Two Women and Some Books
Tweedleeast and Tweedlewest
resolved to go to war
For Tweedlewest said Tweedleeast
had really gone too far
And as they spoke, the silverbacks
hid ‘neath the bed and shook
For Tweedleast said Tweedlewest
would soon be brought to book
Tweedlewest and Tweedleeast
did huff and puff and shout
And women in suburbia
cried who will help us out
The Slavic eagle heard their cries
his wingspan blocked the light
Which frightened both our heroes so
they clean forgot to fight
The old woman had always been protective of her deck of tarot cards. “Don’t you be touching they. They’m no good to the likes of you.”
Later, as the growth in her belly began to claim her life, she came to rely on Ruth, and they became more than teacher and pupil. Even so, it was a surprise when the old one pressed a cloth wrapped package into her hands one day.
“Don’t open they until I’m gone. They only knows one master. But you should be able to get one use out on them before they dies with me.”
Ruth put the cards in her pocket and got on with life. She was busy enough with caring for the dying wise woman and dealing with the calls on her skills as a herbalist not to think about the future at all, leave alone a one-use deck of tarot cards.
When she closed her mentor’s eyes for the last time and placed a kiss on each wrinkled eyelid, Ruth sat back on her heels and rubbed a weary forearm over her brow. Things, she thought, were about to get difficult.
She wasn’t wrong. Her troubles started almost immediately with the arrival of the young man who now owned the cottage in which she lived. He was one Donal Thatcher, nephew to the woman whose corpse was barely cold. At first Ruth thought he wanted her out, but he was lazier and cleverer than that. He would, he said, allow her to stay in her home if she became his second wife. It was not precisely an appealing prospect, but she knew the village looked to her to accept his offer and remain as their healer and herbalist. If she was to be burnt at both ends by a lazy demanding family and a hard physical job, why nobody cared about that. It was her place to be useful. Even her own father made it clear there was no place for her in the family home.
“You chose to be ‘prenticed to a witch now you be payin’ the price,” he said before shutting the door in her face.
It was hard not to feel vengeful as she retraced her steps towards the now overcrowded cottage. Her father might say that it was her own choice, but it was he who had made it impossible to live as his daughter. He who had made her life miserable and had crowned his petty cruelties by refusing to consent to her marrying the boy her heart hankered for. She sighed and mentally shouldered her burdens. What to do?
There was, on the edge of the forest, an old oak tree where she had held hands with her love in the carefree spring of her life. As if knowing her need for a connection with past happiness, her feet took her to that very tree, while her mind grappled with the problems of here and now. Impelled by who knew what impulse Ruth put her hands against the rough trunk and rested her cheek on the sun-warmed bark.
“Where are you, my love?” She expected no answer, but it comforted her just to think of his strong, brown face.
“I’m coming, Ruth. I’m coming.”
She turned in half a panic, not daring to believe her ears.
“Where. Where are you?”
“Meet me at midnight.” Then she heard the joyful note of his laughter before he was gone from her mind.
Was that real? she wondered. But no. It couldn’t be. It was just her heart playing tricks with her. Then again, what if it was a real sending? She walked into the cottage still lost in thought to be greeted by the shrill scolding of Donal’s fat wife.
“Where have you been, you lazy slut.”
Ruth didn’t trouble herself to answer, and a bout of slapping and hair-pulling might have ensued had not a long, angular shadow fallen over the chaos of what had once been a serenely pretty sitting room. Donal’s wife took one look at who stood in the doorway and dropped to the floor in a deep curtsy. It was the moneylender, the only man of any wealth within half a day’s ride, and a man who even her mentor had feared for his affinity with the dark. Ruth looked into the narrow, whiteness of his face and knew what he had come for.
“Mistress Ruth,” the voice was deep and smoothly cold, and it jangled against her nerve endings. “Mistress Ruth. I come to offer you the protection of my name and my hearth.”
“Oh no, sir. She cannot do that sir,” Mistress Donal babbled. “Her is already promised to us.”
“Is that the truth?”
“No. I am promised to nobody.”
The bony man looked severely at both women.
“My offer is on the table. I shall call at noon tomorrow for Mistress Ruth’s answer.”
He turned on his heel and all but collided with Donal, who had been hovering behind him. The three cottagers watched as the moneylender mounted his tall horse and rode away without a backward glance. Donal grabbed his wife by the wrist.
“You don’t lie to that one, stupid slut.” Then he turned a fulminating eye on Ruth. “And you. You now have until noon tomorrow to make up your mind. It’s him or us. And he’s killed three wives already.”
