Darkwitch Rising

by Sara Douglass

  Weyland narrowed his eyes. “Truly? How…courageous of her.”

  “How courageous of me to accept,” Noah muttered. She was stiff and unyielding in his arms, but suddenly Weyland did not care. Finally she would become his Mistress, and Weyland was never so glad of anything in his life. They would dance together, control power together…

  “I am glad,” he murmured, and kissed her cheek, and then, softly, lingeringly, her neck. When she pulled away he did not try to hold her back.

  “Perhaps,” he said, “we should fetch those kingship bands today.”

  “No. Not yet.” She was several paces away now, her face averted.

  “No?” He moved over to her, taking her arm as she tried to evade him. “Noah, don’t make me force you. Please.”

  She turned her face yet further away, and said nothing.

  “You know, surely, that the hold I have over you is as strong as ever it was when the imp rested inside you? That I can—”

  At that she looked at him. “I don’t believe you will do that again. I don’t think you are capable.”

  A complete stillness fell between them.

  Weyland could hardly bear it. He wanted to scream at her that yes! he was capable. That, yes! he could send her shrieking to the floor any moment he chose. That, yes! she was his creature as much as ever she had been.

  And yet not a word left his mouth.

  “Weyland,” Noah said softly. “It would be better to leave the bands until I attain my full powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth, surely?”

  He did not answer, nor did he shift his eyes from hers.

  “Leave the bands for the time being, Weyland. Believe me, Charles will not try to take them.”

  He did believe her, although he fought against it. She was telling the truth. Charles would not try to take the bands.

  “If I asked a price for leaving the bands be,” he said, “would you agree?”

  There was the faintest glimmer of panic in her face, then she had control over herself again. “What price?” she asked.

  “A terrible one,” he all but whispered, and he leaned close, his mouth brushing hers.

  And then he let her go and walked away, leaving Noah staring after him.

  Once Jane had passed them on the upper landing, the imps scuttled down the stairs and out the front door.

  What had gone wrong? Why had Catling left them?

  Idol Lane was all but empty, but the street beyond was half filled with people hurrying early to market. The imps went this way and that, finally discovering Catling waiting for them by the cross in St Paul’s churchyard. She played with her red wool, and appeared unconcerned.

  “Is it over?” one asked, breathless with worry. “Has—”

  “Our pact still stands,” she said. “I will do for you what I promised. Now, hurry back to your master’s house, but come when I ask.”

  Both imps grinned, immensely relieved. They turned, leaving Catling standing beside the cross.

  Weyland climbed the stairs to the first floor of his house in Idol Lane. His movements were slow, his expression thoughtful.

  Noah had sent Catling away? It still didn’t make sense to him, nor, if he were honest with himself, did Noah’s sudden dramatic announcement that Jane had decided to teach her the ways of the labyrinth. It was what he wanted—gods, it was what he wanted—but…there had been something else in that room this morning. Something distracted about Noah, something desperate in her eyes. Whatever it was, it had to be serious if it had caused her to send away her only child, and to beg of him that the bands be left until she had attained her full powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth.

  On the other hand, Weyland could understand her request. Whatever happened, Noah would not want him to get his hands on the bands.

  But to send her daughter away.

  Her daughter?

  If Weyland knew anything about Cornelia-Caela-Noah it was that she loved children. He hadn’t been surprised to find she’d had a child in this life, although he had been surprised to find she’d drag her into his house…

  Yet now the child was gone. Thrown out with vicious words.

  That was not Noah at all.

  Something was happening. Something he couldn’t quite glean or scry out, and that made him wary.

  Weyland reached the top of the stairs and paused outside the door to Elizabeth and Frances’ chamber. He lifted a hand and rested it against the wood, fingers tapping slowly, thoughtfully.

  Then he opened the door and stepped inside. Both girls were sitting on the bed, staring at him with wide eyes.

