Darkwitch Rising

by Sara Douglass

  I will meet with them this once, she thought, and then dismiss them from my mind.

  There came the faint flurry of noises and voices from the entrance to the abbey, which intensified as the footman showed the arrivals into the front hall. Just then the earl came into the gallery, taking a chair next to his wife.

  Lady Anne felt some of the tension leave her shoulders. They would face these shameful women, she and her husband, with the combined weight of their aristocracy and their virtue. King Charles be damned, if he thought they would grovel to these women!

  “I shall both be glad and sorry for Noah’s departure,” the earl said softly as footsteps sounded up the stairs towards the gallery. “She has been a delightful companion to both of us, and our children, over the past years.”

  The countess made no reply, a little ashamed of her earlier treatment of Noah—after all, what her husband said was true enough. As the far double doors opened she stiffened a little, and raised her chin.

  A footman bowed, then two women swept past him.

  They were both pretty enough, Lady Anne conceded, although doubtless that prettiness had caused their fall from grace into immorality, and they bore themselves well, which bearing they had undoubtedly observed at whatever manner of court Charles had managed to gather about him in exile. The older of the women had dark blonde hair, worn simply enough in a twist at the crown of her head, a figure somewhat thickened at the waist by childbearing, yet still graceful and supple. The younger woman was darker, much slimmer (although the thickness at her waist suggested to the countess that she had recently risen from childbed) and more vivacious with bright eyes and a ready smile.

  The women reached the earl and his countess, and both curtsied demurely enough.

  The earl and countess inclined their heads.

  “My lord, lady,” said the older woman, Marguerite Carteret. “My companion and I are much obliged by your generosity in permitting us to lease such a well-equipped house within Woburn village.”

  “Our king required it of us,” said the earl.

  “In our current sad climate,” said Marguerite, “you were not obliged to King Charles in any manner. Yet you acquiesced to his request. That was well done of you.”

  “We will take up no more of your time,” said the younger woman, Kate Pegge, “but ask only that we may make re-acquaintance with our friend, Noah Banks—”

  Re-acquaintance? The countess frowned.

  “—for we have left our children waiting below in the carriage, and we would return to them speedily.”

  A carriageful of Stuart bastards, Lady Anne thought bemusedly, at our front door. “Then you may collect Noah and—” she began, but just then there came a step from the doorway, and both Marguerite Carteret and Kate Pegge spun about, their faces alive with joy.

  The countess and the earl looked at each other. What was Noah to these two?

  Noah had entered through the far door and, abandoning any pretension to decorum, she picked up her heavy skirts, and ran forward.

  The three women met in a flurry of skirts and kisses and embraces halfway between where the Bedfords sat and the door. After their initial greeting, Marguerite Carteret and Kate Pegge further stunned and bewildered the earl and countess by stepping back from Noah, then sinking into such deep curtsies before her that anyone might have thought her the most ancient and venerable of empresses.

  “For the Lord’s sake,” the earl whispered to his wife, “has Charles somehow managed to wed Noah in secret that these two make obeisance to her as if she were queen?”

  Lady Anne had a sudden and appalling vision of Charles restored, and she visiting court to be forced to curtsey before Noah.

  “Surely not,” she said.

  Noah came to stand before the earl and his wife.

  “Lady Anne, Lord Bedford…I am most sorry that I must leave you in this manner. You have been good to me, and Woburn the best of homes. I—”

  Lady Anne sighed, and rubbed a little at her eyes as if she were distracted. “I wish you well, Noah, but I wish you had done better.” She hesitated, then reached out and gave Noah’s hand a brief squeeze.

  The earl rose, and kissed Noah’s cheek. “Go with our blessing, Noah. I pray that your life shall be a good one.”

  The gestures of both Bedfords plainly touched Noah, for her cheeks coloured, and she smiled tremulously, as if close to tears.

  She nodded, curtsied to both the earl and his wife, then turned away.

  Just before she reached the door, Lady Anne spoke once more. “The children are playing in the vestibule, Noah. Say goodbye if you wish.”

