The Lady of Secrets Read online

  At least the mystery of the absent villagers was solved. Meg’s heart sank as she entered the crowded taproom. Most of Pernod appeared crammed inside, every vacant stool and bench filled. Others leaned upon the bar counter, gesturing and arguing, the sound like the buzzing of a wasp’s nest that had been disturbed. Meg could make out little of what was being said, but the tone was unmistakable, angry and frightened.

  The traveler she had encountered outside sat a little removed from the locals. Of all the people present, he was the only one still and silent. Perhaps that was the very quality that drew her eye, that aura of isolation that clung to him, made him seem alone even in the midst of this crowd.

  As Seraphine closed the door behind them, all heads turned in their direction and the entire room fell silent.

  “Merde,” Seraphine muttered.

  Although Meg would not have expressed herself so crudely, she agreed with the sentiment. The air crackled with tension like green logs tossed upon a roaring fire. Meg caught a few whispered words. “The Lady. Faire Isle. Sorceress.”

  Meg was subjected to a score of stares, some curious, some hostile. She was known to many of the villagers, although folk from the mainland sought Meg’s healing skills with more wariness than they had the previous Lady of Faire Isle.

  As she drew back her hood, a few of the villagers crossed themselves as though seeking protection from the evil eye. Meg flinched, wondering if they had ever done so with Ariane, or did these simple folk perceive something more sinister in Meg’s countenance? A trace of Cassandra Lascelles’s darkness trapped in her daughter’s eyes, despite all of Meg’s efforts to bury her past.

  But it was not the stares of the villagers that unnerved her. She was aware of the stranger studying her, his eyes quiet and watchful. Meg averted her gaze.

  “Clear the way,” Seraphine growled, preparing to shoulder a path for Meg through the crowd. It was unnecessary. They fell back, whether out of fear or respect Meg could not tell, perhaps a mixture of both, for while they eyed Meg uneasily, they gaped at Seraphine. Whether she was clad in leather breeches or dripping with satin and jewels, Seraphine was very much Madame la Comtesse. Her haughty expression defied anyone to cry shame upon her or even remark upon her unwomanly apparel.

  Someone in the room found his tongue to ask, “So is it true then? Is the Tillet girl bewitched?”

  Other voices piped up.

  “Do you know who cursed her?”

  “Can you save her, milady?”

  “Is your own magic strong enough to remove the curse?”

  Before Meg could frame a reply, Seraphine said, “There is no bewitchment. The Lady is here to heal the girl who likely suffers from mal de bêtise.”

  “Mal de bêtise? What is that?” A boy quavered.

  “A disorder that attacks your wits, rendering you incredibly stupid. I hear that it is highly contagious.”

  “Seraphine,” Meg remonstrated, observing the confused scowls that her friend’s sarcasm produced.

  “The best thing for you all to do is return to your homes,” Seraphine added. “In case you haven’t noticed, there is a storm coming.”

  No one budged. To Meg’s relief, she spied young Denys Brunel near the door leading to the kitchen. He stood conferring with two lanky ginger-haired men. The younger of the two had his arm wrapped about the shoulders of an elderly woman who wept into her apron.

  Denys’s face lit up at Meg’s approach. At least someone looked glad to see her, she reflected. The boy hastened to perform introductions.

  “Milady, this is Master Raimond Tillet and his son, Osbert. And this is Madame Sidonie Tillet, the grandmother of my poor Bridget—” Denys paused, reddening before amending, “I mean Mademoiselle Bridget Tillet, the girl that I told you about who is so sorely afflicted.”

  The two men nodded curtly, but the old woman staggered toward Meg. Squinting at Meg through her tears, she clutched Meg’s hand. Sidonie Tillet’s grip was strong, her skin rough and work worn.

  “Oh, milady, bless all the saints that you have come to remove this curse from my poor granddaughter.”

  “Well, I—” Meg began, only to be cut off by a stern voice that she recognized.

  “This is no work for women. This is a matter for the holy church.” Meg started as Father Jerome, a spare man in his late forties, descended the wooden stairs that led to the chambers above.

