Maid of Wonder (16 page)

And after all, tonight's revelations cannot center only on one poor man and his questionable birth. The Queen is also threatened. For all that her demise is linked to her collapse on a snow-dusted field, and we are still enjoying a robust autumn, it is no small thing that she is at risk.

Death plays your Queen in a game without end. It circles and crosses, then strikes once again.

I think of the dark angel, watching me silently from its shadowy realm as I danced with Marcus. Did my grim specter
appear this morning because it wished to speak with me? If so, I am willing to listen.

Once my mind is set, I am eager to be away. The need to run burns within me, but I force myself to stroll toward the King's Gate. As I move through the Lower Ward, I fold my arms tightly against myself, as if I were cold. No one much notices me, and the space is more than half full for market day. Yes, I am a female walking without escort, but I am also a maid, constantly directed hither and yon by the Queen. Not even the guard Will Seton notices me, though Ladysweet lifts her head and nickers, forcing me to quicken my pace to hasten through the gate. Still, the sight of the mare once again healthy lightens my spirits somewhat. No matter if my Sight is not always trustworthy, at least it helped me to save her.

My thoughts darken as they return to Maude and her deadly yew. I cannot be mistaken in thinking she deliberately set in motion the events of that day: pressing the poor old woman, Sally Greer, into service as her messenger, and getting her in front of the Queen to deliver Mother Shipton's prediction of death. To hear Bess tell the tale, Mistress Maude hates the Queen for some fell reason of her own. But I still can't puzzle that out. This is the Queen's first year on the throne! In the past several months she's worked hard to earn the love of all her loyal subjects. Whatever could she have done to enrage a village herb mistress?

Once I have left the castle walls, I feel safer somehow as I angle toward Windsor Forest. It will take me another half hour to find my hallowed glade, but my heart no longer has
that strange, clamped-down feeling it did within the castle's embrace. I can breathe again.

I walk beneath the heavy cover of trees, loosening my shawl. Even in the full light of day, it seems the forest is close and quiet, sheltering me. I finally reach the glade and glance about, immediately locating the small stone bench that I found the first time I chanced upon this clearing. I have no idea how the bench was brought here, but I entertain myself with thinking that I am not the first wandering soul to seek refuge in this glade. Certainly neither the deer nor the birds ever do. It is always empty, a balm to the soul.

I seat myself on the bench and will myself into a state of calmness. If the dark angel awaits me on the other side, then I must be ready for it with all my questions. About Maude, the Queen, and especially poor Robert Moreland, whom I pray Walsingham has spirited out of the castle, to ensure that neither Nostradamus's prophecy nor my terrible vision has a chance to come true.

Once I am ready, I pull out the obsidian stone on its long chain and hold it up in front of me, wrapping my fingers around its smooth surface.

I feel the door within my mind ease open, and I step across—

Only, everything is different.

Or, rather, I am different.

Every time I visit the angels, I arrive as I am dressed on the mortal plane. This time, however, I am completely changed. My gown is white, richly adorned, my hair heavy with a net of pearls that hangs down over my shoulders. I have rings on
my fingers and bracelets of gold and silver on my wrists. I look like a bride on her way to a wedding, or a Queen before her own court. How did this happen?

Around me there are easily a dozen angels, murmuring among themselves—but not my grim specter. I resolve to ask my questions of the angels instead, but they do not move toward me. They appear to be waiting and watching, eager for some scene to unfold. After several moments of this, I hold out my hands and step away from the obsidian bench, welcoming any of them to approach me and speak.

A rustle of movement sounds to my right, and, smiling, I turn . . . then freeze.

It is the dark angel.

And for the first time ever, I realize my grim specter is a
he
.

The heavy hood still hangs over his face, all flames banked for the moment, but the dark angel's cloak is flung back to reveal a powerfully built masculine body. He is nearly as robust as Beatrice's Alasdair, and his clothing is as fine as any courtier's in Elizabeth's circle, all in jet black: doublet, breeches and fine black hose, leather boots. I don't recognize that I'm staring at those boots until the spirit's feet shift, and I realize he is performing the Honor, the first step in any proper dance.

Startled, I lift my head to search his face—and meet only shadows.

I do not trust myself to speak. Never before has an angel tried to approach me in this way. I sense it is forbidden, an unwritten rule of the realm. I am mortal, they are spirit. Never the twain shall meet, else . . .

Madness
.

