The Witch Queen (19 page)

Fool, cried her thought, despising the reasoning that went beyond reason. Sentimental fool! You tried so hard to be rational and cool, but within its shell of ice your heart stayed sixteen. What you call true love is only a wisp of a dream—a romantic fancy—a shadow. You cannot even picture his face . . .

She had lapsed into slumber without realizing it, and now she found herself in a high place, high as the Dark Tower, though the panorama beneath was of folded hills and checkered fields and the jagged blue lumps of mountains wrapped in the mist of distance. From the pinnacle where she sat even the greatest of them looked no bigger than boulders. A road or path came twisting toward her, climbing the impossible scarp from the remoteness below. Some way down it she made out a moving speck: the figure of a man. She leaned forward, narrowing her eyes, desperate to see him clearly; but a voice at her back said: “I am here.” And there was the dragon charmer, Ruvindra LaiÏ, whom she had known only through magic and death. In that knowing she had loved him, as one may love the tiger for its stripes, the serpent for its hug: there had been a bond between them that had seemed, in that hour, deeper than romance. His eyes were ice-blue in a face of ebony—a face she thought she could never forget. But he changed and shrank, becoming an apple rotting on the Eternal Tree, and down among the roots she heard a scrabbling of hands, and she knew Morgus was buried there and must be digging her way out. She ran down into the Underworld, but the caves became the alleyways of Atlantis, and Rafarl Dev took her by the hand. They were running together, up winding stairs and over sun-scorched roofs. In a minute he would turn, and look at her, and then she would know. She would know the truth. And sure enough he turned, and smiled, and her heart gave a great leap—

She woke up. That instant of dazzling insight vanished with the dream. A second longer, and she might have been sure. But there was no surety, and the dream was gone beyond recall. When she slept again she was sitting with Luc in a wine bar, playing chess. The white queen was Morgus, wearing a dress that glittered when she moved. The black queen was herself, in a sheath that clung courtesy of Lycra, and a dark lipstick that drew her mouth into pointed curves. She was on the chessboard, with the squares stretching away forever, and Morgus was before her, and the next move was hers. The black knight protected her, and she knew he must be Luc, but once again there was a voice behind her, and turning she saw Luc was the king. “I was your knight before,” he said, “and you threw me away to win the game. But now I am the king, and it is your turn to be sacrificed.” She began to run away across the endless squares, and there was the Dark Tower, and the scarlet-clad guards, and the door was open. She struggled to resist, but her feet carried her forward; she screamed—
No! No!
—and woke again, and lay on her back in the pallor of morning twilight, until the alarm told her it was time to get up.

That night in Yorkshire, Mrs. Wicklow left around six. She had done a little cleaning and a lot of puttering, since Robin Capel, Fern’s father, had spent the weekend there with his long-term partner, Abby. After they had gone Lougarry came padding into the kitchen, an expectant glint in her eye. Mrs. Wicklow was lavish with leftovers. Lougarry received a terse welcome and a plate of steak-and-kidney pie. “I’ll leave t’ back door on t’ latch, shall I?” the housekeeper said. Long association with the Capels and their assorted friends had had its effect: when she talked to herself she guessed there was someone listening, and she trusted the she-wolf to mind the house in her absence. As it grew darker Lougarry went to the kitchen door and stood for some time staring out into the dusk. A barn owl, ghost faced and silent, swooped down from the moor and circled the building, apparently hunting field mice. But Lougarry knew there were no barn owls in the vicinity. The last time an owl had haunted Dale House was two years before: a raptor from the upper branches of the Eternal Tree, ageless and grown to gigantic size. But such birds were magical, cunning beyond nature, and able to adapt to any scale of normality. The visitor perched awhile on a gable, and cruised past the empty windows, before skimming the hillside and disappearing from view. The night closed in, and stars peered between the clouds. Far into the small hours Lougarry kept her vigil, the fur bristling on her nape, knowing with the instinct of her kind that she was watched in her turn.

