Ill Met by Moonlight

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Of course you will be safe and protected, you silly child,” Kat said. “Now, I know you grieve for the queen, but she should not have lied to the king. Likely if she had told him the truth when he first courted her, she would have been sent away with a handsome present. You have never lied to the king, and you will be protected.”

  Not by the king, Elizabeth thought, restraining a shudder, but her Da would protect her—and Denno knew where he was and would take her there … and the warmth from her Denno’s hands flowed into her, pushing out the black cold that had been rising daily to drown her in grief and misery.

  Only, feeling a little more confident with Denno’s warm hands to comfort her, Elizabeth hoped she would not need to flee to the safe place where her half-brother lived. She wanted to stay in England. This was her place. She had a purpose here. Edward already loved her well and they would be together again, she was sure. When he was king she could be at court with him and he would listen to her.

  Elizabeth saw then that Denno’s face was pale and strained and she thought the iron cross was hurting him. With a smile and a murmur of apology she released his hands.

  It had not been the pain from cold iron that had caused Denoriel’s discomfort. Elizabeth had been leaching power from him at a dangerous rate. He had been shocked because it had never happened before. Of course, they seldom touched more than a glancing contact and she had never been in such a state of terror before. Poor child. Would Catherine’s execution, if it came to that, remind her of her mother’s trial and execution? And Catherine was a Howard, just as Anne had been.

  Elizabeth never spoke of Anne, and Denoriel hoped she did not remember what had happened. Yet she remembered Harry very clearly indeed. Was there some way he could soften the blow for her?

  After Elizabeth seemed calm and almost able to smile, Denoriel took his leave and rode sedately away from Hatfield to the little wood beyond the farm lane. From there he Gated back to London, arriving still a-horseback in Miralys’s stable. The horse-boy, a faun cloaked in illusion, smiled at him, but made no move to do anything. Aside from smiling back, Denoriel ignored him. The faun could and did care for the horses of the occasional visitor to Lord Denno’s house, but he recognized an elvensteed and did not presume.

  From the stable, Denoriel strolled into the office of his man of business. Joseph Clayborne pushed aside the papers he was studying and started to rise. Denoriel signed for him to remain seated and hitched a hip over the corner of Clayborne’s desk.

  “What can you tell me about Sir Thomas Wriothesley?”

  “Sir Thomas Wriothesley.” Clayborne pursed his lips. “No particular family. Served Cromwell when he was Cardinal Woolsey’s man. Rose with Cromwell—he was knighted when Cromwell was created Earl of Essex.” Clayborne wrinkled his nose. “It appears he escaped being tarred with Cromwell’s brush, by giving evidence against his master. I am not sure whether it was that or that he had already caught the king’s attention, but he was appointed co-secretary to King Henry with Sir Ralph Sadlier.”

  Denoriel sat staring at the cabinets against the wall of Clayborne’s office. There did not seem to be anything at all uncanny about Wriothesley; however he could have said something to Elizabeth, threatened her in some way, that—considering her background—induced panic. A terror so strong that she needed to draw energy from him?

  “Have we any business with Secretary Wriothesley?” Denoriel asked. “I would like to meet him if I could.”

  “Had the situation in the royal household been other than it is, I would have said that Norfolk could have provided an introduction.”

  Denoriel laughed. “Two nieces caught in adultery is at least one more than Norfolk could expect to survive without a blemish. After presiding with his peers over the trial of Dereham and Culpepper, he left for his country estate at Kenninghall where he will watch over and question Lady Rochefort. He hopes, I suppose, to make her the instigator and reduce his niece’s guilt.”

  “It will not serve, m’lord.” Joseph seemed certain of that. Denoriel agreed with him.

  “No, it cannot. It was the queen who committed the crime, no matter who persuaded her to it.” Denoriel shook his head. “But if Lady Rochefort did urge Catherine to commit adultery … I wonder if I could find out …” Denoriel let his voice drift away, remembering that he could find out.

  Clayborne shrugged. “That is far beyond my purview, m’lord, but I will look through our accounts and see if I can find a connection to Secretary Wriothesley or, perhaps, a trading venture in which he might be interested. He likes money.”

