Darkwitch Rising

  There was a further silence as all thought on the crisis that had gripped the realm. Charles I had always endured an uneasy relationship with the Parliament which was now determined to curb his power. He’d tried to rule without it, had been forced to recall it, and had then been subjected to humiliation after humiliation by the rebellious parliamentarians until war erupted. The country had divided between those who supported the king, and those who supported the Parliament. For years the armies of king and Parliament had battled each other the length and breadth of the country until, some ten months previously, Charles I’s forces had been disastrously defeated by Parliament’s New Model Army. Henrietta Maria and her son had held out hope for months, but now…

  “He tells us to flee,” the queen said, “so that you may live.”

  “For what?” said Charles. “My father has no kingdom to leave me. Not a one. He’s lost them all: Scotland, Ireland, and now England.”

  “Then you must rely on your wits to retrieve them,” said Hyde.

  “And retrieve them you most surely shall!” Berkshire said loyally and with a little too much bravado.

  “As I have had to previously,” Charles muttered, “from this ‘malevolent and ungodly hand’.”

  “My prince?” said Colepeper.

  “Nothing,” Charles said, and sighed. “My younger brother and sisters are safe?” he asked of his mother.

  “Yes. I received word this morning that James and Henriette-Anne are in France. Mary, of course, sits and frets with her husband in the Netherlands. We shall be the last to abandon your father.”

  “Parliament will kill him,” Charles said.

  “They dare not,” said his mother, but all heard the uncertainty in her voice.

  “My queen, prince,” Hyde said. “We must go. I can ready a ship within the hour.”

  “Where?” asked Charles, his voice harsh and bitter.

  “The Scilly Isles,” said Hyde.

  “So my inheritance is to be reduced to the Scilly Isles,” Charles said. “How…quaint.”

  That night, as Hyde hurried Charles and his mother towards the hastily readied ship, Charles leaned down and snatched at a piece of turf.

  “I will not leave it all behind,” he said to Hyde, who looked on incredulously as the young prince pocketed the crumbling handful of turf and soil.

  Weyland slouched on the single chair in the small, cramped room. In his mind’s eye he watched as Charles was jostled aboard the ship.

  How comical. Almost three thousand years ago Brutus had arrived in England, Llangarlia as it was known then, at the head of a magnificent fleet of Trojan ships. He’d been met by Genvissa, chief priestess of the land as well as Mistress of the Labyrinth, and together they had created the Troy Game, the ancient labyrinthine sorcery which would give power and protection to the city Brutus intended to build on the shores of the Thames. Brutus and Genvissa had thought to rule the world through the Troy Game.

  Instead, Weyland had outwitted them, time after time, life after life.

  Now here they were, both debased. Genvissa-reborn forced, as Jane, to live a life of humiliation at Weyland’s hands; and Brutus-reborn, born to be king, but exiled with nothing more to show for his almost three thousand years of effort to control the Troy Game than a pocketful of dirt. He didn’t even have the six kingship bands of Troy, which he needed in order to control the Troy Game. They remained buried about London, waiting for Weyland to seize them…and control the Game as he now controlled Jane.

  All Weyland needed were the kingship bands and Cornelia-reborn, once Brutus’ contemptible wife, but now a goddess in her own right and destined, by the Game itself, to become its Mistress of the Labyrinth.

  There came a sound at the door, and it opened to admit a woman of some seventeen or eighteen years of age. She was tall and lithe, with pretty dark-blonde hair and brown eyes. Most men would have found her attractive were it not for the hard cast to her features, or the practised blankness in her eyes.

  “Jane, my pet,” said Weyland. “Did you manage to find my plums at market?”

  She held up a small package, and Weyland nodded. “Good. I shall allow you one or two, for this is an auspicious day and I am feeling gracious.”

  Jane tipped the plums into a wooden bowl. If she was curious at Weyland’s words she didn’t show it.

