The Huntress

by Susan Carroll

  The queen’s ministers had been prepared to immediately drag Meg from Elizabeth’s presence. Her courtiers had begged the queen to keep a safe distance until it could be determined if Meg were merely mad or something far more sinister.

  The queen had imperiously ignored them all. Even commanding her maids of honor to leave her, Elizabeth had closeted herself alone with Meg.

  Settling herself in a cushioned chair opposite, the queen studied Meg as curiously as Meg regarded her. Folding her elegant slender hands in her lap, Elizabeth abandoned the more formal tone she had employed in the Presence Chamber.

  “Well, Mistress Silver Rose,” she said. “It has been a long time since I received a magus at my court. Not since my unfortunate friend Dr. Dee was accused of sorcery and obliged to flee abroad. He was a most gifted mathematician and astrologer. One of the services he performed for me was determining the most auspicious day for my coronation.”

  “He chose well, Your Grace,” Meg replied timidly. “Your reign has been a great success thus far.”

  “Humph, I see you know how to flatter as well as my courtiers.”

  “Oh, no! I am not always as honest as I would wish to be. But I would never lie to a queen.”

  “Why not? Everyone else does,” Elizabeth said wryly. “All might have gone well with Dr. Dee if he had limited himself to astrology. But he is believed to have delved into necromancy, attempting to communicate with spirits and demons from the great beyond. Have you ever succumbed to such temptation?”

  “Not yet.”

  Meg’s frankness surprised a bark of laughter from the queen. “You strike me as being rather young to claim to be such a powerful sorceress. So tell me, where have you gained all your knowledge?”

  Meg reluctantly told her, opening herself up as she seldom had to anyone, not even Cat. She told the queen all she had learned from the Book of Shadows, her days in France, the attempted uprising orchestrated by her mother.

  The queen listened in fascination.

  She exclaimed, “Your mother actually thought to make you the queen of France?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. But I never wanted to be.”

  “Such a wise child,” Elizabeth said. “To be a queen and wear a crown is more glorious to them who see it than it is a pleasure to them who bear it.”

  “Everyone believes my mother was evil and perhaps she was. She was a witch. She would have torn an entire kingdom apart.”

  “Mine did,” the queen said, so softly Meg scarce heard her.

  Elizabeth was swift to turn the subject. “So you have come here to surrender yourself to save Lady Danvers. How very brave of you.”

  “I don’t feel very brave at all,” Meg confessed. “But it seems the only honorable thing to do. I pray that you will release her now that you know the truth.”

  Elizabeth slowly shook her head. “Lady Danvers may be innocent of witchcraft, but there seems little doubt her ladyship conspired with this Father Ballard in a plot against my life.”

  “No, Lady Danvers is loyal to you. I am sure of it. When I looked inside her purse, she carried with her two treasures. One was her ave beads. The other was this.” Meg delved inside her own purse to produce the small scrap of blue carpet.

  “This was part of—”

  “I know what that is. A segment of my coronation carpet.” Elizabeth took the scrap from Meg. She fingered it for a moment, her eyes misting with memories while Meg continued to plead for Jane Danvers.

  “Her ladyship is a devout Catholic, but she is your true subject. She may be disappointed that you were not able to do more to protect the Catholics in your realm, but she would never seek to harm Your Grace.”

  The queen returned the cloth to Meg. “How can you be so sure of that?”

  “Because I did more than look in her purse. I—I looked into her mind.”

  “You can read minds?” Elizabeth asked incredulously.

  “It is one of the first things I learned as a child from my first nurse, Mistress Waters. I am quite skilled at reading eyes. Usually.” Meg flinched, remembering Sander.

  “Can you read mine?” the queen challenged.

  Meg felt that she hardly dared. But when the queen persisted, Meg peered into Elizabeth’s eyes.

  She frowned. It was not easy penetrating the queen’s piercing gaze. Elizabeth’s mind was like a labyrinth of chambers, rooms laden down with the thoughts, hopes, and dreams of an entire country. It was as though the real Elizabeth was lost somewhere down those twisting corridors.

