The Huntress (14 page)

Leaning heavily on Martin, he said, “Come and have a cup of wine and com-commiserate with me.”

“Ned, you’ve already had far too much,” Jane said, but Martin gave her a warning shake of his head, realizing that all of her pleas were doing nothing except aggravating her brother.

“Excellent idea, my lord.” Martin added in a softer voice to Jane, “More wine might help him to sleep.”

Jane’s eyes widened, then she nodded in comprehension.

“Who the devil wants to sleep?” his lordship growled, overhearing. Peeling himself off of Martin, Ned managed to make it back to his chair on his own. Tumbling into it, he bellowed for more wine.

A dignified servant wearing the Lambert scarlet and black livery appeared swiftly, bearing two flagons on a tray. Swilling his own wine, Ned didn’t even notice that Martin placed his cup atop the mantel, untasted.

Martin realized he was in a cursed difficult situation and he needed a clear head. This was exactly the opportunity Walsingham would expect Martin to take full advantage of. Pry out what secrets he could while Ned’s tongue was loose with drink.

But Martin could scarce tear his eyes from Jane. Her gentle face was so distraught, rousing all of Martin’s most protective instincts.

The servant caught her attention and asked in an undertone, “Your pardon, my lady, the cook was wondering. What is to be done with all the food prepared for the banquet?”

Ned’s copious drinking didn’t seem to affect his hearing. He snarled, “Fling it into the streets. Let the dogs and kites have it.”

Jane frowned, remonstrating with her brother gently. “Surely, my dear, it would be much better to distribute the food among the poor.”

Ned took another gulp of his wine, scowled, and then shrugged. “Oh, very well.”

While Jane quietly imparted her instructions to the servant, Ned brooded over his wine cup and intoned, “The poor will be with you always. Especially nowadays. No place for the poor buggers to go for alms. Damned Protestants didn’t think of that when they were closing down all the monasteries and convents, did they, Master Wolfe?”

“No, I daresay they didn’t,” Martin replied uncomfortably. Both the Lamberts had always been so discreet about being Catholic. Martin knew Jane wore a simple crucifix but she kept it tucked beneath her gown, only the gold chain visible. As for Ned, Martin had never heard him mention a word on the subject of religion until now.

Jane returned in time to hear her brother’s latest ravings. She rested her hand on his shoulder.

“God expects all of us to be charitable, Ned. Not just the holy men.”

“You are charitable enough for both of us. M’sister’s a saint, Marcus. Did you know that?”

Martin smiled at Jane. “Certainly she is a noble and virtuous lady.”

“No! I am telling you she’s a saint,” Ned said. “A goddamned saint!”

“Edward!” Jane admonished, squeezing his shoulder. She cast Martin a rueful glance. “I assure you I am not.”

Ned gave a sloppy grin, reaching up to pat her hand. His expression darkened almost immediately. He startled both Martin and Jane by suddenly flinging his wine cup into the empty hearth.

Doubling over, he buried his face in his hands and groaned. “What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I thought by licking the queen’s boots I could obtain some fat post at court. I should have known better. She gives preference only to Protestants, dark-skinned gypsies like that old fart Leicester. He used to be the queen’s lover, y’know. They plotted together to murder his wife.”

“Ned, for the love of heaven, I beg you. Talk like that could get you thrown into the Tower.” Jane cast an uneasy glance at Martin.

“Don’t fret, my lady,” he hastened to assure her. “I am familiar with all the old gossip. I take little heed and certainly would not repeat it.”

“Why not? Everyone else does,” Ned muttered, and then went back to moaning. “I am ruined. I’ve near bankrupted myself on this s-supper. Do you have any idea how much money I spent? Jane’s money.”

Jane rubbed her brother’s back soothingly. “It doesn’t matter, dearest. I don’t mind.”

“But I mind, damn it.” Ned jerked his head up. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life tied to m’sister’s apron strings.”

“It is a woman’s duty to look out for her family.”

