And Less Than Kind

by Mercedes Lackey

  She was less frightened Underhill, and she needed the respite from fear. But she knew that in the mortal world her danger was only growing more acute. Both Eleanor Gage and Elizabeth Marberry were lying in a spelled sleep in her bedchamber. She had kept Mary's spies close since Croft's visit so they could give evidence of her behavior, but she needed so desperately to talk to her Da that she had taken the chance of bespelling them.

  Her absence would not be noted by her own household. Blanche had locked her own door into the servant's corridor so no one could enter that way and was on guard by the bedchamber door. And Denno would twist time close enough to when she Gated with him that she might have left her bed to use her close stool. But Da was not offering comfort. His expression made clear that he was gravely worried.

  "And me?" Elizabeth asked. "Will she order me executed?"

  "You must delay coming to her as long as possible," Harry said. "Mary does not have great steadiness of mind. She will soon be sickened by the executions and so will the Londoners, who did fight to protect her but have little sympathy for her purposes. Most do not wish to see the Catholic rite restored and all are opposed to her marrying Philip."

  "There is no danger of your execution," Denoriel growled. "No matter what Mary orders. Be sure always to have with you the tokens that can give me a place to build a Gate. I will fetch you away before any harm can come to you."

  Harry saw the despair in Elizabeth's expression. He could not understand how she could prefer the crude, dull, mortal world to the beauties and joys of Underhill, but he knew she did and he loved her enough to put her preference above his own.

  "I do not think it will be necessary to bring Elizabeth Underhill," Harry said. "Even a few weeks' delay will be enough to cool Mary's rage. She is only fixed beyond reason and beyond sympathy on the need to restore Catholicism. Even marriage to Prince Philip—although Rhoslyn believes her to be deeply in love with the prince—is part of that purpose."

  "But I have conformed," Elizabeth said bitterly. "I have Mass said in Ashfield. I even attend. Mary does not believe me sincere."

  "Elizabeth—" Denoriel moved closer to her on the sofa and put his arm around her. "Just because you escape Mary by coming Underhill does not mean that you are exiled from England forever. Harry needed to remain Underhill because Mwynwen had to drain the elfshot poison from him and because Richey died in his place and was buried so the mortal world thought him to be dead. We can arrange an 'escape' for you and then bring you back—"

  "That can only be a last resort," Harry said. "Only if they are ready to lead her to the block."

  Elizabeth shuddered and Denoriel took her completely into his arms. She kissed him, then shook her head and said to him, "Da, tell him. If I seem to leave the country or merely remain hidden, my chance to inherit from Mary will be greatly diminished. She will have opportunity to name an heir and establish him."

  "Too true," Harry said, but suddenly he looked more cheerful. "No need for you to disappear, at least not yet. We can make it seem as if you really are very sick. When Denno said 'Mwynwen,' I realized we could ask her to bespell Elizabeth to look terrible. As I said, Bess only needs to stay out of Mary's hands for a few weeks. Mwynwen can make you look too sick to travel."

  "Now that is a good idea," Denoriel said.

  "Will she do it?" Elizabeth asked anxiously; she knew that Mwynwen hated to come to the mortal world.

  "Yes," Denoriel and Harry said together, and then Denoriel continued alone, "Titania will speak to her if our request is not sufficient."

  Chapter 26

  Unfortunately despite the confusion and other business involved in rounding up and imprisoning stray rebels, Mary and her Council had not forgotten Elizabeth. Only two days later, on the tenth of February, Dr. Thomas Wendy and Dr. George Owen arrived with a letter from the queen insisting on her coming to London to explain her relations with Wyatt and the French ambassador.

  The doctors arrived late in the afternoon. Kat shook her head when they asked to see Elizabeth.

  "She is asleep, poor child. I beg you not to disturb her."