Ruth nodded. “Aye, I know. It looks as if you win. But for now can I have some peace and quiet please.” She was about at the end of her tether and surely even Donal could see she should be pushed no further lest she break altogether.
He looked at her for a moment then laughed a harsh laugh. “I suppose we can give you that much. One last night alone before you come to our bed.”
His wife licked her lips and it was all Ruth could do not to allow her revulsion to show in her face. She managed to keep a calm exterior, though, and went quietly into the room that served her both as bedroom and the workshop where she prepared her potions and simples. Shutting the door quietly behind her, she sat down on the narrow whiteness of the bed and shuddered.
Where had her options gone? The same place as her carefree youth she thought. For a moment she felt the claws of despair, but she straightened her spine. It was no good repining, a decision must be made. She could become Dermot’s second wife, or she could accept the offer of the moneylender, a man who she believed to be deeply involved in the darker arts. Neither choice promised much of a chance at happiness. Once she admitted that it strengthened her resolve. She would take neither, instead, the minute it grew full dark she would leave. Of course Dermot wouldn’t let go of her that easily and neither would the moneylender. Somehow none of that seemed to matter, she would just go.
The window was big enough to climb out of if she took only a small bundle of things, and the world away from what she knew could hardly be less friendly than what she was facing in the familiarity of the place where she was born. Maybe, she thought with a warming of the area around her heart, she would even go back to the oak tree and wait there until midnight.
She carefully gathered together a small pile of things, not too much because she would need to carry everything she took. She was hunting for her warm cloak when her hand fell on a small cloth-wrapped bundle. The tarot deck.
Even through the cotton wrapping Ruth could feel the cards growing warm in her hand as if they would speak to her. She bowed her head in respect before opening the pack and allowing the tarot to tell her what it would.
Whilst she laid the cards out her conscious mind registered that the pattern on the table was unfamiliar, but her hands and the cards seemed to know what they were doing. As she finished, her right hand went to a card and a voice in her head said ‘moneylender’. She was unsurprised to see the hanged man, symbolic of death and disgrace. ‘Donal’ showed the Devil’s leering face. ‘Remain’ her hand turned over the symbol of chaos and misery that was the tower. ‘Leave now’ she felt the warmth of hope even as she turned over that very card.
“And lastly, Ruth,” this time she whispered aloud, her voice a thread of sound in the orange light of sunset. Without hesitation she turned the card. It was the queen of swords. The last piece in the puzzle adjuring her to have courage and purpose.
Ruth bowed her head in acknowledgment and a single tear ran down her cheek, but it was cathartic rather than sad.
I will rest a while, she thought. Then I make my own life away from this place. She rested, quiet in her mind for the first time since the old witch fell ill.
When the moon rose she was ready, slipping away like a wraith in the night.
Whether it was her new found courage, or whether the spirits of the tarot were watching over her she knew not, but for whatever reason her escape ran flawlessly and she soon found herself in the woodland being drawn ever westward as though by an invisible string from her heart. Around her the sounds of the nighttime wood were somehow comforting and she trod bravely with her feet making little noise on the thick loam beneath the trees. Once in the fitful moonlight she saw a badger snuffling about his business, and once a stag raised his horned head to gaze limpidly at her passing.
She supposed it must be midnight when she reached the mighty oak. Reaching out her hand she smoothed his bark and felt the ageless incurious spirit that inhabited the heart of the tree. As she communed with the forest giant her ears caught a breath of sound, and her heart leapt into a blaze of joy. By the time the sound resolved itself into the wheels of a wagon and the hooves of a horse she was standing at the side of the track with her bundle on her shoulder. He didn’t even need to stop the wagon, merely reaching down a strong arm and lifting her onto the seat at his side. They kissed briefly then both set their faces to the east and the miles that must be covered before sunrise.
The moneylender was at the cottage early next morning, banging on the door and waking the inhabitants with cold curses.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
Donal didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “In her room. She begged the favour of one night alone. She hasn’t come out.”
“Fool.” The dark wizard felled the lazy thatcher with a blow of his staff. “Fool. She has flown. I awoke this morning to the sure knowledge she was gone.”
“She has nowhere to go.”
“It seems as if nowhere is preferable to either of us.”
Without awaiting invitation he shouldered his way into the cottage and up the narrow staircase. He kicked wide the door of the stillroom to see an open casement and an empty room. Cursing under his breath he was at the table where the tarot deck still lay in two strides. As he reached out his hand to dash the cards to the floor they seemed to crumple before him like leaves in the autumn wind. Only the card at the centre of the unfamiliar pattern remained intact.
