Caress of a Witch, page 10
part #1 of Darkness Rising - Three Series
Bankside had changed. The long row of whitewashed brothels that once faced the water had given way to more sombre colours, and the painted signs that used to beckon so brightly to those who came to seek their pleasure by boat had long since disappeared. Apparently the Puritans had done their work well, though she guessed the old trade had simply learned to be more discreet. It would take more than Puritans to bring it to an end – men would always find a way to seek their pleasure and there would always be women with few choices in life but to offer it.
Mary ran her gaze along the row, remembering. The Castle on the Hoop, The Little Rose, The Cock, The Unicorn, The Flower de Lyce, all so vivid in her memory, had given way to chandlers’ shops and a ropemaker, a pie shop, a cooper, and what looked to be warehouses. A few of the old places had remained as taverns and inns and she smiled to see the Cardinal’s Cap amongst them. A rusty sign swung in the morning breeze, creaking gently as it always had. She had grown up within those walls, become a woman, and it was at the Cardinal’s Cap that she had first met Toby. For a moment she hesitated, fearful of what might wait behind its door, but she had not come so far to give up now, so with a deep breath and a tilt of her shoulders, she set her steps towards it.
The door opened with a shove, and she halted a moment on the threshold to let her eyes adjust to the gloom after the brightness of the morning outside. When her vision had settled she saw the place had barely changed after all – a shabby alehouse with scattered tables and chairs, and an unmade fire that was grey and cold in the hearth. It was early yet and there were no customers, but the wooden staircase still led up to the passage and the rooms where the girls used to do their business. Did they still? Or had the Puritans rendered it a respectable house these days? She gave herself a wry smile: it was hard to imagine that Bankside could ever be restored to virtue.
Beyond the stairs a counter had replaced the hatch where they used to fetch the ale, and it was littered now with empty jugs and cups. Old habits flickered in her fingertips – the madam would not have permitted such a mess in her day. No one had slept till the place was clean, no matter the hour.
She stepped forward and brought her fingers to rest on a table by the window. Toby had sat there once and watched her, she recalled, waiting for her attention. It seemed like only yesterday. Taking her hand from the table, she held it in the other as though nursing the memory within it, then with a surge of determination she wove her way between the chairs and tables towards the apartment at the back where the madam had lived.
Stopping at the door, she paused briefly, hand lifted ready to knock, memories rising. So many times she had stood here, and the same slight rush of nerves whispered over her skin that she had always felt before this door, summoned to her mistress. With a smile to her old self, so long ago discarded, she brought her knuckles to the wood and rapped hard. The knock was loud in the quiet passage but nothing seemed to stir beyond the door, so she rapped again, harder this time, fist thumping.
She waited. Finally, she heard the scuff of feet and stepped back, nervous now of who might be about to stand before her. Then the door opened a fraction and a woman’s face, bleary with sleep, appeared in the gap.
‘Who is it?’ the woman said. ‘Who is there?’
‘My name is Mary Sparrow,’ she replied, using her old name by instinct, stepping back into the person she used to be, ‘and I come as an old friend.’
The door opened wider and the woman stepped forward. She was loosely wrapped in a brightly coloured robe, her hair messed and awry. Her eyes were puffy with sleep but there was no mistaking it was Rosalind.
‘Mary? Mary Sparrow?’
‘You called me to come,’ Mary said. ‘I dreamt of you.’
Rosalind’s face creased into a smile and within a moment the two women were embracing, holding each other tightly. Tears pricked in Mary’s eyes – she had never thought to see her friend again, and though she had journeyed here on the hope of her dream, doubts had torn many times at her certainty.
Rosalind took her hand and they went together into the room behind the door. Mary’s gaze flicked over the walls – the same exotic wall hangings that she remembered, though they were faded now and shabby, and the same cushions that had once been bright and cheerful seemed only to serve as a reminder of better times. But she was overjoyed to see her friend, and she took a seat on the bed.
‘May I stay here?’ Mary asked. ‘I’ve nowhere else to go.’
