Darkwitch Rising (32 page)

Slowly the stranger’s grip loosened on Thornton’s arm. He nodded to himself, as if satisfied, then turned back to Noah. “You shall tell her that Mistress Thanet sent for a physician.”

“Yes,” said Thornton.

The stranger stood a moment, looking down on Noah. “She is very beautiful.”

“Yes,” said Thornton, and something in his tone made the stranger turn and look at him with pity.

“You love her,” he said.

Thornton sighed. “It will murder me, this love.”

“Oh,” said the stranger, “not you.” He bent down to Noah, and slowly uncovered her shoulders and back.

“She does not wake,” murmured the stranger.

“She has drunk of buttered beer,” said Thornton. “Infused with elm bark.”

Again the stranger turned to smile at Thornton. “Buttered beer? It is my favourite.”

Once more he bent to Noah, and now he carefully lifted away from her back the linen shirt that Thornton had laid there.

His face went very still at the sight of the terrible wounds. They had clotted, but still gaped, and the flesh surrounding them was swollen and hard.

“They are very terrible,” said the stranger.

“You said you were a physician. You said you could aid her.”

“And so I shall.” The stranger sat on the bed by Noah and, very gently, laid his hands against her back.

Noah murmured softly in her sleep, but did not otherwise move.

“I am sorry,” the man whispered, so softly that Thornton only barely caught the words, and then the stranger’s hands began to rub, very gently, up and down Noah’s back.

Thornton watched them, only mildly curious at this strange action. The stranger’s hands were very beautiful. They were large, yet elegant, with square palms and long, sensitive fingers. Thornton relaxed still further. They were the hands of a physician. There could be no doubt.

The stranger kept moving his hands, slowly, gently. As they moved, so the wounds closed over. The flesh was still red and swollen, but the angriness had subsided, and Thornton could see that even the swelling would subside within a few days.

“You have a remarkable skill,” Thornton said.

The stranger’s mouth twisted. “So I have been told.” He paused, then lifted his hands away from Noah. For a long moment he sat there, staring at her, then as gently as he had pulled them down, he lifted the bed covers over Noah’s back and shoulders, then stood up.

“Tell no one I have been here, and tell Noah only what I have told you.”

“That you are a physician, sent by Mistress Thanet.”

The man’s eyes gleamed with humour. “Aye. A physician with
uncommon
skill.”

“A physician with
uncommon
skill,” Thornton repeated obediently.

The stranger stepped very close. “Tell me, Reverend Thornton, does she bring you bliss in your bedding? Is she…delectable?”

Thornton’s eyes filled with tears. “She makes the land to rise up and greet me,” he said, and at that the stranger’s face hardened, his eyes went flat and emotionless, and then, abruptly, he was gone, and Thornton was left standing alone by the bed.

L
ong Tom walked into the cavernous main hall of the Guildhall, his steps soft and almost unheard in the empty, dim interior. He moved slowly down the open space of the hall towards a balcony at its western end.

Some six paces before the balcony he stopped, and raised his eyes.

At either end of the balcony, standing on worn, ancient stones, were two remarkable carved wooden figures of some eight feet in height, and over five in girth. Each wore a suit of chain mail, each clasped a weapon in its hand (one a spear, and the other a great sword), each had wild hair escaping from under the helmets and full beards that partially hid the statues’ faces.

Each was something other than what it appeared.

They were Gog and Magog, the legendary protectors of London, and the stones the wooden figures stood on were the ancient stones of Gog and Magog which once had stood on the northern side of London Bridge.

Long Tom bowed deeply, then spoke. “Greetings, brothers.”

The wooden statues shifted, moved slightly, and then gained life.

“He has—” Long Tom began, but the creature who bore the name Magog interrupted.

“We know. We felt him arrive.”

“He thinks to intercept Eaving as she goes to Asterion,” Long Tom said.

Gog sighed. “We can understand his concern.”

