Perfect Shadows Part 11

"What did you do with the skull?" he asked suddenly.

"We buried it," I smiled. "It was a woman's, Geofri said, or a child's. There are ossuaries there, as you know, and an endless supply of 'martyr's bones', but somehow we thought returning the pitiful object to the earth was best, to keep her from being taken away and sold again, as was likely if we had returned her to the catacomb. Geofri has rather strict views on the respect due to the dead." I lit the pipe and drew the smoke before handing it to Hal, who took it gingerly and imitated me, but choked on the unfamiliar taste. He soon became accustomed to the flavor, and began to relax.

I pushed the chairs back, pulling the cus.h.i.+ons from them and arranging them on the floor before the fire. I stretched out my legs, using one of the heavy chairs as a backrest. Hal gazed at me for a moment, then did the same, settling between me and the fire. "Now Hal, do you wish to tell me why you could not stay away?" He hesitated, unsure. "Well, I think that I know," I said carefully. "But this choice must be yours, and I will not try to force you to my will, or even influence your decision. Have you loved with a man before?" He nodded slowly, his eyes smoky with memory.

"Twice," he answered huskily. "One older and one younger. I was fifteen, and he was twenty, a groom in Lord Burghley's household, a.s.signed to look after me, though not, I fear, in the fas.h.i.+on he did," Hal chuckled, then saddened." He died about a year later, of the plague. I took a younger boy, a page, as a lover, to try to forget him, but . . . it was a mistake," his voice hardened.

"The boy threatened to go to Burghley if you didn't pay dearly for his silence, I suppose. What did you do?"

"Planted a ring of mine among his things and went to Burghley myself, and had him turned out for stealing. He tried to tell Burghley anyway, to defend himself, but as I had been rather spectacularly discovered that morning with two of the serving-wenches in my bed, no credence was paid him." Hal smiled as I laughed out loud.

"Masterful! I must be wary, I see." I reached out and tentatively touched his hand, running my fingertips across the back and around the thumb into the palm, lightly holding it, and raising it to my lips to press a kiss there. Hal s.h.i.+vered, then sat up and began deliberately undoing his doublet, one jeweled b.u.t.ton at a time, his gaze never straying from my face. He untied his points and slid out of doublet, trunk-hose and hose in one graceful movement, with practiced ease. Clad only in his s.h.i.+rt he leaned over me, first easing my filmy s.h.i.+rt over my shoulders, then his eager hands searching for the fastening of the outlandish trousers. I could see his eyes catch on the scars upon my shoulder and chest, arrow wound and brands. He tenderly bent his head and kissed them, causing me to shudder with the intensity of my desire.

"Do you know what you are doing, Hal? Is this truly what you want?" I asked hoa.r.s.ely. "You still have a choice."

Hal shook his head sadly, raising on one elbow to turn a bittersweet look on me. "I have no choices at all," he breathed, then smiled tightly as I leaned forward to kiss him, gently at first, then more ardently as the depth of his reaction drove me. I found myself aching to learn the limits of the man, all the nuances and subtleties of his responses. I had meant to hold back, to build gradually, but fell helplessly into the desire to push and master him, reading without conscious thought his unuttered needs. When I came at last to press my teeth to the vein in his throat, tangling my hand in that burnished hair and drawing his head back almost to the point of pain, my own release was shattering. The rich sweetness of his blood filled my mouth, and his body shuddered as wave after wave of pleasure engulfed us both.

I withdrew from the spent and sobbing man beneath me, turning him and drawing him up until the tear-soaked face rested on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Hal," I murmured, kissing the sweat-dampened curls. "I hadn't meant for it to belike that." Hal pressed his fingers to my lips, to hush me.

"Don't be sorry," he whispered, then raised his face to mine.

"Lo, I confess I am thy captive, I, and hold my conquered hands for thee to tie,"

he quoted, smiling, and I stared at him in surprise. "It's from Marlowe's Ovid," he explained quietly. "Kit Marlowe was the dead friend that Walsingham has named you for."

"Yes, I know," I said, disentangling myself to fetch the basin, which held heated towels, and the ewer full of water that was still pleasantly warm. I began to wash, first myself, then him. Hal s.h.i.+vered at the attention, his eyes growing heavy with content. He reached a hand and caught my wrist, kissing the fading scars still visible there.

