But she had to be a widow, free to wed, free to rule. And she had to break all ties with her past, sever all claims upon her father's kingdom. So she had left Thalia. She had abandoned her small daughter. My heart, Sycorax had called her. Then she left Thalia for another heart. A false one.
The door opened behind her and she turned, her face expressionless. She still wore the dress of her people: a simple white gown, a band of gold around each arm, her honey-colored hair woven in a braided crown around her head. She knew it irritated her husband, but she could not yet bring herself to wear the heavy dark clothing of his court.
Alonso stood impassively for a moment, his dark eyes impossible to read, his own face a mask of calm. As always there was something about the tilt of his head and the directness of his gaze that made her think of a wild hawk. He was fierce. She had known it from the first moment, seen his strength even in her divinings, even as he kneeled in bloody rags before her father's throne. It was what made her love him.
And he loved me too
, she reminded herself. She was sure of it. She remembered how their passion had gripped them both with its sudden force.
He told me that I amazed him
, she thought.
He said that I was his lioness
.
Well, he was the lion. This was a land of fiery men and shadow-women. And so here he was again, come to school her in the ways of his people. “Cast your eyes down.” Was she never to meet the gaze of anyone? “Don't stride across the room.” Even her manner of walking offended his court. “A woman must be meek. The queen must be the best of all women.” So she, the lioness, was to become the mouse.
She was tired of these lessons, but she listened and nodded. She must try to adapt her ways.
Will there be anything left of me?
she wondered. And then what he was saying next stopped all other thoughts.
“You must not speak in council. It is strange enough that I allow you there at all. It will take them time to grow accustomed just to your presence. When you speak out as you did today, it troubles them. They are not used to hearing the thoughts of women on such matters. They cannot hear what you say, they can only wonder that I let you speak at all. You must share your thoughts only with me, in private.”
“But surely we should begin as we mean to go on. They will be used to hearing my thoughts soon enough, as you are.”
His gaze shifted, slid away to the window. “It is better my way,” he said. “If you cannot be silent you must stay away from council altogether.”
That made her silent indeed.
The door shut soundlessly behind Sycorax. She stood against the cool stone of the wall for a moment, making sure that she had not been followed. It was a clear moonlit night. She'd have to take great care not to be seen. She drew the hood of her black cloak closer, clutching it at the neck as she quickly muttered the words of a concealment spell. It would protect her from those who looked down from above. Satisfied, she stole across the small side garden and out the final door in the wall. The guard posted there did not even glance her way as the door opened and shut.
Quickly, she was within the outskirts of the wood, the trees whispering their welcome. She had always been well served by the trees. In a short time she came to the clearing. Here was the magic circle where the moon shone directly upon a large flat white rock. She had seen this place from one of the high towers. Certainly her husband would never agree to her roaming about in the forest. He knew only too well the strength she could find here.
Stone power. That was what she needed right now. The power to withstand her enemies in the court. She must become a fortress.
Because she had many enemies now. It had not taken long for the secrets of her marriage to become common knowledge. And as soon as it was known that Alonso did not love her, that he also found her foreign ways alarming and strange, the dance of the courtiers began. They tried to win his favor by insulting her. He did not protect her. His sense of obligation had diminished. Soon it would be gone altogether. And now that he was surrounded and rooted in his own place of power, he did not fear her as he had.
She stripped off her cloak and knelt on the rock. Wearing only a thin, white gown, her flesh puckered immediately in the chilly night air. She drew the small flint dagger from her belt, intending to lift it to the moon and begin the slow, harsh song of the stone spell. But she paused, then froze.
She had been followed. Sycorax could sense him somewhere in the shadows. Her nostrils flared, testing the wind. There. He was crouched low beneath the fir tree. One of her husband's men, probably a soldier. She knew that he would not be open to bribery.
Her mind raced, but she kept her body still, calm. She must disguise her purpose, make her kneeling here on the ceremonial rock seem innocent. Fortunately, she had not begun the rites. Ideas tumbled through her mind like pebbles in a stream, until one shone clear. She tucked the knife back into her belt, then lowered her face into her hands and began to sob.
It was not hard to cry. She had been holding back tears for so long that they were grateful for a chance to flow. She wept for her child, her father, for her lost land, for the life she would have had, for the life she'd dreamed of, and for the work of her own foolish hand in all her troubles.
It worked. She felt the soldier draw back, hesitate. She sensed his shame. He had followed a woman to catch her committing a crime, and instead he had to witness her loneliness and sorrow. Even so, he did not leave. That annoyed her, for it meant that she would have to go back to her rooms with the rites undone. Who knew when she would get another chance, especially now that her stone had been discovered. But there was no help for it. Though inwardly she seethed, outwardly she kept the ruse of a fragile and broken woman. She wrapped her cloak around herself and stole back to the castle, pausing every now and then to sigh and weep some more. The shadow was behind her the whole way.
Back in her chambers Sycorax paced angrily. She was in danger now, that much was clear. Her husband hoped to free himself of his foreign wife. He needed only to catch her performing her outlawed magic and he would have his reason. The queen could not be a witch.
She clenched the fabric of her skirt in rage. The banning of magic had been a master stroke of his, without a doubt. She had sat beside him, mute and powerless, while he persuaded the council that the use of magic, which had enslaved his own royal person, must be considered a grievous crime. They had agreed readily, their eyes gleaming and victorious in the glances they stole at her from beneath lowered lids. And she had been allowed to do nothing more than vent her fury at him in private, reminding him that it was magic that had saved his royal life, her magic, and that she was the only one who would suffer from their law.
Which, of course, was the reason for the law.
