Midnight Never Come (17 page)

Coughing, stumbling, eyes watering with pain, Lune could still make out the immense and hated bulk of Dame Halgresta Nellt.

“You fucked up, slut,” the low, rocky voice growled. Even through the venom, the pleasure was unmistakable. “The Queen forgave you once — Mab knows why. But she won’t forgive you this time.”

Lune forced her lungs to draw in air. “I haven’t,” she managed, then tried again. “Vidar knows. Everything I know. What goes on here. I report to him.”

Halgresta hadn’t come alone. Six goblins materialized out of the shadows, armed and armored and ready to catch Lune if she tried to run — as if she could outrun a giant. She had to talk her way out of this.

Talk her way out, with Halgresta. It would be like using a pin to dismantle an iron-bound door.

The giantess grinned, showing teeth like sharpened boulders. “Vidar knows everything, eh? Well, he does now. But not from you.”

What? What had Vidar learned? How had he gotten someone closer to Walsingham than she had?

“You lost your toy, bitch.” Halgresta’s voice struck her like another blow, knocking all the wind out. “You lost that mortal of yours.”

Deven.

The stabbing pain in her ribs was subsiding; Lune didn’t think anything was broken. She made herself stand straighter, despite her awkwardly bound arms. “I am not finished,” she said, with as much confidence as she could muster. “Deven is only one route to Walsingham. There are other ways to deal with the problem —”

Halgresta spat. The wad of spittle hit the countess’s shoulder and slid down, unnoticed; Orpheus’s melody was still ghosting through the air, plaintive and soft. “Right. Other ways. And other people to take care of them. You? You’re coming back to the Onyx Hall.”

“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.”

S
T
. P
AUL’S
C
ATHEDRAL
, L
ONDON
:
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

O heauens, why made you night, to couer sinne?

By day this deed of darknes had not beene.

—Thomas Kyd

The Spanish Tragedie

T
hey 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.

T
HE
T
OWER OF
L
ONDON
:
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.

She was so very tired of intrigue. Tired of having no one she could honestly call “friend.”

“Too much mortal bread,” Lune whispered to herself, just to break the silence. A year of it had changed her, softened her. Made her regret the loss of such mortal things as warmth and companionship. She was inventing memories now, losing herself in delusion like Tiresias, pining for a world that could never be.

It wasn’t true, though. There
were
fae like that, fae who could be friends. The Goodemeades were living proof of its possibility.

Not in the Onyx Hall, though.

And if Lune wanted to survive, she could not afford to indulge such fancies. She gritted her teeth. To escape the intrigue, first she had to scheme her way free. The only way out was through.

Keys rattled outside her cell. The lock clanked and thunked, and then the familiar protest of the hinges as the door swung open. Light flooded through. Lune stood, using the wall to steady herself, and looked flinchingly toward the opening, raising her gaze a degree at a time as her eyes could bear the light.

A figure came through. Not twisted enough for a goblin. Not tall enough for Kentigern. But not Tiresias, either. The sihouette had a broad, triangular base: a woman, in court dress.

“Leave the door open,” an accented and melodious voice said. “She will not flee.”

The goblin outside bowed, and stepped back.

Lune’s eyes were adjusting at last. Her visitor moved to one side, so she was no longer backlit, and with a confused shock Lune recognized her. “Madame,” she said, and sank into a curtsy.

The ambassador from the Cour du Lys seemed all the more immaculate for her dirty surroundings, wearing a crystalline gown in the latest fashion, her lovely copper hair curled and swept up under a pert little hat. Malline le Sainfoin de Veilée eyed Lune’s filthy skin with distaste, but inclined her head in greeting. “The
chevalier
has given me permission to speak with you, and a promise of discretion.”

Kentigern would probably keep that promise, if only because he was not subtle enough to seek out a buyer for his information. “Is discretion needed,
madame ambassadrice
?”

“If you choose to accept the bargain I offer you.”

Lune’s mind felt as rusty as the door hinges. That the French envoy was offering her help, she could understand, but why? And what did she want in return?

Madame Malline did not explain immediately. Instead she snapped her jeweled fingers, and when a head appeared in the doorway — a sprite belonging to the embassy, not the goblin jailer — she spoke imperiously in French, demanding two stools. A moment later these were brought in, and Madame Malline arrayed herself on one, gesturing for Lune to take the other.

When they were both seated, and Madame Malline had arranged her glittering skirts to her satisfaction, she said, “You may know I am in negotiations with your Queen, regarding the conflict with the Courts of the North, and which side my king will take. You, Lady Lune, are not valuable enough as a bargaining piece to be worth much in that debate, but you are worth a little. I am prepared to offer Invidiana certain concessions of neutrality — minor ones, nothing more — in exchange for your freedom from this cell.”

