Her magic was like a beacon now, flaming out so bright he could not believe that everyone from a thousand miles around would not come running. As it flared to its height there was a sudden crack from the fire like a gunshot, and a piece of wood exploded outwards, hitting him in the chest. He dropped his grip and stumbled backwards, beating the sparks from his coat.
Rosa staggered backwards too, her face white, her magic cowed and small as if it had never been that huge blazing column. She tripped against a boulder and half stood, half slumped against the rocky side of the hollow, her breath coming white in the cold air, her chest rising and falling as if she’d run a race. There was a steady drip, drip of blood from her hand and the knife dangled at her side.
‘Rosa . . .’ Luke ran across the clearing to her and caught the knife just as it dropped from her hand, point down, towards her boots. ‘Rosa, are you . . .?’
She staggered and half fell into his arms.
‘I’m all right,’ she was saying hoarsely. ‘I’m all right. It’s just a spell. I’m all right.’
He held her, feeling her heart-rate begin to steady and her hoarse, gasping breaths slow. Her fingers clutched his coat as if she would never let go, like some small, terrified animal with its claws dug in. As the fire shifted and collapsed in a pile of sparks and began to die down, it came to him that he had seen true magic this night. Real magic. Not charms and deceptions, but heart-magic. Blood-magic.
His arms were around Rosa’s shoulders and he felt her shivering begin to subside.
‘Let me look at your arm,’ he said at last, and she held it out like an obedient child and let him wipe it with the rag. The cut was not much – a slice with a sharp blade. She’d missed the artery, thank God.
‘It’s clotting already,’ she said huskily. ‘I’m all right.’
‘It’ll do. But we should wash it. When we get back to the cottage. And you need food.’
‘I need sleep.’
‘Come on,’ he said roughly. He helped her to her feet, pulled her arm across his shoulders. ‘Come on, let’s get you home.’
He thought he would dream that night. He thought that, with what he had seen and done that night, that he would dream of the hand and the cold blaze of magic tearing apart the night, and the snake-headed cane. But he did not. Instead he slept, curled in Rosa’s arms, and his sleep was dreamless, and soft and deep as fallen snow.
When he woke it was dawn and very cold, and he had to break the ice in the pitcher beside the bed to drink, but the sky was clear. It was a beautiful day.
Mrs Cleave fed them porridge and then kissed them goodbye. She gave Rosa the spare dress and Luke a muffler that she had knitted for him all the day before, while Rosa washed and Luke chopped.
Rosa climbed on to Brimstone’s back and Luke looked up at her slim, dark shadow silhouetted against the sun. Her profile was sharp against the frost-blue sky, and he could see the little kink in her nose where Sebastian had broken it, that night in the stables.
Her magic made a bright, shining blaze against the blue and he thought, with a pain in his heart, that he’d never known a girl so gallant and beautiful, and so uncowed by all she’d been through.
‘Goodbye, my ducks.’ Mrs Cleave handed her up the bundle and a parcel of food, and then kissed Luke. ‘You be careful now, it’s a long way to Scotland, and a hard road ahead.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you for everything.’
He wished that he was a man of words, and could say what he felt and thought and meant. But he could only press her hand and hope that she understood what she had done for them both – with the spell book, but more than that: with the knowledge that he was not alone, that this gift of his was not a curse burnt into him by the Black Witch, but something else, something that was, perhaps, good.
She nodded, and he thought perhaps she did understand.
Then he swung himself up behind Rosa, his arms around her waist as she clicked to the horse.
‘Goodbye, Mrs Cleave,’ Rosa called as Brimstone began to trot. ‘And thank you.’
She did not know where they crossed the border, but they must have, for it seemed at last they were in Scotland – and the purple-heathered hills were crested with snow.
‘Langholm five miles,’ Luke said as they passed the signpost. ‘We must have done it. God knows we’ve been going long enough. And we’ve done it!’
