Shadow of Night: A Novel Read online

  Françoise sat by the fireplace, her sewing at her side, and watched the door. I tried out my new ink by ticking items off my shopping list and adding “rat trappe.” I turned next to John Hester’s book. The blank sheet of paper folded discreetly around it masked the salacious contents. It enumerated cures for venereal diseases, most of them involving toxic concentrations of mercury. No wonder Chandler had objected to selling a copy to a married woman. I had just started the second fascinating chapter when I heard murmurs coming from Matthew’s study. Françoise’s mouth tightened, and she shook her head.

  “He will need more wine tonight than we have in the house,” she observed, heading for the stairs with one of the empty jugs that sat by the door.

  I followed the sound of my husband’s voice. Matthew was still in his study, peeling his clothes off and flinging them into the fire.

  “He is an evil man, milord,” Pierre said grimly, unbuckling Matthew’s sword.

  “‘Evil’ doesn’t do that fiend justice. The word that does hasn’t been coined yet. After today I’d swear before judges he is the devil himself.” Matthew’s long fingers loosened the ties of his close-fitting breeches. They dropped to the floor, and he bent to catch them up. They flew through the air and into the fire, but not fast enough to hide the spots of blood. A musty smell of wet stone, age, and filth evoked in me sudden memories of being held captive at La Pierre. The gorge rose in my throat. Matthew spun around.

  “Diana.” He took in my distress with one deep breath and ripped the shirt above his head before stepping over his discarded boots and coming to my side in nothing but a pair of linen drawers. The firelight played off his shoulders, and one of his many scars—this one long and deep, just over his shoulder joint—winked in and out of sight.

  “Are you hurt?” I struggled to get the words out of my constricted throat, and my eyes were glued to the clothes burning in the fireplace. Matthew followed my gaze and swore softly.

  “That isn’t my blood.” That Matthew had someone else’s blood on him was not much comfort. “The queen ordered me to be present when a prisoner was . . . questioned.” His slight hesitation told me that “tortured” was the word he was avoiding. “Let me wash, and I’ll join you for supper.” Matthew’s words were warm, but he looked tired and angry. And he was careful not to touch me.

  “You’ve been underground.” There was no mistaking the smell.

  “I’ve been at the Tower.”

  “And your prisoner—is he dead?”

  “Yes.” His hand passed over his face. “I’d hoped to arrive early enough to stop it—this time—but I miscalculated the tides. All I could do, once again, was insist that his suffering end.”

  Matthew had been through the man’s death once before. Today he could have remained at home and not concerned himself with a lost soul in the Tower. A lesser creature would have. I reached out to touch him, but he stepped away.

  “The queen will have my hide when she discovers that the man died before revealing his secrets, but I no longer care. Like most humans, Elizabeth finds it easy to turn a blind eye when it suits her,” he said.

  “Who was he?”

  “A witch,” Matthew said flatly. “His neighbors reported him for having a poppet with red hair. They feared that it was an image of the queen. And the queen feared that the behavior of the Scottish witches, Agnes Sampson and John Fian, was encouraging English witches to act against her. No, Diana.” Matthew gestured for me to stay where I was when I stepped forward to comfort him. “That’s as close as you will ever be to the Tower and what happens there. Go to the parlor. I’ll join you shortly.”

  It was difficult to leave him, but honoring his request was all I could do for him now. The wine, bread, and cheese waiting on the table were unappetizing, but I took a piece of one of the buns I’d purchased that morning and slowly reduced it to crumbs.

  “Your appetite is off.” Matthew slipped into the room, silent as a cat, and poured himself some wine. He drank it down in one long draft and replenished the cup.

  “So is yours,” I said. “You’re not feeding regularly.” Gallowglass and Hancock kept inviting him to join them on their nocturnal hunts, but Matthew always refused.

  “I don’t want to talk about that. Tell me about your day instead.” Help me to forget. Matthew’s unspoken words whispered around the room.

