“The Sisters do not accompany you?”
“My Mistresses hath sent me alone. Troubling business in Biddenden doth keep them most occupied. I daresay, I find them loathe to travel from the Maiden’s Stone of late. Their pursuit in Biddenden is of utmost importance to them.”
“Then am I anxious for when we three shall meet again,” said Viper.
“Your Mistresses were most gracious to welcome me at their home after my mishap with Elizabeth and the Parhelion at Hampton,” Viper confided, “e’en though they hath not explained much about our kinfolk. Little hath I learned from them beyond this.” Viper displayed her palm and small flame lit within her hand. Turstin nodded with keen approval.
The Sisters had helped Viper develop her elldyr creft. When Viper asked about her past, her immortal kin yielded cryptic answers, most of which Viper couldn’t decipher.
Of Annys, the Sisters said, “One turns to pain when One is lost. Pain will be found when One mends the truth.”
The crowd erupted with joy in the market square behind Viper. She reluctantly closed her fingers over her delicate fireball. Two humaines arrived with their hunting dogs, ready for a fight. Viper felt the heat of acrimony rising in her face.
“Does the queen still question the time you spend with my Mistresses?” Turstin laid a gentle hand on her arm. His question pointedly distracted her from the bear-baiting, and the allure of the garen. “Is that why you hath asked me to make her a present?”
“Elizabeth and I hath an understanding. If I cannot use the Parhelion to open the portal I hath seen in my visions, then I must visit with the Sisters to obtain that which I hath forgot. So long as I feed when I am away from Court, she forgives my long absences.” Viper frequently clashed with Elizabeth’s mercurial behaviour, yet she couldn’t bring herself to abandon her queen.
“Might I suggest that you prefer her company to ours?”
Thinking him a servant of a sort, Viper hadn’t talked to Turstin often when in the Sister’s company. His perceptiveness and frank observation unnerved her.
“’Tis a wonder that you see me when other humaines cannot,” she said without answering his question. “You steal upon me quiet as a church mouse, withal. Why hath you such abilities?”
“My Mistresses would not have you know. I am not wholly human.”
Turstin’s revelation blindsided Viper. “Speak you with candor?”
“To my own fault,” he laughed, a hearty sound lost amid the cacophony of the geese and the marketplace crowd. He offered his arm to Viper. “There is a disused farmstead betwixt here and Michaelham, wherein the stones of travel lie. Your gift is not so small a thing that I could carry it with me.”
Viper took his hand, intrigued. “Then, take me therein and as we journey, tell me what the Sisters do not wish me to know about you.”
They turned their backs on the market square and headed up the close. Behind them, one of the hounds nipped at the bear. The dog’s owner wrestled with the tug of his mutt’s lead. The bear handler tripped over the second dog when it dove in for another bite. The bear reared back on its haunches and swung his huge paw. He bashed the first dog into its master. Blind with fury, the hound sank its teeth into its owner’s arm and tore out a chunk of flesh.
Turstin and Viper parted ways before the main road crossed the forests surrounding Hampton Palace. She watched Elizabeth race on horseback away from Hampton on her usual afternoon ride, surpassing the gaggle of sycophants who flocked around her. Viper smuggled the large, burlap-wrapped gift through the sparsely occupied halls into Elizabeth’s apartments on the second floor. She propped the package in front of the windows that overlooked the gardens Elizabeth loved, and the Banqueting Hall that prickled the former princess’ dreams.
Elizabeth had not made significant changes to the royal apartments. A stack of oversized pillows, upon which the ladies who accompanied Elizabeth lounged and embroidered during the quieter moments of the day, threatened to spill over in one corner. Crimson drapes, of prized English wool, flanked the windows. Elizabeth’s desk rested by the bay of windows, lost beneath books. A ceramic vase of rosemary stems, and a silver platter with fresh, red apples occupied one corner of the desk.
Viper heard the swish of the taffeta-clad army of women who accompanied Elizabeth, the tell-tale sign that Elizabeth approached. The immortal made herself invisible and squatted atop a cabinet. Bodies crammed the space as Elizabeth, her chest wracked with cough, burst into the room. When her coughing spasm stopped, she demanded her entourage and servants leave her, except for one noblewoman, Lady Sidney, and a blonde girl, a handmaiden named Emma.
