“She’s as stubborn as her father, even though she’s a Pisces,” Sophie said serenely. “Sarah went through the ceremony in your place. Agatha was here. She’s gone at the moment, but I suspect she’ll be back soon. She and Marthe made a special cake wrapped up in strands of sugar. It was amazing. And Margaret’s dress was beautiful. You sound different—as if you spent a lot of time in a foreign country. And I like your hair. It’s different, too. Are you hungry?” Sophie’s words came out of her mouth in a disorganized tumble, just like Tom or Jack. I felt the loss of our friends, even here in the midst of our family.
After kissing Margaret on the forehead, I handed her back to her mother. Matthew was still standing behind the Range Rover’s open door, one foot in the car and the other resting on the ground of the Auvergne, as if he were unsure if we should be there.
“Where’s Em?” I asked. Sarah and Ysabeau exchanged a look.
“Everybody is waiting for you in the château. Why don’t we walk back?” Ysabeau suggested. “Just leave the car. Someone will get it. You must want to stretch your legs.”
I put my arm around Sarah and took a few steps. Where was Matthew? I turned and held out my free hand. Come to your family, I said silently as our eyes connected. Come be with the people who love you.
He smiled, and my heart leaped in response.
Ysabeau hissed in surprise, a sibilant noise that carried in the summer air more surely than a whisper. “Heartbeats. Yours. And . . . two more?” Her beautiful green eyes darted to my abdomen and a tiny red drop welled up and threatened to fall. Ysabeau looked to Matthew in wonder. He nodded, and his mother’s blood tear fully formed and slid down her cheek.
“Twins run in my family,” I said by way of explanation. Matthew had detected the second heartbeat in Amsterdam, just before we’d climbed into Marcus’s Spyder.
“Mine, too,” Ysabeau whispered. “Then it is true, what Sophie has seen in her dreams? You are with child—Matthew’s child?”
“Children,” I said, watching the blood tear’s slow progress.
“It’s a new beginning, then,” Sarah said, wiping a tear from her own eye. Ysabeau gave my aunt a bittersweet smile.
“Philippe had a favorite saying about beginnings. Something ancient. What was it, Matthieu?” Ysabeau asked her son.
Matthew stepped fully out of the car at last, as if some spell had been holding him back and its conditions had finally been met. He walked the few steps to my side, then kissed his mother softly on the cheek before reaching out and clasping my hand.
“‘Omni fine initium novum,’” Matthew said, gazing upon the land of his father as though he had, at last, come home.
“‘In every ending there is a new beginning.’”
42
Annie brought the small statue of Diana to Father Hubbard, just as Master Marlowe had made her promise to do. Her heart tightened to see it in the wearh’s palm. The tiny figure always reminded her of Diana Roydon. Even now, nearly two years after her mistress’s sudden departure, Annie missed her.
“And he said nothing else?” Hubbard demanded, turning the figurine this way and that. The huntress’s arrow caught the light and sparked as though it were about to fly.
“Nothing, Father. Before he left for Deptford this morning, he bade me bring this to you. Master Marlowe said you would know what must be done.”
Hubbard noticed a slip of paper inserted into the slim quiver, rolled up and tucked alongside the goddess’s waiting arrows. “Give me one of your pins, Annie.”
Annie removed a pin from her bodice and handed it to him with a mystified look. Hubbard poked the sharp end at the paper and caught it on the point. Carefully he slid it out.
Hubbard read the lines, frowned, and shook his head. “Poor Christopher. He was ever one of God’s lost children.”
“Master Marlowe is not coming back?” Annie smothered a small sigh of relief. She had never liked the playwright, and her regard for him had not recovered after the dreadful events in the tiltyard at Greenwich Palace. Since her mistress and master had departed, leaving no clues to their whereabouts, Marlowe had gone from melancholy to despair to something darker. Some days Annie was sure that the blackness would swallow him whole. She wanted to be sure it didn’t catch her, too.
“No, Annie. God tells me Master Marlowe is gone from this world and on to the next. I pray he finds peace there, for it was denied him in this life.” Hubbard considered the girl for a moment. She had grown into a striking young woman. Maybe she would cure Will Shakespeare of his love for that other man’s wife. “But you are not to worry. Mistress Roydon bade me treat you like my own. I take care of my children, and you will have a new master.”
“Who, Father?” She would have to take whatever position Hubbard offered her. Mistress Roydon had been clear how much money she would require to set herself up as an independent seamstress in Islington. It was going to take time and considerable thrift to gather such a sum.
“Master Shakespeare. Now that you can read and write, you are a woman of value, Annie. You can be of help to him in his work.” Hubbard considered the slip of paper in his hand. He was tempted to keep it with the parcel that had arrived from Prague, sent to him through the formidable network of mail carriers and merchants established by the Dutch vampires.
Hubbard still wasn’t sure why Edward Kelley had sent him the strange picture of the dragons. Edward was a dark and slippery creature, and Hubbard had not approved of his moral code that saw nothing wrong with open adultery or theft. Taking his blood in the ritual of family and sacrifice had been a chore, not the pleasure it usually was. In the exchange, Hubbard had seen enough of Kelley’s soul to know he didn’t want him in London. So he sent him to Mortlake instead. It had stopped Dee’s incessant pestering for lessons in magic.
But Marlowe had meant this statue to go to Annie, and Hubbard would not alter a dying man’s wish. He handed the small figurine and slip of paper to Annie. “You must give this to your aunt, Mistress Norman. She will keep it safe for you. The paper can be another remembrance of Master Marlowe.”
“Yes, Father Hubbard,” Annie said, though she would have liked to sell the silver object and put the proceeds in her stocking.
Annie left the church where Andrew Hubbard held court and trudged the streets to Will Shakespeare’s house. He was less mercurial than Marlowe, and Mistress Roydon had always spoken of him with respect even though the master’s friends were quick to mock him.
She settled quickly into the player’s household, her spirits lifting with each passing day. When news reached them of Marlowe’s gruesome death, it only confirmed how fortunate she was to be free of him. Master Shakespeare was shaken, too, and drank too much one night, which brought him to the attention of the master of the revels. Shakespeare had explained himself satisfactorily, though, and all was returned to normal now.
Annie was cleaning grime from the windowpane to provide better light for her employer to read by. She dipped her cloth into fresh water, and a small curl of paper drifted down from her pocket, carried on a breeze from the open casement.
“What is that, Annie? Shakespeare asked suspiciously, pointing with the feathered end of his quill. The girl had worked for Kit Marlowe. She could be passing information to his rivals. He couldn’t afford to have anyone know about his latest bids for patronage. With all the playhouses closed on account of the plague, it would be a challenge to keep body and soul together. Venus and Adonis could do it—provided nobody stole the idea out from under him.
“Nothing, M-M-Master Shakespeare,” Annie stammered, bending to retrieve the paper.