The Queen of Swords stared at the dark wizard from a pair of calm green eyes…
Philomena was finding it hard to understand the series of events that had changed her life altogether, and brought her to a place where she was attempting to write a letter to a virtual stranger.
Put bluntly, her father had capped a life of indiscretions by shooting himself. Which left Philomena homeless and penniless.
With an effort she schooled her mind, telling herself that salvation had arrived in the nick of time, and that her saviour was even now in London seeing what else he could salvage for her.
She bent her head and began to write.
‘My dearest husband…’
They landed on the phone wire
Perched, like feathered fruit
On the slender branch
Of a man-made tree.
A hundred tiny voices
Calling to the sky
A raucous caucus
Vibrating the air.
Sudden silence, like nightfall.
Stillness on the wire
Waiting for a sign
Hushed breath in each breast.
Abrupt – the flutter, fluster,
Flap and fly up high
Shape the swoop above
Vanish over the horizon of rooftops.
The Working Title crew bring you the exclusive opportunity to enjoy more wisdom from the mysteriously enigmatic Madam Pendulica...
The cuddly lambs of the zodiac. Scratch an Arian between the ears and gambol about in the grass with them and you will have a lover for on whom you can depend.
Never show an Aries any harsh behaviour. They will run away.
The laziest of lovers a Taurus will always be torn between making love and having a nice rest. Be gentle in your expectations and a Tauren will be faithful for life.
Never get between a Taurus and a bed, you will be crushed.
This sign never knows what it wants in a relationship. One face is absorbed in the relationship of the moment while the other is looking about for something new. Unsettling.
Never leave your Gemini lover alone with your best friend.
Cancerians have a propensity towards the less gentle pleasures of the bedroom and are prone to pinching. Keep the upper hand and your love life will never be boring.
Never allow a Cancerian anything sharp.
The lion likes to roar and loves to be admired, but is mostly only interested in his or her own gratification. Purr a bit and they will know how to treat you.
Never have a mirror in the bedroom with a Leo or you won’t stop them admiring themselves for long enough to enjoy any physical closeness.
The conundrum of the zodiac. Virgo lovers pretend disinterest and even dislike although in truth they are virtually insatiable. Keep fit if you want to stay in a relationship with a Virgo.
Never believe a Virgo headache, it’s just a ploy to make you work harder at convincing them.
While your Libra lover is weighing the consequences of each and every action and embrace, you will be able to get in plenty of nice naps. If you are not bothered by speed or continuity a Libra will get there in the end.
Never offer a Libra any choices or you will lose the will to live while they consider.
If you want affection avoid Scorpios like the plague. Ditto if you want fidelity or kindliness. However, if you want your bottom spanked… Experimentation is meat and drink to Scorpios so expect the unexpected.
Never let your Scorpio handcuff you to the bed. They may just find it amusing to leave you there.
The lover with the truest aim. Sagittarians are true bedroom athletes and satisfaction is guaranteed. Enjoy.
Never expect a good night’s sleep
The workaholics of the zodiac. Love is just another burden to this lot. But if you can wrest the water pot away from them they make charming lovers.
Never allow an Aquarius to bring their work into the bedroom.
Cheerfully amoral, Pisceans are extremely able lovers and very good company. Open a bottle of something expensive and prepare to enjoy the ride.
Never let a Pisces see you care. It frightens them off.
Madame Pendulica predicts she will return...
It was a junk shop, plain and simple. Cracked plates sat cheek by jowl with broken-down lawnmowers and a pretty roll top desk with catastrophic woodworm.
Henry was engaged in a lively discussion with the shop owner about the price of a rather ugly bronze dog, so Susan poked around in the back of the room.
She found the papyrus wedged between a muddy lithograph and a dog eared paperback book.
On impulse, she slipped it into her handbag.
Henry’s dog proved to have been machine made late in the twentieth century. The papyrus sold for two million pounds…
When the youngest son of a minor banking dynasty wanted a wife, the plain-faced and dumpy daughter of a middle-ranking merchant was deemed more than good enough for him.
But. By the time he was forty he was the richest man in the city.
A subtle campaign begun. Fat old men dropped sugared words in his ears, and fragrant young women breathed adultery in his nostrils.
None of the city’s merchants and bankers could believe that he might not wish for divorce and a toothsome young bride, so they threw their daughters and sisters into his path like sacrificial lambs.
