And thus he did, and thus I did as he commanded. If I hadn’t, I would have died under the onslaught of his darkcraft. I needed to loose my own darkcraft in order to negate his and in order to keep on living.
The darkcraft, rising. It boiled and bubbled and seethed and scalded forth, and it met and entwined with Weyland’s, and suddenly I felt whole and complete. If there had been any doubts left, then now they crumbled.
That initial mating, that initial meeting of dark powers, was vicious and hard and cruel and it tore the breath from my body.
But when I (and he also, I think, for he had never before coupled with a woman with darkcraft innate within her) became more used to it, then frenzy and apprehension turned to serenity and certainty, and we reached a strange, peaceful plateau. There struggle turned to languidness, and there we rested.
And there, eventually, we became aware of a third presence.
Our daughter, Grace, bred from two parents with darkcraft for blood, reaching out to us, and loving us.
“You need to learn to use your darkcraft slowly,” Weyland said as he lay entwined with her.
Neither cared, nor were even aware, of the cold flagstones.
“If you let the darkcraft free again with such inhibition, and I am not with you, and you are not used to it, then it may well destroy you.”
She kissed his chest, one of her hands running down his flank. “Then stay with me.”
“Noah, the Troy Game will come after us. We have to—”
“I know.” Now she sighed, and sat up. “Weyland, I must move, and soon.”
“We must move, and soon.”
She smiled. “Aye. We.” Then her smiled faded. “But we cannot move against the Game right now. We have not the power to murder it. We need…”
We need Ringwalker.
“We need to consolidate,” Weyland said, although he knew what she had meant. “And you need to learn.”
Noah lifted her face and looked across to where Grace lay in her cradle, then she looked back to Weyland. “I must go. There are those I need to talk to.”
“I know.” He reached out a hand, sliding it slowly over a shoulder and down one arm. “We will wait for you.”
Thirteen
Woburn Park, Bedfordshire
John Thornton woke suddenly, his heart thumping.
Someone was in the bedchamber.
He rolled his head to check on his wife, Sarah.
She was sleeping soundly.
There was a soft sound by the window.
Thornton turned his head to look.
Noah stood there, her mouth curving in a smile. “Hello, John.”
“Lord God!” Thornton said in a hushed voice. “What are you doing here?”
Noah glanced at Sarah, still soundly asleep. “Come to visit, John. Perhaps if you’d like to put on a shirt and breeches, and some stout shoes, we can walk in the park.”
Then she faded away, and John was left staring at the frosted window. He took several deep breaths, then, very carefully, he extricated himself from the bed, gathered his clothes and shoes, and left the bedchamber.
John Thornton still tutored the earl and countess’ younger children, but now that he was married, with children of his own, the earl had given him a house on the estate. It stood just on the edge of Woburn Park, under the trees, where it overlooked the gently rolling hills, and where the deer wandered past twice a day on their journey to and from the lake to water.
Thornton loved the house, for it represented the chance for him to build a marriage and a family with Sarah.
Here he could try to forget Noah, and all she had been and might have been to him.
Consequently, by the time Thornton had struggled into his clothes, grabbed a cloak, and left the house as quietly as he was able, he was in a state of combined high anxiety and righteous anger.
He had wanted to forget Noah as best he was able. He had thought she had forgotten him.
So what now was she doing appearing in his bedchamber in the middle of the night? God, but if Sarah had woken and seen her…
By the time he had stomped down the front path, Thornton was in a temper such as he rarely felt. He had achieved a kind of fragile peace in his life, and with this single visitation Noah had murdered it forever. He would spend the rest of his life wondering if she would appear again, keeping alive that fragile, terrible hope that she might actually return his love.
“John…”
Noah stood just beside him, smiling. “I am sorry to wake you so.”
“What do you want?”
“There is a bench under that tree. Will you come sit with me?”
“Damn it…” But she was already moving towards the tree, and Thornton had no choice but to follow her.
Once he reached the bench, Thornton stood a moment looking at her. She was in her most magical form, the green eyes shot through with gold, the strange diaphanous robe that should have left her half frozen with cold but which, instead, seemed to clothe her in warmth.
She was lovely, far lovelier than Thornton had remembered, and he had thought his memories too beautiful for truth.
He sat down with an angry thump, which Noah ignored. She took his hand and held it in her lap, and the warmth that had enveloped Noah now encased Thornton.
“I need to talk to you,” she said.
“Really?”
“I have missed you, John.”
“Do not do this to me, Noah.”
“I need to talk.”
“God, woman, you have half of England’s men trailing after you. Could you not talk with one of them?”
“I find myself at a crossroads.”
He didn’t answer. He was looking now, not at Noah, but at the distant shape of a tree. He concentrated on it with all his might, praying that he would somehow survive this night without his life falling apart about him.
“You will never escape me, John.”
“Don’t do this,” he whispered.
“John, I am in a bind.”
Again he didn’t reply.
