Witchrise

by Victoria Lamb

  Richard leaned over and picked it up for me. A slender piece of wood, lovingly smoothed and shaped, but very old, oddly discoloured in places. He ran a finger experimentally along its length, his head cocked to one side, as though the bumps and nicks along the wood could reveal secrets.

  I put down the mandrake, and Richard passed the shaped stick to me almost reverently. ‘A hazel wand. Careful, it has power.’

  I felt it too, and drew in my breath, handling the wand with the same reverence, for my fingers had tingled as soon as I touched it.

  So my mother had used a wand. Like my aunt, I had always used a knife for sacred rituals, and my hands and voice for spells. That was how I had been taught to work magick. But Aunt Jane had mentioned that some witches used wands, and found them more effective than an athame or hands alone.

  With the slender hazel switch in my hand, I felt suddenly connected to everything, able to see and influence the very fabric of the world. It has to be an illusion, I thought, a little dazed by the power coming off it in waves and leaping up through my fingertips into my body.

  I moved the wand from right to left, and it resisted slightly, as though the air itself had weight and substance, and was pushing back on it. I looked at Richard – knew he fully understood the power of a wand such as this – and he smiled back at me, a smile of complicity.

  Alejandro was very still, watching us.

  There was a haunted look in his eyes. Did he suspect I had fallen in love with Richard?

  That would better explain why I was sending him away, after all – for Alejandro knew that I had the power to change my father’s mind in an instant. Easier to believe perhaps that my affections had been transferred to Richard than that we were not suited to wed.

  I lowered the wand. ‘Alejandro . . .’

  But Alejandro bowed, his face stiff. ‘Forgive me, I must go and speak with your father. He promised to loan me a horse for the journey back to Hatfield.’

  Richard looked round at him, surprised. ‘You are leaving Lytton Park?’

  ‘My duty lies with la princesa,’ Alejandro explained tersely, not meeting my eyes. ‘I swore to protect and watch over her, and I have neglected my oath too long. So I must return to Hatfield. Perhaps tomorrow morning.’

  So soon?

  But of course it was for the best if he left swiftly. I could hardly complain when I had suggested such speed myself, using my father’s ultimatum to support my argument.

  Richard was frowning. ‘Surely you are aware it’s not safe here, that Marcus Dent may come back in search of Meg at any moment?’

  ‘I have waited here a full month and Dent has not shown his face. Perhaps Master Dent is too weak for another confrontation. Once I am gone though, you can redouble your spells of protection. Keep Meg indoors and under guard at all times. You and William,’ and here he glanced at my brother, who was staring, as surprised as Richard by his sudden departure, ‘will keep her safe between you.’

  ‘And if we cannot?’ William asked, clearly alarmed by the prospect.

  Alejandro took a deep breath and expelled it slowly, then fixed my brother with his darkest stare. ‘You will keep her safe,’ he said, his tone final.

  Richard’s tone was scathing. ‘So you’re leaving us? Leaving Meg? Just like that?’

  ‘One of us must petition la princesa on Meg’s behalf so she may be allowed to return to Hatfield House,’ Alejandro pointed out, heading for the door. ‘Meg will be safer there against Marcus Dent, for he would surely not dare to attack the Lady Elizabeth, not when she is so close to the throne. Unless you would like to volunteer for the task of persuading her, apprentice? Or you, William?’

  The room was silent.

  ‘I thought not,’ Alejandro commented, then looked back at me from the doorway.

  ‘Forgive me for not staying,’ he said softly, ‘but a magickal ring, your mother’s grimoire . . . I am not the right person to advise you on the use of such mystical objects. But perhaps Richard is. I hope you find the answers you seek, mi querida.’

  And the door closed behind him.

  The morning was still and milky, barely dawn, snow still scattered white across the frozen ground. To the far north the skies were still dark, the clouds looming, heavy with snow. It would be a cold day, I thought, and a bad night to come. Nevertheless, the road south should be passable, though by no means an easy ride.

