Darkwitch Rising (60 page)

Brutus had loathed to be so summoned. Silvius could have raged at him, or administered punishment, but he had done neither. Silvius would merely stand, gazing out the open door that looked into a small courtyard, before slowly turning as Brutus entered and, very softly, explaining his disappointment.

Now, as Louis opened his eyes and was overwhelmed by a long-forgotten sense of deep discomfort and shame, he wondered how much those terrible, shame-filled visits had been behind his decision to push that arrow down, instead of pulling it out.

Louis’ next thought was…
Am I here for another discourse on disappointment? Has Silvius stored up three thousand years’ worth of disappointments to “discuss” with me
?

He glanced down at his ruined chest, rubbed away the dried blood that caked his left cheek and jaw, and straightened, looking about with the one eye remaining to him.

The chamber was as he remembered it. Tiled in softly coloured mosaics, it was barely furnished save for a couch set close to the window, a desk clean of any pens or parchments, and a low wooden chair set against the wall.

Louis automatically looked to the light-filled doorway which led to the courtyard, expecting to see, as he always had, the shadow of his father, slowly turning about to study his son.

There was nothing. The doorway was empty of everything save light.

Louis turned slightly to look behind him at the doorway which led back into the house.

Nothing. The chamber was empty save for himself.

“Father?” Louis said, once more facing into the chamber. “Silvius?”

Silence.

“Father?”

Silence…save that this time, there was a change in the light at the courtyard door—as if someone moved deep within the courtyard.

Louis walked forward, silently and carefully. He reached the doorway then, unable to stop himself, turned (
slowly, slowly
) and looked back into the chamber.

For an instant he saw a shadow, the boy-child Brutus, standing sullen and resentful as he waited for his father to speak.

Then the shadow shimmered and vanished, and Louis turned, and, taking a deep breath, stepped into the courtyard.

The courtyard was almost as spare and empty as Silvius’ chamber. There was a small tree, a wooden bench beneath its shade, and, just beyond the bench, a large fish pond.

Silvius was crouched by the pond, crumbling a piece of bread into the gaping mouths of the fish as
they broke the surface in a boiling, bubbling frantic crowd.

Louis stared, not knowing what to do or say, but then Silvius rose, tossed in the final piece of bread for the fish to squabble over, and turned to look at his son.

“I have been so blessed in you,” he said, and, walking forward, embraced Louis.

Weyland had gone to the market about his own business, and Jane and Noah were left alone.

“Well?” said Jane.

Noah frowned, as if puzzled.

“Why is Weyland so cheerful? Gods, Noah, I have never seen him so…carefree.”

“Perhaps he is happy, knowing he has me trapped within his den at night. You should be grateful, Jane, to sleep so undisturbed in this kitchen.”

Jane narrowed her eyes. “And what
is
in that den, Noah? Is it grey nothingness? Is it terror-ridden nightmare? Or is it…what?”

Noah hesitated, sliding her eyes away from Jane’s direct gaze.

“Noah?”

Noah ran her tongue over her lips, meeting Jane’s gaze once more. “He calls it his Idyll, Jane. It is a place of beauty.” Her voice softened. “Beauty beyond anything I could have imagined. It is not like this land. It is…”

Her voice drifted off, and for one crazed moment Jane thought Noah had been going to say,
It is Asterion
.

“It must be a trap,” Jane said.

“No,” Noah said, and in her eyes Jane saw a faint reflection of the same delight she’d seen in Weyland’s. Faint, but there.

“You lay with him!” Jane said.

“No! Gods, Jane…No. I did not. We lay together side by side, and we talked, but we did not…No. If I look…” Noah hesitated, and Jane saw again the tip of her tongue sliding over her lower lip. “If I look content, and perhaps even joyful, then it is merely the memory of Weyland’s Idyll.” Her voice slid into the defensive. “It
is
beautiful, and remarkable.”

“I had no idea you were this gullible, Noah.”

“Well, then,” Noah said, “there is another reason I should look joyful.” Noah glanced about the room, moved yet closer to Jane, and whispered into her ear: “Last night Louis began his journey.”

It was a dangerous thing to say, even so blandly put, but Jane knew instantly what she meant. “Ah!” she said on a breath. “I knew I felt something last night! Has he completed…his journey?”

