Francis Merriman had believed this pact was wrong. The Goodemeades obviously agreed with him. And Deven’s master might well have been murdered at Invidiana’s command. She knew him too well to think he would let that pass.
Lune herself had nothing left to lose save her life, and even that hung in the balance. But was that sufficient reason to betray her Queen?
Faint memories stirred in the depths of her mind. The thought, so fleetingly felt, that once things had been different. That once the fae of England had lived warmer lives — occasionally scheming against one another, yes, occasionally cruel to mortals, but not always. Not this unrelenting life of fear, and the ever-present threat of downfall.
Even those who lived far from the Onyx Hall dwelt in its shadow.
The Onyx Hall. Rosamund’s words finally penetrated. Lune sat bolt upright and said, “Impossible. I would be executed the moment I set foot below.”
“Not necessarily,” Gertrude said. The mouse had vanished; now the brownie was prodding the fire, laying an additional log so that bright flames leapt upward and illuminated the room. “I’ve sent Cheepkin to see if anyone has found Francis’s body. So far as we know, that jewel doesn’t tell Invidiana when someone dies, so she may not yet know.”
Lune’s stomach twisted at the mere thought of being in the same room as the Queen when she learned of it. “She will know how he died, though. And she will wonder to whom he betrayed her.”
Rosamund’s nod was not quite complacent, but it didn’t show half the alarm Lune felt it should. “Which is why we shall give her another target to suspect. And do you some good in the bargain, I think, as you will be the one to tell her.” The brownie’s soft lips pursed in thought. “She will be angry regardless, and afraid; how much, she will wonder, did Francis manage to say before he died? But that cannot be helped; we cannot pretend he died by other means. What we must do is make certain she does not suspect you.”
“Who did you have in mind?” Gertrude asked her sister.
“Sir Derwood Corr. We can warn him to leave tonight, so he’ll be well clear of the palace before she tries to arrest him.”
Deven was looking at Lune, but she had no more idea than he what the Goodemeades meant. “Who is Sir Derwood Corr?”
“A new elf knight in the Onyx Guard. Also an agent of the Wild Hunt.”
Gertrude nodded her approval. “She fears them anyway; it cannot do much harm.”
They seemed to be serious. An agent of the Wild Hunt, infiltrating the Onyx Guard itself — and somehow the Goodemeades knew about it, and were eager to get the knight out of harm’s way. “Are you working with the Wild Hunt?”
“Not exactly,” Gertrude said, hedging. “That is, they would like us to be. We choose not to help them, at least most of the time; someone else brought Sir Derwood in. But we do keep an eye on their doings.”
Lune had no response to this extraordinary statement. Deven, slouched on his stool as much as his stiff doublet would allow, snorted. “The Principal Secretary said ’twas infamous to use women agents, but I vow he would have made an exception for you.”
They are not spies, Lune thought. They are spymasters. With the very birds and beasts of the field their informants.
“So,” Rosamund said briskly. “As soon as Cheepkin reports in, Lady Lune, we shall smuggle you back into the Onyx Hall. You can tell Invidiana that Sir Derwood is an ally of the Wild Hunt; she will discover that he has fled; she will assume Francis spoke to him, and not to you. With any luck, that will sweeten her mind toward you, at least a bit.”
Lune did not hold out much hope for that. Was she truly about to return to her rat’s life, hiding from Vidar and Dame Halgresta and everyone else who might think to curry favor by harming or eliminating her?
The low, smoldering fire that had lived in her gut since her imprisonment — no, since her inglorious return from the sea — had an answer for that.
Yes, she would. She would go back, and tear every bit of it down.
Then I am a traitor indeed. May all the power of Faerie help me.
“Very well,” she murmured.
Deven took a deep breath and sat up. “What may I do?”
“No time for that now,” Gertrude said. “We must return Lady Lune, before someone finds Francis. Might I ask a favor of you, Master Deven?”
He looked wary. “What is it?”