"If that was not how you meant it to be, you might still show me how you did intend it . . . " his voice trailed off as I leaned over him, a shadow between him and the fire, then a fire between his teeth when our lips met. I was gentle this time, using every ounce of my skill to bring his release, and every ounce of my will not to feed from the man again. All too soon, it seemed, we broke apart. Hal laid back and when I asked him what he was doing replied: "Drinking the sight of you like wine, some heavy and heady rich wine, red as blood, rarer and more precious than rubies," and laughed at the giddy simile. I brought the tray, uncovering the dishes to reveal the rare beef and sallet of sorrel and rose petals, and poured him a wine redder than blood from a second flagon. He leaned against me, letting himself be fed and basking in my attentions.

"I am more content this night," he told me, "than I have been since ever I came to court."

Chapter 8.

Northumberland prowled the gallery and fidgeted in the old chapel he had taken as his study at Malvern Hall. The disturbances there had begun quietly enough some two or three weeks after the disastrous attempt to summon the demon Cadavedere, begun with a few rappings and tappings, and had grown in intensity until they could not be ignored. A sudden flung stone had broken a retort, spilling the results of two weeks work across the pages of an irreplaceable grimoire, and Percy had had enough. He briefly considered calling in a priest to try to exorcise the spirit, but had decided against it on the grounds that he probably knew more than his priest did on the subject of exorcism. Instead he had carefully set a mirror and murmured the spells of concentration and calming he had always found so useful preceding attempts to scry. A second stone shattered the costly mirror, and a tattoo of rapping broke out.

The earl, enraged, found himself shouting "Who in the name of h.e.l.l are you?" then watching in horror as a ma.s.sive wax candle began to burn down one side, as if it were subject to a heavy draft, although there was no breath of air stirring and the flames of every other candle in the room burned straight and still. The wax streamed from the candlestick, splas.h.i.+ng onto the scarred tabletop, but oddly, deliberately. Northumberland leant forward, and gasped as his nearsighted eyes picked out the device that imprinted itself in the hot wax, the sigil of Mars encompa.s.sed in a star of thirteen points. He knew of only one man that had used that device: Aestatis Montague. Percy cleared his throat. "D-d-doctor, is that you?"

The upshot was that now, weeks later, the earl paced throughout the early evening, waiting for the time to ripen so that he could begin a rite that, as far as he knew, no one had ever attempted before. He stepped back into the shrouded chamber. It had originally been the Lady Chapel of the old abbey, and the candlelight gleamed on the scrubbed and polished floor, the icy white marks of the chalk patterns, and the sweating, naked body of the gagged man shackled in the center of those markings. He was not a prepossessing man, a beggar in fact, with a twisted clubfoot and a fleering sidelong glance under thatchy eyebrows, red, like his matted hair and scabby beard. It had been an easy matter to lure him to the house under the pretense of charity, and even easier once there to drug him, and keep him drugged until the most propitious time to perform the rite. But he was not drugged now, and he strained against the bonds that held him, twisted and fought for a freedom he would never win in the flesh.

"It is time to begin," the earl said quietly, though there was none but his victim to hear him. He picked up a sword from the altar behind him, and slowly, expertly, began the chant and the accompanying motions, watching in fascination as he actually seemed to see the man's soul pull out of his extremities and bunch towards the head. There was a snap that was almost audible, and the soul floated above the fettered body, attached by a thin silvery cord. Percy, still chanting, flicked his blade out and to the left, and the large and ornate sword, the Templar's sword, severed the filament holding soul to body. With a wail that would trouble the earl's dreams, the ghostly, amorphous shape shot from sight; immediately Percy dropped the weapon and caught up an aspergillum from a chalice standing by, sprinkling the lifeless body with the contents until it was evenly covered. He tossed the aspergill aside and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the candelabra, holding it over the corpse while the chant reached a crescendo.

" SURGAT! SURGAT! SURGAT!" he shrieked, and a mist seemed to form over the body, sinking into it like a stone into a weed-choked pond. At the final syllable, the dead man opened his eyes.

