Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(93)

Mary’s sympathy increased. “A young girl’s life is sadly dependent upon the whims of her guardians.”

“Indeed.” Matthew arched an eyebrow at me. I could imagine what he was thinking: I was lamentably independent, and Sarah and Em were the least whimsical creatures on earth.

The conversation moved on to politics and current events. I listened attentively for a while, trying to reconcile hazy recollections of a long-ago history class with the complicated gossip that the other three exchanged. There was talk of war, a possible Spanish invasion, Catholic sympathizers, and the religious tension in France, but the names and places were often unfamiliar. As I relaxed into the warmth of Mary’s solar, and comforted by the constant chatter, my mind drifted.

“I am done here, Lady Pembroke. My servant Isaac will deliver the miniature by week’s end,” Hilliard announced, packing up his equipment.

“Thank you, Master Hilliard.” The countess extended her hand, sparkling with the jewels from her many rings. He kissed it, nodded to Henry and Matthew, and departed.

“Such a talented man,” Mary said, shifting in her chair. “He has grown so popular I was fortunate to secure his services.” Her feet twinkled in the firelight, the silver embroidery on her richly colored slippers picking up hints of red, orange, and gold. I wondered idly who had designed the intricate pattern for the embroidery. Had I been closer, I would have asked to touch the stitches. Champier had been able to read my flesh with his fingers. Could an inanimate object provide similar information?

Though my fingers were nowhere near the countess’s shoes, I saw the face of a young woman. She was peering at a sheet of paper with the design for Mary’s shoes on it. Tiny holes along the lines of the drawing solved the mystery of how its intricacies had been transferred to leather. Focusing on the drawing, my mind’s eye took several steps backward in time. Now I saw Mary sitting with a stern, stubborn-jawed man, a table full of insect and plant specimens before them. Both were talking with great animation about a grasshopper, and when the man began to describe it in detail, Mary took up her pen and sketched its outlines.

So Mary is interested in plants and insects, as well as alchemy, I thought, searching her shoes for the grasshopper. There it was, on the heel. So lifelike. And the bee on her right toe looked as though it might fly away at any moment.

A faint buzzing filled my ears as the silver-and-black bee detached itself from the Countess of Pembroke’s shoe and took to the air.

“Oh, no,” I gasped.

“What a strange bee,” Henry commented, swatting at it as it flew past.

But I was looking instead at the snake that was slithering off Mary’s foot and into the rushes. “Matthew!”

He shot forward and lifted the snake by the tail. It extended its forked tongue and hissed indignantly at the rough treatment. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the snake into the fire, where it sizzled for a moment before catching light.

“I didn’t mean . . .” I trailed off.

“It’s all right, mon coeur. You cannot help it.” Matthew touched my cheek before he looked at the countess, who was staring down at her mismatching slippers. “We need a witch, Mary. There is some urgency.”

“I know no witches,” was the Countess of Pembroke’s swift reply.

Matthew’s eyebrows rose.

“None to whom I would introduce your wife. You know I don’t like to speak of such matters, Matthew. When he returned safe from Paris, Philip told me what you were. I was a child then and understood it as a fable. That is how I wish to keep it.”

“And yet you practice alchemy,” Matthew observed. “Is that a fable, too?”

“I practice alchemy to understand God’s miracle of creation!” Mary cried. “There is no . . . witchcraft . . . in alchemy!”

“The word you were searching for is ‘evil.’” The vampire’s eyes were dark and the set of his mouth forbidding. The countess instinctively recoiled. “You are so sure of yourself and your God that you claim to know His mind?”

Mary felt the rebuke but was not ready to give up the fight. “My God and your God are not the same, Matthew.” My husband’s eyes narrowed, and Henry picked at his hose nervously. The countess’s chin rose. “Philip told me about that, too. You still adhere to the pope and the Mass. He saw past the errors of your faith to the man underneath, and I have done the same in the hope that one day you will perceive the truth and follow it.”

“Why, when you see the truth about creatures like Diana and me every day and still deny it?” Matthew sounded weary. He stood. “We will not trouble you again, Mary. Diana will find a witch some other way.”

“Why can we not go on as we have before and speak no more about this?” The countess looked at me and bit her lip, uncertainty in her eyes.

“Because I love my wife and want to see her safe.”

Mary studied him for a moment, gauging his sincerity. It must have satisfied her. “Diana need not fear me, Matt. But no one else in London should be trusted with the knowledge of her. What is happening in Scotland is making people fearful, and quick to blame others for their misfortunes.”

“I’m so sorry about your shoes,” I said awkwardly. They would never be the same.

“We will not mention it,” Mary said firmly, rising to say her good-byes.