Darkwitch Rising (17 page)

“Then I curse fate, for—” Brutus suddenly stiffened, his hands dropping away from Noah. “Gods!” he said. “Asterion is scrying out for me! I have to return. Now!” He leaned forward, kissed Noah hard but briefly on the mouth. “I will do everything I can to protect you,” he said. “You shall
not
be trapped by Asterion!”

And then he vanished before Noah could make any reply.

Everyone in the Circle twitched, and Marguerite and Kate both moaned.

Charles, who had been bent over from his waist, to such an extent his nose was almost touching the circle of emerald silk, gave a loud, strangled cry and jerked himself upright, his eyes blinking, their pupils dilated as if he was disorientated.

“He’s coming,” he whispered, his voice very dry. “Asterion.”

Kate made as if to pull away from the Circle, but Charles almost snarled at her. “No! We must let him enter. We must let him see that I am here!”

The circle of silk rippled, then a noxious black stain spread out from its centre. Just before the stain reached the outer edges of the silk, the material reared up, taking on the shape of the Minotaur’s head.

It slowly revolved, looking about the Circle with eyes black and luminous.

“Well, well,” it hissed. “How pretty. How sweet.”

Suddenly its head swivelled around and stared at Charles. “And how helpless, eh, Brutus? What are you up to, then?”

Charles extended his arms to his side and then raised his hands, Marguerite’s and Kate’s still held within them, until they were just below shoulder height.

“Sending
you
my very own best wishes,” he said, and he abruptly let the women’s hands go and flung his own fists towards the apparition in the centre of the silk, opening his fingers just as his arms extended fully.

Everyone in the Circle save Charles gasped in shock, for as Charles opened his hands, so a storm of leaves and twigs erupted from his palms, flinging themselves at the apparition of Asterion.

The Minotaur cried out, then vanished, and the silk fluttered flaccid to the bed, resuming its emerald aspect.

Charles slowly retracted his hands, and rubbed at his biceps. “You weren’t expecting
that
, were you, my friend?” he said.

Weyland let go of Jane so abruptly she fell senseless to the floor. He rose to his feet, staring at her prone form, although it was not Jane that he saw but Brutus.

Brutus, hands outstretched, a sly grin on his face, flinging such power at Asterion…such power as the Minotaur had never expected.

The power of the forests
?

Weyland cursed, low and foul. Brutus’ transformation was further advanced than he had thought.

Louis scrambled about the now broken Circle and laid his hands on Charles’ shoulders. “Charles, are you well? By God, I never expected…”

His voice trailed off.

“And Asterion ‘never expected’, either,” Charles said. “He will think twice about trying to scry me out next time.”

He glanced at Long Tom, who was regarding him with a smile.

Then Marguerite sighed, and she reached for the silk circle, and folded it back to its original turf.

The Circle was disbanded.

Noah woke with a start, finding herself lying arms and legs akimbo in a corner of the wooden platform in the elm.

She scrambled to her feet, her face red, wondering if someone had climbed the steps and seen her thus.

There was nothing but quiet, no voices, no sound save for the gentle rustling of the leaves of the elm.

She stood for a few minutes, reorientating herself, hardly daring to believe in what had just happened,
then she descended the steps in the elm and made her way back to the edge of Hampstead Heath where Lady Anne was more than pleased to see her.

That night Marguerite came to Charles. “Do you wish me to stay?” she asked, her fingers already at the laces of her bodice.

Charles reached forward and stilled them. “No,” he said. “I am sorry, Marguerite, but I think you and I can no more…”

She kissed him briefly on the mouth, and smiled to show that he had not wounded her feelings. “I understand,” she said.

And then she turned, and left him alone.

In the stone hall the imp sat, legs splayed, his head resting in his hands
.

He was feeling very groggy
.

Then came a noise, very faint, but a noise nonetheless, and the imp sprang to his feet, wavering a little until he caught his balance
.

For a moment he saw nothing, then, as his eyes focussed and became their usual bright points of bleakness, he saw that something moved in the shadows at the very far end of the hall
.

“
Come out!” he hissed. “Come out, whatever you be!
”

Another noise, as if of the scraping of a foot against stone, and then something did emerge from the shadows at the far end of the hall
.

The imp squinted, his small round face layering up in myriad lines of concern. He took a step forward, and squinted all the harder
.

“
Oh,” he said, deflated that the intruder was merely a very small girl
.

She walked forward, a child of some six or seven years. She was very pretty, with long black curly hair
,
very pale skin—fine as only a child’s can be—and with sparkling, deep blue eyes
.

In her hands she carried a long loop of red wool
.

“
Would you like to play a game?” she said to the imp
.

The imp chewed his lip, thinking. He really should tell his master about this…

“
If you win, then you may tell the world of my presence if you wish,” said the girl, “but if
I
win, then you shall do whatever
I
say in this matter
.”

“
No one ever bests me in a game,” said the imp, his pride dented by the very idea that a child could outwit him
.

The little girl smiled
.

“
Very well,” said the imp, and squatted down on the marble floor of the stone hall. “Show me this game of yours, then
.”

On the next day, Louis and Charles managed a few quiet words. Both had been shaken deeply by what had happened the previous day. Of the two Charles looked by far the worse; he’d been exhausted both physically and emotionally by his exertions of the last twenty-four hours.

“She is fatalistic about Weyland,” said Charles. “I cannot believe she can be so calm about her fate.
Damn
it!”

“She needs to be saved from him,” Louis said. “After yesterday, neither of us can just let her walk into what Weyland has waiting for her.”

“But Noah needs Jane to teach her the skills of Mistress of the Labyrinth, and Weyland has Jane, so—”

“Then we snatch Jane as well. But at the very least we do
not
allow Noah to fall into Weyland’s power. What he might do to her beggars the imagination.”

