Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

“Yes, but I’m not used to women listening to me when it comes to luggage. When Miriam goes away for the weekend, she packs enough to outfit the French Foreign Legion, and my mother requires multiple steamer trunks. Louisa wouldn’t have crossed the street with what you’re carrying, never mind leave the country.”

“Along with having no common sense, I’m not known for being high maintenance either.”

Matthew nodded appreciatively. “Do you have your passport?”

I pointed. “It’s in my computer bag.”

“We can go, then,” Matthew said, his eyes sweeping the rooms one last time.

“Where’s the photo?” It seemed wrong to just leave it.

“Marcus has it,” he said quickly.

“When was Marcus here?” I asked with a frown.

“While you were sleeping. Do you want me to get it back for you?” His finger hovered over a key on his phone.

“No.” I shook my head. There was no reason for me to look at it again.

Matthew took my bags and managed to get them and me down the stairs with no mishaps. A cab was waiting outside the college gates. Matthew stopped for a brief conversation with Fred. The vampire handed the porter a card, and the two men shook hands. Some deal had been struck, the particulars of which would never be disclosed to me. Matthew tucked me into the cab, and we drove for about thirty minutes, leaving the lights of Oxford behind us.

“Why didn’t we take your car?” I asked as we headed into the countryside.

“This is better,” he explained. “There’s no need to have Marcus fetch it later.”

The sway of the cab was rocking me to sleep. Leaning against Matthew’s shoulder, I dozed.

At the airport we were airborne soon after we’d had our passports checked and the pilot filed the paperwork. We sat opposite each other on couches arranged around a low table during the takeoff. I yawned every few moments, ears popping as we climbed. Once we reached cruising altitude, Matthew unsnapped his seat belt and gathered up some pillows and a blanket from a cabinet under the windows.

“We’ll be in France soon.” He propped the pillows at the end of my sofa, which was about as deep as a twin bed, and held the blanket open to cover me. “Meanwhile you should get some sleep.”

I didn’t want to sleep. The truth was, I was afraid to. That photograph was etched on the inside of my eyelids.

He crouched next to me, the blanket hanging lightly from his fingers. “What is it?”

“I don’t want to close my eyes.”

Matthew tossed all the pillows except one onto the floor. “Come here,” he said, sitting beside me and patting the fluffy white rectangle invitingly. I swung around, shimmied down the leather-covered surface, and put my head on his lap, stretching out my legs. He tossed the edge of the blanket from his right hand to his left so that it covered me in soft folds.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“You’re welcome.” He took his fingers and touched them to his lips, then to mine. I tasted salt. “Sleep. I’ll be right here.”

I did sleep, heavy and deep with no dreams, waking only when Matthew’s cool fingers touched my face and he told me we were about to land.

“What time is it?” I asked, now thoroughly disoriented.

“It’s about eight,” he said, looking at his watch.

“Where are we?” I swung to a seated position and rooted for my seat belt.

“Outside Lyon, in the Auvergne.”

“In the center of the country?” I asked, imagining the map of France. He nodded. “Is that where you’re from?”

“I was born and reborn nearby. My home—my family’s home—is an hour or two away. We should arrive by midmorning.”

We landed in the private area of the busy regional airport and had our passports and travel documents checked by a bored-looking civil servant who snapped to attention the moment he saw Matthew’s name.

“Do you always travel this way?” It was far easier than flying a commercial airline through London’s Heathrow or Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport.

“Yes,” he said without apology or self-consciousness. “The one time I’m entirely glad that I’m a vampire and have money to burn is when I travel.”

Matthew stopped behind a Range Rover the size of Connecticut and fished a set of keys out of his pocket. He opened the back door, stowing my bags inside. The Range Rover was slightly less deluxe than his Jaguar, but what it lacked in elegance it more than made up for in heft. It was like traveling in an armored personnel carrier.

“Do you really need this much car to drive in France?” I eyed the smooth roads.

Matthew laughed. “You haven’t seen my mother’s house yet.”

We drove west through beautiful countryside, studded here and there with grand châteaus and steep mountains. Fields and vineyards stretched in all directions, and even under the steely sky the land seemed to blaze with the color of turning leaves. A sign indicated the direction of Clermont-Ferrand. That couldn’t be a coincidence, in spite of the different spelling.

Matthew kept heading west. He slowed, turned down a narrow road, and pulled to the side. He pointed off to the distance. “There,” he said. “Sept-Tours.”

In the center of rolling hills was a flattened peak dominated by a crenellated hulk of buff and rose stone. Seven smaller towers surrounded it, and a turreted gatehouse stood guard in front. This was not a pretty, fairy-tale castle made for moonlit balls. Sept-Tours was a fortress.

“That’s home?” I gasped.

“That’s home.” Matthew took his phone out of his pocket and dialed a number. “Maman? We’re almost there.”

Something was said on the other end, and the line went dead. Matthew smiled tightly and pulled back onto the road.

“She’s expecting us?” I asked, just managing to keep the tremor out of my voice.

“She is.”

“And this is all right with her?” I didn’t ask the real question—Are you sure it’s okay that you’re bringing a witch home?—but didn’t need to.

Matthew’s eyes remained fixed on the road. “Ysabeau doesn’t like surprises as much as I do,” he said lightly, turning on to something that looked like a goat track.

We drove between rows of chestnut trees, climbing until we reached Sept-Tours. Matthew steered the car between two of the seven towers and through to a paved courtyard in front of the entrance to the central structure. Parterres and gardens peeked out to the right and left, before the forest took over. The vampire parked the car.

“Ready?” he asked with a bright smile.

“As I’ll ever be,” I replied warily.

Matthew opened my car door and helped me down. Pulling at my black jacket, I looked up at the château’s imposing stone façade. The forbidding lines of the castle were nothing compared to what awaited me inside. The door swung open.

“Courage,” Matthew said, kissing me gently on the cheek.

Ysabeau stood in the doorway of her enormous château, regal and icy, and glared at her vampire son as we climbed the stone stairs.

Matthew stooped a full foot to kiss her softly on both cheeks. “Shall we come inside, or do you wish to continue our greetings out here?”

His mother stepped back to let us pass. I felt her furious gaze and smelled something reminiscent of sarsaparilla soda and caramel. We walked through a short, dark hallway, lined in a none-too-welcoming fashion with pikes that pointed directly at the visitor’s head, and into a room with high ceilings and wall paintings that had clearly been done by some imaginative nineteenth-century artist to reflect a medieval past that never was. Lions, fleurs-de-lis, a snake with his tail in his mouth, and scallop shells were painted on white walls. At one end a circular set of stairs climbed to the top of one of the towers.