Darkwitch Rising by Sara Douglass

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.

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 formed 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.