An hour or so later the beggar's body had been loosed from the floor, washed, draped in Percy's own brocade night-robe, and placed before the fire to sip a cup of mulled wine. He watched the earl, faded blue eyes peering from beneath the heavy brows, but he had not spoken, and when Northumberland tried to speak to him, he'd look away, nodding to the stoup of wine on the hearth. His patience at an end, the earl clouted the man viciously over the ear and strode to the door, intending to call for a groom to take the beggar back to the cellars and dispose of him. What had gone wrong? He'd chosen the time most carefully, had culled the chants from unimpeachable sources, had coated the body in a mixture of Montague's own blood and sea-water after the rightful owner had been ousted and cut off from returning-what had gone wrong? A small sound came from behind him, stopping him in the act of reaching for the latch. He turned to see the beggar reaching an imploring hand to him, mumbling something he could not hear. Slowly he made his way back to the hearth, and the words became clearer.

". . . Harry? Why . . . what happened . . ."the nervous gaze fell on the outstretched hand, its calluses and coa.r.s.e red hairs, and a look of disbelief spread across the heavy features. The frightened man held his hands before his face, and bit off a scream. "Fetch me a mirror, you fool," he rasped, the words almost lost in his hysterical breathing. Northumberland let the insult pa.s.s for the time being, and brought the mirror, holding it up before the beggar's face. There was a howl from the man, and he batted at the mirror, to strike it to the ground, to shatter the offending image, but Percy was expecting something of the sort and held the gla.s.s safely out of reach. "Harry? Why did you do this to me?" came a broken whisper and the body before him was racked by sobs. Percy knelt and filled the cup again, holding it to his colleague's lips. Montague grasped it clumsily and began to gulp the contents, spilling them liberally down the front of the borrowed robe. Northumberland eyed the ruin of the expensive garment with distaste. Maybe it could be made over for the Doctor? G.o.d knew that the man was going to need anew wardrobe and the thought of having to lay out the money for it was a cheerless one; he shoved the thoughts aside to be dealt with at a later time.

"You should rest now, Doctor," was all he said before summoning a groom to see the weeping man to the chamber that had been prepared for him. They would talk in the morning.

Southampton smoothed the oyster-white satin of his doublet, glowing with that special pride produced by overshadowing someone else, in this case Lord Mounteagle, who had made the monumental mistake of bragging on the outfit he had commissioned for the Christmas court. He had been preening himself on the satin, taffeta silk that s.h.i.+mmered with the s.h.i.+fting colors of pearls, and so dear that enough to make a pair of sleeves and trim the rose velvet doublet had cost an entire year's rents from one of his few remaining manors. Nothing else would do but that Hal should have an entire suit of the satin, trimmed in silver lace and black pearls. He had waited patiently, timing his entrance to the hall so that Mounteagle would have plenty of time to let everyone know the price he paid for the cloth before settling into some pastime. Hal then sauntered up behind his quarry, leaning nonchalantly on the back of his chair, so that everyone at the table, save Mounteagle himself, had a good view of the costume. "G.o.d you good den, my lords," he said quietly. "And you especially, Will," he added to Mounteagle, who did not bother to look around. Lord Sandys glanced up indifferently, then looked again sharply, a vicious grin splitting his weary face; Sir Henry Warren laughed aloud; Sir Edward, now Lord Selby, choked violently and sprayed a mouthful of wine across the table.

Mounteagle cursed, brus.h.i.+ng at the flecks of wine and spittle dotting his oyster-white sleeve, then muttered a greeting to Southampton, still without turning. Hal grinned back at the others, raising an eyebrow before drifting away from the table to show himself off to the rest of the court, eddies of stifled laughter swirling in his wake.

"G.o.d's teeth, my lord!" Elizabeth bellowed. How that tiny, wizened woman could produce such volume was a mystery. Every head in the large room swiveled towards them, and Hal swept into an elegant bow, so low that his dark auburn curls came close to brus.h.i.+ng the floor. There was a further sound of choking from the corner where the gamblers laired, drowned by the tide of helpless laughter that flooded the room. Mounteagle indeed must have made doubly sure that every last person in the hall knew the cost of that oyster satin to every last farthing.

"Your Majesty," Hal offered his hand to the Monarch, but she brushed him aside, a wink of her eye and the quirking of her lips forestalling insult, as she beckoned Ralegh to her side.

