She gave Adam a little push towards the courtyard gate. He ran across as if he had every intention of doing as he was told, but outside he flattened himself against the wall and waited, peering through the tiny gap between the wood and the wall, until he saw Catlin disappear inside. Slowly, he opened the gate just wide enough to slide through and slipped into the relative cool of the stables.
Moments later the gate opened quietly again and Edward, casting furtive glances around, picked his way across the courtyard and into the house. Adam followed, pausing in the doorway. He could hear Catlin and Edward arguing in low voices.
‘. . . I’ve just seen Martin,’ Edward was saying. ‘He was being dragged through the city by the sheriff’s men. He’s not coming . . . and you said the hall . . . you said Robert would be in the hall. This isn’t what we planned.’
The stairs creaked. Adam knew it was Catlin’s footsteps. She was going straight to the bedchamber. He hugged himself in anticipation. He’d worried that somehow he would fail Leonia, that he would not say the right things to make Catlin go upstairs or that he’d fumble his words and she would grow suspicious. But everything was perfect and Leonia would be so pleased with him.
When Catlin opened the door that separated the solar from the bedchamber Robert was lying stretched out on the bed sunk in a deep sleep. Leonia was lying beside him, propped up on her elbow, her head resting on her hand. Her shift was pulled up and Robert’s hand lay between her bare thighs.
Catlin shrieked and flew to the bed, the riding crop raised in her hand. Leonia was already scrambling off the bed, but she was not quick enough. She raised her arm to shield her face as Catlin struck. The whip caught her across the forearm and at once beads of blood blossomed along the angry welt. She slid off the bed and ran behind a wooden screen.
‘You little bitch!’ Catlin screamed.
With a groan Robert pulled himself upright. He was struggling to focus. His voice was slurred. His tongue seemed to have become too big for his mouth.
‘Dare you . . . come back here! Warned you . . . told you to get out . . .’ He tried to swing his legs off the bed, but couldn’t seem to make them obey him. ‘Sheriff . . . sending for Thomas right now.’
He glimpsed a movement in the solar and his face contorted as he saw Edward hovering in the doorway. ‘Get him out of my house!’
Catlin lunged at Robert. ‘You dare to accuse me of adultery when you’ve taken your own stepdaughter as your whore. You vile lecher!’
She raised the whip as if she meant to strike him. But he grabbed her wrist, trying to wrest it from her hands.
‘He’s a lecher, but he isn’t a murderer too, like you, is he, Mother?’
Leonia had moved towards the door and Adam, coming up behind Edward, had slipped round him to stand beside her.
‘You do know that Catlin murdered Edith, don’t you, Robert?’ Leonia said calmly. ‘Just like she killed my father. You helped her, didn’t you, Edward?’
‘If I was going to murder anyone, it would be you, you ungrateful brat,’ Edward said savagely.
‘But you can’t, not yet, because my father left all his estates to me, not Catlin. If I die all my father’s money will go to my uncle. You need me to stay alive until I’m old enough to marry you, don’t you, Edward? That’s the plan, isn’t it? Once I marry you all my inheritance becomes yours and you’ll murder me then, won’t you, you and my mother together?’
Catlin took a step back from the bed. ‘Do it, Edward! Don’t just stand there. Use the knife. Kill him! He’s drugged. You’re stronger than him. Strike now!’
‘But you said Martin would be blamed . . . you swore . . .’ Edward gestured with the blade towards Adam and Leonia. ‘And what about them? I can’t do it in front of them. It’s too dangerous.’
‘They’re just children,’ Catlin shrieked at him. ‘We can deal with them later. You have to do it now! If you don’t, you’ll hang. We both will. Kill him. Just do it, you fool. Strike!’
Leonia lifted her chin. ‘He won’t do it, Mother. He’s too scared. But I will, because I am your daughter, and you and that filthy old man have to be punished for what you’ve done.’
