Chapter 11
I watched for Hal until close to midnight, then made my way to the small study to make a further attempt at my books. I pushed the door open, stopping abruptly at the muffled sobs I heard within, then softly stepped into the room. “Richard? What is wrong?” I asked softly. The sobs cut off and the boy held his breath. He was face down on the high-backed settle near the fire. I crossed the room to lay a hand on his shoulder. It was immediately shaken off, but the lad would not face me. A gasping sob shook the slender frame, and he sat up and glared at me through his tears.
“Will you leave me alone?” he demanded.
“Possibly, when I know what troubles you so,” I replied evenly. Richard looked rebellious for a moment, then his face twisted with his grief, the tears spilling from his swollen eyes, and the words poured from him.
“It is my fault that Eve died,” he started, cutting off my protest with an abrupt wave. “Gwennan was our mother. Lord Morgan ap Owain was my father, and he acknowledged me his bastard. Bran, Gwennan’s man, never made a difference between his treatment of me and his own children, but treated me as his own son. They were proud of my scholarship and it was planned that I should go to University when I was fourteen. In the meantime Lord Morgan arranged for my schooling and later brought me to live in his house. But ap Owain had no other children, and a cousin, Lord David, considered himself the heir, but feared that I would be named instead. That’s legal under Welsh law. He visited Lord Morgan, and they parted with sharp words.
“Then I took the smallpox. My brother and sisters successfully avoided the contagion; indeed, mine was the only case, and none could fathom where I caught it, though I cannot but help to think that David was behind it, somehow. Gwennan came to the manor and nursed me day and night, hanging red cloth at the windows to keep my skin from scarring, and just wearing herself out. I recovered, and she took the disease and died of it.” The voice was distant and bleak.
“Bran lost the will to live and grieved himself to death before the month was out. Then Lord Morgan died as the result of a fall he took hunting, and Lord David took the land, and accused me of contriving the deaths of both my natural and my foster father. We fled that night, and eventually reached Northumberland, where the earl took us in. If it were not for me, they would not have had to leave their home, and Eve would be alive.” He stared down at his hands, wet with his falling tears.
“Or she may have been dead at the hands of her new lord,” I said dryly. “Or they could have watched you hang, and then they could be wallowing in guilt instead of you.” The tear-stained face turned to me in disbelief, and I continued. “They made the choice to flee with you, after all. If-onlys and might-have-beens profit you nothing, Richard. Life is what it is, and we must make the best of it.”
“You can say that? Surviving foully as you do on the stolen blood of others?” His face was a mask of disgust. “What sort of creature are you, that you would choose to continue your life at such cost? How can you bear it?” He drew back sharply at the anger on my face, the snarl on my lips.
“I could show you what I am, Richard, and make you like it, make you crave it above all else, if I so chose. I bid you remember that.” I caught the flinching boy’s wrists in my hands and drew him nearer, his terrified eyes locked on the sharp teeth drawing ever closer until his breath brushed my pale lips. The craving was on me then, I realized. I wanted to make good my threat, to sink my aching teeth into this beautiful boy’s throat, to feel his sweet blood slide down my own, to fill his body with a pleasure he had never known before, one impossible to match in any other way. Swiftly I shoved him away, regaining my will against the desire that had come so close to overwhelming me. “You must not bait me, Richard,” I said wearily. “I vow that you and your family are in no danger from me. However, if you wish, I will try to find you places elsewhere. But for now, go and take your rest.” Richard stood somewhat shakily and made for the door, stopping at the threshold to cast a speculative glance at me as I bent over the ledgers, apparently oblivious.
I watched him go, aware of the sudden desire that had risen in him, warring with a fear that was itself seductive. Perhaps Tom would place the Bowens in his household, though I would be loth to lose them, especially Richard. I needed a secretary, as the meaningless scribbles in the ledgers clearly told me, and when the boy was older he would make an excellent steward. But I needed a man that I could trust, and how could I trust someone whom by my very nature I disgusted? I pushed myself away from the table and left the room. I would walk along the river to clear my head.