  In an old gown, wrapped in a shawl against the cold, I stood in the doorway and watched as Alejandro saddled his horse swiftly and skilfully.

  He had slung his sword belt about his waist, his fine Spanish sword hanging by his side, and although the cloak looked vaguely clerical, his suit beneath fitted tightly, a doublet and worn black hose borrowed from my brother after his own had been damaged.

  I was not surprised to see him dressed so plainly, however. Alejandro was part priest, part soldier, as the Holy Order of Santiago demanded, and he looked the part today.

  Alejandro straightened from his task, carefully attached his pack to the saddle, then turned to face me. I saw the dread on his face, the reluctance to leave, and felt the same pain inside me.

  ‘I am ready,’ he muttered, and came to kiss me farewell.

  It had been foolish of me to get up early to see him off. This was just another opportunity for us to hurt each other. I gazed up at him achingly, memorizing the stern line of his jaw, skin drawn tautly over his cheekbones as he stared back at me.

  ‘I do not want to leave, Meg.’ Alejandro cupped my cheek with a gloved hand, his eyes very dark.

  ‘I do not want you to go,’ I managed in a whisper. ‘But you must. The Lady Elizabeth needs you more than I. And my father will not allow you to stay any longer.’ I sighed. ‘I believe too that we both need time apart to think.’

  The house behind us stood silent, the hallway empty. No one else had come downstairs. Most of my father’s servants were still asleep on this bitter, frosty morning, only the cook and his kitchen assistant awake at this hour, to heat the oven for the baking of today’s bread. Smoke from the kitchen chimney was wreathing a thin grey path through the frosty air, and I knew the whole household would be awake within an hour or two, with Alejandro already miles away.

  ‘Promise me you will not try to find Marcus Dent,’ I said suddenly, my breath steaming in the cold.

  He was still touching my cheek. ‘I cannot promise that, mi alma,’ he said. ‘It is unfair to ask such a thing of me. I am still clinging to the hope that you will consent to be my wife one day, and that man is your enemy.’

  ‘But Marcus will kill you!’

  ‘Will he?’ His eyebrows rose and a dry smile played about his lips. ‘Is it so inconceivable that I might kill him, my love?’

  I could not say yes. That would destroy him as surely as if I had plunged the sword into his body myself.

  ‘Marcus Dent is not like other men,’ I tried to explain, and found myself compromising under his narrowed stare. ‘Marcus is dangerous. You remember what my mother said. He has powers now that he didn’t have before. Promise me you won’t go looking for Marcus.’

  ‘Your protection is all that matters to me.’

  ‘Brave words.’ Terrified that he was indeed planning to hunt down the witchfinder, I let my temper slip. ‘But somewhat poorly thought out, Alejandro. After all, you can hardly protect me or the Lady Elizabeth if you are foolish enough to get yourself killed.’

  I caught a flash of anger in his eyes.

  His lips parted, sucking in a breath to tell me exactly what he thought of my opinion. Then his eyelids lowered to hide his expression, and he reined back whatever he had been planning to say, his shrug eloquent enough to express it without words.

  I had wounded him. Yet still he refused to retaliate.

  ‘Perhaps we should leave it at that, mi querida,’ he murmured, and there was a hint of bitterness in the way he rolled that Spanish endearment off his tongue.

  I suddenly wished I could unsay what had offended him. But it was d
one now, part of the pattern.

  ‘It is a long ride to Hatfield and well past dawn already,’ he continued. ‘My horse will be getting cold. I should be on my way.’

  ‘Please, don’t go on an argument,’ I entreated him. ‘Let us part as friends, at least.’

  ‘Muy bien,’ Alejandro agreed, unsmiling. ‘As friends.’

  I stared back, thinking kiss me, kiss me, kiss me.

  But a kiss would only make the inevitable pain worse. So I held back slightly, my expression saying do not kiss me, please do not kiss me, and he responded to my withdrawal with perfect stillness, as he always did.

  ‘God be with you, Meg Lytton,’ he murmured, and I thought that was it.

