Darkwitch Rising (33 page)

“John,” I said, “be at peace. This woman I go to, Jane Orr, she is afflicted in the same manner as I. Individually we have no hope, but together we can overcome this dark trouble. I know it, and so does she. And I have many other friends in London. Marguerite and Kate shall join me soon, as yet others. Deliver me you must, and then you must leave me. If you do that, then one day I shall return, carefree and unburdened. If you do not, then I am lost.”

“But you will never love me,” he said.

I said nothing, and dropped away my eyes.

L
ouis de Silva lay awake most of the night, spending half his time worrying about Noah and the other half feeling London rising up through the timbers of the inn and the straw-filled mattress of his bed. The city felt like a wondrously familiar old friend, which Louis supposed that, indeed, it was. Land and London were now so well known to Louis, and he to them, that there was no sense of any discontinuity since Louis’ last time in this land and this moment. Six hundred years had passed, and yet it felt like only an hour or so ago that he had ruled as king over this land and it, and the city, had submitted themselves to him. Along with the land, Louis could feel faint echoes of his blood, as well as Charles’. In their previous life both had left children, and now Louis felt the faint heartbeat of hundreds of their descendants. Most of them—even William and Matilda’s children—had gravitated to the south-east of England. Even though they were so close to London, Louis realised they had no part to play in the game that had ensnared their ancestors. They were well, and for that Louis was pleased, but he did not concern himself overmuch with their presence.

What Louis truly wanted during this long night was to set out and search the city, to be
doing
, but he knew that was pointless. For one, both the night and the storm meant Noah would hardly be out traipsing
the streets. Secondly, Louis doubted Noah had yet had enough time to get to London from Woburn village. It would normally be a ride of two or three days: say three, as the storm would have kept her trapped for at least a day. Presuming she was within a day of London, and presuming also the storm eased, she would likely be here today.

Knowing from where she came, Louis reasonably expected Noah would approach London via Holborn Road, entering the city through Newgate…but then she might come via Smithfield, entering via Aldersgate…or even Cripplegate, if she got lost amid the twisting maze of streets about the dogleg in the city wall.

Damn! Louis lay there as dawn poked light through the shoddy shutters on the window of the chamber and decided that a reasonable idea wasn’t going to be good enough. Worse, he had no idea
where
she would go once she got to London. Vanish in the western parts of the city, or somehow thread her way into the crowded eastern quarters?

Or would the ground somehow rise up and swallow her the instant she got to the city walls?

Louis rose as soon as it was light, washed his hands and face, then threw on his breeches and doublet, hose and shoes, grabbed his hat and cloak, and slung his bag over his shoulder, trying to think optimistically. Noah wouldn’t be hard to spot.

How many single women carrying a baby could there be entering London on this day?

Weyland was up the same time as Louis, driven by a similar impatience.
Noah was near
. He could sense every step closer that she came. Unlike Louis, however, Weyland had no intention of wandering the streets looking for Noah. She would come straight to him. There should be no need to go looking.

“Wake up,” he said with more good nature than usual as he entered the kitchen. “This shall be a day to remember. Your worst enemy is about to become my thrall as much as you.”

Jane said nothing. She rose, straightened her bodice and skirt, and briefly laid a hand on her belly as she walked stiffly to the hearth to see to the fire. She was very pale, her eyes enormous in her increasingly cadaverous face, the sores on her forehead more prominent than normal.

Weyland sat down at the table, watching Jane as she set water to boil then poured him a beaker of ale. She set it by his hand, then went to a cupboard, and pulled forth bread, cheese, a platter and a sharp knife, which she also set by Weyland for his breakfast.

The knife had a most oddly twisted horn handle; it was the same wicked instrument that Asterion had first fashioned three thousand years earlier from the horns of his Theseus-murdered body, and it was the same wicked instrument with which Cornelia had murdered Genvissa, and later used on herself, and which Swanne had used to murder Damson. It was now tired and worn, but Weyland kept it by him as a reminder of all that had passed.

He lifted it high, holding it so that its blade caught the faint gleam of firelight from the hearth. “Will you be good, Jane, or should I hide all the knives?”

“Why be good? You’ll just murder her, as you have every intention of murdering me.”

“Jane—”

“Oh,
damn
you. I will not murder her! Satisfied?”

Weyland narrowed his eyes. That spite was nothing but Ariadne’s blood coming to the fore. He considered making Jane regret her remark, but then decided to let it go. There were far more interesting matters to think on, and to anticipate.

“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.