“Lady Sidney,” Elizabeth remarked to a woman whose many wrinkles added to the absurdity of her highly plucked hairline, “thank you for preparing my chambers with such haste. Lord Burghley disapproved of my riding today, so gripping is the cough that settles in my chest. Methinks the old owl was correct.” She pulled off the long fingers of her riding gloves, white leather with triangular cuffs, bearing her monogram couched in gold thread.
“I am most humbly available to attend upon Your Majesty.” Lady Mary Sidney recently gave birth to a daughter. Her skin still bore a post-partum pallor, sickly next to Elizabeth’s radiant skin. If she were absent from Elizabeth for too long, the queen might favour another one of her ladies-in-waiting. Lady Sidney helped Elizabeth remove her riding coat, decorated with garden insects and butterflies, handing items to Emma, the most recent addition to Elizabeth’s private servants. Viper had heard the eleven year old swear to other handmaids that she would remain a virgin so long as did her queen.
Elizabeth surreptitiously peered over Lady Sidney’s shoulder at Viper. “I hath no need of you at present, Mary. I shall be a-bed resting. I wish to be left alone.” Lady Sidney ushered Emma from the room and retreated backwards towards the door.
“Lady Sidney,” Elizabeth said as she opened the collar of her cream coloured, brocade dress.
“Yes, Your Majesty?”
“Seek out the apothecary. A dose of lungswort and aqua vitae may stay this congestion in my chest.” The queen secured the door behind Lady Sidney and Emma. “You deign to spent time with this mere mortal?” Her playful sarcasm acknowledged Viper as the mortal turned around.
“Did not I, your dearest friend, promise to forevermore return unto you?” Viper hopped from the furniture, then tickled Elizabeth’s chin with an encircling purple tendril of elldyr. Elizabeth laughed, giddy despite her illness. “This time, I hath come bearing a gift.”
Viper pulled back the burlap, revealing a gilded gold frame carved with snakes weaving through Tudor roses. “The Sisters whom I visit hath a companion, a man named Turstin. He is a virtuoso of sculpture and painting. With the briefest glance of your divine beauty, he hath created this masterpiece.”
The oil portrait of Elizabeth danced on the canvas. The folds of her purple taffeta gown reflected light from an unseen source. Strands of gold and ruby necklaces draped across her corseted bosom. Delicately painted red and white roses adorned free-flowing, auburn hair. Her left hand displayed the Parhelion mounted on a sceptre. She patted a little, white dog with her right.
Elizabeth reached out and traced the rows of painted pearls beading the gown as if they were real. An image of Viper in a form-fitting dress, with a black velvet bodice and white damask sleeves, dwelt behind the painted Elizabeth. Both gowns had matching appliques of their first initials monogrammed together. Semper Eadem, Elizabeth’s personal motto, floated above their heads.
The beauty of the portrait brought tears to Elizabeth.
“Our friendship hath been much laboured this last year,” said Viper. “This painting is a reminder that my bond to you is unchanged.” Only the painted version of herself dared to touch Elizabeth’s shoulder.
Elizabeth swallowed with disquiet. “This is a gift for which I am unworthy.”
“Why say you such a thing as this?”
Elizabeth withdrew the silver platter from beneath the apples. Th
e fruit bounced on the floor and rolled in all directions.
“I was afeared you would not come back, and that if you did, you would refuse me of the request I would make.” Elizabeth paused, lower lip quivering. She toyed with a loose strand of hair, tucking it behind her ear. “Under Master Dee’s instruction, I used this mirrored platter and ascryed for Amy Dudley’s Blue Annie.”
Viper felt the colour drain from her skin. “Elizabeth, no.”
“I hath kept my counsellors from war and my divided clergy from self-destruction. I believe I am skillful enough a negotiator to make a deal with Annys. I contacted her successfully with the ascrying tool. She is to arrive momentarily.”
“What hath she promised unto you?”
Elizabeth held her head high, a queen on her throne. “A virgin birth. I heard those others immortals, your Maiden Stone Sisters, speak of it when we used the Parhelion last autumn. There is a cult of women who worship me as I am, without a master or husband. They will not marry if I do not. If I am with child, with my maidenhead intact, then England would have its heir – an heir from God.” The fervor in Elizabeth’s face made Viper’s heart race.
