“Jesu,” Elizabeth said with a groan. “My head feels like a rotten apple about to split. Could you not have chosen a more opportune time to cause a diplomatic incident?”
“Let me examine you,” Matthew requested.
“You think to provide me care that my surgeon cannot, Master Roydon?” said the queen with wary hope.
“I believe I can spare you some pain, if God wills it.”
“Even unto his death, my father spoke of you with longing.” Elizabeth’s hands twitched against the folds of her skirt. “He likened you to a tonic, whose benefits he had failed to appreciate.”
“How so?” Matthew made no effort to hide his curiosity. This was not a story he had heard before.
“He said you could rid him of an evil humor faster than any man he had ever known—though, like most physic, you could be difficult to swallow.” Elizabeth smiled at Matthew’s booming laughter, and then her smile faltered. “He was a great and terrible man—and a fool.”
“All men are fools, Your Majesty,” Matthew said swiftly.
“No. Let us speak plainly to each other again, as though I were not queen of England and you were not a wearh.”
“Only if you let me look at your tooth,” Matthew said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Once an invitation to share intimacies with me would have been sufficient inducement, and you would not have attached further conditions to my proposal.” Elizabeth sighed. “I am losing more than my teeth. Very well, Master Roydon.” She opened her mouth obediently. Even though I was a few feet away, I could smell the decay. Matthew took her head in his hands so that he could see the problem more clearly.
“It is a miracle you have any teeth at all,” he said sternly. Elizabeth turned pink with irritation and struggled to reply. “You may shout at me when I am done. By then you will have good reason to do so, as I will have confiscated your candied violets and sweet wine. That will leave you with nothing more damaging to drink than peppermint water and nothing to suck on but a clove rub for your gums. They are badly abscessed.”
Matthew drew his finger along her teeth. Several of them wiggled alarmingly, and Elizabeth’s eyes bulged. He made a sound of displeasure.
“You may be queen of England, Lizzie, but that doesn’t give you a knowledge of physic and surgery. It would have been wiser to heed the surgeon’s advice. Now, hold still.”
While I tried to regain my composure after hearing my husband call the queen of England “Lizzie,” Matthew withdrew his index finger, rubbed it against his own sharp eyetooth so that it drew a bead of blood, and returned it to Elizabeth’s mouth. Though he was careful, the queen winced. Then her shoulders lowered in relief.
“’Ank ’ewe,” she mumbled around his fingers.
“Don’t thank me yet. There won’t be a comfit or sweetmeat for five miles when I’m through. And the pain will return, I’m afraid.” Matthew drew his fingers away, and the queen felt around her mouth with her tongue.
“Aye, but for now it is gone,” she said gratefully. Elizabeth gestured at the nearby chairs. “I fear there is nothing left but to settle accounts. Sit down and tell me about Prague.”
After spending weeks at the emperor’s court, I knew it was an extraordinary privilege to be invited to sit in the presence of any ruler, but I was doubly grateful for the chance to do so now. The voyage had exacerbated the normal fatigue of the first weeks of pregnancy. Matthew pulled out one of the chairs for me, and I lowered myself into it. I pressed the small of my back against the carving, using its knobs and bumps to give the aching joints a massage. Matthew’s hand automatically reached for the same area, pushing and kneading to relieve the soreness. Envy flashed across the queen’s features.
“You are in pain, too, Mistress Roydon?” the queen inquired solicitously. She was being too nice. When Rudolf treated a courtier like this, something sinister was usually afoot.
“Yes, Your Majesty. Alas, it is nothing peppermint water will solve,” I said ruefully.
“Nor will it smooth the emperor’s ruffled feathers. His ambassador tells me that you have stolen one of Rudolf’s books.”
“Which book?” Matthew asked. “Rudolf has so many.” As most vampires had not been acquainted with the state of innocence for some time, his performance of it rang hollow.
“We are not playing games, Sebastian,” the queen said quietly, confirming my suspicion that Matthew had gone by the name of Sebastian St. Clair when he was at Henry’s court.
“You are always playing games,” he shot back. “In this you are no different from the emperor, or Henry of France.”
“Mistress Throckmorton told me that you and Walter have been exchanging verses about the fickleness of power. But I am not one of those vain potentates, fit for nothing save scorn and ridicule. I was raised by hard schoolmasters,” the queen retorted. “Those around me—mother, aunts, stepmothers, uncles, cousins—are gone. I survived. So do not give me the lie and think to get away with it. I ask you again, what of the book?”
“We don’t have it,” I interjected.
Matthew looked at me in shock.
“The book is not in our possession. At present.” It was doubtless already at the Hart and Crown, safely tucked into Matthew’s attic archive. I’d passed the book to Gallowglass, wrapped in protective oilskin and leather, when the royal barge had pulled alongside us on our way up the Thames.
“Well, well.” Elizabeth’s mouth slowly widened, showing her blackened teeth. “You surprise me. And your husband too, it seems.”
“I am nothing but surprises, Your Majesty. Or so I am told.” No matter how many times Matthew referred to her as Lizzie or she called him Sebastian, I was careful to address her formally.
“The emperor seems to be in the grip of some illusion, then. How do you account for it?”
“There is nothing remarkable about that,” Matthew said with a snort. “I fear the madness that has afflicted his family is now touching Rudolf. Even now his brother Matthias plots his downfall and positions himself to seize power when the emperor can no longer rule.”
“No wonder the emperor is so eager to keep Kelley. The philosopher’s stone will cure him and make the issue of his successor moot.” The queen’s expression soured. “He will live on forever, without fear.”
“Come, Lizzie. You know better than that. Kelley cannot make the stone. He cannot save you or anyone else. Even queens and emperors must one day die.”
“We are friends, Sebastian, but do not forget yourself.” Elizabeth’s eyes glittered.
“When you were seven and asked me if your father planned to kill his new wife, I told you the truth. I was honest with you then, and I will be honest with you now, however much it angers you. Nothing will bring your youth back, Lizzie, or resurrect those you have lost,” Matthew said implacably.
“Nothing?” Elizabeth slowly studied him. “I see no lines or gray hairs on you. You look exactly as you did fifty years ago at Hampton Court when I took my shears to you.”
“If you are asking me to use my blood to make you a wearh, Your Majesty, the answer must be no. The covenant forbids meddling in human politics—and that certainly includes altering the English succession by placing a creature on the throne.” Matthew’s expression was forbidding.
“And would that be your answer if Rudolf made this request?” Elizabeth asked, black eyes glittering.
“Yes. It would lead to chaos—and worse.” The prospect was chilling. “Your realm is safe,” Matthew assured her. “The emperor is behaving like a spoiled child denied a treat. That is all.”
“Even now his uncle, Philip of Spain, is building ships. He plans another invasion!”
“And it will come to nothing,” Matthew promised.
“You sound very sure.”
“I am.”
Lion and wolf regarded each other across the table. When at last Elizabeth was satisfied, she looked away with a sigh.