He was a learned man. Some believed fae to be devils in different guise. Others placed them midway between Heaven and Hell: above men in the hierarchy of creation, but below the celestial forces that served God.
Regardless of the explanation, all agreed that to strike a bargain with their kind was a dangerous business. But having seen this much, no man who laid claim to intellectual curiosity could be expected to turn back.
He had to swallow before his voice would work. “What price would you demand?”
“Demand?” The lady seemed offended. “I will not ask for your soul, or your firstborn child. I merely have a request of you, that I think you will find it easy enough to grant.”
That was more ominous than a straightforward demand would have been. He waited, eyes on the hanging pendants of pearls, to hear more. They did not quite touch the floor, and in the shadows beyond he thought he could see just the hem of a glittering skirt.
At length the lady said, “There is a mortal scholar known as Doctor John Dee.”
Kelley nodded, then remembered the lady could not see him. “I know of him.”
“He seeks to speak with angels. For this purpose he has contracted the services of a man named Barnabas Saul. My request is that you take Saul’s place. The man is nothing more than a charlatan, a cozener who seeks to take advantage of Doctor Dee. We will arrange for him to be discredited, and you will replace him as scryer.”
“And then?” Kelley knew it would not end there. “Once I am in Dee’s confidences — assuming I can make it there —”
“ ’Tis easily arranged.”
“Then what would you have me do?”
“Nothing damaging,” the hidden lady assured him. “He will never speak to angels, whatever scryer he contracts to assist him. But ’tis in our interests that he should think he has done so. You will describe visions to Dee, when he asks you to gaze into the crystal. You may invent some if you wish. From time to time, one of my people will visit you in that glass, and tell you what to say. And in exchange, we will teach you the secrets you wish to learn.”
Kelley had never met the man; what did he care if Dee was led astray by faeries? Yet it made him nervous all the same. “Can you promise me the things I say will not harm him? Can you give me your word?”
All around him, the silent fae of his escort stiffened.
Silence from behind the curtain. Kelley wondered how badly he had offended. But if the lady fed him visions that would incite Dee to treason, or something else harmful . . .
“I give you my word,” the lady said in a clipped, hard tone unlike her previous voice, “that I will give no orders for visions that will harm Doctor John Dee. If you lead him astray with your own invention, that is no fault of ours. Will that suffice, Edward Kelley?”
That should be enough to bind her. He hoped. He dared not press for more. Yet he had one further request, unrelated to the first. “I am most grateful,” he said, and bowed his head again. “You have already given me more than I ever dreamed of, bringing me here. But though it be presumptuous of me, I do have one more thing to ask. Your voice, lady, is beauty itself; might I have the privilege of gazing upon your face?”
Another silence, though this time his escort did not take it as strongly amiss.
“No,” the lady said. “You shall not see me tonight. But on some future day — if your service pleases — then perhaps, Edward Kelley, you shall know who I am.”
He wanted to see her beauty, but she had surmised correctly; he also wanted to see whom he was serving. But it was not to be.
Was he willing to accept that, in exchange for what the fae might teach him?
He had answered that question before he ever agreed to accompany them beneath the streets of London.
Edward Kelley bowed until his forehead touched the cold marble and said, “I will serve you, Lady, and go to Doctor Dee.”
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: February 5, 1590
The night garden of the Onyx Hall had no day garden with which to contrast, but still it bore that name. It was enormous, comparable in size to the great presence chamber, but very different in character; in place of cold, geometric stone, there was instead the softness of earth, the gentle arch of branches. The quiet waters of the Walbrook, the buried river of London, bisected the garden’s heart. Paths meandered through carefully arranged beds of moonflower, cereus, and evening primrose; angel’s trumpet wound its way up pillars and around fountains. Here and there stood urns filled with lilies from the deeper reaches of Faerie. Night lasted eternally here, and the air was perfumed with gentle scents.
