Darkwitch Rising (78 page)

“What do you mean, ‘All you had learned’?”

Noah went very still, her eyes now entirely on Grace. “There is more you should know.”

Weyland felt the pit of his stomach fall away.

Noah took a deep breath, finally looking at Weyland. “Ariadne sent your daughter away.”

“Yes.”

“She sent her to a tiny city in western Greece called Mesopotama.”

Weyland’s face went very still, but in his chest his heart hammered as if it rang out the dawn of doom.

“Her daughter,
your
daughter, was my foremother.”

His face sagged in stunned disbelief. For long moments his mind could not grasp what she said. Noah was standing before him, their child in her arms, staring at him with a face white with apprehension, telling him that…that
she was bred of his daughter
?

She opened her mouth to speak, but Weyland waved a hand at her, silencing whatever she’d been about to say, and sat down on a chair with a thump. He turned away from Noah, resting his elbows on the table and his face in his hands.

Noah was born of his daughter. Of him, and of Ariadne
.

Weyland began to shake, great tremors that racked his body. Behind him, he heard Noah start to weep, and to babble out words that made no sense.

He heard a thud, and knew she was on her knees at his side, begging him to look at her.

There was another sound, a high-pitched screaming, and he knew Grace was wailing.

Noah was born of his daughter. Of him, and of Ariadne
.

He took several very deep breaths, managing to stop his tremors, but not yet able to look at Noah and their daughter.

Their daughter, twice bred of him, and of Ariadne
.

He became aware, very slowly, that Noah was crying out his name, over and over, her voice thick with sobbing, and that one of her hands was clenched in the material of his breeches.

He took another great breath, managed somehow to quiet the racing of his heart, lifted his head, turned about a little in the chair, and looked down on Noah’s grief-ravaged face.

He felt very calm, and very sure of himself.

And, for the first time in countless thousands of years, at total peace with who and what he was.

“No wonder,” he said, “that I love you so greatly.”

There was a space of time in which nothing was said. Weyland slid down to the floor beside Noah, took her in his arms, and let her cry herself out as he rocked her back and forth. He crooned softly to her, and to their daughter, until eventually both lay quiescent and quiet in his embrace.

When that silence stretched into an infinity, Weyland kissed Noah’s brow, and spoke. “Imagine what the good vicar of St Dunstan’s shall say when he hears that I have been fornicating with my daughter-heir, so close to his house of God.”

“You are angry,” Noah said.

“No,” he said, “I am not. I am at peace. I know who you are, and what you are, and I do not think there can be anything more you can tell me that could shock me.”

She tensed. “Weyland, I have the—”

“Darkcraft within you. Yes, I understand that. No wonder you kept asking me to use it in our loving. You were exploring it, yes?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m sorry that I didn’t—”

“I should have felt it. Dear gods, no woman has ever been able to withstand the amount of darkcraft
I poured into you. Not even Ariadne.” He paused. “Tell me, does Brutus know this?”

“Yes.”

She could not see it, but Weyland smiled, and closed his eyes in contentment. He felt on solid ground with her, for the very first time. “He rejected you.”

“I turned my back on him.”

Weyland tilted her face up so he could see it. “Truly?”

“Aye. Truly.”

He studied her a moment, then he lifted his arm from about her, took Grace from her, and rose, nesting the baby carefully in a cradle which rested to one side of the hearth.

He turned back to Noah, who watched him apprehensively, then he undressed until he stood naked before her.

“I am going to make love to you,” he said, “and in the doing I am going to pour into you all the darkcraft of which I am capable, and, when I do this,
you
are going to set your darkcraft free, and thus for once we are going to be honest with each other, and we are going to know each other for who and what we truly are.”

And thus he did, and thus I did as he commanded. If I hadn’t, I would have died under the onslaught of his darkcraft. I needed to loose my own darkcraft in order to negate his and in order to keep on living
.

The darkcraft, rising. It boiled and bubbled and seethed and scalded forth, and it met and entwined with Weyland’s, and suddenly I felt whole and complete. If there had been any doubts left, then now they crumbled
.

That initial mating, that initial meeting of dark powers, was vicious and hard and cruel and it tore the breath from my body
.

But when I (and he also, I think, for he had never before coupled with a woman with darkcraft innate within her) became more used to it, then frenzy and apprehension turned to serenity and certainty, and we reached a strange, peaceful plateau. There struggle turned to languidness, and there we rested
.

And there, eventually, we became aware of a third presence
.

Our daughter, Grace, bred from two parents with darkcraft for blood, reaching out to us, and loving us
.

“You need to learn to use your darkcraft slowly,” Weyland said as he lay entwined with her.

Neither cared, nor were even aware, of the cold flagstones.

“If you let the darkcraft free again with such inhibition, and I am not with you, and you are not used to it, then it may well destroy you.”

She kissed his chest, one of her hands running down his flank. “Then stay with me.”

“Noah, the Troy Game will come after us. We have to—”

“I know.” Now she sighed, and sat up. “Weyland, I must move, and soon.”

“We must move, and soon.”

She smiled. “Aye. We.” Then her smiled faded. “But we cannot move against the Game right now. We have not the power to murder it. We need…”

We
need Ringwalker
.

“We need to consolidate,” Weyland said, although he knew what she had meant. “And
you
need to learn.”

Noah lifted her face and looked across to where Grace lay in her cradle, then she looked
back to Weyland. “I must go. There are those I need to talk to.”

“I know.” He reached out a hand, sliding it slowly over a shoulder and down one arm. “We will wait for you.”

J
ohn Thornton woke suddenly, his heart thumping.

Someone was in the bedchamber.

He rolled his head to check on his wife, Sarah.