“Aye,” Charles said. “I agree. I’ve been thinking on what you said earlier…that perhaps you can return to England a day or so before I do and take Noah before Weyland has a chance to snatch at her.”

“So,” Louis said, “you agree that I can return to England immediately before you? Snatch Noah before Weyland manages it?”

Charles gave a single, curt nod. “Just make sure that Weyland doesn’t snatch
you
, my friend, for then all would indeed be lost.”

“How long?” Louis asked. “How long before…?”

Charles sighed. “Who can tell? Cromwell must die, England must set aside its experiment with parliamentary democracy, and the people must invite me home. Only then, as I prepare for my grand restoration, can you embark for England.”

“It will not be soon enough,” said Louis.

I
t seemed like a dream, that afternoon spent in my Mesopotaman bedchamber, but four or five weeks after we’d returned to Woburn Abbey I had ample evidence for the reality of that meeting between Brutus and myself.

I woke one morning feeling ill, an indisposition which did not depart me the entire day, and by evening I could no longer ignore all the evidence my body had been screaming at me for the past month.

I was pregnant.

The reality of that hit me in the evening when, thankfully, I was alone in my bedchamber.

I was pregnant.

My instant reaction as that realisation dawned in my mind was one of sheer joy.
I was carrying Brutus’ child!

My second reaction, following almost instantly upon that first, was one of horror.
My child shared my womb with Asterion’s imp!

I was, in essence, pregnant with twins. One I hated and feared, one I yearned for almost more than life itself.

I was sitting on a chair by my bed, dressed in a nightgown, when all this rushed through my mind. Once I had calmed myself, I stood and, standing before the mirror, removed the nightgown.

I gazed at myself, my hands on my belly. I no longer believed in coincidences in life. Certainly not in mine.

In my dream I had stepped into Mag’s Pond to enter my ancient bedchamber in Mesopotama.

Mag’s Pond, where I had gone with Erith and Loth to beg Mag for a child so Brutus would return to me.

My daughter…who had been torn from my body and murdered by Genvissa’s sorcery.

She who I had so often seen within the stone hall. Seen as if she was meant to live again.

My daughter!

Joy emerged victorious over horror, and I literally sagged a little as I stood there, my hands now trembling, my eyes misting with tears. My daughter, once so brutally taken from me, had been given back to me. I had no idea whether I had been blessed by the Troy Game, by some benevolent gods I was not aware of, or by Fate itself. Whoever had gifted me this daughter, I knew it
was
my daughter, reconceived within the magic of the sacred waters of Mag’s Pond.

My daughter. Brutus and I had reconceived our daughter.

The tears were trickling down my face now, but I didn’t care. I just stood there, gazing stupidly at my reflection in the mirror. I had my daughter back.

She
had her life back.

“I will protect you,” I whispered, still staring at my reflection’s belly. “You may share my womb with Asterion’s hateful imp, but I
will
protect you.”

If it was the last thing I did, I would protect her.

I managed to tear myself away from my reflection
and sat on the edge of the bed. Tentatively, I reached my power inside my own body, touching my child.

And felt nothing.

Oh, I could feel the child there, feel her warmth and life, but I could not feel
her
. I could remember my daughter, remember how she felt and smelt, even in death when I had held her, and I was sure I should be able to sense her now. After all, I was infinitely more powerful than I’d ever been as Cornelia.

I should be able to touch her, shouldn’t I
?

Ah, perhaps it was too early. I forced my mind away from the problem, and instead thought of Brutus-reborn, and of that act which had re-created this child.

“Brutus,” I whispered. Brutus. He needed to know. I smiled. He would surely be as joyful as I.

The imp frowned, then hissed a little in his frustration. The girl sat before him, cross-legged, her pretty face serene, her splayed hands held out before her, the red wool stretched in a complicated pattern between her fingers
.

The imp raised a blackened, clawed finger and traced yet again the route from the centre of the pattern to the exterior gate
.

But, as always, his finger stalled at this dead end or that, or lost itself amid the myriad twisting paths of the pattern
.

“
You cannot find your way out,” said the little girl
.

“
A moment more,” snapped the imp.

“
You cannot find your way out.
”

“
It is tricky!
”

“
Yes. This was designed to trick and trap. And, see, you cannot find your way out
.”

“
It is a tricky little game for such a little girl!
”

She smiled, apparently truly delighted. “So,” she said, “do you acknowledge your defeat
?”

“
Aye, you have bested me,” he grumbled, venting his frustration by twisting his finger about in the red wool until it was thoroughly tangled. “I don’t know what your mother has been murmuring on about…it’s not as if you need any protection
.”

The girl laughed, the sound a beautiful rill within the stone hall
.

“
I win!” she said. “Again
.”

The imp pulled his finger free, and glared at her. “I have a brother,” he said, “bigger and nastier than me
.”

“
Of course you do,” said the girl
.

“He
shall be able to defeat you
.”

The girl raised an eyebrow, the expression on her face that of a much older and experienced person than a six-year-old girl. “Shall we ask him, then?” she said
.

The next night I went to John Thornton. I had not been to him, been
with
him, for almost three months, not since that night Long Tom had appeared to us in the park. A great coolness had sprung up between he and I, for which I was very sad. I liked John greatly, and had a vast respect for him, and I knew I had treated him poorly. He had come to love me, and even so I had let our affair continue when it would have been better and kinder to have stopped it before he came to feel too deeply for me.

In my hands I carried a sealed letter.

He was asleep, for it was very late, and he jerked awake with a start when he realised my presence in his chamber.

“Noah? Lord Jesus, Noah, what do you here?”

“May I sit on the bed for a while, John?”

He sat up, propping the pillows behind his back. “What do you want?”