A gaggle of magpies came the next day, picking at the grass for insects. When she looked at them sideways, the wolf thought they were overlarge and banded with blue, but when she gazed at them directly they seemed quite ordinary. She counted nine of them, the witch’s number; they hung around all afternoon, chattering in the bird language that is all nonsense and noise. She wished she could inform Ragginbone, but although she could speak mind-to-mind with the few humans she was close to, she needed to be in their presence or near at hand; London was much too distant. One or two of the birds hopped near the open door, but Lougarry’s unwinking stare deflected them, and the lift of a lip showed fangs that could tear them in half. They left late, streaming into the sunset, and the shadow of the hill grew long and dark, creeping over the house. Lougarry shut the door, slotting the latch into place with her nose. She hadn’t eaten all day, but although the house was unoccupied she did not want to leave it to hunt for a meal. She settled down for the night by the stove, her chin on her paws.

But Dale House was never completely unoccupied. The house-goblin appeared in the kitchen later that evening, carrying the ancient spear he had brought with him from Scotland. He and Lougarry were linked only by their loyalty to the Capels: he still regarded her warily, and what she thought of him no one knew. To a wolf, a goblin was small-fry, little bigger than a rabbit and nowhere near as tasty. But Bradachin was stronger than most of his race, and bolder. He kept a careful eye on her while he lit a candle and rummaged in the cupboards for rags and various cleaning fluids. “I’m thinking we may be needing this,” he offered presently. “I dinna ken what comes to us, but it isna guid. I saw the birds in the garden, nine of them, and their colors changing when the sun went in. Nine, aye—and nine is three times three. Some witch has been awalking in the fields aheid o’ me. But nae doot ye ha’ counted them yoursel.”

Lougarry lifted her muzzle, twitching her ears to indicate that she was attending.

Bradachin set to work on the spear, sampling the different cleaners to find out which was the most effective. Rust spots and other stains that had been there for centuries were gradually scoured out of existence. “This is the Sleer Bronaw,” the goblin said. “D’ye ken that, werebeastie? This is the Spear of Grief wi’ which Cullen’s Hound slew his best friend, and his ain son, sae he cursed the day it was forged, and the doom that lies on it. The auld laird, he used it but once, tae kill the mon who stole his wife, but she cast hersel atween them, and the spear took the baith of them. So he gave it to me, because I’m a boggan, and nae doom o’ Men can fritten me. I wouldna give it tae ony man now—lessen it was a choice o’ life or death.”

The she-wolf watched him while he worked, evidently listening. Gradually, vigorous polishing began to impart a dull luster to the metal. The blade at the tip was heavy and blunt-looking, too thick in the haft. “There are spikes here,” said Bradachin. “They’ll open up in a man’s belly, aye, and rip oot his guts.” He rifled through the drawers for a knife sharpener, and for some time there was the grinding sound of iron on stone, until the blade had acquired an edge that glinted evilly in the candlelight.

Outside, a barn owl flew to the window ledge and thrust its spectral face close to the glass.

VII

There was little progress for the next few weeks. A wilting flower on Fern’s coffee table conveyed Mabb’s agreement, and the goblins kept a casual watch on their designated targets. Skuldunder reported back, once in a while, with much detail and little substance: goblins can observe human society, but few have any understanding of how it works. Fern was certain Kaspar Walgrim was involved in some dubious activity on Morgus’s behalf, probably financial, but she needed a computer hack, not a kobold, to investigate. She met his son several times, hospital visits and drinks extending to dinner, with her repeatedly having to dissuade him from storming Wrokeby. “As long as we do nothing, Morgus won’t harm Dana any further. She’s divided her soul from her body: there’s little greater damage she could do, short of murder. But if we try a rescue mission and it fails, Dana will be the first victim. Morgus might send Dana through the Gate of Death, or worse still, into the abyss, as she did with the ghosts. When we make the attempt, we
must
be sure of success. Morgus has to have a weakness, if I can only find it . . .”

