Ill Met by Moonlight

by Mercedes Lackey

  The room was brightly lit by the sun, which poured light and perhaps some thin warmth through the glass of two south-facing windows. Opposite the bed in a fireplace that shared a chimney with the private reception room beyond, a lively fire snapped and crackled over freshly added logs. The leaping flames added light and warmth to the room, waking golden tones in the paneled walls, and made it nearly cozy.

  Elizabeth was sitting up in bed. The terrible haunted look was gone from her eyes, and she held out her hand to him at once, but he recognized a tense anxiety in her and the hand she proffered trembled just a little. Denoriel sat down on the edge of her bed, ignoring Mistress Champernowne’s slight frown, and took Elizabeth’s hand.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asked. “No evil dreams?”

  Elizabeth smiled at him but she turned her head to look at her governess, and what she said was, “I am so thirsty, Kat, and I am sure Lord Denno would enjoy a bit of that treacle tart with some wine. Could you get it for me?”

  Kat gave Denoriel—and the hand Elizabeth had not taken from his grasp—another worried glance, but she rose, nodded, and went out.

  When she was gone, Elizabeth said, “Good dreams, but very strange. Who was the very beautiful dark lady?”

  Denoriel did not ask how he could know who appeared in Elizabeth’s dream or even say Mwynwen was a dream. It seemed that even Mwynwen’s sleep spell could not completely close Elizabeth’s mind, but that might be helpful now.

  He said, “A very dear friend who came to draw out and banish the evil dreams. But you slept after she left, did you not? And had no dreams at all?”

  “None that I remember, and I woke rested, so I suppose I slept well. The bad dreams, they were not because of … of what happened to … to Queen Catherine and the Howards, were they? They were to do with that … that evil person who looks like you? But he did not come again.”

  Denoriel nodded. “Likely not, but I fear he sent you something that carried those evil dreams. Do you know anything about magic, Elizabeth?”

  She clutched his hand tighter. “I know the parliament passed a law making magic forbidden. I know that the Bible itself says ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”

  “But he who looks like me—by the by, his name is Pasgen, so we may speak of him more easily. Pasgen does not live in England. He does not care about English law, nor for the Word of God, and he has ways to escape any consequences for his actions.” He noted how Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “He did use magic, to make himself look more like me than he already does, and I fear he used magic again to fix that bad dream into your mind.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes were very wide now and dark with fear. “But he was not here, I swear it. I did not see him. Oh, I am sure it was truly you each time …”

  She pulled her hand free of Denoriel’s and shrank back in the bed so that Kat Champernowne, entering a moment later with a tray, saw her charge and Lord Denno decorously apart. Both took time to sample what Kat had carried, Lord Denno praising the refreshments and Elizabeth sighing with relief as the sweetened barley water soothed her tight throat.

  Lord Denno then made several remarks about his horse, Miralys, and the house not too far away where he had lodging. Elizabeth asked if he would accompany her the next time she went hunting. Kat smiled because Elizabeth was taking interest in the world outside again, but when they began to speak of the hunt, Kat, who did not hunt, became bored. She fidgeted restlessly for a few minutes and then said she would go and write some necessary letters. Elizabeth smiled and agreed happily that she must go about her duties, because Lord Denno could keep her company.

  As soon as the governess was gone, Denoriel murmured, “Only you and Lady Alana and Harry know the name of my horse, love. I am me!” But he did not reach for her hand again and said reassuringly, “I am quite sure Pasgen was not here. He knows you can see through whatever mask he wears. However, I fear he sent that bad dream attached to—to an innocent thing. Have you received any gifts lately?”

  “My brother sent a letter.” Her voice was thin and low, and her eyes suddenly glistened with unshed tears.

  “Will you show it to me?” he asked, gently.

  She hesitated, casting an uneasy glance sidelong at him, but finally got out of bed, went to her writing desk, and brought him a letter. It was written in a beautiful hand, all except a few large, shaky words at the very bottom. Denoriel touched it with one finger, sighed, and smiled.

