The Queen's Viper Read online

  The mention of Amy Dudley caught Viper’s attention. Lady Dudley was the Noblewoman Viper was on her way to kill.

  Viper made the decision to kill Lady Dudley after a visit to Elizabeth on her birthday, at Hampton Court yesterday. The immortal had hoped to surprise her friend with a late night visit. Entering the queen’s room from the passageway that ran the length of the royal suite, Viper found Elizabeth moping at the window.

  “What makes my friend so sad on the day England was blessed with her existence?”

  Elizabeth wore a red linen shift, hemmed white. Her reflection in the warped glass gave the impression of a faerie hovering over a mystical garden. Piled curls crowned her head.

  Elizabeth turned to Viper with bloodshot, hazel eyes. “Heavy is the heart which bears the crown,” she had said, hugging a man’s silk jerkin to her chest, “for a prince's heart is not his own when unto his people is it pledged.” Elizabeth often referred to herself as the Prince of England in an attempt to level gender inequality. She paced around the room, arms clasped to her body. “Lord Burghley and the Privy Council want me to be wedded, yet among them they cannot decide which man is to rule beside me. No sooner was my sister dead than her Spanish husband filed his suit for my hand. If I wed my sister’s widowed Spanish husband, my Protestant subjects would be up in arms. France is only marginally less Catholic. An Englishman should rule the English, but of those the Privy Council cannot decide man which is best. None are men of my choosing.”

  “And what say you, the woman who is to wed?”

  “There is one man who rules my heart. Robert Dudley is the air I breathe.”

  At that moment, a handmaid had entered from the far door, her eyes cast on a painted bowl full of water. “Majesty, your bathing water, scented with rosemary, as you like,” she said. Viper instantly concealed herself.

  Elizabeth tore the Italian porcelain from the servant and threw it at the fireplace. “I will not wash his scent from me,” she cried out. The splash made the low-burning fire sputter.

  “Your Majesty, I-”

  “Leave me, Ester. Forestall thy cleaning until the morrow.”

  Ester fled the room wordlessly. She had felt the sting of Elizabeth’s slap on her face before and knew better than to disobey.

  Alone with Elizabeth, Viper had removed her glamour and said, “Marry Robert and be done with the plotting of your council of men.”

  “Aye, there's the rub! I cannot love Robert as I want to love him. He hath a wife, who is much bereft of his company, on account that he stays at Court with me. My time spent with Robert is not as free as I would wish it. Politics govern a queen’s lust, as well I hath learned from my mother’s royal career. Even as Governor of the Church, I cannot separate what God hath joined, for if I do heads may roll for it, e’en mine.” Elizabeth pitched onto her bed and its cloth-of-gold pillows. Viper perched on the down-stuffed mattress. She waited with the patience only an immortal could have.

  Viper held her hand over Elizabeth’s sobbing form. The misty green within the immortal’s black eyes grew broad with concern. Elizabeth's aeir curled around Viper’s fingers and flowed up her arms.

  The effect upon Viper confused her. She didn't feel the need to feed upon Elizabeth’s enticing aeir, as she thought she would. Surprisingly, the magic energy imbued its intense passion into Viper. The ache of the queen's star-crossed love settled in Viper’s chest. A peculiar, tightness came to Viper’s eyes. She shed tears for the first time in her memory.

  Viper wiped fresh dampness away from the facial ridges nearest her eyes as she thought about that poignant moment. By dawn, Elizabeth’s suffering had eased and Viper decided to strike. She would remove Robert's wife from the love triangle. Elizabeth, ignorant of the murder, would remain safely beyond reproach.

  Cumnor Place, built in four sections made of stone, beckoned ahead of Viper. Formerly a monastic building, it imposed itself like a grey wart on the grassy landscape. The manor house lay empty of people but not of threat. Viper kept her senses sharp as she entered the main door, unsettled that Lady Dudley had sent away the household servants.

  The tall windows of the dining hall should have had their painted shutters removed at dawn. The un-swept wooden floors bore a fine layer of dirt on it from the household’s early morning foot traffic. A caged goldfinch hopped on its perch, squawking as Viper passed. The gentle scent of strewn chamomile wafted in the air.

