The Burning Time (12 page)

First, though, to settle the stomach and pleasure the spirit, the music began. Pipes and drums, rattles and tambourines, cymbals and shawms took up their rhythms, and for the next hour or two, roundels of singers and braidings of dancers celebrated their Sabbat and themselves—with young William making a fine accounting of himself while leading the Spiral Dance. Then, when throats were almost sore from singing and laughter and when feet needed rest, the party assembled in a looser circle around the bonfire, which had now subsided to a steady, comfortable flicker. Certain couples had gone missing—young lovers who’d paired off during the dancing and then slipped away to enjoy the summer night rather more privately and intensely, on a bed of moss or fragrant pine needles in the nearby wood. Goddess and God they felt themselves this night, and so they were.

But it was to the children, drowsy now with dance, sweetmeats, and the late hour, that the Vision of Lugnasad would appear. So, as the conversation grew mellow, the children gathered in a smaller circle inside the large one, waiting, sitting rigidly with the effort to stay awake.

Then, from behind one of the Cromlech standing stones where it had been hidden, the Spectacle was borne toward them. William carried it with painstaking balance on a silver
charger: the Illusion Food, the magnificent sculpture built of gingerbread, marzipan, and spun sugar. It towered almost four feet high, this statue of Lugh, the harvest’s Green Man—a jolly poppet of sweetness. He was dressed in a short tunic of heliotrope leaves and candied rose petals, his features skillfully molded and adorned with bright, edible paints: lips red with sandalwood and alkanet, eyes lavender with crushed candied violets, flesh sun-yellow with dandelion powder, and hair green as any proper vegetable god’s should be—a curly confusion of mint, mallow, and hazel leaves. In one chubby hand this Lugh held a sheaf of wheat, and with the other he seemed to point toward his own bosom, from which a cascade of ripe raspberries flowed, a painless heartstream of bittersweet fresh ruby drops.

The children gasped with wonder and Alyce gasped with relief as Will lowered the Subtletie safely to the ground. Now even the adults might crowd around to admire the handiwork, and to agree that never had there been such a superb Illusion Food at any Lugnasad. For its creator, Petronilla de Meath, applause and hurrahs broke out. She had for years in Wexford eavesdropped from her kitchenmaid’s pallet and watched from her kitchenmaid’s corner how Cook and others built such spectacles for the gentry’s banquets, sculpting food into mythical beasts, heraldic coats-of-arms, and the figures of saints. Now she had combined that knowledge, along with her new learning of The Craft, creating this triumph. After her gourd soup, this! Of all the cooks present—everyone had prepared some part of
the feast—Petronilla was the undisputed success of the evening. Her pallid face glowing, she seemed to grow less frail, more substantial, as Alyce Kyteler honoured her by handing her the chaffer and parer with which to carve and serve the masterpiece.

So intent was everyone on this dramatic moment, all faces turned toward the mouth-watering statue near the Circle’s center, that no one noticed a stealthy band of intruders approaching: ten men swathed and hooded in black cloaks despite the warmth of the night. They advanced steadily across the heath, moving through the tall grass like phantoms, the moonlight trying to drag them backward by their shadows.

Meave Payn saw them first, as she turned to slap Will’s hand from her thigh. By then they were only a few yards away. “Cowans!” she cried. Then again, louder, “
Cowans
!”

People wheeled in confusion, their circle curling back into a crescent as the invaders penetrated it.

There was no need for an introduction. In the bonfire light the identification was clear. It was Richard de Ledrede, Bishop of Ossory, with an escort of nine priests.

The Coven and its guests parted to permit their High Priestess passage. Alyce Kyteler strode forward to stand between her people and the Bishop.

Four steps behind de Ledrede, a troubled Father Brendan Canice found himself realizing that it had been a while since he had last seen Lady Alyce. Now he stood awkwardly in the Bishop’s train, facing a scene he knew he had rightly feared
would put him in conflict with his priestly obedience, because it roused his Celtic loyalties in blood-surges through his veins.

Holy Saint Patrick
, he thought, staring at Alyce.
She looks like a fever-spirit! Or like one of those gold-leaf capitals in the illumined books the monks at Kells spend their whole lives trying to paint
. Her people were clustering densely behind her, their ritual garments a layering of scarlets and sun-golds, as if they too were letters—of a script more ancient than Ogham runes, more powerful, more mysterious—letters Brendan had once been able to read with ease, though now they felt locked, secret and silent, against him. He noticed a few hostile looks directed at him from some of the folk who had known his mother well, and he hazarded a small smile back at them—but was met with stony, closed expressions.

