Rózsa hesitated only a scant second before returning the embrace, her arms slipping around the smaller woman, her teeth instinctively pressing against the throbbing vein in the lovely neck before she forced herself back: Libby was Kit’s property.
“Rózsa,” Libby whispered, her face flaming, “I need to—I mean—”she floundered for a moment before Rózsa came to her rescue.
“Yes, that is the difficulty with the clothing. We, unlike the men, must unlace everything before using the necessary. Come, I will help you,” she added, leading her to the bed waiting in the next room. Libby sank into the sanctuary it offered, with its warmed sheets scented with lavender, the well-filled and soft feather bed, and a fleecy coverlet.
“It’s odd,” she said, “but I feel protected, safe, for the first time in, oh, months.” Rózsa unlaced the borrowed doublet, and pulled loose the points that fastened it to the trunk-hose, then reached under the bed for the jordan. As a vampire, she had no use for such an item, but her guests frequently had. While Libby relieved herself, Rózsa went to the door of the outer room and called out. A very handsome young man answered the call within minutes, and removed the used pot. Rózsa spoke quietly to him for a moment, then sent him on his way.
She returned to the bedroom, stripped to her shirt, and sat on the edge of the bed, the firelight gilding her long legs. Trembling, Libby stroked the curve of Rózsa’s small breasts through the fine linen of the shirt, then giggled nervously. She tried to control herself, clamping her mouth shut, but the sound escaped through her nose. She opened her mouth to apologize, and to her horror, she hiccuped loudly. A smile quirked the corner of Rózsa’s mouth, and Libby threw up her hands, abandoning herself to a fit of the giggles, punctuated with hiccups. Rózsa patted the shaking shoulders for a moment, then fetched a small box from the mantel. Libby’s eyes widened as Rózsa took a small pipe in the shape of a dragon from the box and began loading it with a crumbly green-brown substance. Rózsa smiled.
“Did your husband never teach you to smoke? Men are such selfish brutes, sometimes. It is quite easy,” she added, and lit the pipe with a taper from the chest by the bed. She passed the pipe to Libby, teaching her to draw in the smoke without choking, and to hold it before exhaling.
“It doesn’t smell like Hal’s pipes,” Libby ventured doubtfully, and Rózsa nodded. “That’s right. It’s hashish, a habit brought to Sybria more than a century ago by the Turk. Tobacco is a stimulant, but this will help you to relax. Here, bend forward a moment: that corset must be uncomfortable.” She deftly unlaced the rigid garment and cast it to the floor, then settled herself against the head of the bed, resting Libby’s head on her shoulder. They talked for a time, slipping into their lovemaking and out as sleekly as otters dipping in and out of water, and Rózsa was unable to resist her appetite a second time. She felt the pulsing vein beneath her teeth, and before she was aware of her act the sweet blood filled her mouth as Libby’s cries of pleasure and release filled her ears. Still mindful of Kit’s title to this beauty, she took but little, though she was loth to leave when she felt the pull of the impending dawn. At length she roused herself and gently shook her sleeping companion. Libby’s eyes were heavy, and she felt languid and enervated. Rózsa leaned over and kissed her deeply, then pulled her to her feet.
“Come, I must see you safely home,” she said softly, and helped Libby dress before swiftly donning her own clothing. The false dawn colored the east as Rózsa kissed Libby at the gates of Drury House, and left with the servant that had accompanied them.
Libby was still standing in the courtyard, leaning against the gate and watching her new friend out of sight when a rider sped past her, and she recognized the livery of the Earl of Essex. A thrill of foreboding went through her, and she slipped out of the gate and followed the messenger the short distance to Essex House, pulling her hat further down her forehead and joining the throng milling about in the earl’s courtyard. Feeling light-headed, she had fallen asleep leaning against the wall, only to be awakened by gunshots. An outcry of murder was raised, but it was only Blount, Essex’s stepfather firing wildly at Ralegh where he and Gorges sat talking in skiffs on the river, trying to defuse the situation.
