The Midnight Witch (20 page)

“Ouch!” he cries, clutching dramatically at his heart. “You have a vicious streak in you, Lilith Montgomery.”

“You mean I choose not to simper at you, unlike most of the women you surround yourself with.”

He smiles again, his best, most winning smile, and reaches for my hand across the table. “Surely that is the privilege of a fiancée. Anyhow, I’d rather suffer cruelty from you than any amount of simpering from someone else. And besides, it’s fortunate I thought to drop in tonight, or that heavenly dress would have gone unseen.”

“Perhaps,” I say coolly, slowly withdrawing my hand. “Or perhaps I would have worn it anyway.”

“At home with your mother?”

“Or out with somebody else.”

“Somebody who?”

“Oh, Louis, don’t tell me your little spies haven’t informed you of my every move since Father died?”

“Spies? Lilith, my darling girl, now you have lost me.”

I think about taking the subject further. I have noticed the movements in the shadows. My guardians have alerted me to uninvited presences, too, on several occasions. I had not planned to question Louis about it, and slip the reference in to our light conversation only to see how he will react. But I have learned nothing. He is too accomplished at masking his true reactions for me to be able to tell if he genuinely does not know what I am talking about. In fact, I suspect it is his father who set his minions to keeping an eye on me. And the earl of Winchester is not the sort of man who feels the need to keep his son informed of all his actions. I let the matter drop and make some flippant comment about it being more likely Mama is making sure I do not socialize with anyone beneath the rank of viscount, which makes Louis laugh.

He is good company, and I find myself relaxing with him for once. Somehow, now that we are on our own—save for the discreet footman who waits upon us—away from the somewhat overbearing wishes of my mother, and removed from the business of the coven, he is simply Louis: a person I have known most of my life. Someone who knows me better than even Charlotte. Someone who understands me in ways that a non-witch never could. The thought leads me to Bram. A sadness grips me, surprising me in its strength. How can I be so affected by the mere thought of a man I have known such a short time, a man hopelessly outside my social circle, and a man who is not a witch? But already I know the answer. Even Charlotte has noticed how I alter in his company, how I look forward to our visits to the studio. After all, hadn’t my extravagance at Edith Morell’s shop been really, truly, about him? And when I recall how I felt when he held me I know I have never, and will never, feel the same in Louis’s arms.

“Lilith?”

I realize Louis is talking to me.

“I’m sorry, “I say. “I am rather tired tonight. Not very good company.”

“Just then you looked as if you were somewhere else entirely.”

“Did I?”

“Something is troubling you. What is it? You know I’ll help if I can,” he says, and I believe he means it.

“Oh, I’ve a lot to think about at the moment, that’s all. You know how things are, trying to get Freddie to stay at Radnor Hall, Mama still not herself, my position … elsewhere,” I add, glancing at the footman, who gives the impression of being made of stone, but is no doubt taking in every word.

Louis nods. “You will do marvelously well, I know you will.”

“Time will tell, Louis,” I reply. “Time will tell.”

*   *   *

Nicholas Stricklend watches the retreating figure of Fordingbridge as he backs out of the room, shutting the door behind him. The day has been a long and testing one, taken up largely with trivial matters that are the everyday business of Whitehall, and they have tried Stricklend’s patience. He crosses the room to the cabinet against the far wall, takes out a bottle of Armagnac, and pours himself a generous measure. Returning to his chair he sits and ruminates upon what being a Sentinel has meant to him. What it has won him. And what it has cost him.

Stricklend’s childhood had followed a course traditional to many, in that he had been sent away to a prestigious boarding school at the age of seven. He had not found it easy to make friends, for he had no charm, no natural warmth, and no desire to ingratiate himself with boys he saw as almost always inferior to himself. He had shown some talent for boxing and for cricket, so that he had at least earned a grudging respect from his fellow pupils, if not their affection. He had also excelled at his studies, so that the masters viewed him as a satisfactory if rather unlikable student. He had kept to himself and eschewed clubs and social events wherever possible. It had seemed to him, he recalled, that he had in this way arrived at a method of making his school life tolerable, and he had hoped to move steadily toward achieving excellent passes in his exams and going on to university without mishap. But small boys grow into bigger boys, and these, he remembered with no small amount of bitterness, were less willing to accommodate someone who did not conform.

