Ill Met by Moonlight Read online

Perhaps, he thought, he should just yield, Gate back to Hatfield and give her the letter. He could tell Mistress Champernowne that he had forgotten his gloves and remembered before he was too far to return. Then he was quite annoyed with himself. If he gave her the letter at once, she would know he had been holding it.

  He Gated to the London house where he came up from the cellar into the kitchen. The servants hardly glanced at him as he passed them, then he came out into the garden and to the small stable where Miralys, already divested of harness, snorted at him. But he knew he would have to give Elizabeth the letter soon, so he returned to the house, went to his little-used office, and extracted the letter from the locked letter press on his desk. There, biting his lip, he perused it once again. It was signed only “Da” and it mostly was a proof that Harry was who he claimed to be by reminiscing about incidents that only Henry FitzRoy could have known.

  It was not a perfect device because neither Denoriel nor Harry was certain what a child of not-quite-three would have been able to remember. It was, however, the best they could do. At least, if the letter were discovered, it would not betray the existence of Underhill. It should be meaningless or at worst be assumed to be from one of Anne Boleyn’s friends because it related to incidents that took place mostly before the queen was beheaded.

  Denoriel had barely begun to reworry that subject when a tap on the door made him slide the letter into the letter press again and call “Come.” He knew the tap. It was both polite and brisk and always heralded his mortal man of business, Joseph Clayborne.

  “I am glad to catch you momentarily at home, my lord,” Clayborne said dryly. “I have seen so little of you since you arrived back in England, that I can only hope you are aware that the king is likely to rid himself of his bride.”

  Denoriel sighed. He had been reprimanded … again … for neglecting his business. He and Joseph had had this mild confrontation before. He had explained—at some length—that he had hired Joseph just so that he would not need to worry about his business. Joseph invariably replied that this was a path to disaster by putting strong temptation into an underling’s hands without adequate supervision. Lord Denno, Joseph insisted, should know about his business.

  Smiling, Denoriel said, “In fact—good afternoon, Joseph—I am aware.”

  Master Clayborne frowned slightly, acknowledging the subtle rebuke, then sighed, equally slightly, and said, “Good afternoon, my lord. I am sorry if I offended by not greeting you, but I have this fear you are going to slip away from me before I say what I must.”

  Denoriel laughed and leaned back in his high-backed chair, gesturing Clayborne to take one of the stools on the other side of the table. “Justified, Joseph, justified.” The temptation to return to Hatfield washed through him again like a warm wave, but he rose above it and continued blandly, “However, this afternoon I am at your disposal. I would have sought you out myself in a little while.”

  Clayborne’s lips did not twitch, but his eyebrows did. Denoriel grinned.

  “No, really,” he said. “Tentatively, I have accomplished my first goals. I have, I believe, fixed my interest with Lady Elizabeth and reestablished certain friendships in the country. Now I hope soon to make friends at court.”

  Clayborne’s eyes brightened and he sat up straighter, laying the papers he had carried into the room on the table. “Lady Elizabeth, not the prince?”

  “At Prince Edward’s present age, it would be a waste of my time and, I suspect, at any time in the future there will be so many seeking the prince’s attention that a foreigner like me would receive scant welcome. Lady Elizabeth is easier of access, she remembers me kindly from when she was a babe—a very remarkable child is Lady Elizabeth—she trusts me, and I learn from her governess, Mistress Champernowne, that when the prince is past any danger of taking a childish illness from her, she will be sent to live with him.”

  “Ah!” Clayborne sounded satisfied and smiled, his tight-lipped accolade of approval. “Access through the back door, as it were. Will the prince like her?”

  “I am sure he will be utterly enchanted—as I have been, I am afraid. I will have to arrange for you to meet Lady Elizabeth.”

