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WRAY DELANEY is the pen name of Sally Gardner, the award-winning children’s novelist, who has sold over 2 million books worldwide and been translated into 22 languages. She lives in East Sussex, and this is her second adult novel.
Copyright
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019
Copyright © Wray Delaney 2019
Wray Delaney asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © February 2019 ISBN: 9780008217389
PRAISE FOR WRAY DELANEY
‘Shades of Sarah Waters … irresistible’
Guardian
‘Compelling’
Sarra Manning, Red
‘A bawdy, romping affair’
The Times
‘This is one hell of a read’
Sun
‘A fun, explicit romp with real stakes that will have you trying to finish this book in one sitting’
Stylist
‘An irresistible world to drop into’
Emerald Street
‘An amazing book… like a box of treasures’
Meg Rosoff
To Julia, the wisest woman I know, whose love
and patience have been my greatest anchor.
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Title Page
Copyright
PRAISE
Dedication
THE SORCERESS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
THE BEAST
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVII: THE BEAST
CHAPTER XXXVIII: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER XXXIX: THE BEAST
CHAPTER XL: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER XLI: THE BEAST
CHAPTER XLII: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER XLIII
CHAPTER XLIV
CHAPTER XLV: THE BEAST
CHAPTER XLVI: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER XLVII
CHAPTER XLVIII
CHAPTER XLIX
CHAPTER L
CHAPTER LI
CHAPTER LII
CHAPTER LIII
CHAPTER LIV
CHAPTER LV
CHAPTER LVI
CHAPTER LVII
CHAPTER LVIII: THE SORCERESS
CHAPTER LIX
CHAPTER LX
CHAPTER LXI
CHAPTER LXII
CHAPTER LXIII: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER LXIV
CHAPTER LXV
CHAPTER LXVI: THE BEAST
CHAPTER LXVII: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER LXVIII: THE BEAST
CHAPTER LXIX
CHAPTER LXX
CHAPTER LXXI
CHAPTER LXXII: THE BEAST
CHAPTER LXXIII: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER LXXIV: THE BEAST
CHAPTER LXXV: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER LXXVI: THE BEAST
THE BEAUTY OF THE WOLF
CHAPTER LXXVII
CHAPTER LXXVIII: THE BEAST
CHAPTER LXXIX
CHAPTER LXXX: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER LXXXI
CHAPTER LXXXII
CHAPTER LXXXIII
CHAPTER LXXXIV
CHAPTER LXXXV: THE BEAST
CHAPTER LXXXVI: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER LXXXVII
CHAPTER LXXXVIII: THE SORCERESS
CHAPTER LXXXIX
CHAPTER XC
CHAPTER XCI
CHAPTER XCII
CHAPTER XCIII: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER XCIV
CHAPTER XCV
CHAPTER XCVI
CHAPTER XCVII
CHAPTER XCVIII: THE BEAST
CHAPTER XCIX: THE BEAUTY
CHAPTER C
CHAPTER CI: THE SORCERESS
CHAPTER CII
CHAPTER CIII: THE BEAST
CHAPTER CIV
AUTHOR’S NOTE
About the Publisher
THE SORCERESS
When I go musing all alone
Thinking of divers things fore-known.
When I build castles in the air . . .
THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY ROBERT BURTON
I
I woke when the mighty oak screamed.
No mortal heard the sound those roots made when their weighty grip upon the soil was lost to them. No mortal saw the desperate clawing at the earth, the very life snapping from the trunk as the ground crumbled, shivered with the cacophony of destruction. How could I sleep, tell me, for it had awakened the very rage in me.
My oak trees outlive men by hundreds of years, yet it is these mortals with but a few seasons to their names that claim the wisdom of God in their insect hours upon this earth.
I have no time for sweet, enchanting tales that fool the reader with lies and false promises. Too long I have lived and seen, and seen yet never said, been counselled strong to leave off the telling of my tale. What care have I for such timid sentiments? Let the Devil make his judgment.
Do you not know me? I was born from the womb of the earth, nursed with the milk of the moon. Flame gave me three bodies, one soul. In between lies my invisibility. I am the maiden, the mother, the crone, in all I am one. You think that I am unlike you. Look again. I am the dark side of the glass, proud to own my power for good or for ill.
My sorcery, unlike your malcontent prayers, cannot be undone. I relish my powers to shift my shape without boundaries, to move freely between the holy trinity of women. No church would ever make me give up my body in all its lustful glory to a fleshless lord. For what purpose? To be tamed, to live in servitude, to be robbed of my mystery?
Why then should I remain silent just when the mortal world has decided to overthrow magic in favour of religion and rational thought? When our ways are about to be sacrificed to the Lord of Despair, he whose feet never touched this earth of mine?
I could have dreamed my way through such lunacy, deep under my trees, wrapped safe in darkling sleep and all that happened would never have happened. For the loss of one oak tree I put my curse on he who claimed my church, who had the arrogance to fell my cathedral. I might have forgiven him one of my glorious, bejewelled treasures, but Francis Thursby, Earl of Rodermere, would have none of it. Foolish jester. He had no idea at whom he jangled his bells.
Come then, follow me down, for I am but the crack between the words, a riddle to be solved. Come, follow me, into the shadow of a sorceress’s spell and think no more of my presence. I am but the unseen, all-knowing storyteller.
No man should have dared to wake me. No man. No man.
