The Queen's Viper Page 3

  Queen Elizabeth stood behind the chairs, underneath a gold canopy. Her face, rounded and blessed by the kindest of aging years, displayed a flicker of panic. She reached across herself slowly and gripped the arm of an elderly man on her right, who wore a dark uniform bedecked with medals.

  “Phillip, do you see that?” she whispered out of the corner of her smiling, thin-lipped mouth.

  He didn’t respond to her concern. That Queen Elizabeth noted Viper’s arrival piqued the immortal’s curiosity. Everyone else within the charmed area, moved much slower, almost stationary. For the other mortals within the enchantment, and to those beyond its boundary, the queen smiled and waved as if Viper didn’t exist.

  “Greetings unto thee, English Queen,” Viper said, with no indication that the queen’s awareness concerned her. The immortal pulled a corner of the British flag away from her body in mock curtsey.

  Drops of rain suspended between the powerful females. The queen’s face transformed from dignified to stern. The fire in her eyes invoked a new vigour to her soft, wrinkled face. Her long white coat with its ruffled fringe and raised polka dotted fabric set off the increasing redness in her cheeks.

  “Tell me, whose queen art thou?” Viper kept her torso bent low. The flag barely covered her breasts. She raised her head and her predatory expression spurned the queen into reaction.

  Queen Elizabeth drew back her shoulders and started towards the front of the thrones with bold steps. “I am not subject to your interrogation. And how dare you wear my nation’s flag so disrespectfully?” When Viper didn’t answer, the queen sat down with her spine stiff and her gloved hands folded tightly in her lap.

  The immortal jumped onto the railing in front of the queen, towering over her. “If it offends, then remove it thyself,” Viper said as she dangled one leg lower than the other, flaunting an expanse of purple skin in provocation. The queen maintained her composure. Millions of cameras pointed at the Jubilee Barge. Not one photographed the immortal’s insolence through the beacons’ enchantment. “Whose queen art thou?”

  The queen pursed her lips together until they matched the white of her dress. “I am Queen Elizabeth the Second, born of the House of Windsor. I carry centuries of royal blood in my veins.”

  “You humaines, obsessed with thy blood lineage.” The immortal tossed back her hair with indifference.

  The queen was not a Tudor descendant, as Viper had thought. This Queen Elizabeth had an aeir that was sometimes here, sometimes there, and always shimmering white. Viper had a fleeting thought to kill the woman on her throne. However, she didn’t want to risk being seen by the throngs of people on, and around, the barge if her feeding rapture lasting longer than the voyage through the beacons.

  “Thou say thou art queen, yet no crown rests upon thy head.” Instead, a slanted hat topped the queen’s matching suit dress. Viper eased herself onto the deck and prowled among the group of Nobles behind the thrones to hide her disappointment. These mortals wore less complicated fashions than the garb of the Elizabethan Court. Viper smirked at the queen’s exposed legs. How amoral people would have thought this queen in the past. Today, everyone venerated her. This world had much to teach Viper.

  The immortal paused between a woman with straw-coloured hair in a cream outfit, and a younger, very slim brunette in a bright red dress, their hands frozen in mid-wave. “Her hat is bigger than thine,” Viper said of the older woman on her right. The immortal pulled off the mortal’s co-ordinating, wide-brimmed hat and put it on her own head. “Your sister perhaps? No,” Viper mused, “she is too long in the face.”

  The queen didn’t rise to Viper’s goading. Viper made a face at the back of the queen’s head and replaced the headpiece, slightly off kilter. She rested her elbows on each of the women’s shoulders as she contemplated her next move. The brunette had dimples in her cheeks, mouth open in mid-sentence to the tall young man on her left in a military uniform and a bright blue sash. Viper rounded behind the mortal, tracing the younger woman’s wide neckline with the back of her hand. She flicked the feathers affixed to the brunette’s hair before she sauntered back to the railing in front of the thrones.

  “My question is unanswered. To whom dost thou belong?” Viper reclined casually, disguising her impatience.

  “I belong to my people, and you are not welcome here,” Queen Elizabeth replied, as though her eyes penetrated her otherworldly visitor.

