Midnight Never Come

Act Two

The chamber is a small one, and unfurnished; whatever lay here once, no one claims it now. There are rooms such as these in the Onyx Hall, forgotten corners, left vacant when their owners died or fled or fell from favor.

For him, they feel like home: they are neglected, just as he is.

He came in by the door, but now he cannot find it again. Instead he wanders to and fro, from one wall to another, feeling the stone blindly, as if the black marble will tell him which way to go, to be free.

One hand touches the wall and flinches back. He peers at the surface, leaning this way and that, as a man might study himself in a mirror. He stares for a long moment, then blanches and turns away. “No. I will not look.”

But he will look; there is no escape from his own thoughts. The far wall now draws his eye. He crosses to it, hesitant in his steps, and reaches out until his fingers brush the stone, tracing the image he sees.

A face, like and unlike his own. A second figure, like and unlike her. He spins about, but she is not there with him. Only her likeness. Only in his mind.

Against his will, he turns back, wanting and not wanting to see.

Then he is tearing at the stone, pulling at the mirror he imagines until it comes crashing down, but that brings him no respite. All about him he sees mirrors, covering every wall, standing free on the floor, each one showing a different reflection.

A world in which he is happy. A world in which he is dead. A world in which he never came among the fae, never renounced his mortal life to dwell with immortal beings.

A world in which…

He screams and lashes out. Blood flowers from his fist; the silvered glass is imaginary, but it hurts him just the same. Beyond that one lies another, and soon he is lurching across the room, breaking the mirrors, casting them down, pounding at them until they fall in crimson fragments to the floor. His hands strike stone, again and again, lacerating his flesh, cracking his delicate bones.

Until he no longer has the will to fight, and sinks into a crouch in the center of the chamber, mangled fingers buried deep in his hair.

All around him, the pieces of his mind reflect a thousand broken other lives.

He could see much, if he looked into them. But he no longer has the will for that, either.

“There are no other lives,” he whispers, trying to make himself believe it, against all the evidence of his eyes. “What is over and done cannot be redone. ’Tis writ in stone, and will not fade.”

His bleeding hands drift downward and begin to write strange, illegible hieroglyphs upon the floor. He must record it. The truth of how it went. Else those who come after will be lost in the maze of mirrors and reflections, never knowing reality from lies.

It will not matter to them. But it matters to him, who tried for so long to tell the truth of the futures he saw. That gift has turned traitor to him, bringing nothing more than pain and despair, and so he takes refuge in the past, writing it out amidst the shattered pieces of a hundred might-have-beens.

HAMPTON COURT PALACE, RICHMOND: January 6, 1590

The winter air carried a crisp edge the sunlight did little to blunt, but for once there was hardly more than a breeze off the Thames, scarcely enough to stir the edge of Deven’s cloak as he hurried through the Privy Garden. He passed bare flowerbeds protected beneath layers of straw, squinting at the brightness. He had been assigned to serve the Queen at supper for the Twelfth Night feast, but that duty hardly precluded one from participating in the merriment. Deven had no idea how many cups of hippocras he had downed, but it felt like a dozen too many.

Nor was he the only one who had overindulged, but that was to his advantage. Deven had not risen at this ungodly hour without reason. With so many courtiers and the Queen herself still abed, he could snatch a few moments for himself, away from prying eyes — and so could the one he was hurrying to meet.

She was waiting for him in the Mount Garden, standing in the lee of the banqueting house, well-muffled in a fur-trimmed cloak and gloves. The hood fell back as Deven reached for her face, and lips met cold lips in a kiss that quickly warmed them both.

When they broke apart, Anne Montrose said, a trifle breathlessly, “I have been waiting for some time.”

“I hope you are not too cold,” Deven said, chafing one slender hand between his own. “Too much hippocras, I fear.”

“Of course, blame the wine,” she said archly, but smiled as she did so.

“’Tis a thief of men’s wits, and of their ability to wake.” Frost glittered on the ground and the bare branches of trees like ten thousand minuscule diamonds, forming a brilliant setting for the gem that was Anne Montrose. With her hood fallen back, her unbound hair shone palest gold in the sun, and her wide eyes, a changeable gray, would not have looked out of place on the Queen of Winter that featured prominently in last night’s masque. She was not the greatest beauty at court, but that mattered little to him. Deven offered her his arm. “Shall we walk?”

They strolled sedately through the hibernating gardens, warming themselves with the exercise. It was not forbidden for them to be seen together; Anne was the daughter of a gentleman, and fit company for him. There were, however, difficulties. “Have you spoken to your mistress?” Deven asked.

He was hesitant to broach the topic, which might ruin the glittering peace of this morning. It had weighed heavy upon him, though, since he first voiced it to Anne, some months prior. The increased duties of winter court and the never-ending ceremonies of the Christmas season had prevented them from doing more than exchange brief greetings whenever they passed, and now he fretted with impatience, wanting an answer.

Anne sighed, her breath pluming out in a cloud. “I have, and she has promised to do what she may. ’Tis difficult, though. The Queen does not like for her courtiers to marry.”

“I know.” Deven grimaced. “When Scudamore’s wife asked permission, the Queen beat her so badly she broke Lady Scudamore’s finger.”

“I am glad I do not serve her,” Anne said darkly. “The stories I hear of her temper are dreadful. But I am not the one who will bear the brunt of her wrath; she cares little what a gentlewoman in service to the Countess of Warwick does. You, on the other hand… ”

Marriage is no scandal, his father had said, when he went into service at court, over a year ago. Get thee a wife, his fellows in the band had said. It was the way of the world, for men and women to marry — but not the way of the Queen. She remained virginal and alone, and so would she prefer her courtiers to be.

“She is envious,” Anne said, as if she had heard that thought. “There is no love in her life, and so there should be none in the lives of those who surround her — save love for her, of course.”

It was true as far as it went, but also unfair. “She has had love. I do not credit the more sordid rumors about her and the late Earl of Leicester, but of a certainty she was fond of him. As they say she was of Alençon.”

“Her froggish French prince. That was politics, nothing more.”

“What would you know of it?” Deven said, amused. “You could not have been more than ten when he came to England.”

“Do you think the ladies of court have ceased to gossip about it? Some say it was genuine affection, but my lady of Warwick says not. Or rather, she says that any affection the Queen may have felt was held in check by her awareness of politics. He was, after all, Catholic.” Anne reflected on this. “I think it was desperation. Mary was old when she married; Elizabeth would have been older, in her forties. It was her last chance. And, having lost it, she now vents her frustration on those around her who might find happiness with another.”

The breeze off the Thames was picking up, forging a sharper edge. Anne shivered and pulled up the hood of her cloak. Deven said, “Enough of the Queen. I am one of her Gentlemen Pensioners; she calls me fair, gives me minor gifts, and finds me amusing at times, but I’ll never be one of her favorites. She cannot take much offense at the prospect of my marriage.” It had been Mary Shelton, chamberer to her Majesty, not John Scudamore of the Pensioners, who suffered the broken finger.

Anne laughed unexpectedly from within the depths of her hood. “So long as you do not get me with child, and end up in the Tower for it, like the Earl of Oxford.”

“We would run away, first.” It was a romantic and stupid thing to say. Where would they go? The only places he knew were London and Kent, and the Netherlands. The former were too near the Queen’s grasp, and the latter, no refuge at all. But Anne favored him with an amused smile, one he could not help returning.

All too soon, though, frustration returned to plague him, as it so often did. They walked a little way in silence; then Anne, sensing his mood, asked, “What troubles you?”

“Practicalities,” he confessed. “A growing awareness that my ambition and I dwell in separate spheres, and I may well never ascend to meet it.”

Her gloved hand rose and tucked itself into the crook of his elbow. “Tell me.”

This was why he loved her. At court, a man must always watch what he said; words were both currency and weapons, used to coax favor from allies and strike down enemies. And the ladies were little better; Elizabeth might forbid her women to engage heavily in politics, but they kept a weather eye on the Queen’s moods, and could advance the causes of petitioners when they judged the moment right — or hinder them. Even those without the Queen’s ear could carry tales to those who had it, and a man might find his reputation poisoned before he knew it, from a few careless words.

He never felt the need for such caution with Anne, and she had never given him cause, not in the year he had known her. She had said once, last autumn, that when in his company she could be at ease, and he felt the same. She was not the greatest beauty at court, nor the richest catch, but he would gladly trade those for the ability to speak his mind.

“I look at Lord Burghley,” he said, approaching the subject from a tangent. “Much of what Walsingham does is built on foundations laid by Burghley, and in fact the old baron still maintains his own links with agents and informants. When Burghley dies, or retires from her Majesty’s service — which won’t happen until after the Second Coming — his son Robert will inherit his barony, his offices, and his agents.”

When he paused, Anne said, “But you are not Robert Cecil.”

“Sidney might have been — he was married to Walsingham’s daughter, before either of us came to court — but he’s dead. And I am not sufficiently in Walsingham’s affections to take his place, nor ever likely to be.”

Anne squeezed his arm reassuringly. They were walking too close together, her farthingale shoving at his leg with every stride, but neither of them moved to separate. “Do you need to be?”

“To do what Walsingham does? Yes. I haven’t the wealth to support such an enterprise, nor the connections. Beale and I are forever passing letters and petitions up and down the chain, obtaining licenses for foreign travel, pardons for prisoners who might be of use, requests for gifts or pensions to reward those who have been of service. They do not often receive payment, but the important thing is that they believe they might. I cannot promise that and be believed. And even if I could… I am not in the Queen’s councils.” Deven’s mouth twisted briefly in inarticulate frustration. “I am the son of an unimportant gentleman, distinguished enough by my conduct in the Netherlands to be rewarded with a position at court, pleasing enough to be granted the occasional preferment — but nothing more. Nor ever likely to be.”

That speech, delivered in a low monotone from which familiarity had leached all the passion, carried them back to the center of the garden where the banqueting house stood. The morning was upon them in full; the Queen would be waking soon, and he had to be there for the honor guard when she processed to chapel for the service of Epiphany. But the chambers of the palace were close and stuffy, too full of people flocking to the winter court; out here the air was clean and simple, and he did not want to leave.

Anne turned to face him and took his gloved hands in her own, buff-colored leather against brown. “-You are twenty-seven,” she pointed out. “The men you speak of are old men. They achieved their positions over time. How old was Walsingham, when Elizabeth made him her Secretary?”

“-Forty-one. But he had connections at court—”

“Also built over time.”

“Not all of them. Much of it is a matter of family: fathers and sons, brothers and cousins, links by marriage—”

Her fingers tightened fractionally on his, and Deven caught himself. “I’ll not lay you aside for political advantage,” he promised.

The words brought a smile to her face that warmed her gray eyes. “I did not think you would.”

“The true problem is the Queen. I do not speak against her,” he added hastily, and could not restrain a quick glance around, to reassure himself they were alone in the garden. “I am her loyal servant. But her preference is for those of families sh-e knows — often those bound to her already by ties of blood. Of which I am not one.”

Anne relinquished his hands so she could straighten her hood. “Then what will you do?”

He shrugged. “Be of use to Walsingham, as much as I can be. Hope that he will reward me for my service.”

“Then I have something for you.”

Deven cast a startled glance at her, then frowned. “Anne, I have told you before —’tis neither meet nor safe for you to carry tales.”

“Gossip is one of the great engines of this court, as you well know. I am not listening at keyholes, I promise you.” She was a tallish woman, the top of her hood at eye level for him, and so she did not have to tilt her head back much to look at him; instead she tilted it to the side, eyes twinkling. “Are you not the least bit curious?”

He was and she knew it. “You will find a way to tell me, regardless.”

“I could be more subtle, but this is so much easier.” Anne folded her hands demurely across the front of her cloak. “’Tis a minor thing, to my eyes, but I never know when some minor thing fits into the greater patterns you and your master see. You are aware of Doctor Dee?”

“The astrologer? He had an audience with the Queen a month gone, at Richmond.”

“Do you know the substance of it?”

Deven shook his head. “He was at court only a day or two, and I did not speak to him.”

“My lady of Warwick tells me ’tis some difficulty with his house and books. Someone despoiled them while he was abroad; he seeks redress. You may expect to see more of him, I should think — or at least to hear people arguing on his behalf.”

