Cauldron of Fear Read online

  'My faith keeps me from sin, whore,' Crawley snickered. He stepped closer, so close that she could feel the warmth and foetid sweetness of his breath and the pressure of his cock against her lower stomach. She shrank back automatically and immediately groaned as her back pressed against the rough surface.

  'You'll moan some more, ere I'm through with you,' Crawley said viciously. 'And don't think to talk of this on the morrow, for you'll go to your death with a nice fat gag in your heathen mouth.'

  He stooped slightly and Matilda felt him probing with the engorged head, seeking out her defenceless sex, his hot flesh beginning to force an entrance. She closed her eyes, drawing in a deep breath. 'Go ahead then, you vile bastard,' she grated. 'Take your pleasure of me if you will, for the Lord knows I cannot stop you. But know this, Jacob Crawley, with every thrust of your foul pole you surely commit your own soul to a fate far worse than any even you could conceive for me.' She gasped again as his entire length slid into her and then opened her eyes wide, fixing his with an unflinching stare.

  'So fuck me then, you spawn of a diseased cunt!' she hissed. 'Fuck me as long as you want, though I doubt that will be very long, will it?'

  'You cannot hang her, Master Crawley!' Simon Wickstanner's face was a dark shade of purple. He stopped his pacing, grasped the marble mantelshelf and banged his fist against the chimneybreast. 'Good Lord, man!' he exclaimed. 'Where is the sense in that?'

  Jacob Crawley, who had been sitting in the padded window seat, rose slowly and walked to the centre of the room. He stood motionless for a few moments, a sardonic smile upon his drawn features, and then shook his head slowly, a gesture that was more dismissive than anything else.

  'Priest,' he said coldly, 'you have no subtlety whatsoever. Neither, I fear, are you any judge of human nature. You assured me the old biddy would be forthcoming long before we reached this evening's stage, did you not? Well then, where was she, eh?

  'I tell you this, she was out there somewhere, yet despite her granddaughter's screaming, did she come forward? No, we both know she did not. So, we must believe her gold means more to her than blood, except that if that were true, then everything I have learned about human nature would be proved false.

  'Yes, she seems capable of allowing the wench to suffer - mayhap the supposed suffering is nought but an act, for all we know - but will she see her swing at the end of a rope? I think not.'

  'But what if she will?' Wickstanner snapped. 'What then? Will you hang the girl?'

  'It shall not come to that, priest, that much I do know,' Crawley said. 'At least, I doubt it, though there are those who can yet surprise me. The grandmother is the only family, you say, so I cannot see her permitting events to go that far. Did she not give you any indication?'

  Wickstanner's expression was wooden. 'The only indication she gave me was that she would ensure that I paid for this for all eternity.' For a moment his sunken cheeks and hollow eyes were close to betraying his true feelings, but he fought to regain his self-control. 'Of course,' he expostulated, 'I took no heed of such empty threats, but the problem is, as I see it, that if the old woman holds true to such beliefs, then she may not be forthcoming.'

  'Then we hang the wench and have done with it,' Crawley said. 'As far as I am concerned, it is a simple case of cutting losses. My warrant guarantees me twenty guineas for every witch or heretic I execute, so my journey down here will not be totally wasted. Besides, we already have murmurings against two more of the village women. There may yet be fruit to be gathered, priest, so hold firm. We do the Lord's work, the Lord's bidding, so have faith. He shall provide.'

  After half an hour's careful scouting, Toby was finally satisfied that there was no one else watching the bridge. The mill, long closed for the night, was in total darkness and the Calthorpe cottage showed only one lighted window, probably as the miller and his wife ate a well earned supper before bedtime.

  The main barn and the smaller outbuildings were all shut and bolted from the outside with heavy timber bars, so if there was anyone inside any of them, they were in there for the night. A rapid check through the woods behind the mill revealed nothing, either. He grinned; whatever happened next, they had the advantage of what he had heard soldiers call 'early ground', which meant they would also hold on to the element of surprise.