Noah gave a small shake of her head. “There is a way to go yet.”

“Then we should be careful,” Jane said.

“Aye.”

“Noah…”

“Aye?”

“Tomorrow morning we must begin our own journey.”

Noah stilled.

“Ariadne spoke to me,” Jane said. “Last night. While you slept. Chastely. With Asterion.”

Louis lifted his arms and hugged his father to him fiercely until Silvius laughed, and managed to pull back a little.

“Well,” Silvius said, “it is finally time you came through that door and into the courtyard.”

Louis realised suddenly that Silvius had both his eyes, and that he also could see with two eyes. He put a hand to his chest, and felt it whole.

He looked back to Silvius. “You said you had been so blessed.”

“Brutus was what
I
had made him. I should more than have expected that arrow through the eye, that surge of ambition. But what you are now, and what you shall become,
that
you have made yourself, and it is that making which has blessed me. You are a son to be proud of, Brutus, and I could not have asked for one better.”

Louis’ eyes filled with tears. “Will you come back with me, Silvius? When I can find my way out of this damned enchanted existence? Tell me that this is not the last that I shall see of you. I would like my father back.”

“And you shall have him. There is certainly nothing better I would like than to live out my life beyond the magical portals of the Troy Game.” His face now lost all trace of humour. “I would like
Silvius
to walk the streets of London, not that foul glamour which Asterion created.”

Louis looked about. “Where do I go from here?”

“Forward,” said a new voice, and Louis turned to see Long Tom standing just inside the doorway that led into Silvius’ private chamber.

Long Tom held out his hand, and Louis walked forward.

As he drew closer to the doorway, he saw that beyond lay not Silvius’ chamber, but the forest.

Elizabeth was setting out one of Catharine’s gowns when another of the queen’s women, Lady Northard, entered and informed Elizabeth, with a sniff, that there were two disreputable boys waiting in the servants’ courtyard to speak to her.

Elizabeth thanked her, then walked swiftly to the courtyard, trying to quiet her nerves.
What could they want
?

She found the imps waiting for her in a shadowed corner.

“What is it?” she said, taking care not to stand too close to them.

“Weyland wants to know,” said one, “if you have anything interesting to report on our majesty the king’s movements last night. Did anything of note take place?”

Little beast
, Elizabeth thought, but was careful to keep the distaste off her face.

“No,” she said. “He spent a quiet night in bed with his queen.”

“And how could you be so sure of that?” said the other imp. “Did you hide behind the curtains, and peep at them while they fornicated?”

“They spent the night together. In bed. I saw this for myself, for early in the morning, well before dawn, the queen called me to her side—‘twas my turn, last night, to sit awake in case she needed me—in order that I might empty her chamberpot, for she’d passed a particularly foul—”

“Yes, yes,” said the second imp, wrinkling up his nose into a score of shadowy lines. “It is the king we are interested in, not the queen’s bodily stenches.”

“In that case,” said Elizabeth, “I shall tell you that the king lay awake, concerned for his wife.”

“Concerned at the reek, more like,” the first imp muttered. Then, louder, “And you are sure indeed that it was he? Not some stable lad pretending to be the king?”

“It was he,” Elizabeth said, her voice calm, her eyes steady.

The nearer imp to her reached out suddenly, and closed sharp-nailed fingers about her wrist. “Really?” he said softly, and Elizabeth felt darkcraft seethe through her.

She gasped, sure that her lie would be discovered, but the imp only peered intently at her for a moment, then sighed, nodded, and withdrew his hand.

“It was a horrid reek, indeed,” he said to his brother. “The king quite lost all lustful thought he had for his queen.”

Then the imps both looked at Elizabeth. “Don’t get too comfortable,” said the first imp. “Weyland might want you to come home, you know.”

At that they were gone, and Elizabeth leaned momentarily against the wall in sheer relief.

Then she smiled, remembering what had happened last night when the Lord of the Faerie returned to the chamber.

He had greeted Catharine, then Marguerite and Kate, and had then turned first to Elizabeth and then to Frances, kissing each girl warmly on the mouth.

