, who is afflicted with the same malady, and though his mind is sharp and he can direct the affairs of his plantation, he is rumored to lie helpless in a splendid bed with Negroes to feed him and clean him as if he were a child. It was hoped the illness would progress with less speed in young Antoine, who was quite the figure at court when Charlotte first beheld him and accepted his proposal of marriage, though she was very young at that time.

  It is commonly known here as well that Charlotte and young Antoine were enjoying their visit with Deborah, and had been with her many weeks when tragedy befell the family with the death of the Comte, and the rest you know. Except perhaps that those in Marseille do not believe so much in witchcraft and ascribe the madness of the persecution to the superstition of the mountain people, though what is that superstition without the famous witch judge to goad it on?

  It is most easy for me to inquire about these two for no one here knows that I have been in the mountains, and it seems that those whom I invite to join me in a cup of wine do love to speak of Charlotte and Antoine Fontenay as the townspeople of Montcleve loved to speak of the entire family.

  A great stir was caused here by Charlotte and young Fontenay, for apparently they live with much extravagance and generosity to everyone, handing out coins as if they were nothing, and they appeared at the church here for Mass with a retinue of Negroes as they did in Montcleve, which drew all eyes. It is said also that they paid very well every doctor here whom they did consult with regard to Antoine's affliction and there is much talk about the cause of this illness, as to whether it springs from the intense heat of the West Indies, or is an old malady of which many Europeans have suffered in ages past.

  There is no doubt among these people as to the wealth of the Fontenays, and they did have agents in this city for trade until very recently, but taking their departure here in great haste, before the arrest of Deborah had become common knowledge, they broke their ties with the local agents, and no one knows where they have gone.

  Now, I have more to tell you. Maintaining myself at great expense as the rich Dutch merchant, I managed to discover the name of a very gracious and beautiful young woman, of fine family, who was a friend to Charlotte Fontenay, a name mentioned in connection with that of Charlotte whenever the name Charlotte is mentioned in a conversation of any length. Saying only that I had known and loved Deborah de Montcleve in her youth in Amsterdam, I managed to secure this lady's trust, and learned more from her lips.

  Her name being Jeanne Angelique de Roulet, she was at court during which time Charlotte was at court, and they were presented to His Majesty together.

  Jeanne de Roulet, fearing nothing of the superstition in the mountains, avers that Charlotte is of a beguiling and sweet disposition and could never be a witch. She too lays it down to the ignorance of the mountainfolk that anyone could believe such a thing. She has offered a Mass for the repose of the soul of the unfortunate Comtesse.

  As for Antoine, the lady's impression of him is that he bears his illness with great fortitude, and indeed loves his wife and is not, all things taken into account, a poor companion to his wife. However, the cause of their long journey home to Deborah was that the young man may not now father any more children, so great is his weakness, and the one boy child now living, though very strong and healthy, may inherit the malady. No one knows.

  It was further stated that the father of Antoine, the master of the plantation, was in favor of the journey, so eager is he for male children through Antoine and so disapproving of his other sons, who are most dissolute and cohabit with their Negro mistresses, rarely bothering to enter their father's house.

  This young woman by the way maintains a great devotion to Charlotte and laments that Charlotte did not take leave of her before sailing from Marseille. However, on account of the horrors in the Cevennes, all is forgiven.

  When asked why no one came to the defense of Deborah in these recent proceedings, the woman had to confess that the Comte de Montcleve had himself never been to court, and neither had his mother, and that they had been Huguenots at one time in their history, and that no one in Paris knew the Comtesse, that Charlotte herself had been there only briefly, and that when the tale went round that Deborah de Montcleve was in fact the fatherless daughter of a Scottish witch, a mere peasant by all accounts, outrage over her predicament turned to pity and finally to nothing at all.

  "Ah," says the young woman, "those mountains and those towns." She herself is eager to return to Paris, for what is there outside Paris? And who can hope to obtain favor or advancement if he or she is not in attendance upon the king?

  That is all that I have time to write. We sail within the hour.

