Chapter Four #5
Exhausted and eager to be free of the boy, Dermot pushed him to the wall, flinching when he cried out. He unwound his hands and clasped them tight in his own before hearing the great clunk that signalled the successful confinement of their captive.
‘There are a few ways you can tell a witch, you know. I have done some reading on this matter. While it is true we will have to call a man from the mainland, let me demonstrate,’ Robert said, walking to the boy as eager as Dermot had ever seen him.
‘I do wish he were a little older. And prettier. If he were a bit more like Aubrey, I dare say Dermot would be more interested.’
Thoroughly shamed, Dermot turned and glimpsed Will’s knowing glare, firmly directed towards him rather than Robert.
‘For God’s sake, just for my little shack! I’ve been living there for near six years, why do you torture my nephew?’ the woman cried.
Robert’s smile cowed Dermot into stepping back, rough exhales sounding as Robert laughed in amusement and tore at the boy’s shirt. He didn’t bother with the buttons, only ripped at the fabric until it was nearly ruined, falling in tatters beside his pristine boots.
‘I’ve hardly touched him,’ Robert said. His hands carelessly traipsed about the boy’s chest, finally coming to rest on a mole beneath his well-defined collar bone.
‘You see, madam, my goal was neither to torture nor molest him. It was simply to reveal what I knew to be there. The mark of a witch, that scorched spot burnt upon the skin.’
The mere idea that a mole would prompt such outrage was enough to jolt Dermot awake. This was his doing, after all. Without Maldred’s interference, Robert would be safely in his quarters writing treatises rather than taking on the task himself.
The woman appeared too astounded to speak. From her open mouth and sallow complexion, one might think she, rather than her nephew, was enduring the torture. ‘Knew it to be there, my arse. You took us for living off the land our ancestors bore us into!’
A sharp crack resounded, startling the prisoners from their soft, plaintive murmurs. Robert slapped the boy across the face, making him cry out, his head drooping uselessly under the force of a man who’d never gone without a meal.
‘No, my God!’ the woman screeched.
‘And which god do you pray to, madam? The one my fellows brought or your own pagan idols? And I thought we did away with vipers,’ Robert said.
‘No man born into a country has right to land. The man who owns it, in this case my father, holds it without question. And I can assure you, it is the same in the mainland. It is ours to rent as we so please, and the people who work on it, the peasants, must pay their due.’
‘Nothing but lies! The land was empty before I came and made it my home, growing vegetables and suchlike. I enquired if a farmer owned it, but the land belonged to no one, and all was rotten and sparse!’ she protested. ‘You lay off my nephew. Hurt me if you must, but don’t touch him.’
‘Indeed?’ Robert said, turning to the woman and acknowledging her for the first time.
‘I have heard of your kind settling wherever you please, farming the land as though it were your right, with no regard for the fact that my family were appointed by the king and rule nearby. It is insolence, a refusal to heed the laws of God and man, that has undone you. The island is ours, mine and my father’s, not yours. ’
‘What on earth is going on?’ a voice groused from the hallway, strolling into the cell as if for another helping of dessert. ‘Robert, who are these people? They look to be servants?’
Peering at Lord Stanley, Dermot realised the fop referred to himself and Will rather than the prisoners themselves.
‘Yes, they are. They assisted me in the capture of this boy and woman, peasants who I believe to be witches,’ Robert said.
This said with such brusqueness made Lord Stanley startle, faltering until he was again at the cell’s threshold. ‘Witches?’ he echoed.
‘Yes. Like the tales we have heard from the mainland. This woman, you see, was living off our property not far from town. I dare say, I couldn’t believe it, but she confessed as much to me. I suspect using the land as a sort of refuge for her coven, which includes her own nephew,’ Robert said.
Lord Stanley stood dumbly, eyes flitting about the room, never quite focusing on any one person. ‘A boy witch, indeed?’ he murmured.
‘You would be surprised, father,’ Robert said, smiling off to the side where Will stood. ‘Some boys are masters of all kinds of enticements.’
Lord Stanley, thankfully, did not seem to understand. ‘Indeed?’ he said again. ‘A serious matter, to be sure.’
Robert nodded eagerly, stepping away from the boy. ‘I intend to write to a witchfinder abroad this very night. We cannot have this behaviour spreading, and I have never before seen a burning.’
