Darkwitch Rising

  A woman, of exotic dark beauty, dressed in a deep red, flounced skirt which sat around a thickened and soft belly, as if she had just given birth, and with a golden jacket tied loosely about her waist, and left unbuttoned so that her full breasts remained exposed.

  The Minotaur, standing before her, his body rent and torn as if by a sword, regarding her both with hate and with love.

  She smiled at him, and brought her body close to his, as if in a lover’s tease.

  The Minotaur slid his hand in the waistband of her skirt, jerking her towards him, smiling at the wince on her face, and speaking words that Noah could not quite catch.

  Their heads were very close now, her aristocratic beauty almost completely overshadowed by his dark and powerful countenance.

  “I want you—” the woman began.

  Asterion smiled, horribly, and his hand drew her yet closer.

  “—to teach me your darkcraft.”

  I tensed, wondering what this vision foretold, and then, using all the self-discipline at my command, forced myself to relax against his hand.

  “You will be my whore, Noah.”

  I was still under the lingering traces of the vision, and I understood that he had said this to Ariadne as well.

  “I accept that,” I said. “I am not here to shirk my duty.” If he wanted me to scream and beg, then he should be disappointed.

  He did not immediately respond. For a long moment he held my eyes, his hand warm against my belly, his presence completely dominating me.

  He didn’t have to shout or threaten. All he had to do was be.

  Then the skin crinkled very slightly about his eyes. “Then you’d best get a good night’s sleep,” he said. “A morning’s work awaits you.”

  He withdrew his hand, stepped back, and walked from the room.

  Two

  Idol Lane, London

  The rest of the day passed with relatively little incident. Noah dressed, and Jane set the table for dinner, ladling out from one of the steaming pots a vegetable and mutton broth and serving it up with a crusty bread she’d baked that morning.

  Weyland did not reappear for the meal—Jane told Noah that Weyland spent most of his time on the top floor—and, overall, Jane, Noah, Elizabeth and Frances passed only enough words to ease the passage of the platter of bread here, the pat of butter there. Catling ate well, but Noah only picked at her meal.

  Jane watched Noah out of the corner of her eyes as she spooned the broth into her own mouth.

  She’d imagined this day for so long, through at least two lives—that moment when Noah could be trapped and made to suffer. How strange that she could only manage a vague sorrow that Noah was indeed now trapped.

  I must, she thought, be losing my touch.

  But how silly it seemed, now, sharing this silent meal with Noah, to have spent so long in antagonism with this woman.

  So pointless.

  Jane simply didn’t have the energy to feel much for Noah, save for a certain admiration at her earlier conduct. Jane was sure that Weyland meant to humiliate Noah the instant she stepped inside his domain. Yet nothing had happened as Jane expected. Noah had been both boldly defiant and tranquilly accepting. Weyland had been strangely mild.

  After dinner Noah aided Jane to clean the kitchen, then sweep the parlour. At that point Elizabeth and Frances left for their tavern cellar, kissing first Jane, then Noah, on the cheek.

  At that Noah smiled to herself a little. She had been accepted among the sisterhood of whores, it seemed.

  Once they had left, Jane asked Noah if her back hurt.

  “A little,” Noah admitted, and Jane nodded to herself and, as Noah put Catling to bed on a small pallet under the window, prepared a cooling poultice.

  It was only when Noah was sitting down at the table, her back bared so that Jane could smooth on the poultice, that Jane initiated a conversation involving other than to pass a word about the dishes, or the cleaning.

  “Who did heal you?” she said, resting a hand lightly against Noah’s skin. “There is power here in these scars, Noah. Who did this?”

  Noah sighed. “I do not truly know. The man who was with me, John Thornton, said that a physician had come to me in the middle of the night, and healed me with his hands. When I questioned John about this man, he could barely remember his presence, let alone his name. His mind had been deliberately muddled.”

