Darkwitch Rising Read online

  Lonquefort couldn’t tear his mind away from the violent plunging efforts he would soon be engaged in. As the horses finally came to a halt, he leaned forward, grabbed Helene by the hand, flung open the carriage door, and hauled her outside.

  “Wait here,” he said to the driver.

  Lonquefort managed to get Helene twenty or thirty paces inside the treeline before his lust overcame him. He pulled her to him and tore her bodice apart. He grabbed at her breasts, bruising them, then pushed her first against the broad trunk of a tree, then down so that she lay beneath him amid the leaf litter of the forest. He bit at her neck, and her breasts, and his hands grabbed at her skirts, fumbling in his haste.

  Oh God, oh God, he’d never wanted her this badly. Never! Never!

  Helene cried out, but he took no notice, and did not realise that the tone of her voice had changed from the provocative to the terrified.

  She beat at his back and his shoulders, trying to push him away.

  He took no notice.

  Helene grabbed at his hair, but her fingers encountered not fine, powdered brown hair, but the soft velvet of antlers.

  Lonquefort thrust deep and Helene, gasping with horror, felt not her lover, but the heat and strangeness of a wild beast. No, no…of a beast so untamed she felt as if she would die from the force and horror of it.

  Lonquefort’s movements became frenzied, and Helene lay quiescent beneath him, shocked beyond resistance. Her face was devoid of its usual rosy colour, her eyes wide and staring, her injured breasts heaved, her breath whistled in her throat, her hands now clutched behind her at the bark of the tree, preferring to find comfort there before the pelt of the creature that was mating her.

  Then, suddenly, wondrously, she was at peace, and she sighed, and closed her eyes. While the beast above and inside her still felt wild, he no longer seemed strange, or frightening, and she lifted down her hands from the bark of the tree, and buried them within his pelt, and she whispered, “Anything for you. Anything.”

  And she felt then, within the pit of her belly, the beginning of something incredible, and Helene knew that her life as a girl was done.

  She sighed once more, and was replete.

  “Madam?”

  Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, looked up from her embroideries, and put a practised smile on her face.

  “My good lord,” she said, rising, then sinking in a deep curtsey, “I had not expected you.”

  Charles I looked at his wife, repressed a sigh, then instantly hated himself for his impatience. Other men managed with wives they found difficult to love, and so must he. Besides, she had been ill, had miscarried of a child, and doubtless some of her coolness could be ascribed to her aches both of body and of spirit.

  At this thought Charles looked a little more closely at his wife. Sweet Lord Christ, she was only sixteen, and yet her face was drawn and lined almost as if she had lived through twice those many years. There were shadows under her dark eyes, her cheeks were pallid, and her hair had lost the luminosity that he remembered from their awkward, fraught wedding night.

  What kind of man was he, then, to have brought a girl to this extreme of weariness? What kind of husband, to look in irritation on a woman, and judge her unkindly, when she had just lost a precious child? What kind of king, if he could not care for the most important of his subjects? What kind of lover, if he could not make her smile?

  Now Charles smiled himself, and the expression was unexpectedly kind and warm, wiping away much of the aloofness which Henrietta Maria found so intimidating.

  “You and I have made a poor start to our marriage,” he said, “and I am sorry for it.”

  The false smile froze on Henrietta Maria’s face, and Charles could see the confusion in her eyes. They had spoken nothing but banalities to each other in the entire first year of their marriage. This degree of forthrightness, and spoken so winsomely from a man prone to the most frightful bouts of stuttering, patently had caught her off guard.

  Charles suddenly felt a most unexpected wave of mischievousness wash through him. She was but a girl, after all. Why had he not remembered that? His smile warmed, his entire face relaxed, and he was rewarded with the slightest of thaws in his wife’s own expression.

  Charles glanced behind him. “We would be alone,” he said, and with those words, and a wave of his hand, he dismissed from the royal presence the entire bevy of ladies-in-waiting, valets, diplomats, secretaries and courtiers who normally attended every waking moment of king and queen.