  Denoriel was satisfied to leave his meeting with Wriothesley in Clayborne’s hands, and he was not disappointed—at least not in the fact of their meeting two weeks later. He was disappointed in a sense because there was nothing to connect Wriothesley with the Unseleighe—and Elizabeth now seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. First she had accused him again of lying to her. On another visit she had thrust the picture of Harry back at him, and when he came again she had refused to see him at all. Aleneil had been just as forcefully rejected.

  Denoriel wanted to suspect Unseleighe tampering because a spell, once it was recognized, could be countered by another spell or broken, whereas a violent disruption of the mortal mind or spirit was much more difficult to cure. But Wriothesley had no magic, no Unseleighe taint, and no other strangers had had access to Elizabeth. Moreover, Elizabeth’s own Talent made it impossible—at least for him—to detect a well-shielded spell laid on her.

  In addition there were natural reasons for her anxiety. Culpepper and Dereham were executed on the twelfth of December and over the rest of the month and the beginning of January, the Howard family was severely questioned about Catherine’s behavior as a girl. Parliament was summoned in December, and just before it convened on the sixteenth of January, many of the Duke of Norfolk’s relatives were found guilty of misprision of treason for concealing Catherine’s lack of chastity. They were sentenced to forfeiture of all their possessions and to perpetual imprisonment.

  Although Kat assured Denoriel, on one last visit to Hatfield, that she had done her best to keep this information from the child, it was impossible to prevent the servants from gossiping about so lush a scandal. No doubt they gossiped only when and where they thought Elizabeth could not hear, but her hearing was keen and she was not sleeping well.

  The punishment of the Howards induced a terrible panic in Elizabeth. No matter what Kat said, no matter that they had not again been troubled by questions about Elizabeth’s stay in court, Elizabeth was convinced that she was soon to join her cousins and aunts and uncles and be thrust into prison. And then Catherine was executed on February 13.

  At her wits’ end, because Elizabeth was now refusing to eat as well as waking screaming three and four times a night, Kat wrote to Lord Denno and sent Tolliver racing to London to summon him. She had done everything she knew how to do; the physicians could find nothing wrong with Elizabeth except her hysteria. Kat had even written an appeal to the king to reassure his daughter. No reply came directly from Henry, who perhaps had been reminded of Elizabeth’s mother, also executed for adultery, but Secretary Wriothesley had written that Elizabeth should be calm; no evil was imputed to her.

  The letter had no effect. Lord Denno, Kat wrote, was her last hope, even though Elizabeth swore she would never see him again. Denoriel told Tolliver to rest his exhausted horse a day before returning to Hatfield, mounted Miralys, and presented himself to Kat just as dusk was falling. Kat was astonished, but went to rouse Elizabeth, who was now refusing to get out of bed. However, when Kat begged Elizabeth to talk to Lord Denno, the child began to scream with rage and fear.

  “Denno is a liar,” Elizabeth shrieked. “He will not save me. He cannot save me. No one can save me. Denno has given me false comfort in public while in secret he is trying to destroy me.”

  Without waiting for permission, Denoriel walked through the door into Elizabeth’s bedchamber. Elizabeth grabbed a bowl ful
l of soup she had not eaten from the table beside her and threw it at him.

  “Lady Elizabeth!” Kat protested, retreating as the soup sprayed over her and the bedclothes.

  Denoriel caught the bowl and then gasped with shock. He had not seen Elizabeth for nearly a month and the change in her was terrifying. She had never been round and rosy-cheeked, even as an infant. Her skin had always been pale, but there had been a sort of glow, a look of resilience, of health, to her face. Now the skin looked dull and her cheeks seemed to have fallen in so that she looked wizened, more like a shrunken old woman than a child.

  “What is wrong?” Denoriel cried, covering the room in three bounds and going down on his knees on the little step stool Elizabeth used to climb into bed. “How am I trying to destroy you?”

  She began to recoil, but he seized her hands … and felt his power being sucked away into a bottomless pit of black cold. Elizabeth no longer resisted, but burst into racking sobs and sank back on the pillows behind her. She made one feeble attempt to pull her hands from his, but desisted when he just tightened his grip.

