A Discovery of Witches: A Novel (All Souls Trilogy)

by Deborah Harkness

  As the water poured forth, my control slipped further. Domenico’s sudden appearance had frightened me more than I’d been willing to admit. Matthew was gone. And I had vowed to fight for him against enemies I couldn’t identify and didn’t understand. It was now clear that Matthew’s past was not composed simply of homely elements of firelight, wine, and books. Nor had it unfolded solely within the limits of a loyal family. Domenico had alluded to something darker that was full of enmity, danger, and death.

  Exhaustion overtook me, and the water pulled me under. A strange sense of exhilaration accompanied the fatigue. I was poised between mortality and something elemental that held within it the promise of a vast, incomprehensible power. If I surrendered to the undertow, there would be no more Diana Bishop. Instead I would become water—nowhere, everywhere, free of my body and the pain.

  “I’m sorry, Matthew.” My words were nothing more than a burble as the water began its inexorable work.

  Ysabeau stepped toward me, and a sharp crack sounded in my brain. My warning to her was lost in a roar like a tidal wave coming ashore. The winds rose around my feet, whipping the water into a hurricane. I raised my arms to the sky, water and wind shaping themselves into a funnel that encircled my body.

  Marthe grabbed Ysabeau’s arm, her mouth moving rapidly. Matthew’s mother tried to pull away, her own mouth shaping the word “no,” but Marthe held on, staring at her fixedly. After a few moments, Ysabeau’s shoulders slumped. She turned toward me and started to sing. Haunting and yearning, her voice penetrated the water and called me back to the world.

  The winds began to die down. The de Clermont standard, which had been whipping around, resumed its gentle swaying. The cascade of water from my fingertips slowed to a river, then to a trickle, and stopped entirely. The waves flowing from my hair subsided into swells, and then they, too, disappeared. At last nothing came out of my mouth but a gasp of surprise. The balls of water falling from my eyes were the last vestige of the witchwater to disappear, just as they had been the first sign of its power moving through me. The remains of my deluge sluiced toward small holes at the base of the crenellated walls. Far, far below, water splashed onto the courtyard’s thick bed of gravel.

  When the last of the water left me, I felt scooped out like a pumpkin, and freezing cold, too. My knees buckled, banging painfully on the stone.

  “Thank God,” Ysabeau murmured. “We almost lost her.”

  I was shaking violently from exhaustion and cold. Both women flew at me and lifted me to my feet. They each gripped an elbow and supported me down the curving flight of stairs with a speed that made me shiver. Once in the hall, Marthe headed toward Matthew’s rooms and Ysabeau pulled in the opposite direction.

  “Mine are closer,” Matthew’s mother said sharply.

  “She will feel safer closer to him,” Marthe said.

  With a sound of exasperation, Ysabeau conceded.

  At the bottom of Matthew’s staircase, Ysabeau blurted out a string of colorful phrases that sounded totally incongruous coming from her delicate mouth. “I’ll carry her,” she said when she was finished cursing her son, the forces of nature, the powers of the universe, and many other unspecified individuals of questionable parentage who’d taken part in building the tower. Ysabeau lifted my much larger body easily. “Why he had to make these stairs so twisting—and in two separate flights—is beyond my understanding.”

  Marthe tucked my wet hair into the crook of Ysabeau’s elbow and shrugged. “To make it harder, of course. He has always made things harder. For him. For everyone else, too.”

  No one had thought to come up in the late afternoon to light the candles, but the fire still smoldered and the room retained some of its warmth. Marthe disappeared into the bathroom, and the sound of running water made me examine my fingers with alarm. Ysabeau threw two enormous logs onto the grate as if they were kindling, snapping a long splinter off one before it caught. She stirred the coals into flames with it and then used it to light a dozen candles in the space of a few seconds. In their warm glow, she surveyed me anxiously from head to foot.

  “He will never forgive me if you become ill,” she said, picking up my hands and examining my nails. They were bluish again, but not from electricity. Now they were blue with cold and wrinkled from witchwater. She rubbed them vigorously between her palms.

