“A reminder,” I said, “of the winter death which grips the earth. But in these dusty bones, Weyland, I see no hope of spring. They’re gone, crumbled. No seeds for a springtime here. So,” I turned, and smiled at him, “this can only be your very peculiar sense of humour, Weyland. You might have honoured me on Christmas Eve in a hall decked with gold and jewels. Instead, you have brought me to this dusty establishment.”
The twitch about his mouth grew into a wide grin, and he stepped forth, took my hands, and kissed me softly on the mouth. “I knew you would appreciate the effort,” he said, and kissed me the harder when I laughed.
The past three months since I had taken Weyland to the gatehouse near Petersham had been easy ones for me, an ease which I had not anticipated. I had been distraught at first at discovering Catling’s true nature, and then at Louis’ reaction, and the sense of sadness and betrayal coming immediately after I’d learned I was Ariadne’s long-lost daughter-heir, and Asterion’s get to boot. There had been so much to cope with, and think through.
Now I was at peace with myself and with where I was going.
I knew what I had to do, and I also knew that it would enrage both Louis and the Troy Game when they learned what I proposed.
For the moment, then, it was best I kept my plans to myself.
“Will you sit?” said Weyland, and he pulled out one of the chairs for me, and I sat, arranging the heavy folds of the deep red silk gown as I did so. A few weeks ago, Weyland had returned to the house in Idol Lane accompanying a cart laden with bolts and bolts of silks, velvets, linens, laces, ribbons, buttons and sundry feminine fancies, and in those times when we were not otherwise engaged, Jane and I had happily sewn ourselves some garments a good deal prettier than we had heretofore possessed. It had been one more happiness to add to the general sense of wellbeing and contentment that had come over me these past months.
Weyland sat at the other end of the table, smiled at me, poured me some wine, and then waved a hand.
A grey wraith appeared from the shadows, bearing a platter of steaming food.
My mouth hung open, and my heart stuttered a little in my chest.
“One of the bone chamber’s inhabitants,” said Weyland softly, watching my reaction carefully as the wraith came to the table, set the platter down, bowed, and then vanished back into the shifting shadows from whence it had come. “Come to serve us on this celebratory night.”
I took a deep breath. “You surprise me,” I said.
“Good,” he said. Then he grinned. “You have constantly surprised me, so I am most glad I have managed something to make your beautiful mouth drop in astonishment.”
I laughed. “You can talk with the dead?”
“I have been dead, and returned,” he said. “As have you. But I was dragged back from death by the ancient Crone of Death at Ariadne’s request. That first time I was not reborn. I came direct from death. I still have a good rapport with the realm of the dead.”
I took a good sip of wine. Weyland could drag back the dead if he wished. Fabulous. Then I laughed again, softly, shaking my head.
“If only the good vicar and worshippers in St Dunstan’s knew what went on not twenty feet from their fervour,” I said. “An ancient goddess, being entertained by the black-hearted Minotaur, and waited on by the souls of the dead. It is a good Yuletide gift, Weyland. I appreciate it.”
“Then allow that appreciation to whet your appetite, Noah.” He preferred to call me Noah than Eaving, and somehow I liked that. He preferred the woman before the goddess. “Eat on, I pray,” he continued, “for the kitchens of the dead are a long way off to send back food to be reheated.”
We ate, talking now and again of inconsequential things. Laughing here and there. Enjoying, as had become habitual between us, the other one’s company.
It was only when the wraith had removed our plates and passed about the skull of candied fruits that Weyland broached what must have been bothering him, not only this night, but for the months past.
“What is Brutus doing, Noah?”
I put down my piece of fruit untasted. “I cannot tell you that, Weyland.”
His mouth twisted, and he looked away. A silence fell between us for a few minutes, and I was unsure how to break it.
“You will betray me,” he said eventually. We always came back to that.
“No,” I said, “I will not betray you.”
His eyes slid back my way. “You will not? Why not? I thought that Brutus’ love was all you lived for. Is not my betrayal a condition of his love?”
“When I lived as Cornelia, all I lived for was Brutus’ love. When I was Caela, all I lived for was what the Troy Game and what Mag wanted me to do on their behalf. This life…oh, in this life I started out accepting that all I wanted was Brutus’ love, and that all I lived for was your defeat and the triumph of the Troy Game. But now…no.”
He looked disbelieving and cynical, and I did not blame him for that.
“I’ve changed,” I said, meeting his eyes, “and in the process discovered things about myself that have astounded me. Weyland, I am not going to blindly do what the Troy Game wants, and I am not going to blindly do what Brutus wants, but I am going to do what is right for me, and for this land. This land, Weyland, is what I hold most allegiance to. Not the Troy Game. Not Brutus.”
Why didn’t I point out that I would not do what Weyland wanted either? Did I not want to say it, or did I not want to do it?
“But you will not tell me what he is doing,” he said.
“No. Neither will I betray you to him, Weyland.”
He regarded me steadily, the illumination from the candles catching the glint in his eyes. “I could force you. I still can, you know. The presence of the imp was immaterial. You are my creature. I can force the information from you.”
