This Scepter'd Isle (67 page)

It had been easy enough to make the decision, but the taste of defeat was no pleasant thing. And the shambles produced was worse than Pasgen had expected. One of the few mortals the Unseleighe could trust was dead beyond recall, one Sidhe very near death, one Sidhe that hated him with a terrible icy fury for seeing his cowardice exposed. Bitter in the mouth and bitter in the mind.

Pasgen had been soundly castigated for his ineffectuality, which did not improve his temper even though he had had no intention of succeeding. He had returned to his domain and brooded furiously. His mistakes were clear enough now. For one thing, he had misjudged Denoriel again. He suspected he had been right about the greatest force being concentrated right around the child—Pasgen ground his teeth—but he had no proof of that because he had never got past the front door.

There was the first mistake. He had expected his "heroic" half-brother to be vainglorious enough to confront him alone. His second error was to believe that Denoriel would count only on his swordsmanship; he had not expected his half-brother's shields to be so strong. The third mistake was still to think of FitzRoy as a child. Pasgen snarled silently. FitzRoy acted like a child, always playing with toys with the baby princess. But the weapon FitzRoy wielded was no childish toy.

Remembered rage tightened Pasgen's jaw, a happy accident so appropriate it was like an omen that events would now conspire to help him. The news of Anne's miscarriage might not be welcome to Cromwell, although Pasgen was not sure he could always read the man aright, but it was a soft consolation to Pasgen's ears and light to his eyes.

Now Aurilia could loose the toy she had so carefully prepared; Anne Boleyn would be destroyed, her daughter would be despised and abandoned, and Oberon would have no further interest in the child. It would even be possible that Denoriel and FitzRoy, realizing that she would never be queen, never bring in the age of puny mortal beauty and invention, would give over their ferocious protection of Elizabeth.

Thought is swift. Pasgen's grimace looked like shock while actually relief and conjecture had flashed through his mind. Now he need make no reply to Cromwell's announcement; he merely bowed stiffly.

"Why did you not warn me?" Cromwell snarled, his mellifluous voice for once harsh and uneven.

"Because there were ten futures in my glass—in three the king died; in three the queen bore a fine healthy son; in three more she lost the child; and in one she lost her head! Which of those did you want me to describe to you? On which do you think it would have been safe to plan?"

Cromwell hissed between his teeth. "Then you say you can be of no use to me?"

Pasgen shrugged. "I can look again in the glass. Now that we know only three of the futures I saw can apply, I can try to make sure which of those is most likely. Even so, what you do can take into consideration all three."

"And when will I know which way to direct my efforts?" Cromwell sounded desperate; well, he should. He had hitched his wagon to a star that fell, not once, but twice now. He had managed to survive Wolsey's fall; he must be scrambling to think of a way to survive Queen Anne's.

"A few days, a week, perhaps even two weeks—but there is no hurry. The king is still convalescing; the queen must be nearly insensible with sorrow and fear." Pasgen forced himself to sound soothing. "For now, only the most formal expressions of grief and regret need be dispatched. But in that one image . . . the one where the queen lost her head . . . there was another woman standing with the king."

"Jane Seymour," Cromwell said. "Soft and sweet on the outside, but a Seymour for all that."

"Nonetheless—" Pasgen moved closer so that he could murmur very softly into Cromwell's ear "—think on a way to suggest to the king that his second marriage was also accursed because he had a living wife."

Cromwell's jaw tightened. "That will be no easy thing without also touching on the king's assumption of supreme power over the English Church."

"No, no," Pasgen said. "Those two things are totally separate. That one led to the other, is irrelevant. Leave all matters of the Church aside. Now Catherine is dead. If
no
wife were alive, any new marriage would need no intervention by the Church. Such a marriage must be perfectly clean and holy and the children will be blessed."

Cromwell stared at Pasgen, his face expressionless. Somewhere within, however, Pasgen sensed a kind of satisfaction and was content. Although the mortal had worked assiduously to rid the king of his first marriage to make way for his second, that was largely to advance his own interest with the king. He had never really liked Anne or her family.

