Shadow of Night: A Novel Read online

  “That sounds like jealousy to me.”

  “It’s not. I could manage jealousy,” he said, furious. “What I am feeling now—this terrible gnawing sense of loss and rage because I cannot get a clear impression of you in the chaos of our life—is beyond my control.” His pupils were large and getting larger.

  “That’s because you are a vampire. You’re possessive. It’s who you are,” I said flatly, approaching him in spite of his anger. “And I am a witch. You promised to accept me as I am—light and dark, woman and witch, my own person as well as your wife.” What if he had changed his mind? What if he wasn’t willing to have this kind of unpredictability in his life?

  “I do accept you.” Matthew reached out a gentle finger and touched my cheek.

  “No, Matthew. You tolerate me, because you think that one day I’ll beat my magic into submission. Rabbi Loew warned me that tolerance can be withdrawn, and then you’re out in the cold. My magic isn’t something to manage. It’s me. And I’m not going to hide myself from you. That’s not what love is.”

  “All right. No more hiding.”

  “Good.” I sighed with relief, but it was short-lived.

  Matthew had me out of the chair and up against the wall in one clean move, his thigh pressed between mine. He pulled a curl free so that it trailed down my neck and onto my breast. Without releasing me, he bent his head and pressed his lips to the edge of my bodice. I shivered. It had been some time since he’d kissed me there, and our sex life had been practically nonexistent since the miscarriage. Matthew’s lips brushed along my jaw and over the veins of my neck.

  I grabbed his hair and pulled his head away. “Don’t. Not unless you plan on finishing what you start. I’ve had enough bundling and regretful kisses to last a lifetime.”

  With a few blindingly fast vampire moves, Matthew had loosened the fastenings on his britches, rucked my skirts around my waist, and plunged inside me. It wasn’t the first time I’d been taken against the wall by someone trying to forget his troubles for a few precious moments. On several occasions I’d even been the aggressor.

  “This is about you and me—nothing else. Not the children. Not the damn book. Not the emperor and his gifts. Tonight the only scents in this house will be ours.”

  Matthew’s hands gripped my buttocks, and his fingers were all that was saving me from being bruised as his thrusts carried my body toward the wall. I wrapped my hands in the collar of his shirt and pulled his face toward mine, ravenous for the taste of him. But Matthew was no more willing to let me control the kiss than he was our lovemaking. His lips were hard and demanding, and when I persisted in my attempts to get the upper hand, he gave me a warning nip on the lower lip.

  “Oh, God,” I said breathlessly as his steady rhythm set my nerves rushing toward a release. “Oh—”

  “Tonight I won’t even share you with Him.” Matthew kissed the rest of my exclamation away. One hand retained its grip on my buttock, the other dipped between my legs.

  “Who has your heart, Diana?” Matthew asked, a stroke of his thumb threatening to take me over the edge of sanity. He moved, moved again. Waited for my answer. “Say it,” he growled.

  “You know the answer,” I said. “You have my heart.”

  “Only me,” he said, moving once more so that the coiled tension in both of us finally found release.

  “Only . . . forever . . . you,” I gasped, my legs shaking around his hips. I slid my feet to the floor.

  Matthew was breathing heavily, his forehead pressed to mine. His eyes showed a flash of regret as he lowered my skirts. He kissed me gently, almost chastely.

  Our lovemaking, no matter how intense, had not satisfied whatever was driving Matthew to keep pursuing me in spite of the fact that I was indisputably his. I was beginning to worry that nothing could.

  My frustration burbled over, taking shape in a concussive wave of air that carried him away from me and into the opposite wall. Matthew’s eyes went black at his change of position.

  “And how was that for you, my heart?” I asked softly. His face registered surprise. I snapped my fingers, releasing the air’s hold on him. His muscles flexed as he regained his mobility. He opened his mouth to speak. “Don’t you dare apologize,” I said fiercely. “If you’d touched me in a way I didn’t like, I would have said no.”

  Matthew’s mouth tightened.

  “I can’t help thinking about your friend Giordano Bruno: ‘Desire urges me on, as fear bridles me.’ I’m not afraid of your power, or your strength, or anything else about you,” I said. “What are you afraid of, Matthew?”