  “Brutus has gone,” Weyland said. “Fled. Brutus…Charles…is not a happy boy. His father is about to lose his head, his kingdom is lost, and his kingship bands are so out of reach they might as well not exist at all. He should have tried to snatch them while he had the chance, eh?”

  Jane walked over, her every movement stiff, and held out the bowl of plums.

  “I thank you, sweetheart,” Weyland said, then smiled as he watched Jane’s features harden at the endearment.

  He’d raped her at nine, and prostituted her the next year. For nigh on eight years now Jane had spent the best part of each day on her back—or in whatever position her client demanded—being skewered by what Weyland imagined must, by this time, be at least half of the male population of London. Oh, she’d tried to escape many a time, particularly in the early years. But Weyland always hauled her back, and set her once more to her humiliation.

  Genvissa, MagaLlan and Mistress of the Labyrinth and, with Brutus, creator of the Troy Game; Swanne, highborn wife of Harold, King of England; Jane, world-weary prostitute. In their previous life Weyland had made her love him. In this life he did not bother. Jane could loathe him all she liked, so long as she continued to do his bidding.

  Weyland had prostituted her for a number of reasons. Foremost, her degradation amused him while keeping her under some degree of control: although Weyland could always use the imp he had put in Jane’s womb in her previous life as Swanne to restrain her, he’d seen how badly the imp had affected her health then, and Weyland didn’t think Jane would survive too many years of constant intrauterine nibbling. Weyland also enjoyed watching Jane suffer, enjoyed watching the light die in her eyes, enjoyed seeing her struggle, enjoyed knowing that he had the power to so degrade a woman.

  Weyland would one day have to bring Cornelia-reborn under his control, and he wanted to be sure he had the skill down to a fine art by then. Cornelia-reborn was important. She knew where the kingship bands were, and Weyland needed those bands if ever he was to gain ascendancy over the Troy Game.

  But Weyland didn’t need Cornelia-reborn only to acquire those tiresome kingship bands. He knew that she wanted to learn the skills of the Mistress of the Labyrinth so that she could conclude the Game with her Kingman. Weyland had no argument with that desire. He wanted Cornelia-reborn to learn the arts of the labyrinth as well. She was the goddess of the land reborn…imagine the power she would bring to the Game as its Mistress.

  Imagine the power he, Weyland, would control, when such a talented Mistress of the Labyrinth had danced that final dance with him, and the Game was his.

  Thus, the final reason for so humiliating Jane. She was the only one who currently had the skills of Mistress of the Labyrinth. Such Mistresses had once dotted the ancient Aegean world, controlling the Game in whichever city it had been constructed. Now, Jane was the very last of her breed. Weyland needed her to be so under his control that by the time he also had Cornelia-reborn with him, he could just snap his fingers, and Jane would hand on her knowledge without a murmur.

  Weyland sighed. All this was very many years into the future. Cornelia-reborn was still only a girl. She had years yet in which she needed to grow.

  And the bands. Weyland couldn’t approach the bands until Brutus-reborn was close to his thirtieth year. There was no point. This consideration had dictated William’s return in the previous life as well. When the Game had first begun, so many thousands of years ago, Brutus had been in his early thirties and Genvissa a few years older. Somehow this affected when the bands could be taken, and the Game completed. The Kingman and Mistress of the Labyrinth had to be about the same age now as they had been two an
d a half thousand years ago. The power of the Game relied almost entirely on harmonies, and the ages of the Mistress of the Labyrinth and the Kingman had to be in harmony with their first lives.

  So, Weyland had to wait for years—at least fifteen. And there was really no point in rushing anything until the time was ripe.

  Furthermore, Weyland was more cautious than ever. In the last life he was the one who had controlled everyone’s rebirth. This life he’d not been able to manage it. Weyland had wanted to come back long before this, and had intended to command into life everyone else he needed—but something had held him back. That “something” had held everyone’s rebirth back until now—and the only entity capable of this was the Troy Game itself. It had grown and matured since their last lives in the eleventh century.

