Mistress by Magick

by Laura Navarre

  Terror poured down her spine like a deluge of icy water. As her vision cleared, a familiar form coalesced—the powerful frame draped in a priest’s black robes, flaming cross suspended over his heart, the sun-and-moon hilt jutting over one broad shoulder. Silver hair raked back from glacial eyes and a raptor’s face that burned with the fey light of an icy star. An angry red scar sliced across a brow carved with pain and hardship. Deep grooves bracketed his cruel mouth.

  Recognition shouted through her frozen brain.

  As always, her instinct was to show nothing. Yet surely those sharp eyes had already noted her reaction. Hastily she cast about in her mind. What could Calyx’s mistress reasonably be expected to know?

  “I daresay I should be flattered, my lord Mordred.” Mindful of her masculine attire, Jayne made a jaunty bow. “Surely a Blade of God has more important business than mine.”

  The Prince of Camelot cocked an ironic brow. “Let us not pretend, my lady Fae, that thou dost not know me.”

  Aye, he sensed her magick, no doubt of it.

  He spoke in antiquated English, too proud to conceal his origins. Or else he wanted to tease out what she knew. On the edge of a moment, she shifted tactics.

  “Very well, Your Grace. I know you are Mordred, son of Arthur. I know you are Prince of Camelot, returned from a thousand-year exile in a land beyond the Veil. I know you were freed by your mother Morrigan, the Faerie Queene. And I know you turned against her afterward. Every Faerie in the Summer Lands knows that much.”

  He sliced a guarded glance across the sun-washed deck, vacant in the heat save for a pair of scrawny lads swabbing the boards. Clearly he concealed his origins from the Catholic fanatics around them. These Spanish troops had carried out their share of fiery immolations against witches and heretics. As for the Duque de Nicanor, their leader, he probably liked nothing better than watching some poor unbeliever bound screaming to the stake.

  “Thou knowest much.” Mordred’s narrowed gaze studied her. His eyes were the palest shade of blue she’d ever seen. They made her feel odd, those eyes. They turned her inside out and rifled, swift and heedless, through her secrets. “How much, I wonder?”

  He glided toward her. Jayne fell back and bumped against the overturned longboat.

  A powerful unease nibbled at her nerves. Surely he could do her no harm, here in the open. But those ice-colored eyes were boring into her, as though there was nothing about her he could not see.

  Jayne blinked and wrenched her gaze away. “I confess I am a trifle startled by your presence. The Spaniards seem to view you as their ally—or their lackey.”

  His shoulders stiffened. A vein throbbed against his temple.

  “But we both know,” she continued smoothly, “what fools these Catholics are. The Prince of Camelot is no man’s lackey.”

  “But thou, for all thy mortal blood, art no fool at all.” Slowly the throbbing at his temple subsided. “Tell me, Jayne Boleyn, how much thou heard when Philip unburdened his soul that night in the mausoleum. Tell me how much thou understood.”

  Her heart bounded like a frightened hare. If he’d somehow discerned her presence while Philip spilled his late-night confidences, what else might he know?

  “So you did detect my presence? I fancied you had.” She played for time. “Should I not have worn that rustling taffeta petticoat?”

  “Dost thou seek to improve thy tradecraft?” Cold amusement gleamed in his unsettling eyes. “This much I’ll grant thee as a gift. Thou wert utterly silent. But thy fragrance lingered. The same fragrance has clung to thine angelic lover since the night this galleon sailed.

  “A most alluring aroma—the moonflower. Rare and subtle and secretive.” He smiled. “But sweet.”

  His gaze hooded with predatory interest, a purely male appraisal. Dread clamped like a vise around her chest.

  Everything this man said was for a purpose, to elicit a response, to gauge her reactions. She had already given away too much.

  “Next time I shall forego it.” Idly she strolled past him toward the gunwale. During her time below with the odious Nicanor, the weather had shifted. The white-tipped wavelets had grown rougher, the wind sharper. The lightning charge of magick tingled along her skin.

  Soon it would storm. She could lean into the weather and make the gale worse, or pull against the wind to lessen it.

