The Huntress (15 page)

Meg studied Cat suspiciously as though unsure her interest was genuine. Whatever she saw in Cat’s face must have satisfied her because she said, “There is a great deal to admire about Her Majesty. She is so wise and accomplished. She can speak six different languages and she plays the lute and the virginal. When she was a girl, she barely managed to survive. She had so many enemies who wanted to destroy her and just as many who wanted to use her just like—like…”

“Like you?” Cat filled in.

Meg disappeared behind her book. Her voice dropped so low, Cat had to lean closer to hear.

“Queen Elizabeth also had a mother that everyone thought was evil and she can’t ever speak of her.”

“You can speak of your mother to me.”

“Papa wouldn’t like it.”

“Then it would have to be another one of our secrets.” Cat plucked the book from Meg’s hands and set it aside. “Your papa is a good man who only wants to protect you. But I don’t think he understands that if you keep some memories trapped in your heart too long, they can swell in importance, become darker and worse than they actually are.”

Meg swallowed hard, the girl’s huge green eyes hungering with the need to express thoughts she’d buried for so long. Still she hesitated before confessing, “Sometimes it feels like my heart is going to burst.”

“We would never want that to happen.” Cat touched the girl’s cheek. “So tell me about your maman.”

Meg lowered her gaze and curled her fingers into the bedclothes.

“I know that most everyone thinks my mother was truly wicked and she did do many evil things that I don’t even like to think about.” Meg’s lip quivered. “Anyone who ever opposed my mother just disappeared, like my first nurse, Mistress Waters. Maman destroyed her enemies, using the poisoned roses and the syringe described in the
Book of Shadows.
Things that I helped her to make.”

The girl’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I didn’t want to, but Maman could be terrifying when she was angry. She knew how to use her power to hurt me.

“She lost her eyesight when she was young, but it was the darkness in her heart that frightened me. She could see into a person’s soul with a touch of her hand. But she was never able to see me, never really touch me. All she saw was the Silver Rose.”

A wistful look crept into Meg’s eyes. “That was why it was so amazing when Papa found me. For the first time, I had someone who really saw me.

“But I don’t think he does anymore, only the lady he hopes I will become. Someone noble and gentle like Lady Danvers. I am not sure I can be that.”

“You are a daughter of the earth. You should not have to be anyone but yourself.” Cat rested her hand over Meg’s. The girl didn’t draw away, but she tensed beneath Cat’s touch.

“What if that means being someone truly evil? Maman said I was destined to become a sorceress so powerful, the entire world of men would tremble and bow down before me.”

“Your mother was wrong, Meg. Your destiny is in your own hands.”

The girl looked up at Cat, the longing in her eyes showing how desperately she wanted to believe that. She gave a sad shake of her head. “It was the great seer Nostradamus who told Maman about me.”

“That isn’t possible, sweetling. Nostradamus has been dead for years.”

“Maman raised his spirit. I watched her do it.”

Sweet heaven! Cat shuddered. Was there no end to the horrors Cassandra had inflicted upon this poor child?

“And if I am not destined to become this sorceress, why am I the only one who has ever been able to read and understand the
Book of Shadows
?” Meg asked.

Cat hesitated, hardly knowing how to answer. She was troubled by Meg’s uncanny ability, as were many other true daughters of the earth. But the girl looked so apprehensive herself, Cat squeezed her hand.

“It—it just means you are extraordinarily clever. But what you choose to do with that cleverness is entirely up to you. I know you would never want to harm anyone.”

“I already did,” Meg whispered, hanging her head. “I killed my mother.”

“Merciful heavens, child! Where did you ever get such a notion? Cassandra fell into the Seine and drowned. It was no fault of yours.”

Meg looked up at Cat with great haunted eyes. “Yes, it was. I—I wished her gone.”

The girl looked far too young, too fragile to be carrying such an enormous burden of guilt. Cat’s heart ached for her. Stroking her fingers back through Meg’s hair, she said, “Oh, Meg, no matter what you have been told, people don’t die from evil thoughts. If that were so, my own mother would have shriveled up and turned to dust.”

Meg tipped her head to one side, regarding Cat with wonderment. “You—you did not get on well with your mama either?”

“I was the bane of my mother’s existence. Irish ladies are supposed to be sweet of speech, skilled with the needle, and full of feminine wisdom. I could curse with all the fluency of my da, was far more adept at hunting than I was at sewing, and the only wisdom I possessed was the lore of the earth that I had learned from my old gran. My mother hated and feared all of the ancient learning, as did my stepfather. When he accused me of being a witch, she never said a word in my defense. She just turned away.”

Cat spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as though it were of no consequence, but the pain of her mother’s betrayal still rested heavy upon her heart. Meg curled her fingers around Cat’s.

“So your mother despised you for being a witch and my mother hated me because I was not enough of one. Isn’t that strange?”

“I suppose ’tis. But there comes a time when we must grow past the need for our mother’s love and approval.”

“When, Cat? How old do you have to be for that to happen?” Meg asked anxiously.

“I don’t know,” Cat admitted ruefully. “I’ll tell you when I get there. Now perhaps we had best be getting off to sleep.”

Meg nodded, nestling deeper under the covers. Cat blew out the candles. She readied herself for bed, stripping down to her chemise. As she was about to stretch out on the pallet, Meg called out.

“Cat?”

“Yes?”

“Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep. Not that I am afraid of the dark,” she added hastily. “It is just that some nights my head is too full and—and it would be nice if you rested on my bed beside me. Just for a while until I fall asleep. If—if you wouldn’t mind—”

“I wouldn’t mind at all.”

Cat groped her way to the bed, lying down beside Meg. The girl nestled closer by degrees until her head rested against Cat’s shoulder. Cat wrapped her arm about Meg, glad that the darkness concealed her worried expression.