  Noah stopped, turned, and looked at the countess with shining eyes. “Thank you,” she said.

  Once Noah had said her farewells to the Bedford children, and had kissed each one in turn, she, Marguerite and Kate went outside. There was a driver and a coach drawn by two horses waiting near the steps leading to the entrance of Woburn Abbey. Two children, one a boy of about ten years, another a girl of some six years, were sitting inside with a well-wrapped baby secured between them.

  “My children,” said Marguerite proudly, introducing the boy and girl to Noah. “You may call her madam,” Marguerite said to the children, “and treat her as if she were your queen.”

  “They have their father’s look about them,” said Noah, kissing each child gently on the cheek. Then, leaning into the carriage, she picked up the baby and cradled it in her arms. “Yours, Kate?” she said.

  “Aye,” Kate replied, love and pride in evidence in equal amounts on her face.

  “Just born, too,” said Noah. “Ah, she’s beautiful, Kate. You are well?”

  At Kate’s nod, Noah handed the baby back into the care of the two children, and looked at the women. “You know that—”

  “Yes,” Marguerite said, kissing Noah yet one more time, “Charles showed us your letter. He fears for you, Noah.”

  “And thus, you have come to me,” said Noah, laying a hand briefly on each of the women’s cheeks. “We should speak of—”

  She stopped suddenly, her face losing all expression as a man came slowly down the steps towards the carriage.

  “John,” Noah said, and Marguerite and Kate could clearly hear the tension in her voice.

  Noah recovered somewhat and introduced John Thornton to Marguerite and Kate.

  John smiled, and kissed each woman’s hand graciously, but his attention returned almost immediately to Noah.

  “I had to—”

  “I know,” she said, finally smiling a little at him.

  “I could not let you go without—”

  “I know.”

  There was a silence, then John looked at Marguerite and Kate. “Will you look after her well? I cannot bear to think of her suffering for her loss of home.”

  “For every loss of home, another is gained,” said Kate. “We will watch her well, John Thornton, and we thank you for such care in farewelling Noah.”

  “I have loved her,” said John, once again looking at Noah, “and will do so again, should she allow.”

  Noah was now close to tears, and so patently incapable of replying that Marguerite did so for her. “You are a man with farseeing eyes,” she said. “You shall live a charmed life.”

  Thornton’s mouth twisted sadly. “Without Noah? I cannot think it.” Then he suddenly leaned forward, kissed Noah very softly on the mouth. “Farewell, beloved. May the land rise to meet you.”

  Marguerite’s eyes glowed at this remark, and, as Thornton turned abruptly to go, she reached out a hand and stopped him. “You will live a charmed life,” she said. “Believe it.”

  Thornton looked once more at Noah, as if he wanted to commit her face to memory, then turned and ran lightly up the steps and into the Abbey.

  “He is a good man,” Noah said softly, watching his retreating back, “and I have treated him poorly.”

  To that neither Marguerite nor Kate had anything to say.

  Six

  Woburn
Village, Bedfordshire

  NOAH SPEAKS

  Such love and comfort! I revelled in it. The depth of companionship between women beloved of each other is so vastly different to that which exists between a man and a woman that, I must confess, I allowed myself to luxuriate within it.

  I chatted with Marguerite’s two children as we rode towards Woburn village (there was a third, an older girl, but she was happily ensconced within her father’s court and had not accompanied her mother to England), and held Kate’s baby. For the first time since learning of my own pregnancy, I felt relaxed and happy. I felt safe. Not merely physically secure, but safe emotionally. Marguerite and Kate and their children represented only joy and loving and companionship.

  Their children delighted me. They had so much of their father within them that they were a pleasure merely to watch. They had his darkness of hair and of eye, even Kate’s tiny baby daughter, and I was joyful, not only for their mothers, but for Charles as well, that he had children such as these. “Bastards” they might be in this world’s tiny, cramped morality, but they came of a line so kingly, so powerful, that I knew they would consistently shine in every aspect of their lives. Blessed, indeed.

