Metro Winds (19 page)

‘I saw you!' I blurted. ‘You were walking on the edge of the park. You had a bear with you!'

‘That was Godred. He has gone hunting but he will return before morning,' said the woman, who might have been five and thirty or fifty. The only certain thing about her face was its beauty. Even her expression was ambiguous: an enigmatic smile below piercing, almond-shaped green eyes and frowning brows.

‘Who are you?' asked the policeman.

‘You have the look and manners of an inquisitor,' the woman observed disapprovingly. She looked at me expectantly, and without thinking I curtseyed and spoke my name as I had been taught to do as a child. Indeed, though I was only days from becoming a woman, she made me feel a child.

She nodded her approval. ‘You have pretty manners as well as a pretty face, I see. Well, Willow, I am Madame Torquemada. And you?' She turned her eyes to the policeman.

‘I am Inspector Grey,' he said calmly. ‘We have come to find a girl who was lost. She is the sister of this young lady.'

‘I have never seen any young lady here who was lost,' said Madame Torquemada. ‘Why don't you both sit down? I have asked Griselda to bring us some coffee and after that she will show you to your rooms. You can freshen yourselves before supper.'

‘Our rooms?' I echoed.

She smiled, showing white even teeth and, despite her beauty, there seemed to me something dangerous in that baring of teeth. ‘Night is coming, my dear child, and Godred is not the only thing that will hunt when the moon rises, nor is he the most dangerous. We will dine together tonight and we will talk, and then if you wish I will direct you to the tower.'

Questions bubbled up in my throat and pressed against my lips. Before I could speak, however, the policeman rested a warning hand on my wrist. We sat in silence until Griselda came in staggering under the weight of a great carved tray laden with a heavy silver coffee jug, delicate porcelain mugs, several plates of dainty sandwiches and tiny iced cakes. The policeman got up and took it from her, and she set about serving us. We had given our coats and boots to Griselda to hang in an alcove by the front door, yet the slightly old-fashioned winter gown I wore was still too hot, for the fire threw out a surprising heat. The policeman's cheeks were slightly flushed but he gave no other sign of discomfort as he sipped the delicious coffee, nor did he ask any questions, and when at last the old servant withdrew, Madame Torquemada gave him a faint smile.

‘There is more to you than meets the eye,' she said. Without giving him the chance to respond, she swung her head and looked at me. ‘So, you seek your sister, who is lost to you. Are you so certain she wants to be found? Young ladies often don't, you know.'

‘My sister is a child and I love her,' I said. She lifted one brow as if to ask what that had to do with anything, so I added, ‘I fear it is my fault she is here.'

She inclined her head. ‘It is true you are the reason your sister is here, but it is not your fault. It is your mother's fault. She made a bargain with me, and then tried to cheat.'

‘A . . . a bargain?' I stammered.

She nodded. ‘She found a place where the curtain between our worlds was thin, and looked through – always a foolish thing to do, since of course one will inevitably see a mortal man and fall in love with him. Do not ask me why that is, but it always seems to work that way. It might even be that there is some law which governs such things.' She said this to herself rather school-marmishly and suddenly I noticed that her red tresses were shot with silver.

‘You are the witch,' I said.

‘Of course I am, child. What did you suppose? And no doubt in that childish world where you were born, all witches are wicked.'

‘Most of them,' I admitted apologetically.

‘Of course. And those who seek us out are always innocent, never foolish or avaricious or covetous. Pah! Your mother came and begged me to help her. She wanted me to open the way to the world she had seen, and she wanted the man she had seen to fall in love with her. I tried to reason with her. You have only seen him, I told her. He might be a fool or a boor, or cruel, or worst of all, dull. But no, she must have him and no other. And nothing would do but that he must fall in love the minute he sets eyes on her. Now why would any girl want a man whose love can be bought by nothing more wondrous than a pretty face and shapely form?

