"How much of what you read was intelligible to you?" asked Pursuivant.
"I had a sense that it was rotten," I said. "Beyond that, I'm completely at sea."
"I'm not." His teeth came strongly together behind the words. "There, on the flyleaf of a book sacred to witches and utterly abhorrent to honest folk, was written an instrument pledging the body and soul of a baby to a 'coeven'—that is, a congregation of evil sorcerers—for one hundred and fifty years. George Gordon, the Lord Byron that was to be, had just completed his sixth month of life."
"How could a baby be pledged like that?" I asked.
"By some sponsor—the one signing the name 'Todlin.' That was undoubtedly a coven name, such as we know all witches took. Terragon was another such cognomen. All we can say of 'Todlin' is that the signature is apparently a woman's. Perhaps that of the child's eccentric nurse, Mistress Gray——"
"This is beastly," I interposed, my voice beginning to tremble. "Can't we do something besides talk?"
Pursuivant clapped me strongly on the back. "Steady," he said. "Let's talk it out while that writing is fresh in our minds. We know, then, that the infant was pledged to an unnaturally long life of evil. Promises made were kept—he became the heir to the estates and title of his grand-uncle, 'Wicked Byron,' after his cousins died strangely. And surely he had devil-given talents and attractions."
"Wait," I cut in suddenly. "I've been thinking about that final line or so of writing, signed with Byron's name. Surely I've seen the hand before."
"You have. The same hand wrote Ruthven, and you've seen the manuscript." Pursuivant drew a long breath. "Now we know how Ruthven could be written on paper only ten years old. Byron lives and signs his name today."
I felt almost sick, and heartily helpless inside. "But Byron died in Greece," I said, as though reciting a lesson. "His body was brought to England and buried at Hucknall Torkard, close to his ancestral home."