Witchrise (6 page)

‘I have never seen its like before,’ I murmured, then slipped it onto my finger.

‘Wait!’ Alejandro grabbed at my hand, removing the ring. He shook his head, his eyes very dark. ‘Do not put it on again,
mi querida
. You have no idea what may happen.’

Richard stirred. ‘For once I agree with your Spaniard. It could be dangerous to be too free with any of your mother’s possessions, in case there are malignant effects.’ He held out his hand.

Reluctantly, his jaw tight, Alejandro dropped the red-gold ring into Richard’s palm.

The young apprentice examined it carefully, eyes narrowed. ‘I will write and describe this ring to Master Dee. He may know its use.’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Alejandro growled. ‘You could put the entire household in danger by committing such information to a letter.’

‘I shall write my letter in code, as always.’ Richard was bristling with irritation, as so often when Alejandro was around. He handed me back the red-gold ring before turning to face Alejandro. ‘Very well, let us have this out. You have been spoiling for a fight for days. What is your problem, priest?’

‘You are my problem, apprentice.’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake, be quiet, both of you, before one of the servants comes to see what the noise is.’ I crouched again to the box, replacing the ring where I had found it, then hunting deeper inside. ‘I need help from you, not childish squabbling.’ I paused. ‘Look at this now, it must have been my mother’s athame.’

The sacred athame was the ceremonial knife of the witch. This one was older than Aunt Jane’s, the handle cracked and worn. It must have belonged to another witch before my mother, I realized. Perhaps my grandmother? My father had indicated that she too had been a witch, just as Aunt Jane had told me.

The blade looked wicked, glinting as I turned the knife over in the wintry sunlight. I felt the weight of it in my hand, then laid it aside to be examined later.

‘A knife I can understand. But what is
that
?’ William asked in surprise, peering into the box.

Poking out from under a roll of coarse black linen was a small metal bowl. I picked it up, frowning. The outside was dented and blackened as though by fire, but the inside was smooth and clear except for a few scratch marks which might have been made by a blade.

‘A cauldron,’ Richard informed him coolly.

‘So small?’

‘Easier to hide or carry. Hard to explain keeping a vast pan in your possession, unless you are travelling. This bowl would do for a simple spell, and rouse little suspicion if found on your person. Many witches use whatever is to hand in their own kitchens, I believe.’

Richard looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded silently, the hairs rising on the back of my neck as I cradled my mother’s cauldron in my arms, smoothing my hand over its dark, battered exterior. How strange and yet somehow comforting it would be to use magickal instruments which had once belonged to her, my long-dead mother.

Would my mother be there at my side while I scratched out the circle with her knife and incanted the sacred words over her bubbling cauldron? There was only one way to find out. I made a solemn vow that I would bring these forgotten objects back to their proper use at the first possible opportunity.

‘The same pot a woman uses for a stew will do as well for a cauldron,’ Richard continued, ‘and her sacred knife may be whatever is kept for boning meat. The spells will work as well, if not better, for the witch being so familiar with her instruments.’ He hesitated. ‘May I look?’ He was gesturing towards my mother’s casket.

‘There’s nothing much left,’ I told him, but moved aside. ‘Some sachets of dried herbs, almost turned to dust. Oh, and this must be a mandragora root!’ I lifted it out, a wizened cloven root, blackened with age, mostly used for dark magick or divination. Then I glanced back down. ‘What’s that?’

Richard leaned over and picked it up for me. A slender piece of wood, lovingly smoothed and shaped, but very old, oddly discoloured in places. He ran a finger experimentally along its length, his head cocked to one side, as though the bumps and nicks along the wood could reveal secrets.

I put down the mandrake, and Richard passed the shaped stick to me almost reverently. ‘A hazel wand. Careful, it has power.’

I felt it too, and drew in my breath, handling the wand with the same reverence, for my fingers had tingled as soon as I touched it.

So my mother had used a wand. Like my aunt, I had always used a knife for sacred rituals, and my hands and voice for spells. That was how I had been taught to work magick. But Aunt Jane had mentioned that some witches used wands, and found them more effective than an athame or hands alone.

