The gesture produced a spate of laughter, even from Marie Claire. But as Madame Pechard looked ready to explode with outrage, Ariane bit back her own smile.
“Ladies, a little courtesy and decorum if you please,” Ariane reproved gently. When Louise subsided, Ariane turned with forced politeness to Madame Pechard.
“Now you were saying, Hermoine?”
The Pechard woman’s face mottled an ugly shade of red. She gestured furiously toward Louise and spluttered, “That—that is exactly the sort of licentiousness I was talking about, milady. Men are no match for such wicked charms as practiced by strumpets the likes of Mademoiselle Lavalle.”
“Better to be a strumpet than a dried-up old prune,” Louise shouted.
Hermoine’s lips thinned, but she strove to ignore the interruption. “Strumpets using their dark arts to tempt poor weak men into sin and dishonor. It isn’t right. Surely you must agree with me, milady. Your own family has suffered in that regard, your father lured into betraying your good mother by that Maitland trollop.”
Ariane stiffened. Her father’s infidelity was a source of much private pain and she did not care to have the matter aired in such a public setting. She felt Marie Claire’s hand rest comfortingly on her shoulder, the abbess drawing breath to rebuke Madame Pechard, but intervention came from another, unexpected source.
The Irish girl leapt to her feet. “By the blessed St. Michael, ’tis you that waste our time with such petty concerns,” she snapped at Hermoine. “So what if a few of our sisters are inclined to use their magic for seduction? The men must look out for themselves, which they are well able to do.”
There was a chorus of agreement, especially from old Madame Jehan.
Hermoine glowered at the Irish girl. “Why—why, how dare you—”
“Oh, go and sit yourself down, you spindly fool. I’ve a matter to lay before this council of a far more troubling and terrifying nature.” The girl wrenched hold of the staff and shook back her hood to reveal a fiery mane of hair, pale skin, and fierce blue eyes.
She could scarce have been more than sixteen years old and she was not tall. But something in her fierce manner brought to mind the Celtic warrior maidens of old. Hermoine protested, making an effort to snatch the staff back. But the Irish girl’s ferocious glare caused her to think better of it.
Madame Pechard appealed to Ariane instead. “Milady, I wasn’t finished.”
“Yes, you are.” The girl thrust Hermoine out of her way. She stalked forward to stand before Ariane. “Your pardon, milady. My name is Catriona O’Hanlon from the County Meath. I’ve little skill with the French tongue, but it is important you be understanding me. What I have to tell you concerns matters of life and death.”
Ariane might have been tempted to smile at such a dramatic pronouncement but for the intent light burning in the O’Hanlon girl’s eyes.
“I understand you well enough, Mademoiselle O’Hanlon,” Ariane said gravely. “And if you have information that vital, you had better go ahead and speak.”
“Milady!” Hermoine howled, but Ariane held up one hand to silence her.
Ariane felt guilty for her eagerness to brush the querulous woman to one side, but Ariane had read enough in Catriona O’Hanlon’s eyes to prickle with apprehension. She soothed Hermoine with the promise that she could speak again later and the woman slunk resentfully back to her seat.
“Thank you, milady,” Catriona said, then turned to face the throng of women. Her foreboding expression caused an uneasy hush to fall over the clearing.
Catriona’s voice held all the lilt of her own country, the brogue a curious blend with the smooth French language. But her words rang out clear and forcefully.
“As I told the Lady, my name is Catriona O’Hanlon. Better known as the Cat to my own people. Like the rest of you, I come from a long line of wise women, stretching back even before the days of the mighty Cuchulainn. I count many of my friends among the daughters of the earth and one of these was Neve O’Donal.”
Catriona gripped the staff tighter, her voice vibrating with strong emotion. “Neve was a good woman whose heart was in the right place even though her thoughts strayed in dark directions. But she had cause enough for her anger, as too many of us Irish do.”
Catriona paused, compressing her lips tightly. “I am sure you are all aware how my people have suffered under the invasion of the cursed Sassenach.”
There was a sharp hiss from the two English women. Marie Claire also frowned.