  “Pack whatever you need,” Weyland said. “I have no need of you here.”

  “We can leave?” Frances said. “Return to Essex?”

  “That was not what I said. Look lively now, don’t sit there. Pack!”

  Another glance at each other, and then the girls rose and began to fold what pitiful belongings they had.

  Weyland leaned against the doorjamb, studying them, grateful that he hadn’t so overworked them that they were rendered completely undesirable.

  “You’re going to the palace at Whitehall,” Weyland announced.

  “The palace?” said Elizabeth.

  “Yes. You are to find yourselves employment there. And you will find yourselves employment there. Once ensconced within the royal household, which you shall achieve by this evening,” Weyland’s tone gave the girls no doubt that he would brook no delay in this schedule, “then you shall be my eyes and ears. You will note what our good king Charles eats, when he farts, and what he does to while away the time when not drafting royal proclamations.”

  “But, Weyland,” Elizabeth said, “every girl in London wants a place within the royal household. How can we—”

  “For gods’ sakes, Elizabeth, you’re a trained whore! Offer yourself. I’m sure he’ll snap. You’re still young and pretty enough.”

  Elizabeth and Frances glanced at each other again, and Weyland saw their uncertainty. He sighed, and his posture relaxed a little. “Do this,” he said, “and you will earn my gratitude. Watch the king for me. Be my eyes and ears. Insinuate yourselves into his graces, and if you do this, if you do it well, then I shall consider you free of all bonds and obligations to myself.”

  “Can we trust you?” said Frances.

  “No,” said Weyland softly, “but what choice do you have? Remember what happened to Jane and Noah when they crossed me. You will do this.”

  Both the girls had paled, and Weyland nodded, satisfied. “Go,” he said. “I’ve had enough of you lingering about Idol Lane.”

  He stared at them a moment longer, ensuring they were properly cowed, then left the room, leaving the door open. He continued up the stairs towards the Idyll, hearing the girls move about their chamber, whispering. He would use the imps to keep an eye on them, make sure they did as he asked.

  He opened the door to the Idyll and walked inside, his face relaxing the instant he crossed the threshold.

  Now there was just Jane, Noah and himself left within Idol Lane—discounting the imps who Weyland thought he might leave to scamper about the streets until he needed them.

  Weyland smiled, the expression making his face surprisingly soft. Just Jane, Noah and himself.

  And, once Jane had done her task and taught Noah the ways of the Mistress of the Labyrinth…just Noah.

  Weyland stood, and looked about the strange place he called his Idyll. “I think it is about time,” he said to no one in particular, “that I introduce Noah to my Idyll. Our Idyll, one day.”

  As soon as that single, simple statement was out of his mouth, Weyland staggered, almost losing his balance. The floor felt as if it had shifted suddenly beneath him, as if there had been a shudder through the very earth beneath the house’s foundation, as if…as if his entire world had suddenly cracked apart before re-forming into something not quite what it had been but a moment before.

  He spun around, staring, panicked, wondering what had happened.
/>   Then stopped, stunned, as he realised what it was.

  The Idyll was complete. After all these years, the Idyll finally felt whole. He could feel it, almost as a sigh of contentment running through the Idyll.

  Weyland went very still, hardly daring to believe what he felt. “I will bring Noah to you,” he whispered.

  Again, that strange, eerie sigh as if of contentment, as if of satiation.

  The Idyll had been waiting for Noah.

  All this time, the Idyll had been waiting for Noah. She was what would make it complete.

  Weyland sank to his knees, his hands over his face.

  King Charles II was holding court within his main audience chamber when he halted in his conversation with the Venetian ambassador just long enough to murmur a few hasty words to one of his valets. The servant hurried away, and Charles resumed his conversation as if nothing had happened.

  Seven hours later, when it was late at night and Charles had retired to his private chambers, he called to him the same valet, and spoke again a few quiet words.

  The valet nodded, as he had earlier in the day, and left the chamber.

