by Lucy Weston
As was I. The time had come; I would wait no longer.
“Elizabeth,” I breathed, and sent her name as a prayer out into the night.
Night, 15 January 1559
I turn, expecting to see Robin emerging from the hidden passage, but there is no sign of him. Nonetheless, the sensation that I am not alone grows stronger, becoming impossible to ignore. Slowly, I move toward the concealed door set in the paneled wall. At the touch of a hidden lever, the door swings open on hinges that are always kept well oiled. Beyond lies only darkness. I wait, scarcely breathing, thinking to see the flicker of light heralding Robin’s approach, but there is nothing.
I resist for several minutes as the lure grows stronger. Finally, telling myself that I am merely curious, I take a lamp from a nearby table and step into the passage. At once, I am engulfed in darkness just beyond the small circle of light in which I move. The passage leads deep within the south wing of the palace. There are, so far as I know, only three entrances—one in my own rooms, another in the apartment I have arranged to be given to Robin, and a third to be found down a flight of steps, along another, older passage that may date from the time of Edward or even earlier, and finally through an iron gate concealed behind a false wall that leads out into an ancient, walled garden near the river.
It is madness to go as I do, clad only in slippers, a nightgown, and robe. Worse yet, I am without a single guard despite the constant threat to my life from innumerable sources. Never in my wildest imaginings would I have behaved in such a way. Yet I proceed along the passage, through the gate, and out into the winter garden.
I can smell the river—chill but dank, moving sluggishly at that late hour—vying with the pall of smoke hanging over the city. In honor of my coronation, and to induce my people to love me, a generous measure of wood and coal has been provided to every household. Even the poorest tenement dweller is warm that night, but not their queen. The cold ripples up from my feet, causing my muscles to clench. My breath frosts in the chill air. I shiver and, determined to cast off the madness that has seized me, turn to go back inside.
A shadow moves at the edge of the garden, shifting out of darkness, devoid of light, blacker than night. I stand frozen, observing it take form. Too swiftly for my mind to grasp, it resolves into the shape of a man—tall, broad-shouldered, cloaked. My throat closes, preventing me from making the slightest sound, far less a cry for help. I can only watch helplessly as he strides toward me, no sound of his footfall on the gravel path interrupting the silence. As he nears, the lamp I hold flickers and goes out.
No matter, I can still see him clearly, his pale skin luminous as the moon, radiating light. His eyes beneath sweeping brows are wide, dark, aglow with fierce intelligence. His forehead is high, his nose a straight blade leading to a chiseled mouth, his chin square and firm. Terror grips me. I hear his name in my mind but I would have known him under any circumstances—Mordred. Yet he fits nothing of what I have been told. This scourge of evil whose very existence violates the natural order appears to be the creation of a master sculptor intent on evoking nothing less than perfection in form and manner. He is, quite simply, the most beautiful being I have ever seen. I, poor fool, can only gape at him as he steadily closes the distance between us.
The unrelieved blackness of his garb shimmers with his inner light. He smells of wind and night, and something deeper, imbued with power that I cannot identify but which I yearn for as iron filings will lean toward a lodestone. His voice, when I hear it at last, is deep and compelling.
“Elizabeth. How glad I am that you have come to me.”
He holds out his hands, the palms turned up in invitation. A fierce need to feel his skin against mine sweeps over me. The lamp begins to slide from my fingers.
Evil.
Absurd! No such word can describe this being of vivid life and beauty, this dark prince who waits, smiling, silently bidding me to take the few steps necessary to put myself within his reach. My feet, no longer frozen, feel light as air. I have only to move the slightest distance—
An hour and more ago, my mother’s diadem was removed from my brow, tucked carefully away back into its velvet case, and returned to the lead chest where my jewels are kept. Yet just now I could swear that I feel its weight upon my head. So vivid is the sensation that I almost reach up to confirm its presence.
