Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(4)

“It will serve as a rehearsal among friends,” the daemon said, eyes gleaming, “before the real performance later.”

“Not now, Kit. It’s well past midnight, and Diana is tired from her journey,” Matthew said, drawing me to my feet.

Kit’s eyes remained on us as we left the room. He knew we were hiding something. He had leaped on every strange turn of phrase when I’d ventured into the conversation and grown thoughtful when Matthew couldn’t remember where his own lute was kept.

Matthew had warned me before we left Madison that Kit was unusually perceptive, even for a daemon. I wondered how long it would be before Marlowe figured out what that hidden something was. The answer to my question came within hours.

The next morning we talked in the recesses of our warm bed while the household stirred.

At first Matthew was willing to answer my questions about Kit (the son of a shoemaker, it turned out) and George (who was not much older than Marlowe, I learned to my surprise). When I turned to the practical matters of household management and female behavior, however, he was quickly bored.

“What about my clothes?” I asked, trying to focus him on my immediate concerns.

“I don’t think married women sleep in these,” Matthew said, plucking at my fine linen night rail. He untied its ruffled neckline and was about to plant a kiss underneath my ear to persuade me to his point of view when someone ripped open the bed’s curtains. I squinted against the bright sunlight.

“Well?” Marlowe demanded.

A second, dark-complected daemon peered over Marlowe’s shoulder. He resembled an energetic leprechaun with his slight build and pointed chin, which was accented by an equally sharp auburn beard. His hair evidently had not seen a comb for weeks. I grabbed at the front of my night rail, keenly aware of its transparency and my lack of underclothes.

“You saw Master White’s drawings from Roanoke, Kit. The witch looks nothing at all like the natives of Virginia,” the unfamiliar daemon replied, disappointed. Belatedly he noticed Matthew, who was glaring at him. “Oh. Good morning, Matthew. Would you allow me to borrow your sector? I promise not to take it to the river this time.”

Matthew lowered his forehead to my shoulder and closed his eyes with a groan.

“She must be from the New World—or Africa,” Marlowe insisted, refusing to refer to me by name. “She’s not from Chester, nor from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, or the Empire. I don’t believe she’s Dutch or Spanish either.”

“Good morning to you, Tom. Is there some reason you and Kit must discuss Diana’s birthplace now, and in my bedchamber?” Matthew drew the ties of my night rail together.

“It is too fine to lie abed, even if you have been out of your mind with an ague. Kit says you must have married the witch in the midst of the fever’s crisis. Otherwise there is no way to account for your recklessness.” Tom rattled on in true daemonic fashion, making no effort to answer Matthew’s question. “The roads were dry, and we arrived hours ago.” “And the wine is already gone,” Marlowe complained.

“We”? There were more of them? The Old Lodge already felt stuffed to bursting.

“Out! Madame must wash before she greets his lordship.” Fran?oise entered the room with a steaming basin of water in her hands. Pierre, as usual, trailed behind.

“Has something of import happened?” George inquired from beyond the curtains. He’d entered the room unannounced, neatly foiling Fran?oise’s efforts to herd the other men out. “Lord Northumberland has been left alone in the great hall. If he were my patron, I would not treat him thus!”

“Hal is reading a treatise on the construction of a balance sent to me by a mathematician in Pisa. He’s quite content,” Tom replied crossly, sitting on the edge of the bed.

He must be talking about Galileo, I realized with excitement. In 1590, Galileo was an entry-level professor at the university in Pisa. His work on the balance wasn’t published—yet.

Tom. Lord Northumberland. Someone who corresponded with Galileo. My lips parted in astonishment. The daemon perched on the quilted coverlet was Thomas Harriot.

“Fran?oise is right. Out. All of you,” Matthew said, sounding as cross as Tom.

“What should we tell Hal?” Kit asked, sliding a meaningful glance in my direction.

“That I’ll be down shortly,” Matthew said. He rolled over and pulled me close.

I waited until Matthew’s friends streamed out of the room before I thumped his chest.

“What is that for?” He winced in mock pain, but all I’d bruised was my own fist.

“For not telling me who your friends are!” I propped up on one elbow and stared down at him. “The great playwright Christopher Marlowe. George Chapman, poet and scholar. Mathematician and astronomer Thomas Harriot, if I’m not mistaken. And the Wizard Earl is waiting downstairs!”

“I can’t remember when Henry earned that nickname, but nobody calls him that yet.” Matthew looked amused, which only made me more furious.

“All we need is Sir Walter Raleigh and we’ll have the entire School of Night in the house.” Matthew looked out the window at my mention of this legendary group of radicals, philosophers, and free-thinkers. Thomas Harriot. Christopher Marlowe. George Chapman. Walter Raleigh. And—

“Just who are you, Matthew?” I hadn’t thought to ask him before we departed.