  “Who do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I’d thought the Sidlesaghes, but—”

  “Who are the Sidlesaghes?”

  Noah looked at her in shock, then explained. “They are the standing stones which comprise all the stone dances,” she finished. “Ancient creatures.”

  “I had no idea,” Jane said softly. “None.”

  “You did not want to see.”

  “And you did? I thought all you ever wanted as Cornelia was to find Brutus in your bed every night. You never looked past his…Ah! Don’t patronise me, Noah.”

  Noah was silent a moment, then continued. “So if this physician was not one of the Sidlesaghes, then I thought perhaps Charles.”

  “You thought he would risk—”

  “Why not? Why not?”

  Jane sighed, and gave a slight shrug. “You are right. He might well have done that. He loves you dearly. But you don’t think it was him, do you?”

  “No. The man asked a strange question of John. An intimate question.”

  Jane raised her eyebrows.

  “He asked John if I brought him bliss in our bedding. If I was delectable.”

  Jane laughed, startling Noah. “Did John say yes?”

  “Yes, he did.” She paused. “Do you have any idea who it might have been?”

  “No,” Jane said after the barest of hesitations. “Tell me,” she continued, “where are Ecub and Erith? I assume they have come back as well.”

  Noah glanced at the doorway.

  “Do not worry,” Jane said. “Once he goes into his dark den, Weyland rarely comes out for hours.”

  “They are reborn, and before they recently came to England lived with Charles as his lovers,” said Noah.

  Jane arched her eyebrows. “How does that make you feel?”

  Noah shrugged, then winced a little as one of the welts flared up in pain. “I do not mind. They were good companions for him.”

  “Do you think they brought him bliss in their bedding?”

  “There is no point to this conversation, Jane!”

  “My, my, such a sharp tongue. Perhaps you mind more than you would have me believe.”

  Jane finished smoothing the poultice, then she laid soft linen cloths against it to keep the mixture in place. Both the women prepared for bed in silence, Noah helping Jane to lay out the pallets and blankets, and then, as they were crawling into their bedding, Noah spoke.

  “Jane, what does Weyland have planned?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And these imps? Gods, Jane, what does he plan to do with—”

  “I don’t know!”

  Silence again, each woman lying awake in the dim light given out from the hearth, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Noah?” Jane said eventually.

  “Yes?”

  “You did well earlier.” Great praise indeed, venturing as it did between women who had spent the greater part of three thousand years hating each other.

  “I needed to survive,” Noah said. “If I came before him and trembled, then I would have betrayed myself.”

  “Your daughter,” Jane said, “she is a strange one. Noah, I know when she was conceived. I know who got her on you. Catling should be but a toddler, and yet she looks five, or six. How is this so?”

  “I do not completely understand Catling myself,” Noah said. “She has power of her own—having walked the paths between this world and the next—yet she has rarely shown it to me. She is an island, complete unto herself. I do not know what she wants for herself, or wants of me. I do not know why she is here. So to your que
stion: why has she grown so fast? I don’t know. She is my daughter, and yet I do not know her.”

  “I do not truly like her.”

  Noah took a breath, as if to speak, but in the end remained silent.

  “How strange,” Jane said, “that we lie here now, side by side, and do not think to plunge daggers into each other’s throats.”

  Noah bit her lip, then could not help a small smile. “Perhaps that is what Weyland hopes for,” she said, and Jane laughed softly.

  “How strange,” she said, “that we lie here side by side and share a companionable jest.”

  “It is what we should have done so long ago,” said Noah.

  To that Jane made no immediate response. After some minutes, however, she rolled over to her side and propped her head on a hand so that she could see Noah’s face as she lay on the other pallet.

  “Noah…”

  “Aye?”

  “What did you see when Weyland slid his hand into your waistband?”

  Noah hesitated, then described her vision: the exotically beautiful woman; Asterion; the way they stood so intimately close…

  “It was Ariadne, wasn’t it?” Noah said.

