‘Ego te baptizo – ’
She stopped suddenly and held her breath, the only sound in the darkened church the beating of her own heart. Above her head the sanctuary lamp flickered wildly and she heard the squeak of the chains on which it hung.
‘Ego te baptizo in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti –’ she started again.
‘Edward –’ Her fingers traced the sign of the cross over the little wax figure in her hand.
‘Edward of York, King of England – ’
She smiled, stroking the doll’s head with its little roughly shaped crown of wire. Her finger tip moved down across its shoulders, down the chest and rested for a moment at the top of its legs where a small lump depicted its manhood.
Setting the doll down on the altar she reached into the tasselled purse hanging at her girdle for a second doll as crude as the first, meant, from the small swellings on its chest, to be a woman.
‘I baptise thee, Katherine …’
Katherine!
The name reverberated through the shadows of the church.
‘And now,’ she breathed, ‘I bring you together, together here in the house of your God!’
Holding both figures up before the crucifix high above the altar she smiled and slowly she pressed them together, feeling the beeswax grow soft in the heat of her hand. The sweet stickiness of honey was all around her as she bound the two little dolls face to face with a scarlet thread of silk.
‘In the name of God, I pronounce you man and wife.’ She smiled. ‘Not in the porch but here before the altar of God, and now the act of union will be sanctified by the holy mass itself.’
She glanced over her shoulder, uncertain of the shadows, never sure that eyes weren’t watching, that the priest might not be there, somewhere behind the carved screen.
Lifting the embroidered altar cloth in an act which was somehow as indecent as the act she had perpetrated on the dolls she tucked them out of sight and then with a smile she let the cloth fall. Soon the priest would come to celebrate the mass and the union of the dolls, sanctified by his act, would be complete. Indissoluble for all eternity.
She wiped her hands on the heavy brocade of her skirts and stepped away from the altar.
Only then did she smile.
Edward and Katherine.
Nothing now could keep them apart and nothing could prevent Katherine from conceiving a child.
Nothing.
‘Bring it out here. Put it on the table.’ They were outside on the terrace in the wind and rain, standing round the grey, lichen encrusted garden table.
Joss put her hand on Natalie’s shoulder. ‘Are you OK?’
Natalie nodded. She felt better now they were outside; the oppression and the anger were less. The rain was growing heavier and she raised her face to it, feeling it fresh and clean, sweeping back across her face and into her hair. Taking a deep breath she laid her hand on the table palm up and opened her fingers.
‘Wait, I’ll put up the umbrella.’ Luke had grabbed it as they went out.
‘No.’ Natalie shook her head. ‘Let it get wet.’
The wrapping was silk – old and grey and fragmented, disintegrating beneath her fingers in the rain. As she cautiously peeled it back they stared down at what lay within.
Two pale sausage-shaped objects, pressed close together, with fragments of nearly black thread around the middle lay before them on the wet table.
‘What is it?’ Joss breathed.
‘I think you’ll find it’s what are they.’ Natalie stood back, looking down as the rain battered down on the object on the table.
‘It’s wax.’ David had bent close. ‘Two wax dolls.’ He glanced up at Natalie. ‘They’re witch dolls!’
She nodded. ‘I think so.’
‘Shit.’ He shook his head. ‘The real thing. Who do you think they’re supposed to be?’
Natalie shrugged. ‘Look at that one’s head.’
‘A crown?’ He glanced at Joss. ‘It’s Edward, isn’t it; King Edward.’ He reached out.
‘Don’t touch,’ Natalie cried sharply. ‘Whoever made those dolls was evil. Those dolls spelled disaster: disaster for the two people concerned, disaster for their child and their descendants and disaster for this house!’
The rain was growing heavier. Standing round the table the four looked down at the pathetic little figures of melded wax as a pool of rainwater formed around them on the grey oak soaking the wood until it turned black.
‘Their child?’ Joss echoed. She looked up from the dolls. The rain was plastering her hair round her face. ‘You think they had a child?’
Natalie nodded.
‘He was called Edward,’ David put in. ‘I found it in the records. The house was inherited by Edward de Vere after the death of Katherine’s father in 1496. She had no brothers, and no other more distant relations who would fit. Her husband as far as we can tell was called Richard and his inheritance went to his brother so my guess is that Edward de Vere was the son of Edward IV – the pregnancy that the marriage to Richard was designed to legitimise.’
Natalie was watching Joss’s face. ‘That boy was your ancestor, Joss. The last man to inherit Belheddon.’
‘And he died at eighteen, as soon as he had a daughter.’ David’s voice was awe-struck.
They were all staring down at the table. Joss’s face had drained of colour.
‘I think we’re looking at the beginning of the curse.’ Natalie studied the dolls sadly.
‘So, what do we do with them?’ Joss’s voice was husky.
Natalie shook her head.
‘Do we separate them?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ Natalie turned away in anguish and looked up at the sky, feeling the rain on her face. ‘We have to help them; we have to release them. Both Edward and the girl.’
The girl.
Katherine.