by Lucy Weston
I back away from him, my arm thrust out as though that could somehow ward him off. “I cannot … the price is too high. My humanity, my very soul, and for what? I am sworn before Almighty God to care for those He has placed under my rule. I cannot make them subject to a creature so far outside the natural order.”
A flash of anger passes across his face and is quickly gone. He shrugs as though he expected my refusal and is not deterred by it.
“As you will, Elizabeth, at least for now. But I ask you this: You say I am outside the natural order, yet here I am. What does that say of your Almighty God? If He really is all-powerful and all-knowing as your priests claim, then I and those like me can only exist because He wills it. But if we truly are here despite him, he is a poor, weak godling who cannot help you. Who then will you turn to in your hour of need?”
Having presented me with the puzzle that has occupied the greatest theological minds for centuries—how can evil exist within the creation of a loving God?—Mordred vanishes. To be more precise, he dissolves into the air. I am left staring at the bloodred moon.
Impatience drove me from Elizabeth. That and the fact that in providing so dramatic a demonstration of my power, I had temporarily exhausted it. I needed to rest and think. I had not expected her to be an easy conquest; indeed, I would not have wanted her to fall into my arms too readily. I reveled in her courage and her will. Truly, she was a queen for the ages.
Even so, I was surprised by the stubbornness of her resistance. I confess I found her pride made her even more alluring. She seemed inclined to regard our union as a matter of conscience when her every thought should have been focused on her own survival. Her father had never made that mistake; Henry’s conscience was ever the slave to his power, bending this way and that according to whatever he thought most expedient. But her mother…
Dear, dead Anne was a different matter. She chose conscience over the life I would have given her. I had to hope that her daughter would not be so foolish.
Soon enough, Elizabeth would have an opportunity to decide. The lesson she was about to learn would serve as a reminder of just how fragile her hold on her throne—and her life—truly was.
Through the fog of exhaustion I decided that I would let her plead a little before forgiving her. Magnanimity, correctly displayed, becomes a king. That, too, I learned from my father. Of late, Arthur was in my thoughts more than ever; with the prize about to fall into my grasp, I felt his presence more vividly than I had in centuries. Indeed, as weary as I was, I caught myself glancing over my shoulder, as though I expected to find him watching me.
The King of the Vampires afraid of a ghost? The notion was absurd enough to wring a laugh that rasped in my throat. Despite what the credulous believed, Arthur was not remotely “the once and future king.” He was, in plain fact, a few fragments of yellowed bone, if even that, and a memory. But the latter had more power by far than I wished to admit.
Dank mist rose to cloak the river. In it, I saw the contours of an ancient battlefield—Camlan—and relived the moment when my mortal father discovered the bargain his son had struck to become immortal. It was the last moment of his life yet long enough for him to gaze upon me with pity.
The fool! I am Mordred, king now and forever! No flame-haired wisp of a girl would stand between me and the destiny to which I was bade from the first hour that ever I drew breath.
Elizabeth would surrender or she would perish. As I alit on the far bank, stumbling just a little, I told myself that she had enough of Henry in her to make the right choice.
Why then did I imagine that not only Arthur hovered over me but Anne as well, the two conspiring across the centuries to thwart my victory over both Elizabeth and the kingdom that should long since have been mine?
Midnight, 16 January 1559
Robin found me standing stock-still and shivering in the garden. He said later that I looked like a ghost, my skin as cold as ice and my eyes so vacant that he feared my soul had fled into a realm where he could not follow.
Unable to rouse me, he flung his cloak around me, scooped me into his arms, and hastened down the passage back to my bedchamber. There he sat me in my chair nearest the fire and knelt, chaffing my hands and feet until warmth returned to them. Having bundled every blanket that he could find on top and around me, he poured brandy for us both and made certain that I swallowed a fair measure before taking a sip of his own.
Only when the color finally began returning to my cheeks did he take a deep, shuddering breath and pull up a stool to sit beside me.
“For the love of Heaven, Elizabeth, what happened?”
I look at him—dear, familiar Robin, the only man in whose arms I have ever wanted to be—and feel so wrenching a sense of betrayal as to scarcely be borne. Compared to Mordred, Robin looks … ordinary. Not unappealing, certainly, but no match for the compelling seduction of the vampire king.
Yet Robin loves me; not for a moment do I doubt that or his true faithfulness. Never would he wish me to do anything ill to myself, much less urge me to sacrifice my immortal soul to live as one of the scourge of evil, ruling over England for all eternity.
Never growing old. Never dying. Remaining young and beautiful and a queen forever.
Out over the city, circling the moon, beneath a dark star, I swear that I hear Mordred laughing.
Of course, I can say nothing of that to Robin. All I can tell him is that I was drawn into an encounter with Mordred that left no doubt as to either the vampire’s existence or his power.
“You actually spoke to him?” Robin asks when he has absorbed the full import of my revelation. When I nod, he all but bursts with curiosity. “What is his manner? What does he seek? Did he dare to threaten you? By God, if he did, I will—”
I lean forward and take his mouth with mine, sealing away whatever ill-advised vow he was about to make. Deliberately, I make the kiss long and deep and am relieved to feel my passion stir. I still desire Robin, grace to God. I am not yet Mordred’s creature nor, I vow, will I ever be.