Leonia, watching the dumbfounded expression on Catlin’s face, threw back her head and laughed. She reached down under the top of her shift and pulled out something hanging around her neck. It was Catlin’s bloodstone necklace. One by one, she slid open the little compartments at the back of each stone, shaking out the locks of hair so they fell to the floor – brown, blond, black, grey and a strand dyed saffron yellow.
‘Look at them, Robert. Look at all the people she killed, all the people who are coming for her. They’re all here, Catlin. Their ghosts are waiting for you.’
Robert saw Leonia reach for the candle on the table, but he still didn’t comprehend the danger. His mind seemed to be enveloped in a fog. He watched, as if from far off, as she flung the lighted candle onto the flowers on the floor. He saw one of the rose petals smoulder and shrivel. Then, suddenly, a circle of flame flashed around the bed and leaped up the hangings. But it was only when the hem of Catlin’s skirts caught light, only when she began to shriek, that Robert understood what Leonia had done. The flowers and the bed-hangings had been soaked in perfumed oil. In the same instant, he saw to his horror that he was completely surrounded by flames.
His first instinct was to shrink back into the centre of the bed as the fire leaped up around him. He caught sight of the terrified expression on Edward’s face in the solar, and the children standing, hand in hand, in the doorway, smiling. Flames shot along the canopy over his head. Robert threw himself off the bed.
Catlin reeled into the corner of the room, trying to beat out her skirts and tear her gown from her. Robert made a lunge for the door, but the two children were standing there, unmoving. Then, hand in hand, they raised their arms. Robert could make no sense of what his drugged mind saw: snakes seemed to writhe in front of him and a creature with a black-furred face and sightless eyes bounded towards him, snarling, its sharp white fangs bared to strike. Robert screamed, and threw himself to the floor in the doorway just as the blazing drapes came crashing down, engulfing Catlin in flames.
By the time Diot had come lumbering up the stairs, the whole bedchamber was ablaze, floor to ceiling in a rolling mass of flame. The heat was so fierce and the smoke so dense that no one could get inside. Nothing could be done to help Catlin trapped in there, burning alive. Diot could only grab the children and hurry the poor little mites out to the safety of the street.
Neighbours came rushing with ladders and buckets of water, grappling hooks and brooms to beat out the blaze. They managed to contain it. The bedchamber was gutted and the fire had burned through the floorboards, scorching the ceiling below, but it could have been worse, everyone said. The house, being made of stone, was still standing. And the tapestry, of which Robert had been so proud, remained miraculously undamaged. The crown in the maiden’s hair and the gold of the boar’s collar gleamed more brightly than ever.
Diot hugged her two charges to her massive breasts, rocking to and fro, the tears streaming down her sooty cheeks.
‘My poor, poor sweet babe . . . such a terrible way to die . . . If I’d thought for a moment ’twould end like this . . . Thank the saints that you lambs was both saved.’
Across her broad back, the children smiled triumphantly at one another.
Then, as Diot led them away, Leonia turned around and gazed back down the street to where I stood with Mavet. She opened her clenched fist and blew a single rose petal towards us. It drifted in the wind, higher, higher over the great city.
We watched it disappear. She walked away and we followed her. Mavet and I will always follow her. She has always known we’ve been there, protecting her, teaching her . . . killing for her. After all, I am her father. Isn’t that what fathers do? And Mavet has discovered humans are more fun to terrorise than rabbits, much tastier too. A single bite from those four sharp canines is all it takes, doesn’t
it, my little demon of death? You might say we three are the most unholy trinity – father, daughter and our own little incubus.
Epilogue
At the darkest hour of the longest night, the hell-wain drawn by the headless black horses trundles through the streets of the town, gathering up the shrieking souls of the dead.
Poor old Godwin, he understood a little, but there is much he did not. Pavia, Margaret, Catlin, and those were but a few of her names, did murder three husbands and a few others along the way, but it was not with witchcraft, as Godwin believed, though you can hardly blame him for thinking that. She didn’t need spirits or spells to aid her. She was more than skilled enough to manage things on her own.
