A Discovery of Witches: A Novel (All Souls Trilogy)

by Deborah Harkness

  “Is it me, or do you also feel that the men sent us out of the room so they could smoke cigars and talk politics?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the meeting in the dining room by flipping through a jarring mix of old movies and afternoon television. Em and Sophie were both knitting, and Miriam was doing a puzzle she’d found in a book promising Demonically Difficult Sudoku. She chuckled now and then and made a mark in the margins.

  “What are you doing, Miriam?” Sophie asked.

  “Keeping score,” Miriam said, making another mark on the page.

  “What are they talking about? And who’s winning?” I asked, envious of her ability to hear the conversation.

  “They’re planning a war, Diana. As for who’s winning, either Matthew or Hamish—it’s too close to call,” Miriam replied. “Marcus and Nathaniel managed to get in a few good shots, though, and Sarah’s holding her own.”

  It was already dark, and Em and I were making dinner when the meeting broke up. Nathaniel and Sophie were talking quietly in the family room.

  “I need to catch up on a few calls,” Matthew said after he’d kissed me, his mild tone at odds with his tense face.

  Seeing how tired he was, I decided my questions could wait.

  “Of course,” I said, touching his cheek. “Take your time. Dinner will be in an hour.”

  Matthew kissed me again, longer and deeper, before going out the back door.

  “I need a drink,” Sarah groaned, heading to the porch to sneak a cigarette.

  Matthew was nothing more than a shadow through the haze of Sarah’s smoke as he passed through the orchard and headed for the hop barn. Hamish came up behind me, nudging my back and neck with his eyes.

  “Are you fully recovered?” he asked quietly.

  “What do you think?” It had been a long day, and Hamish made no effort to hide his disapproval of me. I shook my head.

  Hamish’s eyes drifted away, and mine followed. We both watched as Matthew’s white hands streaked through his hair before he disappeared into the barn.

  “‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright / In the forests of the night,’” Hamish said, quoting William Blake. “That poem has always reminded me of him.”

  I rested my knife on the cutting board and faced him. “What’s on your mind, Hamish?”

  “Are you certain of him, Diana?” he asked. Em wiped her hands on her apron and left the room, giving me a sad look.

  “Yes.” I met his eyes, trying to make my confidence in Matthew clear.

  Hamish nodded, unsurprised. “I did wonder if you would take him on, once you knew who he was—who he still is. It would seem you’re not afraid to have a tiger by the tail.”

  Wordlessly I turned back to the counter and resumed my chopping.

  “Be careful.” Hamish rested his hand on my forearm, forcing me to look at him. “Matthew won’t be the same man where you’re going.”

  “Yes he will.” I frowned. “My Matthew is going with me. He’ll be exactly the same.”

  “No,” Hamish said grimly. “He won’t.”

  Hamish had known Matthew far longer. And he’d pieced together where we were going based on the contents of that briefcase. I still knew nothing, except that I was headed to a time before 1976 and a place where Matthew had played chess.

  Hamish joined Sarah outside, and soon two plumes of gray smoke rose into the night sky.

  “Is everything all right in there?” I asked Em when she returned from the family room, where Miriam, Marcus, Nathaniel, and Sophie were talking and watching TV.

  “Yes,” she replied. “And here?”

  “Just fine.” I focused on the apple trees and waited for Matthew to come in from the dark.

  Chapter 41

  The day before Halloween, a fluttery feeling developed in my stomach.

  Still in bed, I reached for Matthew.

  “I’m nervous.”

  He closed the book he was reading and drew me near. “I know. You were nervous before you opened your eyes.”

  The house was already bustling with activity. Sarah’s printer was churning out page after page in the office below. The television was on, and the dryer whined faintly in the distance as it protested under another load of laundry. One sniff told me that Sarah and Em were well into the day’s coffee consumption, and down the hall there was the whir of a hair dryer.

  “Are we the last ones up?” I made an effort to calm my stomach.

  “I think so,” he said with a smile, though there was a shadow of concern in his eyes.

