Deeds of Men (8 page)

“She has promised to keep to England’s shores,” Deven said, “as much as she can. I have no doubt that here she will find enough to occupy even an immortal life.”

And a series of mortal ones. Watching Henry stoke the fire, Deven wondered if the time had come to explain to his young friend the purpose of all this tutoring. Henry had likely guessed already, but neither of them had spoken the words. As if, by doing so, they would make real Deven’s age, and the inevitability of his death.

Deven tried to pretend that was not his own reason for delaying, and failed.

He must do it soon. It would be easier once he let go of his position as Prince, and lived only as the Queen’s love. But the letting go would be hard.

I will do it soon
, he promised himself. Lune still needed him, not just for herself, but for her court; however much Henry had learned, Deven still knew more. But once this French match was settled…

Then he would step down, and be Prince no more.

The Onyx Hall, London: 10 June, 1625

“Quijada.” Lune pronounced the name thoughtfully, her accent far better than Mungle’s. “Until recently, he was in the retinue of the Marqués de la Inojosa, but he was dismissed months ago—I cannot recollect the cause. Don Eyague watched him for a time, having some interest in any Spanish mortals wandering about London.”

“The faerie envoy from Spain,” Deven said to Antony. “Though more like an immigrant to this court, after so many years. The Marqués—”

“Is the resident ambassador from King Philip,” the young man said. He added defensively, “My father sits in the Guildhall, you know,
and
Parliament. And I pay attention.”

Deven bowed to take away the sting of any insult he might have offered. “I think ’tis fair to say Henry was not in charity with Penshaw the night he set Nithen to follow him. Shortly thereafter, Henry turns up dead, not far from the room Quijada rents. Someone has made an effort to make it seem a robbery, but with little success.”

Lune said, “Quijada. Inojosa used him for underhanded matters, murder included. Unless this Penshaw is the sort to slit a man’s throat in a back alley?”

“He was genuinely startled when I told him Henry was found in Coldharbour,” Deven said, remembering. “Or so it seemed. I would wager Quijada performed the deed, and didn’t tell his master, lest Penshaw fault
him
for their discovery.”

“But what discovery?” It was to Antony’s credit that he asked the question, rather than leaping straight to the question of vengeance. “Why was Henry following Penshaw?”

Deven closed his eyes, wishing he did not see his young friend’s face as if painted on his eyelids. “Because he wished to prove—to me, or to himself; perhaps both—that he could serve this court.”

Lune murmured, “And the well-being of England.”

“What?”

Deven opened his eyes and made himself face Antony. “Armadas, gunpowder plots—the fae have had their hand in thwarting such things. I told you they aid mortals when they can. I fear that Henry, seeing some scheme afoot, acted to prevent it. But rather than sharing what he knew and seeking aid, he thought to carry it off on his own.”

It was the sort of thing Henry would have done, and they all knew it, Antony best of all. An unreadable mixture of feelings played across the young man’s face, before focusing once more. “What threat could one gentleman and one disaffected Spaniard pose to England?”

His choice of phrase for Quijada made Deven frown. “Spain…Penshaw harbours a great animosity for them. He wanted James to agree to a Spanish war, and no doubt thought his chances would improve once Charles took the throne. But France—”

“Is reluctant to commit to an alliance,” Antony said, seeing where he struck. “And without their aid, England would be far too vulnerable. So if Penshaw wants that war, he needs something to provoke both Louis and Charles into action.”

“And who,” Lune said, weaving the last thread into the fabric, “sits at Boulogne, waiting for the weather to permit a crossing to England?”

Deven answered her flatly. “Henrietta Maria. Louis’ sister, and Charles’ new bride.”

Married by proxy at the beginning of May, now on her way to join her husband. A lovely girl, not yet sixteen, and the bargaining-piece for an alliance between France and England, in support of the Palatinate, in opposition to the Habsburgs. But there was one circumstance in which her loss could cement that alliance better than her presence ever could.

Antony worked through the logic methodically. “The Spanish might think Quijada was attempting to regain his master’s favour by such a desperate move. But every one else—or at least England and France, who are all that matters—would see Spanish treachery, and his dismissal from Inojosa’s service as a ruse to disguise the truth.” He paused, horrified. “Would it
work?
”

“The deception? It does not have to,” Deven said. “By the time anyone sorted out the truth, opinion in both England and France would already be set. Those who mutter for war now would scream for it then. Which is precisely what Penshaw wants.”

A crash of glass brought them both back to themselves. Lune had flung the nearest wine-cup into the fire, and her eyes glittered like the fragments in the light. “At the price of one innocent girl’s life.”

Cold-blooded murder, to precipitate two nations into vengeance.

