There was a snap as the two halves clicked together and she felt the metal burn against the back of her neck, the catch fusing into one smooth unbroken line.
‘You’ll have a little more difficulty cutting off your head, I imagine,’ he said, and there was a smile in his voice. Then he turned and left, locking the door behind him.
When Luke awoke it was dark, and for a panicked moment he thought they’d taken his eyes and he was blind, for he could make out nothing; eyes open or closed it was the same velvet blackness. He turned his head wildly from side to side, and at last he made out something – a glimmering line of light – a crack beneath a door. The sight anchored him, and he crawled across to it until the chain at his ankle pulled taut. He lay on the cold floor, looking longingly at the light.
There was a smell of blood in the air and he could feel something rough and yet soft beneath his fingers – particles of something that felt like sawdust.
With a sudden lurch to his gut, he knew where he had been taken. Not back to the cellars beneath the Cock. Not to a room beneath the house in Fournier Street where the Malleus had their headquarters. But to John Leadingham’s abattoir. To the swinging pink carcasses, to the shining metal hooks, worn with use. To the drain in the floor and the pump that swilled the blood away.
So this was it. He had always known it would end here, somehow. The floor was cold beneath his cheek and he shut his eyes and thought of William, who would never know what happened to him; of Minna, whose last act had been to betray him; and of Rosa. Always Rosa.
So many choices, so many forks in the road, so many mistakes and betrayals and all leading to this small squalid death, with his parents unavenged, his life wasted, and his blood spilt into the Thames with the pigswill and the guts.
And Rosa in her living death, her living hell.
Was there a twist in the road that could have saved them both? Was there a choice he could have made, a road he could have taken that would have let them both live? But he could not think of one. Maybe if he’d gone after Sebastian in the burning factory . . . If he’d pursued his revenge instead of going back for Rosa . . . But he’d known, even then, that there was no choice. Even if Rosa had saved herself, he could not have lived knowing that he’d left her to burn to satisfy his own grudge.
The only thing he could have changed was Minna. If he’d not written to her, they might still be free. He might be sleeping now, in a room above a forge in Scotland, his head on Rosa’s breast, her arms around him, her breath soft on his forehead.
What was it they said? No good deed goes unpunished?
He found he was smiling in the darkness, in spite of the tears that wet his cheeks. He deserved to die for the men and women he’d betrayed, for the names he’d written in that black book of death and – most of all – for what he’d tried to do to Rosa. But instead he would die because of his pity for Minna.
He wanted to laugh. But if he did, he might begin to sob – and never stop.
Rosa surfaced out of a raw, painful dream of Luke’s arms and his lips and his skin against hers. She lay for a moment, gasping, her skin shivering with the memory of his touch.
With a sudden sharpness she remembered the first time he had taken her in his arms in the stables and she had run, hot with fear and full of shame at the gulf between them, the gulf of class and magic and money.
How absurd it all seemed now, like the scruples of another girl, in another time. Why had she cared? She had had so much – and all she had thought of was what might be taken away: her reputation, her virtue, her good name.
Now all that was gone – and she could not have cared less. And she would have traded it all again, a thousand times over, for one last chance to hold Luke, to tell him that she loved him.
All those hours they had spent together, all those nights in his arms and days on the road, and she had never said what was so painfully clear and urgent now.
‘I love you.’ She spoke the words aloud, not caring if anyone heard, not caring what Sebastian thought. ‘I love you. You will not die. I won’t let you die.’
The words sounded painfully loud in the small room and suddenly she could not bear to lie still any longer. She got up, pushing the hair off her face and feeling the ruby necklace bite into her skin.
At the window she pulled back the heavy velvet drapes. It was evening. She had slept the whole day through and now the sun was setting across the Downs. She stood holding on to the metal bars, feeling their cold strength and the spells that ran through and through them.
‘Ábíeteaþ!’ she whispered, and then louder, ‘Ábíeteaþ!’ But they did not break. They did not even shiver in their frames. Abandoning magic, she climbed on to the window seat and pulled at them with all her strength, bracing her feet against the wooden shutters and feeling the muscles in her arms and back strain and crack with the effort. She heard the threads of Mrs Cleave’s borrowed dress snapping across her shoulders, and when she stopped and put her finger to the seam beneath her arm, there was a hole.
