A Woman Scorned 4
She watched the fancy city witches and their guests at the dinners, and learned. She flirted with Sir Robert, seeing the way Isobel watched them without seeming to, and filed it away as yet another reason to never depend on a man. She reveled in the soft, silken feel of the clothes that Isobel had seamstresses make for her, and determined that she'd never go back to homespun. She saw the weary workers slogging their way up the outer stairway to the higher floors at the end of a day, and thanked her lucky stars as the group she was in would sweep past, knowing that she would never be that tired, that drab.
She learned to summon the wind. The first time, Sir Robert had slid his arms around her slender waist to help guide her hands in the proper gestures, and she had leaned back against him, liking the firm feel of his body. Isobel admonished her sharply afterwards about her sloppy movements and lack of control. Rowena knew it wasn't those things that had prompted the dressing down. But there was no questioning of her strength, her inborn ability, from either of them.
Now and then, she saw Fergus peering around doorways at her with wide eyes. Some nights, when she actually acknowledged his existence, he surprised her with his insights into the guests. He would drop a simple, childish observation into her night routine, and she would stop, glance at him in the mirror, and file it away.
One night, he sat behind her on the delicate guest chair, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, and he said, "Mama. Sir Robert scares me." She laughed scornfully, but narrowed her eyes in thought and also stuck that one into her head. She also wondered how he had come to that conclusion when he had never interacted with the man. Maybe during one of the peering episodes?
He was an anchor, weighing her down, even with the servants caring for him. And even after these years, and the way her life had changed, his hair, his eyes, his smile would bring him back to her memory, and her rage and betrayal flared up anew.
Her full initiation into the coven was approaching. It was to be held in the woods, on
Samhain, so it would be chilly. Isabella had given her another cloak, warmer. Robert sent a note to bring Fergus. Rowena frowned at that: it was her night, her initiation. Why bring the boy? She shrugged, and when the evening came, dragged Fergus downstairs and thrust him into the second-best carriage before her, then sat looking at him with folded lips and arms.
"Sir Robert wants you there. I don't know why. Keep your mouth closed and behave!"
Fergus nodded with wide, nervous eyes, and huddled down against the seat.
When they got to the sacred grove and got out, the air was chill and damp with sea mist. The moon was well up in the sky, half-full and waning, but even so it provided plenty of light, as did the torches the servants were carrying and the bonfire they walked toward. Normally being so blatant would bring the soldiers down, and the witches would be hauled away to be questioned, imprisoned, burned. But Sir Robert had friends. They wouldn't be disturbed.
Rowena moved forward to the front of the small crowd, Fergus following, pulled by her hand, and joined Isobel and Sir Robert. His eyes flicked over her, and he asked sharply, "The boy? Where is he?" She jerked him forward, still irritated that she had to bring him.
Sir Robert smiled slowly, and drew a thumb down the boy's cheek. Fergus flinched back, huddled under his cloak, and stared at the man with huge eyes. Rowena's eyebrows twitched together in a small frown; even with her growing distance from the boy, the interaction sent a small pinprick of warning through her.
She tossed it off and looked around at the gathering. Someone thrust a cup into her hand, filled it, and the witches raised their cups in toast. "To our Dark Lord!" Sir Robert called, and "To our Dark Lord!" they all echoed, and drank deep.
The herbs steeped in wine began their work: the power sizzled within her, grew, flared down her arms and legs. She laughed gleefully at the feeling. She was aware of flashes of the initiation ceremony: the altar, lit by tall black candles; Isobel raising an athame, slicing into her palm; the blade being passed around; holding the goblet, filled with blood and wine, up to her lips; drinking it. A sudden awareness of all the witches swept through her, along with the touch of their various powers.
There was Isobel, all dark and mysterious green groves, sunlight piercing through the leaves of the trees; soft, lush banks of moss; the feeling of new growth, the bloom of flowers, the piercing taste of ripe fruit, the fall of old leaves, the icy cold starkness of winter branches.
There was Lisette, a delicate caress of cool, clear water rushing past; a sense of dark depths; the crash of wild, salty ocean waves; the slow, relentless movement of water beneath ice; the inexorable power of a tiny stream's trickle across a rock, wearing at it, smoothing it down, eventually splitting it.
Looming in the back, dark and powerful, with flashes of all the elements and more, was the leader of the coven, Sir Robert. The grim, dark, fiery touch of lava moving beneath the ground; hurricane-strength wind sweeping across the heath, tumbling houses, trees, people; flame rampaging through the woods, eating everything in its way with a crackling roar; dark water flooding silently, stealthily into nooks and crannies, filling every available space, rising up.
They were her, she was them. She threw back her head, laughed again, her long red curls tangling in the rising breeze. This - this was what she was meant to be!
Hands caressed her. Lips brushed against hers. Limbs tangling in abandon. She returned the caresses, the kisses, not knowing or caring who, just reveling in the power spiraling through her, echoing back from her companions through all her senses. A flash of Sir Robert holding her hands down above her head as he moved inside her. A vignette of Isobel thrusting her tongue down her throat, murmuring and twisting her hands in her hair.
And then she was standing before the altar, athame in her hands, Isobel behind and to her right, Sir Robert on her left. Fergus was spread before her on the altar, tied down, pale with fear and confusion. His cloak was gone, his tunic ripped wide open across his chest. "And now, my lovely, powerful girl, to seal it all...the Sacrifice of The Innocent," Sir Robert murmured into her ear.
Her head abruptly cleared. She was icy cold from the chill and the mist and the wind. The bonfire had sunk down into glowing embers. The remainder of the coven watched from the other side of the altar, shadowy shapes in the dimness except for reflections making their eyes glitter.
There was her son.
And there she was, with a stone knife, standing above him.