Rough Magic Read online

“Will you marry again, perhaps make a queen of that pale-faced girl who smiles so much at our table?”

  He was silent. It was a direct hit.

  “I have a state to run,” he said at last. “For its stability, I must have heirs, heirs who are respected as legitimate.”

  Not the offspring of a foreign enemy, a traitorous queen. Not a witch’s spawn.

  “I will go,” she said. “Make your arrangements.”

  To his credit, Alonso said nothing as he left.

  I.vii.

  She was troubled. Her maids had begun to look at her strangely, casting knowing glances at her belly. The secret could not be kept much longer. Sycorax did not like to think what would happen then. She was supposed to leave within the fortnight, as soon as the ship was ready and the rains had stopped.

  She stood by the window now, watching the rain, her arms wrapped protectively around her waist. If she had been any other queen, the arrival of a child would have secured her position. This baby would do nothing for her but endanger her life.

  She’d been foolish, madly foolish, not to have destroyed it a month ago when she’d first made the discovery. She knew the herbs that would deliver a woman from her trouble. Instead, she had clung to the small life. It was hers. It was all she had. And now it might prove to be the death of her.

  Alonso would never tolerate it, not even if it was a girl. There was no way he would allow her to have any claims on his throne and power. Her only hope was to hide the pregnancy until she was safely settled in Carthage. Once she was there she could practice her art and defend both herself and her child.

  Sycorax tightened her grip around her waist. Two weeks was not a long time to conceal matters, but her body had already begun to thicken. Her maids would notice any binding and guess the cause. She would have to risk a spell.

  She twitched her shoulders, trying to shake away her fears. Alonso had grown sensitive to her magic. He said he could smell it on her.

  But it was not really fear of her husband that kept her from her craft. It was the fact that she had to fear him because her powers were weakening. She’d pulled from earth and moon, fire and stone, and she still didn’t have the strength to shield herself. For the first time in her life, she was nothing much more than a common woman.

  Sycorax twitched her shoulders again. The king never came to see her now. The king. When was the moment when Alonso had stopped being her husband? What had been the final break? Her maids were happy to let her know that he was often in the company of the pale lady. She was a quiet, graceful creature. She’d make a perfect queen. Her children would be welcomed. Joyfully.

  Well, there was nothing she could do about that. She turned her thoughts back to the spells she could work. There were only a few that didn’t require material elements for the casting. She could put a confusion spell on the maids, make them forget their suspicions about her. But such spells were tricky to control. They might all start blundering about, unable to remember where the clean linen was stored. It would take very little to convince people that she was doing magic. They’d burn her without a qualm.

  Or it would have no effect at all. She began to shiver, though she had neither chills nor fever. She was afraid.

  “I am afraid.”

  She said the words aloud. They were ridiculous, preposterous. How could she be afraid of anything, anyone? That she had come to this! Powerless, alone, fearing – fearing! – for her very life. The foreign emotion was quickly overwhelmed by a more familiar fury.

  She began to break things. A wine glass, a chair. She tore a tapestry hanging on her wall to shreds. She ripped the wedding ring from her finger and threw it into the fire. She commanded the blaze to melt it. The flames rose briefly, then died back to a pale splutter. Her pitiful weakness was never more obvious. She raged and wept and slashed a painting of her husband’s grandmother with a shard of broken glass.

  Finally she sat down in the middle of the wreckage. She was broken. She might as well be dead.

  That would certainly make things easier for the king. She’d be quietly buried, discreetly gone. How triumphant he’d be! The pale lady would be queen, no taint upon her throne, their children.

  Sycorax would not let that happen. There was revenge to be had. There was her unborn child to protect.

  If magic could not help her, she would have to use the skills of any ordinary woman. Perhaps she could starve herself. She remembered hearing her nurse gossip about a servant who had eaten only one piece of bread every day and concealed her pregnancy for more than seven months.

  At that moment a maid entered with a tray of food. She often ate in her room now, avoiding the dining hall and her husband’s coldness as much as possible. She could tell from the savory smell that her meal was some sort of venison stew.

  The maid stopped and gaped at the destruction of the room. I am a queen, she reminded herself. She stood, summoning all her dignity. “Leave the tray on the window seat,” she commanded. “I will be taking a walk in the garden after I eat. Have the room tidied before I return.”

  Her maids had grown scornful, but this one had enough sense to obey. Likely, she thought her fate would be the same as the painting’s if she did not. She set the tray down, curtsied, and fled the room.

  There was stew, thick and full of meat. And wine. Rich red wine, the one truly fine thing that came from this country. She stared at the bowl. Her stomach rumbled. It seemed like she was always hungry now. It was ridiculous. When she was pregnant with Thalia she hadn’t been able to eat a thing for months.

  With a girl, pale and drawn. With a boy, healthy and strong. Her ancient nurse’s words came back to her. The thought made her laugh: a strange, barking, humorless sound.

  She threw the bowl of stew into the fire. It hissed and sizzled, filling the room with foul smoke. She was about to throw the bread into the grate as well, but her grumbling stomach protested. It was only necessary to slow the baby’s growth. Wolfishly she gobbled the bread, then sat and drank the wine. She watched her supper burn and waited for the air to clear.

