Darkwitch Rising by Sara Douglass Page B

now !”
    Charles slid out of the bed and stood, staring at her. “Marguerite?”
    “Get Louis. Now . Please, Charles, please. Get him now!”
    He gave her one more uncomprehending look, then he strode to the door, flung it open, and shouted his valet awake. “Fetch Monsieur de Silva. Now! Fetch him to this chamber!”
    When Louis entered the chamber, confused, more than a little concerned, and still blinking away the sleep from his eyes, he saw that Charles stood naked by the shuttered window, staring at the bed where sat Marguerite, similarly naked.
    “Thank the gods,” she said as Louis closed the door behind him.
    “Charles?” said Louis.
    Charles shrugged. “Marguerite will not tell me what ails her. She insisted you come to this chamber.”
    Marguerite made a gesture of impatience. “I know how to reach Cornelia,” she said.
    “ What ?” said both men together, each taking a step towards the bed.
    “We have a hill,” said Marguerite, patting the bed. “And Louis makes the third we need to form a Circle. James would never have done. But Louis will.”
    Now the men looked at each other, bewildered.
    “A Circle,” said Marguerite. “A Circle of power, drawn from the land itself.”
    The men continued to stare at her, then Charles’ face, finally, showed some comprehension. “The turf…” he said.
    “Aye,” said Marguerite, “that piece of turf. Where is it?”
    “Where is what ?” said Louis.
    “This,” said Charles, who bent down to a chest, opened it, and pulled forth a small box. “When I was forced to flee England, I brought this with me.” He opened the box, and held it out.
    Louis walked over, looking inside where lay a lump of browned turf still attached to a clod of crumbly dirt.
    Louis lifted his eyes to Charles. “England.”
    “The land ,” said Charles. “Aye.”
    “We form a Circle on this bed, this hill,” said Marguerite, again patting the sheets, “and we use the turf, the land , to find Cornelia-reborn.”
    Louis looked uncertain. “Are you sure that I should be here?”
    “Never more sure,” said Marguerite. “You are welcomed among us, Louis.”
    “But the land, its power…I am not—”
    “It was the land which showed me the way,
    Louis,” she said. “The land was waiting for you to join us.”
    “You have as much right to touch Cornelia-reborn as any of us, Louis,” Charles said very gently. “Marguerite is right. The land waited only for you to join us before it showed Marguerite the way.”
    Louis sighed, then nodded. “What is this Circle, then?”
    “It is the living embodiment of the Stone Dances,” Marguerite said. “It commands the same power.”
    “And as prime among Eaving’s Sisters, and the one who watched over Pen Hill in our last life,” said Charles, “you are the one to lead the Circle.”
    “Yes,” she said. “Louis, you shall need to disrobe. We come into this naked, as do the stones. Charles, bring me the box.”
    Louis removed his shoes, then shrugged off his hastily donned shirt and breeches, dropped them to the floor, then walked naked to the bed, climbed into it, and sat cross-legged where Marguerite indicated.
    She and Charles also sat, cross-legged, equidistant from Louis and each other, and Marguerite took the box, opened it, and removed the turf.
    Taking a deep breath, she held it reverently in her hands, then suddenly cast it upwards, towards the ceiling, calling out at the same time a word that the two men could not quite make out.
    The turf hit the plaster with a distinct thud, then fell back towards the bed and, as it did so, transformed.
    Marguerite, Charles and Louis gasped. The turf shimmered, then flattened and expanded all at once until it became a large circle of lustrous emerald green silk, fluttering gently towards the bed.
    It settled in the centre of the Circle, stilled for a single heartbeat, and then began to rumple, rising and falling into hills and valleys, moors and fields until it represented a