  The immortal had heard those words of betrayal before. The fury of her past failure possessed her body and she lunged at the queen. Queen Elizabeth rose with unexpected speed. She brandished a red and blue amulet at Viper in defiance. The talisman repulsed the immortal backwards with a fierce, white blast. She grabbed the boat’s edge and stopped herself from tumbling into the river.

  Viper hadn’t been able to see the glow of the accursed amulet through the queen’s white aeir.

  “Be careful, creature,” the queen said with an unyielding voice. “Elizabeth Regina left word about you, her Viper, for We, the future Rulers of England. So I say again, you are not welcome here.”

  Viper laughed with disdain. “Marry, Viper am I, though Elizabeth’s name for me is not my real name.” The immortal adjusted her posture, hiding both the ache of the impact in her bones, and the discomfort that she didn’t know her real name. “She called everyone as one little animal or another. A trick of words to maintain her superiority. The trinket in thy hand will afford thee no protection. The bearer of the Parhelion can see me whether I would will it or not. There is naught else.”

  “You don’t divulge the jewel’s full potency.” Queen Elizabeth lowered her arm but not her guard.

  Viper raised an appreciative eyebrow. “Thou art well-schooled. Thus am I exposed a liar. My compliments, Elizabeth of the Second Throne.”

  Queen Elizabeth flinched.

  “Hath something I said disturbed thee?” Viper asked, probing for leverage against the queen.

  “I wonder, is it truly a random occurrence that you address me as such?” Queen Elizabeth's voice wavered for the first time. “You speak words from a prophesy known only to the Rulers of England. Remove the binding, worlds unwinding. One now, one then, one here again. War will be known when Elizabeth sits a Second Throne.”

  The Queen rested the Parhelion over her heart. “The first Queen Elizabeth to rule the English Crown kept a treasury box beside her bed. Inside were this amulet and the prophecy, written in her handwriting. Since its discovery upon her death, no Monarch dared name their female heir after the queen whose Golden Age forever changed our country. That is, not until my father, King George. Before he died, he told me that he believed the prophecy was Elizabethan propaganda meant to scare the Spanish. That’s why he didn’t stop my mother from naming me Elizabeth.” Her shoulders drooped slightly.

  “What power is there in a name?” Viper pulled a red rose from the floral display on the bow and inhaled deeply. She hid her down-turned mouth behind the fullness of the flower. There was a time when Viper thought she knew all of Elizabeth I’s secrets, save one.

  The queen continued with the tone of a patient grandmother. “When I learned of the prophecy, I couldn’t ignore the coincidences before me, regardless of what my father said. I bore Elizabeth’s name and we were nearly the same age at our Coronation. There were two world wars before I became queen. Therefore, I adopted greater caution than my father. I had served in the greatest war humankind had ever seen, and I greatly feared another.” The queen turned the jewel over in her hands, as if seeing it for the first time, her commanding countenance broken.

  “I kept this talisman in a covert vault under Edinburg Castle. Given the nature of the amulet’s origin, and the prophecy, I never wore nor displayed the jewel. No one knew of its existence. Or, so I thought.” She fidgeted with the triple strand of pearls around her neck, an atypical habit for a queen. “Last week, a rather odd man with a noticeable gait infiltrated my offices at the House. Quite a feat to be so unseen in one of the most highly guarde
d palaces in the country. He spoke of the amulet in significant detail.” Queen Elizabeth retrieved a small item wrapped in white silk from a secret compartment in her padded armrest. She faced Viper and said, “The curious man told me that my nation would be in grave danger if I didn’t bring the Parhelion, this amulet, on my flotilla. I would have ignored his request, except that he vanished before I could alert security, which captured my interest. I see that he hoped you would reveal yourself to me, here.” Queen Elizabeth straightened her shoulders and reclaimed her regal dominance. “Are you the portent the prophecy foretold, I wonder? Are my people in danger?”

  Viper flung the rose into the river. “Of what import are the prophecies of sheep? It matters not to me.” The perimeter of the enchanted zone drew near. Viper wouldn’t waste time discussing the future of people she couldn’t trust with a queen she didn’t like.

  “It should. People will die. Innocents die when the world is at war.”

