Darkwitch Rising

by Sara Douglass

  At sixteen Noah had been lovely.

  At twenty-five she was stunning.

  Her glossy brunette hair had darkened a little more with age, but it was still striking. When they made love Thornton would sink his hands into its thick, cool mass, and often fantasised about losing himself within it completely. Her pale luminescent skin was as exquisite now as it had been at sixteen, and her eyes, ah, those eyes…when she smiled at him, slow and warm, those eyes glowed with such intensity that Thornton imagined he could feel their heat burning into his face.

  And yet, sometimes, after they had made love and she lay in his arms, he would hear her sigh and turn her head slightly as if she looked for someone in the dark of the chamber. At these moments he would feel a falling away, but whether of Noah herself or of that remarkable sense of the land she brought with her he could not say.

  At these moments he would wonder how many other men Noah had left bereft in her wake. How many men, desperately in love with her, had heard her sigh like that, and turn her eyes to stare into the unknown. Noah had been a virgin when she’d first come to Thornton’s bed, but Thornton was intuitive enough (and certainly intuitive enough after all these close years with this faerie woman) to understand that his might not have been the first heart she’d ever broken.

  “Reverend,” Lady Anne said, pausing to turn slightly to wave Thornton forward. “Why lag so? I would speak with you and Noah.”

  As Thornton drew abreast of Lady Anne, she resumed speaking.

  “I have decided to travel to a healing spring. This child discomforts me greatly, and I need to partake of mineral waters.”

  “I am sorry to hear of that, madam,” Thornton said. “To where do you travel? And when?”

  “As to the when, in a few weeks, perhaps, when my husband can spare me. And as to where. Well…I have heard good reports of the springs at Hampstead.”

  Thornton saw Noah stiffen, and he thought he knew what was coming. Hampstead was on the northern borders of London.

  “I would have you stay and continue the children’s education,” Lady Anne said to Thornton, then she turned and laid a gloved hand on Noah’s arm, “but I would have you with me, Noah, for no one soothes my aches and discomforts as well as you. Between you and the waters, I have no doubt I shall feel well again in but a short while.”

  “Madam…” Noah said, and Thornton saw panic well in her eyes.

  For some reason, Noah loathed London. The earl and countess travelled to London at least once a year to oversee their interests there. They always asked Noah to travel with them; Noah just as regularly declined, citing this reason or that.

  “I will have you with me,” the countess said, her voice like ice.

  “Madam,” Noah began again.

  “The waters of Hampstead are renowned for their curative powers,” Lady Anne continued. “I must go, Noah, and you shall accompany me.”

  Thornton was sure that he saw tears in Noah’s eyes, and he started forward, thinking that if he did not grasp her hand then she would bolt for the cover of the forest like a terrified deer.

  Just as he stepped forward, and raised his hand, Noah looked towards a tree, and gasped, her already pale skin losing what little colour it had.

  Thornton looked in the direction of her eyes, and felt his own mouth drop open in wonder.

  A tall thin creature in rough leather breeches and jerkin had stepped forward, and if his dealings with Noah had taught Thornton anything, it was that he could recognise a faerie creature when he saw one.

  Six

  Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire

  NOAH SPEAKS

  I am not sure what stunned me the most: Long Tom’s precipitous appearance from behind the tree, or the fact that John Thornton could see him as well as I. It was then, at that precise moment, I knew my intimacy with Thornton had gone too far. I had taught him too much, or he had learned too much.

  Lady Anne was completely unaware of Long Tom’s presence. She had a slightly distracted expression in her eyes, and her breathing was stilled to the point of non-existence. I realised Long Tom had cast some kind of enchantment upon her.

  Long Tom stepped forward, nodded at Thornton, then looked beseechingly at me, as only a Sidlesaghe could.

  “Eaving,” he said, “go to Hampstead. Please.”

  I shook my head slowly from side to side, although I was not sure what I was denying. I think my thoughts were more with John than they were with whatever Long Tom was trying to say to me.