  “There is no harm in this. I do not know who wrote most of the letter—a man of middle years, I think—but the words at the bottom, those are by a little boy.” He chuckled. “I can feel the struggle, the will, he used; he was determined to write in his own hand to his dear sister who had helped him learn to hold a pen.”

  Elizabeth almost smiled and she kissed the letter before she replaced it in her writing desk. Then she got back into bed, frowning thoughtfully. “I am sure we had some gifts of food, comfits and such, but you know those are all tasted by others before they come to me. I have not heard of anyone else having such terrible dreams and I think I would have heard. The servants talk.”

  “Indeed they do. And have you had any messengers from court? Any who spoke to you?”

  She shook her head. “No one who came to my presence. Not since Sir Thomas.”

  So it must have been Wriothesley who had carried the spell, Denoriel thought. “Elizabeth,” he said, “when Sir Thomas came to question you about your stay at court, do you remember anything strange? Did he give you something to look at, a comfit to eat, a toy?”

  “The only thing he brought was a Bible. And it was truly a Bible because I looked through it. Surely there could not be anything evil hidden in a Bible.” Her voice was uncertain, though, and she reached for his hand again. “That bad person, Pasgen, could not bear my cross.”

  Denoriel took the small hand in both of his and pressed it gently. “Magic is not inherently evil, love. It is not like a vampyre or a bane-sidhe or a black witch; they fear symbols of good. It is not the cross that drove off Pasgen; it is the cold iron of which it is made.”

  “Not the cross? It is not the cross that wards off evil? Ah, I remember. The cover was bound in gilded brass, not iron.”

  “Cover of what?” He leaned forward eagerly.

  “The Bible. And that stone that I did not like … but I told myself it could not be harmful for it was set at the very center of the cross.”

  “There was a stone you did not like?” How clever, and how terrible, to have made the amulet into something the child would inherently trust!

  Elizabeth nodded. “But it was so interesting, all black but with bright red sparkles and lines … It tingled when I touched it, though, and I took my hand away.”

  “Thank God for that! It was an amulet, carrying a sp—that evil dream.” Denoriel sighed in relief. At least he knew the vessel that carried the spell and it was not in food or drink, which would have been a nightmare to try to divert from her. But Elizabeth looked more frightened and horrified than ever, and tears ran down her still-too-thin cheeks.

  “Sir Thomas?” she whispered. “My father’s own trusted secretary carried to me—”

  “No!” Denoriel exclaimed, seeing that her mind had leapt to the conclusion that her father wished to be rid of her. “Do not blame Sir Thomas or his master. I am convinced that Sir Thomas had not the faintest idea what he was carrying and equally sure that your father loves you well and does not wish you any harm. Sir Thomas likes you and always speaks well of you, Lady Alana says, and that is surely why your father chose him to question you.”

  She looked up at him, eyes still filled with tears. “But then how came he to carry that Bible with that evil stone in it?”

  “I am not sure of that,” Denoriel said, “but I will try to find out. Most likely he took that Bible from one of the monasteries that had fallen on evil ways or it was given to him as a gift. You say it was very beautiful. I am sure he carried with him his very best Bible to do you honor.”
>
  “Then why did I see you begging me to save myself worse than death by dying?” she wailed softly.

  “Because the sp—the dream had a sort of blank image that each person filled in with his or her own trusted friend,” he told her soothingly. “You chose my image. That was all.”

  Denoriel did not think that was all. He was quite certain that the spell was no part of an artifact from a monastery that had fallen on evil ways. That spell had been crafted by Pasgen specifically to kill Elizabeth, and Wriothesley was Pasgen’s tool, but he did not want Elizabeth to hate and fear any of her father’s ministers. He wanted her to have protections that would foil any plot against her.

  Besides, though Wriothesley might be Pasgen’s tool, he surely had no idea what Pasgen was, or that Pasgen wished Elizabeth’s death.

  Elizabeth had not been comforted by Denoriel’s explanation. “But what if he comes again with that Bible and wants me to swear to something?”

