A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [111]
“That won’t work, will it?” muttered Marcus, thinking of the witch’s DNA.
“No,” Matthew agreed, grim-faced. “While I was in Scotland, another American witch, Gillian Chamberlain, informed her that it wasn’t humans at all—but fellow witches—who murdered her parents.”
“Did they?”
“I’m not sure. But there’s clearly more to this situation than a witch’s discovery of Ashmole 782.” Matthew’s tone turned deadly. “I intend to find out what it is.”
Something silver glinted against his father’s dusky sweater. He’s wearing Lazarus’s coffin, Marcus realized.
No one in the family talked openly about Eleanor St. Leger or the events surrounding her death, for fear of driving Matthew into one of his rages. Marcus understood that his father hadn’t wanted to leave Paris in 1140, where he was happily studying philosophy. But when the head of the family, Matthew’s own father, Philippe, called him back to Jerusalem to help resolve the conflicts that continued to plague the Holy Land long after the conclusion of Urban II’s Crusade, Matthew obeyed without question. He had met Eleanor, befriended her sprawling English family, and fallen resolutely in love.
But the St. Legers and the de Clermonts were often on opposite sides in the disputes, and Matthew’s older brothers—Hugh, Godfrey, and Baldwin—urged him to put the woman aside, leaving a clear path for them to destroy her family. Matthew refused. One day a squabble between Baldwin and Matthew over some petty political crisis involving the St. Legers spiraled out of control. Before Philippe could be found and made to stop it, Eleanor intervened. By the time Matthew and Baldwin came to their senses, she’d lost too much blood to recover.
Marcus still didn’t understand why Matthew had let Eleanor die if he’d loved her so much.
Now Matthew wore his pilgrim’s badge only when he was afraid he was going to kill someone or when he was thinking of Eleanor St. Leger—or both.
“That picture is a threat—and not an idle one. Hamish thought the Bishop name would make the witches more cautious, but I fear the opposite is true. No matter how great her innate talents might be, Diana can’t protect herself, and she’s too damn self-reliant to ask for help. I need you to stay with her for a few hours.” Matthew dragged his eyes from the picture of Rebecca Bishop and Stephen Proctor. “I’m going to find Gillian Chamberlain.”
“You can’t be sure it was Gillian who delivered that picture,” Marcus pointed out. “There are two different scents on it.”
“The other belongs to Peter Knox.”
“But Peter Knox is a member of the Congregation!” Marcus knew that a nine-member council of daemons, witches, and vampires had been formed during the Crusades—three representatives from each species. The Congregation’s job was to ensure every creature’s safety by seeing to it that no one caught the attention of humans. “If you make a move in his direction, it will be seen as a challenge to their authority. The whole family will be implicated. You aren’t seriously considering endangering us just to avenge a witch?”
“You aren’t questioning my loyalty, are you?” Matthew purred.
“No, I’m questioning your judgment,” Marcus said hotly, facing his father without fear. “This ridiculous romance is bad enough. The Congregation already has one reason to take steps against you. Don’t give them another.”
During Marcus’s first visit to France, his vampire grandmother had explained that he was now bound by a covenant that prohibited close relationships between different orders of creatures, as well as any meddling in human religion and politics. All other interactions with humans—including affairs of the heart—were to be avoided but were permitted as long as they didn’t lead to trouble. Marcus preferred spending time with vampires and always had, so the covenant’s terms had mattered little to him—until now.
“Nobody cares anymore,” Matthew said defensively, his gray eyes drifting in the direction