She couldn’t stop herself from growling, “What will you yield for her gift?”
Elizabeth didn’t answer. She held the platter in trembling hands, staring at her reflection.
Viper’s stomach turned. “Elizabeth, what promise gave you?”
The humaine lifted her head, face smeared with tears. “The Parhelion,” she whispered.
A blue rope of elldyr creft shot out from the corridor behind Elizabeth. The energy wound around her body and dragged her to the bedchamber beyond as the platter fell to the floor.
Viper chased after Elizabeth and braced herself against the doorway in shock. Here, in Elizabeth’s bedchamber, was Blue Annie.
Annys leaned on the wooden frame of Elizabeth’s four poster bed. A phony smile coasted amid wavy facial ridges. White pearls, sapphires and diamonds adorned her black hair, which moved in the elldyr creft around her as if she were submerged in water. Her oval face invited worship with its beauty, except for her eyes. Viper grimaced at red scars, like Elizabeth’s sealing wax, which framed Annys’ deep set eyes, white adrift on a sea of blue, as Viper’s were green on black.
Intricate, white lace sleeves floated on Annys’ azure skin like an ice floe on a summer river. She wore a corseted gown of white taffeta embellished with sapphires. The plunging gap in the front panel of her corset revealed full, rounded breasts. The curves of the bodice augmented those of her body, unlike the straight, unyielding Tudor corset. Annys held one of several thin, silver necklaces that descended from her neck to her lower torso, a narrow blade dangling from the chain. With her other hand, Annys casually conducted her elldyr creft around Elizabeth’s body like a puppeteer. Elizabeth and her aeir squirmed in the bindings that suspended her in the middle of the room, out of Viper’s reach.
“I am most pleased to make thy acquaintance after these many years,” Annys said to Viper in the same coy, deadly voice of the watery avatar Viper had seen in Amy Dudley’s house. Annys vacillated her small blade like a pendulum. “Thou art lovely to behold, albeit scrawny. Thou art not so formidable an opponent as did I anticipate.”
“Not so weak that I will not rescue my friend,” Viper retorted with clenched, burning fists.
“Friend? The V’Braed do not befriend our prey, my dear.”
“We are not cut from the same cloth,” Viper said, thrown off that Annys knew the otherworldly name for their kind when she did not (nor had the Sisters told her). The vehemence in Viper’s reaction also stemmed from the unsettling prospect that Annys sensed the garen in her, and how it revelled in Annys’ heinous presence.
“I order thee to let me go!” Elizabeth straightened up as much as she dared within Annys’ magical grasp.
“Hush little ewe,” Annys rebuked gently, as if to a child. “I am not thine to command. ’Twas thee that brought-” Annys interrupted herself. “’Tis so easy to forget one’s manners in this humaine society. How do I address thee?” she asked of Viper. “Do you remember thy name?”
“The only name I need is Viper.”
“With a temper so quick to strike, ’tis apt. Yet, I see that thou art without fangs. What is a snake who lacks teeth?” Annys threw a bolt of elldyr at Viper’s head, striking her left eye. Viper covered that side of her face, biting back the stinging pain. “Behold, virgin queen,” Annys said with a self-satisfied chuckle, “a one-eyed worm. Robert Dudley hath shown you his, did he not? For he did not often let my little bird, his wife Amy, go a-hunting for his trouser-worm, much to her dismay.”
“Make a mockery of my love if thou must,” Elizabeth replied, voice raised, “but inflict not thy scorn on Viper, my trusted ally.”
Annys’ laugh carried the music of a bubbling brook and the threat of a deluge. “An ally who hath been seeking kinship with her own, the V’Braed, these last months? Is that not why you did ascry for me, Queen of the English?” Elizabeth protested. Annys tutted her into silence.
Lady Sidney knocked at the outer doors to the receiving room, catching the attention of the immortals. Flash fire raged on Viper’s face. Her hair glowed orange for the briefest of moments.
“Elizabeth! Alert your guard!” Viper hurled herself towards Annys, hoping to gain the upper hand. Annys twisted the full capacity of her elldyr creft away from Elizabeth and cast her magic into a barrier from wall to wall. Elizabeth crashed to the floor. A loud crack sounded from her ankle and she screamed. Lady Sidney shouted for the Queen’s Guard from the hallway.