  Viper heard tapping through the ceiling decorated with carved ivy leaves. Next, a scraping sound carried from the level above. Then, the rhythmic noise repeated. This cycle of tap and scrape lead Viper up stone steps to a hallway lit by taper candles on a narrow table. Five rooms branched off the central passage. Three rooms belonged to the front of the house. Viper investigated the quieter, larger rooms that faced gardens in the rear of the building first. In one of these, two women in black clothes slouched in wide chairs, their mouths open in a deep sleep. Ceramic cups beside them held tepid water, pungent with the aroma of valerian root. Someone had given the ladies a sleeping draught.

  The immortal continued snooping. By the time Viper reached the last of the smaller front-facing rooms, the seventh episode of tapping ended. She placed her hand against the walnut door and cracked it open as slow as she dared. Even if Viper maintained her glamour, the person inside might catch the movement of the door. Each millimeter of movement felt like it spanned hours.

  The woman inside was too preoccupied to notice the door opening by itself. Viper stole in the room and behind a sandalwood dividing screen carved with flowers.

  Paintings of rivers and lakes decorated the oak walls. Sunlight streamed through a fist-sized blue crystal dangling in the window. The effect turned the room into an underwater cavern. A portrait of a dignified woman in Tudor dress hung on the far wall. She had a high forehead, and dark blonde hair parted in the middle. Cupid’s bow lips held steadfast beneath a long nose slightly turned up at the end. 1550, the year Amy Robsart married Robert Dudley, had been painted over her right shoulder, and the letters AD rose over her left.

  If the woman in the picture represented Amy Dudley, Viper barely recognized her in the wild-haired woman who shoved furniture to the perimeter of the bedroom. Viper stayed behind the divider, unsure of Amy’s fervent actions.

  Amy had cleared the floor of coverings and lightweight furnishings. The woman wore a close-fitting kirtle of yellow silk over a white smock. She swept her blonde hair into a rough ponytail at her neck, securing it with a blue ribbon, then gracelessly wiped the dampness from her brow with her clothing. She pushed her sleeves back, like a woman from the kitchens, and surveyed her work.

  She had etched seven glyphs into the wooden floor in a circle with some kind of blunted knife that she now held in her hand. The symbols matched those on Viper’s arms. Between these, atop seven iron spikes embedded into the wood, were flat silver saucers. Amy reverently lay a deep, mirrored basin in the middle of the circular arrangement. When she did, the undulating light around the room merged into a single beam traversing from the hanging blue crystal into the wide basin.

  Amy whipped aside the velvet bed drapes, exposing carved waterfalls in the foot posts of her bed. The mortal chanted an ascrying spell in a Celtic dialect that Viper had not heard for centuries. Amy swapped her scraping implement with a pitcher from the side table and poured water onto one bedpost, then the other. Defying gravity, the fluid stayed within the confines of the carvings. Amy discarded the empty container on the mattress. She knelt at the foot of the bed, facing the window and the circle of symbols.

  Water rippling on the bedposts cascaded past her and into the nearest two bowls on either side. From here, it arced into adjacent saucers until each filled with water. Under the influence of magic, the volume of water increased beyond the amount of fluid in the pitcher. Streams of water threaded upwards from the bowls into a lattice-work dome.

  Watery doors opened in front of Amy. She stepped inside without hesitation.

  Amy knelt befor
e the mirrored basin. Moisture accumulated around her, swirling together and into the larger bowl. A watery figure emerged at the epicentre.

  Viper’s eyes traced its outline, magnetically drawn back to its midline like the sensuous curves of water being poured from a jug. The astonishing power of an otherworldly being who was capable of creating the humanoid avatar both compelled and daunted Viper.

  “How now, Amy, favoured of my servants?” Fully formed, the construct’s syrupy voice made Viper feel like she drowned in its spreading arms. “Why ascry for me? Hast thou found the amulet hidden by the Plantagenet Royals amidst their Crown Jewels?”

  Viper stifled a gasp, astounded that the magical avatar before her spoke of the same object she sought from Elizabeth.

  “Annys, most magnificent, I cannot do your bidding. The queen will not let me by her side. She keeps Robert alone with her at Windsor and claims she protects him from the pox that is here in the countryside. I would gladly tell him that the pox is of your doing, and you will cause him no ill will. This I would do if the queen will give me her leave to be with my husband.” Amy stared at the floor. Her aeir shirked from the figure in front of her.

