Darkwitch Rising

by Sara Douglass

  “You said you were a physician. You said you could aid her.”

  “And so I shall.” The stranger sat on the bed by Noah and, very gently, laid his hands against her back.

  Noah murmured softly in her sleep, but did not otherwise move.

  “I am sorry,” the man whispered, so softly that Thornton only barely caught the words, and then the stranger’s hands began to rub, very gently, up and down Noah’s back.

  Thornton watched them, only mildly curious at this strange action. The stranger’s hands were very beautiful. They were large, yet elegant, with square palms and long, sensitive fingers. Thornton relaxed still further. They were the hands of a physician. There could be no doubt.

  The stranger kept moving his hands, slowly, gently. As they moved, so the wounds closed over. The flesh was still red and swollen, but the angriness had subsided, and Thornton could see that even the swelling would subside within a few days.

  “You have a remarkable skill,” Thornton said.

  The stranger’s mouth twisted. “So I have been told.” He paused, then lifted his hands away from Noah. For a long moment he sat there, staring at her, then as gently as he had pulled them down, he lifted the bed covers over Noah’s back and shoulders, then stood up.

  “Tell no one I have been here, and tell Noah only what I have told you.”

  “That you are a physician, sent by Mistress Thanet.”

  The man’s eyes gleamed with humour. “Aye. A physician with uncommon skill.”

  “A physician with uncommon skill,” Thornton repeated obediently.

  The stranger stepped very close. “Tell me, Reverend Thornton, does she bring you bliss in your bedding? Is she…delectable?”

  Thornton’s eyes filled with tears. “She makes the land to rise up and greet me,” he said, and at that the stranger’s face hardened, his eyes went flat and emotionless, and then, abruptly, he was gone, and Thornton was left standing alone by the bed.

  Ten

  Langley House, Hertfordshire, and London

  Long Tom walked into the cavernous main hall of the Guildhall, his steps soft and almost unheard in the empty, dim interior. He moved slowly down the open space of the hall towards a balcony at its western end.

  Some six paces before the balcony he stopped, and raised his eyes.

  At either end of the balcony, standing on worn, ancient stones, were two remarkable carved wooden figures of some eight feet in height, and over five in girth. Each wore a suit of chain mail, each clasped a weapon in its hand (one a spear, and the other a great sword), each had wild hair escaping from under the helmets and full beards that partially hid the statues’ faces.

  Each was something other than what it appeared.

  They were Gog and Magog, the legendary protectors of London, and the stones the wooden figures stood on were the ancient stones of Gog and Magog which once had stood on the northern side of London Bridge.

  Long Tom bowed deeply, then spoke. “Greetings, brothers.”

  The wooden statues shifted, moved slightly, and then gained life.

  “He has—” Long Tom began, but the creature who bore the name Magog interrupted.

  “We know. We felt him arrive.”

  “He thinks to intercept Eaving as she goes to Asterion,” Long Tom said.

  Gog sighed. “We can understand his concern.”

  “He cannot be allowed to succeed,” said Long Tom. “She must go to Asterion. It is her price, and, besides—”

  “Besides,” said Magog, “there is much for her to accomplish in his vile little dwelling.”

  “What do you need us to do?” said Gog, and Long Tom stepped forward, and spoke to them for long minutes.

  Jane had managed to find an almost comfortable space on her pallet, the warmth from the hearth beating sympathetically over her battered and bruised body, when she heard Weyland’s footsteps on the stairs.

  “No,” she whispered. “Please, gods, no…”

  She had time for no more thought, for Weyland strode into the kitchen, leaned down to Jane, and buried a vicious fist into her hair.

  “He is here!” he said. “Brutus-reborn! I can smell him! I leave this house for a moment, and this! Ah!”

  “I—”

  “Up, bitch, and tell me what you know!”

  Jane screeched as he hauled on her hair, and she somehow managed to find her way to her feet.