  “Eaving?” said John. Then, “Noah, who is this?”

  “I am Long Tom,” said the Sidlesaghe, most obligingly. He held out his hand.

  John looked at it, looked at me, then shook Long Tom’s hand.

  “Well met,” said Long Tom.

  “Aye,” said John somewhat doubtfully.

  “Eaving,” Long Tom’s attention had switched back to me, “you must go to Hampstead.”

  “It is time?” I whispered. Time to take my place as Asterion’s whore?

  “No, no!” Long Tom said, and his face wrinkled up almost as if his anxiety to soothe me had reduced him nigh to tears. “Not at all. It is time to heal the wounds between you and Brutus.”

  Time to heal the first wound.

  Time to bridge those terrible rifts Brutus and I had created between us. Could it be done?

  “Of course,” said Long Tom.

  “But why Hampstead?”

  “Hampstead is where it needs to be.”

  “It is too dangerous,” I said. London was only a few miles south from Hampstead. Asterion would be close. “He will know I am there.”

  “We will distract him,” said Long Tom. “Eaving, this wound needs to be healed, and it needs to be done now.”

  Why now? I wondered into Long Tom’s mind. Thornton must be having a hard enough time with this conversation, and I thought the less said verbally the better.

  While Long Tom understood me well enough, he ignored the implicit request.

  “It must be now,” he said. “It is as the Game asks.”

  “Noah?” John said.

  “All is well, John,” I said, trying to give him a smile and, I am afraid, failing miserably. “Long Tom is an old friend and he only wants to aid me.”

  “Why does he call you Eaving?”

  “It is an old and dear name to me.”

  “And as an old and dear friend,” Long Tom said, “I am asking you, Eaving, to agree with your lady companion—”

  Oh, how I liked that! Lady Anne was my companion, rather than I hers. I suppose Long Tom could see it no other way.

  “—and to travel with her to Hampstead.”

  The imp? I spoke into Long Tom’s mind (this, of all things, could not be said before John!). The imp had lain quiescent thus far, but I had no idea what it would do if I transported it closer to its master. I well knew it would not lie quiescent all this life. It had a task, and it would attend to it the moment its master informed it of its necessity.

  We will manage the imp, Long Tom replied, and I blessed him that this time, at least, he had not spoken the words aloud.

  Gods, I hoped so. I felt the first flutter of excitement. Brutus would be in Hampstead. Somehow. Somewhere.

  “Will it be safe for him as well?” I said. How in the world would Brutus manage to travel to meet me there? Did he think he could wander the roads unrecognised?

  From the corner of my eyes I could see John frown, and I wished I had not said that verbally.

  Long Tom hesitated, which reassured me not at all. “You shall both need to take risks. There is no other way.”

  I nodded, finally, although frankly I was almost as nervous about meeting with Brutus-reborn as I was about being so close to Asterion. Would Brutus want to reconcile with me? Did he not hate me still? I remembered his anger when he had confronted me in our ancient tomb under Tower Hill and told me that I had been duped by Asterion, and turned into his whore. I had felt Brutus’ presence whenever Coel, Ecub, Erith and he had for
med the Circle they used to reach out to me, but I’d never been able to glean more from that than his presence. They were there, they were intimate, they wanted me to know they loved me…but what did Brutus want me to know? Did he merely acquiesce to the group in these matters, or did he truly wish me well, too?

  How would I ever discover how he felt, save by meeting him?

  “I shall go to Hampstead,” I said, and Long Tom smiled.

  Somehow we got through the rest of that walk through the park, Lady Anne blinking back into awareness the instant Long Tom vanished. I smiled, and said that of course I would accompany her to Hampstead. Lady Anne professed herself well pleased, and John, the dear man, kept his own counsel although I felt his eyes boring into my back as we made our way to the abbey.

