“Noah? Lord Jesus, Noah, what do you here?”
“May I sit on the bed for a while, John?”
He sat up, propping the pillows behind his back. “What do you want?”
Ah, how sad. Just those four short words. What do you want? Well, what I wanted would hurt him immeasurably, and I could hardly bear to do it.
I sat down. I drew in a deep breath, took one of his hands, and rested it on my belly. “I am carrying a child,” I said, and then regretted the words the instant I saw the look of wonder and hope in his eyes.
His hand tightened about my belly, and he leaned closer to me. “My child?” he said, and although he had phrased it as a question, I knew it wasn’t. John truly thought that this was his baby—and what else should he have thought?
“No,” I whispered, then winced as he flinched back from me, his hand snatched back as if it had been touching evil.
“Who else have you been whoring with?”
“I’m sorry, John. I—”
He had started to cry, and nothing could have made me feel worse. “What have I done to you, Noah, that you should treat me this way? What have I done, that I must be punished by your presence here, resting my hand on your belly, and saying you carry another man’s baby? My God, Noah…” His voice broke, and now I also began to weep. “My God, I had wanted you to be my wife.”
Suddenly wild hope shone from his eyes. “Is that what you want? A husband, to save you from the shame of a lover who has deserted you?”
“No, John,” I whispered.
“Then what do you want?” he said, his voice horribly hard. He used one of his hands, which shook badly, to dash away the tears from his cheeks. “What do you want?”
I raised the hand in which I held the letter. “I need you to help me send this to…to…” Gods, how to say it?
“To the child’s father?”
I nodded miserably.
He gave a hollow laugh, riddled with anguish. “Send it yourself. If you could find him well enough to get that baby in you, then you can find the wherewithal to send him this hateful piece of correspondence!”
“He is out of my reach, now. John…John, he is in Antwerp.”
There was a silence. Then: “At King Charles’ court?”
I nodded. No need to make it any worse for him with added information.
“Who?” he snarled. “Who?”
“It does not matter,” I said.
“It matters to me!”
“A man who I love more than life itself.”
That broke his anger, finally. He gave a harsh sob, and turned his face away from me.
“I do not know the means to get correspondence to Charles’ court,” I hurried on. “In Cromwell’s Commonwealth it is death to send it publicly. But I know the earl has contacts with the court, and I thought you might know how…” I drifted off. John was no fool. He would know what I meant.
There was a far longer silence than previously.
“Will you allow me to help you?” he said, eventually, and I knew he meant far more than the letter.
I nodded.
He reached out and took the letter from me, holding it between forefinger and thumb as if it were Pilate’s death warrant for Christ.
“I will not read it,” he said.
“I know that,” I said.
He put it to one side, then he shifted forward in the bed, wrapped his arms about me, and rested his face in the hollow of my neck and shoulder.
I could feel his tears wet upon my skin.
“I will never stop loving you,” he whispered.
“I know.”
One of his hands crept around to my belly. “How I wish this were my child.”
“I know.” My tears were flowing again. Gods, I hated hurting this man!
“If it helps,” he said, a terrible hope in his voice, “I can tell the Bedfords that this is my child. Once they discover you’re with child, they will ask you to leave.”
“No,” I said. I needed to stop this now. He wanted to claim the child, knowing the earl and countess would force me to marry him. “No, John. We will not say this is your child. I will face them myself, and I will not mention your name. This is my burden, my child, and I will carry all responsibility for it.”
“Whatever you want from me,” he whispered, “ask. I will give you anything you ask for.”
“I will,” I said. “I promise.”
We sat in silence for a while, then he sighed softly.
“I hope this child is everything you want it to be,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, “she will be. I have wanted this daughter…oh, for so long.”
“Daughter? You know it is a daughter?”
How to explain? I hesitated, then decided to speak as much of the truth as I could. John deserved that much, at least. “I carried a child many years ago, John. When I was seven months pregnant, a woman who wished me much harm forced the child from me, and murdered her. This child is my daughter reconceived, a second chance for her to live, and for me to love her.”
Again, a period of quiet before John spoke. “A child you carried many years ago? How can this be? You were a virgin when first we bedded. My God, you were thirteen when you came to Woburn Abbey. When did you manage a child?”
How could I explain that to him? Once more, I spoke the truth. “I lost my daughter in a life I lived many, many years past. This child’s father…I loved him then, too.”
John was still upset enough that he ignored the reference to a past life. “Then what have I ever been to you, Noah, if all this time at Woburn you have been doing nothing but pining for this lover and, apparently, his daughter?”
“You have been my lifeblood, John,” I said. Then I rose, kissed him once, gently, on the mouth, and left.
The imp sat with the girl, his finger tracing a painfully slow path through the labyrinthine tangle of red wool before him.
To one side sat his brother, his wrinkled blackened face bright with hope that his sibling might succeed where he had failed.
But the second imp had no more luck than the first, and, after this, his thirty-third attempt to reach the outer gate of the labyrinth of red wool stretched between the girl’s hands, he snatched his hand away and spat on the floor.