She drew in a deep breath. “There is something I want to tell you.”
He still refused to look at her.
“It is a story,” she said, “which goes back three thousand years. If I tell you this story, I risk trapping you within it.”
“Then why take this risk?”
“Because I need your advice very badly. John, I need your permission to tell this tale. I need you to know the risk I am taking with your future…lives.”
John stared at her.
“We all come back, John. Life after life. If you are caught up in the Game that has ensnared me, then you will become ensnared in my life also.”
“I already am ensnared, Noah.” Then he sighed. “Just tell me this damned story.”
And so Noah did. She sat for over an hour, talking, sharing with him her growth through her different lives, and the growth of the Troy Game which had not only ensnared her, but most of England besides. She told him of Brutus, and Coel, of Eaving’s Sisters, of Catling’s true identity, and of Asterion, and how she had either loved or hated all of them.
She told him of how she had come to love Asterion in this life.
She told him of her true origins, and of the darkcraft seething through her blood.
“You appear very content with yourself,” said Thornton as her voice drifted into silence. “Why tell me all of this? Why are you here?”
“I need your permission for what I am about to do.”
“Why my permission, Noah?”
“Because you represent to me the mortal world. And for what I am about to do, I need to know that I have its understanding and permission.”
“And you are about to do…what?”
Noah told him, and Thornton’s face, already pale, became completely colourless.
“Why ask permission for that piece of foulness, witch?”
“John, don’t, please.”
He looked away from her, staring in
to the moon-dappled landscape. “My life would have been so much more peaceful without you in it, Noah.”
“It would have been a tame thing, John.”
He smiled slightly, wryly, and gave a small shake of his head. He would never be free of her, and in some strange way, he found himself grateful. She was right, his life would have been a tame thing indeed if she had not been at its heart.
He sighed. “I understand what you are going to do, but, oh God, how can I condone it? How can I grant you permission?”
“There will be little loss of life, John. If any. There will be material devastation, there will be grief, but not for loss of loved ones.”
“You can manage that?”
“Yes.”
He sat a while, before finally speaking. “This is the only way?”
“It is the only way I can think of.”
He sat again in silence for some time. “Very well,” he eventually said, his voice flat as if he thought that, with this, he betrayed his God, “you have my permission.”
Her hand touched his. “Thank you, John.”
“And as for the father of your new and only daughter…do what you have to. I think he will be a far better lover to you than…well, than I could ever have been.”
“You are a generous man, John, and I shall be everlastingly grateful to you.”
“Noah…”
“Yes?”
“If I come back again, as you intimate I will, then I hope to God I will lead a happier life than ever I have in this one.”
Her face paled, and he was glad that at last she knew how badly she had hurt him.
Fourteen
Idol Lane, London
NOAH SPEAKS
Oh, gods, poor John. How I had hurt him. I would make certain, for I knew I had the power to do it, that in his next life he would be happy, and love, and be loved.
I felt easier now, having spoken to John about what I wanted to do. I would also need to speak to the Lord of the Faerie, for this plan needed the permission of both mortal and Faerie, but I thought he would agree, if as reluctantly as John.
My decision had come to me slowly, so slowly I cannot recall exactly when, over the past day or so, I first considered it, but now it felt as though the idea had always been with me. To stop the Game in its tracks, if I could not actually kill it. To give me the time I needed to grow and learn. To give London the time it needed to become…that final battlefield.
I needed to move quickly. Catling would surely be aware of what I planned, and gods alone knew what she might do in countermeasure.
So, from John, I went back to Idol Lane. Weyland was still in the kitchen, our daughter still in his arms, but his face was lighter, and his posture was more relaxed than the last time I had come to him here.
I hoped he was getting used to this—the knowledge that I would, always, return.
“Weyland,” I said, giving him a kiss and bending to brush my lips against Grace’s curls. Weyland handed her to me, and then he enfolded both of us in his arms, and held us tight, and I did love him for that, because he knew instinctively how I needed it.
“Weyland…” I said again.
He leaned back, looking at me quizzically. “Noah, what are you planning?”
I told him, as I had told John.
Weyland gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “What a true daughter—and lover—of mine you are. But…you will need the darkcraft to accomplish this.”
“I know. Will you aid me?”
He smiled, gently. “Always.”
I took a deep breath, I was so happy. But first…“We need to make sure Grace is protected, and I need to speak with the Lord of the Faerie.”
He nodded, and so we left the house on Idol Lane.
At that moment I was happy, and sure of myself.
We went then to London Bridge with our daughter, and stood, leaning over the side, looking into the waters, and waited.
The Lord of the Faerie joined us within minutes. He glanced at Weyland at my side, took a longer look at Grace in my arms, then his eyes settled on my face.
“This is a strange and frightening path you take,” he said. “I stood behind you as you talked with John, and heard.”
“Then you know I need to ask your permission also.”
