And Less Than Kind

by Mercedes Lackey

  Pasgen hugged his elvensteed fondly just before he mounted. "But you don't look anything like a mortal horse," he pointed out.

  He was also going to explain that his Gate opened into a human bedchamber where there was no room for a horse; however, he found himself stepping out of the Gate into Otstargi's room.

  "Torg—" he began, and swallowed the words as he hurried out. He could not get used to the way elvensteeds knew more than their riders. Torgen would be where and when he was needed.

  First Pasgen glanced into Albertus's bedchamber; it was only slightly disordered and empty. In the other chamber, however, the servant was washing the floor. Beside him was a rolled pallet almost soaked in blood. Pasgen's lips thinned. Albertus had torn the babe from the mother's body.

  He turned away without speaking to the servant, who would clean as well as he could without further instruction, ran down the stair, and out the door into an empty street. Torgen was waiting.

  "Can you follow where he went? He was carrying a newborn, who would smell of blood . . . and likely of death."

  By then Pasgen was mounted and Torgen, who now looked like an ordinary if beautiful black horse, took off at a fast trot down the street toward Hampton Court Palace. One curiosity; no sound of horse's hooves disturbed the quiet of the night.

  Pasgen was prepared to stun any guard at the garden gate, but it was not necessary. He overtook Albertus—and to Pasgen's initial surprise it was Albertus himself, no disguised Sidhe—in the side lane leading to the garden gate. Thus there was no need for stunning; they were all still well out of sight of the guard.

  Lips parted in a vicious grin, Pasgen simply leapt down from Torgen's saddle and froze the physician. He had realized that Albertus could not allow a Sidhe—and likely one of those who took too much pleasure in mortal pain—to cut the baby from the mother. Doubtless the Sidhe would have taken so long about it, that the child would not have survived.

  The thought struck Pasgen painfully. Deprived of them, most Sidhe loved children. Hastily now, he took the bag from Albertus's hand and opened it. His eyes widened and his grin hardened into a pained rictus. Tears sprang to his eyes as he knelt, put down the bag, and carefully lifted the tiny body out. The babe was so pale and still he thought it dead, but it was chilled, not stone cold and clammy and where his hands cupped it, he felt a slight warmth . . . and then it twitched.

  Pasgen gasped and tore off his doublet to wrap around the bloodstained rag covering the child. The night air was too cold; it would chill his fragile burden. Clutching the baby to his breast, he closed Albertus's bag and replaced it in his hand. He turned to Torgen, about to ask for help in mounting, but the elvensteed had already knelt. When he was in the saddle, he whispered the Don't-see-me spell, released Albertus from stasis, and watched him continue toward the gate to the garden without the smallest sign of awareness that he had been relieved of the fruit of his crime.

  "Hafwen," Pasgen said, holding the infant with great care.

  Hafwen would know to whom to bring the child if she could not save it herself.

  The street that led to the garden gate seemed unusually long to Albertus, but he put that down to being tired. He had not dreamed that the skinny bitch would have so much blood in her or that the baby would be so small. He almost could not find it for all the blood. He should have cut her throat before he cut out the child, but he wanted the babe alive.

  All he needed was for it to live until all the notables had seen it and it could not be exchanged for something more healthy. He did not think this babe would survive more than a few days. No one would think that strange or suspicious. The death of the infant would be part of the queen's family history. All of Mary's mother's children, except her, had died within minutes or at most a few weeks of being born.

  He frowned as he came to the gate. Rhoslyn was supposed to be there, to have told the guard he had been summoned to the queen. Thank God he had his physician's letter. The guard was suspicious because it was nearly midnight, but the queen's seal on the letter together with Albertus's indignant claim it was an emergency passed him through. He had a moment of panic when he thought the guard pointed to his medical bag, but it was a gesture of recognition of the physician's case and he was waved ahead.

  No doubt the guard thought he would turn right and enter into the lower apartments where he would need to pass several more guards before he came to the queen. He turned left instead.

  Albertus was accustomed to uncovering interesting information and he had learned the queen had her own private stair by which she could slip down into the garden. He had showed it to Rhoslyn, told her to make certain that the door was unlocked. If she had failed in this second task . . .

  He found the stair and hurried up it. At the top he paused to listen at the door; he heard nothing. Carefully, he twisted the knob, breathed a sigh of relief as it turned, and opened the door a bare crack. With an even greater sigh, he pushed the door open, entered, and closed it behind him.

  Before him was what seemed a room full of statues. Mary was kneeling at her prie-dieu. Albertus frowned briefly. It would have been better if she were already in bed. Now Aurilia, not as careful about details as she should be, would have to implant memories of her going to bed as well as feeling her pains start.

  To each side of the queen knelt Susan Clarencieux and Jane Dormer. Jane Russell and Mistress Shirley were frozen mid act in examining one of Mary's gowns at the back of the room. Another maid was closer, lifting a pitcher but had fortunately not begun to pour.

