“Unfortunately,” Beale went on, “when all is said and done I cannot pass on everything intact, even if Burghley or Essex concedes the ground to the other. Too much of it was in Sir Francis’s head, and never committed to writing. Even I do not know who all his informants were.”
With that, Deven could not help. Walsingham had never shared all his secrets with anyone, and now, without a proper patron, Deven lacked the influence to be of use politically. He would have to scrabble hard for favor and preferment.
Unless…
If Walsingham was right, and the hidden player had occasional direct access to the Queen, then Elizabeth certainly knew who it was. But was she pleased with that situation? Knowing her distaste for being managed by her councillors, no. If Deven could uncover the man’s identity, and use the knowledge to break his influence….
He hadn’t Essex’s beauty. But he did not want the burden of being Elizabeth’s favorite; all he wanted was her favor.
This might earn it for him.
Deven settled himself back into his chair, and shoved the report of Catholic rumors aside without looking at it. “Tell me,” he said, “what you know of the hidden player.”
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: April 9–12, 1590
The improvements to her circumstances came one tantalizing step at a time. First it was the stool, left in her cell, followed shortly by a torch and a pallet on which to sleep. Then removal to a better cell, one that did not lie at the roots of the White Tower. To earn that one, Lune had to tell Madame Malline of her leap from the cliffs of Dover, plummeting three hundred feet into the choppy waters of the English Channel. It was no jest: the strangely shimmering pearl she’d been given to swallow permitted her to survive underwater, though not to move with the grace of her nymph escorts, or the merfolk who waited for her below.
The merfolk. The roanes. The evanescent sprites born from the spray of the crashing waves. Stranger things, in deeper waters. She did not see the Leviathan itself, but lesser sea serpents still occasionally haunted the Channel between England and France.
Were the folk of the sea fae? What defined fae nature? They were alien, enchanting, disturbing, even to one such as Lune. No wonder mortals told such strange stories of them.
But they were little touched by human society. That, she told Madame Malline, was the most difficult thing about them. Those fae who dwelt in the cracks and shadows of the mortal world did so because of their fascination with humans and human life. The Onyx Court was only the most vivid proof of that fascination, the most intensive mimicry of mortal habits. The folk of the sea were more like the inhabitants of deeper Faerie, less touched by the currents of change. But at least those who dwelt in Faerie breathed air and walked on the earth; beneath the waves lay a world where up and down were little different from north or east, where events flowed according to inscrutable rhythms.
Even speaking of them, she fell back into the metaphors of speech she had acquired there, likening everything to the subtle behavior of water.
That information got Lune into a more comfortable cell. A primer on the diplomacy of underwater society took her back to her own chambers, where she lived under house arrest, with Sir Prigurd Nellt instead of Sir Kentigern commanding the guards that bracketed her door.
Then came the final negotiation, the one she had been anticipating for some time.
“Now,” Madame Malline said when they had dispensed with the pleasantries, “you know what I wish to hear. Stories of how you went to the sea, what you found there — these are interesting, and I thank you for them. But I have shown you my goodwill in helping you thus far, and the time has come for you to repay it.”
They were seated by the fire in Lune’s outer chamber, with glasses of wine at hand. Not the fine French vintage Vidar had offered the day he set Lune on Walsingham’s trail, but a good wine nevertheless. Lune could almost ignore the way her chambers had been ransacked after her downfall, her charms breached, her jewels and her little store of mortal bread stolen away by unknown hands.
“Au contraire, madame ambassadrice,” Lune said, dropping briefly into the envoy’s own tongue to soften the rudeness she was about to offer. “Secure my freedom; have the guards removed from my door. Then I will give you the information you seek.”
Madame Malline’s smile was beautiful and utterly without warmth. “I do not think so, Lady Lune. Should I do so, there would be nothing save gratitude that binds you to help me further. And though grateful you may be, when weighed against your fear of angering Invidiana… ” She lifted her wine goblet in one graceful, ringed hand, and her smile turned just the faintest bit malicious. “Non. You will tell me, and take your chances with your Queen.”
All as Lune had expected. And, in a way, as she had needed.
“Very well,” she said, letting the words out reluctantly. “You wish to know, then, what I agreed to. What price I offered them, in exchange for their assistance against the Spanish Armada.”
“Oui.”
“Peace,” Lune said.
One delicately plucked eyebrow arched upward. “I do not understand.”
“The folk of the sea do not ignore everything that goes on in the air. I do not know who spread the rumors; perhaps a draca or other water spirit eavesdropped on someone’s indiscreet conference, then spoke to another, and so on until the news flowed downriver and reached them. Invidiana intended to make war against the folk of the sea. And the concession I offered them was an agreement to abandon that course.”
Madame Malline studied her, eyes narrowed and full lips pursed. At last she said, meditatively, “I do not believe you.”
Lune met her gaze without flinching. “It is true.”
“Your Queen has an obsession with mortal ways, mortal power. Even her wars against the Courts of the North have their origin in mortal affairs, the accusation that she sabotaged the Queen of Scots. There is no human court out on the water. Why should Invidiana desire power over the folk of the sea? What cares she for what they do beneath the surface?”
“She cares nothing for it,” Lune said. “But she cares a great deal for what the folk of the sea can do about mortals on its surface. Had her Majesty’s plans moved more quickly, we would not have had to negotiate for their assistance against the Armada, but she was not yet fully prepared to assert sovereignty over the undersea. If she had done so… imagine what she could do, were they bound to obey her.” Lune paused, to let Madame Malline consider it. Break the back of Spanish shipping. Give fair weather to English vessels, and foul to their enemies. Strike coastal areas with crippling storms.
The ambassador’s mind quickly moved ahead to the next complication. “But you have told me yourself that they are not organized, they have no Grand Roi — that you had to bargain with a dozen nobles of one sort or another to reach any agreement. Even the Courts of the North have unified themselves more than that. Your Queen could not hope to control the oceans.”
“She would not need to. A small force would do. They are highly mobile, the folk of the sea, and adapt with speed; a few dedicated, obedient groups would be able to wreak quite enough havoc to suit her purposes.”