He had been thirteen the first time he had been singled out and set upon. Returning to the dormitory from the library late one evening he became aware he was being followed. He was not afraid; he knew his skills as a boxer, his height, and his strength would mean he could equip himself well in a fight if the need arose. What he did not, at that moment, understand, was that his persecutors were not so reckless as to risk personal injury. They had contrived to have about them a gang of followers, each more eager than the next to prove themselves to their leader. They pinned him to the ground, kneeling on his arms and holding his feet while blow after blow fell about his stomach, his face, his head. Then, when he was bleeding and dazed, they dragged him by his ankles the entire length of the corridor. He can still recall the feel of the boards beneath him as he was hauled along, his back snagging on a nail that was ever so slightly proud, causing a deep tear in his flesh and leaving a scar he carries still. They took him outside. It was December, and the ground was hard, the night clear, the mercury low. He was manhandled to his feet and bound to the leafless magnolia tree in the center of the quad. Stricklend had struggled against his bonds, but to no avail. The ringleader was called Hilton, a thickset boy with an unfortunately broad face and a prodigious growth of bristle on his chin. He leaned in close.

“Think you’re better than the rest of us, don’t you, Stricklend? Well, guess what? You’re not, see? Nothing special about you. No reason to give yourself airs. No title. No family to speak of. Precious little money. You come from nothing, and you’ll go right back there when you leave this place, so you can just stop looking down that hoity-toity nose of yours at the rest of us. Hear me?”

Stricklend fought to open his eyes properly, but blood was congealing on the lids. He felt a loose tooth beneath his tongue. Tasted blood in his mouth. Felt pain in his stomach. From somewhere dark and distant he retrieved his voice.

“Hilton,” he said, “do you know how incredibly ugly you are?”

The older boy scowled. He hesitated for only a moment before drawing back his fist and bringing it forward with angry force into Stricklend’s face. Into the still of the night came the unmistakable sound of bone splintering. One of the more delicate boys vomited copiously onto his own feet.

“Not so pretty yourself, now, are you?” Hilton hissed into his ear before whistling at his troops and leading them off at a run.

Once alone, a curious peace descended upon Stricklend. He felt himself starting to drift, floating downward, ever downward. The sound of approaching footsteps halted his descent. Through one half-opened eye he saw what appeared to be a giant crow looming over him, its wings by its sides, its bright eyes peering at him in the moonlight. The crow shook its head and then untied the rope that held him to the tree. He fell forward and was caught not by some freakishly large feathered being, but by the strong arms of the junior Latin master, Mr. Reginald Ellis. Stricklend felt himself lifted and held tight, the master’s gown wrapped about him. He was aware he was being carried into the school, but not, as he had expected, toward the dormitory, or to Matron’s room to have his wounds tended. Instead Mr. Ellis took him up the narrow, winding stairs that led to his own quarters. Even in his confused condition Stricklend knew this was strange. Masters were forbidden to take pupils to their rooms. Lurid tales of teachers leaving under clouds of suspicion were well known in every school. Was that to be his fate now? he wondered. Was he to be taken advantage of? Defiled? After all that he had already endured?

Mr. Ellis sat him down in an armchair near the hearth and set about stoking up the fire. He fetched water and cloths and bathed Stricklend’s wounds with detached care, rather than any prurient interest. He did so in silence, so that the only sounds in the small attic room were Stricklend’s own occasional protestations of pain, and logs crackling in the fire. At last the blood was washed from his face and head, and soothing ointment had been applied to his many cuts and bruises. The Latin master stood back to contemplate the boy before him.

“Well, Stricklend, you are quite a mess, aren’t you? Those cuts shouldn’t scar too badly, but that nose of yours … hmm. Did a good job, whoever hit you. No”—he raised a hand—“I’d really rather you didn’t name him. Though I can understand you wanting to. In fact, I’d wager you’d like to break his nose, too, wouldn’t you?”

Stricklend nodded, painfully.