‘Of course,’ Rosalind answered. ‘And there’s work if you need it. There’s always work, no matter how hard the Puritans try to reform us.’
Mary nodded but said nothing. She would work if she had to, but not before. Lifting her eyes, she examined her friend. The years had not been kind – the thick dark hair that had been Rosalind’s pride and joy was streaked with bands of grey, and her body was puffy with fat. But the eyes were bright with life, and a seeming wisdom within them that was new to Mary.
‘I’m looking for my daughter,’ Mary said. ‘Kate.’
Rosalind drew her robe tighter around her. She nodded towards the fireplace. ‘’Tis cold,’ she said. ‘The girl doesn’t light the fires till later.’
‘I’ve been walking,’ Mary replied. ‘I am warm enough. But I would take some food – I’ve not eaten in a while.’
Rosalind got up from her chair and went to the door. Mary heard her slippers as they scuffed along the hallway towards the kitchens at the back and followed her friend in her head. Every detail was clear in her memory – the passage, the crooked door, the scrubbed table where she used to sit to take her meals – and she was troubled to realise the overwhelming sense inside her now was that she was home where she belonged.
She ate the bread and butter and ale that Rosalind brought. Good English bread, softer than its Dutch counterpart – she had forgotten how much she once missed it. Rosalind sat on the bed and watched her, and there was a quiet companionship between them, an affection that ran far deeper than words. They had grown to womanhood together and been the best of friends till Alexander had come amongst them, leaving a trail of hurt in his wake.
‘He’s back,’ Rosalind said, as though she had read Mary’s thoughts.
Mary lowered the hunk of bread in her hand back to the plate.
‘He can’t be,’ she replied. She had killed him herself, and watched the blood drain out of him. His cold dead eyes had followed her in her dreams for years.
‘He’s here, close by, somewhere,’ Rosalind insisted, voice low and tremulous. ‘I can feel it.’ She slid her eyes away to gaze at the unlit fire, unwilling to meet the question in Mary’s look.
Mary took another mouthful of bread, chewing slowly, thinking. Then she said, ‘What happened that night? What did he do to you?’ When he had left Rosalind terrified and trembling, she meant, and robbed of her wits. Even now, all these years later, her friend still carried the taint of it, a fearfulness – the vivacious girl Mary had loved had gone for good that night, replaced by a shade of the woman she had been.
‘He sent me to a shadow realm, a darkness,’ Rosalind whispered, with her eyes still focused on the cold ashes in the hearth.
She had never once said the words before, though Mary had asked her again and again in the months that had followed. Mary waited for more, holding her breath. But Rosalind was silent and in the quiet, she heard the noise of movement on the floorboards of the chamber above – one of the girls moving to and fro with quick, light footsteps that still carried through the ancient timbers.
‘And now?’ Mary said when it became clear her friend would say no more.
‘Be careful,’ Rosalind replied. ‘He wants revenge.’
Mary swallowed, fear prickling over her skin. She had not thought to face the sorcerer again. She had thought that battle was over. And now she was alone, without Toby to help her.
‘And Kate? My daughter?’
Rosalind shook her head. ‘I have no connection to Kate. But perhaps …’ She trailed off.
‘Perhaps what?’ Again, she waited for Rosalind to speak, hopeful for any scrap of word about her daughter, but again, Rosalind said nothing. Silencing her frustration with a deep breath, calling on all her reserves of patience, she turned away instead and loosened the laces of her bodice at her front.
Rosalind stared as Mary drew out the book.
‘I need you to keep this for me. Somewhere hidden, somewhere safe.’ Her eyes tracked the walls. This had been the madam’s chamber once, and she knew for sure there must be some clever place for concealment, a secret pocket beneath the floor perhaps, or a hidey-hole in the wall.
‘I don’t want that here,’ Rosalind said, still staring. ‘It was his, wasn’t it? The sorcerer’s?’
‘Yes,’ Mary admitted with a small nod, ‘and it would be safer hidden with you than with me.’
Rosalind sucked in a quick gasp of air and lifted her eyes to meet Mary’s. They were wild with terror.