  When her glass was empty she put it down and slipped her arms around her belly once more. She remembered sitting like this when her daughter was growing within her. Then she had been revered, her child wanted, the birth anticipated by everyone. “Thalia,” she whispered, “have you cursed me?”

  She rose, threw her cloak around her shoulders, and left the room.

  I.viii.

  They had cut her hair so that it hung around her shoulders in lank, jagged chunks. It looked as though it had been chopped with a scythe. Sycorax was dressed in nothing but a dingy white shift, her feet bare and chapped, her toes curling against the rough wooden planks.

  It had not taken them long to discover her secret. She had become sloppy after eating nothing for three days except water, red wine, and a little bread. The maids found the half-burned food. Her ordinary woman’s plan was easily understood by the ordinary women around her. The news had spread throughout the palace. She supposed that saved her. Alonso had been quick in sending the doctor. His examination had been short and brutal, conducted while her husband looked on, his eyes blazing. “You thought you could hide this from me,” he’d hissed. She’d made no reply.

  She had not expected to live. They had charged her with witchcraft and thrown her into prison. They left her there, in the dank, for a week. Finally, the sentence was brought down. She was to be taken by ship to some remote, unchartered place and left there. The judge said she could find mercy at the hands of God and nature.

  At first she’d thought that they meant to sail out some distance and then throw her into the sea, but it had been five days now and they still brought her the pathetic bread and water to drink each morning and night. It seemed that Alonso could not bear the title of “baby killer.”

  That made her laugh, her new dry, empty laugh. How many babies had he and his soldiers killed in all the years he’d warred against other lands? But his own child, however hated, must be shown
mercy. She remembered, with infinite irony, how he hoped history would call him, “Alonso the Just.”

  He had told her that on another sea voyage. How long had it been since they crossed the sea alone together in a small boat, sped by her power, sustained by their love? Less than a year. They had lain together on the bottom of the boat and laughed at the pictures they saw in the clouds. He had played with one of her thick braids, tickling her nose with its feathery tip. The waves had lulled them both. They had been free.

  “I should have known it was a fool’s happiness,” she said aloud. She routinely muttered to herself now. Often she spoke to the shadows of her past. “I deserve to be brought down for what I’ve done. But I also deserve to destroy him. If I do, then maybe I will be forgiven for betraying my father and my country. Alonso was always my enemy. I’ll ruin him.” She made it a promise to the small life within her.

  There was a cry from on deck. Land had been sighted where none was known to exist. The command was given to sail near, to check for inhabitants. She felt light-headed and lay down on her hard bed, likely the last bed that she would ever know. She waited, time spinning out before her like thread from a spool dropped by a careless child.

  It did not take long for the report to come back. A boatload of men had searched the island. It was fair enough, but small, and desolate.

  This place, then, was to be her final home. She would die here, and so would her child. Her thoughts of revenge seemed pitiful and desperate. Her husband would have a long, satisfied life. His reign would be legendary. She would become a storybook villain, used to frighten children into obedience. Curses began to flow from her as though they were her mother tongue.

  When they came for her, Sycorax fought them like any other caged and cornered beast would. Her wildness gave them permission to be rough with her. She was thrown into the bottom of the boat. Two men actually sat on her to keep her still. They laughed at her and swapped several lewd and boorish comments. When they reached the shore, they called her a hag and flung her onto the rocks. Their only mercies were a small cooking kettle and a blanket they tossed onto the beach with their parting jeers. And so she called down the storm.

  As soon as her body had touched the land, she found her power again. It was shaky, its flow only a trickle after so many months of disuse. But it was there, singing in her veins, intoxicating her. The wind tore the ship to shreds and the waves swallowed the boat whole. Now it was her turn to laugh, while the sailors could only scream. She danced on the rocks as the last of them disappeared. Mermaids bobbed in the waves, pulling the lost men down.

  The tempest died as quickly as it had begun. She was alone, and now she had nothing to curse but her own stupidity. She should never have let her emotions rule her craft. There had been a ship at her disposal, and she sank it. She could have destroyed only the sailors and then gone to Carthage, to the estate awaiting her rule. She could have sailed back to her husband and cursed his land.

  She could have gone home.

  The weight of her punishment came down on her again. She could never go home. There was penance to be paid before she could win back her freedom, before she could wreak her revenge.

  She left the beach and went inland, like an animal, looking for shelter. After a short search she found a cave, empty of wildlife. For now it would do. Doggedly she gathered wood, refusing to think of her past life, her royal life. The fire warmed her, and the mushrooms that she found under some trees stilled the gnarling pain in her belly. Sycorax went back to the trees, this time breaking off fir boughs and dragging them back to the cave for a bed. They were fragrant and surprisingly soft. She slept.

  When she awoke it was deep night. She rose and left her cave. The moon shone brightly. The air was warm, gentle. She felt and relished the trusting fertile power of the land. The soft breeze lifted her mood. This could be as much a time of healing as it was of atonement. Sycorax searched the ground until she found what she sought. Flint, bleached white in the moonlight. She found another stone and began to chip away. This, at any rate, was familiar. It was in just such a manner that she had fashioned her other knife, the one she had never used.