“People such as your countess?”

“I thought you did not want me carrying tales.” She laughed as he mock-scowled at her. “I imagine your master knows of his situation — they are friends, are they not?- — but I can learn more if you would like.”

This, he was unpleasantly aware, was often how espionage worked. Few of those who fed Walsingham information did so in an organized and directed fashion, deliberately infiltrating places where they did not belong, or masquerading as that which they were not. Most of the intelligence that reached the Principal Secretary came from men who simply kept their eyes and ears open, and wrote to him when they saw or heard something of interest.

Men, and the very rare woman.

As if she had heard that thought — he must be as transparent as glass to her — Anne said, “’Tis not as if I were offering to return information from the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, or the Pope’s privy closet. I will simply tell you if Doctor Dee calls on the countess again.”

“I cannot ask a woman to spy,” Deven said. “It would be infamous.”

“’Tis listening, not spying, and you are not asking me. I do it of my own free will. Consider it a dowry of an intangible sort, paid in advance.” Anne took his hand again, and tugged him a step forward, so they stood in the shadow of the banqueting house. There she cupped his jaw in her gloved fingers and kissed him again. “Now I must return; my lady will be rising.”

“As will mine,” Deven murmured, over the rapid beating of his heart. “You will tell me what the countess says — whether the Queen would be angry at the thought of our marriage?”

“I will,” Anne promised. “As soon as I may.”

MEMORY: December 21, 1581

Many parts of the subterranean palace consisted of adjoining chambers, one opening into the next with never a break. Some were arranged around cloistered courtyards of sculpture or night-blooming plants; others connected via long galleries, hung with tapestries and paintings of rich hue.

But there were other passages, secret ones. Few fae ever saw them, and almost no mortals.

The man being escorted through the tunnel was a rare exception.

Of the other mortals who had been brought that way, most were attractive; those who were not held influential positions at court or in trade, and compensated for their lack of handsomeness by their use. This one was different. His cowl taken from him, his clipped, mutilated ears were bared for all to see, and though he was not old, cunning and suspicion — and at the moment, fear — robbed his face of any beauty. Nor was he a powerful man.

He was no one. But he knew a little of faeries, and now his investigations had brought him here, to a world whose existence he had never so much as suspected.

A door barred the way at the end of the passage, bronze-bound and painted black. One of the escorting fae, a hunched, goblinish thing, raised his bony-knuckled hand and knocked. No response came through the door, but after a moment it swung open on oiled hinges, as if of its own accord.

The chamber into which the mortal man stepped was as sumptuous as the corridor outside was bleak. The floor was bare of either rushes or carpets, but it was a fine mosaic in marble, strange figures that he would have liked to study more closely. Cool silver lights gleamed along the walls; out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw wings moving within their depths. The walls were likewise marble, adorned at regular intervals by tapestries of colored silk studded here and there with jewels. The ceiling was a masterwork display of astrological notation, reflecting the current alignment of the stars far above.

But all this richness was dominated into insignificance by the curtain before him.

Was it black velvet, worked elaborately in silver? Or cloth-of-silver, painstakingly embroidered with black silk? His escort, his guards, stood between him and it, as if he would have approached to examine it. Some of the gems encrusting the fabric appeared to be diamonds, while others were more brilliant and alive than any diamonds he had ever seen. Pearls as large as hummingbird eggs weighted its bottom edge. The curtain alone displayed wealth only the crowned heads of Europe could hope to equal, and not even all of them.

He was not surprised when one of his escorts kicked him in the back of the knee, forcing him to the floor.

The stone pressed hard and cold against his knees as he waited.

And then a voice spoke from behind the curtain.

“You seek after magic, Edward Kelley.”

“I do.” The words came out rusty and faint on the first try; he wet his lips and said it again. “I do. And I have found it.”

Found more than he had ever dreamed of.

A soft sound came from behind the curtain, a cool laugh. The voice was melodious and controlled, and if the face that accompanied it was anything to match, she must be the most beautiful faerie lady to ever call England home.

-Lady — or queen? Even among fae, he doubted such riches were common.

The lady spoke again from her concealment. “You have found only the meanest scraps from the table of magic. There is more, far more. You wish to know the secrets of creation? We have them bound in books. You wish to transform base metal into gold? ’Tis child’s play, for such as us.”

Faerie gold. It turned to leaves or stones before long — but a man could do a great deal with it, while it still shone. And though it was a poor substitute for true transformation, the Philosopher’s Stone, learning of it might advance his alchemical work.

Yes, there was a feast here for him.

“I would be your ladyship’s most humble student,” he said, and bowed his head.

“I am sure,” the lady said. “But you must know, Edward Kelley — all gifts carry a price. Especially those from fae.”

He was a learned man. Some believed fae to be devils in different guise. Others placed them midway between Heaven and Hell: above men in the hierarchy of creation, but below the celestial forces that served God.

Regardless of the explanation, all agreed that to strike a bargain with their kind was a dangerous business. But having seen this much, no man who laid claim to intellectual curiosity could be expected to turn back.

He had to swallow before his voice would work. “What price would you demand?”

“Demand?” The lady seemed offended. “I will not ask for your soul, or your firstborn child. I merely have a request of you, that I think you will find it easy enough to grant.”

That was more ominous than a straightforward demand would have been. He waited, eyes on the hanging pendants of pearls, to hear more. They did not quite touch the floor, and in the shadows beyond he thought he could see just the hem of a glittering skirt.

At length the lady said, “There is a mortal scholar known as Doctor John Dee.”

Kelley nodded, then remembered the lady could not see him. “I know of him.”

“He seeks to speak with angels. For this purpose he has contracted the services of a man named Barnabas Saul. My request is that you take Saul’s place. The man is nothing more than a charlatan, a cozener who seeks to take advantage of Doctor Dee. We will arrange for him to be discredited, and you will replace him as scryer.”

“And then?” Kelley knew it would not end there. “Once I am in Dee’s confidences — assuming I can make it there—”

“’Tis easily arranged.”

“Then what would you have me do?”

“Nothing damaging,” the hidden lady assured him. “He will never speak to angels, whatever scryer he contracts to assist him. But ’tis in our interests that he should think he has done so. You will describe visions to Dee, when he asks you to gaze into the crystal. You may invent some if you wish. From time to time, one of my people will visit you in that glass, and tell you what to say. And in exchange, we will teach you the secrets you wish to learn.”

Kelley had never met the man; what did he care if Dee was led astray by faeries? Yet it made him nervous all the same. “Can you promise me the things I say will not harm him? Can you give me your word?”

All around him, the silent fae of his escort stiffened.

Silence from behind the curtain. Kelley wondered how badly he had offended. But if the lady fed him visions that would incite Dee to treason, or something else harmful…

“I give you my word,” the lady said in a clipped, hard tone unlike her previous voice, “that I will give no orders for visions that will harm Doctor John Dee. If you lead him astray with your own invention, that is no fault of ours. Will that suffice, Edward Kelley?”

That should be enough to bind her. He hoped. He dared not press for more. Yet he had one further request, unrelated to the first. “I am most grateful,” he said, and bowed his head again. “You have already given me more than I ever dreamed of, bringing me here. But though it be presumptuous of me, I do have one more thing to ask. Your voice, lady, is beauty itself; might I have the privilege of gazing upon your face?”

Another silence, though this time his escort did not take it as strongly amiss.

“No,” the lady said. “You shall not see me tonight. But on some future day — if your service pleases — then perhaps, Edward Kelley, you shall know who I am.”

He wanted to see her beauty, but she had surmised correctly; he also wanted to see whom he was serving. But it was not to be.

Was he willing to accept that, in exchange for what the fae might teach him?

He had answered that question before he ever agreed to accompany them beneath the streets of London.

Edward Kelley bowed until his forehead touched the cold marble and said, “I will serve you, Lady, and go to Doctor Dee.”

THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: February 5, 1590

The night garden of the Onyx Hall had no day garden with which to contrast, but still it bore that name. It was enormous, comparable in size to the great presence chamber, but very different in character; in place of cold, geometric stone, there was instead the softness of earth, the gentle arch of branches. The quiet waters of the Walbrook, the buried river of London, bisected the garden’s heart. Paths meandered through carefully arranged beds of moonflower, cereus, and evening primrose; angel’s trumpet wound its way up pillars and around fountains. Here and there stood urns filled with lilies from the deeper reaches of Faerie. Night lasted eternally here, and the air was perfumed with gentle scents.

Lune breathed in deeply and felt something inside her relax. As much as she enjoyed living among mortals, it was exhausting beyond anything else she knew. Easy enough to don human guise for a trip to Islington and back; living among them was a different matter. Being in the Onyx Hall again was like drinking cool, pure water after a long day in the sun and wind.

The ceiling above was cloaked in shadow, and spangled with brilliant faerie lights: tiny, near-mindless creatures below even a will-o’-the-wisp — barely aware enough to be called fae. The constellations they formed changed from time to time, as much a part of the garden’s design as the flowerbeds and the delicate streams that rippled through them. Their shape now suggested a hunter, thrown through the air from the antlers of a stag.

That was troubling. There must have been some recent clash with the Wild Hunt.

Lune was not the only one in the garden. A small clutch of four fae had gathered a little distance away, under a sculpted holly tree. A black-feathered fellow perched in the branches, while two ladies gathered around a third, who sat on a bench with a book in her hands. Whatever she was reading aloud to them was too quiet for Lune to hear, but it sparked much mirth from her audience.

Footsteps on the flagstones made her turn. Lady Nianna Chrysanthe hurried to her side, saying breathlessly, “You must have come early.”

“I finished my business sooner than expected.” Vidar had not questioned her nearly as closely as he might have. Lune was not sure whether to find that worrisome, or merely a sign that he was not as competent as he liked to believe. “What do you have for me?”

The honey-haired elfin lady cast a glance around, then beckoned Lune to follow. They went deeper into the garden, finding their own bench on which to sit. They were still within sight of the group beneath the holly tree, and now another pair at the edge of a fountain, but the important thing was that no one could overhear them.

“Tell me,” Nianna whispered, more out of excitement than caution, “what does—”

“Give me your news first,” Lune said, cutting her off. “Then I will tell you.”

Pushing Nianna was dangerous. Lune’s work among mortals had gone some way toward restoring her status, but not her former position in the privy chamber, and Nianna alone of her former companions there deigned to speak with her much at all. Lune did not want to lose her most reliable source of information. But she knew Nianna, and knew how far the lady could be pushed. Nianna pouted, but gave in. “Very well. What do you wish me to begin with?”

Lune pointed at the faerie lights in their constellation. “How stand matters with the Wild Hunt?”

“Not well.” Nianna deflated a little. Her slender fingers plucked at the enameled chain that hung from her girdle. “There are rumors they will ally at last with the Courts of the North—”

“There have always been such rumors.”

“Yes, but this time they seem more serious. Her Majesty has formed a provisional agreement with Temair. A regiment of Red Branch knights, to fight the Wild Hunt — or the Scots, or both — if she uses her influence on the mortal court to affect events in Ireland on their behalf. They’re willing to consider it, at least; the unanswered question is how much aid she would have to give them in return.”

Lune let her breath out slowly. Red Branch knights; they would be quite an asset, if Invidiana could get them. The English fae could hold their own against Scotland, even if the redcaps along the Border took the other side, but the Wild Hunt was, and always had been, a very different kind of threat. The only thing that kept them at bay so far was their absolute refusal to fight this war on any mortal front. And Invidiana was not foolish enough to leave the safety of the Onyx Hall, buried in the midst of mortal London, and meet them on their own terms.

“Has there been an active threat from the Hunt?”

“An assassin,” Nianna said dismissively. “A Catholic priest. I believe he is still strung up in the watching chamber, if you wish to see him.”

She did not. Would-be assassins, and their punishments, were a common occurrence. “But from the Hunt?”

“That is why everyone thinks they may have a true alliance with the Courts of the North.”

If true, it was worrisome. The Scottish fae had no compunctions about using mortals in the fight; they had been forming pacts with witches for years and sending them south to cause trouble. The leaders of the Hunt all claimed kingship over one corner of England or another; they might have decided they wanted lands and sovereignty badly enough to look the other way while their allies soiled their hands with mortal tools.