  “I cannot think that your father could bear to allow you out of his sight,” I said to the boy, and he grinned.

  “He would not disallow us this adventure,” he replied, “and he said we had mothers who could keep us safe through whatever travail might beset us.”

  “Aye,” I said, smiling now at Marguerite and Kate, “you have extraordinary mothers, indeed.”

  And so, in warmth and love and joy, we arrived at our house. Woburn village was one of the prettiest English villages I had ever seen, and it was no tragedy for me that I should now find myself living there. The house stood on the gently sloping main street, two doors up from the church: a large, substantial brick and stone building of some three floors that could accommodate with ease all of us—Marguerite, Kate, myself and all our children born or still waiting for birth. The earl had sent along two servants for us, but Marguerite told me she sent them back to the Abbey.

  “We three women can manage for ourselves nicely,” she said as we drove into the village. “And besides, what we shall manage within the house, no Christian eyes should witness.”

  I smiled, content, and took Marguerite’s hand as we walked into the house.

  Marguerite and Kate had travelled well. They had brought with them a vast expanse of books and fabrics and carpets and chests and lamps and everything that might make a home.

  “Where did the coin come for all of these riches?” I said, aghast, for I had heard of Charles’ penury, the difficulties of his life in exile, and I did not want to think that he had sent himself even further into poverty that we three might live in comfort.

  “Not Charles,” said Kate, “but Louis de Silva. His own father was generous with him, even though Louis is himself a bastard, and so Louis was generous with us.”

  “He said,” Marguerite said, and I turned my head to regard her, “that he would do anything for you. Anything. This,” she spread a hand, indicating the vast expanse of opened chests and coffers, “is but a fraction of what he says he gifts to you.”

  “And for England?” I whispered. “What will he do for this land?”

  Anything. Everything.

  I heard the words whispered in the air about me, and I shivered.

  Marguerite took my hand again, then she and Kate showed me the house. They had only just arrived themselves, so that all was in chaos, but it was easy enough to see how comfortable we should be. There were two large reception rooms, a kitchen, pantry and two small storerooms on the ground floor, while the two higher floors each held several large rooms which we would use as bedrooms for the children and ourselves.

  The children shared one large room on the second floor, and Marguerite, Kate and I resolved to share the largest of the rooms on the third floor. We would not be parted, Marguerite and Kate and I, and were grateful that the chamber contained a bed large enough to hold all three of us, as well as Kate’s baby (and, I had no doubt, Marguerite’s two children when they came to wake us each morning with their shrieks of joy).

  The three of us, in bed, sharing love and warmth and companionship and, I hoped, enough power that we might form our own Circle.

  As Eaving I had hardly touched my powers during this life. I was waiting, I think, for whatever lay down the road ahead of me.

  Now, with Marguerite and Kate close and loving, and already habituated in the Circle, I could do more. Enjoy more.

  On that day we merely settled ourselves, fed and loved the children and set them to bed as the sun sank, and then retired to our own chamber high in the house, there to disrobe and crawl into the vast bed.

  “I can feel him on you,” I whispered as we sat, our bodies lit only by the guttering flame of a single candle set on a chest. I ran my hands slowly over Marguerite’s naked body, then Kate’s, exploring the curves and bounties of each one, observing with pleasure the marks of their children on their bellies. “I can smell him on you.”

  Kate was nervous at this. “Do you mind?”

  “No. I do not. I am glad that you and he both have managed to find some comfort. But, oh, how I envied you when your Circle reached out and touched me! I could feel the closeness between you, and I wished it so much for myself.”

  “And thus John Thornton,” said Marguerite. She had stretched out on the bed atop the covers, close to both Kate and myself. One of her hands rested warm on my thigh where I sat cross-legged, the other on Kate’s hip. We were all so close, so together.

  “Aye,” I said. “Thus John Thornton.”

  “Was he a good lover?” asked Kate, and I think the expression on my face was enough answer for her and Marguerite for they both laughed, and Kate clapped her hands.

  “He wishes this child was his,” said Marguerite when she sobered, and her hand slid from my thigh to my belly.