  Then his hands dropped lightly to my shoulders as though he still planned to embrace me. I froze, barely daring to breathe. He held me for a long moment, his dark eyes searching my face. I could not tell what he was thinking, but I sensed his frustration, held tightly in check, and beneath that, some powerful emotion I could not place.

  Suddenly he bent his head to kiss me.

  I ought to have refused his kiss. But I was weak and a fool. I raised myself on tiptoe and our mouths met. Far too eagerly. We should never have touched, for that dangerous instant of contact unleashed feelings and desires that would have been better kept on a leash, controlled, hidden in the silences between us.

  His arms came round me, pulling me compulsively against him, and I did not resist, lost in the moment.

  He groaned my name, then buried his face in my throat. ‘This is madness.’

  I could not disagree with that.

  ‘You are trembling. I have kept you outside too long.’ Slowly he released me, his eyes on mine. ‘Farewell, mi amor.’

  Alejandro bowed, then turned swiftly to his horse. In a moment, he was mounted and riding away, straight-backed in the saddle, just as when I had first seen him at Woodstock, riding in armour across the sunlit grass.

  I watched him canter neatly down the narrow, icy track until he was out of sight, then went inside and closed the door. The hall was dark and silent.

  My lips still tingled from his kiss, my heart racing.

  Temptation assailed me.

  Would it be such a terrible thing for me to give in and marry Alejandro, to become a wife and mother instead of a witch?

  Yes, my head told me furiously. Yes, it would.

  FIVE

  No Going Back

  Two days passed while I wandered the house like a ghost or sat hunched by the smoking fire in my bedchamber, wrapped in furs, brooding over what I should do about Marcus Dent. No answers came to me in the dark, though Alejandro’s face did, haunting my dreams and leaving me more dejected than ever.

  When the third day dawned still cold but sunny, snow finally beginning to melt on the path into the woods, I knew what I had to do. Tired of my father’s unspoken disapproval over my relationship with Alejandro, and having to face Richard’s narrow stare everywhere I went, I decided to get away from the house and seek inspiration in my mother’s spell book.

  First, I took the red-gold ring out of my mother’s casket and examined its strange double coils, slipping it momentarily onto my finger.

  The air stirred oddly when I wore it, and my fingertips tingled as though the power was about to descend on me. Hurriedly I put it away again.

  Richard had warned me not to wear the ring at least until he heard back from John Dee, and it was time I learned to be cautious about the practice of witchcraft. Even if my new-found caution came too late to save me from being dismissed from the princess’s service.

  Instead, I took the more innocent-looking hazel wand and slipped it into the gartered top of one of my woollen stockings. It was an uncomfortable arrangement but one which I would have to bear if I wished to avoid being seen with it. My father had no knowledge of these instruments of my mother’s craft, and it seemed wiser not to flaunt them before him, given his recent display of temper.

  With the grimoire concealed beneath my cloak, I muttered to William in passing that I needed a walk in the fresh air but would not go far, then hurried through the kitchen and out of the back door before my brother could protest.

  I took the path into the woods, walking quickly and with purpose, and was soon lost to sight amongst the frosty trees.

  With snow still on the ground, it was too damp to sit and read out of doors. But I knew a place where I could be both private and dry: Home Farm, the long-abandoned farm where I had seen the despicable Marcus Dent in a vision, and where we had dug up my mother’s magickal box.

  Too dangerous to leave my mother’s precious belongings there unless hidden as well as she had hidden them. But back there perhaps I would find some peace. And a safe place to practise magick without breaking my promise not to cast a spell under my father’s roof.

  On reaching Home Farm, I hopped over the mossed pile of stones which had once been a boundary wall, and made my way towards the old barn. I had often hidden there as a child, high up in the hayloft, thinking and dreaming on my back in the straw. Now, though, the upper loft door stood permanently open like an unlidded eye, and I could see that a bad storm had whistled through and brought the roof in at one end, for all the timbers were bowed, the whole building leaning towards the scene of devastation.

