LITMIR.BIZ

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uninvited guest takes pleasure in blowing them out one by one. The servants and the dogs back away from their master. It is only when he lifts his wine once more to those dry lips that the sorceress appears before him in a blaze of light. His lordship’s hand loses its grip on the goblet which clutters to the floor.

      Time stops. And her voice echoes in the rafters.

      ‘Francis Thursby, Earl of Rodermere, I will grant you any wish you might desire if you will – as your father did and the monks before him – leave my forest be. I am prepared to be generous.’

      ‘What godless creature are you? From whence did you come?’

      He is wondering if this be the Devil in the form of a woman.

      His deep voice quavers. ‘By what trickery do you conjure yourself before me? Who are you to claim my oak trees and my land, to threaten me, your lord and master?’

      ‘You mistake me,’ says the sorceress. ‘I do not threaten you. And you are not and never will be my lord and master. I have come to tell you plainly what you must do if you are not to feel the burden of my curse upon you.’

      ‘What did you say, mistress?’

      He is shocked that a mere woman would speak to him thus. He calls for his servants. He stands high and square and points to the sorceress and orders that this witch be thrown out. Not one of his men dares go near her. Lord Rodermere was not expecting such insubordination. His temper now well and truly lost to reason, he bellows for his steward.

      Master Gilbert Goodwin, who was born in these parts and knows them well, comes quickly, his footsteps ring on the stone floor as he enters the hall and slow when he see the sorceress.

      ‘Lock her up and call the sherriff,’ commands his master.

      Master Goodwin – wisely – stays where he is.

      ‘Did you not hear me?’ shouts Lord Rodermere.

      ‘My lord,’ says Master Goodwin. ‘You would do well to hear her out.’

      His lordship draws his sword.

      ‘Do you disobey me too? Be careful, Master Goodwin . . .’

      The sorceress raises her hand to silence the fool. She has had enough of his blabbering tongue. One look is all it takes and stock still he stands, mouth wide open, unable to move. The sword falls from his grip and, like the goblet, clatters to the floor.

      ‘You should do as Master Goodwin suggests,’ says the sorceress. ‘You should listen to every word and mark it well. Fell another of my oak trees and I will put a curse on you that no man will have the power to undo. But leave my forest be and I will grant you one wish.’

      She snaps her fingers and Lord Rodermere is returned to the trumpets and drums of his fury. He shouts at her as if the sound of his voice will have the power to undo her threat.

      ‘Woman, your charms and other such trumpery be worthless. I damn you as a sorceress, a bullbegger.’

      And before his eyes, she vanishes.

IV

      The next day at dawn, to show his mettle and his belief in a higher heaven, Lord Rodermere felled the second stag oak – broader than three kings and taller than any church in those parts. The majestic tree had stood sentinel over the forest, half in shade, half in sun so that it knew both the woods and the fields. Autumn had not yet stripped the tree of its cargo of leaves, yet regardless it was crudely felled. Sap blood on the earl’s hands, the sorceress’s curse upon his soul. She wrote it on the bark of that noble fallen tree, words written in gold for all to see.

       A faerie boy

       will be born to you

       whose beauty will

       be your death.

      Lord Rodermere laughed when he was shown it.

      ‘What jade’s trick is this?’ he said to Master Goodwin. ‘Does she think I would be soul-feared by such sorcery?’

      His peasants trembled when they saw the words but not because of their master’s threats. They knew from the ancient laws that it be a bad omen that the words be written in gold, that they be etched so deep into the bark.

      A bad omen indeed.

      For every oak that Francis felled, the sorceress’s curse went deeper, slithering into the branches and the very roots of the Rodermere family tree.

      As seasons passed and gathered years with them, one turret rose out of his grand house, then another, slightly taller, and finally the third turret rose higher, taller than the tallest oaks, a monstrous scar upon the forest. The sorceress’s land was cleared to make way for a park, gardens, jousting grounds, orchards of stunted trees. The house itself had claimed four thousand and sixty of her oaks. Its banqueting hall, its chapel, its carved wooden panelling, its long gallery, its staircases – all from her oaks made. Those faithful trees told her the truth of that family, of the twisted knots of its unhappiness.

      In their dying, dried-out whispers, they said, ‘He has no son, he wants a son. Two daughters born, two daughters dead and still no son has he.’

      They spoke of a house petrified, of Lord Rodermere’s many cruelties, of his servants who shivered at his presence, of his wife who dreaded his voice at her chamber door.

      It was the Widow Bott who told the sorceress what her oaks could not, she being the local midwife and cunning woman, and close with the servants at the House of the Three Turrets. The sorceress knew her well. There was not a babe born in these parts whose birth she had not attended except those of the daughters of Eleanor, Lady Rodermere. Her arrogant, bumble-brain, shit-prick of a husband never wanted the Widow Bott near his wife. The widow was a handsome woman, her own mistress and had not succumbed to his oafish charms. In a fury at being rejected, he had threatened to ruin her unless she lay with him, accused her of putting him under a spell, stated publicly that he distrusted her forest remedies and advised all godly men not to let her near their wives for he believed her to be a witch.

      In that alone he was right and it was the powers of the sorceress that had made her so. He should have known no one lived in the heart of her forest unless she had invited them there. The monks who first claimed this land had been wise enough to fear the darkness of the woods where the sunlight had little power. They began to believe that at the heart of forest, in the darkest place, lived the Devil himself in the guise of a black wolf. These stories grew in the retelling until the black wolf took on monstrous proportions. It was dread of this beast that stopped many a brave heart from venturing deep into the forest but it did not stop Gilbert Goodwin.

      When first the sorceress laid eyes on him he was but a lad, adrift in her realm. He showed no fear, only a curious interest in finding himself with night coming on and his path lost. And being alive to everything he watched the moon shine through the trees, bewitched by the darkness that lifted the curtain onto another forest more magical, more savage than that of his daytime wanderings. He climbed one of the sorceress’s oaks and slept in its mossy hollow till morning. Then, refreshed, he found by her design the rich larder of the forest where he gathered mushrooms and there saw his way home.

      He was apprenticed to the steward of the late earl, Edmund Thursby, and the earl wisely saw in him more than a glimmer of intelligence. Gilbert Goodwin had learned a great deal from the old earl. He had admired his care of the forest and respect for his peasants.

      Master Goodwin understood his neighbours. They may well go to church on Sunday, sit through dull sermons, chill their knees on stone floors, yet he knew in their souls they prayed that the black wolf stayed in the heart of the forest and did not eat their livestock or their babes.

      After the sorceress’s oaks were felled the sightings of the black wolf became more numerous. Its very size and shape belonged to a deep magic that Gilbert Goodwin knew should be respected if you valued your life and your

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