  “Ah.” Denoriel slightly tightened his hold on her hand. “Now we come to the real problem. And that is how to protect you even from those who wish you well and unwittingly bring harm.”

  “Can you?” she asked, hopefully.

  He shook his head. “Unfortunately, not I. I have not the knowledge or the skill. I would have to bring you to those stronger and wiser than I, but the place is very far away.”

  Elizabeth started to shake her head, started to say that her father would never permit her to travel far from England, but she realized Denno knew that. She looked at the pointed ears, under the misty image of ordinary round ears; she looked into the brilliant green eyes with their long, oval pupils, like those of a cat. She looked carefully, very carefully at the white hair, but it stayed white and showed no glint of gold. Surely this was her Denno, not the Pasgen who wished her ill.

  Very far away; that was what Denno said when he spoke of Da. And he was talking about magic. And that beautiful dark lady … surely she had come through the wall and Blanche had never wakened. But that was a dream. Was it a dream? Could the two “far aways” be the same far away?

  Elizabeth looked down at her hand, clasped between those of Lord Denno and what she said instead of protesting that her father would not let her go, was, “As far away as my Da?”

  Denno hesitated, then sighed and said, “Yes, that far.”

  Denoriel saw that she understood, probably too well. Her eyes lit suddenly and a faint pink rose into her pale cheeks. “Will I be able to see him?” she asked.

  He began to assure Elizabeth easily that he would arrange a meeting and then remembered Mwynwen’s jealousy. “I hope so,” he said, “but I cannot promise. For one thing, it is possible that the person who will provide your protections will wish to see us immediately. She is too important and too powerful; it would be a bad mistake to do anything but obey her.”

  “Like my father?”

  “Very like,” Denoriel agreed. “She is—” he hesitated, then committed to the truth. “She is a queen in her own land. And then she may send us elsewhere after she sees you. So I may not have time to get a message to Harry. Also, Harry is not always easy to reach. I swear he is well. He is also young and very busy with various amusements. If I am permitted by the great lady who has agreed to help you, I will send a message to where Harry lives. If he gets it, he will come.”

  Elizabeth looked down at their hands and sighed. She was sure this was Denno, not the evil Pasgen, but he was still hiding something about Da from her. She gently removed her hand from his. She could see Denno’s lips part, likely to assure her again that her Da was well, but he did not speak and she was glad of it. When he kept insisting, she believed him less and less.

  Denoriel, watching carefully, guessed what she was thinking. He knew that sooner or later he would have to arrange a meeting for her and Harry. Meanwhile he had a greater problem: to convince Elizabeth that if he bade her cover her cross he was not Pasgen. He looked down at his own hands, now lying loosely clasped in his lap.

  “I have kept my promise about stopping the bad dream, have I not?” he said instead. “And you are sure I am really me?”

  Elizabeth did not reply, only watched him out of wary eyes. Denoriel sighed and asked her to ring her little bell for Blanche. She protested that the maid was sick with weakness, but then summoned her. Pale, with black rings under her eyes, Blanche rushed in a moment later with a long knife in hand. Denoriel jumped up. Elizabeth said, “No. It’s really Denno.” Blanche stared at him fixedly.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, tears coming to her eyes. “It’s one of the Fair Folk, surely, but which one?”

  “Come closer,” Denoriel said, drawing a hard breath. He was now between Blanche’s iron necklace and Elizabeth’s iron cross and pain was growing in him. “I want you to take off your necklace and hold it in your hand so that you can hit me with it if necessary. I am going to do what I swore I would never do. I am going to ask Lady Elizabeth to cover her cross.”

  “Why?” Blanche’s breath rasped in her throat.

  “So that I can take Elizabeth to a great lady of the Fair Folk who will arrange for her to learn how to protect herself from anyone or anything that will give her bad dreams or do any other harm to her. I cannot take her over the path we must travel with the cross uncovered.”

  Suddenly Elizabeth said, “Can the dark lady who took away the bad dream come near my cross?”