“Hellions! Devil’s whelps! Heretics!” It was one of the priests, screaming like a soul in torment.

“Blaspheming heathen!” yelled another.

The Bishop gestured to his men, and they fell silent.

Then, in a voice of authority, he proclaimed loudly,

“Satan,
begone
! I cast you out! This defiled, barbaric gathering is hereby disbanded! Nor shall you blasphemers ever convene again!” He made the sign of the cross over the crowd.

“Bishop,
you
blaspheme
our
Rite,” Alyce Kyteler replied, her tone of command matching his. “Who then is the barbarian?”

He took note of her necklace and her ring.

“Madam,” he said stiffly, “You do your followers ill service by leading them to worship false gods. Have a care, Madam, to openly flout the Church and all that is holy.” He looked past her to the assembly. “Have a care
—all of you
—for your own spiritual salvation!”

“So we do,” Alyce replied coolly, “Have a care for
your
spiritual salvation. See to it now. Depart in peace.”

Richard de Ledrede had never in his career faced public opposition and dismissal from a layperson, much less a woman. He was livid at her calm, condescending manner.

“These idolatrous rituals shall cease
now
, this moment!
All
of you—return to your homes at once!”

No one moved.

“This is my final warning,” he declared, “I have been patient with you people. But I cannot show you lenience when you deliberately offend Heaven!
This apostasy stops now
. Else I cannot hide you from the wrath of the Lord! I cannot protect you from the condemnation of the Church!”

“Perhaps not,” Alyce said. “But you can
count
.”

Accustomed to plots that raveled slowly and in stealth at Court, de Ledrede was unused to making swift tactical decisions in action. Now he realized that she was again, infuriatingly, right. He and his priests were considerably outnumbered. He needed time to think.…

But the other Wiccans, taking courage from Alyce, began to edge forward.

“T’is a two-faced turncoat coward
ye
are!” Sysok Galrussyn suddenly bellowed at Father Brendan Canice, “Is this what ye learned from all the fine books? Ye know damnable
well
what Wicca really means to—” But Eva de Brounstoun silenced Sysok with a stern look that reminded him never to betray to cowans the identity of anyone who was or ever had been Wiccan.

Then a tall monk, so thin he was almost skeletal, lunged toward the bonfire. He pointed his bony finger contemptuously at the remnants of the feast, his mouth working, so filled with spite no words came forth.

With a sudden frost at the heart, Petronilla recognized him. It was Father Donnan, her old parish priest from Wexford.

“Gluttony!” he finally hissed. “You gorge as of the forbidden fruit. You eat your way into sin. You chew sin, savor sin, swallow it, digest it, defecate it! You store up food for the worms of your rotting flesh! Filth to filth you add! You cram your maw with death—”

“That will do, my son,” the Bishop interrupted. But Father Donnan, unhearing, ranted on.

“It is the Apple, the Original Sin! That is what leads to every debauched pleasure of the vile body. All other sins—pride, wrath, envy, sloth—are vices of the mind, lesser than those of the putrid flesh: gluttony, greed, lust!
You must kill all appetite
!
Starve the flesh, thrash out its hunger! Fasting and flagellation alone lead to salvation! We must all fast or be damned!”

“My son!
Silence
, I say!” The Bishop barked, feeling himself slide into the sin of wrath while defending that of gluttony. Still, his order had its desired effect. The zealous priest fell back, muttering.

But his outburst had been sufficient to provoke an implosion in Petronilla de Meath. She now flung herself forward, like a spark from the fire, to step between Alyce Kyteler and the Bishop. Her spindly body was shaking, and her words came shuddering out.

“Ach, Bishop,
Bishop
,” she cried in a trembling voice, “whate’er else you may or mayn’t be, t’is a consecrated leader of the Church you stand—an’ that before Heaven itself. How then can you call that man ‘son’? He be a cruel one, oh Bishop! He be a man with no droplet of Christ’s compassion in all his starving soul.
He
be the man, Bishop, who did drive me from the Sacraments!
He
be the man who did drive me from the Church!”