“Have a care, Mademoiselle O’Hanlon,” she said. “Many of our Lady of Faire Isle’s ancestors were English, including her mother, our own revered Lady Evangeline.”
Catriona cast Ariane a glance, half-angry, half-apologetic. “No offense intended, milady. I am sure none of your ancestors were the murderous English scum that pillage our land, kill our babies, rape our women, destroy our heritage—”
“Please, mademoiselle,” Ariane interrupted Catriona, observing the two Waters sisters starting to bristle. “No one doubts that your people have suffered, but it would be as well if you came back to the point you were making about this Neve—”
“Aye, poor Neve. She had more reason than most to be bitter against the English, deprived of her land, all her menfolk slaughtered. Neve vowed she’d drive the Sassenach out of Ireland, no matter what dark methods she had to use.”
The muttered protests from the Waters sisters grew louder. Prudence, the elder of the two, half-leapt to her feet, but Catriona waved her contemptuously back down.
“Ah, don’t go getting your corsets in a knot, girls. Neve’s threat was a hollow one. At least until . . . I don’t know how . . . I don’t know where, but—” Cat hesitated, then said in clipped accents, “Neve gained possession of the Book of Shadows.”
Cat’s dramatic pronouncement produced gasps of fear, shock, and amazement from the crowd and one skeptical hoot from old Madame Jehan. Many of the daughters of the earth owned ancient manuscripts that contained snippets of forbidden arts. But there was said to be one masterwork, the Book of Shadows, that contained all the blackest secrets of magic ever known to mankind. Evangeline Cheney had been skeptical about the existence of such a book and Ariane tended to agree with her mother.
The crowd hummed with uneasy murmurs and Ariane was obliged to clap her hands and call for silence. Then she addressed the Irish girl. “Mademoiselle O’Hanlon, I know we have all heard rumors of this Book of Shadows. But it is a myth, no more true than stories of the devil’s Sabbaths and witches flying on broomsticks.”
“The Book of Shadows exists, milady,” Cat said fiercely, banging the tip of the staff against the ground for emphasis. “I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Was it hideous, covered with the skin of dead babies?” Madame Jehan mocked.
“No, mistress.” Cat spun around to glare at her. “The book was bound in leather, harmless looking as a Bible. It was the contents that’d make your blood run cold, spells of a most fearsome nature.”
Cat prowled the edge of the crowd, thrusting her face so close, her expression so savage, many in the front ranks shrank back. “Spells to make you immortal by drinking the blood of another living creature. Or to preserve your own life by ripping out someone else’s beating heart. Potions to keep you young by devouring the livers of wee babes.”
“Madre di dios!” one of the Spanish women cried, crossing herself.
Marie Claire bent down to mutter in Ariane’s ear. “Mademoiselle Cat is enjoying herself a bit too much, methinks.”
Ariane feared the abbess was right. Catriona did seem to be taking a gruesome relish in the alarm she was raising, especially from the two English women. Cat stopped in front of the Waters sisters, raising the staff like a Druid priestess preparing to make a sacrifice. “There were potions in that book telling you how to confound your enemies with bitter poisons to make them drown in their own blood. Or how to inflict diseases upon your foes, making their skin turn black with raw oozing—”
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��Mademoiselle O’Hanlon, please,” Ariane attempted to lighten the grim mood with a smile. “You will be giving us all nightmares.”
Cat reluctantly lowered her arms and stalked back to stand before Ariane. “Your pardon, milady, but that book is the stuff of nightmares. I have not even told you the worst. There were instructions in the Book of Shadows for waging war on such a dire scale as has never been seen on this earth. Potions to spread a foul pestilence in the air so thousands at a time will sicken and die. Or directions to brew up a terrible explosion that would level a city, even one the size of Paris.”
“Or London perhaps?” Prudence Waters shrilled. Her younger sister clung trembling to her arm. But Prudence shook free of Elizabeth and leapt to her feet, her plump face washed pale. “Milady, it is plain as a pikestaff where all this is leading. This Irishwoman, this—this Neve person means to employ the deviltry in that Book of Shadows against my own country.”
