“Surely not,” Elizabeth said, voice hushed.
“We are not getting ahead of ourselves, remember?” Catherine said. “The goddess has blessed us enough.” As she said it, her brown eyes sparked green, gold, red, and black in rapid succession. “But perhaps . . .”
“Susanna’s almanac is all wrong. But we have decided it will be more auspicious if Diana weaves her forspell next Thursday, under the waxing crescent moon,” Marjorie said, clapping her hands with delight.
“Oof,” Goody Alsop said, poking her finger in her ear to shield it from the disturbance in the air. “Gently, Marjorie, gently.”
***
With my new obligations to the St. James Garlickhythe gathering and my ongoing interest in Mary’s alchemical experiments, I found myself spending more time outside the house while the Hart and Crown continued to serve as a center for the School of Night and the hub for Matthew’s work. Messengers came and went with reports and mail, George often stopped by for a free meal and to tell us about his latest futile efforts to find Ashmole 782, and Hancock and Gallowglass dropped off their laundry downstairs and whiled away the hours by my fire, scantily clad, until it was returned to them. Kit and Matthew had reached an uneasy truce after the business with Hubbard and John Chandler, which meant that I often found the playwright in the front parlor, staring moodily into the distance and then writing furiously. The fact that he helped himself to my supply of paper was an additional source of annoyance.
Then there were Annie and Jack. Integrating two children into the household was a full-time business. Jack, whom I supposed to be about seven or eight (he had no idea of his actual age), delighted in deviling the teenage girl. He followed her around and mimicked her speech. Annie would burst into tears and pelt upstairs to fling herself on her bed. When I chastised Jack for his behavior, he sulked. Desperate for a few quiet hours, I found a schoolmaster willing to teach them reading, writing, and reckoning, but the two of them quickly drove the recent Cambridge graduate away with their blank stares and studied innocence. Both preferred shopping with Françoise and running around London with Pierre to sitting quietly and doing their sums.
“If our child behaves like this, I’ll drown him,” I told Matthew, seeking a moment of respite in his study.
“She will behave like this, you can be certain of it. And you won’t drown her,” Matthew said, putting down his pen. We still disagreed about the baby’s sex.
“I’ve tried everything. I’ve reasoned, cajoled, pleaded—hell, I even bribed them.” Master Prior’s buns had only ratcheted up Jack’s energy level.
“Every parent makes those mistakes,” he said with a laugh. “You’re trying to be their friend. Treat Jack and Annie like pups. The occasional sharp nip on the nose will establish your authority better than a mince pie will.”
“Are you giving me parenting tips from the animal kingdom?” I was thinking of his early research into wolves.
“As a matter of fact, I am. If this racket continues, they’ll have me to contend with, and I don’t nip. I bite.” Matthew glowered at the door as a particularly loud crash echoed through our rooms, followed by an abject “Sorry, mistress.”
“Thanks, but I’m not desperate enough to resort to obedience training. Yet,” I said, backing out of the room.
Two days of using my teacher voice and administering time-outs instilled some degree of order, but the children required a great deal of activity to keep their exuberance in check. I abandoned my books and papers and took them on long walks down Cheapside and into the suburbs to the west. We went to the markets with Françoise and watched the boats unloading their cargo at the docks in the Vintry. There we imagined where the goods came from and speculated about the origins of the crews.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like a tourist and started feeling as though Elizabethan London was my home.
We were shopping Saturday morning at the Leadenhall Market, London’s premier emporium for fine groceries, when I saw a one-legged beggar. I was fishing a penny out of my bag for him when the children disappeared into a hatmaker’s shop. They could wreak havoc—expensive havoc—in such a place.
“Annie! Jack!” I called, dropping the penny in the man’s palm. “Keep your hands to yourselves!”
“You are far from home, Mistress Roydon,” a deep voice said. The skin on my back registered an icy stare, and I turned to find Andrew Hubbard.
“Father Hubbard,” I said. The beggar inched away.
Hubbard looked around. “Where is your woman?”