They discussed possibilities until the subject wore out, and moved inevitably on to more personal matters, to their likes and dislikes, their lives and loves, their tastes in food and music, literature and politics. Fern found herself giving him an edited version of her time in Atlantis—her journey into the Forbidden Past when she was sixteen years old, her entanglement in the fall of the island empire, even a few details of her never-to-be-forgotten love. “He drowned?” Luc said at the end, his face darkening.

Fern nodded.

“How long ago?”

“About ten thousand years.”

She saw him shiver.

“I watched him,” she said. “I watched him die—in a spell, in a dream. His ship broke up, and a mermaid dragged him down beneath the waves.”

“But . . .”

“The Gifted can sometimes tune in to another mind, another life. You have the Gift—I don’t know how strongly—and circumstances have thrown us together. You seem to be picking up on my memories. He lay on the seabed till his bones were coral, like in the play. Those are pearls that were his eyes . . .”

Luc said sharply: “I had those dreams long before I met you.”

“Don’t!” said Fern.

“Don’t?”

“Don’t cheat me with fantasies!” In that moment, he saw her composure splinter, and there was naked pain in her face. “Don’t let me cheat myself! The soul may return—we don’t know—there may be unfinished business, a quest unfulfilled, some doom that might last a thousand lives, but we can’t be sure.
We don’t know
. Anyway, Rafarl Dev was not like you. He tried to be cynical, but he couldn’t help believing in things; he tried to run away, but in the end he stayed. He was one of those who are born to fight, and lose. You are—a creature of another mettle. You have a harder edge, a colder eye.”

“What you mean is, I wouldn’t have waited for you when the city was falling about my ears.”

“Would you?” she asked.

“No. I would have gone long before and made you come with me, against your will if necessary.”

Fern smiled fleetingly, and then grew somber. “No one has ever
made
me do anything.”

“Maybe it’s time.”

If we weren’t in a restaurant, she thought, he would kiss me again. But they were, and the table with the remnants of their meal was between them, and a cruising waiter topped their glasses, and the moment passed into oblivion, never to return. Or so she fancied, wondering if that kiss might have lasted longer, and tasted sweeter, and whether, with his mouth on hers, she would have known the truth at last. She struggled to recall how it had felt to kiss Rafarl, but it was all too many ages past, and few kisses can stand the test of so much time.

“I don’t believe in reincarnation,” Luc resumed when the waiter had moved on. “I have never really believed in anything. Not God, or the soul, or true love. We are flesh and blood—water and clay—and when we are gone, that is all that remains.”

“You said it,” Fern pointed out. “
When we are gone
. If there is only flesh and blood, who is the ‘we’ that has to go with those elements? Besides, your sister’s soul is in a jar in Morgus’s spellchamber. You believe that.”

“Just because it may be true,” he said, “that doesn’t mean I have to believe it.” After a pause, he went on: “Your Rafarl, did he look like me?”

Fern sighed. “It’s awful, but I can’t visualize him, not clearly. His eyes were dark—yours are light. I think his bones were similar, but . . . more regular. He was beautiful, like a god. If he’d been alive today he’d have been advertising Calvin Klein. You’re interesting-looking, attractive, but not beautiful.” He grimaced at her, revealing the gap in his teeth. “How did you lose that tooth?”

“I pinched my father’s car when I was eleven, drove it into a wall, smashed my face on the wheel.”

“Why don’t you have a false one?”

“Why should I?”

“Raf had a tooth missing,” Fern said. “I think it was there.”

“Coincidence,” he said. “This is all nonsense. You and I couldn’t have loved each other, or we would feel something now, and I’m not in love with you.”

“Nor I with you,” she responded. She felt no disappointment, or hurt. His light-gray eyes were fixed on her with a strange intensity.

“I recognized you, though,” he said. “In the first dream. And the first time we met.”

“Then you are more sensitive than me.”

When they left the restaurant, he put her in a taxi and kissed her, but this time only on the cheek.

