An hour or so later the beggar’s body had been loosed from the floor, washed, draped in Percy’s own brocade night-robe, and placed before the fire to sip a cup of mulled wine. He watched the earl, faded blue eyes peering from beneath the heavy brows, but he had not spoken, and when Northumberland tried to speak to him, he’d look away, nodding to the stoup of wine on the hearth. His patience at an end, the earl clouted the man viciously over the ear and strode to the door, intending to call for a groom to take the beggar back to the cellars and dispose of him. What had gone wrong? He’d chosen the time most carefully, had culled the chants from unimpeachable sources, had coated the body in a mixture of Montague’s own blood and sea-water after the rightful owner had been ousted and cut off from returning—what had gone wrong? A small sound came from behind him, stopping him in the act of reaching for the latch. He turned to see the beggar reaching an imploring hand to him, mumbling something he could not hear. Slowly he made his way back to the hearth, and the words became clearer.
“. . . Harry? Why . . . what happened . . .”the nervous gaze fell on the outstretched hand, its calluses and coarse red hairs, and a look of disbelief spread across the heavy features. The frightened man held his hands before his face, and bit off a scream. “Fetch me a mirror, you fool,” he rasped, the words almost lost in his hysterical breathing. Northumberland let the insult pass for the time being, and brought the mirror, holding it up before the beggar’s face. There was a howl from the man, and he batted at the mirror, to strike it to the ground, to shatter the offending image, but Percy was expecting something of the sort and held the glass safely out of reach. “Harry? Why did you do this to me?” came a broken whisper and the body before him was racked by sobs. Percy knelt and filled the cup again, holding it to his colleague’s lips. Montague grasped it clumsily and began to gulp the contents, spilling them liberally down the front of the borrowed robe. Northumberland eyed the ruin of the expensive garment with distaste. Maybe it could be made over for the Doctor? God knew that the man was going to need anew wardrobe and the thought of having to lay out the money for it was a cheerless one; he shoved the thoughts aside to be dealt with at a later time.
“You should rest now, Doctor,” was all he said before summoning a groom to see the weeping man to the chamber that had been prepared for him. They would talk in the morning.
Southampton smoothed the oyster-white satin of his doublet, glowing with that special pride produced by overshadowing someone else, in this case Lord Mounteagle, who had made the monumental mistake of bragging on the outfit he had commissioned for the Christmas court. He had been preening himself on the satin, taffeta silk that shimmered with the shifting colors of pearls, and so dear that enough to make a pair of sleeves and trim the rose velvet doublet had cost an entire year’s rents from one of his few remaining manors. Nothing else would do but that Hal should have an entire suit of the satin, trimmed in silver lace and black pearls. He had waited patiently, timing his entrance to the hall so that Mounteagle would have plenty of time to let everyone know the price he paid for the cloth before settling into some pastime. Hal then sauntered up behind his quarry, leaning nonchalantly on the back of his chair, so that everyone at the table, save Mounteagle himself, had a good view of the costume. “God you good den, my lords,” he said quietly. “And you especially, Will,” he added to Mounteagle, who did not bother to look around. Lord Sandys glanced up indifferently, then looked again sharply, a vicious grin splitting his weary face; Sir Henry Warren laughed aloud; Sir Edward, now Lord Selby, choked violently and sprayed a mouthful of wine across the table.
Mounteagle cursed, brushing at the flecks of wine and spittle dotting his oyster-white sleeve, then muttered a greeting to Southampton, still without turning. Hal grinned back at the others, raising an eyebrow before drifting away from the table to show himself off to the rest of the court, eddies of stifled laughter swirling in his wake.
“God’s teeth, my lord!” Elizabeth bellowed. How that tiny, wizened woman could produce such volume was a mystery. Every head in the large room swiveled towards them, and Hal swept into an elegant bow, so low that his dark auburn curls came close to brushing the floor. There was a further sound of choking from the corner where the gamblers laired, drowned by the tide of helpless laughter that flooded the room. Mounteagle indeed must have made doubly sure that every last person in the hall knew the cost of that oyster satin to every last farthing.
