This Other Eden by Marilyn Harris Read Free Book Online

company, had in
later years even hunted with him on occasion. To this day there was nothing
capable of stirring greater emotion in his breast than the sight and sound of
the hunt, the scarlet livery, the hounds yelping, the horses, white-eyed as
though sensing the excitement.
     
    Too
old now. The curse of age was upon him. He was Master of Domestic Duties.
"Is the butter churned properly?" "Lord Eden will take veal, not
beef." "The beds require airing."
     
    Standing
in the dark on the steps leading up to the Great Hall, his flesh ached like an
ailing woman. And why not? He had been assigned to women's chores. This
castration had led to boredom, and the boredom, several years ago, had led him
back to male enterprise, the art, the sport, the cunning pleasure of smuggling.
     
    In
spite of this momentary comfort, there was something in him that wanted to
pray, some need for a heavenly promise that the girl in the Keep would be
looked after, supplied with fortitude and courage beyond her years. But he knew
no words, did not even know how to begin. In his frustration he turned against
her. Let her be!
     
    At
the top of the steps, he looked back across the vast inner courtyard. The night
sky was filled with scudding clouds obscuring the moon. It had been so for
several weeks, promising a rain that had yet to come and break the back of the
present heat wave.
     
    The
moon resembled an eye shedding light on the center of the courtyard, the place
of punishment, the whipping oak. Again he considered prayer. But he knew all
too well that God was what we made Him, and life didn't seem to be getting any
better. Since he was hot and restless and couldn't sleep, his distraction
dragged him back down the stairs, his eyes riveted on the whipping oak.
     
    He
approached the center of the courtyard with a quickening of breath. As he drew
nearer, the oak grew larger, a monstrous trunk, dragged over a century ago by a
crew of forty men across the Severn river from the Forest of Dean to satisfy
the whims of mad Charles, the present Lord's grandfather, the man rumored to
have impregnated his own daughter.
     
    Forty
men! Ragland shuddered. Once here, they had stripped the tree of small branches
and had plunged it into a deep hole, packing earth and clay around it until it
hardened, leaving the top exposed, a good twenty feet, in width the size of
four bushel baskets; no single man could reach around it. The victim was always
asked to embrace it, then the wrists and ankles were secured with a length of
hemp, the shirt stripped, revealing a bare taut back, forehead pressed against
the rough bark, the hapless soul awaiting the first sting of the whip.
     
    The
moon was cruelly cooperative now. Its light caught the patina of black tar
which had been splashed on the oak over the years to resist the acid of human
sweat and tears and blood and urine. Ragland had seen men beaten to death here.
He had seen human flesh lacerated until the skin had turned a solid glistening
red. He had heard men cry out for a pistol to be placed to their heads. He'd
heard anguished cries for mother, for father, for lovers, for God. It was an
evil place, this black finger surrounded by open courtyard.
     
    The
present Lord Eden's father, preferring the hunt, had considered taking it down.
But at the last minute he had always changed his mind. Eden was an isolated
outpost with little arms and ammunition. The nearest government troops were ffty
miles away. There had to be, or so he had concluded, an awesome threat of
authority. For over a hundred years the whipping oak had served that purpose.
     
    The
relentless moon shone on. Ragland appeared to be in a trance. He had seen much
in this circle of pain. But he had never seen a woman here.
     
    He
tried to imagine the morning, Marianne being led, white and shaken out of the
door, the eyes of the entire village upon her. Jack Spade's command for her to
embrace the oak, her arms reaching only a scant distance