Quintessence Sky (24 page)

NEWS of the miraculous burning of Charles
Shiveley spread through London like fire through a wooden
shantytown. The effect was more dramatic than Ramos would have
imagined. It divided Englishmen into two camps: those who
fanatically worshipped Philip and Mary as God's representatives on
Earth, and those who called them devils and plotted to overthrow
them and put Elizabeth on the throne. Some of the lords of
questionable loyalty had already disappeared from London, and there
was some possibility that, like the rebellion by Thomas Wyatt of a
year before, they were gathering a force to march on the city.

The unrest only increased when the second
nova appeared in the sky. Hundreds more joined the ranks of the
mad. The country was in chaos. Ramos quickly determined that all of
the newly mad had been born in a five day span under the
constellation Aquarius. He told King Philip, but if the
intelligence interested him, he didn't show it. Philip continued to
use the madness for his own purposes, making proclamations about
God's judgment on the faithless and the need for heretics to submit
to the Roman Church.

The missives sent from Rome were more or less
the same, denouncing the madness as the judgment of God. Those who
remained should repent and return to God lest the same judgment
fall upon them. It shook Ramos more than he wanted to admit. How
could it be true that everyone born at a certain time of year had
earned God's judgment? Of course, all had sinned, and so all were
deserving of God's wrath. Perhaps it was a sign to the rest of them
not to be complacent. Perhaps God would continue to bring random
judgments until the Church was reunited and the apostates returned
to the fold. He clung to that explanation, but it didn't sit
comfortably in his mind.

It didn't sit comfortably with the rest of
the population, either. Demonstrations for Elizabeth sprang up
throughout the country, despite Philip and Mary's attempts to
suppress them. Finally, Philip commanded that Princess Elizabeth be
brought back to London from her house arrest in the royal residence
at Woodstock. After a rebellion the previous year, Elizabeth had
been imprisoned in the Tower. Philip had originally argued for her
release, suggesting that her power was better neutralized by taking
her away from public view and finding her a Catholic husband. In
the fervor after Shiveley's execution, however, the chance that she
would be rescued from Woodstock and assault London at the head of a
Protestant army was just too great.

At first, Elizabeth said she was too sick to
come, until Philip insisted she be brought even if she die on the
way. When she finally did leave, she turned a four-day journey into
six with frequent stops and requests for rest. Common people
thronged her way, giving her flowers and sweets and prompting
Mary's jealousy.

Ramos woke on Palm Sunday to the news that
Elizabeth had finally arrived. Ramos had been born on
el Domingo
de Ramos
—Palm Sunday—making it his birthday of sorts, though of
course the date of the holiday was different every year. He went
out with the crowds, wanting to get a glimpse of this young woman
who inspired such hatred and such love.

It became clear that the holiday had been at
least partly the reason behind Elizabeth's delay. The symbolism of
her entering the city on Palm Sunday was lost on no one: she was
the savior of her people, coming to be killed by evil men. It was a
religious analogy in which she played the part of Christ, and
Philip and Mary the parts of the wicked Roman and Jewish leaders,
and the people ate it up. Her carriage windows were open wide, and
she waved at the massive crowd that gathered.

It was the first time Ramos had seen the
young princess. She was pretty after a fashion, with a strong chin
and striking red hair, but her cheeks were drawn and her skin was
unnaturally pale. Either she had genuinely been sick, as she
claimed, or she had powdered her face to give that impression.

In fact, prisoner or no, Ramos realized
Elizabeth had thoroughly orchestrated this whole affair to turn
public opinion in her favor. Her arrival was supposed to be a
secret; Philip had wanted her safely stowed in the Tower before
anyone knew she was there, but somehow the word had spread. Her
claims of illness, her plain dress, her appearance now as a weak
and suffering maiden with no one to protect her: all were
calculated to stir the hearts of young patriots to rush to her aid.
Ramos could see why she was so dangerous.

The crowd lined the road all the way to the
Tower. When they reached it, Elizabeth drew back in fear at the
sight of the fortress prison she had only so recently left, and
Ramos thought the terror on her face was genuine. She certainly had
good reason to think she might not leave the Tower grounds alive,
as her cousin, the Lady Jane, had not. Or was she that shrewd, to
play to the crowd even now?

As they took her inside, the crowd pressed
forward, crying out comfort to her, until the yeoman warders
standing guard fired their matchlocks in the air. Mounted soldiers
rode through, forcing the people to disperse.

Despite the king's desire for secrecy,
everyone in the city now knew that the Princess Elizabeth had
arrived. If anything, it only heightened revolutionary feeling.
Every day, more rumors came to London of this or that lord calling
his people to arms, of the Queen's tax collectors attacked by mobs,
of rotting vegetables hurled at Catholic priests in the street.
Every day, Ramos feared he would look beyond the wall to see an
army of peasants marching on the city.

It was hard to respect a people that could be
so fickle. Less than two years before, it had been Mary who was
washed into London on a tide of popular approval, to throw down a
pretender to the throne without a shot fired. Had she lost their
love, simply because she had married a Spaniard? Or had this
country been so thoroughly corrupted by Protestantism that they now
hated anyone of the True Faith? Somehow the miracle of the burning
of Charles Shiveley had galvanized them. The story was on
everyone's lips, and even at court, three times as many people
claimed to have witnessed the event than could actually have been
there.