Gaynor, meanwhile, had summoned the tatters of her resolution and telephoned Hugh Fairbairn. He seemed less eager to see her than before, which is always the way; possibly he had found another sympathetic female to whom he could pour out his woes. Gaynor knew she ought to be relieved, but she wanted his attention, if only so she could demonstrate to Will her competence at research. “I need your help,” she told Hugh. Not being an adept liar, she continued with a bowdlerized version of the facts. “I have a friend who’s in trouble. I can’t explain everything, but it’s all to do with investment banking. I was hoping you could sort of fill me in.”

“Depends what you want to know. Most of the stuff I deal with is very confidential.”

“Of course, of course,” Gaynor stammered. “But you’re the most important banker I know . . .” This was true enough, she reflected, since he was the only banker she knew.

Hugh mellowed audibly. He was a man who mellowed easily, particularly in response to such stimulants as wine, women, and flattery—even if the flattery was offered in Gaynor’s slightly hesitant manner. After explaining that he would be busy being important for the next week, he suggested lunch on the following Friday at the latest Japanese restaurant in Berkley Square. Gaynor accepted, despite private reservations about raw fish.

She arrived punctually, dressed in black—not clinging, sexy black but the kind worn by widows and orphans, guaranteed to discourage masculine advances. Gaynor favored black, though she suspected it did not suit her: it went with everything, did not show the dirt, and at night it blended effortlessly into the semidarkness of pub or party. One of her worst nightmares was entering a very large room full of people whispering, and realizing she was wearing scarlet. Hugh, however, was uncritical; possibly he could not differentiate between various degrees of black. He wore charcoal, with his hair brushed back from an ascending forehead and a city pallor that sat unnaturally on the face of a country squire. His genes should have made him jolly and easygoing, but the high-stress, dog-eat-man atmosphere of the City had rendered him aggressive, sometimes pompous, and chronically misunderstood. Gaynor found herself thinking that what he really needed was to retire early and live in the country with two or three Labradors who would not fail to understand him whatever he did.

Like most people who claim their work is very confidential, once he started to talk the sluices opened and Gaynor was inundated with information she did not need or want. Apparently, he was a merchant banker, which was something subtly different from an investment banker. It took several vain attempts before she was able to nudge him away from his own field—“I was doing business with Brazil only last week, an expanding timber company—timber is very big out there. Of course, we don’t want to destroy the rainforests, but they have to earn their keep”—into the field next door. (
Earn their keep?
Gaynor wondered. They’re forests, not inefficient employees.) Investment bankers, as far as she could tell from Hugh’s rather rambling discourse, simply advised their clients on where to invest their money, sometimes, though not always, investing the bank’s own funds as well. They were supposed to be cunning judges of which stocks would provide the biggest dividends, which were the most trendy, whether the market would go up or down, which companies would sink with the ship or swim with the tide. “They’re clever buggers,” Hugh conceded with only moderate enthusiasm. Naturally, he favored his own branch of the profession. “When they get it right, investors can make a mint. When they’re wrong, you’re down a few million. Or more. Look at—”

“What happens to the banker then?” Gaynor interrupted.

“Damages his reputation. Bad for business.”

“But he doesn’t have to pay compensation or anything?”

“Christ, no.”

Realizing she was in danger of being sidetracked, what with the inefficiency of the rainforests and the nonaccountability of senior bankers, Gaynor launched abruptly into the reason for her inquiries. “Do you know someone called Kaspar Walgrim?”

“Lord, yes.” Hugh seemed unable to affirm or deny without a religious qualification. “With Schindler Volpone. Known as Schindler’s Ark ever since they went into the biotech industry. You know: fatter, juicier tomatoes and more of them, fatter, juicier cows, greener leeks, that kind of thing. Now it’s mapping the genome. They do other stuff, but that’s their specialty. Kaspar Walgrim is their biotech wizard: got the lowdown on every top scientist in every company and whether they’re going to come up with a cure for cancer in ten years’ time and designer babies in twenty. Or vice versa. Bit scary if you ask me, but that’s where the money is—miracle medicines and producing a generation of six-foot supermodels with the brains of Einstein. Personally, I like my women a tad shorter and cuddlier.” His grin hovered close to a leer. “What do you think of the black cod?”