  Henrietta Maria’s face grew uncertain.

  “Am I so unkind a husband,” he asked, holding out his arm for her, “that you must look so suspiciously upon me when I seek a moment or two alone with you?”

  “You are not unkind,” she said, slipping her arm through his as he led her for a gentle stroll down the splendid gallery of Oatlands Palace.

  “Then if I am not unkind I have most certainly been—” he paused awkwardly, his speech struggling to master the word “—ungracious.”

  She did not reply.

  He stopped, and turned to her, cupping her small face between his hands.

  Her muscles tensed beneath his fingers.

  He lowered his face until it was but a finger’s distance above hers. “I have no doubt that as I speak our courtiers and ladies, indeed half the realm, stand huddled against the other side of the far door, ears pressed against its hardness, wondering what we do alone in here. What do you think they imagine?”

  His voice was light and teasing, and as its reward, he felt her face relax slightly.

  “Perhaps that we discuss great matters of state,” she said, her voice low.

  “Perhaps, but no. I think not. What else might they consider?”

  “Perhaps that you rebuke me for some childish wrong.”

  “I hope not,” he said, his voice and face now sober, “for that would be a stain on my soul, and I am most sorry I should ever have given them the fodder to imagine such a thing.

  “I think,” and he lowered his face that final distance between them and planted a soft kiss on her mouth, “that they imagine we sit in silence on our cold thrones, and stare out the windows at the stiff, formal gardens, and wish to ourselves that we were anywhere else but in each other’s presence.”

  “I sincerely hope not,” she said, “for that is not what I wish right now.”

  “Then perhaps they imagine that I have been so overcome by my desire for you—”

  Her cheeks stained even rosier.

  “—that I have begged for solitude so that I might enjoy my wife’s love.”

  “My lord—”

  “Perhaps even now they think I have borne you to that bench by the window—” She giggled.

  “—and there avail myself,” his voice grew deeper, a little hoarser, and she could hear real admiration within it, “of your sweet, wondrous white flesh. What say you, wife? Shall I?”

  “My lord! It lacks but an hour until noon. We cannot—”

  “Parliament may plot to make my life a misery,” he said, “but it has not yet passed that act which forbids the nation’s monarch from making love to his much-admired wife during the daylight hours.”

  “You admire me?”

  “Most particularly during this beautiful hour before noon. What say you, wife. Shall we? That bench looks right inviting.”

  “But…but they’ll know!”

  His only answer was to kiss her neck, and lay his hand on her bosom.

  “Charles…” she said, and he heard the weakness in her voice, and it encouraged him to turn tease into reality.

  And so, atop a beautiful brocaded bench set into one of the great windows of the gallery at Oatlands, Charles I of England made love to his young wife while their courtiers crowded the door outside and a shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and clothed the couple’s soft movements in gold.

  Although this was not Charles and Henrietta Maria’s marriage night, it was the day on which they made their marr
iage, and it was also the day during which they conceived one of the greatest kings that England would ever know.

  Far away in London a fair-haired, hazel-eyed boy in his mid-teens raised his face to the sky. He was tall for his age, and too thin for his height, but he held himself gracefully nonetheless, and his face already held hints of the handsomeness it would assume in maturity. He stood in one of London’s innumerable back alleys, hidden in shadow. At his side stood a solemn-faced toddling girl of some eighteen months. She was a pretty little thing, with soft brown eyes and silvery hair, but her prettiness was marred by a blank look of terror in those dark eyes, and she stood tense and fearful, as if expecting a blow at any moment.

  The boy held her by the hand, and, as he lowered his face, he gave her flesh a squeeze, painfully enough that the girl gave a low gasp, her eyes filling with tears.

  “Do you feel it, Jane?” said the boy. “Do you know what has happened?”

  She made no reply save for two great fat tears that rolled down her cheeks.