“Gods, Noah, what you plan—”
“Coel, if I don’t act, then the Troy Game will destroy the land, and then reach into the Faerie and take that too. It is evil beyond knowing. I need to act before it destroys us all. Coel, as you have ever loved me, then grant me your aid and your permission.”
He rubbed at his eyes, fretting, then finally nodded. “Yes. Yes to both. What may I do to help?”
“Can you take our baby, Grace, and keep her safe? I do not think Catling can yet reach into the Faerie…can she?”
He shook his head. “No. For the moment it lies beyond her. Very well…” He reached out, and took Grace from me.
Weyland had gone very tense at my side, and I realised that, apart from Jane, this was the first time he’d allowed anyone else to hold his daughter.
The Lord of the Faerie realised Weyland’s tenseness. “I will watch over her, and all the faerie folk besides,” he said. “We shall be watchers…we will not be gaolers.”
Thank you, Coel. Weyland needed to know he will get his daughter back.
“What else do you desire of me?” the Lord of the Faerie asked.
“To watch over these,” I said, and held out my hands…at the same time I sent a summons of calling into the house in Idol Lane.
The four kingship bands of Troy that I had taken over the past year materialised on my palms.
Weyland gave a start. “Noah, no!”
“Weyland,” I said, “Coel will watch over them. When I ask, he will hand them back.”
I was looking at Weyland as I said this, but from the corner of my eye I was aware that the Lord of the Faerie was watching him very carefully. Whether he knew it or not, Weyland was facing a critical test that would either earn him the Lord of the Faerie’s trust, or his suspicion.
It was a battle. Weyland had wanted those bands for so long he’d forgotten what life was like without his desperate need for them. To hide them within the Idyll was one thing. To hand them to the Lord of the Faerie was another.
Then Weyland gave a short little laugh and addressed the Faerie Lord. “I am trusting you with my daughter, but hesitate to trust you with these four damned pieces of gold. I can’t believe it. Take the bands, Faerie Lord, but take care of my daughter before all else.”
The Lord of the Faerie smiled, then he gave a short nod.
The bands vanished from my hands, and the next moment reappeared as four golden ribbons, one about each of Grace’s limbs.
Weyland and I both laughed at the sight. Somehow, those golden ribbons about our daughter’s limbs reassured us as almost nothing else might have done.
“Well,” said the Lord of the Faerie, “now that I hold your entire future in my arms, what else could you possibly want from me?”
“I need to ask this of Charles, the king,” I said.
The Lord of the Faerie smiled. “I will pass him the message.”
“There is a man who has been commissioned to draw plans for the rebuilding of St Paul’s. His name is Christopher Wren.”
“I know him. He has a good heart, and can persevere, no matter the difficulties.”
“Coel, will you, as Charles, be his friend? Will you trust him, give him free rein as much as you are able?”
“I can. What else?”
I drew in a deep breath. “I need the aid of Gog and Magog, and of the water sprites.”
“You do not need to ask my permission for their aid.”
“Nevertheless…”
He smiled once more. “Speak to them. They will do whatever you wish.”
“Thank you.”
His smile died, and he glanced again at Weyland. “Noah, you must speak with Ringwalker. You must. You owe him this, at leas
t.”
“Do I? Why, Coel?”
“Noah, he loves you. He—”
“I loved him for thousands of years while he ignored me. And now he still wants to believe in the Game more than in me. Coel, I do not know where we will go, or what we will do, but I—”
“Talk to him!”
I didn’t want to. I didn’t know how I would feel, or where my emotions would pull me.
And I wasn’t sure if I could trust him. Ringwalker was too close to the Game, unable yet to see beyond it.
“Talk to him,” Coel whispered, and, very reluctantly, I gave a single nod.
I left Weyland waiting for me on the bridge while I went into the dreams of the man I had mentioned to the Lord of the Faerie, Christopher Wren.
I took him through the realm of the dream into the stone hall, that vision which had both plagued and comforted me over thousands of years.
“Who are you?” Wren said to me as I escorted him down the hall. Even as he asked his eyes were darting around, staring first at the columns and then at the great dome that soared above us.
“Master Wren,” I said, “who I am does not matter. I am merely a messenger.”
“What is your message?” he said, not even pretending to look at me any more. Instead, he was standing entranced under the dome, head cricked back, staring upwards.
“This,” I said softly, “is London’s heart, and it will be your monument. Build it, I pray, and let none stand in your way in the doing.”
“The cathedral chapter will never stand for it,” he said. “It’s not English enough.”
“You have a powerful ally—the king. He will stand behind you. Do this, Christopher Wren.”
Finally he looked back at me. “Why? What purpose does it suit for you?”
“This?” I stood, looking about as I had not done for many long years. The stone hall. How much had happened here? How many seductions? How many lies? How many murders? “This, good Mr Wren, is going to become the most wondrous casket in history, the coffin of so many hopes and dreams and ambitions that it would take a lifetime to number them all.”