by Lucy Weston
Sovereign Power. Eternal Pleasure.
The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer
“A spellbinding book, at once lush and intensely compelling … passionately crafted. … I found The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer to be one among that rare breed of fictional works: the lavish page turner—a book of elegant prose that you can’t put down.”
—Kresley Cole, #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Immortals After Dark series
“Get ready to know a shocking new side of the great Elizabeth I. Clever and surprising, Weston’s tale of this regal young queen sparkles with intrigue, unfolding in graceful layers to reveal a previously hidden history of timeless, supernatural love and well-buried secrets.”
—Shana Abé, New York Times bestselling author of the Drákon series
“A fascinating blend of paranormal and historical, starring Elizabeth Tudor as a sixteenth-century kick-ass heroine—what a great concept!”
—Kate Emerson, award-winning author of the Secrets of the Tudor Court series
“Breathtaking! Rich with passion and otherworldly intrigue, a bold new account of Elizabeth Tudor’s vigilance and daring.”
—Sherri Browning Erwin, author of Jane Slayre
This title is also available as an eBook
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Lucy Weston
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ISBN 978-1-4391-9033-3
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Acknowledgments
My deepest appreciation to all those who have steadfastly assisted me in my efforts to bring The Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer to the attention of the public. A sensible regard for their safety prevents me from thanking each by name but I trust that they know who they are. I also wish to thank Mister Bram Stoker—posthumously, of course—for setting me on a path that, though not of my own choosing, is at last of my own making.
The
SECRET HISTORY
of
Elizabeth Tudor,
Vampire Slayer
Midnight, 15 January 1559
In the moonlight, the scaffold appears to be made of bleached bones from one of the leviathans that wash up on our shores from time to time to general alarm, for what godly world encompasses such creatures? The platform is raised high above the crowd of gray shadows gathered around its base. A woman climbs slowly, carrying the weight of her anguish and fear. She holds her hands clutched in front of her, as though in prayer. Stepping out onto the platform, she steps into the beast’s gaping maw and is devoured.
Sometimes the woman in my vision is my mother; other times she is I.
For most of my youth, I have expected to die on that spectral scaffold, sacrificed to the same great beast that took my mother. That I have not met such a fate by this, my twenty-fifth year, is no doubt due to the mercy of Almighty God, although Doctor Dee credits my survival to the alignment of the stars at the moment of my birth, which suggests that my life rests on a cosmic whim.
However I came to be, I am not male. For that sin—whether hers or mine—Anne Boleyn died. My mother went to her crowning with me in her belly, through sullen crowds that called her a witch and conjured her death. I have done somewhat better. This day, the gray shadows have spewed into the streets of London, where, imbued with the ruddy cheer of winter under a chill blue sky, they have hailed me with such vigor that, for a little time, I have let myself bask in the false glow of their approbation. Still I do not forget.
My ladies have no notion of what I see as I sit gazing out onto the Tower Green, seemingly glad to rest in the aftermath of the tumultuous welcome into my capital. They see only the empty, moon-washed lawn agleam with winter frost behind the cheery, reflected glow of the fire that warms my bedchamber. Pretty girls mostly of my own age, they bustle about under the watchful eye of Kat Ashley—my former nurse and as close to a mother as I have ever known—folding my clothes, chatting among themselves, excited for the coming day.
As am I. Truly, I look forward to the moment when the holy oil will touch my brow and breast, and I will be transformed into the anointed of God, chosen by Him to rule over my father’s kingdom. The irony does not escape me. Child of the despised queen whose head had to be cut off to save the king’s manhood, I have Henry’s red hair and his name. Since Mary’s autumn death, I have his throne. Somewhere, I like to think that my mother is laughing.
It is dark but clear, with moon shadows sharpening all the angles of the ancient White Tower—the Conqueror’s pride—which looms over the fortress added onto by so many monarchs down through the centuries. Nothing moves on the river beyond, save for the fast-running tide. Peering through the leaded glass of the royal apartments set snug against the inner curtain wall, I feel a surge of affection for ancient London. I will have to be as a Gypsy rope walker in the years to come to have any hope of balancing between the city’s puffed-up merchants and rapacious barons, its sullen Catholics and fire-breathing Reformers, all amid the babble that rises from its docks and spills over into ever-rancorous Parliament. But I am good at balancing. I was born with a light step and an instinct for how and when to stretch out my arms to embrace what I need most. Nothing so surely marks me as a changeling, for neither of my parents possessed that skill.
In my bed gown and cap, wrapped in a lace-edged wool shawl against the dampness that penetrates the old stone walls, I am ready to slip into the high, four-poster bed curtained with embroidered silk. I long to stretch out beneath the ermine blanket and dream my queenly dreams.
There is a knock at the door.
