Darkwitch Rising (3 page)

Far away in London a fair-haired, hazel-eyed boy in his mid-teens raised his face to the sky. He was tall for his age, and too thin for his height, but he held himself gracefully nonetheless, and his face already held hints of the handsomeness it would assume in
maturity. He stood in one of London’s innumerable back alleys, hidden in shadow. At his side stood a solemn-faced toddling girl of some eighteen months. She was a pretty little thing, with soft brown eyes and silvery hair, but her prettiness was marred by a blank look of terror in those dark eyes, and she stood tense and fearful, as if expecting a blow at any moment.

The boy held her by the hand, and, as he lowered his face, he gave her flesh a squeeze, painfully enough that the girl gave a low gasp, her eyes filling with tears.

“Do you feel it, Jane?” said the boy. “Do you know what has happened?”

She made no reply save for two great fat tears that rolled down her cheeks.

The boy squatted so he could look directly into her eyes. “You
do
feel it, don’t you? Brutus is back, your lover when you were Genvissa. He’s reborn, and growing contentedly in a queen’s womb. Not a bastard,
this
life. Tell me, pretty Jane, do you think he’ll want you? Do you think he’ll ever stoop to love
you
, dirty street urchin, Asterion’s whore?”

More tears flowed, and the boy nodded slowly. “Aye. You know he’s back, and you know he’ll never touch you. So sad, pretty Jane.”

She spoke, this tiny girl, with the voice of a child much, much older. “Let me go, Weyland.”

“Never,” Weyland whispered. “You’re mine, now. You and all your talents.”

O
n the 29th May in 1630 Helene Gardien went into labour at daybreak, delivering her child six hours later. Her lover, Simon Gautier, the Marquis de Lonquefort, was in residence at the Parisian townhouse where he’d installed his mistress, and visited Helene two hours after he’d been informed of the safe delivery of their child.

This was his first child, and he was curious, if somewhat apprehensive, and more than a little annoyed. All he’d wanted from Helene was sex, not responsibility.

“Well?” he said as he inched up to the bed.

“A boy,” Helene said, not looking up from the child’s face. “See, he has neither your eyes, nor mine, but those of a poet.”

Neither your eyes nor mine
. Lonquefort instantly seized on her words. Could he claim the child wasn’t his? Not his responsibility?

Then he looked at the baby, and was lost. The baby’s eyes
were
indeed different, for while both Lonquefort and Helene had blue eyes, this infant had the deepest black eyes Lonquefort thought he’d ever seen in a face. But it wasn’t their colour that immediately captivated Lonquefort. The boy’s eyes were indeed those of a poet, Lonquefort decided, for they seemed to contain knowledge and suffering that stretched back aeons, rather
than the two hours this boy had lived in this painful world.

“He will be a great man,” Lonquefort pronounced, and Helene smiled.

“I will call him Louis,” she said, then hesitated. Poet or not, the boy was a bastard, and Helene was not sure whether she should name him for his father.

But who was his father
, she wondered as the awkward silence stretched out between them.
Lonquefort, or that strange beast she’d envisioned riding her in the forest
?

“Louis,” Lonquefort said, then he grinned. “Louis de Silva, for the forest where we made him.”

Helene laughed, her doubts gone. The forest had made him, indeed, and so he should be named.

“I shall settle a pension on him, and you,” said Lonquefort. “You shall not want.”

“Thank you,” Helene said softly, and bent her head back to her poet-son.

As Helene relaxed in relief, another woman, far distant, arched her back and cried out in the extremities of her own labour.

Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, lay writhing in the great bed draped with forest green silk within her lying-in chamber off the Colour Court of St James’ Palace. About her hovered midwives and physicians, privy councillors and lords, all there either to ensure a safe delivery or to witness the birth of an heir.

Elsewhere within the palace Charles I paced up and down, praying silently. He was riven with anxiety, more for Henrietta Maria than for concern over the arrival of a healthy heir. Over the course of the past nine months, as his wife’s body had swelled, so also had waxed Charles’ regard and love for her. Now he could not bear the thought that she might suffer in childbed.

