moon. She began to chant, ancient words long since forgotten by the world, words that women had taught their daughters since first the owl flew and the wolf hunted her prey. The hairs on Gytha's neck prickled.
Madron's chanting died away and silence flooded back into the moonlit grove, a silence as solid and lucent as glass. A cloud drew across the moon, plunging the clearing into darkness. The forest held its breath.
Then the ground around them began to tremble, shaking as if a thousand horses were charging by. As the cloud peeled back from the moon, Gytha could see something rising in front of them just beyond the circle. A wisp of mist was uncurling from the ground, pushing up the earth around it, like the first shoot of a plant. Then the column of mist burst out of the black earth with a thin wail like a newborn baby's cry. It whirled around and around, and as it turned there came a low moaning in the forest as if an icy winter wind was wandering among the branches of the trees, but the trees were quite still. The moaning grew into a shriek, rising higher and higher till the very darkness was vibrating with the pain of it. Then, just as suddenly, the shrieking stopped.
A naked infant stood in front of them, its body so thin the ribs stood out like the timbers of a wrecked ship. The lips were drawn back to reveal the toothless bones of its jaws, its empty eye sockets were as dark as black fire.
Madron turned her sightless eyes towards her daughter. 'Has he come? Do you see him?'
Gytha could not wrench her gaze from the little corpse in front of her.
'He is here, Madron, the babe is here,' she whispered.
The old woman lifted the bone and the bundle of herbs together and pointed them at the creature.
'Spirit, I command you to fetch Hugh of Roxham. Bring him here to us.'
The little corpse hopped towards her, the clawed fingers of its left arm scrabbling uselessly in the air, as if it was trying to snatch at something. Its right leg was missing.
'I command you,' Madron repeated. 'Fetch Hugh of Roxham. You will bring him here. You will bring him!'
The creature took another step towards her, reaching for the bone, but it drew back as if burned as it touched the air above the circle. 'Give me, give me! It's mine. Mine!'
Madron lifted her head, pronouncing the words for the third time. 'I command you by the bone of your body, bring us Hugh of Roxham. Go, go now. Ka!'
As she pronounced the last word the corpse shuddered violently; it slumped down to the ground and for a moment Gytha thought it was going to disappear back into the earth. But as she watched, its ashen, waxy skin began to bubble all over, as if maggots were crawling out of it, covering it from its skull to its feet. The skin was erupting into soft white feathers. The child lifted its head, and in the dark empty hollows of its eyes were two black glistening pearls. Two long wings unfurled on either side of its body and as they beat, the pale creature rose silently into the air. The barn owl hovered above them for a moment, its wings outstretched against the moon, then it turned and glided away over the dark mass of the trees.
Madron slumped back, exhausted. She turned her head to Gytha. 'It is done. Carry me back inside. You know what to do when he comes.'
Gytha bent to lift her mother up. 'You're sure he will come, Madron?'
'He will come. Sooner or later, he will be drawn to us.'
Gytha laid her mother in the bothy and wandered back out beneath the trees, bathed silver in the moonlight. From under her shift, where it nestled between her breasts, she withdrew the wizened apple and plucked another thorn. Was it a waste? Should she simply wait patiently for Madron's spell to work? Her sixth sense told her that another little twist of the apple was needed. Something all of her own. She laid the thorn carefully in the embers of the supper fire. A shiver of pleasure stroked her spine as a tiny flame danced in the darkness. She watched it burn; she loved to watch them burn.
Raoul, yawning and trying to ease his aching shoulders, stumbled across the courtyard towards the steps leading to the Great Hall. The light from the burning