Deeds of Men (2 page)

The Onyx Hall, London: 2 June, 1625

“You suspect someone at court,” Lune said.

“
This
court.” They stood alone in the bedchamber they shared, without even a sprite to attend them. Word would spread soon enough of Henry Ware’s death—Deven knew better than to assume Mungle would stay silent—but he would keep his suspicions hidden as long as he could. “’Twas no secret we groomed him to become Prince after me. And I can think of half a dozen ambitious to put their own favourites in his place—Aspell, Carline…”

She stilled in her pacing. Her composure rarely showed a flaw, even in private, even with him; whether it was the product of decades in this court or simply her nature, Lune gave little outward sign of grief or guilt. But Deven knew it lay beneath the surface. Henry’s easy gift for friendship had worked as well among fae as mortals, and Lune felt the loss.

“A dangerous gamble,” she said at last. Her voice had gone distant, as it often did when she turned to politics—when she thought as a queen, instead of an elfin woman. “No certainty of success, even with Henry removed; I might choose a rival’s favourite. And if the murderer were discovered…”

But dangerous gambles were a beloved pastime in the Onyx Court. After all, the fae needed something to fill the endless ages of their lives. Under Invidiana’s rule, such treachery had been meat and drink to them. The habit of scheming had not yet died out, and now they lived under the gentler hand of Lune, who was less likely to execute them for it. A deadly pairing. And Deven had brought Henry within its reach.

“We shall have to see who puts their favourite forward now,” Lune said.

He pitied the faerie who did. Lune was not half so cruel as Invidiana, but neither was she gentle with those who treated mortals as disposable pawns. But her courtiers knew that. “If he’s clever,” Deven said, “he will wait, and let someone else invite your wrath.”

Lune said nothing in reply, but the twist of her mouth told him he was right.

Warming his hands at the fire against the constant chill of the shadowed air, Deven wished for some more active way to uncover the author of this crime. As if hearing his thoughts, Lune said, “I doubt we will find any proof upon them—even if I wished to invite trouble by searching their chambers.”

Faerie notions of private property were not so sacrosanct as among the mortal English, but they came close enough. “No,” Deven said, hands hovering in mid-air, halted by inspiration. “We cannot track it that way. But we can begin with Henry—and follow
his
trail. Why was he in Coldharbour?”

Lune frowned in thought. She sank onto a low stool, skirts billowing and then subsiding around her. “It holds no entrance to the Onyx Hall,” she said. “Nor would he pass through it on his way to one. Was he coming from the river?”

The image of Henry’s fallen body had graven itself upon Deven’s memory, in every last detail. If Mungle was right about a swordfight, though, the young man’s final position meant nothing. “Perhaps. But again—why Coldharbour? There are river stairs more convenient to wherever he might have been going, and safer, too.”

“Then perhaps he was going
to
Coldharbour,” Lune said, echoing Deven’s own conclusion. “Fleeing his murderer, and hoping to lose him in the warren. Or following someone, or meeting. It could even have been bait for a snare.”

It made the most sense of any possibility yet. Their courtly subjects rarely deigned to set foot in the muck of London’s underbelly, but the more common folk, the goblins and pucks and hobs, found it just as interesting as the glittering amusements of the wealthy. And they sometimes worked for the courtiers.

Softly, Lune said, “I almost wish he had lingered. Then he might answer all our questions.”

As a ghost. No one in the Onyx Hall could draw them out a-purpose, not any longer. A determined enough spirit, though, could make itself heard…and mortals who dealt with the fae were more likely to linger than most. But they had seen no sign of Henry’s shade.

Lune permitted herself a single, heavy sigh, then rose again, once more composed. “I would help you if I could, but the French ambassador—”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence. The Onyx Court’s relations with the Cour du Lys had collapsed spectacularly some years before, and she was still trying to repair the damage. “You are busy enough,” Deven said. “And that is not something I can help with much. But this is the death of a mortal, and falls to me regardless. In fact…”

He snapped his fingers in sudden thought, and Lune looked inquisitive. “Mortals,” he said. “Henry may have said something to one of them, regarding Coldharbour. I will ask at court—the other one—and see if he said aught to his friends there.”

St. James’ Palace, Westminster: 29 September, 1622

“You shall be retained to no person nor persons of what degree or condition by oath, livery, badge, promise, or otherwise, but only to his Grace, without his special license…”

Deven suppressed a yawn as the words of the oath were read out. He had heard them enough times to recite them backwards. The membership of the Gentlemen Pensioners changed but slowly; after decades of an old Queen and a peacemaker King, the days when those well-bred bodyguards faced the danger of battle were forgotten memory. But he was among the longest-serving of their number now, and had seen many younger men come and go.

It was one of the few things that made him feel old—looking at young pups like the one currently kneeling on the floor.
Was I that fresh-faced and eager? No doubt.
Henry Ware was younger than Deven had been when he swore the oath, scarce two and twenty, with a dreamer’s eyes. He did not seem to care that he was entering an old man’s court, with Scottish James more often ill than not. Or perhaps he was one of those who looked already to Prince Charles, and the heady possibility of war with Spain.

