Darkwitch Rising (18 page)

Ah, how sad. Just those four short words.
What do you want
? Well, what I wanted would hurt him immeasurably, and I could hardly bear to do it.

I sat down. I drew in a deep breath, took one of his hands, and rested it on my belly. “I am carrying a child,” I said, and then regretted the words the instant I saw the look of wonder and hope in his eyes.

His hand tightened about my belly, and he leaned closer to me. “My child?” he said, and although he had phrased it as a question, I knew it wasn’t. John truly thought that this was his baby—and what else should he have thought?

“No,” I whispered, then winced as he flinched back from me, his hand
snatched
back as if it had been touching evil.

“Who else have you been whoring with?”

“I’m sorry, John. I—”

He had started to cry, and nothing could have made me feel worse. “What have I done to you, Noah, that you should treat me this way? What have I done, that I must be punished by your presence here, resting
my
hand on your belly, and saying you carry another man’s baby? My God, Noah…” His voice broke, and now I also began to weep. “My God, I had wanted you to be my wife.”

Suddenly wild hope shone from his eyes. “Is that what you want? A husband, to save you from the shame of a lover who has deserted you?”

“No, John,” I whispered.

“Then what
do
you want?” he said, his voice horribly hard. He used one of his hands, which shook badly, to dash away the tears from his cheeks. “What
do
you want?”

I raised the hand in which I held the letter. “I need you to help me send this to…to…”
Gods, how to say it
?

“To the child’s father?”

I nodded miserably.

He gave a hollow laugh, riddled with anguish. “Send it yourself. If you could find him well enough to get that baby in you, then you can find the wherewithal to send him
this
hateful piece of correspondence!”

“He is out of my reach, now. John…John, he is in Antwerp.”

There was a silence. Then: “At King
Charles’
court?”

I nodded. No need to make it any worse for him with added information.

“Who?” he snarled. “
Who
?”

“It does not matter,” I said.

“It matters to
me
!”

“A man who I love more than life itself.”

That broke his anger, finally. He gave a harsh sob, and turned his face away from me.

“I do not know the means to get correspondence to Charles’ court,” I hurried on. “In Cromwell’s Commonwealth it is death to send it publicly. But I know the earl has contacts with the court, and I thought you might know how…” I drifted off. John was no fool. He would know what I meant.

There was a far longer silence than previously.

“Will you allow me to help you?” he said, eventually, and I knew he meant far more than the letter.

I nodded.

He reached out and took the letter from me, holding it between forefinger and thumb as if it were Pilate’s death warrant for Christ.

“I will not read it,” he said.

“I know that,” I said.

He put it to one side, then he shifted forward in the bed, wrapped his arms about me, and rested his face in the hollow of my neck and shoulder.

I could feel his tears wet upon my skin.

“I will never stop loving you,” he whispered.

“I know.”

One of his hands crept around to my belly. “How I wish this were
my
child.”

“I know.” My tears were flowing again. Gods, I hated hurting this man!

“If it helps,” he said, a terrible hope in his voice, “I can tell the Bedfords that this
is
my child. Once they discover you’re with child, they will ask you to leave.”

“No,” I said. I needed to stop this now. He wanted to claim the child, knowing the earl and countess would force me to marry him. “No, John. We will
not
say this is your child. I will face them myself, and I will not mention your name. This is my burden, my child, and I will carry all responsibility for it.”

“Whatever you want from me,” he whispered, “ask. I will give you anything you ask for.”

“I will,” I said. “I promise.”

We sat in silence for a while, then he sighed softly.

“I hope this child is everything you want it to be,” he said.

“Oh,” I said, “she will be. I have wanted this daughter…oh, for so long.”

“Daughter? You know it is a daughter?”

How to explain? I hesitated, then decided to speak as much of the truth as I could. John deserved that much, at least. “I carried a child many years ago, John. When I was seven months pregnant, a woman who wished me much harm forced the child from me, and murdered her. This child is my daughter reconceived, a second chance for her to live, and for me to love her.”

Again, a period of quiet before John spoke. “A child you carried many years ago? How can this be? You were a virgin when first we bedded. My God,
you were
thirteen
when you came to Woburn Abbey. When did you manage a child?”

How could I explain
that
to him? Once more, I spoke the truth. “I lost my daughter in a life I lived many, many years past. This child’s father…I loved him then, too.”

John was still upset enough that he ignored the reference to a past life. “Then what have
I
ever been to you, Noah, if all this time at Woburn you have been doing nothing but pining for this lover and, apparently, his daughter?”

“You have been my lifeblood, John,” I said. Then I rose, kissed him once, gently, on the mouth, and left.