“That’s our father talking,” Ned sneered. Peering up at Martin, he asked, “Did you know Jane was bartered off twice to repair our family fortunes? Once to a sickly boy and then to an old man with gout. Poor little cow.”

When Jane lowered her gaze in embarrassment, Martin longed to give the young man a good clout to the ears. An unwise idea in Ned’s current inebriated state. It would only lead to fisticuffs or a duel, distressing Jane further.

Ned twisted in his chair to blink owlishly up at his sister. “Never again, Janey. Next time you’ll wed to your own fancy, some handsome lusty fellow who will bed you proper. I’ll make our fortunes. I’ll be the wealthiest and most powerful man in England, if all goes well.”

As he turned back to Martin, a sly expression played over his lordship’s flushed face. He laid one finger dramatically over his lips and said, “Shhh. Wolfe, old man, can you keep a secret?”

No!

Martin managed a stiff smile. “I try to be discreet. But I don’t think this is a good time for your lordship to be sharing confidences. Not when your judgment is impaired.” “Nothing wrong with my judgment.” Ned struggled upward, swaying a little. “I want to show you something.”

“Ned, no!” If Jane had looked uneasy before, she was now white with alarm. “I am sure Marcus would have no interest—”

“Sure he would. He might even want a share in my enterprise.”

Jane clung to her brother’s arm, but he shook her off roughly. Beckoning Martin to follow, Ned lurched off toward the kitchen.

Martin looked uncertainly at Jane. Although she cast him a pleading glance, she spread her hands in a helpless gesture. Martin had no choice but to follow Ned, but he did so with his stomach in knots.

Goddamn the irresponsible young fool. Was it possible that Walsingham was right about Ned being involved in Babington’s plot? Was the drunken idiot about to serve up Martin the evidence the secretary needed on a silver platter?

As Ned staggered into the kitchen, the servants skittered back like frightened shadows. Ned snatched up a candle.

“This way,” he slurred, leading Martin through a door with a rough stone stair winding down to the cellars. Martin picked his way carefully after him, Jane rustling behind.

Martin offered his hand to aid her down the worn narrow steps. She clutched at him with an almost frantic grip as though she wanted to draw him back. But Ned was the one she needed to stop, damn it, Martin thought.

Unsteady on his feet, Ned nearly lost his balance weaving down the last step. Martin wrenched the candle away from him before the drunken fool set the entire house ablaze.

Light flickered over a storeroom filled with casks of wine and barrels of ale. There was a heavy oak door at the far end. Weaving his way toward it, Ned fished inside his doublet and produced a large iron key.

This couldn’t be good, Martin thought. A door to some mysterious room at the bottom of the house to which only his lordship had the key.

And whatever lurked inside had his sister looking ill with apprehension. Some terrible secret that Jane obviously feared Ned revealing to anyone.

So why the blazes didn’t she do something besides wring her hands? Why didn’t she stop Ned? Cat certainly would have done so if it had been her brother. She would have knocked him unconscious before ever allowing him to betray himself.

As Ned swore, making repeated jabs with the key in his drunken efforts to get it into the lock, Martin surreptitiously wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. He didn’t know why he was even thinking of Cat at such a moment, comparing her to Jane.

Perhaps because he felt a trifle desperate, dreading whatever Ned might be about to show him, perhaps evidence of treason, something Martin might feel obliged to report to Walsingham.

He half hoped that Ned might break the blasted key off in the lock. But there was a loud click. Ned tugged on the heavy door and it swung open with an ominous creak. Leaning up against the jamb with a foolish smug smile, he indicated Martin should precede him inside.

Jane made a soft sound. When Martin glanced at her, her hands were folded, her lips moving silently. Damnation, was the woman actually praying? What the bloody hell was in that room?

A cold lump in his stomach, Martin squared his shoulders and stepped over the threshold. But nothing could have braced him for the sight that met his eyes.

Holding the candle aloft, his mouth fell open in total shock.

Chapter Eight

N
IGHT SETTLED OVER
M
EG’S BEDCHAMBER WINDOW LIKE A
warm dark blanket, signaling the time for sleep. But the girl was wide awake. Her night rail fluttering about her bare legs, She opened the casement. Leaning out the window as far as she dared, she raised the magnifying device to her eye.