‘I have nowhere else,’ Mary breathed. ‘No one else I can trust.’ She held the book in her hand – small and inert, it was all but impossible to believe the power it contained. But she understood her friend’s reluctance nonetheless. ‘On its own,’ she said, ‘it’s quite harmless.’
Rosalind said nothing, and for a long moment Mary feared she had asked too much. Then, with a sigh, Rosalind got up from the bed, squatted down and rolled back the threadbare rug. Mary watched, peering at the uneven floorboards as Rosalind reached for the knife beneath her pillow, slid the blade into one of the joins and lifted the board from its place. Beneath was a spacious cavity where Mary could see other neatly wrapped packages; briefly, she wondered what other treasures Rosalind was keeping safe, and for whom.
She held out the book but Rosalind shook her head. ‘You do it. I’m not touching it.’
Mary dropped to her knees before the opening and tucked the book neatly along one edge. It fitted perfectly. Then she took the wooden board and fitted it back into place.
‘Will he come for it?’ Rosalind asked, still kneeling.
Mary swallowed as she lifted herself back and away. ‘He’s dead,’ she replied.
But a new doubt had begun to gnaw at her certainty, and the words sounded hollow even to her.
11
If this be magic, let it be an art lawful as eating
‘We must call upon the Shadow, to connect to the witches of the past.’
Isabella was slowly pacing the length of the attic and Kate watched from her place at the desk. The room was warm with a good fire burning in the hearth, and they had dined well on sweetly herbed pigeons and rice boiled in cream. The rich French wine still sang in her head, and she was comfortable and drowsy.
They had spent the afternoon in study, and she had learned how to cast a circle and call to the guardians; the fundamentals of the correspondences; a witch’s tools – a knife, a chalice, candles – white for purity, red for the blood of life. They had spoken too of demons and sigils and the planets, and most of all they had talked of Hecate, Guardian of the Crossroads and Keeper of the Keys.
‘We must raise the spirits of your ancestors to inherit the knowledge that has gone before.’
Kate was silent, and the presence of Tom Wynter flickered at the edges of her thought. A sign, perhaps?
‘Are you willing?’ Isabella swung from the hearth where she had stopped her pacing, and fixed her pupil with eyes that flashed green, catlike, in the flickering light. Kate had to hold her nerve against it – she felt exposed and unready beneath its glare.
‘Of course,’ she said. Fear chased away all thoughts of warmth and comfort, and the sleepiness of the wine was forgotten as her heartbeat quickened with excitement, new knowledge beckoning. An unexpected power seemed to pulse in her veins. She would have gone with anyone who offered her this, she realised, need rising inside her.
‘I am willing.’
The lane was tar-black when they stepped through the door, and Isabella’s torch seemed barely to pierce it, giving just enough light for them to find the road before their feet. Kate cast a look skyward. There was no moon, no stars, and the heavens were full and low above the rooftops.
They went south, away from the river, and Kate was aware of its flow at her back. Her mother had sometimes spoken of the Thames with a wistfulness that had made Kate roll her eyes – who could be so sentimental about a waterway? But now she was beginning to understand. The river was the sacred centre of it all and the life at its edge was precarious and raw. Did Father Thames still watch over it? Did he still inhabit the deeps? As a child, her father had told her stories of water nymphs and goddesses and the magic of the moon-led tide – she wished now she had listened more closely.
In the black and wretched lanes they were wary, senses alert, ears tuned for closing footsteps, a man’s whisper, the rustle of a cloak. But her fear of the dangers of the night could not dampen the brightness of her spirit. Her soul was open to all that was around her, influences seen and unseen, and there was a power in the very earth she walked across. She had never felt so alive.
They emerged from the maze unscathed onto the High Street, which was lively with folk spilling in and out of the taverns and eateries. Torches blazed at the doorways of the houses and shops in between, and she picked out the lane beside the inn where she had turned to chance upon the graveyard. What power had drawn her there, when so many other roads had beckoned?