Ignoring my mute objection, the dark angel moves around me, mimicking the dance he observed naught but a few hours ago. He watches me from the darkness of his hooded cowl, and I find myself curtsying to him in turn, then rising up. He positions his hands as the dance requires, and I place mine next to his—close, but not touching him.

The dark specter sought me out in my own realm, after all. Clearly it—he—wants to speak to me. If he wishes to dance with me as well, I can be accommodating.

“What can you tell me?” I ask. My voice is breathless, though we are circling each other most sedately. Still, I feel tired, as if my energy were draining away.

Life, it is this dancing, stepping forward, hastening back.

The dark angel's words recall me to his face—or, rather, to the darkness that passes for his face beneath the cowl. I smile tentatively, not sure how to respond.

“Yes,” I say. “Life
can
be a dance, good sir.”

His head comes up then, anger riffling between us. I have said something wrong. I bite my lip and try to give him a better answer. “We seek to come together, yet all too often find ourselves pulling quickly apart. We cannot stay but that we seek to leave; we do not leave but that we wish we could stay.”

He nods, and I breathe a tiny sigh of relief. Still, no sooner have I relaxed than his words sound again. This time, however, they are solely in my head.

See this gathering of spirits.

Look but quickly, then away.

They would seek to draw your breath,

To dance your dance, to ever stay.

I frown, but I do as he instructs, glancing over at the collected assembly of spirits. The dark angel is correct, I suppose. There is an intensity in the way the other spirits watch me, but no more so than I felt in the dark angel himself as he watched me dance with Marcus.

The laughter that skates across my senses is low, dangerous. Can the dark angel read my thoughts? If so, I dare not wait any longer to ask my questions.

“Please,” I say, though there is no supplication in my tone, only bold demand. “You and the angels showed me the Queen's own death last night. You must tell me how to stop that from happening.”

But my grim specter remains silent, watching me from his cowl's hooded depths as we engage in this caricature of a dance. “I cannot fail in this,” I try again. “I beg of you.”

Do not rush into this madness.

Do not fall, ever to stay.

Do not heed the call of sirens.

Flee this place, away, away.

“Enough!” I cry in frustration, pulling out of his mock embrace. “If you cannot tell me, then please withdraw and allow another to speak!”

He moves so quickly then that I can only gasp. His gauntleted hand reaches out and cups my chin, lifting my face up
to his.
How is he touching me? This is not allowed!
And yet, at the moment when I feel the dark angel's forbidden touch, my mind is filled to bursting with sounds, images, and words.

I see the young, chestnut-haired man in his bed once more, dead.

I see Walsingham at his side.

I push these images away. “What of the Queen?” I ask. “I saw the Queen die! How can that be stopped?”

The dark angel shifts his hold on me, loosing my chin but crowding close. My sight dims further, until I am wholly blind. I feel the lightest pressure along my cheek, as if the angel has drawn his finger down my face. With that touch my vision brightens once more, in sharp and vivid clarity:

I see five women, my fellow maids and myself, in the midst of some great revel—as if we were part of it but with our own unique roles, a play within a play.

Positioned like the tips of a five-pointed star, each of us holds a sword high in the air between our clasped hands, our eyes glowing bright. We are possessed of an eternal inner fire, able to see in utter darkness.

At our center is the Queen, and we all stand upon a circular snow-white field, bisected with a black cross.

I remember this place, of course. It's where the Queen will die! I am smote with an impossible urgency, and suddenly I understand. When the Queen takes to this white field, I will be close enough to save her. If I move quickly, she will vanquish death. I simply need to reach her.
I must reach the Queen!

The dark angel seems to shudder, and I sense that both his hands are pressed to either side of my face as he stares
intently at me, my mind filling with bright, discordant images. Now I am back in the Lower Ward, rushing through the collection of carts and animals and people. I seem to be searching for someone, desperate to find her, when the carts suddenly give way and I dash into the open space.

Before me an old woman in heavy shawls whirls around to gape at me, her hands flying up in a violent frenzy as if to warn me away.

Her eyes are as white as milk.

Pain explodes in the back of my neck.

I scream in agony, reeling away from the dark angel as a bolt of fire lashes through me. I am nauseous with a heavy, roiling wrongness.

At that moment a roar besets the glade, wind racing into the sacred space. I stumble to the side, half-collapsing onto the obsidian bench. I feel a cloying wetness on my cheeks and brush it away, but when I pull my hand back, my horror surges anew to see my fingers red with blood. My eyes are once again bleeding! The raging storm grows, and I realize that the dark angel has stepped away from me and is lost in the gale. “No!” I scream into the wind. I squint across the open space, but I cannot see the dark spirit anymore.