"I thank you, but no, my lord," she answered in a voice gurgling with repressed mirth, and he understood. She might enjoy the prank, but that was not enough to overcome the antipathy she felt for him. Ralegh himself smiled with the purest appreciation as he bowed his courtesy to the earl before sweeping the Queen off into the dance, a stately pavane. Hal wandered back to the table, where Mounteagle was now conspicuous by his absence. He settled into the vacant chair and reached for the wine jug. Ned pushed it towards him, giggling helplessly.

"By Christ, Hal, you've made a friend into an enemy with this night's work," Sandys said sententiously.

"A poor sort of friend," Hal shrugged, and sipped at the wine, a sorry sour excuse for a beverage, he found himself thinking, remembering his entertainment of the night before.

"A poor friend might still make a deadly enemy," Sandys continued, seeming ready to extend the lecture indefinitely. A flash of color caught at the corner of Hal's eye and he shoved the cup away, excusing himself to follow, as Libby had known he would.

Out of the hall, and down a corridor he went, the sweep of skirts always vanis.h.i.+ng before him, but always lingering long enough that he would be able to follow. He caught up with her in the Queen's private chamber, catching her wrist as she tried to twist past him, laughing delightedly deep in her throat.

"Hal! Not here! Are you mad? Come, we shall use the old place: I've gleaned us candles and wine, even a little food," she laughed again as he pressed her body hard against the wall with his, his lips hot on her throat, then let her slide away from him, following her up the narrow stairs to the garret they had fitted out to meet in. She was wearing velvet of the rich gra.s.sy green indelicately known as goose-t.u.r.d, which set off her red-gold hair and creamy skin to perfection, the whole trimmed in gold bone lace, and the bodice cut so low as to be indecent. He slipped a feverish hand into the bodice, cupping her breast, feeling the nipple harden against his fingers as her breath grew ragged. He had taken her here for the first time weeks ago, her maiden's blood staining the short cloak he had placed beneath them, ruining it. He had given it to the players under his patronage, the Lord Chamberlain's Company, and it amused him to see it on stage, draped over a player's shoulder, parading her loss of virtue before the whole of London, if they had but known it. They had met as often as they could manage, sometimes leisurely, stripping to the skin and enjoying the sensations of flesh against flesh, sometimes, like tonight, hurriedly, disarranging the heavy and elaborate clothing they wore as little as possible and still manage to achieve their purpose. He fumbled at his canions with one hand, pus.h.i.+ng up her skirts with the other as she lay on the smuggled featherbeds, dropping to his knees beside her.

"It happens, my dearest," she told him, stroking the damp hair back from his heated face. "It happens to every man sometimes, Penny told me, and that it means nothing-" she broke off at the angry motion of his hand. He gulped at the wine she had poured for him. It had never happened to him before, that he was unable to accomplish his desire. He fastened up his clothing, hauled Libby to her feet and propelled her out of the door before him. He had to see Krytof, but it was too late tonight. Tomorrow then. He would see him tomorrow, and he felt his belly clench with desire, his l.u.s.t, so stubbornly flaccid minutes before, rising traitorously at the thought of the man.

Chapter 9.

I stirred as the trance released me, then sat bolt upright; I was not alone, and it was not a servant with me. Hal sat on the foot of the bed, leaning back against the curtain-padded post.

"How did you get in here?" I snapped. No one was supposed to be allowed into my room while I was helpless, no one. Hal shrugged.

"Your servants asked me to wait downstairs, but I wearied of it. It was not long ere they were all occupied and ceased to notice me. Do you always sleep so?" he added, with a searching look.

"What do you mean?" I asked, cursing the tremor in my voice.

"As if you were dead, or dead drunk, or drugged senseless. It is a wonder that you have not had your throat cut, except for-" he indicated the large wolf resting by the fire, watching our every move through slitted eyes. "He was here when I came in. What sort of dogs are they? I cannot recall seeing any like them before."

"Sybrian alaunts," I answered promptly. "First cousins to wolves," I added truthfully as the beast rose, grinned at us, and padded from the room. I stretched and rolled out of bed as Jehan appeared a few minutes later carrying large water cans to fill the linen-lined tub. "Will you wait downstairs? I will be there presently." Southampton shook his head.

"I would rather watch," he said thickly, his gaze roaming my naked and shameless body, and I realized that he had been drinking. I crossed to the tub, tossing a smile back over my shoulder.