But she would not listen, of course. The young are so conservative in their desires. It is the desires of the old that are marvellous and difficult, except for those fools who want only to be young again. Well, I tried to talk her out of it, but she would not be swayed, so still seeking to daunt her, I named such a high price I could not believe she would agree to it. Her immortality must be given up to open the way and her firstborn daughter must be surrendered to me before she became a woman, in payment for the charm to ensure the man would love her when he set eyes on her. She did not even try to bargain, the little fool. And having made the offer, I had no choice but to go ahead with it. There are rules that govern such bargains and even witches are subject to them.'

She looked out the window and, seeing that the sun had set over the autumn forest, she rang a bell at her elbow. Griselda came hobbling in to lead us to our chambers. I went meekly, bathed in the copper bowl of lukewarm water, then I donned the gown that had been laid out, a gorgeous dress of citrine silk that fell from my shoulders and brushed the floor. Griselda came to help me fix my hair and I let her do as she wished, gazing into the mirror and thinking that Rose had been taken by the witch instead of me, and somehow it must be put right.

When I was led to a vast dining room an hour or so later, the policeman was there alone, clad, to my surprise, in his own dark trousers and grey shirt. He stared at me and I felt the blood heat my cheeks.

‘You look like a princess,' he said.

‘Of course she is a princess,' said Madame Torquemada, entering resplendent in a gown of peacock purple and brilliant turquoise, though there was now a good deal more grey than red in her hair. ‘So was her mother, for all her silliness and deceits. A faerie princess, I mean, as opposed to the princesses of your land. There, all young women are princesses, but here or there, only a few have what it takes to be queens.'

‘A prince?' I asked rather stupidly, for I was somewhat confounded at being told I was a faerie princess.

‘Growing up,' Madame Torquemada said tartly. ‘Learning to think as well as feel. Girls who think are rare in any world.' She went to the long, polished, wooden dining table and waited pointedly until the policeman came to pull out her chair for her. Then he came to seat me, before taking the other chair. Only then did I notice there was a fourth setting. Was it for Griselda? Somehow I could not imagine the doddering old servant sitting down with us. Rose then? I felt a thrill of excitement at the thought.

‘You were telling us about Willow's mother,' prompted the policeman, as he obeyed Madame Torquemada's instruction to fill our first glasses with a pale topaz-coloured wine. I noticed with slight dismay that there were five glasses before me, ranging from the small one we held now, to a very large balloon and ending in a tiny glass thimble. I sipped frugally at the light yellow wine, delighted at the flowery taste, but warning myself that I must not finish it.

The witch began her story again.

‘Charledine was adamant, as I have said, and so I opened the way and she left with the love charm. I did not have to look to see if it worked. She wed your father and in due course she bore you. But then she discovered what all women learn who bear a child. She loved you. She had not bargained on that, else she might have barred her heart against you. Naturally she did not wish to give you up to me, especially after her husband died. You were yourself, but you were also all she had left of her prince, for of course all men who are loved are transformed into princes.'

The tale was interrupted again as Griselda came to serve the first course. It was a clear, delicious soup and I realised that I was hungry, for although we had drunk chocolate, we had not stopped to eat any of the picnic packed by the cook. The witch did not resume until the plates were cleared away, and the policeman had poured a glass apiece of the next bottle, a butterscotch-coloured wine with a tart bite that refreshed my mouth. It was so delicious I had trouble leaving even a little of it.

‘The bargain was that Charledine must bring her firstborn daughter to me before she was grown, whereupon the way that had been opened would close and she would be left to live her mortal life. Of course I expected you would not be delivered to me until the very eve of womanhood so I did not think of the matter, save occasionally, when I looked into my scrying mirror to see how you were coming along. When I saw your father had died, I knew there would be trouble, and sure enough, your mother fled to the end of the earth, as far from the way I had opened as she could. Typical and pointless, for naturally there was magic even at the end of the earth. A very different order of magic, to be sure, than that of this world, but a power that a witch could use. When your mama realised it, she knew that it was only a matter of time before I opened another way to fetch you. There was no need to hurry, for you were still far from womanhood as we count it.'