  Meg’s brow furrowed as she delved deeper until at last she found the woman behind the queen. She shivered, overwhelmed by the suppressed emotions that poured into her.

  “Oh! You—you are so strong and brave like my friend, Cat. But you are tired, and worn down as well. All you want is peace and neither your councillors nor your enemies will allow you to have it. You fear that soon you will be forced to take harsh, even cruel measures against—against your own cousin.”

  The queen drew back, looking startled. “You begin to convince me, Mistress Margaret. You are a witch.”

  “I am sorry, Your Grace.” Meg faltered. “If I was too bold—”

  “No, I asked you to do it.” Elizabeth appeared unnerved, but intrigued as well. “Is that the full measure of your sorcery or can you do other things as well? Can you divine the future?”

  “I have attempted to use a scrying ball, but—”

  “Show me,” the queen interrupted eagerly. Before Meg could protest, Elizabeth whisked over to her writing cabinet and produced a small glass globe.

  But when she attempted to hand the scrying ball to Meg, Meg whipped her hands behind her back.

  “Oh, n-no, Your Grace. I have never had much success in foretelling the future.”

  “Try,” Elizabeth insisted. “At my behest, Dr. Dee often attempted to consult the ball and reveal to me my destiny. If you could accomplish this, I might be persuaded to grant your request and release Lady Danvers.”

  Meg accepted the ball reluctantly. “I am not very good at it. But I will try.”

  Not very good? She had never succeeded in using the ball before. Meg turned the globe in her hands, remembering Sander’s shameless boasts of how he had tricked people into believing he could do magic. Meg wondered if she dared do the same. But she did not believe she could deceive Elizabeth, not even to save Lady Danvers.

  She sucked in a deep breath, staring into the crystal orb, straining harder to focus than she ever had before. She imagined her eyes as curved lenses like those she had fitted into the spyglass, probing the vast reaches of the heavens, drawing the stars ever closer, closer.

  Pinpricks of light danced before eyes and then seemed to explode in an array of dizzying images, one after the other. But it was the last that caused Meg to shriek and fling the ball away from her.

  She cowered back on her stool, trembling as the queen bent to retrieve the scrying glass. She placed it on the silver-topped table and asked, “What did you see, child?”

  Nothing, Meg wanted to shriek.

  “I—I saw that you will have a long and glorious reign. Your enemies will not triumph over you. You—”

  “Don’t lie to me, girl. Tell me the truth. It was no vision of my glory that caused you to blanch and tremble as though you’d seen your mother’s ghost.”

  Cassandra’s ghost…if the queen only knew. Meg sought to blot the last terrifying vision from her mind. She thought sorrowfully of the other one she’d had, the one that pertained directly to Elizabeth, and wished she could keep it to herself. But she saw that the queen was not to be denied.

  She swallowed and then admitted, “I saw what you dread the most. A—a woman about to be executed. Not Lady Danvers. An older woman in an old castle so far from here. She had a little spaniel hidden under her skirt when she laid her head upon the block. When the executioner swung his ax, the first time, he missed and—”

  “Enough.” Elizabeth leaped up from her chair. “You need tell me no more
.”

  She strode away from Meg, her face averted as she stared out her lone window. A heavy silence fell.

  “I—I am sorry, Your Grace,” Meg said at last. “What I saw—it might not mean anything. My friend Cat always tells me the future is not written down anywhere. We make our own decisions.”

  “And sometimes those choices are forced upon us.” When Elizabeth swung back to face Meg, something had shut down in her eyes.

  It was not Elizabeth but the queen who spoke. “Well, Margaret Wolfe, you have convinced us. Lady Danvers shall be freed, but we must deliver you up to the person in our realm best suited to take charge of such a dangerous witch.”

  Meg’s heart sank. She had experienced such an inexplicably strong connection with Elizabeth, she had hoped the queen might sense it and be induced to pardon her.

  But she gave a brave nod. As she followed the queen from her apartments, Meg held her shoulders erect, trying not to quail as she wondered what sort of dread dungeon master or executioner she was about to be handed over to.

  When they entered the antechamber and Meg saw the man awaiting her, she blinked in disbelief.

