Shadow of Night Read online

  “And now used by the queen’s favorites, I suppose,” I said under my breath. No doubt that’s where Walter was sleeping—or not sleeping, as the case may be. “Wait here for Matthew, Pierre. Annie and I can find our way.”

  “Thank you, madame.” Pierre looked at me gratefully. “I do not like to leave him too long with the queen.”

  The members of the queen’s staff were tucking into their dinner in the far-less-splendid surrounds of the guard chamber. They regarded Annie and me with idle curiosity as we walked through.

  “There must be a more direct route,” I said, biting my lip and looking down the long flight of stairs. The Great Hall would be even more crowded.

  “I’m sorry, mistress, but there isn’t,” Annie said apologetically.

  “Let’s face the mob, then,” I said with a sigh.

  The Great Hall was thronged with petitioners for the queen’s attention. A rustle of excitement greeted my appearance from the direction of the royal apartments, followed by murmurs of disappointment when I proved to be no one of consequence. After Rudolf’s court I was more accustomed to being an object of attention, but it was still uncomfortable to feel the heavy gaze of the humans, the few nudges from daemons, the tingling glance of a solitary witch. When the cold stare of a vampire settled on my back, though, I looked around in alarm.

  “Mistress?” Annie inquired.

  My eyes scanned the crowd, but I was unable to locate the source.

  “Nothing, Annie,” I murmured, uneasy. “It’s just my imagination playing tricks.”

  “You are in need of rest,” she chided, sounding very like Susanna. But no rest awaited me in Matthew’s spacious ground-floor rooms overlooking the queen’s private gardens. Instead I found England’s premier playwright. I sent Annie to extract Jack from whatever mess he’d gotten himself into and steeled myself to face Christopher Marlowe.

  “Hello, Kit,” I said. The daemon looked up from Matthew’s desk, pages of verse scattered around him. “All alone?”

  “Walter and Henry are dining with the queen. Why are you not with them?” Kit looked pale, thin, and distracted. He rose and began to gather his papers, glancing anxiously at the door as though he expected someone to walk in and interrupt us.

  “Too tired.” I yawned. “But there’s no need for you to go. Stay and wait for Matthew. He will be glad to see you. What are you writing?”

  “A poem.” After this abrupt reply, Kit sat. Something was off. The daemon seemed positively twitchy.

  The tapestry on the wall behind him showed a golden-haired maiden standing in a tower overlooking the sea. She held up a lantern and peered into the distance. That explains it.

  “You’re writing about Hero and Leander.” It was not phrased as a question. Kit had probably been pining for Matthew and working on the epic love poem since we’d boarded ship at Gravesend back in January. He didn’t respond.

  After a few moments I recited the relevant lines.

  “Some swore he was a maid in mans attire, For in his lookes were all that men desire, A pleasant smiling cheeke, a speaking eye, A brow for Love to banquet roiallye, And such as knew he was a man would say, Leander, thou art made for amorous play: Why art thou not in love and lov’ d of all?”

  Kit exploded from his seat. “What witch’s mischief is this? You know what I am doing as soon as I do it.”

  “No mischief, Kit. Who would understand how you feel better than I?” I said carefully.

  Kit seemed to gather his control, though his hands were shaking as he stood. “I must go. I am to meet someone in the tiltyard. There is talk of a special pageant next month before the queen sets off for her summer travels. I’ve been asked to assist.” Every year Elizabeth progressed around the country with a wagon train of attendants and courtiers, sponging off her nobles and leaving behind enormous debts and empty larders.

  “I’ll be sure to tell Matthew you were here. He’ll want to see you.”

  A bright gleam entered Marlowe’s eyes. “Perhaps you would like to come with me, Mistress Roydon. It is a fine day, and you have not seen Greenwich.”

  “Thank you, Kit.” I was puzzled by his rapid change of mood, but he was, after all, a daemon. And he was mooning over Matthew. Though I’d hoped to rest, and Kit’s overtures were stilted, I should make an effort in the interests of harmony. “Is it far? I’m somewhat tired after the journey.”