Lune doubted it, but she wasn’t in a position to judge. “What else?”

Nianna put a painted fingernail to her lip, considering. “Madame Malline has been asking around, attempting to discover how the bargain with the folk of the sea was struck. I do not know what the Cour du Lys would want with such knowledge, but there must be something. You should stay away from her.”

That, or barter with her. If she could do it in a way that wouldn’t anger Invidiana. “Continue.”

“That is all I know about her aims. Let me see… there have been a few more fae in from country areas, complaining that their homes have been destroyed.” Nianna dismissed this with a wave. She had been a lady of the privy chamber to Invidiana for a long time; the travails of country folk were insignificant to her. “Oh yes, and a delegation of muryans from Cornwall — they just arrived; no one knows yet what they want. What else? Lady Carline has a new mortal she’s stringing along. She might get to keep him for a time; Invidiana has taken Lewan Erle back to her bed, so her attention is elsewhere. Or not.”

Bedroom politics did not interest Lune. They might be of consuming fascination to some, but they rarely affected the matters she attended to. What had she not yet asked about? “The Spanish ambassador?”

“Don Eyague is still here, and has hosted a few visitors. The rumor is that he is being courted by a growing faction in Spain that are dissatisfied with living in a Catholic nation. But I do not know what they intend; I doubt they have the numbers or resources to make any kind of substantial change to the mortal government, even if they decided to mimic her Majesty. For all I know, they may be considering emigration — here, or to the Low Countries. Who can say?”

Fae rarely emigrated, but no matter. Lune had only one question left for Nianna. She glanced casually toward the pair of fae at the nearby fountain, to make sure they were not listening. The lady sat on the stone coping of the edge, framing herself and her red silk gown prettily against the elaborate grotesque that spouted water in five directions, while the gentleman stood and read to her from a book. The sight momentarily distracted her; it looked like the same book the others had been reading beneath the holly tree.

Upon that thought, the book burst into flame.

The gentleman cried out in shock and dropped the burning pages. Lune caught a fleeting glimpse of something streaking across the garden; she turned to track it and saw the book the others held also catch fire. Silhouetted briefly atop the pages was a tiny, glowing, lizard-shaped creature. Then the salamander darted down again, and vanished amidst the flowers of the garden. A trail of smoke showed briefly where it went; then it was gone.

Lune asked, very carefully, “What was that?”

“I did not see, but I believe it was a sal—”

“I am not asking about the creature. What did it just burn?”

“Oh.” Nianna tittered, then hid it guiltily behind her hand. “A mortal book. It has been ever so popular at court, but it seems her Grace does not find it amusing.”

Lune rolled her eyes and seated herself once more on the bench. “Ah. Would this be that poem called The Faerie Queene?”

“You know of it?”

“The Queen — the mortal Queen — likes it greatly, so of course every courtier who wishes to curry favor must be seen with a copy, or heard quoting it at every suitable occasion.” And a few that were not so suitable; Lune was growing heartily tired of the work. “I am not surprised Invidiana dislikes it.”

“Well, it is very inaccurate. But would she not like that? After all, if the mortals knew the truth, they would come down here with crosses and priests and drive us out.”

Nianna was a brainless fool. The insult was not that it was inaccurate; no one expected accuracy out of poets. Peasants might know the truth about fae — to an extent — but poets took that truth, dried it out, ground it to powder, mixed it with strange chemicals, and used it to dye threads from which to weave a tapestry that bore only the most passing of resemblances to real fae and their lives.

No, the insult was that the Faerie Queen of the title was a transparent symbol for Elizabeth. That would be what Invidiana could not stand.

The gentleman at the fountain was now extemporaneously composing a poem, in a very loud voice, about the swift and merciless wrath of the Queen. He was not very good. Lune ignored him and asked Nianna, “What of Francis Merriman?”

“What?” Nianna had been attending to the poem. “Oh, yes. A few people have heard that name.”

“They have?” Lune restrained her eagerness. She had not forgotten her conversation with Tiresias, over a year ago. There was no Francis Merriman in Elizabeth’s court, at least not yet. She suspected she would find him there — perhaps Elizabeth herself was the one whose secret Merriman held? — but she had to consider other possibilities. “Who knows of him?”

Nianna began to count the names off on her jeweled fingers. “That wretched Bobbin fellow… Lady Amadea Shirrell… one or two others, I think. It does not matter. They all said the same thing. Tiresias mentioned the name to them, at one time or another. Some of them looked for him, but no one turned anything up.”

Hope vanished like a pricked soap bubble. Lune quelled a frustrated sigh; she did not want Nianna to think the matter too important to her. She already had a time of it, impressing upon the lady the merit of keeping her inquiries discreet, lest Invidiana catch wind of them before Lune had this mortal in hand.

Nianna’s words reinforced her growing conviction that she was simply too early. Tiresias was a seer. When he was not raving in confusion about things that never existed, he spoke of the future. Francis Merriman might not even have been born yet.

But when he did appear, Lune intended to be the first to find him.

“Lady Lune,” Nianna breathed, plucking at her sleeve, “I have gathered information for you, as you asked — told you all the news of the court, and answered all your questions. Will you not tell me now of my love?”

Ah yes. Lune said, “He will meet you Friday next, at the tavern called The Hound, that lies near Newgate.”

Many fae at court had mortal friends or lovers. Some knew their companions were fae; a great many more did not. John Awdeley, a clerk of the chaundry at Whitehall Palace, did not know, and so Nianna required assistance in arranging assignations with him, in such a time and place as she could keep up her pretense of being a maidservant in a London mercer’s house.

She did not love him, of course, but she was infatuated with him for now, and being fae, now was all that mattered.

Lune answered Nianna’s subsequent questions with rapidly diminishing patience; she had no interest in describing the state of Awdeley’s beard, nor recounting how many times he had asked after his maidservant love. “Enough,” she said abruptly, when Nianna asked for the seventh time whether he had shown any favor to other women, and if so, their names and stations, so she might curse them and teach them the foolishness of being rival to a fae. “I do not follow the man his every waking moment; I have little to do with him. And our bargain was not that I would recount his doings to you, down to the contents of his supper. You have your meeting with him, and I the latest news of the court. Now begone with you.”

Nianna drew herself up in a graceful, offended ripple. “How dare you speak so dismissively to me? Who do you think you are?”

“Who am I?” Lune smiled, giving it a malicious edge. “While you trail after Invidiana, carrying her gloves and her fans and enduring the brunt of her wrathful moods, I eat mortal bread every day and report to her the secret doings of Elizabeth’s court. I am, moreover, your pander to this mortal you have set your sights upon. What aid I give you there, I can revoke. Turning his thoughts to another woman would be easy.”

The lady hissed, all warmth of manner instantly gone. “Your body would be floating in Queenhithe by the next morning for fish and gulls to peck at.”

“Would it?” Lune met her gaze unblinking. “Are you sure?”

The specter of the Queen was so easy to invoke. And while Invidiana certainly did not come to the aid of every fae who claimed the possibility, she took no offense at being so named; it served her purposes to be a figure of terror to her courtiers. She even made good on the threats occasionally, simply to keep everyone guessing. The threats would lose their meaning if they never bore teeth.

Nianna backed down, but not graciously. Lune might have to find a new informant to keep her abreast of matters. She would not have antagonized Nianna so, but the conference with Vidar had put her back up, and left her with no patience for the lady’s passing mortal infatuation.

They parted on coldly courteous terms, and Lune wandered through the garden alone. Two faerie lights drifted loose from the constellation above and floated about her shoulders. Lune brushed them away. Since losing her position in the privy chamber, she had not the rank or favor to merit such decoration, and did not want anyone carrying tales of her presumption. By the time they reached the ears of those in power, the casual wanderings of two faerie lights would be a halo of glory she had shaped and placed on her own head.

The conversation with Nianna left her weary. She had intended to spend more time in the Onyx Hall, to see for herself how the patterns of alliance and power had shifted, but all that talk of Awdeley had turned her thoughts back to the mortal court. Nianna’s infatuation was simple to understand. Lune herself spent a great deal of time feigning just such an attachment.

Her feet sought out the chamber of the alder roots. She had a brief leave from the duties of her masquerade; she would go to Islington and rest herself at the Angel, under the friendly care of the Goodemeades, before returning to the life and duties of Anne Montrose.

RICHMOND PALACE, RICHMOND: February 12, 1590

The Christmas season had gone, and with it went a great deal of gaiety and celebration. While some privileged courtiers continued to dwell at Hampton Court nearby — the Countess of Warwick among them — the core of Elizabeth’s court removed to Richmond, a much smaller palace, and more used for business than pleasure.

Deven would not have minded, were it not that he no longer saw Anne even in passing. The entire corps of Gentlemen Pensioners was obliged to attend the Queen at Christmas, and the increased numbers did not lighten anyone’s load; indeed, the extra effort required to organize the full band during the elaborate ceremonies of the season was draining. Life at Richmond was simpler, if more austere, and free time easier to come by.

Easier to come by, and easier to spend: Deven found himself often closeted with Robert Beale, Walsingham’s secretary. As much as the common folk might like to believe that the defeat of the Armada ended the threat from Spain, they were not so lucky, as the reports pouring in from agents abroad showed. Philip of Spain still had his eye fixed on heretic England and its heretic Queen.

“Did you hear,” Beale said, laying down a paper and rubbing his eyes, “that Essex wants command of the forces being sent to Brittany?”

The room was small enough that the fire made it stuffy; Deven took advantage of Beale’s pause to set down his own reading and unbutton the front of his doublet so he could shrug out of it. The green damask was pulling apart at the shoulder, but the garment was comfortable, and Fitzgerald had not assigned him to duty today. He had not even bothered with a collar or cuffs that morning; he had slipped from his quarters to here in a state of half-dress, intending to spend the entire day cloistered away from court ritual.

He laid the doublet over an unused chair and dragged his thoughts back to what Beale had said. “You’re ahead of me, as usual,” Deven admitted, returning to his seat. “I did not even know the Brittany expedition had been agreed to.”

“It hasn’t, but it will be.”

Deven shook his head. “The Queen will never let him go. She’s overfond of that one.”

“Which means he will be insufferable with frustration. The man should be allowed to go abroad and kill things; it might cool his hot head.”

“If these reports are accurate, he will have his chance soon enough.” Deven scowled at the note in his hands. Someone had got hold of a message in cipher, and Walsingham had passed it to his steganographer Thomas Phelippes. The report Phelippes had returned to them was written in a clear hand, and Deven’s fledgling Spanish was sufficient to interpret it; the problem must be in the message itself. “I doubt the accuracy of this one, though, unless Philip plans to arm every man, woman, child, and cow in Spain.”

“Forget Spain.” The voice came from behind Deven; he twisted in his chair in time to see Walsingham closing the door behind himself.

The Principal Secretary’s face looked pinched, and his words were startling. Forget Spain? They were the Great Enemy; Deven would no more expect Walsingham to forget Spain than for Philip to forget Elizabeth.

“Not you, Robin,” Walsingham said, as the Secretary moved to set down the papers in his hand. Beale sighed and kept them. “I have a task for you, Deven.”

“Sir.” Deven rose and bowed, wishing he had at least kept his doublet on. His breeches, only loosely laced on in the absence of a doublet to be tied to, threatened to flap at the waist.

Walsingham ignored his state of undress. “Ireland.”

“Ireland?” He sounded foolish, repeating the Principal Secretary’s statement, but it was entirely unexpected. “What of it, sir?”

“Fitzwilliam has accused Perrot of treason — of conspiring with Philip to overthrow her Majesty.”

Sir John Perrot was a name Deven had only recently become familiar with; one of Walsingham’s men, he had returned a year and a half before from a stint as Lord Deputy in Ireland. Fitzwilliam, then, must be Sir William Fitzwilliam, his successor.

Beale had been listening, not reading; now he said, “Impossible.”