  “We went shopping. I picked up the book you’d ordered from Richard Field and met his wife, Jacqueline.”

  “Ah.” Matthew’s smile widened, and a bit of stress lifted from his mouth. “The new Mrs. Field. She outlived her first husband and is now leading her second husband in a merry dance. The two of you will be fast friends by the end of next week. Did you see Shakespeare? He’s staying with the Fields.”

  “No.” I added more crumbs to the growing pile on the table. “I went to the cathedral.” Matthew pitched slightly forward. “Pierre was with me,” I said hastily, dropping the bun on the table. “And I ran into George.”

  “He was no doubt hanging around the Bishop’s Head waiting for William Ponsonby to say something nice to him.” Matthew’s shoulders lowered as he chuckled.

  “I never reached the Bishop’s Head,” I confessed. “George was at Paul’s Cross, listening to a sermon.”

  “The crowds that gather to hear the preachers can be unpredictable,” he said softly. “Pierre knows better than to let you linger there.” As if by magic, his servant appeared.

  “We didn’t stay long. George took me to his apothecary. I bought a few more books and some supplies. Soap. Sealing wax. Red ink.” I pressed my lips together.

  “George’s apothecary lives in Cripplegate.” Matthew’s voice went flat. He looked up at Pierre. “When Londoners complain about crime, the sheriff goes there and picks up everyone who looks idle or peculiar. He has an easy time of it.”

  “If the sheriff targets Cripplegate, why are there so many creatures by the Barbican Cross and so few here in the Blackfriars?” The question took Matthew by surprise.

  “The Blackfriars was once Christian holy ground. Daemons, witches, and vampires got into the habit of living elsewhere long ago and haven’t yet moved back. The Barbican Cross, however, was put up on land where the Jewish cemetery was hundreds of years ago. After the Jews were expelled from England, city officials used the unconsecrated graveyard for criminals, traitors, and excommunicates instead. Humans consider it haunted and avoid the place.”

  “So it was the unhappiness of the dead I felt, not just the living.” The words slipped out before I could stop them. Matthew’s eyes narrowed.

  Our conversation was not improving his frayed temper, and my uneasiness grew by the minute. “Jacqueline recommended John Hester when I asked after an apothecary, but George said his man was just as good and less expensive. I didn’t ask about the neighborhood.”

  “The fact that John Chandler isn’t pushing opiates on his customers like Hester does is rather more important to me than his reasonable rates. Still, I don’t want you in Cripplegate. Next time you need writing supplies, send Pierre or Françoise to fetch them. Better yet, visit the apothecary three doors up on the other side of Water Lane.”

  “Mistress Field did not tell madame that there was an apothecary in the Blackfriars. A few months ago, Monsieur de Laune and Jacqueline disagreed about the best treatment for her eldest son’s putrid throat,” Pierre murmured by way of explanation.

  “I don’t care if Jacqueline and de Laune pulled swords on each other in the nave of St. Paul’s at the stroke of noon. Diana isn’t to go traipsing across the city.”

  “It’s not just Cripplegate that’s dangerous,” I said, pushing the pamphlet about the German vampire across the table. “I bought Hester’s treatise on syphilis from Chandler, and a book about trapping animals. This was for sale, too.”

  “You bought what?” Matthew choked on his wine, his attention fixed on the wrong book.

  “Forget about Hester. This pamphlet tells the story of a man in league with t
he devil who changes into a wolf and drinks blood. One of the men involved in its publication is our neighbor, the brewer by Baynard’s Castle.” I tapped my finger on the pamphlet for emphasis.

  Matthew drew the loosely bound sheets of paper toward him. His breath hitched when he reached the significant part. He handed it to Pierre, who made a similarly quick study of it.

  “Stubbe is a vampire, isn’t he?”

  “Yes. I didn’t know that news of his death had traveled this far. Kit is supposed to tell me about the gossip in the broadsides and popular press so we can cover it up if necessary. Somehow he missed this.” Matthew shot a grim look at Pierre. “Make sure someone else is assigned to the job, and don’t let Kit know.” Pierre tilted his head in acknowledgment.

