The Watchtower (35 page)

Marguerite turned to walk back to their room and awaken Will to her glorious news. She went up the grassy slope, pausing for a moment to listen to some stirring in the woods, but she no longer possessed the preternatural senses to detect what nocturnal creature might be moving there. And an unaccustomed sensation pricked her bosom as sharply as the pin had her finger. Fear of the unseen. How do mortals do it, she wondered as she passed through Paimpont's main gate, how did they live with such blindness and uncertainty? Then came a second sensation she'd never before felt--fatigue. The physical part of the sensation wasn't new; even as an immortal she'd felt weariness and a need to sleep. But this feeling was more ... it was fatigue with an edge. In her blood as well as in her mind--in all of her the deep tiredness of a body that has learned for the first time that it is going to die. Mortal fatigue.

Passing under the granite arch that welcomed visitors to Paimpont, she shed a single tear of regret. Instantly, the thought of Will waiting for her warmed it gone.

28

The Brooch

We watched Marguerite go into the inn from the shadowy archway of the town gate. Five minutes later she reappeared, her face gleaming wet in the moonlight. She looked frantically from side to side as if unsure what direction to go in. It was painful to watch the self-assured immortal creature of half an hour ago suffer such mortal uncertainty, but even more painful to see Will witness it.

"I always wondered how she reacted to my theft and desertion," he whispered. "I'd always hoped it was with anger."

"I think she's in the denial stage," I remarked clinically. "But I bet anger will be next."

"
You
sound angry. Have I done something to offend you?"

"You wanted to stop her, didn't you? If you'd stopped Morgane from making Marguerite mortal, the two of you could have stayed together as you are right now."

"That's not my wish, Garet. Why--?"

I silenced him by grabbing his arm and directing his attention back to Marguerite, who'd finally made up her mind and was running toward the small cottage Will had pointed out to me earlier as the local farrier's.

"We need to get into her--my--our room," Will said, stumbling over his pronouns. I couldn't blame him. Encountering your past self with your old love while trying to explain your feelings to her descendant and your present lover would flummox most men. I didn't need to make it any harder by throwing a jealous snit.

"Let's go then."

We snuck up the back stairs to the second floor. The inn bore little resemblance to the modern Relais I'd booked into with Octavia La Pieuvre (where
was
Octavia, I spared a moment to wonder, had she ever gotten out of the Val sans Retour?), but I did recognize the view when we reached the room. It was the same view I'd had from my modern-day room. I stood at the window telling myself that I was keeping a lookout for Marguerite, but really I was trying to avoid looking at the rumpled bedclothes and the intimate story they told. When I turned around, I caught Will staring at the bed, fingering the hem of the linen sheet.

"What are we doing here?" I asked. "Shouldn't we be following Will--I mean past-Will?"

"We can't follow him on foot. It'll be dawn soon; I'll need cover. We'll have to hire a coach and for that we'll need money. Here..."

He lifted a small leather sack from a chest beside the bed. "It's not much but it should pay for a coach. It's a shame. Leaving a tip for the maid was the one selfless act I performed in this whole fiasco and now it's ...
undone
." He placed a queer emphasis on the word, as if it had suggested to him other things that might also be
undone
. "But we need it." He opened the chest and pulled out a long dress of sprigged muslin. "Here, you'll need this, too. It's Marguerite's. She must have been too upset to take it. It'll fit you, of course..." He started to hand it to me, but then pressed the cloth against his face. "Lavender and rose. I'd forgotten her scent..." Then, catching my glare, he collected himself. "But I much prefer yours, of course."

I snorted as I pulled the dress over my tank top and shucked my jeans off.

"And then what will happen?" I asked while Will laced up my dress. "How are we going to get this vampire's blood?"