“Don't leave me!” I am dizzy with physical pain, but the sudden wrench of the dark angel's disappearance hurts me worse, as if, having transgressed so far as to touch me, he may be taken from me forever, never to return. Never to show me his face. “Who
are
you?” I demand, grasping at something—anything—that will keep us connected across the planes. For I cannot lose him. Not now, when he has given me a way to
see visions with such a startling clarity. Not now, when I am so close! “Come back to me!”

But I can already sense the angelic realm slipping away, even as I feel the brush of something against my cheek, as light as a feather though it seems to scorch me to the bone.
Arc,
speaks a voice in my head, more pictures and thundering music than words, a word full of fire and desolation and loss.
My name is Arc.

My eyes pop open. I am in the quiet glade of Windsor Forest, staggering around like a woman gone mad. But my head is clear, and my neck no longer feels as though it has been set on fire, despite the fact that my eyes are streaming with what should be tears. With what instead, I suspect, are thin rivers of blood.

I rub my hands against my face, gently wiping away the worst of it.
What just happened?
Never before have I been touched by any of the spirits. Never before have I danced. Never before has the dark angel held my face in his hands as he poured out images too intense for my mind to accept.

Arc,
he said, and I wonder at the word, turning it round in my mind. So that is his name? Can I now summon my grim specter, like Nostradamus called up the fire spirit? Dare I even try?

A branch cracks in the distance, and I look up in sudden concern, at once aware of how far I am from the castle. How far, and how alone.

No, no.
I urge myself to calm.
There is no one in the glade. I am alone. I am safe.

Half-right, anyway.

CHAPTER TWENTY

I make my way back to the castle slowly, dread gathering around me like a heavy cloak. Though I must find Walsingham the moment I breach the walls of Windsor, my feet have become leaden, and it is almost more than I can bear to put one of them in front of the other. Surely all the cares of Windsor Castle will still be waiting for me, no matter when I arrive.

There seem to be yet more carts heading into the Lower Ward for market day than there were when I passed this way earlier. They choke the narrow opening of the King's Gate. I fall in step with villagers seeking entrance to the castle, grateful for this moment's rest to walk normally among normal people, all of whom seem blessedly
normal
. They look over at me with only a passing interest, taking in my simple dress. To them I am as any villager walking to the castle, with no concerns but what provisions I might buy for my family.

I'm jostled into the center of the group as we wend our way forward, and then it seems we must wait again as the guards engage in some discussion at the gate. I stretch my
neck, trying to relax, and a movement up ahead catches my eye. There's something immediately familiar about the woman's hunched shoulders, the wild hair peeking out of her cape, the colorful shawls wrapped round her frail body.

It's Bess, the old blind woman from Windsortown. I squint hard to see who she is talking to. Sure enough, her companion is her daughter, Agnes, the dove seller. Even as I watch, Bess grips her daughter's arm with easy familiarity, using her as both support and guidepost.

The memory of my vision in the angelic realm floods through me—the chase in the Lower Ward, the clearing of the carts. Bess turning back to me, urgently warning me away. I marvel at the blossoming ache of remembered pain in my neck.
What was that vision about?

There is only one way to be sure. I push through the crowd, taking advantage of the stalled carts to slip in and out of the villagers. A command is shouted from the gate, and we all lurch forward once more as the next wave of people is let inside the castle walls. The delay has served its purpose for me, however. I move up alongside the dove seller and her mother.

“Agnes?” I begin, and the woman glances to me, instantly recognizing me. To my great relief, she doesn't scowl but grimaces at me ruefully.

“Aye,” she says. “With a mother who would not rest but that she had to come to Windsor this day.”

“Windsor Castle, bright and fair,” the old woman croons, and the look Agnes sends her is so filled with sadness that I feel sudden tears prick at my own eyes.

“Is she well?” I ask quietly, but the old woman's cackle is immediate—and sharp.

“I'm blind, not deaf,” she announces, and that earns us chuckles from our neighbors. Her daughter gives me another wry smile.

“She's as well as she can be, for a woman whose mind is
touched
,” she says quite audibly, and her mother laughs again. Agnes glances at me with the tired eyes of a daughter who understands which battles she cannot fight. “I would make her time as easy as possible.” She shrugs. “She has been good to me.”

“And you to me, sweet Agnes, you to me.” Bess pats her daughter's hands.