Not that Alonso admitted the truth. He had been sympathetic, of course, but determined. “You have no need for your magic here,” he had told her. “Here you need to concern yourself only with matters befitting a royal wife.”
She had been silenced then, as she had been so many times before. Alonso meant to take every last shred of power she had, meant to leave her a hollow husk that he could blow away with the breath of a single word. She had been a fool to think that she could control him.
Now he was coming here. She was not surprised. His man must have reported to him, and he had come to satisfy his curiosity, to determine the truth himself. She allowed herself one whispered curse, then sat on her favorite chair. There she leaned back as though she were too weak to support herself. She slowed her breathing and willed herself to look pale.
He was here, beside her, without even knocking. She startled, only some of it feigned.
“I heard you were poorly,” he said, his eyes capturing hers.
She pretended confusion. “I am well,” she replied, falteringly.
“Hmmph.” He was not convinced; she saw that clearly. “I had you followed,” he said.
So, it was to be open combat, then. She relished this.
The blood rose in her cheeks. “You did what?” she said.
He waved a hand at her. “You acted your part very well. My man is convinced that you are nothing more than a woman distraught and alone.”
“And so I am,” she pointed out.
Alonso flapped a hand at her again. “You're as alone as a shark in the sea,” he said, “and about as dangerous.”
“Dangerous!” she snorted derisively. “How am I dangerous? I have no allies here to defend me, I cannot even speak in public, and now I am forbidden to practice my craft, even privately!”
“Craft! I have seen what your âcraft' is, and what it can do. And don't make claims upon my obligation again,” he said, lifting his hand as she opened her mouth to protest. “You have sung that song enough. It was your magic that snared me in the first place.”
“Snared you! Poor fellow, what aid could you call upon â other than your army of three thousand men, that is.” She turned from him and walked to the window, gripping the sill with both hands, her breathing ragged. He had guessed the truth.
But he paused his attack. She had scored a hit herself, and he had enough grace not to force the point. But that grace only extended so far. He would have his way.
“We must resolve this,” he said at last. “I offer you a small estate in Carthage. It has belonged to my family for over a hundred years. It's yours, where you may live out your life in dignity and in the manner you choose. You must only promise me that you will not practice your art against my interests. What do you say to this?”
Banished. To some forgotten place in barren Carthage, the mausoleum of the world. It was fitting, perhaps; a once great city for a once great queen. She gripped the sill of the window even harder, till her fingers were white and the knuckles stood out like jagged stones. Was this the best that her power could do?
“And you?” she asked.
“Me?” His voice was neutral, guarded. He knew what she meant.
“Will you marry again, perhaps make a queen of that pale-faced girl who smiles so much at our table?”
He was silent. It was a direct hit.
“I have a state to run,” he said at last. “For its stability, I must have heirs, heirs who are respected as legitimate.”
Not the offspring of a foreign enemy, a traitorous queen. Not a witch's spawn.
“I will go,” she said. “Make your arrangements.”
To his credit, Alonso said nothing as he left.
She was troubled. Her maids had begun to look at her strangely, casting knowing glances at her belly. The secret could not be kept much longer. Sycorax did not like to think what would happen then. She was supposed to leave within the fortnight, as soon as the ship was ready and the rains had stopped.
She stood by the window now, watching the rain, her arms wrapped protectively around her waist. If she had been any other queen, the arrival of a child would have secured her position. This baby would do nothing for her but endanger her life.
She'd been foolish, madly foolish, not to have destroyed it a month ago when she'd first made the discovery. She knew the herbs that would deliver a woman from her trouble. Instead, she had clung to the small life. It was hers. It was all she had. And now it might prove to be the death of her.
Alonso would never tolerate it, not even if it was a girl. There was no way he would allow her to have any claims on his throne and power. Her only hope was to hide the pregnancy until she was safely settled in Carthage. Once she was there she could practice her art and defend both herself and her child.
Sycorax tightened her grip around her waist. Two weeks was not a long time to conceal matters, but her body had already begun to thicken. Her maids would notice any binding and guess the cause. She would have to risk a spell.
She twitched her shoulders, trying to shake away her fears. Alonso had grown sensitive to her magic. He said he could smell it on her.
But it was not really fear of her husband that kept her from her craft. It was the fact that she had to fear him because her powers were weakening. She'd pulled from earth and moon, fire and stone, and she still didn't have the strength to shield herself. For the first time in her life, she was nothing much more than a common woman.
Sycorax twitched her shoulders again. The king never came to see her now. The king. When was the moment when Alonso had stopped being her husband? What had been the final break? Her maids were happy to let her know that he was often in the company of the pale lady. She was a quiet, graceful creature. She'd make a perfect queen. Her children would be welcomed. Joyfully.
Well, there was nothing she could do about that. She turned her thoughts back to the spells she could work. There were only a few that didn't require material elements for the casting. She could put a confusion spell on the maids, make them forget their suspicions about her. But such spells were tricky to control. They might all start blundering about, unable to remember where the clean linen was stored. It would take very little to convince people that she was doing magic. They'd burn her without a qualm.
Or it would have no effect at all. She began to shiver, though she had neither chills nor fever. She was afraid.
“I am afraid.”
She said the words aloud. They were ridiculous, preposterous. How could she be afraid of anything, anyone? That she had come to this! Powerless, alone, fearing â
fearing!
â for her very life. The foreign emotion was quickly overwhelmed by a more familiar fury.
She began to break things. A wine glass, a chair. She tore a tapestry hanging on her wall to shreds. She ripped the wedding ring from her finger and threw it into the fire. She commanded the blaze to melt it. The flames rose briefly, then died back to a pale splutter. Her pitiful weakness was never more obvious. She raged and wept and slashed a painting of her husband's grandmother with a shard of broken glass.