Darkwitch Rising

by Sara Douglass

  “I will set her to sleep in the kitchen with you, Jane. I’d like you two to become close.”

  Jane’s face twisted, but this time she said nothing.

  “Sisters, perhaps.”

  “Eat the bread and cheese before Frances and Elizabeth arrive and consume it for you,” said Jane, sitting some distance down the table and nursing her own beaker of ale, but not touching the food.

  “You will become her friend, Jane.”

  Jane hesitated, then sighed, and nodded.

  Louis made his way from Hart Lane to Cornhill and from there he walked westwards along Cheapside, his eye the entire time on the rising hulk of St Paul’s on Lud Hill.

  Gods, he thought, it was ugly. The Anglo-Saxon cathedral was long gone, and this the Norman replacement. In its day (some three centuries previously) the cathedral had been beautiful enough, but time and decay had wrought their damage, as had a fateful lightning strike a hundred years earlier which had toppled the steeple.

  Now the entire edifice looked tired and sad.

  Louis paused outside St Mary-le-Bow Church, staring down to St Paul’s, remembering how this location had looked almost three thousand years ago: rolling grasslands over the Veiled Hills, the sacred hills of Llangarlia; ancient power that had seemed to seep from the very earth itself and drive the wind that had whistled between the hills and stirred both the grasses and the souls of all who stood on this ancient land.

  Now? Crowded, dirty, narrow streets; buildings leaning this way and that, so closely crowded together they blocked out the sun in many of the narrower lanes and alleyways. Animal and human waste befouled the cobbles of the streets. Men and women bustled everywhere, shouting and squabbling, even at this early hour. Dogs barked, while church bells hummed in the brisk wind. The rain, praise the gods, had vanished.

  And yet, even so, ancient power rose through the ground beneath his feet. It was the power of the land, and also of the Troy Game which Brutus had brought to this land and which was now as much a part of it as Louis’ heart was.

  He resumed his walk, moving slowly towards the cathedral in the distance. It pulled at him, much as it undoubtedly pulled at every one of those now caught up in the Game. Skirting the cathedral at its southerly aspect, Louis reached the ancient walls of the city. Here he had to decide which of the approach routes into London to watch: Holborn, or Smithfield? Which would Noah choose? And which of the gates would she enter? Newgate? Aldersgate? Cripplegate? He couldn’t keep an eye on all of them…

  Coming to a decision, Louis set off for Smithfield, the market to the north-west of the city. By the time he arrived the marketplace was bustling. Louis stopped at the edge of the marketplace, and looked around.

  Finally he spotted what he wanted: a trader setting up a stall which had good sight of the roads leading away from Smithfield and to the city.

  “Good sir,” Louis said as he approached.

  The man, while obviously wary of the Frenchman, nodded politely enough.

  “I wonder if I might beg assistance from you, and possibly one or another of your apprentices.”

  The trader raised an eyebrow.

  “I seek a woman—”

  The man guffawed.

  “Please, good sir, hear me out. My cousin is due into London today, and yet I have no idea of the gate she shall enter. I cannot watch all of them, and wonder if, in return for some gold coin—”

  The man’s gaze suddenly became a good deal more friendly.

  “—you might keep watch for her, and send one of your boys to alert me…I shall be at Newgate.”

  “How much gold coin?” asked the trader.

  Louis lifted his purse and counted out three heavy coins. “This for now, and five more if you spot her.”

  The man’s eyes widened. Eight gold coins in total was a small fortune. The Frenchman must want this woman very much—not for a moment did he accept the “cousin” tale. Well, for eight gold coins…

  “What does she look like then?”

  Louis’ face relaxed in relief. “Tall, slim, and beautiful, with silky dark brown hair and skin paler than the moon. Deep blue eyes. She shall have a baby with her…a toddler of some thirteen or fourteen months. A girl.”

  “They’ll be travelling alone?”

