Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer (13 page)

“The Slayer has come.”

All conversation ceased the moment I strode into the great hall. Beneath the wide, arched ceiling so high that it faded away into shadows, a hundred and more of the kindred were gathered, garbed in velvet and silk, bestrewn with jewels, as glorious a court as any monarch could wish. Here and there, a few strummed lutes or fingered a virginal, but most were occupied with dice and cards. How they loved to gamble, my children! How it invigorated the tedium of endless life.

As one they turned to me. I looked at their pale faces, all so beautiful, felt their eager strength, and threw wide my arms.

“My beloved,” I said, for I did truly love each and every one of them. “Why do you tarry here? The moon summons you to feed! Sate yourselves that you may better serve me in the great struggle upon which we are embarked. Go forth without restraint!”

They rose as one, cheering me, and spread themselves upon the night. In moments, the great hall was empty save for the thralls, who huddled in the shadows.

I slumped in a chair beside the fire, aware of Blanche hovering nearby but unwilling to call her to me. All my thoughts were of Elizabeth—her beauty, her pride, the longing I felt for her that grew more intense with each encounter. Incredibly, she was beginning to eclipse Morgaine in my thoughts, something I would never have thought
possible. Was my hunger for her obscuring my reason? Should I kill her there and then before her power could grow any greater? But to do that would cost me my surest route to the throne … not to mention Elizabeth herself.

I told myself that I would exact a price for her arrogance so high that she would quake from ever paying it again. After this night, she would come to me on bended knee and grant my every desire.

Yet, truth be told, it was I who quaked deep within as memories crept over me of the last time a Slayer had walked this earth.

Against a landscape of death and ruin, I thought I caught the scent of roses.

“Your power is growing, Majesty.” Dee’s satisfaction at this development is unmistakable. The magus regards me with the scrutiny he might afford a successful experiment.

Not so Walsingham, who understands what my impulsive act has cost us. “Better we took him alive,” the schoolmaster says, “that he might be questioned.”

I agree but silently, for I am still struggling to come to terms with the extraordinary fact that I have killed an otherworldly creature who under other circumstances might have lived forever. My power is real … and as Dee rightly perceives, it is growing.

We are back in my chambers, having reached there through the passage. Cecil receives us with unalloyed relief, but as he learns what happened, he turns grim.

“We are dealing with powers far beyond the ken of mortal man,” my Spirit says. “Let us be grateful that Her Majesty was not harmed.”

The others murmur their agreement but I scarcely hear them. I am lost in my own thoughts, seeing over and over again the moment when the vampire, an immortal being of great power, flew apart like so much chaff upon the wind. What has come into me that I am capable of such a feat?

Having poured me a generous measure of brandy, Robin returns to where I sit near the fire and places the goblet in my hand, closing my fingers around it.

“Drink,” he urges. “You are pale as a ghost.”

That may be, but oddly the fatigue that gripped me after the first use of my power is absent. Instead, I feel alive in a way that I have never before experienced. Unbidden, the thought rises in me that in killing the vampire, I have absorbed his strength.

But there is no comparison between me and creatures who take sustenance from the blood of innocents. None at all.

My hand shaking, I raise the goblet and drain it to the dregs. From the corner of my eye, I see Dee and Cecil exchange a glance.

“There will be other opportunities,” the magus ventures. “It is early days yet.”

I all but choke on the last of the brandy and resist the impulse to hurl the goblet at him. Rising from my chair, driven by the energy that threatens to burst my skin, I exclaim, “Mordred has bided his time for a thousand years, growing in power, becoming something unimaginable, and you tell me it is
early
yet?”

Forcing myself to breathe deeply, I struggle for calm. “We must try again and quickly.”

Walsingham hesitates. Clearly he does not want to provoke me, but he is troubled. “Majesty, I have had only a fortnight to discover the vampires’ whereabouts. While I was able to determine that they frequent the tavern, there is much more I am not yet certain of.”

“We could try there again,” Robin suggests.

I am tempted but my better sense warns against it. “Word will spread about what was seen. The area will be too closely watched.”

The schoolmaster nods reluctantly. “I fear Your Majesty may be correct. But there is another possibility.”

“Out with it.”

“I have heard rumors about the presence of vampires at Southwark Manor.”

The possibility shocks me. Southwark Manor belonged to my father before it passed to Mary, who gave it, if memory serves, to the Archbishop of York. I had heard that he sold it, but I realize now that I have no idea to whom.

“How certain are you of this?”

“Not enough to suggest going there this night, Majesty,” Walsingham says quickly as though to forestall any such notion. “But I will investigate further without delay.”

“It will be dawn in a few hours,” Robin points out. “Her Majesty needs to rest. Come back when you have something useful to tell her.”

Ordinarily, I dislike Robin giving orders on my behalf, but this time I let it pass. The full import of what has happened threatens to overwhelm me. I wrap my arms around myself in a weak stab at comfort and make no demur as Robin ushers the men out.

He shuts the door behind them, shoots the bolt to secure our privacy, and comes to me with swift strides that leave no doubt as to his intent.

“For God’s sake, Elizabeth, this is madness.”

I start to laugh but catch myself, afraid that I will cry instead. “Perhaps it is a dream and in another moment we will wake.”