  Dr. Owen looked coldly at Mistress Ashley. He and his companion had been told that she was entirely devoted to Lady Elizabeth, and he and Dr. Wendy had strict instructions. Unless Lady Elizabeth were truly at death's door and would not survive being carried from her bed, she was to be judged well enough to travel. But when Blanche was summoned to wake her mistress and make her ready for the doctors, they met their match in determination and more than their match in outspokenness.

  Blanche looked into their faces with eyes brilliant with rage and said, "No! If you were the queen herself I would not wake her. She did not sleep at all last night and has barely drifted off. If you want to pass that door, you will need to walk over my dead body. Doctors! Assassins more likely, to wake a sick child and frighten her to death."

  Both Wendy and Owen were much taken aback by the maid's vehemence and even more taken aback when Blanche turned her back on them, stamped into Elizabeth's bedchamber, and, a moment later, they heard the key turn in the lock.

  "You must forgive her," Kat said. "Blanche has been with Lady Elizabeth since she was born and she is deeply worried about this illness. I am also. It is rare for Lady Elizabeth to be so weak she is bedridden for so long."

  The doctors consulted each other in swift glances. Orders or no orders, actually they could accomplish nothing by insisting on examining Elizabeth immediately. Both of them were tired and it was near dark. Even if they found her in excellent health, it would be impossible to start for London at once. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough to examine her. Agreed, they allowed Mistress Ashley to lead them from Elizabeth's reception room and to the guest chambers prepared for them.

  The air spirit Elizabeth dispatched to bring Denoriel to her was in so great a ferment, reflecting her terror, that it could not make clear what emergency was toward. Frantic with anxiety, Denoriel Gated to Ashridge, learned of the arrival of Doctors Owen and Wendy carrying Mary's letter demanding Elizabeth come to London from Blanche, and Gated Underhill to find Mwynwen. Although she frowned and shuddered when he asked her to come to the mortal world to make Elizabeth look ill, and she asked if he could not bring Elizabeth to her, eventually Mwynwen consented to Gate with him to Ashridge.

  By three of the clock past midnight, a profound silence lay over Elizabeth's apartment. Tonight no lady slept in the truckle bed. All had heard Blanche lock the door and no one was prepared to scratch on it to ask admittance. Silent and tense, Blanche sat beside Elizabeth on the edge of her big bed where they had been waiting for hours. Both sighed in relief as a black spot formed on the wall and slowly enlarged to show the cool greens and blues of Mwynwyn's entrance hall. Denoriel stepped through with Mwynwen on his heels, but he whirled to point at the door and the wall that separated the bedchamber from the reception room. It should be empty, but Denoriel would take no chance on being overheard, though spellcasting drained him.

  "Prizivati cutanje," he murmured, invoking silence. No sound made in Elizabeth's bedchamber would pass out of it.

  Elizabeth slipped off her bed, stepped down two steps, and curtsied to the Sidhe healer. "I am so grateful to you, Lady Mwynwyn for coming to me. I was afraid to go to you. If I were found to be missing from my chamber, I would be accounted guilty of heaven alone knows what crime."

  Mwynwyn's expression softened slightly. "Why do you need to appear ill, and for how long?"

  So Elizabeth explained about the rebellion and Mary's rage and the fact that her rages did not last long. "If I am brought before her now, she will cry 'Off with her head,' and then later her ministers and the ambassador from the land that nourishes the Inquisition will hold her to that word and I will die. If I can—"

  "Those lunatics who destroyed Alhambra?" Mwynwen interrupted angrily.

  "Yes, Lady Mwynwen. The priests of the Inquisition seeing the impossible beauty of that wonderful place cursed it and 'exorcised' it, staining it with Evil."


  Denoriel looked at Elizabeth with a mixture of admiration and exasperation. He had no doubt that she was really terrified, but her fear did not paralyze her. Her mind moved just as swiftly, just as subtly. She had remembered something Harry told her about Mwynwen and had used that knowledge to build sympathy for herself.

  "We must not let that happen here!" Mwynwen said.