‘Rosa?’ There was a sound outside the door, a small voice, uncertain and full of doubt. ‘Is that you? Are you awake?’
‘Cassie?’ She turned and jumped down from the window seat, her bare feet making a soft thud on the thick carpet. ‘Cassie, is that you?’
The door handle turned and Cassie stepped into the room.
‘Cassie!’ Rosa hurried across to take her hands. Cassie’s beautiful blue eyes were red, as if she had been weeping, and her lids were puffy. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Rosa!’ Cassie’s voice broke with a sob, but she smiled. ‘It’s absurd that you should ask me that! I am . . . I’m so . . . I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I don’t know what to do – Sebastian has threatened me with all sorts of awful revenges. He doesn’t know I’m here but—’
‘Oh, really?’
They both turned, Cassie’s sightless eyes flickering towards the sound, Rosa’s towards the shadow that darkened the doorway. It was Sebastian, shaking his head.
‘Don’t be a fool, Cassandra. And don’t abuse the freedom I give you. What is given can be taken away.’
‘How dare you call me a fool.’
Cassie looked very small, facing Sebastian. Rosa was reminded, painfully, that she was only a girl, not even fifteen years old. She was no match for Sebastian – physically, magically or legally. Sebastian smiled unpleasantly, but Cassie smiled back, and Rosa saw, suddenly, the strength that lay beneath Cassie’s soft face. Cassie might be just a girl, but she was a Knyvet.
‘I see more than you think,’ she said, and there was something hard and taunting in her voice. ‘Don’t you want to know what I see?’
Sebastian gave a snort.
‘Not particularly.’
He turned on his heel to go.
‘I see you, brother dear. I see your corpse.’
Her voice was not loud, but the words fell clear and separate like stones into a well – and full of a heavy weight. In spite of herself, Rosa shuddered as the soft, childish voice uttered those cold words, like a promise.
‘You’ve been prophesying doom since you could talk,’ Sebastian said loftily, but he turned back, his hand on the door frame, and Rosa could see the vein that beat in his throat above the starched collar. ‘Aren’t you bored of it yet?’
‘You can scoff,’ Cassie said. ‘In fact, I’m sure you will. If it’s my curse to know the truth, it’s your curse not to recognize it.’
‘Death is the one prophesy you can make rather safely, don’t you think?’ Sebastian drawled, but he swung his watch chain with a savage, nervous energy. ‘Since it comes to all of us in the end. Perhaps that’s why you’re so fond of trotting it out.’
‘Let her go.’
‘Why should I, since according to you, I can’t change my destiny?’
‘You can’t. But you can change how you’re remembered.’
‘Good God,’ Sebastian snapped. ‘Please stop imagining that I care.’
There was
a sudden spitting crackle in the air, magic against magic. Rosa felt it, as thick and heavy as the atmosphere before an electrical storm, with the same sense of menace. Cassie’s face was flushed and her breath came quick, but Sebastian’s pale countenance never changed, only the muscles of his jaw tensed for a moment and then released.
Cassie fell back, gasping, on to the window seat behind her, and Sebastian swung around with a laugh, kicking the door closed behind him. They heard his footsteps up the corridor and the dull thunk of the baize door slamming shut. Cassie sat hunched and white. Her hands were trembling and there was sweat on her forehead.
‘Cassie, are you all right?’ Rosa knelt at her feet, worried by the girl’s white, pinched face. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing,’ Cassie gasped, but her voice was hoarse, as if she had screamed herself silent. She tried to smile. ‘Nothing. I’m all right.’
‘Was it true what you said?’ Rosa’s heart was beating fast and shallow. ‘About Sebastian. About – about his death?’
‘It was true.’ Cassie’s small face was very pale, and there was an unhappy line between her brows. ‘I’ve been dreaming about it.’
‘Wh-when does it . . . happen?’
‘I don’t know. But it can’t be long. He’s a young man in my dreams. I see the house in flames – and Sebastian too.’