Instead, I tighten my grip on the lamp. Just as I do so, it springs back to light.
“Mordred.” At the sound of his name, terror flickers again at the edges of my mind. But at the center, where all my attention focuses, is my own will, honed in the years of danger and death, warring with the strange, inescapable attraction to him that seems to grow with every passing moment.
“Whatever magic you think to work on me,” I say, “it will avail you nothing.”
Or so I tell myself. Mordred appears less convinced. He frowns and drops his hands.
“Elizabeth,” he chides, “you should not listen to your supposed confidants, Dee and Cecil. They are small men who would make you small as well.”
The familiarity with which he speaks of my counselors makes me frown in turn. How can he know what passed between us?
“Let me guess,” he says. His gaze flicks over me, lingering as though he sees straight through my garb to bare flesh. I fight a blush, schooling myself to stillness, and watch him unflinchingly.
“They told you that I am evil incarnate, a deadly danger to you and your realm. They claim that you and I are fated to be enemies, and they at least implied that you can win the struggle between us. In every particular they have lied to you.”
“My counselors do not lie.” Cecil and Dee might be mistaken from time to time, but neither man has a mendacious bone in his body. Moreover, if Mordred believes that I will take his word for anything, he truly does think me a fool.
“Men consumed by fear cannot recognize truth,” he says. “They are weak, unlike us. I can feel the strength in you. It is … seductive.”
He steps closer, and I feel in turn the strange attraction drawing me to him. But I resist, determined as I am to stand my ground.
Boldly, I raise the lantern. “Stay where you are.”
He stops, but he also smiles, as though being patient with a child. “I am no threat to you, Elizabeth, to the contrary. I am here to help you become what you are truly meant to be.”
“I am Queen by grace of God and all that is holy.”
“You are indeed, much good may it do you. Queen of a realm surrounded by enemies. The only question is, who will win the race to dethrone you?”
That suggestion stings, coming as it does too close to the truth of my fears. But he is not yet done.
“You are as stubborn as your mother.”
“You knew her?”
I speak before I can stop myself. Dozens, probably hundreds, of people are still alive who once knew my mother, to some degree at least. But only Kat has ever been willing to speak of her to me and then only reluctantly. For the rest, Anne Bolyen might never have existed.
“I knew her very well,” he says, “but that is for another time. I want to show you something.”
He reaches out a hand, and to my horror I move toward him. Not because I choose to do so; I do not. I slide across the frozen ground as though I have no control over myself. The lamp falls from my hand; vaguely, I am aware of it smashing on the ground. The thin fabric of my bed gown and robe press against my legs as I am mysteriously pulled toward him. The moonlight falling across the garden begins to whirl as though the whole world has gone mad. Horror fills me as I realize that I am helpless to stop him, perhaps at least in part because I do not wish to do so.
Mordred’s arm closes hard around my waist. Breath rushes from me. I am engulfed in his touch and scent, his strength, and most alarmingly of all in the stunning sense of recognition that floods through me, as though I have been waiting, yearning for this moment, through unfathomable eons. Every nerve in my body is vividly alive. I feel him as I have never d
reamt that it is possible to feel, as though the barriers between us are dissolving. A pulse leaps suddenly in my throat. I arch my neck and moan softly.
“Elizabeth,” he murmurs with unconcealed satisfaction, then adds, “Hold on.”
To my astonishment, we rise suddenly into the night sky. Terror and exaltation surge in me in equal measure as the ground falls away beneath me. I am ashamed to say that I cling to him as I feel against my breasts the deep rumble of his laughter.
“Look at our city,” he says. “Exquisite, isn’t it? I have seen it in so many ages, so many guises, but never like this. It is about to burst free and become a true city of the world like old Rome or Byzantium. London is destined to be the capital of all the world.”