“Nothing dangerous, dearie; just a bit of dodging around Invidiana. Come with me, I’ll show you.” Gertrude took him by the hand and led him upstairs.
Lune watched them go, leaving her behind with Rosamund. “Is this safe?” she asked quietly. “I did not think of it before I came, but Invidiana has spies everywhere. She may learn of what we have said here.”
“I do not think so,” Rosamund said, and now she did sound complacent. “We’re beneath the rosebush, here — very truly sub rosa. Nothing that happens here will spread outside this room.”
For the first time, Lune looked upward, to the ceiling of the hidden chamber. Old, gnarled roots spread fingerlike across the ceiling, and tiny roses sprang improbably from their bark, like a constellation of bright yellow stars. The ancient emblem of secrecy gave her a touch of comfort. For the first time in ages, she had friends she could trust.
She should have come to the Goodemeades sooner. She should have asked them about Francis Merriman.
They lied too well, convincing everyone that they stayed out of such matters. But if they did not, they would never have survived for so long.
Lune realized there was something she had not said. The words came awkwardly; she spoke them so often, but so rarely with sincerity. “I thank you for your kindness,” she whispered, unable to face Rosamund. “I will be forever in your debt.”
The brownie came over and took her hands, smiling into her eyes. “Help us set this place right,” she said, “and the debt will be more than repaid.”
A lantern glowed by the door of the inn, and light still showed inside. Lying as it did along the Great North Road, the Angel was a major stopping point for travelers who did not gain the city before the gates closed at dusk, and so there was always someone awake, even at such a late hour.
Deven led his horse toward the road in something of a daze. The part of him that was accustomed to following orders had for some reason decided to obey the little brownie Gertrude, but his mind still reeled. Faeries at court. How many of them? He remembered the rooftop chase, and the stranger that had vanished. Perhaps he had not imagined the flapping of wings.
He mounted up, rode into the courtyard of the inn, and dismounted again, so that anyone inside would hear his arrival. Looping his reins over a post, he stepped through the door, startling a sleepy-eyed young man draped across a table. The fellow sat up with a jerk, dropping the damp rag he held.
“Sir,” he said, stumbling to his feet. “Needing a room, then?”
“No, indeed,” Deven said. “I have some ways to ride before I stop. But I am famished, and need something to keep me going. Do you have a loaf of bread left?”
“-Uh — we should —” The young man looked deeply confused. “You’re riding on, sir? At this hour of the night? The city gates are closed, you know.”
“I am not going into the city, and the message I bear cannot wait. Bread, please.”
The fellow sketched a bad bow and hastened through a door at the far end of the room. He emerged again a moment later with a round, crusty loaf in his hand. “This is all I could find, sir, and ’tis a day old.”
“That will do.” At least he hoped it would. Deven paid the young man and left before he would have to answer any more questions.
He rode away, circled around, came back to the rosebush. Gertrude had provided him with a bowl; now he set it down by the door of one of the inn’s outbuildings, with the loaf of bread inside, and feeling a great fool, he said, “Food for the Good People; take it and be content.”
The little woman popped up so abruptly he almost snatched out his blade and stabbed h
er. The night had not been good on his nerves. “Thank you, dearie,” Gertrude said with a cheerful curtsy. “Now if you could pick it up again? We have some of our own, of course, a nice little supply — we so often have to help out others — but if Invidiana finds we’ve been giving Lady Lune mortal bread . . . well, we aren’t giving it to her, are we? You are. So that’s all right and proper. Never said anything about mortals giving her bread or milk, and not as if she has any right to tell you what to do. Not that it would stop her, mind you.”
Bemused, Deven picked up the bowl and followed the still chattering brownie back to the rosebush, which opened up and let them pass below.
