Mistress by Magick

by Laura Navarre

  Charles Howard would have been a fixture at Elizabeth’s court in Beltran’s time. She attributed his shocked silence to the fact that Beltran had seemingly aged not a day in thirty years.

  “You want to cause chaos?” Beltran said gruffly. “Since Antwerp, there’s nothing that lot fears more than fireships.”

  His words ignited the charged atmosphere like a spark to spilled oil. Scattered exclamations erupted around the table. Fueled by the communal excitement, Jayne’s heart began to thunder. Calyx’s eyes glowed golden, but fortunately no one else was watching him. The others had swung the force of their arguments to Beltran. Amid the chaos, the Lord High Admiral was attempting to explain, in a somewhat bemused manner, the newcomer’s station as the Queen’s Enforcer.

  “—but I’m afraid it won’t suffice,” Cousin Howard finished, shaking his white head regretfully. “Fireships are a low ploy, unsuited to gentlemen in formal combat—”

  “The Devil take your formal combat.” Sir Martin Frobisher’s craggy face was ruddy with choler. “I’d send fireships against those Popish whoresons in a heartbeat, but for the goddamn wind. It’s from the east, man! Even if we had the ships and materiel to burn, the wind would blow those hell-burners right back at us.”

  “You can spare a few ships, by my count,” Calyx said. He was studying Beltran, gaze narrowed, as though he sensed something out of the ordinary. He had not her Faerie Sight, but surely a Nephilim would sense an Archangel’s presence.

  “Aye, that’s the way!” Ignited by the prospect, Drake leaped to his feet. “We can easily spare six or eight merchantmen, the supply ships.”

  “And what will you burn them with?” Charles Howard said irritably. “We’d need oil, pitch, brushwood—”

  “Already assembled,” Beltran said, “on the ship I used myself to slip past the Spanish lines. You can gather old sails, cordage, hemp and other combustibles for the rest, and pack your fireships to the gills.”

  “Aye, aye!” Drake strode around the cabin, the light of battle flaring in his gaze. “We’ll double-load the guns with shot. When the heat ignites the fuses, by God, the bloody Spaniards will think Lucifer himself has risen from Hell!”

  Beltran shot the English pirate a shuttered glance. She found herself wondering what role the Son of Lucifer had played in this plan. She scanned the crowd again but saw no sign of Zamiel’s black-haired, diamond-bright beauty.

  “Choose your ships, my Lord Admiral,” Beltran said. “You’ll need volunteers to man the tillers and light the ordnance—men with nerves of steel. They’ll have to wait until they’re on top of the enemy to light those fuses, then slip away fast in the longboats before the charges ignite.”

  “Tricky work lighting fuses in the dark, even if the wind obliges.” Cousin Howard’s gaze flickered toward Jayne.

  Anne Boleyn’s mother had been a Howard lady. Perhaps the Howards too had Faerie blood.

  “The wind will oblige, cousin,” Jayne said softly, holding his gaze.

  Kin Carey shot her a startled look, then slowly nodded.

  “As for the fire,” Calyx muttered, digging in his pockets, “I have just the thing. I’ve a dozen of these squirreled away on my galleon for any brave man who volunteers to pilot one of those hell-ships.”

  The gleam of his flint striker flashed. He depressed the hidden spring. A spray of sparks flared across the table.

  A chorus of curses and gasps went up. Jayne watched a glowing spark float gently to land on the fragile map. A charred brown spot appeared on the precious parchment and started to spread. Swiftly she pinched the ember out.

  “One of your infernal devices?” Frobisher glowered under beetling brows. “I’ve heard of those too. How do we know they won’t fail us at the crucial moment, hey?”

  “Because I’ll join you,” Calyx said calmly. “I’ll pilot the lead fireship and light the fuses myself.”

  * * *

  Now, Jayne stood wrapped in solitude in the Arcángel’s bow and peered into the darkness until her eyes ached. Somewhere out there, eight ill-fated ships floated silently to their doom. Somewhere in the darkness, Calyx’s steady hand on the tiller led this silent assault to the very heart of the enemy fleet.

