Perfect Shadows (16 page)

It was hot in the banqueting hall at Nonsuch, and I found that
the habit of using perfumes as a substitute for bathing a less than endearing
one among some of the English aristocracy.

We were dancing, and I, in the somber black Geoffrey had chosen
for me, must have appeared as a raven among the brilliantly colored and
bejeweled tropical birds of the court, darker even than the occasional Spaniard
or puritan found there. My partner, all in white and dripping pearls, vaulted
towards me, proud of her skillful control in the Volta’s high leaps, but I saw
that she had misjudged the last one and was coming down hard upon her ankle.
Without thinking I caught her up in my arms, and the music staggered to a halt,
the other dancers standing around me as if turned to stone. Ignoring the
building hum of outrage and menace, I carried her to her place under the canopy
at the end of the room. “Are you injured, Majesty?” I asked her quietly,
setting her gently down.

“Call me cousin, Prince Kryštof, for you are no idle flatterer,
or at least not so by nature, and I shall name you my Shadow,” she replied in
equally soft tones, laying her long fingers on my dark doublet. “And, my thanks
to you, my ankle is but a little jolted, not broken.” She swept a keen glance
over the room, then rapped my arm smartly with her flat Italian fan, scolding
me loudly. “You forget yourself, Sir Shadow! I am not one of your rustic maids
to be whisked away at your whim!”

“I crave your pardon, cousin! I was carried away, and thought
that action might win you, where diplomacy has so often failed,” I answered
smoothly, equaling her volume and dropping to one knee.” Eastern barbarian I
may be, but wild horses would not induce me to act to your dishonor.” I had
soon learned to play this flirting game to her great satisfaction, and to my
own considerable advantage, as did any man who wished to find advancement at
Elizabeth’s court.

“A certain Wild Horse would be more than happy to see you
dragged away at his heels were he here tonight,” a broad Devon voice behind me
drawled sarcastically. I rose and whirled to face the man, but relaxed when I
saw who stood there.

“How-now, my Ocean-water? I did not think you so fond of my lord
Essex that you would be pining for him,” Elizabeth said, her coquette’s tone at
once dismissing me and enticing Ralegh closer. I bowed to the Queen, and gave
Sir Walter a slight nod, which was returned along with a piercing blue stare,
then wandered out into the moonlit grounds. The day had been hot and airless,
the evening only now beginning to cool. I had walked for some time away from
the palace when my enhanced sight told me that someone was lurking in the
shadow of the little wood just ahead of me. I gave no sign that I had spotted
the man and a few steps further on I recognized him. Tom.

As I passed the spot he drew himself a little deeper into the
shadows, a small sigh escaping him when I passed by, apparently without seeing
him, then a gasp of terror as my hand shot from behind him and closed over his
mouth.

“Well, Tommy, waiting for me?” I said with no little malice.
“How flattering, just when I had thought that you were avoiding me.” My hand
dropped to his shoulder and Tom sagged against me, shuddering at my touch, as
if fighting back a sob. “Why not try telling me the truth, Tommy. It would be
such a novel deed for you.” Tom’s pale blue eyes stared up, reflecting a stray
beam of moonlight in tears of impotent dread. “Stop it, Tom. I told you before
that I’m not going to hurt you—or at least, not very much. Let us find some
spot where we may talk.” I gave him a little shake, suddenly irritated by his
abnormal timidity. Eventually we made our way to the carefully tended
“Wilderness” and I dropped down into the sweet smelling grass, pulling Tom down
beside me. “Now, isn’t this pleasant?” Still holding him by the wrist, I
reached over and stroked his hair, smiling at the shivering reaction. “You
cannot decide, can you, whether you desire me more than you fear and despise
me, or if it’s the other way about,” I continued in the darkness, amusement and
disdain equally combined in the quiet tones of my voice.

