A Discovery of Witches

by Deborah Harkness

  “Liar,” I said softly.

  Not surprisingly, my accusation made Clairmont furious, but the speed of the transformation still took me aback. It was a reminder that I was having breakfast with a creature who could be lethal.

  “Tell me what the connection is, then,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “I’m not sure,” I said truthfully. “Something’s holding them all together, a question that links your research interests and gives meaning to them. The only other explanation is that you’re an intellectual magpie—which is ridiculous, given how highly regarded your work is—or maybe you get bored easily. You don’t seem the type to be prone to intellectual ennui. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

  Clairmont studied me until the silence grew uncomfortable. My stomach was starting to complain at the amount of food I’d expected it to absorb. I poured fresh tea and doctored it while waiting for him to speak.

  “For a witch you’re observant, too.” The vampire’s eyes showed grudging admiration.

  “Vampires aren’t the only creatures who can hunt, Matthew.”

  “No. We all hunt something, don’t we Diana?” He lingered over my name. “Now it’s my turn. Why history?”

  “You haven’t answered all my questions.” And I hadn’t yet asked him my most important question.

  He shook his head firmly, and I redirected my energy from ferreting out information to protecting myself from Clairmont’s attempts to obtain it.

  “At first it was the neatness of it, I suppose.” My voice sounded surprisingly tentative. “The past seemed so predictable, as if nothing that happened there was surprising.”

  “Spoken like someone who wasn’t there,” the vampire said drily.

  I gave a short laugh. “I found that out soon enough. But in the beginning that’s how it seemed. At Oxford the professors made the past a tidy story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Everything seemed logical, inevitable. Their stories hooked me, and that was it. No other subject interested me. I became a historian and have never looked back.”

  “Even though you discovered that human beings—past or present—aren’t logical?”

  “History only became more challenging when it became less neat. Every time I pick up a book or a document from the past, I’m in a battle with people who lived hundreds of years ago. They have their secrets and obsessions—all the things they won’t or can’t reveal. It’s my job to discover and explain them.”

  “What if you can’t? What if they defy explanation?”

  “That’s never happened,” I said after considering his question. “At least I don’t think it has. All you have to do is be a good listener. Nobody really wants to keep secrets, not even the dead. People leave clues everywhere, and if you pay attention, you can piece them together.”

  “So you’re the historian as detective,” he observed.

  “Yes. With far lower stakes.” I sat back in my chair, thinking the interview was over.

  “Why the history of science, then?” he continued.

  “The challenge of great minds, I suppose?” I tried not to sound glib, nor to let my voice rise up at the end of the sentence into a question, and failed on both counts.

  Clairmont bowed his head and slowly began to take apart his moated castle.

  Common sense told me to remain silent, but the knotted threads of my own secrets began to loosen. “I wanted to know how humans came up with a view of the world that had so little magic in it,” I added abruptly. “I needed to understand how they convinced themselves that magic wasn’t important.”

  The vampire’s cool gray eyes lifted to mine. “Have you found out?”

  “Yes and no.” I hesitated. “I saw the logic that they used, and the death of a thousand cuts as experimental scientists slowly chipped away at the belief that the world was an inexplicably powerful, magical place. Ultimately they failed, though. The magic never really went away. It waited, quietly, for people to return to it when they found the science wanting.”

  “So alchemy,” he said.

  “No,” I protested. “Alchemy is one of the earliest forms of experimental science.”

  “Perhaps. But you don’t believe that alchemy is devoid of magic.” Matthew’s voice was certain. “I’ve read your work. Not even you can keep it away entirely.”

  “Then it’s science with magic. Or magic with science, if you prefer.”

  “Which do you prefer?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said defensively.

  “Thank you.” Clairmont’s look suggested he knew how difficult it was for me to talk about this.

  “You’re welcome. I think.” I pushed my hair back from my eyes, feeling a little shaky. “Can I ask you something else?” His eyes were wary, but he nodded. “Why are you interested in my work—in alchemy?”

