Читать книгу Crawlspace - Lonni Lees - Страница 8

DEAD MAN’S DANCE

Land’s End, Cornwall 1649

High upon the cliff, overlooking the wild Cornish sea, the event unfolded in a mood as vacillating as the gray morning sky. The small crowd gathered like the overhead clouds, giggling, muttering, then silent, as shards of sunlight strangled in the thickening fog. The fingers of mist clung to the cliff-side as if they feared the churning sea below, then moved like tendrils around the half-obscured gnarl of twisted oak.

There was laughter, as if they’d gathered for a Sunday picnic, their voices muffled by the roar of waves crashing against solid rock. The sea spewed its vengeance upward toward the restless, hostile sky, its spray sifting downward to baptize the assemblage. They stood in a circle, and in the center of the circle stood he, tall and ominous, cloaked in black, stoic and still.

Waves of agitation rippled through the crowd as two men secured a rope on a high, sturdy branch of the old oak. One of them spoke to the other as he tightened the knot:

“Would’a be fittin’ if the witch finder Matthew Hopkins were here for to find the rest of ’em heathens.”

“Twenty shillings saved, for he’m be dead as salted mackerel, my dear Michael. An’ besides, we don’t be needing a furriner in our midst—bein’ privy to business better handled by our own.”

Michael fashioned a noose, then said, “We shoulda killed his wicked father before he spawned the divil by that disease-ridden wench—and better yet to have killed his father before him. But what of the others?”

“Eff the divil finally be dead they’m be getting back to the business o’ healin’ instead o’ cursin’ I should think.”

“O’ course, o’ course,” said Michael, but his voice held no conviction. His eyes glanced at the man in black as he lowered himself to the damp ground.

The wind gusted as the men reentered the crowd. The man was turned over to them, his hands tied behind his back. They held firmly to his arms, as if unsure the bindings could confine him, and pushed him beneath the oak. The man held his head high as he ascended the makeshift ladder, smiling at the gathering storm clouds. The wind caught the hem of his cloak, lifting it. It rose, billowing in a sensual dance around his tall, gaunt form. His face was chiseled, handsome; his eyes cold and gray as the slate cliffs, scanned the crowd.

To the back, a green eyed woman watched in silence. Her eyes met his, her secret lover, the man about to die. She looked down, expressionless as Michael slid the noose around his neck. The wind whipped her auburn hair across her face. A muscle twitched, distorting her features. She raised her head, muttered silently to the heavens, smiled. Her smile was radiant, the glaze in her eyes spoke of vile, obscene secrets.

The man in black tossed back his head and laughed.

Michael kicked the stool out from under him.

“The last generation of evil be gone.” Someone screamed.

Then all was silent but for the moan of the wind and the steady creak, creak, creak of the oak’s burdened branch.

Again the wind caught his cloak, whipped it around him as he spun madly, kicking and twitching, then fighting no more. As if hypnotized, they watched the dead man... dancing, dancing, dancing in a macabre circle.

“So be it,” said Michael.

“We be doin’ it like in other lands,” bellowed the second man with authority, met with applause by the crowd. “A hangin’ followed by a burnin’ an’ then that be the end of it.”

One by one the people broke their trance, gathered twigs and piled them beneath the dead man’s swaying form.

“This be for corrupting my sweet Mary” said a woman as she placed a branch on the heap.

“And for killing the wee newborn,” whispered a young lad. “The poor little cheel.”

“Let not a witch live,” yelled Michael, stirring the crowd to frenzy.

As the other man knelt to light the funeral pyre there was a discernible depression in the atmosphere. The sky grew dark. The rain, which had been soft and teasing, pelleted down at an angry slant, extinguishing the flames. He relit it, fanned it with his large hands as the crowd chanted.

Again, the rain smothered it. The dense fog that blanketed the cliff-side was torn free by a violent gust of wind that howled eerily as the hounds of hell. People clung to each other to maintain their balance against the gale-force blast as the storm became a violent, unyielding flagh.

All eyes turned upward, following the groans and creaks from above their heads. The oak’s branch cracked, then snapped, hurling its gnarled arm and the hanged man over the cliff.

Michael held his breath, watched as the body bounced against the granite rocks, then into the sea below. He watched as the waves swallowed the man, hungrily gulping at the floating black cloak until nothing remained but the fear in Michael’s heart.

“The divil’s work,” he gasped as he stared down at the cold, wet grave.

“No, no, it be fittin’ don’t you see?” The other man said in a strained, shrill voice. “’Tis an omen surely. He’m were put to cliff by the hand of God, like the bastard dog he were.”

“’Tis true,” someone muttered as the crowd huddled at cliff’s edge.

“So be it.”

“Amen.”

The crowd dispersed, heading down-hill to the village of Petherick, back to the safety of their cottages. At the head of the procession the green eyed woman swayed as she danced and babbled a lunatic song. Her hand stroked her belly, just starting to swell with child. Sheets of cold rain lashed at her face, gusts of wind tore at her ragged shawl as she twirled about, singing, laughing—muttering words that held the key to dark and ancient knowledge.