“He cannot be allowed to succeed,” said Long Tom. “She
must
go to Asterion. It is her price, and, besides—”

“Besides,” said Magog, “there is much for her to accomplish in his vile little dwelling.”

“What do you need us to do?” said Gog, and Long Tom stepped forward, and spoke to them for long minutes.

Jane had managed to find an almost comfortable space on her pallet, the warmth from the hearth beating sympathetically over her battered and bruised body, when she heard Weyland’s footsteps on the stairs.

“No,” she whispered. “Please, gods, no…”

She had time for no more thought, for Weyland strode into the kitchen, leaned down to Jane, and buried a vicious fist into her hair.

“
He
is here!” he said. “Brutus-reborn! I can
smell
him! I leave this house for a moment, and
this
! Ah!”

“I—”

“Up, bitch, and tell me what you know!”

Jane screeched as he hauled on her hair, and she somehow managed to find her way to her feet.

“I know nothing,” she said. “I have no—”

“You have a connection to him through those damned bands,” Weyland said. “You have a connection to him through your role as Mistress of the Labyrinth at his side. You
must
know if he is here…
and
where!”

The only answer he received was a black stare of hatred.

“No answer forthcoming?” said Weyland. “Then allow me to force it out of you, my dear.”

Once more his hand tightened within Jane’s hair, but this time the fingertips became as if molten lead, and they sank into Jane’s skull, burning through skin and bone.

“Take me to him!” Weyland commanded, and Jane, rent with agony, did so, her senses following the path left by the scent of the kingship bands which always trailed behind Brutus-reborn.

The scene was extraordinary. The harbour of The Hague was lined with tens of thousands of people, most of whom carried torches
.

The harbour was alive with light, with sound, and with movement. The people cheered, raising their torches on high, staring out into the harbour where rode a magnificent fleet of ships. Many of these ships were firing their guns in a ragged, chaotic salute, the smoke and noise adding to the confusion and the gaiety
.

“See!” hissed Jane, and the vision changed slightly.

Now they were aboard a ship, the
Royal Charles,
and there stood Charles himself, Catharine of Braganza at his side, smiling and waving at the crowds
.

Charles turned to Sir Edward Montagu, commander of the fleet sent by Parliament to bring home their king, and he said, “Even though my feet do not yet touch the land of England, still nevertheless they touch home, standing as I do on England’s timbers
.”

“
That
is what you smell!” hissed Jane, keeping hold of consciousness with the greatest of effort. “He stands with his feet on England’s timbers, as if he stands on England itself. He
is
home, even if he has not yet alighted on England’s shores.”

Weyland grunted and, with a wrench, threw Jane back to her pallet.

She gave a loud cry, her hands buried in her bloodied hair.

Weyland stood there for a while, his head down as if he stared at her, but with his eyes unfocussed. Then, after some five minutes, he turned and left the room.

He stood just inside the Idyll, the door swinging softly shut behind him, thinking.

Was that why he could sense Brutus-reborn so strongly? Because he was so close to home? So close that he
was
metaphorically home now his feet had stepped on to the
Royal Charles
?

Or was it because Brutus-reborn had actually set foot on England’s turf?

He wondered.

After a moment, his thoughts turned to Noah, and to the pain he had caused her this day.

He remembered how she had tasted, when he had kissed her outside her house in Woburn village.

How he had looked into her eyes and seen, not a terrified woman, but an equal.

He thought of her back, raked bloody by the imp.

He closed his eyes and, instead of dwelling on what
had
happened, thought only of what
would
happen, when Noah was here, in his house in Idol Lane.

When she was here, he wouldn’t have to hurt her.

When she was here…

He opened his eyes again, his thoughts all on Noah. He had entirely forgotten about Brutus.

W
hen I woke it was to discover that my flesh ached much less than I had anticipated, and that I could move more freely.

And that was as well, for I knew I could not linger here another day.

I could not survive another attack. I saw John watching me. “I feel well,” I said. “Do not fret.”

