Midnight Never Come (21 page)

Without mortal bread, going into the city was impossible. But when she heard a familiar, heavy tread, she ran without thinking; the nearest escape lay in the Threadneedle Street well, one of the exits from the Onyx Hall.

Luck afforded her this one sign of favor; with no sense of what hour it was in the mortal city, Lune found herself above ground in the dead of night. She wasted no time in flinging a glamour over herself and dodging into the shadows of a tiny lane, where she waited until she was certain the giantess had not followed.

It was a dangerous place to be. One of the nearest things to an inviolable rule in the Onyx Hall forbade drawing too much attention among mortals. Night allowed more freedom of movement than day, but without bread or milk, she would be limited to a goblin’s skulking mischief.

Or she could flee.

Like a needle pointing to the north star, her head swiveled unerringly to look up Threadneedle, as if she could see through the houses to Bishopsgate and the road beyond. Out of London.

Invidiana wanted her to stay and suffer. But did she have to?

Wherever Lune had been before she came here, London was her home now. Some few fae migrated, even to foreign lands, but she could no more leave her city to live in Scotland than she could dwell among the folk of the sea.

She looked back at the well. Dame Halgresta lacked the patience to lie in wait; whether she had been chasing Lune, or simply passing by, she would be gone now.

Lune stepped back out into Threadneedle Street, laid her hand on the rope, and descended down the well, back into the darkness of the Onyx Hall.

M
ORTLAKE
, S
URREY
:
April 25, 1590

Deven rode inattentively, his eyes fixed on the letter in his hand, though he knew its contents by heart already.

I arranged a position for Mistress Montrose with Lady Warwick at the request of her cousin, a former waiting-gentlewoman in my own service, Margaret Rolford.

Colsey was no fool. He knew why his master had searched London from one end to the other; he asked the next logical question before he left Staffordshire, knowing that otherwise he would have to turn around and go back. The answer was waiting in the letter.

Margaret Rolford lives now in the parish of St. Dunstan in the East.

The manservant had that answer waiting, too. “No Rolfords, either. Not there, nor in Fleet Street. I checked already.”

No Margaret Rolford. No Anne Montrose. Deven wondered how Margaret had come into Lettice Knollys’s service, but it wasn’t worth sending again to Staffordshire to ask; he no longer believed he would uncover anything useful by that route. Anne seemed to have come from nowhere, and to have vanished back to the same place.

He scowled and tucked the letter into his purse.

Cottages dotted the land up ahead, placid and pastoral, with a modest church spire rising above them. Had he reached the right village? Deven had given both his servants a day’s liberty and ridden out alone; Colsey would not approve of him coming here. So he himself had to flag down a fellow trudging along the riverside towpath with a basket on his back and ask, “Is this the village of Mortlake?”

The man took in his taffeta doublet, the velvet cap on his head, and bowed as much as the weight of the basket would allow. “Even so, sir. Can I direct you?”

“I seek the astrologer Dee.”

He half-expected his words to wipe the pleasant look from the man’s face, but no such thing; the fellow nodded, as if the scholar were an ordinary citizen, not a man suspected of black magic. “Keep along this road, sir, and you’ll find him. There’s a cluster of houses, but the one you want is the largest, with the extra bits built on.”

The villager caught the penny Deven tossed, then quickly sidestepped to regain control of his burden as it slipped.

Deven soon saw what the man had meant. The “extra bits” were extensions easily as large as the house to which they had been added, making for a lopsided, rambling structure that encroached on the cottages around it. Flagstone paths connected that building to several nearby ones, as if they were all part of the same complex. And none of it was what Deven expected; nothing about the exterior suggested necromancy and devilish conjurations.

He dismounted, looped his horse’s reins around a fence post, and knocked at the door. It was opened a moment later by a maidservant, who promptly curtsied when she found a gentleman on the step.

A twinkling later he was in the parlor, surreptitiously eyeing the unremarkable furnishings. But he did not have long to look; soon an older man with a pointed, snow-white beard entered.