As the palace clocks chimed noon, one of the privy councillors hurried towards Charles.

“Well?” demanded Charles.

“You have a healthy son,” the man said. “An heir!”

“And my wife?”

“She is well,” said the councillor, and Charles finally allowed himself to relax, and smile.

“A son,” he said. “He shall be named Charles.”

“Of course,” said the councillor.

Charles went to his wife, assured himself that she was indeed well, then turned to look at the child one of the midwives held.

He studied the baby curiously, then folded back his wrappings.

“By Jesus!” Charles exclaimed, and looked back at Henrietta Maria. “Are you sure you
are
well, my love?”

She grinned wanly. “He was an effort, my lord. But, yes, I am well. He did not injure me.”

Charles looked back to the baby. By God, look at the size of him! He was a giant, surely, with great strong limbs and a head of long, tight black curls. Charles reached down a hand and, as he did so, the baby reached up his own right hand and snatched at a golden crown embroidered on Charles’ sleeve.

“Observe!” said the midwife. “He was born a king, truly! See how he grasps for what shall be his!”

Then both the midwife and Charles cried out, for the baby’s hand tightened about the crown, and tugged at it, tearing it away from his father’s sleeve.

“I shall have to watch my back, surely,” Charles said with a forced laugh, “in case this son of mine decides to snatch my crown before his time.”

The midwife prised the torn piece of material out of the infant’s fist, and he began to wail.

“You shall surely die abed, an aged and beloved king,” murmured one of the physicians. “This is no omen to be feared.”

“Of course not,” said Charles, but at that moment the room darkened as a cloud covered the sun, and the only one in the chamber who did not shiver in dread was the baby.

Weyland Orr brought his little sister Jane to stand outside the octagonal-towered gatehouse of St James’ Palace among the other crowds awaiting news of the queen’s delivery. Most of the crowd prayed for a prince; Weyland and Jane
knew
the child would be a prince. A king reborn.

Weyland hoisted Jane in his arms so that she could see through the gates into the Colour Court off which, the crowd was reliably informed, the queen laboured in her chamber.

See, Genvissa. In that tumbled mess of ancient buildings Brutus-reborn draws his first breath, while you sit, caught in the arms of Asterion, knowing you’ll never feel Brutus’ arms about you again. Will he come looking for you, do you think, once he has control of those infant legs of his
?

Weyland laughed, softly, tormenting Jane with his thoughts.
No, of course not. He’ll want his precious princess, Cornelia. He won’t want you, particularly after what I have planned
.

Weyland sent a series of images skidding through Jane’s mind, and the girl began to cry.

Weyland hugged her to him. “There, there,” he whispered, playing the part of the affectionate brother to perfection. “All will be well. I shall look after you.”

Then he lifted his head. A nobleman had walked to the gates, and now shouted to the crowds.

“A son! A son! The queen has been safely delivered of a healthy son!”

The crowd roared, and Weyland cheered with the best of them.

In his arms, the little girl wept.

Q
ueen Henrietta Maria of England stood in the centre of the hall of Pendinnis Castle, holding the letter in trembling hands. She looked about the great chamber, first at her beloved fifteen-year-old son, Charles, and then to their advisers and protectors, Sir Edward Hyde, John Colepeper and Thomas Howard, Earl of Berkshire. Honest men all, and loyal in an age when it seemed to Henrietta Maria that loyalty was a forgotten concept.

“It comes from my lord my husband,” she said, unnecessarily.

Hyde bowed his head, hiding his impatience. “Majesty, what does our king command?”

Tears filled Henrietta Maria’s eyes, and Charles moved to her side, resting a hand on her arm. Even at fifteen he towered over his mother, and his physical presence was such that Henrietta Maria instinctively leaned against him.

“He commands,” she said, “that I take our son Charles and flee this realm.”

There was an appalled silence. King Charles must think matters desperate indeed.

“No!” Charles said. “This is
my
land! I will not be exiled because some rogues say my father has lost his right to rule!”

“Charles…” his mother murmured.