She was sleeping soundly.

There was a soft sound by the window.

Thornton turned his head to look.

Noah stood there, her mouth curving in a smile. “Hello, John.”

“Lord God!” Thornton said in a hushed voice. “What are you doing here?”

Noah glanced at Sarah, still soundly asleep. “Come to visit, John. Perhaps if you’d like to put on a shirt and breeches, and some stout shoes, we can walk in the park.”

Then she faded away, and John was left staring at the frosted window. He took several deep breaths, then, very carefully, he extricated himself from the bed, gathered his clothes and shoes, and left the bedchamber.

John Thornton still tutored the earl and countess’ younger children, but now that he was married, with children of his own, the earl had given him a house on the estate. It stood just on the edge of Woburn Park, under the trees, where it overlooked the gently rolling hills, and where the deer
wandered past twice a day on their journey to and from the lake to water.

Thornton loved the house, for it represented the chance for him to build a marriage and a family with Sarah.

Here he could try to forget Noah, and all she had been and might have been to him.

Consequently, by the time Thornton had struggled into his clothes, grabbed a cloak, and left the house as quietly as he was able, he was in a state of combined high anxiety and righteous anger.

He had wanted to forget Noah as best he was able. He had thought she had forgotten him.

So what now was she doing appearing in his bedchamber in the middle of the night
? God, but if Sarah had woken and seen her…

By the time he had stomped down the front path, Thornton was in a temper such as he rarely felt. He had achieved a kind of fragile peace in his life, and with this single visitation Noah had murdered it forever. He would spend the rest of his life wondering if she would appear again, keeping alive that fragile, terrible hope that she might actually return his love.

“John…”

Noah stood just beside him, smiling. “I am sorry to wake you so.”

“
What do you want
?”

“There is a bench under that tree. Will you come sit with me?”

“Damn it…” But she was already moving towards the tree, and Thornton had no choice but to follow her.

Once he reached the bench, Thornton stood a moment looking at her. She was in her most magical form, the green eyes shot through with gold, the strange diaphanous robe that
should
have left her
half frozen with cold but which, instead, seemed to clothe her in warmth.

She was lovely, far lovelier than Thornton had remembered, and he had thought his memories too beautiful for truth.

He sat down with an angry thump, which Noah ignored. She took his hand and held it in her lap, and the warmth that had enveloped Noah now encased Thornton.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“Really?”

“I have missed you, John.”

“Do not do this to me, Noah.”

“I need to talk.”

“God, woman, you have half of England’s men trailing after you. Could you not talk with one of them?”

“I find myself at a crossroads.”

He didn’t answer. He was looking now, not at Noah, but at the distant shape of a tree. He concentrated on it with all his might, praying that he would somehow survive this night without his life falling apart about him.

“You will never escape me, John.”

“Don’t do this,” he whispered.

“John, I am in a bind.”

Again he didn’t reply.

She drew in a deep breath. “There is something I want to tell you.”

He still refused to look at her.

“It is a story,” she said, “which goes back three thousand years. If I tell you this story, I risk trapping you within it.”

“Then why take this risk?”

“Because I need your advice very badly. John, I need your permission to tell this tale. I need you to know the risk I am taking with your future…lives.”

John stared at her.

“We all come back, John. Life after life. If you are caught up in the Game that has ensnared me, then you will become ensnared in my life also.”

“I already
am
ensnared, Noah.” Then he sighed. “Just tell me this damned story.”

And so Noah did. She sat for over an hour, talking, sharing with him her growth through her different lives, and the growth of the Troy Game which had not only ensnared her, but most of England besides. She told him of Brutus, and Coel, of Eaving’s Sisters, of Catling’s true identity, and of Asterion, and how she had either loved or hated all of them.

She told him of how she had come to love Asterion in this life.

She told him of her true origins, and of the darkcraft seething through her blood.

“You appear very content with yourself,” said Thornton as her voice drifted into silence. “Why tell me all of this?
Why are you here
?”

“I need your permission for what I am about to do.”

“Why my permission, Noah?”

“Because you represent to me the mortal world. And for what I am about to do, I need to know that I have its understanding and permission.”

“And you are about to do…what?”

Noah told him, and Thornton’s face, already pale, became completely colourless.

“Why ask permission for
that
piece of foulness, witch?”

“John, don’t, please.”

He looked away from her, staring into the moon-dappled landscape. “My life would have been so much more peaceful without you in it, Noah.”

“It would have been a tame thing, John.”

He smiled slightly, wryly, and gave a small shake of his head. He would never be free of her, and in some strange way, he found himself grateful. She was right, his life would have been a tame thing indeed if she had not been at its heart.

He sighed. “I understand what you are going to do, but, oh God, how can I condone it? How can I grant you permission?”

“There will be little loss of life, John. If any. There will be material devastation, there will be grief, but not for loss of loved ones.”

“You can manage that?”

“Yes.”

He sat a while, before finally speaking. “This is the only way?”

“It is the only way I can think of.”

He sat again in silence for some time. “Very well,” he eventually said, his voice flat as if he thought that, with this, he betrayed his God, “you have my permission.”

Her hand touched his. “Thank you, John.”

“And as for the father of your new and
only
daughter…do what you have to. I think he will be a far better lover to you than…well, than I could ever have been.”

“You are a generous man, John, and I shall be everlastingly grateful to you.”

“Noah…”

“Yes?”

“If I come back again, as you intimate I will, then I hope to God I will lead a happier life than ever I have in this one.”

Her face paled, and he was glad that at last she knew how badly she had hurt him.

O
h, gods, poor John. How I had hurt him. I would make certain, for I knew I had the power to do it, that in his next life he would be happy, and love, and be loved.