  “Aye. She’ll have none with her.” She wouldn’t have wanted Marguerite or Kate to come, Louis reasoned. This would be a call Noah would answer alone, save for Catling. “She may not look well. She’s had some illness recently.”

  The trader took the three coins. “Very well then. I’ll keep the lad,” he nodded at a boy of some fourteen or fifteen years, “about the market, watching for her. And if you show me one more gold coin now, I’ll send another of my lads trailing after her, so you’ll know where she’s gone.”

  Louis handed over the coin, then shook the man’s hand, knowing instinctively that he could trust him.

  “Thank you.” Then he was off, jogging back towards Newgate.

  Hours passed. The Smithfield trader, good to his word, and determined to earn the extra five gold coins, kept a keen eye on the passersby through the market, and made sure his three apprentices kept similar close watch.

  There was only one moment, in mid-afternoon, when he thought he may have spotted the woman. The description fit her perfectly, but she was accompanied by a man, and a girl closer to six years than toddling age. The trader studied her hard, almost sent the apprentice for the Frenchman, hesitated, and then decided against it. The last thing he wanted was to drag the man away from his own watching post when clearly this woman, while physically similar, did not have the toddler or the solitariness upon which the Frenchman had insisted.

  And so, unwittingly, John Thornton, Noah and Catling passed by the man who might, perhaps, have saved them.

  By mid-afternoon Louis was growing ever more impatient and concerned. He was almost certain now that Noah would not approach through Newgate, and for the past quarter hour or more had been plagued with a presentiment that she was very close…but northwards.

  In Smithfield.

  Finally, unable to resist his intuition any longer, he abandoned his post by Newgate with a muttered curse, and jogged—then ran, after a minute or two—northwards towards Smithfield.

  The trader was still on the lookout for the woman (and plagued with a suspicion that the woman he’d seen with the man and girl might perhaps have been the one the Frenchman wanted) when Louis suddenly appeared before his stall.

  “She’s come through here,” he said. “I know it. Are you sure you haven’t seen the woman and child?”

  The trader hesitated, and in that instant Louis knew he’d seen her.

  “Goddamn you to hell,” he growled, leaning over the stall so that the trader, truly frightened, took several hasty steps backwards, “how long is it since she has passed? And why did you not send for me?”

  “She was with a man,” said the trader, stuttering in his nervousness, “and the girl she had with her was more like six years, not a toddler.”

  Louis did not understand why the child should appear so old, but the man must be John Thornton. Louis could barely credit his bad luck. “Which way did they go?”

  The trader nodded in the direction of Cripplegate.

  “How long since?”

  “Not half an hour. And the traffic has been heavy, and the way through the gate slowed because of it. Like as not they’ll not have got far.”

  Louis stared at him soundlessly for one moment longer, and then he was off, running as hard as he could.

  “What about my coin?” called the trader.

  Louis ran, desperate. He was tempted to go in the same direction he’d just heard Noah had gone…but he decided to risk a hunch.

  What if she was travelling to St Paul’s?

  Even if she wasn’t going there as her final destination, St Paul’s would surely pull her as it had pulled him. And if the traffic was as heavy as the trader had said…then maybe he had a chance.

  He
darted down a side street and made for Aldersgate. From there he could cut through the back lanes and alleyways to St Paul’s (he still knew the city like the back of his hand, even though he had not lived here for six hundred years).

  Louis ran. He elbowed aside all who got in his way, and pushed over anything that had stalled in his path. The thought that Weyland might have her within minutes—might already have her—drove him to exertions which would normally have left him panting in a heap on the side of the road.

  He reached St Paul’s, and stumbled to the small section of churchyard at the north-eastern aspect of the cathedral. Here he could see all the roads leading from Cripplegate converge at Cheapside.

  He stood, one hand on a churchyard railing, his breath heaving in and out of his chest, and blinked the sweat out of his eyes.