Shortly after, three men arrived, with only a small retinue. She recognized Egerton, who had had the keeping of Essex after his rash return from Ireland, and also the Lord Chief Justice Popham. The third was Robin’s uncle, William Knollys. They entered the house, though their servants were made to wait outside the gate, and once more there was the cry that a plot had been uncovered against Essex and the Queen. There were shouted demands that the three be killed, led by one Gilly Mericke whom Libby had always despised for a reckless rattlepate, but cooler spirits prevailed, and the three courtiers were held hostage. Robin made ready to lead his men to the City, some horsed, but the rest ignominiously on foot, as the arrival of their enemies had taken them off guard.
Libby, not believing what was happening, shouldered a large man aside as he prepared to mount, snatching the reins and swinging herself astride into the saddle. The dispossessed man, seeing by the clothing that the usurper was a noble, swallowed his protest, and went off looking for someone of lesser rank that he could treat similarly. Libby kneed the horse and followed the others, her thoughts reeling. Was Robin mad? His brain must have softened, to think that this was going to lead anywhere but to the Tower and thence to the block. Once again the horrible image of Hal’s severed head on a pole overwhelmed her but she was jerked back as her horse stumbled, and she reined up a moment to regain her balance, marveling at the security of her seat and the ease of riding in this fashion; she would certainly keep this in mind, she thought, urging the recalcitrant nag forward.
When she caught up with them Robin was proclaiming the plot against his life, exhorting the citizenry to follow him, to protect the Queen, and to save his life. A few people gathered, but stood on shifting feet, giving each other sidelong glances before drifting away, or waving and smiling as if the desperate gamble were just another Sunday outing for the gentry. In vain Robin tried to rally them, crying that the Crown had been sold to the Spaniard, but only a few sturdy beggars and other riffraff collected, with an eye to spoils. When Hal stepped up to him, speaking quietly and gesturing to the dwindling crowd, he threw up his hands in defeat and turned away.
Libby slipped away from the others there in Fenchurch Street, making her way home, as Essex sat in the Sheriff ’s house and called for meat. She dismounted not far from the house and slapped the horse’s rump, letting it go where it would. There was a great crowd gathered about Essex house, not faraway, and she wondered apathetically how Hal and Robin planned to get back. Wearily she made her way to her chamber, ignoring the horrified squeaks of her maids, stripped off her clothing and fell into the soft bed utterly exhausted.
Chapter 29
Essex sat unmoving, his hands pressed against his aching forehead. It had been a long and wearying day, and this waiting was the worst part of it. They had arrived back at the house by boat, fighting their way through the mob in the garden, only to find that Ferdinando Gorges had freed their hostages in an effort to mitigate his part in the fiasco, and so robbed them of their last desperate hope.
“Anyone with so Spanish a name should never have been trusted in the first place,” Almsbury snarled, although he knew well that the man, a kinsman to Ralegh, was as English as any there. “We should leave for France, now, tonight!” he added, mopping his dripping brow with shaking hands.
“Better Ireland,” Southampton laughed at him, “although I do not allow for a minute that we would get as far as Windsor, even supposing we escaped the grounds. You fool! The time for running was while we were still free, not now. If I’m to finish earthed up like a badger anyway, I’d as lief it be without any further such strenuous pastime. They’ll have sport enough with us ere this night’s out, without our providing more. If you’ve nothing sensible to say, Roger, do go to bed, or at least hold your tongue.” Roger’s fair skin ha
d flushed furiously and he stepped towards Southampton with his hand on the hilt of his sword, but Hal had merely laughed at him again. “If you truly desire another fight you have only to wait, as the Queen’s guard will be along presently to fetch us all to the Tower,” he told the younger man, who made no answer, but turned his back on the company. Blount had been taken at the Ludgate, charging the guards withdrawn sword when they had found their way blocked. They had been fired upon and Robin had come close to being hit. His page, Henry Tracy, had died at his feet.
Mericke kept up a steady droning litany of blame, his own name conspicuous in its absence, until Robin screamed at them to take themselves away. He burnt every scrap of his correspondence.
