Not as young Henry did. Unless it was simply the wine talking—but Deven thought not.
A hearty roar went up from the far end of the chamber, along with a feminine squeal. Deven was accustomed to the sound, but for a moment he saw the scene through this pup’s eyes: rowdy and artless, much given to coarse pleasures. Men liked to say it had been better in old Elizabeth’s day; they said a great many charitable things about her, building an image that had more to do with what James was not than what his predecessor had been. But Deven might grant this one: for all her courtiers’ diversions, they had not been reputed in the countryside as a pack of drunkards and sodomites, wasting their days and nights in endless and unChristian debauchery. It was exaggeration, of course—but only in part.
Or perhaps that is simply decades of the Onyx Court speaking, where the courtiers, at least, are refined to a fault.
His mouth quirked at the possibility—then shifted to a more thoughtful set. The Onyx Court: wonder enough to satisfy one Henry Ware.
He cast a sidelong glance at the young man. Ware’s attention was elsewhere—or perhaps nowhere; he was hanging on to alertness with his fingernails. He did not seem to notice the scrutiny.
Just because he was a dreamer did not mean he could be trusted. Deven had to be cautious of those he brought below; one frightened newcomer could threaten them all, betraying their secrets to hostile eyes. But if Ware proved reliable, then he would have the wonder he sought.
And he was a baronet’s son, and a Gentleman Pensioner, positioned near the king. He might rise at court—if given a reason that appealed to him, beyond simple ambition.
“Off your feet already? For shame! You drink like a woman, Henry.” It was Penshaw, eyes glittering with wine. His insult brought young Ware lurching to his feet, sputtering denials, and Penshaw laughed. “Come prove it, then, or pay my forfeit. We are not done yet!”
That quickly, Henry Ware was gone, swallowed once more by the revelry. But he left Deven in thoughtful solitude, wondering if he had found his answer at last.
Whitehall Palace, Westminster: 6 June, 1625
The funeral was a private one; Henry Ware went to his rest in the churchyard of St. Nicholas with none but family in attendance. Deven visited his grave later and stood silent before it, thinking of the blessed rites the parson might have withheld, had he known the company Henry kept before his death.
Then he went west, out of the City to Westminster. King Charles was at Whitehall, awaiting word of his new bride, delayed by storms in France. The Gentlemen Pensioners attended him there, those who were serving that duty period. Henry had been one such, and Robert Penshaw was another.
Deven found the man playing tennis, and not well; his shots kept going wild, as if he were paying little heed to the game. It reminded Deven that Henry had been a friend of his, too. When he accosted Penshaw after the match, he phrased his question as gently as he could. “You might know better than I—has there been any discovery of the murderer, that he might be brought to justice?”
Penshaw’s face hardened into a mask, and he yanked his doublet straight before buckling his sword on once more. “No.”
How old was the man? In his thirties, Deven guessed. Too old for his rash nature. If Penshaw knew anything, he would have charged off to pursue it already. Deven had to ask, though. “You spent as much time in Henry’s company as I did, or even more. I am, after all, an old man, and not much for tennis or riding. Perhaps he would have told you what took him into Coldharbour.”
The name drained the blood from Penshaw’s face. “Coldharbour?”
“Yes,” Deven said, startled. “That is where he was found. Did you not know?”
“I—I was told he—” Penshaw pulled himself together. “I was told he died in the City, but no more.” His eyes might have been two stones. Too rash, Deven thought in dismay. He will go on a rampage through the tenements, demanding answers.
Certainly Penshaw had nothing of use for Deven. “I doubt ’twas significant,” he lied. “Likely a wherryman left him off there, and he was to see his family. I’m told Henry asked for a few days’ liberty from his duty.”
Penshaw nodded, calming.
“Well, if you see his family, please pass along the compliments of my condolence. I know his father through the Guildhall, but he has not been there of late.”
“I will,” Penshaw said, and they parted ways.
They had walked as they spoke, moving apart from the others; Deven was left in a deserted gallery, jaw clenched in frustration. Not the slightest shred of luck, and now he did not know what path to pursue. Henry had other friends, but none half so close as Penshaw. Who else knew him well?
“You are Sir Michael Deven.”
The words brought him up like a curb bit. The voice was so very like…Deven jerked around, half-expecting to see Henry’s ghost staring at him down this Whitehall gallery, translucent in the courtyard sunlight, asking why Deven had let him die.
It was not Henry. The jaw was too square, the nose too straight; the fingers on the hands were blunt and strong. But the voice, the hair, the eyes—they spoke a family resemblance too obvious to be missed. And on a boy young enough to deserve the name, they told Deven whom he faced.
“You must be Antony Ware,” he said, swallowing down his heart.
Henry’s younger brother stood stiff-legged, as if holding in some great emotion. Grief? Yes, but over it lay something else.
Anger.
Through his teeth, Antony Ware said, “You killed my brother, sirrah.”
The words struck like a knife to the heart: not the truth, but close enough to hurt. Deven tried to remember how old Antony was. Sixteen? No, seventeen. More than old enough to take worthy offence if Deven slipped up and called him boy. “Not I,” he said, as gently as he could. “Some cutpurse—”
Three swift strides devoured the space between them, putting the young man less than a pace away. Deven almost reached for his sword, but checked the motion in time. Ware was armed, too, and angry enough to answer him in kind. “You did not wield the knife,” the young man said, his furious voice leashed so the words did not carry beyond the two of them. “But Henry’s dead because you lured him into your foul and unnatural world.”
All the blood in Deven’s body congealed, ice-cold, in his feet. “H—how did you—”
“Learn of it? He told me, and begged my forgiveness before God for his sin.” Contempt and disgust warred in Ware’s expression. “I should have chained him to the wall before I let him return to you.”
Foul and unnatural. Deven wanted to protest the description. Though the Onyx Court harboured creatures who merited it, the court as a whole was not so. Had Henry truly deemed it a sin? Or was that merely the judgment of Antony—the younger son, the practical one, who did not seek wonder as Henry had? Whatever conclusions the young man might have drawn while his brother still lived, they had undoubtedly been poisoned still further by his death.
For which he placed the blame rightly enough.
Deven chained his guilt and forced himself to meet Ware’s eyes. “I never intended it to be so,” he said. “And had I realised the danger…” That other factions among the courtiers opposed Henry’s advancement, he knew, but not that they would go to such lengths to stop him. “All I can do now is find the one responsible for his death, and make that murderer pay.”
Ware scowled. He no longer looked like a boy; his anger befitted a man. As did his ability to control it: most young gentlemen would have called Deven out by now. But no, a duel would make their conflict too public. And it seemed Ware, thanks be to both God and the powers of Faerie, was willing to keep the secrets of the Onyx Court.