Darkwitch Rising Read online

  Kate raised her eyes, moving her hand away from her belly. “I know.”

  “We must be strong, Kate,” Marguerite said.

  Even more chastened now that Marguerite had spoken, Kate coloured, then nodded. “I have endured too much to walk away now,” she said. “I will be strong.”

  “Cornelia-reborn needs you,” Marguerite said. “As she needs all of us.”

  As Marguerite spoke, the door opened, and Louis de Silva entered.

  He looked drawn and tired, as if Hyde’s undoubtedly anxious queries about money had sapped his strength, but he smiled as he set eyes on the women and Charles, and the smile lifted away much of the tiredness from his face.

  “Louis,” Kate breathed, and stretched naked across the bed in a display of almost feline grace. Her hand was back on her belly, for on the night she had conceived this child she had lain with both Charles and Louis, and to be honest she had no idea which of the men had fathered the child, or if, in some magical way, the baby was an amalgam of both men’s seed. She hoped it was the latter, and knew in her heart that it was entirely possible. Charles and Louis were inseparable friends (if it hadn’t been for Hyde, Louis would have shared the recent bed sport with as much enthusiasm as the other three) and when it came to conception, Kate thought her body would have accepted the seed of both men as indistinguishable.

  “I am glad you are here, Louis,” Charles said. “It is almost time.”

  “And Charles is worried,” Marguerite said. “He feels…”

  “He feels what?” said Louis. He had strolled over to the bed, kissed both Marguerite and Kate softly on their mouths in greeting, then stepped over to Charles, who he also kissed softly. “What is wrong?”

  “There is a disturbance tonight,” Charles said. “An…expectation, almost. Something is waiting for us.”

  Louis stilled, his dark eyes riveted on Charles’. “Then perhaps we should not form the Circle.”

  “We must,” said Marguerite and Charles together.

  “I will not be frightened off,” said Charles.

  “Those are the words of the thwarted king, not of the wise man,” said Louis. “Charles, we—”

  “I must,” said Charles. “We must. That I feel, too. Ah,” he made a frustrated gesture with a hand, “I cannot say why, but this night is both unknown and yet vitally important. Who knows, it may be Noah herself who is reaching out to us. It might be Asterion, yes, but it might also be Noah.” They had learned Cornelia-reborn’s name, not through the efforts of the Circle, but through discreet inquiries back in England. Who is the young girl living at Woburn Abbey? She of the lustrous hair and vivid eyes?

  “Or myriad other unknown entities,” muttered Louis.

  “I wish Matilda-reborn was here,” Marguerite said. “The Circle would be so much more powerful with her presence.”

  Matilda-reborn, unlike Marguerite and Kate, had been born far distant and into high aristocracy—the daughter of the King of Portugal, no less. Catharine of Braganza, as Matilda was known in this life, was young and of great marriageable value. Her father, already aware of her attachment to the exiled Charles, was firm that she could not join him unless as his wife.

  Negotiations were under way, but Charles had little hope of winning Catharine until he had his kingdom in hand; the King of Portugal was not going to let his beloved daughter marry a penniless, if prettily titled, exile.

  In all save a few details it was history repeating itself: William, the Bastard of Normandy, had endured more than a few years of hardship in winning Matilda of Flanders, and Charles realised he would need to do the winning all over again in this life.

  Well, Matilda was worth it.

  But until she was with them, and the Circle of the three most powerful of Eaving’s Sisters complete, then they must make do with what they had.

  In the silence, Louis turned away and disrobed, as he had the first night Marguerite had shown them how to form the Circle.

  As Louis folded his clothes neatly on one of the chests, and Kate poured out water from the copper urns so that all could ritually cleanse themselves, Charles thought about the ever-increasing power and influence of the Troy Game itself.

  In their last lives, the Game had shown that it was remarkably aware and capable of influencing the course of events. It had decided it wanted Cornelia, reborn as Eaving the goddess of the waters, to become the Mistress of the Labyrinth and to dance out the final steps of the Game with the resurrected Stag God, Og, as Kingman. Brutus and Genvissa, the originators of the Game, were to be discarded.