Cat flung the Englishwoman a sad, angry look. “Meant to, God rest her soul. But Neve will be meaning nothing now, because she is dead. She was foully slaughtered by an evil man who wanted that cursed book.”
These grim tidings caused everyone to fall silent, even Prudence.
“So who has the book now?” Ariane asked with mounting dread.
“Neve’s murderous kinsman, Padraig O’Donal, a nasty little man who fancies himself a sorcerer. Padraig scarce knows how to scratch his own arse let alone perform any magic. He can’t decipher a word of the old runic language. But he reckons that the Book of Shadows might be worth a pot of gold to the right party. So he killed poor Neve and took the book, hoping to make his fortune by selling it.”
“And where is this Padraig now?” Ariane demanded.
“Well, he could scarce peddle the book in Ireland, milady, not with Neve’s friends and her loyal kin after him. But Padraig’s a wily devil. He gave us all the slip and stole away on a small fishing boat.” Cat raked back her wild mane of hair in a frustrated gesture. “I tracked the wretch as far as the coast of Brittany, but I lost him after that.”
“Marvelous,” Marie Claire muttered. “Just what we need. We are already cursed with the Dark Queen and her poisons. Now we have a mad Irishman running amuck peddling the secrets of the devil amongst us.”
“There’s even worse to tell,” Cat said.
“Isn’t there always?” the Abbess grumbled.
“Marie, please.” Ariane gently hushed her friend. “Continue, mademoiselle.”
Cat placed the staff before her, bracing both hands upon it as though preparing to deliver the final blow. “I am not the only one tracking Padraig to recover that book. There is a witch-hunter after him as well.”
The mere mention of a witch-hunter was enough to send a ripple of panic through the gathering. Ariane forced herself to inquire calmly. “A witch-hunter? Who is he?”
Cat gave a rueful shake of her head. “I don’t rightly know, milady, but he has been prowling Ireland these last six months, practicing his hellish trade. A tall, gaunt man, with a burning gaze, an ugly, scarred face, his head bald as the devil himself.”
“I always pictured Satan as being rather hairy,” Madame Jehan objected.
Her remark produced a few nervous titters. Cat arched one eyebrow in contemptuous fashion at the old woman, then went on, “This witch-hunter might as well be the devil. No one seems to know from where he has sprung. He may well be one of your countrymen, milady, because he calls himself Le Balafre.”
“The scarred one,” Ariane murmured.
A young Frenchwoman near Madame Jehan shivered and started to cry. Madame Jehan gave the girl a bracing hug. “Now, dearie, we’ve dealt with devils of our own and survived. Remember Le Vis, God rot his soul. He burns in hell and we are all still here.”
There was a chorus of assent from many of the other women, but Cat said scornfully, “I have heard of your Le Vis. He was nothing more than a mad monk in his black robes compared to this new man. Le Balafre fights against our kind more like some pagan warrior. He puts anyone he believes is a witch straight to the sword.”
Cat’s words evoked more wails of consternation, but Ariane held up one hand for silence, seeking to comfort herself as well as the frightened cluster of women.
“At least if this Le Balafre were to find the Book of Shadows, he will surely destroy it,” she reasoned. “For once, a witch-hunter may do us all a good turn.”
“I wish it were that simple, milady, but there is worse to tell.”
Marie Claire groaned loudly and Ariane shifted on her uncomfortable seat, regarding Cat with a hint of impatience.
“What could possibly be worse?” she asked tartly.
Cat shuffled her feet, for the first time looking reluctant to speak. “My good friend, Neve, was not always the most discreet of women. She kept a record of all the daughters of the earth who were known to her.”
At Ariane’s indrawn breath, Cat went on hastily, “Neve meant nothing but good by her recordings. In gentler, more tolerant times she hoped to write a history of the daughters of the earth.”
“And where exactly are those records now?” Ariane asked sternly, although her heart sank because she already knew the answer. She could read the truth in Cat’s chagrined eyes.
“The leather cover of the Book of Shadows had a small slit in the binding. The records are concealed in that. Not—not all that well concealed so if Le Balafre were able to get his hands on the book . . .”