“
If
we are right,” Antony said. “This…my father has taught me politics, but he speaks of the City and Parliament, not royal murder. Would Penshaw truly do this?”

Deven’s heart ached a little for the disbelief in the young man’s tone, the sound of a piece of his innocence dying. “I believe so. We will know soon enough—for I have no intention of letting him try.”

Blackfriars, London: 15 February, 1625

Deven’s house increasingly felt half-abandoned, more empty every time he came to it. He and Lune had long since worked out the pattern of his days, which ones he spent above, which below—but that pattern had begun to disintegrate these last few years, as he poured his efforts into preparing Henry to follow him. And Lune, whose conception of time was not as secure as it might be, had not noticed.

She would notice soon enough, if he were not careful. The resulting madness was distinctive.

He dismissed the thought with a snort.
I am not
that
close to lunacy.
But it was a danger nonetheless, and so he came here, to the quiet emptiness of his Blackfriars house, inhabited too often by only his few servants.

Henry found him there that evening. “I did not know you
had
a house,” the young man said, looking around with frank curiosity.

It touched too closely on Deven’s own worries, and that made him peevish. “Where have you been of late? I tried to find you all yesterday, but you were nowhere to be found—above
or
below.”

The cheerful expression faded from Henry’s face, replaced by surprise. “I—I did not know you were searching. I went hunting with Robin Penshaw, and we stayed the night in his lodge, for it was too late to ride back.” Defensively, he added, “I have not gone hunting for months now. All my leisure time I spend underneath London.”

And that turned Deven’s own peevishness into guilt. “I am sorry, Henry. I never meant the faerie court to seem a burden to you, and if it has become one—”

“No, no.” Henry waved the apology away. “Merely that I craved the free air. The Onyx Hall is a marvellous place, and I might spend my whole life exploring it—just so long as I need not spend every
day
of my life there. I miss the company of horses and hounds and hawks. And Robin has excellent specimens of all three.”

Deven gestured his friend into a seat and called for wine. “Whereas I am lamentably deficient in all three. But ’tis not true you spend all your leisure time beneath London. From what I hear, a good half of it is spent in whatever tennis court is most convenient to hand, losing your last penny to that same Robin Penshaw.”

Henry flushed and muttered something indistinct. Deven took pity on the boy and said, “He is a good friend to you, I know—though I might wish him a good enough friend to teach you better tennis.”

“He is very dear to me,” Henry admitted. “In truth…”

He left the sentence hanging, until Deven prompted him. “Yes?”

“I have no right to ask this,” Henry said, shaking his head.

“No right to ask what? I do not call you friend simply because I like the sound of the word. If there is anything I can grant you, I will.”

The young man swallowed, then spoke in a rush. “How do you decide who to bring below?”

It sobered Deven. He had not expected to regret his generous words to Henry, but this brought him close to it. “You wish to bring Penshaw among us.”

Henry nodded.

“Why?”

“I—I think he might like it. You are more…permissive, and he chafes, sometimes, at the strictures of James’ court.”

Lune would not like that answer. Deven was not certain he liked it himself. A man who came below seeking his liberty might well carry it back to the world above, and with it, the secrets of the fae. But he could not simply refuse Henry out of hand—not if he truly meant to have the young man succeed him.

Instead he asked a question. “How well do you trust him?”

Henry gave it serious consideration.
Good,
Deven thought, already feeling more sanguine. This wasn’t a pure whim on Henry’s part, and that restored his confidence, even as he watched the young man stop and start a number of replies.

Finally, Henry said, “Not well enough.”

Deven wondered what reservation had prompted that answer. He would not ask, though; Henry seemed uncomfortable enough as it was. “That, at least in part, is your answer: we first weigh our trust.” His friend smiled in rueful understanding. “But if your mind alters, do not hesitate to ask again. I trust your judgement, Henry. I would not have shared the Onyx Court with you, did I not.”

Henry nodded, unwontedly sad. “Let me find out what has happened to that wine,” Deven said, rising to give him a moment of privacy. “Unless my man is picking the grapes himself, it should have been here by now.”

Dover, Kent: 13 June, 1625

In the privacy of his mind, where the words could not offend the fae accompanying him, Deven thanked the Lord God that Robert Penshaw had a sense of pageantry about Henrietta Maria’s death.

Had he not, they might never have had a chance to stop him. While faerie agents were seeking proof of Penshaw’s intentions, Quijada slipped their net; the Spaniard was on his way to Dover by the time they discovered his departure. The storms that kept Charles’ bride delayed in Boulogne had blown clear, and she had landed in England. Had Quijada shot her on the docks—or worse, had Penshaw smuggled him to France, ere she ever set sail—he might have done it cleanly.