Walsingham nodded. “Indeed. And this is why, Deven, you will turn your thoughts from Spain to Ireland. Fitzwilliam has a grievance with Perrot; he resents that Perrot sits on the privy council and advises her Majesty on Irish affairs, and resents more that the lords in Ireland have taken to writing him directly, bypassing Fitzwilliam’s own authority. I am not surprised by his antagonism. What surprises me is the form it has taken. Why this accusation, and why now?”

Deven didn’t want to voice the thought that had come into his head, but no doubt Walsingham had already thought the same. “The answers to that, sir, most likely lie in Ireland.”

He did not want to go. Aside from the general unpleasantness of traveling to Ireland, it would take him away from court and Anne, neither of which he wanted to leave for long. But he could not pledge his service to Walsingham, and then balk when asked to serve him elsewhere. It would be a mark of the Secretary’s trust; Beale himself had been sent on diplomatic missions before.

But Walsingham was shaking his head. “It may come to that, but not yet. I suspect some cause here at court. Fitzwilliam is Burghley’s man; I doubt Burghley has goaded him to this, but there may be factional forces I am not seeing. Before I send you anywhere, I will have you look about court. Who shows an interest in Ireland? Who is formulating petitions regarding affairs there, that have not yet reached the privy council?”

“It might have nothing to do with Ireland. Perhaps this strike has entirely to do with Perrot, and Fitzwilliam is simply a convenient route to it.”

Beale nodded at this, but Walsingham again shook his head. “I do not think so. Keep your eyes open, certainly, for anything regarding Perrot — but Ireland is your focus. Search out anything I may have missed.”

“Yes, sir.” Deven bowed again and reached for his doublet.

“Anything,” Walsingham repeated, as Deven quickly looped his points through the waist of the doublet and started on the buttons. “Even things in the past — years past. Whatever you may find.”

“Yes, sir.” Dressed enough to go out once more, Deven took his leave. He would have to find Colsey and put himself together properly, starting with a doublet that wasn’t coming unsewn. His quiet day in private, it seemed, would have to wait.

HAMPTON COURT PALACE, RICHMOND: February 13, 1590

The banked coals in the fireplace cast a dim, sullen glow over the bedchamber, barely enough to highlight its contents: the chests containing clothes and jewels, the bed heaped with blankets, the pallets of sleepers on the floor.

Anne Montrose lay wakeful, eyes on the invisible fretwork of the ceiling above, listening to her companions breathe. A gentle snore began; the countess had drifted off. One of the other gentlewomen made quiet smacking noises and rolled over. A few sparks flared up the chimney as a glowing log end crumbled under its own weight. The snoring ceased as the countess lapsed into deeper sleep.

Silent as a ghost, Anne rolled back her own blankets and stood.

The rushes pricked at her bare feet as she stole across the floor. The hinges did not creak when she opened the door; she took particular care to keep them well oiled at all times. A muted thud was the only sound to betray her when she left.

Midnight had passed already, and the palace lay sleeping. Even the courtiers indulging in illicit trysts had retired by now. The dark cloak she wore was symbolic as well as practical; it served as a useful focal point for the minor charm she called up. Anyone who might be awake would not see her unless she wanted them to.

By the thin bars of light that came in through the courtyard windows, she made her way along the gallery and to the privy stair that led down to the gardens. Snow had dusted the ground during the day. In the moonlight, their shoulders and heads capped with white, the heraldic beasts that marked out the squares of the Privy Garden seemed even stranger than usual, like frosted gargoyles that might leap into motion without warning. She cast sidelong glances at them as she passed, but they remained lifeless stone.

Up ahead, the banqueting house loomed tall and sinister in the Mount Garden, surrounded by trees pruned carefully into grotesques. And on the far side of that, murmuring to itself under a thin shell of ice, the Thames.

A figure waited for her in the shadows of the Water Gallery, just above the river’s edge.

“You are late.”

Lune kept the illusion of Anne Montrose over her features; she did not want the nuisance of reconstructing it. She did not have to think like a human, though, and so she stood barefoot on the icy ground, the cloak now flapping free in the wind off the river.

“I am not late,” she said, as a bell ringer inside the palace clock tower began to toll the second hour after midnight.

Vidar smiled his predatory smile. “My mistake.”

Why Vidar? Ordinarily he dispatched a minor goblin to bring her bread. Lune supposed she would learn the answer soon enough, but she would not satisfy him by asking. Instead she held out one hand. “If you please. I am near the end of my ration.”

She was unsurprised when Vidar did not move. “What matters that? Unless you expect a priest to leap out of the river and bid you begone, in the name of his divine master, you are in no immediate danger of being revealed.”

Months before, Lune had snatched a few days of solitude for herself, pleading an ill kinswoman in London to cover for her absence. Those days spent wearing her true face had allowed her to shift the schedule of her ration; the goblins delivered it on Fridays, but she ate it on Tuesdays. The margin of safety might be important someday. But Vidar did not know that, and so she feigned the apprehension she should have felt, hearing him come so close to naming the mortal God to her face.

“My mistress may wake and find me gone,” she said, sidestepping Vidar’s jibe. “I should not tarry.”

He shrugged his bony shoulders. “Tell her you slipped off for a tryst with that mortal toy of yours. Or some other tale. I care not what lie you give her.” He settled his back against the brickwork of the Water Gallery, arms crossed over his narrow chest. “What news have you?”

Lune tucked her reaching hand back inside her cloak. So. Again she was unsurprised; she knew she was hardly the Onyx Court’s only source of information regarding the mortals. But it meant something, that Vidar considered the matter pressing enough to seek her out here. Like the mistress he strove to emulate and eventually unseat, he rarely left the sanctuary of the Onyx Hall.

“Sir John Perrot has been accused of treason,” she said, allowing the pretense that Vidar did not already know. “He is a political client of Walsingham’s, and so the Principal Secretary is moving to defend him. Deven has been assigned to investigate: who is taking an interest in Irish affairs, and to what end.” That Deven and Walsingham both were at Richmond, she did not say. The Countess of Warwick had been bidden there the other day to attend the Queen, by which fortunate chance Lune had been able to learn of Deven’s assignment; Vidar would be displeased if he knew how rarely she saw him at the moment. He was her link to Walsingham. Without him, she had very little.

Vidar tapped a sharp fingernail against a jeweled clasp that held the sleeve of his doublet closed. “Has your toy asked you to tell him of what you hear?”

“No, but he knows I will do it regardless.” Lune’s eyes went from the tapping fingernail to Vidar’s face, his sunken eyes hidden in shadow. “Is the accusation our doing?”

The fingernail stopped. Vidar said, “You are here to do the bidding of the Queen, not to ask questions.”

How the removal of Perrot would advance Invidiana’s bargaining with the Irish fae, Lune could not guess, but Vidar’s attempt to dodge the question told her it would. “The better I understand the Queen’s intentions, the better I may serve her.”

She startled a bitter but honest laugh out of Vidar. “What a charming notion — understanding her intentions. Dwelling among mortals has made you an optimistic fool.”

Lune pressed her lips together in annoyance, then smoothed her features out. “Have you instructions for me, then? Or am I simply to listen and report?”

Vidar considered it. Which, again, told her something: Invidiana was permitting him some measure of discretion in this matter. He had not come here just as a messenger. And that told her why it was Vidar, and not a goblin, bringing her bread tonight.

She tucked that information away, adding it to her meager storehouse of knowledge.

“Seek out the interested parties,” he said, the words guarded and thoughtful. “Assemble a list of them. What they desire, and why, and what they would be willing to do in exchange.”

Then no bargain had yet been settled with the Irish fae. If it had been, Lune would be assigned more specifically to cultivate a particular faction. Had the accusation of Perrot been simply a demonstration of Invidiana’s power, to convince the Irish of her ability to deliver on her promises?

She could not tell from here, and Lady Nianna, even when feeling friendly, was not enough to keep her informed. It was pleasant to dwell among mortals, close enough to the center of the Tudor Court to bask in its glory without being caught in its net, and to enjoy the illusion of freedom from the ever more vicious intrigues of the Onyx Court, but she could never forget that it was an illusion. Nowhere was safe. And if she ever let that slip her mind, she would discover what it meant to truly fall from favor.

“Very well,” Lune said to Vidar, allowing a note of boredom to creep into her voice. Let him think her careless and inattentive; it was always better to be underestimated. “Now, my bread, if you will.”

He remained motionless for a few breaths, and she wondered if he would try to extort some further service out of her. But then he moved, and drew from inside his cloak a small bundle of velvet.

Holding it just short of her extended hand, Vidar said, “I want to see you eat it now.”

“Certainly,” Lune replied, easily, with just a minor note of surprise. It made no difference to her; adding a week of protection now would not negate the remnant she still enjoyed. Vidar must suspect her of hoarding the bread, instead of eating it. Which she had done, a little, but only with great care. The last thing she wanted was to see her glamour destroyed by a careless invocation to God.

The bread this time was coarse and insufficiently baked. Whether Vidar had chosen it from among the country tithes, or Invidiana had, or someone else, it was clear the chooser meant to insult her. But it did the job whether it was good bread or bad, so Lune swallowed the seven doughy bites, if not with pleasure.

The instant she was done, Vidar straightened. “There will be a draca in the river from now on. If anything of immediate import develops, inform it at once.”

This time Lune failed to completely hide her surprise, but she curtsied deeply. “As my lord commands.”

By the time she straightened, he was gone.

RICHMOND PALACE, RICHMOND: March 3, 1590

As much as Deven would have liked to present Walsingham with a stunning revelation set in gold and decorated with seed pearls, after a fortnight of investigating the Irish question, he had to admit defeat.

It wasn’t that he had learned nothing; on the contrary, he now knew more than he had ever expected to about the peculiar subset of politics that revolved around their neighbor island to the west. Which included a great deal about the Irish Earl of Tyrone, and the subtleties of shiring Ulster; there were disputes there going back ages, involving both Sir John Perrot and the current Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam.

But it all added up to precisely nothing Walsingham would not have known already.

So Deven laid it out before his master, hoping the Principal Secretary would make something of it he could not. “I will keep listening,” he said when he was done, and tried to sound both eager and determined. “It may be there is something I have missed.”

For this conference he had been permitted into Walsingham’s private chambers for the first time. They were not particularly splendid; Deven knew from Beale the financial difficulties the Principal Secretary faced. He had understood from his earliest days at court that many people there were in debt, but the revelation of Walsingham’s own finances had disabused him of any lingering notion that the heaviest burdens lay on ambitious young men such as himself. A few hundred pounds owed to a goldsmith paled into insignificance next to tens of thousands of pounds owed to the Crown itself.

Of course, Elizabeth herself was in debt to a variety of people. It was the way of the world, at least at court.

But Walsingham did not live in penury, either. His furnishings were understated, like his clothing, but finely made, and the chamber was well lit, both from candles and the fire burning in the hearth to drive away the damp chill. Deven sat on a stool near that fire, with Walsingham across from him, and waited to see if his master saw something he did not.

Walsingham rose and walked a little distance away, hands clasped behind his back. “You have done well,” he said at length, his measured voice giving nothing away. “I did not expect you to discover so much about Tyrone.”

Deven bent his head and studied his hands, running his thumb over the rough edge of one fingernail. “You knew about these matters already.”

“Yes.”

He could not entirely suppress a sigh. “Then what was the purpose? Simply to test me?”

Walsingham did not respond immediately. When he did, his voice was peculiarly heavy. “No. Though you have, as I said, performed admirably.” Another pause; Deven looked up and found the Principal Secretary had turned back to face him. The firelight dancing on his face made him look singularly unwell. “No, Michael — I was hoping you might uncover something more. The missing key to a riddle that has been troubling me for some time.”

The candor in his voice startled Deven. The admission of personal failure, the use of his given name — the choice of this chamber, rather than an office, to discuss the matter — Beale had said before that Walsingham had an occasional and surprising need to confide in others about sensitive matters. Others that included Beale.

Others that had not, before now, included Deven.

“Fresh eyes may sometimes see things experienced ones cannot,” he said, hoping he sounded neither nervous nor intrusive.

Walsingham held his gaze, as if weighing something, then turned away. His hand trailed over a chess set laid out on a table; he picked up one piece and held it in his hand, considering. Then he set it down on a smaller table next to Deven. It was a queen, the black queen. “The matter of the Queen of Scots,” he said. “Who were the players in that game? And what did they seek?”