I nod, sensing the underlying message in these words. I fear this might be the last trip to Windsor Castle for the old blind woman, her days now dwindling down. Looking at Bess, I cannot see how she could become so distraught as she seemed in my vision. I consider warning Agnes, but how do I put into words what I have seen?

I can't, I decide. I can only make sure that whatever danger is to befall Bess, it will not be this day. “It looks as though all of Windsortown has come up to the castle,” I remark instead, and Agnes snorts in agreement. She glances at me, and I mouth the word “Maude?”

Agnes's eyes reflect her understanding as she shakes her head firmly. No wonder she felt safe in bringing her mother here. I am relieved too. If Mistress Maude is not at market day, Bess will be safe. “That woman Mother mentioned before,” Agnes says, keeping her voice low, though I can tell
from the tension in her mother that the old woman can hear every word. “It's best that you forget her name. The guards have been all over the town asking after her, but no one will talk. I'm only grateful they didn't stumble upon my mother, since she can't shut up.”

Bess laughs once more, but I stay focused on Agnes. “That woman could be important, Agnes,” I urge. “What do you know about her?” After all, if I don't fully understand the truth behind Maude's actions, the Queen may pay with her life.

“Sally was a widow with no more living children,” Agnes says at last, though I can tell she doesn't want to talk of this at all. “Daughter died last year in a fall. The cart vendors had been taking care of her, none more so than Mistress Maude, in all truth. Sally felt she owed her, and she did. Owed her enough to take a message to the Queen, certainly.”

“Owed her enough to die while she gave that message?” It's only a guess, but it hits home. Agnes flinches. “What did Maude use?” I ask.

“I cannot be certain.” Agnes's words are tight and low. “But if I had to guess, it'd be monkshood. Maude grows enough of it behind her cottage to fell a bear, and let me tell you, she's not using it to treat headaches.”

“Monkshood.” I try to recall what I know about the deadly poison. “But there was no sign of Sally's lungs failing.”

“She didn't need much to push her to death. If she didn't strangle, then the damage to her heart alone was enough.” Agnes shakes her head. “Her time was short.”

“Still.” I wince, thinking of the sight of poor Sally Greer,
crumpled on the floor of the Presence Chamber. “Why did she have to die at all?

“It has you talking, doesn't it?” Agnes's mother interrupts us with a croaking laugh. “If ol' Sally had marched up to the Queen and told her piece with a wink and a smile, what would have happened? She'd have been questioned by the guards, is what, her head cuffed for her troubles, and then ignored. The Queen wouldn't spend a minute worrying, and how would that serve ol' Maude? Maude hates the Queen, always has. A wound that deep is not easily staunched. She'd sooner spit at the woman's feet than kneel at them, and that's for certain.”

“Mother!” Agnes draws her mother to her more firmly, as if she's a child to be scolded. But Bess just laughs.

“She plays a long game, mark my words,” Bess says. “A long game indeed.”

“But what issue could she have with the Queen?” I ask the question that is likely to drive me mad. “Elizabeth has ruled for less than a year.”

Agnes shakes her head firmly. “Pay my mother no mind,” she says. “Maude's a troublemaker to be sure, but she's no fool. She wanted to cause a fuss, for her own sick purposes, but she'd never make the Queen her enemy outright.” She grimaces. “You didn't see her walking up to the Queen to tell her Mother Shipton's prophecy, did you?”

I sigh. “True enough. But how did she get that prophecy in the first place?”

“Miss Dee!” Before Agnes can respond, I hear my name called. I glance up to the King's Gate, which we are almost through. The guards there gesture to me with an urgency
that cannot be denied, and I'm forced to leave Agnes and her mother behind. I make my quick good-byes and hasten forward. When I reach the King's Gate, it's Will Seton who grins down at me.

“There you are,” he says, but though his eyes are warm, he wastes no time with idle chatter. “A page was sent for you more than an hour ago. The Queen has need of you.”

Dread lances through me once again, and I squint up at the sun. I have not been gone that long. “Have you any idea why?”

Will Seton laughs. “Who can guess what stirs the mind of a monarch? But I'd be on my way, were I you.”

I thank him and edge away. Still, the gratitude that shines in his eyes warms me. I am glad I saved his horse from Maude's poison. Though my skills are meant to be bent to the Queen's service, where I can help others, I will.

Scant minutes later I rush into the Queen's Privy Chamber almost breathless, my overheated skin instantly becoming clammy in the cool confines of Elizabeth's inner sanctum. “Your Grace,” I say, sinking into a curtsy.