Lune breathed in deeply and felt something inside her relax. As much as she enjoyed living among mortals, it was exhausting beyond anything else she knew. Easy enough to don human guise for a trip to Islington and back; living among them was a different matter. Being in the Onyx Hall again was like drinking cool, pure water after a long day in the sun and wind.
The ceiling above was cloaked in shadow, and spangled with brilliant faerie lights: tiny, near-mindless creatures below even a will-o’-the-wisp — barely aware enough to be called fae. The constellations they formed changed from time to time, as much a part of the garden’s design as the flowerbeds and the delicate streams that rippled through them. Their shape now suggested a hunter, thrown through the air from the antlers of a stag.
That was troubling. There must have been some recent clash with the Wild Hunt.
Lune was not the only one in the garden. A small clutch of four fae had gathered a little distance away, under a sculpted holly tree. A black-feathered fellow perched in the branches, while two ladies gathered around a third, who sat on a bench with a book in her hands. Whatever she was reading aloud to them was too quiet for Lune to hear, but it sparked much mirth from her audience.
Footsteps on the flagstones made her turn. Lady Nianna Chrysanthe hurried to her side, saying breathlessly, “You must have come early.”
“I finished my business sooner than expected.” Vidar had not questioned her nearly as closely as he might have. Lune was not sure whether to find that worrisome, or merely a sign that he was not as competent as he liked to believe. “What do you have for me?”
The honey-haired elfin lady cast a glance around, then beckoned Lune to follow. They went deeper into the garden, finding their own bench on which to sit. They were still within sight of the group beneath the holly tree, and now another pair at the edge of a fountain, but the important thing was that no one could overhear them.
“Tell me,” Nianna whispered, more out of excitement than caution, “what does —”
“Give me your news first,” Lune said, cutting her off. “Then I will tell you.”
Pushing Nianna was dangerous. Lune’s work among mortals had gone some way toward restoring her status, but not her former position in the privy chamber, and Nianna alone of her former companions there deigned to speak with her much at all. Lune did not want to lose her most reliable source of information. But she knew Nianna, and knew how far the lady could be pushed. Nianna pouted, but gave in. “Very well. What do you wish me to begin with?”
Lune pointed at the faerie lights in their constellation. “How stand matters with the Wild Hunt?”
“Not well.” Nianna deflated a little. Her slender fingers plucked at the enameled chain that hung from her girdle. “There are rumors they will ally at last with the Courts of the North —”
“There have always been such rumors.”
“Yes, but this time they seem more serious. Her Majesty has formed a provisional agreement with Temair. A regiment of Red Branch knights, to fight the Wild Hunt — or the Scots, or both — if she uses her influence on the mortal court to affect events in Ireland on their behalf. They’re willing to consider it, at least; the unanswered question is how much aid she would have to give them in return.”
Lune let her breath out slowly. Red Branch knights; they would be quite an asset, if Invidiana could get them. The English fae could hold their own against Scot
land, even if the redcaps along the Border took the other side, but the Wild Hunt was, and always had been, a very different kind of threat. The only thing that kept them at bay so far was their absolute refusal to fight this war on any mortal front. And Invidiana was not foolish enough to leave the safety of the Onyx Hall, buried in the midst of mortal London, and meet them on their own terms.
“Has there been an active threat from the Hunt?”
“An assassin,” Nianna said dismissively. “A Catholic priest. I believe he is still strung up in the watching chamber, if you wish to see him.”
She did not. Would-be assassins, and their punishments, were a common occurrence. “But from the Hunt?”
“That is why everyone thinks they may have a true alliance with the Courts of the North.”
If true, it was worrisome. The Scottish fae had no compunctions about using mortals in the fight; they had been forming pacts with witches for years and sending them south to cause trouble. The leaders of the Hunt all claimed kingship over one corner of England or another; they might have decided they wanted lands and sovereignty badly enough to look the other way while their allies soiled their hands with mortal tools.
Lune doubted it, but she wasn’t in a position to judge. “What else?”
