Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(199)

“Delightful news, Excellency. I think you’ve had lessons enough for one day. Come, dine with me,” Cecil said, steering him to a nearby table. The queen, upstaged now by both her spy and her chief adviser, harrumphed as she climbed the dais, helped up the three low stairs by Bess Throckmorton and Raleigh.

“What happens now?” I whispered. The show was over, and the room’s occupants were displaying signs of restlessness

“I will wish to talk further, Master Roydon,” Elizabeth called while her cushions were being arranged to her satisfaction. “Do not go far.”

“Pierre will be in the presence chamber next door. He’ll show you to my room, where there’s a bed and some peace and quiet. You can rest until Her Majesty frees me. It shouldn’t take long. She only wants a full report on Kelley.” Matthew brought my hand to his lips and gave it a formal kiss.

Knowing Elizabeth’s fondness for her male attendants, it could well take hours.

Even though I was braced for the clamor of the presence chamber, it knocked me back a step. Courtiers not sufficiently important to warrant dining in the privy chamber jostled me as they passed, eager to get to their own dinner before the food was gone. My stomach flipped over at the scent of roasted venison. I would never get used to it, and the baby didn’t like it either.

Pierre and Annie were standing by the wall with the other servants. They both looked relieved as I came into view.

“Where is milord?” Pierre asked, pulling me out of the crush of bodies.

“Waiting on the queen,” I said. “I’m too tired to stand up—or eat. Can you take me to Matthew’s room?”

Pierre cast a worried look at the entrance to the privy chamber. “Of course.”

“I know the way, Mistress Roydon,” Annie said. Newly returned from Prague and well into her second visit to the court of Elizabeth, Annie was affecting an attitude of studied nonchalance.

“I showed her milord’s room when you were led away to see Her Majesty,” Pierre assured me. “It is just downstairs, below the apartments once used by the king’s wife.”

“And now used by the queen’s favorites, I suppose,” I said under my breath. No doubt that’s where Walter was sleeping—or not sleeping, as the case may be. “Wait here for Matthew, Pierre. Annie and I can find our way.”

“Thank you, madame.” Pierre looked at me gratefully. “I do not like to leave him too long with the queen.”

The members of the queen’s staff were tucking into their dinner in the far-less-splendid surrounds of the guard chamber. They regarded Annie and me with idle curiosity as we walked through.

“There must be a more direct route,” I said, biting my lip and looking down the long flight of stairs. The Great Hall would be even more crowded.

“I’m sorry, mistress, but there isn’t,” Annie said apologetically.

“Let’s face the mob, then,” I said with a sigh.

The Great Hall was thronged with petitioners for the queen’s attention. A rustle of excitement greeted my appearance from the direction of the royal apartments, followed by murmurs of disappointment when I proved to be no one of consequence. After Rudolf’s court I was more accustomed to being an object of attention, but it was still uncomfortable to feel the heavy gaze of the humans, the few nudges from daemons, the tingling glance of a solitary witch. When the cold stare of a vampire settled on my back, though, I looked around in alarm.

“Mistress?” Annie inquired.

My eyes scanned the crowd, but I was unable to locate the source.

“Nothing, Annie,” I murmured, uneasy. “It’s just my imagination playing tricks.”

“You are in need of rest,” she chided, sounding very like Susanna. But no rest awaited me in Matthew’s spacious ground-floor rooms overlooking the queen’s private gardens. Instead I found England’s premier playwright. I sent Annie to extract Jack from whatever mess he’d gotten himself into and steeled myself to face Christopher Marlowe.

“Hello, Kit,” I said. The daemon looked up from Matthew’s desk, pages of verse scattered around him. “All alone?”

“Walter and Henry are dining with the queen. Why are you not with them?” Kit looked pale, thin, and distracted. He rose and began to gather his papers, glancing anxiously at the door as though he expected someone to walk in and interrupt us.

“Too tired.” I yawned. “But there’s no need for you to go. Stay and wait for Matthew. He will be glad to see you. What are you writing?”

“A poem.” After this abrupt reply, Kit sat. Something was off. The daemon seemed positively twitchy.

The tapestry on the wall behind him showed a golden-haired maiden standing in a tower overlooking the sea. She held up a lantern and peered into the distance. That explains it.

“You’re writing about Hero and Leander.” It was not phrased as a question. Kit had probably been pining for Matthew and working on the epic love poem since we’d boarded ship at Gravesend back in January. He didn’t respond.

After a few moments I recited the relevant lines.

“Some swore he was a maid in mans attire, For in his lookes were all that men desire, A pleasant smiling cheeke, a speaking eye, A brow for Love to banquet roiallye, And such as knew he was a man would say, Leander, thou art made for amorous play: Why art thou not in love and lov’ d of all?”