The Queen's Viper

by Lesley Donaldson

  “Mull not upon it. Only we shall be the wiser. Make haste. If you hath my senses, then you must know the waking palace will not be far behind us. We hath precious little time. Be sure you are concealed before he comes to.”

  “Forgive me, my love.” Elizabeth-as-Viper traced a heart on Robert’s cheek. She kissed him on the mouth and forehead before she removed his sleeping enchantment.

  Robert pushed himself up on his elbows, eyes dazed.

  Viper-as-queen descended upon him, smothering his face with emphatic kisses she did not feel before Elizabeth could stop her. “Robin!” Viper breathed with Elizabeth’s voice, “you hath been unhorsed. You lay so still, I was affrighted that you left me for Heaven.” His moustache and beard felt like rough hay to her. At Viper’s flawless portrayal of the Queen of England’s intimacy, the real Elizabeth skulked behind the security of the boundary tree.

  “How can I fly to Heaven when my angel is here?” Robert embraced her tightly. Viper-as-queen rolled her eyes from over his shoulder. Elizabeth-as-Viper flinched.

  Viper-as-Elizabeth pressed her body to Robert’s chest. She took his hand as she had seen Elizabeth do hundreds of times. This time, she pressed it beneath the widened lacings of her partlet, to the skin of her left breast.

  “See how my heart races with worriment o’er you, my sweet Robin? Even afore I named you Master of Horses, you hath warned me to ride with caution. I ne’er thought that my aggressive riding would cause you to be unhorsed. How folly-full am I!”

  The fabric of Robert’s groin stretched, seeking treasures beneath the queen’s bodice. Viper-as-Elizabeth changed her tone, her intent unquestionable. She untied the front lacings of his jerkin. “Let us not make flirtatious jest of Horse Rider and Horse Master as we hath done in the past. Your heart is my heart, Robert, as it hath been since we were young. Let our hearts race as one as together we race our bodies.” With a seductive grin, she rubbed the front of his trousers. “Or shall your queen order you to dance the beginning of the Earth with her?”

  Robert needed no further invitation.

  Viper-as-Elizabeth held out her overdress ties. Robert loosened the outermost layer, then the one beneath. When she hastened out of the corset, his eyes plunged into the valley between her breasts, past the long hidden scars of Annys’ attack. The immortal knew what Robert expected and widened the neckline of her smock. She shivered from the draft of the warm breeze sliding on her changed skin moreso than the than pressure of his lips on the long neck of Elizabeth’s body. Robert showed no indication that he knew the difference. Viper-as-Elizabeth feigned delicate moans when he reached inside and fondled the breasts of the woman he had loved for years. Robert lowered his head and pinched her nipple between his lips. Viper closed her eyes, shutting out Elizabeth’s wounded stare.

  Robert alternated the pressure of his kisses, from affectionate to demanding. Viper-as-Elizabeth responded in kind, forcing her actions through the human body within which she was confined. When he slowed to enjoy her body, she gasped and arched her back as he would expect of Elizabeth. She reached into his trousers and stroked his bulging manhood.

  “You need not groom this mare afore you ride,” Viper-as-Elizabeth said, eager to speed his tempo. Together they hitched up her skirts and removed her small clothes. Robert’s exposed chest pressed into her as he clutched her close. When he entered her, the womanly dampness of Elizabeth’s body spurred on his thrusting. The emotions of the immortal herself remained ambivalent, even though she grabbed a fistful of his hair in mock desire. She wrapped the legs of her borrowed body around his buttocks. Robert let out a final gasp of pleasure. Viper-as-Elizabeth felt his penis spasm within her.

  “Bess,” he murmured into her ear as he lay atop her, “my sweet loving Bess. We hath before lain together, but ne’er been together. How long hath I dreamed of this moment.” He pulled back to take her in.

  “Now is the time, Elizabeth,” Viper-as-Elizabeth said to the fuming queen who spied on them. Robert balked when he saw Elizabeth-as-Viper emerge from behind the oak. He frowned at the womanly form beneath him in confusion. Elizabeth-as-Viper set her hands to his temples, and his gaze became hazy. Both Viper and Elizabeth eased him off the queen’s body.

  Elizabeth’s tears stained Viper’s face.

  “He did not do what he did not want to do.”

