“Thank you,” I said simply but, I hoped, meaningfully.
Jane knew. She reddened with pleasure, then bent back to the baby.
I struggled up, more or less supported by Weyland who was less of a help than he was astounded and overcome by the baby’s birth, and watched Jane as she wiped our daughter’s mouth and nose clean of mucus, rubbed her chest until she gave a startled little cry, and then handed her to me, the umbilical cord still binding us.
Oh, she was perfect. I cradled her in my arms and felt that instant bonding, that overwhelming love which I had never felt with Catling.
Weyland stared, too scared, I think, to touch.
Eventually I lifted one of his hands and put it on the baby girl’s head.
“She looks like me,” I said, “which is a mild relief.”
He smiled, just a little, too overwhelmed as yet to manage anything save astonishment, and then jumped as Jane cut the cord.
“Let me wipe her down,” Jane said, and I gave her the baby.
Weyland made a small sound, almost like a baby mewling.
“She needs to be wiped down and wrapped,” I said, and he settled and waited more or less patiently until Jane brought the baby back.
I took her, cradled her, kissed her, and then without hesitation held her out for Weyland to take.
I have never seen such love on anyone’s face as I saw on his at that moment when the weight of the baby settled into his arms.
“She’s…” he said, unable to find the right adjective.
I smiled, looking at him rather than our daughter. “Aye.”
“I can’t believe…”
“I know,” I said.
Weyland ran a finger very gently over the child’s face.
“What will you call her?” I asked.
He raised his eyes to mine, and grinned. “Is that fear I hear in your voice, Noah?”
I smiled. “What name, Weyland?”
He looked back at the baby. “Grace.”
I could have cried. I think I did cry, and I swear I saw Jane wipe something from her eyes as well. Grace. Oh, gods, aye. She graced us all.
Later, as Weyland walked about the bedchamber, cuddling our daughter, Jane came and sat by me.
“You are very clever,” said Jane, softly, so that Weyland could not hear. “He will do anything for you now.”
“I did not do this to be clever,” I said. “I did not do it because I hoped to manipulate Weyland. I did it because of what this child demonstrates.”
“And what is that?” Jane asked, archly, reminding me so much of her arrogance as Swanne.
“Reconciliation,” I said. “Healing.” My mouth twitched with emotion, and I almost began to weep once more. “Grace.”
I paused, looking to where Weyland held Grace. “Love.”
She looked at me, her eyes hard with cynicism. “What will Weyland do, do you think,” she said, so softly now I had to strain to hear her, “when he learns all you have kept from him? When he learns of your true paternity, and maternity?”
I held her gaze, unintimidated by the inherent threat in her words. “Then he will hold his daughter, and gaze upon her, and know that the past need never direct the future. That is in our own hands.”
She snorted, rose, and attended to the cleaning of both myself and the bed.
Two months later Ariadne stood with me before the malevolent, writhing, rising darkness that was, to ordinary eyes, merely the White Tower, and said, “You’re ready.”
Five
The Ringwalk and The White Tower
He ran, as he had been running for aeons, but there was a change, now, in his running. Whereas, as far back as he could remember, his feet had occasionally slipped on the Ringwalk, or his stride had felt a little constrained, or he had been ever so slightly aware of a pull in a tendon in his off foreleg, or near hind…
…or he had lain within the heart of the Troy Game so close to death that there was no difference…
…now his stride extended effortlessly, and he was not aware at all of the ground beneath his feet although he knew he still ran the Ringwalk.
He felt…alive. Aware. Knowing. Energised. Brimming with promise and life and magic and wonder.
Ready.
He leapt, and as he leapt, so worlds cascaded past under his feet, and the sun bowed in homage at his passage.
Noah stood at the doorway to what the White Tower had become—the living Great Founding Labyrinth. Her figure slim and lithe two months after the birth of her baby, her face calm, focussed, beautiful, Noah was dressed in nothing but an ankle-length white linen skirt.
Her hair was left unbound down her back, her arms and hands and neck were bare of any jewellery, her lovely face was left unpainted.
Around them walked the officers and men of the Tower of London engaged in their normal duties.
None saw anything save two women strolling arm in arm slowly about the grounds.
Noah stood, regarding the doorway of the Great Founding Labyrinth. The tower rose above her, huge, threatening, throbbing with a thundery dark blue glow.
“Enter,” said Ariadne. “If you do not survive I will look after your baby for you.”
Noah gave a little smile. “She shall know no mother but me, Ariadne.” Then she looked back at the doorway, her face relaxing, concentrating.
After a moment of almost complete stillness, Noah’s hand went to the linen wrap bound about her waist, and with a swift, economical movement she undid it, and discarded the wrap.
Naked, she stepped into the Great Founding Labyrinth.
His stride fed by his joy, the Stag God stretched out his legs, and bounded over hill and dale, meadow and crag. This was his land, and he could have burst for joy of it. As he ran, memories and images jumbled about in his mind: running as a fawn through the forest; his hand, forcing the arrow into his father’s eye; mating the doe that stood silent and waiting in the dappled shade; standing before the girl called Cornelia, but knowing, this time, what and who she was to him; dancing in complex steps through passages of darkness; juggling golden limb bands until they spun in an intricate dance through the great spread of his blood-red antlers.