  He almost didn’t answer, ready to brush the question aside, then reconsidered. I’d given him a secret. Now it was his turn.

  “The alchemists wanted to know why we’re here, too.” Clairmont was telling the truth—I could see that—but it got me no closer to understanding his interest in Ashmole 782. He glanced at his watch. “If you’re finished, I should get you back to college. You must want to get into warm clothes before you go to the library.”

  “What I need is a shower.” I stood and stretched, twisting my neck in an effort to ease its chronic tightness. “And I have to go to yoga tonight. I’m spending too much time sitting at a desk.”

  The vampire’s eyes glinted. “You practice yoga?”

  “Couldn’t live without it,” I replied. “I love the movement, and the meditation.”

  “I’m not surprised,” he said. “That’s the way you row—a combination of movement and meditation.”

  My cheeks colored. He was watching me as closely on the river as he had in the library.

  Clairmont put a twenty-pound note on the table and waved at Mary. She waved back, and he touched my elbow lightly, steering me between the tables and the few remaining customers.

  “Whom do you take class with?” he asked after he opened the car door and settled me inside.

  “I go to that studio on the High Street. I haven’t found a teacher I like yet, but it’s close, and beggars can’t be choosers.” New Haven had several yoga studios, but Oxford was lagging behind.

  The vampire settled himself in the car, turned the key, and neatly reversed in a nearby driveway before heading back to town.

  “You won’t find the class you need there,” he said confidently.

  “You do yoga, too?” I was fascinated by the image of his massive body twisting itself through a practice.

  “Some,” he said. “If you want to go to yoga with me tomorrow, I could pick you up outside Hertford at six. This evening you’d have to brave the studio in town, but tomorrow you’d have a good practice.”

  “Where’s your studio? I’ll call and see if they have a class tonight.”

  Clairmont shook his head. “They aren’t open tonight. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday evenings only.”

  “Oh,” I said, disappointed. “What’s the class like?”

  “You’ll see. It’s hard to describe.” He was trying not to smile.

  To my surprise, we’d arrived at the lodge. Fred craned his neck to see who was idling inside the gates, saw the Radcliffe tag, and strolled over to see what was going on.

  Clairmont let me out of the car. Outside, I gave Fred a wave, and extended my hand. “I enjoyed breakfast. Thanks for the tea and company.”

  “Anytime,” he said. “I’ll see you in the library.”

  Fred whistled as Clairmont pulled away. “Nice car, Dr. Bishop. Friend of yours?” It was his job to know as much as possible about what happened in the college for safety’s sake as well as to satisfy the unabashed curiosity that was part of a porter’s job description.

  “I suppose so,” I said thoughtfully.

  In my rooms I pulled out my passport case and removed a ten-dollar bill from my stash of American curr
ency. It took me a few minutes to find an envelope. After slipping the bill inside without a note, I addressed it to Chris, wrote “AIR MAIL” on the front in capital letters, and stuck the required postage in the upper corner.

  Chris was never going to let me forget he’d won this bet. Never.

  Chapter 8

  Honestly, that car is such a cliché.” The hair clung to my fingers, crackling and snapping as I tried to push it from my face.

  Clairmont was lounging against the side of his Jaguar looking un-rumpled and at ease. Even his yoga clothes, characteristically gray and black, looked bandbox fresh, though considerably less tailored than what he wore to the library.

  Contemplating the sleek black car and the elegant vampire, I felt unaccountably cross. It had not been a good day. The conveyor belt broke in the library, and it took forever for them to fetch my manuscripts. My keynote address remained elusive, and I was beginning to look at the calendar with alarm, imagining a roomful of colleagues peppering me with difficult questions. It was nearly October, and the conference was in November.

  “You think a subcompact would be better subterfuge?” he asked, holding out his hand for my yoga mat.