Cat’s voice trailed off, but she had no need to finish. She had said enough. The grove rang out with cries of fear and dismay on all sides. Prudence Waters leapt back to her feet, shaking one meaty fist in Cat’s direction.
“You Irish are a race of idiots! No wonder you need the English to come in and sort your country out for you. A pox on all stupid Celts, I say!”
A hot tide of color surged into Cat’s cheeks as red as her hair. Bellowing out a Gaelic curse, she charged at Prudence with the staff upraised. But Prudence caught the end of the staff in her wide palm as the blow fell. The two women went at each other in a flurry of skirts, kicking, shouting, and fighting for control of the staff.
Ariane shot to her own feet to call the women back to order, but the entire meeting erupted into chaos. Charbonne darted forward to intervene in the fight. She jerked the staff away from both women and flung it aside. Then she knocked Prudence and Cat’s heads together. Unfortunately this caused both the combatants to turn on Charbonne, and a fresh melee ensued of gouging, scratching, and biting. Caught up in the excitement, Hermoine and Louise Lavalle renewed their quarrel, slapping and pinching.
The other women thronged round, some calling out encouragement to the fighters, while others cried, “Shame, shame!” Still others sank down, weeping hysterically.
Ariane rushed from one group to another, struggling to restore calm, shouting until her voice was hoarse. She staggered back, overcome with sheer frustration.
Marie Claire, who had kept well back from the uproar, merely rolled her eyes. “Well, so much for understanding and harmony among the daughters of the earth. And just think, my dear Ariane, so far, only two of them have had a chance to speak.”
Hours later the circle of stone was silent, except for the crackle of the dying fire and the distant roar of the surf far below. Ariane sagged wearily on the flat altar rock, resting her head upon her hands. The other women had melted away or, more accurately, had limped off to seek shelter for the night before departing for home in the morning.
After Catriona O’Hanlon’s dire tidings, the rest of the meeting had been mercifully uneventful. Ariane had succeeded in restoring order when she had lost her temper and snatched up the staff, threatening to crack a few heads herself. The rare sight of the Lady of Faire Isle in such a fury had persuaded even Cat O’Hanlon and Prudence Waters to resume their seats. If Renard could have seen Ariane brandishing that staff, her husband would have been proud of her, she thought with a tired smile.
She toyed with the ring on her finger, t
he strange metal band with its runic markings that insured that Renard was never more than a thought away from her. With the burden of that missing Book of Shadows weighing heavily upon her, Ariane longed to employ the ring’s magic to call out to Renard. “My love. Come to me. I need you.”
And he would saddle up his fastest mount and thunder through the night until he reached her side. But Ariane feared she had disturbed her husband’s peace enough of late between her fits of melancholy and her insistent demands upon him to give her a child. There was little that Renard or anyone else could do tonight about recovering the Book of Shadows. Better to let him have his rest while he could. None of them were going to know much ease in the coming days until that cursed book was found.
Ah, but Ariane would have welcomed the strong feel of Renard’s arms around her at this moment. She stole one last wistful glance at the ring, then sighed, resisting any further temptation by burying her hands in her lap.
The soft swish of skirts alerted her to Marie Claire’s return to her side. The abbess and her servant had been making a final inspection of the grove, checking for any articles that might have been left behind, making certain the torches were extinguished.
“Charbonne has gone to fetch our horses from that fisherman’s shack. When she has them saddled, she’ll whistle for us to join her on the path,” Marie Claire informed Ariane.
Ariane gave a weary nod and shifted to make room for the abbess beside her on the rock. Marie Claire sank down beside her and produced a small leather flask.
“Here, my dear,” she said thrusting it toward Ariane.
Ariane accepted the flask gratefully. Her throat was parched from all the talking, shouting, and arguing she had done. She tipped the flask to her lips, but instead of the cool water she’d expected, she got a fiery mouthful of a very potent brandy.
Ariane bent forward, spluttering and gasping. “M-marie Claire!”
The abbess only smiled and urged her to take another swallow. “Go on. After all we’ve endured tonight, you and I could both use a stiff drink.”