by Lucy Weston
That being so, I did not hesitate to use Blanche but kept her in good humor with a gift of a strand of pearls, each bigger than a man’s thumb, that I twined around her neck amid assurances that no touch, no presence, no companion, could ever please me so well as she did.
Yet I also cautioned her, “I know your temperament better than you do yourself. Once with the Queen, do not forget your duty to me. Fulfill your mission and you will have reward beyond any you can imagine. But fail and—”
“I shall not. You will have your foolish mortal for whatever good she may do you.” Blanche bent closer, inhaling my scent even as I breathed in hers. “But afterward, when you have used her to the fullest possible extent and there is nothing left of her save an empty husk, then I will still be here and we will be as one, shall we not, my most dear and precious lord?”
I kissed her long and deeply. “Be assured that it will be so for I would never have it otherwise.”
She went smug in her certainty that she had me well in hand. I watched the stars drift by beyond the high windows and told myself that my long wait was almost over. The coming hours would see the fulfillment of all my desires.
Evening, 21 January 1559
I count the hours until Dee’s return as I try to estimate when I may legitimately begin to worry. Half an hour perhaps to secure a wherry and make his way to Southwark. The same again to reach the manor and enter it. An unknown length of time while Mordred considers my request. Assuming, of course, that he does consider it and allows Dee to return with his answer. If he does not, if he harms the magus—
My mind cannot encompass that possibility. Queen a pair of months, crowned mere days, I have not yet sent men to their deaths. That inevitably awaits me as it does any sovereign with ambitions to remain enthroned, much less one such as myself beset by enemies from all directions. But please, God, do not let Dee be the first to fall in my service.
Robin senses my distress and strives to ease it so much as he can in full view of the court. Memories of all we shared lighten my burden somewhat, but I fear that I may reveal too much whenever I look at him and so must ration my glances. He seems to understand, or at least he takes no umbrage. To the contrary, he exudes a newfound cheerful confidence, for which I can scarcely blame him. No doubt he believes that with the deed now done, it is only a matter of time—and little enough of that—before our betrothal is announced.
How disappointed he will be to discover that intercourse, pleasing though it is, has changed my view of marriage not one whit. It has, however, made me think more deeply of what it means to be human, which is to say frail and vulnerable yet capable of such soaring exaltation of body and spirit as to dazzle the mind. What counts it that our pleasures and our pains alike are so brief? Only the world beyond this truly matters, or so I have been taught from tenderest childhood with no chance ever to consider otherwise.
I watch the water clock from the corner of my eye even as the thought creeps over me that as gloriously arrayed as are my lords and ladies—not so much the foreign ambassadors, although the French make a good enough display—they cannot compete with the magnificence of the vampire court. It is unfair, of course, for humans to be compared to immortal beings, or as close to it as it is possible to come in this world. Better Mordred and his kind be held to the measure of angels, in which case they would surely be found wanting.
Or would they?
How wayward is my mind! My course is set and I will not waiver, yet still temptation stirs within me. To be as they are, forever young and beautiful, forever free of the shadow of death. What is the measure of my soul that makes it worth so great a price as death?
I raise a hand, summoning a servant, who steps forward quickly with a goblet of my favorite Rhenish wine. Sipping it, I take distant note of the velvet-clad lad, his back erect, his eyes bright, his step secure. How different from the … what was it Mordred called them? … the thralls I saw in his court. Who are they exactly, that one dull note among so much vibrant beauty?
Perhaps Dee will know. I will ask him when he returns, if he does. And if he does not?
A sudden pause in the conversation and I realize that a representative from the Low Countries’ merchants has asked me something. Lacking any notion of the topic, I flounder until Cecil steps in.
“Her Majesty and I were discussing that very matter only yesterday,” my Spirit says. “Truly, the sober industry of the people is a country’s chief adornment. Every caution must be taken to prevent distraction from that.”
By which I suspect that the fellow has in mind the discontent spreading among his people as they chaff under Spanish rule. Perhaps he wishes to raise the topic with me more directly. Perhaps he hopes for some sign that were the good folk of the Low Countries to decide to throw off their Spanish yoke, I would look favorably upon their cause.
Perhaps I would, but it’s all far too premature and I have far more urgent matters to concern me.
“Have I thanked you for that excellent cheese?” I inquire. In fact, I have no memory of it, but with Netherlanders cheese is always somehow involved.
He manages a weak smile and a moment later is eased aside by one of the majordomos charged with managing the crush around me. So many wish to be seen in conversation with the Queen, even if they have nothing in particular to say, that a constant ebbing and flowing occurs in my presence. Were it not properly handled, I swear they would press so close as to leave me without breath.
As it is, I can feel the tightness building in my chest. Despite the chill of the winter night, the room is overly heated with roaring fires along both long walls, added to the flames of several hundred candles and the warmth of so many bodies packed too closely together. I have the sense of being in a hothouse on a sultry summer day when the air within is torpid and heavy, almost too thick to breathe.
Dear Robin, who, all things considered, has been a model of discretion this evening, murmurs an order to the majordomo, and suddenly the space around me clears.