“Quite so. But you are unlikely to get the chance, I’d say, given the blindly loyal foot soldiers he no doubt surrounds himself with. No, I’m afraid you’re not going to be allowed the satisfaction of using your boxing skills on the boy. Unjust, I know, but there it is.”

Stricklend turned his head to stare into the flames. The truth of what Mr. Ellis was saying was every bit as painful as his injuries.

The Latin master sat down in the winged chair opposite and regarded Stricklend with his head to one side, as if weighing him up.

“You are a bright boy. Consistently top of your year. Should make Cambridge for mathematics, if that’s what you want. Pity to see such intelligence treated so very badly.” He leaned forward, fixing Stricklend with a bright-eyed gaze. “What if there
was
a way, another way, of getting your own back? Of teaching all those foolish thugs a lesson. Of ensuring that they never put a finger on you, so that your time here at Winthrop will pass smoothly and without fear of any such incident ever occurring again. What would you say, Stricklend? Might that be of interest to you, hmm?”

Stricklend forced himself to sit up a little straighter to show he was listening.

Mr. Ellis smiled. “I have noticed how you strive for perfection, Stricklend. How excellence is both your spur and your goal. I admire that. I know there are some who consider you … aloof. Never mind them. Let those who value popularity and the approval of their peers continue on their merry way. You, Stricklend, my boy,
you
have it in you to be something quite … different.”

Now, as Stricklend sits in his prestigious office, sipping his expensive brandy, certain of his place in the world and his purpose in it, he still feels the importance of that moment in shaping his life. It was, it seems, destined that he should have been cast out and ridiculed in order to gain entry into an altogether more desirable society. He had, not surprisingly, never heard of the Sentinels. Never, previously, seen anything remarkable about the young teacher who had drilled him and the rest of his class in Latin verbs and challenged them to decline the same over and over, regardless of the hour or the wit of the boys, until they were word perfect. That pursuit of perfection should have alerted him to something, he now thinks. But how could he ever have imagined such things as Ellis was to teach him? How could he ever have dreamed of the power, and the purity of the power, that was to be given him by being taken into their fold?

He runs a finger down the line of his nose, tracing the kink where the bone had set askew and inflicted a lasting flaw in his own perfection, leaving him with a permanent memento of the beating that altered both his face and his future that night.

He stands and walks to the window. In the fading light of the late afternoon, the crowds below in Trafalgar Square exclaim at the prettiness of the fountains, throw food to the nodding pigeons, gaze up at the lofty statue of Nelson, or allow their children to scramble over the great lions at its base. He finds that their seeming ignorance of what is taking place in the world about them—their apparent carefree attitude, their ability to amuse themselves so simply when the order of things is about to come crashing down about their ears—he finds it builds within him a contempt for the masses. Pondering this thought, he admits to himself that, aside from the grudging respect he afforded his father, the only person he ever regarded with anything approaching warm affection was his tutor and mentor, the man who instructed him in the craft and skills of the Sentinels, that same young Latin master who had tended his wounds all those years ago and recognized something special in him, Mr. Reginald Ellis. Ellis had given generously of his time in training Stricklend. Over the remainder of his years at the school the two had met most nights, when all others were slumbering in their dormitories. Ellis had instructed his eager pupil in the history and knowledge of the Sentinels. He had coaxed from him the energy and strength that he had first noticed, along with the boy’s keen intelligence and ability to focus, which so suited him to the art of sorcery. In Stricklend he found a student untroubled by conscience or favor, and one who quickly recognized the beauty of power, the purity of it. Stricklend had learned the Sentinels’ belief that sorcerers and necromancers are made, not born, and that it is their unquestioning allegiance to the group that gives them their strength. He was told of the injustice that had brought about the downfall, centuries ago, when the Lazarus Coven, jealous of the Sentinels’ talents and power, had taken the Elixir and the Great Secret from them, under guise of protecting it, and claiming to be the only possible moral guardians of such dangerous magic. Stricklend soon came to see that regaining what was rightfully theirs was imperative for the society. As he progressed in his schooling, and as his natural flair for the tasks presented to him became obvious, he knew that he himself would be instrumental, after so many generations of waiting and hoping, in reclaiming the Elixir.