The non sequitur threw Deven for a moment — from Ireland to Scotland, with no apparent connection. But he was accustomed by now to the unexpected ways in which Walsingham tested his intelligence and awareness, so he marshaled his thoughts. The entire affair had begun when he was very young — possibly before, depending on how one counted it — and had ended before he came to court, but the Scottish queen had more influence on English policy than most courtiers could aspire to in their lives, and her echoes were still felt.

“Mary Stewart,” he said, picking up the chess piece. It was finely carved from some wood he could not identify, and stained dark. “She should be considered a player herself, I suppose. Unless you would call her a pawn?”

“No one who smuggled so many letters out through the French embassy could be called a pawn,” Walsingham said dryly. “She had little with which to fill her time but embroidery and scheming, and there must be limits to the number of tapestries and cushions a woman can make.”

“Then I’ll begin with her.” Deven tried to think himself in her place. Forced to abdicate her throne and flee to a neighboring country for sanctuary — sanctuary that became a trap. “She wanted… well, not to be executed, I imagine. But if we are considering this over a longer span of time, then no doubt she wished her freedom from confinement. She was imprisoned for, what, twenty years?”

“Near enough.”

“Freedom, then, and a throne — any throne, from what I hear. English, Scottish, probably French if she could have got it back.” Deven rose and crossed to the chessboard. If Walsingham had begun the metaphor, he would continue it. Selecting the white queen, he set her down opposite her dark sister. “Elizabeth, and her government. They — you — wished security for the Protestant throne. Against Mary as a usurper, but there was a time, was there not, when she was considered a possible heir?”

Walsingham’s face was unreadable, as it so often was, particularly when he was testing Deven’s understanding of politics. “Many people have been so considered.”

He hadn’t denied it. Mary Stewart had Tudor blood, and Catholics considered Elizabeth a bastard, incapable of inheriting the throne. “But it seems she was a greater threat than a prospect. If I may be so bold as to say so, my lord, I think you were one of the leading voices calling for her removal from the game.”

The Principal Secretary did not say anything; Deven had not expected him to. He was already considering his next selection from the chessboard. “The Protestant faction in Scotland, and their sovereign, once he became old enough to rule.” The black king went onto the table, but Deven placed him alongside the white queen, rather than the black. “I do not know James of Scotland; I do not know what love he may bear his late mother. But she was deposed by the Protestant faction, and branded a murderess. They, I think, did not love her.”

Having mentioned the Protestants, the next components were clear. Deven hesitated only in his choice of piece. “Catholic rebels, both in England and Scotland.” These he represented with pawns, one black and one white, both ranged in support of the black queen. It would be a mistake to assume the rebels all unlettered recusant farmers, but ultimately, whatever their birth, they were pawns of the Crowns that backed them. “Their motives are clear enough,” he said. “The restoration of the Catholic faith in these countries, under a Catholic queen with a claim to both thrones.”

What had he not yet considered? Foreign powers, that backed the rebels he had depicted as pawns. They did not fit the divide he had created, using black pieces for the Scots and white for the English; in the end he picked up the two black bishops. “France and Spain. Both concerned, like the rebels, with the restoration of Catholicism. France has long invested her men and munitions in Scotland, the better to bedevil us, and Spain sent the Armada as retaliation for Mary Stewart’s execution.”

Walsingham spoke at last. “More a pretext than an underlying cause. But you have them rightly placed.”

The pieces were arrayed on the table in a strange, disorganized game of chess. On one side stood the black queen with her two bishops, a pawn, and a second pawn from the white; on the opposing side, the white queen and the black king. Had he missed anyone? The English side was grievously outnumbered. But that was a true enough representation. She had Protestant allies, but none whose involvement in the Scottish matter was visible to Deven.

The only group he still wondered about was the Irish, with whom this entire discussion had begun. But he did not know of any involvement on their part, nor could he imagine any that made sense.

If he had failed the test, then so be it. He faced Walsingham and made a slight bow. “Have I passed your examination, sir?”

By way of reply, Walsingham took a white knight and laid it on the English side. “Her Majesty’s privy council,” he said. Then he moved the white queen out into the center, the empty space between the two. “Her Majesty.”

Dividing Elizabeth from her government. “She did not wish the Queen of Scots to be executed?”

“She was of two minds. As you observed, Mary Stewart was a potential heir, though one who would never be acceptable to those of our Protestant faith. Her Majesty also feared to execute the anointed sovereign of another land.”

“For fear of the precedent it would set.”

“There were those who sought our Queen’s death, of course, regardless of precedent. But if one Queen may be killed, so may another. Moreover, you must not forget they were kinswomen. Her Majesty recognized the threat to her own safety, and that of England, but she was most deeply reluctant.”

“Yet she signed the execution order in the end.”

Walsingham smiled thinly. “Only when driven to it by overwhelming evidence, and the patient effort of us her privy councillors. Bringing that about was no easy task, and her secretary Davison went to the Tower for it.” At Deven’s started look, he nodded. “Elizabeth changed her mind in the end, but too late to prevent Mary’s execution; Davison bore the weight of her wrath, though little he deserved it.”

Deven looked down at the table, with the white queen standing forlornly, indecisively, between the two sides. “So what is the riddle? Her Majesty’s true state of mind regarding the Queen of Scots?”

“There is one player you have overlooked.”

Deven bit his lip, then shook his head. “As much as I am tempted to suggest the Irish, I do not think they are who you mean.”

“They are not,” Walsingham confirmed.

Deven studied the chess pieces once more, both those on the table and those unused on the board, then made himself close his eyes. The metaphor was attractive, but easy to get caught in. He mustn’t think of knights, castles, and pawns; he must think of nations and leaders. “The Pope?”

“Ably represented by those Catholic forces you have already named.”

“A Protestant country, then.” Mustn’t think in black and white. “Or someone farther afield? Russia? The Turks?”

Walsingham shook his head. “Closer to home.”

A courtier, or a noble not at court. Deven could think of many, but none he had cause to connect to the Scottish Queen. Defeated, he shook his head. “I do not know.”

“Nor do I.”

The flat words brought his head up sharply. Walsingham met his gaze without blinking. The deep lines that fanned out from his eyes were more visible than ever, and the gray in his hair and beard. The vitality of the Principal Secretary’s intellect made it easy to forget his age, but in this admission of defeat he looked old.

Not defeat. Walsingham would not be outplayed. But it seemed he had, for the moment, been stymied. “What do you mean?”

Walsingham gathered his long robe around him and sat once more, gesturing for Deven to do the same. “Her Majesty had little choice but to execute Mary Stewart; the evidence against her was unquestionable. And years in the assembling, I might add; I knew from previous experience that I would need a great deal. Yet for all the efforts of the privy council, and all that evidence, it was a near thing — as her treatment of Davison shows.”

“You think someone else persuaded her in the end? Or was arguing against it, and turned her back after her decision?”

“The former.”

Deven’s mind was racing, pursuing these new paths Walsingham had opened up. “Not anyone on the Catholic side, then.” That ruled out a good portion of Europe, but fewer in England, even with some educated guesses as to who was a closeted papist.

“There is more.” Walsingham steepled his ink-stained fingers, casting odd shadows over his weary face. “Some of the evidence against the Queen of Scots fell too easily into my hands. There are certain strokes of good fortune that seem too convenient, certain individuals whose assistance was too timely. Not just at the end, but throughout. During the inquiry into her husband’s death, she claimed that someone had forged the letters in that casket, imitating her cipher in order to incriminate her. An implausible defense — but it may have been true.”

“Someone among the Protestant Scots. Or Burghley.”

But Walsingham shook his head before the words were even out. “Burghley has long had his agents, as did Leicester, before his death. But though we have not always been free with the knowledge we gain, I do not think they would, or could, have kept such an enterprise concealed from me. The Scots are a better guess, and I have spent much effort investigating them.”

His tone said enough. “You do not think it was them, either.”

“It does not end with the Queen of Scots.” Walsingham rose again and began to pace, as if his mind would not allow his tired body to remain still. “That was the most obvious incident of interference, and the longest, I think, in the founding and execution. But I have seen other signs. Courtiers presenting unexpected petitions, or changing stances that had seemed firmly set. Or the Queen herself.”

Elizabeth, not Mary. “Her Grace has always been of a… -mercurial temperament.”

Walsingham’s dry look said he needed no reminder. “Someone,” the Secretary said, “has been exercising a hidden influence over the Queen. Someone not of the privy council. I know my fellows there well enough; I know their positions. These interventions I have seen have, from time to time, matched the agenda of one councillor or another… but never one consistently.”

Deven respected Walsingham enough to believe that evaluation, rather than assume someone had successfully misled him for so long. Yet someone must have, had they not? Incredible as it was, someone had found a way to play this game without being uncovered.

The Secretary continued. “It would seem our hidden player has learned, as we all have, that to approach the Queen directly is less than productive; he more often acts through courtiers — or perhaps even her ladies. But there are times when I can think of no explanation save that he had secret conference with her Majesty, and persuaded her thus.”

“Within the last two years?”

Walsingham’s dark gaze met Deven’s again. “Yes.”

“Ralegh.”

“He is not the first courtier her Majesty has taken to her bosom without naming him to the council; indeed, I sometimes think she delights in confounding us by consulting others. But we know those individuals, and account for them. It is not Ralegh, nor any other we can see.”

Deven cast his mind over all those with the right of access to the presence and privy chambers, all those with whom he had seen the Queen walk in the gardens. Every name he suggested, Walsingham eliminated. “But your eye is a good one,” the Secretary said, with a wry smile. “There is a reason I took you into my service.”

He had been pondering this matter since Deven’s appearance at court? Since before then, from the sound of it; Deven should not be surprised to find himself a pawn in this game. Or, to switch metaphors, a hound, used to tease out the scent of prey. Yet a poor hound he was turning out to be. Deven let his breath out slowly. “Then, my lord, by your arguments, there are a number of people it cannot be, but a great many more who it might be. Those you can set aside are a few drops against an ocean of possibilities.”

“Were it not so,” Walsingham said, his voice flat once more, “I had found him out years ago.”

Accepting this rebuke, Deven hung his head.

“But,” the Secretary went on, “I am not defeated yet. If I cannot find this fellow by logic, I will track him to his lair — by seeing where he moves next.”

Now, at last, they were coming to the true reason Walsingham had picked up that first chess piece and asked about the Queen of Scots. Deven did not mind playing the role of the Secretary’s hound, when set to such a compelling task. And he even knew his quarry. “Ireland.”

“Ireland,” Walsingham agreed.

With these recent revelations in mind, Deven tried to see the hand of a hidden player in the events surrounding Perrot, Fitzwilliam, and Tyrone. Yet again the muddle defeated him.

“I do not think our player has chosen a course yet,” Walsingham said when he admitted this. “I had suspected him the author of the accusation against Perrot, but what you have uncovered makes me question it. There are oppositions to that accusation I did not expect, that might also be this unknown man’s doing.”

Deven weighed this. “Then perhaps he is playing a longer game. If, as you say, he manipulated events surrounding the Queen of Scots, he has no aversion to spending years in reaching his goal.”

“Indeed.” Walsingham passed a hand over his face, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I suspect he is laying the foundations for some future move. Which is cautious of him, and wise, especially if he wishes his hand to remain unseen. But his caution also gives us time in which to track him.”

“I will keep listening,” Deven said, with more enthusiasm than he had felt when he said it before. Now that he knew what to listen for, the task was far more engaging. And he did not want to disappoint the trust Walsingham had shown him, revealing this unsolved riddle in the first place. “Your hidden player must be good, to have remained unseen for so long, but everyone makes mistakes eventually. And when he does, we will find him.”

MEMORY: December 1585

The man had hardly stepped onto the dock at Rye when he found two burly fellows on either side of him and a third in front, smiling broadly and without warmth. “You’re to come with us,” the smiler said. “By orders of the Principal Secretary.”

The two knaves took hold of the traveler’s elbows. Their captive seemed unassuming enough: a young man, either clean-shaven or the sort who cannot grow a beard under any circumstances, dressed well but not extravagantly. The ship had come from France, though, and in these perilous times that was almost reason enough on its own to suspect him. These men were not searchers, authorized to ransack incoming ships for contraband or Catholic propaganda; they had come for him.