  Downstairs, Sarah was making eggs to order while Em pulled trays of muffins out of the oven. Nathaniel was methodically plucking one after another from the tin and popping them whole into his mouth.

  “Where’s Hamish?” Matthew asked.

  “In my office, using the printer.” Sarah gave him a long look and returned to her pan.

  Marcus left his Scrabble game and came to the kitchen to take a walk with his father. He grabbed a handful of nuts as he left, sniffing the muffins with a groan of frustrated desire.

  “What’s going on?” I asked quietly.

  “Hamish is being a lawyer,” Sophie replied, spreading a thick layer of butter on top of a muffin. “He says there are papers to sign.”

  Hamish called us into the dining room in the late morning. We straggled in carrying wineglasses and mugs. He looked as though he hadn’t slept. Neat stacks of paper were arranged across the table’s expanse, along with sticks of black wax and two seals belonging to the Knights of Lazarus—one small, one large. My heart hit my stomach and bounced back into my throat.

  “Should we sit?” Em asked. She’d brought in a fresh pot of coffee and topped off Hamish’s mug.

  “Thank you, Em,” Hamish said gratefully. Two empty chairs sat officiously at the head of the table. He gestured Matthew and me into them and picked up the first stack of papers. “Yesterday afternoon we went over a number of practical issues related to the situation in which we now find ourselves.”

  My heart sped up, and I eyed the seals again.

  “A little less lawyerly, Hamish, if you please,” Matthew said, his hand tightening on my back. Hamish glowered at him and continued.

  “Diana and Matthew will timewalk, as planned, on Halloween. Ignore everything else Matthew told you to do.” Hamish took an obvious pleasure in delivering this part of his message. “We’ve agreed that it would be best if everyone . . . disappeared for a little while. As of this moment, your old lives are on hold.”

  Hamish put a document in front of me. “This is a power of attorney, Diana. It authorizes me—or whoever occupies the position of seneschal—to act legally on your behalf.”

  The power of attorney gave the abstract idea of timewalking a new sense of finality. Matthew fished a pen from his pocket.

  “Here,” he said, placing the pen before me.

  The pen’s nib wasn’t used to the angle and pressure of my hand, and it scratched while I put my signature on the line. When I was finished, Matthew took it and dropped a warm black blob on the bottom, then reached for his personal seal and pressed it into the wax.

  Hamish picked up the next stack. “These letters are for you to sign, too. One informs your conference organizers that you cannot speak in November. The other requests a medical leave for next year. Your physician—one Dr. Marcus Whitmore—has written in support. In the event you haven’t returned by April, I’ll send your request to Yale.”

  I read the letters carefully and signed with a shaking hand, relinquishing my life in the twenty-first century.

  Hamish braced his hands against the edge of the table. Clearly he was building up to something. “There is no telling when Matthew and Diana will be back with us.” He didn’t use the word “if,” but it hovered in the room nonetheless. “Whenever any member of the firm or of the de Clermont family is preparing to take a long journey or drop out of sight for a while, it’s my job to make sure their affairs are in order. Diana, you have no will.”

  �
��No.” My mind was entirely blank. “But I don’t have any assets—not even a car.”

  Hamish straightened. “That’s not entirely true, is it, Matthew?”

  “Give it to me,” Matthew said reluctantly. Hamish handed him a thick document. “This was drawn up when I was last in Oxford.”

  “Before La Pierre,” I said, not touching the pages.

  Matthew nodded. “Essentially, it’s our marriage agreement. It irrevocably settles a third of my personal assets on you. Even if you were to leave me, these assets would be yours.”

  It was dated before he’d come home—before we were mated for life by vampire custom.

  “I’ll never leave you, and I don’t want this.”

  “You don’t even know what this is,” Matthew said, putting the pages in front of me.

  There was too much to absorb. Staggering sums of money, a town house on an exclusive square in London, a flat in Paris, a villa outside Rome, the Old Lodge, a house in Jerusalem, still more houses in cities like Venice and Seville, jets, cars—my mind whirled.

