Darkwitch Rising

by Sara Douglass

  “You have not lived with him these thirty and more years.”

  Charles reached out a hand, and she flinched.

  “I will not hurt you,” he said, and very gently ran his hands over her swollen cheekbone and then her nose.

  “Oh, gods…” she said, the breath shuddering in her throat. “Don’t.”

  He withdrew his hand and let her go, standing back a pace. “You are sure that Weyland thinks I am Brutus?”

  She nodded. “I don’t understand. You feel like him. You have the aura of the kingship bands about you, and only Brutus has that. How can this be? Dear gods, Charles, you had me fooled as much as you have Weyland.”

  “It was a simple deception, but a much needed one,” Charles said. “Louis and I were conceived at the same moment, born the same day. Our souls are thus easily confused, especially when we are together.”

  “But the aura of the bands.”

  “In our last life, when I had died at Hastings—”

  Jane winced. She had caused his death.

  “—Caela stopped me on my journey into the afterlife. She gave me two of the bands to take with me to the Otherworld. They and I are close, now. I cannot use them, or wield their power, but their aura clings to me. That has made the deception possible.”

  Jane wondered again how Charles could allow her to live having told her so much.

  “I am not going to kill you, Jane.”

  She started to cry. “Why not? Why not? I have killed you twice over, and you have taken my life but once. You are owed a death.”

  “I am sick of death,” he said, very gently, “and I think you have suffered enough in this life to settle whatever lies untallied between us. I meant what I said in Tower Fields. There is no score to settle. Jane, I do not hate you.”

  “You should.”

  He studied her a moment before continuing. “Jane, you may owe me nothing, but you do owe the land.”

  Of course, Jane thought. I knew there would be revenge somewhere.

  “You tried to murder both Mag and Og, and all but succeeded. For that I’m afraid you shall have to do reparation. Not death, but some degree of penance. The land itself demands it. It is why the Faerie sent me to you in the field. The magpie came and demanded it.”

  Her face twisted, and she looked away.

  “Bitterness does not become you,” Charles said.

  “It comforts me,” she said, very low.

  “Well,” Charles said, “of how the Faerie might judge you we will not speak within these man-made walls.”

  It will be a windswept moor, Jane thought, or a forest. There I shall be judged. She trembled, thinking of how harsh that judgement was likely to be.

  The silence grew longer, and Jane grew more uncomfortable. Then, suddenly, she remembered why she was here.

  “Oh gods, Charles, Weyland has sent me here with messages for you, and I have forgot them completely!”

  “Then relay your messages, Jane.”

  “He has sent you three messages. One, Weyland offers you his hearty congratulations on gaining the throne. He thinks you must be very pleased.”

  Charles quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “Two, Weyland says that you must not attempt to locate the bands, for he has Noah, and he will do to her what he has done to me should you attempt to find your kingship bands. He says he will slaughter Noah; not kill her, but steep her in such humiliation and degradation that she will wish herself dead, should you so much as lay a hand to those bands.”

  “Really. And what is the third message?”

  “That if you go near the forests, if you so much as eye a single tree, or step within its shade, he will make sure that Noah suffers for an eternity.”

  “Then I had best keep away from both bands and forest, hadn’t I?”

  She looked at him, then suddenly laughed. It was weak, but it was a laugh, and somehow it lifted a great weight from Jane’s heart. “My God, Charles, if Weyland ever realises that you’re not—”

  “He must not realise, Jane.”

  “And he will not from me.”

  Charles nodded. “I know. Noah? How is she? We did not speak of it overly when we met in dream.”

  “She is well now. Weyland…Weyland healed her, and I. Not my pox, that is your doing alone, but the wounds I suffered in birthing the imp.”

  Charles frowned. “Why? Why would he do that?”

  “Perhaps he wants us to believe he suffered from guilt. I do not know the true reason, but I am sure it is malicious.”

  Charles’ frown deepened, then he gave his head a slight shake.