‘We’ve twenty-one days yet,’ she reminded him, and she felt him smile. She did not need to turn around. Day after day of walking and riding beside him and she knew his silence, his quiet shifts of mood, from the tenseness of his arms and the muscles of his chest against her spine.
‘Come on, let’s stop,’ he said. ‘Celebrate with a bite.’
She pulled up Brimstone and he slid from the saddle and helped her dismount. Two hairpins fell to the road and she felt the weight of her hair against her neck. She was down to only half a dozen pins, not nearly enough to restrain the great coiled weight.
‘I said we should have cropped me for a boy,’ she grumbled as she pinned up the loose coils, the escaped strands blowing across her face in the soft, cold wind.
Luke smiled again, the dimple just showing beneath his deep beard, as he reached out to tuck a stray curl behind her ear.
‘You’re no boy. Look, it’s coming back red. So much for that dye. If the shop weren’t three hundred miles away I’d be asking for my shilling back.’
‘I could dye it again. They must sell dye in Scotland.’
‘No. Don’t. I like it. And we’re safe now, right?’
‘Yes, we’re safe.’ She smiled back, finding her lips curving to follow his irresistibly. Why did he smile so little, when a smile like that could break your heart? If she had lips that curved like that and a dimple as deep as your little finger, she would have smiled all day and all night just to have her own way.
She hugged her knees as they sat on the verge beside the signpost and took the chunk of bread and cheese that Luke held out. The grass was frosty and crackled beneath Luke’s boots as he sat beside her, but the sun was shining, the scudding clouds making shifting shadows on the far-off hill.
They chewed in companionable silence and then both spoke into the same pause.
‘You know—’
‘I was thinking—’
Luke stopped and laughed.
‘You go first,’ Rosa said.
‘No, it’s all right.’ Luke bit off another mouthful. ‘You first.’
‘I was only going to say, do you know what day it is today?’
‘No, what?’
‘The shortest day. The winter solstice.’
‘And the longest night. John Leadingham always used to say . . .’
He stopped.
‘What?’ Rosa asked.
‘Nothing.’ Luke’s face shuttered again, the smile gone as if it had never been.
‘No, what?’ She leant forward. ‘Come on, Luke, you know I don’t blame you for what’s past.’
Luke swallowed his mouthful, the muscles in his jaw and throat working beneath the beard. Then he sighed.
‘All right. He said as witches love darkness, it was when their magic waxed highest, like a candle flame that flares brightest in the dark. Is that true?’
‘I don’t know.’ Rosa hugged her knees again. She meant what she’d said. She didn’t blame Luke for what was past, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t strange and uncomfortable hearing about his past in the Brotherhood. ‘Perhaps. It’s true that magic does wax and wane. They say women . . .’ She blushed suddenly, and stopped. It was said that women were weakest when they had their monthly bleed, and strongest halfway between. But she couldn’t say that in front of Luke. ‘That women are weaker at certain times than others,’ she finished lamely, hoping that he wouldn’t look up and catch her scarlet cheeks. But he was looking at his boots, playing with the frosted grass stems between his feet.
‘What were you going to say?’ she said to change the subject. ‘You
were thinking something.’
‘Oh.’ There was a long silence and she had the feeling that he was struggling with something, that he’d been relieved not to have to speak before, and was at war with himself over whether to speak now. ‘I was thinking . . .’ He took a deep breath and then when he spoke there was a sort of defiance, as if he were arguing his point before she’d even countered it. ‘It was you saying twenty-one days and then we’re safe. And I was thinking that if the spell really did work, if you really are safe from Sebastian . . . well, there’s no need for us to get married, is there?’
‘What?’ Rosa put down her bread and turned to face him. She searched his face for emotion and found no clues. His brows were drawn into a frown against the sun, but that could have been just the light. ‘What do you mean? You don’t want to?’
‘It’s not about want.’ He spoke testily. ‘This was never a love-match, was it? It was about keeping you safe from him. And if you’re safe already . . .’
This was never a love-match. It was true. Of course it was true. So why did she feel like she’d been punched in the gut?
