Midnight Never Come

  When the sun rose, mortals would go forth for their own May Day celebrations. They would pick flowers in the woods, dance around maypoles, and enjoy the onset of benevolent weather. But a few had started early: here and there, a human strayed near enough to the fires to pierce the veils that concealed them, and become aware of the crowds that had overtaken Moor Fields. A young man lay with his head in Lady Carline’s lap, eating grapes from her fingers. Another scrambled on the ground in front of her, rump in the air, behaving for all the world like a dog in human form — but for once, those who laughed at him did so without the edge of cold malice their voices would ordinarily have borne. Maidens whirled about the dancing ground with faerie gentlemen who wove blossoms into their hair and whispered sweet nothings into their ears. Nor was everyone young: a stout peasant woman had wandered from her house on Bishopsgate Street to chase a dog not long after sundown on May Eve, and now stamped a merry measure with the best of them, her face red and shining with effort.

  Amidst all this splendor, one figure was conspicuous by her absence: conspicuous, but not missed. The Wild Hunt could more easily strike at this open field than at the subterranean confines of the Onyx Hall, and so Invidiana stayed below.

  They had more fun without her.

  The Queen’s absence helped Lune breathe more easily. With wine flowing like water, everyone was merry, and many of them forgot to snub those who deserved snubbing. Nor did the snared mortals have any notion of politics. Shortly after midnight, a young man stumbled up to her, wine cup in hand, mouth languorous and searching for a kiss. He had brown hair and blue eyes, and Lune pushed him away, then regretted the violence of her action. But she did not need the reminder of Michael Deven, and the celebrations Elizabeth’s court would engage in today.

  Even on a night such as this, politics did not entirely cease. Everyone knew Tiresias was dead; everyone knew the Queen had been little seen by anyone since his body was discovered. A few thought she mourned him. Remembering the Goodemeades’ tale, Lune felt cold. Invidiana mourned no one.

  But his death created opportunity for those who needed it. Some who questioned Lune thought themselves subtle about it; others did not even try for subtlety. Certain mortals claimed the ability to foretell the future. Were any of them truly so gifted? Lune had lived among the mortal court; she might know something. They pestered her for information. Had she met Simon Forman? What of Doctor Dee? Did she perhaps know of any persuasive charlatans, who might be put forth as bait to trip up a political rival?

  Lune joined the dancing to escape the questions, then abandoned dancing when it turned her mood fouler. There was no surcease for her here. But where would she go? Back down into the Onyx Hall? Its confines were unbearable to her now — and the Queen waited below. To the Angel Inn? She did not dare spend too much time there, and besides, the Goodemeades were here, along with every other fae from miles around. Lune knew the Goodemeades watched her, but she kept her distance.

  A golden-haired elf lady she knew by sight but not name waylaid her. Was she familiar with John Dee? Where did he live? Was he old enough that it might not seem suspicious if he died in his sleep?

  Lune fled her questioner, heading for one of the bonfires. Arriving at its edge, where the heat scorched her face with welcome force, she found there was one other person gazing into its depths.

  From the far side of the bonfire, the hollow-cheeked, wasted face of Eurydice stared at her.

  The mortal pet’s presence at the May Day celebrations was like a splash of cold water from the Thames. Her black, sunken eyes saw what few others did: the spirits of the dead, those restless souls who had not passed on to their punishment or reward. And this was not All Hallows’ Eve, not the time for such things.

  But she did more than see. Few fae realized Eurydice was not just a curiosity to Invidiana; she was a tool. She not only saw ghosts: she could bind them to her will. Or rather, the Queen’s will.

  Lune knew it all too well. Invidiana had formed plans that depended closely on Eurydice’s special skill, plans that Lune’s disastrous embassy had undone. The folk of the sea wanted for little, and so the things she had gone there to offer them went unremarked. What they had wanted were the spoils of their storms: the souls of those sailors who drowned.