She had fashioned it herself, following the instructions the best she could, fitting the convex glass into the metal tube. Like everything else described in the
Book of Shadows,
the device was intended for a sinister purpose, spying upon one’s enemy, gaining the advantage in war.

But the only enemy that Meg longed to conquer was the one that lurked in her own heart. She trained the spyglass upon the darkened heavens, her breath catching in her throat as she studied the comet. Each night, it seemed a little brighter, blazing as though it would burn a hole in the sky.

A harbinger of evil. Both astrologers and holy men agreed on that. The comet signaled some cataclysmic change, some dark destiny. Meg only prayed it wasn’t hers. She lowered the spyglass and settled back on the window seat, releasing her breath with a tremulous sigh.

Her destiny…

“From the moment of your birth, nay, even before, you were singled out for greatness. The daughters of the earth will topple thrones and strip all men of their power. You are the one fated to lead us to this new age of glory, Megaera. A queen among queens, the most powerful sorceress the world has ever known.”

Meg drew her knees tight to her chest and pressed her face against them, clutching her hands over her ears to shut out the memory of her mother’s voice.

“Forget, forget, forget,” she chanted. It was what Papa wanted her to do above all things. Well, next to becoming a proper English gentlewoman who knew nothing of poisons, syringes, or the
Book of Shadows.
She longed so desperately to please him, but why did it seem to be getting harder instead of easier to do all that he asked?

“
It is not that easy, forgetting the past, trying to deny who you are deep down in your bones. A wise woman learns to be true to herself,
” Cat had told her.

But what if who you truly were was evil, someone pre-destined to be a dark and powerful sorceress,
the Silver Rose
?

Meg shivered, feeling a surge of anger against Cat. She and Papa had been doing just fine before that Irishwoman had ever turned up here with all of her unwanted advice and dire warnings.

Now Maman’s voice was back in Meg’s head again. And Papa was so worried, Meg doubted he’d ever let her set foot out of the house. It was all Catriona O’Hanlon’s fault, and to add insult to injury, that upstart Irishwoman had dared criticize Meg’s good and gracious Queen Elizabeth.

She wished Cat had never come here. She wished the sea had opened up and swallowed Cat before—

No. Meg checked the thought with a tiny whimper. Peering past the top of her knees, she glanced about the room, fearing some malevolent spirit might have overheard her wish.

“I take it back. I take it back,” she whispered fiercely, trembling as she remembered Aggie’s story about the poor man who had died of an evil thought.

Just like Maman…

A light knock at the door startled Meg, her heart banging against her ribs. She scrambled off the window seat. She had barely enough time to hide the spyglass in the folds of her night rail before Cat entered the room.

Cat hesitated on the threshold. Ever since Martin had left for his banquet, the girl had avoided Cat, even taking her supper in her room. Cat had allowed her to do so.

She was so exhausted by the hostility of the rest of the household, she had not been up to the task of dealing with a sullen Mistress Margaret as well. Cat had hoped to find the girl asleep, not hovering by the window like a phantom child who had just drifted in from the night, her eyes as wild and wary as a badger trapped in a thicket.

“May I come in?” Cat asked, closing the door behind her. “Looks like you already did,” Meg grumbled. “Papa said this is where you are to sleep so you can keep watch over me without scaring the servants. He doesn’t want to be waked by any more broomstick battles.”

With a long-suffering sigh, the girl pointed to the pallet that had been arranged for Cat before the hearth. “I doubt you will be very comfortable.”

“I have slept under worse conditions in caves and under thickets, in cattle byres and abandoned clochan huts.”

Cat’s remark raised a brief flicker of curiosity in Meg’s eyes as Cat had intended. But the girl suppressed it, a stony expression settling over her face as she marched over to her bed.

“I learned to be more comfortable on the hard-packed earth than on the finest feather bed.” Cat leaned up against the mantel. As Cat removed her shoes, Meg made a great show of drawing back the counterpane and plumping her pillow.

