The Devil's Surrogate (21 page)

'You think
they really did kill?'

'Of course!'
Crawley snapped. 'Who else could it have been? The lad was chained
up and now he's seen with the crone, so one or the other of them
must have done it. I'd like to see the pair of them dangle for
that, but it may be more prudent for us to move on sooner - just as
soon as we have her money, of course.'

'And if she
doesn't come to us?'

'Ah, but she
will, Silas, my faithful old friend,' Crawley assured him with an
air of absolute certainty. 'She'll come all right, and she'll do it
while the whole village is gathered for this funeral, thinking to
use them as protection against us and to barter for the girl's
worthless life in full public view. She won't be expecting them to
turn against her, and when that happens it'll be too late,
especially if we let those ignorant peasants think she's offering
to buy the girl back with money they've taken from their poor dead
victim!'

'Did you hear
that?' Sean Kelly's head jerked up as the sound of the shot echoed
through the treetops, sending several birds skywards flapping their
wings and squawking in protest at being so rudely disturbed. Ahead
of them on the trail, Kitty paused also paused to look up, and then
kept walking.

Paddy Riley
grimaced. 'Of course I bloody heard it!' he snapped. 'Do you think
I'm deaf?' He stood stock still, tilting his head slightly to one
side. 'Pistol, I think. Those bastards yesterday were using
muskets.'

'The girl said
something about them using pistols for this hunt,' Sean reminded
him.

Paddy grunted,
his lips twisting into a grim smile beneath the black mask he now
wore, the mask that, together with the black breeches and jerkin,
they had stripped from the captured hunter. 'She said a whole lot
of things and barely one of them made much sense.'

'You think
they kill the poor things?'

'I shouldn't
think so,' Paddy retorted gruffly. 'They wouldn't go to all that
trouble just for that. No, the lass said something about the shots
stinging and bruising. Probably using some kind of wadded slug.
Painful at short range, but it wouldn't kill.'

'This is one
mad and heathen place,' Sean muttered. 'The sooner we get this done
and back to real fighting, the better I'll like it.'

'Amen to
that,' Paddy agreed, and suddenly stiffening reached out to grab
Sean's upper arm.

The younger
trooper responded immediately; a second later both men were
crouching between two clumps of bushes to one side of the path.

'Up ahead
there, I think,' Paddy whispered. 'I saw a figure, and then he was
gone off to the side there on the left.'

'You think he
saw us, too?' Sean whispered.

Paddy
shrugged. 'If he did, we're probably too far off for him to think
we're anything but more of their own heathen kind. In this little
lot he'd take me for one of them, and you could be one of their
keepers. Besides, he'll be more interested in yon poor wench and
being the first to grab her to pay us much heed, and by the time he
does it'll be too late.'

'What I can't
understand,' Sean said quietly, sounding puzzled, 'is why the girl
doesn't really seem all that scared. If I didn't know better, I'd
say she was actually a bit annoyed we came upon her like we did.
Anyone'd think she didn't want to be rescued from all this, and I
know that can't be true.'

Silas Grout
stood back beneath the shadow of a large oak by the graveyard wall
and watched the proceedings with an air of detached amusement. The
funeral cortege had continued growing even as the coffin was being
borne from the church, but this was no surprise to Silas. No matter
how ineffectual or unpopular Wickstanner might have been, he had
still been God's representative in the parish, and in the eyes of
his parishioners it was their duty to see him off on his final
journey.

The sun was
low in the sky now and Silas had counted more than two hundred
people already by the time the coffin bearers reached the side of
the newly dug grave, and more were still hurrying across the green
even at this late stage. Crawley, who had followed the coffin,
stood at the other side of the grave, his head bowed as he waited
for the crowd to settle.

'Hey, mister!'
The urgent voice was barely more than a whisper but its sudden
intrusion into his reverie made Grout jump. He spun around, his
hand already reaching for his pistol in an instinctive gesture, and
found himself confronted with a fresh-faced youngster staring up at
him from over the top of the stone wall.