  Something made him look down to St Mary-le-Bow halfway down Cheapside.

  There! He could see her, clinging to a horse, with the girl riding on a separate horse behind a man who must be John Thornton.

  Louis took a deep breath, hope filling his soul, and stepped forward to run down Cheapside—a few minutes and he would have her! Look, they were caught up in the snarl of traffic just beyond St Mary-le-Bow!—when a mighty hand fell on his shoulder.

  “You shall not have her,” growled a frightful voice, and Louis cried out in despair, and sank to his knees.

  Thirteen

  London

  He felt ice slide through his body, and he blinked, and somehow regained his feet, stumbling in confusion, and saw that whoever—whatever—had grabbed him had mysteriously transported them away from the churchyard of St Paul’s.

  Moreover, he noticed, it (or they) had also managed to bring to his side his leather bag, which Louis vaguely recalled leaving tucked away in a niche in the wall by Newgate.

  He blinked once again. He knew that he should be endeavouring to escape whatever prison his captor had brought him to, but, bizarrely, Louis was only able to think for the moment of what a methodical and neat mind his captor had.

  To bring his bag from Newgate…

  “You must truly want me gone,” Louis muttered, and, with those words, his vision cleared.

  He stood in a long hall, timber-ceilinged, stone-walled, flagstone-floored. At the eastern end of the hall glowed a stunningly beautiful stained glass window. Flags hung from the beams of the ceiling in neat rows down either side of the hall, and torches glowed in alcoves underneath the rows of windows along the two walls.

  Louis turned around to the western end of the structure. He had the instant impression of a wooden balcony which filled that end of the hall, but his eyes were instantly drawn to the two huge creatures standing before him.

  They appeared to be carved of wood, yet they moved as if they were flesh. Their faces were almost obscured both by helmets and beards, chain mail (made of wooden links, but nonetheless apparently impregnable) protected their chests, and each grasped a weapon—one a spear, the other a sword.

  “Who are you?” Louis ground out. “What are you?”

  The creature to Louis’ right answered. “We are London’s protectors,” he said. “My name is Gog, and this is Magog. Once we were Sidlesaghes, but now are something other.”

  “I care not for your otherness,” said Louis. “My God, what have you done? Noah is—”

  “Noah is where she must be,” said the creature named Magog. “What right have you to stop her?”

  “I love her, and I—”

  “Love is as nothing in this Game,” said Gog.

  “All I want is Noah.”

  “What you want is neither here nor there,” said Magog. “You need—”

  “She goes directly to Weyland!” Louis yelled. He tried to move, but as he did so Gog tipped his spear and tripped Louis so that he sprawled over the floor.

  “You are very protective,” said Gog. “One day you can make good use of it.”

  “Curse you! I—”

  “And one day,” Gog continued, “she shall be rescued from Weyland Orr’s grip. But that day is not here. Be patient.”

  “He will murder her!”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” said Magog.

  Louis was back on his feet, his face red, his eyes frightened and furious all in one, his fists balled at his sides. “He will torture her, he has tortured her. Don’t you—”

  “We revere her as much as you,” said Magog, “but we are also willing to allow her to follow the paths that she must. We trust. Not only in Eaving, but also in the land and the Troy Game.”

  Louis started to speak, but the giant Gog put out a hand and rested it in a kindly fashion on Louis’ shoulder. “Look,” the giant said, and, with gentle pressure, turned Louis about so that he faced into the Guildhall.

  John Thornton pulled the horse to a halt. They’d moved from Cheapside down through several ever-narrowing alleyways until they’d come to this tiny, darkened lane that doglegged past the church of St Dunstan’s-in-the-East.

  As Thornton looked down the lane the gloom intensified until there seemed nothing but blackness before him. “Noah—”

  “It is where Mama and I must go,” said Catling. “Jane is waiting for us.”

  “Jane and who else?” said Thornton.