  Regretful lips brushed over mine. That, and a whisper of breeze against my skirts, told me he had fled rather than answer.

  30

  “Master Habermel stopped by. Your compendium is on the table.” Matthew didn’t look up from the plans to Prague Castle that he’d somehow procured from the emperor’s architects. In the past few days, he’d given me wide berth and taken to channeling his energy into unearthing the secrets of the palace guard so that he could breach Rudolf’s security. In spite of Abraham’s advice, which I’d duly conveyed, Matthew preferred a proactive strategy. He wanted us out of Prague. Now.

  I approached his side, and he looked up with restless, hungry eyes.

  “It’s just a gift.” I put down my gloves and kissed him deeply. “My heart is yours, remember?”

  “It isn’t just a gift. It came with an invitation to go hunting tomorrow.” Matthew wrapped his hands around my hips. “Gallowglass informed me that we will be accepting it. He’s found a way into the emperor’s apartments by seducing some poor maid into showing him Rudolf’s erotic-picture collection. The palace guard will either be hunting with us or napping. Gallowglass figures it’s as good a chance as we’re going to get to look for the book.”

  I glanced over at Matthew’s desk, where another small parcel lay. “Do you know what that is, too?”

  He nodded and reached over and picked it up. “You’re always receiving gifts from other men. This one is from me. Hold out your hand.” Intrigued, I did what he asked.

  He pressed something round and smooth into my palm. It was the size of a small egg.

  A stream of cool, heavy metal flowed around the mysterious egg as tiny salamanders filled my hand. They were made of silver and gold, with diamonds set into their backs. I lifted one of the creatures, and up came a chain made entirely of paired salamanders, their heads joined at the mouth and their tails entwined. Still nestled in my palm was a ruby. A very large, very red ruby.

  “It’s beautiful!” I looked up at Matthew. “When did you have time to buy this?” It wasn’t the kind of chain that goldsmiths stocked for drop-in customers.

  “I’ve had it for a while,” Matthew confessed. “My father sent it with the altarpiece. I wasn’t sure you’d like it.”

  “Of course I like it. Salamanders are alchemical, you know,” I said, giving him another kiss. “Besides, what woman would object to two feet of silver, gold, and diamond salamanders and a ruby big enough to fill an eggcup?”

  “These particular salamanders were a gift from the king when I returned to France late in 1541. King Francis chose the salamander in flames for his emblem, and his motto was ‘I nourish and extinguish.’” Matthew laughed. “Kit enjoyed the conceit so much he adapted it for his own use: ‘What nourishes me destroys me.’”

  “Kit is definitely a glass-half-empty daemon,” I said, joining in his laughter. I poked at one of the salamanders, and it caught the light from the candles. I started to speak, then stopped.

  “What?” Matthew said.

  “Have you given this to someone . . . before?” After the other night, my own sudden insecurity was embarrassing.

  “No,” Matthew said, taking my hand and its treasure between his.

  “I’m sorry. It’s ridiculous, I know, especially considering Rudolf’s behavior. I’d rather not wonder, that’s all. If you give me something you once gave to a former lover, just tell me.�
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  “I wouldn’t give you something I’d first given to someone else, mon coeur.” Matthew waited until I met his eyes. “Your firedrake reminded me of Francis’s gift, so I asked my father to fish it out of its hidey-hole. I wore it once. Since then it’s been sitting in a box.”

  “It’s not exactly everyday wear,” I said, trying to laugh. But it didn’t quite work. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  Matthew pulled me down into a kiss. “My heart belongs to you no less than yours belongs to me. Never doubt it.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Good. Because Rudolf is doing everything he can to wear us both down. We need to keep our heads. And then we need to get the hell out of Prague.”

  ***

  Matthew’s words came back to haunt me the next afternoon, when we joined Rudolf’s closest companions at court for an afternoon of sport. The plan had been to ride out to the emperor’s hunting lodge at White Mountain to shoot deer, but the heavy gray skies kept us closer to the palace. It was the second week of April, but spring came slowly to Prague, and snow was still possible.