And therein lay Robert’s intent. He, being a man of great wealth unused to suffering, expected others to provide the thrill.
‘I suppose you will have to sort it out then,’ Lord Stanley said, looking about the prison. ‘Quite damp in here, is it not? And a strain on the eyes, being so dark. Do you not think you should come back upstairs, Robert?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Robert said. ‘You may go now, father.’
Lord Stanley said something Dermot couldn’t catch before finally ambling away, unperturbed and doubtless returning to his chamber.
As soon as his father was safely gone, Robert struck the boy across the jaw.
‘The examination is complete, we need do no more. I shall pen my letter as soon as I am able. We will have a licenced fellow come examine them.’ He turned his back on the aunt’s cries.
‘You must understand, William, I am entirely capable of overseeing this myself. But law decrees we have a professional look at them, you understand, to sign the paperwork and present the case.’
Glad to be spared that nonsense, Dermot watched Will nod, contemplative and quiet. Determined not to be cajoled upstairs to watch the writing of that letter, he wagered.
‘We have done all we can,’ Robert said, running one hand over the other as if to rid himself of some filth. He left them so quickly that all Dermot saw was the great billow of his cloak, the expectation of them trailing after.
Waiting a few moments as to avoid Robert’s conversation, Dermot followed with Will behind.
No prisoner cried out for aid after that performance, the dim embers of torchlight not permitting him to see anything of them but their shadows.
Only the stomping of Robert’s boots on stone could be heard.
By the time they reached the gale that signified land, Dermot was incredulous that he stood unscathed, then stupefied as Robert turned again to them.
‘And now I shall leave you,’ Robert said.
‘Dermot, you are quite the fine little worker. Indeed, I am surprised by my brother’s recommendation.
You are far from the dunce I envisioned.
Quite commendable, really.’ His eyes met Will’s then and, far from the disimpassioned drawl Dermot was treated to, his voice took on a huskier quality.
‘And your friend is such a pleasant young man. You must accompany me again, William. Perhaps without so many prying eyes about us.’
Dermot’s disgust was scarcely contained as Will pliantly agreed the two of them must speak again, preferably without himself accompanying, and that the kitchen could do without one man for a day or so.
Never during his employment had he thought Will amenable to such suggestions, that he might permit himself to be bedded by another man, and certainly not one of Lord Stanley’s sons.
With the exception of Aubrey, every member of the family was treated to the roughest mockery whenever Béchard was absent.
Not once had he suspected a liking between the pair.
Finally as Robert marched upstairs to write the damnable letter, Dermot cast his eyes to Will and watched that same sweet submission simmer into a dark look. Reflexively, he stepped back.
‘What have you done?’ Will said.
‘Me?’ Dermot said. Between him and Will, Maldred’s influence was forgotten, them being but poor servants tethered to whichever Stanley brother wrenched at their leash. ‘I haven’t done a thing. It was you near pulling off his breeches.’
‘How dare you,’ Will spat. ‘As if this wasn’t your fault?
Lord Robert taking you hunting with him, Lord Tristan, and of course your little beau.
Getting closer, you and him, his favourite?
’ Dermot had never seen Will so fraught, his expression serious and without the suggestion of good humour.
‘The suggestion he made of you and Aubrey fucking in the prison?’
There was no method to explain Robert’s lunacy came from a potion delivered by a faerie boy, who coaxed it into Dermot’s hands by way of seduction. Dermot stood there stupidly, unable to articulate himself until Will became more ardent.
‘I thought it a harmless desire so long as no one saw you eyeing him in public. Something to keep you warm at night, at least. But to actually act on it… what, how could any sane man confess to Lord Robert of wanting to sleep with his youngest brother? And for him to not hang you that instant!’ Will cried.
‘Of course I didn’t tell him that,’ Dermot hissed, recalling their stations as servants, not Robert’s most beloved hounds. ‘It was he who guessed. I do not know how, I had never before spoken to him.’
‘Never before spoken to him,’ Will imitated, using that same silly voice he was prone to in the kitchen. ‘It’s because you do leer, quite openly. And what of this strange act you’ve been putting on as of late? It’s been all the talk in the kitchen between me and Béchard.’