Witchrise

by Victoria Lamb

  He caught my wrist on that last word and pulled me slowly towards him, making his intention plain long before our lips met, as though giving me the opportunity to refuse this time. But of course I did not, knowing this intimacy must end yet desperate at the same time for it to continue.

  His mouth opened against mine in a long drugging kiss that left us both hot and breathless.

  For a long while afterwards we lay together in drowsy silence, turned warmly into each other, my head on his chest, his arm loosely linked about my waist.

  ‘Need to sleep,’ I mumbled, my eyelids so heavy I could not seem to keep them open.

  ‘Then sleep.’

  ‘I have my duties . . .’

  ‘You saved the princess’s life today, Meg. I think you may be granted a few hours’ respite from your duties.’

  Eventually I slept, my whole body weary and bruised from the long fight against Marcus.

  When I woke, the room had darkened into twilight. I yawned, stretching out stiff limbs, and felt Alejandro shift away from me awkwardly.

  It felt strange to be lying next to him on a bed. I could not quite believe what had happened.

  ‘Hello,’ Alejandro murmured in my ear.

  I turned my head to look at him. ‘Hello.’ There was an odd expression in his eyes that made me frown. ‘What is it? What is the matter now?’

  ‘You snore,’ he said plaintively.

  ‘I do not!’

  ‘Just a little, when you are deep asleep. Through your nose.’ He pinched his nose shut and made a quiet droning noise through it. ‘But I am relieved you are awake at last. I feared I might have to stifle you with a pillow to get some rest.’

  ‘Beast!’

  He smiled, and his gaze moved to my mouth. ‘Sometimes, yes, mi alma. But I am your beast.’

  I shivered at the intimacy in his eyes and voice, and sat up, tidying my dishevelled hair. ‘It’s late, we should go downstairs.’

  What we had done – sleeping together on my bed while the household was quiet – was dangerous enough for our hearts. But it was also strictly against the Lady Elizabeth’s wishes. The room had grown dark, and I knew supper would soon be served downstairs in the Great Hall. If we did not make our way down there, we would be missed.

  Then I saw that the door was slightly ajar, and realized someone must have peeped in and seen us lying together on the bed, then gone away again. My cheeks burned.

  ‘What is it?’ Alejandro asked softly, taking my hand and kissing the inner skin of my wrist.

  ‘I think someone may have seen us together.’

  He glanced back at the partially open door, then shrugged. ‘Do not concern yourself. We lay together, yes, but only to sleep.’ His voice deepened. ‘There is nothing to be ashamed of in that. At least, I am not ashamed of it. If you would marry me—’

  ‘I have already said no.’

  He did not answer, but instead turned his head away, not moving. Then he sat up and swung his legs out of bed. But his shoulders were bowed, and I knew from the way he fingered his cheek that his cut must still be painful.

  There was some noise from below. I guessed from the clattering and the raised voices that supper was being laid out for us in the Great Hall. I fumbled with the tinderbox in the gloom until he came over and lit the candle for me, his expression shuttered.

  ‘Thank you.’ I raised the candle to examine his face. He seemed to flinch at my touch, but at least the blood had dried, the cut crusting over. The edges were red, sore-looking. ‘Come down to the kitchen, I will bathe that cut for you in salt water. Else it will be infected by tomorrow, trust me.’

  He nodded, his eyes searching my face. His hand caught my wrist when I would have turned away.

  ‘Meg,’ he began uncertainly.

  Someone shouted up from the hall below: Blanche Parry calling my name.

  ‘Supper must be ready,’ I whispered, still waiting. ‘What do you want to say to me?’

  ‘Another time, mi querida.’

  With obvious reluctance, Alejandro took the candle from me and we wandered down the stairs together in a thick silence, both a little drowsy and flushed after our long rest.

  I had expected to hear the usual hubbub of voices from our small company as I descended. But though a fire was burning in the hearth, and supper was laid out on the long table, those gathered in the hall below were silent.

  ‘Meg.’ The Lady Elizabeth spoke sharply, coming to the foot of the stairs. ‘You have a visitor. I sent Blanche to fetch you downstairs, but she came back and told me you were . . .’ There was a flush in her cheeks as she glanced from me to Alejandro, her face stiff. ‘Asleep.’