With the slender hazel switch in my hand, I felt suddenly connected to everything, able to see and influence the very fabric of the world. It has to be an illusion, I thought, a little dazed by the power coming off it in waves and leaping up through my fingertips into my body.

I moved the wand from right to left, and it resisted slightly, as though the air itself had weight and substance, and was pushing back on it. I looked at Richard – knew he fully understood the power of a wand such as this – and he smiled back at me, a smile of complicity.

Alejandro was very still, watching us.

There was a haunted look in his eyes. Did he suspect I had fallen in love with Richard?

That would better explain why I was sending him away, after all – for Alejandro knew that I had the power to change my father’s mind in an instant. Easier to believe perhaps that my affections had been transferred to Richard than that we were not suited to wed.

I lowered the wand. ‘Alejandro . . .’

But Alejandro bowed, his face stiff. ‘Forgive me, I must go and speak with your father. He promised to loan me a horse for the journey back to Hatfield.’

Richard looked round at him, surprised. ‘You are leaving Lytton Park?’

‘My duty lies with
la princesa
,’ Alejandro explained tersely, not meeting my eyes. ‘I swore to protect and watch over her, and I have neglected my oath too long. So I must return to Hatfield. Perhaps tomorrow morning.’

So soon?

But of course it was for the best if he left swiftly. I could hardly complain when I had suggested such speed myself, using my father’s ultimatum to support my argument.

Richard was frowning. ‘Surely you are aware it’s not safe here, that Marcus Dent may come back in search of Meg at any moment?’

‘I have waited here a full month and Dent has not shown his face. Perhaps Master Dent is too weak for another confrontation. Once I am gone though, you can redouble your spells of protection. Keep Meg indoors and under guard at all times. You and William,’ and here he glanced at my brother, who was staring, as surprised as Richard by his sudden departure, ‘will keep her safe between you.’

‘And if we cannot?’ William asked, clearly alarmed by the prospect.

Alejandro took a deep breath and expelled it slowly, then fixed my brother with his darkest stare. ‘You will keep her safe,’ he said, his tone final.

Richard’s tone was scathing. ‘So you’re leaving us? Leaving Meg? Just like that?’

‘One of us must petition
la princesa
on Meg’s behalf so she may be allowed to return to Hatfield House,’ Alejandro pointed out, heading for the door. ‘Meg will be safer there against Marcus Dent, for he would surely not dare to attack the Lady Elizabeth, not when she is so close to the throne. Unless you would like to volunteer for the task of persuading her, apprentice? Or you, William?’

The room was silent.

‘I thought not,’ Alejandro commented, then looked back at me from the doorway.

‘Forgive me for not staying,’ he said softly, ‘but a magickal ring, your mother’s grimoire . . . I am not the right person to advise you on the use of such mystical objects. But perhaps Richard is. I hope you find the answers you seek,
mi querida
.’

And the door closed behind him.

The morning was still and milky, barely dawn, snow still scattered white across the frozen ground. To the far north the skies were still dark, the clouds looming, heavy with snow. It would be a cold day, I thought, and a bad night to come. Nevertheless, the road south should be passable, though by no means an easy ride.

In an old gown, wrapped in a shawl against the cold, I stood in the doorway and watched as Alejandro saddled his horse swiftly and skilfully.

He had slung his sword belt about his waist, his fine Spanish sword hanging by his side, and although the cloak looked vaguely clerical, his suit beneath fitted tightly, a doublet and worn black hose borrowed from my brother after his own had been damaged.

I was not surprised to see him dressed so plainly, however. Alejandro was part priest, part soldier, as the Holy Order of Santiago demanded, and he looked the part today.

Alejandro straightened from his task, carefully attached his pack to the saddle, then turned to face me. I saw the dread on his face, the reluctance to leave, and felt the same pain inside me.

‘I am ready,’ he muttered, and came to kiss me farewell.

It had been foolish of me to get up early to see him off. This was just another opportunity for us to hurt each other. I gazed up at him achingly, memorizing the stern line of his jaw, skin drawn tautly over his cheekbones as he stared back at me.

‘I do not want to leave, Meg.’ Alejandro cupped my cheek with a gloved hand, his eyes very dark.