  “I know nothing,” she said. “I have no—”

  “You have a connection to him through those damned bands,” Weyland said. “You have a connection to him through your role as Mistress of the Labyrinth at his side. You must know if he is here…and where!”

  The only answer he received was a black stare of hatred.

  “No answer forthcoming?” said Weyland. “Then allow me to force it out of you, my dear.”

  Once more his hand tightened within Jane’s hair, but this time the fingertips became as if molten lead, and they sank into Jane’s skull, burning through skin and bone.

  “Take me to him!” Weyland commanded, and Jane, rent with agony, did so, her senses following the path left by the scent of the kingship bands which always trailed behind Brutus-reborn.

  The scene was extraordinary. The harbour of The Hague was lined with tens of thousands of people, most of whom carried torches.

  The harbour was alive with light, with sound, and with movement. The people cheered, raising their torches on high, staring out into the harbour where rode a magnificent fleet of ships. Many of these ships were firing their guns in a ragged, chaotic salute, the smoke and noise adding to the confusion and the gaiety.

  “See!” hissed Jane, and the vision changed slightly.

  Now they were aboard a ship, the Royal Charles, and there stood Charles himself, Catharine of Braganza at his side, smiling and waving at the crowds.

  Charles turned to Sir Edward Montagu, commander of the fleet sent by Parliament to bring home their king, and he said, “Even though my feet do not yet touch the land of England, still nevertheless they touch home, standing as I do on England’s timbers.”

  “That is what you smell!” hissed Jane, keeping hold of consciousness with the greatest of effort. “He stands with his feet on England’s timbers, as if he stands on England itself. He is home, even if he has not yet alighted on England’s shores.”

  Weyland grunted and, with a wrench, threw Jane back to her pallet.

  She gave a loud cry, her hands buried in her bloodied hair.

  Weyland stood there for a while, his head down as if he stared at her, but with his eyes unfocussed. Then, after some five minutes, he turned and left the room.

  He stood just inside the Idyll, the door swinging softly shut behind him, thinking.

  Was that why he could sense Brutus-reborn so strongly? Because he was so close to home? So close that he was metaphorically home now his feet had stepped on to the Royal Charles?

  Or was it because Brutus-reborn had actually set foot on England’s turf?

  He wondered.

  After a moment, his thoughts turned to Noah, and to the pain he had caused her this day.

  He remembered how she had tasted, when he had kissed her outside her house in Woburn village.

  How he had looked into her eyes and seen, not a terrified woman, but an equal.

  He thought of her back, raked bloody by the imp.

  He closed his eyes and, instead of dwelling on what had happened, thought only of what would happen, when Noah was here, in his house in Idol Lane.

  When she was here, he wouldn’t have to hurt her.

  When she was here…

  He opened his eyes again, his thoughts all on Noah. He had entirely forgotten about Brutus.

  Eleven

  Langley House, Hertfordshire

  NOAH SPEAKS

  When I woke it was to discover that my flesh ached much less than I had anticipated, and that I could move more freely.

  And that was as well, for I knew I could not linger here another day.r />
  I could not survive another attack. I saw John watching me. “I feel well,” I said. “Do not fret.”

  “I have been worried,” said John, and I could see that in his face, as well as in the rough edge to his voice.

  This is why I needed to walk away from you, John…But, oh, if he had not been here with me. If Catling and I had been sheltering out the storm in some dismal tavern…

  If Weyland had struck on the open road.

  The “ifs” were too terrible to contemplate. I swear I have never been so grateful to have the company of a human being as I was for the company of John.

  “Where is Catling?” I said, trying to inject some maternal concern into my voice.

  “I sent her to sleep,” said Thornton. “She was worried for you.”

  Worried? No, surely not. Concerned, maybe, but I doubt that worry came into it at all.

