Witchrise (30 page)

I had to get up.

‘Be still,’ he commanded me in Latin, and my body obeyed against my will, paralysed by the spell.

‘I warned you that you would suffer for your disobedience,’ he said. ‘Did you think I meant your death? Oh no, this is far sweeter. Do you know why I allow you to live? Shall I tell you, Meg Lytton?’ Marcus bent closer, his breath hot on my cheek. ‘Because you will suffer more as you watch me destroy your friends one by one. The apprentice is just the first. And at the end, when all the others are dead, I will come for you.’

His boot was crushing the life out of me.

I had failed.

The thought was terrifying. In my head I fought to be free, reaching wildly for a spell, any spell that would allow me to strike Marcus down without speech or gesture.

‘Surrender, miscreant, or die!’

Relief flooded me. Then despair. It was Robert Dudley, somewhere behind me, challenging the witchfinder. Cold steel against magick. I knew which would win. Again I struggled in vain against the binding-spell. Was it Robert’s time to die now, while I lay like a landed fish in the mud?

Marcus gave a laugh and turned to face his challenger. The appalling pressure on my neck eased as his foot lifted, but now I could feel the pain. The sense of my failure was a deeper hurt though.

Paralysed, my body useless, my mind burning in torment, I listened to their brief scuffle at my back, then heard Dudley curse.

Suddenly there was an inky blackness all around me, muffling the sound of fighting, its tendrils spreading like smoke about the street. I heard running feet, people crying out in fear as they fled the alley, shouting, ‘Fire, fire!’ then ‘Witchcraft!’ and ‘Flee for your lives, the Devil is come to London!’

With all my will, I battled against the paralysing spell. My friends needed me whole. If I could just find the strength . . .

Wake, wake!

Wrenching myself onto my back with a gasped incantation, I stared up into darkness as a cloud cleared the face of the moon.

I had lost my mother’s
Invictus
ring. Now Marcus was invincible. Richard was dead. Possibly Robert Dudley too, and the others. It was a disaster.

A disaster.

The word meant star-crossed. And surely we had been crossed by the stars tonight, for all John Dee’s blithe assurances of an ‘auspicious hour’ in the heavens.

Richard
, I thought abruptly.

I turned my head. He was still not moving, a pale figure on the cobbles, face upturned to the moon. I scrambled to my feet, snatched the wand out of the filth, and fell to my knees beside his prone body.

‘Richard,’ I moaned, and cradled his head. It was dark and wet, and not with gutter mud. I stared at my hand, shock leaving me numb and stupid. There was blood on my fingers. Was his skull split? ‘Richard, speak to me.’

The black smoke tendrils had dissipated almost as quickly as they had appeared, no doubt a screen to allow Marcus to escape. I glanced over my shoulder, and saw to my relief that we had not been entirely defeated. Dent’s men were being rounded up, some already kneeling sullenly before the house, hands linked behind their heads, watched over by our own people. The seer had been led to one side by John Dee, still disguised as a Spanish priest, his gaze intent on the girl’s face as they spoke.

But I could not see my brother or Robert Dudley. Of Marcus, there was no sign either. But then I had not expected the witchfinder to be captured so easily.

He has taken my mother’s ring, I reminded myself dully. He will be invulnerable against magickal attack now.

A shadow fell over me. I tensed, my fingers tightening on the hazel wand. But it was only John Dee.

The Queen’s astrologer stared down at Richard, his face suddenly white as the moon framed between buildings behind his head. ‘Is he dead?’

My brain shifted, idiotically slow to grasp what he had just asked, and I realized that in my horror and fear I had not checked. ‘Wait.’ My fingers fumbled for a pulse at his neck. Richard’s skin was cold and clammy, but to my astonishment I caught a feeble beat. ‘No, he lives.’

‘Thank God,’ John Dee breathed, and crossed himself. Kneeling beside Richard, he examined his head wound with gentle, expert hands. ‘But we need to get him back to the house. I can care for him properly there.’

I was staring across at the seer, standing alone, none of the men wishing to approach her. She looked scared and very far from being a powerful witch. But then, I could not begin to imagine the horrors she must have suffered at Marcus’s hands.

‘Where is my brother?’ I asked suddenly, forcing my mind to focus on essentials.

‘He followed Robbie. They went in pursuit of Marcus Dent.’