“Her Majesty is too good,” he declares loudly. “She thinks only of us, her most fortunate subjects, and nothing of herself. Therefore, let each and every one of us resolve to protect her well-being and let no harm ever come to her.”
A cheer goes up that threatens to crack the ornately plastered ceiling, for who would fail to second such noble sentiments? Robin ushers me through the crowd and into my retiring room, where, I will admit, I gasp with relief to find cooler air and blessed quiet.
“Your cheeks are flushed.” He pours water for me from a beaded carafe. I sip it gratefully but try to dismiss his concern.
“The presence chamber is overly warm, nothing more.”
Servants hover nearby. He dismisses them with a flick of his hand. For once, I do not resent his ordering of my life. There is some relief in allowing another to make decisions, however small. Glancing around, I notice that Cecil is absent. Generally, my Spirit stays closely attached to my side. Robin, it appears, has outmaneuvered him, if only temporarily.
“Elizabeth—” He breathes my name as though from the very center of his being and, having taken the goblet from me, clasps both my hands in his and draws me near. “Every moment we have been apart is torture, and yet nothing gives me greater happiness than to watch you in all your loveliness and majesty. Truly, you outshine the sun.”
Even I, susceptible to flattery as I am and well know it, think this a bit much. All the same, adoration is not to be despised in a lover—or in a subject, for that matter.
I smile, brush my lips against his, and succumb to the far deeper kiss he insists upon. When at last we break apart, he is more flushed than I.
“We could bar the door,” he suggests, glancing at it as though already reckoning how the task can be accomplished.
Laughter wells up in me, spurred by shock and amusement in shared measure. “And do what, couple on that table there? Fie on you, good sir. Have a better care for my posterior.”
He leans closer, his lips trailing down my
throat to the edge of the lace ruff. “There are any number of ways to spare your sweet rump, lady. Positions you will find most—”
“Enough!” My skin is heating once again, though for far different cause. My heart beats too quickly and I am at risk of letting reason slip just when I most need it.
“There is no time.” I push him away and walk a few paces across the small room, struggling to collect myself. “Dee will return shortly and then—”
“Return? Where has he gone?”
“I told you that I have a plan to defeat Mordred.”
“But not the particulars. You did not share those with me but you entrusted them to the magus?”
I see the instant jealousy that springs forth in his gaze and shake my head. “He is my messenger, nothing more. If Mordred takes the bait I have laid out, I must be prepared. I count on you to help me.”
He hesitates a moment before, with a small bow, assenting. “Of course, my Queen, I will do anything that you require. Only tell me what is needed.”
“A private place, somewhere none will think to look for me, and just as importantly, I need for no one to be searching lest they see more than they should. Kat, my ladies, Cecil, all of them must think me safely occupied.”
“We speak of now, this night?”
“We do … I hope. If all goes as planned, Mordred will send an emissary to me whose power I must contrive to take.”
A flash of concern speeds across his face and is quickly masked. “As Morgaine instructed you to do?”
“Just so. I will acquire great power but without the terrible cost that comes with killing many times over.”
“What if this vampire is stronger even than you think, what then?”
Stronger than me, he means. I have wondered the same myself. Exactly how powerful is the Lady Blanche? How formidable a foe will she prove to be?
“I will take her by surprise.”
“Her? Mordred sends a woman?”
“Of noble lineage, so she boasts, more than three hundred years on this earth.” I cannot cease to marvel at how long Blanche has lived, though I know well that I must put aside such thoughts or risk being betrayed by them.
Robin is silent for a moment. At length he says, “Three centuries ago this land was torn by war and rebellion. The barons rose up against their king, taking his power as their own. You are certain the lady is of that time?”
“So she says.” I had not thought about the circumstances in which Blanche passed from mortal woman to vampire, but now I wonder. “You think her family could have been involved in the rebellion against the crown?”
“If they were of noble lineage, it is very likely that they were. The plain truth is that very few of the nobility stood with their king. I wonder what befell them when fortune’s wheel turned and victory became defeat.”
My family served this realm with valor and distinction, even at great cost to themselves.
“Nothing good, I suspect. If I recall my schoolroom days, the rebels who did not die in battle were executed, but the blood-letting did not stop there. Whole families were wiped out.”
“A dark time,” Robin says quietly.
Such darkness as I pray will never come upon me. Even my father at his worst spared the wives and children of his enemies, if not his own.
“It was a different world,” I say as though the words alone make it so.
Robin agrees. “Barbarous, lacking the refinement and rationality of our own.”
If such virtues can encompass the burning of those deemed heretics, the heads displayed on Tower Bridge, the crows’ feast of bodies left hanging from the gibbets, and all manner of other actions my immediate predecessors thought necessary for the maintenance of civil order and the well-being of the realm.
“Whatever the lady’s origins, I must prepare to meet her.”
“Your fierce Kat will never be held off by me, but the rest I can manage well enough.”
I hide a smile, wondering what he would say if he knew that the pleasures of the previous night came at Kat’s urging.
“I will let her tuck me into bed, then send her to her own.”