He was one man against three. The captive shrugged and said, “I am at the Secretary’s disposal.”

“Too right you are,” one of the thugs muttered, and they marched him off the dock into the squalid streets of Rye.

With their captive in custody, the men rode north and west, under a gray and half-frozen sky. Three cold, miserable days brought them to a private house near the Palace of Placentia in Greenwich, and the next day brought a knock at the door. The leader muttered, “Not before time, either,” and went to open it.

Sir Francis Walsingham stepped through, shaking out the folds of his dark cloak. Outside, two men-at-arms took up station on either side of the door. Walsingham did not look back to them, nor at the men he had hired, though he unpinned the cloak and handed it off to one of those men. His eyes were on the captive, who had risen and offered a bow. It was difficult to tell whether the bow was meant to be mocking, or whether the awkwardness of his bound hands led to that impression.

“Master Secretary,” the captive said. “I would offer you hospitality, but your men have taken all my possessions — and besides, the house isn’t mine.”

Walsingham ignored the sarcasm. He gestured for the two thugs to depart but their leader to remain, and when the three of them were alone in the room, he held up a letter taken from the captive, its seal carefully lifted. “Gilbert Gifford. You came here from France, bearing a letter from the Catholic conspirator Thomas Morgan to the dethroned Queen of Scots — a letter that recommends you to her as a trustworthy ally. I trust you recognize what the consequences for this might be.”

“I do,” Gifford said. “I also recognize that if those consequences were your intent, you would not have come here to speak privately with me. So shall we skip the threats and intimidation, and move on to the true matter at hand?”

The Principal Secretary studied him for a long moment. His dark eyes were unreadable in their nest of crow’s-feet. Then he sat in one of the room’s few chairs and gestured for Gifford to take the other, while Walsingham’s man came forward and unbound his hands.

When this was done, Walsingham said, “You speak like a man who intends to offer something.”

“And you speak like one who intends to negotiate for something.” Gifford flexed his hands and examined them, then laid them carefully along the arms of the chair. “In plain terms, my position is this: I come bearing that letter of recommendation, yes, and have every intention of putting it to use. What I have not yet determined is the use to which I will put it.”

“You offer your services.”

Gifford shrugged. “I have taken stock of the other side. No doubt you have a file somewhere detailing it all, Douai, Rome, Rheims—”

“You became a deacon of the Catholic church in April.”

“I would be disappointed if you did not know. Yes, I studied at their seminaries, and achieved some status therein. Had I not, Morgan would not now be recommending me to Mary Stewart. But if you know of those things, you also know of my conflicts with my supposed allies.”

“I am aware of them.” Walsingham sat quietly, with none of the fidgeting that marked lesser men. “You mean to say, then, that these conflicts of yours were a sign of true disaffection, and that your recent status was achieved in order to gain their trust.”

Gifford smiled thinly. “Perhaps. I would like to be of use to someone. I have no particular passion for the Catholic faith, my family notwithstanding, and I judge your cause to be in the ascendent. Though perhaps my willingness to switch sides is reason enough for you not to trust me. I am no ideologue for anyone’s faith, yours included.”

“I deal with men of the world as much as with ideologues.”

“I am glad to hear it. So that is my situation: I was sent to find some way to restore secret communications for Mary Stewart, so that her allies here and abroad might be able to plot her release once more. If you wish to block that communication, you can stop me easily enough — but then they will find someone else.”

“Whereas if I make use of you, I will know what is being said.”

“Assuming, of course, that I am the only courier, and not sent to distract you from the real channel of communication.”

The two men sat silently, watched by the third, while the fire crackled and gave out its warmth. There was no illusion of warmth between Walsingham and Gifford — but there was opportunity, and in all likelihood both preferred that to warmth.

“You have been publicly arrested,” Walsingham said at last. “What will you tell Morgan?”

“He’s a Welshman. I will tell him I told you that I came here to advance the interests of the Welsh and English factions against the Jesuits.”

“Whereupon I, favoring any sort of internal strife among my enemies, released you to proceed about that business.”

Gifford smiled mockingly.

Walsingham weighed him for a long moment, his shrewd eyes unblinking. At last he said, “You will keep me informed as you make contact with the Queen of Scots, so that we may devise a way to keep her correspondence under our eye.” He took up the letter from Morgan and passed it back to Gifford. “Go to Finch Lane, near Leadenhall Market. There is a man there named Thomas Phelippes. You will give him this letter, and keep in his company until I send you onward. The delay will not be remarked; the Scottish woman’s residence is being moved, and until it is settled once more no one will expect you to contact her. Phelippes will return the letter to you when you go.”

Gifford accepted the letter and tucked it away. “May this be profitable to us both.”

But when they released him, he did not proceed as instructed to Leadenhall. The time for that would come, but he had other business first.

The house he sought out stood hard by the fishy stench of Billingsgate, but despite its location, its windows and doors were boarded up. By the time he arrived there, he had shaken off the Secretary’s men who had been following him, and so he entered the tiny courtyard alone.

Dusk was falling as he knelt with fastidious care on the ground and ran his long fingers around the edge of one flagstone. With a small grimace of effort, he pried it from its rest, revealing not dirt beneath, but a vertical passage, with a ladder propped against one wall. When the flagstone settled back into place above him he reached out, found smooth stone, and laid his lips on it in a grudging kiss.

A whisper of sound as the stone shifted, and a rush of cool light.

He stepped through into a place which both was and was not beneath the courtyard of the house near Billingsgate. As he did so, the last vestiges of the facade that was Gilbert Gifford fell away, and with a disturbingly fluid shrug, a new man revealed himself.

He had cut it very fine; much longer and his protection would have faded. He had underestimated how cursedly slow travel could be, when confined to slogging along ordinary roads on ordinary horses, and food not specifically given in offering did nothing to maintain his facade. But he had reached the Onyx Hall in safety, and he could explain away his delay in getting to Phelippes.

First, he would report to his Queen.

With one last rippling shiver that shook off the lingering stain of humanity, Ifarren Vidar set off deeper into the Onyx Hall, to tell of his work against the Scottish woman, and to prepare himself for more time spent imprisoned in mortal guise.

RICHMOND PALACE, RICHMOND: March 6, 1590

The draca was not the only fae around Elizabeth’s court. Lune was the only one living as a human, but others came and went, to gather secrets, visit lovers, or simply play tricks. Sometimes she knew of their presence; other times she did not.

But she assumed, even before she left the Onyx Hall to lay the groundwork for Anne Montrose’s entrance, that someone had been set to watch her. With the endless peregrinations of Elizabeth’s court, it was necessary; they could not spend more than a month or two in one residence before it became fouled by habitation, and the Queen’s whim could send everyone packing on a moment’s notice. The sprites and goblins assigned to bring Lune bread on Fridays had to know where to find her.

That was hardly the watcher’s only purpose, though. She never let herself forget that someone else was reporting back on her actions.

Since Vidar’s appearance at Hampton Court, Lune had conducted herself with even more care than usual. Her ostensible purpose there was to monitor Walsingham and gain access to him via Deven, but she might at a moment’s notice be asked to take action on the Irish affair. A less subtle fae might charm one or more courtiers into behaving as desired; Lune knew her value lay in her ability to work through human channels. Invidiana did not want her influence over the mortal court betrayed by indiscreet use of faerie magic.

So she gathered secrets, and tallied favors, and waited to see what would happen, one eye ever on the few tiny scraps of information about her own court she was able to glean from her contacts.

The draca in the river was useful. Water spirits were often garrulous, and this one was no exception; it might not have access to the daily life of the Onyx Court — it never went past the submerged entrance in the harbor of Queenhithe — but it spoke to other water-associated fae, and even (it claimed) to the Thames itself, which was the lifeblood of London. More news came its way than one might expect. When surprisingly warm and sunny weather descended on them one afternoon, Anne Montrose persuaded the countess to go out along the river, and Lune spent nearly an hour talking to the draca, learning what it knew.

When Elizabeth summoned the countess to attend her at Richmond, the draca followed them downriver. Lune never used it to send word to Vidar and Invidiana, but one blustery day in March, the draca gave her a warning: Vidar himself would bring her bread that night.

Lune was not surprised — she had expected she might see him again, given the apparent importance of Ireland to both courts at present — but she might have been startled, if she came upon him unawares. She thanked the draca, rewarded it with a gold earring purloined from the countess, and went about her business as if nothing were unusual.

Someone was always watching.

Richmond was smaller, and more difficult to sneak around in. Lune left the countess’s chamber well in advance of her appointed rendezvous, and sacrificed her careful illusion of Anne Montrose for the purpose of disguise. It was possible to turn mortal eyes away, but tiring; far easier to appear as someone who had a right to be up and about, even at odd hours. A servant of the household in this part of the palace; a man-at-arms in that part, though she impersonated men badly and would not have wanted to attempt a conversation as one.

One careful stage at a time, she made her way outside and into the night.

When at Hampton Court, she met her courier along the river; here, the appointed meeting place lay within the shadows of the orchard. She ducked beneath the drooping, winter-stripped branches of a willow and, straightening, discarded her appearance of mortality entirely.

The fae who waited for her there was not Vidar.

Lune swore inwardly, though she kept her face smooth. A change of plans? A deliberate deception on Vidar’s part? Or just the draca lying for its own amusement or self-interest? It did not matter. Gresh, one of her more common contacts, was waiting for her.

“Your bread,” he grunted, and tossed it at her without ceremony. Like most goblin fae, he was a squat and twisted thing; ceremony would have been a painful mockery on him. Lune sometimes thought that was why so few of them occupied places of importance in the Onyx Court. In addition to their chaotic and unrefined natures, which disrupted the elegance Invidiana prized, they did not look the part. Mostly they operated as minions of the elfin fae, or stayed away from court entirely.

But elegance and beauty were not the only things that mattered; Dame Halgresta and her two brothers proved that. Raw ugliness and power had their places, too.

Lune caught the bread and examined it; she had been shorted on her ration more than once. The lump was large enough to make up the requisite seven bites, though, and so she tucked it away in her purse. “So what you got?” Gresh asked, scratching through the patchy, wiry hairs of his beard. “Make it quick — just the important stuff — got better things to do with my time than sit under some drippy tree listening to gossip.” He glared up at the willow’s swaying branches as if personally offended by them.

She had spent much of the day planning out what she would say to Vidar, how she would answer the questions she anticipated him asking. Faced with only Gresh, she felt rather deflated. “The Earl of Tyrone is likely to come before the privy council again soon,” she said. “If her Majesty wishes to take some action, that would be an opportune time; he is an ambitious man, and a contentious one. He can be bought or provoked, as needed.”

Gresh picked something out of his beard, examined it, then threw it away with a disappointed sigh. “What about what’s-his-face? The one you supposed to be watching. Not the Irish fellow.”

“Walsingham may be my assignment,” Lune said evenly, “but he is not the only way to advance our Queen’s interests at court. I began with the most significant news.”

“Planning to bore me with insignificant news?”

“Less significant is not the same as insignificant.”

“Dunna waste time arguing; just get on with it.”

Tedious experience had taught her that Gresh could neither be charmed nor intimidated into better behavior. It simply wasn’t in his nature. Lune swallowed her irritation and went on. “Walsingham continues to defend Sir John Perrot against the accusation of treason. His health has been poor, though. If he has to take another leave of absence, Robert Beale will likely stand in for him with the privy council, as he has done before, but while Beale will follow his master’s wishes, he will be less effective of an advocate for Perrot.”

Gresh scrunched his brows together in either pain or intense thought, then brightened. “Walserthingy, Wasserwhatsit… oh, right! Something I was supposed to ask you.” He feigned a pensive look. “Or should I make you wait for it?”

Lune didn’t bother to respond to that; it would only amuse him more.

“Right, so, Water-whoever. Got some mortal fellow dangling that serves him, right?”

“Michael Deven.”

“Sure, him. How loyal’s he?”

“To me?”

“To his master.”

She hadn’t expected that question. To buy herself time, Lune said, “He has been in Walsingham’s service since approximately a year and a half ago—”

Gresh snorted, a phlegmy sound. “Ain’t asking for a history. Would your mortal pup betray him?”

