Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer (18 page)

I am gathering my breath to say so when the magus does it for me. “Now is not the time for doubts,” Dee insists. “To the contrary, Her Majesty is becoming exactly what she is destined to be. We should rejoice in the evidence of her growing strength.”

“You may do so,” Robin says in a tone that makes it clear that he does not. “But dozens of courtiers saw her run down a corridor screaming that she was burning. Hundreds will be speaking of it already. How long before the common rabble believe she is possessed? And what do you think will happen then?”

What indeed? The raw instinct for survival imbued in tenderest childhood stirs. It is a cunning beast, sharp of fang and claw, and it tramples over every other concern.

“Help me up.”

At the sound of my voice, all turn—my ladies, my counselors, my ambitious beloved. I am, as I should always be, the focus of their attention.

“You cannot,” Robin begins.

Truly, the man is caught in a hole of his own making and his solution is to dig it deeper?

I ignore him. To Kat, I say, “I must dress at once and return to my people before such foolish rumors gain common currency.”

“That may not be wise,” Cecil begins. Clearly he doubts my capacity to appear as the strong and trustworthy monarch I must be seen to be.

Standing, only just managing to hold myself steady, I glare at him. “It is not seemly for any man to be here. All of you, go.”

They go, but reluctantly, with backward glances and deep frowns. Barely has the door closed behind them than their anxious chatter starts. Truly, they are worse than a gaggle of old women.

My ladies have the sense to keep silent as they cluster around me. In their presence, Kat, too, holds her tongue, even though I can see that she is bursting to know what Dee and the others were speaking of.

Rather than put on what I wore before, I don an even grander ensemble of black and white silk brocade embroidered over every inch with thread of gold. With it I wear a high ruff of intricately pleated pure white lace sewn with tiny pearls. I choose the colors deliberately, symbolizing as they do eternal virginity. It is time that my counselors begin to accept my aversion to matrimony. So, too, I make a point to wear my mother’s diadem. Let anyone dare to think me other than their anointed sovereign, set by Almighty God to rule over them.

I will return to the court where I will appear delighted by every festivity, give solemn ear to every courtier and ambassador, and, I have just decided, dance with every gentleman who can turn an ankle, each and every one of them save Robin. He
can stand on the sidelines all night and glare at me if he likes, but he cannot now—or ever—order me about. For the sake of the love I bear him, let him recognize that without delay.

I brush past the quartet of anxious men on my way from my chambers, pausing only long enough to whisper to Kat, “When I return, we must talk.”

She will assume that I mean to confide in her as I always have in the past, for truly there is no one I trust more. Who else knew my mother so well and has kept Anne’s secrets locked in her heart all these years?

But first there is the court to reassure. I must be seen to be well and whole in mind as well as body. I must smile and laugh, offer a sally here and a riposte there. I must move among my lords and ladies in all my glory—a gilded idol in velvet and silk, adorned with gems and pearls—and convince them to both love and fear me.

I was born for nothing less, and with no desire to give myself undue credit, I carry it off with aplomb. Only once during the evening do I falter. When Robin approaches me to dance our special dance—lavolta, the only dance that allows us to embrace publicly—I keep to my resolve and turn away from him. At once the courtiers begin to whisper. What has cast him into such disfavor? Or was he ever truly so favored as they thought?

The moment pains me but at the same time I savor it. Let him never again take anything to do with me for granted.

Cecil is not so easy to ignore. He hovers nearby, not approaching me but also never releasing me from his scrutiny. He saw what happened at St. Savior’s—he, Dee, and Walsingham. Not a one has said what he makes of it, but I can imagine. As unattractive as the thought is, they witnessed their Queen transformed into a creature of death, driven to feed voraciously. Cecil, at the least, is frightened by that.

My Spirit wavers in his resolve because he is no longer certain that I am up to the task and perhaps because he fears that he is not. But what of Dee? The magus is at court this night. I give him my particular regard, trying to divine what hides behind his smooth countenance and cordial manner. He claims to rejoice in my growing power, but does he really? Dee harbors sentiments I do not pretend to understand except to know that I do not agree with him. What did he make of Mordred’s claim that I and my nobility feed upon our people? Is he still trustworthy?

And what of Walsingham, the new man in my service? He stands apart from all the rest, a black-garbed, solemn presence observing the proceedings with a faint smile. The schoolmaster is amused by us, but when my eyes meet his across the room, he bows most graciously.

Mordred has sown doubts in my mind about those upon whom I must rely. Whether he means to or not—and I suspect that he does—he is setting me apart, isolating me in ways that make me ever more susceptible to him.

Mindful that I must guard against that, I raise my hand and summon the schoolmaster to my side. As he is new to court, my favoring of him draws immediate attention. Walsingham shows no awareness of it. His expression never changes as he comes near, bows again, and waits for me to speak.

“I would take the sounding of your mind, good sir,” I say quietly so that we cannot be overheard. “What do you think I should do?”

He appears neither pleased nor displeased to be challenged by me. I see no sign in him that he is afraid anything he says will be held against him later, as so many of my courtiers are when asked for an honest opinion. Indeed, he seems to have no concern whatsoever for himself.

Cecil has done me a favor bringing him to me.

“Mordred will use any trick he can to stop you,” Walsingham says, pitching his voice low for discretion’s sake. “He will seek to confuse your mind and make you question yourself. But if you hold true to your course, you will prevail. Of that, I have no doubt.”

“Do you not? We have seen now the cost to me of gaining power as a Slayer, and yet I am nowhere near as strong as I must be if I am to defeat Mordred. Have you considered that in order to become what I must be, I may have to make myself into something my people cannot accept?”