  “Robert wanted me,” Elizabeth shouted, regret tainting her anger. “He hath always wanted me!”

  “Then, if you wish, mount him when you and I are to our own bodies returned. He will know no difference. I swear unto you, I felt nothing.”

  “Yes, Queen Mab, as ’twas evidenced far too clearly.” Ugly sarcasm enflamed the face of Elizabeth-as-Viper. She knelt beside Robert and cradled his sleep-enchanted body.

  “Elizabeth,” Viper-as-Elizabeth began, gathering the cloths and water for cleaning which she had hidden by the tree earlier, “I hath witnessed your bedroom dalliances with Robert for longer than I care to remember. So well doth Robert know you, that if I did not fully participate in his arousal, he would hath found me false.” She freshened the queen’s body with rosemary-infused water and patted the skin dry, then blended additional ceruse where Elizabeth’s body paint had been rubbed away.

  Viper-as-queen stepped to Robert to conceal the evidence of their love making.

  “You hath laid enough of your hand upon him,” Elizabeth-as-Viper snapped. She shoved her own humaine body back from her lover with a pulse of elldyr.

  “As you wish, my queen.” Viper, knocked to the ground, restrained herself from matching Elizabeth’s contempt. Jilted, she set about dressing Elizabeth’s body by herself.

  Elizabeth-as-Viper restored Robert’s dignity with loving, proficient hands. When she was done, he was as peaceful as any baby in slumber. Standing, Elizabeth-as-Viper placed her hands on her hips and stared at her counterpart with disgust.

  “Hath it been so long since you hath helped me dress that you doth forget how to dress a queen with the proper care?”

  Viper-as-Elizabeth had been fumbling with the side lacings of the queen’s bodice, unable to secure it tightly. The flat panel of the overskirt bulged forwards. The Parhelion pulsed with its own rapid beat.

  “It worked!” Viper-as-queen clutched her friend’s hands and placed them to her swelling lower belly. “Feel your womb. You are with child.”

  “So soon? ’Tis unnatural!” The colour faded from Elizabeth-as-Viper’s skin.

  “No, ’tis the magic of the Parhelion.” Viper-as-Elizabeth spun in jubilation. “My elldyr creft hastens your pregnancy.” She threw her head back, simultaneously laughing and crying.

  “Viper!” the immortal heard her own voice say above her dizzying celebration.

  They were both several feet from the ground. The Parhelion floated in the air between, taut on the necklace around Viper-as-Elizabeth’s neck. The immortal removed the talisman and it rose high above them.

  Viper’s elldyr and Elizabeth’s aeir left their physical bodies, as they had before, and wound around the amulet. The entwined energies passed through the Parhelion and the talisman divided each like light passing through a prism. Elldyr and aeir re-entered its original host. As Viper and Elizabeth regained their proper body, the amulet set them upon the ground. The Parhelion hovered at shoulder height between them.

  Elizabeth scooped her hands around the expanding curves of her abdomen. Her face glowed beneath the layer of white make-up and tears brimmed in her eyes.

  “A child,” she said, rubbing the new roundness of her body, “born of a Virgin.” She bore a broader smile than she did on her Coronation Day. “This is what I wanted of Annys, when I could not find you. We shall raise the baby together, Viper. My child shall be wiser than its mother and greater than its grandfather. My kingdom and Rome shall worship me, the Virgin Queen, and my country shall know war no longer. My child shall live on, forever the king of an empire.”

  Elizabeth’s last words aroused Viper’s revulsion. The immortal knew she had
to change the future that Elizabeth intended for the Foundling. With her elldyr creft fully restored to her, Viper took a deep breath and held it. She was about to make herself forever hated by her Faerie Queen.

  “Forgive me, Elizabeth,” she whispered under her breath before she cast an enchantment of slumber upon the celebratory queen.

  Elizabeth awoke several minutes later, her head in Lord Robert’s lap.

  “Robert?” Elizabeth asked, eyes searching for Viper as she sat up. “You are awakened?” The overhead leaves camouflaged the immortal.

  Robert caressed Elizabeth’s brow and gave her a soothing grin. “Me? My sweet Bess, you are the one who hath been a-sleeping. I came upon you here, on the ground. You hath fallen from your horse, as oft I afeared you would.”