She kept close to Isabella, unsure where they were headed. She had received no answers to her earlier questions, and for now she chose to set her mistrust aside, following her mistress with a willing and curious heart. But she was conscious of the eyes that tracked them as they walked. Idle men, deep in their cups, and no less dangerous than the lanes they had just left behind. Slowly the bustle around them began to dwindle as the road led away from the bridge. They passed houses where chinks of light showed at the edges of curtains, and Kate’s fears began to turn inside her again, stirring a disquiet about what the night ahead might hold.
Finally, the road tapered to a track, the mud frozen and rutted underfoot, and the torch became their only light as the fields and heathland stretched away on either side of them, lively with the rustle and calls of creatures of the night. A fox barked, and from somewhere close by the sudden croak of a toad made Kate flinch in startlement.
The road seemed long, but after a time she began to sense the forest that loomed up ahead of them, her senses alive to the snap of twigs and the play of air amongst bare branches, the hoot of an owl. When, finally, they reached the line of trees that marked the woodland’s border, she stopped mid-stride to gaze up at the great branches that towered into the sky, bowing above her head. A hornbeam, perhaps, or an oak? In the dark it was hard to tell, and the torch offered little help as Isabella stepped under the canopy. But in the heartbeat before Kate hurried to follow, she had the surest feeling she had been here before. Running a few strides to catch up with the light, her fears seemed to fall away. Somehow, the place was known to her, and the path was unexpectedly familiar. She was meant to be here, she knew, and when a fallow deer bellowed in the distance she wanted to laugh as her own spirit rose in answer.
They followed the path for a while, winding deeper into the woods until the other woman stopped so abruptly that Kate almost tripped in surprise. Isabella turned slowly, holding the torch high so that the shadows flickered into the branches overhead.
‘Here,’ she said, and her voice sounded strange in the silence, out of place. ‘At the crossroads.’
Kate lowered her eyes to the earth at their feet. They had halted where the track split into two separate ways that wove deeper into the forest ahead. In her mind’s eye she followed them and the same lingering sense of familiarity touched her once more. Shaking her head in confusion, she knelt to unpack the little basket they had brought while Isabella began to pace out a circle. One by one, Kate laid out all they needed neatly on the cold dark earth.
Blankets.
A chalice, a knife, candles.
A flask of wine.
Incense of pine and mugwort.
Charcoal.
‘I call on the guardian of the East – may we partake in the mysteries of the air!’
Isabella’s voice rang loud in the silent dark as she called to the guardians of the quarters for protection, dipping the torch as she did so to light each of the candles Kate had set out.
‘I call on the guardian of the South – may we partake in the mysteries of the fire!’
The flames seemed to rise and flare in answer to the summons, and heat stirred in Kate’s blood. She stood up.
‘I call on the guardian of the West – may we partake in the mysteries of the water!’
She became aware of Tom’s spirit somewhere close by, guiding and protecting her. Was it his memory of this place she had glimpsed? His knowledge that filled her now?
‘I call on the guardian of the North – may we partake in the mysteries of the earth!’
With the circle complete, Kate felt again the same stirring of connection she had known at the graveyard and it filled her as a surge of power through her veins, her whole body vibrating with energy and power. Until now she had doubted, still half expecting to discover that the promised witchblood was a lie and there was no such thing as the Shadow. But as she wheeled slowly to dip her head and acknowledge each guardian spirit in turn, their presence was undeniable – each one felt, seen, and heard. All her doubts faded into the ether as her own spirit awoke, and she moved as if in a dream, conscious thought suspended.
In the centre of the circle, she lit the remaining candles, and their flames flickered bravely against the dark. Remembering all Isabella had taught her and the preparations they had made, she began to strip down to her shift, shivering as the night air whispered through the linen. Winding a blanket across her shoulders she knelt. Then she watched as Isabella, too, undressed and knelt beside her. In the faint candlelight, lithe limbs gleamed pale beneath the flimsy fabric, muscles taut and boyish. For the length of a heartbeat, Kate was distracted, but there was no conflict within her – the nascent desire she felt for Isabella was at one with the rise of her spirit and the surge of connection in her blood. She barely noticed the cold.
