Darkwitch Rising by Sara Douglass

It was almost thirty feet in girth, and was so old that its centre was quite hollowed out with age. Almost forty years earlier some enterprising local villager had built a circular wooden staircase within, comprising forty-two steps, leading to a platform built among the branches of the tree.

Noah stood at the base of the tree, considered, then entered. The platform was shrouded in leaves, affording her some concealment, and she could hear no voices or laughter, so she knew she would be alone.

She climbed.

In London, in the kitchen of the house in Idol Lane, Jane reached for a basket and looked to where Weyland sat at the table, counting his hoard of gold and silver.

“I am going to fetch some fish,” she said, and Weyland grunted.

“Don’t be too long,” he said, then went back to his pile of coin.

Jane stared at him a moment, then turned and left the house, closing the door quietly behind her. Jane had only been allowed to leave the house in the past three or four years. Before then she’d been Weyland’s prisoner, hardly able to even see the light without his constant presence. Now Jane’s pox had progressed to the point where no one would listen to what she had to say. She was so greatly the outcast—hated by the men who had used her and hated by those men’s wives and daughters—that Weyland felt comfortable in allowing her to leave the house. There was no one within London who would lift a finger to aid her or offer her sanctuary. Jane had two choices: Weyland’s comfortable house, or to live as a beggar beyond the walls of London.

Jane hated it, hated herself, that Weyland knew she would always come home. There was nowhere else for her to go.

Besides, it was hardly as if Jane walked the streets quite unescorted. There was always Weyland’s imp deep within her, ready to bite and gnaw and chew and create such agony it would drive Jane to her knees in despair the instant it felt that she had overstepped her boundaries in some manner.

Jane would be a good girl in her brief time away from Weyland, and well Weyland knew it.

Marguerite threw the turf towards the ceiling, rejoining her hands into the Circle as she did so; then all five watched as the turf fell and metamorphosed into the circle of emerald silk.

“Noah,” Charles said in a tight, hungry voice as the silk settled to the bed. “Noah!”

She stood atop the platform in the elm, feeling completely relaxed for the first time in weeks. The sun’s rays were hot, but here the branches of the elm created a lovely dappled shade around her, and a gentle wind stirred through the tree and eased away some of the heat.

She yawned, and thought that perhaps she would sit for a few minutes before she climbed down and started back to Lady Anne.

As she sat down, and her head started to nod sleepily, Noah realised that she was very close to the ancient Mag’s Pond where, as foolish Cornelia, she had gone to beg Mag to give her a daughter so she would bind Brutus to her through a child.

Brutus, she thought, and slipped into unconsciousness.

Jane reached Billingsgate fish market before she realised that something strange was happening. The market was almost empty—this was a holiday, and there were only a few stalls open for those needing to purchase fresh food—but Jane had a sudden sense of something impending. Something that made no sense in the sleepy quiet of the market.

“Brutus?” she whispered, and then almost immediately fought away the thought, and kept her mind blank.

But still Jane’s face turned north, and still her lips formed a single word. Brutus!

At the kitchen table, Weyland raised his head, and frowned.

High within her elm, Noah slipped very deep into an enchanted sleep. But even so, she remained aware.

She found herself standing at the edge of Mag’s Pond, with her glossy hair falling unbound down her back and dressed in nothing save a long, simple white linen wrap draped about her hips.

“Brutus!” she said, and stepped into the pond.

Eight

Mag’s Pond, Hampstead, and Middlesex

NOAH SPEAKS

I was shaking with nervousness. I knew what had happened—my friends had formed the Circle, almost certainly with the aid of Long Tom, for I could feel Sidlesaghe power in this—and had “arranged” for me to meet with Brutus here, in the magical waters of Mag’s Pond. I was both exhilarated and horribly nervous all in the same moment. Would he speak loving words to me?

Or would he condemn me?

We’d always parted in life with such bitterness. In our first lives he’d hated me so deeply he had refused to speak to me for almost twenty years. In our second lives he had finally kissed me, but then spat at me, and said I tasted corrupt, and that I had allowed myself to become Asterion’s whore.

Now here we were to meet again, through the magic of the Circle and of Mag’s Pond.

I was terrified, more of my own appalling hope than of what he might do or say. I cared not about healing old wounds or bridging ancient rifts. All I wanted was for Brutus to love me, and I was almost panicked that this could never be.

The water was cool as I stepped into it, its wetness tugging at the hem of my linen skirt, but as I stepped further into its depths that water took on a faint sheen, and became as if dry, and the linen of my skirt wrapped about my legs as if driven by a breeze rather than by the weight of water.

I walked through the water, and I stepped into…I stepped into…

Oh gods, I stepped into the chamber that had been mine in Mesopotama when I had been the spoiled princess Cornelia, and Brutus…well, when Brutus had been Brutus.

It was fitting, somehow, that we try to heal this wound in the place where it had first opened.

The chairs where Brutus and I had sat to sup of our first meal together were there, the food still spread upon the table between them. The bath that Brutus had caused the servants to pour was there, steaming gently. The bed where Brutus had raped me was there, its covers smooth and pristine, as if once again they awaited the press of our struggling bodies.

My throat felt dry, my heart was pounding so fast I thought my entire chest must be shaking with its efforts.

“Noah,” said a voice, and I started.

The voice had come from the windows, and I turned to look.

He was there, and had been for some time, I think. He must have observed me arrive through whatever magic portal had carried me here.

“Noah,” he said again, and I thought I heard a catch in his voice. Nervousness, almost, if I could believe that of him. I tried to arrange my face into a smile, but I was too anxious to make any great success of it. I must have looked pale and apprehensive and likely to run at any moment, and I thought this was not a good start.

He moved, and I tried to focus more clearly on him.

This was difficult, for the light was behind him, and I could not immediately discern his features. I could, however, see that he was dressed as I had originally known him to be, in a white hip wrap and with sandals upon his feet.

His limbs were bare of their kingship bands, but I could just make out the paler flesh where once they had been.

“You are Brutus?” I said, calling him for some reason by his original name and not the one he bore now (it seemed fitting, somehow). My voice struggled as much as had his, and I had to gather my strength in order to continue. “You are not some terrible glamour come to trap me?”

Gods, I couldn’t believe I had said that. I sounded accusatory where I think I had meant to sound humorous. What a fool I was to try and jest at this moment.

He made a soft sound (of exasperation?).

“I am truly Brutus,” he said. Then, “Is there someone else you’d prefer to be here?”

Oh, this was Brutus well enough. Here we were, making the same mistakes all over again, letting our mouths say words our hearts denied.

“There is no one I would prefer to be here more than you,” I said, and I was relieved to hear that this time my voice had a level of sincerity and emotion underscoring it.

He smiled—at least I saw the flash of white teeth as he walked a little closer to me. Finally, I could more clearly see his features. His hair was as black as ever, falling over his shoulders and partway down his back. His eyes were very dark, black mysteries, as they always had been. But there were differences. In this rebirth his build was finer, not so muscular as he had been in his two previous lives, but he was just as tall and just as beautiful to me.