Secret History of Elizabeth Tudor, Vampire Slayer (32 page)

He drops the clothes and comes at me. In an instant, I am tumbled back across his bed and he is on top of me.

“You are cruel!” he exclaims. “I give you my heart and you take delight in shredding it!”

“Your heart? What of mine! I cannot even claim to own it for my people have a prior claim. I have nothing of myself, nothing! And now, with all that has happened, I do not even know who I am!”

It is the truth, plainly spoken, but it is not what he wants to hear. He wants me to tell him that I cherish his heart and that
he has mine in turn. Much good that it would do him, for I fear that it is a poor, shriveled thing withered from scant use.

Not so my body, which appears to have a will entirely of its own. We tear at each other, clothes banished, flesh bared, mouths clinging, limbs entwined. He is in me and all around me; I possess him completely and I glory in it. If I die, let me die now as I soar into the heat of the sun and the infinity of the heavens. Fear falls away, the world with all its shackles does not exist. It is a masquerade, nothing more, and we the poor dupes who account it real and suffer so much trial and tribulation in it.

But false or not, inevitably, the world exerts its claim once again. I descend from bliss to rumpled sheets, pounding heart, and the certain knowledge that precious time is passing.

Robin lies beside me, gasping. When I start to rise from the bed, he clasps my arm and pulls me to him. Eye to eye, he says, “Forget my angry words, I pray you. I spoke in thoughtless haste.”

His apology wrings a wistful smile. “But truthfully, all the same. I have disappointed you.”

He laughs faintly. “Believe me, sweetling, right now
disappointed
is not how I would describe myself.” More seriously he adds, “Think only of what must be done to end the threat to your realm. Once Mordred is sent to his hellish reward, there will be time for everything else.”

I cannot bring myself to tell him that no amount of time will favorably dispose me toward matrimony. I am unalterable in my conviction that to take a husband would be to tempt the cruelest fate.

And so I smile, slip from the bed, and hold out my hand to him. “Help me to dress. I have no notion of how to put on male garb.”

He hastens to oblige me and plays the willing maid until, swiftly, we are both decently clad and on our way. An awkward page boy tugging at “his” hose and not quite able to keep his feathered hat on straight follows Robin back to the council chamber.

Cecil sucks in his breath at sight of me. “Sweet heaven …” Beside him, Dee colors with embarrassment and looks away. Scholar that he is, apparently the sight of a woman’s legs undoes him. He says nothing.

Alone among the three, Walsingham appears unfazed by my disguise. “Well done,” he decrees with a nod to Robin, who apparently gets the credit. “I believe we may now proceed.”

The departure of three men—Cecil remains behind—going briskly from the council chamber would attract attention under any circumstances. In the eager speculation that accompanies their passing, no one takes any notice of the page trailing after them.

For the first time in my life, I am effectively invisible. The experience is disconcerting but not unpleasant. How refreshing not to be the focus of all eyes or the target of all tongues. How delightful not to have every aspect of my appearance and behavior dissected for the tiniest hidden meanings.

How different the world looks when one does not scan every face for signs of treachery or wonder if every shadow conceals an assassin.

The respite is too short. Quickly enough, we are across the river, and from there it is scant time before we reach Southwark Manor.

The high iron gates set within the stone walls that circle the manor grounds open once again at my touch. Before we pass through, I caution my companions.

“We have only a few hours of daylight left. We must find where Mordred sleeps quickly so that I may dispose of him. If we are still within these walls when night falls…”

I do not have to state the terrible danger we will face. They all know well enough that if our presence is detected, the entire court of the vampires will rise up as one to defend their king and themselves. Against such overwhelming odds, not even I with all my newfound power could hope to prevail.

We go swiftly up the path, still glistening with frost, and across the wide stone terrace to the double ironbound doors. Unlike the gates, they are securely fastened.

I turn to Walsingham. “How did you get in when you came here?”

“This way.” He leads us around a corner and through an archway giving onto a broad flagstone courtyard framed by the three wings of the house. At this hour, so large a residence should be bustling with servants, retainers, and the like. Carriages, wagons, and riders should be coming and going. The kitchens should be a hive of activity as dinner is prepared. Nothing of the sort is happening here; there is only stillness eerie enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. Staring
up toward the steeply pitched roof, I glimpse stone gargoyles, winged beasts with leering faces and cloven hooves. They crouch as though about to leap down on us.

A small wooden door set near a corner of the building sits so deep in shadow as to be all but invisible. The schoolmaster lifts the iron latch and eases the door open. On the far side is a low passage.

“The hall is this way,” he says. We have gone only a short distance in that direction when we encounter the first of the thralls. He—or she—is standing motionless against the far wall. We can make out nothing but the all-encompassing brown robe that hides every feature.

Robin, who has not seen such a creature before, sucks in his breath. Knowing as I do now how they are created, I wonder who the brave soul was who dared to go against Mordred and has suffered such a dire fate for it.

We make our way past the thrall without arousing it but shortly encounter two more. Both are as unresponsive as Walsingham promised they would be. The phenomenon seems bewildering until I consider that perhaps the will of the vampires is needed to animate these helpless beings. While their masters sleep, their slaves remain insensible.

Dee may be thinking along similar lines for his color improves as he throws off the fear that has kept him stooped and anxious ever since entering the manor.

“If legend is to be our guide,” the magus says, “we should consider that the sleep of vampires is said to mimic death. They are believed to favor crypts for their resting place.”

