The Whisper

What did he do, where did he go, what was his purposes? She did not know.

Did he know, did he suspect what she was doing? Had he any inkling and what might he have done to me if he had known? On reflection, and I have thought about it often, he cannot have known or had any fear of what might re­sult. My lady was too clever for him. Too pure for him to understand her think­ing.

What had the long years done to him? I could only guess at — can only see a deep and all pervading hate. Did he love her? Had he ever loved her or was it but animal desire? Her beauty and grace could not but arouse such desire in a man but I am sure there was more in him than that at the beginning. Did he love her still, did the fire of desire still burn or was it anger at being frustrated, an anger that had grown year on year to a single minded purpose, giving up what else he might have achieved elsewhere, in other places. Why had he too lived so long? Was it now the tower that sustained him also? Questions to which I do not know the answer.

Her name? I know it, but it would mean nothing to you for I have never found it in the history books or any historical documents and, believe me, I have searched many a dusty archive. His name? Ah, that is another matter, my friend, best you do not know that either. He is my problem: not yours.

"You will visit me again?"

"How can I free you?"

"There is a way—you will find it. I cannot tell it."

I thought, yes I thought that with all the tales of magic she was enchanted; a spell had been cast not to tell me—that it was something I had to find with­out being told. And my reward? Oh yes, the message was very clear about that and was not something I was likely to refuse. But it was not lust that caused me to try and help her, nor some mediaeval sense of right and wrong, honour and justice. No, it was love on my part. Enchantment? Well, may be; perhaps she had possessed my mind, taken some control of it, used some enchantment. The voice in my head was certainly magic but I cannot see, cannot feel that my feelings for my lady were the result of enchantment or magic. She was no sor­ceress. I saw no evidence of that.

I came to her tower day after day seeking a way to free her and, to be hon­est, to be with her. I could not get her from my head. My studies suffered. I was besotted, deeply in love. But could I find a way to free her? I lead her down the steps, I even carried her but it was no use. I could reach the bottom and the door so easily on my own but with her I could not. There was a drag, a thing difficult to describe, the further down my footsteps took me the greater the drag, the pull upwards and inevitably I would find myself climbing, not de­scending, again, carrying her back. I even suggested it might be the rings she wore, the jewellery that was enchanted and prevented her leaving. She had laughed at this, a so sweet tinkling laugh and had taken them off one by one, pulling the brooches from her dress, letting her hair fall but she would not re­move that last piece of jewellery, the pendant. There was no question of that. Her father had given her that and it was not something the black wizard could have enchanted. She was quite certain. But it was not the jewellery, its removal made no difference at all to our progress.

"Shall I remove my gown," she had asked, "as well?"

Her smile and eyes as she said it had been both amused and at the same time coy as if she was both laughing at me and at the same time nervous. Laughing at my so far futile attempts to free her, coy at the real possibility, per­haps, of untasted love, nervous of the unknown.

I did not want to break the spell, make the advance — teach her of the ways of men. It was not a reward I sought but the natural desire of a man to love a woman in the physical way as he loved her in truth. I thought the key was to free her but the key was elusive.

She seemed different that day, relaxed yet somehow girlishly excited and ready to tease. Her fingers had started to unlace the bodice, revealing more of the swell of her breasts. What was I to say, what was I to do?

"I don't know, I shouldn't think, it's unlikely to make a difference..."

She laughed, laughed at me, in the lovely way she had, as her bodice dropped open. My eyes took in the perfect roundness, the pure whiteness of her skin and the perfection of the virgin smallness of her pink nipples. I could hardly take a breath, so captivated was I by the sight. With an effort I pulled my gaze upwards to catch her eyes. And then, with just the faintest of half smiles and a slight shrug of the shoulders, they were whitely bare also as the gown slipped with just a faint rustle to the floor. I did not dare to look down, show interest in her nakedness — an interest that was screaming in my head.

"Shall we?" she said.

Carefully I lifted and carried her, one hand supporting her thigh, the other clasped around her back holding her at the side — so, so close to a breast, down the stairs, carrying this vision of loveliness. You can imagine, I suspect, my feel­ing, my thoughts, my emotions as my hands first touched her naked skin, touched the soft, so soft, flesh of her thigh, felt the hardness of her ribs be­neath the silken softness of her chest. And it was not possible to do other than look, descending, as I was, a stair, look at the smooth roundness of her hips, the flaming curls of her sex, the perfection of her breasts and the endless com­plexity of indentations, shadow play and roundness of her body; look at the way she moved as I stepped stair by stair downwards and, all the while, her eyes were watching me as if fixing me in her mind. I did not notice the slowing, the difficulty of movement, the finding ourselves ascending rather than de­scending the stair. I was absorbed in contemplation of the beauty that was my lady.