  Rudolf called Matthew over to his side, leaving me to the mercy of the women of the court. They were openly curious and entirely at a loss about what to do with me.

  The emperor and his companions drank freely from the wine that the servants passed. Given the high speeds of the impending chase, I wished there were regulations about drinking and riding. Not that I had much to worry about in Matthew’s case. For one thing, he was being rather abstemious. And there was little chance of him dying, even if his horse did crash into a tree.

  Two men arrived, a long pole resting on their shoulders to provide a perch for the splendid assortment of falcons that would be bringing down the birds this afternoon. Two more men followed bearing a single, hooded bird with a lethal curved beak and brown feathered legs that gave the effect of boots. It was huge.

  “Ah!” Rudolf said, rubbing his hands together with delight. “Here is my eagle, Augusta. I wanted La Diosa to see her, even though we cannot fly her here. She requires more room to hunt than the Stag Moat provides.”

  Augusta was a fitting name for such a proud creature. The eagle was nearly three feet tall and, though hooded, held her head at a haughty angle.

  “She can sense that we are watching her,” I murmured.

  Someone translated this for the emperor, and he smiled at me approvingly. “One huntress understands another. Take her hood off. Let Augusta and La Diosa get acquainted.”

  A wizened old man with bowed legs and a cautious expression approached the eagle. He pulled on the leather strings that tightened the hood around Augusta’s head and gently drew it away from the bird. The golden feathers around her neck and head ruffled in the breeze, highlighting their texture. Augusta, sensing freedom and danger both, spread her wings in a gesture that could be read either as the promise of imminent flight or as a warning.

  But I was not the one Augusta wanted to meet. With unerring instinct her head turned to the only predator in the company more dangerous than she was. Matthew stared back at her gravely, his eyes sad. Augusta cried out in acknowledgment of his sympathy.

  “I did not bring Augusta out to amuse Herr Roydon but to meet La Diosa,” Rudolf grumbled.

  “And I thank you for the introduction, Your Majesty,” I said, wanting to capture the moody monarch’s attention.

  “Augusta has taken down two wolves, you know,” Rudolf said with a pointed look at Matthew. The emperor’s feathers were far more ruffled than those of his prize bird. “They were both bloody struggles.”

  “Were I the wolf, I would simply lie down and let the lady have her way,” Matthew said lazily. He was every inch the courtier this afternoon in a green-and-gray ensemble, his black hair pushed under a rakish cap that provided little protection from the elements but did provide an opportunity to display a silver badge on its crown—the de Clermont family’s ouroboros—lest Rudolf forgot with whom he was dealing.

  The other courtiers smirked and tittered at his daring remark. Rudolf, once he had made sure the laughter was not directed at him, joined in. “It is another thing we have in common, Herr Roydon,” he said, pounding on Matthew’s shoulder. He surveyed me. “Neither of us fears a strong woman.”

  The tension broken, the falconer returned Augusta to her perch with some relief and asked the emperor which bird he wished to use this afternoon to take down the royal grouse. Rudolf fussed over his selection. Once the emperor chose a large gyrfalcon, the Austrian archdukes and German princes fought over the remaining birds until only a single animal was left. It was small and shivering in the cold. Matthew reached for it.

  “That is a woman’s bird,” Rudolf said with a snort, settling into his saddle. “I had it sent for La Diosa.”

  “In spite of her name, Diana doesn’t like hunting. But it’s no matter. I will fly the merlin,” Matthew said. He ran the jesses through his fingers, put out his hand, and the bird stepped onto his gloved wrist. “Hello, beauty,” he murmured while the bird adjusted her feet. With every small step, her bells jingled.

  “Her name is Šárka,” the gamekeeper whispered with a smile.

  “Is she as clever as her namesake?” Matthew asked him.

  “More so,” the old man answered with a grin.

  Matthew leaned toward the bird and took one of the strings that held her hood in his teeth. His mouth was so close to Šárka, and the gesture so intimate, that it could have been mistaken for a kiss. Matthew drew the string back. Once that was done, it was easy for him to remove the hood with his other hand and slip the decorated leather blindfold into a pocket.

