Louis read the letter, then put it aside on a nearby table. “And Noah?” he asked, his voice very soft now.
“I have heard only that Marguerite and Kate and our children arrived safe, and that they now live with Noah in a house within Woburn village. More than that I do not know.”
“There must be more!”
“Louis, I am sorry. What can I say? I dare not write them, nor they I, and to try and touch them magically might harm them. Besides, Marguerite has the turf. We may no longer convene the Circle.”
There was quiet for many long minutes.
“I wish…” both men said together, then they both smiled a little self-consciously, and lapsed back into silence.
Twelve
Woburn Village, Bedfordshire
NOAH SPEAKS
The final few weeks of my pregnancy were filled with girth, discomfort, swollen veins and exhaustion. Not even Eaving, apparently, was allowed to escape every woman’s burden during her final months and, indeed, I would not have wished it. This was a much-loved and anticipated child—I pushed to the back of my mind any uncertainty I felt—and this discomfort would be forgotten the instant of her birth.
I tried not to think of the imp. I tried to believe what my daughter had shown me, that she could manage both imps. But if I believed that, I had to accept that my daughter was not going to be quite what I wanted—an innocent, squirming child who existed only so I could love her.
On this night I lay restless and greatly uncomfortable. Marguerite and Kate lay together on the other side of the bed. I now slept so restively they preferred to keep their distance. Thus I was left, a great hulk breathing with only the most strenuous effort. I grew thirsty, and thought about finding myself some ale to drink—that would send me to sleep, surely—but moving was so difficult, the night so cold, and the kitchen so far, and down so many stairs…
I resolved to make the effort, no matter the difficulties, and threw back the bed covers, swinging my legs to the floor and slowly pivoting my body about. But just as I was about to rise, I felt the most extraordinary—and most extremely unwelcome—sensation in my lower body.
It was not so much the pangs of labour—I had experienced those as Cornelia, and I knew well enough what to expect—but something much more debilitating.
The sense that someone else had taken over my lower body and was controlling my actions. I felt a pang of fear, and tried to struggle to my feet, but my legs did not obey me.
Of their own accord—under the control of that someone else—they swung back onto the bed, then my body shifted so that I lay comfortably against the pillows.
My daughter moved in my womb, and I felt the opening to the birth canal softening for birth.
Gods, she was doing this!
I gasped—in shock, in disbelief, and in some measure of horror—and almost instantly Marguerite and Kate stirred on the other side of the bed.
“My lady,” Marguerite said as she sat up and looked at me, “is it time?”
I nodded, taking a very deep breath.
Marguerite placed one of her hands over mine where they were splayed across my belly. “Is all well?”
“I do not know, Marguerite. This is not labour as I have known it previously.”
“It is a special child,” said Marguerite, meaning to comfort me.
“She is taking control,” I said, “and I do not like it.” At that I winced, for a wave of discomfort—not pain, not agony, just a strange discomfort—rolled up over my distended belly and into my chest.
Marguerite stared at me, then leaned over and shook Kate awake. “Noah,” she said, “is giving birth.”
“My daughter is birthing herself,” I muttered between clenched teeth as another wave of discomfort—strange, irritating, and deeply uneasy—swept over me.
My legs drew up, and I groaned.
“Noah?” Marguerite said, now kneeling on the mattress at my side. “What should we do?”
Kate now moved about the bed so that she sat on my other side, on the edge of the mattress.
“None of us can do anything,” I said, and then felt my body take a huge breath. Ah! How I loathed this lack of control! I had been entirely taken over, and it terrified me for what it implied about my daughter.
My sweet, innocent daughter. That’s all I wanted…please gods, let it be what I received.
I took another breath, very slow and deep, and arched my back slightly.
“Is the pain—” Kate began.
“There is no pain,” I said, and then arched my back again as that strange hateful discomfort swept over me. I could feel the child moving through my birth canal, could feel her head crowning, and yet there was no pain.
Just that total lack of control.
I cried out in frustration, and Marguerite, who had now shifted very close to me, reached down her hands, and drew forth my child from my body.
“Look!” she said, holding the child up before me. “Look!”
The baby stared at me with deep blue eyes, perfectly aware. A calm, cool stare, tinged with what I thought might be triumph. This was no sweet child, no dependent being on whom I could lavish love and care. I tried to smile, but found it difficult. I rested one hand on my now flaccid belly. Where my daughter had rested I felt now only hollowness and loss rather than the ecstasy of a successful birth, and where my heart should have been I felt only sadness and despair rather than the unconditional love every mother should feel instinctively for her child.
My daughter, still held in Marguerite’s hands, stared at me, and her tiny brow seemed to wrinkle, as if in irritation. Maybe I was not the mother she had wanted; as I wondered that, maybe…no. I could not think that at all. Not wanting this child went against my every instinct, both as Eaving, and as Cornelia-Caela-Noah. She was my daughter. I ought to love her.
None of this Marguerite or Kate noticed. Marguerite was now holding the baby in her arms, the umbilical cord severed, one fingertip tracing out the lines of the baby’s face.