  Beltran Nemesto, armed with another of the precious strikers, was sailing too. Drake himself had eagerly claimed a third. Other men also risked life and limb in this madness, entrusting their fate to God in these floating tinderboxes. She prayed a stray spark did not blow the entire lot and their cargo of deadly ordnance sky high before the pilots could slip over the stern.

  Magick tingled along her skin and stirred in her hair. Power danced like lightning along her fingertips. The wind tonight was damnably difficult, changeable as quicksilver. She spread her magick like a billowing sail across the heavens and funneled the whimsical wind until it shifted course and blew steadily east, toward the treacherous Banks of Flanders. There, with God’s grace, the Armada would founder.

  It would take the Devil’s own luck. But Calyx had always been lucky.

  A slim gowned figure slipped up beside her. Carefully Jayne gauged the wind and determined she could ease her vigilance. Only then did she look aside.

  The alabaster profile of Lady Linnet Norwood, Countess of Glencross, gleamed against the starry night.

  “Ye’ve a powerful magick,” the other woman said quietly, gazing at the distant Armada. “With the Sight, I can see it crackling like blue flames around ye.”

  “Truly?” Jayne shot her a startled glance. “My gift wakened late. Due to my mother’s passing, I’ve had none to teach me. Surely my unruly magick is naught compared to yours. You walk through mirrors and travel through time!”

  “Blessed Bride grant I can bring us back to where we started.” Linnet Norwood’s sherry-gold eyes glimmered with humor. “That’s the plan, aye? To send the Spaniards packing and stroll back through the glass to our wee bairns in Rhiannon’s keeping.”

  “Will you use the Faerie Glasse?” Jayne asked, curious. “The one in Calyx’s cabin?”

  “Now I’ve done it once, I know the way. Any mirror will do.” Linnet paused. “Until I met Zamiel, I thought I was mortal, ye know. A wee shock it was to learn otherwise.”

  “I always knew,” Jayne murmured. “But my father and brother have never been comfortable with our Faerie heritage. If tonight goes well, perhaps they’ll learn to accept it.”

  But will they learn to accept me—the family disgrace and Dudley’s whore?

  Jayne cleared her throat. “Pray, where is your husband? I have not seen him since you came aboard.”

  “Zamiel’s gone to Scotland.” Linnet’s soft mouth tightened. “Beltran places great faith in these fireships. But they can still fail, aye? If yonder fleet doesn’t run aground, the plan is to drive them north, toward the Orkneys and the Hebrides. With the weather gauge against them, they’ll not be able to reverse course. But there’s naught to stop them from sailing round the tip of Scotland and coming back down to devil us, is there?”

  Jayne nibbled her lower lip. That prospect, too, had troubled her.

  “So then.” Linnet nodded. “Ye could say Zamiel is England’s backup plan.”

  “Indeed?” Jayne said faintly. The prospect of the fireships’ failure, and what that would mean for their pilots, tied her stomach in knots.

  She’d nearly begged Calyx not to volunteer for this suicide mission. But she’d held her tongue and kept her fears to herself. If he wanted any kind of life as an English subject, he must prove his loyalty to his new kin and country. She would not let her qualms stand in the way of that.

  “I trust you will pardon me for saying so,” Jayne said. “But one man in Scotland seems a flimsy defense against the assembled might of Spain—even if he is a former Dominion.”

  “Aye, well, he’s the Angel of Hurricanes now, apparently,” Linnet said dryly. “We’ve Lucifer to thank for that, the wee fiend.”

  Jayne exclaimed in surprise. But the other woman eyed her with remarkable composur
e. She supposed one would need considerable sang-froid to wed the Son of Lucifer.

  “Ye’ll oblige me not to ask, Lady Boleyn,” Linnet murmured. “In return, I’ll say naught to vex ye about yer Nephilim.”

  Jayne smiled sadly and shook her head. “He is not my Nephilim. Not truly.”

  Calyx had sailed off, possibly to his death, without a word beyond a hurried farewell. Granted, a lover’s tender parting would have been difficult under the impatient eyes of half the English command.

  This was no time to brood over her shattered heart.