  Thousands of trickles leaked from the saucers. They wound about Amy’s body and lifted her two feet off the ground. Flat ribbons of fluid wrapped around her forehead and twisted her until her nose pressed into the nose of the avatar. Water dripped from Amy’s chin.

  “Thy whining vexes me, my little Popinjay.” The avatar’s intense eyes shimmered. It cupped Amy’s chin with its right hand, then swirled around her. As the construct moved, hand after hand formed and retracted, groping Amy’s body. The mortal strained to keep her face clear of the suffocating water. “Need I remind thee of its importance? The amulet can rip a country apart, as well your Plantagenet Kings did discover. The talisman belongs in my safe keeping. We are each other’s salvation. Do not make me regret my faith in thee.”

  “Your task is too hard!” Amy’s tears merged into the fluid swimming around her neck.

  “How now? Befriend Elizabeth, become part of her retinue and obtain my amulet. This endeavour be not so difficult.”

  “The queen makes of me no friend. I wed Robert to gain access to Elizabeth as you instructed. ’Tis only his company she desires. How am I to apprehend a jewel of the Crown when the queen hath banned me from Court?”

  The water coils jerked Amy’s arms and legs, splaying her flat on her back. The avatar floated above her, the watery tendrils of its hair curling in the air like the tentacles of the Kraken. Water dripped from its face to Amy's and she gagged.

  “For years I hath heard thee beg for that which my power alone may grant upon thy barren womb.” The honeyed voice of the avatar contradicted its violent actions. “Where is the bravery that made thee ascry for help from a seelie wicht? Now that thou art within reach of thy goal of a blessed life, thou doth cry a coward’s song. Some magic forbids my access to the descendants of the Plantagenet bloodline, thus our ends are united. Get my amulet or die childless...” The last words tortuously dripped from the construct’s full lips. “And unloved.”

  Amy spit water from her mouth. “Accept my apologies most humbly, Annys,” she spluttered. “Your will is mine insomuch as my body is yours to command.” The pallor of her skin blanched whiter than the linen of her dress; her aeir as sodden as she.

  The avatar returned Amy to the floor as gently as one would a baby, smoothing her clothes as its longest segments moved in reverse into the central basin. “Make haste, for if thou will not get me the amulet, then I shall have the queen killed in thy name. ’Twill be a murder for which Robert will ne’er forgive thee.” The avatar gave Amy a lingering kiss on the forehead before its watery curls returned to the bowl and evapourated into mist.

  As soon as Annys’ creation vanished, Viper sprang from behind the divider. Amy cried out in surprise and Viper clutched her shoulders.

  “Quiet thy tongue, woman!”

  The difference in the two eternal’s deportment startled Amy into submission. “I thought you were Blue Annie back to admonish me. I am mistook. Your voice, ‘tis drier of sound.”

  “Indeed, I am not. I give thee my assurance that I am no less powerful a Daoine Tor than she,” Viper said, hoping that her scowl was believably intimidating. “Blue Annie” was the first Daoine Tor that Viper encountered. Annys had knowledge and power that Viper lacked, but this immortal, too, needed humaines to find the talisman. Instinctually, Viper felt that her newly revealed kin couldn’t be trusted, no matter how much Viper wanted to learn from her.

  Viper eased her grip and Amy settled onto her heels. She rubbed her arms where Viper had grabbed her and asked, “Then you could bless my womb with a child? In my desperation, I fear that I hath contrived with a devil who seeks a magic amulet for some dark purpose.” She spoke with a collected calm not reflected in her threadbare aeir.

  “Where is the amulet?”

  “How am I to know?” Amy threw her hands in the air. “Annys’ plan is a-faulted. I am not welcome at Court. Robert is Elizabeth’s favoured confidant, not I. He enjoys more than the ear of that bastard quee-” Her eyes widened as she gauged Viper’s reaction to her treasonous slight. Viper kept her face neutral, leading Amy into a false sense of security. Amy’s shoulders relaxed. “I am unable to attend on her Majesty or have access to her property. Robert is a goodly man. Elizabeth bewitches him like her mother did of Henry. He is my husband, not Elizabeth’s. If I bear him a son afore her, I know he will return to me.”

