Shadow of Night: A Novel Read online

  “Oh, I doubt that,” Elizabeth said drily.

  “If the emperor intended this necklace for the queen of England, he would have wished to give it to her with appropriate ceremony. If we give the ambassador the credit he is due . . .” I suggested.

  “There’s a pretty solution. It will satisfy no one, of course, but it will give my courtiers something to cut their teeth on until some new curiosity emerges.” Elizabeth tapped the table pensively. “But there’s still the matter of this book.”

  “Would you believe me if I told you it wasn’t important?” Matthew asked.

  Elizabeth shook her head. “No.”

  “I thought not. What of the opposite—that the future may depend upon it?” Matthew asked.

  “That is even more far-fetched. But since I have no desire for Rudolf or any of his kin to hold the future in their grasp, I will leave the matter of returning it to you—should it ever come into your possession again, of course.”

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” I said, relieved that the matter had been resolved with relatively few lies.

  “I did not do it for you,” Elizabeth reminded me sharply. “Come, Sebastian. Hang the jewel around my neck. Then you can transform yourself back into Master Roydon and we will go down to the presence chamber and put on a show of gratitude to amaze them all.”

  Matthew did as he was bid, his fingers lingering on the queen’s shoulders longer than was necessary. She patted his hand.

  “Is my wig straight?” Elizabeth asked me as she rose to her feet.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” In truth it was slightly askew after Matthew’s ministrations.

  Elizabeth reached up and gave her wig a tug. “Teach your wife how to tell a convincing lie, Master Roydon. She will need to be better schooled in the arts of deceit, or she will not survive long at court.”

  “The world needs honesty more than it needs another courtier,” commented Matthew, taking her elbow. “Diana will remain as she is.”

  “A husband who values honesty in his own wife.” Elizabeth shook her head. “This is the best evidence I have yet seen that the world is coming to an end as Dr. Dee foretold.”

  When Matthew and the queen appeared in the doorway to the privy chamber, a hush fell over the crowd. The room was packed to the rafters, and wary glances darted from the queen to a youth the age of an undergraduate I took to be the imperial ambassador, to William Cecil and back. Matthew released the queen’s hand, which was held aloft on his bent arm. My firedrake’s wings beat with alarm inside my ribs.

  I put my hand on my diaphragm to soothe the beast. Here be the real dragons, I silently warned.

  “I thank the emperor for his gift, Your Excellency,” Elizabeth said, walking straight toward the teenager with her hand extended for him to kiss. The young man stared at her blankly. “Gratias tibi ago.”

  “They get younger all the time,” Matthew murmured as he drew me next to him.

  “That’s what I say about my students,” I whispered back. “Who is he?”

  “Vilém Slavata. You must have seen his father in Prague.”

  I studied young Vilém and tried to imagine what he might look like in twenty years. “Was his father the round one with the dimpled chin?”

  “One of them. You’ve described most of Rudolf’s officials,” Matthew pointed out when I shot him an exasperated glance.

  “Stop whispering, Master Roydon!” Elizabeth turned a withering glance on my husband, who bowed apologetically. Her Majesty continued, rattling on in Latin. “‘Decet eum qui dat, non meminisse beneficii: eum vero, qui accipit, intueri non tam munus quam dantis animum.’” The queen of England had set the ambassador a language examination to see if he was worthy of her.

  Slavata blanched. The poor boy was going to fail it.

  It becomes him who gives not to remember the favor: but it becomes she who receives not to look upon the gift as much as the soul of the giver. I coughed to hide my chortle once I’d sorted out the translation.

  “Your Majesty?” Vilém stammered in heavily accented English.

  “Gift. From the emperor.” Elizabeth pointed imperiously at the collar of enameled crosses draped over her slim shoulders. The dragon hung down further on Her Majesty than it had on me. She sighed with exaggerated exasperation. “Tell him what I said in his own language, Master Roydon. I do not have the patience for Latin lessons. Does the emperor not educate his servants?”

  “His Excellency knows Latin, Your Majesty. Ambassador Slavata attended university at Wittenberg and went on to study law at Basel, if my memory serves. It is not the language that confuses him but your message.”

  “Then let us be right clear so that he—and his master—receive it. And not for my sake,” Elizabeth said darkly. “Proceed.” With a shrug, Matthew repeated Her Majesty’s message in Slavata’s native tongue.

  “I understood what she said,” young Slavata responded, dazed. “But what does she mean?”

  “You are confused,” Matthew continued sympathetically in Czech. “It is common among new ambassadors. Don’t worry about it. Tell the queen that Rudolf is delighted to give her this jewel. Then we can have dinner.”

  “Will you tell her for me?” Slavata was completely out of his depth.

  “I do hope you have not caused another misunderstanding between Emperor Rudolf and me, Master Roydon,” Elizabeth said, plainly irritated that her command of seven languages did not extend to Czech.

  “His Excellency reports that the emperor wishes Your Majesty health and happiness. And Ambassador Slavata is delighted that the necklace is where it belongs and not missing, as the emperor feared.” Matthew looked at his mistress benignly. She started to say something, closed her mouth with a snap, and glared at him. Slavata, eager to learn, wanted to know how Matthew had managed to silence the queen of England. When the ambassador made a gesture to encourage Matthew to translate, Cecil took the young man in hand.

  “Delightful news, Excellency. I think you’ve had lessons enough for one day. Come, dine with me,” Cecil said, steering him to a nearby table. The queen, upstaged now by both her spy and her chief adviser, harrumphed as she climbed the dais, helped up the three low stairs by Bess Throckmorton and Raleigh.

  “What happens now?” I whispered. The show was over, and the room’s occupants were displaying signs of restlessness.

  “I will wish to talk further, Master Roydon,” Elizabeth called while her cushions were being arranged to her satisfaction. “Do not go far.”

  “Pierre will be in the presence chamber next door. He’ll show you to my room, where there’s a bed and some peace and quiet. You can rest until Her Majesty frees me. It shouldn’t take long. She only wants a full report on Kelley.” Matthew brought my hand to his lips and gave it a formal kiss.

  Knowing Elizabeth’s fondness for her male attendants, it could well take hours.

  Even though I was braced for the clamor of the presence chamber, it knocked me back a step. Courtiers not sufficiently important to warrant dining in the privy chamber jostled me as they passed, eager to get to their own dinner before the food was gone. My stomach flipped over at the scent of roasted venison. I would never get used to it, and the baby didn’t like it either.

  Pierre and Annie were standing by the wall with the other servants. They both looked relieved as I came into view.

  “Where is milord?” Pierre asked, pulling me out of the crush of bodies.

  “Waiting on the queen,” I said. “I’m too tired to stand up—or eat. Can you take me to Matthew’s room?”

  Pierre cast a worried look at the entrance to the privy chamber. “Of course.”

  “I know the way, Mistress Roydon,” Annie said. Newly returned from Prague and well into her second visit to the court of Elizabeth, Annie was affecting an attitude of studied nonchalance.

  “I showed her milord’s room when you were led away to see Her Majesty,” Pierre assured me. “It is just downstairs, below the apartments once used by the king’s wife.”


  “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 be sorry he missed 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 desperately 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 purse. 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 o
f 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.