"Right after the creature changed me, I attacked it and threw it out the tower window. When it lands on the rocks below, I'll be there waiting to drink its blood. If Morgane's telling the truth, I'll become mortal." He pulled the laces tight, tugging me toward him. I felt the length of his body pressed against my back. He gathered my hair into a knot and pressed his lips to the nape of my neck. "Are you sure you won't miss ...
this
." His teeth dragged across my skin and a quiver moved down my spine directly into the place where his hips spooned against mine. As I felt him harden, I wondered if we could spare a little time ... but the thought of making love in the bed where he and Marguerite had made love--albeit over four hundred years ago--chilled my ardor. I took a step away and turned to face him.

"I suppose there are things we'll both miss," I said, trying to be honest, "but it's your choice whether you want to live as a mortal or as how you are now. You chose to become immortal four centuries ago. Are you really sure you're ready to choose differently now?"

My question seemed to take him by surprise. Before he could answer, a piercing musical trill filled the room. "A lark," Will said, "warning us of the dawn's approach. We'd better go."

He brushed his lips lightly against mine and hurried from the room. As I followed him, something sharp stabbed through the thin slippers I'd put on with Marguerite's dress. I knelt and pulled a pin out of my foot. It was the brooch that Marguerite had used to stab her finger. It must have fallen from her cloak in her hurry. The pin, which was long and rather lethal-looking, still bore the stain of her blood. I quickly pinned it inside the bodice of my dress, where Will wouldn't see it and be reminded of Marguerite by it, but where it would be handy if I had need of something sharp.

29

The Swimmer

Will reached Pointe du Raz about an hour before sundown. On one speedy horse, his journey from Paimpont, which had begun at 4:30 a.m., might have taken only five or six hours, which would have meant a wait through a long afternoon before seeing Dee, perhaps wandering around the nearby village, or seaside cliffs. But the day was extraordinarily hot and humid, and Will's tired horse had thrown a shoe in Pontivy, and it had takn hours before a farrier had been found to reshoe it. At Audierne he had stopped to water his horse and was told that the south cliff road had been damaged in the last storm and he should take the northern, and longer, route. So Will, weary from weather and waiting, found himself with only an hour or so to prepare for his session with Dee.

Walking around Pointe du Raz, Will easily recognized the tower Dee had referred to. Rising from a stone abbey, it was about five stories high, of black stone, and seemed medieval in origin, broad slits for archers to aim through rather than windows.

A huge seaside cliff jutted out into the ocean near the tower, and Will climbed a footpath hewn into its granite face. He wanted to get a better view of the tower, and to take his mind off the enormity of what was coming. The path was narrow and had many twists, turns, and reversals, high grass on the land side and a plummet to jagged rocks on the sea side. Will had to discipline himself not to look down lest he experience vertigo. But the late-day salt air was brisk, refreshing him, and the view out to sea compelling. When he encountered an embankment of grass-tufted red earth to rest on, he took the opportunity.

He gazed at the tower from this perspective and observed that the archers' apertures were only one to a floor, each facing seaward. He wondered at the single-mindedness of builders in the long-ago past, who worried only about enemies from the sea, none from land. But the tower had survived--perhaps for several centuries--so the builders might well have known what they were doing. If only he were so confident right now ... but he
was
certain about his decision, he reprimanded himself, when eternity with his beloved awaited this portentous encounter. People worshipped on Sundays in the less than certain hope of such an outcome, and here he had it at his fingertips! He shivered with anticipation. As if to mimic him, a gull flying above the tower shimmied in a gust of wind, then coasted down to smoother air.

Will cast a sweeping glance to the west, taking in the offshore island of Ile de Sein, its fishing boats returning for the evening. The sun was low in the sky, descending toward a dark stone tower at the center of the island. As it set, brilliant light spilled across the sea, cleaving the dark water, laying a rubied path between the island and the shore. Perhaps it was an omen of his coming immortality?

As Will went back down the wind-washed path toward the tower, he kept a careful eye on the sun's sinking disk, its orb first split by the island tower, then its upper arc of flame bisected by the horizon, then dipping beneath it. Another shudder of anticipation went through him. He saw a twinkling light go on in the island tower and then, as if in response, one go on in the top room of the tower just below him. Startled, Will nearly took one step too many over the crumbling edge of the path. He pulled back just in time. All he could see in the room was a candle's twinkle. But he speeded up his pace as if he'd seen Marguerite herself.