Scottish James.
Another old man’s thought. This boy had barely been out of swaddling clothes when Elizabeth died, ceding her crown to her cousin in the north. Young Ware would not remember a time when a Stuart did not sit the throne of England.

Which worried Deven. The years slipped away: nearly two of them, since Lune created him Prince of the Stone, and still no successor in sight.

And the need for one was real. His influence at James’ court waned as the men he’d known succumbed to inevitable time, and he lacked a strong enough position to be a useful patron to the younger generation. Meanwhile the whispers continued, commenting on his unlikely vigour.

Lune needed a younger man, one who attracted less attention. One who could be of more use here, in the court of a King who knew nothing of the fae and their aid.

Fortunately, his melancholy contemplations were interrupted. The oath-taking done, it was time for the feast. James had taught his court to drink deep, and while the Gentlemen Pensioners had not needed lessoning, they took the royal encouragement gladly. Soon Robert Penshaw was atop a table, roaring some song, a cup in one hand and the other around Henry Ware’s shoulder, swinging him in a precarious circle.

Deven could have held his own against the younger men—or so he liked to believe—but he affected elderly moderation, keeping himself to a quiet corner and a careful cup of wine. The others were accustomed to it, and left him in peace. He was therefore surprised to look up from contemplation of his shoes and find someone standing before him.

It was young Ware, cheeks flushed with excitement and wine. “You are Sir Michael Deven,” he said, in the bright tone of one who thinks he’s far less inebriated than he is.

“And you are Henry Ware,” Deven said, answering the boy’s smile. “Congratulations on your achievement.”

“Oh, it is no achievement,” Ware said, moving to collapse next to him, then stumbling to a halt as he realised he had not been given leave to sit. Deven’s grin grew broader, and he gestured the young man into the chair.
Before his feet up-end him.
“My father bought the place for me, is all. He is a baronet—Sir Robert Ware.”

Deven knew the man, or else he might have snorted—an incautious habit he had never beaten out of himself.
Baronet.
A silly invention, but one that served its intended purpose; when the hereditary knighthoods were created and offered for sale, James had refilled his echoing coffers almost overnight. Of course he had just gone on to empty them again, lavishing gifts on his favourites, but his beloved Duke of Buckingham kept finding ways to scrape together more coin.

Such as selling commissions in the Gentlemen Pensioners. But Deven did not begrudge young Ware his father’s pretensions; Sir Robert was hardly the only wealthy London merchant to put his gold to use buying respectability. “Well,” Deven said, “that is often how our brotherhood grows. ’Tis an advantageous place to be. If advancement at court is what you seek, your father has served you well.”

Ware shook his head. “I am not ambitious.”

There was no censure in his tone, only a strange thread of regret. Curious despite himself, Deven asked, “Then what do you seek?”

Ware’s hand described a lazy arc in the air. He had long fingers, and seemed briefly entranced by them. “They say in the Spanish colonies there are great pyramids atop which the savages used to cut out human hearts. In the Afric jungles, whole tribes of men grow no higher than my knee. In Cathay—”

Amused, Deven said, “Adventure, then.”

“
Wonder,
” the young man answered fervently. “Something more than this familiar round.”

If Deven’s memory served, Sir Robert Ware had two sons, of which Henry was the elder. “So you bear the burden of your father’s aspirations, while your younger brother has the freedom you desire.”

“For all he values it.” Ware let his head thump against the back of his chair, then rolled it sideways, regarding Deven with blurry intensity. “
He
will sit in Parliament someday, I warrant. But take ship for the New World? Never. He has no interest in wonder.”

Not as young Henry did. Unless it was simply the wine talking—but Deven thought not.

A hearty roar went up from the far end of the chamber, along with a feminine squeal. Deven was accustomed to the sound, but for a moment he saw the scene through this pup’s eyes: rowdy and artless, much given to coarse pleasures. Men liked to say it had been better in old Elizabeth’s day; they said a great many charitable things about her, building an image that had more to do with what James was not than what his predecessor had been. But Deven might grant this one: for all her courtiers’ diversions, they had not been reputed in the countryside as a pack of drunkards and sodomites, wasting their days and nights in endless and unChristian debauchery. It was exaggeration, of course—but only in part.

Or perhaps that is simply decades of the Onyx Court speaking, where the courtiers, at least, are refined to a fault.

His mouth quirked at the possibility—then shifted to a more thoughtful set. The Onyx Court: wonder enough to satisfy one Henry Ware.

He cast a sidelong glance at the young man. Ware’s attention was elsewhere—or perhaps nowhere; he was hanging on to alertness with his fingernails. He did not seem to notice the scrutiny.

Just because he was a dreamer did not mean he could be trusted. Deven had to be cautious of those he brought below; one frightened newcomer could threaten them all, betraying their secrets to hostile eyes. But if Ware proved reliable, then he would have the wonder he sought.

And he was a baronet’s son, and a Gentleman Pensioner, positioned near the king. He might rise at court—if given a reason that appealed to him, beyond simple ambition.

“Off your feet already? For shame! You drink like a woman, Henry.” It was Penshaw, eyes glittering with wine. His insult brought young Ware lurching to his feet, sputtering denials, and Penshaw laughed. “Come prove it, then, or pay my forfeit. We are not done yet!”