  Martin le Loup had been pacing the small room like a caged wolf. He came to an abrupt halt as the queen entered with Meg trailing in her wake.

  Never had Meg received such a stern look from her father. She cringed, feeling she might have preferred the dungeon master.

  Martin sank to his knees before the queen, not giving Elizabeth a chance to speak.

  “Your Majesty, I crave your pardon for my daughter. I know naught what Margaret may have said to you, but—”

  “She has favored us with a most extraordinary tale, Monsieur le Loup.”

  Her father winced. “Meg possesses far too much imagination for her own good. The child—”

  “Is one of the most remarkable young women we have ever chanced to meet,” the queen cut in. “She has convinced us to set Lady Danvers at liberty.”

  Martin cast an anxious glance up at the queen. “And Meg herself?”

  “We have decided to release her into your custody. We would strongly advise you to convey her to this Faire Isle as soon as possible.”

  The queen added wryly, “Besides being a remarkable girl, Margaret is also one of the most unnerving we have met. Therefore we think our English climate might not prove at all suitable for, er, such a rare French rose.”

  WHITEHALL FADED IN THE DISTANCE AS THE BOATMAN PLIED his oars, the wherry gliding down the Thames. Martin wrapped his arm about Meg, holding her so tightly, she could barely breathe. She made no complaint, burrowing her face against her father’s doublet.

  “Are you angry with me, Papa?” She risked a glance up at him. “Am—am I to be punished?”

  “I must admit, when I was racing to the palace, nearly out of my wits with fear for you, I did have a fleeting thought about switches.” Martin did his best to look stern, but he finished up by pressing a fierce kiss to her brow.

  “Mon Dieu, Meggie. You have got to stop slipping away from me. Don’t you know that is my greatest fear?”

  Meg’s eyes filled with tears. “I am s-sorry, Papa. I know I have disappointed you. I have tried so hard to be all that you wanted me t-to—”

  “Hush, mon ange. No father could be prouder of his daughter. What you did, going to the queen, risking your own life to save Lady Danvers, it was the bravest thing I have ever seen anyone do.”

  Meg blinked back her tears and regarded him hopefully. “Was I as brave as Cat?”

  “I vow that you were. The pair of you women quite put me to shame.” Martin smiled. Using his thumb he whisked away a stray tear that had trickled down Meg’s cheek.

  “I am the one who should be craving your pardon, child. Your mother…” He had to swallow before he could continue.

  “I was wrong to forbid you to ever speak of her, wrong about a good many things. I despised what Cassandra did to you, trying to force you to fulfill her dreams, become the Silver Rose. But I treated you no better.”

  “Oh, no, Papa, that is not true,” Meg tried to protest but Martin stopped her.

  “I fear it is, petite. I also tried to mold your future to suit myself, transform you into an English lady.”

  “But it is a father’s right to decide his daughter’s future.”

  “Other fathers and other daughters, perhaps. But you are more remarkable than that.”

  “We are more remarkable,” Meg said solemnly, laying her palm against his bearded cheek.

  Martin caught her hand, curling her smaller fingers within his own. “My plans for you were wrong and perhaps a trifle selfish, but I swear all I wanted to do was keep you safe and happy.”

  “I am happy, Papa, as long as I am with you.”

  “For now, perhaps.” Martin’s smile was tinged with melancholy. “I know that will not always be so. I have no idea what future awaits you but I have no doubt it will be extraordinary.”

  “No doubt.” Meg tipped her chin proudly. “After all, I am the daughter of Martin le Loup.”

  As her father laughed and hugged her close, Meg gave a contented sigh, feeling safe and loved. She was almost able to forget that final image she had seen swirling in the scrying ball. A disturbing vision that had had nothing to do with Elizabeth, but a far different queen.

  Meg had seen Catherine de Medici upon her deathbed and much to her alarm, Meg had seen herself there as well, hovering over the Dark Queen, the witch blade clutched in Meg’s hand. And somewhere in the distance, she fancied she had heard Cassandra Lascelles laughing in triumph.

