The Beauty of the Wolf. Wray Delaney

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      She reached the clearing where the widow’s cottage stood. A papery yellow light glinted through the slatted windows. The wind whirled the snow as she knocked on the door.

      ‘Who is it?’ said a voice.

      ‘You know it is I.’

      The widow unbolted the door that had never before been locked for she had no one to fear, not even the black wolf. She was wrapped as tight as her cottage, her clothes quilted against the cold. The fire flared in the draught of the open door and she closed it quickly, and moved to her chair.

      ‘So, mistress, you come at last,’ she said.

      ‘I told you it would be near seventeen years,’ said the sorceress, ‘and true to my word I am here. What is wrong, old widow?’

      The widow’s hollow eyes as good as told her that something was amiss. She took the chair opposite her and the widow turned her face away. Where, thought the sorceress, was the widow’s bright, piercing stare that dangled challenge in its light?

      She thought to ask a simple question.

      ‘The babe – what did Lady Rodermere call him?’

      ‘He is called Lord Beaumont Thursby, but all that know him call him Beau.’

      ‘He is now near grown, is he not? Ruined by the knowledge of his beauty and its power?’

      ‘If that was your design then you will be disappointed. He has grown to be the sweetest of young men. If his beauty has any consequence it is to those who look upon him for, man or woman, it makes no difference, all are enchanted by him.’

      ‘So, I am right,’ the sorceress persisted. ‘He uses his looks to make slaves of those who his beauty entraps.’

      ‘Again you are wrong.’

      ‘Impossible.’

      The Widow Bott leaned forward and poked at the fire as if she had no desire to speak the truth.

      ‘His sister,’ continued the sorceress. ‘That toad-blemished creature: surely she is bitter with jealousy?’

      ‘Again, no. Powerful is the bond of affection between brother and sister. And tomorrow, their mother, Lady Rodermere, is to marry Gilbert Goodwin.’

      ‘But she is still married to Lord Rodermere, is she not?’

      ‘Not. The queen was petitioned to annul the marriage as Lord Rodermere has not been seen, alive or dead, for eighteen years come May. Please, mistress, I beg of you, let this be. Do not return Lord Rodermere to them.’

      The sorceress looked at the widow more closely as she repacked her pipe and lit it, sucking in her sallow cheeks.

      ‘What are you not telling me?’

      ‘There is nothing to tell,’ she said.

      She was lying, trying to hide her thoughts, the sorceress knew it. One name escaped the store cupboard of her mind. Sir Percival Hayes.

      ‘What are you frightened of?’ the sorceress asked. ‘Who is this man – this Sir Percival Hayes?’

      The widow shivered. The sorceress caught her eye. ‘I am waiting,’ she said, ‘and I am not in the mood to be lied to.’

      ‘Sir Percival Hayes has an estate not far from here. Lady Eleanor is his cousin. When the earl vanished, Sir Percival went to the house and swore he would be found. He too had heard stories of people being elfin taken – it was a subject that much interested him. Cunning men and wizards made a path to the door of the House of the Three Turrets, promising that they had the charm, knew the spell that would release Lord Rodermere from the faerie realm. Two years of fools came and went, and for all their enquiries—’

      ‘Yes, yes,’ the sorceress interrupted. ‘Nothing was discovered.’

      ‘Mistress, let me tell this in my way.’

      At last a spark of the woman she remembered.

      ‘After two years had passed, Sir Percival sent from London his own alchemist, Master Thomas Finglas.’

      The old widow was silent awhile and then said, ‘He brought with him his apprentice, a lad whose skin was as dark as an acorn. They made a strange pair, the boy and the man. The alchemist, I was told, handed Gilbert Goodwin a letter from Sir Percival who wrote that Master Finglas was tasked to bring back Lord Rodermere from the faerie realm. You may well imagine that Master Goodwin was none too eager to welcome this guest. Near two years had passed, two years of managing his master’s estate, of loving his master’s wife, of sleeping in his master’s bed. The last thing he wanted was his master’s return.’ ‘The quest failed,’ said the sorceress. ‘The alchemist – you met him?’

      The widow nodded.

      ‘What sort of trickster was he? Soaked in books, steeped in knowledge, lacking in wisdom?’

      The widow looked her straight in the eye. ‘If you know all, why did you never come when I called for you?’ She gazed into the embers of the fire and said, ‘Master Finglas failed to find Lord Rodermere and his failure to do so turned Sir Percival Hayes against all such alchemy. He had me examined for witchcraft. He said there be reports of me dancing with the black wolf, he even accused me of casting an owl-hunting enchantment on Lord Rodermere. He said I worked with a familiar.’

      ‘What led him to think this?’

      ‘I know not. Sir Percival sent his steward here this Yuletide to collect proofs against me: cheese that would not curdle, butter that would not come, the ale that drew flat.’

      The sorceress laughed. ‘As if we would be bothered with such domesticity.’

      ‘There is more,’ she said. ‘I be accused of bewitching Lady Rodermere’s maid, Agnes Dawse, and by doing so cause her death. But I did nothing, nothing. I never even saw her when she was ill.’

      Sleep had made the sorceress slow. She should have known from the moment the widow opened the door that the spell that kept her safe was broken and age had taken its revenge. She had cast herself from the sorceress by the folly of her tongue. The sorceress should have been more circumspect. The tear in her dress was a weakness that pulled her imperceptibly into the mortal world. Time is the giver and time the thief.

      ‘You betrayed me, old widow. You spoke my name.’

      Her fury rumbled the rafters of the cottage and she was in a mind to bring it down on the old widow and let it be her tomb.

      ‘Do you not care what happens to me?’ said the Widow Bott. ‘Be it of no importance to you?’

      ‘Some may think that a tear in their petticoat is of no importance.’ The sorceress showed her where the cloth had been taken. ‘If you can tell me where I might find the missing piece, I could be kind to you still.’

      The widow peered at the hem and felt the fabric between her fingers. Snow thudded to the floor from a hole in the thatch.

      ‘I think I saw it – but СКАЧАТЬ