Page 111 of The Changeling

‘Thank you for your care of him,’ Lord George said. ‘I hope you break the curse and my boy wakens as well as he ever was.’

‘So do I.’

‘And I … I hope he loves you as much as he ever did.’

V

Once by Blade

As I came back into the hall, Margrit came forward with a rustle of silken skirts. She was dressed as if at court, and not at her father’s old tower house in the middle of the countryside. She wanted to make me feel as if she was a fine lady, and I was naught but a serving-girl. She did not know that I was the daughter of the queen of the Shee.

‘Witchling!’ she snapped. ‘What do you do here still? No-one wants you. My mother was fool enough to ask for you, but she is dead now. Your business here is done. Get you gone!’

‘Your father has bid me stay and watch over Robbie,’ I answered.

‘What? Why? It is your fault he is so sick. You ensorcelled him!’

‘His sickness is no’ my doing!’

She snorted in derision. ‘You seek to weasel your way back into his affections, so you can marry him and be a fine lady. But my father will never permit him to marry a chambermaid!’

‘I seek to save his life,’ I answered.

‘It’s your fault he’s lying there dying! If he’d never seen you, if you’d never got your hooks into him … you bewitched him!’

‘I didna! And you ken I didna! You lied to him – you made him hate me.’

‘You lied!’ she shot back. ‘You gave me a useless spell! Two years I spent, trying to make it work. Two years!’

‘You must ken that it was wrong.’

‘I wanted what you had,’ she said in a low voice. ‘To be loved like that. How did you do it? What black arts did you employ, to make my brother love you so?’

‘I loved him. I loved him so much.’ Tears thickened my voice. I shook them away, lifted my chin. ‘It was no evil spell. Just loving with all one’s heart.’

‘Teach me! Teach me your arts. With power like that, I could be queen – I could rule the world.’

I laughed. ‘You think witchcraft is easy? You think its purpose is to hand you what you want, no matter the cost? You are wrong! You have willingly done harm, and that makes you the blackest of black witches. I want naught to do with you! Get out of my way.’

I pushed Margrit with such force, she staggered. She drew her knife from her belt, menacing me with it.

Carlin snarled at her, then lunged, teeth bared.

She screamed and dropped her dagger.

I looked to where it lay between us, then said, quite gently, ‘Knife bright, take flight, deep bite.’

Her dagger flew up from the floor and struck straight through her billowing satin sleeve, pinning her to the wall. Blood began to seep through the fabric.

I stared at it in amazement. I had not really known I had such powers. Something had been stripped away from me, these last few days. Fear, perhaps.

‘You could’ve killed me!’ She was panting, her eyes dilated.

‘I could’ve, but I chose no’ to. You are Robbie’s sister, after all. I hope you will dance at our wedding. Dinna seek to hinder me again, or I will no’ be so forgiving.’ I began to sweep away, but then turned. ‘You might want to bind that cut. And put on a poultice of yarrow. I’d no’ like it to get infected.’

I spent the rest of the day sitting by Robbie’s bed, stitching beasts and bees and birds, flowers and foliage and forest. As I sewed, I thought.

My mother had been secretly working towards this night for a long time. Every step I had taken had, somehow, been predicted. Perhaps even orchestrated. The baking of a marigold cake. A vision of a lion and a dragon. Playing cat’s cradle with a string made of nettle. A filament she had tied about my birth cord and left for me to find, a thread that had tied her to me, so that she had felt the vibration of every move I had made.