‘I do not want you to go,’ I managed in a whisper. ‘But you must. The Lady Elizabeth needs you more than I. And my father will not allow you to stay any longer.’ I sighed. ‘I believe too that we both need time apart to think.’

The house behind us stood silent, the hallway empty. No one else had come downstairs. Most of my father’s servants were still asleep on this bitter, frosty morning, only the cook and his kitchen assistant awake at this hour, to heat the oven for the baking of today’s bread. Smoke from the kitchen chimney was wreathing a thin grey path through the frosty air, and I knew the whole household would be awake within an hour or two, with Alejandro already miles away.

‘Promise me you will not try to find Marcus Dent,’ I said suddenly, my breath steaming in the cold.

He was still touching my cheek. ‘I cannot promise that,
mi alma
,’ he said. ‘It is unfair to ask such a thing of me. I am still clinging to the hope that you will consent to be my wife one day, and that man is your enemy.’

‘But Marcus will kill you!’

‘Will he?’ His eyebrows rose and a dry smile played about his lips. ‘Is it so inconceivable that I might kill
him
, my love?’

I could not say yes. That would destroy him as surely as if I had plunged the sword into his body myself.

‘Marcus Dent is not like other men,’ I tried to explain, and found myself compromising under his narrowed stare. ‘Marcus is dangerous. You remember what my mother said. He has powers now that he didn’t have before. Promise me you won’t go looking for Marcus.’

‘Your protection is all that matters to me.’

‘Brave words.’ Terrified that he was indeed planning to hunt down the witchfinder, I let my temper slip. ‘But somewhat poorly thought out, Alejandro. After all, you can hardly protect me or the Lady Elizabeth if you are foolish enough to get yourself killed.’

I caught a flash of anger in his eyes.

His lips parted, sucking in a breath to tell me exactly what he thought of my opinion. Then his eyelids lowered to hide his expression, and he reined back whatever he had been planning to say, his shrug eloquent enough to express it without words.

I had wounded him. Yet still he refused to retaliate.

‘Perhaps we should leave it at that,
mi querida
,’ he murmured, and there was a hint of bitterness in the way he rolled that Spanish endearment off his tongue.

I suddenly wished I could unsay what had offended him. But it was done now, part of the pattern.

‘It is a long ride to Hatfield and well past dawn already,’ he continued. ‘My horse will be getting cold. I should be on my way.’

‘Please, don’t go on an argument,’ I entreated him. ‘Let us part as friends, at least.’

‘
Muy bien
,’ Alejandro agreed, unsmiling. ‘As friends.’

I stared back, thinking
kiss me, kiss me, kiss me
.

But a kiss would only make the inevitable pain worse. So I held back slightly, my expression saying
do not kiss me, please do not kiss me
, and he responded to my withdrawal with perfect stillness, as he always did.

‘God be with you, Meg Lytton,’ he murmured, and I thought that was it.

Then his hands dropped lightly to my shoulders as though he still planned to embrace me. I froze, barely daring to breathe. He held me for a long moment, his dark eyes searching my face. I could not tell what he was thinking, but I sensed his frustration, held tightly in check, and beneath that, some powerful emotion I could not place.

Suddenly he bent his head to kiss me.

I ought to have refused his kiss. But I was weak and a fool. I raised myself on tiptoe and our mouths met. Far too eagerly. We should never have touched, for that dangerous instant of contact unleashed feelings and desires that would have been better kept on a leash, controlled, hidden in the silences between us.

His arms came round me, pulling me compulsively against him, and I did not resist, lost in the moment.

He groaned my name, then buried his face in my throat. ‘This is madness.’

I could not disagree with
that
.

‘You are trembling. I have kept you outside too long.’ Slowly he released me, his eyes on mine. ‘Farewell,
mi amor
.’

Alejandro bowed, then turned swiftly to his horse. In a moment, he was mounted and riding away, straight-backed in the saddle, just as when I had first seen him at Woodstock, riding in armour across the sunlit grass.

I watched him canter neatly down the narrow, icy track until he was out of sight, then went inside and closed the door. The hall was dark and silent.

My lips still tingled from his kiss, my heart racing.