I left the island after the incident with the man. There would be curiosity and questions, and though I could deal with both I did not wish to be troubled. And so I came home at last, to Britain, which was called Logrèz, the land where I was born and where I will one day rule alone. Let Azmordis flee to the barbarian countries across the Western sea! This was my place, and it will be mine again, until the stars fall. I hid in the cave in Prydwen where Merlin was said to have slept, many centuries ago; though he is not there now. But I had had enough of caves. The entrance was concealed with enchantments older than mine, and in the gloom of that safety I lit the spellfire, and sought a house to suit both queen and witch.
I had conjured a creature to be my servant, part hag, part kobold; I bought her labour with a bag of storms. When seven times seven years are done, and she is free of me, she will open it and raze the village where she was scorned and stoned, at some remote time in a forgotten past. She does not talk, which pleases me; I know these things because I have seen the pictures in her mind. But she is sharp of ear and eye, adequate at housework and skilled in the kitchen, and the loyalty that I have purchased is mine absolutely. Her meaningless vengeance binds her to me more surely than any spell. And I have Nehemet, Nehemet the goblin-cat, who was not conjured but came to me, there on the island, as if she had been waiting. Who she is, or what she is, I do not know. Her name came with her, spoken clearly into my thought, though she has never spoken again. Goblin-cats are rare; according to one legend they were the pets of the king of the Underworld, losing their fur because they did not need it in the heat from the pits of Hell. But Nehemet is no mere animal: there is an old intelligence in her gaze, and her poise is that of a feline deity who steps haughtily from a new-opened tomb. She is my familiar, in every way. Somewhen in the passing centuries we have met before.
I am glad they are both female. I prefer to surround myself with females, whatever their kind. Men are to be manipulated or enslaved; they are necessary for procreation, but that is all. I loved a man once: that desire that can never be sated, that madness where even suffering is dear to the heart. I lay with him and he took me to the place where sweetness is pain and pain is bliss, and in the cold grey morning he looked on me and turned away, and left me alone for always. So I took my love and buried it deep in my spirit, so deep that I have never found where it lies. He was my half-brother, and he became the High King, but the son I bore him was his downfall, though it gained me nothing. Enough of him. I remember Morgun, my blood-sister, my twin. As children we played together, exchanging kisses, touching each other until our nipples swelled like spring buds. But in the end she turned to the love of men, submitting to the rule of lords and masters, and betrayed me, and herself, and died in bitterness. I saw her head, hanging on the Eternal Tree, vowing even then to be my doom. Now, there is only one man in my house—if man you can call him.
I brought my possessions and my entourage to Wrokeby after New Year’s Eve. I have a use for both the house and its owner: Kaspar Walgrim is a monarch in a world I do not know, the world of Money. And Money, like magic, is the key to power. With magic you can bemaze the minds of men, but with Money you can buy their souls. Walgrim is one of the rulers in the realm of Money: they call it the City, Londinium of old, Caer Lunn. The High King never kept his seat there, but the head of Bran the Blessed was once entombed beneath its white tower, gazing outward over the land, shielding it from enemies. My half-brother dug it up, saying it was a pagan thing, and he could hold his kingdom alone; only the kingdom was lost and the god of greed sits on the throne where a hundred kings have sat before, playing the games of power and spending their people’s gold. I need Money, and Walgrim has my magic in his blood. He will harvest the City’s gold for me.
Wrokeby is an old house by the standards of today, though its first stones were laid long after I quit the world. But there are bones underneath, green and rotten now, which were flesh when I was born: I can feel them there, reaching up to me through the dark earth. I cannot destroy them without uprooting the house itself, but I have cleaned out the ghosts which cluttered every empty room, even the imp which made mischief in the kitchen. Grodda, my servant, complained it was always extinguishing the flame in the stove. As I opened the abyss they were sucked through; I heard their thin wailing, felt their helpless terror. It is long and long since I have tasted such terror, even from flimsy, lifeless beings such as these: I drank it like wine. My half-brother laid down the knightly precepts: help the oppressed, outface fear, do nothing dishonourable. The laws of Succour, Valour, Honour. But they were for warriors and heroes, not for women and witches. We were to be loved and left, abused and disempowered. And so I made precepts of my own, turning his on their heads: oppress the helpless, weild fear, honour nothing. Succour. Valour. Honour. I have never forgotten those three words. It was good to feel fear again, the fear of lesser, weaker creatures. It makes me strong, stronger than I have felt in time outside Time. There was little fear to feed on, beneath the Eternal Tree.
I moved my prisoner here, from the borders of the Underworld where I had caught and bound him. The house on the island was not suitable, but here there is the attic room already equipped with locks and bolts and bars. I chained him with many chains, and I locked the locks, and bolted the bolts, and walled him in with spells stronger than bars. He did not speak, not then, but sometimes I hear him snarling, chewing on his own fury. Soon the nightmares will begin, and he will howl like a beast in the darkness, and then I will visit him, and watch him grovel, and whine for mercy, and call me ‘mother’. I have not yet decided on his punishment, only that it will be slow, sweet and slow, and before I am done he will be offering me the soul he does not have—the soul he longs for and dreams of—for a moment of surcease.
I like to feel them around me: my collection. Not the corpse-cuttings and cold relics that warriors prize, but living trophies. My prisoner, the girl who mocked me, the eyes of the spy. And one day, she will be there. She who failed me, and cheated me, and made my own blood rise up against me. For she is in this world, this Time. Somewhere she lives and breathes, wakes and sleeps, unsuspecting, believing me dead. I named her Morcadis, my coven-sister, my disciple and my weapon. I would have made her as Morgun, my long-dead twin—Morgun as she should have been—sharing her body, owning her soul. But she escaped from the domain of the Tree, and when Sysselore and I followed she turned on us with the crystal fire, and we burned. Sysselore was gone in an instant, but I had my mantle of flesh—flesh and power—and I crawled to the icy river, and plunged in, and was remade. And now I have returned to the world alone, to reclaim my kingdom—my island of Britain—to challenge Azmordis himself for the dominion of Men.
But first I will find her, and write my vengeance in blood on her naked flesh.
Fern found the note on her doormat before she went to work. The paper was pale brown and shredded around the edges; from the print on the back it might have been the fly-leaf of an old book. The writing was in greenish-blue ink, with many splotches, the words ill-formed and badly spelt. ‘The queane wil come and see you to nite at midnite. She sends you greting.’ There was no signature, but Fern suspected that this was because Skuldunder, if he was the scribe, could not spell his own name. She folded the note carefully, put it in her jacket pocket, and went to the office. She had half promised to keep Will informed of any developments, but a busy day left her little leisure for personal calls and anyway, she did not want to have to explain where she was going in the evening. There was no real reason for her reluctance, or none she could identify, but the thought of the forthcoming meeting with Lucas Walgrim filled her with both impatience and unease. Impatience because she was sure it was a waste of time—her time and his—and unease because it would touch on matters that were too near the bone, too close to the heart, to be discussed with a stranger. But she could not let him down. Good manners had ensnared her.
‘How will you recognise me?’ she had asked. ‘Carnation buttonhole? Rolled up copy of Hello!?’
‘I’ll know you,’ he had said, with a quiet certainty