Lune was still in the hidden room, washing her feet in a basin of clear water. She glanced up as he entered, and the sight made his throat hurt; the motion was so familiar, though the body and face had changed. He thrust the bowl at her more roughly than he meant to, and tried to ignore the relieved pleasure on her face as she took the bread. “I shall have to think where to hide this,” she said. “You are clever, Gertrude, but Invidiana will still be angry if she learns.”
“Well, eat a bite of it now, my lady,” the brownie said, retrieving the bowl from Deven. “You could use a good night’s sleep here, but we can’t risk it; you need to go back as soon as possible. Has Cheepkin returned?”
“While you were out,” Rosamund said. “No one has found Francis yet. I’ve made sure Sir Derwood knows to leave.”
“Good, good. Then ’tis time you went back, Lady Lune. Are you ready?”
Deven, watching her, thought that she was not. Nonetheless, Lune nodded her agreement. Holding the small loaf in her hands as if it were a precious jewel, she pinched off a bite, put it in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He watched in fascination, despite himself; he had never seen anyone eat bread with such attentive care.
Rosamund said to him, “It strengthens our magic against those things that would destroy it. Traveling through mortal places is dangerous without it.”
As he had seen, earlier that very night. No wonder Lune treated it as precious.
“Now,” Gertrude said briskly. “Master Deven, would you escort her back to London? ’Twould go faster riding, and unless Lady Lune makes herself look like a man, she should not be traveling alone.”
The comment about disguise brought him back to unpleasant matters with a jolt. Lune was toweling her feet dry with great concentration. He very much wanted to say no — but he made the mistake of looking at Gertrude and Rosamund. Their soft-cheeked faces smiled up at him in innocent appeal. His mouth said, “I would be glad to,” without consulting his mind, and thus he was committed.
Lune stood, dropped the towel on her stool, and walked past him. “Let us go, then.”
By the time he followed, she was gone from the main room upstairs. He found her outside, waiting with her back to him. Words stuck in his throat; he managed nothing more than a stiff, “My horse is this way.” His bay stopped lipping at the grass when Deven took hold of the reins. No footsteps sounded behind him, but when he turned, he found her just a pace away.
Except it wasn’t her. She wore a different face, a human one. Not, he was desperately relieved to see, the face of Anne Montrose.
“Who is that?” he said, and could not keep the bitterness out of it.
“Margaret Rolford,” Lune said, coolly.
Deven’s mouth twisted. “Once a waiting-gentlewoman to Lettice Knollys, as I understand it.”
Margaret Rolford’s eyes were probably brown in sunlight; at night, they looked black. “I congratulate you, Master Deven. You followed me farther than I realized.”
There was nothing he could say to that. Steeling himself, Deven put his hands around Margaret’s waist — thicker than Lune’s, and Anne’s — and lifted her into the saddle; then he swung himself up behind her.
He had not realized, when he agreed to Gertrude’s request, that it would mean riding the distance to London with his arms around the faerie woman.
Deven set his jaw, and touched his heels to the flanks of his gelding.
The tiny sliver of a moon had set even before he returned from Mortlake; they rode in complete darkness toward the few glimmering lights of London. Margaret Rolford’s body was not shaped like Anne Montrose’s — she had a sturdier frame, and was shorter — but still it triggered memories. A crisp, sun-washed autumn day, with just enough wind to lift a maiden’s unbound hair. Both of them released from their duties, and diverting themselves with other courtiers. The young ladies all rode tame little palfreys, but Anne wanted more, and so he put her up on the saddle of his bay and galloped as fast as he dared the length of a meadow, her slender body held safely against his.
Silence was unbearable. “Doctor Dee,” he said, without preamble. “He has nothing to do with it, then?”
She rode stiffly, her head turned away from him even though she sat sideways in the saddle. “He claims to speak with angels. I doubt he would speak with us.”
Us. She might look human when she chose to, but she was not. Us did not include him.
“But you have agents among — among mortals.”
“Of course.”
“Who? Gilbert Gifford?”
A considering pause. “It depends on which one you mean.”
“Which one?”