My ladies turn as one, rapt. Do they truly believe that my Robin would be so bold as to call on me in my private chambers the night before my coronation? My dearest friend and, so far as I will allow it, my secret lover, he has known from the darkest days when malign men sought to prevent me from ever becoming queen that only the utmost discretion stands between us and disaster. I cannot believe that he would put us both at risk at so crucial a moment.
But then who comes at this, the midnight, hour?
A maid opens the door. Two men stand revealed. Doctor John Dee, just past thirty years of age, is the younger, although he manages nonetheless to convey an impression of great sagacity. I met him for the first time two years ago when Robin b
rought him to my notice. The scholar and magician rightly called by the honored title of magus had risked his life to counsel me, having barely survived arrest and interrogation at the order of my sister, Mary, who feared him greatly. She had reason to do so, for it was Dee who cast the horoscope that foresaw the time of her death, an act that, had it been discovered, would have sent him to the stake. Armed with that knowledge, I was able to outlast the plotting of my enemies. They browbeat my sister to order my execution, virtually to the moment of her final breath. In the aftermath of Mary’s demise, Dee determined the most auspicious date for my coronation, now scant hours away.
The magus is tall, possessed of piercing brown eyes, with a pale beard halfway down his chest. Wisdom and gravity adorn him as much as do his scholar’s robes. Beside him, William Cecil looks smaller and of less consequence. That impression is almost comically misleading. Cecil is my closest adviser, the man I call my “Spirit” and whom I trust above all others, who in the dark years of my sister’s reign kept the light of hope alive in me. In his late thirties, already burdened by gout despite his avoidance of all excess, he is as virtuous in his private life as he is ruthless in matters of state. Both qualities make him invaluable to me.
“Majesty,” the two murmur in unison as they enter and incline their heads.
“If we might speak alone,” Cecil adds. He glances at my ladies, who hover close together like so many bright-hued canaries suddenly sensing the presence of a cat.
I dismiss them with a wave of my hand. They go, trailing backward glances of concern. Before the door closes behind them, I hear their anxious murmurs.
Only Kat remains, dear Kat, who came to me as my nurse when I was scarcely four years old and has remained at my side ever since save for those dark times when she suffered imprisonment for my sake. I have said and it is true that I received life from Anne but love from Kat. I love her in return. Virtually my first act upon learning of Mary’s death and my own ascension to the throne was to name her First Lady of the Royal Bedchamber. She takes her responsibilities seriously, sometimes too much so.
“You, too,” I say to her, but gently for she is old now, well nigh on to seventy years, and I would not hurt her for the world. All the same, she must recognize that I am no longer the lonely, frightened child she cosseted. I am a woman now and Queen.
“Majesty—,” she begins.
I cut her off with a smile. “I worry for your health, dearest, for how could I ever manage without you? Please me and go to your rest.”
She obeys but not without a frown that creases her withered-apple face and would have shriveled men less intent upon their business.
“What has happened?” I ask at once when we are alone, for something grave must have occurred to explain their presence in the dead of night.
“We come on a matter touching on the security of the realm,” Dee replies. “If Your Majesty would be so good as to accompany us …” He gestures in the direction of the door.
I am, to put it plainly, dumbfounded. The procession into London and the reception afterward for the city’s dignitaries, each vying with all the others for my notice, ran late. The coming day promises to be both glorious and fraught in the extreme. By what right does anyone lay claim not merely to my attention at such a time but that I should actually go with them for some unnamed purpose? Even such good servants as Dee and Cecil must need explain themselves.
“What matter touching on the security of the realm?” I demand. “Do not speak in riddles but state your purpose clearly.”
Cecil is accustomed to my sometimes querulous nature, Dee far less so. Both pale slightly.
“Majesty,” Cecil says. “The threat to your realm is so strange and sinister, so defying of all mortal reason, that upon the advice of good Doctor Dee, it was determined that it could only be revealed to you now.”
“The conjunction of the planets was not favorable before this hour,” the magus endeavors to explain. “But it will remain so for only a short time. You must come with us.”
Had I not known both men so well and had they not served me with such devotion through perilous times, I would have ordered them from my chamber at once. As it was, I still seriously consider doing so.
“Please, Majesty,” Dee entreats. “Time is fleeting and there is much to accomplish.”
Before I can reply, Cecil lifts the heavy fur cloak I wore earlier in the day and drapes it over my shoulders in a gesture at once protective and insistent.
“We are your most loyal servants, Majesty,” he says simply. “I would lay down my life for you and so would Doctor Dee. I beg you to find it in your heart to trust us for just a little while and I promise that all will be made clear.”
In all fairness, Cecil has earned my forbearance, as has Dee. Though I remain reluctant to engage in so odd an enterprise, I acquiesce. Wrapped in the fur cloak, I remove my silk chamber slippers and allow Cecil to help me don a pair of leather pattens. That done, I suffer to be led from my rooms and down the stone corridor to the winding steps that give out onto the Tower Green.