Possibly Cromwell blamed Queen Anne for his old master, Wolsey's, downfall. Likely there were political reasons, some possible rapprochement with Imperial interests and a drawing away from the French. Pasgen was not interested; he cared nothing for England. All he desired was the downfall of Anne so that he could abduct her child. So far Pasgen was satisfied. Whatever the reason, he believed Cromwell was ready to turn on Anne; that was all Pasgen cared about.

Both were silent for a moment. They had been talking treason, and for entirely different reasons both were uneasy. Pasgen bowed.

"When I have news, I will come again."

He took care that no one in Cromwell's house saw the grin that stretched his lips for a moment, but he was grinning again all the way back to his own residence, and still grinning when, Underhill, he summoned one of his dead-eyed servitors and gave him a message for Aurilia nic Morrigan.

"Dannae favors us," the servant repeated when allowed into Aurilia's presence. "The queen has miscarried. We can be rid of her and see her child discarded within six months."

Early in February Pasgen was directed to meet Aurilia in the pleasure gardens of Caer Mordwyn. There she handed him a small wriggling bundle, a very pretty little dog, a friendly, happy, little dog, wearing a handsome collar inscribed:
My name is Purkoy, my mistress Queen Anne.
 

Pasgen took the dog but said, "Anne still has Oberon's protection. If the dog or the collar are bespelled to her hurt, we could be blamed."

Aurilia laughed. "I am not a fool. The collar is indeed bespelled, but no blame will attach to the Unseleighe Court even if it is detected. First, all the spells are beneficent. All support calm and good feeling—and, second, every one of them is a Seleighe spell."

"How did you come by Seleighe spells?"

Aurilia laughed again. "Some, bored with milk and honey and seeking a sharper flavor to life, come to us from the Seleighe Court. Such a one, disgusted as he was, remembered enough of the spells taught him to cast them onto the collar and to add a dampening spell so that only the person holding the dog will be affected. That dampening spell may also dull the queen's power over her husband."

The little dog's head turned from one speaker to the other, then he licked Pasgen's nose. Pasgen couldn't help smiling, and he was impressed with Aurilia's thoroughness. Vidal in his pride occasionally scoffed at Oberon's power. Aurilia never did, but still she was willing to try to circumvent that power by sly cleverness.

As if to prove that conclusion correct, Aurilia added, "But here—" she pressed into his hand a small gold stud "—is the final spell, another bit of protection. When you deliver the dog to a mortal, press this stud into his collar—but do not do it a moment before you are ready to leave. As soon as the spell is invoked—the collar will do that itself—Purkoy will sense and be terrified of all Sidhe. Thus, if there is a Bright Court spy near Anne, the dog will run and hide."

The spell was so effective that Cromwell, to whom Pasgen had been forced to hand the dog before he was ready, nearly lost the creature. Purkoy leapt from his arms and rushed, howling, to the farthest corner of the room.

"Some gift for the queen!" Cromwell snarled. "A dog that hates people."

"No," Pasgen said, raising his voice about the dog's howls. "Come away, leave it to itself for a few minutes. It was just frightened by you grabbing for it and my holding it back. I am sorry."

Fearful of driving the little dog completely mad, Pasgen did not wait for Cromwell's reply but bowed stiffly and walked out of the room. That did nothing to pacify Cromwell, who bustled after him. Seeing disaster for his support of the Boleyns—whom he didn't even like—looming over him, Cromwell was seeking someone to blame and was already furious with Master Otstargi.

He caught Pasgen in the corridor and dragged him into another withdrawing room. Slamming the door behind him, he began to berate his tame magician, complaining that when he really wanted advice Otstargi was missing.

Pasgen was so delighted at how well Aurilia's spell had worked, that he found it easy enough to keep his temper. He was pleased, too, at how dependent on him Cromwell had become because he was about to urge the man into a very dangerous game. And it was likely that he would play it.

For once Cromwell was not certain which way to jump or how. Anne was totally distraught, openly blaming her husband for her miscarriage because of his dalliance with Jane Seymour. Anne would take no advice of his. Henry was almost equally distraught. Instead of offering comfort to his wife for her loss, he had said to her only that she must put up with his behavior as her betters had done, and then added threateningly, "I see that God will not give me male children."

