Midnight Never Come

  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.