“Your Majesty,” Hal offered his hand to the Monarch, but she brushed him aside, a wink of her eye and the quirking of her lips forestalling insult, as she beckoned Ralegh to her side.
“I thank you, but no, my lord,” she answered in a voice gurgling with repressed mirth, and he understood. She might enjoy the prank, but that was not enough to overcome the antipathy she felt for him. Ralegh himself smiled with the purest appreciation as he bowed his courtesy to the earl before sweeping the Queen off into the dance, a stately pavane. Hal wandered back to the table, where Mounteagle was now conspicuous by his absence. He settled into the vacant chair and reached for the wine jug. Ned pushed it towards him, giggling helplessly.
“By Christ, Hal, you’ve made a friend into an enemy with this night’s work,” Sandys said sententiously.
“A poor sort of friend,” Hal shrugged, and sipped at the wine, a sorry sour excuse for a beverage, he found himself thinking, remembering his entertainment of the night before.
“A poor friend might still make a deadly enemy,” Sandys continued, seeming ready to extend the lecture indefinitely. A flash of color caught at the corner of Hal’s eye and he shoved the cup away, excusing himself to follow, as Libby had known he would.
Out of the hall, and down a corridor he went, the sweep of skirts always vanishing before him, but always lingering long enough that he would be able to follow. He caught up with her in the Queen’s private chamber, catching her wrist as she tried to twist past him, laughing delightedly deep in her throat.
“Hal! Not here! Are you mad? Come, we shall use the old place: I’ve gleaned us candles and wine, even a little food,” she laughed again as he pressed her body hard against the wall with his, his lips hot on her throat, then let her slide away from him, following her up the narrow stairs to the garret they had fitted out to meet in. She was wearing velvet of the rich grassy green indelicately known as goose-turd, which set off her red-gold hair and creamy skin to perfection, the whole trimmed in gold bone lace, and the bodice cut so low as to be indecent. He slipped a feverish hand into the bodice, cupping her breast, feeling the nipple harden against his fingers as her breath grew ragged. He had taken her here for the first time weeks ago, her maiden’s blood staining the short cloak he had placed beneath them, ruining it. He had given it to the players under his patronage, the Lord Chamberlain’s Company, and it amused him to see it on stage, draped over a player’s shoulder, parading her loss of virtue before the whole of London, if they had but known it. They had met as often as they could manage, sometimes leisurely, stripping to the skin and enjoying the sensations of flesh against flesh, sometimes, like tonight, hurriedly, disarranging the heavy and elaborate clothing they wore as little as possible and still manage to achieve their purpose. He fumbled at his canions with one hand, pushing up her skirts with the other as she lay on the smuggled featherbeds, dropping to his knees beside her.
“It happens, my dearest,” she told him, stroking the damp hair back from his heated face. “It happens to every man sometimes, Penny told me, and that it means nothing—” she broke off at the angry motion of his hand. He gulped at the wine she had poured for him. It had never happened to him before, that he was unable to accomplish his desire. He fastened up his clothing, hauled Libby to her feet and propelled her out of the door before him. He had to see Kryštof, but it was too late tonight. Tomorrow then. He would see him tomorrow, and he felt his belly clench with desire, his lust, so stubbornly flaccid minutes before, rising traitorously at the thought of the man.
Chapter 9
I stirred as the trance released me, then sat bolt upright; I was not alone, and it was not a servant with me. Hal sat on the foot of the bed, leaning back against the curtain-padded post.
“How did you get in here?” I snapped. No one was supposed to be allowed into my room while I was helpless, no one. Hal shrugged.
“Your servants asked me to wait downstairs, but I wearied of it. It was not long ere they were all occupied and ceased to notice me. Do you always sleep so?” he added, with a searching look.
“What do you mean?” I asked, cursing the tremor in my voice.
“As if you were dead, or dead drunk, or drugged senseless. It is a wonder that you have not had your throat cut, except for—” he indicated the large wolf resting by the fire, watching our every move through slitted eyes. “He was here when I came in. What sort of dogs are they? I cannot recall seeing any like them before.”
