The Devil's Mirror Read Online Free PDF Page B

Can corpses be released? Can cold cadavers be granted freedom? No! We will but genuflect and beg forgiveness for seven short days—one day for each of the cardinal sins, you heard the pious dotard—and then we will be set free. Free! “Irrevocably demised”—released without revoke! Our worries are for naught!’
    Her eyelids, puffed and pink from weeping, opened slowly and her eyes sought his, scornfully, piteously. ‘Do you so soon forget? Is that thing within your skull of no more substance than a fishnet? Has fear so much unmanned you that your mind does not recall what else was said? A thing about our eyes and tongues ?’
    He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it. Sick horror shadowed his face once more.
    She sneered, ‘Equivocate your way out of that!’
    Soon, he smiled. ‘For your unkindness and unpleasant words, I should allow you to continue thinking we will lose those necessary and delightful organs. Why should I comfort you, when for my pains I reap but snide rebukes?’ He chuckled. ‘And so I will be mum.’
    A long silent moment passed. At length, she cried out, ‘Speak, wretch!’
    He laughed triumphantly. ‘Because I love you, sweetmeat, I will speak. And you will hearken. Call back to mind those dreadful words about our eyes and tongues. Recall who spoke them. Was it your saintly husband? Or was it a somewhat lesser lord, a slavering menial, none other than our lackwit turnkey?’
    She gave it thought. ‘My husband said...’
    Tour husband said we must not look upon or speak to one another. This is to be done, said he, by the most direct of means. Well, then. Gags and blindfolds! Are they not more direct than pincers and hot irons? Our stupid jailer was but wool-gathering, unlawfully elaborating upon your husband’s orders. Those orders, when they are carried out, will be no more stringent than the rapping of a child’s knuckles. Believe this, my saucy chuck—fear is a phantasm born out of air; it has not dam nor sire. Fret no further, dry your tears. A week of sackcloth and ashes, and we will be absolved, forgiven and most magnanimously demised .’
    His words contained a certain logic. She began to be assured. ‘I pray you are right,’ she said.
    ‘Trust in me,’ he replied. ‘Your husband would not allow us to be either tortured or slain.’
    A little later, the warder, that kindly man, returned and greeted them with a cheery smile and sat down near them to eat a bowl of gruel, his meagre supper. Between slurpings and smackings, he spoke:
    ‘His Grace, the Duke, he says as how ’twould be unjust for you to dwell in ignorance of what is soon to come. Fair’s fair, he says, being no cruel man, no tyrant like some I’ve served, no fiend who would allow poor gentles like yourselves to fear that worst of all bad fates—that is to say, things unknown. Far better, says he, for them to know what lies in store for them, and certain it is there’s truth and wisdom in that, by bloody Christ’s own hooks, if my lady will forgive the language. So go, good man, he says to me, go back to them and tell them both each single thing that will be done to them, the seven things in seven days, and be not chary of details, he says, for it is good they know the most, that they may fear the least and in serenity consign their souls to Heaven. Aye, he’s a fine man, a Godly man, is His Grace.’
    Wiping his lips and setting aside his empty bowl, the jolly fellow said, ‘Well, now, tomorrow is the first day of the seven, is it not, so at the brink of dawn, after the good night’s sleep I hope you’ll have, this is what will be done upon the pair of you...’
    When he told them of the First Day, they paled. When he told them of the Second Day, they groaned. When he told them of the Third Day, they cursed. When he told them of the Fourth Day, they wept. When he told them of the Fifth Day, they screamed. When he told them of the Sixth Day, they retched. When he told them of the Seventh and Final Day,