  “Then, ’twould be welcome. War hides my victims,” Viper sneered. Another human sought to command her elldyr creft. This queen would be no ally. “No, Second Queen, this prophesy is thy misfortune. Not mine.”

  “You truly are as ambivalent about humans as Elizabeth Regina implied. I had hoped time would-”

  “Kill me?”

  “Tame you.” Queen Elizabeth thrust out the silk-wrapped scroll. “Here. I carried this letter with me, in secret, every day since my Coronation. Elizabeth Regina insisted that her successor, or any ruler thereafter who encountered you, should deliver her missive.”

  Viper raced to the throne and grasped the armrests. The rolled up message bent against her torso as she leaned in to Queen Elizabeth’s left ear. Viper ensured that the heat of her breath warmed the Monarch’s pale skin.

  “Let me feed upon thy family and I will ensure thy country’s victory in your prophesied war.” Viper’s tongue toyed with the grey curls under Elizabeth’s hat. “So many flowers surround thee. Could thou not spare me but a few?”

  Queen Elizabeth cleared her throat and twisted away from Viper. She rose abruptly and stepped to the golden railing, gripping it with one hand. She held the scroll towards her intruder with the other.

  “I don’t intend to make yours a prolonged acquaintance.” The immortal didn’t mistake the dismissal in the queen’s tone.

  Viper snapped away the scroll with a derisive snort. Brittle and yellowed, it bore red wax impregnated with the insignia of Queen Elizabeth I. The immortal broke the seal and read the last words of the Tudor bloodline.

  “Our royal debt to the Tudor Dynasty is now complete,” the modern Queen Elizabeth said. The tension in her shoulders dissipated. “I feel compelled to ask you to share the content of this letter. Your being here during my diamond anniversary cannot be an accident. Perhaps there is something in Elizabeth Regina’s message that will help me protect my people.”

  The immortal gave Elizabeth’s parchment to the queen. “Her words are empty. Do what you will with them.” Viper’s expressionless face masked the torment of her true feelings.

  The queen scanned the flourished calligraphy. “What of this man of whom she writes?”

  “Meaningless!” Viper roared. Flames exploded on the parchment, and around her head. Queen Elizabeth gasped and let go of the letter. A burst of wind swept the smouldering document into the water. Viper mounted the starboard rail of the boat. “Consider thyself blessed, Second Elizabeth. I do not take thee for a pawn of my nemesis, nor do I believe thou art a descendant of Good Queen Bess. Elsewise, you would die.”

  “Then, I trust that our paths shall not cross.” Queen Elizabeth retreated to the position Viper had found her, standing beside her husband, behind the thrones. The cheering humans on the bank wouldn’t know that anything had happened on the boat. The bascules of Tower Bridge began lifting.

  “If they do,” Viper said, “I shall not be as generous as I am now.”

  She plunged into the brown depths of the Thames. Beneath the water, a layer of air surrounded her, allowing her to breathe. Viper swam in opposition to the current to the circle of seven stone monoliths on the riverbed, from which red beacons erupted. Sediment and debris clung to a boulder ten feet long lying at the epicentre. She cleared handfuls of the river’s muck from the recumbent stone.

  Entrapped inside this prison, a prison made by elldyr creft magic long ago, Viper hoped to find her nemesis. She would enter the trap and kill the creature inside, the thief of Viper’s life. For the briefest moment, Viper wondered what would happen to her if she, too, became interred. Her hatred of her enemy overcame that fear. Viper was willing to spend an eternity in confinement if it meant she would spend it with the corpse of her enemy.

  “Annys, I have waited long for escape. You shall not wait long for your death.”

  Viper focused her elldyr into a point at her fingertip and visualized carving glyphs onto the skin of her enemy. She etched runes on the rock surface like a cross, four along a vertical line and two at the outer ends of the horizontal plane. Where the lines met, she engraved the keystone, a symbol unlike any found on her body. Two handles formed along the longest sides of the stone.

  The immortal, ready to face her enemy, submitted herself to the recumbent stone. She lay on her back, braced in the current with the hand holds. The carved glyphs aligned with her midline and her outstretched arms. Around her, the beacons retracted into the standing stones. Fiery beams shot out from the inner face of the megaliths and pounded into the recumbent beneath Viper, one at a time. She screamed with pain into the layer of air around her with each caustic impact. Thick fingers of dark stone fastened around her wrists like shackles. Four wide bands of liquid stone spread across her body in pairs that rose up from either side of her midline. Where they met, the bands fused together. Viper began sinking into the recumbent stone. The standing stones, magic spent, crumbled until they were unassuming heaps.