  “I have a secure job.” I pushed the papers away. “This is completely unnecessary.”

  “It’s yours nonetheless,” Matthew said gruffly.

  Hamish let me gather my composure before he dropped his next bombshell. “If Sarah were to die, you would inherit this house, too, on the condition that it would be Emily’s home for as long as she wanted it. And you’re Matthew’s sole heir. So you do have assets—and I need to know your wishes.”

  “I’m not going to talk about this.” The memories of Satu and Juliette were still fresh, and death felt all too close. I stood, ready to bolt, but Matthew grabbed my hand and held fast.

  “You need to do this, mon coeur. We cannot leave it for Marcus and Sarah to sort out.”

  I sat back down and thought quietly about what to do with the inconceivable fortune and ramshackle farmhouse that might one day be mine.

  “My estate should be divided equally among our children,” I said finally. “And that includes all of Matthew’s children—vampire and biological, those he made himself and any that we might have together. They’re to have the Bishop house, too, when Em’s through with it.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Hamish assured me.

  The only remaining documents on the table were hidden inside three envelopes. Two bore Matthew’s seal. The other had black-and-silver ribbon wrapped around it, a lump of sealing wax covering the knot. Hanging from the ribbon was a thick black disk as big as a dessert plate that bore the impression of the great seal of the Knights of Lazarus.

  “Finally we have the brotherhood to sort out. When Matthew’s father founded the Knights of Lazarus, they were known for helping to protect those who could not protect themselves. Though most creatures have forgotten about us, we still exist. And we must continue to do so even after Matthew is gone. Tomorrow, before Marcus leaves the house, Matthew will officially give up his position in the order and appoint his son grand master.”

  Hamish handed Matthew the two envelopes bearing his personal seal. He then handed the envelope with the larger seal to Nathaniel. Miriam’s eyes widened.

  “As soon as Marcus accepts his new position, which he will do immediately, ” Hamish said, giving Marcus a stern look, “he will phone Nathaniel, who has agreed to join the firm as one of the eight provincial masters. Once Nathaniel breaks the seal on this commission, he’ll be a Knight of Lazarus.”

  “You can’t keep making daemons like Hamish and Nathaniel members of the brotherhood! How is Nathaniel going to fight?” Miriam sounded aghast.

  “With these,” Nathaniel said, wiggling his fingers in the air. “I know computers, and I can do my part.” His voice took on a fierce edge, and he gave Sophie an equally ferocious look. “No one is going to do to my wife or daughter what they’ve done to Diana.”

  There was stunned silence.

  “That’s not all.” Hamish pulled up a chair and sat down, knitting his fingers together before him. “Miriam believes that there will be a war. I disagree. This war has already started.”

  Every eye on the room was directed at Hamish. It was clear why people wanted him to play a role in government—and why Matthew had made him his second in command. He was a born leader.

  “In this room we understand why such a war might be fought. It’s about Diana and the appalling lengths the Congregation will go to in an effort to understand the power she’s inherited. It’s about the discovery of Ashmole 782 and our fear that the book’s secrets might be lost forever if it falls into the witches’ hands. And it’s about our common belief that no one has the right to tell two creatures that they cannot love each other—no matter what their species.”

  Hamish surveyed the room to make sure no one’s attention had wandered before he continued.

  “It won’t be long before the humans are aware of this conflict. They’ll be forced to acknowledge that daemons, vampires, and witches are among them. When that happens, we’ll need to be Sophie’s conventicle in fact, not just in name. There will be casualties, hysteria, and confusion. And it will be up to us—the conventicle and the Knights of Lazarus—to help them make sense of it all and to see to it that the loss of life and destruction are minimal.”

  “Ysabeau is waiting for you at Sept-Tours.” Matthew’s voice was quiet and steady. “The castle grounds may be the only territorial boundary other vampires won’t dare to cross. Sarah and Emily will try to keep the witches in check. The Bishop name should help. And the Knights of Lazarus will protect Sophie and her baby.”