I continued to hold his eyes, more sure of him now than I had ever been. “You won’t,” I said. “You will not force me.”
He affected one of his old sneers.
“Don’t,” I said softly. “That is not the Weyland you have shown me these past months.”
He dropped his eyes, and one of his hands fiddled with a piece of holly on the table.
“What I have seen in the past months has turned my heart, Weyland.”
“Don’t,” he said.
“I will not betray you,” I repeated. “I am not Ariadne. And that is my Yuletide gift to you, Weyland. My promise: I will not betray you.”
He would not look at me, his hand still fiddling with that irritating piece of holly.
“Will you fetch me the golden kingship bands of Troy?” he said, thinking he knew the answer.
“Yes,” I said, and his startled eyes flew up to mine. I laughed. “In a manner of speaking. I will fetch them and bring them to the Idyll and there I will place them. But I will not hand them to you. They will be safe in the Idyll.”
“Hand them to me.”
“No. I will remove them from where Brutus-reborn can reach them, and I will secrete them in the Idyll. You will not be able to find them, but they will be closer to you than to him. And I can only bring four of the bands. Not all six.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“I sent two of the bands into the Otherworld, and I do not know where they are. Even your wraiths would not be able to find them. It was a foolish thing for me to do, perhaps…but it means that neither you nor Brutus can achieve all of the bands.”
“Who can find those two?”
The Lord of the Faerie, I thought, but would not tell him this. “A friend,” I said. “One of the faerie folk, and one who has the best interests of this land in his heart, as do I.”
He sat, thinking. “Noah, why do you do this?” he said eventually. “Why promise not to betray me? Why bring four of the bands to the Idyll now, when you had made me promise to wait until you’d gained your full powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth? Why treat me as if…”
I rose and moved about the table. “Why treat you as
if I regarded you with love, Weyland, rather than hatred?”
He flinched at that word, “love”, and I wondered at the fact that we had both steered well clear of it for so long. I came to him, and sat down in his lap.
“Why do we never speak that single word, Weyland?” I said, shivering with pleasure as his arms slid about my waist, and sliding my own about his shoulders. “Why do we avoid it so assiduously?”
He was looking down, as if fascinated with the patterns in the silk of my skirt, and did not answer.
“Why are we so afraid of love?”
He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.
“I will not betray you, Weyland,” I whispered. “How can I, when I love you so deeply?”
Oh, gods, those words had been sitting in my throat for weeks and months, choking me, standing in my way, impeding all my progress. How sweet it felt, now, to say them to this man.
To Asterion.
His eyes were still tightly closed, and I wondered what thoughts consumed him. I put one of my hands on his head, and stroked gently at his hair. I will not betray you, Weyland. I will not betray you.
“Weyland, Weyland,” I whispered. “Where are we going? And why should we stop?”
Tears forced their way between his tightly closed eyelids, and coursed down his cheek. His arms about me tightened, and I was suddenly very afraid for him, that he should be this terrified of being loved.
“Weyland,” I said, and I took one of his hands, and put it on my belly.
“I have your daughter in there,” I said. “Your daughter, and mine. Not a reborn daughter, or a recreation of the ones we have both lost, but a new child. One made for both of us.”
He tensed, his hand rigid on my belly.
“I am not Ariadne,” I said. “I will not betray you to another Theseus, nor will I ever take this daughter away from you. This child heals wounds, Weyland. Your wounds, and mine.”
He finally dared enough to open his eyes, and raise them to mine. “Why?”
“Because I love and trust you, Weyland.”
He was looking at my belly now, his hand still rigid. “I am so scared,” he said. “I had not thought this would happen.”
“I know.” I pulled his head against my breasts, and for the longest time we sat there, cradled together, he and I and the child we had made growing within me, as the voices of the church choir filtered about us and two wraiths from the halls of the dead cleared the table, and set out port wine for us to drink, should we desire.
Two
Idol Lane and Earl’s Court Station, London
Weyland stood, staring at Noah in that strange reserved manner he had when he was at his most wary.
“I have arranged the driver and carriage to meet you on Thames Street,” he said. “As you asked.”
She smiled, briefly putting the palm of her hand against his cheek. “Then I do thank you, Weyland.”
“Brutus—”
“He will know. He won’t act.”
“Are you sure?”
She paused, and Weyland could see that she was not sure at all. “I will come with you,” he said.
“No, Weyland. I can only do this by myself. The band will remain hidden if it senses you nearby.”
Weyland repressed every natural instinct he had to insist that he accompany her. He took a deep breath.
“Very well,” he said. “Gods, Noah—”
“I will come home, Weyland. Trust me.”
The frightening thing was, he thought, that it was too easy to trust her. Too easy to believe in her.
Too easy to love her, and risk all.
Weyland gave a weak smile, and she leaned forward and kissed him. “I will bring back the band, Weyland…and I will not bring Theseus with it.”
At that Weyland felt so weak with fear, with sheer vulnerability, that he actually felt physically nauseated. Noah knew too many of his weaknesses. She knew what horror it had been for him to see Ariadne leading Theseus by the hand into the heart of the labyrinth, and knew that the horror had not so much been fear, but that soul-destroying knowledge of treachery by someone he had loved without reason.