  I shuddered at its gentle movement. “Oh, aye. He begged me to allow him to acknowledge it.”

  Marguerite said nothing, but her hand slid back and forth over my belly, as if feeling the child within.

  “You shall start to round out soon,” she said.

  I put my hand over hers and pressed it against my flesh. “Kate, do you remember when you were Erith, and you and Loth took me to Mag’s Pond?”

  Kate grunted, no doubt remembering also the debacle of that occasion.

  “I conceived my daughter that night, and lost her to Genvissa’s ill will seven months later.”

  I stopped, and they said nothing, waiting.

  “This is she,” I whispered. “Reconceived.”

  “Eaving,” said Marguerite, “are you sure?”

  “Oh, aye. I can feel it. My daughter, returned.”

  Kate, who, as Erith, had witnessed my sorrow at my daughter’s earlier death, reached out a hand and very gently caressed my face. “Ah,” she said, “this is good news, truly. A promise, for the future.”

  I hesitated. Since that night when first I had realised my pregnancy, I’d been torn between two conflicting emotions. Sheer joy at the child’s second chance at life, and a growing worry that no matter how hard I tried, I could not communicate, by any means, with her. Was there anything wrong with her, or was it…

  “I fear so greatly for this child,” I said, “sharing my womb with that…”

  “That imp?” said Marguerite. “And who should truly fear, Noah? Your sweet growing daughter, or the imp?”

  I laughed a little, for I thought she jested, but I ceased when I saw how darkly serious were her eyes.

  “The imp?” I said. “It should fear?”

  “Noah,” Marguerite said, and she slid upright and, moving her hand from under mine, held me close as if she were the mother and I the child. “This child has been conceived for a reason. Yes, you and Brutus lay together, and did those things that tend to make babies…but this is a baby reborn. I think that she is here fo
r a purpose, and I think that she is not as other babies, innocent and unknowing. Noah, she has been to the Otherworld and back. What has that done to her? What power has that given her?”

  I didn’t respond, for Marguerite’s comments made me deeply uncomfortable.

  “And she was conceived of two such powerful parents,” Marguerite continued. “You, Eaving, goddess of the waters and of the fertility of this land, and he, Kingman of the Troy Game, and all else that awaits him. For all the gods’ sakes, Noah, this baby is a gift, and I think you have yet to realise the full extent of that gift. The imp?” I felt her shrug slightly against me. “The imp is a mere nuisance compared to the power that I think comprises your daughter.”

  I put my own hands over my belly. “I try to feel her, to speak with her, yet I feel and see nothing.”

  “Sometimes that is the way it is,” said Marguerite. “Whatever the power of the mother, she cannot penetrate her own womb.”

  I thought of the countless times I had seen my daughter within the stone hall, and said nothing. I also remembered that I had always seen her at six or seven years of age, and that comforted me. She would live to be born, at least.

  “She will live to command in her own right,” whispered Marguerite against my ear, kissing me here and there between her words. “For now, my sweet, I think we have better things to do than to worry about your child. She can take care of herself, for this night at least.”

  I laughed, and put my cares aside, and turned to offer Marguerite my mouth.

  Seven

  Idol Lane, London

  From time to time Weyland spent a few hours in the evening in the Pit and Bull on Thames Street, just along from the Custom House. Here he drank his way through six or seven tankards of warm buttered ale as he sat at one of the larger tables, sharing the warmth and companionship of the tavern with whoever joined him. Most of the regular patrons of the Pit and Bull, mostly warehousemen, customs clerks, a few sailors, and the odd cowper, liked Weyland immensely (even though most knew that he kept a brothel, and some had even patronised it), although none were close to him. Weyland Orr related some of the best tales to be heard in London’s taverns: yarns of long ago, concerning gods and demons, raptures and catastrophes and, when he was in the mood, the best version anyone had ever heard of the ancient and beloved tale of the Trojan wars. Two of the customs clerks had pressed Weyland for many months now to write these tales down. “Put them out as pamphlets,” they urged him, “and the London folk will snatch them up in their scores.”