  Meg had crossed paths with the priest on previous visits to Pernod. Unlike some of the lower clergy, he was a fairly educated man and tolerant of women like Meg as long as she confined her craft to midwifery or healing the sick. But his stern look warned her that he regarded her appearance in this matter as an incursion into his realm.

  Ignoring Meg, he addressed Raimond Tillet. “I have examined your daughter. In my opinion, she is indeed possessed of demons and an exorcism must be performed. I must ride north to consult with my bishop before—”

  “And while you are doing that, Bridget could die,” Osbert Tillet snapped. “There is only one thing that can help my sister and that is to hunt down the witch that cursed her and destroy her.”

  Meg’s heart missed a beat as there was a chorus of assent from the rest of the room. She felt Seraphine tense beside her and noticed the movement beneath Seraphine’s cloak as her friend clutched at the hilt of her sword.

  “And just who would that be?” Seraphine demanded.

  “Who else could it be but la Mère Poulet?” Osbert asked.

  “What!” Meg exclaimed. “You cannot mean that poor old beggar woman who keeps a chicken on a leash for her pet?”

  “It is her familiar,” Osbert said. “I hear her talk to it all the time. Once when I laughed at her for doing so, she put a curse on me and the very next week, I sprained my ankle.”

  “What nonsense,” Seraphine began hotly, but Meg gave her arm a cautioning squeeze.

  “Please allow me to see Mademoiselle Bridget,” Meg said, appealing to the girl’s grandmother. Despite her tears, Sidonie seemed by far the calmest, most reasonable person in the room. “You sent for me for my healing skills. I am sure I can find some natural cause for Bridget’s ailment and the right herbs to cure her.”

  “That is already being tried. The doctor is attending to Bridget even now,” Raimond said before the old woman could reply. “I am sorry that my mother summoned you all this way for nothing, mademoiselle.” The innkeeper puffed out his chest with an air of great importance as he announced loud enough for the entire room to hear. “But my daughter is being treated by a genuine healer, a most learned physician.”

  “This wretched little village boasts of a doctor?” Seraphine asked.

  The innkeeper bristled at Seraphine’s scornful tone, but he replied courteously enough. “Non, madame. This physician, Dr. Blackwood, is traveling in the company of the English lord who is stopping at the inn tonight. Most fortuitous for my poor daughter.”

  Meg’s gaze was drawn back toward the stranger seated near the hearth. She thought that he observed them all with the cool detachment of a spectator at a play, waiting to see how the drama would unfold.

  “If Mademoiselle Tillet is being tended to by this Dr. Blackwood, then you have no need of the Lady.” Seraphine’s fingers closed over Meg’s arm. “Come on. If we hurry, we can still cross the channel before the storm breaks.”

  Both Denys and Madame Tillet cried out in protest.

  “Please, do not go, milady,” the old lady begged. “You are the only one who can save my granddaughter. I have no faith in this English doctor.”

  “How unfortunate, but that is not our concern,” Seraphine said.

  “Yes, it is.” Meg said. When Seraphine tried to hustle her away, Meg dug in her heels. “ ’Phine, you know how ignorant these medical men can be, more versed in Latin than any useful healing arts. God knows what vile draughts and emetics he will pour down that poor girl’s throat.”

  “I daresay she will survive. Many do.”

  “And many don’t.”
r />   Bending closer, Seraphine muttered in Meg’s ear. “I am more concerned with your survival than hers. You were already taking enough of a risk interfering in this matter, but now with the village priest and some damn fool doctor involved—”

  “All the more reason that poor girl needs me. I cannot walk away now.”

  “Yes, you can. Just put one foot in front of the other and head in that direction.”

  Seraphine thrust her toward the door, but at that moment, a scream echoed from the regions abovestairs. Loud and shrill, it was as unsettling as the cry of a banshee. Sidonie whimpered in alarm and the men looked frightened. Even Seraphine paled, muttering, “Holy Mother of God!”

  Meg wrenched free of Seraphine and bolted toward the stairs. The innkeeper tried to stop her, but he was blocked by his son.

  “Non, Papa. Let the Lady go to her,” Osbert said. “The only one who can break the curse of a witch is another witch.”