Cat added casually, “Although I admit, I’d rest a sight easier tonight if I knew what it was you were trying to hide under your pillow.”

Meg froze and then gave a scornful toss of her head. “It’s not the
witch blade
if that’s what you are worrying about.”

“It’s good to know what it isn’t, but perhaps you had better show me what it
is.
”

Cat strode toward the girl and held out her hand. Meg regarded her defiantly for a moment. Cat held her gaze with steady patience until Meg surrendered.

Meg delved under the covers and produced a metal cylinder that she slapped against Cat’s palm.

Cat studied the object, her brow creasing in puzzlement. “What is it? Some sort of wee cudgel?”

“No! Is everything some sort of weapon to you? It’s a looking device. You have to hold it up to your eye.”

As Cat raised the cylinder, she saw that there were pieces of curved glass fitted into either end of the hollow tube. Cautiously she lifted one end to her eye. Squinting with the other eye closed, she looked through the tube.

The bedchamber flipped upside down, the dragon woven into the tapestry seeming to fly at her in a dizzying rush.

“Holy Brigid!” Cat gasped and yanked the tube from her eye. “What devilment is this?”

“It’s just a spying glass,” Meg said impatiently. “Only I couldn’t figure out how to make it work so things are right side up. But it doesn’t matter if you use it to look up at the heavens.” She gestured to the window.

Cat walked over to the open casement. Lifting the tube to her eye, she risked another look, training the spyglass on the waning moon. To the naked eye, it looked as though half of it had gone missing, cleaved in twain by some gigantic sword.

But with Meg’s device, Cat could see the part of the moon lost in shadow and the entire surface was pitted like a round face marred by the pox. Her breath catching in her throat, Cat shifted to observe the rest of the sky, the stars so brilliant and close, she half-reached out with her other hand to touch them.

And the comet…Seen through the lens, it was even more awe-inspiring and terrifying, a burning sphere trailing behind it a dragon’s breath of fire.

Cat lowered the tube and sank down upon the window seat, staring at Meg in amazement. “This thing is incredible. And you say that
you
made it?”

Meg gave a cool nod. But as she came to reclaim her possession from Cat, her pride in her achievement would not allow her to remain silent.

“I read about the spyglass in—in a book somewhere. I told a friend—well, Aggie, what I needed and she made the purchases, giving the glassmaker my
particular
instructions about the lenses. But once I had the parts, I had to fashion the device all by myself.”

“How clever of you.”

Meg’s smug smile revealed that she thought so too.

Cat handed the spyglass back to Meg, doing her best to conceal her troubled thoughts. There was only one ancient text that she knew of that detailed such unusual devices and powerful weapons, knowledge that had been long lost to the present world.

The Book of Shadows.
Martin was adamant that neither he nor his daughter knew what had become of the text after Cassandra’s death. Cat believed Martin didn’t. She was not as sure about Meg.

While Meg was busy, returning the spyglass to the trunk at the foot of her bed, Cat strolled past the shelves that held Meg’s collection of books, scanning titles. They were a strange mixture of scholarly works and whimsy, the esoteric and the practical. Books such as Plutarch’s
Lives
rested side by side with texts such as
The Gardener’s Labyrinth
by one Didymus Mountaine. Meg’s hungry mind seemed to range in all directions, devouring anything in its path.

The spine of one book looked more battered and well-worn than the rest. Cat tried to ease the book out to examine the title, but it was wedged firmly between two larger tomes.

As Cat tugged at it, she was arrested by the sound of Meg’s voice.

“If I did have the
Book of Shadows,
I would hardly leave it about in plain sight.”

The girl cocked one brow in such an imitation of her father, Cat nearly smiled in spite of herself. She folded her arms across her breasts and reminded Meg, “You promised upon your honor not to be reading my eyes.”

“And what if I don’t have any honor?”

“Then I suggest you acquire some.”

Meg glowered at her and then gave a disdainful shrug. “I did not have to read your eyes. Your face is like a looking glass, reflecting everything you are thinking.