  She paused. Who would find it beneath the corner flagstone of her sleeping-chamber floor? Would it be some distant royal child, casting about for something to do? Would he cut himself on the blade, have it taken from him by a scolding nurse?

  She bent her head again. It would not be her child who found it.

  I.ix.

  Caliban was crying again. She had been gone too long this morning. The fish seemed to be growing more clever and were evading her traps. But she had won in the end, bringing home three fine trout. She slipped into the cave and stirred up the coals of the cooking fire. She hung the fish over the glowing heat to cook, then went to the bough bed and lifted up her small son.

  He nuzzled against her, drinking greedily. His rusty hair stood up in tufts all over his head. His birthmarks were an angry dark purple, thanks to his wailing. She stroked his head and smiled at him. “My wild child,” she crooned.

  Caliban was ugly. She knew it. His head was so strangely proportioned. She had hoped his narrow forehead and his broad jaw were simply the result of his difficult birth, that they would smooth themselves into something resembling her own. But time had not changed his features. He was squat and thick and speckled, with short limbs that promised strength without grace.

  None of that mattered. He was hers.

  The cave was filled with the sounds of the food cooking, the child eating, her own soothing song. This was one of the happy times of her day, when the fight for survival paused and she could sit for a moment with her child. She could forget, for a short time, the life she’d lost. The anger would ease, and she could let herself drift free of memory.

  When the child finished his meal reality pressed back in upon her. She could not go on like this, scrabbling about from day to day. The first few months on the island had passed in a blur of exhaustion and sickness. She managed to make the cave habitable, but most days she could not stand its gloom. So she had fashioned herself a nesting place on a bluff overlooking the ocean. No ship came near enough to be snared by her magic. Her pregnancy weakened her, the baby drawing from her bones when she did not find food. She grew to hate the smell and taste of fish.

  It had been hot and dry when Caliban was born. She had retreated to the cave, its dark coolness suddenly a refuge. She’d stored up water and food for the time of his birth, had gathered all the herbs she could that would speed his coming. When at last her waters broke she was ready. She’d expected an easy delivery. He was her second child, and her daughter had been born without trouble. But her pains stretched on endlessly through the day and into the night. She had no midwives to help her. There was no one to rub her back or bring her water. She scrabbled about on the dirt floor, cursing Alonso. But she could not curse his blood, for it also flowed in the veins of her son.

  She was bruised and torn by the time he slid free of her. She managed to catch him and lay him on a soft heap of cloth, the remnants of her clothing. He lay still and did not breathe. She held him upside down and thumped his back. She remembered women saying midwives did that when the child was born blue and silent. He choked and gasped and finally screamed. She’d held him to her breast until he grew quiet. There was no wet nurse for him. They slept beside each other on the floor that night, her blood pooling on the dirt. Somehow, they both lived. She would not die. Caliban would not die. She promised him, when she first brought him out into the sunlight, that she would bring him back to his kingdom. “You are royal,” she said to him. “You are beloved of the gods.”

  Now that her strength was back she could once more turn her mind to escape and revenge. There was power here, great power. Magic grew on the island as commonly as mushrooms after a rain. But she could not harness it. It slipped free of every attempt to take it and use it for her own ends.

  There were also magical beings everywhere, but after an initial passing curios
ity, they ignored her. She knew why. The island was littered with the bleached skeletons of drowned sailors washed ashore, or of shipwrecked men who had lived for a time, then been taken by disease or starvation. The island expected the same fate for her.

  She rose and lifted Caliban into a sling she wore draped over her shoulder and across her chest. It was made from the thin blanket she had been left with. She did not like to think what she would do when it wore away. There were times, in the chill loneliness of night, when she would lie and stroke the rough wool, remembering the rich, soft, sweetly scented bed of her home. When Caliban nuzzled her in the small morning hours, she’d think of Thalia asleep in a silken cradle, a wet nurse ensuring that Sycorax’s own royal slumber would not be broken. She wondered if her father would be pleased to know her fate. She thought of his proud, stern face, how it had beamed at her with satisfaction when she lied to him about the spells she had cast. He never questioned her.

  She shook her head, trying to free her mind of the guilt that threatened to smother her as completely as her rage. She went out into the sunlight, Caliban crowing with pleasure at the chance to be out in the clean island air, away from the smoky murk. She was determined that today she would root out the source of the island’s power.

  She wandered among the trees, listening to their secret language of whispers and light. She had done this every day since her arrival here, except for the week of Caliban’s birth. But the trees were strangely distant, as though they knew her goal and wished to thwart her, to keep the power for themselves.

  It was the same thought she’d had hundreds of times before, but now it broke across her mind like a wave against the rocks. That was just what they were, these trees: jealous guardians of power. She lay her palms against a pine and pulled. The power was not there, but the surprised tree cried out and showed her where to look. She turned and strode, with Caliban chirping on her hip, to the summit of the island.