  “The Lady of Faire Isle is no witch!” Seraphine snarled.

  The taproom instantly turned into a hubbub of arguing voices, punctuated by the screams from above. Ignoring them all, Meg raced up the stairs. She only stopped when she realized Seraphine was hard on her heels.

  “No,” she said, turning back to her friend and speaking in a low urgent voice. “If I cannot help this girl, I am not sure how this will end.”

  “I am. They will take up that old beggar woman for witchcraft and you as well.”

  “That is why you must go find la Mère Poulet and hide her.”

  “Be damned to her. Old Mother Chicken must shift for herself. I am not leaving you.”

  “Seraphine—”

  “No!”

  Meg studied the adamant set of Seraphine’s jaw and sighed. “Stay, then, but try to reason with these men and keep any of them from going in search of the old woman.”

  “Now, that I can do.” She started to unsheathe her sword, but Meg’s hand shot out to stay her.

  “No, this is not a task for an Amazon warrior, but for Madame la Comtesse and her considerable charms of persuasion.”

  “Why can I never make you understand that it is far more effective to knock men’s heads together rather than try to beguile them?” Seraphine said, but she relented, easing her rapier back into its scabbard. “Oh, all right. Circe it shall be, not Hippolyte.”

  “Thank you.” Meg grimaced as another shriek sounded from above.

  Seraphine glanced upward uneasily. “I doubt this doctor will appreciate your interference any more than the village priest. You be careful, Meggie.”

  “I will. I have dealt with such ignorant fools before. I am sure this is nothing I cannot handle, just a young girl indulging a bout of hysterics.”

  Despite her brave assertion, Meg felt a shiver go through her as she headed back up the stairs. She had confidence in her abilities as a healer. She had been taught by that wisest of women, Ariane Deauville, and Meg had learned well.

  Yet it wasn’t Ariane’s gentle image that filled Meg’s mind as she climbed the stairs, but that of Cassandra Lascelles with her ebony hair, ice-white skin, and unseeing dark eyes.

  Of a sudden, Meg was a child again, creeping up to the forbidden tower room where Maman lit the black candles and bent over the steaming copper basin. Muttering her incantations, Cassandra would call forth spirits from the water, make the chamber echo with deep sepulchral voices.

  As a rational daughter of the earth, Meg wished she could deny that such black magic existed, but she had seen it for herself. She feared it could only be a matter of when, not if, she ever encountered such evil again.

  Perhaps even now it lay in wait for her at the top of the stairs in this humble inn. Meg trembled and then steeled herself. She was no longer Cassandra Lascelles’s daughter, but the Lady of Faire Isle, the bringer of light and reason.

  The horrible cries originated from behind the first door to the left. Meg started to knock, and stopped, the distraught sounds from beyond making all formality seem foolish.

  She pushed open the door, entered the bedchamber, and caught her breath, feeling as though she had just stepped into hell. An inferno of a fire blazed on the hearth, rendering the room hot and airless. The flames sent shadows on the wall, the glow making the faded bed curtains appear as red as blood.

  Candles had been lit, in the wall sconces, upon the mantel, and on a small table, as though someone believed that with enough light, the devil could be kept at bay.

  It hadn’t worked, Meg thought with a small shiver. He hovered over the bed, in the guise of a tall dark man.

  She closed the door quietly, her arrival unnoticed by the trio on the opposite side of the room. The doctor fought to subdue the girl writhing beneath the bedcovers. An older girl looked on, wringing her hands, her face as pale as her linen coif.

  “Mademoiselle Bridget! You must be still,” the doctor said, his voice thick with an odd accent. He snapped at the older girl. “Don’t just stand there like a block of wood. Help me to restrain your sister.”

  Bridget flailed, her fist striking the doctor in the eye. He jerked back and swore, while Bridget shrieked to her sister, “Charlotte! Help me.”

  “Please, Bridget,” Charlotte quavered. “You must try to fight this evil spell.”

  “I can’t. Oh, how she tortures me.”

  “Who, dearest?”

  “La Mère Poulet. Can you not see her?”

  “No. Where is she?”

  “There.”