“If you are referring to Françoise, she is in the market,” I said tartly. “Annie is with me, too. I haven’t had a chance to thank you for sending her to us. She is a great help.”
“I understand you have met with Goody Alsop.”
I made no reply to this blatant fishing expedition.
“Since the Spanish came, she does not stir from her house unless there is good reason.”
Still I was silent. Hubbard smiled.
“I am not your enemy, mistress.”
“I didn’t say you were, Father Hubbard. But who I see and why is not your concern.”
“Yes. Your father-in-law—or do you think of him as your father?—made that quite clear in his letter. Philippe thanked me for assisting you, of course. With the head of the de Clermont family, the thanks always precede the threats. It is a refreshing change from your husband’s usual behavior.”
My eyes narrowed. “What is it that you want, Father Hubbard?”
“I suffer the presence of the de Clermonts because I must. But I am under no obligation to continue doing so if there is trouble.” Hubbard leaned toward me, his breath frosty. “And you are causing trouble. I can smell it. Taste it. Since you’ve come, the witches have been . . . difficult.”
“That’s an unfortunate coincidence,” I said, “but I’m not to blame. I’m so unschooled in the arts of magic that I can’t even crack an egg into a bowl.” Françoise came out of the market. I dropped Hubbard a curtsy and moved to step past him. His hand shot out and grabbed me around the wrist. I looked down at his cold fingers.
“It’s not just creatures who emit a scent, Mistress Roydon. Did you know that secrets have their own distinct odor?”
“No,” I said, drawing my wrist from his grasp.
“Witches can tell when someone lies. Wearhs can smell a secret like a hound can scent a deer. I will run your secret to ground, Mistress Roydon, no matter how you try to conceal it.”
“Are you ready, madame?” Françoise asked, frowning as she drew closer. Annie and Jack were with her, and when the girl spotted Hubbard, she blanched.
“Yes, Françoise,” I said, finally looking away from Hubbard’s uncanny, striated eyes. “Thank you for your counsel, Father Hubbard, and the information.”
“If the boy is too much for you, I would be happy to take care of him,” Hubbard murmured as I walked by. I turned and strode back to him.
“Keep your hands off what’s mine.” Our eyes locked, and this time it was Hubbard who looked away first. I returned to my huddle of vampire, witch, and human. Jack looked anxious and was now shifting from one foot to the other as if considering bolting. “Let’s go home and have some gingerbread,” I said, taking hold of his arm.
“Who is that man?” he whispered.
“That’s Father Hubbard” was Annie’s hushed reply.
“The one in the songs?” Jack said, looking over his shoulder. Annie nodded.
“Yes, and when he—”
“Enough, Annie. What did you see in the hat shop?” I asked, gripping Jack more tightly. I extended my hand toward the overflowing basket of groceries. “Let me take that, Françoise.”
“It will not help, madame,” Françoise said, though she handed me the basket. “Milord will know you have been with that fiend. Not even the cabbage’s scent will hide it.” Jack’s head turned in interest at this morsel of information, and I gave Françoise a warning look.
“Let’s not borrow
trouble,” I said as we turned toward home.
Back at the Hart and Crown, I divested myself of basket, cloak, gloves, and children and took a cup of wine in to Matthew. He was at his desk, bent over a sheaf of paper. My heart lightened at the now-familiar sight.
“Still at it?” I asked, reaching over his shoulder to put the wine before him. I frowned. His paper was covered with diagrams, X’s and O’s, and what looked like modern scientific formulas. I doubted that it had anything to do with espionage or the Congregation, unless he was devising a code. “What are you doing?”
“Just trying to figure something out,” Matthew said, sliding the paper away.
“Something genetic?” The X’s and O’s reminded me of biology and Gregor Mendel’s peas. I drew the paper back. There weren’t just X’s and O’s on the page. I recognized initials belonging to members of Matthew’s family: YC, PC, MC, MW. Others belonged to my own: DB, RB, SB, SP. Matthew had drawn arrows between individuals, and lines crisscrossed from generation to generation.