She kissed him again, briefly, and then she was gone, leaving Weyland standing at the head of the stairs, staring after her.
The carriage and driver were waiting at the junction of Idol Lane and Thames Street as Weyland had promised. Noah spoke softly to the driver, waited for his nod, then allowed him to settle her into the carriage.
The driver climbed to his seat, picked up reins and whip, and clucked the pair of bay mares into motion, and they were off.
They drove west along Thames Street, worked their way to Fleet Street, then to the Strand which they followed to Charing Cross. From there, they turned right up Haymarket Street and then west along Piccadilly and Portugal Street into the open countryside. Fields and orchards, covered with a dusting of snow, stretched on either side; the market gardens of Earl’s Court, where they were headed, were sure to be smothered in either slush or mud.
But as they drove, a change came over the countryside and, indeed, in the vehicle in which Noah travelled. The sound of the horses’ hooves faded, as also did the dark-cloaked figure of the driver. The carriage grew a roof, where before it had none, and its motion changed from rolling and rocking to a far smoother action.
Noah was riding in one of those strange black machines she had seen on several occasions in her previous life, when she had moved the bands for the first time. She tensed, unhappy with the strangeness of the vehicle, but knowing it had to be endured.
The countryside closed in. Tall, dirty, stuccoed buildings rose to either side, shutting out any view of what fields may have been left behind them. People in strange clothing bustled along footpaths, while about Noah rushed many similar vehicles to the one in which she was trapped.
She leaned forward on her seat, and opened the small glass window between her and her driver, who didn’t seem in the least perturbed to be in control of a conveyance far different to the one he had started driving.
As he heard the window slide open, the driver turned his head slightly, and, with a jolt of surprise, Noah saw that he’d turned into one of the grey wraiths of St Dunstan’s bone house.
“Madam?” he said.
“Turn left down Earl’s Court Road,” she said, “and drop me off at the station.”
He nodded, and Noah sat back, slightly fascinated, despite her initial uneasiness, by the style of housing along the roads down which they drove. So substantial, such big windows and porticoed entrances, so…staid.
And the roads. Noah was used to the crowded streets of London, but never had she seen traffic move so fast. She remembered the time in her previous life when she’d had to cross to Gospel Oak station, and had frozen in the middle of the road, terrified by the traffic.
Fortunately, the driver pulled up at the footpath right by Earl’s Court station (apparently breaking some kind of honour code as he did so, for several of the black monsters blared screeching horns at him as he turned about in front of them), and Noah was spared another crossing.
“Wait for me,” she said to him as she climbed out of the vehicle (making several attempts before she worked out how the door opened), straightened, and with no apparent hesitation, walked into the gaping entrance of Earl’s Court underground station.
There was a low-ceilinged vestibule, then the station opened out into a large concourse which overlooked the railway platforms themselves. To her right there were five windows at which people queued; directly in front of her were stairs leading down to the platforms; and to her left was a teahouse.
There were several small tables set out here, and at one of them sat a very tall man dressed in a tightly belted coat and with a soft hat pulled well down over his eyes.
Before him, on the table, stood a steaming cup of tea.
Noah drew in a deep breath, steadying herself, then walked over to the table.
It looked as if the man was asleep, and Noah s
tretched down a careful, silent hand, reaching for the cup and saucer.
The man—the Sidlesaghe—raised his face to her, his eyes large and mournful.
“What do you, Eaving? Why take the golden band of Troy now?”
Her hand closed about the saucer, and it shifted fractionally towards her.
The Sidlesaghe put his large, long-fingered hand over her wrist, and the cup and saucer slid to a halt. “Eaving—”
“Friend,” Noah said softly, “release the band to me, please.”
“Eaving, we fear what you do.”
“I will shelter it,” she said. “I promise this.”
Reluctantly the Sidlesaghe lifted his hand, and Noah slid the cup and saucer towards her, then lifted them into her hands.
Instantly they transformed into one of the heavy golden bands of Troy, emblazoned about its outer diameter with the icon of the stylised labyrinth with the spinning crown above it.
Noah gave the Sidlesaghe a nod, and then she was gone.
The journey back to Idol Lane was precisely the reverse of her journey through time and space to Earl’s Court. The wraith was waiting for her in his vehicle at the kerbside—he leapt out to open the back door for Noah so she could sit inside.
The wraith set the black vehicle in motion and drove northwards to Kensington Road where he turned right and headed back into the city.
As they drove so the dirty, stuccoed buildings faded away and the winter fields appeared once more. At the junction of Portugal Street and Piccadilly, the townhouses of outer London began to appear. As the outer transformation took place, so also did that of the vehicle in which Noah travelled. The horses reappeared, the roof and confining walls of the black monster slid away, and Noah was left, grateful, to sit in the open carriage in the cold sharp sunlight of a winter’s day.
All the while she kept close hold of the band.
All the while she kept shut out, as much as she could, the soft cries of Louis that prodded at her mind from his magical journey through the Ringwalk.
Why, Noah? Why? Why? Why?