“Is there a church on the grounds?” Robin asks. “If so, it is likely to have a crypt.”

“Not so far as I have discovered,” Walsingham replies. “However, I have examined the original plans for the manor
and confirmed that there was a private chapel. I suggest we start there.”

The chapel is on the far side of the entry opposite the hall. We enter through an intricately carved wooden door depicting the fall of man and the expulsion from Eden.

Robin calls my attention to the scene. “Apt, wouldn’t you say?”

I recall Mordred’s argument that either the vampires are as much a part of God’s natural order as we are or there is no God as we conceive Him. With all that has happened so quickly, I have yet to find a cogent response to his argument, but one will undoubtedly come to me in time.

Beyond the cautionary door with its reminder of human frailty, the chapel is much as I would expect. Great houses always have some lavish space set aside to demonstrate the owner’s piety. Such private chapels were spared the depredations that fell upon public churches and abbeys when my father remade the world. These enclaves remain much as they have been for centuries. This one boasts a high ceiling supported by intricately carved columns and painted to resemble a starry sky. In addition, stained-glass windows represent the Passion of Christ, and a tiled floor is laid out in a mosaic of the Greek letters alpha and omega to remind us that our Savior is the beginning and end of all things. Lastly, upon the altar gleams a gold and jeweled cross of rare beauty.

“How astonishing that Mordred and his kind left all this intact,” Dee exclaims.

“Perhaps they feared to enter,” Robin suggests. “We may be in the wrong place.”

I walk closer to the altar, studying it. The entrance to many crypts is down steps near the altar. But I can find no trace of any such thing here.

“My father had this manor built. His architects might have included a crypt for tradition’s sake, but they as easily could have omitted it. Neither would the Archbishop of York, to whom the manor passed, have had reason to add such a thing.”

Walsingham looks disconcerted. “Then where could the vampires be?”

“A house of this size will have vast undercrofts for the storage of food, armaments, prisoners, and the like,” Robin says. “We could spend days searching them.”

Dread fills me. If we fail to find Mordred quickly, he will strike with all his might. As much as I want to believe that I can defeat him in fair battle, I would much prefer not to have to find out.

Regrettably, what Robin says makes good sense; the vampires may well retire to the undercrofts by day. But is Mordred among them?

It is a truth understood by those who hold power, but not always by those who seek it, that people yearn to believe in something greater than themselves, something set apart and above them. A wise ruler encourages that belief.

If I were Mordred, where would I seek my rest? Among my kind, as one of them, or somewhere exclusively my own?

The moment the question occurs to me, I try to root it from my mind. We are nothing alike, the vampire king and I. Fate has made us enemies for a reason; we see the world and everything in it entirely differently. But for all that, we are bound together by forces I have only just begun to sense. Like it or not, there is a link between us. Can I use that to my own ends?

If I were he, where would I go?

Walsingham looks at me intently, as though he is following the play of thoughts across my face. “Majesty … you have a thought?”

“Would that I did…” My voice trails off. I sink into memory, striving to recall every tiny fragment that I can reconstruct from each encounter I have had with Mordred, anything that might give me a hint of his whereabouts. Nothing comes to me. I drift instead to thoughts of Morgaine in her eternal home on the hill where now the Tower sits.

In fair sight of this hill rising above Southwark is Mordred’s ancient home that he has reclaimed.

“This manor boasts a tower, does it not? I thought I noticed it in darkness when I came the first time and again when we entered now.”

“It does,” Walsingham agrees. “But I fail to see—”

“Show me the way to it.”

If I am mistaken, we will waste what little time we have, yet I am gripped by a sudden conviction that will not loose hold of me: The tower would have an excellent view out over the river toward Tower Hill. Within it, Mordred would have constant sight not only of the city at the heart of the realm he aspires to rule but most particularly of the place where Morgaine dwelled. The more I think on it, the less I can imagine him anywhere else.

A tight spiral of stone steps leads upward. I insist on taking the lead, to the consternation of the gentlemen, especially Robin, who must be dissuaded from pulling out his sword and charging straight ahead.

We mount slowly and with care. Torches set at intervals along the curving wall cast twisting shadows. In their flickering light, we appear as giants even as I feel the full weight of my own doubts threatening to crush me into nothingness.

If I am not strong enough—

If I waiver in my conviction—

If fortune simply does not favor me—

Fie with fortune! And fie with all the rest as well. I will slay Mordred and take his power as I took that of Blanche. With that, no one will be able to come against me ever.

But I will keep my humanity all the same because I love and am loved.

And because I am Elizabeth, daughter of Anne, who died rather than sacrifice her soul—and mine—to evil.

The top of the winding steps gives out into a large, circular room with a high, vaulted ceiling. Fading daylight pours through high windows that look out toward the city. I can make out Tower Hill clearly, but I have scant time to notice it before I am distracted. Books and scrolls line the walls in number beyond any I have ever seen. Many are lavishly bound within embossed leather set with jewels and secured with golden clasps. Others are of such an age that the leather has worn away, revealing the wooden boards beneath, still protecting the precious pages within. What must be the oldest works are the scrolls rolled within leather and horn cases that are themselves ornately embellished.

What treasures are among them? What works long forgotten or believed lost? The scholar in me yearns to delve into their midst and not emerge again until I have plumbed at least some measure of their mystery.

But the queen I must be remembers her business. I cast a long look around the library and am disappointed. “There is no sign of him here.”

Indeed, but there is another door leading … where?