“Get up, get up,” the Queen snaps. She appears agitated, but there is no one else in the room save Cecil and Walsingham, and they are removed to a corner, conferring on some matter of their own. Still, the sight of Walsingham makes my heart leap.
At last I can speak to him!

“Where have you been?” Elizabeth demands as I rise. I force myself to not touch my hair, my face, to not call attention to my state of dishevelment. I open my mouth to speak some falsehood, but the Queen's eyes are too sharp.
“Approach me, girl,” she says, her voice overloud. What has disturbed her so?

Still, I do as she bids. Behind me there is some commotion, and I realize that both Walsingham and Cecil have moved to engage someone outside the doors of the chamber. Under cover of their conversation, I draw closer until I am a bare three feet away from the Queen. Elizabeth leans forward in her throne, as if she can sense where I have been from my appearance. She tilts her head, her gaze holding mine. “You had another vision?” she asks. “Dee told me you did, just now. Said he saw it in his own angelic session.”

“Dee!” I exclaim, while in my own mind fury erupts. Marcus Quinn was spying on me again! Not three hours after I left him with his pretty words and meaningful looks on the dancing floor. “I cannot imagine how he thinks he can see such a thing, Your Grace.”

“And yet he has said as much to me. So who is telling me the truth, I wonder?”

And this is it. Elizabeth's first real demand that I reveal my abilities. She is my Queen, my ruler. I owe her my life and my fealty. But the images in my head are all jumbled, and I cannot shake my most recent vision of the five Maids of Honor, with glowing swords and eyes, ready to protect the Queen upon a field of snow. We cannot fail her then, and I cannot fail her now. For until I know the truth, I dare not reveal too much.

“I did
try
to reach the angelic realm, Your Grace,” I lie. “I set out to do just that, but it was for naught. The angels remain silent, though I feel they will speak soon, truly.”

“Mmph.” Elizabeth sits back in annoyance, eyeing me. “See that they do,” she says curtly. “I have no wish to be made the fool.”

I frown. “Your Grace?”

“Your uncle has been quite convincing about your abilities, Sophia,” she says. “And I tell you plain, I am inclined to believe him.” Her jaw tightens. “It would be best that you don't fail me this night.”

We stare at each other for a long, frozen moment. Then I curtsy as demurely as possible, my mind racing with her not-so-subtle threat. “I understand,” I say.

I'm still looking at the floor when she blows out a frustrated breath. “Walk with me, Sophia,” she says. She stands and sweeps down the short stair that extends from her throne, and holds out her arm imperiously. Confused but not stupid enough to deny her anything, I slip my hand into the crook of the Queen's elbow. We pace the length of the Privy Chamber and then move farther out, to where the servants are busily preparing the Presence Chamber for the evening meal and entertainment.

“Sophia,” she says, and her voice is quiet. “You need to start trusting me if this is ever going to work.”

I stiffen in her grasp, utterly surprised. “Ma'am?”

“Don't play the fool with me,” she says. “I have eyes. Every time I enter a room, you watch me warily, as if I'm going to hang you from your toes at any moment. But that is not my intention, Sophia. That has never been my intention. I have only ever wanted to keep you safe.”

Immediately my mind skips to my memories of the
questioning in the chapel. The Queen was there in the shadows, watching the Questioners try to brand my skin with holy objects. That was her idea of keeping me
safe
? Still, I hold my tongue. And the Queen does not need a response to continue talking, of course. It's one of her many graces.

“But I need
you
to keep
me
safe as well,” she says, and this time I do glance at her, only to find that her profile remains serene . . . and deadly serious. “I plucked you from your uncle's care because the kind of service I need cannot be relegated to this plane alone. I value Dee's astrological prowess highly, and still more his alchemical research.”

She pauses, and I sense that I should make some comment here, though I no more believe that Dee can change lead into gold than that he can fly. “Of course, Your Grace,” I reply.

“Do not ‘of course' me. It's no small matter,” she says, and I barely avoid a wince. Once more I have said the wrong thing. “I inherited not only a kingdom from my dear, departed half sister; I inherited its debt as well. With gold in our coffers procured from the Philosopher's Stone, we can go a great distance toward satisfying the demands of the people while holding off the encroachment of our enemies.” She tightens her hold on my arm as we walk. “And with foreknowledge of events that may affect my court, I can rule with an assuredness that will silence my detractors and confound those who would seek to overthrow me. Yes”—she nods with grim satisfaction as we turn at the far wall, heading back toward the Privy Chamber—“to strengthen my throne I would reinforce my defenses on all sides, including within the realm of angels. And for that, Sophia, I need you.”