  The elements tugged at her like a babe pulling its mother’s skirt. The wind rippled her petticoats around her legs and kissed her cheeks like a playful child—all maternal analogies she pushed firmly aside. If they survived this night’s business, surely she had earned the right at least to see her son. To tell him his mother loved him—

  A bloom of fire flowered against the night-dark sea. With remarkable swiftness, it raced along the masts and rigging of a distant ship. To her dismay, she saw the fireship was still far from its target. They’d meant to hoard the advantage of surprise until they were nearly upon the Spaniards.

  A second bonfire ignited, even farther away.

  “God’s Eyes,” Jayne breathed. “They’re lighting too soon! I knew some of the lads who volunteered were too young. But one must take what one can get for this sort of mission—”

  The distant boom of exploding ordnance whooshed across the waves. Linnet uttered a small cry, but Jayne focused fiercely on the wind.

  With wind, current and the flood tide to aid them, the fireships must float true. Was Calyx aboard one of the burning vessels? Was he even now trapped on a burning ship, fiery masts and cinders raining down around him, the mainsail falling in a sheet of flame?

  She must not think of it. She could not bear to think of it.

  “I love him, I love him, I love him,” she whispered like a prayer, barely aware she spoke aloud. Her companion slipped a gentle arm around her waist.

  Kin Carey hurried up, spyglass clutched in his hands. Ignoring him, Jayne channeled every iota of her essence into the strengthening wind, pushing the deadly fireships toward their target.

  Another explosion boomed across the waves. The deck shuddered beneath her feet. More fireships were igniting, one after the next, casting a hellish red glare over the waves. Impossible to know which belonged to Calyx.

  At last, she could hold her tongue no longer.

  “Can you see the Hope Hawkins?” she demanded. The Hope Hawkins of Plymouth was Calyx’s fireship.

  “Aye, she’s well aflame,” Kin murmured. “Quite remarkable, really, how fast they burn. There goes her mizzenmast, crashing down across the quarterdeck. ’tis a veritable inferno—”

  “For the love of God! Is the longboat still tied behind? Can you see Calyx?”

  “I see naught but flames. I’m sorry, sister.”

  While she struggled to contain the terror that clawed at her breast, he trained the spyglass on the Armada.

  “By my troth, I do believe ’tis working!” he exclaimed, sounding mildly surprised. “Those big galleons of theirs are lumbering about in a panic, the smaller ships scattering to the four winds. But there! One of the long-oared galleasses just collided with a big flagship.”

  “Is it the Trinidad Valencera? Mordred boarded that ship when he left the Arcángel.”

  Although they seemed unlikely to be rid of the Prince of Camelot so easily, Calyx had always been lucky. Perhaps some of his famous luck would rub off on England.

  “I don’t—wait—I can almost see, but without my spectacles—”

  With a grimace, she wrested the spyglass from her brother and raised it to her eye. The scene leaped into relief, galleons and galleys wallowing, swarms of little zabras darting and hovering like maddened hornets. Frantic men swung through the rigging and wrestled with recalcitrant sails. As she watched, one ship’s crew sliced its anchor cable. Their ship scuttled away like a beetle from the flaming hell bearing down on them.

  At last she found the crippled galleon, which appeared to have damaged its rudder and now drifted listlessly toward a sandbank. She was the Rata Encoranada, not the ship she wanted at all. Jayne bit her lip and swept the scene again, searching intently. In the mayhem, she could not find the Trinidad.

  A covey of Spanish pinnaces managed to intercept two of the flaming vessels and tow them toward the shallows. But the other fireships were burning too fiercely. Pushed by wind and tide and current, they bore down on the panicked Spaniards without hindrance. As their ordnance discharged, volleys of burning shot rained down on the hapless Armada.

  Before the onslaught, the remaining vessels slipped their cables and scattered.

  If only she could find Calyx in the darkness. If only she knew he had survived!

  A tug at her skirts drew her gaze. A black cat the size of a hunting mastiff had risen to his hind legs to sink pinprick claws into her thighs. Emerald-gold eyes gazed up at her solemnly. A wan smile curved her lips.

  “There you are, Behemoth.” She passed the spyglass to Linnet, who now took her turn searching the waves. Jayne suffered a stab of uncharitable envy for the other woman, who at least knew her husband was safe, Angel of Hurricanes or whatever he was.