  “Jane is all that matters,” said Noah. “John, please, if you do anything for me, then deliver me to that house. There, that one, just where the lane curves past St Dunstan’s.”

  The house was typical of most other houses Thornton had seen in the city: cramped, crowded out by the buildings on either side of it, its upper floors jutting into the laneway, heavy-beamed, its stone walls broken here and there with tiny lead-paned windows.

  As Thornton studied the house, its street door slowly swung inwards.

  There was nothing inside, save further blackness.

  “No!” cried Louis, stretching out his hands towards the vision.

  “You cannot interfere,” said Gog, his voice deep with tenderness.

  “I—” Louis could not continue.

  “I know,” said Gog. “I know.”

  “I will leave you here, John,” said Noah, “and walk the last distance with Catling. There is no need for you to come closer.”

  “Noah, I can’t—”

  “This is something I and my daughter must do, John. Alone.”

  Noah slid down her horse’s flank, pulling her skirts into order as she reached the ground. She lifted down her small valise, then helped Catling to dismount.

  Thornton jumped down to the cobbles. “Noah, will I ever see you again?”

  Noah laughed, but Thornton could detect the thick edge of strain beneath it. “Why, of course, John Thornton. We shall meet again.” She leaned forward, and gave him her mouth to kiss.

  “Be still, John. We shall be well enough.”

  “I will never see you again,” he said, certain of that fact.

  Noah only looked at him, her eyes steady, then she lifted a hand, laid it briefly against his cheek, took Catling’s hand and, without a backward glance, walked the last twenty or so feet towards the open door of the house.

  Just before she entered, Noah paused and, letting go of Catling’s hand, reached into her valise. She pulled something out and slipped it over her left wrist.

  Thornton couldn’t be sure from this distance what it was, but he thought it was a bracelet.

  Then Noah turned and gave Thornton one last look as she took Catling’s hand again.

  Because of the distance between them, Thornton could not be certain of the expression in her eyes, but he thought it was either resignation or a sadness so extreme it would have destroyed most people.

  “Noah!” he called, and stepped forward, but as he called out a white hand reached from the darkness of the house, grasped Noah by the arm, and pulled her and Catling inside.

  The door slammed shut, and Thornton winced.

  “Noah,” he whispered.

  “She is gone now,” said Magog. “Gone to somewhere you cannot yet reach
. But be still, Louis de Silva. All will yet be well.”

  “I could have saved her!”

  “No,” said Magog. “You would only have doomed her.”

  Louis looked at the giant, his gaze full of hatred and despair.

  “There is more reason yet we brought you here,” said Magog.

  “What?” said Louis, raising an eyebrow in mock surprise. “Condemning Noah to slow destruction by Weyland’s hand was not enough in a day’s work for you?”

  Gog reached out a massive hand and dealt Louis a hard rap across the face.

  Louis staggered, barely managing to keep himself from falling to the floor.

  “Your arrogance is overwhelming,” said Gog. “You would do well to lose some of it.”

  “I would have done well by saving Noah,” Louis growled, one hand to his nose, from where trickled a little blood.

  “If you had wrenched Noah away from her duty and her purpose,” said Gog, “then Weyland would have destroyed not only her, but you, and all with whom you are allied. What kind of fool are you, eh, to sally forth into London alone? Did you not think in your chivalrous rush that you might become the victim, as well as Noah?”

  Louis said nothing, but merely stared at the giants with implacable eyes.

  “There is something else you need to see,” said Magog, and once again a giant’s hand turned him around, towards the cavernous space of the hall.

  The glade lay cool and sheltered in the dappled light. A pool of emerald water stretched across its centre, while shadowy sentinel trees stood watch about its rim.

  Partway between the water and the trees lay a white stag with blood-red antlers. His heart lay cruelly torn from his breast, but, as Louis watched, he could see that the heart continued to beat strongly, and the stag’s flanks rose and fell with living breath.