  “No,” Denoriel replied. “She … ah … gave me an amulet to put you and Blanche to sleep. I moved Blanche away from your bed and I covered your cross. Then Mwy— the dark lady took away the bad dream.”

  “How did you get into my bedchamber?”

  “Ah …” Denoriel gave a quick glance toward the wall between the windows, then said, “By the path I wish you to walk. I cannot say more than that.”

  Elizabeth cocked her head. “So why are you spending so much time trying to convince me to cover my cross and come with you? You could have got another sleep amulet, I suppose. Are you not strong enough to carry me, Denno?”

  He laughed uneasily. “Of course I am strong enough to carry you.”

  “Then why not just put me to sleep and carry me away?”

  “Because you need to be wide awake and not frightened out of your wits to learn what you must learn,” he said. “Because I wish you to know how these paths and doors are opened. And because Blanche must pretend to be keeping you abed when you are gone from this place so that no one will ever know you were gone.”

  Elizabeth reached into the neck of her nightdress and withdrew the black iron cross. Denoriel gritted his teeth as pain reverberated in his bones now that the iron was no longer somewhat shielded by the silk gown. Then she pushed the cross up along one side of the chain that held it, opened the flap of the small pouch that protected her soft skin from the sharp edges of the cross, and slipped the cross into the pouch. Denoriel let out his held breath in a long sigh.

  “Then you will come with me?” he asked.

  “Will you take me to see my Da?”

  Denoriel stared at her. She was trying again to have her way, but to break a promise to bring her to Harry or Harry to her would be worse than not to give it.

  “I cannot promise that,” he said. “And I will not lie to you. I swore I would not lie to you, and to make a promise like that would be a lie. I can only promise to try to let him know you wish to see him.”

  “He knows that already,” she said crossly, but before he could answer she turned to the maid and said, “Blanche?”

  Tears coursed down the maid’s face and her fingers were white where they clutched the iron necklace. “I don’t know!” she wept. “I don’t know. He ‘feels’ like Lord Denno to me, but I did not know the other was not Lord Denno.”

  “Were you as close to the other as you are to me?”

  “No, but what proof is that?” She tottered across the room and put her arms around Elizabeth. “I don’t know what to tell you, m’lady. I think, though, if he wished you harm, he wou
ld do that harm here. To take you away and let me see him taking you away … No, the king, your father, would not countenance an abduction—for his own sake as well as yours. Abducted, you could be used as a weapon. King Henry would overturn the whole earth having you sought—and that other one, he tried to kill you in the garden, not carry you away with him.”

  Elizabeth remembered that they had told her just the opposite—that Pasgen had been trying to abduct her—but she realized now that had been to try to ease her fear. Then she thought of that strange black stone with its crawling lines and spots of red and the despair that had filled her, as deep and black, with a stabbing red terror of self-slaughter.

  “Will I really be able to stop people from giving me bad dreams if I go with you?” she asked Denoriel.

  He looked at her sternly, and yet, with kindness. “If you are quick enough and clever enough, yes.”

  Elizabeth swallowed, then drew a tremulous breath. “Then I will need full court dress,” she said to Blanche. “We are going to see a lady, who in her own land is as great as my father.”

  She slipped out of bed with Blanche’s help, but the maid did not at once go to the clothing press. She turned to look at Denoriel.

  “What am I to tell Mistress Champernowne?” she asked. “I can keep others out, saying that Lady Elizabeth is asleep, but I cannot stave off Mistress Champernowne. And what am I to say about where you have disappeared to if you do not leave by the door, Lord Denno?”

  “If you can keep her out for half an hour, Lady Alana will come to visit and keep Mistress Champernowne busy. I hope to bring Lady Elizabeth back to you before the evening meal. But you need not bother to dress, Lady Elizabeth. I will be able to arrange suitable dress for you … ah … at the end of the path.” He put out his hand.

  “Are we going to the same country as my Da?” she asked. “And you will tell him I am there?”