“He looks like a man,” I say, though that is not strictly true. No man possesses the inner brilliance that shines from the vampire, and no mere man can claim his beauty. “As for what he wants, that is very simple. He wants to rule England.”
Robin does not seem to hear me. He clasps me close, his hand closing over my breast, and seeks to kiss me again.
“Beloved…,” he croons in that voice I know means he wants us abed, about such sport as we allow ourselves given that I cannot risk conceiving.
“Do you not hear me?” I demand, shoving him away. “Mordred wants England, and he has conceived a brilliant plan to get it.”
Disgruntled, Robin regains his balance and pretends interest in the brandy. Scion of the great house of Northumberland, which had itself thrown the dice to win the throne and lost, he has no illusions about how power is gained and kept.
“Does he intend to attack you?”
“I don’t know. Cecil and Dee think that he does, but it’s clearly not his preference. He claims to want only to help me defeat our enemies both foreign and domestic. Of course, there is a price for his help.”
“And that would be?”
Winter wind whistles round my father’s palace. In my heightened state, it sounds like the moaning of lost souls. I shiver despite the many blankets around me and look into the fire.
“He wants me to become what he is and for the two of us to rule England together.”
Robin pales. His hand, still holding the brandy snifter, shakes. He sets the crystal goblet down carefully on a nearby table and stares at me.
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do and, much more importantly, so does he.” I turn to him, driven to explain the trap in which I fear to find myself. “Think of it, Robin. Everyone is pressing me to marry. Some favor a foreign prince, others think I should choose an English lord, but they all assume that I must wed. Mordred’s claim is that alone among my suitors, only he can bring me the
power I need to keep England safe forever. If I announced that a high lord of British lineage, newly returned from some distant portion of the Continent bearing with him vast wealth, which I have no doubt Mordred can command, was my choice as husband, certainly there would be great curiosity. But there would also be tremendous relief that I was marrying, and quickly enough my nobles would accept him.”
“This is madness,” Robin exclaims. “Do you not understand what he is? What he would do to this land if he ever got control of it?”
I finish my brandy in a single swallow. My throat burns and I have to blink back tears before I can answer.
“I did not say that I accept his claim. For pity’s sake, have more faith in me than that. But the truth is that I know too little and I must know everything, not just what Dee and Cecil say but what has been passed down secretly over the ages.”
When Robin does not immediately respond, I catch his hand in both of mine. “For the love of God, Robin, I have no one else to ask. My father’s line is not so ancient as to know of this, and besides, what is left of the Tudors but me? As for my mother’s family …” I do not have to tell him how badly the Boleyns have fared in the shadow of the scaffold.
He sighs deeply but relents, as I knew he would, and takes his place again at my side. “I can’t vouch for what I have heard. It is all just rumor and legend. Some of it may be true, some not.”
“Tell me all the same. Leave nothing out.” Later, I will sort the wheat from the chaff, but for the moment, I need to discover as much about Mordred as I possibly can.
Robin thinks for a moment, then speaks slowly as he struggles to recapture a distant memory. “I heard the story when I was seven, the year before you and I met. My brother John told me one night when we were sitting up late by the fire. He meant to frighten the wits out of me and he succeeded, what with his tale of unholy creatures who drink the blood of innocents so that they can live forever and gain extraordinary powers beyond the ken of mortal men. I’d have thought that he was making it all up except that he was very precise about certain things.”
“What things?” I prompt.
“He claimed to have the tale from our father himself, who had it from his father and so on back as far as anyone could remember. John was the eldest, so I believed that our father would have told him and no one else.”
Poor John Dudley, dead these many years. So, too, his other brother, Henry. Only Robin was left in the aftermath of his family’s treason, alone and friendless in this world except for an equally solitary and threatened princess.
“Go on,” I urge. “Tell me exactly what your brother related.”
He takes a breath, clasps my hand tighter, and says, “The story that has been passed down is that an ancestor of the Dudleys fought with King Arthur and was with him right to the end when Arthur fell at Camlan. Supposedly, this Dudley actually saw the great king killed by his son, Mordred. The experience made such an impression on him—I gather he thought that he had witnessed something truly unholy—that he told his own sons of it so that they would tell their sons and so on down through time in order that it never be forgotten.”
“But Mordred also is said to have died at Camlan,” I remind him.
Robin nods. “According to my ancestor, the claim that Mordred died was concocted to conceal what had actually happened, namely that Arthur’s bastard son had forged an alliance with the vampires. By becoming one of them, he acquired extraordinary powers that enabled him to slay his father, who, as we all know, was the greatest warrior England has ever seen and could not be killed by any mere man.”
“And he did all that in order to become king in his father’s place?”
Robin nodded. “Arthur had refused to make Mordred his heir because he sensed his attraction to evil. He wasn’t willing to trust his kingdom to a man he believed to be ungodly, not even his own son.”
I repressed any thought of what Mordred must have made of his father’s rejection of him and pushed on.