As they awaited developments in the long evening, Hal lounged in a chair by the fireplace, cracking nuts and throwing the shells into the blaze. “Will you stop that infernal noise?” Robin snapped, and Hal stared at him for a second before shrugging and tossing the handful of nuts, meats and all, into the fire. “I do not understand how you can eat anything, anyway,” Essex added petulantly, rubbing the heel of his hand across his disordered hair. His doublet was unfastened, his ruff hung limply askew.
“I plan to eat as long as I have a mouth to put meat into, and as long as my gullet is still attached to my belly,” Hal retorted. He looked as fresh as he had that morning, save for a few mud stains on his boots and hose, and a large splotch of dried blood on his collar, from the nose of a man who had laid hands on him during their scramble from the water stairs at the bottom of the garden to the house. There was a feverish light in his eyes, and something about his contained stillness was more terrible than frenzy. Robin recalled with a start just where he had seen such restraint before, the night when he had held his naked blade to Prince Kryštof ’s throat. Even though he had drawn blood the man had stood just as perfectly still and as seemingly unconcerned. He realized, belatedly, what exactly Hal had said.
“She will have us killed,” he whispered, as what little color he had left drained from his face, leaving it haggard and ashen. Hal snorted.
“I really do not suppose that she will be content to slap your wrist and forgive you this time, Robin. The crown is the only thing that she holds sacred, which makes this day’s work not merely treason, but sacrilege,” he broke off as the footman brought word that their captors desired some speech with them. “I’ll go,” Hal said, rising from the chair as vigorously as if he had not just spent a day of terror following a sleepless night. He turned back as Robin caught his arm.
“Why did you come with me?” Rob’s voice was a cracked whisper.
Hal grinned mirthlessly. “Oddly enough, I believed in you,” he said. “I must have been moon-mad.” He made his way to the roof of the house, looking down at the sea of gloating faces below. A perverse recklessness seized him and he called out for a safe passage to see the Queen, and for hostages against their safe return, and was taken aback by the scoffing reply. The crowd parted to show him the ordnance that had been brought up and aimed at the house. It was a house and no fortress; it would not take much time for cannon to bring it down about their ears. Hal felt a moment of panic then, trying to remember if Libby were here or at home, and called the attackers craven, to threaten war upon a house sheltering women. Let the women go, he promised, and they would have war enough to content them. “We are every one of us fully resolved to lose our lives fighting,” Hal taunted, as Robin joined him to echo Hal’s sentiments, and denounce their enemies. Eventually it was agreed that the women should all be allowed to leave the premises, and that accomplished, the rebels withdrew to discuss their alternatives. Robin and Hal, backed by old Lord Sandys, who felt that he had nothing to lose, urged defiance unto the death.
“Better to die as men with sword in hand, than crawl to Cecil, and meet death on a scaffold,” Sandys told them. “There is no honor in an axe.” Almsbury paled at the cold certainty of violent death facing them, and urged them to surrender, almost frantic with fear: he had seen the cannon. Other voices added their fears to Almsbury’s, wearing down Robin’s resolve, and submerging his martial ardor in a morass of self-doubt and depression.
One veteran among them, Owen Salisbury, reading the earl’s intent, spun Essex around to face him. “I will not be taken, like a dog in a kennel!” he shouted, but the earl shook off his hands without appearing to notice him. Almsbury, his sweating palms leaving damp stains on the soldier’s doublet, pulled him away, ignoring the look of scorn turned on him. Without another word Salisbury doffed his steel cap and stalked to the window, throwing it wide, and jeering at the crowd below, daring one of them to shoot him. Seconds later he staggered back, his hand pressed to the side of his head, blood pouring between his fingers. “Damned fool,” he muttered, “I would that he had shot a little lower,” and then gave a little sigh as he lost consciousness. There was a matching sigh from across the room as Almsbury, fainting, crumpled into a heap on the floor. Hal eyed him with distaste as he gave orders for the care of the wounded man, and the relocation of the swooning lord.
After a time Essex returned to the roof to call out his terms for surrender, though forced eventually into agreeing to no more than the promise that the Lord Admiral should arrest them and treat them in a civil manner, that they be granted a fair and impartial trial, and that his chosen clergyman, Master Ashton be allowed to join him in prison, to requite his spiritual needs.