Her nerves hummed like harpstrings brought suddenly into tune. Lune said carefully, “It depends on what you mean by betrayal. Would he act directly against Walsingham’s interests?” She didn’t even have to ponder it. “No. Deven, like his master, is dedicated to the well-being of England and Elizabeth. At most, his opinion on how to serve that well-being might differ from Walsingham’s. I suppose if it differed enough, and he thought the situation critical enough, he might take action on his own. But a direct betrayal? Never. The most he has done so far is indiscreetly share some information he should have kept secret.”

“That so?” Gresh greeted this with an eager leer. “Like what?”

Lune kept her shrug deliberately careless. “Matters I have already shared with her Majesty. If you are not privy to them, that is no concern of mine.”

“Aw, c’mon.” The goblin pouted — a truly hideous sight. “No new scraps you could toss the way of this poor, bored soul?”

Why was he pressing? “No. I have nothing new to report.”

It could have been the wind that stirred the branches of the willow. By the time she realized it wasn’t, the knife was already at her throat.

“Really,” Vidar breathed in her ear, his voice soft with malice. “Would you care to rethink that statement, Lady Lune?”

Gresh cackled and did a little dance.

She closed her eyes before they could betray her. More than they already had. With sight gone, her other senses were sharpened; she heard every quiet tap as the willow’s bare branches met and parted, the chill whistling of the damp spring breeze. Frost left a hard crust on the ground and a hard scent in the air.

The edge against her throat rasped imperceptibly across her flesh as she inhaled, its touch light enough to leave the skin unbroken, firm enough to remind her of the blade’s presence.

“Have you heard something to the contrary, Lord Ifarren?” she asked, moving her jaw as little as possible.

His left arm was wrapped around her waist, nails digging in hard enough to be felt through the boning of her bodice. Vidar was taller than her, but with his skeletal build, he weighed about the same. What would Gresh do, if she tried to fight Vidar?

There was no point in trying. Even if she got the knife away from him, what would she do? Kill him? Invidiana had been known to turn a blind eye to the occasional murder, but Lune doubted this one would go unremarked. If she could even best the faerie lord.

He laughed silently; she felt it where his body pressed against her back. “How very evasive an answer, Lady Lune.” Vidar pronounced her title like a threat. “I have heard something very interesting indeed. I have heard that you spoke with that mortal toy of yours.”

“I speak with him often.” The words came out perfectly unruffled, as if they stood in ordinary discourse.

“Not so often as you might. You should have told me he was at Richmond without you.”

“My apologies, my lord. It was an oversight.”

Another silent laugh. “Oh, I am sure. But this recent conversation — that is the one that interests me. A little whisper has said he told you something of import.” His grip tightened around her waist, and the knife pressed closer. “Something you have not shared.”

She knew the conversation he meant. There was no way the draca could have heard it; they stood in the palace kennel at the time, well away from the river. What manner of fae could have overheard them without being seen?

A black dog, perhaps — some skriker or brash. Hidden in among the hounds. But how much had it heard?

Not everything, or Vidar would not be here now, forcing the information out of her. But she had to be very careful of what she said.

She opened her eyes. Gresh had vanished, his duty done; if he was eavesdropping, that would be Vidar’s problem.

“Sir Francis Walsingham,” she said, “has begun to suspect.”

Vidar went still against her back. Then his arm uncurled; the elfin lord kept the knife against her throat as he circled around to stand in front of her. His black eyes glittered in the near-total darkness.

“What did you say?” he whispered.

She wet her lips before she could suppress the nervous movement. “The Principal Secretary has begun to suspect that someone unknown to him has a hand in English politics.”

“What has he seen?”

The question lashed out like a whip. But it was easier for Lune to retain her composure, even with the knife still against her skin, now that her body was not pressed to Vidar’s in violently intimate embrace. “Seen? Nothing. He suspects only.” She had to give him more than that. “The recent events concerning Ireland have caught his attention. He is beginning to look back at past matters, such as the Queen of Scots.”

Vidar’s shoulders rose fractionally with tension. Lune knew that one would worry him.

“And what,” Vidar said, his voice now hard with control, “will he do with his suspicions?”

Lune shook her head, then froze as she felt the knife scrape her throat once more. “I do not know. Deven does not know. Walsingham spoke of it only briefly, and that in a confused fashion. He has not been well; Deven thinks this a feverish delusion brought on by overwork.”

She stood motionless, briefly forgotten as Vidar considered her words. The black dog — if that was the watcher in question — could not have heard them over the racket the other hounds were making. He had only seen them talking, and surmised from her reaction that whatever Deven spoke of was important. Vidar’s sharp reaction to her first declaration had made that plain.

Which meant that she could afford to bend the truth — within limits.

Vidar’s gaze sharpened and turned back to her. “So,” he said. “You learned of this — a clear and immediate threat to the Queen’s grace and the security of our people — and you chose to keep the information to yourself.” His lips peeled back from his teeth in mockery of a smile. “Explain why.”

Lune sniffed derisively. “Why? I should think it obvious, even to you. This is the kind of situation that makes people stop thinking, sends them into a blind panic wherein they strike out at the perceived threat, thinking only to destroy it. Which might be a terrible waste of opportunity.”

“Opportunity.” Vidar relaxed his arm; the knife moved away, though it still glimmered in his hand, unsheathed and ready. “Opportunity for Lady Lune, perhaps — at the expense of the Onyx Court, and all the fae who shelter under its power.”

She wondered if this rhetoric came from their habit of copying mortals. The greater good of the Onyx Court, and the faerie race as a whole, was occasionally deployed as a justification for certain actions, or an exhortation to loyalty. It might have carried more force had it not been only an occasional device — or if anyone had believed it to be more than empty words. “Not in the slightest,” she said, keeping her voice even and unperturbed. “I am no fool; what gain could there possibly be for me, betraying her Majesty in such a manner? But I am better positioned than any to see which direction Walsingham moves, what action he takes. And I tell you that quick action would be inadvisable here. Far better to watch him, and to move subtly, when fortune should offer us a chance.” She allowed herself an ironic smile. “Even should he uncover the times and places in which we have intervened, I hardly expect he will imagine fae to be the culprits.”

And that was true enough. But Vidar’s malicious smile had returned. “I wonder what her Majesty would think of your logic?”

Beneath the facade of her composure, Lune’s heart skipped several beats.

“I might not tell her.” Vidar examined the point of his dagger, scraping some imagined fleck of dirt off it with one talonlike fingernail. “It would be a risk to me, of course — if she found out… but I might be willing to offer you that mercy, Lady Lune.”

She had to ask; he was waiting for it. “At what price?”

His eyes glittered at her over the blade in his hands. “Your silence. At some point in the future, I will bid you keep some knowledge to yourself. Something commensurate with what I do for you now. And you will be bound, by your word, to keep that matter from the Queen.”

She could translate that well enough. He was binding her to be his accomplice in some future bid to take the Onyx Throne.

Yet what was her alternative? Say to him, So tell the Queen, and be damned, and then warn Invidiana of Vidar’s ambition? She knew of it already, and he had not said anything specific enough to condemn him. At which point Lune would be dependent on nothing more than the mercy of a merciless Queen.

Lune kept from grinding her teeth by force of will, and said in a voice that sounded only a little strained, “Very well.”

Vidar lowered the knife. “Your word upon it.”

He was leaving nothing to chance. Lune swallowed down bile and said, “In ancient Mab’s name, I swear to repay this favor with favor, of commensurate kind and value, when you should upon a future occasion ask for it, and to let no word of it reach the Queen.”

That, or remove him as a threat before he ever had occasion to ask. Sun and Moon, Lune thought despairingly, how did I reach such a state, that I should be swearing myself to Vidar?

The dagger vanished as if it had never been. “Excellent,” Vidar said, and smiled that toothy smile. “I look forward to hearing your future reports, Lady Lune.”

OATLANDS PALACE, SURREY: March 14, 1590

Standing at attention beside the door that led from the presence chamber to the privy chamber, Deven fixed his eyes on the far wall and let his ears do the work. It was a tedious duty, and a footsore one — shifting one’s weight was frowned upon — but it did afford him a good opportunity to eavesdrop. He had come to suspect that Elizabeth’s penchant for conversing in a variety of languages was as much an obfuscatory tactic as a demonstration of her learning; her courtiers were a polyglot assortment, following the lead of their Queen, but few could speak every language she did. He himself was often defeated by her rapid-fire speech, but he had enough Italian now to sift out the gist of a sentence, and his French was in fine practice. So he stared off into the distance, poleax held precisely upright, and listened.

He listened particularly for talk of Ireland.

A hidden player, Walsingham had said. Deven had already calculated that any such player must either have the right of entrée to the presence chamber — likely the privy chamber as well — or else must have followers with such a right. The former made more sense, as one could not effectively influence the machinery of court at a distance for long, but he couldn’t assume it too firmly.

Unfortunately, though a great many people were barred from entry, a great many were not. Peers of the realm, knights, gentlemen — even some wealthy merchants — ambassadors, too. Could it be one of them? Neither the Spanish nor the French would have reason to urge Mary’s execution on Elizabeth, and they had little enough reason to care what happened in Ireland, though part of the accusations against both Perrot and the Earl of Tyrone were that they had conspired with the Spanish.

But ambassadors came and went. If Walsingham was correct, this player had been active for decades. They made poor suspects, unless the true players were their more distant sovereigns — but those were already on the board, so to speak.

Round and round Deven’s thoughts went, while out of the corners of his eyes he watched courtiers come and go, and he eavesdropped on every scrap of conversation he could.

A tap on his brocade shoulder roused him from his reverie. Focusing so much on the edges of the room, he hadn’t paid any attention to what was in front of him.

William Tighe stood before him, ceremonial polearm in hand. On the other side of the doorway, John Darrington was changing places with Arthur Capell. Deven relaxed his stance and nodded thanks to Tighe.

As he stepped aside, he saw something that distracted him from the endless riddle in his mind. Across the chamber, the Countess of Warwick laid aside her embroidery hoop and rose from her cushion. She made a deep curtsy to Elizabeth, then backed away. Transferring the poleax to his left hand, Deven moved quickly to the outer door, where he bowed and opened it for the countess.

He followed her out into the watching chamber, past the Yeomen of the Guard and usher at that door, and as soon as they passed out of earshot he said, “Lady Warwick. If I could beg a moment of your time?”

She looked mildly surprised, but nodded and gestured for him to walk at her side. Together they passed out of the watching chamber, filled with those courtiers hoping for an opportunity to gain entrance to the more restricted and privileged domain beyond. Deven waited until they had escaped those rapacious ears before he said, “I humbly beg your pardon for troubling you with this matter; I am certain there are many other, more pressing cares that demand your ladyship’s time. But I am sure you can understand how affection drives a man’s heart to impatience. Have you any sense yet how her Majesty’s disposition lies, with respect to my desire?”

It was far from the most elaborate speech he had ever delivered at court, yet he seemed to have puzzled the countess. “Your desire?”

“Mistress Montrose, your waiting-gentlewoman,” Deven said. “She tells me she has asked your ladyship to discern which way the wind blows with the Queen — whether her Grace would be angered by the notion of our marriage.”

Her step slowed marginally. Working in Walsingham’s service, Deven had questioned a variety of dubious men; he had learned to read body language very well. What he read in her hesitation chilled him. “Master Deven… she has made no such request of me.”

They walked on a few more strides, Deven’s legs carrying him obediently onward, because he had not yet told them to do otherwise.

“No such request,” he repeated, dumbly.

The look she gave him was guarded, but compassionate. “If you wish it, I can discover her Majesty’s inclination on the matter. I am sure she would not object.”

Deven shook his head, slowly. “No… no. That is… I thank you, my lady.” The words came out by rote. “I may ask for your good office in this matter later. But I… I should speak to Anne.”

“Yes,” the countess said softly. “I imagine you should. God give you good day, Master Deven.”

OATLANDS PALACE, SURREY: March 15, 1590

He did not seek out Anne until the next day. He spent the evening alone in his chamber, sending Ranwell off on a spurious errand. Colsey waited on him alone that night, and was permitted to stay because he would keep his mouth shut.