“I could never hate you . . . I was waiting for you,” Tom
extemporized. I could almost hear his thoughts clacking along: If I was Kit a
little flattery should do the trick. His Kit had always doted pathetically on
admiration, and if I were only a feigned Kit, well, then I was mad, and what
harm could it do? “I wanted to see you again, as we were, uh, in my chamber. I—I
need you,” he let his voiced break off in a ardent sigh, reaching his free hand
up to touch my face, wondering if his design was working. I could read his
every thought as easily as I once read books. I plainly saw that part of him
wanted it to work, wanted me to be as besotted with him as his lost Kit had
been, wanted to manipulate me as he had the others, while at the same time
another part of him wanted to grovel at my feet and beg for favor.

“God’s Teeth, Tom, but what a tawdry little whore you’ve become!
You should have trod the boards: even the Rose has never seen a performance
like this. Do you think you’re still seventeen and the prettiest boy in
England? Think again,” I purred, the words as cruel as knives, as cruel as I
could make them. He tried futilely to wrench away from my restraining hand only
to have his wrist twisted viciously. My lazy inspection of his person must have
left him horribly aware of his thinning hair and the beginnings of the paunch
that he had tried to hide with the stuffed peascod belly of his doublet. A red
flood of hatred washed over his face, hatred for me, a handsome, elegant, and
above all, much younger man.

“I will see you destroyed, dishonored, and begging for
deliverance, and I shall spurn you and walk on,” he raged and I laughed.

“It won’t work, Tom, whatever petty little plans for revenge you
devise. Now, what were you really trying to seduce me into, killing Frizer for
you?” He lurched away, and this time I let him go, amused by his tumble back
into the long grass.

“Well-a-day, Tom! It would seem that shot hit in the gold,” I
chuckled and stood up, brushing the leaves from my clothing, offering my hand
to help him up. He ignored me, scrambled to his feet and began to back away.
“Not that way, Tom. The Wilderness verges on the duck pond just over there and
I am quite certain you would find the water disagreeable,” I laughed. Moving
far too quickly for him to see, I crossed the space between us to grasp his
elbow, pinching a nerve and numbing his arm when he tried to jerk away. “Don’t
be recalcitrant, Tommy. Remember, I’ll not hurt you, not seriously, if I can
help it. But tell me about Frizer. Where is he now?”

“In Eltham. He’s running a tavern there. But you must not kill
him! It would all come out then—I’d be ruined!”

“Perhaps I desire that. You could come crawling to me for favor
and patronage, then.”

Tom’s anger choked him into silence. As we stepped into the
lamplit stable-yard, he stopped, looking with horror at the stable cat. It had
caught a mouse and was toying with it, letting it appear to escape; only to
snare it again and drag it back. He glanced sidelong at me, and gasped at the
smile playing over my face. “I’m the mouse to your cat, aren’t I,” he said
wildly, “and for a cat-caught mouse there can be only one outcome.” I loosed my
grip and turned an amused glance on him, but he seized his chance and fled. A
second later, as he ran, I watched him shudder at my sudden laugh. The mouse
had met its fate.

“My lord,” Jehan spoke softly from the shadows. “Prince Geofri
wishes that you return to Blackavar at once.” I nodded, and went for my cloak,
but I was no sooner inside than Ambrose Willoughby, her majesty’s Squire of the
Body, pounced on me, saying that the Queen wished to speak with me at once. I
followed the callow young man back into the hall, and approached the elderly
woman under the canopy. “God’s Blood, cousin! An unfaithful Shadow you are, to
so wander away; I vow I sent the man after you fully half an hour ago. Now,
come sit here, that we may converse.” She nudged a cushion at her feet,
seemingly unaware of the glares many in the crowd were turning on me. I bowed
low then went down on one knee. “How now, you do not sit, my lord?”

“I fear I must ask your leave to attend upon my brother, who has
summoned me to him, Majesty,” I began, but she interrupted me. “You must call
me cousin, my Shadow, as I instructed you. And if your brother, your sovereign
lord, as we are well aware, requires your presence, well, then you must away,
and our discourse must wait for another time. I would that all my subjects
showed such devotion to their sovereign as you to yours.”

“Maj—cousin,” I smiled at the shrewd old woman before me with an
affection as genuine as it had been unexpected, “no people love their sovereign
as your people love you.”