Charles was so angry he visibly shook, his long black curls trembling in the weak candlelight, his darkly handsome face flushed. “I will not leave—”

“Your father thinks you will die if you don’t,” Henrietta Maria said.

Charles took the letter from his mother, and all could see the effort he made to be gentle as he did so.

“You are your father’s heir,” Hyde said softly. “
One
of you needs to live.”

“No,” said Charles, but his voice had dropped, and he had to dash away the tears so he could read the letter. His eyes skimmed the lines, then he read one line aloud: “’I sense a malevolent, ungodly hand behind all this treachery’,” Charles quoted, then looked up, although he did not focus on any of those standing about him. “Oh, aye, malevolent and ungodly
indeed
.”

There was a further silence as all thought on the crisis that had gripped the realm. Charles I had always endured an uneasy relationship with the Parliament which was now determined to curb his power. He’d tried to rule without it, had been forced to recall it, and had then been subjected to humiliation after humiliation by the rebellious parliamentarians until war erupted. The country had divided between those who supported the king, and those who supported the Parliament. For years the armies of king and Parliament had battled each other the length and breadth of the country until, some ten months previously, Charles I’s forces had been disastrously defeated by Parliament’s New Model Army. Henrietta Maria and her son had held out hope for months, but now…

“He tells us to flee,” the queen said, “so that
you
may live.”

“For what?” said Charles. “My father has no
kingdom to leave me. Not a one. He’s lost them all: Scotland, Ireland, and now
England
.”

“Then you must rely on your wits to retrieve them,” said Hyde.

“And retrieve them you most surely shall!” Berkshire said loyally and with a little too much bravado.

“As I have had to previously,” Charles muttered, “from this ‘malevolent and ungodly hand’.”

“My prince?” said Colepeper.

“Nothing,” Charles said, and sighed. “My younger brother and sisters are safe?” he asked of his mother.

“Yes. I received word this morning that James and Henriette-Anne are in France. Mary, of course, sits and frets with her husband in the Netherlands. We shall be the last to abandon your father.”

“Parliament will kill him,” Charles said.

“They dare not,” said his mother, but all heard the uncertainty in her voice.

“My queen, prince,” Hyde said. “We
must
go. I can ready a ship within the hour.”

“Where?” asked Charles, his voice harsh and bitter.

“The Scilly Isles,” said Hyde.

“So my inheritance is to be reduced to the Scilly Isles,” Charles said. “How…quaint.”

That night, as Hyde hurried Charles and his mother towards the hastily readied ship, Charles leaned down and snatched at a piece of turf.

“I will not leave it
all
behind,” he said to Hyde, who looked on incredulously as the young prince pocketed the crumbling handful of turf and soil.

Weyland slouched on the single chair in the small, cramped room. In his mind’s eye he watched as Charles was jostled aboard the ship.

How comical. Almost three thousand years ago Brutus had arrived in England, Llangarlia as it was known then, at the head of a magnificent fleet of Trojan ships. He’d been met by Genvissa, chief priestess of the land as well as Mistress of the Labyrinth, and together they had created the Troy Game, the ancient labyrinthine sorcery which would give power and protection to the city Brutus intended to build on the shores of the Thames. Brutus and Genvissa had thought to rule the world through the Troy Game.

Instead, Weyland had outwitted them, time after time, life after life.

Now here they were, both debased. Genvissa-reborn forced, as Jane, to live a life of humiliation at Weyland’s hands; and Brutus-reborn, born to be king, but exiled with nothing more to show for his almost three thousand years of effort to control the Troy Game than a pocketful of dirt. He didn’t even have the six kingship bands of Troy, which he needed in order to control the Troy Game. They remained buried about London, waiting for Weyland to seize them…and control the Game as he now controlled Jane.

All Weyland needed were the kingship bands and Cornelia-reborn, once Brutus’ contemptible wife, but now a goddess in her own right and destined, by the Game itself, to become its Mistress of the Labyrinth.

There came a sound at the door, and it opened to admit a woman of some seventeen or eighteen years of age. She was tall and lithe, with pretty dark-blonde hair and brown eyes. Most men would have found her attractive were it not for the hard cast to her features, or the practised blankness in her eyes.