The Burning Time Read Online Free Page A

densely plush it appeared sable black in most light, was performing the ritual he usually observed around this time of night: abandoning his basket for the company of his pet human’s toes. Now he circled his own tail, then settled down with a possessive mew on his mistress’s ankle.
    “Hullo, Lightfoot.” Alyce greeted him by one of the many names she used for her beloved Familiar—this particular onedating back to when he was a lean young catling—as she did so rearranging her legs to make room for this sizeable living pillow that had already begun to purr. The small earthquake of bedclothes erupting from Alyce having shifted position disturbed Prickeare not a whit; he offered a delicate, coral-tongued yawn as he rode the quilt’s ripples and waves like an accomplished sailor wobbling back aboardship after a tipsy revel.
    “Been drinking again, eh?” Alyce teased. “For shame, you old sot—
Oh!
By the pope’s boils!” she swore loudly to the cat. “The wine! I never finished adding orris powder to the mulling vats! Ah, and I also forgot to wrap sage-leaf layers around those five cheese wheels ageing in the dairy!” Now she was irked at herself. But any state of irritability soon brought to mind her husband, an always reliable target for blame.
    “Pah,” she spat, “All this ado over John’s tantrums and theatrics … I
can
not let it go on distracting me this way! What a nuisance that man was!” Plumping her pillow with a few vicious jabs, she grunted, turned on her side, and tried to settle down again. Prickeare placidly ignored these agitations, while his mistress tried forcing her mind back toward the sabbat and more agreeable thoughts.
    How jubilant Kilkenny folk always are at a warm-weather sabbat, she mused. To be sure, during the winter months it was cozy to have the feasting and dancing indoors—torches aflame, thick candles sputtering, Ieul log roaring in the hugehearth. But there was something … 
deeper
about holding the Rituals outdoors at the Covenstead—that circle of massive stones called the Cromlech out on the heath, centered around the dolmen stone—that the Old People had assembled and raised, back before memory. Was it because the Ancient Ones even before
them
had brought the Rituals from a legendary far-off southern isle where the weather was always warm? No matter. Even on this rocky northern island one could celebrate the mystery of new tendrils upgreening through the earth’s thaw; one could practice the magick of spinning out giddy chain-dances in summer; one could sit spellbound to watch bonfire flames—red edging orange fluttering into blue—race each other up toward the Moon, hot suitors in love with Her distant, cool, white shadow.
    “ ‘No other law but love She knows …’ ” Alyce quoted to herself, smiling into the darkness to feel her faith freshen through her like a sudden summer breeze, leaving a sense of relief and generalized affection in its wake. The relief was for John’s departure. The affection was for her serfs—the men, women, and children of her estate—the people with whom she preserved The Old Ways. There was affection, too, for herself: pride. She was proud of the aristocratic blood sent pulsing through her veins by generations of Kytelers; of her beautiful, fertile lands; of her beloved Eire, the isle sacred to and safe in The Old Ways. Then, too, she felt she had earnedthe right to be proud, by her own actions. She was proud that she was a skilled healer, and that she did not rule her serfs as other nobles did, but showed generosity to her peasants and cared for their health and well-being. She was proud that her peasants and servants regarded her, she knew, with grateful affection.
    Not that she was overly indulgent. She maintained a distance to preserve her authority. But Alyce knew that the peasants’ greatest concern beyond their hardscrabble lives was for the future of their children, and it was here she was aware of being most