“Doctor Dee?” Deven offered him a polite bow. “I am Michael Deven, of the Queen’s Gentlemen Pensioners, and formerly in service to Master Secretary Walsingham. I beg your pardon for the imposition — I should have sent a letter in advance — but I have heard much of you from my master, and I hoped I might beg assistance from such a learned man.”

His nerves hummed as he spoke. If his suspicions were correct, he was foolish to come here, to expose himself thus to his quarry. But he had not been able to talk himself out of this journey; the best he could do was to deliberately omit to send a letter, so that Dee would have no warning of his coming.

But what did he expect to find? There were no mystic circles on the floor, no effigies of courtiers awaiting burial at a crossroads or beneath a tree. And Dee did not flinch at Walsingham’s name. The man might be the hidden player, but it was increasingly difficult for Deven to believe he might have killed Walsingham by foul magic.

“Assistance?” Dee said, gesturing for Deven to take a seat.

Deven contrived to look embarrassed; he might as well put his flush to use. “-I — I have heard, sir, that you are as able an astrologer as dwells in England. I am sure your time is much occupied by working on behalf of the Queen’s grace, but if you might spare a moment to help a young man in need. . . .”

Dee’s alert, focused eyes narrowed slightly at this. “You wish me to draw up a horoscope? To what end?”

Glancing away, Deven permitted himself a nervous, self-deprecating laugh. “-I — well, that is — you see, there’s a young woman.”

“Master Deven,” the astrologer said in unpromising tones,“I do occasionally calculate on behalf of some of her Majesty’s court, but not often. I am no street corner prophet, predicting marriage, prosperity, and the weather for any who pass by.”

“Certainly not!” Deven hastened to reassure the man. “I would not even ask, were it simply a matter of ‘will she or won’t she.’ But I have run into difficulty, and having tried everything at my disposal, I am at a loss as to how to proceed.” He had to skirt that part carefully; he did not want to give Dee any more information than necessary. Assuming the man had not already heard his name from Anne. “I am sure you have many more important researches to occupy your time — I would be more than happy to fund them in some small part.”

The words were perfectly chosen. Dee would have taken offense at the suggestion of being paid for his work; no doubt the man wanted to distinguish himself as no common magician. But an offer of patronage, no matter how fleeting and minor, did not go amiss, especially given the astrologer’s financial difficulties.

Dee’s consideration did not take long. “A horary chart is simple enough to draw up. I imagine, by your flushed complexion, that the matter is of some urgency to you?”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Then come with me; we can answer your question directly.”

Deven followed his host through the cottage and into one of the extensions, where he stopped dead on the threshold, awed into silence by the sight that greeted him. The room was lined with shelves, a great library that dwarfed those held by even the most learned of Deven’s own acquaintances. Yet it had an air of recent abuse, that called to mind what Anne had said about Dee’s troubles; there were blank stretches of shelving, scars on the woodwork, and a conspicuous lack of reading podiums or other accoutrements he expected of a library.

Dee invited him over to the one table the room still held, with a stool on either side of it and a slew of paper on top. The papers were swept away before Deven could attempt to read them, and fresh sheets brought out, with an inkwell and a battered quill.

“First,” Dee said, “we pray.”

Startled, Deven nodded. The two men knelt on the floor, and Dee began to speak. His words were English, but they did not come from the Book of Common Prayer; Deven listened with sharp interest. Not Catholic, but perhaps not entirely Church of England either. Yet the man apparently considered prayer a requisite precursor to any kind of mystical work.

None of it was what he had expected.

When the prayer was done, they sat, and Dee sharpened his quill with a penknife. “Now. What is the question you wish answered?”

Deven had not formulated its precise wording in his mind. He said, choosing his words with care, “As I said, there’s a young gentlewoman. She and I have had difficulties, that I wish to smoothe over, but she has gone away, and despite my best efforts I cannot locate her. What . . .” He reconsidered the question before it even came out of his mouth. “How may I find her again?”

Dee sat with his eyes closed, listening to this, then nodded briskly and began marking out a square on the paper that lay before him.