  “So we’ll scatter,” Sarah said, nodding at Matthew. “Then reconvene at the de Clermont house. And when we do, we’ll figure out how to proceed. Together.”

  “Under Marcus’s leadership.” Matthew raised his half-full wineglass. “To Marcus, Nathaniel, and Hamish. Honor and long life.”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard that,” Miriam said softly.

  Marcus and Nathaniel both shied away from the attention and seemed uncomfortable with their new responsibilities. Hamish merely appeared weary.

  After toasting the three men—all of whom looked far too young to have to worry about a long life—Em shepherded us into the kitchen for lunch. She laid out a feast on the island, and we milled around the family room, avoiding the moment when we would have to begin our good-byes.

  Finally it was time for Sophie and Nathaniel to depart. Marcus put the couple’s few belongings in the trunk of his little blue sports car. Marcus and Nathaniel stood, their two blond heads close in conversation, while Sophie said good-bye to Sarah and Em. When she was finished, she turned to me. I’d been banished to the keeping room to make sure that no one inadvertently touched me.

  “This isn’t really good-bye,” she told me from across the hall.

  My third eye opened, and in the winking of the sunlight on the banister I saw myself enveloped in one of Sophie’s fierce hugs.

  “No,” I said, surprised and comforted by the vision.

  Sophie nodded as if she, too, had seen the glimpse of the future. “See, I told you. Maybe the baby will be here when you get back. Remember, you’ll be her godmother.”

  While waiting for Sophie and Nathaniel to say their good-byes, Matthew and Miriam had positioned all the pumpkins down the driveway. With a flick of her wrist and a few mumbled words, Sarah lit them. Dusk was still hours away, but Sophie could at least get a sense of what they would look like on Halloween night. She clapped her hands and tore down the steps to fling herself into the arms of Matthew and then Miriam. Her final hug was reserved for Marcus, who exchanged a few quiet words with her before tucking her into the low-slung passenger seat.

  “Thanks for the car,” Sophie said, admiring the burled wood on the dashboard. “Nathaniel used to drive fast, but he drives like an old lady now on account of the baby.”

  “No speeding,” Matthew said firmly, sounding like a father. “Call us when you get home.”

  We waved them off. When they were out of si
ght Sarah extinguished the pumpkins. Matthew put his arms around me as the remaining family drifted back inside.

  “I’m ready for you, Diana,” Hamish said, coming out onto the porch. He’d already put on his jacket, prepared to leave for New York before returning to London.

  I signed the two copies of the will, and they were witnessed by Em and Sarah. Hamish rolled up one copy and slid it into a metal cylinder. He threaded the ends of the tube with black-and-silver ribbons and sealed it with wax bearing Matthew’s mark.

  Matthew waited by the black rental car while Hamish said a courteous farewell to Miriam, then kissed Em and Sarah, inviting them to stay with him on their way to Sept-Tours.

  “Call me if you need anything,” he told Sarah, taking her hand and giving it a single squeeze. “You have my numbers.” He turned to me.

  “Good-bye, Hamish.” I returned his kisses, first on one cheek, then the other. “Thank you for all you did to put Matthew’s mind at ease.”

  “Just doing my job,” Hamish said with forced cheerfulness. His voice dropped. “Remember what I told you. There will be no way to call for help if you need it.”

  “I won’t need it,” I said.

  A few minutes later, the car’s engine turned over and Hamish, too, was gone, red taillights blinking in the gathering darkness.

  The house didn’t like its new emptiness and responded by banging furniture around and moaning softly whenever anyone left or entered a room.

  “I’ll miss them,” Em confessed while making dinner. The house sighed sympathetically.

  “Go,” Sarah said to me, taking the knife out of Em’s hand. “Take Matthew to Sept-Tours and be back here in time to make the salad.”

  After much discussion we’d finally decided to timewalk to the night I’d found his copy of Origin.

  But getting Matthew to Sept-Tours was more of a challenge than I’d expected. My arms were so full of stuff to help me steer—one of his pens and two books from his study—that Matthew had to hold on to my waist. Then we got stuck.