  “I would like that, but unfortunately Lady Elizabeth has almost no intercourse with the court at present and there is bound to be some disruption of trade if King Henry sets Anne of Cleves aside.” Clayborne shook his head sadly. “Cromwell is lost, I fear, and I can only hope that his fall does not damage the contracts we have made with the Flemish. France and the Empire seem to be at odds again, but it is always useful, my lord, to know how the wind is blowing before it is strong enough to blow us over. If it were possible for you to—ah—renew your friendship with the king’s friends …”

  Denoriel nodded. “That should not be too difficult. I have some books of Italian poetry that should serve as a good reintroduction to Wyatt. But he will only give me court gossip. I think I will need a patron among the older and higher nobility.”

  “Perfect, my lord, but I do not think you should try to approach the Seymours.” Clayborne pursed his lips in thought. “The Earl of Hertford does not like foreigners and is of too serious a disposition—he would not be very sympathetic to a friend of Wyatt’s, and his brother … I do not know what to tell you, my lord. Thomas Seymour would likely welcome you and your full purse warmly enough, but he is said to use ‘friends’ and then cast them aside. He is … ambitious, my lord.”

  “It is fortunate that I only seek to make a profit.” Denoriel smiled without much mirth, then said, “My cousin, Lady Alana, thought I should try the Duke of Norfolk.”

  “Lady Alana, is a clever woman … wise, too, which attributes sometimes do not go together.” After a moment, Clayborne nodded. “The duke of Norfolk, yes. He is not as powerful as he used to be, but he may well be again if the king’s interest in Catherine Howard continues to grow.”

  “Then I had better move quickly. I am sure he will remember me and I recall he was greatly taken with some Turkey carpets I gave him.” Denoriel laughed briefly. “He displayed them as a kind of ‘payment’ for the gift and if I remember correctly we sold quite a few. Hmmm. What do we have in the warehouse that might interest him?”

  “I remember the Turkey carpets. Unfortunately we have no rugs at present. However, I do have some Flemish tapestries.”

  Denoriel would not much have cared if all the warehouse had was Irish wolfhounds or solid gold fool’s-bells, so long as the objects served as a proper gift for the duke. “The tapestries will do. Even if Norfolk does not want them, they will be excuse enough for me to request an audience. And I can say I do not have carpets but could obtain them.”

  “Can you?”

  The question was bland, but Denoriel cursed himself for stupidity. Joseph Clayborne had to be clever to manage what at first had seemed to be and now was indeed growing into a complex trading network. Yet Joseph had never seemed to see that Denoriel’s servants were rather strange and that his master’s arrivals and departures were very peculiar. Denoriel was careful that Miralys was in the stable when Lord Denno arrived, but it was rare that anyone ever saw the horse come down the street with Lord Denno on its back. And the excuse of being a wine fancier must be growing very thin. All too often Lord Denno came up from the cellar without ever having been seen going down into it.

  Actually, Denoriel was certain that Joseph knew there was something uncanny about the household and he was certain that Joseph had watched and considered and probably decided there was nothing evil about it. Denoriel wished he could tell Joseph the truth; the business would be even more profitable if he could satisfy strange requests very quickly, without having to pretend that the goods had been shipped from a distant port.

  Could he do that, Denoriel wondered, and trust to Joseph’s loyalty never to speak of it? Of course, it was forbidden and Oberon would have his hide if Joseph spoke out of turn, but what proof would Joseph have? Surely anyone he told would think him mad. Was that enough protection? Or could Jos
eph be bespelled not to disclose his master’s conversation? He would have to ask Aleneil.

  “Yes, I can,” Denoriel said in answer to Joseph’s question about whether he could procure rugs for the Duke of Norfolk. He smiled. “And someday I might tell you how I can manage such a thing, but for now we had better stick to the Flemish tapestries. I will write to Norfolk later. I see you have come armed with documents. Tell me about those for which you need my approval. And I pledge you that I will do my best to pay close attention.”

  Chapter 6

  When the imp that had been sent to examine Denoriel’s clothing returned, Pasgen was again wrestling with the red mist, which ate anything introduced into its space. Even small amounts of the mist, wisps swallowed by larger creatures, would slowly consume the host from within. Pasgen had twice needed to make an englobing shield large enough to contain a host rapidly disintegrating into red mist and remove the ravenous thing to the domain where he had first found the stuff.