  And, by the gods, it had grown so powerful.

  And so dangerous.

  Weyland meant nothing to get in the way of his success in this life, not even the Game itself, and he resolved not to put a foot wrong in the doing. The Troy Game was as much his enemy as was Brutus-reborn.

  Weyland slowly ate his plums as he watched Jane moving about the room. She was clearly on guard, waiting for whatever torment he decided to toss her way. Weyland smiled to himself. Would Cornelia-reborn be as manageable as Jane, once she’d been humiliated and broken?

  All Weyland needed of Cornelia-reborn was that she do as he wished, without question, and at the instant he required it of her.

  He didn’t need her to be happy. He just needed her alive.

  And compliant.

  Four

  The Island of Jersey

  Charles walked briskly across the cliff tops of Jersey, heading towards a hill a mile or two distant, glad not only to get away from the depressive company of his minders but to get the chance to speak alone with the person he strode to meet. Far below the sea pounded; about him grasses and flowers nodded in the hot summer sun. It might have been a beautiful day save for the anger and worry in his heart. Charles was dressed only in heavy linen breeches, such as a tradesman might wear, knee-high boots, and a snowy white linen shirt that was patched at both elbow and collar. His long, curling black hair was tied loosely with a leather thong at the nape of his neck.

  He looked like a nondescript tradesman and, by God, he felt like one. Prince of the realm, indeed! He and his mother had spent but a few weeks in the Scilly Isles before warning reached them of the approach of Parliament’s fleet. They’d fled once more, Henrietta Maria to her native France and Charles to Jersey (it being felt that the heir to the English throne should, perhaps, keep his feet on English soil for as long as possible) where, for the moment, he was safe.

  Safe. The concept was anathema to him. All Charles wanted was to get England back, to return to London, to grab that crown that was slowly toppling from his father’s head, and to find Cornelia-reborn and, somehow, somehow, protect her from Asterion’s malevolence.

  But Charles could do none of those things. If he stepped so much as a toe inside mainland England he would be seized and face the same fate as his father likely would: death. He would certainly be thrown in prison.

  “I need an army!” Charles seethed to himself as he continued his walk. But there was no army. Royalist supporters were scattered far and wide: the people of England had been too seduced by wicked whispers to support anyone that Parliament openly despised, and the only retinue that Charles had about him here in Jersey was a ragtag court comprising varied servants, a few members of his father’s council and some fiercely loyal, but ultimately helpless, noblemen. Charles had taken refuge in Elizabeth Castle, the domain of the island’s governor Sir George Carteret, where he had done all he could to ensure that he and his retinue would not cause undue strain on the thin resources of the island and its inhabitants.

  Five weeks ago Charles had celebrated his sixteenth birthday. The islanders had done their best to mark the occasion, but their well-meaning efforts had served only to deepen Charles’ despair.

  He should be in England…he should be in London.

  What was happening to Cornelia-reborn? Where was she? How was she?

  These questions, he hoped, would be answered within the hour.

  He continued to stride through the grasses, wishing he’d been able to bring a horse, but the only way he had managed to escape the castle unnoticed was via its orchard—the stables were on the other side of the castle complex, and the mere fact of the prince asking for a horse to be readied would have brought numerous murmured concerns about where he was going, and offers to accompany him.

  So he had to make do with his feet and legs and, to be honest, Charles appreciated the release of tension that walking afforded him.

  He stopped abruptly, and stared. Ahead rose the hill that was his destination, and on that hill he could see a riderless saddled horse, its head bent down to the grass. It shifted slightly, and a figure came into view behind it.

  Tall and graceful, fair hair blowing in the wind.

  “Marguerite,” Charles muttered, and started forward at a jog.

  By the time he topped the hill he was breathing hard, and Marguerite Carteret, twenty-year-old daughter of the governor, laughed at him as she held out her hands.

  “Oh, would-be-king-of-England, if only your subjects could see you now, all red-faced and sweaty!”