  In this life, Eaving’s Sisters—Marguerite, Kate and Catharine—had been reborn with vastly more power than they’d ever commanded previously, and Charles suspected that this was as much the Game’s doing as it was the women’s connection with Eaving herself. Eaving needed protection, and, together with Charles and Louis, Eaving’s Sisters were to provide it.

  It was, Charles had discovered years ago, the Game’s means of counteracting Asterion’s malevolence.

  The women had done with washing and now Louis and Charles took their turn. Although the sexual intimacy the four shared further cemented the ties that bound them, to work the Circle they needed to come to it clean and naked, as they had been born. All the sexual tension that had permeated the room now dissipated; the four worked silently, the women stripping and remaking the bed with clean linens, the men sponging down before drying themselves. Their nakedness was no longer arousing, but binding and solidifying.

  Once the bed was made, and the men dry, Charles stood in the centre of the chamber and held out his hands. Marguerite came to his right hand, Louis to his left, Kate took Louis’ and Marguerite’s other hands.

  “We must name ourselves,” said Charles, and thus they did, using the names of their first lives, to bind themselves not only to the past, but to wherever the Game and the land needed them to go. Brutus, Coel, Ecub, Erith. Even now, after all of these lives, it felt strange to the others to accept Brutus among them, but then…he had changed, hadn’t he? More than any of them.

  They dropped their hands, and moved to the bed. There they sat cross-legged on its vast expanse, forming a circle in the same order that they had named themselves when they were standing, and sitting at an equidistance.

  “What is it we wish to view?” asked Marguerite quietly. As she had with Charles and Louis when they had made the first Circle together so many years ago, she took the lead here.

  “We wish to view Eaving,” the others whispered, as one.

  “What is it we wish to accomplish?” Marguerite said.

  “To send Eaving our love and support, to let her know that she is not alone.”

  Marguerite reached behind her and lifted something from a box she had earlier put on one of the pillows. It was the same lump of turf and dirt that Charles had torn from the Cornish coast on the night he and his mother had fled the land.

  Now even more browned and crumbly than it had been when Marguerite first held it, it nonetheless stayed in one piece as Marguerite hefted it in her hand.

  “The land,” she whispered, then threw the piece of turf high into the air. It hit the ceiling plaster with a distinct thud, then fell back towards the bed.

  As it did so, it changed.

  The watchers gasped in wonder, as they never failed to do. Even Kate’s baby twisted a little in the womb, awed at what she saw through her mother’s eyes.

  The crumbled piece of turf and dirt shimmered, then in the blink of an eye flattened and spread out, its very nature changing as it fell (slower now, as both its nature changed and the magic which bound it took hold). It turned from turf into a large circle of lustrous emerald silk that rippled and glimmered in the candlelight as it continued to fall.

  It settled to the bed in the centre of the Circle with a sigh, and as it did so once more it changed its contour, this time into the shape of the island that was the land. Its form undulated as it settled against the linen sheets, and mountains rose and moors spread
out, and the lie of the land was revealed.

  Llangarlia, the ancient land to which they were all bound by magic, murder and love.

  “Noah,” said Charles, and as he spoke, he moved his hand so that it pointed towards Woburn Abbey to the north of London.

  The emerald silk flattened, as if it had become a great lake, and then it clouded, and shapes began to form within its centre.

  But not of Noah or Woburn Abbey, as it normally did.

  The watchers gasped, and might have broken the Circle had not Charles held out a stern hand in warning. “Watch,” he commanded. “Whatever appears is for a reason. Watch!”

  The view within the circle of silk resolved into that of the interior of a great hall, stacked with chairs and pews.

  “The House of Commons,” Charles muttered, for the others here had not ever seen it.

  The House was empty, save for a man who sat in the grandest chair of them all, the speaker’s chair. He had a powerful presence, his dark eyes looking about the hall as if he knew he was being watched, and his hands where they rested on the arms of the chair were tense, ready for action.