“She looks like a kitten!” Marguerite declared.
Once more I tried to smile, and this time somehow I managed it. “Then we shall call her Catling,” I said, “not merely for her looks, but for the game she plays.”
My heart felt like a great, still, cold rock in my chest.
Thirteen
Idol Lane, London
One year later
Weyland grew more impatient and more nervy with each passing day. He spent most of his days, and half his nights as well, out in the city, listening to both gossip and hard news, trying (along with every other person in London) to hear if Charles was on his way yet, if the king was to return. No one now doubted that he would return, but no one could know the how and the when.
Most of the citizens of London were torn between two emotions: joy that the king would return—surely he would usher in a glorious golden age for the city and country both—and a deep anxiety that the king may exact revenge for the unfortunate murder of his father so many years ago.
Both anticipation and nervousness beset Weyland as well. There was, after all, a long history of debt and hatred between Brutus and Asterion, and Brutus-reborn in this life had considerably more reason to exact revenge than just Charles I’s murder.
Weyland knew he could best Charles, but the weapon he could wield—Noah Banks—was one fraught with difficulties. Yes, Weyland knew he could control and contain Noah; she was his, after all, but he was also wary of her power that emanated from the land, and Weyland had no way of understanding it.
He didn’t think she could break free from him, or manage to exercise her free will, but he wasn’t completely sure.
Thus it was, in the last cold days of the winter of 1660, that Weyland decided to pay Noah a visit.
Just to be neighbourly.
Just to be sure.
He went in person, not in spirit or glamour. Weyland needed to feel and see and taste Noah, and he could only do that if he went in the flesh. Woburn was not too lo
ng a ride away; he could manage it in two days if he changed horses regularly and rode through part of the night. He was young and strong enough to cope, and he was, Weyland was somewhat surprised to discover, jaded enough to relish the thought of an excursion into the English countryside, as cold and as brittle as currently it was.
He arrived in Woburn village in the early afternoon on a weekday in late February. The air was icy and sharp, the road slick with frozen slush. The sloping high street of the village was deserted: who would go out in this weather? The scent of Noah lay all about. Weyland could feel her, almost as strongly as if they shared a bed, and lay skin to skin. Her presence dominated the village, although Weyland doubted all but the most gifted or sensitive could feel it.
He pulled his horse to a halt some ten or twelve paces from the church. At this spot her presence was very, very powerful, and Weyland glanced at the house a little further up the street.
She was in there. By the gods, he could feel her very breathing. She was sitting at some needlework —for an instant Weyland’s mind was flooded with the memory of Caela with her ever-present embroideries and silks—and she was at peace.
She had no idea he was close.
Weyland shivered, and put it down to the cold.
He dismounted, pulling the horse into the lee of the house. He drew in a deep breath, and then whispered, infusing his voice with great power of command.
“Noah. Come to me, I demand it.”
Instantly Weyland felt a flash of fear from her, and it relieved him. He sent another demand, this one not composed of words, but of pure emotion: anger, aggression, insistence.
He felt the needlework fall to the floor, and heard, as if he stood next to her, Noah’s voice as she mumbled some excuse or other to whoever it was sat with her.
Then there were footsteps, straight to the front door, not even pausing so she could gather to her a cloak or coat against the bitter chill.
Weyland smiled, and then shuddered again as chills ran down his spine.
The door opened, and a figure slipped through.
She hesitated as she closed the door, looking about, and Weyland had his first sight of her.
It stunned him. He hadn’t expected her to be so lovely. Her thick hair was tied in a simple loose knot which fell over one shoulder. Her face, pale even before she had come through the door, was now almost completely white with the cold.
Her blue eyes shone brilliantly in the winter light, and they were staring wildly at him.
Yet again Weyland trembled, and yet again he attributed it to the cold. Ignoring the knot in his stomach, he raised a gloved hand, and gestured slowly to her.
She swallowed, and then moved forward, stumbling a little before coming to a halt some two paces away from him.
Her arms were now wrapped about her body, and she trembled violently in spasmodic shudders. She was not dressed for the outdoors, and Weyland knew she would be suffering badly.
“Noah,” he said.
Her mouth moved, but no sound came out.
Dropping his horse’s reins, Weyland stepped close to Noah, and cupped her chin in his gloved hand.
“Well met, my lovely,” he murmured.
“What do you want?” she said.
“You, of course,” he said, and felt her flinch. Then her eyes hardened, and he saw defiance in them. For some reason it pleased him, although he knew he should punish her for it. Perhaps he should punish her for it.
Very slowly, Weyland leaned forward, and kissed her.
She stiffened, but he knew she would not pull away, for that would be to admit defeat. So Weyland took his time, drawing her against his body, very slowly exploring her mouth with his, tormenting her with softness.
“I remember,” he murmured, pulling his mouth away from hers just enough that he could speak, “taking your virginity when you were Caela. I shall enjoy our bedding even more in this life, I think.”
“I am no virgin,” she said. “I chose not to wait for your gruesome summons.”