  “So these legends about werewolves are just more pitiful human attempts to deny knowledge of vampires.” I shook my head.

  “Don’t be too hard on them, Diana. They’re focused on witches at the moment. It will be the daemons’ turn in another hundred years or so, thanks to the reform of the asylums. After that, humans will get around to vampires, and witches will be nothing more than a wicked fairy tale to frighten children.” Matthew looked worried, in spite of his words.

  “Our next-door neighbor is preoccupied with werewolves, not witches. And if you could be mistaken for one, I want you to stop worrying about me and start taking care of yourself. Besides, it shouldn’t be long now before a witch knocks on our door.” I clung to the certainty that it would be dangerous for Matthew to look any further for a witch. My husband’s eyes flashed a warning, but his mouth remained closed until his anger was under control.

  “I know you’re itching for independence, but the next time you decide to take matters into your own hands, promise you’ll discuss it with me first.” His response was far milder than I expected.

  “Only if you promise to listen. You’re being watched, Matthew. I’m sure of it, and so is Mary Sidney. You take care of the queen’s business and the problem in Scotland, and let me take care of this.”

  When he opened his mouth to negotiate further, I shook my head.

  “Listen to me. A witch will come. I promise.”

  18

  Matthew was waiting for me in Mary’s airy solar at Baynard’s Castle the next afternoon, staring out at the Thames with an amused expression. He turned at my approach, grinning at the Elizabethan version of a lab coat that covered my golden brown bodice and skirts. The underlying white sleeves that stuck out from my shoulders were ridiculously padded, but the ruff around my neck was small and unobtrusive, making it one of my more comfortable outfits.

  “Mary can’t leave her experiment. She said we should come in time for dinner on Monday.” I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him soundly. He reared back.

  “Why do you smell of vinegar?”

  “Mary washes in it. It cleans your hands better than soap.”

  “You left my house covered with the sweet scent of bread and honey, and the Countess of Pembroke returns you to me smelling like a pickle.” Matthew’s nose went to the patch of skin behind my ear. He gave a satisfied sigh. “I knew I could find some place the vinegar hadn’t reached.”

  “Matthew,” I murmured. The countess’s maid, Joan, was standing right behind us.

  “You’re behaving like a prim Victorian rather than a bawdy Elizabethan,” Matthew said, laughing. He straightened with one last caress of my neck. “How was your afternoon?”

  “Have you seen Mary’s laboratory?” I exchanged the shapeless gray coat for my cloak before sending Joan away to tend to her other duties. “She’s taken over one of the castle’s towers and painted the walls with images of the philosopher’s stone. It’s like working inside a Ripley scroll! I’ve seen the Beinecke’s copy at Yale, but it’s only twenty feet long. Mary’s murals are twice as big. It made it hard to focus on the work.”

  “What was your experiment?”

  “We hunted the green lion,” I replied proudly, referring to a stage of the alchemical process that combined two acidic solutions and produced startling color transformations. “We almost caught it, too. But then something went wrong and the flask exploded. It was fantastic!”

  “I’m glad you don’t work in my lab. Generally speaking, explosions are to be avoided when working with nitric acid. You two might do something a bit less volatile next time, like distilling rose water.” Matthew’s eyes narrowed. “You weren’t working with mercury?”

  “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t do anything that might harm the baby,” I said defensively.

  “Every time I say something about your well-being, you assume my concern lies elsewhere.” His brows drew together in a scowl. Thanks to his dark beard and mustache—which I was still getting used to—Matthew looked even more forbidding. But I didn’t want to argue with him.

  “Sorry,” I said quickly before changing the subject. “Next week we’re going to mix up a fresh batch of prima materia. That has mercury in it, but I promise not to touch it. Mary wants to see if it will putrefy into the alchemical toad by the end of January.”

  “That sounds like a festive start to the New Year,” Matthew said, settling the cloak over my shoulders.