‘So why are we here?’ Her voice came out like a cry, like an accusation, though she hadn’t meant it to sound so. ‘What are we doing in Scotland?’
‘I just meant—’
‘I know what you meant.’ She stood, her arms wrapped around herself, feeling suddenly cold. ‘And you’re right.’
‘I’m right?’
He’d got to his feet and stood facing her.
‘It was never a love-match,’ she echoed back at him. ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’
‘Why are you angry at—’
‘I’m not angry!’ But that was not true. ‘All right, yes I am. I’m angry at him, for stealing my future and, and—’
She couldn’t finish. She turned away from Luke, but heard him speak, stiff and stilted behind her shoulder.
‘Then you should be angry at me. I changed your future as surely as he did.’
‘Perhaps I am,’ she snapped. Then she bit her lip and turned, seeing his stricken face. ‘No, no – I’m not. Luke . . .’
She put her hands on his arms, feeling his muscles, as hard as if he were about to hit or flee.
‘Luke, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .’
He shut his eyes. She was not sure if he were shutting her out or struggling with some emotion he could not afford to let out. She waited desperately for him to crack and say whatever it was he was refusing to say, feeling the tenseness running through him like magic crackling across his skin. But then he pulled himself free and turned his head away, towards Brimstone.
‘Come on. It’s late and cold. We should find a place to spend the night. And tomorrow I’ll find work.’
Luke cursed himself as Brimstone clopped along the last stretch of road towards the town. Again and again he swore inside his head, berating himself for being a clumsy oaf – a sot, Alexis used to call him – and for the first time he felt that the word was just. Why couldn’t he say what he meant?
He knew she was hurt – he wasn’t a fool. He’d seen the look in her eyes as he said It was never a love-match. He knew what she thought – that he was pulling out of it at the first excuse because he didn’t want to be shackled to a girl he didn’t love.
How could he tell her the truth? His love wasn’t the point. Whatever he felt for her, the point was that she’d been forced into this situation, as surely as Sebastian would have forced her into marriage with him. She hadn’t chosen Luke any more than she’d chosen Sebastian; fate had pushed them together and fear had kept them that way. But there was no way on God’s earth that Rosa would have chosen him of her own free will. Without his own knife and bottle, and without Sebastian’s cruelty, she would never have been in this situation. She’d have married some kind, monied country squire with a fat belly and a big house, and had little fat-bellied children to fill it.
However he felt about her, whatever he felt, he was damned if he’d marry a girl because she was in fear of her life.
When it had been a matter of saving her life, it had been different. He wasn’t so principled that he’d condemn a girl to death rather than put a ring on her finger, nor such a fool as to think that marriage to a poor blacksmith was worse than an early grave. But now . . .
They’d ridden for weeks without hearing so much as a whisper of Sebastian’s pursuit. Through the Peaks, through the Lakes, through the Kielder Forest, through towns and countryside alike. The posters had vanished. The pursuers had gone. They were safe.
And if he married her in that knowledge, taking advantage of her fear – well, he was no better than Sebastian himself.
‘Luke,’ she said at last, as they rounded a bend. ‘Luke, what are you thinking?’
‘I was thinking . . .’ Then he stopped. He pulled Brimstone up, shading his eyes against the winter sun. Far along the next stretch of road was a little building, squat in the landscape, with a thread of smoke coming from the chimney and the clear ringing sounds of a hammer on hot metal as familiar as his own heartbeat. ‘There’s a forge up ahead.’
‘I’ve got work.’
Luke’s face was shining as he came back to the horse. In spite of her aching heart Rosa smiled back.
‘Well done!’
‘A day’s trial at half-wages and then as long as I want at apprentice rates. His own apprentice is sick and he can’t manage the work alone.’
‘And you can do it? You’re not worried about the trial?’
‘Do it?’ He smiled down at her, his worries forgotten in the elation of the moment. ‘God, yes. I’ve no worries about that. I’ve been shoeing horses since I was up to your hip; I can do his job twice over. The wages aren’t London rates but it’s money, which is what we need. And the best thing?’