  “Not far at all.” Kit bowed. “After you.”

  The tiltyard at Greenwich resembled a grand track-and-field stadium, with roped-off areas for athletes, stands for spectators, and scattered equipment. Two sets of barricades stretched down the center of the compacted surface.

  “Is that where the jousting takes place?” I could imagine the sound of hooves pounding the earth as knights sped toward each other, their lances angled across the necks of their mounts so they could strike their opponent’s shield and unseat him.

  “Yes. Would you like to take a closer look?” Kit asked.

  The place was deserted. Lances were stuck in the ground here and there. I saw something that looked alarmingly similar to a gibbet, with its upright pole and long arm. Rather than a body, however, a bag of sand swung at the end. It had been run through, and sand trickled out in a thin stream.

  “A quintain,” Marlowe explained, gesturing at the device. “Riders aim their lances at the sandbag.” He reached up and gave the arm a push to show me. It swung around, providing a moving target to hone the knight’s skill. Marlowe’s eyes scanned the tiltyard.

  “Is the man you’re meeting here?” I looked around, too. But the only person I could see was a tall, dark-haired woman wearing a lavish red dress. She was far in the distance, no doubt having some romantic assignation before dinner.

  “Have you seen the other quintain?” Kit pointed in the opposite direction, where a mannequin made of straw and rough burlap was tied to a post. This, too, looked more like a form of execution than a piece of sporting equipment.

  I felt a cold, focused glance. Before I could turn around, a vampire caught me with arms that had the familiar sense of being more steel than flesh. But these arms did not belong to Matthew.

  “Why, she is even more delicious than I’d hoped,” a woman said, her cold breath snaking around my throat.

  Roses. Civet. I registered the scents, tried to remember where I’d smelled the combination before.

  Sept-Tours. Louisa de Clermont’s room.

  “Something in her blood is irresistible to wearhs,” Kit said roughly. “I do not understand what it is, but even Father Hubbard seems to be in her thrall.”

  Sharp teeth rasped against my neck, though they did not break the skin. “It will be amusing to play with her.”

  “Our plan was to kill her,” Kit complained. He was even twitchier and more restless now that Louisa was here. I remained silent, trying to figure out what game they were playing. “Then everything will be as it was before.”

  “Patience.” Louisa drank in my scent. “Can you smell her fear? It always sharpens my appetite.”

  Kit inched closer, fascinated.

  “But you are pale, Christopher. Do you need more physic?” Louisa modified her grasp on me so that she could reach into her pocket. She handed Kit a sticky brown lozenge. He took it from her eagerly, thrusting the ball into his mouth. “They are miraculous, are they not? The warmbloods in Germany call them ‘Stones of Immortality,’ for the ingredients somehow make even pitiful humans feel that they are divine. And they have made you feel strong again.”

  “It is the witch who weakens me, just as she weakened your brother.” Kit’s eyes turned glassy, and there was a sickeningly sweet tang to his breath. Opiates. No wonder he was behaving so strangely.

  “Is that true, witch? Kit says you bound my brother against his will.” Louisa swung me around. Her beautiful face embodied every warmblood’s nightmare of a vampire: porcelain-pale skin, dusky black hair, and dark eyes that were as fogged with opium as Kit’s. Malevolence rolled off her, and her
perfectly bowed red lips were not only sensual but cruel. This was a creature who would hunt and kill without a hint of remorse.

  “I did not bind your brother. I chose him—and he chose me, Louisa.”

  “You know who I am?” Louisa’s dark eyebrows rose.

  “Matthew doesn’t keep secrets from me. We are mates. Husband and wife, too. Your father presided over our marriage.” Thank you, Philippe.

  “Liar!” Louisa screamed. Her pupils engulfed the iris as her control snapped. It was not just drugs that I would have to contend with but blood rage, too.

  “Trust nothing she says,” Kit warned. He pulled a dagger from his doublet and grabbed my hair. I cried out at the pain as he wrenched my head back. Kit’s dagger orbited my right eye. “I am going to pluck out her eyes so that she can no longer use them for enchantments or to see my fate. She knows my death. I am sure of it. Without her witch’s sight, she will have no hold on us—or on Matthew.”