Ramos had to admit that King Philip's plan
had misfired. He had intended to use the miracle to claim divine
sanction for his rule and thus earn submission and awe from the
people. In Spain, it would have worked. But most Englishmen had
been raised in the age of Henry VIII. They had learned from their
youth that Popes could be defied, that sacred laws could be
rewritten, and that if you wanted something badly enough, you could
simply take it, and ask for forgiveness later. It was a totally
godless country, degenerate in ways Ramos had never dreamed of
before coming here. King Henry's blasphemy ran deep, and now his
sins were being visited on the next generation. At this rate, the
Church would be ousted from England once again, and another
generation of sinners would be lost to the devil.

To combat this threat, Philip and Mary needed
power. The king dreamed of establishing the True Church
permanently, not just in England, but across the world. To do that,
he needed military might and vast quantities of gold, enough to
quell heresy not just in the cities, but in a thousand towns and
hamlets. And he was looking to Ramos de Tavera to give him that
power. Ramos had failed the first time, but he would not do so
again.

He returned to the cellar and determined not
to leave it until he had succeeded in producing a weapon worthy of
the king's vision. For the Church to prevail, it had to fight
against wickedness in any way it could. This was why God had
brought him to England: so that the armies of the True Church could
overrun the Protestants and Musselmen and put an end to war and
heresy forever. So they would all finally see whose side God was
truly on. The fact that Ramos himself had been tempted to doubt the
Church as of late was all the more reason to focus his
energies.

When he was a boy, Ramos had admired the
brightly clad soldiers who battled the infidels and drove them from
the land, but he had never had the strength or courage to be a
soldier. He was an intellectual. But now, God had called him to
fight in a different way, a way that could ultimately make a
greater difference to the spread of the Church through heathen
lands. He would use this divine gift to create an army of God,
devout and invincible.

From now on, he would not doubt. No more
following his own ideas of right and wrong; no more secret
investigations to satisfy his own curiosity. From this day forward,
he would live a life of service and obedience as he had always
known he should: first to God, then to the pope, then to the king.
Fortunately, all three were in agreement. It made his path
clear.

Perhaps if he was faithful for long enough,
then someday God would see fit to give Antonia back to him
again.

MATTHEW saw the second nova appear just
before the storm blackened the sky, an event that a few days ago
would have seemed crucially important. The salt would now be
leached out of the soil at double the rate. For all he knew, there
might be no salt left anywhere on the island in a few days time.
But it hardly seemed to matter. With the loss of the settlement,
their needs were more immediate. They needed shelter, food, water.
They couldn't stay at the farms. There wasn't enough room for all
of them, nor enough supplies. They would have to leave in the
morning and find somewhere else to go. Only there wasn't anywhere
else to go.

The dark clouds opened and rain pelted the
landscape. In a flash of lightning, Matthew saw a few gray shapes
outside the barrier. Manticores. It was dark, and besides, he had
no skink tears, so he had no way of telling how many of them were
out there. They must have seen the burning of the settlement and
come to investigate. Now they knew the colonists were vulnerable
and were only waiting for them to venture out.

The colonists crowded into the largest room,
arguing about what to do. There were no good solutions, and tempers
flared. Some favored running for the bay and surrendering to the
Spanish. With no settlement left, they argued, they couldn't
survive on the island anyway, and the only way off was on those
Spanish ships, in chains. Perhaps the Spanish would give lenient
treatment in return for knowledge about quintessence or the
island.

Others considered that option nothing less
than treason. They favored running for the woods, or the mountains,
or the cliffs. If they moved quickly, perhaps they could be gone
before the manticores gathered in large numbers. They could go into
hiding, live outdoors. The island was huge; they could travel for
days until they found another spot to build again. By the time the
manticores or Spanish found them, they would be strong again, and
ready.

"Remember, you are Englishmen!" Ferguson
said. He was a coward, but he could talk big when he wanted to.
"Englishmen do not surrender. Our nation suffers under the rule of
her enemies, but it will not be so forever. Sometimes I wish we had
stayed at home. Surely by now good men are rising up to fight the
oppression of Rome and Spain and raise the Princess Elizabeth to
her rightful throne! We are far from that war, but the war has come
to us. We must do our part. We must not give in!"

He was cheered by some, but others shouted
him down, protesting that they had no weapons and no food. Matthew
brooded in the back, not participating in the argument. What right
did he have to offer an opinion? In former days, he would have done
so readily, and many would have listened to him. They might still.
But what made him think his ideas had any merit? He might just get
them all killed.

Finally, he tired of listening to them and
slipped outside to be by himself. The thunderheads had rushed down
from the north like a blanket thrown over their heads, completely
obscuring the sky. He wondered how it was for Catherine. If she
could see the same clouds. If she was even alive.

A gentle hand touched his cheek. He looked
down to see Blanca, her face a picture of compassion. She melted
against him, fitting perfectly in his arms, and he held on to her
like a life raft. He should not be touching her, he knew, should
not even be alone with her, but he was losing everything, including
any sense of who he was or what mattered. He could no longer think
of himself as the capable young miracle worker who commanded the
respect of everyone who knew him. He was a fraud. Just a child who
had fooled everyone into thinking they could trust him. Only now
his secret was out.

He needed Catherine, but Catherine wasn't
here. Blanca tilted her head back and looked up at him with wide,
dark eyes filled with concern. "You did the best you could."