  “Aye,” said Jane after a moment’s pause. “That was Ariadne in the moments before she promised Asterion my soul, as well as those of my foremothers. That was Ariadne in the moments before she destroyed my life and handed it to Asterion.”

  “Why did I see that?” said Noah.

  Jane took so long to answer that Noah thought she would remain silent.

  “I have no idea,” Jane said eventually. “But I do know this…that vision was given to you by Ariadne, not by Asterion.”

  Noah drew in a sharp breath. “Ariadne sent me that vision?”

  “Aye.”

  “Why?”

  This time, Jane did not answer at all.

  Three

  The Strand, London

  Thornton opened the door to The Broken Bough and surveyed the noisy crowd inside. Once he’d left Noah at the house in Idol Lane, Thornton had thought that all he would want to do was settle himself into the Bedfords’ townhouse and go to bed early to try to ease his sore heart. But once Thornton had actually arrived at the townhouse and attended to his duties there, he’d discovered that he felt too unsettled to try and sleep.

  So, uncharacteristically for him, he’d decided to visit a tavern, ease himself with a few tankards of beer, and then return for whatever sleep he could manage. Before he’d left Woburn the earl had recommended to him an establishment called The Broken Bough. Instead of the usual labourers, apprentices and roughened seamen looking for drunkenness and trouble, the tavern attracted the house servants of the nobles who had their townhouses along the Strand, the lawyers and barristers of the nearby Inns of Court, as well as the occasional diplomat or ambassador visiting Whitehall.

  Up-market clientele or not, the tavern was nonetheless noisy and crowded, and Thornton hesitated in the doorway.

  A well-dressed man, a German from the cut of his clothes and moustache, brushed passed him. He was carefully carrying several large tankards of beer, and the scent of the spiced and buttered alcohol instantly reminded Thornton of the previous night spent with Noah.

  For no other reason, Thornton allowed the door to swing shut behind him, and made his way as best as he could through the crowd of well-dressed patrons to where the tavern keeper took orders. There he parted with tuppence for a tankard brimful of delicious buttered Lambeth ale—a rich, heady mixture only available to Londoners or those wealthy enough to import it into their locality.

  “D’you know if there’s a quiet corner somewhere?” Thornton asked of the tavern keeper, taking a sip of his ale.

  “Here?” said the man, and laughed. He was very thin, with a face which reminded Thornton of an old, genial horse: all long-nosed and -cheeked, and with so many folds about the corners of his mouth that it looked as though he’d been suckled as a baby on the hard steel of a bit.

  Then, as Thornton took yet another sip, the man seemed to reconsider. “Well,” he said, “there’s the space tucked away under the stairs. Room for a table and a couple of chairs. Warm place. Cosy. Usually. Late this afternoon, though, a damned Frenchman came in, ordered some spiced beer, and sat himself down there. Queer one, that. Cold. No one’s been keen to take the spare seat at his table. That Frenchman’s sat there for the past four hours, drinking beer after beer—and that having as little effect on him as if he’d been drinking water—and just sitting, glowering.”

  The tavern keeper shrugged, the lines about his mouth folding deep in disapproval. “If you think you can bear the chill emanating from his person, and the glower in his eyes, then I’m sure that corner shall be quiet enough for you.” Another pause. “Sweet Jesus, I hope he’s not sickening for something. The last thing I need in here is a plague bearer.”

  Thornton thanked the tavern keeper, and decided to try his luck with the seat under the stairs anyway. A companion in melancholy, plague bearer or no, sounded like the kind of companion Thornton needed.

  At least he wouldn’t try to engage Thornton in drunken, frivolous conversation.

  Thornton eased his way through the throng, his ears catching the languages of a dozen different countries as he passed, heading for the rise of the stairs at the back of the tavern. When he’d got to within eight or nine feet, the final few bodies between him and his destination parted, and Thornton found himself staring at a man about thirty, half slouched in his chair under the stairs, looking directly at Thornton.