The girl, unperturbed, raised her eyebrow in that peculiarly mature expression of hers.
“You admit defeat?” she asked the imp sitting before her.
To the other side, the already vanquished imp sighed in resignation.
“Aye,” muttered the imp sitting before the girl. “I suppose I do.”
“This means I have bested the both of you, and that therefore you must do as I say. Yes?”
Silence.
“Yes?” she said, her tone more insistent.
“Yes,” both imps mumbled.
She laughed again, the sound chilling. “Good! But no need for such long faces. I have a proposition for you. One sure to please.”
Part Three
CATLING
London, 1939
They drove northwards towards Epping Forest for only a few minutes before Piper’s sedan made an unexpected turn to the left.
“Where’s she going?” Frank said, leaning even closer to his steering wheel and peering ahead. “The woman’s addled!”
Skelton sat up straighter in his seat, a newly lit cigarette burning unnoticed in his right hand. “This isn’t the road?”
“No. No.” Frank leaned the heel of his left hand on the horn, giving it three long blasts.
In front of them, the man in the back seat of the sedan, “the Spiv”, raised a hand and gave a nonchalant wave.
Follow us, Jack. There’s something I want to show you.
“Just follow him, Frank,” Skelton said quietly.
“What? I mean…sir? The Old Man expects us to report for lunch, and—”
“Just follow him, Frank!”
Frank scowled, but he did as Skelton ordered.
Piper pulled her se
dan to a halt by the side of a small hill not five minutes later. The area was completely built-up—nondescript brick houses lined streets to either side of the hill, which was fenced off with six-foot-high iron railings.
As Frank pulled in behind the black sedan, its passenger door opened and a figure in an expensive civilian suit climbed out. He paused, leaning down and speaking to Piper, waving her back into her seat.
Then he stood up and, without looking behind him, strolled towards the iron railings, studying the hill, his hands in the pockets of his trousers.
“Stay here, Frank,” Skelton said, then climbed out of the car, shutting the door gently behind him.
He looked to where “the Spiv” stood, waiting for him, and felt a shiver go down his spine.
He knew who he was.
Skelton took a deep breath, and walked forwards, clasping then unclasping his hands as he went.
He walked up to the man, then looked up at the hill. “What is it?” Skelton said.
The man turned his head to look at Skelton. He had a strong, angular, attractive face under well-cut fair hair and carried himself with a dapper air, as if he was at home among the upper-class salons of London society.
“Don’t you know what this hill is, Skelton?” the man said.
“No, Weyland,” said Skelton. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Weyland Orr gave a half smile. “Light me one of your smokes, old chap, and I will.”
One
Idol Lane, London
Jane worked silently in the kitchen as she prepared the evening meal. Every so often she paused to rub at either one of her legs or her forehead. Both legs and head ached abominably. In the past six months her pox had become infinitely worse. Large sores covered her forehead and cheekbones, fermenting, laying open her flesh to the bone, and weeping foul fluids constantly. The pain of the sores was made much worse by the terrible aches in her lower spine and legs: her bones suppurated as vigorously as did her outer flesh. The flesh over her thigh bones was now hard and reddened and extremely painful to the touch; Jane was terrified that soon lesions would open up there too, great abscesses which would ooze right down to the bone.
Jane spent a great deal of her time either weeping, or wishing she were dead. Anything, to escape this horror.
There was a step in the doorway which led to the parlour, and Jane turned around slowly.
Elizabeth stood there, her face drawn and weary. “Do you need any help, Jane?” she asked. “You have finished for the day?” Elizabeth’s mouth twisted. “There are no more men waiting.”
There was such quiet resignation in Elizabeth’s voice that Jane felt a moment of sympathy. She liked Elizabeth, for the girl never averted her gaze from Jane’s ruined face, nor regarded her with disdain. Elizabeth did not try to avoid Jane, nor did she try to curry favour with her.
She regarded Jane with what Jane had, eventually, and very surprisingly, recognised as a respectful friendship.
“Leave, Elizabeth,” Jane said. “There is no need for you to stay the rest of the day.”
“Weyland will not want me to go so early.”
“I will tell him I sent you back to the tavern cellar. That you were ill. Go now. There is no need for you to…” Jane stopped, unable to complete the sentence. There is no need for you to suffer as I do.
Elizabeth nodded, hesitated, then walked over to Jane and gave her a quick kiss on her cheek. “Thank you,” she said, and then she was gone.
Jane stood motionless for a long time after Elizabeth had left, stunned at the simple gesture of affection.
Weyland returned within the hour.
“Where’s Elizabeth?” he said as he sat himself down at the table. “I saw Frances cleaning the stairs, but no sign of the other.”
“I sent her home. Her head ached, and her back.”
He grunted.
Jane looked at him in surprise. She had expected far worse of Weyland than a mere grunt.
But then Weyland had been distracted and distant ever since Midsummer’s Day. Despite finding Brutus-reborn still in Antwerp, the day’s events had patently unsettled him.