“Flatterer! Be off with you!” She smacked me with her fan again;
I caught her hand and pressed my lips briefly to her slender fingers, heavy
with jewels, then swept to my feet and backed away.

The hostile stares had not abated as I took my leave, and so I
was not as surprised as some might have wished when I found the road blocked
against me about a half-mile from the palace; they had easily got ahead of me
by crossing the fields while I had kept to the road. There were four or five
mounted young gallants and maybe twice as many bravos and underlings afoot.
They had their faces covered, but not their clothing. I laughed aloud as I
recognized Tom among them.

“I fear this is no laughing matter for you, my lord,” the
foremost sneered.” Now, dismount.” The gallants slid off their horses, standing
ready.

“I think not,” I said, noting the wooden clubs that many of them
held, and belatedly realizing that I could be badly, maybe fatally, hurt.
“Jehan!” I called, and the big wolf sprang from nowhere, causing the horses to
rear in panic. I spurred my own horse through the confusion, the war-trained
stallion lashing out with teeth and hooves at anything in range, while I sat
the plunging back like the shadow Elizabeth named me. Within seconds we were
free of the press and I kneed the stallion, causing him to half turn and rear,
slashing the air with his hooves. As coolly as if I were sitting on a garden
bench, reveling in my vampire prowess, I drew a brace of long barreled pistols
from the saddle holsters, and discharged one into the air. The night erupted
with a deafening clap and sudden glare; immediately I rested the left-hand
pistol upon my right forearm, sighted down the barrel, and fired at the leader,
noting with satisfaction my target’s dropped sword and crumpling form. Before
the wounded man could even scream, I had wheeled the horse and was flying down
the road away from my would-be assailants.

I heard Tom cry out just as a burning agony lanced through me,
and I looked down to see an arrowhead protruding wetly from my left shoulder.
The wooden shaft felt like a fire in my flesh, running along my nerves and
through my veins, the pain eating away at my consciousness until I felt myself
swaying in the saddle. I dared not stop, and fought against the faintness
threatening to overwhelm me. Carefully sheathing the pistols first, I gave the
horse his head. I know not how long I rode, but finally I became aware of the
wolf running beside me and reined in the stallion. The horse was well
acquainted with his lupine companion, and they touched noses before Jehan stood
off a pace and resumed his human shape.

“We’re safe for now Master,” Jehan said, and stepped forward to
help me dismount. He perceived the situation at a glance and quickly eased me
to the ground, under the shelter of a hedgerow. “Bite on this, my lord, for I’m
going to have to hurt you,” he said, gently filling my mouth with a fold of my
cloak. Then, so swiftly that it was virtually one motion, he snapped the head
off the arrow and pulled the shaft from the wound. There was the crack of the
breaking arrow, the white wave of agony, then nothing.

Jehan was relieved to see that the master had passed out as he
set about binding up the shoulder with strips torn from the fine lawn shirt.
When he had done his best he sat back on his heels and considered what was to
be done. The master would never make it to Blackavar before sunrise in his
condition, and was still too young a vampire to face the sun with impunity.
Jehan didn’t like making decisions. That was a master’s responsibility, but
this master was in no condition . . . oh, plague take it. He had to find
someplace to get the man out of the daylight first, then he’d work on what to
do next. He pulled the limp body off the road, into the scant shelter of a
hedge, and turned to the horse. He drew one of the pistols from its sheath,
loaded it carefully and slipped it through the unconscious man’s belt, knotting
the pouch of bullets and powder flask alongside. He gave the horse a smack on
the rump to send him home, knowing that the remaining recently discharged
pistol and the vampire’s dark blood on the saddle would alert the manor that
something had gone amiss. He resumed his wolf shape, the better to range the
area. Within the hour he returned, well satisfied with what he’d found: the
ruins of an old church in a lost and forgotten village. The church had a crypt
where the vampire could rest in the shadows until the following night.

“My lord?” The master moaned but didn’t wake. “My lord!” Jehan
gently raised him up and got an arm behind him. His eyes snapped open, and his
urge to struggle was quickly drowned in the tide of pain from his shoulder. He
rested against the big man for a moment then whispered, “Help me up.”