  Stefan, must I make it more plain to you? I must see the girl; I must warn her against the spirit; and where, for the love of heaven, do you imagine, that this child, born eight months after Deborah took leave of me in Amsterdam, got her fair skin and her flaxen hair?

  I shall see you again. My love to all of you, my brothers and sisters in the Talamasca. I go to the New World with great anticipation. I shall see Charlotte. I shall conquer this being, Lasher, and perhaps I myself shall commune with this thing that has a voice and such power, and learn from it wherefore it learns from us.

  Yours Faithfully as Ever in the Talamasca,

  Petyr van Abel

  Marseille

  Fifteen

  THE FILE ON THE MAYFAIR WITCHES

  PART III

  Port-au-Prince

  Saint-Domingue

  Stefan,

  Having sent you two brief missives from the ports at which we dropped anchor before our arrival, I now begin the bound journal of my travels, in which all of my entries shall be addressed to you.

  If time allows, I shall copy my entries into letters and send them to you. If time does not allow, you shall receive from me the entire journal.

  As I write this I am in most comfortable if not luxurious lodgings here in Port-au-Prince, and have spent two hours in walking about the colonial city, much dazzled with its fine houses, splendid public buildings, including a theater for the performance of Italian opera, and with its richly dressed planters and their wives, and the great plenitude of slaves.

  No place equals Port-au-Prince in my travels for its exotic qualities, and I do not think that any city in Africa could offer so much to the eye.

  For not only are there Negroes everywhere performing all tasks here, there is a multitude of foreigners engaged in all manner of trade. I have also discovered a large and prosperous "colored" population, composed entirely of the offspring of the planters and their African concubines, most of which have been freed by their white fathers, and have gone on to make a good living as musicians or craftsmen, shopkeepers and undoubtedly women of ill fame. The women of color I have seen are surpassingly beautiful. I cannot fault the men for choosing them as mistresses or evening companions. Many have golden skin and great liquid black eyes, and they are quite obviously aware of their charms. They dress with great ostentation, possessing many black slaves of their own.

  This class is increas
ing daily I am told. And one cannot help but wonder what will be its fate as the years pass.

  As for the slaves, they are imported by the thousands. I watched two ships unload their miserable cargo. The stench was past describing. It was horrible to see the conditions in which these poor human beings have been maintained. It is said that they are worked to death on the plantations for it is cheaper to import them than to keep them alive.

  Harsh punishments are visited upon them for the smallest crimes. And the entire island lives in terror of uprisings, and the masters and mistresses of the great houses live in fear of being poisoned, for that is the slave's weapon, or so I am told.

  As for Charlotte and her husband, all know of them here, but nothing of Charlotte's family in Europe. They have purchased one of the very largest and most prosperous plantations very close to Port-au-Prince, yet near to the sea. It is perhaps an hour's carriage ride from the outskirts of the city, and borders great cliffs over the beaches; and is famed for its large house and other fine buildings, containing as it does an entire city with blacksmith and leatherworks and seamstresses and weavers and furniture makers all within its many arpents, which are planted with coffee and indigo, and yield a great fortune with each harvest.

  This plantation has made rich men of three different owners in the short time that the French have been here, engaged in endless battles with the Spanish who inhabit the southeast portion of the island, and two of those owners quit it for Paris with their earnings, whilst the third died of a fever, and now it is in possession of the Fontenays, Antoine Pere and Antoine Fils, but all know that it is Charlotte who runs this plantation, and she is known far and wide as Madame Charlotte, and every merchant in this city pays court to her, and the local officials beg for her favor and for her money, of which she has a seemingly endless amount.

  It is said that she has taken the management of the plantation into her own hands down to the smallest detail, that she rides the fields with her overseer--Stefan, no one is held in more contempt than these overseers--and that she knows the names of all her slaves. She spares nothing to provide them with food and with drink and so binds them to her with extraordinary loyalty, and she inspects their houses, and dotes upon their children, and looks into the souls of the accused before meting punishment. But her judgment upon those who are treacherous is already legendary, for there is no limit here to the power of these planters. They can flog their slaves to death if they wish.