Witchfall (36 page)

I backed away until I was nearly at the edge of the tower. ‘I could just throw myself down. Save you the bother of cutting my head off.’

‘Your friend will not be free yet,’ he pointed out coldly, watching me. ‘And even if he is, a young Spaniard will be easy enough to track down and kill. Give me what I want and he will not be harmed. You have my word of honour on it, Meg.’

‘And what is it you want?’

He seemed to shudder, staring at me fixedly. ‘Your head.’

I had not wanted to show fear in front of Marcus Dent. He seemed to feed off fear, growing stronger as I grew
weaker. Even when I had thought him a mere witchfinder, not a magician in his own right with a hatred for witches, I had never shown him fear. But I put a hand instinctively to my throat, my eyes on the cruel axe in his hand.

Beheading. It was not a death I relished, not least because I had already been through one magickal beheading and knew the fear that accompanied such a death.

‘But
why
?’

‘If you know what the prophecy said, then you
know
why. That I would die at the hands of a witch who could summon a dead King.’ His one mocking blue eye glinted in the sunset. ‘That is you, Meg. Who else could it mean? I watched you for years as a girl, waited as you grew into womanhood, and wanted you for my own. I knew you had power, that you came from a family of witches, even that you might be the woman who would destroy me. But I did not care, you were so different from the others I had met. I wanted to give you my name, to own and control you. I knew if I could marry you when young, I could prevent you from gaining the power which would one day make you dangerous to me.’

His voice choked on the words. ‘Imagine how I felt when you rejected me, when you threw my offers of marriage back in my face. I was so angry, I wanted you to suffer as my pride had suffered. Then you cast me into the pit, into that hellish abyss, and I thought I was dead.’ He put a hand to his face, touching his scar, the empty socket of his eye. His laughter was hollow. ‘Sometimes I catch my own reflection and
wonder if I did die that day, and this is the creature who took my place.’

I swallowed. ‘Marcus . . .’

‘I lay in the pit for days, perhaps even weeks. Time had no meaning there, nor the needs of my body, just as though it were a dream. But then I found new strength inside myself, a power I had never known before. I used it to claw my way out of that dark place. One night I woke naked on a cold hillside and realized I was back in the world, that you had not managed to destroy me. I knew then that I had to kill you before you could kill me. That it was indeed you in the prophecy. Oh, the irony of it!’ His mouth twisted, his scarred face grimacing. ‘That I should wish to marry the one woman I needed to stamp out.’

I did not mean to take another step back, but Marcus was moving steadily forward, the shining axe still in his hand.

I was perilously close to the edge now, the wind pushing at me to lose my balance and fall, to give him the death he required.

What had he said?
But then I found new strength inside myself, a power I had never known before
. Had his new-found ‘power’ been drained from me as he was sucked into the void? My aunt had taught me that all spells had a price; perhaps a transfer of power was the price I had paid for the success of this particular spell. It could explain why I had felt increasingly weakened since that day at Woodstock, as though I was somehow no longer whole. Power I had lost, Marcus Dent had
gained . . . and used to lure me to my death. I wondered if he understood that he might be in danger of becoming the very creature he had spent his life hunting?

‘I built this tower as a place of refuge. Somewhere I could climb and know myself safe from your power.’ He nodded at my astonished expression. ‘Yes, I fear you and your witchcraft. Does that make you laugh?’

I shook my head.

‘But I will never be safe from you. Not while you live.’ He twisted the axe between his hands. ‘This axe will finish it. Its sharp blade will ensure your death, leaving no chance of a magickal return to life – such as the one you managed at Hatfield. Yes, I was watching, I was there. How else do you think I was able to step between worlds and take the place of the King you had conjured, just as his shadow left this earth and returned to Hell?’

I remembered seeing his face behind the axe as it swept down onto my neck in my vision. ‘So it
was
you!’

‘Since returning from that . . . that vile place where you sent me, I have studied hard. I have read texts even a conjuror like John Dee has never seen. Now I am the master, and the rest of you will be my servants.’ His face flushed, his lips thinning with hatred as he stared at me, Marcus spun the heavy axe in his hands. ‘Down on your knees and meet the cold kiss of my blade.’

‘No,’ I insisted stubbornly.