  Gingerly I made my way across the uneven mud and debris, climbed the ancient ladder with half its rungs missing, and pulled myself up into the hayloft.

  I turned on my heel to survey the damage, and was pleased to see that the far end of the barn roof was still intact. Even if it rained, I could stay dry here.

  The wooden floor creaked ominously underfoot though, and I was forced to drop to my hands and knees, then crawl to my old place near the open doorway where I could see clear across the icy white meadows to the river.

  Breathing deep, I opened the grimoire to the first page, and my mother’s name leaped out at me, written in fading ink.

  Catherine Canley.

  I traced her hand, admiring the curls and loops and flourishes of a bold female temperament. Bold or not, my mother had put aside her magickal gifts for ever when she married, knowing she could not be both wife and witch without the risk of bringing disgrace on her family. She must have loved my father very much to make such a sacrifice, just as I loved Alejandro.

  Could I ever find the strength to make that sacrifice for love? I rather suspected my resolve would prove weaker than my mother’s.

  I turned the next few leaves, reading slowly through the early entries. There I found her thoughts on the craft. Her fears of discovery and death. Tales of how her own mother had taught her the best times to gather herbs and plants, then prepare them for spell work; which moon was right for a love-spell, which for fertility rituals; the way to read augurs and omens, how the path of birds in flight could foretell the future.

  I was frowning over her description of how to read the bones – for some details differed from my aunt’s teachings – when a noise made me stiffen.

  I listened, and heard it again. The gentlest rustle below me in the barn, a sound like dead leaves stirring in the wind.

  The day was still though, not even a light breeze blowing through the hayloft door which stood broken and open to the weather. Through that gaping hole in the wattle and daub, men in my great-grandfather’s day would have thrown winter hay down for the beasts, or dragged up the freshly gathered bales at harvest time, binding them with rough twine, and whistling or singing as they worked.

  Today Home Farm was a wasteland, completely deserted except for me – and whoever was standing exactly below me in the barn.

  Gently I closed my mother’s grimoire, picked up the hazel wand lying beside me, and waited.

  Eventually I heard the noise I had been expecting. A tiny click, then a rustle, then another click. Someone was climbing the broken ladder into the hayloft, moving as slowly and silently as they could. Though only a ghost could have avoided making a noise on that ancient contraption, which shifted and cre
aked under the weight of a very mortal being.

  I prepared myself, my heart racing, my mouth suddenly dry as I considered the various outcomes of being discovered with a book as dangerous as this.

  A face appeared, frowning up at me from the narrow hole in the floor.

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ I lowered the hazel wand with a mixture of irritation and relief as I recognized my stealthy visitor. ‘Did you follow me all the way here?’

  Richard glanced at the wand, then hauled himself into the loft. He seemed unconcerned by the swaying and groaning floorboards, limping towards me without any change of expression, his hand held out as though for a gift.

  ‘A simple tracking-spell. It works best with deer,’ he said drily. ‘But you would not have been hard to find even without it, the clear trail you left behind.’

  ‘Go back to the house, Richard. I came up here to be alone.’

  He raised his brows, for my tone had been sharp. ‘Missing your one true love?’ he sneered.

  I glared at his outstretched hand. He had not bothered with gloves, despite the cold weather. ‘Why are you here? What do you want?’

  ‘I want you to give me that wand before you do yourself a mischief with it.’ Richard halted in front of me, then crouched down, reaching for it. Before he could take it though, I muttered a word and the wand disappeared. His frown deepened. ‘Don’t behave like a child, Meg. Give me the wand.’

  ‘It’s mine.’

  ‘I do not doubt it. But you must let me take it. It’s too dangerous, it’s not for a novice. You can have it back when you’re an adept.’

  ‘I am hardly a novice, Richard. You have seen what I can do with my voice and hands alone. My skill is equal to the task. Besides, the wand is mine and I will not let you take it.’

  ‘Have you ever worked magick with a wand before? Do you even know the properties of wood from the hazel tree?’