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

color of a blooming rose. She danced with a woman with dark skin. A woman with blue stones in her ears and gorgeous gray hair that hung down to her waist. This last kissed her full on the mouth and then giggled like one of the children from the town circle.

There was another switch, and another. Then she was back with the Lady, who spun her in a furious, unrelenting twirl, so quick the world seemed a blur all about her. Then the Lady stopped, and the two of them were standing at the pot before the fire.

In the bowl were the crushed remains of little arms and legs, each no bigger than her hand. The town’s missing boy, ground to pulp and left to cook over the Lady’s fire.

The woman stuck her left hand into the boiling mash, heedless of the burning heat, and withdrew her bloody palm for the girl to see. Her voice was but a whisper, yet it cut through the noise of the drum like thunder through rain. “Will you pay me as you have promised, child?”

The girl Nothing stared, thinking not of the boy’s family, but instead of the gift that had been left for her upon the beach, the gift that had summoned her so aptly and turned her upon this path. The gift of meat, and life, and purpose. Such a simple thing. One impossible to resist.

She took the Lady’s hand and licked her fingers, savoring the taste that drained over her shortened tongue and drizzled into her throat.

The whole of the forest came alive, resounding with the cries of beasts from every dark corner of its reach. The howl of the wolf. The chirp of the insect. The cheer of the women by the fire. The Lady clasped her by the palm, and the two began to dance once more.

The girl Nothing closed her eyes, feeling the surge of a sudden and undeniable power. Feeling herself spinning faster than she ever thought possible. Feeling her feet rise from the dirt and drift into the air above.

“Who are you?” the Lady whispered. “Tell me, as you would tell them.”

And though she had no tongue, a voice as strong and unbreakable as iron issued from her mind. “I am Isabella of the House Ashford,” it declared, “and you will fear my name. All of you.”

Part III

Chapter 21

Sebastian Sands slammed his mug onto the table. “Another round!”

Though the town had grown threefold since the Ashford’s former master of house had first set foot inside its borders, there was still but one tavern where an ailing man might quench his thirst after a hard day’s labor: a mud-caked hovel called The Fisherman’s Fancy, built upon the shifting soil at the edge of town just downriver from the sawmill. The tavern turned a fine trade in the afternoon when the young men under Thomas Huxley’s employ came to grab supper, but after dark, it became a dim and dingy place frequented only by those desperate for cheap liquor and stubborn enough to ignore the smell of unwashed feet permeating the interior. On the Twelfth Night, ’twas a veritable tomb.

“I said, another drink,” he burbled. “Talking to myself, I am. What’s it?”

Carla Peabottom frowned at him from behind the counter. Carla was a stout, mousy-haired woman who in the parlance of polite company, was said to have excellent birthing hips, and in the more vulgar vernacular of the common folk, was said to have a bosom wide enough to feed a dozen swine. Any man unwise enough to remark as such in her presence—or get on her bad side at all, really—was liable to end up tossed over the porch rails into the bay, with a missing coin purse and a black eye to boot.

After a moment’s deliberation, she poured another draught and brought it to the table. “Aren’t you going to the feast?”

Sands grumbled something rude and grabbed the mug. Foam sloshed over the sides.

“Why are you drinking anyhow? You on about that drowned girl?”

“No. Celebrating.” Sands raised the mug and almost failed to find his lips. “Got me a new property, I have. Servants and all. Going to be a proper lord come morning.”

Carla looked as if she had been on the verge of tossing him out by the short hairs, but she was curious now. “What’s in the morning, then?”

“Paperwork,” he grumbled.

“Paperwork? You mean, you sign the papers to the house tomorrow?”

“Aye, that.”

She leaned forward. “Which one is it? One of them new cottages up the hill?”

“The place on the north road with the wall. With the stables.”

“John’s place?” she said, billowing a waft of sour milk breath over the table. “They’re giving you John Ashford’s home?”

Sands retreated to his mug and tried to shove his nose in it. “Buying it, I am. Paid for in more ways than one. Now let me drink, woman.”

Carla seemed to hear the first bit loud and clear, the second not so much, and the third bit not at all. “Have you a candle to find your way home? ’Tis a dark night.”

“Know the way, I do.”

“You know I’m a widow, ay? I haven’t forgotten how to keep a man warm if the journey home proves too long and cold for him.” She put one leg up on the chair opposite and lifted her skirt, exposing a line of vein-covered ankle.

Sands tilted back in his chair so far he splashed more liquid over the table. “Piss off, you old cow.”

“What? I never!” Carla made to slap him, but Sands grabbed her by the wrist and bared his teeth.

“What’s all this?” Dory Tuttle, the scrawny, balding woman who had spit on Isabella in the town circle, appeared from the kitchen, torturing a wet mug with a rag. “Both of you going on like an old married couple.”

“An old married couple? The only thing this one’s fit for is a good dunking his self,” Carla said.

Sands grimaced. “Didn’t say no to my