Darkwitch Rising (46 page)

“
I
do not know what you mean,” said Noah in a low voice as both women bent over the breakfast preparations. “Of what do you accuse me? I know nothing of the arts of the Mistress of the Labyrinth. Nothing. For the gods’ sakes, Jane—”

“I said all I needed last night. Do not speak of it
now
, I beg you! Not when the house wakes about us!”

Noah’s mouth folded into a thin line, annoying Jane.

“Don’t dare to condescend to me, Noah! At least
I
know precisely what it is that you birthed—” Her eyes slid to Catling, playing at the table with her red wool.

“Jane?
What do you know
?”

But Jane pretended not to hear, and instead looked to the pot Noah was supposed to be stirring continuously.

“Don’t let the porridge burn!” she snapped, grabbing the ladle out of Noah’s hand.

“Ladies, ladies,” said Weyland from the doorway, and both women stiffened. He walked into the kitchen, his imps at his heels. They clutched at the tail of his three-quarter-length cream linen coat and grinned slyly at the women.

Weyland glanced at Jane’s face, paused—during which time Jane stiffened even further—then gave a slight nod as if satisfied and sat down at the table.

At that moment Elizabeth and Frances came in from the side alley after a trip to the privy. The two girls looked at Weyland and the imps, then at Noah and Jane, and sat down at the opposite end of the table, glancing at Weyland with open hostility.

The imps glanced at Catling playing with her wool, then sat beside Weyland. They placed their hands flat on the table top, then, simultaneously, looked over to where the porridge had just been rescued from a burned fate and licked their lips.

Weyland shot them an irritated glance.

Jane and Noah served up breakfast, adding a platter of freshly baked bread to the fare, and pouring out warmed weak beer for everyone to drink.

Then they sat down themselves and Weyland, dipping a piece of bread into his porridge and taking a bite, regarded Jane speculatively. She tried not to react, but could feel her heart pound and a trickle of sweat start down her spine.

Weyland swallowed his mouthful, and addressed Elizabeth and Frances, eyeing their borrowed clothes.

“Where are your clothes?”

“When we cleaned up, um, after…” said Elizabeth.

“Get to the point,” Weyland said.

“After we’d cleaned the kitchen, we found our skirts and bodices ruined with blood. We had to throw them out. Our spare clothes are at our lodgings, and you said that we couldn’t—”

“You could surely have saved the clothes,” said Weyland. “They cost me good money.”

“Money that
Elizabeth
and
Frances
had paid for with weeks spent on their backs and half of London’s apprentices heaving over them,” Jane said. She did not look at Weyland.

His eyes, hooded and guarded, swung back her way for a moment. Then he glanced at Noah, and whatever he saw in her face made his cheeks colour slightly. His mouth thinned, then he dipped a piece of bread into his porridge, and chewed and swallowed it. “You have my permission,” he said to the two girls, “to return to your lodgings and collect what clothes remain to you. While you are there, you may tell your landlord that you shall not be returning, and that he may hire out his dismal cellar to some other desperates, if he so desires. Remind him that I have paid your rent until Michaelmas, so do not allow him to trick more coin out of you.”

What coin
? thought Elizabeth, but kept her eyes downcast so that Weyland should not see the expression in them.

Weyland scraped out the last of his porridge with his spoon and fed it into his mouth. “You and Frances may take the first bedroom at the top of the stairs,” he said. “The bed is large enough for the two of you.”

“And perfectly foul,” said Noah. “If Elizabeth and Frances are to live here—”

He looked at her. “I will give you coin, Elizabeth,” he said, his eyes not leaving Noah’s face, “to purchase some new linens while you are out.”

“And coin enough to buy a chest for their clothes, and candles and pewter to make the room livable,” said Noah. “And I’m sure they could do with some material to make some better clothes for themselves than what they own now.”

Weyland stared at her, his eyes hard, then gave a curt nod.

Everyone sat in silence for several minutes, Catling still playing with her wool, the imps staring about with their bright eyes, Jane and Noah making a show of eating some breakfast, and Elizabeth and
Frances sitting tense and watchful, as if they were waiting only for a signal from Weyland before bolting out the door.

Weyland sipped at his ale, ate a little more bread, and then spoke. “I have decided to discontinue our business activities,” he said. “All this whoring has ceased to amuse me.”

“Then let Frances and myself return to our homes in Essex,” said Elizabeth.

“Not yet,” said Weyland.

Elizabeth shared a glance with Frances, opened her mouth, and then subsided. She had pushed fortune far enough for the day.

“You
will
return from your outing today, Elizabeth,” said Weyland, his voice still low, fixing each of the girls in turn with a steady eye. “You and Frances both.”

They did not reply, looking everywhere but at Weyland or his imps.

“You
will
return,” he repeated, his tone even lower.

Elizabeth was the first to drag her eyes back to him. “Yes,” she said, “we will return.”

Weyland smiled. “Good.” His attention shifted to Jane. “Now, you may recall I said I had a duty for you this day.”

He pushed his chair back suddenly, as if he was going to rise, and Jane flinched.

Weyland’s mouth curved in a very small smile. “Once you have cleaned this kitchen, I want you to set off down to Whitehall, and visit with the king.”

Everyone in the kitchen, imps and Catling included, looked at Weyland in astonishment. He grinned at their undivided attention, then winked at Noah, who was looking aghast.

“He shall receive you,” Weyland continued, looking back to Jane. “Knowing Brutus, my love, he’s
probably already smoothing the bed sheets in anticipation. No, wait…I forgot…he didn’t exactly fall into your bed in your last lives together, did he?”

Jane’s face tightened. Weyland always instinctively knew the best barb for the occasion.

And Brutus. What would he say when he saw her this way? Her face battered, her shoulders slumped with years of degradation…how could she face him? By the gods, once she’d been so powerful, so beautiful. He’d loved her, lusted for her. And now…to come before him in this state…

Jane realised Weyland was staring at her, and by the satisfaction apparent in his eyes she knew he understood her humiliation.

“You will go before the king, before magnificent Charles, before resurgent Brutus, and you will give him three messages.”

He waited, and after a moment Jane dipped her head stiffly in acceptance.

“Good. First you may offer Brutus my hearty congratulations on regaining the throne. He must be very pleased. You will say this to him.”

Jane jerked her head in assent again.

“Second, you shall tell him this: Do not think to attempt to locate the bands, fool, for I have Noah, and I will do to her what I have done to she who stands before you should you try to find your damned kingship bands. Do you understand?”

Again Jane gave a single jerk of her head.

“He is
not
to attempt to find those bands, for then I will slaughter Noah—not kill her, you understand, but steep her in such misery and humiliation and degradation, that she will wish herself dead. I will do to her what I have done to you.
Do you understand
?”

“Yes! I understand.”

“There is a third message. Tell the fool this also: If you go near the forests, king, if you so much as eye a
single tree, or step within its shade,
I will make sure that Noah suffers for an eternity
. If he stays away from both the bands of Troy, and the forests, then I will keep Noah well.”

Jane glanced at Noah.
He knows. He knows about the Stag God—

Silence!
Noah all but shouted in her mind.
Not here!

A slow grin lifted the corners of Weyland’s mouth, and he looked between Jane and Noah. “This is going to be a most pleasant day,” he said. “I do wish I could be a fly on the audience chamber’s walls. Or do you think Brutus shall receive you in his privy, Jane? It’s the only proper place for you, don’t you think?”

Jane hung her head, and her swollen eye stung miserably as a tear squeezed its way out. Then she flinched as Weyland leaned over the table and wiped it away.

“Remember all I have said, Jane. Oh, and enjoy the day. You don’t get out much.”

J
ane walked up Idol Lane. She had neatened herself as much as possible—although the state of her face (swollen, bruised, scabbed, black-eyed) meant that she was a sorry sight indeed.

A youth passing glanced at her, and then hurried on, not quite managing to stifle his snigger and Jane coloured as she turned down Little Tower Street and then eventually down an alley running parallel with Cheapside.

Oh gods, that once she had walked this way when she had been beautiful and powerful, and all who had passed her had bowed in respect
.

Now, here she walked, a bedraggled, humiliated prostitute, off to visit Brutus.

A king.

How would he regard her? With pity? Revulsion? Surely not with respect.

A sudden, horrible thought occurred to Jane. Were Ecub and Erith there as well? Would they smile in satisfaction, and send cruel barbs her way?

Jane forced herself to think of Noah to take her mind away from how Ecub and Erith, not to mention Brutus, might treat her. She’d meant what she said to Noah the previous night; Ariadne should
not
have been able to pull Noah to her side with the power that she used. Noah was not a trained Mistress of the Labyrinth, so that meant only one thing.

She must have it bred within her. Gods, how had
that
come about?

Jane crossed into the square about St Paul’s and, without a glance at the cathedral, walked down towards Ludgate and Fleet Street. She felt numb. Jane’s one remaining piece of pride had been in her ability to deny or grant Noah powers as Mistress of the Labyrinth as
she
, Jane, chose.
If you want me to teach you the craft of the Mistress of the Labyrinth, then do this, or be that, or grant me this wish
.

Now even that was taken away from her.

Even
Noah
didn’t need her any more. Sooner or later Noah was going to realise that she barely needed to snap her fingers to assume the powers of Mistress.

But why? Why
? And how long had Noah been carrying this potential? Had she, even as Cornelia, been harbouring the power of the labyrinth?

How? How
?

Jane was walking past Charing Cross and her steps slowed. It was now but a short walk to her total mortification. She made the effort to straighten her spine, square her shoulders and bring her emotions under some kind of control.

Finally managing to attain some semblance of calm, Jane walked to the gates of Whitehall Palace. There was a crowd gathered composed of curiosity seekers and supplicants, and Jane had to shove her way through so that she could speak to the guards.

And how was she going to argue her way past them? Impress them with her regal bearing, her pride, her damned, cursed
power
?

“I am Jane Orr,” she said as she finally managed to stand before them. “I have come to present my respects to His Majesty, King Charles.”

The four guards looked her up and down, glanced among themselves, and then, incredibly, one of them
shrugged and opened the gate enough for her to slip through.

“Follow me,” said another and, stupefied (had Weyland arranged this?), Jane trailed a pace or two behind the guard as he led her into the palace.

Tears threatened again as she walked as softly as she was able through the palace. Never had she felt so shabby, so unworthy, as she did in this royal building. Everywhere was gilt, or marble, or rich, dark carved wood dressed with silk and velvet.

Everyone she passed stopped and stared, their eyes round, their mouths open.

Aghast.

Jane stiffened more with each step, her head held unnaturally high, her eyes focussed straight ahead, wondering if some of those exquisitely clothed courtiers were even now sending for the servants, to wash and scrub the path where Jane had trod.

What manner of king, they would be thinking, would want this in his presence?

The guard led her into grander and grander apartments, until they reached a series of massive rooms that opened each into the other. It was, Jane realised, the end of her journey. Here the final approach to the king, through the series of waiting and audience rooms, where, in each succeeding chamber, the hopeful supplicant would be vetted by increasingly senior members of the king’s household, to be judged and either allowed to continue on the pilgrimage to the royal person, or to be cast aside, and asked to leave the palace forthwith.

Here even more people stared at her: those waiting, or those already told their application to be received by the king had been unsuccessful. Here they stood or sat, watching as a tattered, thin, beaten prostitute was shown through chamber after chamber without any examination.

Why oh why
, Jane thought,
couldn’t the guard have brought me to Charles via some unknown way, some servants’ passage
?

Then Jane realised that Charles had wanted this, had wanted her to suffer the ultimate humiliation.

He’d wanted her to endure this open shame, this public crucifixion.