  “Cromwell,” Charles said, his voice tight. “My father’s murderer.”

  “No,” Louis said. “Asterion was your father’s murderer, Charles. Never forget that.”

  Charles’ eyes flickered Louis’ way, then settled back on the figure the silk showed them.

  Cromwell was still, and very, very watchful.

  Almost as if he expected someone, or something.

  “Look!” Kate said, one hand pointing.

  They all saw it, a miasma of blackness that crept under the great closed doors of the House and slid towards Cromwell.

  He did not appear to notice it.

  “Asterion?” said Marguerite.

  “Death,” said Charles, “whether at Asterion’s hand, or that of the Game. Death…finally.”

  “And thus we are being shown this,” said Louis. “Your time has almost come, Charles. England awaits. For all of us.”

  The scene changed again, Cromwell sitting on his lonely throne fading first into a murky greyness, and then into…into…

  A great roiling mass of silk as it suddenly heaved away from the bed. Its centre rose, as if it contained something underneath it, while its edges remained flat on the bed.

  “No!” Kate cried, reeling back, one hand on her belly. “Something comes!”

  “Asterion,” Louis said flatly.

  Two

  Antwerp, the Netherlands

  “No!”

  Marguerite’s voice cracked across the Circle, stalling all who had been in the process of rising.

  “No,” she said, more softly now, and there was a hint of a smile about her face. “It is not Asterion at all, but…”

  She leaned forward, gave the silk a tug and, before the others’ astounded gazes, revealed Long Tom.

  “You have given us a surprise, Long Tom,” Marguerite said.

  Long Tom bowed to her, then to Charles, to Kate and finally to Louis. Then, as the others watched, he moved out from the silken circle and sat down between Kate and Louis; the rest of the Circle shifted about so that, again, there remained equidistance between all members.

  “Long Tom,” Charles said, inclining his head respectfully. “Why have you come? And how? I had not thought you had the power to manage this transference.”

  “To the second of your questions first,” Long Tom said. “It was not my power which has accomplished this transference, but yours.” He nodded at them, as if a teacher particularly proud of his pupils’ accomplishments. “You are potent, indeed.”

  Marguerite flushed with pleasure. “Was it you who directed our sight to Cromwell?”

  Long Tom nodded. “Yes. I, and the Game.”

  “As one, now,” said Charles.

  Long Tom shrugged his shoulders very slightly, which could have meant anything. “Cromwell is touched with death,” said Long Tom. “He will not last beyond the autumn.”

  “Is this your doing—the Game’s? Or Asterion’s?” said Charles.

  “Does it matter?” said Long Tom. “Cromwell’s death will herald your return, Charles. Your invitation back to the throne. There shall be no invasion needed this time. England shall be yours for the asking. You shall be welcomed with roses and cheers and grants of heavy gold coin.”

  Charles grunted. “Roses and coin, eh?” He met Louis’ eyes, and both men smiled a little. “Better that than battle, I suppose.”

  “Cromwell’s death not only heralds your return, Charles,” said Long Tom, “as all within this chamber, but also…”

  “Asterion,” said Louis, and the bleakness in his tone killed all remaining humour among the Circle. “Asterion will make his move.”

  “Aye,” said Long Tom. “The instant you step foot back on the English mainland,” he said to Charles, “then Asterion will seize Noah. She bears Asterion’s imp within her. She will answer his summons. It is a reality we cannot change.”

  “But for what does everyone wait?” said Marguerite. “I don’t understand this. Asterion could take Noah any time he wants, and, once he has her, then he can take the bands. Frankly, Asterion could have had the bands many years ago.”

  “No,” Charles said, shaking his head slightly. “It is a great deal more complex than that. This contest between ourselves and Asterion has now gone on over three lifetimes. Everyone who is reborn time after time is caught up in the struggle. No single person or entity controls events. We are all a part of this dangerous dance.” He paused. “I think that the true tussle cannot begin until everyone is in place. Everyone.” He looked about the Circle. “Catharine is still missing. Her father won’t allow her to come to me until I am certain of the throne, and that won’t happen until Cromwell dies.”