‘Do not make this harder for me than it already is, Meg.’
Marcus was breathing hard as though he had been running. I saw a flicker of madness in his face and knew he was at war with himself. He pointed with the axe to the stone floor of the tower top. ‘Kneel.’

I turned to him, my hands open, palms up, and felt the wind lift my fair hair. ‘Marcus, please.’

‘No,’ he told me raggedly, but averted his fierce gaze. ‘Your tricks can have no effect on me here.’

‘No tricks.’ I took a step towards him, knowing I could run no further. Nor could I escape, unless I flew from the top of his hateful tower. ‘You said you wished to marry me once, Marcus. Yet now you are intent on destroying me. Did you never feel anything for me, or was it all pretence?’

Marcus half closed his one eye, shuddering again, then stretched out a hand and spoke one brutal word in Latin. ‘Kneel.’

I gave up and dropped to my knees before him, my head bent. After all the visions I had experienced of this place, perhaps it was inevitable that I should die here?

‘You are my enemy, Meg. It is written in the stars that one of us will kill the other. It is a fate that binds our destinies together as the holly is bound to the oak. You tried to kill me, and failed. Now it is my turn.’ He looked down briefly at my exposed neck, as though fixing on the best place to strike. Then he raised the terrible weapon above his head, his face bleak as the wintry air. ‘Only I shall succeed.’

I would not die at this man’s hands. Everything in my soul rebelled at the injustice of such a death.

‘Forgive me,’ he muttered, and brought down the axe with a great shuddering cry.

Pulling on every last iota of magick in my being, I wrenched myself violently sideways as the axe fell.

The last thing I saw was the flint in the stone striking a spark as the axe bounced off it, then the reddened sky spinning over and over. I fell, a wingless bird, tumbling off the edge of Marcus’s tower and into space. I knew the end would come swiftly if my magick could not save me. But surely now that I was free of his tower, hemmed about with protection spells, my power would return to me?

I flung my arms wide, as though in prayer or invocation, and my voice soared in Latin above his cry of fury –

‘Fly!’

I was most certainly
off
the tower, yet still the spell did not quite work as I had hoped. I did not fly like a bird, but continued to fall.
It was not working! It was not working!

Breathless with fear, I waited for my body to strike the ground at the speed of a hurtling stone, my arms still outstretched.

‘Save me!’ I heard myself cry, unsure to whom I was appealing. To my dead aunt, to the spirits all around us, to God – perhaps even to Marcus Dent himself?

Someone must have been listening.

To my intense relief, the cold air suddenly cradled my
body like a wave of the sea, sweeping me sideways and into the leafless branches of an oak tree rather than onto the harsh boulders below.

My gratitude did not last long. I thumped violently into the highest icy branch, crashed down from one bare branch to the next, my face slapped and scraped, my gown ripped, but my fall slowed and cushioned so that I hit the ground at a more sedate pace.

I tumbled a short way down the rough slope, lying there too dazed and battered to move. I heard Marcus shouting, and turned onto my aching back to see him high above me, a black figure staring down from the tower.

Behind him the sky was darkening into a stormy night, and for a few crazed seconds I thought Marcus had turned into a wild-eyed hawk and was tearing towards me at a breakneck speed, claws outstretched, screaming his defiance at me.

‘Move!’ It was Richard’s voice.

I just had time to blink in his direction, stunned to see Dee’s apprentice there, before Richard was stooping for a large stone. This he weighed in his hand, then hurled it violently through the air.

The rock struck the plunging hawk, knocking it sideways. The hawk uttered a horrible screeching cry, then seemed to shrivel into a tattered shape like an old cloak.

As Richard started towards it with another rock in his hand, no doubt to finish it off, the misshapen hawk flapped away a few feet, blurring into a large black rat. This vile
creature dragged itself between the boulders and was soon swallowed into darkness, leaving a trail of blood behind it.

Richard swore under his breath, then dropped the rock and headed back towards me, clambering down the slope. ‘Meg?’

‘That was Marcus,’ I told him.

‘I know. Rest easy, you are hurt.’

I was cold, my teeth beginning to chatter. ‘Is he dead, do you think?’

‘He’s gone. That’s all you need to know for now.’

‘Where’s . . . Alejandro?’

