“Let me talk to Vidar,” Lune said. Had she reached such a nadir that he seemed like a thread of hope? Yes. “I am sure he and I can reach an accord.”
The giantess leaned forward, until her ugly, stony face was the only thing Lune could see, almost invisible in the darkness. “Maybe you and Vidar could,” Halgresta growled. “Who knows what plots you and that spider have hatched. But he’s not the one who told me to bring you in.
“The Queen is.”
ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, LONDON: April 7, 1590
Sir Philip Sidney, late husband of Sir Francis Walsingham’s daughter, had been buried in a fine tomb in St. Paul’s Cathedral when he died in 1586.
Now the tomb was opened again, to receive the body of Sir Francis Walsingham.
The ceremony was simple. The Principal Secretary had died in debt; his will, found in a secret cabinet in his house on Seething Lane, had requested that no great expenditure be made for his funeral. They buried him at night, to avoid attracting the attention of his creditors.
And so there was no great procession, no men-at-arms wearing matching livery — not even the Queen. She had quarreled often with Walsingham, but in the end, the two respected one another. She would have come if she could.
Deven stood alongside Beale and others he knew more distantly: Edward Carey, William Dodington, Nicholas Faunt. Some small distance away stood the pale, grieving figures of Ursula Walsingham and her daughter Frances. The gathering was not large.
The priest’s voice rolled sonorously on, his words washing over Deven and vanishing up into the high Gothic reaches of the cathedral. The body was placed in the tomb, and the tomb closed over it.
The body. Deven had seen death, but never had he so much difficulty connecting a living man to the lifeless flesh he left behind.
He could not believe Walsingham was dead.
The priest pronounced a benediction. The gathered mourners began to depart.
Standing rooted to his spot, eyes fixed on the carved stone of the tomb, Deven thought bleakly, Master Secretary — what do I do now?
Act Three
They dance in intricate patterns, coming together and parting again, skirts and long sleeves swaying a counterpoint to their rhythm. But his ears cannot hear the music, or the sound of their laughter. His world has wrapped him in silence. To his eyes, those around him are ghosts: they dance beneath the earth, which is the realm of the dead, and the dead have no voices with which to speak. Aeneas fed his ghosts blood, and Odysseus, too, but no such heroes exist here. There is no blood that might quicken their voices to life once more.
He hovers against a pillar, entranced and afraid, and the other ghosts stare at him. No — not ghosts. He remembers now. They are alive. They speak, but he cannot hear them. Only whispers, ghost sounds, unreal.
They wonder why he does not speak to them. That is what the living do; they talk, they converse, they prove their existence with words. But where Tiresias was blind, the man who bears his name is mute. He cannot — dares not — speak.
His jaw aches from being clenched tightly shut. Words beat within him like caged birds, terrified, desperate, fighting to break free, and when he keeps them trapped within, they stab at him with talons and beaks, until he bleeds from a thousand unseen wounds. He cannot speak. If he makes a sound, the slightest sound—
Are you real? He is desperate to know. If they are real… if he could be sure, then perhaps he would have the courage.
No. No courage. It died, broken on the rack of this place. He sees too much of what will come — or what came, what might come, what could never be. He no longer believes in a difference. A difference would mean his choices matter. His choices, and his mistakes. Everyone’s mistakes.
Fire. Fire and ash and blood fill his vision. The dance vanishes. The walls are broken open, stones shattered, the sky brought down to fight the earth. He presses his hands against his head, his eyes, harder, harder, slams himself against the pillar — did he cry out? Fear grips him by the throat. No sound. No sound. Certain words are the wrong words; the only safe words are no words.
They stare at him and laugh, but he hears nothing.
The silence chokes him. Perhaps he should speak, and be done with it.
But no. He cannot do it; he lacks the strength. Too much has been lost. The man he needs is gone, gone beyond recall. Alone, mute, he has no will to act.
She has seen to that.
He curls up on the stone, not knowing where he lies, not caring, and wraps his trembling hands around his throat. The birds want to fly. But he must keep them safe, keep them within, where they will harm no one but him.
None of this is real. But dreams have the power to kill.
THE TOWER OF LONDON: April 9, 1590
The light hurt Lune’s eyes, but she refused to let it show. “Tiresias. The Queen’s seer. Will you bid—” No, not bid. She had no right to demand such things. “Will you beg him to visit me?”
A harsh laugh answered her. Sir Kentigern Nellt’s voice rumbled an octave below his sister’s, and was twice as ugly. It matched the rest of him, from his rough-hewn face to the cruelty of his spirit. Whether he even bothered to pass along her requests, Lune did not know, but she had to ask.
Vidar first; she was already in debt to him, but she would have promised more to get out of this cell. He did not come, though. Nor did Lady Nianna, which was no surprise. Lune had been on good terms with the previous Welsh envoy, the bwganod Drys Amsern, but the Tylwyth Teg changed their ambassadors regularly; they did not like anyone to remain for too long under the corrupting influence of the Onyx Court. Amsern was gone. And the Goodemeades had no political influence with which to aid her.
The seer was the last person she could think to ask for.
At a gesture from Sir Kentigern, her goblin jailers heaved on the heavy bronze door of her cell and swung it shut once more.
The resulting blackness was absolute. Her protection against human faith had long since worn off; beyond that, she could not tell how long she had been there. Nor when, if ever, she would get out. The Onyx Hall did not extend beyond the walls of London, but the Tower lay within those walls, and it, too, had its reflection below. These cells were used for people Invidiana was very displeased with. And while a mortal died quickly if you deprived him of food — even more quickly, without water — it was not so with fae. Wasting away might take years.
Sitting in the darkness, Lune thought, Sun and Moon. When did I become so alone?
She missed… everything. The entire false life she had constructed for herself, torn away in an instant. She missed Anne, which made no sense; Anne had never been real.
But it reminded her of memories long buried. Not just her recent time at Elizabeth’s court; that distant, mist-shrouded age — how long ago?- — before she came to the Onyx Hall. Lune could no longer recall where she lived then, nor who was around her, but she knew that life had been different. Gentler. Not this endless, lethal intrigue.