‘And . . .’ And me? she wanted to ask. Did she live, or did she die alongside Sebastian? But somehow she could not bring herself to utter the words.
‘Don’t.’ Cassie laid her small, fine-boned hand on Rosa’s strong, burnt one. ‘I know what you’re thinking. Don’t ask me. It’s better not to know too much.’
‘Cassie, help me,’ Rosa begged. ‘Please. I know Sebastian is your brother, but he will kill me – you know that, don’t you? Please, help me get this collar off. Help me get away – I can take you with me, if that’s what you’re worried about. But I must get away – Luke will die if I don’t.’
‘I can’t.’ There were tears in Cassie’s bright-blue eyes, and she shook her head, her white-gold plait snaking across her shoulders as she did. ‘I would if I could, but I can’t. Please believe me. My magic doesn’t lie that way – I’m not like you and Sebastian, I can’t cast spells or do anything useful. I can only see – inside people’s heads, into their future. My power is knowledge – that’s all. You saw me before – I’m no match for Sebastian. I never have been.’
‘Then your mother,’ Rosa said desperately. ‘She would help me, wouldn’t she?’
‘I . . .’ Cassie took a breath. Her hand tightened on Rosa’s and then she let go and stood restlessly, pushing past into the centre of the room. ‘I don’t know, Rosa. I truly don’t.’
‘But she helped me before – she healed me, didn’t she? Surely – if she knew the truth—’
‘I don’t know,’ Cassie repeated unhappily. ‘It’s hard to explain. Perhaps . . . perhaps you should meet her.’
‘Perhaps I should.’ Rosa stood too. She smoothed down her threadbare skirt, feeling the thin limp cotton beneath her palm, and the stains: crusted mud, mildew streaks from the cellar floor, the spattered slush of the alley. She knew the dress must smell, too: the stink of wear and sweat and fear. There were dresses in the wardrobe; silk and satin, lawn and muslin. But she wanted to face Sebastian’s mother like this, with the evidence of her son’s crimes before her eyes.
‘I’m ready,’ she said. Cassie took a deep breath.
‘Very well.’
Luke lay in the darkness with his eyes closed, counting the bells that tolled out the hours from the church on the far side of the Thames. He had no idea if it was morning or evening, but he’d heard it toll six times soon after he woke first, and now as it began to ring again he counted out the strokes.
One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . .
He had been here twelve hours, with no candle, no water, no food. Was this the plan then? No execution. No trial. Just a slow painful death by thirst and his corpse slipped into the water as the tide was on the turn.
Rosa . . . Her name was like a thirst on his tongue. He let his dry, cracked lips shape the words in the darkness, the whisper hoarse and sibilant in the locked dark room.
‘Rose . . .’
The door was locked, but Cassie put a hand above the door frame, feeling for something, and drew down a key and fitted it into the lock.
‘Mama,’ she said as she turned the key, knocking with her free hand. ‘Mama – may I come in?’
There was no answer and Cassie sighed.
‘Mama, I’m bringing someone to see you. It is Sebastian’s . . .’ She stopped, biting her lip and then finished. ‘It is Rosa. Sebastian’s fiancée.’
The door opened.
Inside it was darkness and for a moment Rosa quailed at the thought of going in there, into the stuffy blackness, where that wild, black-haired witch was waiting.
‘Coward,’ she whispered in her head, but the word reminded her of Luke, and it gave her courage. Luke was no coward, whatever he thought. Perhaps neither was she.
Nevertheless she wished that she could cast a witchlight as she stepped over the threshold and into the velvet black interior.
It was not quite dark, she realized as her eyes adjusted to the dimness. There was a fire in the grate and, as her eyes became accustomed to the dark, she could see a shape crouched over it – a woman, squatting on her heels with long black hair dripping between her knees. Her face was a pale skull in the flickering light, the eyes nothing but dark holes.
‘Mama . . .’ Cassie said. She shut the door and locked it behind them. ‘Mama, this is Rosa.’
‘Rosa . . .’ The woman’s voice was hoarse and cracked. Her eyes glittered as she looked steadily at Rosa. ‘I remember you.’
‘You saved my life,’ Rosa whispered.