  ‘Forgive me, my lady. I should not have slept so long.’

  I was hot-cheeked myself, hearing the open accusation in her voice. The princess had told me to stay away from Alejandro, to avoid being alone with him. Instead, I had curled up to sleep with him in my chamber.

  Yet how could Elizabeth be angry with me when she felt every bit as lovesick about Robert Dudley? At least Alejandro was not married!

  Then her words slowly sank in. ‘A . . . a visitor, did you say?’

  I paused on the last stair, and looked across towards the hearth. A strange woman was standing in front of the fire, a wild look on her face. Her clothes were simple, her hood and cloak those of a country woman on a journey, but she had a striking face, lined with years but with such bright and intelligent eyes she looked almost young. The staff she carried was surely magickal, for those were astrological symbols carved into the wood.

  And she was staring straight at me.

  ‘Meg Lytton.’ She came forward, studying me as intently as I had just studied her. ‘I have come here to speak with you on a matter of great urgency.’

  I glanced at the Lady Elizabeth, but she had returned to the fireside with her ladies, clearly unwilling to speak with this wild-looking woman.

  ‘Forgive me if I am discourteous,’ I said directly to our visitor, ‘but I do not know you. What is your name, mistress?’

  ‘My name is Gilly Goodwife,’ she told me, unsmiling. ‘Once upon a time, when I was a girl and still unmarried, I lived in Oxfordshire and was friend to your mother, Catherine Canley.’

  We sat cross-legged under dark, broad-trunked trees, facing each other across the circle Gilly Goodwife had drawn in the dirt with her staff. In the centre burned a roughly made fire, damp stacked wood hissing, the air thickening with smoke. I watched Gilly through the leap of flames, and tried to imagine her and my mother and my aunt Jane together as powerful young women, the three of them sitting around a magickal fire just like this one.

  I shivered, looking up at the whispering treetops, the black sky winking with stars, and hoped I had not made a mistake by agreeing to speak alone with her.

  ‘No need to be afraid or guard your tongue, child. None can see or hear us within the sturdy protection of my circle,’ Gilly said, smiling across at me in a reassuring manner. ‘Here within the boundary we may speak freely.’

  ‘You knew my mother, Catherine Canley, and my aunt Jane too? Tell me about that.’

  ‘We used to meet in the woods when the moon was full, and there cast spells and practise our craft. Catherine kept a journal, and noted down all our spells, those which worked – and those which didn’t, and why. I have often wondered what became of her spell book, and hoped it would not fall into the wrong hands, for some of our work in the early days was quite dangerous. Catherine and Jane could both read and write, of course, being destined for the royal court. But I had not been schooled and only learned those skills after I married.’ She paused. ‘I was saddened to hear of your mother’s death. It must have been hard to lose a mother so young.’

  ‘Not so hard perhaps as to lose Aunt Jane to the fire. I do not remember my mother properly. But my aunt . . .’

  Watching my struggle against tears, her mouth tightened. ‘Master Dent is the Devil’s servant.’

  I could not argue with that. ‘Why ha
ve you come to see me, Mistress Goodwife?’

  ‘When I finally chose to marry, I abandoned the craft for a few years,’ she began. ‘One summer my youngest daughter grew sick, very sick, and I knew the spell that would heal her. I could not let my child die. So I cast the circle and gathered herbs at the new moon, preparing them in the prescribed manner for working magick. Bethany recovered from her sickness that summer, and I knew it was my craft that had healed her. Later it came to my attention that several other women in my village, and more in the villages around, were also engaged in the dark arts. We had to be very careful, but we began to meet secretly and hold sabats as a coven.’ She smiled proudly. ‘There are seven of us now, and that is a goodly number for working magick. Together we keep our villages free from the plague, and our children healthy, and those of us who have husbands manage to keep our menfolk biddable.’

  Her explanation fascinated me. I had always believed, like Aunt Jane who had lived out her days as a spinster, that a witch must give up her craft on marrying. Yet Mistress Goodwife was both married and a mother. Her husband was the smith of their village, she told me, a tiny place not five miles from Hatfield.