What a confused girl Meg was, trying to sort out the tangled emotions about her mother, struggling with questions about her destiny and fears regarding her abilities that would have taxed a far older and wiser woman.

The child needed the guidance of a daughter of the earth like Ariane; if Cat could only persuade Martin of that.

As Cat stroked the girl’s back, she could feel the tension in her thin shoulder blades. “If you are worrying about the Dark Queen coming after you, don’t be. You have both me and your da to protect you.”

“I am more afraid of the sisterhood than I am of the Dark Queen. That they’ll find me and drag me back to France to be their Silver Rose.”

“I would die before I’d let that happen.”

Meg sucked in her breath. “Don’t say that, Cat, please. It—it is what my followers used to promise, to live and die for me.”

“I am not one of those daft women, Meg. I will be your
fianna.
”

“What is that?”

“The
fianna
were warriors of old in my country, the special protectors of the high kings.”

There was silence as Meg considered this. She murmured, “I would rather you would just be my friend.”

“I think I can manage that as well.” Cat brushed a kiss atop the girl’s head.

Meg sighed. Relaxing a little, she melted closer.

“Tell me more about the high kings.”

Cat smiled and began to speak of the high kings, the mighty Cuchulainn, Brian Boru, and the Red Branch knights, the same stories her father had spun out for her on many a starlit summer night. Taking comfort herself from the tales, Cat wove the old magic until both she and Meg fell asleep.

T
HE GOLDEN CROWN PRESSED DOWN UPON
M
EG
’
S HEAD, CUTTING
into her temple. The ermine robes weighted down her shoulders until she could scarce take a step. She struggled desperately to escape the hands that clutched at her, the sea of pleading eyes and whining voices. “Oh, great queen, restore my youth.”

“I beg you, mighty sorceress, smite the man who betrayed me.”

“Please, Your Grace. Raise my sister from the dead.”

Meg shoved their grasping hands away. She twisted in a frantic effort to escape, only to have her path blocked by another of her devotees kneeling before her.

The girl looked up at Meg, her bead-like eyes glistening with all the avidity of a hungry rat.

“See what I have done for you, Your Grace. I lay at your feet my sacrifice.”

She placed a small bundle in front of Meg and started to undo the wrappings.

“No, please,” Meg whispered.

The blanket fell away from the shriveled form of the dead infant. It stared up at Meg with hollow, accusing eyes. When Meg recoiled in horror, the girl cooed, “Nay, do not be distressed, my Silver Rose. It was only a worthless male babe.”

“No! No.” Meg shrank away, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I am not your Silver Rose. Leave me alone. All of you, just leave me alone!”

But as she stumbled back, a cold hand fell heavily upon her shoulder. Meg gazed fearfully up to find her mother looming over her. Cassandra’s long black hair was wet and tangled with reeds from the river, her lips blue, her white skin etched with veins. Her dark sightless eyes pierced Meg clean through.

“We will never leave you alone, Megaera,” Cassandra rasped. “Did you think to elude us so easily? You might have been able to deny me, wish me dead, but you will never be able to escape your destiny.”

“No,” Meg whimpered. She squirmed out of her mother’s grasp, fighting her way out of the darkness of her dream. Her eyes flew open and she gave a shuddering gasp, her first instinct to cry out for her papa. But she remembered that he had gone out, leaving her with…Cat.

Meg groped the mattress beside her and found it empty. Raising her head, she realized that Cat had moved to her pallet before the hearth. With the moonlight streaming in the window, she could just make out Cat’s slumbering form.

But either the woman was a light sleeper or Meg had cried out more loudly in the throes of her nightmare than she had realized.

Cat stirred, calling out sleepily, “Meg? Are you all right?”

No, Meg longed to sob and beg Cat to return to her bed and cradle her close again. But she was ashamed, feeling as though she had already behaved like enough of an infant for one night.

So she held herself very still, forcing herself to breathe regularly and feigning slumber until Cat rolled over and went back to sleep.

Realizing her face was damp with tears, Meg dashed them aside. She didn’t doubt that Cat would have been kind and consoling if Meg were to tell her about the dream. But Cat was so brave and bold, she could never be brought to understand.

“
Your destiny is in your own hands,
” she would insist.

How Meg wished she could believe that. But she feared that she would never be free of her nightmares unless she could find a way to peer into the future herself and see that her mother was wrong.

Shifting onto her other side, Meg squinted through the darkness toward the shadowy outline of the great dragon tapestry. The arras concealed the loose panel in the wall, Meg’s most secret hiding place.

She had lied to Cat, Meg thought with a twinge of guilt. Another legacy from Maman. Avoiding her mother’s constant probing, Meg had learned how to distort the truth and mask her emotions.

Although in this instance she had not so much lied to Cat as omitted telling her everything, Meg consoled herself. When she had described the encounter with Finette, Meg had neglected to mention that there was one other thing she had acquired from the demented woman besides the syringe.

The
Book of Shadows.

Tucked in its hiding place behind the arras, the ancient volume seemed to call to Meg, whispering of all its dread secrets for parting the veil between the living and the dead. If she could conjure up Nostradamus the way Maman used to do…

She recalled the ritual with the black candles, the ghostly face rising from the mists in the copper bowl, the sepulchral voice of the old man’s spirit, so angry at having his peace disturbed.

Meg trembled, knowing she lacked the courage to attempt such dark magic. At least not yet, when there was a less terrifying, less dangerous way of peering into her future if she was clever and skilled enough.

But she would require a certain object and for that she must rely upon the same person who had helped her before, procuring the materials she had needed for her spyglass. Not Aggie, as she had told Cat. That had been an outright lie. Meg winced, but her conscience was soothed as she thought of her particular secret friend, his voice and his face like those of an angel.