II
There is little merit in sticking pins in time, in searching for a date to tie this story to. Suffice to say it is set in an England ruled by a faerie queen, a period of ruffles and lace, of wrought velvet and blanched satins, silk stockings costing a king’s ransom. It is the age of imagination, when the philosopher’s stone would make gold of your dreams. A time when the world became curved and the seas led to strange lands and brought back unknown treasures. It is the day when the play be everything, and all men’s lives had their season there. And it would have meant nothing to the sorceress.
In her chamber deep underground she dressed in all her finery. Her petticoat was the colour of damask rose and in the embroidered stitchery lay her magic, ancient as snakes, the very weave of the cloth testament to her power. She wore her crown of briars on her amber hair, a ruff of raven’s feathers, a farthingale embroidered with beetles black as jet. Her skirt borrowed from midnight’s wardrobe showed the hem of her petticoat beneath. And in the witching hour she went to find him.
III
Invisible in her cloak the sorceress took the measure of the man before making her appearance. She had found Lord Rodermere at the refectory table where once the monks had dined in silence. He was a large, sprawling man whose doublet battled to contain his flesh. His small eyes that suited swine looked mean in a man; his nose dominated his features; his lips, hard, thin. It was not a handsome face and his fondness for the wine accounted for the redness of his complexion. The stags’ heads on the wall were testament to his passion for hunting.
Lord Rodermere’s father, Edmund Thursby, had been given the monastery and its lands by a king who, in need of a new wife, had the monks made destitute. The late Earl of Rodermere had lived there and done nothing to its chambers that were bitter cold even in the summer months. Neither had he touched the forest other than to care for it by good husbandry. He had applied the same principle to his land and his people. Unlike his son, he had had the wisdom to leave the great oak trees alone for he believed in the tales of the forest, of the sorceress and the wolf. Only those who did not live in those parts and were ignorant thought these stories to be no more than faerie tales.
When Edmund Thursby died, his son returned home from fighting abroad determined to build a manor house from the forest, as if by the destruction of the oak trees he would be hacking at the roots of pagan beliefs. He had sworn to rid his land of superstitions, bring his peasants under the control of the church and there such nonsense would be banished, by force if necessary. He would prove that man is master of nature and if in the heart of the forest there were both sorceress and wolf, he would hunt them down with horse and hound and kill them.
Three mastiffs lie at Lord Rodermere’s feet. His page serves him wine, hands shaking as he lifts the jug to refill his master’s goblet. Irritated, Lord Rodermere pushes the boy away. For all his bravado he looks uncomfortable in the dining hall of shadows. His dogs stir, their hackles rise, they snarl. They sense an unknown presence.
‘Quiet,’ says Lord Rodermere. ‘It is only the wind.’ And, cursing, he demands more wine. The page, pale of face, refills his glass. ‘What? Are you frightened of a breeze?’
‘No, my lord.’
The muscles tighten in Lord Rodermere’s neck, beads of sweat form on his forehead. His heart pounds faster than it should. He jumps when a log falls into the fire.
‘More candles,’ he demands.
More candles are lit and the unseen, 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 land.
All this the sorceress had learned for she oft walked invisible beside Master Goodwin, listening to his thoughts, though he was never aware of it. He had filled out the thinness of his youth, grown well-built with a kind, thoughtful face and grey eyes that saw more than many and a tongue wise enough to hold its peace until speech became necessary. Francis, Lord Rodermere, for reasons that he could not fathom, felt inadequate when speaking to his steward. Even in height, Master Goodwin was superior.
On a spring morn they stood together, side by side, in a graveyard of oaks whose stumps stood as raw wounds that broke from barren soil, their once ethereal canopies but a ghost’s memory. Now in this new season there was no leafy protection from the rain that drizzled on leather and fur, that dripped from brims of hats. Gilbert Goodwin’s thoughts that miserable morning were filled with sadness for the utter pointlessness of such destruction. He looked at the standing trees and wondered if they too were doomed.
‘It is only a matter of time before the head of that black wolf is nailed to my wall,’ said Lord Rodermere. ‘If it were not for the quality of the hunting I would have these woods felled. That would put an end to the pagan beliefs of the peasantry.’
‘The forest has stood for thousands of years, my lord,’ said Master Goodwin. ‘You are the first man to have had an axe taken to those great oaks.’
‘Do not say that you, like my buffoon of a father, believe in all that elfin gibberish.’
‘Your father was a wise man,’ said Master Goodwin, ‘and understood his people. I would call a buffoon a man who thinks he knows everything, is averse to all advice, who acts without knowledge and is driven by conceit, only to be surprised at the consequences.’
Lord Rodermere was unsure if he had just been insulted by his steward but not knowing how to respond if he had, he continued.
‘You believe that some sorceress has the power to put a curse on me?’
‘I believe,’ said Master Goodwin, his grey eyes never leaving his master’s face, ‘that you would have fared better if you had let the forest be, and built your house of bricks and mortar. This forest has always been a place of great beauty and greater terror.’
Gilbert Goodwin’s wit was too fast for the slow, wine-soaked brain of Lord Rodermere, who in order to enforce his authority said, ‘You are not seen often in church on Sunday. Do you worship at a different altar?’
Master Goodwin did not answer.
‘I thought you better than a mere peasant.’
Again the steward held his tongue.
‘Never married?’
‘No, my lord.’
‘Why not? Is your prick so small it could bring no woman satisfaction?’