The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,167

transparent, and I thought perhaps he was a spirit and not a man at all.

It did seem that their glances met as the girl’s cart passed, but of none of this part am I certain, only that some person or thing was momentarily there. I marked it only for she was so lifeless, and it may have some bearing upon our story; and I think now that it does indeed have bearing; but that is for us both to determine at some later time. I shall go on.

I went to the minister at once, and to the commission which had been appointed by the Scottish Privy Council and had not yet disbanded, for it was at this very hour dining, as was the custom, with a good meal being provided by the estate of the dead witch. She had had much gold in her hut, said the innkeeper to me as I entered, and this gold had paid for her trial, her torture, the witch pricker, the witch judge who tried her, and the wood and the coal used to burn her, and indeed the carts that carried her ashes away.

“Sup with us,” said the fellow to me as he explained all this, “for the witch is paying. And there’s more gold still.”

I declined. And was not pressed for explanation, thank heaven, and going right to the men at the board I declared myself to be a student of the Bible and a God-fearing man. Might I take the witch’s child with me to Switzerland, to a good Calvinist minister there who would take her in and educate her and make a Christian of her and wipe the memory of her mother from her mind?

I said far too much to these men. Little was required. To wit, only the word Switzerland was required. For they wanted to rid themselves of her, they said it straight out, and the Duke wanted them to be rid of her, and not to burn her, and she was a merry-begot, which made the villagers most afraid.

“And what is that, pray tell?” I asked.

To which they explained that the people of Highland villages were most attached still to the old customs, and that on the eve of May 1 they built great bonfires in the open grass, these being lighted only from the needfire, or the fire they made themselves from sticks, and they danced all night about the bonfires, making merry. And in such revelry, this child’s mother, Suzanne, the fairest in the village and the May Queen of that year, had conceived of Deborah, the surviving child.

A merry-begot she was, and therefore much beloved, for no one knew who was her father and it could have been any of the village men. It could have been a man with noble blood. And in the olden times, which were the times of the pagans and best forgotten, though they could never make these villagers forget them, the merry-begots were the children of the gods.

“Take her now, brother,” they said, “to this good minister in Switzerland and the Duke will be glad of it, but have something to eat and drink before you go, for the witch has paid for it, and there is plenty for all.”

Within the hour, I rode out of the town with the child on my horse before me. And we rode right through the ashes at the crossroads, to which she did not to my knowledge give even a glance. To the circle of stones, she never once looked that I could tell. And she gave no farewell to the castle either as we rode down to the road that runs on the banks of Loch Donnelaith.

As soon as we reached the first inn in which we had to lodge, I knew full well what I had done. The girl was in my possession, mute, defenseless, and very beautiful, and big as a woman in some respects, and there I was, little more than a boy, but plenty more to make the difference, and I had taken her with no permission from the Talamasca and might face the most terrible storm of reprimands when I returned.

We put up in two rooms as was only proper, for she looked more woman than child. But I was afraid to leave her alone lest she run away, and wrapping my cloak about me, as if it would somehow restrain me, I lay down on the hay opposite her and stared at her, and