Viper knew of her involvement in the first two events the queen mentioned. The resurgence of the pox proved that Annys closed in on London. Viper considered warning Queen Elizabeth about Annys’ intention to flood the land.
She did not.
“You kidnapped one of my citizens, a girl named Clare Hainstock,” the Monarch continued, stoic and immovable. “She’s been reported missing from a psychiatric group home near the atypical environmental incident in Berkshire. My soldiers say she has Stockholm syndrome, for she empathises with you. I think you’ve cast some sort of spell over her. I don’t believe I can trust you.”
This assertion ripped apart any hope of partnership between the immortal and the queen.
The queen withdrew a royal blue, velvet pouch from her handbag. “My Jubilee celebration has been unexpectedly eventful, on account of meeting you.” She held out her purse out without removing her eyes from Viper and Ellis retrieved it for her. “After meeting you, I reviewed my private files about obscure royal artifacts, objects few people know about. I wondered if there was an additional tool, or weapon, that my people could use to defend themselves from you and your kind. I have the Parhelion amulet to protect me. My people have nothing, and I cannot allow that.”
The queen removed the Parhelion from the sachet. Viper shielded her eyes from its luminosity. Viper didn’t know whether to feel scared or relieved that the talisman hadn’t been stolen after all. The humans were unaffected by the radiance of the amulet.
“I presume there’s magic imbued in Elizabeth Regina’s throne, because it’s impervious to modern investigations,” the queen said, her eyes moving between Viper and the chair. Queen Elizabeth pushed on the centre of the largest of the Tudor roses at the crown of the headrest. The red and white roses popped outwards like two separate dials. “During the throne’s restoration, this locking mechanism was the only part my historians could examine without risk of poisoning. Even master locksmiths couldn’t figure out the combination. Oddly enough, when I came across a photograph of this throne while wearing the amulet, the most curious thing happened. I suddenly knew how to unlock the chair’s secrets.” Queen Elizabeth turned each one in a series of left and right spins. She pressed the double flower back into place. “I wasn’t in the habit of wearing the Parhelion before. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t have this understanding until now.”
“How fortuitous for thee,” Viper sneered.
The brambles came to life with a gentle hiss. Thorns retracted into the curved branches. Vines reorganized into a shallow ledge sticking out from the backrest. Queen Elizabeth placed the Parhelion face up on the extension. The amulet’s glow seeped through the vines to the arm rests. The clawed hands rotated and presented the spheres they cupped. The upper portion of the ball popped open, exposing empty storage spaces.
Simultaneously, the seat of the chair retracted and an apparatus lifted from the compartment beneath. Tiny metal gears elevated four rectangular containers. Each box was slightly larger than the crystals which spun at the corners of Viper’s cell.
“Inside the box seat,” the queen said, “were four crystals accompanied by an old parchment, the document that provided instructions for these restraining devices.”
Viper barely heard the mortal’s explanation, madly trying to stop herself from wondering aloud why a chair designed by John Dee could be activated by the V’Braed amulet.
“As it was, my engineers barely completed these devices, and the sonic cannon they used at Dugan Mound. I must apologize about their use of the barbaric electric netting. I had no other choice. The humanoid fish bodies, dare I say Merfolk, found at the wreckage of the Maidstone footbridge, necessitated that I intervene as quickly as possible. After our interchange on my Jubilee barge, I created a shadow division within MI6 to monitor Britain for activity as it might relate to you and your kind. I do not like being caught off guard. When the people of Soester posted pictures of bizarre lights and lenticular clouds at Dugan Mound on social media, I dispatched my covert soldiers to seize whoever, or whatever, they found at the top.”
A horrible realization struck Viper, and her temper doubled with unease. If the Sisters never had the Sage’s Glass beneath their standing stones, then why did they send her to Dugan’s Bode? The devices of Elizabeth’s sage trapped Viper again, and this modern queen had the Mort Lake Glass that Viper needed. Viper didn’t know who to trust.