Due to the suffering she’d received at Weyland’s hands during that day, Jane herself remembered little save for snatches of extraordinary vision. Brutus and Cornelia (and she dressed as the Mistress of the Labyrinth, as if she had already taken over that office), kissing, making love. Brutus-reborn, throwing a forest into Weyland’s face.
A tiny girl, playing with imps.
Imps? There was another besides hers?
“It’s time,” Weyland said, fairly softly. “His thirtieth year approaches.”
“Time for what?”
“Time for Charles to get his throne back, I think.”
Jane’s breath caught a moment in her chest. “Time to bring Brutus back?”
Weyland said nothing, not even acknowledging her question with his eyes.
“But you’re afraid of him!”
He roared to his feet, and struck her the terrible blow she’d been expecting ever since she’d sent Elizabeth home.
“I am not afraid of him!”
You’re terrified of him! But Jane kept her shoulders bowed, her face averted, and Weyland returned to his seat at the table.
“I have a means of controlling him,” he said.
“Cornelia-reborn,” Jane murmured, shuffling closer to the hearth.
“Yes. Noah Banks now. Living a life of luxury at Woburn Abbey. Well, I hope she enjoys it while she may.”
It took Jane a moment to realise what Weyland meant. “You’re going to bring her here?”
“Aye. And Charles will do anything to keep her safe.”
“How do you think you can control Cornelia…Noah?”
“Have I never told you? I put an imp in her, too, in our last lives.”
Jane gaped, and for a moment she could not speak. In the name of heaven…that is why she’d seen two imps in her visions! “Why? Why? Why torment her as you have me?”
“Because I want the Game, Jane, and Noah is going to give it to me.”
“You want her to find the bands for you.”
Weyland regarded her thoughtfully. “Aye. And I want you to teach her the ways of the labyrinth.”
Jane went cold. Her death lay revealed in that simple sentence. That Weyland might want Noah before he wanted her did not surprise Jane (in all of their lives, everyone seemed to want Noah before Jane). That he wanted Jane to teach Noah the ways of the labyrinth, and to induct her into the mysteries of the Mistress of the Labyrinth did not surprise her. Jane wasn’t even shocked by the idea that Weyland might kill her once he had what he wanted in Noah. What did stun Jane was that she should care so much about death.
She didn’t want to die. Even after all these years of torment and humiliation, she didn’t want to die.
“Of course, I’ll let you go once I have what I need in Noah,” said Weyland, still watching Jane carefully.
Jane swallowed, her mouth so dry she was unable to speak. Of course he would not. She was dead the instant Noah passed the Great Ordeal in the Great Founding Labyrinth.
She blinked, and became aware that Weyland was grinning at her.
Bastard! He undoubtedly knew every thought that was screaming through her head. She spun around, pretending to concentrate on the pot hanging over the hearth.
“Can’t you wait,” said Weyland softly behind her, “to see Noah in my arms? To hear her scream? To know that she shall suffer the same agony which has tormented you all these years?”
Strangely, Jane felt no satisfaction at the thought.
The pox, she decided, must have finally eaten its way through to her brain.
Two
Hoogstraeten, on the border of the Netherlands
The letter reached Charles when he was surrounded by a room full of people: Sir Edward Hyde; Louis de Silva; several chaplains, courtiers and sundry servants.
The sealed letter was one of only several that had made their way
to Charles from his land of birth that day, and it was the last that Charles had picked up. He broke the seal, paying the letter little mind as he laughed at some jest one of the courtiers made, then cast his eyes quickly over the contents.
He went still, horribly still, and his face paled.
“Majesty?” Hyde said, bending close.
Charles laid the letter against his chest so that Hyde could not read its contents.
“A sudden indisposition,” Charles said. “No more.”
“Do you need—” Hyde began.
“Some quiet, I think,” Charles said, and Hyde obediently turned and began to usher people from the royal presence.
“Louis, if you will…” Charles murmured, and Louis halted just inside the door, waited until Hyde had closed it behind himself, then walked back to Charles’ side.
“What is it?” Louis’ voice was tense.
Charles at first made no response, save to more diligently read the letter, then he handed it to Louis.
He noted without surprise the horror that spread across Louis’ face as he read.
“She’s carrying a child,” Louis whispered.
“We must act now,” said Charles. “To allow her to fall into Weyland’s hands while pregnant, or with a child in her arms…”
“Aye,” said Louis. The letter trembled a little in his hand, and he was about to speak again when the door to the chamber opened and closed. Both men jumped, but they relaxed as they saw Marguerite hurrying towards them.
“I heard…” she said, then her eyes fell on the letter in Louis’ hand, and she all but snatched it from him.
Her reaction was very different to that of the two men. A broad smile broke out across her face as she read the letter.
“How she must be pleased!” she said as, finally, she gave the letter back to Charles.
“Pleased?” Louis said. “That child…and the imp…and soon…”
“Weyland,” Charles said.
“The child will be a great comfort to her,” said Marguerite. “And what did you expect? Going to her and loving her? It is the way children are made.”