  Twenty minutes later he returned, bringing with him two ill-dressed girls in their late teens.

  “Elizabeth,” Charles said, “and Frances.” As the valet left, Charles advanced on the two astounded girls, who remembered their manners just in time to make hasty curtseys.

  “Your majesty,” Elizabeth said, stumbling over the words. “I cannot imagine why…how…”

  “Why I knew you had stepped forth within my palace, and then had you brought before me, so privately?” Charles said.

  Elizabeth nodded.

  Charles smiled, gentle and kind. “Lovely ladies, I am far more than you think.”

  “You are our majestic king!” said Frances, feeling she needed to say something, and blushing for the stupid naivety of her words.

  Charles’ smile widened. “Indeed,” he said. “England’s faerie king.”

  Then, as the two girls watched wide-eyed, his form shimmered and changed, and Elizabeth gave a startled “Oh!” as the Lord of the Faerie materialised before her. Both Elizabeth and Frances scuttled back several steps.

  “Welcome to my court, ladies,” the Lord of the Faerie said, moving forward and kissing each softly on the mouth. “I am sure I know why you are here. Weyland sent you, yes?”

  The girls nodded, still too dumbstruck to answer with their voices. Some of their fright was beginning to pass, and their regard now was more curiosity than fear.

  “What provoked this?”

  “There was an argument in the kitchen this morning,” Frances managed to say, amazing herself that she actually had managed to speak. “We were not there, but we heard some of what happened. Noah sent her daughter away, threw her out of the house. The next thing, Weyland sent us here. Your grace, who are you?”

  The Lord of the Faerie opened his mouth to answer, but in fact it was Elizabeth who spoke, her voice full of wonder. “You are the Green Man,” she said. “The Lord of the Forests.”

  The Lord of the Faerie smiled, pleased. For centuries the simple folk had worshipped the Lord of the Faerie as the Green Man, honouring him every May Day with dancing and song and branches gathered from the woods. “Aye,” he said. “That is one of my names, although my realm stretches far further than just the forests.”

  Elizabeth smiled, the expression making her beautiful. She sank once more into a deep curtsey. “My great lord, I am your servant!”

  “And I!” cried Frances, aping Elizabeth’s curtsey.

  “What may I do to please you?” asked Elizabeth, looking up at the Lord of the Faerie with shining eyes.

  “Only that you do as I ask,” the Lord of the Faerie said. “Now, tell me, do you know who Eaving’s Sisters are?”

  The girls glanced at each other, then shook their heads.

  The Lord of the Faerie smiled. “Then I have some introductions to make. Come. You are about to be inducted into a sisterhood far greater than the one you have known hitherto.”

  Twelve

  Idol Lane, London

  NOAH SPEAKS

  Iwas numbed by all that had happened. The terrible agony when Weyland had set the imp to tearing his way free. Weyland’s subsequent healing of me. The story of his daughter.

  Our shared vision atop the hill, where we both said too much.

  Weyland’s two terrifying references to shelter.

  Set against the uncertainty and terror of Weyland was the wonder of the Faerie Court, and the moment when Louis, knowing, finally had held me in his arms—and I had somehow, for some reason, held back from him.

  In my current state I didn’t feel like exploring why I might have done that.

  Then, so quickly following on that, Ariadne, telling me I was of her and Asterion’s blood. That I was a Darkwitch. That I was something that Louis and Charles both would naturally revile.

  Then, Catling. My daughter, the lie. The Troy Game, making sure I did what it wanted. Nothing counted but what it wanted.

  Yet more—Weyland, talking to me of a terrible price. I had told him that Jane was to teach me the ways of the labyrinth (I could hardly tell him about Ariadne, could I?) merely to distract him from questioning me too closely about Catling. Then he had wanted the bands. I had hedged (for all the gods’ sakes, I had wanted some space to think! Some time—was that too much to ask?), and then he had sprung, trapping me.