  Elizabeth jumped up and Robert steadied her. She brushed away his hand and checked her flatted abdomen. The swelling of her womb had disappeared. Her clothes bound her as tightly as they had before, dirtied by grass stains.

  “How could I hath been so feather-brained?” Elizabeth wailed, hands clasped to her empty womb.

  Robert peered over her shoulder to the forest, then took both her hands, saying, “Bess, calm yourself. De Caron and his retinue doth approach.” Elizabeth nodded, averting his eyes.

  The Dutch Ambassador reined in alongside them. “How now, m’Lord? Is the queen well?”

  “Not e’en a goose egg bump for our hard-headed queen. She is so much the Mistress of the land that the ground cradled her when she spilled from her horse.”

  Facing the concerned gawking of her courtiers, Elizabeth regained her composure. “A mishap, naught else. Come good Sirs and Ladies, let us sojourn to the palace, lest the spies at Court claim me dead and proclaim the next king.” Robert helped her onto her horse. She jerked on the reins, preparing to leave.

  “Your Majesty,” he said, “this jewel must hath escaped the comfort of your neck when you fell from your destrier. ’Twas upon the ground.”

  She accepted the Parhelion, the revealing glow visible only to her and Viper. “I hath not a need of it,” she replied and threw it across the field without seeking Viper’s hiding place. “’Tis a thing accursed. I wish never to see it again.”

  Viper watched the riders speed back towards the palace from the security of Elizabeth’s tree. When she was alone, she scaled down the branches with one hold, holding her bundled jerkin to her chest. Her long sigh did little to soothe her nerves. In throwing away the Parhelion, Elizabeth had forsaken Viper. The immortal had expected nothing less from her mortal friend.

  Something in the jerkin wiggled. Viper pulled back a corner of the leather and tickled the Foundling born of magic with a lock of red hair she had snipped from beneath Elizabeth’s wig before waking the queen. A baby boy with hazel eyes and a mop of ginger curls gurgled at her, and she forgot the amulet as she beheld his innocent smile.

  29: The Final Wave

  The Safe House Under St. Mary’s Station, London.

  June 5, 2012: afternoon.

  The unexpected thrill and intrigue of discovering new sensations gave way to jitters when the safe house plunged into darkness. Viper ran through the hallway to the main room. In the dim emergency lighting, Owain’s body looked years older as he figured out how to protect his Mistress. Her heart sank, wondering if he would ever be safe, this child she brought into the world.

  “They’ve cut off the power,” Owain informed her with a brave smile. “We’re OK for now.”

  Viper started removing her coat. “Put me to any task. I wish to be of assistance.”

  “We are on backup systems,” Graeme remarked from the elevated walkway. He swooshed along the railing to the ground level. “Thankfully, we managed to get the computers up and running.” He eased Viper’s bloodied coat back onto her shoulders. “Stay warm. There’s nae any heat until we get the gennies up and running. We’ll find some better clothes for ye when we have everything sussed out.”

  Viper held out her hand and let flames dance on her palm for him. “The cold bothers me not.” Graeme’s embarrassed laugh was contagious. She suppressed the fire and placed her hands on her hips. “Neither am I offended by my dishcloth outfit.”

  A short while later, Dhillon ran into the room, out of breath. “Who cut the power?” The strap of his haversack scrunched up the front of his mis-buttoned shirt and water dripped from his earlobe. Viper saw his silver chain dangling from his closed fist before he tucked it into his trouser pocket.

  “Dinnae ken,” Graeme said. “The stag said armed men are coming. He dinnae say who.”

  “Stag?” Dhillon mouthed to Clare as she joined him from the hall. She shrugged beneath damp hair.

  Viper made eye contact with Clare, who had a worried frown. If Clare knew that Viper had spied upon the young couple in the shower, she gave no indication.

  “Aye,” Graeme replied. “Here they come now.”

  The stag with the star on his head and one other buck galloped in from the darkness of the main tunnel.

  Dhillon stuttered, “St…st…st…”

  “Stags,” Graeme finished as naturally as saying his own name.

  “We posted sentries in the tunnels,” the star-bearing stag said.

  Dhillon re-adjusted his glasses. “It…it…it…”

  “Talks,” Graeme said with amusement, waggling eyebrows as high as Dhillon’s voice.