  Still shaking so much that my teeth were chattering, I withdrew my hands to hug myself in an attempt to conserve what little warmth was left in my body. Ysabeau picked me up again without ceremony and swept me into the bathroom.

  “She needs to be in there now,” Ysabeau said brusquely. The room was full of steam, and Marthe turned from the bath to help strip off my clothes. Soon I was naked and the two of them were lifting me into the hot water, one cold, vampiric hand in each armpit. The shock of the water’s heat on my frigid skin was extreme. Crying out, I struggled to pull myself from Matthew’s deep bathtub.

  “Shh,” Ysabeau said, holding my hair away from my face while Marthe pushed me back into the water. “It will warm you. We must get you warm.”

  Marthe stood sentinel at one end of the tub, and Ysabeau remained at the other, whispering soothing sounds and humming softly under her breath. It was a long time before the shaking stopped.

  At one point Marthe murmured something in Occitan that included the name Marcus.

  Ysabeau and I said no at the same moment.

  “I’ll be fine. Don’t tell Marcus what happened. Matthew mustn’t know about the magic. Not now,” I said through chattering teeth.

  “We just need some time to warm you.” Ysabeau sounded calm, but she looked concerned.

  Slowly the heat began to reverse the changes the witchwater had worked on my body. Marthe kept adding fresh hot water to the tub as my body cooled it down. Ysabeau grabbed a beat-up tin pitcher from under the window and dipped it into the bath, pouring hot water over my head and shoulders. Once my head was warm, she wrapped it in a towel and pushed me slightly lower in the water.

  “Soak,” she commanded.

  Marthe bustled between the bathroom and the bedroom, carrying clothes and towels. She tutted over my lack of pajamas and the old yoga clothes I’d brought to sleep in. None of them met her requirements for warmth.

  Ysabeau felt my cheeks and the top of my head with the back of her hand. She nodded.

  They let me get myself out of the tub. The water falling off my body reminded me of the watchtower roof, and I dug my toes into the floor to resist the element’s insidious pull.

  Marthe and Ysabeau bundled me into towels fresh from the fireside that smelled faintly of wood smoke. In the bedroom they somehow managed to dry me without ever exposing an inch of my flesh to the air, rolling me this way and that inside the towels until I could feel heat radiating from my body. Rough strokes of another towel scratched against my hair before Marthe’s fingers raked through the strands and twisted them into a tight braid against my scalp. Ysabeau tossed the damp towels onto a chair near the fire as I shed them to dress, seemingly unconcerned by their contact with antique wood and fine upholstery.

  Now fully clothed, I sat down and stared mindlessly at the fire. Marthe disappeared without a word into the lower regions of the château and returned with a tray of tiny sandwiches and a steaming pot of her herbal tea.

  “You will eat. Now.” It was not a request but a command.

  I brought one of the sandwiches to my mouth and nibbled around the edges.

  Marthe’s eyes narrowed at this sudden change in my eating habits. “Eat.”

  The food tasted like sawdust, but my stomach rumbled nonetheless. After I’d swallowed two of the tiny sandwiches, Marthe thrust a mug into my hands. She didn’t need to tell me to drink. The hot liquid slid down my throat, carrying away the water’s salty vestiges.

  “Was that witchwater?” I shivered at the memory of all that water coming out of me.

  Ysabeau, who had been standing by the window looking out into the darkness, walked toward the o
pposite sofa. “Yes,” she said. “It has been a long time, though, since we have seen it come forth like that.”

  “Thank God that wasn’t the usual way,” I said faintly, swallowing another sip of tea.

  “Most witches today are not powerful enough to draw on the witchwater as you did. They can make waves on ponds and cause rain when there are clouds. They do not become the water.” Ysabeau sat across from me, studying me with evident curiosity.

  I had become the water. Knowing that this was no longer common made me feel vulnerable—and even more alone.

  A phone rang.