Cold panic filled me. I stared about, frantic. My horse had vanished, scared away by the fighting.

‘Which way did they go?’

‘Down towards the Thames, I think. Cecilie says Dent keeps a boat moored on the river.’ Frowning, the astrologer raised his head as I picked up my skirts and began to run, calling after me, ‘Meg Lytton, you cannot leave now. I need help with Richard and the girl.’

I did not want to leave Richard, but there was no time to stay and help with the wounded, not if I was to save my brother – he did not truly know what he was going up against. If I had failed to hold Marcus Dent, William would hardly do any better. Besides, John Dee was the one with the healing arts. I was a witch, not a healer.

I turned left at the head of the alley, turning downhill towards the Thames, which I could not see in the dark cramped streets but could smell.

I had lost Aunt Jane to the witchfinder. I would not lose my brother too. But what would I do when I found Marcus?

Wearing the ring, Marcus was proof against magickal attack.

But I had to try. Kill or be killed.

As soon as I had seen Richard lying there on the cobbles, motionless, white-faced, blood running down from his temple, I had known Marcus Dent must be stopped. Even if it meant my own death.

I had a stitch in my side from running. I stopped and bent over, panting, my long hair dishevelled. I had lost my hood and must have seemed quite wild to any onlookers, my disguise as the Queen falling away with every step.

The river was ahead, a dark rolling mass at the end of the street, just visible between buildings under the light of the moon. I could hear faint shouts from the riverfront.

I straightened and staggered on at a walk, still breathless but thinking hard. To my right rose the high towers of Whitehall, guards on the side gates, the empty courtyard beyond illuminated by flaming torches. The palace guardsmen stared as I passed, one shouting an insult that I ignored. No doubt they thought me a woman of the streets, selling her body for a few meagre shillings, struggling to survive in this city.

Gritting my teeth, I began to run.

I tracked Marcus down on the dark waterfront, just where Cecilie had told John Dee he would be. A small river craft bobbed at anchor behind him, its sail already hoisted, torches in brackets lighting the deck, no one on board. I guessed that Marcus planned to sail it himself, using the powerful outgoing tide to sweep him swiftly away from London.

I was surprised that he would leave his prize so readily, the seer he had tortured for so many months. But the witchfinder’s mind was a maze with many vile, convoluted twists and turns. I did not understand him, nor did I seek to.

I just had to stop him.

But what I found at the dockside was Robert Dudley also on foot, threatening Marcus with a sword, and my terrified brother, suspended in mid-air above the dark water by a magickal spell.

‘Marcus!’ I yelled, stumbling along the wooden dock towards them. ‘Let him go!’

Marcus whipped round at the sound of my voice. Fury chased hatred across the falsely handsome face.

‘A fine trick you played on us up there at the house, Meg,’ he sneered. ‘Queen Mary, indeed! But I do not begrudge you the seeress. I had already taken everything she had to give. The slattern is nothing to me now, you may keep her.’

‘Thank you,’ I said drily.

‘And this ring is a curious object. Many hundreds of years old, by the look of it.’ His gaze flicked cautiously to Robert Dudley. Then the witchfinder held up the ring to show me, glinting between thumb and forefinger. ‘
Invictus
. As deadly to the wearer as it is protective, according to the seer.’

In the torchlight his magickal visage looked almost young again: intelligent blue eyes, fair hair shining sleekly. I wondered what he might have been without the hatred, without the dark centre that had destroyed him as a man and made him into this monster.

‘An interesting dilemma, is it not?’ Marcus mused, smiling at me. ‘For every prize there must be a price.’

I had been wearing the ring outside his house, I realized, when he had pushed me down with his foul boot. The ring had brought that upon me. For if he had tried to use a spell, it would have failed. With clenched fists, I watched my enemy admire my mother’s legacy, and wondered if the ring itself had betrayed me.

‘When I have killed your brother, and this gallant fool here, there will only be the Lady Elizabeth left to destroy. Oh, and your little friend, the Spaniard.’ Marcus lowered the ring, and looked at me gloatingly. ‘Though Señor de Castillo has returned to Spain for his wedding, I believe. Such a shame. I thought you two would make a match of it.’

He was laughing at me. Mocking my agony, my loss, my failure.