Chapter 12
It was still and peaceful by the river, shrouded in the snow that had been falling lightly for most of the day. The water was a black line, thick as tar between the white banks, its chatter hushed in the cold. I leaned against the orchard wall, watching the ragged clouds tear and drift away, to reveal the hard glitter of the stars. The waning quarter moon was still hidden in the horizon glow: it would be new for Twelfth Night. I had toyed with the idea of accompanying Hal to the masque but had decided against. It would be better to stay away, as Hal had let slip that Percy and Essex had been closeted together with Cecil. Three men who hated me, and Essex asking eagerly and often of Hal if I had been yet persuaded to join their revels—if that did not bode some new plot against me I was Pope Joan. My musings were interrupted by a sound behind me, not close, but not too far. A woman was laughing softly, and I thought that I caught the sound of soft footfalls, as if she were dancing in the snow. I made my way to the wild woodlot beyond the orchard.
She was there, dressed in a flowing cloak, and dancing in a glade carpeted with drifted snow. She paused at the sight of me, poised as a fawn for flight, but then she ran towards me. She stopped a few feet away and did me a reverent courtesy. Her shadowy hair would be the color of honey in the sunlight, I thought, and her black eyes would probably be brown. She was delicately formed, her bones small and elegant. She dropped to her knees before me, holding out her slender hands. “My Lord! I have come to write my name in your book!” Her voice was high and sweet, like the birdsong that I had almost forgotten in my long exile from the sun.
“Do you know me?” I asked gently.
“Oh yes! You are the Black Man of the wood! Your servant with the cloven hoof said that you would meet me here, and here you are! I will sign my name in your book, and you will give me powers and spells. You are my only Lord and Sovereign, and I will do whatever unspeakable things you ask of me, only let me write my name in your book!” She grasped at my cloak, her eyes lit with the glow of unreason. She was mad.
“You have mistaken me, lady,” I said mildly, trying to disentangle her fingers from my clothing, but she held tighter, kissing the cloth. I raised her, not entirely gently. She stepped back and drew a pin from her cloak. She stabbed it repeatedly into her finger until the blood flowed freely, then made an elaborate show of signing an imagined book with her blood, the fallen drops black against the trampled snow. She stepped away then, arched her head back, and flung her cloak from her, to stand before me naked in the dim snow-light. Her fingers strayed to her ripe breasts for a moment then she threw herself down on the fallen cloak, spreading her legs and writhing lewdly.
“Take me, my Lord, take me now,” she moaned, foam starting to fleck her lips as she fondled herself. I first drew back in disgust from the madwoman, then stepped forward, dodging her attempts to ensnare me. As she sat up to reach for me I clipped her neatly behind the ear with the edge of my hand, and she crumpled. I wrapped her in her cloak and bore her back to the kitchen, where I placed her before the fire. I would have to inform Sylvana of our unwelcome guest, and set someone to finding out where she belonged.
I softly drew the door to the office open, and saw that Sylvana had slumped into sleep before the fire, still in her human shape, but curled up with an animal grace. Richard had crossed to the stable even as I had left the house, and the lights in Rhys’s quarters showed that they were yet awake. Well, they had muc
h to speak of, and I would not disturb them. I had fetched my own drink before now; the memory was abruptly clear, and I grinned wryly at the thought. It had become a game, slipping down to my landlady’s cellar and back into my lodging without being seen. She had said nothing, but I suspected the subsequent increase in my rent went to cover my depredations. I went to the cellar after wine, considering what I ought to do about the madwoman. I settled on binding her securely, but not cruelly, with silken scarves before returning to my office and the refractory ledgers. At least when the wench awoke she would be unable to either hurt herself or run away.
After a time Sylvana stretched and yawned, sitting up and smiling a little sheepishly. I told her of the problem I had left before the kitchen fire, and she scurried off, only to return a few seconds later, a disconcerted frown on her face. Wordlessly, I arose and followed her. There was no one in the kitchen but ourselves, and the door stood open.