  “The witch does not deserve such a swift death,” Louisa said bitterly.

  Kit pressed the point into my flesh just under the brow bone, and a drop of blood rolled down my cheek. “That wasn’t our agreement, Louisa. To break her spell, I must have her eyes. Then I want her dead and gone. So long as the witch lives, Matthew will not forget her.”

  “Shh, Christopher. Do I not love you? Are we not allies?” Louisa reached for Kit and kissed him deeply. She moved her mouth along his jaw and down to where the blood pounded in his veins. Her lips brushed against the skin, and I saw the smear of blood that accompanied her movement. Kit drew a shuddering breath and closed his eyes.

  Louisa drank hungrily from the daemon’s neck. While she did, we stood in a tight knot, locked together in the vampire’s strong arms. I tried to squirm away, but her grip on me only tightened as her teeth and lips battened on Kit.

  “Sweet Christopher,” she murmured when she had drunk her fill, licking at the wound. The mark on Kit’s neck was silvery and soft, just like the scar on my breast. Louisa must have fed from him before. “I can taste the immortality in your blood and see the beautiful words that dance through your thoughts. Matthew is a fool not to want to share them with you.”

  “He wants only the witch.” Kit touched his neck, imagining that it was Matthew, and not his sister, who had drunk from his veins. “I want her dead.”

  “As do I.” Louisa turned her bottomless black eyes on me. “And so we will compete for her. Whoever wins may do with her as she—or he—will to make her atone for the wrongs she has done my brother. Do you agree, my darling boy?”

  The two of them were high as kites now that Louisa had shared Kit’s opiate-laden blood. I started to panic, then remembered Philippe’s instructions at Sept-Tours.

  Think. Stay alive.

  Then I remembered the baby, and my panic returned. I couldn”t do anything that might endanger our child.

  Kit nodded. “I will do anything to have Matthew’s regard once more.”

  “I thought so.” Louisa smiled and kissed him deeply again. “Shall we choose our colors?”

  Chapter Thirty Five

  "You are making a terrible mistake, Louisa,” I warned, struggling against my bonds. She and Kit had removed the shapeless straw-and-burlap mannequin and tied me to the post in its place. Then Kit had blindfolded me with a strip of dark blue silk taken from the tip of one of the waiting lances, so that I could not enchant them with my gaze. The two stood nearby, arguing over who would use the black-and-silver lance and who the green-and-gold.

  “You’ll find Matthew with the queen. He’ll explain everything.” I tried to keep my voice steady, but it trembled. Matthew had told me about his sister in modern Oxford, while we drank tea by his fireplace at the Old Lodge. She was as vicious as she was beautiful.

  “You dare to utter his name?” Kit was wild with anger.

  “Do not speak again, witch, or I will let Christopher remove your tongue after all.” Louisa’s voice was venomous, and I didn’t need to see her eyes to know that poppy and blood rage were not a good mix. The point of Ysabeau’s diamond scratched lightly against my cheek, drawing blood. Louisa had broken my finger wrenching it off and was now wearing it herself.

  “I am Matthew’s wife, his mate. What do you imagine his reaction will be when he finds out what you’ve done?”

  “You are a monster—a beast. If I win the challenge, I will strip you of your false humanity and expose what lies underneath.” Louisa’s words trickled into my ears like poison. “Once I have, Matthew will see what you truly are, and he will share in our pleasure at your death.”

  When their conversation faded into the distance, I had no way of knowing where they were or from which direction they might return. I was utterly alone.

  Think. Stay alive.

  Something fluttered in my chest. But it wasn’t panic. It was my firedrake. I wasn’t alone. And I was a witch. I didn’t need my eyes to see the world around me.

  What do you see? I asked the earth and the air.

  It was my firedrake who answered. She chirped and chattered, her wings stirring in the space between my belly and lungs as she assessed the situation.

  Where are they? I wondered.

