Taste of Treason (4 page)

“Then mayhap Your Grace should tell me what is.” His smile robbed the words of any hint of disrespect.

“There was one more thing scrawled under the quotation from Exodus. Something I do not understand. A strange-looking drawing in the shape of a spider.” She stopped, one hand to her throat when Luke sprang to his feet, the goblet dropping to the floor.

“Madam, please, if I give you pen and paper, could you draw it for me?”

Her eyes blinked more rapidly than usual, but she merely nodded.

“I will try. It is clear this means something to you.”

Luke rifled through a pile of papers on the counter looking for a clean piece, swearing when the stack tipped onto the floor. His anxious fingers grasped at the inkhorn, spilling half the contents on his sleeve. Cursing under his breath, he brought pen, ink and paper over to the Queen Mother.

He hovered over her, watching as her hand moved over the paper, his breathing growing more ragged. Had she not been who she was, he would have screamed when she made two false starts. She looked up at him and he stepped away, his fingernails picking at the cuticles of his other hand. The wait seemed endless, but when she had finished, she held out the paper and he took it in trembling hands.

“Well, Dominus?”

“Your Grace, forgive me, but are you certain the legs resembled arrows?”

“Of course.” She paused for a moment. “You recognize this? What is it?”

Now that his worst fears had been confirmed, Luke found his mind becoming calmer and his thoughts more measured.

“Indeed, Madam. Your fears are vindicated. The spider is an ancient symbol for treachery and death. The arrow-like legs denote the impending descent of chaos.” He gave a shaky laugh. “I do not know why I am so affected. After all, we have already deduced that we are once more facing the
malus nocte.
In fact, this is the device of an inner sect of the sunderers. Custodes Tenebris. Few survive an encounter with one of their number.”

Chapter Four

Queen Madeleine reclined on her cushioned daybed. The hour grew late and Henry was meeting with Archbishop Cranmer. Again. Surely they had already sorted out details for the revision of the new prayer book? It was not as if Protestantism were the true faith. Why did her husband have to spend so much time away from her?

Madeleine winced and shifted a little. The heir was doing his usual somersault routine. In fact she had said to Henry that had the child not been intended for the throne, he would make a wonderful tumbler. Her husband had roared with laughter, putting one hand under her chin and his other hand on her belly, jumping back as his unborn son kicked out. It had been her turn to laugh.

Tired of sewing she brightened when her usher declared that her confessor craved admittance. She concluded that she must indeed be bored if the prospect of a visit from Father Reynard was pleasing.

Olivier Reynard, tall, black-haired, with arresting eyes and a mouth Madeleine had once thought irreverently as very kissable, bowed and smiled. He had been sent by her uncle, the French king, to replace old Father Laurent. She believed him to be a good-natured man, if a little too conscious of his appearance, but did not yet feel at ease with him. His manner caused her occasional disquiet but she had to admit that he had a winning way about him, something that Father Laurent had never possessed.

Reynard wore his priest’s robes with a style few could emulate and the enormous ruby ring on his left hand was testament to his love of finery. His had been the only ear into which she had whispered doubts and apprehensions regarding her new life in England. He had cajoled her into learning about Henry and her new country, insisting that it was her duty to grace her position and thus bring acclaim on her father’s court in Scotland and her uncle in France.

Now he came forward, bowing and smiling, his dark eyes and the twist of his lips telling her that he saw her restlessness. She wondered whether to confess that Henry had broached the subject of her conversion to Protestantism when he had last visited her bedchamber.

No, she decided. Not yet anyway.

* * *

“Custodes Tenebris. Treachery, death and chaos. A pretty mix,” Queen Anne said. “We must think, plan and not act with undue haste.”

Luke marveled at her composure, coming so soon on the heels of her obvious frustration. Then he recalled the number of crises she had faced in her years as Queen. Few would forget how neatly she had turned the tables on Thomas Cromwell in the crisis of 1536. That wily politician had seldom been bested. His plan to have her executed had backfired in spectacular fashion.

When Henry VIII was informed of the depths of Cromwell’s scheming, it had been Anne who had begged her husband to show clemency. She had waited four years before springing the trap. Long enough for Cromwell to relax and think he had escaped her.

“So they do not hesitate to declare themselves?” she asked next.

“It would be typical of their arrogance, Your Grace.”

“I can see from your expression that this declaration of their presence is something that does not surprise you, Master Ballard. Tell me.”

Luke gathered his thoughts before speaking.