Nianna put a painted fingernail to her lip, considering. “Madame Malline has been asking around, attempting to discover how the bargain with the folk of the sea was struck. I do not know what the Cour du Lys would want with such knowledge, but there must be something. You should stay away from her.”
That, or barter with her. If she could do it in a way that wouldn’t anger Invidiana. “Continue.”
“That is all I know about her aims. Let me see . . . there have been a few more fae in from country areas, complaining that their homes have been destroyed.” Nianna dismissed this with a wave. She had been a lady of the privy chamber to Invidiana for a long time; the travails of country folk were insignificant to her. “Oh yes, and a delegation of muryans from Cornwall — they just arrived; no one knows yet what they want. What else? Lady Carline has a new mortal she’s stringing along. She might get to keep him for a time; Invidiana has taken Lewan Erle back to her bed, so her attention is elsewhere. Or not.”
Bedroom politics did not interest Lune. They might be of consuming fascination to some, but they rarely affected the matters she attended to. What had she not yet asked about? “The Spanish ambassador?”
“Don Eyague is still here, and has hosted a few visitors. The rumor is that he is being courted by a growing faction in Spain that are dissatisfied with living in a Catholic nation. But I do not know what they intend; I doubt they have the numbers or resources to make any kind of substantial change to the mortal government, even if they decided to mimic her Majesty. For all I know, they may be considering emigration — here, or to the Low Countries. Who can say?”
Fae rarely emigrated, but no matter. Lune had only one question left for Nianna. She glanced casually toward the pair of fae at the nearby fountain, to make sure they were not listening. The lady sat on the stone coping of the edge, framing herself and her red silk gown prettily against the elaborate grotesque that spouted water in five directions, while the gentleman stood and read to her from a book. The sight momentarily distracted her; it looked like the same book the others had been reading beneath the holly tree.
Upon that thought, the book burst into flame.
The gentleman cried out in shock and dropped the burning pages. Lune caught a fleeting glimpse of something streaking across the garden; she turned to track it and saw the book the others held also catch fire. Silhouetted briefly atop the pages was a tiny, glowing, lizard-shaped creature. Then the salamander darted down again, and vanished amidst the flowers of the garden. A trail of smoke showed briefly where it went; then it was gone.
Lune asked, very carefully, “What was that?”
“I did not see, but I believe it was a sal —”
“I am not asking about the creature. What did it just burn?”
“Oh.” Nianna tittered, then hid it guiltily behind her hand. “A mortal book. It has been ever so popular at court, but it seems her Grace does not find it amusing.”
Lune rolled her eyes and seated herself once more on the bench. “Ah. Would this be that poem called The Faerie Queene?”
“You know of it?”
“The Queen — the mortal Queen — likes it greatly, so of course every courtier who wishes to curry favor must be seen with a copy, or heard quoting it at every suitable occasion.” And a few that were not so suitable; Lune was growing heartily tired of the work. “I am not surprised Invidiana dislikes it.”
“Well, it is very inaccurate. But would she not like that? After all, if the mortals knew the truth, they would come down here with crosses and priests and drive us out.”
Nianna was a brainless fool. The insult was not that it was inaccurate; no one expected accuracy out of poets. Peasants might know the truth about fae — to an extent — but poets took that truth, dried it out, ground it to powder, mixed it with strange chemicals, and used it to dye threads from which to weave a tapestry that bore only the most passing of resemblances to real fae and their lives.
No, the insult was that the Faerie Queen of the title was a transparent symbol for Elizabeth. That would be what Invidiana could not stand.
The gentleman at the fountain was now extemporaneously composing a poem, in a very loud voice, about the swift and merciless wrath of the Queen. He was not very good. Lune ignored him and asked Nianna, “What of Francis Merriman?”
“What?” Nianna had been attending to the poem. “Oh, yes. A few people have heard that name.”