I steel myself and peer down, only to be instantly entranced by the vision I behold: London, slumbering in moonlight beside the ancient river, steals my breath. I stare in fascination at the vista of the city spread out before me, from the spires of Westminster Abbey past dwellings noble and humble, over the great roads leading into and through the city, coming finally eastward to the Tower, standing sentinel over all. My beloved city and yet not—for laid so gently upon it, as though through a veil, I glimpse a sight I can scarcely credit, a city of vastly greater size and power in which alabaster buildings gleam and darkness itself seems banished.
“See what is possible,” Mordred says seductively. “Think of the pride and courage that has made this land, the trials that have been endured, the tribulations over which we have triumphed. Think of what that can mean not just here but everywhere.”
And I do, seeing before me a vision of honor, boldness, and, coming as the sun itself, a golden age that would transform the world.
All drenched in blood.
I stiffen against him, struggling to be free.
“Don’t,” he warns, and tightens his hold. “If you fall from me, you will die.”
No dream, then. No charmed phantasm of my disordered senses but cold reality instead. As much as my poor mind can barely encompass what is happening, I do truly soar over my island kingdom in the arms of the vampire king. It is beyond belief yet I must endure it all the same. Nor is he yet done. To my stunned eyes, the dark expanse of the channel preserving us from the chaos that is Europe appears and vanishes behind us in a heartbeat. We drift over slumbering France, following the silver ribbon of the Seine, climb higher over snow-draped mountains, all in an instant as though time and space have no meaning, until we come at last to the city bathed in gold where rats scurry out of every sewer and into every palace.
“How is this possible?” I ask when I can speak at all.
Mordred smiles. “A topic for another time. Suffice to say that time and space are nothing at all as you experience them and no obstacles of any kind to me.”
Even as I struggle to grasp his meaning, I cling to him, awed by what he lays bare.
“Rome,” Mordred says, gesturing below, and I, no longer able to muster a challenge to him even in my mind, can only accept what I see before my dazzled eyes.
We hover near the great dome of St. Peter’s before drifting toward the nearby Apostolic Palace, entering through a high window that flies open at our approach. Down a long corridor lit by torches, past guards who stir uneasily but seem unable to see us, through a gilded door, and into the inner sanctum of God’s Vicar on Earth, Pope Paul IV.
“I will smash the bitch!” the old prelate cries in Latin, which I understand all too well. “That spawn of a whore who dares to take England’s crown! I will send her to the furthest reaches of Hell and reclaim her benighted land for Christ’s own!”
“He is drunk,” Mordred whispers in my ear. “And regretting his belatedly acquired chastity. But he does mean what he says. He wants you dead in the worst way possible.”
“What harm have I done him?” I protest. “I will burn no Catholics, I swear, if only they are loyal to me.”
“How can they be?” Mordred says. “Not once His Holiness orders them to overthrow you. They will be caught between you on one side and Rome on the other. No man or woman can live so divided.”
Mordred leans back a little, looking at me. “Neither can any realm survive in such a state.”
My throat tightens so that I can scarcely breathe, so great is my fear. What he says is true. Pitted against the Pope himself, how can I hope for the peace and prosperity my country needs so desperately?
But Mordred is not yet done. “You have not seen the worst,” he says, and we are gone, out of the palace, away from the Eternal City, faster than the wind that parts at our passing so that we fly within a tunnel of night and sky, burrowing through it at what speed I cannot guess. We emerge over the ancient city of Valladolid, where the Spanish have their capital at present, though rumors are that King Philip means to move it to Madrid. The Moors created Valladolid, the City of Walid as they called it, though no one wants to remember that now that the heathens are gone from the land. Its winding streets, gracious buildings, and hidden gardens remain, reflections of the dreams of its lost masters.
“Look there.” Mordred points through the high, leaded windows of the palace, through which I glimpse, as though in a dream, my late sister’s husband, the despicable Philip, kneeling at prayer in his gilded chamber. A slight man, round-faced with pale blue eyes, he has the usual jutting lower lip and chin of the blighted Hapsburgs. His acolytes praise him as endlessly courteous and gracious. I have a different impression of him. Before my sister, who had the misfortune to truly love him, was even dead, Philip was angling to make me his wife. Truly, I would leap from the nearest cliff before embracing such a loathsome fate.