I had not expected success and the return to her chamber was not exactly a surprise—the mere divesting of clothes was not something that would over­come the spell. Carefully I set her back onto her feet, releasing my hands, turn­ing away to let her dress but instead her hands went to my own clothing and all at once the meaning was clear to me—that I too should be naked—and then she lead me to her bed. Our lovemaking was unhurried. It was tender and gen­tle. No sudden rut but the gentle discovery of each other, the joy for me of just lying in my lady's arms as we kissed was more, so much more than I had dared hope for — and I think she felt the same; the entwining of our limbs was gradual, tentative at first, unhurried — I was not going to break the spell and teach her too soon the ways of men; ultimately I did lie upon her, did rest be­tween her thighs culminating in sweet penetration. Even then there was no hurry and I led her to ecstasy as she held me, gasping with the pleasure of the moment. And I too joined her in release. Oh yes, how clearly I remember that; my eyes shutting at that first spasm and feeling my lady squeeze me so very, very tight.

Of a moment she was still, cold and then there was the feeling of dryness, the taut dryness of parchment against my skin and then an awful cracking sound as of sun bleached and aged sticks breaking and I fell a little, felt sharp sticks pricking at my skin, dropped forward onto the bed, onto hard but brittle objects pushing against my skin. Where was my beautiful lady, what was hap­pening in my moment of ecstasy, what was this out of focus object by my head? I could here the snapping, again as of twigs as I leapt wildly up — terri­fied, confused, shocked at the change. One moment total happiness, total warm happiness, shear joy at being as one with my lady and then... I could not accept or believe the change before me: gone was my beautiful lady: lying on the bed was the now broken and half scattered skeleton of the lady I had loved; the ribcage cracked and broken by my weight — for it was that I had felt snap­ping beneath me; the leg bones in disarray where I had pushed them in my haste to rise; the skull with its jaw bone now hanging loosely and the empty eye sockets gazing up at me; a few scraps of dry, dry skin and faded burnished copper hair lay here and there. The bones crumbling and becoming dust.

Her hands outstretched were but a pile of knuckly bones, her golden and intricately carved rings still clinging to those small bones or fallen away to lie amongst the wreck of her so fine hands.

The change from one moment to the next, the change—the decay - had been so quick. Five hundred or more years all in a few seconds, the inevitable held at bay for so long suddenly released. And it had been my doing! I had been the catalyst for this terrible thing—the death of the lady I loved. The cracking of bones is a sound I can never, never forget.

I stood aghast only vaguely realising what I had done, what I had been led to do. Oh yes, my lady's plan was clear, horribly clear in retrospect. She was too clever for him and, alas, for me. And in my mind I heard just the faint whis­per of her voice.

"The pendant, Emerson, it is yours—wear it for my love and your life."

There was a sound below, the sound of footsteps running, hard shod feet running up the stone steps, coming closer. With a sob and sudden naked fear I reached towards the laid out bones and grasped the pendant and pulled it to me. It was heartrending, for the first time in five centuries the pendant left my lady's neck, the pull on the chain scattering vertebrae like pebbles across the bed. As I turned to the door I lifted the chain above my head and dropped it around my own living neck. It was a close thing, I realise now, for at that mo­ment the door burst open and for the first time I saw the Black Wizard and the anger and rage on his face was frightening. With a howl he took in the scene, the ossuary of the bed and my nakedness. He knew straightway the import, that after all the years, all the ages of waiting, the endless nights of longing he was to be forever denied his wish; the spark of hope he had held burning was extinguished. The lady had defeated him and I was the means of his undoing and her escape.

His anger, yes, his rage at being denied, denied after long centuries of de­sire and waiting was terrible to see but he could not touch me, could not lift a finger against me for he could see the pendant, and I was down, out and run­ning terrified and naked into the bright sunshine away from the shadowy anachronism of his evil prison tower

"Have me, Emerson, and you shall free me." I did not hear the subtle change, or guess its awful meaning.

The terrible picture of the bones crumbling to dust, the bones of the lady I had loved.

I can imagine, I can understand his anger at centuries of waiting undone; his fury at what I had done, his desire for revenge. Yes, I can understand that. So I dare not remove the pendant from my neck, it is always with me, always there. I carry medical information in case of accident but written twice is the command that under no circumstances whatsoever may the pendant be re­moved. But what if I have an accident and a nurse who cannot possibly under­stand removes it for hygiene reasons before an operation? What if I am mugged and someone who would not care steals it? What if I become senile and... What will he do to me? Oh yes, I feel him, sense him, sometimes even see him watching me, waiting, waiting for what... or is it simply when? He is not a stranger to waiting.

Why had she picked me? How did she have this power over my mind, was able to call to me from afar? Why was it me she had called — was I the first she had called in five hundred years? Why me? Did she really love me? It is all too late to ask.