Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer (21 page)

My mind reels, not because I cannot grasp what she is saying, but precisely because I can. Too clearly, I remember the empty gazes and vacuous smiles of the laudanum users. A handful of such fools is regrettable but no real danger. A few hundred, even thousands, are a different matter. And a world of them … all of humankind drenched in apathy, daring nothing, achieving nothing …

“How can I stop him?”

Morgaine hesitates long enough for me to realize that I am asking her how to accomplish what she herself could not. Granted, she did Mordred such damage as has required a thousand years to heal. But she did not destroy him. If I cannot do better, his victory will merely have been postponed, not denied.

“You will prevail,” Morgaine says, “if you avoid the mistake that I made.”

“The mistake?”

She looks away for a moment, out over the rolling hills illuminated by light that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere. The mournful caw of a raven drifts across the sky.

“I loved him … from the beginning when we were both children
and right to the very end, when I struck the blow that should have killed him. I have had a thousand years to come to terms with the fact that when I unleashed that blow, I held back just enough to assure that I would fail. That is why he won.”

“You were defeated by love?” It seems a frivolous notion considering how great the matter that hangs upon it. Yet do not people say that love makes fools of all men—and women, too? Pride, dignity, honor, even the most basic sense of survival, seem to fly out the door when the heart lets love come in.

“You doubt it?” Morgaine asks. “You think I should have been stronger, and I would not disagree. But think of this, Elizabeth. Unless you guard yourself with the utmost vigilance, the same can happen to you.”

“But I do not love Mordred.” Never mind how drawn I have felt to him. That is lust, troubling in its own way but not remotely what Morgaine is describing. “I never knew him as you did, before he became what he is. From the moment of our first meeting, he has been my enemy.”

I could add, but do not, that I have even more reason now to think of him as my foe. By his doing, my mother came to be suspected of adultery and, worse, of witchcraft. I cannot be certain that he led her into such a thicket of danger deliberately, believing that she would have no choice but to turn to him. Yet neither can I discount that possibility. In the end, it does not matter. He made her vulnerable and for that I can never forgive him.

“He will try to convince you that he is your ally,” Morgaine warns. “Even your best, if not your only, hope. He will tempt you with what no one else can offer—protection for England and yourself, and more. If you give him everything he wants, he will make you immortal.”

“Did he offer all that to you?”

“Oh, yes, and I was very tempted. But in the end, I chose to stand against him, or at least so I believed. Because I did not recognize the weakness within myself, I failed and have kept this lonely vigil ever since, waiting for the one who will not falter as I did.”

“Believe me, I will not.” I make this vow with all my heart. Whatever lay between Mordred and Morgaine, it has nothing to do with me. I will steel myself against him, make fast all my defenses, and from behind the strong walls of my queenly state, I will strike him such a blow as to be certain that he will never rise again.

He will shatter, light on the wind, and be gone forever.

So I am resolved, but as with any great enterprise, practical matters must be considered. I turn to the most important of them first.

“Is there a way to increase my power more quickly and without suffering such ill effects as I have experienced?”

Slowly, never taking her eyes from me, Morgaine nods. When she speaks, I listen with the greatest possible attentiveness.

What did they talk about, there on the hilltop above the ruins of old Londinium? Morgaine and I used to scamper among those tumbled walls, trying to imagine the giants who had built them. Did she tell Elizabeth about that or did they speak of other things?

I have my suspicions, of course, but I cannot claim to know for certain. From my perch on the far side of the altar window outside St. Peter ad Vincula, I could see the two of them but faintly through the veil of time. Frankly, I was astonished that Elizabeth had managed to pierce it so readily, but Morgaine may have helped her. They were two of a kind in some ways, although I had yet to fully realize that.

The insufferable Robert Dudley was lurking toward the back of the chapel where Elizabeth had bade him stay, a good dog heeding his mistress’s command. What could she possibly have seen in him that made her trust him so? A queen of such intelligence and strength should have known better, but truly, who can fathom the mind of a woman, much less her heart? He paced back and forth, looking anxiously toward the grave beside which Elizabeth stood, her lips moving as though she were at prayer.

Except that she was not. On the other side of the veil—Morgaine’s side—she was talking all right, but above all, she was listening.

What did Morgaine tell her?

Whatever it was, it took long enough. Dudley became impatient. After several false starts, he strode halfway down the aisle only to
think better of it and retreat back toward the door, where he resumed his incessant pacing. I was almost reconciled to wasting the entire night trying to determine what she was up to when the mist surrounding Elizabeth suddenly vanished and she was back on this side of the veil.

She looked exhilarated, which could not possibly bode well. Worse yet, she had an air of implacable resolution about her that reminded me all too much of Morgaine. Once my beloved conceived of an idea, it was impossible to dissuade her of it.

Dudley, who had been looking more whipped and worried by the moment, snapped to as she approached. She gave him a smile that could only be called incandescent—which he most certainly did not deserve—and strode right past him out into the night. He followed at her heels, yapping about something.