The madwoman had not freed herself, or if she had, she had taken her bonds with her, but it was my thought that someone had taken her. I went out to the stable, and found Rhys face down in the straw, so deeply asleep that he could not be awakened. Richard, in a like case, had fallen across the small hearth in Rhys’s cottage at the back of the stable. It was well for him that his doublet was of sturdy English wool, for his right arm was so close to the tiny fire that his sleeve was smoldering. I pulled him away from the fire, dowsing the smoking cloth with a flagon of ale from the table. It had a peculiar odor, which I suspected explained the unnatural sleepiness of my household. I laid Richard on Rhys’s bed and returned to the kitchen where Sylvana had fallen asleep again as she stood leaning against the wall, but she woke immediately upon my return. I told her of my discoveries and we went back to the house to find Jehan and Sylvie, sprawled together in the serving-man’s big bed under the eaves; both drugged asleep. From there I went back into the cellar, to investigate the adulterated tun of ale. It was almost empty, and careful scrutiny revealed that the slats in the top had been tampered with. I went back upstairs, but look as I might, I could find nothing missing but my disagreeable guest. The late winter dawn was bleaching the eastern sky when I threw myself across my bed and let the day-trance overtake me.
Chapter 13
Percy smiled to himself, watching Sommers and the groom cross the quad of the old Abbey to the solar, a writhing bundle athwart the groom’s shoulders. He could see Sommer’s grin despite the dismal morning light; it had gone well, then. Essex waited behind him, toasting the chill of the morning ride out of his fingers. He turned to his guest, excusing himself. He would have the wench brought here; it would never do to have his brother-in-law see the interior of his study. “I think that you had better be seated, Robert,” Percy said softly upon his return a few minutes later. Essex looked puzzled, but complied, choosing a settle not far from the meager fire. After one or two false starts Northumberland cleared his throat, saying abruptly “This is not easy for me to say.”
“Obviously,” Essex retorted sourly. He did not much care for his sister Dorothy’s miserly husband, and resented needing his help in the matter of their common enemy, the foreign prince. Before replying Percy narrowed his eyes until they looked like the chewed pits of olives.
“It seems that we have misjudged our foe. He is a greater danger, a greater evil, than we had imagined,” he intoned, never taking those murky eyes from his guest. “Do you remember meeting my little cousin Margaret here last month?” he added in an apparent change of subject. Essex nodded, somewhat confused, and Percy clapped his hands sharply. The door swung open, and a groom deposited a large bundle before the fire, and left the room as Newman Sommers entered. Essex stiffened. He despised the scholar; something about him prickled the hairs on the back of his neck, raising his hackles as if he were a hound. Then the bundle moved, claiming his attention.
It was Margaret, but not the quiet and demure girl that Robin remembered. Her face was streaked with mud, her hair full of twigs and leaves, but her eyes had undergone the greatest change. They were mad and calculating at the same time. As she sat up the cloak fell from her naked shoulders, but instead of being embarrassed, she smiled, leaning towards Robin and licking her lips, raising her hands, her bound hands, he realized with a start, up to caress her nipples.
“God’s Teeth,” he choked out through his rising gorge. “What has happened to her?” Sommers squatted next to her, nearly unbalanced by his crippled foot and leg. Margaret grasped his hand, placing it on her breast and whimpered when he removed it.
“Now, Maudie, you must tell us what has happened to you,” he spoke coaxingly, as to a child. She gazed uncomprehending for a moment, then dropped her eyes to the fire. When she looked up she was smiling.
“I met him,” she whispered. “I met the Black Man in the forest. I signed his book. Oh, he was beautiful, though he had but one eye. Did God put his other eye out when He cast my Lord from heaven?”
“Perhaps. It was the one-eyed lord that tied you up?” Sommers hinted.
“Oh yes. He tied me up, and he . . . we did such things! We did such unspeakable things. I signed his book. I signed it in my blood.” She held up a finger, stained and swollen.