  The immortal’s eyes widened with panic, realizing her error. The enchanted beacons shone after four centuries because Annys had not been captured. Viper wasted the last of her energy to gain access to an enemy who still roamed free. She struggled in the restraints. They did not give way. The tears that mourned her short-lived freedom bled into the silted river as her face disappeared beneath the solid, grey rock.

  4: Elizabeth of the First Throne

  April 30th, 1548.

  The Banke Syde, London River.

  The cutter had arrived at Bankesyde well past midnight. The plentiful aeir of the man awaiting John rewarded Viper’s impulsiveness. Sir Thomas Seymour, Baron of Chelsea Place, joined John on the cutter. Drunk, Seymour nearly landed on his servant. Viper crouched facing the two men, careful not to bump against the nearest oarsman and reveal her position through her enchantment of invisibility. She shivered with excitement as she listened to Seymour regale John with exploits of bear baiting and gambling with Winchester Geese, the prostitutes of Bankesyde. His aeir, not his stories, thrilled her.

  The intense yellow undulations of Seymour’s life-magic reflected in her dark eyes. Seymour’s aeir flowed over his head and limbs. A narrow nose held up his high forehead and receding hairline. His moustache sheltered thin lips before cascading into the triangular waterfall of his beard. Were it not for the enamelled brooch at his elongated throat, his half-circle clock would slide off his peaked shoulders.

  “My tales make me hoarse.” Seymour offered John a half-empty bottle of Biddenden wine after taking a large gulp. “Drink. This damp night carries a demon’s bite. How fared thy trip?”

  “All went well, my Lord,” John said quietly. He declined the wine.

  Viper reached out without touching the men. She sought the sparks in Seymour’s aeir rather than the contents of the bottle.

  “Thou hast my thanks master gardener,” Seymour said when John handed over the flask of blessed Cammerwelle spring water. “Did thy brother ask after its purpose?”

  “As you would wish it, he believes you hope ’twill guarantee you a son.” Jo
hn picked at invisible dirt on his hose.

  Lord Seymour took a long swig and belched. “My wife has God for that. I have a younger flower in mind for this water.” He placed two gold coins into John’s hand. “The winnings of my stew house gambling shall make a handsome reward for thy silence.”

  John fumbled as he caught the earnings with uneasy hands. “You mean to use potion on Lady Elizabeth?”

  Seymour remarked, “My gardener does not approve of his master’s plans?” His body swayed on its own waves of wine. Viper felt every intoxicating word from Seymour’s mouth caress her own. Her tongue reached through parted lips for boozy wisps of his aeir.

  John didn’t meet his master’s eyes. “I would not like to see any harm come to her. My lady-wife complains bitterly that you keep company with the princess unattended by others.”

  “I mean to control my ginger bitch by whatever charm necessary.” Seymour grunted and shifted his hips. “Cammerwelle’s blessed water mixed with oil of rosemary and fenugreek will grant me dominance over Elizabeth’s hotter nature.”

  “Might a man ask, most fatherly, to what intent?”

  Seymour ducked out from under the canopy towards the stern. He would have tripped on Viper’s legs had she not used the rocking of the boat to hide her scurried actions. She edged to his side and traced the tendrils of his aeir with longing.

  He braced himself on the canopy. Untying the drawstrings on his trousers, he cast his words over his shoulder as he urinated overboard.

  “Elizabeth is a princess well trained for Court. She doth carry the appetites of both her parents. With my potion in her belly, I will bridle her thusly.” He gesticulated obscenely with his penis. The tillerman grinned at the comment. He turned away quickly when Seymour glared at him.

  Seymour fastened his britches and returned to John, with Viper close behind. He plumped up the cushioned seat before he plopped himself onto the bench. The immortal crouched as close to them as her hunger dared let her. “If I hath charge of Elizabeth’s lust, so do I govern her. Through her will I have influence upon Edward.”