“Sybrian alaunts,” I answered promptly. “First cousins to wolves,” I added truthfully as the beast rose, grinned at us, and padded from the room. I stretched and rolled out of bed as Jehan appeared a few minutes later carrying large water cans to fill the linen-lined tub. “Will you wait downstairs? I will be there presently.” Southampton shook his head.
“I would rather watch,” he said thickly, his gaze roaming my naked and shameless body, and I realized that he had been drinking. I crossed to the tub, tossing a smile back over my shoulder.
“You could join me, if you like. There’s room enough, if we are very—friendly.” He shook his head, but stripped off his doublet and shirt, and came to trail his hand in the hot scented water. As I made to step into the tub he stopped me, his trembling hands catching at my arms, a mute look of entreaty in his eyes. I nodded, and allowed myself to be drawn back to the bed.
Chapter 10
Hal rested his head on his lover’s chest in an ambiguous state between vexation and hazy contentment, then raised it to gaze on the quiescent man beside him. The split on that full lower lip had broken open again with the ferocity of Hal’s onslaught, and that explained the odd taste in his mouth, he decided, rich and almost sweet, but with an underlying, unmistakable bitterness. He bent his head and licked the forming blood-drop, savoring the odd flavor once more. It was difficult to tear his eyes from that snowy skin; even the fading bruises that defaced it seemed beautiful. He had always shunned deformity, sickened by the scars that are shown as marks of valor, but now he wanted to hold that maimed face close, to kiss the blemished eyelid, and every purpled bruise. Robin owes me twenty nobles, he thought giddily, recalling the callous bet that the eye-patch was an affectation, which they had made when Essex had returned from one of his country sulks to find the insolent foreign prince usurping his place.
Hal’s lips brushed the scar, and Kit reached a lazy hand to tangle in those soft auburn curls, pulling the willing Hal into another deep kiss before releasing him and sitting up. As if summoned, Jehan appeared to scoop some of the tepid water from the bath, replacing it with boiling water from the can he carried, before leaving as silently as he had entered. There truly was not room enough for two in that tub, however friendly they might be, but Hal discovered what great pleasure it could be to stand thigh deep in hot water while your lover washed you, and then the possibly even greater pleasure of returning the attention.
Northumberland stood back and studied the new form of his old friend. Not bad, he decided. The cast-off clothing had been refitted into a quite passable wardrobe for an obscure scholar, and having his housemaids do the work had saved considerable expense. He spared a brief damning thought for Eden Bowen and her brothers. She had been truly gifted with her needle, and being beholden, worked for their keep in lieu of the wages her skill might otherwise have commanded. He brushed the distractions aside and returned to the examination of his guest. The patchy, moth-eaten beard had been shaved, the hair brushed and trimmed into tolerable order, and a cobbler had been called into make several pairs of specially fitted boots and shoes to accommodate the clubfoot. That had been the most galling expense, and served to add to the irrational grudge Percy nursed against Marlowe, a cobbler’s son. He nodded, satisfied. He would take the man with him to the Twelfth Night Masque at court.
One of the maids squeaked and scurried from the room, propelled by a vicious pinch from Montague, who had discovered certain compensations in the conformation of his new body. He had berated the earl for making him a cripple, brushing aside the explanation that, apart from the consideration that the beggar would never be missed, the very fact that he was a cripple made the spell more likely to succeed under the auspices of sympathetic magic, since Montague himself had been abnormally formed. A few days after the rite, stroking himself in the bath, a look of incredulous delight had spread over the ugly face as the body’s natural endowment revealed itself in all its outsized prominence. It had stopped the complaints from the restored man, but started a round of new ones from the servants, as Montague ploughed his way through the staff, sometimes by seduction, and sometimes by rape. If his knowledge was not so damned important he would turn him back out on the highway, Percy fumed, thinking of the money it was costing to outfit and keep the man, and to pay off the servants. He sighed, and turned to the matter of the Masque.
