Even on a night such as this, politics did not entirely cease. Everyone knew Tiresias was dead; everyone knew the Queen had been little seen by anyone since his body was discovered. A few thought she mourned him. Remembering the Goodemeades’ tale, Lune felt cold. Invidiana mourned no one.
But his death created opportunity for those who needed it. Some who questioned Lune thought themselves subtle about it; others did not even try for subtlety. Certain mortals claimed the ability to foretell the future. Were any of them truly so gifted? Lune had lived among the mortal court; she might know something. They pestered her for information. Had she met Simon Forman? What of Doctor Dee? Did she perhaps know of any persuasive charlatans, who might be put forth as bait to trip up a political rival?
Lune joined the dancing to escape the questions, then abandoned dancing when it turned her mood fouler. There was no surcease for her here. But where would she go? Back down into the Onyx Hall? Its confines were unbearable to her now — and the Queen waited below. To the Angel Inn? She did not dare spend too much time there, and besides, the Goodemeades were here, along with every other fae from miles around. Lune knew the Goodemeades watched her, but she kept her distance.
A golden-haired elf lady she knew by sight but not name waylaid her. Was she familiar with John Dee? Where did he live? Was he old enough that it might not seem suspicious if he died in his sleep?
Lune fled her questioner, heading for one of the bonfires. Arriving at its edge, where the heat scorched her face with welcome force, she found there was one other person gazing into its depths.
From the far side of the bonfire, the hollow-cheeked, wasted face of Eurydice stared at her.
The mortal pet’s presence at the May Day celebrations was like a splash of cold water from the Thames. Her black, sunken eyes saw what few others did: the spirits of the dead, those restless souls who had not passed on to their punishment or reward. And this was not All Hallows’ Eve, not the time for such things.
But she did more than see. Few fae realized Eurydice was not just a curiosity to Invidiana; she was a tool. She not only saw ghosts: she could bind them to her will. Or rather, the Queen’s will.
Lune knew it all too well. Invidiana had formed plans that depended closely on Eurydice’s special skill, plans that Lune’s disastrous embassy had undone. The folk of the sea wanted for little, and so the things she had gone there to offer them went unremarked. What they had wanted were the spoils of their storms: the souls of those sailors who drowned.
To what use Invidiana would have put such a ghost army, Lune did not know. Had she been aware that her Queen planned to create one, she might have bargained harder; the folk of the sea had no way to bind ghosts to their service. But she thought it a harmless thing, and so she agreed that Eurydice would come among them for a time, provided the ghosts were not turned against the Onyx Court. As long as the ships never reached England’s shores, what did it matter?
Invidiana had seen it differently.
Eurydice’s mouth gaped open in a broken-toothed, hungry grin. And suddenly, despite the blazing bonfire just feet away, Lune felt cold.
Ghosts.
Those who died in the thrall of faerie magic often lingered on as ghosts.
Francis.
Somehow, she kept herself from running. Lune met Eurydice’s gaze, as if she had no reason to fear. That hungry grin was often on the woman’s face; it meant nothing. She had no assurance that Francis Merriman had lingered. After so long trapped in the Onyx Hall, his soul might well have fled with all speed to freedom and judgment.
Or not.
What did Invidiana know?
A chain of dancing fae went past, and someone caught Lune by the hand. She let herself be dragged away, following the line of bodies as they weaved in and out of the crowds of revelers, and did not extricate herself until she was at the far side of the field, safely distant from Eurydice’s ghost-haunted eyes.
She should run now, while she could.
No. Running would bring her no safety; Invidiana ruled all of England. And there might be nothing to run from. But she must assume the worst: that the Queen had Francis’s ghost, and knew from him what had transpired.
Why, then, would Lune still be alive?
Her mind answered that question with an image: a snake, lying with its jaws open and a mouse in its mouth, waiting. ’Tis safe, come in, come in. Why eat only one mouse when you might lure several? And that meant she could not follow her instinct, to run to the safety the Goodemeades offered. Invidiana could act on suspicion as well as proof, but would want to be sure she caught the true conspirators, and caught all of them. As long as she was not certain…
Lune stayed at the May Day celebrations, though it took all her will. And in the remaining hours of dancing, and drinking, and fielding the questions of those who sought a new human seer, she caught one moment of relative privacy, while Rosamund dipped her a mug of mead.
“He may be a ghost,” Lune whispered. It was all the warning she dared give.
PALACE OF PLACENTIA, GREENWICH: May 2, 1590
In the days following his audience with the Queen, Deven considered abandoning his lodgings and returning to where Ranwell waited at his house in London. What stopped him was the thought that there, he would be sitting atop a faerie palace.
So he was still at Greenwich, though not at court, when the messenger found him.
He threw Colsey into a frenzy, demanding without warning that his best green satin doublet be brushed off and made ready, that his face needed shaving again already, that his boots be cleaned of infinitesimal specks of mud. But one did not show up looking slovenly when invited to go riding with the Queen.
Somehow his manservant got him out the door with good speed. Deven traversed the short distance to the palace, then found himself waiting; something had intervened, and her Majesty was occupied. He paced in a courtyard, his stomach twisting. Had he eaten anything that day, it might have come back up.
Nearly an hour later, word came that Elizabeth was ready at last.
She was resplendent in black and white satin embroidered with seed pearls, her made-up face and hair white and red above it. They did not ride out alone, of course; Deven might be one of her Gentlemen Pensioners, and therefore a worthy bodyguard, but one man was not sufficient for either her dignity or well-being. But the others who came kept their distance, maintaining the illusion that this was a private outing, and not a matter of state.
Everyone at court, from the jealous Earl of Essex down to the lowliest gentlewoman, and probably even the servants, would wonder at the outing, and speculate over the favor Elizabeth was suddenly showing a minor courtier. For once, though, their gossip was the least of Deven’s concerns.
They rode in silence to begin with. Only when they were well away from the palace did Elizabeth say abruptly, “Have you met her?”
He had expected some preface to their discussion; her sudden question took him by surprise. “If you mean Invidiana, your Grace, I have not.”
“Consider yourself fortunate, Master Deven.” The line of her jaw was sagging with age, but steel yet underlay it. “What do you know of this pact?”
Deven chose his words with care. “Little to nothing, I fear. Only that on your Majesty’s coronation day, Invidiana claimed her own throne.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “It began well before that.”
The assertion startled him, but he held back his instinctive questions, letting the Queen tell it in her own time.
“She came to me,” Elizabeth said softly, “when I was in the Tower.” Her eyes were focused on something in the distance, and she controlled her horse with unconscious ease. Deven, watching her out of the corner of his eye, saw grimness in her expression. “My sister might have executed me. Then a stranger came, and offered me aid.”