After watching the astrologer work for a few minutes, Deven said hesitantly, “Do you not wish to know my date of birth?”

“ ’Tis not necessary.” Dee did not even look up. “For a horary chart, what matters is the moment at which the question was formulated.” He selected a book from a stack on the floor behind him and consulted it; Deven glimpsed orderly charts of numbers and strange symbols, some of them marked in red ink.

He waited, and tried not to show his relief. That had worried him the most, the prospect of giving Dee such information about himself. A magician might do a great deal with that knowledge. As it stood now, he might be any ordinary gentleman, asking after any ordinary woman; he had not even mentioned Anne’s name.

But had she mentioned his?

Dee worked in silence for several minutes, examining the chart in the book, making calculations, then noting the results on the square horoscope he sketched out. It did not take long. Soon Dee leaned back on his stool and studied the paper, one hand idly stroking his pointed white beard.

“Be of good cheer, Master Deven,” Dee said at last in absent, thoughtful tones at odds with his words. “You will see your young woman soon. I cannot say when, but look you here — the Moon is in the Twelfth House, and the Stellium of Mars, Mercury, and Venus — her influence has not yet passed out of your life.”

Deven did not look where the ink-stained finger pointed; instead he watched Dee. The chart meant nothing to him, while the astrologer’s pensive expression meant a great deal. “Is there more?”

The sharp eyes flicked up to meet his. “Yes. Enemies threaten — her enemies, I think, but they may pose a danger to you as well. The gentlewoman’s disposition is obscure to me, I fear. Conflict surrounds her, complicating the matter. Death will send her into your path again.”

Death? A chill touched Deven’s spine. Was that a threat? He did his best to feign the concern of the lovestruck man he pretended to be, while searching for any hint of malice in the other’s gaze. Perhaps the chart really did say that. He wished he knew something of astrology.

Deven bent over the paper, lest Dee read too much out of his own expression. “What should I do?”

“Be wary,” the philospher said succinctly. “I do not think the woman means you harm, but she may bring harm your way. Saturn’s presence in the Eighth House indicates authority is set against this matter, but the Trine with Jupiter . . .” He shook his head. “There are influences I cannot read. Allies, perhaps, where you do not expect them.”

It might be nothing more than a trick, something to send him running in fear. But at the very least, it did not sound like the kind of horoscope an impatient man might invent to placate a lovelorn stranger. Either it was a coded warning, or it was genuine.

Or both.

“I thank you, Doctor Dee,” he said, covering his thoughts with courtesy. “They say knowledge of the stars helps prepare a man for that which will come; I only hope it shall be so with me.”

Dee nodded, still grave. “I am sorry to have given you such ill tidings. But God guides us all; perhaps ’twill be for the best.”

Recalling himself, Deven removed his purse and laid it on the table. It was more than he had meant to pay, but he could not bring himself to fish through it for coins. “For your researches. I pray they lead you to knowledge and good fortune.”

T
HE
O
NYX
H
ALL
, L
ONDON
:
April 25, 1590

A clutch of chattering hobs and pucks passed through the room, laughing and carefree. All the fae of England were abuzz with the preparations for May Day, and the courtiers were no exception. Every year they took over Moor Fields north of the wall, enacting charms and enchantments that would keep mortals away. And if a few strayed into their midst, well, May Day and Midsummer were the two occasions when humans might hope for kindlier treatment at fae hands. Even the cruelty of the Onyx Court subsided for a short while, at those great festivals.

Lune watched them go from her perch high above. The chamber had a great latticework of arches supporting its ceiling, and it was upon one of these that she rested, her skirts tucked up around her feet so they would not trail and attract notice. It was an imperfect hiding place; plenty of creatures in the palace had wings. But it gave her a brief respite both from malicious whispers, and from those who sought to harm her.

When all around her was silent, she lowered herself slowly to the floor. Her gown of raven feathers was suitable for hiding, and she had long since discarded her velvet slippers; the pale skin of her bare feet might betray her, but it was much quieter when she moved. She lived like a rat in the Onyx Hall, hiding in crevices, stealing crumbs when no one was looking.