  “Blanche!” he roared, turning on Kat. “Where is Blanche?”

  “No, no, don’t call Blanche,” Elizabeth sobbed. “I’ve nearly killed her.”

  “Don’t be silly, Lady Elizabeth,” Kat protested. “One doesn’t say she is killing someone because that person is tired from nursing her.” She looked at Denoriel. “Blanche is abed.” Her voice quavered a little and she hastily added, “She has been sitting up most nights with Lady Elizabeth and is naturally worn out.”

  “Unnaturally worn out,” Elizabeth sobbed. “She stops the dreams, but … but it is as if she catches them, and they hurt her.”

  “What dreams?” Denoriel asked.

  He was grateful that he was kneeling on the stool. At the rate she was draining him, he was not sure his legs would support him for long. Soon he would have to withdraw from her or be useless to her. Almost unaware of what he was doing, he sought and found a glittering white line of power. Could he drink it and pass it through himself to Elizabeth or would it sear his power lines beyond repair?

  “Of you!” Elizabeth’s voice was so shrill and loud that it pierced through Denoriel’s conflict about drawing power from the violent mortal source. “Of you telling me you love me and you cannot bear to see me shamed and hurt, so I should climb up the wall or to the tower and throw myself off. It would be only a moment’s pain, you said, and then I would be safe forever from the shame of being daughter and cousin to queenly whores. Safe from being myself beheaded.”

  “No!” Denoriel cried. “I told you I could keep you safe and I can. That was not me in your dream! Did you not sense that it was not me?”

  He felt Elizabeth’s start of surprise and then a kind of softening in the tight tension with which she had gripped his hands. However, before she could speak, Kat came closer.

  “Well, it was a dream, so of course it was not you,” Kat said. “But I cannot think why Lady Elizabeth would mix your image into such a dreadful dream. What a terrible, horrible, unchristian idea to put into a child’s head.” She came and patted Elizabeth’s shoulder. “I am sure Lord Denno would never give such advice in a true dream, but there are false dreams, Lady Elizabeth. Now get out of bed like a good girl and I will call a maid to change this wet coverlet.”

  Denoriel backed away as Elizabeth complied, walking slowly to a chair and seating herself. His blood beat in his throat and his mouth was dry. False dream! And the sucking out of his power. It was a spell! A spell of dissolution! Because she had Talent, she was especially vulnerable—like her mother. But Elizabeth had far more power than Anne. Her inner strength had kept her alive. Without her power, she would have been dead long ago. She had been resisting the spell—and drawing on Blanche for more power, which was why the maid was drained out.

  Poor child. Denoriel swallowed. Pasgen. The spell must be Pasgen’s. He had no proof, but if he could lay hands on Pasgen, he would wring his neck. Only it was more important to free Elizabeth than to hunt Pasgen. Denoriel was furious with himself for having missed the signs the first time Elizabeth’s touch had drained him. He could have saved her months of agony. Now even an hour more seemed too long. He went down on his knee beside her chair and took her hands, then raised them to his lips and kissed them. Last, he folded them together and set them in her lap.

  Softly, despairingly, Elizabeth began to cry.

  “No, don’t cry love,” he said. “I think I know why you are having these bad dreams. And they are just dreams, sent to frighten you and torment you.”

  “Sent?” Kat cried, coming back into the room. “Sent by whom? And who would want to frighten and torment Lady Elizabeth?

  Elizabeth met Denoriel’s eyes, and she looked even more frightened. She knew who might want to frighten and torment her, but she had no idea why the being who looked so much like her dear Denno hated her so much. And she could not get comfort from Kat because she and Blanche had never told Mistress Champernowne about the attack on her. She said nothing, her hands tightening in her lap until the knuckles showed white. Denoriel’s jaws clamped shut for a moment; then he shook his head at Kat.

  “I don’t know,” he lied, “but I will do my best to find out. And even if I cannot find out, I think I know how to make the dreams stop.” He took Elizabeth’s hands again, kissed the white knuckles. “You may have another dream tonight, but it will be a different kind of dream and the bad ones will go away.” His voice shook a little, not with weakness but with his anger. “Of that you may be certain.”