  Banishing the unworthy thought, she hoisted the substantial weight of the oversized feline. Despite his fearsome reputation, the mighty Behemoth settled against her shoulder. A baritone rumble rose from his throat.

  “Do you miss your master?” she whispered against his velvet black head. “If you have any influence with your namesake, the Angel of the Deep, say a word for Calyx.”

  * * *

  Jayne jerked suddenly from a restless sleep. Blankly she gazed around the familiar contours of Calyx’s cabin, where she’d finally withdrawn to recoup her depleted energies, drained from her night-long vigil and the sustained magick that kept the west wind blowing until dawn lit the sky.

  Judging by the angle of the sunlight streaming through the porthole, she’d slept the day away. In her lover’s bed, she lay alone.

  Her heart sank in a slow spiral of despair. More than twelve hours after he’d set out in the doomed Hope Hawkins, had Calyx still not returned?

  Against all odds, their desperate plan had worked. The impregnable Spanish crescent had shattered. The pride and hope of Catholic Spain now lay scattered and vulnerable, strung across miles of open sea. Only a handful of brave galleons had battled their way against the powerful currents into a thin defensive line, which they valiantly strove to hold while the embattled Armada regrouped.

  The English squadrons had been dispersing to deal with this challenge when Jayne retreated in quiet despair to the privacy of Calyx’s cabin.

  A soft rap sounded at the door. Belatedly, she realized the sound had woken her. For a heartbeat, a candle of hope flared in her breast.

  But never in his life, she knew, had Calyx entered a room so tentatively. Nay, if he’d returned, he would have come striding in and swept her up in his arms.

  At her feet, Behemoth’s inky bulk stirred. One baleful green eye rolled toward the door with a militant gleam that boded ill for whatever doomed creature disturbed his slumber.

  “Be nice,” Jayne murmured to the cat. She struggled upright among tangled furs still musky with cypress and ambergris. She’d slept in her gown and corset, which cut painfully into her ribs. Her hair spiraled in a loose braid over her shoulder.

  She supposed she was, in a manner of speaking, decent.

  “Enter,” she called.

  The door opened to reveal Iago’s thin, hopeless face. One look at the page’s reddened eyes, and Jayne’s descent into despair was complete.

  Still, one must put on a brave face, set an example for others. She refused to inflict her own fears on this innocent child.

  “He has not yet returned, I take it?” Despite her best effort, her voice quavered.

  “No, condesa.” The boy sidled in with a dinner tray. She had
utterly no appetite, but she supposed she must eat something. “El Draque, the English pirate, he called across to Diego from the Revenge.”

  “So Drake has returned safely, at least.” She tried to take what encouragement she could from that. “God be praised.”

  “Returned and sailed off again.” Iago lowered the tray amid the jumble of gears, wheels and mechanical trinkets scattered across the capitán’s desk. “It’s been fierce fighting all day, north along the sandbanks in a running battle past Gravelines. Don Alonso managed to regroup the Armada, but they’re badly battered, si? They’re trying now to fight their way back toward Dunkirk, to rendezvous with Parma and the second army.”

  To rendezvous with Mordred. Anxiety gnawed at her nerves.

  “But Diego says they won’t manage it, señora. Most of them cut their cables and lost their anchors last night. Even if they could reach Dunkirk, they can’t moor there in these seas.”

  “What of the Trinidad Valencera?” she asked.

  “Don de Luzon’s ship?” He looked blank. “God knows, señora. The wind is pushing them all to the north, with the entire English fleet on their tail.”

  She struggled to muster some interest in the Armada’s fate. If they were swept out to the cold gray seas around the tip of the Scottish mainland, the immediate threat to England would be past.

  No doubt the Angel of Hurricanes would be waiting for them.

  God save her, what had happened to Calyx? If he’d gone overboard when the Hope Hawkins ignited, he was a strong swimmer.

  But what if the Spanish had picked him up? Was his treachery already a matter of common knowledge? Even the English, finding a lone Spaniard floating in the sea, would be unlikely to aid him.

  While her mind shuttled through possibilities, each more alarming than the last, Iago squeezed past the bed to uncork her wine. At her feet, Behemoth uncurled his massive body, an ominous growl rumbling from his throat.