  “Jane, I know what kind of a house Weyland runs. Noah…has he…”

  “Prostituted her? He tried. But something happened. I don’t know what, for Noah has not spoken of it to me, but,” Jane could not help an ironic twist of her mouth, “be assured, your lover has not yet been tarnished with that same brush which has blackened me.”

  “She is not my lover,” Charles said mildly, “but be assured I am pleased to hear she has not suffered your fate.”

  Jane’s face hardened a little.

  “For the moment,” Charles continued, “I am but grateful to hear that both of you are well…although your face…”

  Once more his fingers touched it.

  “Don’t heal the marks,” she said, standing back. “If Weyland sees, he will know that you are—”

  “He will merely think that Brutus has more power than he’d thought,” said Charles. “Here, let me take from you the pain.”

  His fingers rubbed gently, and miraculously all the pain and ache vanished.

  “It still looks red and swollen,” said Charles, “but you shall not suffer from it.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Now, what else? What other news?”

  Jane thought. “The imps,” she said after a moment. “They are now incarnate. Did you know?”

  “Dear God,” Louis said much later, when Charles rejoined him and Catharine in the royal bedchamber. “You let her leave? You told her the one secret that—”

  “She knew,” Charles said mildly. “There was no need to tell.”

  “But to let her go,” said Catharine. “I hope you did not also reveal to her your faerie crown!”

  Charles gave her a sharp look. “Misery has changed her. I do not think she will tell Weyland.”

  Louis grunted. “Did you ask her about Noah?”

  “Aye. She is well enough.” He paused. “Weyland healed both Jane and Noah after that horrific day. I do not know why.”

  Louis, as everyone else present, visibly relaxed in relief.

  “Thank all the gods of creation,” said Catharine. “But…I know he runs a brothel. He hasn’t—”

  “Set Noah to work for him?” Charles said. “Apparently he tried, without any success. Noah is not yet entertaining the masses of London, and not likely to. Jane said Weyland has decided to cease his whoremastering.”

  Louis said nothing, but Charles could see by the tightness of his jaw and the glint in his eyes that he was angry.

  “Weyland sent me a message,” Charles said. “Of three parts.” He briefly related them.

  “He knows that the Stag God is to be reborn?” said Marguerite.

  “Aye,” Charles said. “Weyland is not to be underestimated.”

  “Anything else?” said Louis.

  Charles shook his head. “That was it. Stay away from the kingship bands and the forests, or else Noah suffers. But I learned more from Jane. That agony we felt during our procession through London. It was the imps, tearing themselves free of Noah’s and Jane’s bodies.”

  Catharine gave a slight cry, her hands rising to her mouth in shock, while Louis cursed, low and cruel, and looked away.

  They talked of what Jane had said for some time, then Louis left, claiming to be tired, although the others knew that he needed to be alone for a time.

  Once the door had closed behind him, Charles looked to the three
women.

  “To all the celebrations that we shall attend this week,” he said, “I think I shall add one other. A very private celebration, I think.”

  Catharine, standing closest to Charles, raised an eyebrow.

  “I shall hold a Council of England,” said Charles, and as he spoke his features altered imperceptibly, his face becoming slighter and darker and assuming the aspect of the Lord of the Faerie, “using the magic of the Circle, and convening atop The Naked. I shall summon the faerie folk, and the water sprites, and the Sidlesaghes, and even Louis’ hated giants.”

  “And Noah?” said Catharine.

  “And even Noah, if she is able,” said Charles. “Jane, too, if she can manage.”

  Marguerite hissed. “You trust her way too greatly, Charles. Gods, man! She has murdered you twice!”

  “And will not again, I think,” Charles said. “If anything, Genvissa, in all of her lives, has hated to be predictable.”

  Later that night, when Charles and Catharine had gone to bed, they lay a while talking over the events of the day.

  They did not make love.