“Good enough, now as to the place …” He frowns as Robin is always wont to do when considering a knotty problem. I remember him as a boy toiling with me over Latin declensions while wearing the same expression.
Abruptly his manner lightens. “I have it. Somewhere no one goes at night that will afford you ample room to maneuver. But how to lure her there?”
“Is it in the open at all?”
“It is.”
“Then she will find me for, as I have experienced myself, these creatures have the power of flight.”
Robin’s smile fades as quickly as it came. Fear for me falls as a shadow across his eyes. “Such dark devices they possess beyond the ken of mortal man. Have you thought well on this, Elizabeth? If you are wrong about your ability to defeat her—”
“I am not.” My answer speaks of confidence that I do not entirely feel, and yet I have taken the measure of the Lady Blanche. As my own powers have grown, so, too, have I become better able to sense that which lies within my prey. The lady is … distracted. Yes, that is the word. She thinks too much of Mordred to think enough of herself.
Another fool then, like Morgaine. Praise God that as tempted as I am by thoughts of eternal youth and the death of all my enemies, no hint of treacherous love stirs within my well-fortified heart.
Robin tells me of the place he has in mind. We are discussing it when a knock comes at the door. Dee has returned and seeks most urgently to speak with me.
Night, 21 January 1559
The magus, who appears no worse than shaken by his sojourn in the vampire court, assures me that my request is granted, the Lady Blanche will call upon me. He has gleaned nothing more of use. I thank him for his diligence all the same and send him on his way. He goes most willingly, I hope to contemplate the wages of involving his Queen in such dire matters without winning her permission first.
The evening wears on and eventually winds down. I scarcely notice what fills the intervening hours apart from more of the tedium that seems my royal lot. Although to be fair, were I not engaged in such strange and otherworldly matters, I would no doubt enjoy the amusements that surround me.
At long last, I am snug abed, watching as the door closes behind Kat, who, her smile tells me, assumes that I am about to hie off down the passage to Robin’s rooms. Would that I were. Instead, I am on my feet again instantly, throwing on such clothes as I can manage while striving despite my awkward fumblings to look my best when I meet the beauteous Lady Blanche.
Wrapped in my warmest cloak, I take the passage but go right by Robin’s rooms. He is not there in any case, being busy diverting Cecil and the ever-lurking Walsingham. Hurrying, I make my way through the winter garden and from there to the long, low wing of the palace that my father had constructed to accommodate the sporting activities he pursued before failing health robbed him of their enjoyment.
Since my awakening, and most especially as my power has grown, all my senses have sharpened. I can see as readily by night as I can by day. Whereas I would once have stumbled or risked becoming lost, I proceed without hindrance. Twice, I hear the far-off approach of patrolling guards and conceal myself until they have passed. The air smells of frost and the river, of wood smoke and the distinctive odor of London, which some describe as sour or fetid but which I find has a curious appeal, carrying as it does the evidence of a human presence ever striving to make more of itself.
The tennis courts, open to the sky to allow for sufficient light and air, are filled with shadows and the mournful whistle of the wind. I skirt past them quickly and, going around the bowling alleys, hurry across the archery yard. All are deserted at this hour, but by day my nobles congregate here to vie against one another in every manner of contest. I encourage their competitiveness, preferring that they exert it against each other lest they be tempted to turn it on me.
Near the
far end of the wing, close by the river, is the cockfighting pit. I have been here only a handful of times for the sport, such as it is, holds no appeal for me. If I wish to see an animal bloodied, I will hunt it down myself, galloping over miles of fields and streams, vaulting fences and walls, until in a rush of victory it is brought to bay. No venison tastes sweeter than that seasoned with one’s own sweat.
Yet there is no denying the popularity of cockfighting for my lords and more than a few of my ladies. They flock to it, betting on their favorite birds with even more enthusiasm than they bring to the gaming tables. Several hundred of them can fit into the circular arena open to the sky and surrounded by tiers of wooden seats. At the center is a flat, sandy floor where the birds have at each other, pecking and slashing with razor-sharp beaks and claws until one or both are too wounded to continue. The sand is clean and well raked, yet I fancy I catch a whiff of the blood spilled here and imagine the dead birds carried away by their disappointed owners.
I walk out upon the sand, directly beneath the open roof, and stare up at the wisps of clouds floating across the glory that is the stars. The wind dies down; a hush settles over the night. I wait, pacing, looking up from time to time, all the while wondering if Dee misunderstood or if I have. Is Blanche coming? Can she find me?
At length, when my feet have begun to ache from the cold despite my fur-lined boots and my patience has worn thin, I curse under my breath. What game is Mordred playing that he thinks to toy with me?
“Damn the miserable bastard.”
That faint sound from above and behind me … is it a laugh? I turn so swiftly that my cloak flows out as a black wing behind me and stare up into the highest reaches of the bleachers.
Blanche is not there; instead, she is higher still, perched on the very edge where the curving wall meets the open space above the arena, between the poles from which banners fly by day. She is wearing the same white silk gown that caresses her body with the addition of a strand of pearls so opulent as to take my breath away, and she looks well amused. The cold does not appear to touch her.