  The Black Drum was a regular overnight stop for military personnel travelling between London and Portsmouth and, on the summer evenings, the young officers often sat at the benches outside, drinking and chatting among themselves and, more often than not, quite willing to regale Toby, or any of the other youngsters from the village, with stories of their campaigns, real or imaginary.

  Toby had long since decided that he, too, would be an officer in the army, travelling the world, fighting the enemies of the Commonwealth, seeing sights he could never hope to see if he remained stuck here, the way his father and grandfather before him had. Of course, he realised, not being able to read or write would be something of a drawback to this ambition, but he had practised sword fighting with a wooden sabre he'd fashioned himself and he was a dead shot with the musket his father kept for rabbiting and foxes.

  Maybe his lack of literary skills would be overlooked. Or maybe, he thought, as he made his roundabout way back to where Billy was still sleeping, he could ask Miss Harriet to teach him. Maybe he could offer to help her on their farm, in exchange, for he knew she was hard pressed, what with her father being so ill all the time.

  And she would surely understand his wish to be an officer, for hadn't Oliver Merridew himself been a major in the King's army, before the war between the King and Parliament? Of course, Major Merridew hadn't fought in that war, because he was wounded before it ever started, but he had been a soldier, an officer and a gentleman, which was why Miss Harriet was such a lady, even if she did have to help milk her own cows, which not many...

  'Holy shit!' Toby gasped, stopping dead in his tracks and his thoughts and clapping one palm to his forehead. 'Holy bloody shit!' he repeated. 'Of course, that's what was wrong.' He shook his head and crouching down, ran the last few yards to where Billy still laid snoring, pouncing on his friend and shaking him awake unceremoniously.

  'Wassamadda?' Billy yelped, his eyes flying open wide. 'Wassup?'

  Toby placed a finger to his lips and the other on Billy's. 'Not so loud,' he whispered. 'Nothing's up. The boat wasn't there yet and no one's come, either. There's also no one else about, 'cause I've just checked, but I've just thought of something.'

  'Oh yeah?' Billy struggled to sit up, rubbing his eyes. 'Like what? Like maybe we should be home in our beds instead of trying to sleep against some mouldy old tree?'

  'No, you oaf,' Toby snapped. 'Like try this.'

  'What?'

  'Well, let me ask you something,' Toby said. 'Matthew pretended he needed a drink from the river, so he could sneak a look under the bridge, right?'

  'So what? It was a good ruse.'

  'Exactly,' Toby concurred. 'No one watching would think anything suspicious about a lad getting himself a drink from the river, would they?'

  'Course not,' Billy said. 'I've done that a few times myself, though the water isn't as sweet here as it is from the well, nor from the little stream over by Harper's Wood.'

  'No and I reckon only the likes of us would bother drinking here, wouldn't we? And only then if we didn't have a water flask with us.'

  'Well, I ain't got a water flask anyway,' Billy said.

  'Me neither,' Toby said. 'But all the nobs have them, don't they?'

  'So what? Nobs are nobs and they have everything, because they're nobs,' Billy said. 'That's what bein' a nob is all about; you can have whatever you want.'

  'Like Ellen Grayling does, you mean?' Toby said, grinning.

  Billy shrugged. 'Well, she's a nob, ain't she? Her pa's got so much money he could probably buy her anything she wanted.'

  'Like that horse of hers she rides about on?' Toby said. 'That big bay, with the white blaze?'

  '
She's got that other one, too,' Billy reminded him. 'The roan - the one they reckon her pa had brought from the Arab countries especially for her birthday.'

  'Well, it don't matter where it come from,' Toby said. 'What does matter is how she rides it - either of 'em, for that matter.'

  'You means she rides like a man,' Billy said. 'Yeah, my mam reckons it ain't proper for a lady to ride like that, nor to dress the way she does. Why?'

  'Well, think Bill, think 'ard. You seen her ridin' around hereabouts as many times as me, right?' Billy nodded. 'Well, just try and picture her in your head. She uses a military saddle, yes?'

  'And she wears them boots with the little spurs,' Billy added.

  'And what does she have on her saddle?'

  'Dunno,' Billy said. He screwed his eyes tightly shut, trying to concentrate. 'There's a little thing on one side, where a soldier would carry a musket, maybe, but she don't carry a musket in it.'