  To what use Invidiana would have put such a ghost army, Lune did not know. Had she been aware that her Queen planned to create one, she might have bargained harder; the folk of the sea had no way to bind ghosts to their service. But she thought it a harmless thing, and so she agreed that Eurydice would come among them for a time, provided the ghosts were not turned against the Onyx Court. As long as the ships never reached England’s shores, what did it matter?

  Invidiana had seen it differently.

  Eurydice’s mouth gaped open in a broken-toothed, hungry grin. And suddenly, despite the blazing bonfire just feet away, Lune felt cold.

  Ghosts.

  Those who died in the thrall of faerie magic often lingered on as ghosts.

  Francis.

  Somehow, she kept herself from running. Lune met Eurydice’s gaze, as if she had no reason to fear. That hungry grin was often on the woman’s face; it meant nothing. She had no assurance that Francis Merriman had lingered. After so long trapped in the Onyx Hall, his soul might well have fled with all speed to freedom and judgment.

  Or not.

  What did Invidiana know?

  A chain of dancing fae went past, and someone caught Lune by the hand. She let herself be dragged away, following the line of bodies as they weaved in and out of the crowds of revelers, and did not extricate herself until she was at the far side of the field, safely distant from Eurydice’s ghost-haunted eyes.

  She should run now, while she could.

  No. Running would bring her no safety; Invidiana ruled all of England. And there might be nothing to run from. But she must assume the worst: that the Queen had Francis’s ghost, and knew from him what had transpired.

  Why, then, would Lune still be alive?

  Her mind answered that question with an image: a snake, lying with its jaws open and a mouse in its mouth, waiting. ’Tis safe, come in, come in. Why eat only one mouse when you might lure several? And that meant she could not follow her instinct, to run to the safety the Goodemeades offered. Invidiana could act on suspicion as well as proof, but would want to be sure she caught the true conspirators, and caught all of them. As long as she was not certain . . .

  Lune stayed at the May Day celebrations, though it took all her will. And in the remaining hours of dancing, and drinking, and fielding the questions of those who sought a new human seer, she caught one moment of relative privacy, while Rosamund dipped her a mug of mead.

  “He may be a ghost,” Lune whispered. It was all the warning she dared give.

  PALACE OF PLACENTIA, GREENWICH: May 2, 1590

  In the days following his audience with the Queen, Deven considered abandoning his lodgings and returning to where Ranwell waited at his house in London. What stopped him was the thought that there, he would be sitting atop a faerie palace.

  So he was still at Greenwich, though not at court, when the messenger found him.

  He threw Colsey into a frenzy, demanding without warning that his best green satin doublet be brushed off and made ready, that his face needed shaving again already, that his boots be cleaned of infinitesimal specks of mud. But one did not show up looking slovenly when invited to go riding with the Queen.

  Somehow his manservant got him out the door with good speed. Deven traversed the short distance to the palace, then found himself waiting; something had intervened, and her Majesty was occupied. He paced in a courtyard, his stomach twisting. Had he eaten anything that day, it might have come back up.

  Nearly an hour later, word came that Elizabeth was ready at last.

  She was resplendent in black and white satin embroidered with seed pearls, her made-up face and hair white and red above it. They did not ride out alone, of course; Deven might be one of her Gentl
emen Pensioners, and therefore a worthy bodyguard, but one man was not sufficient for either her dignity or well-being. But the others who came kept their distance, maintaining the illusion that this was a private outing, and not a matter of state.

  Everyone at court, from the jealous Earl of Essex down to the lowliest gentlewoman, and probably even the servants, would wonder at the outing, and speculate over the favor Elizabeth was suddenly showing a minor courtier. For once, though, their gossip was the least of Deven’s concerns.

  They rode in silence to begin with. Only when they were well away from the palace did Elizabeth say abruptly, “Have you met her?”

  He had expected some preface to their discussion; her sudden question took him by surprise. “If you mean Invidiana, your Grace, I have not.”

  “Consider yourself fortunate, Master Deven.” The line of her jaw was sagging with age, but steel yet underlay it. “What do you know of this pact?”