“I had a trance that left me perplexed, Your Grace. I assumed that when the enemy spoke to me, it would be Asmodeus returned for vengeance. Let us face it, Madam, when I overcame him last summer, he lost much more than just his reputation, but the voice in my trance referred to ‘us’ and ‘we’ not ‘I.’ I believe the eight legs of this spider symbol represents some new level of evil.”

“So you believe Custodes Tenebris has already visited you?”

“The voice called Asmodeus a pathetic trifler. It could, of course, be lying to intimidate us. What worries me most is the bruising. I have never had any kind of physical manifestation from a trance.”

He pulled up his sleeve to show her the blue-purple contusions. She studied them in silence.

“I have never seen this before either. It heralds nothing good. How I wish Master Dufay were not in France. Perhaps one day we will be able to link telepathically over large bodies of water.”

“Aye, Your Grace, I understand it is the salt content of the sea that interferes with the communication.”

“Whatever it is,” the Queen Mother snapped, “it is troublesome and a worry.” She sighed. “However, it cannot be helped. What is your counsel?”

“We face a new unknown enemy. One who does not fear to announce his presence.”

“You may be right, but sunderers are hunters of weakness in others. They are known for bringing despair and strife, not humility or modesty,” she replied. “I agree it is wise to assume the worst. Let us pray they are smug enough to feel that they are invincible. It may give us the time we need for the Elemagus to return. I begin to wonder if this summons from his French counterpart was engineered so that he would not be here. I miss his wise counsel.”

“Indeed, Madam. Fighting an unknown enemy is akin to plaiting fog. I am sure we face one sunderer, a member of this inner circle.”

“Why?”

“Because they would not risk more than one in case of disaster.”

“Then mayhap you should give him a name, an identity on which to focus. He will then seem less nebulous. I suggest Nimrod, the mighty hunter who founded Babylon, the city that was constantly in rebellion against God.”

Luke nodded.

“A fine notion. Thank you, Your Grace.” He picked up her cloak. “Rob will be home soon. It is time you returned to the palace. I understand what you require of me now. Rest assured that I will do my utmost.”

He bowed and doused the candles. Opening the door, he checked that they were unobserved before allowing Queen Anne out.

* * *

Luke spent the next day thinking about strategies, reinforcing his knowledge of those spells he might need in this fight and wishing he could speak to Dufay regarding Custodes Tenebris. That evening he sat with Rob in the snug safety of his kitchen. Their encounter with Asmodeus the previous year had only been successful due to a mixture of the will of God, sheer serendipity, and a little timely help from the Elemagus. He could not hope for that this time. Nobody knew when Dufay would return from France.

Nimrod could be controlling anyone. Only two things were certain. The dupe would be living inside the palace and the sunderer would be aware of Luke’s elevation to Dominus status. His year of study had taught him much about the enemy. Disasters that ordinary mortals put at God’s door were seldom the work of the divine creator. Ruined harvests, sickness, droughts or floods. Luke caught his breath. Had the sweats been called down by the enemy? It would not surprise him. One more thought struck him. Nimrod must be aware that the elemancer had triumphed over Asmodeus. Could it be that this new menace had been put in place to gain revenge on Luke? He would keep that snippet to himself. The notion of the royal family coming under attack as an opportunity to engage him in battle again would not be well received by either the King or his mother.

“Rob, we have a mighty fight in front of us. I shall need all your wits and strength to aid me.”

“Very good, Master.”

Rob sounded unperturbed. Having bound himself to the apothecary, he would not hesitate to hazard his very soul if asked. Luke grinned at him, his affection and trust for the boy evident. Not one to share confidences, he had found the development of his relationship with Rob awkward at times, but, as the lad consistently proved his worth, Luke had fallen into the way of treating him like a younger brother.

Under the charm of Rob’s natural impudence, some of Luke’s habitual reserve had abated. He now wore more smiles than frowns, leading some of the wenches in Hampton and the surrounding villages to come more frequently to his shop than to the apothecaries who served their own communities.

It was Rob’s opinion, frequently voiced, that Luke had grown his fashionable beard in the past year to hide behind, but instead it lent his face a softness that enhanced his attraction to the opposite sex. Luke had been unaware of this, until he had caught Rob shaking his head and smirking like an inane donkey when a maid from Hampton left the shop.

“What?” he had demanded. “What are you grinning at?”

“You, Master. Did you not see the disappointment on her face?”

“Her injury was not on her face. Why would I want to look at it?”

Rob hooted with laughter.

“I venture that had you looked into her eyes and smiled, she would have swooned where she stood. You should beware, Master, or you will find yourself at the church gate before you know it. It’s not every man has his own house and business and is a pleasure for maids to look at.”