“What a mess thou hath caused, little garden snake,” Annys chided. “Thy queen cannot flee and thou art unable to retrieve her.”
“Lady Sidney hath alerted Elizabeth’s soldiers. They will break down the doors.” Viper helplessly thumped the shield of blue energy, her own elldyr creft arcing from her hands.
“Angry men with weapons make poor choices,” Annys cautioned. “They would kill us with not so much as a by thy leave.” Viper suspected that both she and Annys would both put up one Hell of a fight first. Annys smiled sweetly at Elizabeth. “Give me the Parhelion, stolen by thy ancestor, the Plantagenet King. I will take my leave of thee and thy pet viper shall escape, unharmed, afore thy guards breech this chamber.”
“No!” Viper begged from her knees. The energy hovering over her palms faded as her hope dwindled. Viper felt an emptiness widening beneath her as if the ground itself would swallow her whole. A tear traced a path along the ridges of her face. “If Annys takes the amulet, then I lose all hope of uncovering my home.”
The sound of axes thunking into the locked doors reached them. “Decide, humaine queen, for soon thy men shall be upon us. Thy amulet or thy snake’s life.”
Elizabeth wouldn’t make eye contact with Viper. “Annys speaks with exactitude,” she said, tearfully. “To my guards you, too, are a monster. If they see you, your destruction is assured.” Viper threw a hateful glare at Annys’ triumphant face. To her captor, the queen said, “Make me not endure another insult. Thou hast crushed my spirit as thou hath broken my ankle.” She withdrew the shining amulet from a chain hidden within her bodice. “Retrieve thy prize.”
Annys maintained her barrier as she stood over Elizabeth. Viper muttered threats beneath her breath. With glee, Annys grasped the Parhelion. The amulet’s power deflected her, propelling her back. The elldyr creft wall disintegrated.
“What witchcraft is this?” Annys shrieked. She held her wounded hand in front of her and tore off the lace sleeve to examine the damage. Her arm bore keloid scars shaped like those on Viper’s forearms.
Viper didn’t have time to process the meaning of the similarities between them. She hastened to Elizabeth’s side. Fearing the garen, the immortal didn’t touch her. Viper heard the splintering of the oak doors. The soldier’s voices grew louder.
“Humaine hands alone may touch this talisman, vile creature,” Elizabeth said to Annys. “Be gone or face
my guards.”
“You shall die as did your brother!” Annys yelled.
Viper rushed her enemy. Annys’ elldyr creft threw Viper away from Elizabeth and into the outer stone wall. The impact winded Viper. She lay stunned on the ground. Through fluttering eyes, she saw Annys grip Elizabeth’s neck, chanting a curse.
Viper splayed out her fingers. She set Annys’ trailing skirt aflame with every ounce of concentration. Her enemy’s gown lit up with a whump. Annys shrieked and threw Elizabeth backwards. Annys conjured a heavy mist around herself but it wasn’t strong enough to douse the elldyr-fuelled flames. Her exposed skin charred. Eyes white with fury, Annys charged at Viper, blade in hand. Viper vaulted off the floor and onto a tall dresser beside Elizabeth’s bed. Annys collided with the wall.
The guards passed through the outer doors with the clatter of swords. Annys shoved open the window and escaped into the garden. From her vantage point, Viper saw her attacker, consumed by fire, dive into the Thames before anyone saw her. Annys did not re-emerge from the brown water. Below Viper, soldiers raced between the rooms, in pursuit of an intruder.
“Be at your ease, good Sirs,” said Lady Sidney as she cradled a faint Elizabeth in her arms. She had followed the armed men into the room. The Lady dropped the dried lungswort and aqua vitae when she took to her knees to help the crumpled queen. “There is no assassin. The queen hath tripped trying to reach her bed. She hath been the victim of a miasma. Behold,” the noblewoman exposed Elizabeth’s throat, “she hath the mark of the pox upon her.” The characteristic red skin and lumps of smallpox ravaged Elizabeth’s neck and upper chest. The men stepped back, protecting their mouths with their hands. “Pray that our Diana chooses Asclepius as her mate. Elsewise, Queen Elizabeth’s recovery is in the hands of God.”
Aqua vitae, the water of life, dripped from the leather flask into the carpet.
19: Dugan Mound
The Queen's Viper Page 20