  Deven chose his words with care. “Little to nothing, I fear. Only that on your Majesty’s coronation day, Invidiana claimed her own throne.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “It began well before that.”

  The assertion startled him, but he held back his instinctive questions, letting the Queen tell it in her own time.

  “She came to me,” Elizabeth said softly, “when I was in the Tower.” Her eyes were focused on something in the distance, and she controlled her horse with unconscious ease. Deven, watching her out of the corner of his eye, saw grimness in her expression. “My sister might have executed me. Then a stranger came, and offered me aid.”

  The Queen fell silent. Deven wanted to speak, to tell her that anyone might have made the same choice. Years later, there was still doubt in her, uncertainty about her actions. But he dared not presume to offer her forgiveness.

  Elizabeth pressed her lips together, then went on. “She arranged my release from the Tower, and a variety of events that helped secure my accession. I do not know how much of that was her doing. Not all, certainly — even now, she does not have that much control. But some of it was hers. And in exchange, when I was crowned, I aided her. My coronation was hers as well.” The Queen paused. “I did not know that it deposed others. But I would be false if I said that surprised me.”

  She hesitated again. At last, Deven prodded her onward. “And since then, your Grace?”

  “Since then . . . it has continued. She has helped remove threats to my person, my throne, my people.” Elizabeth’s hands, encased in gray doeskin, tightened on her reins. “And in exchange, she has received concessions from me. Political decisions that suit some purpose of hers. The assistance of — mortals, to manipulate something of importance to her.” Her stumble over the word was barely perceptible.

  Deven ventured a reminder. “The man who spoke of this claimed, before he died, that it was causing harm to both sides.”

  For the first time since they rode out, Elizabeth turned her head to face him. The strength of her gaze shook him. It was easy to forget, when one saw her laughing with her courtiers, or smiling coquettishly at some outrageous compliment, that she was her father’s daughter. But in that gaze lay all the fabled personality and will of Henry, eighth of that name, King of England. They had stores of rage within them, the Tudors did, and Elizabeth’s was closer to the surface than he had realized.

  “I do not know,” Elizabeth said, “what this pact has cost her side. I do not care. She has often manipulated me, managed me, coerced me into positions I would not otherwise have occupied. Even that, I might have endured, if it meant the well-being of my people. But she went too far with our cousin Mary. I do not know how far back her interference extended, but I know this: were it not for that interference, I might never have been forced to sign that order of execution.”

  Deven saw, in his mind’s eye, the chess pieces with which Walsingham had led him through the story of the Queen of Scots — and the white queen, standing on her own, caught halfway between the two sides.

  “Then tell me the terms of your pact,” he said quietly, “and I will see it ended.”

  She turned her gaze back to the landscape ahead, where the ground rose upward in a rocky slope. The men-at-arms were still all around, maintaining a respectful distance, and Deven was glad for them. He could not both navigate this conversation and keep watch for threats. How easy must it be, for fae to conceal themselves among the green?

  “ ’Twas simple enough,” the Queen said. “Do you know the London Stone?”

  “On Candlewick Street?”

  “The same. ’Tis an ancient symbol of the city, and a stone of oaths; the rebel Jack Cade once struck it to declare himself master of London. At the moment I was crowned, she thrust a sword into that stone, to claim her own sovereignty.”

  That was most promising; it gave him a physical target to attack. “Will it threaten your own position, if . . . ?”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “My throne came to me by politics, and the blessing of a bishop, speaking in God’s name. What she has stolen is mine by right.”

  She spoke with certainty, but he had heard her at court, declaring with swaggering confidence that Spain would not dare attempt another invasion, or that some lord or other would never defy her will. She could feign confidence she did not feel. It felt like a sharp rock had lodged in Deven’s throat when he swallowed. Would he help the fae depose Invidiana, only to find his own Queen overthrown?

  Elizabeth was willing to risk it, to free herself from the snare that trapped her. His was not to question it.

  “If you bring her low,” Elizabeth said in a hard, blazing voice, “then I will reward you well for it. She is a cold thing, and cruel in her pleasure. Princes must often be ruthless; this I knew, before I even ascended to my throne. But she has forced matters too far, more than once. There is no warmth in her, no love. And I despise her for it.”