“But nothing worked out as Mordred expected,” Robin continued. “After King Arthur fell at Camlan, Morgaine Le Fey sought out Mordred. She had some sort of power. My ancestor did not know exactly what it was, but with it, she managed to kill many vampires. She wounded Mordred himself grievously, but he was able to escape and go into hiding. Since then, he has bided his time, waiting until he could grow strong enough to return and take the throne. In the aftermath of Arthur’s death, the Saxons overran the kingdom and darkness reigned over all.”
The wind had become louder as Robin spoke. It seemed to batter against the palace walls as though determined to find some chink, some weakness through which it could gain entry.
“It isn’t just a matter of being strong enough,” I say, almost to myself. Since my encounter with Mordred, my thoughts have been scattered and incoherent, but they are slowly coming together. “He has a better route to the throne now. Instead of having to kill to take it, all he has to do is wed.”
Robin pales. “He cannot think … it would be an abomination! Every lord in the land would rise up against him at the first hint of what he truly is—”
“Would they? Would they really, Robin? What if he not only promised them wealth and glory beyond any they had ever dreamt of but actually produced it? What if he laid waste to our enemies and set England above all the nations of the world, as he claims is this land’s rightful destiny? Do you truly believe that our lords—our rapacious, greedy lords who unfailingly have put their power and privileges above all else—would reject what he offered?”
Robin knows the nobility as well as I do; he cannot deny what I say. But there is far more to England than its nobles, as he reminds me.
“What of ordinary folk? Do you think for a moment that the decent men and women of this realm will bow their heads to a demon king?”
“No,” I say, for truly I did not. “They will huddle down and pray for relief from the one person who is supposed to protect them above all others—their anointed queen. Me! And therein lies the flaw in Mordred’s plan. By God, he has misjudged me. While there is breath in my body, I never can—I never will—condemn my people to such a fate.”
I speak quietly, but with such steely certainty that I know Robin will understand. Mordred could have made his offer to my sister, Mary, but her whole life was a testament to her faith in God, preserved for good or ill through much suffering and despair. He must have realized that she would never accede to what he wanted. Had he merely been waiting for her death to bring me to the throne—the young and frightened princess through whom he thought to rule?
If so, Mordred is in for a terrible shock.
“Morgaine Le Fey’s power did not end with her,” I say. “It exists still.”
“How can you know that?” Robin asks.
I reply with far more confidence than I feel. “Because it has passed to me. I possess it now and I will not hesitate to use it.” As I speak, the memory of what I experienced the night before rushes through me. For an instant, I am kneeling again on the floor of the chapel, seeing the light pouring from me and feeling the world become at once more vivid and less real, as though I have come to glimpse a far vaster reality beyond.
Even so, my bold claim is sheer bravado. I do not know that any such power exists, much less that it is now mine alone. I have only Cecil’s and Dee’s word for the strange vision I experienced at my mother’s grave. Face-to-face with Mordred, I was helpless to resist him in any way.
That will have to change, and soon.
“What do you mean, it has passed to you?” Robin demands. He is on his feet again, staring at me.
I hold out my goblet to be refilled. The brandy gives me strength and banishes the lingering effects of my otherworldly encounter with Mordred. “Apparently, I am not only my father’s heir. I am also Morgaine Le Fey’s through my mother’s lineage.”
Startled, Robin lets the bottle linger too long. Amber liquid sloshes over the top of my glass. I lick my fingers and take a sip of courage.<
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“Sit down, and I will tell you all about it,” I say.
He is, after all, my dearest friend, my confidant, and—given certain necessary limitations—my lover. I would withhold nothing from him. Nothing save my heart, which has been locked away since the day my mother died. Sometimes I imagine it nestled like her diadem in a velvet chest, brought out to be displayed only on the rarest occasions before being hidden again, safe and inviolate.
Far beyond the reach of Mordred.
Grace of God, let that be so.
16 January 1559
Robin slips away before dawn. We had lain on the bed together but chastely, spooning for comfort as we talked far into the night He had a thousand questions for me; I had few answers. At length I slept, but raggedly. Alone now, I await my ladies, harbingers of the new day, my first as anointed Queen.
They come all in a flutter, bright with excitement, restrained only by Kat’s watchful eye. She finds a moment when they are occupied to frown and whisper, “Is something amiss, my lady?”
I should have known that she would sense the change in me, this woman who knows me longest and best. But who also sees me through the eyes of maternal love, of which I take shameless advantage whenever I feel the need to mislead her.
“How could anything be other than exactly as it should be?” I answer with a smile. “It is a new day, a new reign, and I am Queen. Everything is perfect.”
She smiles in turn but her gaze remains watchful.
With relief, I dip a toe in my bath and sink into the sea of girlish conversation. Had I seen what Lady Letticia wore to the banquet? Did she imagine that color favored her? Is it true that impecunious Lord Heverton is wooing a wealthy widow from Brighton with nary a title to her name? Had the Duke of Sussex really been caught in flagrante with the sister of the Earl of Camden, with the lady refusing to display a flicker of remorse? Such are the doings of the royal court, but let them not be mistaken for idle chatter. To the contrary, the lives of my nobles are of keen interest to me, touching as they always do on matters of loyalty.
