The Necromancer by Kevin Read Free Book Online Page B

me, damn you!”
    “The Reverend...It was the Reverend Blayne.”
    “Reverend Blayne?” Parris said. “Preposterous!”
    Tituba sobbed.
    “It was! I tell you it was. Never would I say such if it were not true. I remembered it was him by the eyes when you and he and the Judge and Sheriff came to me in prison. Never could I forget those eyes. Never will I forget them as long as I live. He is a terrible man. He made me promise not to tell, lest he should punish me again, but more severely.”
    “When did he punish you?”
    “When I was still in prison in Salem, he beat me and...
    and lay with me.”
    Parris’s face fl ushed red. Tituba’s testimony was too debasing and horrid to be ignored. He believed her. He was too outraged to say anything, but his mind was fi lled with rage and indignation:
    This man Ambrose Blayne, who calls himself a reverend and a witch-hunter, is nothing of the sort. He is an abomination to the cloth and humanity. He must be made to answer for his crimes.
    Parris stormed out of the prison and headed back to Salem, knowing Tituba’s testimony to be true and being all the more enraged by the fact.
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CHAPTER SIX
Odara
    Fergus and Odara made love before a large crackling fi re on the animal skin rugs they had acquired from Fergus’s numerous hunts. His quarries’ heads were mounted on every wall in the room: A lion from India; a gray wolf from Siberia; a tiger from the jungles of Indonesia; an elk from Scandinavia. They all looked on dispassionately as the two naked people wrestled on the furs in the fl ickering amber fi relight, tending to each other’s desires.
    Tears fell from Odara’s eyes. She whimpered sweetly, bringing her legs up to Fergus’s waist and wrapping them around him, squeezing tightly. He groaned. She pulled him down to her and bit his shoulder as she clutched the fl esh of his back, digging her nails in deeply. He groaned again. He relished the pain. It brought him closer to the brink. He could feel himself fi lling up, preparing to fi ll her. He seized her breast and kissed it, then took her hard brown nipple in his mouth.
    She cried.
    They held each other as if it were for the last time.
    He rose up and thrusted into her faster, then slow.
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    The Necromancer
    They trembled together, and Odara felt his hot fl uids squirt inside her. He fell on top of her, breathing heavily on her elegant white neck. They embraced, and she wept.
    They lay together like that for a long time, a time that could never be time enough.
    Fergus rolled onto his back and looked up at the lion’s head. Odara rested her head on his chest, draping her long dark hair over his shoulder, her ample breasts pressed to his chest, her legs straddling one of his, pressing her wet plot of pubic hair against it. She dabbled in his chest hair with her fi ngers and looked up at him.
    “You seem troubled, dearest,” she said, raising her head.
    “I do?”
    She nodded.
    “I am. I sense a terrible event will come to pass. I cannot see it, and that distresses me most of all. I have tried the shew-stone, but it avails me nothing.”
    “What of the spirits? Surely, they—”
    “They are of no use.”
    He turned on his side, and she rolled onto her back again. He looked at her with concern.
    “Make me a promise.”
    “Whatever you wish, love.”
    “Promise me you shall be on your guard while I’m away in the Orient. I could not imagine what I would do if I lost you.”
    “Can’t I journey with you? It’s painful to think you shall be gone from me again for so long a time.”
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    Odara
    He placed his hand gently on her stomach.
    “Have you forgotten already?”
    Her belly was fl at and toned, and it wasn’t yet time for her next menstruation, but they both knew.
    “The journey is most arduous and long. I think it prudent that you stay here where the servants can comfort you and take care of you as your condition becomes more delicate.”
    “Must you leave?” she asked, placing her hand on the one