The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,161

she’s a powerful witch, no doubt of it,” said another, “for how else could she bind so many to herself as she bound the Comte?” But even this was not said with hate and fear.

I was reeling, Stefan.

“So now the old Comtesse has taken this money into her charge,” I remarked, seeing the bare bones of the plot. “And what, pray tell, was the fate of the doll?”

“Disappeared,” they said all in a chorus, as if they were answering the litany in the cathedral. “Disappeared.” But Chrétien swore that he had seen this hideous thing and knew it to be from Satan, and bore witness that his mother had spoken to it, as if it were an idol.

And on they went, breaking up into Babel again, and warring diatribes, that no doubt the beautiful Deborah had more than likely murdered the Amsterdam husband before the Comte had ever met her, for that was the way of a witch, wasn’t it, and could anyone deny that she was a witch, once the story of her mother was known?

“But is this story of the mother’s death proven to be true?” I pressed.

“Letters were written from the Parliament of Paris, to which the lady appealed, to the Scottish Privy Council and they did send verification that indeed a Scottish witch had been burnt in Donnelaith over twenty years before, and a daughter Deborah had survived her, and been taken away from that place by a man of God.”

How my heart sank to hear this, for I knew now there was no hope at all. For what worse testimony could there be against her, than that her mother had been burnt before her? And I did not even need to ask, had the Parliament of Paris turned down her appeal?

“Yes, and with the official letter from Paris, there came also an illustrated leaflet, much circulated in Scotland still, which told of the evil witch of Donnelaith who had been a midwife and a cunning woman of great renown until her fiendish practices were made known.”

Stefan, if you do not recognize the Scottish witch’s daughter now from this account you do not remember the story. But I no longer held out the slightest doubt. “My Deborah,” I whispered in my heart. There was no chance that I could be wrong.

Claiming that I had witnessed many an execution in my time, and hoped to witness more, I asked the name of the Scottish witch, for perhaps I had perused the record of her trial in my own studies. “Mayfair,” they said, “Suzanne of the Mayfair, who called herself Suzanne Mayfair for want of any other name.”

Deborah. It could be no other than the child I had rescued from the Highlands so very long ago.

“Oh, but Father, there are such dreadful truths in that little book of the Scottish witch, that I hesitate to say.”

“Such books are not Scripture,” I replied in defiance. But they went on to enlighten me to the effect that the entire trial of Suzanne of the Mayfair had been sent on through the Parliament of Paris, and was in the hands of the inquisitor now.

“Was poison found in the Comtesse’s chambers?” I asked, trying for what bit of truth I could obtain.

No, they said, but so heavy was the testimony against her that this did not matter, for her mother-in-law had heard her address beings that were invisible, and her son Chrétien had seen this also, and her son Philippe, and even Charlotte, though Charlotte had fled rather than answer questions against her mother, and other persons too had seen the power of the Comtesse, who could move objects without touching them, and judge the future, and know countless impossible things.

“And she confesses nothing?”

“It was the devil who would put her in a trance when she was tortured,” said the innkeeper’s son. “For how else could any human being slip into a stupor when a hot iron is applied to the flesh?”

At this I felt myself sicken and grow weary, and almost overcome. Yet I continued to question them. “And named no accomplices?” I asked. “For the naming of accomplices they are always much urged to do.”

“Ah, but she was the most powerful witch ever heard of in these parts, Father,” said the vintner. “What need had she of others? The inquisitor, when he heard the names of those whom she had cured, likened her to the great sorceresses of mythology, and to the Witch of Endor herself.”

“And would there were a