Violet elldyr creft sparked around her as she grasped for the queen with a growl of resentment. Viper’s irate magic clashed with the Dee’s barrier with brilliant incandescence. The guards raised their guns. The dense ceiling pressed down upon her as she realized she might never escape.
“The denial of freedom o’erpowers the pain of physical torture,” Viper stated, retreating backwards in despair. The queen nodded in silence. Her eyes convinced Viper that nothing she said would grant her freedom. Futility rang in Viper’s ears.
Queen Elizabeth moved forwards. Captain Ellis tailed his Monarch.
“Tell me, creature, if these crystals were in the boxes, what was in the spherical containers of the ball and claw armrests?” Queen Elizabeth prodded. Viper responded with a blank expression. She would not have told the queen even if she knew the answer.
“If you are unwilling to share your information,” Queen Elizabeth said, coolly, “then I shall leave you here, in solitary confinement, until you’re feeling cooperative.” She collected the Parhelion and turned to leave. The chair’s moving parts resumed their sinister docility.
Viper called out, “What of the young woman?”
“The deaf girl, Clare?” The queen paused at the door, flanked by her guards. “We’ve contacted her family and they’re coming to fetch her. I don’t know what you want with her, but I intend to keep her safe from you.”
The Daoine Tor squeezed her eyes tight and keened with such force that the glass case shattered. Her elldyr creft rocketed her frustration beyond the walls of the chamber. The tourists standing in the long queue for a glimpse of the Crown Jewels felt a wave of vertigo as the unseen magic passed through them.
When Viper opened her eyes, she was alone.
22: Records and Rules
March 25th, 1580.
Biddenden, Kent.
Small, night-flying butterflies flitted out of hiding, drawn to the heady scent of the catchfly plants that grew among the rock wall outside Biddenden Church. The slim, pink-white bladed petals, like flat spokes in a wagon wheel, flowered early this year. They opened for a third and final evening, curling backwards, exposing the nectar within. Viper waved her hand over the tall, nodding stems and inhaled the plant’s tantalizing perfume. The carnivorous Silene nutans absorbed the nutrients of insects trapped along the sticky hairs on the green parts of the plant. Tomorrow, the petals would shrivel up and fall away, and the Silene would put its remaining efforts energy into the development of pollinated seeds. The cycle of life would continue in Viper’s absence. Tonight, she completed the final task assigned to her by the Sisters. She couldn’t be happier.
Unencumbered by her wool skirt and tunic, she climbed the side of the building to the Church’s sacristy. Churchwarden Aelford jumped when Viper, cloaked by her glamour, swung the window shutters outwards. She snuck inside the modest room before he came to the window and scanned the clearing around the church with a dubious glance. Biddenden was not known for thieves and scoundrels, and no winds blew tonight. Aelford reached over his profound belly with a huff and secured the window.
With Aelford distracted, Viper knocked over the oak gall ink pot on his desk. The dark brown liquid saturated his latest research, seeping over the double underscored words “Chulkhurst Twins.” Viper smirked, pleased with her sabotage of the man upon whom she had been spying. Aelford had been balancing his time between the preparations for the upcoming Biddenden Eastertide Bread and Cheese Charity with his personal project, the recording of his Parish’s ancestry. He anticipated the Archdeacon of Canterbury at this year’s event, and Aelford’s s
acristy overflowed with the extra paraphernalia for the Archdeacon’s visit.
In four waddling strides, he returned to his desk. At seeing the mess, Aelford slumped into weary submission, saying, “If this information be lost, then that is your will, oh Lord.” He mopped at the ink with the linen rag he usually used on his balding head.
“Therein lies the rub, Master Churchwarden.” Viper slipped out of the shadows.
The Churchwarden startled and tripped into his chair, gripping it with white knuckles. His aeir shirked at Viper’s approach. The fear in his eyes sent a thrill through her. Damp patches leaked through the armpits of Aelford’s chestnut brown clergy robes. He opened his mouth to pray, and only managed unintelligible babbling.
From across the desk, Viper protruded her breasts at him as she reached behind herself and untied the drawstring of her skirt. The fabric slid to the floor with a swish. She pulled her simple tunic over her head. An aura of lavender magic radiated from her naked, iridescent purple body and intertwined with his red aeir. He blushed when a tendril of elldyr creft draped across his upper thigh, dangerously close to his crotch.
