The Sorcerer (The Witch Trilogy Book 3)
Page 17
As he turned towards the Guildhall, trailing his fingers along the iron railings outside the hospital, he knew he would never return.
His duty towards Pierre Chevalier was done.
* * *
Thursday 11 April 1689
Early morning sea mist had given way to midday sun. A lone gull circled in the clear Atlantic sky. With a favourable wind filling the spritsail and only a gentle swell, the stone scrubbed deck of the David was the steadiest it had been in the two months since leaving the port of Liverpool.
Under the mainmast, standing upon an upturned crate marked Salem, the captain cleared his throat before addressing the assembled passengers and crew.
‘This day London celebrates the coronation of their Majesties King William and Queen Mary. Here aboard the David we have our own celebration....’
A cheer greeted the announcement of a double rum ration. Kate glanced up at a lad perched on the main yard high above the captain’s head. She did not have to follow his gaze to know that his saucy wink was intended for Anna who was standing beside her in her best bonnet, a gloved hand covering her giggles. Day by day the brooding creature he had made of her, retreated a little more. It was a secret joy to see her gaze turning ever outwards, to listen to her banter, to answer the questions she had about her dead father.
To watch her daughter’s first tottering steps back towards the waking world.
‘According to the power vested in me, Captain Arthur Sedgewick, we come here to witness the marriage of François Jeakes and Margot Gaillard, passengers aboard this ship‒’
Two months at sea had taught Kate all she needed to know about Margot. Besides Anna, both Louise and Margot shared her cabin; François’s childhood sweetheart and his adult lover. The one whose suffering had drawn him back to England; the other who had supported him every step of the way.
The night of the Tyburn Lane fire seemed so distant now. The night to end all nights. The soil, the exchange, the desperate belief in Ignotus. The crushing sense that Marsden’s malevolent spirit was too potent, his well of aggression and cruelty too deep, to allow her or her children to escape a second time. Fire had destroyed his mortal self; with fire and the aid of his familiar, the wolf, he meant to have revenge. This time he would drag her down into the abyss.
‘Come to the light,’ she had heard herself say. And in that moment a peculiar calm came over her. Her fear for Anna, for François, for herself, evaporated ... replaced by memories of that first union with Marsden, the sense of wonder and possibility. The man she had summoned to her at her mother’s cottage, that naive idea of the man. The man he might have been. For one stretched moment hate and terror had given way to higher feelings.
A moment only. But it was enough.
In the end Marsden was conquered by compassion. And love.
The undying love of a child for his mother ... of Ignotus for her son.
She had no recollection of how she came to be at the foot of the stairs. She remembered ceiling timbers collapsing behind her as she walked unnoticed out of the blazing cottage; people helping Anna to her feet ... François being shackled to a horse and Margot courageously throwing everything she had at the arresting soldiers.
Margot it was who persuaded Lord Herries to make his petition on François’ behalf; Margot who rallied François’ men to keep vigil outside Newgate gaol. Margot who helped Kate deliver Louise’s baby three weeks into the voyage.
They had left London in the dead of night. Anton brought word of François’ release; special instructions had come from Whitehall – François and Sergeant Veron were to form a detachment to relieve a Massachusetts’ garrison; they would be sailing on the supply ship in two days time. And they must all be gone before Chevalier got wind of the plans.
A new world. A new life.
New life. It was there in Margot’s flushed face ... a daughter, and soon. It was there in the wailing bundle Louise had carried aside to nurse. And one day, she dared to hope, one day, her beloved Anna would know the joy of new life too.
Her heart swelling with pride, she watched François repeat the marriage vows. With Sergeant Veron at his shoulder, he stood erect and handsome in his blue uniform. His dark hair was tied back and his eyes shone with love for his bride.
The infant who had survived a burning barn, the lad who had suffered injustice and penal servitude ... the man they had dubbed The Sorcerer.
François had Marsden’s looks but there the similarity ended. He was a healer, better than she had been, better even than her mother before her. He was the new life she had summoned all those years ago. The reason she would never regret having met Matthew Marsden.
As the newlyweds kissed, as the captain led the cheers, Anton who had performed the honour of giving away the bride, slid through the gathering towards her.
Last night the dream had come again to Kate.
She was walking barefoot towards a fence of split poles marking the boundary between garden and shore – sand sliding sensually through her toes, sharp grasses brushing her ankles. On through an open hand-gate ... the corn-coloured grass, the turquoise of sea and billowing sky.....
The unknown they were sailing towards ... a whole new world.
Anton placed himself between her and Anna then slipped an arm around each of them.
Kate turned her face up to meet his gaze. And she smiled.
The End
THE SORCERER is the final book in the trilogy by Cheryl Potter:
THE WITCH
THE WITCH’S SON
THE SORCERER
By the same author:
THE MORTAL WIFE
Visit Cheryl Potter at Amazon
or Cheryl Potter(@rosiebelle10) on Twitter
The Witch
She was alone....
1664-1666: years of plague, fire and superstition. Katharine Gurney is the daughter of an executed witch; a shepherdess with latent powers.
And then he came....
François Borri is a cunning man, an apostatized priest turned sorcerer, who seeks to use her as he has used others before in his brutal quest for wealth and status.
The first book in the Witch trilogy is a tale of murder, domination and vengeance. It is the account of one woman’s struggle for survival in a world which executed nine million women as witches ... and of the man.
The Witch’s Son
Ah Kate, did you think me gone?
1683: seventeen years have passed since Katharine Gurney – the one they called the witch – emerged with her infant son François from the flames of burning London. Quiet years, lulling years....
But one shade has never gone away, has watched her children grow, waiting for the chance to strike back at her.
The second part of the Witch Trilogy is the story of François – his passage from youth to a manhood made potent by hardship and the supernatural powers he has inherited from his mother.
It is the tale of a mother’s love, and of a man’s struggle against injustice and slavery: of his fight against the legacy of evil that has pursued him from beyond the grave.
By the same author:
The Mortal Wife
And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them. Rebel angels descended and the fruit of the union betwixt the fallen and their mortal wives were called the Watchers....
The whole of Ruth Madigan’s adult life has revolved around the care and wishes of her disabled mother. When her mother dies, Clara, an elderly and otherwise reclusive resident of the Laurels rest home, befriends Ruth. It is a friendship that will transform Ruth’s world. But there is a dark side to Clara, a legacy she must pass on before her mortal life is done.
The Mortal Wife is a story of loneliness and manipulation, of murder and transformation. It is a tale of mortals caught up in the final throes of an age-old rebellion. And of the souls in the balance.
Contents
The Return
Touchwood
Old Friends
Ghosts
The Ambassador
Traces
Stalking
Bindings
Incubus
Christmas Eve
Awakenings
Animus
The Pillory
The Compact
Priming
Disclosures
Presentiments
The Black....
And The Red...
Flashpoint
The Witness
The Darkening
The Light
The Riving
Confrontation
The House of Women
The Shepherdess
Closing in
Hallowing
Inmates
The End