‘I saved you for the cage,’ the woman said. She rose and walked across the hearthrug to where Rosa stood, trying not to show her fear. She reached out, her arm white as bone, and touched the ruby at Rosa’s throat. ‘He is bleeding you. And you are letting him.’
Rosa swallowed, her throat dry and hoarse. ‘Ma’am, you helped me once before – won’t you help me again?’
‘Help you?’ Her eyes flickered up to Rosa and there was a crafty look in them. ‘Why should I help you?’
‘Because we are both caged. Because I want to get free . . . There’s a man –’ she spoke fast, before she could regret what she was about to say, ‘– a man that I love. He is the one I want to spend my life with – not Sebastian.’
‘Help you?’ The woman began to laugh, a hoarse cackle. ‘Help you cuckold my son? Help you disgrace my name?’
‘Your name?’
‘Why not? I am a Knyvet, after all.’
‘But . . .’ Rosa put her hands to her face. The woman turned away, indifferently, and Rosa sank on to the ottoman at the foot of the bed, watching her.
Suddenly, to Rosa’s horror, she put her hand towards the fire and picked up a red-hot coal in her fingers. She turned back and flicked it towards the bed. Rosa gave a gasp and jumped up to stamp on it, before she realized her feet were bare. She looked around for a book, a rug, anything, but by the time she turned back the coal had burnt out, leaving a dark weal on the floorboard.
Rosa let her breath out in a ragged trembling rush. And as she sank back on to the ottoman she noticed something, something she had not noticed before in the darkness. The boards and the rugs in the room were pitted and spattered with black welts, the twins of the one left just now by the burning coal. The painted skirting boards were disfigured by little smoky smuts, patches where the paint had bubbled as a coal burnt out against the wood. Even the curtains had patches and holes where the flame had caught at their foot and been beaten out in time.
The woman crouched at the hearth watching, her eyes glittering, and she smiled, so that Rosa saw her bared teeth beneath her thin, bloodless lips. The resemblance to Sebastian was suddenly marked – and terrifying.<
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‘Get out,’ the woman snapped, and Rosa saw that her fingers were spitting sparks, that there was smoke coming from beneath her nails. When she opened her mouth to speak, there was smoke on her breath. ‘Get out.’
‘Come, Rosa,’ Cassie whispered. ‘There is no dealing with her when she’s like this. We will come back another day. Next week perhaps.’
Another day! Next week! Rosa’s heart filled with despair. In another day, another week, Luke might be dead – and she might be married to Sebastian, or dead herself.
‘Please!’ she begged the woman, pulling her arm out of Cassie’s tugging fingers. ‘Ma’am, I beg you. I know he’s your son, but can you countenance this? A woman married against her will to a husband she does not want?’
‘Get out!’ the woman screamed, and the room began to fill with smoke.
‘Rosa, we should go,’ Cassie said. Her voice was shaking. She opened the door and pushed Rosa into the corridor, coughing against the smoke. Then she slammed the door shut and locked it from the outside.
For a moment Rosa could not speak, she was too horrified by what they had seen.
‘I’m sorry,’ Cassie said. She opened the door to Rosa’s room and pushed her gently inside. ‘I didn’t think . . .’
‘What – what’s wrong with her?’ Rosa sank on to the bed. Was this her future if she stayed here?
‘They say . . . they say she is mad.’ Cassie’s voice was a whisper. ‘But I think it is something more than that. Something else. Her magic is black and uncontrollable. It’s a kind of curse, I think. She wasn’t always like this – she was very beautiful when she was young. But she did something unforgivable, I’m not sure what. It was before I was born. My father locked her up here and he tried to contain her magic.’
She stood and walked carefully to the dressing table, then felt her way delicately to a miniature that was hanging between the two windows, taking it gently from its hook.
‘I am told that this is a portrait of her when she was twenty-one.’ She held it out to Rosa, and Rosa looked down at the portrait in its gilded frame. It showed a woman – astonishingly beautiful – her ebony hair piled high on her head. She was dressed in walking clothes and there was a little white-haired boy on her lap – Sebastian perhaps?
Witch Hunt Page 21