  Movement drew his eyes. Albertus sucked air nervously. Rhoslyn was still missing, but Aurilia was already in the chamber. If Aurilia had sent Rhoslyn away she would have to call her back, Albertus thought, quivering on the edge of hysteria. Rhoslyn would know the routines followed when the queen went to bed. Aurilia would need to insert into everyone's minds that they had . . . No, if the queen's pains started there would have been excitement and confusion. They would have sent for the midwives and the doctors.

  He turned eagerly to Aurilia and began to tell her what she must implant in the mind of each person in the room. As he spoke, he knelt down to open his case, shaking with excitement. Just before he reached inside, he became aware of the ominous silence above him and looked up.

  Aurilia should have looked pleased; instead she looked furious. "That will take all night," she snarled. "And most of the plan is already thrown into disorder."

  Albertus drew a sharp, frightened breath. "Why? What is wrong? I had no trouble entering . . ." He started to pull back the flap of his satchel. "And I have here—"

  "Everything is amiss," Aurilia hissed, raising a hand to make him suffer for her frustration. "You did not give me the right directions for the important Court officials. The Sidhe I sent for them has lost himself somewhere in the palace. There are only a few I have been able to bespell to believe the queen has borne a child."

  While she spoke, Albertus had reached into his case to snatch out the body of the baby. He knew protest that he had not given the wrong directions, that the uncaring Sidhe had not listened, was useless. He thought if she saw the child, she would realize it was more important to make those in the room believe the queen had given birth than to punish him.

  But his hand did not touch the yielding flesh of the newborn.

  "Where?" he gasped, looking down, in seeming indifference to Aurilia who was talking to him; she snarled, outraged, but he only opened the satchel wider.

  There was no baby!

  Trying to believe that the little body had rolled to the side and down among the instruments, Albertus pulled the steel tools from the case and flung them away.

  A screech that nearly split his ears rang out. Albertus looked up from his frenzied search inside his medical bag just in time to see Aurilia pull her foot from under one of his scalpels. The foot was already swelling and a tiny thread of blood trickled from where the point of the instrument had touched her.

  "Iron. You struck me with iron!" Aurilia s
hrieked.

  "No!" Albertus screamed.

  His head was seized and wrenched backward. He struggled, twisting in the grip that was sinking Aurilia's long nails into his skull, feeling his neck about to break. That was a mistake. Blood ran down Aurilia's fingers, sliming them. It was the last insult. Snarling with fury, Aurilia's free hand smacked down on Albertus's chest. He had no time to cry out again.

  Aurilia sucked in his life force, using it to dull the pain and counter the poison of the iron that had touched her. Using it to transport her from the queen's bedchamber into the room where she did not even notice the half dozen mortals who stood vacant-eyed. Using the last remnants to thrust her through the fading Gate to her chambers in Caer Mordwyn.

  Chapter 36

  Aurilia's shriek had penetrated through the door of the queen's bedchamber into the private retiring room where her ladies waited on her pleasure. Few were there now. The duchess of Norfolk remained, grimly waiting for her friends and rivals for Mary's attention, the countess of Arundel and Lady Rochester, to return. She was furious that they had been summoned and she had not.

  Mistress Rosamund had come into the chamber a few moments earlier, seemingly to retrieve the book she had left, but she was pale and breathing hard. Ordinarily the duchess of Norfolk did not concern herself with Mistress Rosamund. The queen was very fond of Rosamund because she had been one of her ladies from before her father died and all through the years Mary had been in disgrace. True, but Mistress Rosamund was nobody, a mere esquire's daughter.

  Still, the duchess of Norfolk noticed that Mistress Rosamund was looking at the queen's door with wide eyes that looked very frightened. Could it be that she knew what was going on behind that door? The duchess of Norfolk got slowly to her feet, intending to ask Mistress Rosamund what she knew with all the power of her exalted position.

  She was just about to call out to Rosamund to wait for her, when a shriek rang out so dreadful that for a moment she was paralyzed. That moment was enough for Rosamund to leap across the room and fling open the door to the queen's bedchamber just as a second scream tore the air.

  Outraged that Mistress Nobody had dared to run ahead of a duchess and also dared to open the door to the queen's bedchamber without invitation, the duchess of Norfolk pushed Rosamund aside. She heard Rosamund cry out but her eyes were fixed on an enormously tall, exquisitely beautiful woman with so vicious an expression on her face the duchess cringed away. But then the woman vanished! Vanished! And behind her Rosamund was softly keening gibberish.

  "Who is that?" the duchess cried.

  "Albertus," Rosamund answered. "He is one of the queen's physicians. Oh, God have mercy, I think he is dead!"

  Caught by the word "dead," the duchess of Norfolk finally noticed the body on the floor. Her lips parted to ask again about the giant woman who had disappeared, but the words stuck in her throat. There was no woman standing above the body. Surely that vision had been some kind of reflection or false image. All else—except the dead man—looked perfectly ordinary.

  The queen, kneeling at her prie-dieu, was just turning her head. She looked faintly annoyed at being interrupted at her prayers, but not at all startled. As if neither of those dreadful shrieks had sounded. Then Queen Mary saw Albertus on the floor, his case open, his instruments strewn about, and blood streaking his face.

  "What is this?" Mary asked, eyes wide with shock.