“You think I did not know that?” he said. “It is of no matter. I can but hope that your experience in this life has taught you some amusing tricks.”
“Indeed,” she said, “I shall be quite the skilled whore for you, Asterion.”
Eyes narrowed, Weyland stepped back a little from her, although he kept a grip on one of her upper arms.
“I will…” he said, then stopped, not sure what it was he wanted to say.
One of her eyebrows raised, and, at the same time, Weyland became aware of the strength of her shivering. His horse had a small rug draped over its hindquarters, and Weyland busied himself for a moment, pulling it off and wrapping it about Noah’s shoulders, using the time the action gave him to recompose himself.
“Thank you,” she said.
“It shall not be long,” he said, wishing now he hadn’t so weakened as to give her the rug. “Cromwell is dead, Parliament renders itself more incompetent each day, and the people in London’s streets speak Charles’ name with hope and joy.” He stopped dead again, furious with himself at that last, for it had brought a flush of pleasure to Noah’s cheeks.
“They do?” she said, and she smiled.
It was achingly lovely, that smile.
“He will never bring you joy and hope,” he said. “You are mine now.”
“I do not deny it.”
“You shall come when I call.”
“I shall.”
Weyland became aware that he’d lost all advantage in this conversation. Damn her!
“You will be my whore,” he said, even more roughly than previously.
“I have no intention of escaping my destiny, Asterion.”
“Do not call me that. I—”
“How should I call you then, in this life? Beelzebub? Diabolos? Masshit? Asmodeus?”
“I am no biblical demon, Noah. It surely would not hurt you to remember that I was dragged into this Game as you were—not through my own actions, but by the betrayal of someone I loved.” He paused, fighting down the memory of Ariadne. “My name is Weyland. Weyland Orr.”
Again she smiled. “It is a name that suits you, Master Orr.”
Words bubbled in his throat. He wanted to tell her how he would hurt her, how he would debase her, how he would torment her until she screamed for mercy, and yet he said none of them.
“You are—” he began.
She looked at him, now fully in control of herself, her beautiful mouth curved in the hint of a smile that, however Weyland tried to view it, was in no manner sarcastic or patronising.
“You are very lovely,” he said finally, and her smile once more broke through.
“And you are far prettier than ever you were as Aldred.”
“Prettier than Brutus?”
Her smile faded, and Weyland almost hated her for it.
“No,” she said finally.
“I will kill him, Noah. I will force you to give me his kingship bands, and then I will—”
She laid the fingers of one hand on his mouth. “None of us can ever know what the future holds,” she said, “much less think to predict or control it.”
“You will come to London when I call,” Weyland said, trying very hard to regain the ascendancy in this dialogue.
“Aye, that I will,” she said. “That is clear enough to me. If you want me to be your whore, Weyland, then I will do that.”
He wanted her to scream and plead and beg, but she wouldn’t do it. He wanted sullenness and resentment, hatred and revulsion, but he got none of it.
Instead, suddenly, and very horribly, Weyland realised he was staring into the eyes of an equal.
Somehow, poor lost Cornelia, pathetic, humiliated Caela, had grown up.
“Let me go inside, I beg you,” Noah said, “for I am frozen nigh unto death standing here.”
Weyland breathed in deeply, immensely relieved at her words and at the consequent resurrection of his control.
He nodded, then quickly stepped fo
rward, kissed her hard on the mouth, and pushed her towards the door of her house.
“Until London, Noah.”
He mounted his horse and kicked it into a canter down the slippery, icy high street of Woburn village before even the door had closed behind Noah. He’d needed to escape from her presence very, very badly.
A mile or so outside of the village he pulled the horse back to a walk, thinking over the encounter.
He was unnerved by what had happened. He’d thought Noah would be another Swanne-Jane; a woman powerful in magic, but weak in spirit. A woman who, despite her arrogant ways, could be humiliated with ease.
A woman he could despise.
Instead, Weyland had found none of that.
Damn her!
Part Four
THE SUMMONS
London, 1939
Jack Skelton put the cigarette in his mouth, lit it, then handed it to Weyland. “Well?” Weyland took a long, appreciative drag on the cigarette. “It’s Pen Hill,” he said. “Noah loved this place.”
“Goddamn it, tell me why you brought me here!”
Weyland tipped the cigarette towards the summit of the hill. “Harold came to her here and made love to her when she was Caela. That was just before the unfortunateness of Hastings.”
Skelton’s face tightened. He tipped out another cigarette from his pack, and lit it. “Yes?”
“Long Tom used to dance atop here.”
“Weyland—”
“I wanted to show you the summit. Do you think you can get over these railings?”
Skelton shot him a black look, then leapt lightly upwards, grasping the top of the railings and hoisting himself easily over.
At the kerbside, Frank—who was now standing by the driver’s window of the black sedan talking to Piper—looked over, obviously appalled at the further time about to be wasted.
Within a moment Weyland Orr had joined Skelton, and together they slowly climbed the hill. It only took them a minute.
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