  “Tell me,” I said, taking his hand as he sat by me on the bed, “how is it my back has healed so cleanly? The wounds are stiff, and ache, but they do not pain me greatly. Why is this so, John?”

  “A physician came. Mistress Thanet sent him.”

  I frowned. “A physician? An uncommonly good one, then.”

  “Yes.”

  Something in John’s face worried me. A flatness, both to his features and to his voice.

  “What was his name?”

  “I cannot remember. I was concerned for you, and that filled my thoughts.”

  Perhaps, but strange nonetheless. I knew John’s intellectual capacity intimately; that he should not remember a name was highly unusual. “Describe this man to me,” I said.

  John thought. “Well,” he said eventually, “he was tall, and pleasant enough. He had keen eyes, and…ah, I cannot remember.”

  Tall, pleasant enough, and with keen eyes. It was not a description I could use to pick someone out from a crowd.

  A horrible thought suddenly occurred to me. “John! Mistress Thanet thought only that I had a headache. What will she think now, when the physician tells her that he cured not my painful brow, but my mauled back?”

  “Do not worry. He came so late at night that I doubt he went from this bedchamber to discuss the details of your condition with Leila.”

  “But…” There were too many buts. Leila Thanet had sent for a physician but had not accompanied him into the chamber, at the very least to introduce him to John. And all this had occurred in the middle of the night. Leila Thanet may well have sent a servant riding for the physician if she thought there was some life-threatening emergency, but for all she knew I had only a painful headache.

  And this strange, secretive physician with keen eyes had healed my back. At best, physicians soothed. They did not heal open and deep wounds. Not overnight.

  Who?

  I lay back thinking, and after only a moment the answer came to me. It must have been one of the Sidlesaghes, or even Charles, come from so far away in spirit. He would have been secretive, for he would not have wanted Weyland to know of his presence. I relaxed, relieved.

  “There was one thing,” John said.

  “Yes?”

  He coloured slightly. “He asked if you brought me bliss in bed. He asked if you were, ahem, delectable.”

  I stared. That surely was no question a Sidlesaghe would ask, and I could not imagine Charles asking it, either. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine who could have asked such an intimacy. “And what did you say?”

  “I said you made the land to rise up and greet me.”

  My throat choked with emotion and I had to swallow so that I might speak. “And he said?”

  “He said nothing, but his eyes hardened, and he vanished.”

  Not left. Vanished. I was still worried about this stranger’s identity, but at least my fears regarding Leila Thanet knowing the true nature of my affliction eased. This was, most certainly, not someone Leila Thanet had summoned.

  I smiled at John, and squeezed his hand. “What this physician did was as nothing to what you have done for me over the past days and nights. If not for you…John, if not for you then I should be in despair. Despair cannot be healed as easily with power as can a few torn wounds. What you have done for me takes something far greater than the mere application of an unnatural power. I thank you.”

  He gave a nod, and a small smile, but he did not say anything, and I knew he had wanted so much more from me.

  In the morning we rose, dressed, breakfasted, then took our leave of the Thanets (most apparently completely unaware of the physician’s visit), and rode the fifteen miles or so south-east into London.

  To Weyland Orr.

  At one point, a mile or so south of Langley Hall, John reined the horse to a halt, and said to me, “Noah, is London the safest place for you? And this…this creature within you…dear God, beloved…how can I—”

  “John,” I said, “be at peace. This woman I go to, Jane Orr, she is afflicted in the same manner as I. Individually we have no hope, but together we can overcome this dark trouble. I know it, and so does she. And I have many other friends in London. Marguerite and Kate shall join me soon, as yet others. Deliver me you must, and then you must leave me. If you do that, then one day I shall return, carefree and unburdened. If you do not, then I am lost.”

  “But you will never love me,” he said.

  I said nothing, and dropped away my eyes.