‘But you need not die,’ he said, his voice sharpening. ‘Leave these fools and come with me. I will teach you more than your mother’s spell book will ever do.’

My mother’s grimoire.
So he knew about that too?

He read my thought. ‘Yes, Cecilie saw everything at Hatfield, which means I know everything too. She is – or rather, was – a very talented seer. But sadly broken now. Past her prime. I would not want you to share her fate, Meg.’ His voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible over the lapping of water against the jetty. ‘Come with me and share my power instead. You will find me a generous and attentive master.’ He was almost hissing now, his eyes flickering with venom. ‘I shall not abandon you as
he
did.’

I understood at once what he was offering me, and the bile rose in my throat. My hand tightened on my wand and I saw his sharp blue gaze drawn to it, suddenly greedy, intent.

‘If you will not come with me, then you must give me your mother’s wand. I have the ring; now I want the wand. Come, Meg, don’t tempt me to drown your brother. The Thames runs deep and fast here. He would not stand a chance.’

He was still holding the ring; the ring that had belonged to my mother, and ought by rights to belong to me.

‘Last time of asking, Meg. You will not join me in power?’

I shook my head, contempt in my face.

His mouth tightened, and I caught a flicker of frustration in his eyes. Not as confident as he wished to appear, perhaps. ‘Then it is time for me to kill your brother, just as I killed your aunt. I expect he will die screaming too.’

Bitter fury exploded in me at this mockery, laughing at my aunt’s cruel death. How dared he?

‘
Desiste!
’ I shouted, putting all my anger and hatred and despair behind the spell.

To my astonishment, a crack of lightning seemed to leap from my wand, striking Marcus Dent full in the chest. Abruptly the spell was broken and William plunged with a hoarse cry into the river.

‘No!’ I spun, wand in hand, and used magick to drag him out of the rolling current, then flew him – dripping wet and gasping – onto the wooden jetty, where he collapsed, Robert Dudley kneeling swiftly beside him.

‘I will tend your brother,’ Robert said grimly, shaking his head when I ran forward, frantic to help. ‘You take care of the witchfinder. Look!’

I turned, following his gaze. On the very edge of the jetty Marcus was swaying, a dark figure against a dark river. For a moment he just stared at me, blue eyes stretched wide with pain.

‘Meg,’ he mouthed, his expression almost plaintive. Then his face shifted, rapidly changing, his skin pale and coarse, and suddenly it was as though a cover had been pulled away to reveal a cage of freakish horrors within. As his control slipped, the blind eye grew white and dead again, and the scars once more gleamed cruelly in the moonlight.

His lips drew back in a grimace of surprise and Marcus fell backwards into the river, the
Invictus
ring tumbling from his relaxed fingers. His body hit the water with a loud splash, then there was no sound but the river rolling by.

He was gone. And so was my mother’s ring.

Robert Dudley ran forward at once, staring down into the black current.

William was still lying face-down on the jetty. Throwing myself to my knees beside him, I shook him. None too gently either, for I was terrified of losing him too.

‘Speak to me, Will!’

My brother started to choke as I shook him, then suddenly rolled over, still spluttering, a trail of green weed on his face, his eyes bloodshot. Foul river water drained out of the corner of his mouth. He coughed, trying to spit out the last of it. ‘M . . . Meg?’ He struggled to sit up, still coughing, but I restrained him. ‘Where is Dent?’

‘Half a mile or so downstream by now, I would say.’ Robert Dudley had come up behind us. He sheathed his sword, his voice calm. ‘The current is flowing quickly tonight, and when a man is dead, he travels fast.’

‘Dead?’ I stared up at Robert Dudley, feeling numb.

‘I saw his face as he fell. Whatever you did to him, his heart had stopped beating before he went into the river, I would swear it.’ Robert raised his brows at my expression. ‘That was your intention, was it not?’

I took William’s hand and squeezed it, so thankful that he was still alive I could not get everything clear in my head. Had I intended to kill Marcus Dent tonight? I had yelled ‘
Desiste!
’ which meant ‘Stop!’ in Latin, and hit my enemy in the chest.

And his heart had stopped.

‘But he had the ring,’ I whispered.

‘Holding it, not wearing it.’ Dudley crouched beside us. ‘Perhaps the witchfinder did not understand that it would only protect him when it was on his finger.’