  “What were you looking at?” I peered out the windows.

  “Someone’s building a bonfire across the river for New Year’s Eve. Every time they send the wagon for fresh wood, the local residents filch what’s already there. The pile gets smaller by the hour. It’s like watching Penelope ply her needle.”

  “Mary said no one will be working tomorrow. Oh, and to be sure to tell Françoise to buy extra manchet—that’s bread, right?—and to soak it in milk and honey to make it soft again for Saturday’s breakfast.” It was Elizabethan French toast in all but name. “I think Mary’s worried I might go hungry in a house run by vampires.”

  “Lady Pembroke has a don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy when it comes to creatures and their habits,” Matthew observed.

  “She certainly never mentioned what happened to her shoes,” I said thoughtfully.

  “Mary Sidney survives as her mother did: by turning a blind eye to every inconvenient truth. The women in the Dudley family have had to do so.”

  “Dudley?” I frowned. That was a family of notorious troublemakers—nothing at all like the mild-mannered Mary.

  “Lady Pembroke’s mother was Mary Dudley, a friend of Her Majesty and sister to the queen’s favorite, Robert.” Matthew’s mouth twisted. “She was brilliant, just like her daughter. Mary Dudley filled her head with ideas so there was no room in it for knowledge of her father’s treason, or her brothers’ missteps. When she caught smallpox from our blessed sovereign, Mary Dudley never acknowledged that both the queen and her own husband thereafter preferred the company of others rather than face her disfigurement.”

  I stopped, shocked. “What happened to her?”

  “She died alone and embittered, like most Dudley women before her. Her greatest triumph was marrying off her fifteen-year-old namesake to the forty-year-old Earl of Pembroke.”

  “Mary Sidney was a bride at fifteen?” The shrewd, vibrant woman ran an enormous household, reared a pack of energetic children, and was devoted to her alchemical experiments, all with no apparent effort. Now I understood how. Lady Pembroke was younger than me by a few years, but by the age of thirty she’d been juggling these responsibilities for half her life.

  “Yes. But Mary’s mother provided her all the tools necessary for her survival: iron discipline, a deep sense of duty, the best schooling money could buy, a love of poetry, and her passion for alchemy.”

  I touched my bodice, thinking of the life growing within me. What tools would he need to survive in the world?

  We talked about chemistry on our way home. Matthew explained that the crystals that Mary brooded over like a hen were oxidized iron ore and that she would later distill them in a flask to make sulfuric acid. I’d always been more interested in the symbolism of alchemy than in its practical aspects, but my afternoon w
ith the Countess of Pembroke had shown me how intriguing the links between the two might be.

  Soon we were safely inside the Hart and Crown and I was sipping a warm tisane made from mint and lemon balm. It turned out the Elizabethans did have teas, but they were all herbal. I was chattering on about Mary when I noticed Matthew’s smile.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I haven’t seen you like this before,” he commented.

  “Like what?”

  “So animated—full of questions and reports of what you’ve been doing and all the plans you and Mary have for next week.”

  “I like being a student again,” I confessed. “It was difficult at first, not to have all the answers. Over the years I’ve forgotten how much fun it is to have nothing but questions.”

  “And you feel free here, in a way that you didn’t in Oxford. Secrets are a lonely business.” Matthew’s eyes were sympathetic as his fingers moved along my jaw.

  “I was never lonely.”

  “Yes you were. I think you still are,” he said softly.

  Before I could shape a response, Matthew had me out of my seat and was backing us toward the wall by the fireplace. Pierre, who was nowhere to be seen only moments before, appeared at the threshold.

  Then a knock sounded. Matthew’s shoulder muscles bunched, and a dagger flashed at his thigh. When he nodded, Pierre stepped out onto the landing and flung open the door.

  “We have a message from Father Hubbard.” Two male vampires stood there, both dressed in expensive clothes that were beyond the reach of most messengers. Neither was more than fifteen. I’d never seen a teenage vampire and had always imagined there must be prohibitions against it.