  'No, she don't,' Toby agreed. 'But what else does she have on that saddle?'

  'Well... nothing really, except that leather water bag thing, the same as the soldiers carry with them on their horses.'

  'Yeah, that's right,' Toby cried triumphantly. 'She carries a water bottle and I've even seen her drink from it, when she's stopped on the village green to water her horse at the trough there.'

  'So what?' Billy demanded. 'Nothing unusual in that, is there? I mean, it maybe ain't the right way for a lady to carry on, same as me mam says, but then that Ellen Grayling ain't like most women, so everyone reckons.'

  'No, that she ain't,' Toby said. 'But that ain't my point. What I'm wonderin' is this: if she's got that water bottle, why would she want to stop and have a drink from the river down under the bridge over there?'

  'You mean she's been here tonight?'

  Toby shook his head. 'No, not tonight,' he said, 'but she stopped here this afternoon, while I was watching the place. Went down to the edge, just like Matt did an' scooped up some water. I thought she was havin' a drink, but why would she, eh?'

  'Maybe she just wanted to splash her face?' Billy suggested, after a moment's consideration. 'Gets pretty dusty on the roads this time of year.'

  'Yeah, well, she could have,' Toby conceded, 'but I don't reckon she did either. I knew something was wrong earlier, when I watched Matt, but I couldn't figure it out to start with. Then it hit me, when I was thinking about Miss Harriet.

  'To start with, why would a lady - even a lady like Ellen Grayling, drink from a river, unless she really had to? And even if we suppose her bottle was empty, if she drank using her hands or even if she just wanted to splash her face, she'd wipe her mouth, her eyes, or whatever. Only, now I think back to it, she didn't. All she did was wipe her hands on her breeches and get back on her horse.'

  'So what?'

  'Well, think about it, Bill.' Toby sat back, regarding his friend. 'What I'm saying is this,' he continued, when no further comment was forthcoming. 'Ellen Grayling didn't drink down there, nor did she wash her face.'

  'So what was she doing there?' Billy demanded obtusely, and Toby's grin threatened to split his face in two.

  'That's a fuckin' good question, Bill,' he retorted. 'An' right now, though it seems a bit mad, I can only think of the one answer. An' also, if'n I'm right, it's made me start thinkin' of another possible idea, though you ain't gonna believe me, no more than anyone else round here would!'

  For several minutes Hannah Pennywise stood in the middle of the woodland path, poised as if she were listening for something, but the only noises on the night air were the faint rustling of leaves in the canopy above and the occasional plaintive hooting of a distant owl.

  High above, just visible through the narrow gap in the foliage immediately above the track, the sky was clear and dark, a smattering of stars winking or shimmering. The moon had settled beyond the hills and in the woods, between the trees and among the bushes, it was very, very dark.

  The ghost of a smile flickered over Hannah's gaunt features and she sniffed the breeze and nodded. She bent to pick up the wicker basket laid at her feet, squared her shoulders and began to walk, her ever-present cane sending a hollow tap-tap echoing among the black, sentinel tree trunks.

  George Billings had indeed gone along with almost every other male in Fetworth and young Toby Blaine did not seem at all worried about continuing the adventure without his stewardship, and so it was that the three youths approached the bridge by the water mill at shortly after nine o'clock in the evening.

  Matt Cornwell, a stocky boy with square pugnacious features, volunteered to go and make sure the rowing boat had not already been returned to its former station. 'I'll just wander along to the bridge and slide down the bank, as if I'm getting meself a drink,' he said.

  'Yes,' Toby agreed, 'and then carry on walking over the bridge and up the lane a-ways. Don't come straight back over here, in case someone's watchin'. Right?'

  Matt nodded, grinning in the darkness. He laid a hand on Toby's shoulder. 'It's right rum, this, ain't it?' he said. 'You reckon someone will come along this way?'

  'Sure to,' Toby affirmed confidently. 'Stands to reason; they got to get the boat back here, ain't they? And what better time to do it than at night?'