“The Gifford who went to seminary in France was exactly who he claimed to be. The Gifford that now rots in a French jail is someone else — a mortal, enchanted to think himself that man.” She sniffed in derision. “A poor imitation; he let himself be arrested so foolishly.”
Deven absorbed this, then said, “And the one who carried letters to the Queen of Scots?”
She paused again. Was she doubting her decision to array herself against her sovereign? Deven knew what Walsingham did with double agents who then crossed him in turn. Could he do that to Lune?
“Lord Ifarren Vidar,” she said at last. “When he was done, a mortal was put in his place, in case Gifford might be of use again.”
Not so long as he was imprisoned in France. Deven asked, “Henry Fagot?”
“I do not know who that is.”
How much of this could he trust? She had lied to him for over a year, lied with every particle of her being. He trusted the Goodemeades, but why? What reason had he to trust any faerie?
They were nearing the Barbican crossroads. “Where am I going?”
She roused, as if she had not noticed where they were. “We should go in by Cripplegate. I’ll use the entrance near to it.”
Entrance? Deven turned his horse east at the crossroads, taking them through the sleeping parish of St. Giles. At the gate, he bribed the guards to let them pass, and endured the sly expressions on their faces when they saw he rode with a lady. Whatever the faerie had done to the men at Aldersgate, he did not want to see it happen here.
Then they were back inside the city, the close-packed buildings looming dark and faceless, with only the occasional candle showing through a window. The hour was extremely late. Deven followed Wood Street until she said, “Left here,” and then a moment later, “Stop.”
He halted his gelding in the middle of Ketton. The narrow houses around them looked unexceptional. What entrance had she meant?
She slipped down before he could help her and made for a narrow, shadowed close. No doubt she would have left him without a word, but Deven said, “ ’Tis dangerous, is it not? What you go to do.”
She stopped just inside the close. When she turned about, Margaret Rolford was gone; the strange, inhuman face had returned.
“Yes,” Lune said.
They stared at one another. He should have let her go without saying anything. Now it was even more awkward.
The words leapt free before he could stop them.
“Did you enchant me? Lay some faerie charm upon me, to make me love you?”
Lune’s eyes glimmered, even in the near total darkness. “I did not have to.”
A moment later she was gone, and he could not even see how.
Some door opened — but he could see no door in the wall — and then he was alone on Ketton Street, with only his tense muscles and the rapidly fading warmth along his chest to show there had ever been a woman at all.
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: April 26, 1590
A faerie queen did not process to chapel in the mornings, as a mortal queen might, but other occasion was found for the ceremony that attended Elizabeth’s devotions. Invidiana left her bedchamber with an entourage of chosen ladies, acquired an escort of lords in her privy chamber, then passed through a long, columned gallery to the chamber of estate, where a feast was laid for her each day. It was an occasion for spectacle, a demonstration of her power, wealth, and importance; any fae aspiring to favor attended, in hopes of catching her eye.
Lune hovered behind a pillar, her pulse beating so loudly she thought everyone must hear it. This was the moment at which she trusted the Goodemeades, or she did not; she put her life in their hands, or she ran once more, and this time did not return.
A rustling told her that the fae in the gallery were withdrawing to the sides, out of the way of the procession that was about to enter. Hunting horns spoke a brief, imperious fanfare. She risked a glance around the pillar, and saw the Queen. Vidar was not with her, but Dame Halgresta was, and Lord Valentin Aspell, Lady Nianna, Lady Carline . . . did she want to do this so very publicly?
The moment was upon her. She must decide.
Lune dashed out into the center of the gallery and threw herself to the floor. She calculated it precisely; her outstretched hands fell far enough short of Invidiana’s skirts that the Queen did not risk tripping over her, but close enough that she could not be ignored. Once there, she lay very still, and felt three trickles of blood run down her sides where the silver blades of Invidiana’s knights pricked through her gown and into her skin.
“Your Grace,” Lune said to the floor, “I bring you a warning of treachery.”