“Did he tie you with these scarves?” the ugly man persisted, loosening the bonds that held the girl’s wrists. She nodded dreamily, and he held the scarf out to Essex. He recognized it: a length of black samite that her majesty had given to the prince at his return to court after his “illness”. Her hands free, Margaret made short work of the scarf binding her feet, and when she was free she threw herself upon Essex, driving her tongue deep into his mouth, and thrusting her small hands into his clothing in search of his manhood. He pushed her away in disgust, back to Sommers, who caught her and held her naked body against his side, letting her kiss and maul him.
“Take her away,” Northumberland snapped, and Sommers led her from the room, his fingers as busy with her as hers were with him. “You see? This Kryštof, if he is a prince, then he is a Prince of Hell, a vile conjurer, using his powers to corrupt the innocent, and enlist them into the legions of Satan. He must be denounced, and destroyed. You do agree?” Essex nodded, feeling numb and sick. Something about the scene niggled at him, something that he could not quite place. Grimly he rose and strode from the room, without a word. He wanted out of that house, away from Percy and especially Sommers, whom he could hear, even through the closed door, grunting out his foul lust on that hapless young woman.
Ralegh sat in the window seat of his study, smoking and watching the blue of the winter sky pale into the silver that presaged snow. There was a disturbance in the courtyard, and Bess was at the chamber door even as he leaned forward to look. “It is my lord Essex,” she breathed, and indeed he could make out Essex dismounting. Sir Walter opened the casement to lean into the biting air. “Come up, my lord!” he bellowed, his words seeming to hang in the still air even as his breath did. Essex looked up and waved, then disappeared under the arch of the door.
Ralegh turned to his wife, bidding her to meet his guest, and to bespeak the servants for hot drink and more fuel for the fire. She smiled uncertainly at him for a moment, then went without a word. She grew more beautiful by the day, he reflected, and every day he loved her the more, never regretting an atom of the trouble their love had brought him at the hands of his jealous queen. He looked up from his thoughts to find Essex standing in the doorway.
Minutes later they were seated, Essex with his long legs stretched out to thaw his toes comfortably in the borrowed slippers while his damp boots dried. He fingered the pot-bellied pewter cup he held, grateful for the warmth of the mulled cider and mead that it held, but more than a little contemptuous of his host. He would never have served a guest, especially a rival, with such homely fare, he mused. But Ralegh did just as he pleased, and it seemed that what pleased him was a gossip cup and Banbury cake toasted at the fire. Sir Walter watched his guest begin to relax, and when the cake was finished he refilled the cups from the flagon on the he
arth and offered a pipe, then settled back to listen, first with polite interest then growing horror as Essex related his tale.
“I realized as I rode from that scene of abomination what had struck me amiss with that account, Sir Walter. The blood was still running from that mangled fingertip, yet Percy spoke as if the lass had been seduced or abducted weeks ago. Hal has been much in the company of the prince, and has not spoken of anything unholy, or even untoward in the man, yet someone corrupted that young woman, and if not he, then who? I would see Kryštof brought low, it is true, but not—not like that. It is monstrous! Monstrous!
“I would have you speak to him, to warn him. You have toiled mightily these months past to bring Cecil and I into accord, and I would not be in your debt. I know that this man is a friend of yours, and I fear that Cecil will not be too particular in the evidence he sifts,” Essex added, rising from his seat. “I will go now to Hal, and warn him. And, Sir Walter, there is something amiss with that companion of Harry’s. He is like some fell, poisonous beast, and I shuddered when he touched that wench, defiled and mad as she was,” he finished, stamping his feet into his boots to emphasize his words. He turned on the threshold, with the charming smile that had won him so much and yet would cost him so dearly. “There was a time, Ralegh, when I thought that we could be friends. I am sometimes sorry that it was not to be.” He was gone before Ralegh, remembering those desperate hours at Cadiz, could reply. Sir Walter looked at the sky, and, judging that the snow would hold off for a few hours, called for his horse to be saddled. He would not ride to Chelsey, but to visit Harry Percy.
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