  That night I went to him, for I owed him that much at least. Far more, truly, but I did not know how ever I could repay him.

  Unusually, he did not move instantly to disrobe me, and make love to me. We often talked far into the night, but always the physical intimacy came first, so that we might the more easily establish the greater intimacy later.

  Instead John took my face between his hands, and regarded me soberly.

  “I have put many things to one side for you,” he said. “My loyalty to my patron, the earl. My moral righteousness. My duty to God. My very faith in God! Everything you are, and everything you have shown me over the past years, has turned my world upside down…and what do I have for that? Your love? No, I do not have that. Your hand in marriage? No, that even less. I have merely been a dalliance for you—”

  His voice had turned black with bitterness, and I went rigid, and tears filled my eyes.

  “—a means by which to pass the time.”

  “No! You have given me so much comfort and friendship—”

  “Comfort and friendship? Comfort and friendship? For almost ten years you have twisted my heart and wrung it dry, and yet for that you will give me nothing in return. Not your love, not—”

  “I do…” I stopped. I couldn’t lie to him.

  He saw it, and his mouth twisted even more than it had thus far. “You do love me?” He shook his head. “Nay. You don’t. You wanted a lover, and so you took me. I was convenient, Noah. Admit it.”

  I said nothing, admitting everything with my silence.

  “Marry me,” he whispered. “Please. Don’t leave me.”

  “I would destroy you if I did that. I’m so sorry, John.”

  John pulled my face towards his, but he did not kiss me. Instead he rested his forehead against mine, his eyes closed, and for a long time we stood there like that, leaning into each other, silent.

  “Will you come back from Hampstead?” he said eventually, so softly I could barely hear him.

  “I hope so,” I said, “more than you can imagine.”

  Much later, after we had made love with a desperation that made me weep, we lay sleepless. He was as lost in his own thoughts as I was in mine.

  I was thankful he did not inquire as to what I pondered, for I thought of nothing but Brutus.

  Brutus would be there, in Hampstead.

  I’d had time to think how his presence might be accomplished, and I’d reached the conclusion that Brutus-reborn would not travel physically to Hampstead. Brutus would not dare to set foot in England for the same reason I was terrified of setting foot in London: Asterion. The Minotaur had more power than ever, and I don’t think Brutus had the power to confront him.

  No, he and the others would use the power of the Circle to send him to me. It was dangerous, but it could be done.

  I didn’t think it was a coincidence that Long Tom had come to me and told me to go to Hampstead just after the Circle had failed to reach out to me on May Night. I’d been worried about that, but now I think I knew the answer.

  Long Tom had gone to them, probably using their power as they formed the Circle to catapult himself into their midst. They’d formed the Circle, intending to touch me, and instead had received Long Tom for their troubles.

  I smiled a little to myself in the dark. Had Brutus been disappointed?

  At this further thought of Brutus I stiffened in excitement, fool that I was, and John felt it.

  “Who is he?” he whispered in my ear, one hand on my breast. “Who is he that you long for so desperately? Who is it you are going to Hampstead to meet?”

  What could I say?

  Seven

  Antwerp, the Netherlands, Hampstead, Middlesex, and London

  It was Midsummer Day, the nativity of St John the Baptist, and England and western Europe sweltered under a hot sun and the shared headache of a splendidly celebrated Midsummer Eve the previous night. In the afternoon of the day just gone, men and women had danced into the forests and taken branches which they hauled back to their dwellings to plant over their front doors. To any priest who asked, this ritual was to honour the nativity of St John the Baptist, but in hearts and memories, this ritual recalled a time long past when there was something more to be celebrated in the forests at the solstice than the nativity of Christian martyrs.

  Dead wood was collected for the night, and piled into great bonfires, recalling the ancient bone fires designed to frighten away witches. Then, as twilight set in, all across Europe men set these massive bonfires alight. When the fires were burning well, and the men and women present fuelled with alcohol, the dances began. People grasped hands and formed concentric rings about the fires, moving first this way and then that, with the occasional foolhardy youth breaking free of the ring to leap through the flames.

