The Wise Woman [antikvár]

One In my dream I smelled the dark sulphurous stink of a passing witch and I pulled up the coarse blanket over my head and whispered 'Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us', to shield me from my nightmare of terror. Then I heard shouting and the terrifying crackle of hungry flames and I came awake in a rush of panic and sat up on my pallet and lookedfearfully around the limewashed cell. The walls were orange and scarlet, with the bobbing light of reflectedflames, and I could hear yells of angry rioting men. I knew at once that the worst thing had happened. Lord Hugo had come to wreck us. Lord Hugo had come for the abbey, as we hadfeared he might come, since King Henry's Visitors had found us wealthy and pretended that we were corrupt. Iflung on my gown and snatched my rosary, and my cape, crammed my feet into my boots, tore open the door of my cell and peered into the smoke-filled corridor of the novitiate dormitory. The abbey was stone-built, but the rafters would burn, the beams, and the wooden floors. Even now the flames might be licking upwards, under my feet. I heard a little whimper of fear and it was my own craven voice. On my left were the slits of open windows and red smoke swirled in through them like the tongues of hungry serpents licking towards my face. I peered out with watering eyes and saw. black against the fire, the figures of men crossing and recrossing the cloister green with their arms full of treasures, our treasures, holy treasures from the church. Before them was a bonfire and while I watched incredulously these Satan's soldiers ripped off the jewelled Morach was ready for her bed when she heard the noise at the door of the hovel. A pitiful scratch and a little wail like a whipped dog. She waited for long moments before she even stepped towards the threshold. Morach was a wise woman, a seer; many came to her door for dark gifts and none went away disappointed. Their disappointment came later. Morach waited for clues as to her visitor. A child? That single cry had been weakly, like an ailing bairn. But no sick child, not even a travelling tinker's brat, would find the courage to tap on Morach's door during the hours of darkness. A girl thickening in the waist, slipped out while her heavy-handed father slept? A visitor from the darker world, disguised as a cat? A wolf? Some misshapen, moist horror? 'Who's there?' Morach asked, her old voice sharp. There was silence. Not the silence of absence; but the silence of one who has no name. 'What do they call you?' Morach asked, her wit quickened by fear. 'Sister Ann,' came the reply, as low as a sigh from a deathbed. Morach stepped forward and opened the door and Sister Ann slumped into the room, her shaven head glinting obscenely in the guttering candle's light, her eyes black viith horror, her face stained and striped with smuts. 'Saints!' Morach said coolly. 'What have they done to you now?'