Darkwitch Rising by Sara Douglass

Weyland hated it the instant he stepped inside. The church was unbearably dismal, and he resolved to have done with his business as quickly as he might.

The wool merchant was waiting as planned in a side chapel.

“You have it?” the merchant asked as Weyland joined him.

“Aye,” Weyland said. “You have the coin?”

The merchant grimaced, as if he found the subject of money repellent. This annoyed Weyland, for how else had this merchant managed to scrabble together enough for his stolen bauble if not by money-dealing?

“Aye,” the merchant mumbled.

“Give it to me,” said Weyland.

“Show it to me,” said the merchant.

Weyland sighed, but drew from a pocket a small leather-wrapped bundle. Glancing about to make sure they were unobserved, Weyland unfolded the leather, and showed the merchant that which he craved—a stunning ruby ring that the merchant wanted to give to his nubile young lover.

His eyes unable to remove themselves from the ring with which he would purchase a few short nights in his lover’s bed, the merchant unclipped his purse and tipped a pile of gold coins into Weyland’s outstretched hand.

“Don’t spend it all at once,” the merchant said, snatching the ring from Weyland’s other hand.

“I need to purchase a house,” said Weyland. “No doubt this shall prove more than useful for the purpose.”

That comment finally drew the merchant’s eyes from ring to Weyland’s face. “You? A house?” The merchant gave a small mirthless chuckle. “What do your sort need with houses? All you need is a rat hole, surely.”

Weyland’s mouth thinned, but before he could retort the merchant continued.

“Use the money to buy the godforsaken ruin attached to the bone house of this church. It’s no idyll, to be sure, but it has enough damp spots and shadowy corners within which to hide your deceitfulness.”

And then he was gone, and Weyland was left standing, looking at the spot where he’d been, his mouth open in astonishment.

It’s no idyll, to be sure, but it has enough damp spots and shadowy corners within which to hide your deceitfulness.

Weyland did not know what it was about those words, but something about them called to him. He stood a moment longer, then he strode out of the church and turned right up Idol Lane to the jumble of buildings that had once housed the medieval monks of St Dunstan’s.

They were all solidly built—made of stone, which in a city of timbered houses was unusual enough—if showing evidence of the same decay that beset the church. At the extreme northern boundary of the church buildings stood the bone house where the clergy of St Dunstan’s stored the bones they dug up from their increasingly full churchyard.

The northern wall of the bone house abutted on to a four-storeyed house made of the same stone as the rest of the church and outbuildings. A small alleyway ran down the northern side of the house. Weyland had no idea to what purpose the house had once been put, but now it had an air of neglect and loneliness that bespoke its emptiness.

No doubt the clergy of St Dunstan’s wished to sell it to raise enough money for repairs to the church itself.

Weyland walked slowly to the front door and turned the handle.

It opened, and he walked inside.

The door opened directly into a large, unfurnished and dusty parlour which Weyland could see then led into a kitchen. Three paces away from the door rose a staircase, and it was to this that Weyland walked. Hesitating a moment at its base—briefly laying a hand against the shared wall with the bone house to feel the souls lost and moaning on its other side—Weyland climbed the stairs.

He did not come down for over five hours, and when he did, it was to walk directly out the door and back down Idol Lane to the church to open negotiations with the vicar.

Seven

Elizabeth Castle, Jersey

From Jersey Charles had gone to France, had wandered through parts of the Netherlands, and then in the late summer of 1649 he had returned to Jersey. He had wanted to go home, home to England, but this small island was all that remained of his kingdom. Yes, his kingdom now, for Parliament had taken his father on a cold January day to an even colder block and there, to the accompaniment of the groans of the watching crowd, taken from him his head. Charles had been in the Netherlands, and had known of his father’s death only when his chaplain, Stephen Goffe, had entered the chamber and said, haltingly, “Majesty…” before bursting into tears.

The crown was his, but it was a fragile and ephemeral thing. What use a crown with no realm? Parliament had gone mad, declared a Commonwealth, abolished the monarchy, set up Oliver Cromwell as the nation’s Protector, and Charles was left with nothing save the memories and ambitions of several lives, and the knowledge that it was likely Asterion had caused all of this. Charles had thought of invasion, but there was little hope of that. He had no monies with which to raise an army (he had hardly the monies to feed himself and his companions), and, besides, he knew that England was sick of war and would not tolerate yet another.

So Charles had come back to Jersey if only for the reason that it was the closest he could come to his land and to London.

In Jersey Charles loitered in chamber and hall, grew another three inches, rode to the hunt, made love to Marguerite, and, in his most despairing of moments, listened to the bravado of his courtiers and advisers as they plotted and planned about him: invade through Scotland, through Ireland, invoke the aid of the French, the Dutch, and even the faeries, if they could help.

Nothing could aid him against Asterion. Nothing save his own wits.

In July of 1649 Charles was seated in his private chamber within Elizabeth Castle. The sun streamed in through the windows, and Charles thought idly that perhaps he could make use of this autumn sunshine and call for his horse, ride along the cliff tops listening to the screaming of the seagulls and pretend that they were the screams of his supporters, or the cheers of the Londoners as they welcomed him back into his city and his heritage, or even the acclaim of the assembled nobility (those who had survived Parliament’s hatred) as the Archbishop of Canterbury lowered the crown to his head in Westminster Abbey.

His mind shied away from what had happened the last time an archbishop had laid the crown on his head.

Charles was almost completely lost in his daydreams of restoration when there was a discreet knock at the door, and Sir Edward Hyde, friend, supporter and counsellor, entered.

“Majesty,” said Hyde, who always managed to make that word sound something other than cynically pointless. He inclined his head, one knee slightly bent, and managed to make that action look truly deferential instead of stupidly meaningless.

“What is it?” said Charles.

“There is a man who came across yesterday from France, majesty. He claims to bear a message for you, for your ears only.”

Charles raised an eyebrow.

“He has no weapon, majesty, and no poisons secreted about his person or clothes. He is well-spoken and -bred, although he bears but a common name and a base ancestry.”

“And that is…?”

“Louis de Silva, bastard son of the Marquis de Lonquefort.”

Charles started to shrug in disinterest, but then paused. “De Silva?” Of the forest?

“Aye.”

“Tell me of him—his appearance, his aspect, his humour.”

“He is of your age, and as dark, although not so well-built nor with your height. He speaks well, in quiet and pleasing tones. He has the eyes of a poet…and the impatience of one, too.”

Charles very slowly smiled, and for a moment Hyde thought he’d never seen his young king look happier.

“Then send him in, my friend. Send him in!”

Hyde had only to step to the door and murmur a few words to admit the man: Hyde must have been certain of Charles’ reaction.

As soon as Louis de Silva had entered, Hyde exited, closing the door behind himself.

De Silva stared at the young king sitting on the chest by the window, then he bowed, deep and formal, sweeping off the hat from his head so that it swept the floor.

“Charles,” he said. “Majesty.”

Charles rose slowly, looking intently at the newcomer. The man had dark hair, as dark as Charles’ own, but straight, and worn much shorter, slicked back from his face; his build was less muscular than Charles’, but nonetheless gave the impression of wiry strength and grace, as if he would be as useful on the dance floor as on the battlefield. His hands, where they emerged from the lace cuffs of his doublet, were long and slender, yet with the same implied strength as his build and bearing.