The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches 1)

"Oh, no, it is more than that," she whispered, "and you are most mistaken. But don't fear for me, Petyr. I am not my mother. There is no cause."

We sat then in quiet by the little fire, though I could not think that she would want to be near it, and as she leaned her forehead on the stones above it, I kissed her again on her soft cheek, and brushed back the long vagrant strands of her moist black hair.

"Petyr," she said, "I shall never live in hunger and filth as she lived. I shall never be at the mercy of foolish men."

"Don't marry, Deborah. Don't go! Come with me. Come into the Talamasca and we shall discover the nature of this creature together ... "

"No, Petyr. You know I will not." And here she smiled sadly. "It is you who must come with me, and we shall go away. Speak to me now with your secret voice, the voice in you that can command clocks to stop or spirits to come, and be with me, and be my bridegroom, and this shall be the witches' wedding night."

I went to answer her with a thousand protests, but she covered my mouth with her hand, and then with her mouth, and she went to kissing me with such heat and charm that I knew nothing anymore, but that I had to tear from her the garments that bound her, and have her there in the bed with the green curtains drawn around us, this tender childlike body with its woman's breasts and woman's secrets which I had bathed and clothed.

Why do I torture myself to write this? I am confessing my old sin, Stefan. I am telling you all that I did, for I cannot write of this woman without this confession and so I go on.

Never have I celebrated the rites with such abandon. Never have I known such voluptuousness and sweetness as I knew in her.

For she believed herself to be a witch, Stefan, and therefore to be evil, and these were the devil's rites to her that she celebrated with such willfulness. Yet hers was a tender and loving heart, I swear it, and so the mixture was a rare and powerful witch's brew indeed.

I did not leave her bed till morning. I slept against her perfumed breast. I wept now and then like a boy. With a temptress's skill, she had wakened all of my flesh to her. She had discovered my most secret hungers and had toyed with them, and fed them. I was her slave. But she knew that I would not stay with her, that I had to go back to the Talamasca, and for hours finally she lay quiet and sad staring at the wooden ceiling of the bed, as the light came through the seams of the curtains and the bed began to grow warm from the sun.

I dressed wearily and without desire for anything in the whole of Christendom but her soul and her flesh. Yet I was leaving her. I was going home to tell Roemer what I had done. I was going back to the Motherhouse, which was indeed my mother and my father, and I knew no other choice.

I thought now she will send me off with curses. But it was not to be. One last time, I begged her to remain in Amsterdam, to come with me.

Good-bye, my little priest, she said to me. Fare thee well, and may the Talamasca reward you for what you have given up in me. Tears she shed, and I kissed her open hands hungrily before I left her, and put my face once more into her hair. "Go now, Petyr," she said finally. "Remember me."

Perhaps a day or two passed before I was told that she had gone. I was disconsolate and lay weeping and trying to listen to Roemer and to Geertruid, but I could not hear what they had to say. They were not angry with me as I had thought they would be, that much I knew.

And it was Roemer who went to Judith de Wilde and purchased from her the portrait of Deborah by Rembrandt van Rijn which hangs in our house to this day.

It was a full year perhaps before I regained true health of body and soul. And never after that did I break the rules of the Talamasca as I had in those days, and went out again through the German states and through France and even to Scotland to do my work to save the witches, and to write of them and their tribulations as we have always done.

So now you know, Stefan, the story of Deborah, such as it is. And my shock to come upon the tragedy of the Comtesse de Montcleve, so many years later, in this fortified town in the Cevennes of the Languedoc and to discover that she was Deborah Mayfair, the daughter of the Scottish witch.

Oh, if only that bit of knowledge--that the mother had been burnt--had been kept from these townsfolk. If only the young bride had not told her secrets to the young lord when she cried on his chest. And her face lo, those many years ago, is fixed in my memory, when she said to me, "Petyr, I can speak to you and not be afraid."

Now you see with what fear and misery I entered the prison cell, and how in my haste, I gave no thought until the very last moment that the lady, crouched there in rags upon her bed of straw, might look up and recognize me and call out my name, and in her despair, cheerfully give my disguise away.

But this did not happen.

As I stepped into the cell, lifting the hem of my black cassock so as to appear as a cleric who did not wish to soil himself with this filth, I looked down upon her and saw no look of recognition in her face.