It was to be a black and white affair, but apart from color, there would be no restrictions on the costumes. Percy had met the night before with Essex, who had a wild scheme for using the masque to regain favor at court. The cause of Robin’s disgrace was keeping himself well to the shadows since the moonlight hunt, and short of a royal summons, would probably not appear. Not for the fear of Essex, as that vain fool thought, but for the fear of Robert Cecil. And rightly so, Percy smiled to himself, the crooked little man having been foremost among the authors of Marlowe’s murder.
Since the vampire’s rescue, Percy had been watching carefully for any changes in himself, any indication that the blood exchange had taken its effect, but aside from a tendency to headaches and an aversion to the strong sunlight that caused them, he had noticed nothing. Well, perhaps a predisposition to irritability, but that was all. And all normal, according to Doctor Newman Sommers as the former dwarf now called himself. It would not be until he suffered his own death that the real changes would occur, and he had to make arrangements ahead of time to avoid complications after.
Percy fully expected some sort of strike by the prince calling himself Geofri, had expected it before now, and had taken steps with his old friend Ralegh to forestall him. But when he died, if—when— he rose triumphant from the grave, that was when he would be most vulnerable, that was when he would need a stratagem. Musing on the matter Percy drifted from the gallery towards his workroom, not really noticing where he was going or the cries of his libidinous companion’s latest victim.
Hal knew that the court expected him to plan the Twelfth Night costume around the oyster satin. That would be the prudent course, he smiled to himself. That outfit, with the lace and pearls removed, was already resting in the property box of the Lord Chamberlain’s players, orbits of it adorning the shareholders, more like. That was the grand gesture, the point of the whole exercise. Let Mounteagle try to top that! But the pinchpenny fool would not even discard his own shamed garment, and one could count on the sleeves forming part of Will’s own costume for the masque. Ah well, you take your pleasures as they occur, he thought, and frowned.
He had avoided Libby since his failure that night, but it was unlikely he would be able to dodge her much longer. Perhaps it was as well that Kit was resisting his teasings to attend the masque, if he was to expect an unpleasant scene with Libby, although he would give a fair price to see the prince decked out, say, as a Venetian duelist, or in the slashes and shreds of a Landsknecht. But Kit was adamant: without a direct order from the hand of the Queen, Twelfth Night would find him quietly in Chelsey.
Kit had appreciated the costume Hal modeled for him, however. It was stylishly cut of heavy silk velvet in black of the deepest dye, and slashed a hundred times
to show the sarsenet lining, a rich red color, glowing against the black like so many drops of blood. He looked like a murdered gallant, bleeding from countless wounds, and the death’s-head mask, a realistic skull, framed by his flowing locks, added the final macabre touch.
Essex was putting the finishing touches on his own costume, and drilling the serving-men in their parts. He was dressed as the sun, in cloth of gold from head to foot, and glittering with thousands of tiny spangles to catch and reflect the light. His headdress was a crown shaped of many rays like the sun itself and polished mirror-bright. His grooms were dressed in azure satin to represent the sky and wore white hats heaped with ostrich plumes to simulate clouds. They would pull him before the Queen in a chariot of gold, with cushions of azure silk. His conceit was based on the intelligence he had gathered, that Elizabeth was to be costumed as the moon, in silver and white, her maids all in black and spangled with stars. He would portray the sun coming to worship and woo the moon, to lay his shining crown at her feet. With all the court bound to black and white his gilded entrance could not fail to be a prodigy. He smiled to himself for a moment before a frown crept over his features. Hal was having but little success in his efforts to cajole the foreign prince into attending the masque. That would take some of the savor out of the evening, to be sure. Well, that plan could be implemented at a later date, but it would be beyond compare to be able to occasion the interloper’s ultimate disgrace before the entire court.
His frown deepened as the silver chiming clock on the table told an hour much later than he expected. He would have to leave immediately to reach Durham house and the meeting Ralegh had worked so hard to bring about between Robert Cecil and himself. His brother-in-law Percy would be there as well, and the snare closing around the Prince Kryštof ’s throat would begin to tighten. Essex drew on the fur-lined gloves and threw his cloak over his shoulders, striding across the courtyard to the waiting grooms and mounting the stallion with effortless grace. He wheeled his mount and vanished into the dying light of the short winter afternoon.
Perfect Shadows Page 22