The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [42]
So Adela did. She explained about Martell and the Lady Maud. She told the woman all she had seen, the lady’s terrible faults of character, her unfaithfulness, the way Hugh de Martell was being misled.
‘And you think you’d make him a much better wife?’
‘Oh, yes. So you see, if his wife, who’s very sick anyway, were to die, it would really only be for the best.’
‘So you say, my dear. I see you’ve thought about it.’
‘I’m sure I’m right, you see,’ she said.
Puckle’s wife sighed, but she made no comment. Instead, she rocked to and fro in her chair while her cat raised its head enough to give Adela a long stare before apparently going to sleep again. ‘I think’, she said at last, ‘I can help you.’
‘You could make something happen? You could foretell?’
‘Perhaps.’ She paused. ‘But it may not be what you want.’
‘I’ve nothing to lose,’ Adela said simply.
After nodding her head thoughtfully, Puckle’s wife rose and went outside. She was gone for a few moments, then returned, although not to sit down. ‘Witchcraft, as you call it,’ she said quietly, ‘is not about casting spells. It’s not just that. So’ – she nodded to the chair where she had been sitting – ‘you go and sit down in that chair and relax.’ With that, she went over to a chest in one corner of the little room and busied herself with certain articles inside it, humming to herself as she did so. Her cat, meanwhile, moved away from its former position, settling down near the chest where, after one more meaningful look at Adela, it went back to sleep.
After a while, Puckle’s wife began to place some objects on the floor near the chair. Adela noticed a little chalice, a tiny bowl of salt, another of water, a dish containing, by the look of it, some oatcakes, a wand, a small dagger and one or two other items she did not recognize. While she was doing this, Puckle appeared in the doorway for a moment and handed her a sprig from an oak tree, which she took with a nod and placed beside the other articles. When all was ready she came and sat quietly on the stool for a time, apparently thinking to herself. The room became very quiet.
Reaching forward, she picked up the dish of oatcakes and offered them to Adela. ‘Take one.’
‘Are they special? Is there a magic ingredient in them?’ Adela asked with a smile.
‘Ergot,’ the witch replied simply. ‘It comes from grain. Some use an extract from mushrooms, or from toads. They all make the same sort of potion. But ergot is the best.’
Adela ate the little cake, which tasted of nothing very special. She felt both nervous and rather excited.
‘Now my dear,’ Puckle’s wife said at last, ‘I want you to sit quite still and rest your feet flat on the floor. Put your hands in your lap, push your back straight against the back of the chair.’ Adela did so. ‘Now,’ the witch continued gently, ‘I want you to take three breaths, very slowly, and when you let them out, taking your time, I want you to relax as completely as you can. Will you do that for me?’
Adela did so. The feeling of relaxation, coupled with her nervousness made her give a little laugh. ‘Are you going to take me away to a magic kingdom – another world?’ she asked.
The witch only looked down quietly at the floor. ‘As above, so below,’ she said quietly. ‘The magical kingdom is the world between the worlds.’ Looking up again she continued: ‘Now I want you to imagine you’re like a tree. There are roots growing down from your feet into the earth. Can you imagine that?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Good.’ She paused a moment. ‘Now there’s a root growing down from your spine, right through the chair and down into the ground. Deep into the ground.’
‘Yes. I can feel it.’
The witch nodded slowly. It seemed to Adela that she was indeed rooted like a tree, in that space. At first it felt strange, then immensely relaxing. Only then did the witch get up and slowly begin to move about.
First she picked up the little dagger and, pointing it, she made a circle in the air that seemed to contain them both and all the articles on the ground.