  “Not really, no.” Standing in the fall twilight, he positively screamed vampire, yet the rising tide of undergraduates and dons passed him without a second glance. If they couldn’t sense what he was—see what he was, standing in the open air—the car was immaterial. The irritation built under my skin.

  “Have I done something wrong?” His gray-green eyes were wide and guileless. He opened the car door, taking a deep breath as I slid past.

  My temper flared. “Are you smelling me?” After yesterday I suspected that my body was giving him all kinds of information I didn’t want him to have.

  “Don’t tempt me,” he murmured, shutting me inside. The hair on my neck rose slightly as the implication of his words sank in. He popped open the trunk and put my mat inside.

  Night air filled the car as the vampire climbed in without any visible effort or moment of limb-bent awkwardness. His face creased into the semblance of a sympathetic frown. “Bad day?”

  I gave him a withering glance. Clairmont knew exactly how my day had been. He and Miriam had been in Duke Humfrey’s again, keeping the other creatures out of my immediate environment. When we left to change for yoga, Miriam had remained to make sure we weren’t followed by a train of daemons—or worse.

  Clairmont started the car and headed down the Woodstock Road without further attempts at small talk. There was nothing on it but houses.

  “Where are we going?” I asked suspiciously.

  “To yoga,” he replied calmly. “Based on your mood, I’d say you need it.”

  “And where is yoga?” I demanded. We were headed out to the countryside in the direction of Blenheim.

  “Have you changed your mind?” Matthew’s voice was touched with exasperation. “Should I take you back to the studio on the High Street?”

  I shuddered at the memory of last night’s uninspiring class. “No.”

  “Then relax. I’m not kidnapping you. It can be pleasant to let someone else take charge. Besides, it’s a surprise.”

  “Hmph,” I said. He switched on the stereo system, and classical music poured from the speakers.

  “Stop thinking and listen,” he commanded. “It’s impossible to be tense around Mozart.”

  Hardly recognizing myself, I settled in the seat with a sigh and shut my eyes. The Jaguar’s motion was so subtle and the sounds from outside so muffled that I felt suspended above the ground, held up by invisible, musical hands.

  The car slowed, and we pulled up to a set of high iron gates that even I, though practiced, couldn’t have scaled. The walls on either side were warm red brick, with irregular forms and intricate woven patterns. I sat up a little straighter.

  “You can’t see it from here,” Clairmont said, laughing. He rolled down his window and punched a series of numbers into a polished keypad. A tone sounded, and the gates swung open.

  Gravel crunched under the tires as we passed through another set of gates even older than the first. There was no scrolled ironwork here, just an archway spanning brick walls that were much lower than the ones facing the Woodstock Road. The archway had a tiny room on top, with windows on all sides like a lantern. To the left of the gate was a splendid brick gatehouse, with twisted chimneys and leaded windows. A small brass plaque with weathered edges read THE OLD LODGE.

  “Beautiful,” I breathed.

  “I thought you’d like it.” The vampire looked pleased.

  Through the growing darkness, we passed into a park. A small herd of deer skittered off at the sound of the car, jumping into the protective shadows as the Jaguar’s headlights swept the grounds. We climbed a slight hill and rounded a curve in the drive. The car slowed to a crawl as we reached the top of the rise and the headlights dipped over into blackness.

  “There,” Clairmont said, pointing with his left hand.

  A two-story Tudor manor house was arranged around a central courtyard. Its bricks glowed in the illumination of powerful spotlights that shone up through the branches of gnarled oak trees to light the face of the building.

  I was so dumbfounded that I swore. Clairmont looked at me in shock, then chuckled.

  He pulled the car in to the circular drive in front and parked behind a late-model Audi sports car. A dozen more cars were already parked there, and headlights continued to sweep down over the hill.

  “Are you sure I’m going to be all right?” I’d been doing yoga for more than a decade, but that didn’t mean I was any good at it. It had never occurred to me to ask whether this might be the kind of class where people balanced on one forearm with their feet suspended in midair.