  Deven thought of the Goodemeades — of Rosamund’s story, and the conversation he had with Gertrude — and responded gently. “They tell me she was different once. Before her coronation. When she was still known as Suspiria.”

  Elizabeth spat, not caring if the gesture was coarse. “I would not know. I never knew this Suspiria.”

  They had ridden on several paces farther before Deven’s hands jerked convulsively on the reins. His gelding short-stepped, then recovered. “Not even when first you met? Not even in the Tower?”

  He had drawn level with the Queen again, and she was studying him in wary confusion. “The name she gave me was Invidiana. And I have never known her to show any kindness or human warmth, not since the moment she appeared.”

  “-But —” Deven realized belatedly that he was forgetting to use titles, polite address, anything befitting a gentleman speaking to his Queen. “By the story I was told, madam, she was known as Suspiria until the moment of her coronation, and that while she bore that name, she was not so cold and cruel.”

  “Your friends are mistaken, or they have lied to you. Although . . .” Elizabeth’s dark eyes went distant, seeing once more into the past. “When I asked her name, she told me ’twas Invidiana. But the manner in which she said it . . .” The Queen focused on him once more. “It might have been the first time she claimed that name.”

  Deven was silent, trying to work through the implications of this. His mind felt overfull, too many fragments of information jostling each other, too few of them fitting together.

  “I will bear this news to those who work against her,” he said at last. If the Goodemeades had lied to him — trustworthy as they seemed, he had to consider it — then perhaps he could provoke some sign out of them. And if not . . .

  If not, then nothing was quite what they had thought.

  “You will keep us apprised of your work,” Elizabeth said. The familiarity that had overtaken her during the ride, while she spoke of things he was certain she had divulged to no other, was gone without a trace, and in its place was the Queen of England.

  Deven bowed in his saddle. “I will
, your Majesty, and with all speed.”

  MEMORY: January 31, 1587

  T he chamber was dim and quiet, all those who normally attended within it having been banished to other tasks. Guards still stood outside the door — in times as parlous as these, dismissing them was out of the question — but the woman inside was as alone as she could ever be.

  The cosmetics that normally armored her face were gone, exposing the ravages wrought by fifty-three years of fear and anger, care and concern, and the simple burden of life. Her beauty had been an ephemeral thing, gone as her youth faded; what remained was character, that would bow but never break, under even such pressure as she struggled with tonight.

  Her eyes shut and her jaw clenched as the fire flickered and she heard a voice speak out from behind her. Unannounced, but not unexpected.

  “You know that you must execute her.”

  Elizabeth did not ask how her visitor had penetrated the defenses that ringed her chamber. How had it happened the first time? Asking would but waste breath. She gathered her composure, then turned to face the woman who stood on the far side of the room.

  Frustrated rage welled within her at the sight. Elaborate gowns, brilliant jewels, and a mask of cosmetics could create the illusion of unchanging beauty, but it was an illusion, nothing more, and one that failed worse with every passing year. The creature that stood before her was truly ageless. Invidiana’s face and figure were as perfect now as they had been in the Tower, untouched by the scarring hand of time.

  Elizabeth had many reasons to hate her, but this one was never far from her mind.

  “Do not,” she said in frigid reply, “presume to instruct me on what I must do.”

  Invidiana glittered, as always, in silver and black gems. “Would you rather be seen as weak? Her guilt cannot be denied —”

  “She was lured into it!”

  The faerie woman met her rage without flinching. “By your own secretary.”

  “With aid.” Elizabeth spat the words. No one ever seemed to hear them, on the infrequent occasions that the two queens came face-to-face; she could shout all she wanted. “How much assistance did you provide? How much rope, that my cousin might hang herself? Or perhaps that was too inconvenient; perhaps ’twas simpler to falsify the letters directly. You have done it before, implicating her in her husband’s murder. Had matters gone your way, she would have been dead ere she ever left Scotland.”