At once, my breath freezes in the chill air but I scarcely notice, so glorious is the sight I behold. The sky, shorn of clouds after the leaden storms of recent days, is a riot of stars. Orion hunts in the west but I have little time to contemplate him before Dee draws my attention elsewhere.
“Look there, Majesty, Jupiter rises in Aquarius as Mars does the same in Scorpio. Both augur well for your rule. As you are the lion, so shall you command the powers of war and wisdom throughout your long reign.”
“God willing it will be long,” Cecil says fervently. He is shivering already. “It may not be if Her Majesty takes a chill.”
“Then let us go on,” I say, suddenly more cheerful in the face of this strange adventure.
We turn in the direction of the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. When Mary held me captive in the Tower, where I dwelled in daily expectation of my death, I was allowed to pray only in my rooms. That suited me well enough for I had no desire to enter the place where my mother is buried, having been carried there directly from her execution mere yards away and deposited in her grave with scant ceremony.
Nor is she alone. Catherine Howard, my father’s other slain queen, lies beside her along with poor Lady Jane Grey, the brilliant child who my dear Robin’s treacherous father tried to foist on the realm, thereby bringing ruin to his own family. The Nine-Day Queen died in the same manner as my mother and Catherine Howard, whose final resting place she shares.
Dee must sense my reluctance for he touches my arm lightly and says, “Pray forgive us, Majesty, but the signs are unmistakable. Only in this place at this time can we achieve what must be done.”
Having gone so far, I tell myself that it would be cowardly to turn back. Even so, I enter the chapel slowly and stand for several moments staring down the short nave toward the altar. There, just to the left near the chapel’s north wall, is the simple flagstone slab beneath which my mother lies. Nothing else marks her presence or that of the others. Yet I know where she is all the same. Several years ago, I pestered poor Kat, who surely deserves better from me than I have ever given her, to tell me what she knew. She complied, if reluctantly. From her, I learned the details of my mother’s death and interment as recorded by eyewitnesses. I have never spoken of it with anyone else, not even Robin.
“Hurry, Majesty,” Dee says, and urges me forward.
I still do not comprehend what he and Cecil intend, yet I obey all the same. Something about the nearness of my mother’s grave draws me on. Clutching the fur robe tightly, I walk toward it, unable to take my eyes from the cold gray slab that holds her earthbound.
But that is absurd. My mother’s soul, which I privately accord to be as pure as anyone else’s, has long since flown to its reward. Nothing lies beneath the slab save her mortal remains. And yet—
“Majesty?” As though from a great distance, I hear Cecil speak. He sounds uncertain, but that cannot be right. The most trusted of my co
unselors is a man of extraordinary competency never at a loss in any situation.
Until now. I turn and see him just behind me, pale in the faint glow of the lamps kept burning in the chapel all night, some say to hold at bay the vengeful ghosts who dwell there. By contrast, Dee seems in his element, his eyes alight with excitement.
I turn my head again toward the grave. A faint but unmistakable mist rises from it, illuminated by the starlight pouring through the high windows above the altar. Scarcely aware of what I am doing, I move closer. The mist grows, expands, thickens, until I am engulfed within it. Oddly devoid of fear, I stand as though observing all from outside myself, able only to marvel at what is happening.
The silence is so profound that I can hear my own measured heartbeat. Apart from that, there is only a great hush, as though the world beyond has ceased to exist. I can no longer feel the floor beneath my feet; it is as though I have become detached, floating free of earthly strictures. The mist has a quality of warmth and softness that I would not have expected. Additionally, I imagine that I smell roses. Far in the back of my mind, a memory stirs: my mother, twirling me in her arms, in a garden filled with white and crimson blossoms.
And my father looking on, weighing us both through slitted eyes.
I breathe and with each breath the mist enters into me, becomes part of me, filling me. The barriers between what is myself and what is not begin to shimmer and grow transparent until they melt away altogether. I am the mist and it is I. Looking down the length of my body, I discover that I am shimmering as though lit from within by a bright, white light. Still, I am not afraid. My mother is there with me. I hear her speak, not in words as we know them, but in the deepest recesses of my heart.
“My daughter,” Anne says, “do not fear your duty. Embrace it that this realm may be preserved against the scourge of evil that has come upon it.”
She speaks, and my heart, so long steeled against the cruelties of the world, cries out in yearning for her. Without hesitation, I take the final steps and kneel beside my mother’s grave.
How to describe what happens next when I scarcely understand it myself? It is as though a great wall within me suddenly cracks and the light pours through it. I am blinded, and yet I see for the very first time. See my beloved kingdom unfolding beneath skies across which sun and storm alike speed in an instant. See night and day flow in quick succession as ages pass, armies clash, and fortresses rise and fall. See myself rising above my city, above my realm, a queen regnant clothed in majesty, armed with power unlike any I have ever glimpsed while all around legions of red-fanged, black-winged enemies soar across the moon.