“I would be in your debt, madame,” Lune said reflexively. Sitting in the light, on a cushioned stool, had warmed up the stiff muscles of her mind. She remembered now how she might repay that debt.

She hoped the ambassador meant something else.

“Indeed,” the French fae murmured. “I know of you, Lady Lune, though we have not spoken often. You have more between your ears than fluff; you would not have survived for so long were it not so. You know already what I will ask.”

Lune wished desperately for a bath. It seemed a trivial thing, her unwashed state, when laid against her political predicament, but the two were not unconnected; grimy, with her hair straggling around her face in strands dulled from silver to gray, she felt inferior to the French elf. It would undermine her in the bargaining that must come.

But she would do her best. “My Queen,” Lune said, “also knows what you will ask. I would be foolish indeed to betray her.”

Madame Malline dismissed this with a wave of one delicate hand. “
Certainement,
she knows. But she, knowing, permitted me to come here. We may therefore conclude that she does not see it as a betrayal.”

“What we may conclude,
madame ambassadrice,
is that it amuses her to grant me enough rope with which to hang myself.” Lune gestured at the walls of her cell. “That I have been kept here means she has not made up her mind to destroy me. This might be her way of making her decision: if I tell you more than she wishes me to, then she will declare it treason and execute me.”

“But then the bird would already have flown,
non
? I would have the information she does not wish me to have. Unless you suggest she would strike you dead even as you speak.”

Invidiana could do it, with that black diamond jewel. But she had not used it on Lune, and the envoy had a point; by the time Lune was dead, the information would already have been passed on. And despite everything, Lune did not think Invidiana would breach protocol so inexcusably as to kill a foreign ambassador on English soil. She often bent the rules of politics and diplomacy until they wept blood, but to break them outright — especially during such negotiations — would ensure an alliance against her that even the Onyx Court could not survive.

It was a slim enough thread on which to hang her life. But what was her alternative? Invidiana might yet decide to kill her anyway — or worse, forget her. One day the door would cease to open, and then Lune would dwindle to nothingness, alone in the dark, screaming away her final years inside a stone box.

“I am willing to negotiate,” she said.

“Bon!”
Madame Malline seemed genuinely pleased. “Let us speak, then. I will have wine brought, and you will tell me —”

“No.” Lune cut her off as the French elf raised her hand to summon a servant again. She stood and straightened her skirts, resisting the urge to brush dirt off them. It wouldn’t help, and it would make her look weak. “You secure my release, and
then
I tell you what I know.”

The warmth in the ambassador’s smile dwindled sharply at the insinuation. She could not be surprised, though; distrust and suspicion were the daily bread of the Onyx Court. And indeed, she played the same card in return. “But once you are free of this cell, what is to reassure me
I
will have what
I
seek?”

Lune had not expected so obvious a trick to succeed, but it had been worth a try. “I will tell you some things now, and more once I am free.”

Madame Malline pursed her full lips, considering it. “Tell me, and I will see to it you are moved to a better cell, and so on from there.”

The alternative was to give her word, and Lune’s half of the bargain was necessarily too vague for that to work. “Very well.”

Servants appeared again. One sprite poured the wine, while another bowed deeply and presented Lune with a platter of fresh grapes. She made herself eat these slowly, as if she did not really need them. Negotiations were not over. She still could not afford to look weak.

“The folk of the sea,” she said when the sprites had bowed and retreated to the edge of the room. “They take offense if you call them fae, and in truth I do not know if they are. ’Tis a question for philosophers to debate. I went among them for politics.”

Madame Malline nodded. “The mortal Armada, yes.”

“They are a secretive people; they do not welcome commerce with outsiders, and reckon themselves to have little care what goes on above the surface of the water. Indeed, in some cases they bear hostility toward those who live on land.” Such as, for example, the Cour du Lys, the strongest faerie court in the north of France. Lune did not know what offense had been committed there, but she knew there had been one. She would have to be careful not to offer the ambassador any information that might be useful in healing that breach.

But her explanations had to seem natural and unaffected. “They would not speak directly to anyone who lives on the surface,” Lune said, “but they will talk to our river nymphs, sometimes. We had occasional contact through the estuary at Gravesend. It was through this that Invidiana arranged for my embassy. They agreed to let me come among them; I do not know what she promised them for that concession.”

“Did you go alone?” the envoy asked.

“Two of the estuary nymphs accompanied me, their tolerance for saltwater being higher than their riverbound sisters. Beyond that, I was served by the folk of the sea.”

“And how did you go among them?”

She could still feel the air whistling past her cheeks, the gut clench of fear that this had all been some cruel jest of Invidiana’s. Lune closed her eyes, then made herself open them and meet Madame Malline’s gaze. “I leapt from the cliffs of Dover. And that,
madame ambassadrice,
is all I will say for now.” She rose, stepped clear of her stool, and spread her soiled skirts in a curtsy. “If you would know more, then show me what you can do on my behalf.”