Lilith’s Castle

Marvelling the while, I saw that the sun was fully up. The fires aroused by my writings of Nemione above were quite damped by my writings of what passed here in the night, or maybe by the purity of the new portrait. I lay down to sleep on the hard, marble floor and felt its smooth cold enter my body and freeze my lust altogether. But when I emerge into the day and the camp and am again confronted by the startling beauty of Nemione, I may be in different case.

The witch’s house, as Gry came in the morning from her sunlit, magic bedroom, had a disordered look. The chair and chest were gone, the stool was upended on the hearth and the tinware packed away. The light at her back, which gilded her dark hair and outlined her slight figure, snapped out as, with a suck and a sigh, the bedroom and all its luxuries vanished; but she spared it not one thought. The experiences of the night had taught her this, that magic may work for ordinary folk, and she ducked outside, through the original, low doorway.

There was Darklis, holding a steaming cup and a white plate on which lay two slices of dark, rye bread and a boiled egg. The chickens scratched in the grass at her feet. Beyond them, the Red Horse and Streggie waited, the pony laden with two panniers packed with all manner of gear, and a high-backed and embossed saddle. The expression on the pony’s long face was resentful. I’d bet gold – if I had any – that she kicks, thought Gry.

‘Ha!’ said Darklis, as Gry advanced and Red Horse neighed a welcome. ‘A tousle-headed lay-abed. Come, chi, hurry yourself. Here’s a break-fast.’

The food was welcome and Gry ate it quickly and made haste to greet the Horse.

‘We must never be parted, you and I,’ she whispered.

‘Never again,’ he agreed.

With many a curse and sigh, the gypsy was dismantling her hut and Gry went to help her, but the willow-sticks whined as they were untied and separated from each other. She dared not touch them.

At last, Darklis finished loading her long-suffering pony and heaved herself up into the painted saddle, settling with a grunt, her feet hanging low either side. Gry mounted the Red Horse by knee and mane.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Where we are taken, I suspect; but I think her journey is ours and will take us to Wathen Fields.’

‘Come, pretty Chickens and you – my fine fellow!’ the gypsy cried as she touched the pony’s sides with her scarlet heels, and the five hens and the cockerel fluttered in a panic after her and shot, one by one, into the sunny, morning air and so to their perches on the panniers and the pony’s neck.

‘Streggie knows where she’s going,’ Darklis called, over her shoulder.

furious fiery flanks narrow

brave brutal thick breasted

Deneholt that merry morning was full of light. The breeze touched but did not hold the autumn leaves so that they rustled quietly; the wood-birds sang with voices as golden as the leaves. Gry too sang cheerily: