Darkwitch Rising (47 page)

He’d wanted her paraded through his palace as…what? Triumph on his part? Malice? Punishment? Entertainment?

As the guard brought Jane to a halt outside the final doorway leading to the king’s private audience room, the royal parlour, Jane briefly closed her eyes. It had come to this, all the promises and ambitions and power of three thousand years before.

Hatred, revenge, humiliation.

“You may enter,” said the richly dressed man whom the guard had addressed. The man, probably the palace chamberlain, lifted an eyebrow at her, and pointedly stepped back…then pulled a snowy handkerchief from his coat pocket and held it to his nose.

The doors swung open, and Jane, hating herself more than she thought humanly possible, entered.

King Charles’ private audience room was smaller than Jane had initially expected.

It was also dimmer, and she had to stop a few paces inside the doors and blink, trying to refocus her vision.

There were only a few lamps burning which, combined with the fact that the heavy drapes at the windows had been pulled closed, meant the room was as dark as twilight.

The chamber gradually came into focus. Its walls were hung with green damask silk, matching the drapes at the windows. The domed ceiling was ivory,
and richly gilded. The accoutrements of power were everywhere: the gold glinting from ceiling and chairs and table tops; the richness of the Oriental carpets on the solid mahogany floors; the oil portraits of King Charles I and his queen, Henrietta Maria, as well as the current Charles’ grandfather, James I; the all-pervading sense of power in the room.

It was that sense of power that brought Jane to her senses. She glanced about. There were two women standing almost hidden in the drapery by the window.

There was a man—dark, tall, lithe—standing to one side of the dais. He had a hand on his sword, and his face was swathed in dark anger.

Coel
? she wondered, and her heart beat faster as she recalled that strange dream she’d had while unconscious after Weyland’s attack. She looked at the man again, wondering at the anger on his face.

Finally, Jane looked to the dais. There were two thrones atop it, and Jane looked first to the queen.

She was tiny, and dark, and sat sitting forward, her arm propped on the arm of the gilded throne, resting her delicate chin on one hand. She wore a speculative expression on her face, and Jane could see strength and determination there as well.

Jane felt her mouth go dry. That was Matilda-reborn. Queen again, at Brutus’ side, and once more witness to Jane’s mortification.

Finally, Jane looked at Brutus himself: Charles II of England.

There was something “hidden” about him; Jane’s eyes were now accustomed to the dimness of the room, and she should have been able to make him out as clearly as she had Catharine, his queen.

But much of Charles remained hidden. She could
feel
him, feel the power of the kingship bands about him (and yet even that was muted, as if also hiding
behind some enchantment), but she could make out little else save for his overall height and the vast richness of his clothes.

He made an expostulatory sound, as if Jane had somehow annoyed him, and rose.

Scared almost to death, Jane sank to her knees—wishing she had thought to do this the instant she’d entered the chamber—and hung her head low.

Perhaps this way he won’t see how terrified I am. How ashamed I am. How—

“Jane,” he said, and she literally jumped at the kindness and gentleness in his voice.

She shifted her eyes forward, and saw a pair of beautifully tooled scarlet leather boots.

She lifted her gaze a little higher, and saw the fine cut of his silken and velvet breeches.

Still higher, and Jane saw the richly brocaded and jewelled doublet he wore, saw the lace that cascaded from the cuffs of his sleeves, saw the gems on the fingers of his hands as they rested relaxed on his hips.

Still higher, and she saw his face.

And in that moment, as she heard herself gasp and as she heard everyone else in the room step forward and move to encircle her, Jane was absolutely certain that she was a dead woman.

She looked into the handsome face of Charles II, looked at his black curling hair, felt the aura of the golden bands of Troy emanate from his flesh, looked at the power in his dark eyes.

Looked at the knowledge in them.

And recognised him.

“You’re not Brutus,” she said.

W
eyland sent Elizabeth and Frances to collect their belongings as soon as Jane had gone, then he nodded to the two imps and Catling, instructing them to leave as well. I sat there and looked on, and raised no objections, telling Catling only to be good, and not to stray too far.

I felt no great care at sending her off to play with two such evil companions.

Weyland and I sat at that table, listening to the rattle of departing feet over the parlour floor, and then the sound of the front door opening and closing.

“You were surprised,” he said without preamble, “when I told Jane to tell Charles not to go near the forests.”

I said nothing, not knowing what to say. If he knew that, then he knew too much.

He knew the significance of “shelter”, I was sure of it, and if he knew
that
, then I was lost. Everything was lost.

And yet why did I not feel afraid? For an instant I recalled that strange vision he and I had shared when he’d healed me, then I forced the memory aside
.

“Jane told me not to underestimate you,” I said.

He smiled, an easy, friendly boyish expression that sat well on his attractive face. “Jane is a very wise woman. The question is, though, can she overcome her dislike of you enough to teach you the craft of Mistress of the Labyrinth?”

Weyland leaned slightly forward across the table.

I moved back in my chair, the movement instinctive, and saw something in his eyes at my reaction that almost looked like…regret. Perhaps even hurt. I tried not to allow myself to be persuaded. After all, I’d learned a long time ago that Asterion was a good actor.

“Let me tell you something of my origins,” he said, “for I would you came to know me better. Do you know from where I come, of how I came to be?”

“You were trapped in the heart of the Great Founding Labyrinth of Knossos,” I said, wondering at this history lesson.

“Yes, but from where did I come? Who were my parents? What my origins?”

“How does this matter?” I said. I’d never seen Weyland like this, disarming, almost soft, although when he’d worn his glamour of Silvius he had often been humorous and teasing.

“Do you not want to know who I am?” he said. “Do you not want to know
why
I act as I do?”

“You want power, and you will stop at nothing to achieve it,” I said. “Murder. Destruction. Chaos.
Agony
, whenever you can cause it!”

Again that
cursed
memory of the few minutes Weyland and I had stood on the hill came back to me.
Weyland, Weyland, what are we doing? How can we stop
?

“And where do you think all that came from, eh?” Weyland’s air of boyish charm vanished completely. “Who taught that to me? Ariadne. What was I before she betrayed me, Noah? I was an object of
disgust and shame, which was why I was imprisoned in the labyrinth in the first instance…ah!”

He sat back, looking away. I could see the muscles in his jaw working, and I thought that he was, truly, upset. He spoke again, his voice once more soft, and he did not look at me.

“I was conceived when Minos’ wife, Pasiphae, fell in love with a white bull. Imagine the manner of woman she must have been, to fall in love with a
bull
.”

He hated his mother, I thought, and then my mind fled to my own lover, the white stag, lying so desolate in his glade, and my heart broke for Pasiphae.

“She was determined to copulate with him,” Weyland continued, “no matter the injury to herself. She had a craftsman, Daedalus, construct for her a wooden cow with a convenient opening, I would imagine, at the appropriate spot. She then inserted herself into the cow, her legs down its back legs, her body within its body, and had a servant bring the bull to his ‘cow’, whereupon the bull mounted it.”

He paused, probably thinking of that bestial moment, and for some reason I looked at his left hand which still rested on the table. I’d seen his hands before, surely, but I’d never really looked at them. It was a surprise, this hand. Large and square, but with fine skin and long fingers, tipped with well-kept nails.

It was a sensitive hand. A gentle hand.

“I heard that she screamed when the bull entered her,” he said, his voice now very low, “and begged the servant to pull the bull away. But the bull was strong, and intent on taking his pleasure. Can you imagine, Noah, the sight of it.” He turned his face to me, and I recoiled at the hatred I saw there. “The bull, grunting and thrusting atop Queen Pasiphae.”

I closed my eyes briefly. I could imagine, all too well. Was this from where he got his dark power, I wondered? Power engendered by that terrible, tearing, agonising,
stupid
mating?

If only Pasiphae had known what she was conceiving. If only…

“And thus, I was engendered in agony and horror. My mother hated me, thinking only of the pain and the humiliation. Her husband, King Minos, loathed me…no doubt thinking of the ribald gossip running up and down the streets of Knossos:
They say she fornicated with a bull, and that her child has been born so malformed that its mother cannot bear to gaze upon it
. And that was true enough, for I was born malformed, born with the head of a bull, the head of my
father
.” He spat the word out, and I realised at that moment that
none
of this was acting, this pain was all too real.

“Minos determined to hide me away,” Weyland continued. “It is said he instructed Daedalus to build a labyrinth, and then to place me within it, so that none might ever see my face again, save those that were sent to their deaths. But that is not strictly true. Knossos already had a labyrinth, the Great Founding Labyrinth, and it was into that they placed me—Daedalus was merely the fool sent to place the mewling infant into its heart. And there I stayed, and there I grew, and all the food they ever sent me, Noah, was human flesh. Twice a year, in batches of terrified youths, pissing themselves in fear. Do you blame me for eating, and for enjoying the meal?”

My mouth was dry. I could not respond.

“Everyone regarded me with loathing. Everyone. There was no one, Noah, to offer me any kind of shelter at all.”

There! Again!
He was watching me carefully as he spoke that last, and I knew that he saw my panic.

“No one,” he said very softly, his eyes intense on mine, “to offer me any kind of love.”

I managed, somehow, to swallow, and that gave me the courage to speak. “But Ariadne—”