  The boy squatted so he could look directly into her eyes. “You do feel it, don’t you? Brutus is back, your lover when you were Genvissa. He’s reborn, and growing contentedly in a queen’s womb. Not a bastard, this life. Tell me, pretty Jane, do you think he’ll want you? Do you think he’ll ever stoop to love you, dirty street urchin, Asterion’s whore?”

  More tears flowed, and the boy nodded slowly. “Aye. You know he’s back, and you know he’ll never touch you. So sad, pretty Jane.”

  She spoke, this tiny girl, with the voice of a child much, much older. “Let me go, Weyland.”

  “Never,” Weyland whispered. “You’re mine, now. You and all your talents.”

  Two

  Paris, France, and St James’ Palace, London

  On the 29th May in 1630 Helene Gardien went into labour at daybreak, delivering her child six hours later. Her lover, Simon Gautier, the Marquis de Lonquefort, was in residence at the Parisian townhouse where he’d installed his mistress, and visited Helene two hours after he’d been informed of the safe delivery of their child.

  This was his first child, and he was curious, if somewhat apprehensive, and more than a little annoyed. All he’d wanted from Helene was sex, not responsibility.

  “Well?” he said as he inched up to the bed.

  “A boy,” Helene said, not looking up from the child’s face. “See, he has neither your eyes, nor mine, but those of a poet.”

  Neither your eyes nor mine. Lonquefort instantly seized on her words. Could he claim the child wasn’t his? Not his responsibility?

  Then he looked at the baby, and was lost. The baby’s eyes were indeed different, for while both Lonquefort and Helene had blue eyes, this infant had the deepest black eyes Lonquefort thought he’d ever seen in a face. But it wasn’t their colour that immediately captivated Lonquefort. The boy’s eyes were indeed those of a poet, Lonquefort decided, for they seemed to contain knowledge and suffering that stretched back aeons, rather than the two hours this boy had lived in this painful world.

  “He will be a great man,” Lonquefort pronounced, and Helene smiled.

  “I will call him Louis,” she said, then hesitated. Poet or not, the boy was a bastard, and Helene was not sure whether she should name him for his father.

  But who was his father, she wondered as the awkward silence stretched out between them. Lonquefort, or that strange beast she’d envisioned riding her in the forest?

  “Louis,” Lonquefort said, then he grinned. “Louis de Silva, for the forest where we made him.”

  Helene laughed, her doubts gone. The forest had made him, indeed, and so he should be named.

  “I shall settle a pension on him, and you,” said Lonquefort. “You shall not want.”

  “Thank you,” Helene said softly, and bent her head back to her poet-son.

  As Helene relaxed in relief, another woman, far distant, arched her back and cried out in the extremities of her own labour.

  Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, lay writhing in the great bed draped with forest green silk within her lying-in chamber off the Colour Court of St James’ Palace. About her hovered midwives and physicians, privy councillors and lords, all there either to ensure a safe delivery or to witness the birth of an heir.

  Elsewhere within the palace Charles I paced up and down, praying silently. He was riven with anxiety, more for Henrietta Maria than for concern over the arrival of a healthy heir. Over the course of the past nine months, as his wife’s body had swelled, so also had waxed Charles’ regard and love for her. Now he could not bear the thought that she might suffer in childbed.

  As the palace clocks chimed noon, one of the privy councillors hurried towards Charles.

  “Well?” demanded Charles.

  “You have a healthy son,” the man said. “An heir!”

  “And my wife?”

  “She is well,” said the councillor, and Charles finally allowed himself to relax, and smile.

  “A son,” he said. “He shall be named Charles.”

  “Of course,” said the councillor.

  Charles went to his wife, assured himself that she was indeed well, then turned to look at the child one of the midwives held.

  He studied the baby curiously, then folded back his wrappings.

  “By Jesus!” Charles exclaimed, and looked back at Henrietta Maria. “Are you sure you are well, my love?”

  She grinned wanly. “He was an effort, my lord. But, yes, I am well. He did not injure me.”

  Charles looked back to the baby. By God, look at the size of him! He was a giant, surely, with great strong limbs and a head of long, tight black curls. Charles reached down a hand and, as he did so, the baby reached up his own right hand and snatched at a golden crown embroidered on Charles’ sleeve.