Another course was served and eaten in silence but I had lost my appetite because I was beginning to see what was coming, and to dread it. A rich red wine was poured, and this time I drank it all.

The witch sipped her wine appreciatively, then went on. ‘Charledine used a rather old-fashioned form of magic to summon a man who looked like your father, and she wed him and bore him a child. Of course, he was not a true prince because she did not truly love him. The child she conceived by him was named Rose. This daughter, also a firstborn child, she was careful not to love, for it was to be sacrificed in place of the daughter she had borne to her dead prince. She began to search for the gate that she knew I would construct, and when she found it, she influenced her husband to purchase an apartment beside it.

‘Then, when Rose was old enough to walk and understand instructions, she brought her here and sent her to find me.'

‘No,' I whispered. ‘Mama couldn't have meant to sacrifice Rose . . .'

‘She offered her to me, in settlement of our bargain. She realised I would know Rose was not her true firstborn, but she also knew how I would value the child's youth. And Rose fitted the bargain, being born of Charledine's blood and, if the meaning can be stretched a little, she was the true firstborn daughter of her father, if not her mother. So I accepted the child. Only later did I discover that I could not close the way I had opened because of the link of love that bound Rose to you. It was not the gauzy, inconsistent love of a princess for a prince, but the real, earthly love of one sister for another.

‘So, I had no choice but to leave the way open, knowing that eventually you would be drawn through it. And now here you are. Willow and her protector and champion, the Inquisitor.'

‘What happened to Willow's mother, Charledine?' asked the policeman.

The witch gave him a glimmering look, then she sighed and turned her gaze to me. ‘Your mother did not tell Rose what was happening. She had prepared her in a way, by filling her head with stories of towers and princesses and sacrifice. She had told Rose that a special destiny awaited her. She was to go to faerie and there face a wicked witch, and of course there was to be a prince.

‘But as she prepared to go, Rose turned back to her mother and said, “I love Willow and I don't mind. Will you tell her that?” And Charledine saw then that Rose knew everything. It was not her faerie blood but her innocence that made her so wise. Rose knew that she had been born to save you. If she had cursed your mother and wept and begged to be spared, Charledine would not have been moved, but Rose gave herself willingly, because of her love for you.

‘I do not know what was in Charledine's heart after Rose left her. Perhaps, at the very last, she loved the child, or maybe Rose's words made her realise how you would feel when your beloved sister vanished, and she could not face it. She may even have feared that you would know what she had done, just as Rose did. Or maybe it is simply that, having freed you, she did not wish to go on without her prince, and so she lay down and gave up her spirit to the land.'

There was a long silence, and I felt the tears streaming down my face. I did not know if I wept more for my mother's betrayal and death or for Rose's sacrifice.

‘And Rose?' asked the policeman.

But Griselda entered the room, this time with dessert. She put the small, eggshell-thin chocolate dishes of tiny forest strawberries in front of us, and I ate without tasting, certain the witch would say no more until the food was finished. Only as I put the last strawberry to my mouth did I notice the tips of my fingers were stained red. Something occurred to me. ‘In stories, when you eat a person's food, you are in their power.' There was a dull accusation in my voice.

‘My dear Willow, you were in my power from the moment you stepped into this land, for I am its queen,' said the witch. She sighed a little and made an impatient gesture for Griselda to clear the table. In her haste to obey, the old woman dropped several of the strawberries, which rolled under the table. Seeing the poor old thing's distress, I slipped from my seat to help her. When I put the berries into her gnarled hands, she gave me a toothless smile.

‘Your sister was kind too,' she whispered, and scuttled out.

I turned to see Madame Torquemada watching me. She nodded. ‘Your sister came here, of course. Godred led her here. He took her the long way, for the tests. Her visit to me was the next-to-last test, and in being kind to my dear faithful Griselda, Rose showed her sweetness of nature. There remains only one test and it is the most dangerous. If she succeeds in it, she will become queen in my place. If she fails, she will be eaten by a dragon.'