"You could join me, if you like. There's room enough, if we are very-friendly." He shook his head, but stripped off his doublet and s.h.i.+rt, and came to trail his hand in the hot scented water. As I made to step into the tub he stopped me, his trembling hands catching at my arms, a mute look of entreaty in his eyes. I nodded, and allowed myself to be drawn back to the bed.

Chapter 10.

Hal rested his head on his lover's chest in an ambiguous state between vexation and hazy contentment, then raised it to gaze on the quiescent man beside him. The split on that full lower lip had broken open again with the ferocity of Hal's onslaught, and that explained the odd taste in his mouth, he decided, rich and almost sweet, but with an underlying, unmistakable bitterness. He bent his head and licked the forming blood-drop, savoring the odd flavor once more. It was difficult to tear his eyes from that snowy skin; even the fading bruises that defaced it seemed beautiful. He had always shunned deformity, sickened by the scars that are shown as marks of valor, but now he wanted to hold that maimed face close, to kiss the blemished eyelid, and every purpled bruise. Robin owes me twenty n.o.bles, he thought giddily, recalling the callous bet that the eye-patch was an affectation, which they had made when Ess.e.x had returned from one of his country sulks to find the insolent foreign prince usurping his place.

Hal's lips brushed the scar, and Kit reached a lazy hand to tangle in those soft auburn curls, pulling the willing Hal into another deep kiss before releasing him and sitting up. As if summoned, Jehan appeared to scoop some of the tepid water from the bath, replacing it with boiling water from the can he carried, before leaving as silently as he had entered. There truly was not room enough for two in that tub, however friendly they might be, but Hal discovered what great pleasure it could be to stand thigh deep in hot water while your lover washed you, and then the possibly even greater pleasure of returning the attention.

Northumberland stood back and studied the new form of his old friend. Not bad, he decided. The cast-off clothing had been refitted into a quite pa.s.sable wardrobe for an obscure scholar, and having his housemaids do the work had saved considerable expense. He spared a brief d.a.m.ning thought for Eden Bowen and her brothers. She had been truly gifted with her needle, and being beholden, worked for their keep in lieu of the wages her skill might otherwise have commanded. He brushed the distractions aside and returned to the examination of his guest. The patchy, moth-eaten beard had been shaved, the hair brushed and trimmed into tolerable order, and a cobbler had been called into make several pairs of specially fitted boots and shoes to accommodate the clubfoot. That had been the most galling expense, and served to add to the irrational grudge Percy nursed against Marlowe, a cobbler's son. He nodded, satisfied. He would take the man with him to the Twelfth Night Masque at court.

One of the maids squeaked and scurried from the room, propelled by a vicious pinch from Montague, who had discovered certain compensations in the conformation of his new body. He had berated the earl for making him a cripple, brus.h.i.+ng aside the explanation that, apart from the consideration that the beggar would never be missed, the very fact that he was a cripple made the spell more likely to succeed under the auspices of sympathetic magic, since Montague himself had been abnormally formed. A few days after the rite, stroking himself in the bath, a look of incredulous delight had spread over the ugly face as the body's natural endowment revealed itself in all its outsized prominence. It had stopped the complaints from the restored man, but started a round of new ones from the servants, as Montague ploughed his way through the staff, sometimes by seduction, and sometimes by rape. If his knowledge was not so d.a.m.ned important he would turn him back out on the highway, Percy fumed, thinking of the money it was costing to outfit and keep the man, and to pay off the servants. He sighed, and turned to the matter of the Masque.

It was to be a black and white affair, but apart from color, there would be no restrictions on the costumes. Percy had met the night before with Ess.e.x, who had a wild scheme for using the masque to regain favor at court. The cause of Robin's disgrace was keeping himself well to the shadows since the moonlight hunt, and short of a royal summons, would probably not appear. Not for the fear of Ess.e.x, as that vain fool thought, but for the fear of Robert Cecil. And rightly so, Percy smiled to himself, the crooked little man having been foremost among the authors of Marlowe's murder.

Since the vampire's rescue, Percy had been watching carefully for any changes in himself, any indication that the blood exchange had taken its effect, but aside from a tendency to headaches and an aversion to the strong sunlight that caused them, he had noticed nothing. Well, perhaps a predisposition to irritability, but that was all. And all normal, according to Doctor Newman Sommers as the former dwarf now called himself. It would not be until he suffered his own death that the real changes would occur, and he had to make arrangements ahead of time to avoid complications after.

