A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [150]
“Yes. If any creature breaks the covenant, it is the responsibility of the Congregation to see that the misconduct is stopped and the oath is upheld.”
“And if two creatures break the covenant?”
The silence stretched taut between us.
“To my knowledge it has never happened,” she said grimly. “It is a very good thing, therefore, that the two of you have not done so.”
Last night I’d made a simple request that Matthew join me in my bed. But he’d known it wasn’t a simple request. It wasn’t me he was unsure of, or his feelings. Matthew wanted to know how far he could go before the Congregation would intervene.
The answer had come quickly. They weren’t going to let us get very far at all.
My relief was quickly replaced by anger. Had no one complained, as our relationship developed, he might never have told me about the Congregation or the covenant. And his silence would have had implications for my relationship with my own family, and with his. I might have gone to my grave believing that my aunt and Ysabeau were bigots. Instead they were living up to a promise made long ago—which was less understandable but somehow more excusable.
“Your son needs to stop keeping things from me.” My temper rose, the tingling mounting in my fingertips. “And you should worry less about the Congregation and more about what I’m going to do when I see him again.”
She snorted. “You won’t get the chance to do much before he takes you to task for questioning his authority in front of Domenico.”
“I’m not under Matthew’s authority.”
“You, my dear, have a great deal to learn about vampires,” she said with a note of satisfaction.
“And you have a great deal to learn about me. So does the Congregation.”
Ysabeau took me by the shoulders, her fingers digging into the flesh of my arms. “This is not a game, Diana! Matthew would willingly turn his back on creatures he has known for centuries to protect your right to be whatever you imagine you want to be in your fleeting life. I’m begging you not to let him do it. They will kill him if he persists.”
“He’s his own man, Ysabeau,” I said coldly. “I don’t tell Matthew what to do.”
“No, but you have the power to send him away. Tell him you refuse to break the covenant for him, for his sake—or that you feel nothing more for him than curiosity—witches are famous for it.” She flung me away. “If you love him, you’ll know what to say.”
“It is over,” Marthe called from the top of the stairs.
We both rushed to the edge of the tower. A black horse and rider streaked out of the stables and cleared the paddock fence before thundering into the forest.
Chapter 22
We’d been waiting in the salon, the three of us, since he’d ridden off on Balthasar in the late morning. Now the shadows were lengthening toward twilight. A human would be half dead from the prolonged effort needed to control that enormous horse in the open countryside. However, the events of the morning had reminded me that Matthew wasn’t human, but a vampire—with many secrets, a complicated past, and frightening enemies.
Overhead, a door closed.
“He’s back. He will go to his father’s room, as he always does when he is troubled,” Ysabeau explained.
Matthew’s beautiful young mother sat and stared at the fire, while I wrung my hands in my lap, refusing everything Marthe put in front of me. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but my hollowness had nothing to do with hunger.
I felt shattered, surrounded by the broken pieces of my formerly ordered life. My degree from Oxford, my position at Yale, and my carefully researched and written books had long provided meaning and structure to my life. But none of them were of comfort to me in this strange new world of menacing vampires and threatening witches. My exposure to it had left me raw, with a new fragility