Grout wagged
an admonishing finger at him. 'Bugger off, you little bastard,' he
hissed. 'Go on, be off with you, before I stick my boot where the
sun don't shine.'

The lad seemed
totally unimpressed by this threat. 'You Crawley's man, mister?' he
demanded in a tone that indicated he already knew the answer.

Grout's eyes
narrowed. 'What's it to you, you grubby little whippersnapper?'

'Got something
for you, that's what,' the lad replied smugly. 'I was told to give
it to you or to Crawley, and seeing as how he's looking a bit busy
just now, I thought I'd best give it to you.'

'Oh?' Grout
leaned on the wall and peered over it.

The youth was
crouched down on the grass on the other side, and he held up a
small leather purse together with a rolled piece of parchment.
'There's gold in the bag,' he said, 'and the message is writ down
on the other. If you can read, then read it, if not, give it to
Crawley when they've done burying the priest, that's what they told
me to say.' He grinned wickedly.

'And who might
they
be?' Grout demanded, annoyed by the boy's
confidence and by the fact that he seemed to think he could give
orders to his elders and betters.

'Tells you
that in the letter,' the boy snapped as Grout took purse and
parchment from him. And then he was up and running before Grout
could even think about trying to grab him. 'Make sure Crawley gets
that as soon as they've done the burying,' the boy called back,
pausing once he was safely out of reach. 'And tell him that if he
hangs the girl, then he won't see another penny and his soul will
be damned for evermore!'

It was only a
dream, Sarah knew, but unlike every other dream she could recall,
even the most terrible of nightmares, knowing this did not give her
the power to wake herself up.

She stood in a
small glade, the bright sun shafting down through gaps in the
leaves above, wild flowers glowing with unnatural colours around
the base of the trees encircling the small clearing. She was naked,
free of even the leather harness that had been used to enslave her,
but she seemed to be captive to a different form of bondage
now...

Peering down
through the deep valley between her breasts, she saw that her feet
had somehow changed, that they were no longer her feet at all for
they were not even human. In place of toes she now stood perched
upon two dainty hooves, and when she held up her arms, she saw her
hands had become catlike paws with wickedly curving claws in place
of nails. A short, downy fur ran up the backs of her arms almost to
her elbows, giving her skin a mottled, almost leopard-like,
effect.

He would come
for her soon, she knew, and trying to run away was hopeless.
Wherever she ran, he would follow her and find her for he knew her,
and he knew these magical woods and every hiding place she might
seek. She peered down again and this time noticed that her nose
seemed to be longer and also to have grown wider, forming a
fur-covered snout. The revelation neither surprised nor upset her,
for she knew her new form was what he desired for her so she could
be free of everything that once encumbered her.

She looked up
again and was not surprised to see him standing at the edge of the
woods just a few paces from her. He was smiling and staring at her
with that peculiar expression that meant he knew she was his to
command. 'Come, Sarah,' he said, speaking softly and extending a
hand to her. She noticed that he too was naked and hoofed, and his
manhood was standing erect and proud as if bidding her to him.
Slowly, revelling in her newfound grace, she moved towards him and
dropped to her knees at his feet unbidden, reaching eagerly with
her open mouth to take the head of his massive shaft between her
lips.

'My sweet
little fawn girl,' he said, and she felt his hands stroking the fur
covering her skull.

Greedily,
Sarah sucked, raising her head and bending her neck forward until
she had taken the entire impossible length of his erect penis into
her mouth and down into her throat. And then, very slowly, she drew
back again, letting the glistening erection emerge from between her
lips until once again only the head remained held in her slippery
grip. And finally, releasing him completely, she stood up. She
turned, and placing her pawed hands upon her hips, bent at the
waist until her head almost touched the ground while moving her
hoofed feet further apart to present herself to him for mating.
'Master,' she breathed, but the sound came out like a plaintive
bleating. She turned her head, begging him with her eyes as her
tongue apparently could not, but he knew what she desired and there
was no need for words. She felt him pressing into her, parting her
swollen nether lips and pushing further and further until at last
he filled her up completely.