Percy fully expected some sort of strike by the prince calling himself Geofri, had expected it before now, and had taken steps with his old friend Ralegh to forestall him. But when he died, if-when- he rose triumphant from the grave, that was when he would be most vulnerable, that was when he would need a stratagem. Musing on the matter Percy drifted from the gallery towards his workroom, not really noticing where he was going or the cries of his libidinous companion's latest victim.

Hal knew that the court expected him to plan the Twelfth Night costume around the oyster satin. That would be the prudent course, he smiled to himself. That outfit, with the lace and pearls removed, was already resting in the property box of the Lord Chamberlain's players, orbits of it adorning the shareholders, more like. That was the grand gesture, the point of the whole exercise. Let Mounteagle try to top that! But the pinchpenny fool would not even discard his own shamed garment, and one could count on the sleeves forming part of Will's own costume for the masque. Ah well, you take your pleasures as they occur, he thought, and frowned.

He had avoided Libby since his failure that night, but it was unlikely he would be able to dodge her much longer. Perhaps it was as well that Kit was resisting his teasings to attend the masque, if he was to expect an unpleasant scene with Libby, although he would give a fair price to see the prince decked out, say, as a Venetian duelist, or in the slashes and shreds of a Landsknecht. But Kit was adamant: without a direct order from the hand of the Queen, Twelfth Night would find him quietly in Chelsey.

Kit had appreciated the costume Hal modeled for him, however. It was stylishly cut of heavy silk velvet in black of the deepest dye, and slashed a hundred times to show the sa.r.s.enet lining, a rich red color, glowing against the black like so many drops of blood. He looked like a murdered gallant, bleeding from countless wounds, and the death's-head mask, a realistic skull, framed by his flowing locks, added the final macabre touch.

Ess.e.x was putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches on his own costume, and drilling the serving-men in their parts. He was dressed as the sun, in cloth of gold from head to foot, and glittering with thousands of tiny spangles to catch and reflect the light. His headdress was a crown shaped of many rays like the sun itself and polished mirror-bright. His grooms were dressed in azure satin to represent the sky and wore white hats heaped with ostrich plumes to simulate clouds. They would pull him before the Queen in a chariot of gold, with cus.h.i.+ons of azure silk. His conceit was based on the intelligence he had gathered, that Elizabeth was to be costumed as the moon, in silver and white, her maids all in black and spangled with stars. He would portray the sun coming to wors.h.i.+p and woo the moon, to lay his s.h.i.+ning crown at her feet. With all the court bound to black and white his gilded entrance could not fail to be a prodigy. He smiled to himself for a moment before a frown crept over his features. Hal was having but little success in his efforts to cajole the foreign prince into attending the masque. That would take some of the savor out of the evening, to be sure. Well, that plan could be implemented at a later date, but it would be beyond compare to be able to occasion the interloper's ultimate disgrace before the entire court.

His frown deepened as the silver chiming clock on the table told an hour much later than he expected. He would have to leave immediately to reach Durham house and the meeting Ralegh had worked so hard to bring about between Robert Cecil and himself. His brother-in-law Percy would be there as well, and the snare closing around the Prince Krytof 's throat would begin to tighten. Ess.e.x drew on the fur-lined gloves and threw his cloak over his shoulders, striding across the courtyard to the waiting grooms and mounting the stallion with effortless grace. He wheeled his mount and vanished into the dying light of the short winter afternoon.

Chapter 11.

I watched for Hal until close to midnight, then made my way to the small study to make a further attempt at my books. I pushed the door open, stopping abruptly at the m.u.f.fled sobs I heard within, then softly stepped into the room. "Richard? What is wrong?" I asked softly. The sobs cut off and the boy held his breath. He was face down on the high-backed settle near the fire. I crossed the room to lay a hand on his shoulder. It was immediately shaken off, but the lad would not face me. A gasping sob shook the slender frame, and he sat up and glared at me through his tears.

"Will you leave me alone?" he demanded.

"Possibly, when I know what troubles you so," I replied evenly. Richard looked rebellious for a moment, then his face twisted with his grief, the tears spilling from his swollen eyes, and the words poured from him.