  Šárka blinked as the world came into view. She blinked again, studying me and then the man who held her.

  “Can I touch her?” There was something irresistible about the soft layers of brown-and-white feathers.

  “I wouldn’t. She’s hungry. I don’t think she gets her fair share of kills,” Matthew said. He looked sad again, even wistful. Šárka made low, chortling sounds and kept her eyes on Matthew.

  “She likes you.” It was no wonder. They were both hunters by instinct, both fettered so that they couldn’t give in to the urge to track and kill.

  We rode on a twisting path down into the river gorge that had once served as the palace moat. The river was gone and the gorge fenced in to keep the emperor’s game from roaming the city. Red deer, roe deer, and boar all prowled the grounds. So, too, did the lions and other big cats from the menagerie on those days when Rudolf decided to hunt down his prey with them rather than birds.

  I expected utter chaos, but hunting was as precisely choreographed as any ballet. As soon as Rudolf released his gyrfalcon into the air, the birds resting in the trees rose up in a cloud, taking flight to avoid becoming a snack. The gyrfalcon swooped down and flew over the brush, the wind whistling through the bells on his feet. Startled grouse erupted from cover, running and flapping in all directions before taking to the air. The gyrfalcon banked, selected a target, harried it into position, and shot forward to hit it with talons and beak. The grouse fell from the sky, the falcon pursuing it relentlessly to the ground, where the grouse, startled and injured, was finally killed. The gamekeepers released the dogs and ran with them across the snowy ground. The horses thundered after, the men’s cries of triumph drowned out by the baying of the hounds.

  When the horses and riders caught up, we found the falcon standing by its prey, its wings curved to shield the grouse from rival claimants. Matthew had adopted a similar stance at the Bodleian Library, and I felt his eyes fall on me to make sure that I was nearby.

  Now that the emperor had the first kill, the others were free to join in the hunt. Together they caught more than a hundred birds, enough to feed a fair number of courtiers. There was only one altercation. Not surprisingly, it occurred between Rudolf’s magnificent silver gyrfalcon and Matthew’s small brown-and-white merlin.

  Matthew had been hanging back from the rest of the male pack. He re
leased his bird well after the others and was unhurried in claiming the grouse that she brought down. Though none of the other men got off their mounts, Matthew did, coaxing Šárka away from her prey with a murmured word and a bit of meat that he’d pulled off a previous kill.

  Once, however, Šárka failed to connect with the grouse she was pursuing. It eluded her, flying straight into the path of Rudolf’s gyrfalcon. But Šárka refused to yield. Though the gyrfalcon was larger, Šárka was scrappier and more agile. To reach her grouse, the merlin flew past my head so closely that I felt the changing pressure in the air. She was such a little thing—smaller even than the grouse, and definitely outsized by the emperor’s bird. The grouse flew higher, but there was no escape. Šárka quickly reversed direction and sank her curved talons into her prey, her weight carrying them both down. The indignant gyrfalcon screamed in frustration, and Rudolf added his own loud protest.

  “Your bird interfered with mine,” Rudolf said furiously as Matthew kicked his horse forward to fetch the merlin.

  “She isn’t my bird, Your Majesty,” Matthew said. Šárka, who had puffed herself up and stretched out her wings to look as large and menacing as possible, let out a shrill peep as he approached. Matthew murmured something that sounded vaguely familiar and more than a little amorous, and the bird’s feathers smoothed. “Šárka belongs to you. And today she has proved to be a worthy namesake of a great Bohemian warrior.”

  Matthew picked up the merlin, grouse and all, and held it up for the court to see. Šárka’s jesses swung freely, and her bells tinkled with sound as he circled her around. Unsure what their response should be, the courtiers waited for Rudolf to do something. I intervened instead.

  “Was this a female warrior, husband?”

  Matthew stopped in his rotation and grinned. “Why, yes, wife. The real Šárka was small and feisty, just like the emperor’s bird, and knew that a warrior’s greatest weapon lies between the ears.” He tapped his head to make sure everyone received the message. Rudolf not only received it, he looked nonplussed.