  “Attend to me!” The leader of the sianach stamped his hoof on the ground. “We will lead the men away. They will not stay away for long. You must escape, to the surface if necessary. Hurry, Viper. You and your herd do not have long until the hunt.” The animals reared up and returned to the tunnel. The sound of splashing water echoed after them.

  Owain hobbled down the steps and to a storage locker beneath the end of the platform. He entered the code 1584, the year of his birth, into the keypad. After the magnetic lock disengaged, Graeme motioned Dhillon and Clare closer, then stepped back. The Scotsman gave them flack vests and offered one to his boss. Owain accepted it, but didn’t put it on.

  To Viper, Graeme said, “I dinnae ken if bullets can affect yer kind. Ye might want a protective vest.” She raised her hand in disdain. “At least take a weapon to protect yerself against humans,” he said, offering her a pistol, butt end first.

  Graeme steadied himself as Viper swiftly glided past him into the storage locker, then re-emerged with Ivy’s rapier in her hand. She wrapped her fingers around the spiraled handle within a filigreed basket-hilt. The polished metal gleamed when she unsheathed it from its leather and metal scabbard.

  The immortal held the blade to her palm. “With my blod magic, the blade cannot be broken by mortal tools.” Viper sliced open her hand and her tarry blood enchanted the sword with elldyr from handle to tip. She stepped back and arced the rapier over her head with a flourish, radiating vibrant purple elldyr from the sword.

  “Fancy.” Graeme’s placidity showed he was unimpressed with her showmanship. “Ye might want to modernize. Swinging yer arms around like that w’nae help ye if there’s a bullet flying towards yer head.” He stepped farther away from the locker and held out the projectile weapon.

  Viper’s challenging laughter made Graeme lower the gun. “Assume you that ’tis so easy to prick me?” she said. She tossed the rapier in the air, whirled around and simultaneously removed her coat. The coat landed at Graeme’s feet. Viper poised with her muscles taut and sword raised. The dare on her face spoke volumes.

  Clare began to object, but Dhillon stopped her. Owain rested his hands on his cane with interest.

  “I know ye get about faster than a mortal, and I don’t doubt ye would put up a stonking fight, but maybe ye don’t understand. Bullets are, well, bullets. You could nae outrun them. Just take the gun.”

  “Try your best, Scotsman.” Viper levelled her eyes and her sword at him.

  “Yer off yer head. Viper, I cannae shoot ye.”

  “Try!”

  A cracking eruption and muzzle flash filled the room
. Viper immediately arced her sword. Clare yelped and pulled the receivers from her head.

  Dhillon hesitated in the doorway of the locker, in the faintest haze of gunpowder.

  “What did you do?” Clare screeched at him, her voice as loud as the gunfire. His weapon clattered to the floor. Graeme had two guns trained on Dhillon, fingers tense around the triggers.

  The tableau would have lasted infinitesimally had it not been for Owain’s enthusiastic applause.

  “She said to do it,” Dhillon protested to the group.

  With a discordant tilt her head, Viper ambled towards him, carving a thin line in the floor behind her with her trailing sword. She opened her hand right in front of his face. His bullet lay on her palm, split in two.

  The immortal bent over him, her lips touching the young man’s ear. “Try harder.” Her fierce whisper made him shudder.

  “Huzzah, Mistress! You still have a fast eye.”

  “And a faster hand.” Viper whipped her elldyr-glowing rapier a sliver’s breadth away from Dhillon’s Adam’s apple. He swallowed and the blade scratched his skin. A blob of red trickled down the metal.

  “Ye immortals are a daft bunch,” said Graeme, holstering his guns, “but ye’ve made yer point.”

  “May I remind you Graeme, that whilst I am long lived, I am not immortal.” Owain wagged his index finger, a stern professor too polite to swear.

  “I still think yer daft.”

  “You probably have a point,” Owain stated with a grin. Viper let Dhillon ease himself from beneath sword-point, having made her point.

  “Didn’t the stag say we should be leaving?” the youth asked, rubbing his throat with his sleeve. He reached for Clare’s hand after she re-adjusted her receivers. She put her arms behind her back and took a step away from him, aloof. Her quiet admonishment of Dhillon gave Viper great pleasure.

  “Right you are, my smart lad,” said Owain. “Enough standing around. Graeme, let’s see if we can find a secure route out of here.”