  Twelve

  London

  Louis de Silva lay awake most of the night, spending half his time worrying about Noah and the other half feeling London rising up through the timbers of the inn and the straw-filled mattress of his bed. The city felt like a wondrously familiar old friend, which Louis supposed that, indeed, it was. Land and London were now so well known to Louis, and he to them, that there was no sense of any discontinuity since Louis’ last time in this land and this moment. Six hundred years had passed, and yet it felt like only an hour or so ago that he had ruled as king over this land and it, and the city, had submitted themselves to him. Along with the land, Louis could feel faint echoes of his blood, as well as Charles’. In their previous life both had left children, and now Louis felt the faint heartbeat of hundreds of their descendants. Most of them—even William and Matilda’s children—had gravitated to the south-east of England. Even though they were so close to London, Louis realised they had no part to play in the game that had ensnared their ancestors. They were well, and for that Louis was pleased, but he did not concern himself overmuch with their presence.

  What Louis truly wanted during this long night was to set out and search the city, to be doing, but he knew that was pointless. For one, both the night and the storm meant Noah would hardly be out traipsing the streets. Secondly, Louis doubted Noah had yet had enough time to get to London from Woburn village. It would normally be a ride of two or three days: say three, as the storm would have kept her trapped for at least a day. Presuming she was within a day of London, and presuming also the storm eased, she would likely be here today.

  Knowing from where she came, Louis reasonably expected Noah would approach London via Holborn Road, entering the city through Newgate…but then she might come via Smithfield, entering via Aldersgate…or even Cripplegate, if she got lost amid the twisting maze of streets about the dogleg in the city wall.

  Damn! Louis lay there as dawn poked light through the shoddy shutters on the window of the chamber and decided that a reasonable idea wasn’t going to be good enough. Worse, he had no idea where she would go once she got to London. Vanish in the western parts of the city, or somehow thread her way into the crowded eastern quarters?

  Or would the ground somehow rise up and swallow her the instant she got to the city walls?

  Louis rose as soon as it was light, washed his hands and face, then threw on his breeches and doublet, hose and shoes, grabbed his hat and cloak, and slung his bag over his shoulder, trying to think optimistically. Noah wouldn’t be hard to spot.

  How many single women carrying a baby could there be entering London on this d
ay?

  Weyland was up the same time as Louis, driven by a similar impatience. Noah was near. He could sense every step closer that she came. Unlike Louis, however, Weyland had no intention of wandering the streets looking for Noah. She would come straight to him. There should be no need to go looking.

  “Wake up,” he said with more good nature than usual as he entered the kitchen. “This shall be a day to remember. Your worst enemy is about to become my thrall as much as you.”

  Jane said nothing. She rose, straightened her bodice and skirt, and briefly laid a hand on her belly as she walked stiffly to the hearth to see to the fire. She was very pale, her eyes enormous in her increasingly cadaverous face, the sores on her forehead more prominent than normal.

  Weyland sat down at the table, watching Jane as she set water to boil then poured him a beaker of ale. She set it by his hand, then went to a cupboard, and pulled forth bread, cheese, a platter and a sharp knife, which she also set by Weyland for his breakfast.

  The knife had a most oddly twisted horn handle; it was the same wicked instrument that Asterion had first fashioned three thousand years earlier from the horns of his Theseus-murdered body, and it was the same wicked instrument with which Cornelia had murdered Genvissa, and later used on herself, and which Swanne had used to murder Damson. It was now tired and worn, but Weyland kept it by him as a reminder of all that had passed.

  He lifted it high, holding it so that its blade caught the faint gleam of firelight from the hearth. “Will you be good, Jane, or should I hide all the knives?”

  “Why be good? You’ll just murder her, as you have every intention of murdering me.”

  “Jane—”

  “Oh, damn you. I will not murder her! Satisfied?”

  Weyland narrowed his eyes. That spite was nothing but Ariadne’s blood coming to the fore. He considered making Jane regret her remark, but then decided to let it go. There were far more interesting matters to think on, and to anticipate.