“Lord, in this my darkest hour, protect your humble servant,” he stammered. He gripped the wooden crucifix on his chest. The acrid smell of his fear didn’t deter Viper. She crawled over the desk through the ink blot. Her elldyr creft wrapped around the chair and dragged him close.
The predatory immortal leaned forwards and licked the sweat off his face. “Thy skin tastes of the tears of God. Art thou art afraid of dying, church man?” Aelford nodded his head fervently. Viper placed an inky hand on his chest, where his aeir was weakest. The garen stirred and she knew Aelford saw his death in her malachite eyes. He recoiled in horror and prayed for his life.
Viper pointed at him. “Fate hath already found thee, for thy heart is full of death. ’Twill come upon thee in a day, or mayhap a fortnight.” She gripped herself in a mockery of human suffering as she described his impending mortality. “Thou shalt feel a stabbing pain, with a profound weight on thy chest, and thy breath will not come easy.” She rested on her knees, arms wide like the wooden carving of Christ above the altar in the apse. She tempted him with her embrace. Her runes projected from her arms in greedy anticipation. “Or, choose the peaceful sleep that I offer thee.”
Viper grasped a lit candle from the desk. She kissed the flame without injury before she dripped wax on her skin above the white triskelion with a red centre at her navel. A coil of elldyr creft wrapped around Aelford’s wrist, forcing his hand into extension. Her energy placed his finger in the hot wax and lowered it over the soft curve of her belly. Aelford’s aeir melted into the space between them.
He wrenched his hand back and covered his face. “Begone creature of Satan! I will not hear of thy temptations, nor feast upon thee with mine eyes.”
Viper used her magic and dragged the man up the desk and over her breasts until she held him at eye level. “There is none like me in Heaven, nor in Hell.” She brushed her lips against his cheeks and her aura enclosed him. Aelford squeezed his eyes shut. His breath came in rapid bursts.
“The Mistresses hath instructed that Aelford should live,” Turstin’s solemn voice cut through Viper’s mischievous taunt. She sneered over her shoulder at the Foundling whose approach she had not heard. His arms bulged with the weight of the books he carried. He wore the clothes of a Kentish tenant farmer, a blue wool coat and woven leg bindings around the shins of his trousers. Unlike the work-a-day peasant, there wasn’t a speck of dirt on his clothing. A grey wool cap sat askew on his head, as if placed there as an afterthought. He didn’t turn away when Viper turned on him.
The immortal let go of Aelford, who keeled over, unresponsive. “How dare you spy upon me?” She bit her tongue, preventing herself from giving in to the garen that first stirred upon seeing the dread in Aelford’s eyes. Viper dared not harm the Sisters’ Foundling.
Turstin lumbered into the room, in patient opposition to Viper’s hostility. He set the books aside and assessed Aelford. Satisfied that the clergyman was unharmed, Turstin rifled through the papers on the desk.
Adding to his pile, he said, “I thank you for your assistance. I hath all the Churchwarden’s notes now. We shall return to my Mistresses with the last of the Kent historical records.”
“This task they hath assigned me is a menial one, to be sure.”
“Perhaps. Would you otherwise prefer to wait underground with them?” he asked. Viper scoffed at the suggestion. Turstin, calm and practical as ever, gathered the books and stepped around Aelford, towards a second exit. A large damp patch had spread over Aelford’s groin. “Why torment the man’s sexual nature? You know he hath given himself to God.”
“Thy Mistresses offer me naught, save despair and ennui,” Viper replied dolefully. She mimicked the speech pattern of her kin saying, “What else is One to do to entertain Oneself?” She kicked open the shutters and prowled the honeyed night in search of a preferential victim.
