The Devil's Mistress by David Barclay (summer reads txt) 📗

was Sands. Sands had killed her father, and Marianne had put him up to it. And what was the price of her father’s life? The promise of a title, and a trifle of coin.

“You’ll burn for this,” Isabella said. “Do you hear me? I will expose you, you foul thing. I will tell everyone. I will—”

The watchman wrenched the strap, closing her throat before she could utter a final curse.

“I think not,” Marianne replied. Then, to the watchman, “Cut out her tongue.”

The boy, who had been having a laugh at the girl’s expense, suddenly frowned. “The magistrate won’t like that.”

“The magistrate should not like to hear of two buffoons who had a rousing go at a naked prisoner before her trial.” She inclined her head. “Cut. Out. Her. Tongue.”

The older one looked at Marianne. “You don’t mind what happens to her after, do you Madam Huxley?”

“This creature of the pit? Of course not, so long as she remains fit for trial.” Then, with a slight smile, “I imagine it will be quick.”

The two men jerked her backward, and then a new set of fingers were in her mouth, these even greasier than Sloop’s. The burly watchman pried her jaw open while the young one fished for her tongue. In moments, he found it. “Hold still, lovely.”

There was a knife in his hand, a long, steel blade as sharp as a razor…and then he was cutting, and she was in the throws of an agony more red and terrible than any she had ever known.

He held up the pink remains for her to see, then tossed it aside like a dead fish. “Guess she can’t bite or talk now,” he said, and laughed again.

As they pulled her back into the darkness of the stall, the world became blank. The last thing she remembered was Mister Sands and Madam Huxley strolling into the open air, discussing a battery of new changes Thomas had proposed for the mill.

Chapter 16

At first light she was clad in rags and dragged before the town square.

The whole of Blackfriar had come to bear witness. There was Carla Peabottom, the serving maid at the tavern. Maribelle Smyth, she of the famous flower garden. Henry Morton, who owned the stall where Isabella had bought her clothes, and his infant daughter, Patricia. They were all present, sixty-odd souls who had heard tell of devilry in their quiet town, and who had come to see a hanging done.

When the watchman first led her past the bend of the town parish, they were as silent as lambs. Then Dory Tuttle, a scrawny, balding woman, spat on Isabella as she passed. “Whore of the Devil!”

The crowd erupted in a torrent of angry jeers. They were grabbing her, kicking her, spitting on her. Someone flung a head of rotten cabbage which flew across the road and hit her in the shoulder.

Tiberius Sloop emerged from out of the throngs and stepped up to the gallows. With his flowing black robes and tall leather hat, he might have been an avenging angel descended from the sky. “Silence! You shall quiet yourselves or be removed.” As if by divine command, they quieted. “Bring her, Rufus.”

The burly watchman shoved his way into the inner circle, pulling the mute prisoner behind him.

Isabella’s hands were bound in front with a length of rope. Her clothes were in tatters. The evidence of her missing tongue lay painted in a red stain from chin to chest, lending her figure an almost ghoulish resemblance.

“Is this hue and cry strictly necessary, Reverend?”

Before the gallows sat a long wooden table with a series of chairs, in the center of which sat a diminutive man with a long, flowing wig, a purple coat, and a pair of Martin’s Margins upon his nose, through which he gazed upon the formal decree of Isabella’s indictment. His voice was a fragile, tinny thing, barely audible over the whispers of the crowd.

“Are you saying the trial should be moved, sir?” the priest asked.

“I am saying this is a simple murder trial. It should hardly require the presence of such a contingent,” he finished, looking up from the paper.

Sloop gazed over the mob which, like himself, was growing more agitated by the moment. “I dare say we shall not deprive the town of justice.”

There was another moment of silence, and then a shout from the back: “Burn her!”

The cry was taken up by half a dozen more, and then they were yelling and shoving and tossing refuse again.

“Enough,” Sloop shouted, though his thin smile revealed a curt and subtle pleasure at so riling the people. “Mister Beauchamp, sir. I do believe it unfair to remove the accused when the future of the town depends upon her conviction. If she be innocent, let them see it with their own eyes, and if she be guilty, then let them see her ended.”

“Mm,” the man said, in much the same manner as Isabella’s father. He put the scroll down and motioned to bring the girl forward. Upon seeing the state of her dress, he recoiled. “Good heavens. What happened to her?”

“We had to remove her tongue,” the watchman said. “She was casting spells.”

“Casting spells? Do you believe this nonsense?”

The watchman frowned as if he hadn’t heard correctly.

Sloop, however, remained keenly aware of the eyes upon him. “Sir, this is more than a murder trial. Perhaps if you would be so kind as to read the agreed upon charges?”

The magistrate eyed the man a moment, then turned his attention to the scroll. “Lady Ashford, you are hereby accused of the murder of your father, one John Ashford of the town of Blackfriar.” He glanced at Sloop before continuing. “You are further charged with witchcraft, which I daresay is…quite a serious offense. It is said you consorted with the Devil, bewitched several young men, and…hm…used the seed stolen by an incubus to impregnate a young lady. Do you understand what I have said?”

Isabella gazed on mutely.

“Do you understand your very life is