  Thus Pasgen did not immediately collect the information the imp had gathered. A few days or a few weeks would make no difference. There was no particular hurry, after all. Whenever he was ready to do it, the girl was dead. This needed no elaborate planning, no army, no changeling substitute. Pasgen had decided he would simply go to Hatfield disguised as Lord Denno, go into the garden with the child, stab her or strangle her, leave her there, and flee.

  Lord Denno would be blamed and hunted not only through England but in all other places where England had influence or even simple contact. Even an enemy would not shelter a monster who murdered an innocent eight-year-old girl-child, much less the beast that had slain the king’s daughter. So Pasgen would not only have fulfilled Vidal’s order, he would also have destroyed any usefulness Denoriel would have in the mortal world. All his “friends” all his “connections” would be lost to the Bright Court.

  But there was no hurry. Pasgen continued to work with the red mist as a week passed, wondered why it could not eat the globe of power in which he contained it, began to consider whether the boundaries between the domains were a kind of wall of pure power. He made notes of this information and considered how he could test it.

  In the containment room far below, the imp squalled with hunger and diminished in size as it consumed its own substance to remain conscious and coherent. Although he did not wish to, Pasgen heard; he was attuned to the containment room where he held prisoners and subjects of experiments. First he calculated how long the imp could be ignored before it lost the information it had been sent to gather. Then he wondered why he did not simply collect the information and let the imp go. And then, at long last, he understood that he had been delaying because he did not wish to kill a child.

  She was not important, he thought. Let her grow to maturity. When she was a woman … But the purpose of killing Elizabeth had nothing to do with Elizabeth herself. It had all to do with reestablishing Vidal as prince of Caer Mordwyn. Pasgen sighed, glanced once more at the red mist, and created a Gate that took him to the containment room and winked out of existence as soon as he arrived.

  The imp fell silent when Pasgen appeared, quivered a bit as Pasgen extracted from it everything it had seen in Denoriel’s clothes press, and disappeared as Pasgen released it from the spell that had bound it to observing Denoriel’s clothing and simultaneously sent it out into his domain. There it would return to its usual task of gleaning anything, creature or plant, that faded or died. Thus it would keep Pasgen’s property flawless and regain substance.

  Rather disturbed by the revelation that killing Elizabeth would not be pleasant and that it was his own reluctance, not his concern for Rhoslyn’s feelings, that was deterring his action, Pasgen determined to act and be finished as soon as possible. Reviewing the images of the garments the imp had discovered in Denoriel’s clothes press, Pasgen chose what he believed was a sufficiently elegant suit for visiting a princess and created it on his body.

  His next act was to create two packets of twenty golden half-crowns, which he dropped into his purse. Scowling at the way the purse now dragged at his belt, Pasgen removed the rolls of gold coins. After a moment’s thought, he tucked the bribe into the front of his doublet. Before a mirror, he recreated Denoriel’s silver hair, the round ears and round pupils of mortals, set his hat on his head. He shuddered slightly. He did, indeed, appear to be his half-brother.

  Pasgen turned away from the mirror and considered his options for entering Hatfield. He could not take the not-horse. Nor could he use the Gate he had created to escape from Elizabeth’s apartment when they had tried to abduct her. That Gate would open into her bedchamber if he tried to reawaken it and Denoriel never visited Elizabeth’s bedchamber. Neither of those options seemed viable, and he dismissed them.

  However, the imp he had sent to watch for visitors had passed along other images, one being the path that led to the main entrance of the palace, now closed, and the branch that led around to the entrance to Elizabeth’s wing. He could create a temporary Gate just at the beginning of that side path and walk. His lips thinned a trifle at the thought of the energy he would need to expend to create a new Gate, but then he shrugged. He could renew his strength in almost any Unformed land.