  Of course, any magick at all struck her as a spectacularly poor idea. Calyx already suspected her of witchcraft. Besides, she was no longer certain what she hoped to achieve. The Arcángel might be sailing toward Elizabeth’s doom, but what purpose would it serve to send it and its captain spiraling to a watery grave?

  Silently Mordred slipped up beside her, a forbidding figure glinting with sheathed steel. His raptor’s gaze raked the formation of full-sailed ships wallowing through heavy seas. The corner of his mouth curled in satisfaction.

  “Art thou not curious,” he asked, “to hear what fate I plan for England?”

  Oh, she burned to know. The trouble was, she could conceive no earthly reason for him to tell her.

  Still, for intelligence such as this, she could demand her own price—even the right to her precious boy. Hope twisted her heart so painfully she could scarce breathe.

  “For many years, I have had no contact with the Fair Folk,” she said softly. “I have no friends among the Fae. Elizabeth bears her Faerie blood with grace, and the Fae are not unwelcome at her court if they practice discretion. But the Boulaines in France were mundane and mortal as laundry on a clothesline.”

  She slanted him a wry glance. “Your history was common knowledge among Elizabeth’s secret circle, her shadow court, who laugh behind their sleeves at the poor gullible mortals. They said you had quarreled with your mother Morrigan. But none of them could say why.”

  His hands tightened against the gunwale. On one thick finger flashed a gold signet: a flaming sword plunging from roiling waters in a lady’s hand, a crown floating above.

  Excalibur.

  He wore the signet ring of Camelot. She wondered if he’d cut it from Arthur’s dead hand, far away in lost Lyonesse on the shore of the Summer Sea.

  Or perhaps he’d merely stolen it, as they said he’d stolen his sword from Camelot when Arthur’s back was turned.

  “I am disappointed in our French kin,” Mordred murmured. “I sought there first for allies, among England’s ancient enemies. But I found la Fée lack vision and imagination—an unforgiveable failing.”

  His voice hardened. “Set thyself in my shoes, Jayne Elizabeth Boleyn. Imagine thou art a fatherless bastard, reared at a cold northern court by an avaricious king called Lot of Orkney. Then imagine thou art torn from that paltry life by a mother who swoops down like a dark raven, cawing her prophecy—demanding thou give up sword and horse for a life mewed up on Avalon as a bookish priest, slave to a jealous Goddess.

  “That was my mother Morrigan, who can always be counted upon to place her Goddess before her kin.”

  His brutal hands clenched around the gunwale, as though he crushed the life from some defenseless creature. A quiver of revulsion and reluctant fascination eddied through her.

  “I believed my father was a foul traitor, some wretched cur whose name must never be spoken. But I ferreted out the truth by listening and peering at thy mother’s keyhole. I learned my father was Arthur, King of Camelot, who wore the double crown of Faerie and mortal. I learned my father had no heir.”

  Despite her unease in his presence—the greatest traitor in history, a man who’d slain his own father for ambition—Jayne found herself caught up in his tale. Mordred of Camelot had been an exile and a misfit the moment he slithered from the womb. At least she’d had fifteen years of her father’s love and the memory of a mother who adored her.

  “Arthur must have welcomed you with open arms,” she murmured, throat stinging for reasons she could not name. “For his mortal Queen, Guinevere, was barren. And his immortal lover, the Faerie Queene Maeve, bore him only a daughter, did
she not? The half-mortal princess Rhiannon le Fay could never rule his mortal lands. His heart must have sung to learn he had a son!”

  His nostrils flared. “Aye, Arthur welcomed me, but kept me at arms’ length. I was the child of treachery and deceit. He went to Morrigan’s bed only once, and not by design, believing she was Maeve. Morrigan, high priestess of Avalon, faithful servant of the Goddess, cast a glamour to steal her own mother’s lover and coupled with him before the Beltane fires. And thus was I conceived.”

  Leashed fury lashed his voice and crackled through his grim form. She slid an uneasy glance toward his hungry profile, red scar flaming, lip curled with loathing for his mother, his father, even himself.

  His very name means malice. The warning whispered through her brain. This is no secret agent of the Faerie Queene, set to betray Philip from within. He burns to claim anything that was Arthur’s. As for the Summer Lands—no doubt he would burn Morrigan’s kingdom to ashes and dance on her grave.