  Viper stepped to the window, her thoughts racing. Water that remained in the silver saucers boiled into vapour as she strode past.

  Years of feeding from Elizabeth’s flourishing kingdom had dulled Viper’s ambition. She hadn’t forgotten the amulet and the memories Dowager Queen Katherine’s portrait had stirred within her, but Viper was loath to leave her life of comfort with Elizabeth. Realizing that another immortal like herself sought the same amulet revived Viper’s sense of purpose. If Annys found the talisman first, Viper might lose her only link to her past, and her home.

  “What would Annys do with this amulet?” Viper focused on the Starlings that invaded the empty kitchen garden outside to disguise her deepening turmoil.

  “I know not, in truth, save that with it, she will amend my barren womb that I may beget Robert a son.” Amy picked up the basin and examined herself. A trickle of water scored a straight line through her abdomen in the reflection. “Mayhap, he needs to be part of this quest. I know! In a tenderly worded message, I shall convince Robert to secretly retrieve the amulet from the queen. For his service to my desire, I shall promise him aught that he wishes.”

  “Thou would have thy husband thieve from thy queen, his lover, to gain thyself a child?” The immortal set herself upon Amy and tore the basin from the woman’s grasp. Viper flung it across the room like a discus. The shallow bowl bisected a waterfall painting with a thunk.

  “If that is the only way I may keep his love, then I would have him steal from the Pope himself!” Amy tugged at the basin until she wrenched it free. The impact had dented the bottom and warped the reflection. “No!” Amy’s chest heaved. Her tears multiplied. The ruined summoning tool pitched from her hands and rolled towards the entryway. “Now I cannot ascry for Annys. She will mark me a failure.”

  Viper stood taller than a man, her body aflame with elldyr creft. “A humaine who fails in her sorcery might live. A traitor who acts against my queen must die.”

  “I do not understand,” Amy stammered, hand at her throat. “What do you care for the queen?” She leaned to the left, her flighty aeir revealing her intention to run from the room.

  Viper snatched the blue ascrying crystal from the window and crushed it in her hands. “You conspire with a Daoine Tor, as does Elizabeth. I am her seelie wicht and she is the queen of my making. I shall have no humaine, nor no immortal, cause her harm.” Viper threw the crystal dust across the room and the glyphs in the floor smouldered.

  Tea
rs stained Amy’s pale face. “Stop! You’ll destroy my links to Blue Annie!” Amy clasped her hands together and incoherently prayed for Viper’s mercy.

  With each stride towards the woman, the heat from Viper’s elldyr creft disintegrated the pigments in the landscape paintings. The immortal ran her hands over the carved waterfalls on the bedposts, singeing the wood until it lay smooth under her hands.

  Viper widened her fingers, about to cast elldyr flames at Amy. The mortal turned to run. She caught her feet on her dress and tumbled to the ground. Viper’s magic pulse sailed over Amy’s head, into the wall beyond. The tapestries flapped without catching alight with fire.

  The Daoine Tor hunched over Amy’s recumbent body. “I am the protector of the queen whose life-magic makes me thrive.” Viper kept her right hand on the floor beside Amy’s head, then raised her left hand in the air, ready to strike. “No mortal shall interfere with her.”

  Amy reached out her right hand and grasped the ascrying basin. She swung it with adrenaline-fueled strength into the side of Viper’s head. The impact knocked Viper off balance and onto her back. Amy propelled herself backwards through the door. She flipped over, lifted the hem of her dress, and dashed for the stairs.

  Viper pulled herself into an upright position with the languishing speed of a sunbathing cat before she started after Amy. Her longer legs gave her the advantage over the woman’s head start in the hallway. She wanted the mortal to believe she was getting away. The ruse would heighten the malice of Viper’s thrill when Amy realized she was wrong.

  Viper caught up with Amy at the top of the staircase. Viper yanked the woman’s ponytail, then pulled her to the floor. Amy’s head smacked the stone floor with a loud crack. Her eyes glazed over momentarily with shock.

  “Thou insignificant whore!” Viper bent over the stunned woman. The immortal’s skin fluctuated between deep purple and hot white. “No humaine hath e’er bested me.”