The place his thoughts led him was not pleasant, but he could not avoid it. And delay would not improve matters. When he had leisure the following afternoon, he went in search of Anne.

She was not with the countess; she had been assigned other tasks that day. Oatlands was a small palace compared with Hampton Court or Whitehall, yet it seemed the proverbial haystack that day, and Anne the needle that kept eluding his search. Not until nearly dusk did he find her, when he went again to check the countess’s own chambers, and found her making note of a delivery of books.

He stopped on the threshold, his movement suddenly arrested, and she looked up from her paper. The smile that lit her face made him hope it was all a simple misunderstanding — but he did not believe it.

“We must speak,” he said without preamble.

Anne put down the pen and bit her lip. “The countess may return soon; I should—”

“She will forgive you this absence.”

A thin line formed between her pale brows, but she rose from her seat. “Very well.”

He would not have this conversation inside; there were always ears to overhear, whether they belonged to courtiers or servants of the household. Anne fetched a cloak. Deven had not thought to bring one for himself. Together they went out into the orchard, where the trees only intermittently protected against the spring wind.

Anne walked with him in silence, granting him the time he needed. The words were prepared in his mind, yet they did not come out easily. Not with her at his side.

“I spoke with the countess today.”

“Oh?” She seemed guardedly curious, no more.

“About the Queen. About — you, and me, and the matter of our marriage.” His cheeks and lips were going cold already. “That was the first she heard of it.”

Anne’s step slowed, as the countess’s had before her.

Deven made himself turn to face her. His gut felt tight, like he was holding himself together by muscle alone. “If you do not wish to marry me, all you need do is say so.”

The words were spoken, and she did not immediately dispute them. Instead she dropped her chin, so that her hood half-concealed her face. That gesture, too, spoke clearly to him. He waited, trying not to shiver, and almost missed it when she whispered, “’Tis not that I do not wish to. I cannot.”

“Cannot?” He had resigned himself to her cooled affections, or tried to; now he seized on this word with mingled hope and confusion. “Why?”

She shook her head, not meeting his gaze.

“Does your father not approve?”

Another shake of her head. “-I — I have no father.”

“Are you promised already to another? Wed to another, God forbid?” Again she denied it. Deven groped for other possible reasons. “Are you Catholic?”

A wild, inappropriate laugh escaped her, then cut off abruptly. “No.”

“Then in God’s name, why not?”

He said it louder than he meant to. Anne flinched and turned away, presenting her cloaked back to him. “-I—” Her voice was ragged, like his, but determined. He knew well how strong her will was, but it had never been turned against him before. “I am sorry, Michael. You deserve an explanation, and I have none. But I cannot marry you.”

The strained beats of his heart marked the time as he stared at her, waiting for further words, that were not forthcoming. “Now, or ever?”

Another painfully long pause. “Ever.”

That flat declaration drained the warmth out of him faster than the bitter air ever could. Deven swallowed down the first three responses that came to his tongue; even now, in his bafflement and pain, he did not want to hurt her, though the urge flared within him. Finally he said, hearing the roughness in his own voice, “Then why did you let me believe you would?”

She turned back at last, and the tears that should have been in her eyes were absent. She had a distant look about her, and though it might simply be how she showed pain, it angered him. Had this meant nothing to her?

“I feared you would leave me, when you knew,” she said. “You are your father’s heir, and must marry. I did not wish to lose you to another.”

The words were too manipulative. He was expected to protest, to tell her there was no other in his heart, and though it was true he would not say it. “If you wished me to stay, then you should not have kept me like a fish on a hook. I believed you trusted me more than that — as I trusted you.”

Now tears sparkled at the corners of her eyes. “Forgive me.”

He shook his head, slowly. There was some riddle here he could not solve, but he had not the will to untangle it. If he stayed any longer, he would say something he would regret.

Turning, he left her in the dead wilderness of the orchard, with her cloak rippling in the cold wind.

OATLANDS PALACE, SURREY: March 19, 1590

The countess was a kind woman, as ladies of the court went. She kept a weather eye not just on the Queen she served, but on the women who served her in turn. It did not escape her that a problem had arisen between her waiting-gentlewoman Anne Montrose and Michael Deven of the Gentlemen Pensioners, and following the revelation of that problem, the two of them had fallen out.

Lune would have preferred Lady Warwick to be less concerned for her well-being. As it was, she almost resorted to faerie magic to convince her human mistress to leave her be. Anne Montrose needed to be upset, but not too upset, lest the countess pry too closely; hidden behind that mask, Lune had to shake off the practiced habits of her masquerade, and figure out what to do next.

She cursed herself for the misstep. Originally she had fostered his worry about Elizabeth’s possible jealousy because it provided a convenient delaying tactic; their romance was useful, but she could not possibly afford to go through with an actual marriage. And he was not, unfortunately, the sort of courtier to indulge in an illicit affair for years on end without worrying about scandal. It would have been easier if he were. But he soon made it clear he wished to wed her, and so she had to find ways of putting him off.

She should have expected he would speak to the countess directly. She should have known, the first time she lied and said she had asked her mistress to look into the matter, that a time would come when she must produce an answer.

It was a problem she could not solve as Anne Montrose, because Anne loved Deven; the mortal woman she pretended to be would marry him and be done with it. As Lune, her one bitter consolation was that Deven was unlikely to spot fae manipulation at court, now that the nearest fae manipulator had become estranged from him.

But what now? She had no answer to that all-important question. Walsingham had other confidants — Robert Beale, Nicholas Faunt — but if she approached them in her current guise, all she would do was rouse suspicion. The more effective course of action, in the long term, would be to retreat and return under a different glamour and persona, but with the Principal Secretary searching for evidence of Invidiana’s hand, Lune could not afford the months it would take to reintegrate herself to any useful extent.

She might have no choice but to resort to more direct methods: concealment, eavesdropping, theft of papers, and other covert activities. To do so would require extensive use of charms, and so as far as she was concerned they were a last resort — but she might be at that point. Vidar expected her to provide information, and soon.

Deven’s absence left a palpable hole in her life. Their duties often kept them apart, but it had become habit to seek out occasions to meet, even if they saw each other only in passing, exchanging a smile while going opposite ways down a gallery or through a chamber. Now she avoided him, and he her. Being near each other was too uncomfortable.

What would she do without him? Not until he was gone did she realize how much she had depended on him. She saw Walsingham twice, at a distance, and fretted over what the Principal Secretary might be doing.

What Deven might be doing. He was, as he had said, Walsingham’s hound.

She lay awake late into the night the following Thursday, staring into the darkness as if it would provide an answer. And so she was awake when the countess rose from her bed and reached for a dressing gown.

Anne Montrose whispered, “My lady?”

“I cannot sleep,” the countess murmured back, pulling on the padded, fur-trimmed gown. “I need air. Will you walk with me?”

Anne shed her blankets and helped her mistress, fetching a coif to keep her head and ears warm outside. They both slipped on overshoes, then exited the chamber, leaving the other gentlewomen undisturbed.

Deep in the recesses of her mind, where Anne Montrose gave way to Lune, the faerie thought: Something is wrong.

The countess did not walk quickly, but she moved with purpose, through the palace and toward the nearest exterior door. Anne followed her, squinting to see in the near-total darkness, and then they were outside, where the air rested unnaturally still.

In the silence, she thought she heard a sound.

Music.

Music intended only for the countess’s ears.

Anne Montrose’s face took on a wary, alert expression her mistress would have been surprised to see — had she eyes for anything other than the miniature stone tower of the herber up ahead.

Who would summon her? Who would play a faerie song, to lure the Countess of Warwick from her bed and into the shadows of night?

They rounded the herber, and found someone waiting for them.

Orpheus’s rangy body was wrapped tenderly around the lyre, his fingers coaxing forth a melody that was still all but inaudible, to all but its intended target. The countess sank to the ground before him, heedless of the damp that immediately soaked into and through her dressing gown; her mouth hung slack as she gazed adoringly up at the mortal musician and listened to his immortal song.

Heavy footsteps squelched in the wet soil behind Lune, and again, as with Vidar, she realized the truth too late.

The countess was not the target. She was merely the lure, to draw Lune outside, away from mortal eyes.

Lune flung herself to the left, hoping to evade the one behind her, but hands the size of serving platters were waiting for her. She dropped to the ground — the fingers clamped shut above her shoulders, just missing their grip — but then a boot swung forward and struck her squarely in the back, sending her face-first into the dirt.

Two paces away, the countess sat serenely, oblivious to the violence, held by the power of Orpheus’s gift.

A knee planted itself in Lune’s back, threatening to snap her spine with its sheer weight. She cried out despite herself, and heard a nasty chuckle in response. Her arms were twisted up and back, bound together with brutal efficiency; then her captor hauled her up by her hair and flung her bodily against the stone wall of the herber.

Coughing, stumbling, eyes watering with pain, Lune could still make out the immense and hated bulk of Dame Halgresta Nellt.

“You fucked up, slut,” the low, rocky voice growled. Even through the venom, the pleasure was unmistakable. “The Queen forgave you once — Mab knows why. But she won’t forgive you this time.”

Lune forced her lungs to draw in air. “I haven’t,” she managed, then tried again. “Vidar knows. Everything I know. What goes on here. I report to him.”

Halgresta hadn’t come alone. Six goblins materialized out of the shadows, armed and armored and ready to catch Lune if she tried to run — as if she could outrun a giant. She had to talk her way out of this.

Talk her way out, with Halgresta. It would be like using a pin to dismantle an iron-bound door.

The giantess grinned, showing teeth like sharpened boulders. “Vidar knows everything, eh? Well, he does now. But not from you.”

What? What had Vidar learned? How had he gotten someone closer to Walsingham than she had?

“You lost your toy, bitch.” Halgresta’s voice struck her like another blow, knocking all the wind out. “You lost that mortal of yours.”

Deven.

The stabbing pain in her ribs was subsiding; Lune didn’t think anything was broken. She made herself stand straighter, despite her awkwardly bound arms. “I am not finished,” she said, with as much confidence as she could muster. “Deven is only one route to Walsingham. There are other ways to deal with the problem—”

Halgresta spat. The wad of spittle hit the countess’s shoulder and slid down, unnoticed; Orpheus’s melody was still ghosting through the air, plaintive and soft. “Right. Other ways. And other people to take care of them. You? You’re coming back to the Onyx Hall.”

“Let me talk to Vidar,” Lune said. Had she reached such a nadir that he seemed like a thread of hope? Yes. “I am sure he and I can reach an accord.”

The giantess leaned forward, until her ugly, stony face was the only thing Lune could see, almost invisible in the darkness. “Maybe you and Vidar could,” Halgresta growled. “Who knows what plots you and that spider have hatched. But he’s not the one who told me to bring you in.

“The Queen is.”

ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, LONDON: April 7, 1590

Sir Philip Sidney, late husband of Sir Francis Walsingham’s daughter, had been buried in a fine tomb in St. Paul’s Cathedral when he died in 1586.

Now the tomb was opened again, to receive the body of Sir Francis Walsingham.

The ceremony was simple. The Principal Secretary had died in debt; his will, found in a secret cabinet in his house on Seething Lane, had requested that no great expenditure be made for his funeral. They buried him at night, to avoid attracting the attention of his creditors.

And so there was no great procession, no men-at-arms wearing matching livery — not even the Queen. She had quarreled often with Walsingham, but in the end, the two respected one another. She would have come if she could.

Deven stood alongside Beale and others he knew more distantly: Edward Carey, William Dodington, Nicholas Faunt. Some small distance away stood the pale, grieving figures of Ursula Walsingham and her daughter Frances. The gathering was not large.

The priest’s voice rolled sonorously on, his words washing over Deven and vanishing up into the high Gothic reaches of the cathedral. The body was placed in the tomb, and the tomb closed over it.

The body. Deven had seen death, but never had he so much difficulty connecting a living man to the lifeless flesh he left behind.

He could not believe Walsingham was dead.

The priest pronounced a benediction. The gathered mourners began to depart.

Standing rooted to his spot, eyes fixed on the carved stone of the tomb, Deven thought bleakly, Master Secretary — what do I do now?