Hal stood beside Robin, rigid with suppressed rage and shame, then turned to follow him to the ignominious conclusion of their enterprise. He struggled to hold his temper in check when he was told to kneel before Henry Howard, the Lord Admiral, but shrugged and dropped to one knee with an insolence tantamount to a slap. A mutter of outrage swept the gathered forces, but was waved down by the Admiral. Southampton ceremoniously presented his sword to the man, and grinned to see Robin do the same, for all the world as if he were granting the admiral a signal honor. They followed the guards through the jeering crowd and out to the barge that waited to convey them to Lambeth Palace and from thence to the Tower.
Libby woke heavy-eyed to someone shaking her furiously. “Wake up, you little fool!” spat Penelope, Lady Rich, raising her hand to slap her drowsy friend, but Libby finally sat up, looking around confusedly.
“Penny? What’s wrong?”
“Everything,” Lady Rich snapped. “While you’ve been dreaming here, Robin and Hal were fighting for their very lives! They’re—”
“Hal! Is he—was he hurt? Killed?” Libby’s soft voice rose to a shriek, and she struggled with the bed clothes, flinging them aside and scooping her clothes, Hal’s clothes, from the floor. She gazed at them for a moment, then crumpled to the floor, holding his shirt to her face as she cried. She was dimly aware that Penny was still talking, but she couldn’t take in the words until her friend tore the shirt from her hands and shook her again.
“Will you listen to me, you infuriating child? They are still at Essex House. They went back there when the City betrayed them. Robin thought that the City would rally to him, when he disclosed the plots against him, but no one followed. He said that no one even seemed to hear. It must have been horrible!”
“It was,” Libby replied dully. “I was there.” Lady Rich looked at her as if she were mad, then at the men’s clothing strewn about the floor, and dropped to sit on the floor at her friend’s side.
“Oh, clever Libby!” she breathed, slipping her arms around the girl. “I wish that I had thought of that! I should have been there too!”
“No, you were right, it was horrible and there wasn’t anything I could do. I left them in Fenchurch Street; what happened later?”
“When they got to Ludgate, they found that they couldn’t pass through, so they came back by river. Robin was fired upon, and there’s a hole straight through his hat. His page and a brace of bystanders were killed! When they reached the house, they had to fight their way in, and Gorges had let the hostages go, to help the cause he said. To weasel out, I say, and it certainly t
ook the marrow out of their mad plans to use the hostages to gain an audience with the Queen. She’s been enjoying herself, too, from what I hear, wanting to join the sortie from Whitehall as if she thought they were going a-hunting. They’re all sitting around discussing their choices. Robin is declaring his intention to fight to his last breath, and Lord Sandys, the old fool, is egging him on. I suppose that they will surrender sooner or later: the Lord Admiral brought up cannon. They let me go a few minutes ago, and I came here because Hal was worried about you. If he knew that you’d been in the city with them, his hair would go stark white!”
Chapter 30
I watched wordlessly as Eden washed and dressed Richard’s corpse, her tears falling silently onto the fresh linen. She would allow no one to help her in this, not even Sylvana. The boy had drawn his last breath a few moments since, in my arms. He had felt his approaching death, and his eyes had betrayed his fear. He clung to me gratefully when I had reached out to him, then eased into an unconsciousness that had lasted less than a quarter of an hour before his breath sighed out and the tension in his muscles relaxed. He looked peacefully asleep when Eden had finished laying him out, the lines of his agony smoothed away. Only the dark smudges below his eyes and the clean bandages on his hands suggested that he had suffered. The shutters had been closed and curtained against the light, and candles burned. His sister would watch throughout the days, and I the nights until Richard arose, if arise he would. Eden collapsed into the cushioned chair that I had had placed beside the bed, her tears spilling through her fingers and her shoulders shaking with silent sobs. I leaned over her, and kissed her hair as the approaching dawn drove me to seek my rest. I heard Rózsa in the next room as the trance claimed me. Word was waiting for me when I woke the next evening: Essex had fought his rebellion, and lost.
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