  The creation of the Gate went smoothly, although the echo of the energies involved sent the air spirit rushing through the palace and the garden. By the time it actually found the Gate, Pasgen was walking unhurriedly along the path toward the palace. A brief inner survey showed the air spirit a Sidhe; an even briefer outer survey showed a familiar face and figure. The air spirit had no capacity to wonder why a Gate had been created, when its master usually arrived on Miralys. It returned to the vicinity of Elizabeth.

  The guards at the gate both smiled and wished Pasgen a good day, calling him Lord Denno. He only nodded in return to the greeting, not certain how Denoriel would respond, but he did not cross the courtyard, which would have taken him close to the stable. He slipped around the far edge of the open space taking any cover he could find, until he was able to reach the door to the great hall of Elizabeth’s wing.

  No one questioned him; many smiled and would have spoken but he quickly begged pardon and claimed a need for haste. In the audience chamber, real good fortune smiled on him. Mistress Champernowne was giving instructions to one of the grooms, but when she saw Pasgen, although she looked surprised, she came forward with an outstretched hand and a broad smile.

  “I am so glad to see you,” she cried. “Whatever did Elizabeth say to you to drive you away for so long? She has been weeping over it in secret, although she will not confess. Or was it my fault, saying you were coming too often? I am so sorry, Lord Denno, but we are warned not to allow Lady Elizabeth to become too attached to anyone not appointed by her father.”

  Pasgen took her hand and kissed it, although he shuddered inwardly at the need to touch a mortal. Still, it was a small price to pay her for supplying so much necessary information. He now knew exactly what to say.

  “No, no. Really the fault is mine for taking some umbrage at your kind hint. I am aware that the king’s children must be carefully guarded but I was … hurt. The fact is that I needed to be away for some time and I took a petty revenge by leaving without a word instead of warning you about my absence. I, too, am sorry and I have brought a little token of peace.”

  So saying he extracted the rolls of half-crowns from his doublet and pressed them into her hands. She stared, lips parted, as she felt the weight of the coins.

  Too much, Pasgen thought. It seems that Denoriel is not as generous in paying his way as I believed. Then he realized he need only make this sound like a special bribe and she would accept it.

  He leaned forward. “Since Lady Elizabeth still seems to remember our quarrel, perhaps you would send her into the garden where I could talk with her alone?”

  “Yes, of course,” Kat Champernowne said, looking at the rolls of coins in her hands. “I will make sure she goes to meet you too and doesn’t suddenly conceive of a will to b
e stubborn.” And she helped him again, by waving him toward a door he would not have noticed but Denno would surely have known.

  Through the door was a well kept but narrow lawn and a short, stone-paved path to a gate. Pasgen went through the gate, closing it behind him, and along the gently curving path that led deeper into the garden. When he was just ahead of a curve that would hide him from the house, he stopped. Two or three steps would take him and the girl out of sight—at least from the garden gate and the windows of the lower floor. If someone was looking out of the windows above, they would be able to see what he was doing, but they would be too far away to help or even summon help before he was gone.

  He did not have long to wait before the garden gate opened and a girl-child with bright red hair and an upright carriage came through. Behind her was a maid. Pasgen’s lips thinned. He had told that stupid woman that he wanted to speak to Elizabeth alone. He tried to think of a spell that would prevent the maid from following Elizabeth and yet not alarm the child so that she would run away.

  Just as the words formed on his lips, he swallowed them back. Was that not the maid that had struck and then damaged Aurelia? If it was, she might be protected, and if the spell failed to take hold, she would cry out and warn Elizabeth. Let the child come closer. He would deal with the maid when it was necessary.

  In the event something better happened. The maid looked at Pasgen and then stopped near the gate as the child came forward. Pasgen moved back a few steps and then a few more, until he was sure that he and Elizabeth would be hidden from the house and the maid at the gate. He would have liked to go a bit farther, to where he now saw there was a side path even better concealed, but the child was frowning and she was still not in arm’s reach.

  “Why are you wearing those strange clothes?” she asked.

  Strange clothes? But they had been in Denoriel’s clothes press, so he must have worn them. Perhaps not recently, Pasgen realized. And then he noticed that Elizabeth was wearing a very plain gown. Possibly he was overdressed?