  “Arthur welcomed me to Camelot.” Mordred sneered. “But he never loved me, though he doted upon my half sister, his little beauty Rhiannon. Whenever he looked upon my face, he saw my mother’s treachery. So he dawdled and delayed, finding endless excuses not to name me his heir. Try harder, my mother counseled. Prove thy worth to him. Just as I toiled endlessly to prove it to her.”

  Why is he telling me this? Jayne wondered. Her mother had taught her these Faerie tales in the cradle. She’d spoken of Arthur’s sword Excalibur and the Quest for the Holy Grail, of Lancelot and Galahad and the Knights of the Round Table. Of Arthur the Dreaming King, slain by treachery, asleep in his tomb on Avalon until the day England’s need summoned him forth again.

  With her mother’s death, Jayne’s frail link to her Faerie heritage had broken. Gifford Carey was mortal to the marrow of his bones, and her brother Kin knew naught of Faerie magick. God’s mercy, Jayne had all but forgotten the Arthur legend herself. She was the last person who should be thrown into Mordred of Camelot’s path.

  Nonetheless, aboard this vessel, she was all England had. She must try to learn his plan.

  Then, somehow, she must contrive to thwart him.

  It was imperative to keep him talking. Carefully she addressed this dangerous figure, now lapsed into brooding silence.

  “Arthur was only mortal, a slave to the slow march of time. He needed an heir, is that not so, to wear the double crown? Could he not learn to trust you?”

  “So I thought.” His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “If not, well, he was no longer young. I was building my own faction at court, and their ranks were swelling.

  “But my charming mother grew weary of the wait. I must prove myself worthy of the kingship, she said, so I could work at her side to restore the worship of her precious Goddess from the white cliffs of Dover to the Irish Sea.”

  Jayne dredged her memory for the half-recalled legends Bess Carey had whispered when she tucked her into bed.

  “I had heard...was there not some scandal...about Guinevere?”

  “Arthur’s mortal queen.” His lip curled. “Theirs was a political marriage, of course. Arthur lost his heart to the Faerie Queene before he ever laid eyes upon meek little Guinevere. I suppose she was starved for affection. Gwen loved her silver-tongued champion, her shining Lancelot with his courtly graces. But she craved admiration from any man. The mighty Gawain, the handsome Gareth, noble Sir Lionel and noble Sir Bors—anything with a cock was welcome to worship at her pretty feet.”

  He shrugged. “Arthur liked to indulge her. I think he felt guilty that he could not love her. Why not let sweet Gwen advocate on my behalf?”

  “So you joined the ranks of her admirers?”

  “Her admirers?” He snorted. “I was no shining Lancelot, strumming airs on my lute and worshipping my ladylove from afar. I set myself to seduce sweet little Guinevere.”

  At Jayne’s muffled gasp, he pivoted toward her. His icy gaze shimmered with malice and power, underlain with the utter conviction of a man who believed he was always in the right. Those eyes bored into her, burrowing through her defenses, rummaging through her secrets with relentless disregard...

  Look away, instinct whispered. Jayne tore her gaze away with an effort that left her palms damp.

  While they spoke, the weather had turned. The sky brooded, sullen clouds massing over the steel-gray sea. Soon the heavens would open and pummel the Armada with punishing rain. Already sailors swarmed along the masts and rigging, doing whatever sailors did to prepare for rough weather.

  Wait, she urged the elements, skin tingling with magick as she leaned into the coming storm. I need to keep him talking.

  Head tilted, Mordred studied her with open curiosity. He must sense she worked some subtle enchantment. But with his well-honed survivor’s instinct, he would also sense its focus was directed elsewhere. So long as she offered him no threat, he would do naught to thwart her—not until he’d discerned her intent and her capacities. For this man, knowledge was power.

  Struggling to pick up the scattered threads of their discussion, she seasoned her voice with light amusement.

  “So you set out to seduce poor Guinevere. Against your charms, I am certain she had not a chance.”

  Mordred laughed, a mirthless sound that made her scalp crinkle. “In those days, I was the heir apparent to the throne, young and virile and...undamaged. There was not a woman at court I could not have. And Guinevere had been teasing Arthur’s virtuous Christian knights with her beauty for years. For her, I made a special effort.