  ‘I am a witch born, just as you are,’ she explained calmly when I asked how it was possible to be married and still remain a witch. ‘The witch born should not yield her craft for anything, not even the love of a good man.’

  I nodded, wondering what Alejandro would make of that. ‘The Lady Elizabeth said something like that once. But about her throne, not magick.’

  ‘She suffers, does she not?’

  I held my breath, fearing I had been indiscreet. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The princess . . . she is in love, and unhappily. I can tell the signs.’ Mistress Goodwife looked at me across the flames. ‘I can help her with that, if she wishes. There is a spell . . .’

  ‘She wishes to know her future,’ I said bluntly.

  Gilly nodded. ‘Harder, but I can help with that too.’

  I wished I could have known Gilly Goodwife sooner. She seemed so wise and calm: traits I badly needed to acquire myself. I always seemed to be lurching from one disastrous spell to another, no space to draw breath. Perhaps with an experienced witch like this to guide me . . .

  But there was little time for learning new skills, I thought grimly. Marcus Dent would come back at us soon and I must be ready.

  Curious to know more about my family, I asked, ‘What was my mother like?’

  ‘Catherine was the cleverest among us, always reading books and learning new spells, and yet she was the boldest too. She loved to dance under the full moon, skyclad, where Jane and I would refuse to shed our clothes. But she was very beautiful, you see. Even with dirt on her face and her hair bedraggled after a night in the woods. And so proud, she would have choked herself to death rather than accept help from anyone.’ Gilly smiled. ‘You have a strong look of her. I would have known you anywhere for her daughter.’

  I was pleased. ‘Truly?’

  ‘You are very beautiful too.’ She raised her brows at my stunned look. ‘What, you do not know your own beauty? Ah, but the young never do. And powerful too. Though you shed some of your power when you cast Marcus Dent out of this world.’

  My mouth fell open and I gaped at her. ‘How do you know about that?’

  ‘Cecilie told us.’

  ‘Cecilie?’

  ‘One of our coven, and a gifted seer.’ Gilly smiled, though she seemed sad too. ‘A pretty girl. Her mother is French, her father Scottish. She came to us last year when her father inherited property here, and brought his whole family down from Scotland. She is a little older than you, twenty years of age, but already a talented witch with great powers of divination.’ She paused, looking at me oddly. ‘Cecilie foretold the rise of Marcus Dent. She knew a young witch would try to block his power, but not that it was you.’

  ‘Except I’ve ended up making him more powerful instead,’ I muttered.

  ‘That is a problem, yes, but it can be reversed,’ she said coolly. ‘Perhaps with your mother’s enchanted ring . . .’

  ‘My mother’s ring? Do you know everything?’ I demanded, shocked by how much this woman seemed to know about me and my life.

  ‘I remember the ring from when I knew your mother. Though she only rarely wore it, for safety’s sake. Possessing the ring gives you a look, an air, a certain presence. I sensed it back there at the house.’ She met my gaze. ‘You have the ring with you now, don’t you?’

  I nodded, then realized too late that it might have been better to lie. After all, I only had this woman’s word that she had known my aunt and mother as a girl. She could be working for Marcus Dent.

  Though somehow I doubted it. Especially after the ‘Devil’s servant’ comment.

  ‘Then I presume you understand the workings of the Invictus spell?’ she asked briskly.

  ‘Of course. It’s . . . erm . . .’ Daunted by her knowledge and experience, I fumbled in my pouch for the ring and pushed it back onto my finger. The double coils gleamed there, red-gold, almost glowing with power. At once I felt the fatigue of the past day fall away. I straightened my slumped shoulders and met her gaze more confidently. ‘Invictus. It means unconquered.’

  ‘Invictus is a powerful and dangerous spell cast upon an object like a ring or a dagger that renders the bearer invincible against magickal attack.’

  Invincible.

  With a start, I remembered Marcus Dent throwing all his power at me – the darkness, the swirling winds, the repeated attacks on my psyche – and getting nowhere. I had suffered under that onslaught. But I had not broken.