‘On his way.’ Kneeling beside me, Richard examined me with an expert eye. Grimacing over my bloodied skin and torn gown, he shook his head. ‘It looks bad, but I think you’ll live. I saw you pitch off the tower. Just as well that tree broke your fall or you’d be dead.’

‘I feel dead.’

‘Again? Well, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?’ He managed a wry smile at my expression. Then he fished something out of his belt pouch and pressed it into my hand. ‘Here, before I forget. I went back into the woods after you’d left Hatfield and found this at the circle. Perhaps it will speed the healing of these hurts.’

It was my aunt’s charm-stone. The leather thong had snapped, the ends charred as though burnt, but the stone itself was unharmed. I clutched it in my tightening fist, once more drawing strength from it.

‘Thank you, Richard.’

‘It’s nothing.’

His eyes met mine, and I knew that Richard’s feelings for me were unchanged. What could I do though? He must know my heart belonged to someone else.

My hurt hand grabbed his shirt. ‘Alejandro?’ I repeated, then let go, wincing at the sudden agonizing pain in my arm.

‘Don’t fret. I left your brother William with your betrothed, just above.’ He glanced up, his mouth twisting. ‘Oh, here he is now.’

Relief flooded through me as Alejandro dropped to his knees beside me. I stared up at him, memorizing every inch of his body, the broad shoulders, the dark hair swept back, the sheer vitality emanating from him. His face was cut and battered, as though Dent’s men had given him the same kind of drubbing they had given Richard, but he did not appear to be seriously hurt.

Alejandro took my hand and kissed my fingertips, making me wince again. ‘
Querida
,’ he muttered. ‘Forgive me, please forgive me. I was going through hell there. I thought he was going to kill you.’

‘He made a tidy attempt at it,’ I agreed, remembering the sparks as his axe bit into the stone where my kneeling body had been.

‘Where is Dent?’ Alejandro got to his feet, swaying with exhaustion but his face grim, determined. ‘His men took my sword. But I’ll strangle him with my bare hands if I must.’

Richard shook his head, frowning as he examined my bloodied right arm. I hissed as he moved it. ‘You’re too late,’ he told Alejandro. ‘I threw a rock at him. If he’s still alive, he won’t be back in a hurry.’

‘A rock?’ Alejandro was bemused.

‘This arm is broken,’ Richard told me sombrely, and began tearing at my underskirt to make a sling for my arm. ‘No pain in your legs, Meg?’

I shook my head. ‘I feel sick though.’

‘Right. Then could you please turn your head away while I put this sling in place? I don’t want you vomiting on me if the pain gets any worse.’

‘So caring,’ I murmured, fighting back the sickness, and saw Richard’s answering grin as he glanced back at me.

Alejandro waited in impatient silence until Richard was finished, then scooped me up in his arms to carry me back to the horses, being looked after by William at the head of the ravine.

His dark gaze met mine, and I could see uncertainty in his eyes. ‘I failed you,’ Alejandro admitted heavily. ‘For the second time I failed you. I allowed myself to be fooled and captured by Dent, to be beaten by his men, and nearly led you to your death because of it. I am not surprised you no longer care for me.’

I stroked his face, not sure how to comfort him. I loved him so much, and I knew he loved me back. Yet I did not wish Alejandro to put himself in danger for loving me. And I
did not know if that was avoidable if we stayed together.

‘You didn’t fail me. I told you this wasn’t your battle. Besides, Master Dee had already predicted that your life was in danger. Neither of us heeded that warning . . . and look what happened. It is not enough just to
know
about magick, Alejandro. Sometimes you need to be able to work it too, or you end up in trouble.’

He nodded grimly. ‘Richard has the skills you need. I understand.’

‘No.’ I shook my head, almost wanting to hit him. ‘That’s not it. But this fight was between me and Marcus. I could not involve you in it. That is, it wouldn’t have done any good to ask for your help.’

‘It is not easy to stand by and watch you suffer. I could not defend you against Dent, just as I could not defend you against de Pero.’

I shuddered, recalling the cruel gaze of the Spanish Inquisitor on my face as I cried out in pain. ‘De Pero will get what he deserves one day.’

‘That day cannot come soon enough for me,’ Alejandro muttered, then looked down at me when I laughed, his dark eyebrow arched. ‘My anger amuses you,
mi amor
?’