  "No, indeed," Elizabeth replied. "And if I come to the throne, I assure you there will be no Inquisition in England and no witch hunts against—" she glanced at Denoriel, unable to say the word Sidhe "—my special friends. But to come to the throne, I must survive and, alas, my sister believes she has reason to distrust me. She has sent two physicians to examine me because she believes I am lying to avoid her and I am not really ill."

  "And so you are not," Mwynwen said, smiling faintly. "But you will be—and for all the world to see. By tomorrow you will be slightly, only slightly, fevered and have a cough and your heart will beat too fast. By midmorning, you will begin to swell—"

  "Not my belly," Elizabeth interrupted anxiously. "If my belly is swollen, everyone will say I am with child by some common lover. Mary says always that I am a whore."

  "Ah . . ." Mwynwen thought a moment and then murmured and began to run her fingers over Elizabeth's face and arms and legs. "Your belly will be flat as a charger, but your face and limbs will be swollen—tomorrow noticeably and the next day badly. The swelling will last, oh, two mortal weeks or so and then will diminish."

  "Thank you, my lady," Elizabeth said, curtsying again.

  Mwynwen nodded, stared at her penetratingly, nodded again, and turned toward the Gate without a word of farewell. Denoriel stepped closer, gestured at it, and Mwynwen stepped through. The Gate closed behind her. Denoriel stepped back, reaching out with one hand, and drew Elizabeth into his arms. Blanche slipped out of the chamber into her own room and closed the door.

  "You are warm already," Denoriel said clutching her tighter. "Do not allow those idiot doctors to bleed you. And do not take their potions and remedies. They will surely poison you."

  Elizabeth laughed shakily. "That is not why I am warm, beloved. I . . . You had better not come to me in the palace. I may be held there long . . ."

  She slid her arms up and around his neck, pulled his head down and kissed him. "God knows when I will see you again . . . not that I wish to see you while I am all swollen and horrible. Do not you dare come near me when I look a fright."

  "You never look a fright to me," he murmured against her lips. "Now and forever you are my red-haired witch with a soul that is pure enchantment."

  No matter that Elizabeth truly appeared sick, when Doctors Wendy and Owen came at midmorning to examine her, they both remembered vividly their interview with Chancellor Gardiner. Their lucrative positions as Court physicians depended on finding Elizabeth well enough to travel. But both knew she was too warm to the touch, with a nasty, dry cough, and signs of swelling in the thickness of her fingers. Everyone knew Elizabeth's beautiful hands with their long, thin, graceful fingers.

  Nonetheless both agreed aloud, speaking to each other, that Lady Elizabeth's heart was strong and the fever insignificant. Neither recommended bleeding; she could not lift her head from her pillows and bleeding would only make her weaker. Both, feeling decidedly uneasy, stated that she was strong enough to travel without serious danger to her health.

  "Murderers!" Blanche spat, loud enough for all the ladies in the chamber to hear. "You are not doctors. You are assassins! Who sent you to kill my lady? Not her sister. Not the queen. Queen Mary loves Lady Elizabeth, that I know."

  "Be silent!" Dr. Owen roared, the force of his voice increased by his sense of guilt. After all, it was not the queen but the chancellor who had given them their instructions.

  A long thin knife suddenly appeared in Blanche's hand. The honed steel flashed, but by their positions, Owen realized he was the only one who saw the threat. He backed away as Blanche moved closer to him and said softly, "You will kill my lady. I will not outlive her . . . But if you try to move her from that bed, neither will you!"

  "Blanche," Elizabeth whispered. "I am willing to go, really I am." She made a feeble, abortive effort to lift herself from the pillows that supported her but fell back, her breathing loud and rasping.

  All the women in the chamber were weeping loudly. The two guardsmen by the door both had their hands on their swords. The doctors looked around uneasily and again consulted each other silently. Even Mary's woman, Eleanor Gage, looked horrified.