  My third eye opened wide, revealing the shimmering colors of late spring in all their blue and green glory. One darker green thread was twisted with white and tangled with something black. I followed it to Louisa, who was climbing onto the back of an agitated horse. It wouldn’t stand still for the vampire and kept shying away. Louisa bit it on the neck, which made the horse stand stock-still but did nothing to alleviate its terror.

  I followed another set of threads, these crimson and white, thinking they might lead to Matthew. Instead I saw a bewildering whirl of shapes and colors. I fell—far, far until I landed on a cold pillow. Snow. I drew the cold winter air into my lungs. I was no longer tied to a stake on a late-May afternoon at Greenwich Palace. I was four or five, lying on my back in the small yard behind our house in Cambridge.

  And I remembered.

  My father and I had been playing after a heavy snowfall. My mittens were Harvard crimson against the white. We were making angels, our arms and legs sweeping up and down. I was fascinated by how, if I moved my arms quickly enough, the white wings seemed to take on a red tinge.

  “It’s like the dragon with the fiery wings,” I whispered to my father. His arms stilled.

  “When did you see a dragon, Diana?” His voice was serious. I knew the difference between that tone and his usual teasing one. It meant he expected an answer—and a truthful one.

  “Lots of times. Mostly at night.” My arms beat faster and faster. The snow underneath their span was changing color, shimmering with green and gold, red and black, silver and blue.

  “And where was it?” he whispered, staring at the snowdrifts. They were mounting up around me, heaving and rumbling as though alive. One grew tall and stretched itself into a slender dragon’s head. The drift stretched wide into a pair of wings. The dragon shook flakes of snow from its white scales. When it turned and looked at my father, he murmured something and patted its nose as though he and the dragon had already met. The dragon breathed warm vapor into the frigid air.

  “Mostly it’s inside me—here.” I sat up to show my father what I meant. My mittened hands went to the curved bones of my ribs. They were warm through the skin, through my jacket, through the chunky knit of the mittens. “But when she needs to fly, I have to let her out. There’s not enough room for her wings otherwise.”

  A pair of shining wings rested on the snow behind me.

  “You left your own wings behind,” my father said gravely.

  The dragon wormed her way out of the snowdrift. Her silver-and-black eyes blinked as she pulled free, rose into the air, and disappeared over the apple tree, becoming more insubstantial with every flap of her wings. Mine were already fading on the snow behind me.

  “The dragon won’t take me with her. And she never stays around for very long,” I said with a sigh
. “Why is that, Daddy?”

  “Maybe she has somewhere else to be.”

  I considered this possibility. “Like when you and Mommy go to school?” It was perplexing to think of parents going to school. All the children on the block thought so, even though most of their parents spent all day at school, too.

  “Just like that.” My father was still sitting in the snow, his arms wrapped around his knees. He smiled. “I love the witch in you, Diana.”

  “She scares Mommy.”

  “Nah.” My father shook his head. “Mommy is just scared of change.”

  “I tried to keep the dragon a secret, but I think she knows anyway,” I said glumly.

  “Mommies usually do,” my father said. He looked down at the snow. My wings were entirely gone now. “But she knows when you want hot chocolate, too. If we go inside, my guess is she’ll have it ready.” My father got to his feet and held out his hand.

  I slipped mine, still wearing crimson mittens, into his warm grip.

  “Will you always be here to hold my hand when it gets dark?” I asked. Night was falling, and I was suddenly afraid of the shadows. Monsters lurked in the gloom, strange creatures who watched me as I played.

  “Nope,” my father said with a shake of his head. My lip trembled. That wasn’t the answer I wanted. “You’ ll have to be brave enough for both of us one day. But don’t worry.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You’ ll always have your dragon.”

  A drop of blood fell from the pierced skin around my eye to the ground by my feet. Even though I was blindfolded, I could see its leisurely movement and the way it landed with a wet splat. A black shoot emerged from the spot.

  Hooves thundered toward me. Someone gave a high, keening cry that conjured up images of ancient battles. The sound made the firedrake even more restless. I couldn’t let them reach me. The results could be deadly.

  Instead of trying to see the threads that led to Kit and Louisa, I