Still, that absence of interference was so unlooked−for that she could not help remarking on it to Niall. He waited for her at the lodge−gates in these days and they walked together to the house, making the most of their time alone with each other.
“I believe you've put a spell on Miss Sperrod, as well as on me,” she said. She had told him already all that she felt about Paston Hall and all about her past miseries there and her brief hopes of escape under Anne Otterel's guidance. She had made it a kind of play to believe that he had necromantic powers.
“Could you enchant someone at a distance? I used to think of that sometimes as a kid when I was feeling particularly revengeful against the Principal. You ought to know a spell to give her bad dreams—not now, I mean: she's behaving particularly well just now. But in case she back−slides.”
“You're convinced I gave you those dreams you had?”
“Yes. I believe you're a master−sorcerer. I expect you were gathering herbs for a potion that very first night I saw you from the wall. What were those other little lights I saw that night? They could have been Grim's eyes, but they could have been witches' flowers that bloom in mid−December and glow luminous at one certain hour. Or perhaps they were mandrakes. I've read that you sorcerers go gathering mandrakes at midnight.”
“Oh? Where did you read that? What volumes of necromancy have you in Paston Hall library? But mandrakes don't shine, they shriek when pulled from their bed.”
“Who wouldn't—in the middle of a freezing winter's night?”
He laughed, and before they came to the door of the house, drew her aside between the bushes and kissed her.
“There's more enchantment in these two lips of yours and in these two dear grey eyes than in all the books of Azzimari, and no herb this side the fence of fairyland could bind the senses like this fragrance of your hair.”
“Ah, no,” she said. “There's no enchantment in me, except what you've planted. Perhaps that's it: you captured me that night and you've kept me in a magic cage ., ever since because you wanted someone to practise spells on. Is that it?”
“Do you mind if it is?”
“No,” she confessed, smiling up at him and speaking with a most innocent simplicity. “I like being your captive.”
They laughed silently at each other as he held her a little way off to look into her eyes. “Who is Azzi—? the name you said just now?” she asked.
“Azzimari. That was the name of the Berber Kaid who bought my ancestor, Captain Trethewy, from the Sallee Rovers. He was a practitioner of this art of magic, which seeks to know the other side of Nature. It seems their doctors had studied these matters, there in the Southern Atlas Mountains, before the Koran came among them. The Captain translated some of Azzimari's books and brought them back with him.”
“And you've learnt magic from them?”
He nodded solemnly. “From them and from experience.” She bent her head and stroked his arms.
“And you are Azzimari to me, and I'm a slave like the Captain. Dear Captain! I am so glad he brought Azzimari's magic home for you. I wonder if he loved his master as I love mine?”
“Perhaps. But he fled from him at last. And you too will want to be free.” She pressed close to him, winding his arms about her.
“No, no. I am free, like this. You must be a stern master, and if I try to break the spell you must double it and treble it, chain me down in the deepest dungeon in your castle, imprison me in the hollow of an oak in your enchanted wood. You must not let me go!”
“Ah, no,” he said with wondering tenderness. “Dungeons I have and hollow oaks, but not for you. One ancient ceremony of bondage is enough. If you want to be my slave I'll perform it: the same that Azzimari performed upon the Captain. Shall I?”
“Yes, yes,” she said in a scarcely audible voice, pressing her head against his coat.
He laughed. “Not now. It must be in the propitious conjunction of the planets. Time and place must adhere. I will do it when you come to see the puppets.”
The Easter term began that week. The fact that Niall had fixed a night for his puppet−show after the school was full again did not trouble Clare at all. Even in the Third Form, when she and her gang shared a dormitory with others who were not in the secret, their excursions had never been discovered. Nowadays, when she had a room of her own, the risk in slipping out through the sleeping school was negligible.
It was a Saturday that Niall had appointed. Some snow fell early that morning, but by noon the sky was clear, and before sunset it began to freeze again. Niall walked back with her from the house to the lodge−gates after her lesson. Clare was happy and excited; they scooped up the soft snow from the ruts in the drive and snowballed each other, then sat, putting off their parting, on the great rock. Grim, who had followed them, thrust himself in between them and snuffed delicately at a handful of snow that Clare offered him.