  He took her hands, then kissed her on the cheek. “Mother Ecub,” he said. “I had never thought you ever to be young, and delicious.”

  Marguerite’s light brown eyes snapped with humour. “You only ever knew me as an old woman. Even then, I had been young, once.” Her mouth curved a little. “But, my, look at you. So dark and handsome, so vital. I imagine every girl in England mourns your loss.”

  He let her hands drop. “What do you know?”

  “What do I know? Why, that the sun shines, and that the wind is gentle, and that the lord my prince has managed to escape his minders so that—”

  “Damn you! What do you know?”

  “That you are too impatient a young man, and that this exile shall doubtless encourage the growth of patience and circumspection without which you shall never regain England,” she snapped back at him.

  He drew a deep breath, and Marguerite felt instantly contrite when she saw how it caught in his throat.

  “What do I know?” she said softly. “That we are all back, and that many of us, this time, are exiled. But I know also that we shall return, and that you are the one about whom we shall coalesce.”

  He nodded, accepting that statement as if his right. “And Cornelia?” he said. “Where is she?”

  “In England. Not in London. Safe, for the moment.”

  “For the moment.” Charles turned away. “I should be there for her. Damn it, Marguerite, I love her.”

  “What can a sixteen-year-old boy do for her, Charles?”

  Now he swung back to her. “I am far more than a sixteen-year-old boy!”

  “And where has that ‘far more’ got you in this life thus far?”

  Charles gave no answer to that. He stared beyond Marguerite to where the sea foamed, then he suddenly reached into the pocket of his breeches, and pulled forth a dried piece of dirt and turf.

  Marguerite drew in a sharp breath. “What is that?”

  He said nothing, but held it out to her in his open hand.

  She reached out, and touched it briefly. “It is land.”

  “Asterion shall not have me exiled entirely.” He pocketed the piece of turf, Marguerite’s eyes following it hungrily, knowing that some day, somehow, that piece of turf would be very important to them. “Asterion is stronger than ever,” Charles said.

  “Aye, I can feel him, even from here. Whispering evil into the hearts and minds of Englishmen.”

  “Cornelia—”

  “Cornelia shall have to shift for herself. She is not so weak and helpless that you must spend every waking moment fretting for her. She has strength, too.”

  “To face what confronts her?”

/>   “Aye,” said Marguerite. “To face even Asterion. She can do it.”

  Charles sighed again, this time easier. “Aye. She can do it, but she will need aid.”

  “Thus I, here and now. All of Eaving’s Sisters will gather to you, Charles. The more of us with you, the greater your power.” She studied him, a slight frown lining her forehead. “You have greater power than ever before, Charles.” Again her mouth curved. “Very heady indeed. I can see that I shall enjoy your company.”

  They stood for a long moment, staring at each other, thinking of all that had gone before, of all the opportunities that had been lost, and all the mistakes that had been made.

  And of all that could be accomplished, if they could manage to wield their powers.

  “All of us will gather to you, Charles,” Marguerite said again. Her hands slipped behind the back of her gown, and Charles realised she was loosening the laces that bound her bodice. “Somehow we will find a way to aid Cornelia-reborn. Until then, there is but you and I, and all we can do is to wait, and to comfort each other.”

  A thrill went down his spine at her words, but still Charles held back from her. “Everything I do is noted. We must be circumspect.”

  “To a point.” The gown slid free of her shoulders, and Charles saw that the fair skin over her shoulders and the rise of her breasts was dusted with soft freckles. “Asterion will expect nothing less of you. Brutus has ever gathered women to him. Charles, if you worry that…well, Cornelia will not mind.”

  “I know that.” The gown was about her waist, now catching about her hips before she shook herself free of it.

  She wore no chemise or underskirt. “I am the first of Eaving’s Sisters to come to you. Will you accept me, Charles?”

  He stared at her, hardly able to reconcile the Ecub he had known in his two previous lives with this beautiful, sexual creature.