  The question was addressed to the duchess of Norfolk, who was standing in the doorway. The duchess turned to push Rosamund forward to answer. But Rosamund was not there. Everyone except Rosamund was staring at her, mouths and eyes open with shock. Rosamund's book was lying on the chair where she had left it. Had she imagined that beautiful, vicious woman, the duchess wondered? Had she imagined Rosamund? Had she imagined the screams?

  "Did you not hear the terrible cries?" the duchess of Norfolk asked in a failing voice.

  Rhoslyn had released the spell holding Mary and her women in stasis as soon as she saw Aurilia disappear. She had no time to try to wipe what the duchess of Norfolk had seen out of her mind nor to do anything about Albertus dead on the floor. She had to get to the room where Albertus had told her the courtiers would be kept until Aurilia had fixed the knowledge of Mary's delivery into their minds. If a servant entered or anyone else saw them with blank faces and empty minds a terrible outcry, likely an outcry of witchcraft, would be raised. The last thing needed in Hampton Court when the queen was about to bear a child was a witch hunt.

  She found the room, closed the door behind her, opened her mouth to release the half dozen men and two women—and clapped her hand firmly over her lips. She dared not simply release them. If Aurilia had already fixed in their minds the conviction that Queen Mary had borne a child, they would rush out and spread the news to the world. Even if no one conceived the notion of making that the truth by bringing in a babe as Albertus had intended, much trouble for Queen Mary could ensue.

  Near her stood Lady Rochester. Rhoslyn placed her hands on each temple and sought within. Yes, the thought was there. Lady Rochester was sure that the queen had been brought to bed of a fair boy, large and healthy. Rhoslyn first tried simply to remove that memory, but it was not a surface overlay on the woman's thoughts. It was a conviction, deeply implanted.

  Aware of the passing of time, aware of the duchess of Norfolk having seen Aurilia, aware there was an unexplained dead body on the floor of the queen's bedchamber, Rhoslyn was tempted to carve out the memory of the queen's delivery and leave the hole in Lady Rochester's mind. She would fill it with something, Rhoslyn told herself, and then shuddered as she thought she might fill it with the duchess of Norfolk's tale. It would be easy to convince herself that the terrible events that caused Albertus's death and loud screams had been lost to her memory by shock.

  But the queen and the five women with her in her bedchamber would not have heard any cries. What would they say to each other? How would they explain Albertus's dead body on the floor? Would they believe the duchess of Norfolk's claim that she had seen Aurilia and that the woman had disappeared?

  Rhoslyn sought the root of the thought Aurilia had planted and slowly, carefully, dug it out. Tears of impatience blurred her sight. Usually when she implanted or removed a thought, the result was almost as swift as the thought itself had been. This was far different, and no matter her care, she scored the memories around the idea that the queen had given birth. Something would remain, a shadow of a doubt, a feeling of uneasiness.

  She heard a sound in the corridor and knew she had no more time to spend. Rhoslyn released Lady Rochester to stand like an automaton and whirled toward the door, but the steps went by and she rushed to the countess of Arundel and seized her temples. She was less careful, pulling roughly at the memory of a quick, easy birth, pushing in the thought that whoever gave the news was too glib, not trustworthy.

  There was more noise in the corridor. Rhoslyn could not make out any words, but the voices were high and excited. Desperately, she rushed from one man to another, muddling the memory of news of a successful delivery, overlaying that thought with the memory of a second announcement that no child had been born, the first news was from an overexcited maid who had misunderstood something she had overheard.

  Then the latch of the door clicked. Rhoslyn whirled about, bespelled the latch to stick for a moment, spoke the words of release of the stasis that had held the ladies and gentlemen in the chamber, and cast the Don't-see-me spell on herself. She was so drained, so empty, that she was barely able to stagger out of the way of the people in the chamber and sink down on the floor. Ladies and gentlemen were now looking about in astonishment and asking each other how they came there.

  The short spell on the door ended and the door burst open. Lord Paget stood in the doorway, his clothing showing the haste with which he had donned it. "What are you all doing here?" he asked.

  A burst of answers made all of them unintelligible. Both ladies cried almost together that they must go back at once to th
e queen. Something was wrong; they knew something was wrong. They had been summoned to hear news but . . .

  One of the men said, "The queen is brought to bed. Surely she is already delivered. It was barely dark when I was called here. Why have we had no further news?"

  "Brought to bed?" Paget repeated like a man stunned. "I have had no message that Her Majesty had begun her labor."

  He turned and went out of the room; those who had been there hurried after him. On the floor, Rhoslyn sobbed softly with weakness and released the Don't-see-me spell. Her keen hearing told her that not all the men had turned in the direction of the queen's chambers. At least two, and she feared the two she had least time to work on, had set off in the direction opposite that Paget took.

  The news that Queen Mary had given birth to a beautiful and healthy male child was all over the palace in less than an hour; from the palace the news ran out into the streets of London. Church bells rang, happy citizens brought firewood for bonfires. People hugged each other and wept with relief. Even though many of them did not like the Spanish connection and liked the renewal of Catholicism less, an undisputed legitimate heir secured the future.