'Sweet fawn,'
he said, 'I knew you would understand, and now you are mine.' He
withdrew from her slightly, paused, and then slid fully into her
again.

Sarah felt her
stomach and heart lurch, and the fires that had been merely embers
until now began to fan up into flames she knew would consume her
very soul and make her one with him forever.

Kitty lay back
against the base of the tree, breathless and trembling, both from
the sudden ferocity of Paddy's assault and from the passions her
latest captor had succeeded in arousing in her before the butt of
Paddy's musket clubbed him senseless. Although the two men had
dragged the hunter off her, she could still feel his throbbing cock
inside her and she wanted to shout out that it wasn't fair to leave
her like this. However, as she watched them stripping the black
garb from the unconscious man, all she could do was chew on her
leather gag in silent frustration.

'He's near
enough your size, Sean,' Paddy was saying. 'Maybe a bit longer in
the leg, but you can tuck the breeches inside the boots and no one
will notice anything.'

'Except I'm
going to feel like a complete fool in that mask thing,' Sean
retorted. 'I just hope this is all going to be worth it. It's all
very well disguising ourselves, but there's a hell of a lot of
woods out here, and we're looking for one poor lass that's probably
as hard to spot for herself as this one here.'

'Well, I think
I'd have to agree with you there, Sean Kelly,' Paddy said calmly,
'which is why we're not even going to try looking. Besides, from
what the little bird tells us, there's no certainty where she might
be, either out here, in the house, or wherever. But, if you were
listening, as I was, then you'd realise that come nightfall most
everyone's going to be back at the house, or in the barn she told
us about. After all this running around out here, I daresay
there'll be a bit of ale and wine flowing, and that should give us
the chance to poke around a bit.'

'And what if
we still don't find her?'

'Well,' Paddy
sat back on his haunches and peered out through the eye-slits in
the mask he had taken from their first victim, 'if we don't, then
we don't, and there won't be too much we can do about it. But,' he
added, 'I think we might already be halfway to what we came for.
The girl we left back there with the lad?'

Sean looked up
at him and shrugged. 'What about her? She was rambling, completely
out of her head.'

'Maybe so,'
Paddy agreed, 'but maybe you weren't trying to listen as hard as I
was. She was going on about a coach and highwaymen, or women
dressed as highwaymen, I think.'

'Ah,' a light
dawned in Sean's eyes. 'You think she might be the cousin?'

Paddy nodded.
'I reckon she might be. Of course, she could be some other poor
wench they've seized and brought here, but she'll do, either way.
It's one thing for this Grayling to be doing all this with legally
bought slaves and bondswomen, but quite another to have free women
held and treated like this. If we get our wench back to the inn,
and give her time to regain her senses, maybe her testimony will be
all Master Handiwell and the captain needs to get a warrant from a
magistrate and send in the militia in proper numbers. Of course,'
he said again, grinning wryly, 'they might be sending more of our
lads up from Portsmouth even as we sit here, so perhaps it'll be us
that gets to come back and sort the twisted bastards out properly
this time.'

'The old woman
writes a surprisingly neat script, master,' Silas Grout observed.
After the funeral he had discreetly called the witchfinder back
into the church and passed him the note the boy had given him by
the churchyard wall.

Jacob Crawley
furrowed his brow. 'More likely the miller's lad,' he retorted.
'From what I hear tell, the lad knows his letters well. But 'tis
not the style that we need concern ourselves with Silas, but rather
the content. You've read this through, I take it?'

Grout nodded.
'Aye, master,' he confirmed. ''Twas not sealed, and the lad said I
was to read it.'

'Then you'll
see we have a problem, or rather a choice. It says here that the
gold we have so far is but a small portion of what the old woman
will give us in return for her bitch of a granddaughter.'

'A sizeable
sum, from what they write there,' Grout agreed.