“Weyland will never know,” he’d said. “Tell him, if he probes, only that my lady wife needed you to empty her chamberpot, and that as you did so, you spied myself, sleepy, in the bed.”

“Well,” said the first imp, “I’ll pop back to Idol Lane, shall I, and tell Weyland what she said?”

“Aye,” said his brother. “And then hurry down to the wharves, for there awaits us a berth on the
Woolly Fleece
, bound for the Low Countries. Weyland shall see us no more for a few weeks, I think.”

“
T
omorrow morning,” said Jane to Weyland that evening as they sat at supper, “Noah and I must leave you for the day. It is time she began her training.”

His gaze was hooded and watchful. “Very well. That was part of the bargain I made with Noah. If she lay by my side at night,” those eyes slid Noah’s way for a brief moment, “then she and you had your freedom to do what you needed. Tell me, where do you go?”

“You do not need to know,” Jane said. “It is a matter which concerns only Noah and myself.”

Weyland looked intently at Jane for a moment, but eventually he nodded. “I am pleased you do this, Jane.”

“Are you not in the smallest bit concerned at
what
I might teach Noah?”

Weyland laughed. “You forget I
know
you, Jane. I know every piece of you, every thought you’ve ever entertained, every ounce of power you think to wield. I know what you are capable of, and what you are not. So, no, I am not in the least concerned. You can do no harm.”

An hour later, he took Noah by the hand and led her upstairs to his Idyll.
Jane looked carefully at Noah the next morning, but saw nothing in her face save some excitement intermixed with apprehension. Having breakfasted—Noah eating very little—they departed, walking down Idol Lane to Thames Street and then turning left towards the Tower.

“Where will we meet Ariadne?” said Noah as they approached the Tower. The vaguely square-shaped complex loomed before them, the original Norman keep, now known as the White Tower, rising in the centre from amid a motley collection of roofs. Ill-repaired walls, sprouting shrubs here and there throughout their height and punctuated at intervals by gloomy bastions, surrounded the complex. A stinking, stagnant moat lay beyond the walls.

“She said she would wait for us by the Lion Gate,” Jane said, referring to the medieval gate and towers that guarded the bridge over the moat, which gave access to the Tower.

As she spoke they turned the final corner, walked up the incline leading to Tower Hill, and saw the Lion Gate directly.

A woman and a man stood there, arm in arm, the woman of a dark exotic beauty and clothed in red silk (the gown of contemporary English design rather than ancient Minoan), the man dressed in the uniform of an Officer of the Tower.

Ariadne, and her lover, the Gentleman of the Ordnance.

“What’s
he
doing here?” Noah said as they approached.

“Presumably she needs him to get us inside,” said Jane.

“But why—” Noah said, and then could say no
more, for they stood before the Lion Gate, and Ariadne and her gentleman advanced towards them.

“My friends!” Ariadne said, and taking first Noah’s, then Jane’s, face between her hands kissed them soundly on both cheeks. “I am so glad you could come!” Then, almost without drawing breath, she said to Jane. “Thank you for bringing Noah, Jane. You may return towards dusk to collect her again.”

Almost panicked, Noah said, “You cannot go home, Jane! Weyland thinks that you—” she stopped, looking at Ariadne’s lover, who was regarding the women before him with amused blue eyes.

“I am not that silly,” Jane said. “I shall spend my day about Tower Fields, gathering flowers.” And with that she was off, striding briskly along the western perimeter of the Tower complex towards Tower Fields.

Ariadne put her arm through Noah’s, and turned her towards the waiting man. “Noah, may I introduce my protector, Frederick Warneke, who is the Gentleman Officer of the Ordnance.”

Noah dipped her head slightly at the man. “Gentleman Officer, I am most pleased to meet you. An unusual name, and most certainly not English.” She raised an eyebrow.

“My father was a German merchant,” Warneke said. “He settled here many years ago.”

“Ah,” said Noah. “Did he prefer London to his home, then?”

“Very much so,” said Warneke. “He liked to say it was his spiritual birthplace.”

Noah laughed, liking the man. He was plain of aspect, with thinning fair hair and a luxuriant ginger moustache, but with such lively, humorous blue eyes that they lifted his presence from the ordinary to the attractive.