"It is my fault that Eve died," he started, cutting off my protest with an abrupt wave. "Gwennan was our mother. Lord Morgan ap Owain was my father, and he acknowledged me his b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Bran, Gwennan's man, never made a difference between his treatment of me and his own children, but treated me as his own son. They were proud of my scholars.h.i.+p and it was planned that I should go to University when I was fourteen. In the meantime Lord Morgan arranged for my schooling and later brought me to live in his house. But ap Owain had no other children, and a cousin, Lord David, considered himself the heir, but feared that I would be named instead. That's legal under Welsh law. He visited Lord Morgan, and they parted with sharp words.

"Then I took the smallpox. My brother and sisters successfully avoided the contagion; indeed, mine was the only case, and none could fathom where I caught it, though I cannot but help to think that David was behind it, somehow. Gwennan came to the manor and nursed me day and night, hanging red cloth at the windows to keep my skin from scarring, and just wearing herself out. I recovered, and she took the disease and died of it." The voice was distant and bleak.

"Bran lost the will to live and grieved himself to death before the month was out. Then Lord Morgan died as the result of a fall he took hunting, and Lord David took the land, and accused me of contriving the deaths of both my natural and my foster father. We fled that night, and eventually reached Northumberland, where the earl took us in. If it were not for me, they would not have had to leave their home, and Eve would be alive." He stared down at his hands, wet with his falling tears.

"Or she may have been dead at the hands of her new lord," I said dryly. "Or they could have watched you hang, and then they could be wallowing in guilt instead of you." The tear-stained face turned to me in disbelief, and I continued. "They made the choice to flee with you, after all. If-onlys and might-have-beens profit you nothing, Richard. Life is what it is, and we must make the best of it."

"You can say that? Surviving foully as you do on the stolen blood of others?" His face was a mask of disgust. "What sort of creature are you, that you would choose to continue your life at such cost? How can you bear it?" He drew back sharply at the anger on my face, the snarl on my lips.

"I could show you what I am, Richard, and make you like it, make you crave it above all else, if I so chose. I bid you remember that." I caught the flinching boy's wrists in my hands and drew him nearer, his terrified eyes locked on the sharp teeth drawing ever closer until his breath brushed my pale lips. The craving was on me then, I realized. I wanted to make good my threat, to sink my aching teeth into this beautiful boy's throat, to feel his sweet blood slide down my own, to fill his body with a pleasure he had never known before, one impossible to match in any other way. Swiftly I shoved him away, regaining my will against the desire that had come so close to overwhelming me. "You must not bait me, Richard," I said wearily. "I vow that you and your family are in no danger from me. However, if you wish, I will try to find you places elsewhere. But for now, go and take your rest." Richard stood somewhat shakily and made for the door, stopping at the threshold to cast a speculative glance at me as I bent over the ledgers, apparently oblivious.

I watched him go, aware of the sudden desire that had risen in him, warring with a fear that was itself seductive. Perhaps Tom would place the Bowens in his household, though I would be loth to lose them, especially Richard. I needed a secretary, as the meaningless scribbles in the ledgers clearly told me, and when the boy was older he would make an excellent steward. But I needed a man that I could trust, and how could I trust someone whom by my very nature I disgusted? I pushed myself away from the table and left the room. I would walk along the river to clear my head.

Chapter 12.

It was still and peaceful by the river, shrouded in the snow that had been falling lightly for most of the day. The water was a black line, thick as tar between the white banks, its chatter hushed in the cold. I leaned against the orchard wall, watching the ragged clouds tear and drift away, to reveal the hard glitter of the stars. The waning quarter moon was still hidden in the horizon glow: it would be new for Twelfth Night. I had toyed with the idea of accompanying Hal to the masque but had decided against. It would be better to stay away, as Hal had let slip that Percy and Ess.e.x had been closeted together with Cecil. Three men who hated me, and Ess.e.x asking eagerly and often of Hal if I had been yet persuaded to join their revels-if that did not bode some new plot against me I was Pope Joan. My musings were interrupted by a sound behind me, not close, but not too far. A woman was laughing softly, and I thought that I caught the sound of soft footfalls, as if she were dancing in the snow. I made my way to the wild woodlot beyond the orchard.