“Not strictly speaking,” Matthew said, interrupting my examination. It was a classic Matthew nonanswer.
“I suppose you’d need equipment for that.” At the bottom of the page, a circle surrounded two letters: B and C—Bishop and Clairmont. Our child. This had something to do with the baby.
“In order to draw any conclusions, certainly.” Matthew picked up the wine and carried it toward his lips.
“What’s your hypothesis, then?” I asked. “If it involves the baby, I want to know what it is.”
Matthew froze, his nostrils flaring. He put the wine carefully on the table and took my hand, pressing his lips to my wrist in a seeming gesture of affection. His eyes went black.
“You saw Hubbard,” he said accusingly.
“Not because I sought him out.” I pulled away. That was a mistake.
“Don’t,” Matthew rasped, his fingers tightening. He drew another shuddering breath. “Hubbard touched you on the wrist. Only the wrist. Do you know why?”
“Because he was trying to get my attention,” I said.
“No. He was trying to capture mine. Your pulse is here,” Matthew said, his thumb sweeping over the vein. I shivered. “The blood is so close to the surface that I can see it as well as smell it. Its heat magnifies any foreign scent placed there.” His fingers circled my wrist like a bracelet. “Where was Françoise?”
“In Leadenhall Market. I had Jack and Annie with me. There was a beggar, and—” I felt a brief, sharp pain. When I looked down, my wrist was torn and blood welled from a set of shallow, curved nicks. Teeth marks.
“That’s how fast Hubbard could have taken your blood and known everything about you.” Matthew’s thumb pressed firmly into the wound.
“But I didn’t see you move,” I said numbly.
His black eyes gleamed. “Nor would you have seen Hubbard, if he’d wanted to strike.”
Perhaps Matthew wasn’t as overprotective as I thought.
“Don’t let him get close enough to touch you again. Are we clear?”
I nodded, and Matthew began the slow business of managing his anger. Only when he was in control of it did he answer my initial question.
“I’m trying to determine the likelihood of passing my blood rage to our child,” he said, a tinge of bitterness in his tone. “Benjamin has the affliction. Marcus doesn’t. I hate the fact that I could curse an innocent child with it.”
“Do you know why Marcus and your brother Louis were resistant, when you, Louisa, and Benjamin were not?” I carefully avoided assuming that this accounted for all his children. Matthew would tell me more when—if—he was able.
His shoulders lost their sharp edge. “Louisa died long before it was possible to run proper tests. I don’t have enough data to draw any reliable conclusions.”
“You have a theory, though,” I said, thinking of his diagrams.
“I’ve always thought of blood rage as a kind of infection and supposed Marcus and Louis had a natural resistance to it. But when Goody Alsop told us that only a weaver could bear a wearh child, it made me wonder if I’ve been looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps it’s not something in Marcus that’s resistant but something in me that’s receptive, just as a weaver is receptive to a wearh’s seed, unlike any other warmblooded woman.”
“A genetic predisposition?” I asked, trying to follow his reasoning.
“Perhaps. Possibly something recessive that seldom shows up in the population unless both parents carry the gene. I keep thinking of your friend Catherine Streeter and your description of her as ‘thrice-blessed,’ as though her genetic whole is somehow greater than the sum of its parts.”
Matthew was quickly lost in the intricacies of his intellectual puzzle. “Then I started wondering whether the fact that you are a weaver is sufficient to explain your ability to conceive. What if it’s a combination of recessive genetic traits—not only yours but mine as well?” When his hands drove through his hair in frustration, I took it as a sign that the last of the blood rage was gone and heaved a silent sigh of relief.
“When we get back to your lab, you’ll be able to test your theory.” I dropped my voice. “And once Sarah and Em hear they’re going to be aunts, you’ll have no problem getting them to give you a blood sample—or to babysit. They both have bad cases of granny lust and have been borrowing the neighbors’ children for years to satisfy it.”
That conjured a smile at last.
“Granny lust? What a rude expression.” Matthew approached me. “Ysabeau’s probably developed a dire case of it, too, over the centuries.”