“I have been worried,” said John, and I could see that in his face, as well as in the rough edge to his voice.

This is why I needed to walk away from you, John
…But, oh, if he had not been here with me. If Catling and I had been sheltering out the storm in some dismal tavern…

If Weyland had struck on the open road.

The “ifs” were too terrible to contemplate. I swear I have never been so grateful to have the company of a human being as I was for the company of John.

“Where is Catling?” I said, trying to inject some maternal concern into my voice.

“I sent her to sleep,” said Thornton. “She was worried for you.”

Worried? No, surely not. Concerned, maybe, but I doubt that worry came into it at all.

“Tell me,” I said, taking his hand as he sat by me on the bed, “how is it my back has healed so cleanly? The wounds are stiff, and ache, but they do not pain me greatly. Why is this so, John?”

“A physician came. Mistress Thanet sent him.”

I frowned. “A physician? An uncommonly good one, then.”

“Yes.”

Something in John’s face worried me. A flatness, both to his features and to his voice.

“What was his name?”

“I cannot remember. I was concerned for you, and that filled my thoughts.”

Perhaps, but strange nonetheless. I knew John’s intellectual capacity intimately; that he should not remember a name was highly unusual. “Describe this man to me,” I said.

John thought. “Well,” he said eventually, “he was tall, and pleasant enough. He had keen eyes, and…ah, I cannot remember.”

Tall, pleasant enough, and with keen eyes. It was not a description I could use to pick someone out from a crowd.

A horrible thought suddenly occurred to me. “John! Mistress Thanet thought only that I had a headache. What will she think now, when the physician tells her that he cured not my painful brow, but my mauled back?”

“Do not worry. He came so late at night that I doubt he went from this bedchamber to discuss the details of your condition with Leila.”

“But…” There were too many buts. Leila Thanet had sent for a physician but had not accompanied him into the chamber, at the very least to introduce him to John. And all this had occurred in the middle of the
night. Leila Thanet may well have sent a servant riding for the physician if she thought there was some life-threatening emergency, but for all she knew I had only a painful headache.

And this strange, secretive physician with keen eyes had healed my back. At best, physicians soothed. They did not heal open and deep wounds. Not overnight.

Who?

I lay back thinking, and after only a moment the answer came to me. It must have been one of the Sidlesaghes, or even Charles, come from so far away in spirit.
He
would have been secretive, for he would not have wanted Weyland to know of his presence. I relaxed, relieved.

“There was one thing,” John said.

“Yes?”

He coloured slightly. “He asked if you brought me bliss in bed. He asked if you were, ahem, delectable.”

I stared.
That
surely was no question a Sidlesaghe would ask, and I could not imagine Charles asking it, either. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine
who
could have asked such an intimacy. “And what did you say?”

“I said you made the land to rise up and greet me.”

My throat choked with emotion and I had to swallow so that I might speak. “And he said?”

“He said nothing, but his eyes hardened, and he vanished.”

Not left. Vanished
. I was still worried about this stranger’s identity, but at least my fears regarding Leila Thanet knowing the true nature of my affliction eased. This was, most certainly,
not
someone Leila Thanet had summoned.

I smiled at John, and squeezed his hand. “What this physician did was as nothing to what
you
have
done for me over the past days and nights. If not for you…John, if not for you then I should be in despair. Despair cannot be healed as easily with power as can a few torn wounds. What you have done for me takes something far greater than the mere application of an unnatural power. I thank you.”

He gave a nod, and a small smile, but he did not say anything, and I knew he had wanted so much more from me.

In the morning we rose, dressed, breakfasted, then took our leave of the Thanets (most apparently completely unaware of the physician’s visit), and rode the fifteen miles or so south-east into London.

To Weyland Orr.

At one point, a mile or so south of Langley Hall, John reined the horse to a halt, and said to me, “Noah, is London the safest place for you? And this…this creature within you…dear God, beloved…how can I—”