Mordred laughs at the fierceness of my expression. “Have a little pity for him, won’t you? He could hardly bring himself to touch Mary, but he lusts after you. You appear regularly in his dreams that, to his great distress, invariably conclude with nocturnus ejaculatio. He considers himself shamed by you.”
“Enough!” I am dismayed to discover that Philip thinks of me in such terms, even more to learn that he would hold me responsible for the wayward passion of his own body.
“For that sin,” Mordred continues relentlessly, “he contemplates burning you. Indeed, he tells his closest counselors that nothing less than your death in the flames will please God and purify England.”
Horror clutches at me. I stammer, “But he still claims to want to marry me.”
Mordred cast me a chiding look. “And that will prevent him from killing you? … How exactly?”
I have no answer. The vision Mordred casts before me goes beyond even my worst nightmare. My mother was, at least, spared the fire. My father, in a show of mercy conditioned on her saying nothing against him in the final moments of her life, sent to France for an expert swordsman, who struck her head off her slender neck with a single blow. Presumably, she felt nothing. Yet her executioner was also ordered to do as tradition dictates: he lifted her severed head, not to show it to the avid crowd as some assume, but to show my mother in the final moments of her consciousness her own headless body. So much for mercy.
Mordred tightens his arm around me and says nothing more. We climb toward the moon, emerging out of clouds to bathe in its radiance.
“It is not my purpose to distress you, Elizabeth,” he says as the white cliffs of home slip beneath us. “I only want to be certain that you understand who your enemies really are. Do not be misled by Cecil and Dee. They have no real understanding of what they’re dealing with.”
We are drifting downward. The chimney pots of London rise beneath my feet. An instant later, we land softly on the frozen ground of the walled garden beside the Thames.
Still holding me close, Mordred bends his head. I feel his breath against the ultrasensitive skin of my neck. “Their ignorance comes from fear,” he says. “For the sake of this realm, I beg you not to succumb to it.”
Confusion fills me, born in no small measure from the hunger growing in me for his touch, his scent, and more … for the very taste of him
. Worse yet, I cannot reconcile my faith in my counselors and what they have told me with Mordred’s seemingly heartfelt concern for England. But beyond even that, I confess that his demonstration of power leaves me stunned and, God help me, envious.
With him, all limitations seem to fall away and all things become possible.
“What do you want of me?” I ask.
He straightens and steps away from me. At once I am bereft. Only with the greatest effort do I stop myself from reaching out. The black night of his cloak drifts around him. Through it, I seem to see the faint outline of the wall, as though he grows ethereal.
“I want you to be the queen you are meant to be. Not merely England’s but mine. Join with me, Elizabeth. You will have all the power you need to defeat your enemies and you will never know fear again.”
“What are you saying…?”
“Become one of us, but not only one among many. Become our queen and mine. Together, we will rule over this realm and keep it safe from all enemies now and forever.”
Become what he is? A creature of the dark … a being destined to never stand in the light of God? How could I even consider such a thing?
And yet … how he looks glowing in the moonlight, all strength and majesty, the deep timbre of his voice a caress I have no wish to deny. This being who carried me to such heights, revealed to me the scheming of my enemies, and who claims only to want to help me defeat them. Is it so unthinkable that we should be allies and even more?
Treacherous temptation rises within me, blocking out for the moment all rational thought. It would be so very easy to say yes, to take what he offers and, in the taking, set down the terrible burden of fear and dread that have haunted me all my life.
So very easy…
But why then had my mother warned against him as I knelt at her grave? Why had Morgaine Le Fey battled him? If Mordred wanted only to preserve England, why had he slain Arthur, his own father and the greatest king this land has ever known?