“It doesn’t bear thinking about,” I said with a mock shudder.
It was in these moments—when we talked about the reactions of others to our news rather than analyzing our own responses to it—that I felt truly pregnant. My body had barely registered the new life it was carrying, and in the day-to-day busyness at the Hart and Crown it was easy to forget that we would soon be parents. I could go for days without thinking about it, only to be reminded of my condition when Matthew came to me, deep in the night, to rest his hands on my belly in silent communion while he listened for the signs of new life.
“Nor can I bear to think of you in harm’s way.” Matthew took me in his arms. “Be careful, ma lionne,” he whispered against my hair.
“I will. I promise.”
“You wouldn’t recognize danger if it came to you with an engraved invitation.” He drew away so that he could look into my eyes. “Just remember: Vampires are not like warmbloods. Don’t underestimate how lethal we can be.”
***
Matthew’s warning echoed long after he delivered it. I found myself watching the other vampires in the household for the small signs that they were thinking of moving or that they were hungry or tired, restless or bored. The signs were subtle and easy to miss. When Annie walked past Gallowglass, his lids dropped to shutter the avid expression in his eyes, but it was over so quickly I might have imagined it, just as I might have imagined the flaring of Hancock’s nostrils when a group of warmbloods passed by on the street below.
I was not imagining the extra laundry charges to clean the blood from their linen, however. Gallowglass and Hancock were hunting and feeding in the city, though Matthew did not join them. He confined himself to what Françoise could procure from the butchers.
When Annie and I went to Mary’s on Monday afternoon, as was our custom, I remained more alert to my surroundings than I had been since our arrival. This time it wasn’t to absorb the details of Elizabethan life but to make sure we weren’t being watched or followed. I kept Annie safely within arm’s reach, and Pierre retained a firm grip on Jack. We had learned the hard way that it was the only hope we had of keeping the boy from “magpie-ing,” as Hancock called it. In spite of our efforts, Jack still managed to commit numerous acts of petty theft. Matthew instituted a new household ritual in an effort to combat it. Jack had to empty his pockets every night and confess how he’d come by his extraordina
ry assortment of shiny objects. So far it hadn’t put a damper on his activities.
Given his light fingers, Jack could not yet be trusted in the Countess of Pembroke’s well-appointed home. Annie and I took our leave of Pierre and Jack, and the girl’s expression brightened considerably at the prospect of a long gossip with Mary’s maid, Joan, and a few hours of freedom from Jack’s unwanted attentions.
“Diana!” Mary cried when I crossed the threshold of her laboratory. No matter how many times I entered, it never failed to take my breath away, with its vivid murals illustrating the making of the philosopher’s stone. “Come, I have something to show you.”
“Is this your surprise?” Mary had been hinting that she would soon delight me with a display of her alchemical proficiency.
“Yes,” Mary replied, drawing her notebook from the table. “See here, it is now the eighteenth of January, and I began the work on the ninth of December. It has taken exactly forty days, just as the sages promised.”
Forty was a significant number in alchemical work, and Mary could have been conducting any number of experiments. I looked through her laboratory entries in an effort to figure out what she’d been doing. Over the past two weeks, I’d learned Mary’s shorthand and the symbols she used for the various metals and substances. If I understood correctly, she began this process with an ounce of silver dissolved in aqua fortis—the “strong water” of the alchemists, known in my own time as nitric acid. To this, Mary added distilled water.
“Is this your mark for mercury?” I asked, pointing to an unfamiliar glyph.
“Yes—but only the mercury I obtain from the finest source in Germany.” Mary spared no expense when it came to her laboratory, chemicals, or equipment. She drew me toward another example of her commitment to quality at any price: a large glass flask. It was free of imperfections and clear as crystal, which meant it had come from Venice. The English glass made in Sussex was marred with tiny bubbles and faint shadows. The Countess of Pembroke preferred the Venetian stuff—and could afford it.
When I saw what was inside, a premonitory finger brushed against my shoulders.
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