  Catharine felt a remoteness in Charles, and wondered at it. In her previous life as Matilda she had married William, Brutus-reborn. In this life she had married Charles, Coel-reborn. These successive marriages had been the closing of a circle, a circle that bound Coel-reborn and Brutus-reborn even tighter together (the sharing of a much-loved wife), that had bound Matilda closer to the land and into Eaving’s Sisterhood, and it had also been necessary in order to strengthen the deception that Charles was Brutus-reborn—“Brutus” was gathering back to him the accoutrements of power and privilege he’d enjoyed in his previous life. In her former life as Matilda, Catharine had loved William deeply, but was also attracted greatly to Coel (or Harold as he had been then); her marriage in this life to Coel-reborn had been no difficulty to her. Indeed, it had been a joy.

  But tonight, as never before, Catharine sensed a new distance between herself and Charles. Catharine was an intuitive and powerful woman, and she understood very well that there was only one reason this distance could have so suddenly yawned open.

  Jane.

  Somehow Jane touched something within Charles that she, Catharine, could not.

  Lady Snake, Catharine thought, echoing once again what, as Matilda, she had once spat at Swanne. Now, unlike then, there was no malice in the epithet, only a quiet resignation.

  Catharine sighed, and rolled away from Charles to sleep.

  Three

  Idol Lane, London

  Even after two days, London remained in celebratory mode. The Venetian ambassador’s wine stores might have dried up, but most of the taverns stayed open well into the night and offered cut-price ale and beer while the coffee houses were packed with those wanting to hear news of what the king had done, who he had knighted, and if he happened to have opened the royal coffers enough to ensure that the streets of London should be paved with gold forthwith. Gossip spread like fire from one Londoner’s tongue to the next. Royal mistresses had been spotted on every street corner, royal bastards from every palace window.

  Royalty had been reclaimed, and London revelled in the pageantry and colour and in the excitement of the restored court at Whitehall.

  Jane hurried home, not wanting to be distracted by the celebrations. She was walking up Ludgate, concentrating on what she would say to Weyland, when a small white hand reached out from a darkened doorway and snatched at her.

  Jane recoiled, but the hand had a good hold, and it pulled her close into the darkness of the doorway’s overhang.

  “Jane,” said a voice, and Jane went rigid with recognition.

  Catling stood there, still in the form of a small girl, but with vast knowledge and power burning from her eyes.

  “Jane,” said the girl again, as Jane stared at her. “Jane—you want to reveal me to Noah, don’t you?”

  “Why not?” Jane managed, feeling the menace emanating from Catling. “She has a right to know.”

  “Tell her, and I will destroy your future.”

  If Jane had been frightened when she had realised Charles’ deception, then it was nothing to what she felt now. This creature standing before her could create more havoc than five wrathful Asterions. Terrified, Jane nonetheless managed a sneer. “What future?”

  “If you have any hope in this life, then I will destroy it, Jane. Do not tell Noah who I am!”

  “She will find out soon enough.”

  “She doesn’t want to see past the love of her daughter.”

  “You fool!” Jane said. “One day she will discover your true nature, and then what? She will turn against you with everything she is.”

  “She will see the necessity of what I have done soon enough. She is a sensible woman.”

  Jane stared at Catling, wondering how the creature could not see what would inevitably happen. “She is a mother,” Jane said softly. “That is her nature, before anything else. All she wanted was her daughter to love. Would that have been too much trouble for you to arrange?”

  And with that, Jane pulled her arm from Catling’s grasp, and stepped back into Ludgate.

  Jane arrived back at Idol Lane well into the evening, having dragged her feet after her encounter with Catling, taking the time to consider what to do.

  Elizabeth and Frances had long returned, and were upstairs in their bedroom, trying to cleanse it of the scent of years of sexual slavery and transform it into something more habitable. Catling and the imps were also home, playing quietly in the parlour with felt balls and linen skittles stuffed with rags.

  Weyland sat at the kitchen table reading the description of the king’s triumphant entrance into London from a just-printed broadsheet, a small smile on his face.