He bore it stoically, until he found one young madam pink and naked in his counting house very early one morning. The gentlemanly thing to do would have been to repudiate his wife and children and marry the girl immediately, but he wasn’t a gentleman so he had her wrapped in a horse blanket and escorted back to her father’s house before foreclosing on the mortgages he held on the family’s vineyards and hill farms.
That put a stop to the most outrageously obvious behaviours but not, sadly, to the ambitions of the owners of young unmarried daughters.
The whispering against his wife began soon after it became obvious nothing else would move the wealthy banker. At first it was subtle enough to be ignored. But when he heard that it said that she had a number of lovers he stormed home in righteous anger.
He found his wife serenely engaged in her stillroom.
“Why are they doing this to us?”
“Doing what in particular?”
“Blackening your name now..”
His wife smiled her sweet smile and pressed his shoulder.
“Because I’m not good enough for you.”
He swore, before taking her small work roughened hands in his.
“But don’t they understand that I love you?”
“How would they? Most of them love only money, and position, and showing off to the world. How would they understand the happiness of our home?”
He groaned but had to admit the truth of what she said.
“That is as maybe. But there has to be a way to stop this constant drip, drip, dripping. Before I do something regrettable.”
“I’m sure there is. We just have to think.”
Obscurely comforted the banker went back to his place of business, while his wife carried on bottling cordial and thought very hard.
By the time her husband came home for his supper she had the seed of an idea. When he had finished his food and was sitting by the fire with a stoup of ale in his hand she broached the subject.
“My dear. How many of the noble families in the city owe you money?”
“Without my books I don’t know precisely. But I suspect the answer is all of them. Why do you ask?”
She smiled. A secret folded sort of a smile. “I have been thinking about our little problem. I was wondering how the great and good of this city might react if there was a rumour set abroad that you were considering foreclosing on the mortgages of one or more families as you suspect them of speaking mischief against you…”
He stared at her, then started to laugh. “With extreme fear my love. But how would one set such a rumour afoot?”
“Among the women. I have only to drop a word or two in the ears of one or two of the less discreet of my acquaintance and the thing is done.”
He put his silver tankard down and came to kneel in front of her chair. “Will that be sufficient for them to leave us alone, do you think?”
“It is my hope. But if not we will have to decide who we dislike most and ruin him…”
He threw his head back and laughed delightedly.
“You have the right of it my dearest. You set your rumour about and I will drop hints that I might be acquiring a rather nice country property or two in the near future.”
His wife smiled demurely. “I never fancied a country house. But I wouldn’t mind a bigger garden.”
“If we don’t have to foreclose on anybody I’ll just buy you a house with what you want.”
“Another child?”
With a roar of delight, the banker dragged his by now laughing wife into his arms. “Come to bed hussy. I must prove myself more manly than your lovers.”
And so he did, and he only had to foreclose on three mortgages before he and his family were left alone to enjoy the finest house in all the city and the happiest of families.
It was cover pose number 34. The one where they could photoshop in – whatever. But at least he got to keep his pants on. He reckoned the photographer new to soft porn shoots, so he possessed himself of patience.
And anyway she was kinda cute.
When she had the requisite number of shots she smiled.
“Thank you. I have only done shoots with women before. I was nervous.”
“It didn’t show,” he lied stoutly. “Can I buy you a drink to celebrate?”
Later.
She smiled against his chest.
“You are as randy as you are pretty.”
“Nah. Nobody’s that pretty…”
When I open my mind and look inside, the gifts left by the passing of the Arganti stare back with their dark, pupilless eyes. I watch myself being watched, as the parade of the dead I cut down in their name, as their High Priestess and Avatar, grin from ivoried skulls.
The promise of the Arganti was a grant of immortality, bestowed on those I slew. Each soul-mind human patterned into ripples of sentient fabric and fused together into a patchwork cloak of human consciousness. Thus did humanity, at last, reach the stars, not as explorers or conquerors, not even as refugees or travellers – but as regalia, bestowing status on the Arganti who wore them.
And I am the one left abandoned. The one who gave up my very essence, an outlaw in my own brain, afraid they would find me and crush out the last spark of my ‘I am’. Perhaps I should have let them. It would be better than this endless opening of my mind to find what they left within…
Why they thought a visit to the zoo would help she had no idea, but going along was easier than arguing.
She wandered from place to place, coldly uncaring, until she stood outside the orang-utan enclosure where the hard carapace she had grown around her soul moved to expose the burned flesh beneath. The baby orang lay on its back looking about itself with the mildest eyes she thought she had ever seen.
And in those eyes she saw the child that hadn’t had the chance to grow to term in her womb.
For the first time she cried…
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