  “Observe!” said the midwife. “He was born a king, truly! See how he grasps for what shall be his!”

  Then both the midwife and Charles cried out, for the baby’s hand tightened about the crown, and tugged at it, tearing it away from his father’s sleeve.

  “I shall have to watch my back, surely,” Charles said with a forced laugh, “in case this son of mine decides to snatch my crown before his time.”

  The midwife prised the torn piece of material out of the infant’s fist, and he began to wail.

  “You shall surely die abed, an aged and beloved king,” murmured one of the physicians. “This is no omen to be feared.”

  “Of course not,” said Charles, but at that moment the room darkened as a cloud covered the sun, and the only one in the chamber who did not shiver in dread was the baby.

  Weyland Orr brought his little sister Jane to stand outside the octagonal-towered gatehouse of St James’ Palace among the other crowds awaiting news of the queen’s delivery. Most of the crowd prayed for a prince; Weyland and Jane knew the child would be a prince. A king reborn.

  Weyland hoisted Jane in his arms so that she could see through the gates into the Colour Court off which, the crowd was reliably informed, the queen laboured in her chamber.

  See, Genvissa. In that tumbled mess of ancient buildings Brutus-reborn draws his first breath, while you sit, caught in the arms of Asterion, knowing you’ll never feel Brutus’ arms about you again. Will he come looking for you, do you think, once he has control of those infant legs of his?

  Weyland laughed, softly, tormenting Jane with his thoughts. No, of course not. He’ll want his precious princess, Cornelia. He won’t want you, particularly after what I have planned.

  Weyland sent a series of images skidding through Jane’s mind, and the girl began to cry.

  Weyland hugged her to him. “There, there,” he whispered, playing the part of the affectionate brother to perfection. “All will be well. I shall look after you.”

  Then he lifted his head. A nobleman had walked to the gates, and now shouted to the crowds.

  “A son! A son! The queen has been safely delivered of a healthy son!”

  The crowd roared, and We
yland cheered with the best of them.

  In his arms, the little girl wept.

  Three

  Pendinnis Castle, Cornwall, and London

  Fifteen years later

  Queen Henrietta Maria of England stood in the centre of the hall of Pendinnis Castle, holding the letter in trembling hands. She looked about the great chamber, first at her beloved fifteen-year-old son, Charles, and then to their advisers and protectors, Sir Edward Hyde, John Colepeper and Thomas Howard, Earl of Berkshire. Honest men all, and loyal in an age when it seemed to Henrietta Maria that loyalty was a forgotten concept.

  “It comes from my lord my husband,” she said, unnecessarily.

  Hyde bowed his head, hiding his impatience. “Majesty, what does our king command?”

  Tears filled Henrietta Maria’s eyes, and Charles moved to her side, resting a hand on her arm. Even at fifteen he towered over his mother, and his physical presence was such that Henrietta Maria instinctively leaned against him.

  “He commands,” she said, “that I take our son Charles and flee this realm.”

  There was an appalled silence. King Charles must think matters desperate indeed.

  “No!” Charles said. “This is my land! I will not be exiled because some rogues say my father has lost his right to rule!”

  “Charles…” his mother murmured.

  Charles was so angry he visibly shook, his long black curls trembling in the weak candlelight, his darkly handsome face flushed. “I will not leave—”

  “Your father thinks you will die if you don’t,” Henrietta Maria said.

  Charles took the letter from his mother, and all could see the effort he made to be gentle as he did so.

  “You are your father’s heir,” Hyde said softly. “One of you needs to live.”

  “No,” said Charles, but his voice had dropped, and he had to dash away the tears so he could read the letter. His eyes skimmed the lines, then he read one line aloud: “’I sense a malevolent, ungodly hand behind all this treachery’,” Charles quoted, then looked up, although he did not focus on any of those standing about him. “Oh, aye, malevolent and ungodly indeed.”