It was Christmastide, that season of goodwill towards men. Our little daughter, our Leonia, was but three years old, and as delicate and beautiful as a Christmas rose. I was deeply in love with her mother and never tired of thinking up new ways to please her. So when Catlin’s long-lost son, Edward, arrived, recently returned from sea and overjoyed to be reunited with his dear mother, like Robert I was a fool and indulged my wife by taking in her son. After all, no man could be so cold-hearted as to turn away his stepson at Christmas, for even a beggar is welcomed to the fire at that season.
On St Stephen’s Day, Catlin gave me one of her most charming smiles. ‘Warrick, my sweeting, it’s such a bright day and we’ve been sitting far too long around the fire. We should go hunting. I’ve been telling my son what a fine rider you are and he is longing for some sport.’
I was surprised and a little annoyed, for Catlin had shown no interest in hunting before, preferring dancing and mummery. But now that her son wanted to hunt, she had decided she enjoyed it. But it would have been foolish to allow my churlishness to prevent me doing what I’d been itching to do since the Christmas feasting had begun. Hunting was my passion, riding out with my hawk on my fist and the hounds following one of my greatest joys.
So I was on my feet before the words had even left her lips, pulling on the new pair of gauntlets she had offered as a Christmas gift, whistling up the hounds and sending stable-boys scurrying as I called for the horses to be saddled. I kissed my little daughter, Leonia, goodbye, promising her the prize from the finest beast we brought down.
We were riding over the heath, with some of the men and stable-boys following on foot to retrieve the hawks and carry any kills that might be made. There’d been a frost, which lingered, sparkling on the bare branches of the trees. The ground was as hard as burnished steel. Edward and I were both riding with goshawks, using the hounds to put up the game, and vying with each other over how many hares, rabbits and game birds our hawks could kill.
Catlin was carrying a peregrine falcon, though, of course, only sending it out when the hawks were safely on the glove. Several times I noticed her turning her head to look at me instead of watching the spectacle of the hunt, even when her own bird was flying. At the time, I foolishly thought it was pride in my prowess for, though I say it myself, I was a far more daring and expert horseman than Edward. But now I know she was watching for the first signs. And she did not have long to wait.
I started to feel unnaturally chilled. Then, the next moment, I was roasting. Sweat was running down my face. The latter was hardly to be wondered at for I was riding hard. But I was dizzy and couldn’t control my movements. My arms and legs started jerking, so much so that the goshawk on my fist was bating and repeatedly throwing herself upside down, swinging by the leather jesses around her legs, the ends of which were clamped tightly in my gloved hand. Dimly I knew that I should stop and dismount, but I was seized by terror. The baying of the hounds behind me was growing louder and louder, but I knew they were not mine. I turned in the saddle and saw, to my horror, a pack of monstrous hell-black hounds running straight towards me, each one encased in a ball of scarlet and blue flames that streamed out behind them as they came.
Some of the servants came running up, trying to grab the reins of my horse, but the hounds were closing in and I knew it was me that they hunted. I spurred my horse away from them.
‘The hounds, the hounds of fire,’ I shrieked. ‘Draw your bows and kill them!’ But the men didn’t seem to understand what I was saying.
I must have flung my hawk away from me, for I could see it wheeling overhead, shrieking, like a monstrous griffin. Its talons had grown as long as swords and it was diving at me. I covered my head with my arm and spurred my mount mercilessly on until the poor beast was foaming at the mouth.
It was only a matter of time before the horse slipped on the frosty grass and threw me. I fell against the trunk of the tree, striking my head against the broken stump of a branch. My wife and Edward came galloping up, the servants running behind. I thought it was the hounds of fire that had surrounded me. I lashed out wildly, screaming and shouting in my terror.
One of the servants pulled off my gauntlets and began to rub my hands and head with ice from a pond to bring me to my senses. And my wits returned just long enough for me to see the smile of triumph that passed between my wife and her so-called son. I knew in that instant that they were lovers and I knew, too, that they had murdered me. That was my last thought as life ebbed from me, and the very last thing I saw as a living man was my wife and her lover, standing hand in hand. And so I found myself dead. Strangely I was as aware that I was dead as I had once known I was alive, which, trust me, my darlings, is a curious sensation until you grow accustomed to it.