"Encourage that thought," Pasgen murmured, and then said more briskly, "I have brought better than advice. See that the queen gets Purkoy—that is the dog's name—and you will have time to think and plan. When she has the dog in her arms, the queen will grow calm and happy. She will talk of another conception and see no pitfalls in her path to it."

"And win back the king again so we will just begin all over?" Cromwell muttered under his breath.

"No, I think it has gone beyond that," Pasgen said, "but my readings are still not clear on whether the king will put her aside . . . or find a more permanent solution. Perhaps the dog should not come from you directly. But be sure she has received it and kept it."

"I think I may by accident have destroyed Queen Anne," Aleneil said to Denoriel.

Her skin, always fair, was now near transparent and the flesh beneath it seemed almost drained of blood. She had arrived in the dark, hidden in a deep-hooded cloak, and she was shaking so hard when Denoriel came out to meet her and help her dismount from Ystwyth that, without a word, he carried her inside. Now they were sitting side by side on the settle in the well-furnished parlor of Denoriel's London house.

Although it was April, the evenings were chill. A comfortable fire burned steadily in the hearth and candles cast a warm glow over the glimmering satin of "Lady Alana's" soft golden gown. Denoriel leaned forward and took his sister's hands in his own.

"How? What happened?"

"I killed her dog."

"You? You killed a dog? Oh, it was a construct? You have been saying for two months now that something was wrong with Anne, that she was not her usual self. How came you to miss a construct for so long?"

"Because it was not a construct." Aleneil swallowed and tears ran down her face. "It was only a very friendly, very silly, very sweet little dog."

"And you killed it? For what?"

"I did not kill it apurpose." Aleneil sighed deeply. "Lady Lee kept telling me about this adorable little dog the queen had, how when Francis Bryan had given it to her, it cured her grief over her loss. At first I paid little attention, but after a while I began to wonder because
I
had never seen this dog. Then I began to notice that the queen was very calm and that when something troubled her, she held her arm as if she were carrying something."

Denoriel lifted his brows. "Peculiar, but it is the calm that troubles me. From what Harry told me, calm is not a common state to Queen Anne."

"But she has been calm, yes, even happy, which seemed stranger and stranger because I do not believe the king has come back to her bed and Jane Seymour is more a favorite than ever. The only bright spot is that clearly the king finds her useful for some political purposes. He got the Imperial ambassador to bow to her and thus recognize her. If he can make the emperor recognize her, that will tacitly mean acceptance of Henry as supreme head of the Church. But—"

Her voice shook and Denoriel said, "Wait, love, you are whiter than milk. Let me get some wine for you."

Aleneil nodded and raised a hand to wipe away the tears. She sipped the wine when Denoriel had carried it to her and sighed. She went on to tell him of her growing suspicion about the dog and her growing doubts about Anne solacing herself for the lack of Henry's company with that of a number of gentlemen. She had even broken her usual silence to warn Anne that it was not wise in the king's absence to be closeted with this or that gentleman. But Anne had only laughed at her and pointed out that the gentleman most frequently with her was her own brother.

"And then this afternoon Anne complained to Cromwell about his giving up his rooms to the Seymours. The secretary was angry because it was by the king's order and he did not like it any better than she did. But he does not quarrel with her and turned on his heel just as I entered the room. He came toward the doorway, blocking my entrance. I just caught a glimpse of Anne, standing near the fire and clutching the little dog to her. I had to curtsey to Cromwell, but when he passed me, I began to walk toward the queen. I heard her call the dog's name reprovingly, then cry out in pain as the dog leapt from her arms."

Aleneil had finished the wine in her glass and Denoriel reached for the decanter on a side table and refilled it.

"When I reached her, the queen was rubbing her arm. I could see that the dog had torn her sleeve and scratched the arm beneath and I said I would get some salve for it, but the queen sent me instead to retrieve the dog, which had run into the next chamber. So I went to fetch it. The little thing was crouching in a corner as if I were going to eat it alive—" Her lips trembled and she bit them. "Oh, the poor thing. But I meant no harm. I spoke soft as I could and stretched out my open hand for it to smell and . . . and it leapt on a chair and out of the window rather than let me touch it."