  “But events are moving,” said Louis. “Cromwell is dying. It shall not be long before Catharine is with us, and then—”

  “Then Asterion shall seize Noah,” said Marguerite.

  “No!” said Louis. “We cannot allow this.”

  “You must,” said Long Tom. “None of you can prevent it. She is his whore in this life. You know that. She—”

  “We find that difficult to accept, Long Tom,” said Charles.

  “You must accept it!” Long Tom barked, and everyone went rigid at the command in his voice. “This was one of Eaving’s many possibilities for her future, and, because of the misstep she took in her previous life, then it has become a reality in this life. Accept it,” he finished softly. “She will become Asterion’s whore.”

  For a moment there was silence, then Charles spoke softly. “This is truly a bitter message you bear.”

  “And yet there is more of it, I think,” said Marguerite, watching Long Tom closely.

  “Aye,” he said. “Indeed there is. I talked to Noah, years ago, as she was entering her womanhood and thus her powers as Eaving. I am going to tell you part of what I told her—the rest of what I said to her concerns her ears only—and I am going to tell you one more thing. First, to what I told Noah. There is something which must be accomplished in this life if there is to be any hope that Asterion can be defeated.

  “Old wounds must be healed.” Long Tom looked down at his hands, folded before him, as if he could not bear to study the faces of his listeners. “Brutus must make amends to his father; the wound of patricide must be healed.”

  Charles gave a soft, disbelieving laugh. “Silvius shall demand a high price for that wound to be healed, my friend.”

  “Then it must be paid,” said Long Tom. “If it isn’t, then the stag cannot be raised.”

  Charles shook his head, then moved on. “What other wounds must be healed, Sidlesaghe?”

  “The deep fissures between Noah and Genvissa-reborn,” said Long Tom. “These healings, if they are ever to be accomplished, you can have no say in. It shall be between Noah and Jane Orr.”

  “Jane Orr?” Louis said. “That is her name?” None of them had ever been able t
o scry out Genvissa-reborn’s identity.

  Long Tom nodded. “She is born sister to Asterion, who masquerades as a man called Weyland Orr. He prostitutes women for his enjoyment, and as practice for what one day he shall do to Noah. He has debased Jane, humiliated her, and keeps her as his slave.”

  “In Jane’s last life as Swanne she thought herself in love with Asterion, and plotted with him for her own gain, as she then thought,” said Louis. “Is she still so misguided?”

  “Nay,” said Long Tom. “Her life is a misery, and she loathes Asterion. I believe she has come to regret her actions of past lives.”

  Charles snorted. “That I find hard to believe. Genvissa has ever managed to justify her actions.”

  “Enough of Genvissa-reborn,” said Louis. “It is Noah who occupies my thoughts. You say that she needs to endure the certain misery of Asterion’s ill-treatment? Why? Why?”

  “I think I understand,” said Marguerite slowly. “Noah, Eaving, and Jane must be reduced to the same circumstances. To the same degree of baseness so that they may begin anew. Perhaps suffering shall bond them as nothing else has.”

  “You are a perceptive woman,” Long Tom said. “Yes, Noah and Jane shall be reduced to a new beginning. We must hope they take the opportunities it offers.”

  “I cannot sit here and accept this,” Louis said. “You say that the instant Charles sets foot on England again Asterion shall seize Noah and you want us to do nothing about it?”

  Long Tom dropped his head and studied his hands. When finally he looked up, there was a strange light in his eyes, and everyone else within the Circle felt a chill run down their spine.

  “We can prepare her as best we can,” he said, his voice very low and very commanding. “We can give her every support possible to endure her time with Asterion, and to allow her to believe that, eventually, all will be well.”

  “We do this already,” said Charles, “with our Circle.”