“You can search my entire room if you like, but you won’t find any
Book of Shadows.
It was lost in Paris and I am glad of it. As for that book you are eyeing so suspiciously…” Meg stalked to the shelves and yanked the volume free, tapping one short blunt finger upon the title.

The Secrets and Wonders of the World.

Cat winced. It was not a comfortable thing when an eleven-year-old girl was able to make you feel like a bit of a fool. She took the volume from Meg to examine it more closely.

“This book is very lovingly worn,” Cat remarked. “It must be your favorite.”

Meg hunched her shoulders but as Cat flipped through the pages, she was unable to maintain her indifference. She crept closer, gesturing to the illustration of a dragon in flight.

“The book says that the dragons in Ethiopia are very amiable.”

“I have always believed so.” Cat smiled.

Meg leaned closer still, turning the pages herself to one that she had dog-eared…the sketch of some monstrous huge creature with tusks and a tail at either end, one of them long and thick, extending where its nose should have been.

“Oliphants, on the other hand, are quite fierce. Have you ever seen one, Mistress O’Hanlon?”

“Thankfully, no.”

“Apparently, the only way you can fight them is to tie their tails together so they trip each other.”

“I’ll remember that,” Cat replied solemnly. Meg glanced up at her, half-starting to smile before recollecting herself.

She snatched the book from Cat. Leaping up on her bed, she tunneled under the covers and propped herself against the pillows with her book.

Cat followed, perching on the edge of the bed. Holding the book in front of her face, Meg studiously ignored her.

“So you are not liking me all that much, I’m thinking,” Cat remarked.

Meg risked a peek over the top of her book. After a moment she replied, “I like your voice. It has music in it.”

“Well, that’s something at least.”

Meg disappeared behind her book, turning another page. “Papa used to have music in his voice too. Before he started trying to be English.”

“You don’t approve of that?”

“I am fiercely proud of him,” Meg blazed, but after a moment she admitted, “but I liked it better when we first came to England and we traveled about with Master Roxburgh’s company. Papa laughed more then and he made every day seem so exciting, like a grand adventure. But everything changed after Finette found us.”

“Finette?”

“She was one of the sisterhood. She was a nasty, sly, dirty creature who smelled bad. I never liked her. I don’t know how she was the one who managed to track me and Papa. She was never all that clever.”

“But somehow Finette found you,” Cat prompted when Meg fell silent. “What did she want?”

“What all of the sisterhood want. Me,” Meg said in a sad little voice. “They all expected such unreasonable things of me. That somehow I would possess the magic to make them all beautiful, wealthy, and powerful. That I would be able to bring back people who they had loved and lost from the dead.”

Meg shrank down farther. Cat was tempted to reach for the book. She wanted to be able to see the girl’s face. But Meg seemed to find it easier to speak of such painful things from behind the shield of her book.

“Finette was—was a complete madwoman when she overtook us on the road. She was so angry with my papa. She said that when he took me, he had stolen away all the sisterhood’s hopes and dreams. She tried to stab Papa with the syringe. They wrestled and Finette ended up sticking herself. She died from the poison.”

The girl fell silent again.

“And then?” Cat asked gently.

“Finette was buried in a pauper’s grave in this little village near York. No one knew who she was or how she died, except Papa and me. He hugged me so tight and said we both must forget it had ever happened, never speak of it again. He got rid of the syringe, threw it in the pond near where Finette had attacked us. But the water wasn’t as deep as Papa thought and I was able to fetch it later. I thought we might need it for protection.

“It was after Finette that my papa changed. He started acting like the world was full of oliphants and they were all after me.”

Meg heaved a huge sigh. “And now that you have brought us this warning from the Lady of Faire Isle, I’ll probably never be able to leave the house again. I’ll never see the queen.”

She shifted her book enough to steal a resentful glance at Cat. “Not that
you
would understand or even care.”

“I’d like to be able to understand,” Cat said, resolutely suppressing her loathing for Elizabeth Tudor. “What is it you so admire about the woman?”