To her credit, she ignored him and made straight for her horse. Or at least she did until he dug his heels in, grasped her arm, and turned her to him.

Bad dog!

In her newly awakened state, Elizabeth’s senses were too keen for me to risk venturing closer. I could contrive for her not to see me, but I suspected she would feel my presence all the same. Hovering as near as I dared, I strained to hear what they were saying.

“What happened?” Dudley demanded. “Why did you come here?”

For a moment, I thought she would reprimand his impertinence. But instead she touched a gloved hand gently to his cheek.

“My poor Robin. Are you feeling ill-used? I would not have that for the world.”

Staring at her, he shook his head. I swear that I heard its scant contents rattle.

“Of course not, beloved. I care only for your welfare, which is always uppermost in my mind.”

If by uppermost he meant right beside his constant scheming to restore his treacherous family to the wealth and power they had squandered in disloyalty, then I suppose he spoke truly enough. She could not possibly be so deluded as to believe him.

She kissed him. Right there in front of the guards, who affected blindness even as their eyes bulged. She raised herself on her toes, brushed her fingers through his hair, drew him to her, and kissed him long and deeply.

A thousand years, beyond even the measure of Methuselah, and still I could not comprehend what passes for reason in a female. Was she merely amusing herself or was it possible that her feelings for Dudley truly ran that deep? Could she truly be so shallow as to be drawn to a weak-minded, contemptible villein better suited to walk behind an ox plowing fields than dare to lift his eyes to a queen?

So distracted was I in contemplating that mystery that I lost track altogether of whatever it was that she and Morgaine had found to talk about.

Ultimately, I would remember that to my regret, but by then it would be too late.

I kissed Robin because Morgaine’s tale of what her love for Mordred had cost her reminded me of how glad I should be to have so loyal and willing a man who never, ever would burden me with the slightest fear or loss.

And because I am Queen and may do as I wish … if only occasionally.

And because returning to the world from the netherworld where Morgaine and I met reminded me of the pleasures to be found here, sprinkled though they may be amid the trials and tribulations of life.

But as I take the heat of his mouth, savoring his taste and scent, I remember what Morgaine told me. The only way to gain sufficient power to stand against Mordred is to do what she had realized through the most painful experience—kill not merely any vampire that came my way but the most powerful vampires I could find and defeat.

Until she told me that, it had not occurred to me that one kill would be different from any other, but with hindsight, it makes perfect sense. The only problem that remains is how to find those most worth killing.

Even as dawn comes and I am trapped once again in the pantomime of queenship, I ponder how to accomplish what I must. Kat hovers near, watching me with concern. I know she wants me to tell her what I discovered in my mother’s letter, but I
cannot bring myself to do so. She is too good a woman to be burdened with knowledge of the danger that afflicts us.

Robin is another matter. Either he knows me less well than Kat, despite all we have shared, or he is undeterred by what he must surely recognize is my reluctance to talk of what happened in the chapel. All day he remains close, watching me with intentness surely designed to draw the notice of the court as well as my own. Having only just restored him to my favor, I cannot dismiss him nor would I wish to do so. His presence soothes me even as I weigh how much I am willing to reveal my thoughts to him or anyone else. I am only just recognizing that to be queen is to be alone in a sense that ordinary mortals, even those of exalted state, will never know.

Ever since my encounter with Morgaine, a strange energy has filled me. It carries me through the day’s interminable round of appearances and celebrations, into the inevitable banquet, and on to the only part of the day I can truly say that I enjoy, the dancing.

I am at once elated and on edge, certain as I am that I stand on a precipice from which there is no retreating. I will fall or I will soar. The coming days, or more probably the nights, will determine which it shall be.

In flight from the image of myself lying crumbled and broken on the sharp rocks of failure, I lift a hand to summon Robin to my side. At the same moment I call out, “Play lavolta!”

The court applauds but no one else takes the floor as the music begins. This is my and Robin’s dance, the only chance we have to truly be ourselves before others. Let heads bend together in eager speculation; let foreign ambassadors whose masters would presume to wed and rule me grimace in dismay; let Cecil scowl fiercely. Fie on them and all the world. Robin’s hands are strong at my waist; he lifts me with ease. I float above him and the world on the music and my own laughter.

Looking up at me, he smiles boldly and whispers for my ears alone, “How I adore you, Elizabeth! Truly, you are the sun in my sky and the stars in my heaven.”

When he lowers me, our bodies brush against one another in silent promise of the intimacy to come when all the world is held at bay and only the two of us are adrift on the island that is my bed.

But not this night, for there, sidling up beside Cecil, comes Walsingham, the black-garbed schoolmaster. They exchange a word. Cecil responds with what appears to be a sharp question. Walsingham smiles with the benign patience of a man who knows his worth, or at least the worth of the information he commands.

Robin lifts me again. Over his head, I meet my Spirit’s gaze and see in his eyes that the pleasures of the evening are at an end. I have had my tiny taste of what it is to be a young woman with no thought but for love. It is time once again to be Queen.