  Noah was at the hearth, where she had been cooking meat and pastry for their evening meal. She stared at Jane, her hands wiping themselves slowly on her apron.

  Weyland looked, then raised one expressive eyebrow in question.

  “I thought Brutus-reborn would kill me,” said Jane, brushing past Noah and taking her own apron from a hook to one side of the hearth.

  “Brutus-reborn is not a tolerant man, it seems,” Weyland said, looking at Noah as he spoke.

  She averted her eyes.

  “But,” said Weyland, his eyes back on Jane who had elbowed Noah away from the cooking, “most apparently your fears were mistaken.”

  “I gave the king your messages,” said Jane, frowning as she poked at Noah’s attempt at savoury meat encased in sweet pastry.

  “And?” said Weyland.

  “He will not go near the bands, nor step foot in the forests,” said Jane, “and he sends his thanks to you for your hearty congratulations on his restoration.”

  “He fears for Noah,” said Weyland. “He still loves her.”

  “Aye to both,” said Jane.

  Weyland gave a soft laugh, apparently emanating from genuine humour rather than forced bravado. “The fool. He has no idea…”

  At that, he finally managed to catch Noah’s gaze, and Jane was astounded to see that Noah blushed before hurriedly looking away. Gods? What had happened here while she was gone?

  “And how is Charles?” said Weyland. “What manner of man is he in this life?”

  Jane paused in her examination of the meat pastry. “He is more powerful than you believe,” she said. “When I knew it, I feared more for my life than at any other time, or in any other life.”

  “Even more than when I have threatened you?” Weyland said.

  “Aye,” Jane said quietly. “I could not believe—”

  “Believe what?” Weyland said.

  “How he has grown,” Jane finished.

  Weyland leaned back, watching her speculatively. She had been afraid, he could smell it about her. But now…he frowned, puzzled. He also sensed an excitement about her that he hadn’t expected.

  "Was Brutus glad to see you?” he asked.

  She gave a short laugh. “He drew
his sword, and waved it at me.”

  Weyland roared with laughter. “Then he has not changed so much, my dear. Come now, has he sent any messages for his sweet Noah?”

  Jane glanced at Noah, who was watching her with bright, intense eyes.

  “No,” Jane said.

  Weyland shrugged a little. “Well then, now that you’ve returned, perhaps you can fix whatever it is Noah has done to that pastry. A goddess’ skill, most apparently, does not rest in the culinary arts.”

  Later that night, Louis sought privacy in a small antechamber off the king’s public audience chamber within Whitehall. No one was here now—all had gone to the feasting hall. No doubt Charles and Catharine were there, along with Marguerite and Kate and, likely, James.

  Louis sat on a bench seat thrust against the rear wall of the chamber. It was a plain chamber—even with its decorations of carved wooden panels of a far earlier period—dark and sombre, and it suited Louis’ mood.

  Seeing Jane—Genvissa—had brought back memories. Too many memories, and too many of them bad.

  There came a step at the door, and Louis lifted his head, more than half expecting Charles.

  But it was a Sidlesaghe. Louis had seen them on only a few occasions: when, as William, he had brought Caela’s body to Ecub at St Margaret the Martyr’s Priory, and then once or twice during this life—when Charles led the Circle and Long Tom had appeared, and at Coel’s crowning atop The Naked.

  This was not Long Tom, but clearly one of his kind. “Louis de Silva?” he said.

  “Yes?” said Louis.

  “You are required to attend a Council of England, to be held atop The Naked, on the night after next. Attend.”

  He held out one of his extraordinarily long arms, and Louis saw that in his hand he held a rolled-up parchment that was tied, not with ribbon or cord, but with what appeared to be woven green light.

  “The king bids me attend,” Louis said, unable to keep a twinge of bitterness out of his voice.

  “The Stag God must rise,” said the Sidlesaghe. “You must be there.”

  Louis stared at the parchment, then abruptly reached out and took it.