Richard de Ledrede studied Petronilla, then glanced at Father Donnan, at Alyce Kyteler, and back at Petronilla. Slowly, he extended his hand with the Bishop’s ring toward her, as if baited with a blessing. Petronilla swayed toward him dizzily. Cursing, Henry the smith leapt forward to restrain her. But Alyce Kyteler’s arm shot out,
her
Ring of Office still gleaming on her hand, and Henry stopped mid-stride.

“Freedom is our law,” she murmured to him, “As her will, so mote it be.” Yet her tone was as tense as his body.

“Daughter?” coaxed de Ledrede to Petronilla, his voice now rich as whey, “How can I help you, my precious lost lamb? How to wrap you in my keeping and bear you safely home? How may I rescue you, my child, from the peril before which your soul wavers?”

Like an aspen tree in a storm, Petronilla de Meath stood quaking under his gaze, bending to the enchantment in his voice.

Alyce Kyteler’s raised hand bound the Coven motionless.

Father Brendan watched, riveted. He felt as if they were all suspended in this moment, a single moment lasting as long as the
brevima dies
, the eternal Sacred Day that Stands Outside the Year, at the Winter Solstice.

“Dear daughter,” the Bishop crooned, “You know where you truly belong. Dearest daughter, baptized child of the Church. You are in error. Let not error keep you from salvation. The man you accuse is a consecrated priest. You must not question his actions. Nor must you let a single stern pronouncement, intended for your own good, drive you to damnation. Reward yourself with the great mercy of the Church. Come back to your own people. Let the community of saints welcome you. Little lost lamb, let me shepherd you home …”

Like a woman walking in her sleep, Petronilla staggered one step toward the Bishop.

Alyce swallowed to keep the tears from rising, but her uplifted hand still held the assembly in check.

Woodenly, Petronilla took another step.

Then, as if from far off, safely behind the Wiccans’ ranks, a faint, sleepy voice piped out.

“Mumma? Mumma,
where
you? Mumma!”

It was Sara.

Her voice broke the Bishop’s spell.

Her mother began to speak again—slowly, disjointedly, yet gaining confidence with each word.

“Shepherd me? Home? To you? I am home. Your Eminence, I be home here more than any place in all my days. These be my people now. Kind people, honest folk and generous. What they do—what they
be
—lets me … know hope. Aye. Lets me
hope
. Fitting t’is they be called the Wise Ones. To me,
they
be holy.” She began to cry, drifts of tears like moonlit diamonds strung across her face.

“Ach, Bishop,” she shook her head sadly, “Reared in your Church I was. Reared
by
your Church. I dinna know no world for all my days
but
your Church. I believed. I obeyed. I
loved
your Church—t’was the one thing in the world I loved till Sara came to me. I dinna understand much, yet ready was I to sacrifice
all
for love of your Church—that deep did I thirst for divine mercy.” Her words began flowing more swiftly. “But I found no mercy there. And now I be knowing something. I be knowing ye have a power. Ye get a hold on a person’s spirit.
I be knowing
him
”—she jerked her head toward Donnan—“for a foul hater of life. There be a meanness of soul in him, like some wound afestering. And if ye excuse him and clasp him as one of yourselves, then nae, nae,
none
of ye are worthy of Jesus Christ—who was also the Hanged Man on the Summer Tree, like the Green Man Lugh. Aye, Bishop,” she mourned, “t’is you who are the barbarian. So now I too say what others be saying about your ways—and I say it proudly.” She drew in a quavering breath, and spat out all her sorrow and fury with the words,
“Fie, fie, fie, amen!”

Then she whirled and sped back through the crowd to her child.

But the Wiccans, catching fire from her heat, began to shout at the priests in anger. Alyce Kyteler lowered her restraining hand. People started to surge closer to the clerics, yelling.

Richard de Ledrede, frightened at the possibility of being crowded round by rabble, struck out blindly in the nearest direction, and hit Eva de Brounstoun hard in the face. Father Brendan heard himself cry out in indignation at the blow—but even as he leaned to catch the falling woman, he saw in the passing instant that Alyce Kyteler appeared transformed before his gaze, as if into the warrior goddess Morrigan—carved staff in hand, hair streaming, vengeance whistling through her teeth and dazzling from her eyes.