Below him, man and beast alike raised their eyes skyward, and gasped.
Noah walked into the Great Founding Labyrinth without hesitation. She had done this so many times now that it was second nature to her, and she paid no mind to the swirling stairs and ladders and passages, the promises and delusions that power sent to disarm her. Instead she reached out with her own power, and began slowly to spiral in the entwined energies of tide and river, star and moon, bowel and seashell until she had surrounded herself with a pulsating ball that consisted of myriad lines of light and power. This was the labyrinth, that which bound all life from birth to death, and which, now, Noah sought to bend to her own will.
Be as I am, she whispered to it. Do as I will.
Instantly, every one of the myriad lines of light and power turned black, and the ball which surrounded Noah solidified into a mass of darkness, and hid her from life. Breath. Existence.
Everything.
In the king’s great audience chamber of Whitehall Palace the furniture had been pushed against the walls, the carpet had been rolled away, the shutters closed and bolted, the doors likewise. Two lone lamps glowed on opposite walls. The space of the chamber had been bared, and in its centre sat a Circle, its members sitting cross-legged, their hands clasped, their heads slightly bowed in concentration.
The Lord of the Faerie’s presence dominated the Circle, the deference of every other member indicated by subtle body language and facial expression.
Previously, Charles had led Circles composed only of himself, Marguerite, Kate and sometimes Louis.
Now, the Lord of the Faerie convened a Circle made up of the original Eaving’s Sisters, but also including the reformed whores Elizabeth and Frances, as well as Long Tom and fifteen of his fellow Sidlesaghes and the two giants, Gog and Magog.
I can feel him running, said the Lord of the Faerie. Can you? Can you?
Noah stood within the sphere within the sphere, the dark heart of the labyrinth, and considered.
This is not as I will, she said.
It is what you have, said the dark heart.
No, said Noah, what I have is this!
She flung wide her arms, her head falling back, and both power and sound burst from her. Very gradually her body twisted to and fro in sinuous, liquid movements, and the black heart of the labyrinth bulged and creaked.
My name is Noah-Eaving, said the entity standing in the heart of the labyrinth, and I am both the goddess of the earth, the mother of life, and the mover of waters, and I am also your Mistress, the weaver and dancer of mysteries, and thus I command you: Do as I will, and not as you wish.
There came a great moan, and then, in a sudden, brilliant burst of light, the black sphere exploded, shooting bolts of light and incandescent globules into the larger structure of the Great Founding Labyrinth, exposing the goddess that stood in its centre, naked and throbbing with power, head back, arms outstretched, eyes as black as a witch-night, her hair snapping wildly in the powers that twisted and turned with the sphere.
She smiled, staring overhead, and said, Welcome. He leapt over the moon, vaulted the sun, twisted within the star dust of the heavens, and then looked down.
Below him lay a vast blue-green-grey lake, and deep in its waters he saw a great witch, naked, standing with her head thrown back and her arms outstretched.
Dance with me, she whispered.
Ariadne flinched, feeling more than seeing what had happened within the Great Founding Labyrinth.
She wondered that around her the life of the Tower continued so calm. Then a movement caught her eye, and she looked forward once more.
Noah walked towards her. Her eyes were black pools of mystery, and her body was clothed in a garment which appeared to be made of flowing green water with the stars twisting within its depths.
“Who are you?” whispered Ariadne, knowing the answer, but needing to hear it confirmed.
“I am Noah,” said the woman standing before her. “Goddess, Mistress of the Labyrinth, Darkwitch Risen. Entwined.”
The Lord of the Faerie gave a great, choking cry, his head snapping back on his shoulders.
An instant later everyone else within the Circle cried out also, their bodies twitching.
When another moment had passed, and the members of the Circle managed to draw breath and calm themselves, they saw that a naked man stood in the centre of the Circle. He looked like Louis, and yet not. He wore Louis’ face and body, and yet rising from his twisting dark hair were a set of blood-red antlers, and from his eyes shone a fierce wildness that made most of the onlookers drop their own gaze away from his.
“Who are you?” asked the Lord of the Faerie. “What have you become?”
The man that was once Louis, and who had once lived as Brutus and then William, turned slowly about to face the Lord of the Faerie.
“My name,” he said, his strong, low voice reverberating about the chamber and through the souls of everyone present, “is Ringwalker.”
Six
Idol Lane, London
She walked through the door from parlour into kitchen and both Weyland and Jane, sitting at the table, the baby in Weyland’s arms, instantly recognised the difference in Noah.
There was something about her, such a dark knowingness that she could have done nothing but succeeded in her Great Ordeal.
Jane wondered why Weyland could not see Noah’s darkcraft screaming forth. She understood that until Noah actually used her darkcraft it would not be readily apparent, but still…
Perhaps there were none so blind as those who loved.