  “I prolonged her seduction, wooing her for months with hot looks and whispered promises and stolen caresses in dark corners that left her whimpering with frustration, the poor darling. The fact that I was Arthur’s son made it all the more forbidden. The very notion inflamed her.

  “I bided my time until Arthur and his knights had ridden off to war on some petty king. I persuaded Gwen to dismiss her servants early, then kept her waiting half the night before I went to her. I must have spent an hour teasing her through her gown, whispering all the things I intended to do, baring her inch by slow inch, tormenting her with hands and lips and tongue. She confessed that she loved me, that she’d dreamed of naught else for months but the night I would finally claim her, that she lay beneath Arthur’s dutiful attentions and pretended he was I. In the end, I had her weeping, begging for my lance inside her.”

  His spiteful satisfaction in that petty triumph curdled Jayne’s stomach.

  “Poor Guinevere,” she whispered.

  “On the contrary. Poor me. After that seduction, she was so hot for me it took hours to satisfy her. By dawn I could barely move.”

  “That must have been dreadful for you,” she said coldly. “What did you expect, after the way you led her along and toyed with her?”

  “Oh, I know.” He laughed. “Be not so quick to condemn me, my dear. No doubt thou shalt call it justice that Arthur returned early with some silly little trinket to surprise his neglected wife. Thus were we discovered, in medias res, with Gwen on her knees before me, pleasuring me with her sweet mouth. There was I—naked, unarmed and very much at a disadvantage before the wronged and wrathful husband.”

  Served you right, she thought tartly.

  “Do not leave me in suspense, Your Grace.” Somehow she managed an arch smile. “Not every woman enjoys being teased.”

  “Ah, but thou art no ordinary woman,” he murmured. “No more than a splash of Faerie blood in thy veins from the old Boleyn strain—yet endowed with all the magick of a pureblooded Fae. A throwback, if thou wilt pardon the term. Thou art an object of some fascination in thine own right.”

  A spike of pure alarm drove through her. The last thing she needed was Mordred of Camelot’s fascination.

  “You flatter me,” she said with difficulty. “You who had a queen on her knees for you. I suppose that was the end of your welcome at Camelot.”

  She felt him weigh whether to allow this redirection or pursue his own interrogation. Des
perately she arranged the parade of falsehoods, half-truths and evasions she’d been planning with half her mind while he spun his story. Her only hope of surviving this encounter with the powerful Prince of Camelot was to convince him their interests ran in parallel.

  Yet she sensed, too, that he longed to tell her the rest of his story. His triumph over Arthur, as he perceived it, would be too sweet not to savor.

  And so it proved.

  “Arthur was never more dangerous than when he was angry,” Mordred said, “when he forgot his knightly code of chivalry and lunged for someone’s throat. When he lunged for mine, I summoned up a mist to fill the chamber with confusion and leaped for a weapon to defend myself. This one sprang to my hand.”

  He gestured toward the sun-and-moon broadsword strapped to his back. “Arthur’s ceremonial blade, this was, never before baptized in mortal blood. Clarent here thirsted for blood. She sang in my hand as I cut my way through milling guards and shouting servants, with Arthur cursing as he fought the mist and Gwen sobbing as she clung to his boots. I could have killed him that night—but I let him live.

  “I suppose, in that much, I was my father’s son. Young, idealistic fool that I was, I wanted to defeat him in a fair fight. If he had surrendered and yielded the double crown to me, I would even have let him live. But Arthur, in the end, must always be Arthur.”

  “He was High King of Britain!” she pointed out. “The only mortal ever to rule both mortal kingdom and the Summer Lands. He would never have yielded to any man.”

  “And so it proved.” His mouth twisted in a mordant smile. “When the end came, much later, I had been a thorn in the royal paw for years. Father and son crossed blades at last in the City of Lions, lost Lyonesse, on the shore of the Summer Sea. Clarent here dealt him a mortal blow that should have slain him. But Maeve the Faerie Queene intervened to save her lover. She wove a powerful magick that preserved his body in an endless sleep—very like the sleep she now shares. Together they dream their thousand-year dreams, Arthur and Maeve, in their vault on the holy isle of Avalon.”