  "This is a ridiculous and hysterical assertion by an ignorant maid," Dr. Wendy said, trying to make his voice firm and confident. "Lady Elizabeth is only distressed by the terrible events. I have with me a most excellent strengthening restorative. I am sure that Lady Elizabeth will be much recovered by tomorrow. Perhaps our examination tired her today, but we must leave for London tomorrow."

  He opened the bag he had closed after Elizabeth's examination and removed from it a stoppered flask, which he handed to Blanche. The knife had disappeared and Blanche dropped a stiff curtsey as he told her how to administer the restorative.

  The contents of the flask, harmful or helpful, joined the contents of Elizabeth's close stool very soon after the doctors and the ladies who were their witnesses—and how Owen and Wendy wished there had been none—left Elizabeth's chamber. The flask itself, tucked into the bosom of Blanche's gown, was refilled with some good wine mixed with a little brandy and the "restorative" was administered just as Dr. Wendy had recommended.

  It had no effect on Elizabeth. The next day both doctors were visibly alarmed over her swollen limbs, but both agreed that what troubled her was merely an excess of watery humors and that moving in the very luxurious litter that Queen Mary had sent would not be dangerous. Her kidneys would right themselves whether she lay in bed or was carried carefully in the litter.

  Moreover that evening a delegation from the queen herself arrived. Blanche, who was beginning to worry about Elizabeth's weakness even though she had been present when Mwynwen bespelled her, wondered if she should have used the true restorative. However, when Elizabeth learned who had come from her sister, her eyes brightened. All of the men, Lord William Howard (a hero in the fight against Wyatt and Elizabeth's maternal great uncle), Sir Edward Hastings, and Sir Thomas Cornwallis, were fond of her.

  They were all horrified by her appearance; the swelling had distorted her long, thin face out of all proportion, turning her eyes to mere slits, and her arms and legs were so distended that they were hard to bend. Nonetheless, as Lord William whispered to her while bent over her bed, holding her dropsical hand, she must be prepared to start for London the next day. It would be far safer to be seen to be making an effort to obey the queen than to lie abed. She would not be pressed to travel farther than was comfortable for her each day.

  The queen's commissioners redeemed that promise. The cortege took a full twelve days to travel the short distance from Ashridge to London. Most of the time, Elizabeth lay still, seeming scarcely to breathe, but on the last day of the journey she bade Blanche dress her in a simple white silk gown. There were no ruches, no pleats, no gathers to conceal any part of her figure. The gown barely swelled over her small, high breasts and lay flat as a game board over her sunken belly.

  When they started out, Elizabeth ordered that the curtains of the litter be pulled back so that she would be completely exposed. She was not disappointed. Sir Edward's men had announced her coming in every ale house and tavern and cookshop and the people of London rushed out to see the "mere-English" heir to the throne. Elizabeth did not wave and smile as was her custom; she let the people see that she was ill but still an obedient subject, rising from a sickbed to obey her queen.

  Several times her escort urged her to cover herself, fearing the effect of the February cold on her fevered body, but she would not. She only shook her head and set her teeth, as if determined to endure, but actually Denoriel had given her a charm that kept a cozy warmth around her bo
dy under the shield that she had called. Nonetheless, she shivered convulsively—not from the cold but from the sight of so many, many gallows, heads displayed on the great gates and dismembered corpses hanging from the walls.

  Elizabeth did not weep for them. They were fools and had deserved their fate. A far greater sin to her than which rite was used to worship Christ was rebellion against the anointed queen. She shivered because she knew Mary was a bad queen and a fool and that she had caused the rebellion by her stubborn stupidity; she shivered because she wished her sister dead so that she could heal her country's wounds and make the people cheerfully obedient.

  As well as she could Elizabeth had ensured that every soul in London and its environs who took the trouble to come was able to see that she was alive, if not well, and certainly not carrying any child. That was some comfort to Elizabeth and she needed comfort that day.