Darkwitch Rising by Sara Douglass

He looked away, keeping silent for a long time. Eventually he sighed, and spoke. “I will aid you, if you ask,” said John, and Noah smiled, and leaned forward to kiss him softly on the mouth.

“The land,” she said, “shall always rise up to meet you.”

The girl had led the imps out of the stone hall and back into the twisting maze of alleyways. Now she directed them to a particularly dank corner. Here she sat, and indicated that the imps should do likewise.

“I said that I had the power both to trap and to free you,” she said as the imps sat, crossing their spindly limbs neatly, their bright eyes watching her with the utmost suspicion. “I said that I had the power to earn your love. Do you doubt any of this?”

“Of course,” said the imp who sat to the girl’s left. “We don’t trust you at all. We know what you are.”

“Ah,” said the girl, her tiny face screwing up as if in thought.

“Your mother, on the other hand,” said the imp sitting to the girl’s right, “thinks you are a sweet little thing.”

His brother giggled, a hand over his mouth to hide his pointed teeth.

“My mother shall love me well enough once she truly knows my purpose,” said the girl. “Now, to that purpose which is, of course, to destroy you, and your current master…as he thinks he is. I shall have the greatest pleasure in wrenching Weyland apart, for he has caused me innumerable troubles, but you and I can come to some small accommodation.”

“Won’t that destroy you?” said the imp to the right.

“Nay,” said the girl. “I have grown way past such minor details. I am far different than ever I was, or was planned to be. Now, do you want to hear my proposition, or not?”

“We wish to hear,” said the imps as one.

“Firstly,” said the girl, “I want you to continue to obey Weyland. I don’t want him suspicious.”

The imps glanced at each other, relief clearly etched on their faces.

“I want him to have no reason to know of me,” said the girl, “so for the moment you may continue to dance to his orders.”

“What is this proposition, little girl?” said the imp to the left. The last two words he spoke with a decided edge.

“You do my will, all of it, and when that will is done, you may be free. Completely free. To be and do what you will.”

“But doesn’t that contravene all that you are?” said the imp.

“It contravenes all that I once was,” said the girl, “but not who I am now.”

At that she smiled, and it was the coldest expression either imp had ever seen.

The imps looked once more at each other, then both looked back at the girl.

“I think we might have an agreement,” said the imp to the right, while his brother nodded vigorously.

“A deal!” said the girl, and sounded that strange chilled laugh of hers. “A deal!”

“A deal!” cried the imps, and laughed with the girl until the sound echoed up and down the alley, frightening the rats rummaging about in the refuse.

“A deal!”

Eleven

Bruges, Flanders

Charles sat sprawled in a large chair under the window in the parlour of the agreeable house he occupied on the Rue Haute in Bruges. Outside, the late February weather threw sleet against the window, but for once, Charles didn’t particularly care. He’d actually had enough money to pay for firewood this winter. In his right hand he held a letter.

Across the room Louis stood, waiting, very still. He hadn’t wanted to disturb Charles until he’d read the letter. But, by the gods, it had been a quarter of an hour since Charles had opened it. What did it say?

Unable to wait any longer, Louis spoke quietly. “Well?”

“General Monck is receptive to the idea of my return,” Charles said as Louis walked out of the shadows. “He is pleased that I have been conducting myself in the manner of a king. With dignity.”

Louis laughed softly. “He has heard that you have removed your mistresses…but not that you’ve sent them to Woburn, or with whom they now reside.”

“But…”

“Ah, I knew there was a reason for this silence.”

“He counsels that it may be many months yet before I can return by invitation. He hopes that disappointment won’t make me think to invade. He reminds me of his military command, and their experience.”

“If only he had half your experience,” Louis said.

“What is past is past,” said Charles, “and should remain so.” He sighed, finally holding the letter out for Louis to read. “I should have known. My thirtieth birthday is yet many months distant. Fate, or the Game, or whatever, shall conspire to keep me from England’s green shores a while yet.”

Louis read the letter, then put it aside on a nearby table. “And Noah?” he asked, his voice very soft now.

“I have heard only that Marguerite and Kate and our children arrived safe, and that they now live with Noah in a house within Woburn village. More than that I do not know.”

“There must be more!”

“Louis, I am sorry. What can I say? I dare not write them, nor they I, and to try and touch them magically might harm them. Besides, Marguerite has the turf. We may no longer convene the Circle.”

There was quiet for many long minutes.

“I wish…” both men said together, then they both smiled a little self-consciously, and lapsed back into silence.

Twelve

Woburn Village, Bedfordshire

NOAH SPEAKS

The final few weeks of my pregnancy were filled with girth, discomfort, swollen veins and exhaustion. Not even Eaving, apparently, was allowed to escape every woman’s burden during her final months and, indeed, I would not have wished it. This was a much-loved and anticipated child—I pushed to the back of my mind any uncertainty I felt—and this discomfort would be forgotten the instant of her birth.

I tried not to think of the imp. I tried to believe what my daughter had shown me, that she could manage both imps. But if I believed that, I had to accept that my daughter was not going to be quite what I wanted—an innocent, squirming child who existed only so I could love her.

On this night I lay restless and greatly uncomfortable. Marguerite and Kate lay together on the other side of the bed. I now slept so restively they preferred to keep their distance. Thus I was left, a great hulk breathing with only the most strenuous effort. I grew thirsty, and thought about finding myself some ale to drink—that would send me to sleep, surely—but moving was so difficult, the night so cold, and the kitchen so far, and down so many stairs…

I resolved to make the effort, no matter the difficulties, and threw back the bed covers, swinging my legs to the floor and slowly pivoting my body about. But just as I was about to rise, I felt the most extraordinary—and most extremely unwelcome—sensation in my lower body.

It was not so much the pangs of labour—I had experienced those as Cornelia, and I knew well enough what to expect—but something much more debilitating.

The sense that someone else had taken over my lower body and was controlling my actions. I felt a pang of fear, and tried to struggle to my feet, but my legs did not obey me.

Of their own accord—under the control of that someone else—they swung back onto the bed, then my body shifted so that I lay comfortably against the pillows.

My daughter moved in my womb, and I felt the opening to the birth canal softening for birth.

Gods, she was doing this!

I gasped—in shock, in disbelief, and in some measure of horror—and almost instantly Marguerite and Kate stirred on the other side of the bed.

“My lady,” Marguerite said as she sat up and looked at me, “is it time?”

I nodded, taking a very deep breath.

Marguerite placed one of her hands over mine where they were splayed across my belly. “Is all well?”

“I do not know, Marguerite. This is not labour as I have known it previously.”

“It is a special child,” said Marguerite, meaning to comfort me.

“She is taking control,” I said, “and I do not like it.” At that I winced, for a wave of discomfort—not pain, not agony, just a strange discomfort—rolled up over my distended belly and into my chest.

Marguerite stared at me, then leaned over and shook Kate awake. “Noah,” she said, “is giving birth.”

“My daughter is birthing herself,” I muttered between clenched teeth as another wave of discomfort—strange, irritating, and deeply uneasy—swept over me.

My legs drew up, and I groaned.

“Noah?” Marguerite said, now kneeling on the mattress at my side. “What should we do?”