Approaching the tower, Will observed that the entrance to it was actually through the abbey, which had been built right up against the tower's stone facade. High tide had come into an inlet in front of the abbey to a distance of fifty feet or so from the front door. Will amused himself in the lingering heat by walking ankle depth through the water's foamy surge, scooping up a few palmfuls of water and splashing them over his sweat-streaked face, as if baptizing his upcoming transfmation in some ritual. The last rays of the setting sun dyed the water red. As he cupped the water, it felt to him as if he were anointing himself with handfuls of blood. A fitting baptism, he thought, for birth into immortality.

* * *

A friar so deeply cowled that Will could not make out his face led Will silently to the door of the tower, then motioned for him to continue on his own.

The way up the tower was a serpentine iron stairs lit by torches on each landing that faced the one door on each floor. Will tread with caution up the stairs, their gloomy half-light between floors interrupted by moths and shadows. He felt tension over his destiny above and at the ominous darker shadows; his knees would tremble, or he might pause to take several deep breaths. But he made it up to the top floor, drew himself up to his fullest height, clutched the all-important satchel possessively to his side, reassured himself by feeling Marguerite's ring in his pocket, and knocked on John Dee's door.

"Who is it?"

Will recognized the deep voice. "Will Hughes at your service. Per your request. I have brought the essentials."

The grin splitting Dee's triangular-bearded face as he opened the door was as wide as the ocean. But no expression could have been colder. His amber, glittery gaze transfixed Will's. It suggested inner depth, but also had the opaqueness of a lizard's scales. Had Will grasped the affect more fully, he might have fled down the airless stairs and left immortality for another day.

Dee extended his right hand as if to shake Will's, but then swung it farther and tried to grab the satchel. Will blocked the maneuver by swiveling away at the last instant. Dee, like a good sport, patted Will amiably on the shoulder. "A pleasure to meet you again, young man. Perhaps you are right to approach me cautiously. I am not offended that you do not trust me with your bag. For what is of greater value than immortality? Indeed, let us have a frank discussion before our exchange is completed. Come, sit on my
suffah
, please. It has a stirring view of the sea."

Will obliged him by sitting on the elegant bench upholstered in oriental fabric Dee had referred to as a
suffah,
and looking out at the ocean through an archer's slit across from him that seemed to have widened. From the cliff this opening had looked no more than four to five inches across, but now it was something like a two-foot square in shape, a small window. Will kept a viselike grip on his satchel, wrapping it to his chest with crossed arms, and wondered how his impression from the cliff could have been so wrong. Then he looked farther out to sea, a view that was indeed majestic. The tower on the island off the coast was silhouetted against a violet sky. The ocean had turned a deep purple, reminding Will of a line the poet had once quoted from the Greeks:
the wine-dark sea
. Will then turned his attention to Dee, who was staring with a bemused expression at the satchel and Will's fierce grip on it.

"I understand your covetousness," Dee said. "The box is rare and potent. Not to mention such a beautiful ring, concealed somewhere on you now, on your person or in the satchel. But you might want to relax your grip a little. After al, it is
I
who will need box and ring to effect your transformation--you do have the ring with you, don't you?"

Will nodded.

"I will need it to summon a creature who can make you immortal.
I
will do that. So, alas, you will have to release box and ring into my possession before my end of the bargain can be concluded. In other words, good man, the news is that you
will
have to trust me. Otherwise we are fiddling away our time over nothing. There is no other way."

Will saw the logic of what Dee was saying, but he didn't like it.

Then he was startled by a brisk wind that entered the room, undulating tapestries that hung on the walls, strewing papers from Dee's desk to the floor, even rippling the strands of Dee's thinning hair. It was chilly and dense with surf and salt. Will glanced out the window and saw fresh-blown waves cresting up the beach close to the tower. A line of dark thunderclouds was amassing in the west behind the tower on the small island. He had the strange impression that the tower was standing between the storm and the mainland, as if guarding the shore from some barbarian invasion.