  ‘How can it be dangerous though?’ I looked down at the double-coiled ring, then twisted it around my finger, for it was a little loose. ‘Surely if it makes me invincible—’

  ‘When you carry such a powerful magickal object openly about with you, it’s like holding up a candle against the dark and being surrounded by moths. You invite attack from every evil creature that sees its light. Those who are drawn to the ring may not be able to harm you, but they can harm those around you, or influence the innocent to attack you.’ Gilly looked at me sombrely. ‘So avoid putting it on until you need it.’

  Grimacing, I dragged the ring from my finger. Already the dark woods around us looked more threatening. It explained why Blanche had attacked us in the old shepherd’s hut when the Lady Elizabeth had placed the ring upon her finger, and the odd feeling of menace in the shadows at Hatfield.

  I had thought Alice’s possession one of Marcus’s cruel tricks. But perhaps he was simply another evil creature drawn to the ring’s light. It had been in my mind at the time, my hand on the pouch I carried it in.

  Gilly was watching me, a wry smile on her face. ‘Oh, you are safe enough here. I always cast spells of protection about me as I travel, to ward off unwanted attention, and when I arrived at Hatfield tonight, I put an enchantment about the house too, for I found it undefended. Why was that?’

  ‘It’s too long a story. But thank you for the protection. Tell me, what else did Cecilie say about Marcus Dent?’

  ‘That her destiny was inextricably bound up with his. And indeed we fear it has been. That is why I have come to you for help.’

  Frowning, I hid the ring in my belt pouch. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Just before Christmas, a gang of men attacked the house where Cecilie lives. They came on horseback, wearing hoods and carrying torches. Her father told them to leave, but their leader demanded he hand over “the witch”, or they would torch the house and everyone in it.’ Gilly looked grim. ‘It was Marcus Dent.’

  My chest hurt, it was so tight. I recalled how Dent and his men had crashed into our house at dawn one morning – and the horrors that had followed my aunt’s arrest.

  ‘He dragged Cecilie from the house, accusing her of witchcraft and claiming she would stand trial before the Spanish Inquisition in London. That was the last any of us heard of Cecilie. Her father wrote to the chief of the Spanish Inquisition a
t court, begging for his daughter’s release. But there was no reply.’

  Miguel de Pero. I thought of the Chief Inquisitor’s dark sneering face and was not surprised by his lack of response. He had probably been overjoyed to hear of another girl’s arrest for witchcraft. He and his fellow torturers had probably laid on a feast to celebrate the occasion.

  ‘Then a few days ago,’ Gilly continued, looking at me, ‘Cecilie appeared in a dream to me. She told me to travel to Hatfield and seek out Meg Lytton, servant to the Lady Elizabeth and the only woman in England who can defeat Marcus Dent.’

  ‘No, no.’ I felt sick, shaking my head instinctively at the terrible challenge being laid before me. ‘I have tried and failed many times to defeat him. He is too powerful.’

  ‘Then Marcus Dent will make it his business to find and send to their death every witch in England until he is the only person of power left. Is that what you want?’

  I closed my eyes, wishing I was anyone but me. But in my heart I knew she was right. Marcus had some fantasy about playing Merlin to a Catholic king’s Arthur, and he would not rest until he had made it truth.

  ‘Cecilie is being held prisoner by Dent. She could not tell me where. But in the dream, she showed me her hurts, which are terrible. Dent has been torturing her, making her scry for him, to foretell the future, determined to drain every last ounce of magickal power from her body. And when Dent has finished with her, she told me he will hand her over to his friends Bishop Bonner and the Spanish Inquisition. They will find her guilty of witchcraft, and execute her.’

  ‘What?’

  I started up in surprise. His cruelty did not shock me. I could believe him capable of the worst kind of viciousness. But could Marcus truly have a connection with the great Bishop Bonner, a man whose burnings surpassed even his own?

  I wondered if John Dee knew of their friendship. And if the black-robed priests of the Spanish Inquisition understood that Marcus was himself a creature of darkness.

  Cecilie was his ‘excellent informant’, I realized grimly, the one who had foreseen Elizabeth holding the throne alone. He must have tortured the visions out of her.