He put on a look of solicitous concern. “I am very sorry to hear it. Perhaps it was concern for her father that led to our troubles. Do you know where her family lives? I have been given a leave of absence from my duties; I might call upon her, to offer my sympathies if nothing else.”
The countess’s confusion melted away, and she smiled indulgently at him, no doubt thinking of young love. “That would be very kind of you. She is London-born, from the parish of St. Dunstan in the East.”
Little more than a stone’s throw from Walsingham’s house, south and west along Tower Street. Deven would have ridden to Yorkshire, but he need not go far at all.
“I thank you, my lady,” Deven said, and left with all the haste decency would allow.
THE ONYX HALL, LONDON: April 14, 1590
Though almost everything of value had been stripped from Lune’s chambers following her disgrace, her gowns remained. No one, apparently, wanted to be seen wearing the clothing of a traitor imprisoned beneath the White Tower.
She dressed herself in raven’s feathers, simple but elegant, with an open-fronted collar and cuffs that swept back from her hands in delicate lacework. Now, of all times, she wanted to show her loyalty to Invidiana by wearing the Queen’s colors. The plain pins holding up her silver hair were her only adornment; humility, alongside loyalty, would be her watchword tonight.
When she was ready, she took a steadying breath, then opened the door to her chamber and stepped outside.
“Are you ready?” Sir Prigurd asked in his resonant bass voice, and waited for her brief curtsy. “Come along, then.”
Two guards accompanied them through the palace. Lune was not taken to the presence chamber. A good sign, or a bad one? She could only speculate. Prigurd led her onward, and soon Lune knew where they were going.
The Hall of Figures was a long gallery, sunken below the usual level of the rooms by the depth of a half-flight of stairs. Statues lined it on both sides, ranging from simple busts to full figures to a few massive works large enough to fill a small chamber on their own. Some were made by mortal artisans, others by fae; some had not been crafted at all, unless the basilisk could be called a crafter.
Lune prayed the stories were not true, that Invidiana kept a basilisk in some hidden confine of the Onyx Hall.
Prigurd and the guards stayed on the landing at the top of the stairs. Lune went down alone. As her slipper touched the floor, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye; she flinched despite herself, thinking of basilisks.
No monster. In her distraction, she had simply taken the man for a statue. The mortal called Achilles had more to recommend him to Invidiana than just his battle furies; his nearly naked body might have been a sculpted model for the perfection of the human form.
He took her by the arm, his hard fingers communicating the violence that always trembled just below the surface. Lune knew better than to think it directed at her, but she also knew better than to think herself safe from it. She offered no resistance as Achilles led her down the gallery, past the watching statues.
A chair had been placed partway down the Hall of Figures, and a canopy of estate erected above it. Before Lune came anywhere near it, she sank gracefully to her knees — as gracefully as she could, with Achilles still holding one arm in an iron grip.
“Bring her closer.”
The mortal hauled Lune to her feet before she could stand on her own, towed her forward a few steps, and shoved her down again.
The moments passed by in silence, broken only by breathing, and a scuff at the entrance to the gallery as Sir Prigurd shifted his weight.
“I am given to understand,” Invidiana said, “that you have been telling Madame Malline lies.”
“I have,” Lune said, still kneeling in a sea of raven feathers. “More than she realizes.”
A few more heartbeats passed; then, on some unspoken signal from the Queen, Achilles released Lune’s arm. She remained kneeling, her eyes on the floor.
Invidiana said, “Explain yourself.”
There was no point in repeating the early steps of it; Invidiana knew those already. She might even know what Lune had said at the end. But that was the part she wished to hear, and so Lune related, in brief, honest outline, the lie she had told the ambassador. “She believed me, I think,” Lune said when she was done. “But if she does not, ’tis no matter; the lie tells her nothing she can use.”
“And so you gained your freedom,” Invidiana said. Her voice was as silken and cold as a dagger of ice, that could kill and then melt away as if it had never been. “By slandering your own sovereign.”
Lune’s heart thudded painfully. “Your Majesty—”
“You have spread a lie that will damage my reputation in other lands. You have given the ambassadrice du Lys information about the undersea that might be turned against England. You have sold details of a royal mission, for the sake of your own skin.” The whip crack of her words halted. Invidiana murmured the next part softly, almost intimately. “Tell me why I should not kill you.”
Feathers crumpled in her fingers, their broken shafts stabbing at her skin. Lune’s heart was beating hard enough to make her body tremble. But she forced herself to focus. Invidiana was angry, yes, but the anger was calculated, not heartfelt. A sufficiently good reply might please the Queen, and then the rage would vanish as if it had never been.
“Your Majesty,” she whispered, then made her voice stronger. “When those in other lands hear that you dream of extending your control over the folk of the sea, they will fear you, and this is no bad thing. As for Madame Malline, indeed, I hope she tells her king what I have said, and he attempts to pursue it; if he threatens war undersea, thinking to win himself some concession thereby, then we will have the pleasure of watching those proud and powerful folk destroy him. Moreover, by satisfying her with this lie, I have ended her prying questions, that might otherwise have uncovered the truth of my embassy, and the secrets I have kept on your Grace’s behalf.”
Having offered her political reasons, Lune risked a glance upward. A flash of white caught her eye, and she found herself meeting an unfocused sapphire gaze. Tiresias knelt now at Invidiana’s feet, leaning against her skirts as a hound might, with her spidery fingers tangled in his black hair. He wore no doublet, and the white of his cambric shirt blazed in the darkness of the hall.
She swallowed and lifted her chin higher, fixing her attention just below Invidiana’s face. “And if I may be so bold as to say it, your Majesty — no fae who cannot find a way to benefit herself while also serving the Onyx Throne belongs in your court.”
Invidiana considered this, one hand idly stroking Tiresias’s hair. He leaned into the touch, as if there were no one else present.
“Pretty words,” the Queen said at last, musingly. She tightened her grip on Tiresias, dragging his head back until he gazed up at her, mouth slackened, throat exposed and vulnerable. The Queen gazed down into her seer’s eyes, as if she could see his visions there. “But what lies behind them?”
“Your Grace.” Lune risked the interruption; silence might kill her just as surely. “I will gladly return to the service I left. I told Dame Halgresta I had other options available to me; give me my freedom, and I will discover all you wish to know about Walsingham.”
Tiresias laughed breathlessly, still trapped by Invidiana’s hand. “A body in revolt, the laws of nature gone awry. It cannot happen. Yet the stories say it did, and are not stories true?” One hand rose, as if seeking something; it faltered midair, came to rest below the unlaced collar of his shirt. “Not those that are lies.”
His words hardened Invidiana’s black eyes. She trailed one fingernail down the seer’s face; then her hand moved to hover near the jewel in the center of her bodice, the black diamond edged by obsidian and mermaid’s tears. The sight transfixed Lune with fear. But when the Queen scowled and returned her attention to Lune, she left the jewel where it was pinned. “Walsingham is no longer a problem. You may be. But I am loathe to cast aside a tool that may yet have use in it, and so you will live.”