  'There's a lot of night ahead of us,' Matt pointed out. 'Could be almost any time, if'n they do come.'

  'Which is why there are three of us,' Toby said. 'We can take it in turns to watch and to nap, if we start gettin' tired.'

  'Well, I'm tired now,' Billy Dodds, the third member of the trio complained.

  'Then you settle down against that tree trunk there,' Toby said, pointing to a horizontal bough that had clearly fallen at least a couple of years before, 'and you get yourself a catnap now, see. I'll wake you if'n I start gettin' tired an' you can take over my watch. In the meantime, once you've checked under the bridge, Matt, I'm going to scout a bit. I'm going around the back of the mill buildings just to make sure there ain't anyone there looking out, like. I'll give you a little while to walk on up the lane, then you sneak back and get in among those bushes on the other bank. From there you'll be able to see anyone who comes upstream in a boat.'

  'An' what if there's a boat already there?' Matt demanded. 'You want me to come straight back here instead?'

  Toby considered this for a few seconds before shaking his head. 'No,' he said. 'If the boat is already there, could be that whoever put it there is watching out, so we need some sort of a signal.' He paused again. 'I know,' he said, 'if'n the boat's there, you stop halfway across the bridge and throw a couple of stones into the water.'

  Without further discussion the plan was put into operation. Matt Cornwell backtracked through the undergrowth, to a point where he could emerge onto the road without being seen from either the bridge or the mill and then began to saunter back again, whistling tunelessly as he went, apparently without a concern in the world.

  Just before he reached the bridge he stopped, half turned and looked up at the night sky. Then with an elaborate show of wiping the back of one hand across his mouth, he turned back again and moved towards the top of the gently sloping embankment. He slid down the grass incline easily, stood upright at the water's edge and then knelt, stooping forward to cup his hands into the cold current.

  At last, after taking several scoops of water, he straightened up once again, wiped his mouth with both hands and climbed back up the slope to the road. Watching from his hidden vantage point, Toby waited with bated breath to see if Matt stopped on the bridge to give the signal, but the lad made no attempt to stop. Still whistling, he carried straight on across and strolled slowly out of sight.

  Toby turned to Billy, but even in the darkness he could tell his friend had already fallen asleep, for the muffled snoring sounded unnaturally loud in the otherwise silent night. 'Lotta use you're going to be,' Toby muttered to himself. Silently, he began to count, though only to ten each time, for beyond that he had never been sure of the sequence of the numbers. However, he did know that ten times ten was a
hundred and so, each time he reached ten and restarted, he folded down one finger. If he counted to a hundred this way and counted slowly, he reasoned, Matt would have enough time to sneak back and watch the bridge, while he reconnoitred the rest of the area on this side of the river.

  However, as he counted something started working somewhere in the back of his mind, a little questioning niggle he could not quite put his finger on. There was something curious, something he knew he should try to get to the bottom of, but what exactly he wasn't at all sure.

  'Bugger it,' he whispered. 'What the hell is it? I know you're missing something, Toby Blaine, and I just feel it in me water that it could be important.'

  The final touch to Sarah and Kitty's costumes was added just before Prudence allowed them to see their reflections in the long mirror that had been hidden behind one of the wall drapes. Wide, jewelled bracelets were snapped about both girls' wrists, a hidden locking mechanism clicking into place.

  Staring down at hers, Sarah saw that there were two cunningly concealed fitments, one on each, the left wrist shaped like a projecting socket, the right a grooved prong. The one, it was clear, fitted into the other, no doubt locking as securely as the bracelets themselves; though extremely decorative they could obviously also be used as a means to manacle the two wrists together.

  Similarly, the jewelled collars they wore had small but sturdy rings set in among the fake gems, to which fine chain leashes could be attached and this Prudence did. Satisfied that the clips were secure, she gave a sharp tug on both leashes and walked the teetering girls over to the mirror.

  Sarah stared at her reflection in sheer disbelief and her hands went instinctively to cover her denuded crotch. She had felt less naked when completely unclothed and certainly now, she saw, the bizarre way in which they were both attired served simply to make them look nothing more than objects for sexual gratification.