That she did look steadily at me alarmed me however, and straightaway I said to the old fool of a parish priest that I must examine her alone. He was loathe to leave me with her, but I told him that I had seen many a witch and she did not frighten me in the slightest and that I must ask her many questions, and if only he would wait for me at the rectory I should be back soon. Then I took from my pockets several gold coins, and said, "You must take these for your church, for I know I have given you much trouble." And that sealed it. The imbecile was gone.

Need I tell you how contemptible all these proceedings were, that this woman should be put into my hands thus without guards? For what might I have done to her, had I chosen to do it? And who had done such things before me?

At once the door was shut up, and though I could hear much whispering in the passage beyond, we were alone. I set down the candle upon the only furnishing in the place, which was a wooden bench, and as I struggled not to give way to tears at the sight of her, I heard her voice coming low, scarce more than a whisper as she said:

"Petyr, can it really be you?"

"Yes, Deborah," I said.

"Ah, but you have not come to save me, have you?" she asked wearily.

My heart was struck by the very tone of her voice, for it was the same voice that had spoken to me in her bedchamber in Amsterdam that last night. It had but a tiny fraction of deeper resonance, and perhaps a dark music to it which suffering imparts.

"I cannot do it, Deborah. Though I shall try, I know that I will fail."

This came as no surprise to her, yet she smiled at me.

Taking up the candle once more, I drew closer to her, and went down on my knees in the hay before her so that I might look into her eyes. I saw the very same eyes I remembered, and the same cheeks as she smiled, and it seemed this spare and waxen form was but my Deborah made already into a spirit, with all her beauty intact.

She made no move towards me but perused my face as she might a painting, and then in a rush of feeble and pitiful words I told her that I had not known of her distress, but had come upon this place alone, in my work for the Talamasca, and had discovered with great sorrow that she was the one of whom I had heard so much talk. I had ascertained that she had appealed to the bishop, and to the Parliament of Paris, but here she silenced me with a simple gesture and said:

"I shall die here on the morrow, and there is nothing that you can do."

"Ah, but there is one small mercy," I said, "for I have in my possession a powder, which when mixed with water and drunk, will make you stuporous and you will not suffer as you might. Nay, I can give you such a measure of it that you will die, if that is your wish, and thereby cheat the flames altogether. I know that I can put this into your hands. The old priest is a fool."

She seemed most deeply affected by my offer, though in no urgency to accept it. "Petyr, I must have my wits about when I am taken down into the square. I warn you, do not be in the town when this takes place. Or be safe behind a shuttered window, if you must remain to see it for yourself."

"Are

you speaking of escape, Deborah?" I asked, for I had to admit that my imagination was at once inflamed. If only I could save her, cause a great confusion and then take her away by some means. But how could I do such a thing?

"No, no, Petyr, that is beyond my power and the power of him whom I command. It is a simple thing for a spirit to transport a small jewel or a gold coin into the hands of a witch, but to open prison doors, to overcome armed guards? This cannot be done." Then, as if distracted, her eyes glancing wildly about, she said, "Do you know my own sons have testified against me? That my beloved Chretien has called his mother a witch?"

"I think they made him do it, Deborah. Shall I go to see him? What can I do that will help?"

"Oh, kind, dear Petyr," she said. "Why did you not listen to me when I begged you to come with me? But this is not your doing, all this. It is mine."

"How so, Deborah? That you were innocent I never doubted. If you could have cured your husband of his injury, there never would have been a cry of 'witch.' "

She shook her head at this. "There is so much more to the story. When he died I believed myself to be blameless. But I have spent many a long month in this cell thinking on it, Petyr. And hunger and pain make the mind grow sharp."

"Deborah, do not believe what your enemies say of you, no matter how often or well they say it!"

She did not answer me. She seemed indifferent to it. And then she turned to me again. "Petyr, do these things for me. If on the morrow I am brought bound into the square, which is my worst fear, demand that my arms and legs be freed that I may carry the heavy candle in penance, as has always been the custom in these parts. Do not let my crippled feet wring pity from you, Petyr. I fear the bonds worse than I fear the flames!"

"I will do it," I said, "but there is no cause for concern. They will make you carry the candle, and make you walk the length of the town. You will be made to bring it to the steps of the cathedral, and only then will they bind you and take you to the pyre." I could scarce continue.

"Listen, I have more to ask of you." she said.