  The first impression Thornton had of the man was that he commanded great presence. He had an aura of authority about him—an aura so deep and so overwhelming that Thornton thought it should have been commanded only by a king or emperor.

  The second thing that struck Thornton was the sheer physical presence of the man. The Frenchman was handsome enough with an elegant body—long and lithe—exotic features and dark hair, although his sheer physical charisma went far beyond his comeliness. His black eyes burned, and Thornton thought that anyone spending any time with this man would eventually want only one thing—that those eyes should burn with fervour for he or she who beheld them.

  The third thing that struck Thornton was that the Frenchman was almost as impressed by him as Thornton was by the Frenchman. As Thornton looked, the Frenchman straightened himself in his chair, twisted his mouth almost as if he were about to snarl, and then tipped his head at the empty chair opposite.

  “You’ve taken your time,” said the Frenchman in good English and in a voice clear enough to reach through the noise of the tavern to Thornton. “I’ve had to drink the establishment half dry in my wait for you.”

  Thornton went cold. He almost turned and walked away.

  “I want to speak to you of Noah,” said the Frenchman, and Thornton, despite his reservations, made his way to the small table where, watching the Frenchman carefully, he sat down in the spare chair.

  “What do you know of Noah?” said Thornton.

  The Frenchman took a long draught of his beer—to one side of the table he had his own small bowl of spices and sugar to add as he wanted. He swallowed, wiped his mouth with the back of one hand, and set his tankard down.

  “My name is Louis de Silva,” he said. “The name will be meaningless to you, for I am but the bastard get of a feckless young count.”

  Thornton said nothing, simply gazing steadily at de Silva.

  “I have been befriended by your king, Charles,” said de Silva, “and I am a good friend to him.”

  Still Thornton said nothing, but his thoughts were racing. Charles’ court in exile! Suddenly, devastatingly, he knew who this de Silva was. “I sent a letter to Charles from Noah some two years hence,” said Thornton. “You know, I presume, what it contained.”

  “Aye. The king has bastards everywhere.”

  Thornton winced, suddenly angry. “What do you want?”

  “I want to know how you felt when you abandoned Noah this aftern
oon.”

  “I only did what she wanted.”

  “How did you feel, Thornton?”

  “I felt desperate! Is that what you wanted to hear? Is it? I am a married man, de Silva, but I have loved Noah since she was sixteen. I felt desperate this afternoon, and I am desperate for her, as I have been for too many years to count, and yet I know I shall not ever have her. I wish I’d never met her, de Silva, for then I could have continued on my benumbed way through life, and never known what it was to love her, and to love life…and what it meant to love this land.”

  At that last de Silva’s eyes narrowed a little. “The land?” he said. “What could you possibly know about the land?”

  “That Noah is the land in some ancient faerie way I cannot truly understand. De Silva, tell me, what do you know of Noah?”

  “That you and I are companions in misery, John Thornton. You love her, and live in desperation that you shall never have her. I love her, and live in desperation that I shall never have her.”

  De Silva stopped, his eyes now on his tankard of half-drunk beer, his hands turning it this way and that.

  Thornton waited.

  “I first met her when she was only fourteen or fifteen, Thornton,” de Silva said, lifting his black eyes to meet Thornton’s. “I loved her, too, although it did me little good but to cause misery and heartache.”

  Again Thornton felt a chill go through him. He recalled what Noah had said to him the night she’d told him of her pregnancy. A previous life, a lover, misery and heartache.

  “And yet,” de Silva continued, “there is a greater misery and heartache to come. I can feel it, here.” He tapped himself on his chest. “Forget her, Thornton. Walk away from this. Walk away from London. Neither of us can do anything for Noah now. We’re all far, far too late.”

  Thornton suddenly realised that de Silva was actually very drunk, although he showed little physical sign of it. But whether he was drunk from alcohol, or from despair, Thornton could not tell.