The imp sat with the girl, his finger tracing a painfully slow path through the labyrinthine tangle of red wool before him
.

To one side sat his brother, his wrinkled blackened face bright with hope that his sibling might succeed where he had failed
.

But the second imp had no more luck than the first, and, after this, his thirty-third attempt to reach the outer gate of the labyrinth of red wool stretched between the girl’s hands, he snatched his hand away and spat on the floor
.

The girl, unperturbed, raised her eyebrow in that peculiarly mature expression of hers
.

“
You admit defeat?” she asked the imp sitting before her
.

To the other side, the already vanquished imp sighed in resignation
.

“
Aye,” muttered the imp sitting before the girl. “I suppose I do
.”

“
This means I have bested the both of you, and that therefore you must do as I say. Yes
?”

Silence
.

“
Yes?” she said, her tone more insistent.

“
Yes,” both imps mumbled
.

She laughed again, the sound chilling. “Good! But no need for such long faces. I have a proposition for you. One
sure
to please
.”

J
ane worked silently in the kitchen as she prepared the evening meal. Every so often she paused to rub at either one of her legs or her forehead. Both legs and head ached abominably. In the past six months her pox had become infinitely worse. Large sores covered her forehead and cheekbones, fermenting, laying open her flesh to the bone, and weeping foul fluids constantly. The pain of the sores was made much worse by the terrible aches in her lower spine and legs: her bones suppurated as vigorously as did her outer flesh. The flesh over her thigh bones was now hard and reddened and extremely painful to the touch; Jane was terrified that soon lesions would open up there too, great abscesses which would ooze right down to the bone.

Jane spent a great deal of her time either weeping, or wishing she were dead.
Anything
, to escape this horror.

There was a step in the doorway which led to the parlour, and Jane turned around slowly.

Elizabeth stood there, her face drawn and weary. “Do you need any help, Jane?” she asked. “You have finished for the day?” Elizabeth’s mouth twisted. “There are no more men waiting.”

There was such quiet resignation in Elizabeth’s voice that Jane felt a moment of sympathy. She liked Elizabeth, for the girl never averted her gaze from Jane’s ruined face, nor regarded her with disdain.
Elizabeth did not try to avoid Jane, nor did she try to curry favour with her.

She regarded Jane with what Jane had, eventually, and very surprisingly, recognised as a respectful friendship.

“Leave, Elizabeth,” Jane said. “There is no need for you to stay the rest of the day.”

“Weyland will not want me to go so early.”

“I will tell him I sent you back to the tavern cellar. That you were ill. Go now. There is no need for you to…” Jane stopped, unable to complete the sentence.
There is no need for you to suffer as I do
.

Elizabeth nodded, hesitated, then walked over to Jane and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek. “Thank you,” she said, and then she was gone.

Jane stood motionless for a long time after Elizabeth had left, stunned at the simple gesture of affection.

Weyland returned within the hour.

“Where’s Elizabeth?” he said as he sat himself down at the table. “I saw Frances cleaning the stairs, but no sign of the other.”

“I sent her home. Her head ached, and her back.”

He grunted.

Jane looked at him in surprise. She had expected far worse of Weyland than a mere grunt.

But then Weyland had been distracted and distant ever since Midsummer’s Day. Despite finding Brutus-reborn still in Antwerp, the day’s events had patently unsettled him.

Due to the suffering she’d received at Weyland’s hands during that day, Jane herself remembered little save for snatches of extraordinary vision. Brutus and Cornelia (and she dressed as the Mistress of the Labyrinth, as if she had already taken over that office), kissing, making love. Brutus-reborn, throwing a forest into Weyland’s face.

A tiny girl, playing with imps.

Imps? There was another besides hers
?

“It’s time,” Weyland said, fairly softly. “His thirtieth year approaches.”

“Time for what?”

“Time for Charles to get his throne back, I think.”

Jane’s breath caught a moment in her chest. “Time to bring
Brutus
back?”

Weyland said nothing, not even acknowledging her question with his eyes.

“But you’re afraid of him!”

He
roared
to his feet, and struck her the terrible blow she’d been expecting ever since she’d sent Elizabeth home.

“I am not afraid of him!”

You’re terrified of him!
But Jane kept her shoulders bowed, her face averted, and Weyland returned to his seat at the table.

“I have a means of controlling him,” he said.

“Cornelia-reborn,” Jane murmured, shuffling closer to the hearth.

“Yes. Noah Banks now. Living a life of luxury at Woburn Abbey. Well, I hope she enjoys it while she may.”

It took Jane a moment to realise what Weyland meant. “You’re going to bring her
here
?”

“Aye. And Charles will do anything to keep her safe.”