Luke had shaken his head, but he paid more attention from that moment and had to admit that his assistant was right. He took to keeping Rob in the shop with him and found that the lad had a pretty line of talk that soon had disheartened wenches smiling again.

Now that he thought about Rob, he could see that the boy was another weapon in his armory against Nimrod.

“This is serious,” he said. “It could end in our deaths.”

“There are a hundred ways we could meet our deaths every day of the week,” Rob replied.

“You speak truth. I will take all precautions, however. Go to bed, boy. I shall be late tonight restoring my energies and making plans.”

* * *

Luke’s thorniest problem the next morning was how to gain entrance to the palace. To march in as Luke Ballard, apothecary, known to mix with the poor and ill in the midst of an epidemic of sweating sickness, would be to earn himself an instant change of abode from the Outer Green upriver to the Tower. Even his position as Privy Inquirer would not save him. Henry’s terror of any type of sickness would be heightened by the Queen’s pregnancy. After almost seventy years of the Tudor dynasty, the need for an heir was still paramount.

The easiest way would be to disguise himself as a merchant and use a shimmer spell on Joss, for only court dogs were permitted in the palace. The spell would render her an indeterminate shadow, unidentifiable and unnoticed.

He had dreamed many times since the previous summer of confronting another sunderer. In his imaginings, he always saw through the fine feathers to the loathsome evil thing beneath, but, in reality, he could not hope for that. Sunderers were cunning. It must have galled the breed to know that a mere journeyman elemancer had defeated a powerful sorcerer. Asmodeus’s failure to achieve his aim would have sharpened their craving for vengeance.

Luke shook himself and concentrated on the problem at hand. He did not just need access to the wall near the Chapel Royal, which should be reasonably easy, but into the Queen’s privy apartments, which would most certainly prove much harder. After a little thought, he went upstairs and sat on the bed, preparing himself for a ritual that, although easy, needed concentration. Joss lay across the doorway, ensuring that he remained undisturbed.

Once Luke was happy with his state of relaxation, he unstoppered a vial of perfume containing the same ingredients as the one that Queen Anne used. Inhaling the rose and musk he concentrated on her and softly spoke the words of the auditory connection spell.

“Anne Boleyn, Queen Mother. I beg an audience.”

Luke waited. A few moments later, he heard her voice, sharp with annoyance.

“You disturb our rest, Master Apothecary.”

“I crave pardon, Your Grace. I must gain access to the Queen’s chamber where the girl was killed and also the wall where the writing appeared.”

“Why?”

“To test a theory, Madam.”

The air around him thickened and he sensed a quickening interest piercing her irritation. He heard her take an inward breath as if she were about to speak, but she said nothing. Focusing, Luke realized she had been interrupted by someone for when her reply came, her voice was so soft he had to strain to hear it.

“We will send Gwenette with instructions,” the Queen Mother replied, breaking contact.

* * *

Mistress Paige appeared at the shop doorway an hour later, a shawl covering her head. An awkward silence ensued, as seemed to be the custom these days when Luke and Gwenette were alone.

“You come from Queen Anne?” he said in a brisker voice than he had intended.

“Aye,” Gwenette said, frowning. “There is no need to use that tone, Master Ballard. I know you consider me little more than an annoyance.”

Luke bit his lip. He could not do right for doing wrong where Gwenette was concerned. He knew that in a tight spot, she was as steadfast a friend as any man could hope for. That much she had already proved. Would that she was as straightforward in other ways as men were. For all that, he would not hurt her for the world.

“I beg pardon, Gwenette,” he replied, hoping that the use of her given name would soften her. “I did not mean to insult you. This is the beginning of what I believe will be a parlous business. I am distracted. Forgive me.”

She sketched a curtsey. “Recent events have left those closest to the family more than a little anxious, too. My mistress begs me to escort you to the Queen’s rooms whilst the court is at meat. You are to use the secret way. It is fortunate that today both King and Queen entertain the Spanish and French ambassadors, so the meal will be longer than usual. What are you looking for?”

“I need to examine the wall near the Chapel Royal as well as the royal chamber.”

“But I have told you what the words said...”

Luke raised his hand. “Do not say them. They may hold a significance we cannot understand.”

“But they are words from the Bible.”

“Aye, but we do not yet know who wrote them and with what intent. What has happened to the girl’s body?”

“It has been wrapped and given to her grandmother. Why?”

“I need to see the poor child. Can you arrange that as well?”

Gwenette looked at him, chewing the inside of her cheek and frowning.

“Why?” she asked again.

Luke sighed. This was precisely the kind of thing that irritated him. Pose that question to Byram Creswell and they would already be on their way, but ask a woman and she had to know Chapter and verse before she stirred a step.