  Meg froze, fearing that the girl meant to point a trembling finger in her direction, but Bridget gestured toward the ceiling.

  “She is there! Hovering above my bed. Oh! Cannot you hear her horrible laugh? Do you not see her?”

  Charlotte looked wildly about the bedchamber and actually ducked as though she expected some vengeful spirit to fly down upon her, claws bared. “No, Bridget,” she quavered. “I confess I do not see anything.”

  “That is because there is nothing to see,” Blackwood said. Nursing his injured eye, he groped for something on the table while ordering Charlotte to gain command of herself. “Stop behaving like a fool and help—”

  But Charlotte had had all she could endure. With a frightened sob, she fled from the room, nearly knocking Meg over in the process.

  Dr. Blackwood noticed Meg and whipped upright. He towered over her when he straightened to his full height. His brawny shoulders, combined with his shabby manner of dress, gave him more the look of a field hand than a doctor. His disheveled brown hair and beard were badly in want of a trim, his eyes appearing bloodshot and shadowed from want of sleep.

  “Who the devil are you?” he growled. His glare felt forceful enough to hurl her back through the door. But Meg stood her ground.

  “I am the Lady—” Meg checked, always feeling pretentious announcing her title. She finished simply, “I am Margaret Wolfe.”

  The doctor’s lips curled in contempt. “The cunning woman from the island? That’s all I need. Although you might prove some help if you weren’t such a scrawny thing.”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  His gaze raked over her. “Do you think you are strong enough to help me hold that chit down?”

  “Hold her down for what?”

  “The wench needs to be bled.” Blackwood raised his arm and Meg noticed the sharp gleam of the lancet he clutched in his right hand.

  Her gasp was lost in the howl that erupted from Bridget. The girl burrowed beneath the covers until not even the tip of her head was visible.

  “It would not matter how strong I was,” Meg said. “I would not aid you in such a barbarous practice.”

  “Then you are of no use whatever. Get out.”

  He turned back toward the bed, but Meg darted round him.

  “You are the one who should go.” She reeled back in distaste as she breathed in the odor of strong spirits. She suddenly understood the odd accent of his speech.

  “By God, monsieur! You are drunk.”

  A red stain spread a
cross Blackwood’s cheekbones. “I may have consumed a little burgundy, but I am sober enough to know what needs to be done.”

  “Bloodletting? Is that the only remedy you doctors know? Slicing open someone’s veins?”

  “The girl’s womb is full of noxious humors that are making her hysterical. Bleeding is the only remedy.”

  “What would you know of a woman’s womb or any other part of her anatomy?”

  “Oh, I assure you I have made a most thorough study of the female body.” The suggestive slur in his voice only increased Meg’s anger.

  “And what do you know of a woman’s mind or soul?”

  “Do you have one? I believe there is some debate on that point.”

  “Then go and debate it with your friend downstairs. And attempt to sober up while you are about it. The only thing worse than an ignorant doctor is an inebriated one.”

  She turned her back on him and stepped toward the bed. But he grabbed her arm and spun her about. “And leave you here to give credence to this girl’s nonsense? I think not. There is something far more dangerous than a drunken doctor and that is a witch claiming to possess supernatural powers of healing.”

  “I claim nothing of the kind. Let me go.”

  “I will when you are on your way out the door.”

  His grip tightened painfully, but Meg refused to flinch. Their gazes locked in a silent battle of will. Meg stared deep into his eyes and it felt like falling into the depths of a well. She had never encountered an expression so dark, so cold, and so empty. Not since the last time she had looked into her mother’s eyes.

  Meg’s anger dissolved into fear. Her gaze flicked from Blackwood’s stony gaze to the sharp lancet he gripped in his hand.

  When the door swung open, she glanced around in relief. For once she would have welcomed the sight of Seraphine charging in with sword drawn. But rescue came from a quarter she would have never expected.

  The strange Englishman stood in the doorway, frowning as he took in the scene before him.

  “Armagil, what is going on? Let her go.”

  The man’s command was so soft-spoken, Meg feared the doctor would pay no heed. But Blackwood blinked and glanced down at the lancet as though becoming aware of his menacing posture.