  Chapter 11

  Denoriel flung himself off Miralys and rushed into Mwynwen’s house with a gross lack of ceremony. The soft, sweet music, the palest green, gently glowing walls, the silky carpet underfoot did not soothe him. He was shaking with need and anxiety and jumped a foot when Harry rushed through the door just behind him.

  “Denno, what’s wrong?” he cried. “I was riding and suddenly Lady Aeron just turned around and carried me home. I could feel her shaking under me. What’s happened?”

  “Elizabeth,” Denoriel replied through tight lips. “Somehow my loathsome half-brother—”

  “Elizabeth is dead?” Harry’s voice scaled up to a shriek, ringing through the quiet house; his face was as pallid as it had been when he was first brought Underhill, a few days from death.

  “No!” Denoriel grasped his friend’s arm. “No. And she will recover well as soon as the spell is broken. Where is Mwynwen?”

  “Here.” Her voice was cold, her expression harder than Denoriel had ever seen it. “How dare you come rushing into the private part of my house without leave? What have you done to Harry?”

  Denoriel swallowed. “Sorry. I gave him a shock. Pasgen has somehow managed to set a spell of dissolution onto Elizabeth—”

  “Set a spell of dissolution on a child?” Mwynwen’s horror overcame both her jealous dislike of Elizabeth and her anger. Now she was as pale as Harry, but it was with anger, not fear.

  “Please, Mwynwen,” Denoriel pleaded, “come with me to the mortal world and break the spell on her. I know you do not like the mortal world, but Elizabeth has fought the spell for almost two months and I do not think she can resist much longer. I promised her … I will pay whatever you ask in service or in goods from the mortal world. I—”

  “I want nothing from the mortal world,” Mwynwen snapped. Then her eyes flicked toward Harry and her expression softened into a smile. “I have everything I need from there. Of course I will come and cure the child.”

  “Just let me get my gun,” Harry said, “and I will be with you. And this time, I will make sure that the bolt goes home into that devil of a brother of yours if he shows his face.”

  “No,” Denoriel said quickly. “Don’t be a fool, Harry. You can’t come to Hatfield. Half the servants will know you. Blanche certainly will and it’s possible that Mistress Champernowne will have seen you on one of her visits to court. With Elizabeth so ill, there are people in an
d out of her bedchamber constantly. You’ve only been gone for four years. Nobody will have forgotten.”

  Mwynwen was obviously relieved when Denoriel told Harry he could not come with them, but Denoriel could see that Harry was going to argue.

  “The likelihood of Pasgen turning up in Elizabeth’s bedchamber is vanishingly small,” he pointed out. “He set the spell and left it to work. I don’t think he even cast it on her himself. He won’t go near her for fear that Oberon will hear of it, so I am certain he placed it on an object and sent some poor unsuspecting fool to place it for him. If she … If the spell succeeds in its purpose there’s no real way to connect him to it. Harry, the best thing you can do for Elizabeth is to write her another letter.”

  Harry rushed off and Mwynwen asked whether they would need to ride to the Logres Gate.

  “It would be best. I think Lady Aeron would take you. Well, I’m sure she would if Harry asked her.” Denoriel heaved a long, tired sigh. “Elizabeth was … was very near empty. She drained me. I don’t think I could build a Gate right now.”

  “Why should you? Take as long as you like. You can Gate back to just after you left; it will take more magic, but you know that you can reenter the World Above at any time after you left it.” She uttered a delicate, impatient snort. “Oh, come and sit down. I was angry because I could feel Harry’s fear, but you know you are welcome here without special invitation.”

  Denoriel sank into the deliciously soft chair to which Mwynwen led him and closed his eyes. “A few hours,” he said, his voice shaking. “I can chance that. But no more; you know that time moves differently here and there, and I will not make her wait out the night. I promised her a different dream, one that will stop the evil. I will not make her wait longer than an hour or two. Longer will be another broken promise. It is me she sees urging her to death.”