“It’s gorgeous.” Gaynor had been agreeably surprised by the fish, some of which was cooked and all delicious.

“Good. Thought you’d like it. Nice to see you again. So how come you’re interested in Wizard Walgrim?”

“Is that what they call him?” Gaynor asked, secretly entertained.

“Got a sixth sense, so they say. Uncanny. He’ll pick out some little company with one laboratory and a couple of postgrads and a year later they’ll be replicating your internal organs or growing a zucchini that eats its own weevils.”

If Luc is Gifted as Fern says, Gaynor speculated, maybe his father is, too. Could you use the Gift for high finance? “What is he like?” she went on. “As a person, I mean.”

“Only met him once. He’s a sort of legend in the City, but not for his personality. Not the flamboyant type, you know. Gray sort of chap, doesn’t show emotion, may not have any. Cast-iron integrity. Wife died a long time ago; no obvious replacement. Must have married very young—probably got the girl pregnant—for he’s not yet fifty and there’s a son of thirty-odd and a fucked-up daughter who spends all her time in rehab with the stars. Doesn’t seem to bother Daddy much: he can afford the bills. Still, you never know. Where does your friend fit in?”

“My friend? Oh yes . . . well—“ Gaynor succumbed to temptation “—I’m afraid it’s frightfully confidential.”

“Come on now. I gave you the goods. Not sporting for you to clam up on me now.”

“Actually,” Gaynor admitted, “my friend knows the son. Lucas . . . Luc . . .”

“Met him, too. Bright boy, so they say. Not like the sister. Supposed to be attractive—couldn’t see it myself. One of those dark, bottled-up types. Hope your ‘friend’ isn’t really you. Like in old whodunits: the lady never says she’s being blackmailed or having an affair; it’s always ‘my friend.’ “

“No,” Gaynor assured him. “I really do have a friend. Well, lots.”

“Not little Fernanda? Shouldn’t have thought a City whiz kid was her cup of tea: she usually goes for mature men in the meedja.”

“It’s not her,” Gaynor said hastily. “The thing is, according to Luc, his father’s mixed up with a woman . . .”

“About time.”

“She’s not very desirable,” Gaynor said, anxious to steer the conversation away from Fern. “At least, she
is
desirable, if you see what I mean, only not—not as a human being. We think she’s a really bad lot—she could affect his cast-iron integrity.”

“Sons always hate prospective stepmothers,” Hugh said wisely. “Probably fancies her himself. Good for Dad, if you ask me. Van’s seeing someone: did I tell you? Arty type, looks like a poof. Interior designer of some sort. I think she’s trying to show me up. Says he’s a New Man, changes diapers and that. Fine, I said. Let’s start having sex again, have a couple of rug rats and
he
can do the dirty work. What’s the point of a diaper-changing poof when she refuses to get pregnant?”

Gaynor lapsed into sympathetic mode and concentrated on her sushi.

In the lower branches of the Tree the spider spun its fragile webs, catching the few insects that invaded its airspace, drinking the sap from split stem and torn leaf. As it grew larger it ventured more often to the ground, exploring corners of the conservatory that the builders had not touched, behind stone jars and carved troughs where tropical plants flourished grimly, accustomed to the jungle gloom. There the spider spread its nets, no longer fragile, thickening the shadows. One day it caught a rat.

Morgus found it there on a night of the waning moon when she came to commune with the Tree. She stumbled into a sticky silken rope that tore her dress when she pulled it away, but she was not angered. Seeing the clustered eyes watching her, malevolent as Oedaphor’s and intelligent as an aphid’s, she laughed softly. “So my Tree has acquired a guardian! It is well. It is very well. What have you been eating?” She poked among the plant debris with her foot, dislodging a pile of little white bones. “Mice, perhaps? Too meager a feast for such a prodigy. I will bring you something more substantial.” The next day, she ordered a car and was driven into the nearest town, where she asked to be taken to a pet shop. There she bought an entire litter of pedigreed puppies.