  Ysabeau reached into her pocket and pulled out a small red phone that seemed uncharacteristically bright and high-tech against her pale skin and classic, buff-colored clothes.

  “Oui? Ah, good. I am glad that you are there and safe.” She spoke English out of courtesy to me and nodded in my direction. “Yes, she is fine. She is eating.” She stood and handed me the phone. “Matthew would like to speak with you.”

  “Diana?” Matthew was barely audible.

  “Yes?” I didn’t trust myself to say much for fear that more than words would tumble out.

  He made a soft sound of relief. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  “Your mother and Marthe are taking good care of me.” And I didn’t flood the castle, I thought.

  “You’re tired.” The distance between us was making him anxious, and he was tuned into every nuance of our exchange.

  “I am. It’s been a long day.”

  “Sleep, then,” he said, his tone unexpectedly gentle. My eyes closed against the sudden sting of tears. There would be little sleep for me tonight. I was too worried about what he might do in some half-baked, heroic attempt to protect me.

  “Have you been to the lab?”

  “I’m headed there now. Marcus wants me to go over everything carefully and make sure we’ve taken all the necessary precautions. Miriam’s checked the security at the house as well.” He told the half-truth with smooth conviction, but I knew it for what it was. The silence stretched out until it became uncomfortable.

  “Don’t do it, Matthew. Please don’t try to negotiate with Knox.”

  “I’ll make sure you’re safe before you return to Oxford.”

  “Then there’s nothing more to say. You’ve decided. So have I.” I returned the phone to Ysabeau.

  She frowned, her cold fingers pulling it from my grip. Ysabeau said good-bye to her son, his reply audible only as a staccato burst of unintelligible sound.

  “Thank you for not telling him about the witchwater,” I said quietly after she’d disconnected the line.

  “That is your tale to tell, not mine.” Ysabeau drifted toward the fireplace.

  “It’s no good trying to tell a story you don’t understand. Why is the power coming out now? First it was the wind, then the visions, and now the water, too.” I shuddered.

  “What kind of visions?” Ysabeau asked, her curiosity evident.

  “Didn’t Matthew tell you? My DNA has all this . . . magic,” I said, stumbling over the word, “in it. The tests warned there might be visions, and they’ve begun.”

  “Matthew would never tell me what your blood revealed—certainly not without your permission, and probably not with your permission either.”

  “I’ve seen them here in the château.” I hesitated. “How did you learn to control them?”

  “Matthew told you that I had visions before I became a vampire.” Ysabeau shook her head. “He should not have.”

  “Were you a witch?” That might explain why she disliked me so much.

  “A witch? No. Matthew wonders if I was a daemon, but I’m sure I was an ordinary human. They have their visionaries, too. It’s not only creatures who are blessed and cursed in this way.”

  “Did you ever manage to control your second sight and anticipate it?”

  “It gets easier. There are warning signs. They can be subtle, but you will learn. Marthe helped me as well.”

  It was the only piece of information I had about Marthe’s past. Not for the first time, I wondered how old these two women were and what workings of fate had brought them together.

  Marthe stood with her arms crossed. “Òc,” she said, giving Ysabeau a tender, protective look. “It is easier if you let the visions move through you without fighting.”

  “I’m too shocked to fight,” I said, thinking back to the salon and the library.

  “Shock is your body’s way of resisting,” Ysabeau said. “You must try to relax.”

  “It’s difficult to let go when you see knights in armor and the faces of women you’ve never met mixed up with scenes from your own past.” My jaw cracked with a yawn.

  “You are too exhausted to think about this now.” Ysabeau rose to her feet.

  “I’m not ready to sleep.” I smothered another yawn with the back of my hand.

  She eyed me speculatively, like a beautiful falcon scrutinizing a field mouse. Ysabeau’s glance turned mischievous. “Get into bed, and I will tell you how I made Matthew.”

  Her offer was too tempting to resist. I did as she told me while she pulled up a chair and Marthe busied herself with dishes and towels.