She was there, dressed in a flowing cloak, and dancing in a glade carpeted with drifted snow. She paused at the sight of me, poised as a fawn for flight, but then she ran towards me. She stopped a few feet away and did me a reverent courtesy. Her shadowy hair would be the color of honey in the sunlight, I thought, and her black eyes would probably be brown. She was delicately formed, her bones small and elegant. She dropped to her knees before me, holding out her slender hands. "My Lord! I have come to write my name in your book!" Her voice was high and sweet, like the birdsong that I had almost forgotten in my long exile from the sun.

"Do you know me?" I asked gently.

"Oh yes! You are the Black Man of the wood! Your servant with the cloven hoof said that you would meet me here, and here you are! I will sign my name in your book, and you will give me powers and spells. You are my only Lord and Sovereign, and I will do whatever unspeakable things you ask of me, only let me write my name in your book!" She grasped at my cloak, her eyes lit with the glow of unreason. She was mad.

"You have mistaken me, lady," I said mildly, trying to disentangle her fingers from my clothing, but she held tighter, kissing the cloth. I raised her, not entirely gently. She stepped back and drew a pin from her cloak. She stabbed it repeatedly into her finger until the blood flowed freely, then made an elaborate show of signing an imagined book with her blood, the fallen drops black against the trampled snow. She stepped away then, arched her head back, and flung her cloak from her, to stand before me naked in the dim snow-light. Her fingers strayed to her ripe b.r.e.a.s.t.s for a moment then she threw herself down on the fallen cloak, spreading her legs and writhing lewdly.

"Take me, my Lord, take me now," she moaned, foam starting to fleck her lips as she fondled herself. I first drew back in disgust from the madwoman, then stepped forward, dodging her attempts to ensnare me. As she sat up to reach for me I clipped her neatly behind the ear with the edge of my hand, and she crumpled. I wrapped her in her cloak and bore her back to the kitchen, where I placed her before the fire. I would have to inform Sylvana of our unwelcome guest, and set someone to finding out where she belonged.

I softly drew the door to the office open, and saw that Sylvana had slumped into sleep before the fire, still in her human shape, but curled up with an animal grace. Richard had crossed to the stable even as I had left the house, and the lights in Rhys's quarters showed that they were yet awake. Well, they had much to speak of, and I would not disturb them. I had fetched my own drink before now; the memory was abruptly clear, and I grinned wryly at the thought. It had become a game, slipping down to my landlady's cellar and back into my lodging without being seen. She had said nothing, but I suspected the subsequent increase in my rent went to cover my depredations. I went to the cellar after wine, considering what I ought to do about the madwoman. I settled on binding her securely, but not cruelly, with silken scarves before returning to my office and the refractory ledgers. At least when the wench awoke she would be unable to either hurt herself or run away.

After a time Sylvana stretched and yawned, sitting up and smiling a little sheepishly. I told her of the problem I had left before the kitchen fire, and she scurried off, only to return a few seconds later, a disconcerted frown on her face. Wordlessly, I arose and followed her. There was no one in the kitchen but ourselves, and the door stood open.

The madwoman had not freed herself, or if she had, she had taken her bonds with her, but it was my thought that someone had taken her. I went out to the stable, and found Rhys face down in the straw, so deeply asleep that he could not be awakened. Richard, in a like case, had fallen across the small hearth in Rhys's cottage at the back of the stable. It was well for him that his doublet was of st.u.r.dy English wool, for his right arm was so close to the tiny fire that his sleeve was smoldering. I pulled him away from the fire, dowsing the smoking cloth with a flagon of ale from the table. It had a peculiar odor, which I suspected explained the unnatural sleepiness of my household. I laid Richard on Rhys's bed and returned to the kitchen where Sylvana had fallen asleep again as she stood leaning against the wall, but she woke immediately upon my return. I told her of my discoveries and we went back to the house to find Jehan and Sylvie, sprawled together in the serving-man's big bed under the eaves; both drugged asleep. From there I went back into the cellar, to investigate the adulterated tun of ale. It was almost empty, and careful scrutiny revealed that the slats in the top had been tampered with. I went back upstairs, but look as I might, I could find nothing missing but my disagreeable guest. The late winter dawn was bleaching the eastern sky when I threw myself across my bed and let the day-trance overtake me.