Hours later, Viper ran down a spiral staircase as fast as it materialized. She had entered the Sisters’ domain from the Seven Sisters stone circle, a henge of stones nestled at the foot of a chalky hill far outside Maidstone, overseen by a giant white horse carved into the ground. The shades of Viper’s skin intensified, having recently fed upon a man left for dead by highway robbers. The underground landing at the bottom of the stairs led to a wide bridge cut from the bedrock over a yawning chasm. She held her fire-glowing hand ahead of her, her echoing footsteps accompanying her through the subterranean raving.
Viper entered an oval room with niched-filled walls. Nagging stillness framed the eremites’ home. The Sisters sat on a bench composed of tree roots. One of the stolen Biddenden Parish records lay open on their laps between them as they both read. Tallow candles hung in a chandelier made of vegetation. Cooling wax dangled the living candleholder hung like stalactites. Seven rabbits chewed leaves strewn on the floor. On the far side, Turstin carved a limestone slab with a hammer and chisel.
With a simple wave of her hand, Viper lit the candles tucked into the walls. The interlacing patterns made by the roots usually offered calming meditation when life with the Sisters became too tense. In her excitement, Viper barely noticed the shadows’ dance.
Tonight’s break-in at Aelford’s church was her last night of raiding Kent on behalf of the Sisters. Viper crossed her arms, tapping her nails into her skin with impatience. Typical of the Sisters when they were engrossed in their pursuit of history, they didn’t acknowledge Viper’s arrival. She set her jaw and restlessly circled the room. Every nook and cranny of the ceiling and walls held some kind of humaine artifact. Her impatience gnawed away at her brewing anger.
“Long hath you sought Turstin’s twin sister, Gwynllian, your other Foundling, the one of whom you never speak,” Viper said, knowing how to get the twins’ attention. She removed a piece of floral silk from its display stand on a high shelf. The fabric was a remnant of Gwynllian’s dress. The Sisters cherished this item above their other knickknacks. With a wicked smile, she ignited a flame on her fingertip, to which she held the silk precariously close. “Why should I find historical records for you when you hath kept my history from me?”
A hazy, white hand plucked the material from her. The extension of the Sisters’ magic settled it back on its pedestal and smoothed the furrowed seams with care before retreating back into the Sisters’ bodies.
They did not raise their heads when they spoke. “Questions are answered when tasks are complete. Understanding means little without a full perspective.”
The news displeased Viper greatly. “You would deny me now, after I hath fulfilled every task that you hath asked of me?” She wouldn’t let them get away with withholding their knowledge any longer. “For these last ten years I was your faithful cousin. Your pains hath been mine. Your joys hath I celebrated. At your insistence hath I stayed away from Elizabeth, who is akin to a daughter and a sister unto me. I hath given you the records of every
church and officiary in Kent, without question.”
The Sisters closed Churchwarden Aelford’s book using opposite hands with indifference to the aggressiveness that underlined the desperation in Viper’s voice. They tilted their heads and the tree roots above them untangled. The vegetation blended into the walls, becoming sconces. The rabbits circled the Sisters when they took to their feet.
In unison, the Sisters said, “A musician masters his time with measures. The bars are the same e’en if the songs differ.” The rabbits hopped around madly. The magic flowing between the animals and the sisters was undistinguishable. The Sisters didn’t feed upon the aeir of humans. In a symbiotic relationship, the conjoined V’Braed infused the flora and fauna with elldyr creft even as they were sustained by the aeir of the plants and animals. When the rabbits stopped, they had swapped places while still encircling the Sisters.
Viper’s anger wore through her resistance. She succumbed to the garen that had threatened her in Biddenden. Shrieking, Viper fired her elldyr creft across the cavern at Turstin. He cried out when she hauled him into her clutches, but he didn’t fight back. The rabbits scurried into tunnels when his body flew past them.
Viper raised her hand to Turstin’s throat. “Reveal unto me that which I wish to know, or I shall destroy the only Foundling you hath left on this Earth!” she yelled, spit flying from her mouth. Her eyes seethed a bottomless black and her skin burned eggplant purple.
The Sisters said nothing to Viper, for the mix of trepidation and resentment on their faces spoke volumes. Holding each other tightly about the waist, a silent communication passed between them. Bold serenity replaced their indignation.
The Queen's Viper Page 24