Noah halted at the head of the table. She looked at Jane, and then at Weyland.
“Let her go,” said the being that was Noah. “I am all you need.”
Jane tensed, terrified that although freedom was but a word away, Weyland would surely kill her. He wouldn’t let her go. He wouldn’t.
“Go,” said Weyland, staring at Noah.
Very slowly, hardly able to breathe, Jane rose to her feet. She inched around the table, her eyes never leaving Weyland, who just as unblinkingly regarded Noah.
As Jane reached the head of the table, Noah put a soft hand on her arm and drew her close for an almost inaudible whisper. “Tell the Lord of the Faerie that…tell him…ah, tell him that above all I am Noah and that I am for the land. Tell him that.”
And then Jane was gone, running for the front door.
She lay in Weyland’s arms, listening to his breathing, and to that of her baby in the cot by the head of the bed.
About them the Idyll floated, wrapping them in peace.
She lay, thinking, unable to sleep. The Noah that she was had been almost transformed during her Ordeal. Something had altered and twisted within her during that transformation, and Noah was not entirely sure that she liked it.
Or that she could even recognise it.
She sighed, and was about to rise, perhaps to wander the Idyll a while, or just sit and hold Grace in her arms, when she felt it.
A pull.
A tug.
Imperative.
Noah sat up, looking about frantically, wondering if…oh gods, no, surely he could not do that!
By her side Weyland roused directly from full sleep into clear-headed wakefulness. He sat up, glanced about, then looked at the woman at his side. “Noah? What is it?”
“Weyland…”
“Noah?”
“Weyland, let me go, I pray you. Just for an hour or so. I will return.”
“Who is it? Who calls you?”
She looked at him, her eyes huge and dark in the dim lighting of their bedchamber.
“Brutus,” Weyland breathed.
“Let me go to him,” Noah whispered.
Weyland did not immediately reply. He stared at her. “You want me to let you go to Brutus?”
“I will not betray you.”
There was something in her expression or manner or voice, or perhaps all three, that made Weyland want to believe her.
But what was Brutus doing, reaching into the Idyll like this? What power had he obtained to enable him to do so?
“How is Brutus able to reach out to you within the Idyll?” he said, softly, dangerously.
She dropped her eyes away from his.
Cold fear slid through Weyland’s belly. “Noah…how can Brutus reach you within the Idyll?”
“Let me go to him, Weyland. Please. I will return.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because I have promised it to you,” she said. “Because I will leave our daughter here with you. But most of all…”
“Yes?”
She reached out a hand, and cupped his cheek very gently. “Because I love you,” she said. “Because I am your shelter and thus I must return. Do you know, Weyland, how well you trapped me with that single, simple question?” She smiled, soft and sad. “And do you know, Weyland, how much you didn’t need to ask me for shelter? That I was trapped already?”
Weyland gazed at her, his eyes stricken. “If you do not return, you will destroy me.”
Again she gave that sad smile. “I know.”
“Then go. Go!”
She fled, through the dreamlike dominion of the Idyll, through the shadowy walls of London, through the dim meadows and fields that bordered the city, through the night and through reality, until she stood on the borderlands of the Realm of the Faerie.
There, standing under the spreading branches of the Holy Oak Tree, stood the one who had every reason to consider himself her lover, her mate, and her husband.
“Louis,” she said, very softly, drifting to a halt a pace or two away from him.
“That was once my name,” said the man-god.
She regarded him, partly to give herself some time to think, but mostly to drink in the changes within him.
His overall aspect was dark, his bearing full of promise and majesty, his essence a still watchfulness. His face and hair reminded her of the Brutus he had once been, so long, long ago. His hair remained long and black, snapping with wiry, wild curls. His eyes similarly dark and wild, but with such depths now…ah, such depths…
She glanced at his limbs, almost as if she expected to see there the faint markings of the golden kingship bands of Troy which had once graced them.
“What are you called now?” she said, her eyes returning to his face.
“Ringwalker,” he said, and, closing the distance between them he gathered her into his arms, and kissed her.
“Noah,” he whispered. “Dance with me, be my lover, into eternity.”
She sighed, and he felt her stiffen within his arms. Not much, just very, very slightly, but he felt it.
“Why not?” he whispered.
“So much has changed.”
“Noah…I know you question the Troy Game. But now we can take control. Now we can—”
“Do you truly think that the Troy Game will allow us to control it now, Ringwalker? It has been free from interference for almost three thousand years.” She leaned back in his arms, regarding him. “I do not think we should complete the Troy Game. I don’t think we would ever be able to control it, not even who we are now. I do not believe the Game ever meant to protect this land, Ringwalker. I think it means to consume it.”
“No, no, the very essence of the Game is protection.”
“The very essence of the Game is bleakness.”
Ringwalker felt a terrible hollowness yawn open inside him which threatened at any moment to turn to panic. “Noah, where has this misgiving come from? Have you and I not worked to this very end? Have you and I not died for it, more than once?”
Darkwitch Rising Page 57