  “So where do I begin?” She drew herself straighter in the chair and stared into the candles’ flames. “I cannot begin simply with my part of the story but must start with his birth, here in the village. I remember him as a baby, you know. His father and mother came when Philippe decided to build on this land back when Clovis was king. That’s the only reason the village is here—it was where the farmers and craftsmen who built the church and castle lived.”

  “Why did your husband pick this spot?” I leaned against the pillows, my knees folded close to my chest under the bedclothes.

  “Clovis promised him the land in hopes it would encourage Philippe to fight against the king’s rivals. My husband was always playing both sides against the middle.” Ysabeau smiled wistfully. “Very few people caught him at it, though.”

  “Was Matthew’s father a farmer?”

  “A farmer?” Ysabeau looked surprised. “No, he was a carpenter, as was Matthew—before he became a stonemason.”

  A mason. The tower’s stones all fit together so smoothly they didn’t seem to require mortar. And there were the oddly ornate chimneys at the Old Lodge gatehouse that Matthew just had to let some craftsman try his hand at constructing. His long, slender fingers were strong enough to twist open an oyster shell or crack a chestnut. Another piece of Matthew fell into place, fitting perfectly next to the warrior, the scientist, and the courtier.

  “And they both worked on the château?”

  “Not this château,” Ysabeau said, looking around her. “This was a present from Matthew, when I was sad over being forced to leave a place that I loved. He tore down the fortress his father had built and replaced it with a new one.” Her green-and-black eyes glittered with amusement. “Philippe was furious. But it was time for a change. The first château was made of wood, and even though there had been stone additions over the years, it was a bit ramshackle.”

  My mind tried to take in the time line of events, from the construction of the first fortress and its village in the sixth century to Matthew’s tower in the thirteenth century.

  Ysabeau’s nose crinkled in distaste. “Then he stuck this tower onto the back when he returned home and didn’t want to live so close to the family. I never liked it—it seemed a romantic trifle—but it was his wish, and I let him.” She shrugged. “Such a funny tower. It didn’t help defend the castle. He had already built far more towers here than we needed.”

  Ysabeau continued to spin her tale, seeming only partially in the twenty-first century.

  “Matthew was born in the village. He was always such a bright child, so curious. He drove his father mad, following him to the château and picking up tools and sticks and stones. Children learned their trades early then, but Matthew was precocious. By the time he could hold a hatchet without inj
uring himself, he was put to work.”

  An eight-year-old Matthew with gangly legs and gray-green eyes ran around the hills in my imagination.

  “Yes.” She smiled, agreeing with my unspoken thoughts. “He was indeed a beautiful child. A beautiful young man as well. Matthew was unusually tall for the time, though not as tall as he became once he was a vampire.

  “And he had a wicked sense of humor. He was always pretending that something had gone wrong or that instructions had not been given to him regarding this roof beam or that foundation. Philippe never failed to believe the tall tales Matthew told him.” Ysabeau’s voice was indulgent. “Matthew’s first father died when he was in his late teens, and his first mother had been dead for years by then. He was alone, and we worried about him finding a woman to settle down with and start a family.

  “And then he met Blanca.” Ysabeau paused, her look level and without malice. “You cannot have imagined that he was without the love of women.” It was a statement, not a question. Marthe shot Ysabeau an evil look but kept quiet.

  “Of course not,” I said calmly, though my heart felt heavy.

  “Blanca was new to the village, a servant to one of the master masons Philippe had brought in from Ravenna to construct the first church. She was as pale as her name suggested, with white skin, eyes the color of a spring sky, and hair that looked like spun gold.”

  A pale, beautiful woman had appeared in my visions when I went to fetch Matthew’s computer. Ysabeau’s description of Blanca fit her perfectly.

  “She had a sweet smile, didn’t she?” I whispered.

  Ysabeau’s eyes widened. “Yes, she did.”

  “I know. I saw her when Matthew’s armor caught the light in his study.”

  Marthe made a warning sound, but Ysabeau continued.