‘Yes?’
‘He’s got a room above the workshop he’s not using. The apprentice lives there, but he’s gone back to his mother’s to be nursed.’
‘Where does the smith live?’
‘In town, with his wife. He wants someone to live there and keep an eye on the place at night, build up the fire in the morning and so on. So he’ll give it to us for free, as part of the wage.’
Money and a place to stay. It was almost too much. Her tiredness lifted like a fog rolling back.
‘Well done.’ She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, feeling his short beard soft and rough beneath her lips.
‘What was that for?’
‘Nothing.’
They stood in the winter sun, smiling at each other, with Brimstone nibbling the frosted grass at their feet, and Rosa felt herself smile and her heart lift.
‘Nothing. Just you.’
The sky was darkening to lemon, the smith had gone home to his wife, but Luke was still down in the forge, tinkering, tidying up. She could hear him whistling, the tune filtering up through the little window beneath the eaves. She smiled, hearing his happiness, feeling the warmth from the smithy chimney, knowing Brimstone was fed and warm in the stable at the back.
The only thing marring her happiness was Luke’s words of that morning: It was never a love-match . . .
She knew. She knew it wasn’t. So why did his words niggle at her like toothache, lurking there ready to make her flinch with pain when she least expected it? He was only stating a fact.
She should have been happy that Sebastian was off their trail. She should have been singing with gratitude that she was free: free of him, free to be her own woman at last. She didn’t want to marry Luke. She didn’t want to marry anyone – she wanted to be her own woman, to own property, to choose where to live and where to love, not owned by some man, however kindly.
So why did her heart hurt whenever she thought of Luke’s words by the roadside? We’re safe . . . it was never a love-match.
The room above the forge was tiny – barely even an attic. It was warmed only by the borrowed heat from the smithy chimney and had nowhere to cook or wash. She supposed the apprentice must have
eaten his meal with the smith at lunchtime, and had bread and cheese for his dinner, and washed in the cold-water butt in the yard. There was a pump and an outhouse round the back of the stables.
But at least it was clean – or it was now. She had spent all afternoon sweeping and brushing and then, when the smith had left, she’d relented to her tiredness and whispered a spell to chase away the final cobwebs and brighten the small, grimy window. Now she was lying on her back in the narrow single bed, her hands locked behind her head, staring into the oak rafters and waiting for Luke to finish in the forge and come upstairs. And she was thinking. Thinking of Luke, of his strange contradictory nature. Of his silence, and his guarded face, and the softness of his lips when they’d kissed . . .
She let her eyes close.
‘Rosa!’ Luke took the stairs two at a time. He’d washed his face and sooty hands under the pump in the yard, and now he had his wages in his pocket and a light heart. ‘Rosa! The smith was so pleased he gave me a full day’s pay. Let’s—’
She was lying on the bed in the candlelight, her cheek pillowed on her hand, fast asleep. The room was immaculate – so far from the dusty, cobweb-filled attic the smith had showed him that he could scarce believe it was the same place. How hard she must have worked . . .
‘Rosa?’ he said more softly, and she stirred, but didn’t wake. Luke made up his mind. There was a scrap of wrapping from the loaf they’d eaten for lunch neatly folded on the table, and he took a pencil stub from a pot of odds and ends on the windowsill and wrote a note: GONE TO TOWN TO GET BREAD. BACK SOON, LUKE.
He spread it on the table and then bent over her, tempted to lean and kiss her cheek, golden in the candlelight. But he didn’t. Instead he drew the blanket over her and then pulled on his greatcoat and left for the town.
In Langholm he bought bread and a bottle of beer. The shops were closing, the grocers selling off their wares cheap, and he got a good piece of ham for just tuppence.
He was turning back for home when he saw a sign that made him stop. Post Office.
He stood in the road biting his lip and, as he did, a woman came out from behind the counter and put her hand to the sign, turning it to Closed.
Witch Hunt (Witch Finder 2) Page 15