The killer’s voice now, coming like a thread of fear, low and hoarse, fright filling it: “I will leave but I must have the girl’s body. She is an abomination. If I leave her here, she will be a scourge to this chamber. Her very presence will curse you. I will take her.”
“You will take no one! I will kill you now just as I killed her. Prepare to die.”
There was utter silence. It seemed to grow even darker. The air was so dry she wanted to cough, but she didn’t dare to. She held herself perfectly still. It was then Caroline felt the warm dry breath against her cheek. “That was a good show, but not good enough. Couldn’t you tell I was coming toward you even as I spoke? No? The echoes in this chamber distort everything, more’s the pity for you. Hold still now, Caroline, I want you to know who will kill you before you spend eternity in hell.”
Caroline didn’t move. She clasped the sword more firmly behind her back and readied herself. She couldn’t do anything yet. The man was holding the gun against her ribs.
“Come, Caroline, you can’t see me here. Come.”
Slowly, the man’s hand around her arm, she walked back toward the opening in the cliff wall.
It took only a moment or two. So close she’d been. Then the man shoved her away. She struck a wall, but managed to keep hold of the sword behind her, and her balance. She watched the cloaked and booted man walk until he stood directly beneath the collapsed opening. Then he straightened and threw back the hood of his black cloak.
She looked into the face of Bess Treath, and she said, “I thought you were a man.”
“Yes, I know. I deepened my voice for you. I knew it terrified you even more to think a madman was chasing you. But I’m not a man and I don’t have to pretend with you any further. You’ve given me a good chase, Caroline, but it’s over now. You even found a treasure trove for me.”
“Bess Treath,” Caroline said aloud, wondering if saying the woman’s name would make any of this any more real. She stared at her now, still unable to grasp what she was seeing, what she’d heard. “But why? Why did you call me a slut? Why do you want to kill me? And my aunt? Why Aunt Eleanor? She loved to laugh, there was no one to betray, she wasn’t married.”
“She would have, though…”
“Yes, she would have married your brother, she—” Caroline’s voice fell like a rock from the cliff wall just beyond her.
“Yes, I see you understand now. I couldn’t allow my brother to marry Eleanor. He would have left me and that I couldn’t have borne. He was mine, Benjie was, all mine. I was only eleven years old when our parents died and he became both mother and father to me, and eventually lover, but that was just for one night when he was drunk, when he’d lost his sweet little wife, that slut, who dared believe she could keep him to herself.”
“But you told me she died in childbirth.”
“Yes, she did, and let’s say that I helped her along. Poor Benjie was so exhausted, for the weak little ninny couldn’t even birth the babe easily, not like I could have if only I’d ever had a chance. No, she screamed and struggled, and I finally told him he had to rest, that I would watch her, that I would call him if anything happened. Ah, but she knew when she opened her eyes and saw me smiling down at her, she knew that she was going to die and I didn’t disappoint her. I stuck my hand inside her body and I tore her. That was all, just those few seconds and she died so quickly then, with Benjie weeping over her, begging her not to leave him, and I just stood there and watched, and when he chanced to look at me, I found tears and I shed them but I still smiled inside and I knew that I’d won.”
The sword seemed to tingle in Caroline’s palms. It was all the gems, she thought, the gems were growing warm, even hot, against her flesh.
Bess Treath leaned back against the stone wall, the gun still pointed at Caroline. “Don’t you want to know more? Don’t you want to know everything, about those other women, about your dear aunt, wh
o died really very easily, too easily, for I wanted her to suffer more.”
Caroline raised her chin and smiled. “Why? You’re nothing but a madwoman. Whatever you have to say is a lie, and if it’s not an outright lie, then it’s so distorted because you’re distorted, you’re twisted, just as everything you could say is twisted.”
“Shut up! Damn you, you miserable slut, just shut up.”
Caroline shrugged, the smile still on her mouth. “It sounds to me like you’re the slut and the evil one. You seduced your brother? How old were you, all of thirteen?”
“No, I was the same age as that miserable little Alice.” Her eyes narrowed and there was regret there. “No, I didn’t have the chance to dispatch that one, and I fancy she deserved it. Benjie wouldn’t leave her, nor would that damned Owen Ffalkes. But then she croaked herself. I was pleased, but I missed smiling at her, stroking her child’s cheek even as I told her that I was killing her.”
“So you were the slut. You seduced your brother? And you were fourteen?”
“You’re stupid, Caroline. You keep repeating yourself. Do you hope to rattle me, make me shriek then hurl myself to the beach below because you twist my mind through your manipulations? You are stupid. Do you know that Benjie didn’t remember? He never knew that when he was so drunk from the brandy and the whiskey that his damned sex so shrank that I had to take him in my mouth and when he finally became part of me, he became mine that night and I vowed that he would remain mine. No, he didn’t remember, or if he did, he kept it to himself.
“No matter. He was mine and I vowed he would remain mine, no other woman would ever have him. There were other women after him, but none serious until that whore Elizabeth Godolphin. She got him into her bed before I realized what was happening. He was all smiles, all distracted, going about humming and grinning. He fancied himself in love with the trollop, but I took care of her, yes I did, as soon as I had the opportunity. I waited until he was off at a tin-mine accident, then I went to her and I stabbed her and hurled her off the cliff near Perranporth. She blubbered and wept and swore to me she’d release him, but she’d already sullied him, already put her mouth and her hands on him, already opened her legs to him and offered him her womb.”
It was simply too much. Caroline leaned over and vomited. It was the drugged tea mainly, for she’d eaten none of the cakes Coombe had brought her. Then she stood there, bent over, head down, and her body heaved in upon itself, but she didn’t bring her right hand forward, she held on to that sword handle with all her will and all her strength. Suddenly the sword seemed even lighter, and she didn’t even consider it, not really, just held it there behind her back with one hand. With her left hand, she lifted her skirt and wiped her mouth. Then she looked up at Bess Treath. She even managed a smile as she said, “You know, old Miss Bess, this turns my stomach, as you’ve just seen. Now, if you’ve killed a goodly number of women, I’d just as soon not hear you bray about all of them. Do you want to kill me? Well, you may certainly try. Yes, come on, you withered mad old crone, come try to kill me. You might as well let me kill you, for your brother will look at you after this and he will vomit just as I did. He will revile you. He would kill you himself were he here. Come, you pathetic old woman.”
Caroline beckoned to her with her left hand, taunting her, knowing that she wanted it to end, one way or the other. She just couldn’t stand here, listening to that madness, that filth. She knew she couldn’t bear to hear about her aunt Eleanor’s death at this woman’s hands.
“Well? Are you a coward as well as old and quite mad?”
“Shut up, damn you! You want to die, Caroline? Now? That’s fine with me.”
“Before you try to dispatch me, why don’t you tell me how I’ve tried to seduce your brother, who, if you hadn’t noticed, is old enough to be my father. Besides being mad, evidently you can’t even understand what’s right before your nose. I love my husband very much. Not your damned brother.”