“They have?” Lune restrained her eagerness. She had not forgotten her conversation with Tiresias, over a year ago. There was no Francis Merriman in Elizabeth’s court, at least not yet. She suspected she would find him there — perhaps Elizabeth herself was the one whose secret Merriman held?- — but she had to consider other possibilities. “Who knows of him?”
Nianna began to count the names off on her jeweled fingers. “That wretched Bobbin fellow . . . Lady Amadea Shirrell . . . one or two others, I think. It does not matter. They all said the same thing. Tiresias mentioned the name to them, at one time or another. Some of them looked for him, but no one turned anything up.”
Hope vanished like a pricked soap bubble. Lune quelled a frustrated sigh; she did not want Nianna to think the matter too important to her. She already had a time of it, impressing upon the lady the merit of keeping her inquiries discreet, lest Invidiana catch wind of them before Lune had this mortal in hand.
Nianna’s words reinforced her growing conviction that she was simply too early. Tiresias was a seer. When he was not raving in confusion about things that never existed, he spoke of the future. Francis Merriman might not even have been born yet.
But when he did appear, Lune intended to be the first to find him.
“Lady Lune,” Nianna breathed, plucking at her sleeve, “I have gathered information for you, as you asked — told you all the news of the court, and answered all your questions. Will you not tell me now of my love?”
Ah yes. Lune said, “He will meet you Friday next, at the tavern called The Hound, that lies near Newgate.”
Many fae at court had mortal friends or lovers. Some knew their companions were fae; a great many more did not. John Awdeley, a clerk of the chaundry at Whitehall Palace, did not know, and so Nianna required assistance in arranging assignations with him, in such a time and place as she could keep up her pretense of being a maidservant in a London mercer’s house.
She did not love him, of course, but she was infatuated with him for now, and being fae, now was all that mattered.
Lune answered Nianna’s subsequent questions with rapidly diminishing patience; she had no interest in describing the state of Awdeley’s beard, nor recounting how many times he had asked after his maidservant love. “Enough,” she said abruptly, when Nianna asked for the seventh time
whether he had shown any favor to other women, and if so, their names and stations, so she might curse them and teach them the foolishness of being rival to a fae. “I do not follow the man his every waking moment; I have little to do with him. And our bargain was not that I would recount his doings to you, down to the contents of his supper. You have your meeting with him, and I the latest news of the court. Now begone with you.”
Nianna drew herself up in a graceful, offended ripple. “How dare you speak so dismissively to me? Who do you think you are?”
“Who am I?” Lune smiled, giving it a malicious edge. “While you trail after Invidiana, carrying her gloves and her fans and enduring the brunt of her wrathful moods, I eat mortal bread every day and report to her the secret doings of Elizabeth’s court. I am, moreover, your pander to this mortal you have set your sights upon. What aid I give you there, I can revoke. Turning his thoughts to another woman would be easy.”
The lady hissed, all warmth of manner instantly gone. “Your body would be floating in Queenhithe by the next morning for fish and gulls to peck at.”
“Would it?” Lune met her gaze unblinking. “Are you sure?”
The specter of the Queen was so easy to invoke. And while Invidiana certainly did not come to the aid of every fae who claimed the possibility, she took no offense at being so named; it served her purposes to be a figure of terror to her courtiers. She even made good on the threats occasionally, simply to keep everyone guessing. The threats would lose their meaning if they never bore teeth.
Nianna backed down, but not graciously. Lune might have to find a new informant to keep her abreast of matters. She would not have antagonized Nianna so, but the conference with Vidar had put her back up, and left her with no patience for the lady’s passing mortal infatuation.
They parted on coldly courteous terms, and Lune wandered through the garden alone. Two faerie lights drifted loose from the constellation above and floated about her shoulders. Lune brushed them away. Since losing her position in the privy chamber, she had not the rank or favor to merit such decoration, and did not want anyone carrying tales of her presumption. By the time they reached the ears of those in power, the casual wanderings of two faerie lights would be a halo of glory she had shaped and placed on her own head.