At the funeral Catlin sobbed piteously on her son’s shoulder. It was a tragedy everyone said, a terrible accident. Although that didn’t stop the whole manor, indeed the whole village, speculating as to the cause of my sudden reckless flight and why I had been babbling about the hounds of fire. Some said the hare my goshawk had caught was a witch in disguise or my horse had trodden upon a patch of St John’s wort and become hag-ridden; others said the devil’s hounds had come to drag me to everlasting torment.
Many believed the latter, and rumours began to circulate in the village that I, Warrick, had been a debauched and evil man, who had raped innocent girls, then cast them aside. I’m surprised they didn’t add that I had eaten their babies too, for I had, it seemed, treated my poor long-suffering wife with such cruelty that she had been nothing short of a saint for suffering me so long.
The villagers would have been sadly disappointed to learn that the devil didn’t rise up and drag me screaming to the fires of Hell, but neither did any angel reach down and haul me up to Heaven. Since the thief crucified beside Christ was the only one to speak up for Him as He hung dying, you’d have thought that Jesus would have assigned a corner of Heaven’s kitchen for the not-quite-saintly of this world. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that a man who’d ended his days on a cross might have some fellow feeling for the unjustly condemned? But all kings who come at last to their thrones are quick to forget that once they had wiped their own backsides, as any beggar, so there were no angels for me. And I’m glad of it, for how else could I be here to protect my beautiful daughter? Besides, I’m not sure they let ferrets into Heaven and I’d miss old Mavet.
Oh, that bitch of a wife killed my poor little Mavet too, all because he came running to my coffin. He knew something was wrong, could smell the poison. Ferrets have more love and loyalty in a single claw than most men do in their whole bodies. So she locked him in a box and threw it on a fire, just to be sure the imp wouldn’t draw attention to the glove.
And that, as you will have realised, is how she did it. No witchcraft, no spells, just an unguent of her own devising, smeared inside that thoughtful gift. It works as well on nightcaps and bed linen. Her ointments made her victims grow sick. Sometimes they went mad, but always they died. As I told you, my dear wife had a rare talent.
But now you want to know what happened after the fire. Well, of course, you do, my darlings, and I shall tell you. When the smoke cleared, Robert was found by his neighbours lying unconscious in the corner of the solar where he’d crawled. Miraculously he lived, if you c
ould call his existence living. Badly burned, he was taken to the infirmary of St Mary Magdalene where the lay sisters tended him throughout his few remaining years. He did not leave their walls again, save for that last journey to the church to be buried by his guild brothers between his two loving and faithful wives. Whether he was happy confined to the nuns’ tender care, no one ever knew, for the only sounds to escape from his mouth were grunts.
‘Eat your swill, like a good little piglet,’ the lay sisters would say, as they spooned the grey gruel down his throat.
And they’d laugh at their own merry wit, when Sister Ursula was not within hearing, of course, for they’d precious little else in life to offer them amusement, save the pleasure of tormenting those whose lives were even more miserable than their own. There was no hippocras in St Magdalene’s, at least not for the likes of them or poor Robert.
As for dearest Edward, he was arrested as soon as those two orphaned children tearfully explained to the sheriff how that wicked man had lit the fire. He was charged first with the murder of his mother, but a charge of treason was swiftly added. For he was Robert’s steward and to attempt to kill your master is, as we all know, treason. And after the summer of rebellion, the justices were not disposed to take a lenient view of such matters. Where would we be if any Tom, Dick or Harry thought he could rise up and overthrow his masters?
Sheriff Thomas went so far as to suggest that Edward had been trying to start another rebellion, right there in Lincoln. Thomas was commended for his vigilance in arresting the ringleader before anyone else could be hurt. And when his term as sheriff thankfully came to an end, he prospered very nicely under his new royal patronage.