  My entire world was utterly devastated. There was not a single element left that I could understand, or which existed to save me.

  Amid all this chaos, where I drifted so vulnerable and fragile, stepped a saviour. Someone who offered me shelter, and time, and all the space I could ever need.

  At a terrible price.

  Part Seven

  NOAH’S TERRIBLE PRICE

  London, 1939

  Jack Skelton had seen houses like this in Hollywood movies, but even Hollywood’s versions did nothing to prepare him for the sheer beauty and elegance of the building in which he found himself.

  The front doors led into a small anteroom where a uniformed footman waited to take any coats and bags. The anteroom then opened out into a magnificent, domed entrance room with a grand staircase rising in graceful spirals to the heart of the house. The floor was marble, the fittings rich glowing mahogany and crystal, the atmosphere one of studied elegance and stillness.

  He heard Stella come up behind him, and he turned to look at her. “What is Weyland doing here? For gods’ sakes, he—”

  “He is welcome here, Ringwalker.”

  “This is a pretty turnabout,” Skelton hissed. “Are you still his whore, then?”

  Stella went white, and her eyes glittered. “Everyone else has moved forward, Brutus. Why can’t you?”

  He took a step towards her, a hand outstretched, but stopped as he heard two sets of footsteps coming down the stairs.

  He whipped about.

  Two men walked towards him. The one in front was in his early fifties, tall and lean with an ascetic face under thinning brown hair. He was dressed in what Skelton called casual uniform: military trousers and shirt under a civilian red woollen pullover.

  “Jack,” said the man, holding out his hand.

  Skelton took it, but, instead of shaking the man’s hand, bowed his head over it in a gesture of deep respect. “Faerie Lord,” he said. “You must be the Old Man.”

  The Lord of the Faerie grinned. “Absolutely, old chap. Glad to see you, don’t you know?”

  He laughed at the expression on Skelton’s face. “I am glad to see you, Jack. More than you can possibly know.” His face sobered. “You cannot imagine the pickle we find ourselves in.”

  “If you’ve invited Weyland Orr into the Faerie then I’m not bloody surprised,” Skelton muttered.

  “I think you know my companion,” the Lord of the Faerie said, turning about and waving the other man forward.

  Skelton looked, and went still in shock.

&n
bsp; The Lord of the Faerie’s “companion” explained the security outside.

  He was George VI, King of England, and John Thornton-reborn.

  “Jack,” said the king, stretching out his hand. “More salubrious surroundings within which to meet than The Broken Bough, I should think.”

  One

  The Llandin

  “See,” said the Lord of the Faerie softly. He had his hand on Louis’ shoulder, and could feel the man trembling.

  They stood atop Parliament Hill near Highgate. Once called the Llandin, it was the senior among the sacred hills of the ancient land.

  It was late at night. London stretched in the distance, a sparkling of tiny lights by the moonlit gleam of the River Thames. To the east and west tiny hamlets likewise twinkled as people lit candles and lamps for the night.

  None of this did the Lord of the Faerie and Louis de Silva see. Instead, there stretched before them the ancient faerie landscape. Forests crept down from the north and the east. Tiny laneways and roads winding, barely visible in the moonlight. The sweep of the river, far vaster in its ancient form than it was in seventeenth-century England.

  The river also twinkled. Deep within its depths water sprites cast their eyes upwards, catching the moonlight and refracting it back to the two men atop the Llandin. As the sprites’ eyes caught the moonlight, so also did the tens of thousands of bronzed axes lying on the riverbed. They had been cast there over hundreds of years in order to honour the great goddess of the waters so that both land and women would burgeon with new life.

  The river was alive with light.

  Strange primeval beasts nosed among the river meadows, occasionally raising their snouts and sniffing the air, knowing that magic was afoot this night and nervous with anticipation.

  Shadows were everywhere, haunting not only field and forest but also the few tiny human encampments dotting the meadows.