Truth be told, until that moment I had not fully posed the question to myself. Yet it was there, lurking in the swirling mists of my mind since my return to the world. Can I be Queen and Slayer both?

“You will be what you were born to be,” Walsingham continues. “Nothing more and, God willing, nothing less.”

Cecil is watching us and Robin as well. I take a breath and let it out slowly. The gaudy court recedes from my vision yet remains uppermost in my mind, as it always must if I am to survive.

“There are more than a few who believe that no daughter of a witch can be rightful Queen of England.”

I have never voiced my deepest fear to anyone, yet the schoolmaster draws it from me as though his unbending reason can wipe away my sin of doubt.

“If you have concerns about your mother,” he says, “resolve them with all speed, else you can be certain that Mordred will use them against you.”

I nod, my throat too tight for speech. It is a truism of kings—and of queens regnant—that the most valued counselor is the one who will dredge from our own minds the truth we already know but hesitate to speak.

God bless the schoolmaster for doing so.

Although I suspect that Kat would not be so gracious in her thanks.

I tarry a little longer after Walsingham withdraws. Robin continues to stare at me as though by doing so he can compel my love. At length, he tries another tack and partners a lady in a dance. Her name is of no consequence and better for her that I do not dwell upon it. He makes a great show of favoring her, and she seems simpleton enough to think he means it. That at least affords me some little amusement, although I will also admit to a twinge of jealousy. But only a twinge whereas scant days ago before all this began my reaction would have been far stronger.

My distraction grows as the hour wears on and night’s embrace deepens. Briefly, I indulge the thought of taking to the hunt again to feed upon the light. The price for doing so gives me pause, but I tell myself that this time I would be moderate, pace myself as it were, and escape such dire penalty.

Still, I put the thought aside. For the moment, more urgent matters summon me. As soon as I can, I make a show of yawning and bid all good rest. Through torchlit passages lined by bowing courtiers, I make my way to bed.

Kat is asleep in a chair in my chamber. The fire has burned low. I can only just make out her dear face, slack with dreams. I dismiss my ladies, shut the door behind them, and touch her arm gently.

“Wake, old friend, with my apologies. It is urgent that we speak.”

She is alert at once in the way of the elderly—she would curse me for describing her as such—who only skim the surface of sleep. I suppose they hesitate to sink too deeply out of fear that they will not wake again, although it is hard to think of Kat’s fearing anything. Her eyes blink once, twice, and see me.

“My lady.” She starts to rise but I press her back into the chair and take the footstool at her feet.

When she makes to protest, I insist, “No formalities tonight, for pity’s sake. I have had a stomachful of them.”

Kat laughs, perhaps remembering how she and I used to sneak away to hidden places within the gardens at Hatfield where I could be only a child and she the woman who loved me. No concern for rank and none at all for the world where my life hung so precariously. Memories of those times and of her love have kept me knit together through the darkest days.

She is of an age to be my grandmother but has been mother to me, the one constant in my life of turmoil. Twice she has been ripped from me, imprisoned by my enemies seeking a path to my destruction. Each time she proved valiant and true. If I
had to trust someone with my deepest secrets, I could not choose better than Kat Ashley.

On sudden impulse, I lay my head on her lap. She sighs and gently strokes my hair. Her fingers brush against the diadem I still wear. It pains me but I do not remove it. Tonight above all I must be Anne’s daughter.

I look up and catch her gazing at me with such tender devotion that my throat tightens. She has ever been a woman of character, has Kat Ashley, the Devonshire girl of middling good birth who contrived to acquire an education any man would envy, avoided marriage until she was nigh on to forty years, when she took the husband of her own choosing, and drew the eye of a queen who entrusted her with that which she held most precious.

“What troubles you, dearest?” Kat continues stroking my hair, soothing me as she did when I was a fretful child, unable to calm myself without her touch.

“My mother—”

Kat goes still. She has always discouraged questions about Anne, knowing as she surely did that my only chance of survival lay in unswerving loyalty to Henry. My father wavered dangerously enough as it was, alternately declaring me a bastard and restoring my birthright. If he had ever had reason to suspect that I nurtured love for my mother, he might well have thrown me to the wolves, for I was ever the living, breathing reminder of what he had done to her.

“Was she guilty?” I ask. So few words, yet they contain all the wretched terror that threatens, like acid dropped upon a copper plate, to etch their design into my very soul.

A moment passes, long enough for me to fear that Kat will not answer. Finally, she touches my shoulders gently.

“Sit up, sweetling.” When I obey as I child would, she instructs, “Tell me what you think you know.”

Kat’s discretion not withstanding, I have heard the whispers. I know something of the crimes for which Anne was called to account and for which she died. Even so, I can barely give them voice.

“She was accused of unlawful … even unnatural relations with many men.” Including her brother, my uncle, but I will not speak of that.

“Lies,” Kat says implacably. “Mad, wild lies that everyone knew could not possibly be true. Your mother was a woman of honor and pride. She would never have debased herself in any such way. Moreover, she understood full well the precariousness of her position as queen. She did all she could to avoid giving her enemies anything to use against her.”

“Those who still loved the old queen, Catherine of Aragon, and blamed my mother for my father setting her aside?”

Kat nods. “Those and others. Your mother believed in the true reform of the church. Many at court, including many close to your father, did not. They sought to undermine her.”

“But the charges went beyond adultery. The King … my father thought her guilty of witchcraft.” This, too, I have heard. Henry did not bring that charge into court where it would, of necessity, become public; he settled for accusing her of treason instead. But he made no secret that he thought her guilty of consorting with the Devil, even to the extent of toying with the notion of burning her.