  “It’s a mixed class,” he assured me.

  “Okay.” My anxiety went up a notch in spite of his easy answer.

  Clairmont took our yoga mats out of the trunk. Moving slowly as the last of the arrivals headed for the wide entry, he finally reached my door and put out his hand. This is new, I noted before putting my hand in his. I was still not entirely comfortable when our bodies came into contact. He was shockingly cold, and the contrast between our body temperatures took me aback.

  The vampire held my hand lightly and tugged on it gently to help me out of the car. Before releasing me, he gave a soft encouraging squeeze. Surprised, I glanced at him and caught him doing the same thing. Both of us looked away in confusion.

  We entered the house through another arched gate and a central courtyard. The manor was in an astonishing state of preservation. No later architects had been allowed to cut out symmetrical Georgian windows or affix fussy Victorian conservatories to it. We might have been stepping back in time.

  “Unbelievable,” I murmured.

  Clairmont grinned and steered me through a big wooden door propped open with an iron doorstop. I gasped. The outside was remarkable, but the inside was stunning. Miles of linenfold paneling extended in every direction, all burnished and glowing. Someone had lit a fire in the room’s enormous fireplace. A single trestle table and some benches looked about as old as the house, and electric lights were the only evidence that we were in the twenty-first century.

  Rows of shoes sat in front of the benches, and mounds of sweaters and coats covered their dark oak surfaces. Clairmont laid his keys on the table and removed his shoes. I kicked off my own and followed him.

  “Remember I said this was a mixed class?” the vampire asked when we reached a door set into the paneling. I looked up, nodded. “It is. But there’s only one way to get into this room—you have to be one of us.”

  He pulled open the door. Dozens of curious eyes nudged, tingled, and froze in my direction. The room was full of daemons, witches, and vampires. They sat on brightly colored mats—some with crossed legs, others kneeling—waiting for class to begin. Some of the daemons had headphones jammed into their ears. The witches were gossiping in a steady hum. The vampires sat quietly, their fac
es displaying little emotion.

  My jaw dropped.

  “Sorry,” Clairmont said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come if I told you—and it really is the best class in Oxford.”

  A tall witch who had short, jet-black hair and skin the color of coffee with cream walked toward us, and the rest of the room turned away, resuming their silent meditations. Clairmont, who’d tensed slightly when we entered, visibly relaxed as the witch approached us.

  “Matthew.” Her husky voice was brushed with an Indian accent. “Welcome.”

  “Amira.” He nodded in greeting. “This is the woman I told you about, Diana Bishop.”

  The witch looked at me closely, her eyes taking in every detail of my face. She smiled. “Diana. Nice to meet you. Are you new to yoga?”

  “No.” My heart pounded with a fresh wave of anxiety. “But this is my first time here.”

  Her smile widened. “Welcome to the Old Lodge.”

  I wondered if anyone here knew about Ashmole 782, but there wasn’t a single familiar face and the atmosphere in the room was open and easy, with none of the usual tension between creatures.

  A warm, firm hand closed around my wrist, and my heart slowed immediately. I looked at Amira in astonishment. How had she done that?

  She let loose my wrist, and my pulse remained steady. “I think that you and Diana will be most comfortable here,” she told Clairmont. “Get settled and we’ll begin.”

  We unrolled our mats in the back of the room, close to the door. There was no one to my immediate right, but across a small expanse of open floor two daemons sat in lotus position with their eyes closed. My shoulder tingled. I started, wondering who was looking at me. The feeling quickly disappeared.

  Sorry, a guilty voice said quite distinctly within my skull.

  The voice came from the front of the room, from the same direction as the tingle. Amira frowned slightly at someone in the first row before bringing the class to attention.

  Out of sheer habit, my body folded obediently into a cross-legged position when she began to speak, and after a few seconds Clairmont followed suit.