  Most of the dancers didn’t even pretend to associate these fire dances with the Baptist. Instead, they remembered the circling dance as Ringwalker’s Dance and, if asked what that meant, the only reply to be received was a sly look and a cunning smile.

  Londoners, dancing about fires in both east and west Smithfield, called their dances the Troy Game, although one or two were heard to refer to it as Ringwalker’s Troy.

  Lady Anne and Noah occupied a townhouse in Highgate village, some four miles to the north-west of London and just on the edge of Hampstead Heath. They had been at Highgate some two weeks now, and Lady Anne was pleased to see that Noah’s initial nervousness at being so close to London had abated so that she now appeared as relaxed as Lady Anne was herself.

  Every day they rode in a trap pulled by a small pony from their rented townhouse to the spring-fed ponds on the eastern reaches of the Heath, and there Lady Anne took of the waters, either orally or, when she dared and when she felt it seemly, by clothing herself in a voluminous linen garment and immersing herself in one of the ponds. Noah would usually sit with her, or assist in whatever way she could, but this Midsummer’s Day the lady settled into a chair by the side of one of the ponds under the shade of a spreading oak tree and told Noah that she might amuse herself as she pleased, for she, Lady Anne, felt so lethargic she wanted only to doze away the day.

  Noah smiled, ensured Lady Anne was comfortable and wanted for nothing, then wandered off towards Parliament Hill which rose in the western near distance.

  In Antwerp, Charles convened the Circle in his bedchamber at one hour past midday. Normally it would have been difficult for him to have acquired several hours free during the day, but such had been the celebrations of Midsummer’s Eve few people begrudged the king a few hours rest within his chamber.

  They sat on his bed, five of them, for Long Tom had materialised—using his own power this time—just as they were forming the Circle and was wordlessly accepted. Charles sat in the centre at the head of the bed, Marguerite to his right, Kate to his left, then Louis to Marguerite’s right, then Long Tom between Louis and Kate. All were naked, save for Long Tom who, apparently, was incapable of shedding his clothes.

  They were quiet and introspective.

  “Much depends on our strength today,” Charles said eventually, looking at each in turn, his eyes resting fractionally longer on Louis than on any of the others.

  There was silent a
cceptance for a reply. They all knew it.

  “Asterion will feel something, and wonder,” Charles continued. He lifted his hands and touched his biceps briefly, as if feeling there the golden bands of Troy. “I will be here for him, to ease his worry.”

  “It is not Asterion I worry so much about,” said Louis, “but Noah’s imp. Are you sure—”

  “It will sleep, along with Noah,” said Long Tom. “I am sure of it.”

  “’Sure’ is not quite the extent of reassurance I was seeking,” Louis muttered. He was tense, and very nervous, and Long Tom smiled at him and reached out a hand, resting it momentarily on his shoulder.

  “We will do all we can,” he said. “There is risk, yes, but once what is done is done, then the imp will…” his voice trailed off.

  The imp will be deceived, everyone finished in their own minds, and prayed that it might be so.

  “It is time,” said Charles, and Marguerite reached for the box and the small piece of browned turf it contained.

  Noah wandered to the lower reaches of Parliament Hill. She did not want to climb to its peak, mainly because she had a fear of standing there outlined against the clear blue sky for any who cared to lift their eyes and see, so she walked slowly about the base of the hill to a gigantic elm tree that someone in the village had mentioned to her.

  It was almost thirty feet in girth, and was so old that its centre was quite hollowed out with age. Almost forty years earlier some enterprising local villager had built a circular wooden staircase within, comprising forty-two steps, leading to a platform built among the branches of the tree.

  Noah stood at the base of the tree, considered, then entered. The platform was shrouded in leaves, affording her some concealment, and she could hear no voices or laughter, so she knew she would be alone.

  She climbed.