“More likely a nightmare.” He pulls me hard against him and I feel his strength all along the length of me. My breath eases, and slowly I let loose my arms and twine them around his neck. His skin is so smooth and tender there. I can smell the essence of his life beckoning me. A fleeting thought of Mordred speeds across my mind. I do my best to ignore it.

“Stay with me,” I murmur.

Robin exhales deeply and nods. The tension eases from me,
to be replaced by another sort of urgency. Robin must feel it, too, for he smiles against the curve of my cheek. He bends slightly, lifting me in a smooth and easy motion. He is strong, this master of my horse, made so by years in the saddle and in the training for war that is pursued by all true gentlemen willing to lay down their lives for their sovereign. Or better yet share in a great victory to the wealth and glory of their houses. He carries me to the bed and sets me down gently, turning me on my side so that he can reach the laces of my gown. When they are loosened, he touches his mouth to the nape of my neck and begins slowly, exquisitely, to work his way down. I have known this sweet torment before and he knows full well what effect it has on me. I am moaning long before he reaches the base of my spine. Robin, curse him, is chuckling. He slips his hands beneath the loosened folds of my gown and cups my breasts.

“I adore you, Elizabeth. You know that, don’t you?”

“Hmmm … of course … oh, yes … like that … more …”

He does my bidding, stroking between my thighs until I am rigid with pleasure and swiftly thereafter limp with welcome release. I lie against him, panting softly, until he rises to remove his clothes. By candlelight, I savor his body, yet in the back of my mind is the gnawing, intrusive thought that he is not so beautiful as I imagine Mordred would be in similar circumstances.

Appalled to be thinking of my enemy at such a time, I push the treacherous notion aside and welcome my own dear love back into my arms, eager to give him the pleasure he has given me, but only in the same way for we can risk nothing more.

Despite Robin’s protestations that the “French gloves” he has acquired prevent conception, I can never grant him the full liberty of my body. It is not that I disbelieve him, only that I believe too well that his ambition is greater than his sense. I will
not be trapped into marriage by any man nor ordered into it by any counselor.

Nor compelled into it by powers that, when compared now to what I feel growing within me, may not be so daunting after all.

On the cusp of such thoughts, I nestle closer against Robin, who is already asleep. He will have to wake soon enough and creep away, but for a few precious hours we lie entwined as though the world and all its cares do not exist.

Yet I feel it all the same, there in the night, close beside him. Something stirring in my city, something unholy that leaves me wide-eyed and tense, unable to do more than drift on the surface of sleep, until at last gray dawn comes.

I wake alone and lie without moving, staring at the high canopy above my bed. It is an old habit from tenderest childhood. If I remain still, scarcely breathing, nothing can hurt me. Would that were true.

My ladies come, throwing open the bed curtains, filling the room with their chatter. I smile and rise, wash my hands and face, drying them on the soft cloth Kat proffers. I clean my teeth with a soft twig, spit into a cup. I suffer my hair to be brushed and rubbed with a length of silk until it gleams.

All the while, I can scarcely breathe. A heavy, ominous presence lumbers toward me. I can feel it coming, sense its contours, but I have no sense of how terrible it truly is until Cecil appears.

He stands just on the far side of the opened door, a silent and pale presence, rocking back and forth on his heels as he does only when he is particularly anxious. Despite being half-dressed, wearing only my bed robe, I send my ladies away, throw a wrap around my shoulders, and bid him sit. Further, I serve him ale with my own hands and do not let him speak until he has taken a long draft.

I cannot lose Cecil. Without him, how will I find my way through the web of threats and treachery that are the swaddling clothes of my newborn reign?

I sit across from him and put my hand over his. “Whatever has happened, together we will find a way to deal with it.”

He smiles weakly, as he must, for I have used the same words he has spoken so often to me in darkest times. In this moment, the pupil has become the teacher, which puts me in mind of Walsingham, but only briefly. Before I can wonder what progress the schoolmaster has made, if any, since we last spoke, my Spirit says, “I regret to tell you, Majesty, that a series of attacks took place in the city last night. A dozen or more poor souls are dead, and an unknown number, likely very high, are injured.”

A wave of coldness washes through me. My hand goes from his hand to my throat, where I feel an unaccustomed pressure. “What attacks? Who was responsible?”

“Mordred, without doubt. The dead all bear the signs of having been fed on by vampires, as do the injured. Such incidents have been growing in number, as you know, but never have we seen anything like this. The watch has managed to keep the matter quiet thus far, but if another wave of attacks occurs …”

He does not have to continue; I know too well what will happen. My people, so lately thronging the streets to celebrate my coronation, will reel in terror. Quickly, talk will spread that I have brought this calamity on them. They will remember that my mother was condemned as a witch, among other things, and that my father declared me a bastard before reversing himself only for necessity’s sake. How long will it take until they decide that I am unfit to rule?

“We must stop this now,” I declare, “before it goes any further.
I will send soldiers to Southwark Manor. Anyone found there will be arrested and—”

Cecil holds up a hand, forestalling me. “Majesty, your pardon, but you cannot do any such thing. Above all else, this conflict must be concealed, not only from our own people but from the foreign ambassadors and merchants in the city. Imagine the result if word of what is happening here were to spread beyond our borders.”