  Meg shivered and clung closer to her father, trying to dispel the frightening vision, remind herself what Cat had often told her.

  “Your destiny is in your own hands.”

  Meg wanted to believe that. When she returned to the house the first thing she intended to do was find her own scrying ball and shatter it into a thousand pieces.

  Epilogue

  THE NIGHT WAS COLD, THE GROUND HARD WITH FROST, BUT that did not stop the women of Faire Isle from gathering in vigil outside of Belle Haven. They lit candles and prayed for the safe deliverance of the Lady of Faire Isle.

  The wee girl whose arrival had been so breathlessly awaited was coming into the world too soon. A night and a day had already come and gone and still the Lady labored to give birth. The older wise women amongst the crowd already shook their heads and mourned. Given Ariane Deauville’s age and tragic history in childbearing, this delay could not be a good sign.

  The window of Ariane’s bedchamber was cracked open despite the chill in the air. A skilled midwife herself, Ariane had nothing but scorn for the customs of confinement that dictated a woman in labor be closeted in a gloom-ridden, stuffy chamber.

  Despite the fresh air invading the room, Ariane’s shift was soaked in sweat. As she was seized by another contraction, she gripped Cat’s hand until her knuckles turned white.

  “That’s right, milady,” Cat crooned. “Hold on tight. You are doing just fine.”

  Just fine? Cat flinched at the inanity of her own words. Ariane looked anything but fine to her, her eyes rimmed with exhaustion, her face as white as the bed linens.

  Much as Cat loved her friend, she heartily wished one of Ariane’s sisters had arrived to support her through this ordeal. Cat felt so helpless and inadequate. There was nothing that she would not have done for her chieftain, but this was one battle she could not wage for Ariane.

  All she could do was offer Ariane her hand to clutch, try to infuse some of her own strength into the woman whose own ebbed a little more with each contraction.

  Among all the island women, Cat would have thought that some skilled midwife could be found, but no one’s knowledge rivaled Ariane’s. The Lady had insisted that she required no attendants other than Cat, her husband, and her maid.

  Justice Deauville looked as drained as Ariane, every spasm of his wife’s pain mirrored on his rough-hewn face, even as he tried to offer encouragement.

  “I
can see the crown of our daughter’s head, chérie. Just another push or two and your little girl will be in your arms.”

  Ariane sank back against the pillows, tears leaking from her eyes.

  “Oh, Justice, I—I don’t think I can.”

  Her giant of a husband looked ready to weep himself from fear and exhaustion, but he said, “Damn it, Ariane. Yes, you can. You have to. Cat, help her. Lift her up.”

  As the next contraction struck, Cat shifted her arm behind Ariane, supporting her into a sitting position. Ariane gritted her teeth, straining with the last of her will. She emitted a loud cry.

  Somewhere beneath Ariane’s shriek, another wail was heard, feeble at first, then growing lustier by the moment.

  “I have her, chérie,” Justice shouted. “I have our girl.”

  Both Cat and Ariane collapsed back against the pillows, laughing and weeping. Cat scarce paid any heed as Justice and the maid tended to cutting the cord, cleaning Ariane and the babe.

  Cat hovered over her friend. Ariane seemed so spent and Cat knew the danger to the mother often came after the rigors of labor with the onset of fever. As Cat bathed Ariane’s brow, she was heartened when Ariane opened her eyes, regarding Cat with her familiar clear gaze.

  “My babe. I want to see my babe,” she whispered.

  Cat nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat. But when she hastened over to Justice to convey Ariane’s request, Cat’s heart sank.

  She could tell from the grave expression on his face that something was terribly wrong. The babe who had cried out so lustily before had gone omniously still.

  “My lord, what is amiss?” Cat hardly dared to ask but somehow she found the courage. “Is something wrong with the child?”

  Justice nodded, numbly. “The babe. The child Ariane risked her life for—and she will never have another.”

  Peeling back the blanket, he displayed the babe to Cat. She caught her breath.

  Justice cast a stricken look. “What am I to tell Ariane?”

  “The truth.” Cat hunched her shoulders in a helpless gesture. “You can hardly conceal it from her.”