"Malantha," he said. "I would not wish for you to be found here. It would not be seemly."
"No one will ever find me here. I am yours alone." Her unblinking eyes held him in her gravity.
When her cool fingers touched his cheek, he jolted as if burned. She continued up into his hair, and then down the nape of his neck, her eyes never leaving his, never blinking. Deep inside, at that moment lost to all conscious thought, he hated what she did to him, but could not get enough of it. Later he would be filled with so much revulsion he would vomit.
"You do not want me here?" she asked, knowing the answer.
"You know that I do. Since you came into my life, you have haunted my every waking hour, my every dream. I hear your honeyed words when you are not around. I feel your hand in mine when you are not at my side. How could I not want you with me?"
She appeared to sense the furious competition of desire and loathing, but all it brought was the faintest smile. She leaned in closely, her warm breath playing against his ear. "The Enterprise of England. How goes it?"
"The monetary cost is high, but I have support for my God-given endeavour from across Europe. Emperor Rudolf has agreed to send troops, but no coin. The Doge stands beside us, though may not say so publicly. The English continue with their peace negotiations, blind to our true intentions."
"And the Armada?"
Philip smiled. "Formidable. Our success is assured. One hundred and thirty ships. Thirty thousand men. Near three thousand cannon."
"And England will be defeated?"
"Broken on the rack of Spanish might. The English will attack our ships no more, nor steal our gold and silver, and the true religion will return to that land. It did not have to be this way. If Mary had not been executed. If Elizabeth had married me-"
Malantha pressed a finger to his lips. "If Elizabeth had married you, you would not be here with me."
"Yes ... yes ..." he stuttered. Her scent, her beauty, filled his senses, speaking of other lands far from Spain.
"The English are devils," she breathed in his ear. "They cannot be trusted. They think themselves higher than all others, but there are things that are higher by far."
"Yes. God."
She smiled.
"I will do all in my power to break the English."
He was happy that his words pleased her. Releasing the tie on her dress, she let it fall from her, presenting her body to him for a moment before pushing him back to a divan and climbing astride him. Her skin was luminous, her scent heady. Pressing her breasts against his chest, she kissed him on the lips in a way that no one else had kissed him, deep and slow, with the subtle probing of her tongue. Her groin gently rubbed against his, up and down, up and down. Every sensation was so potent, his thoughts broke up and he was cast adrift in the moment.
He perceived only flashes-of her removing his clothes, working down his body with her lips, using her hands and her mouth, and then climbing astride him once more to slide him inside her-before he was overwhelmed.
When he awoke later, he was alone, as he always was in the aftermath, but fragments of memory mixed with dreams. He thought he recalled Malantha standing naked in front of the ornate mirror, and speaking to it. The mirror was smoky, but reflected flashes of sunlight.
She was saying, "All proceeds well. Spain readies its forces. The pieces move into place."
And then another voice came back, decadent and sly, and spoke briefly about something being lost and something else being found, and another object close to being found.
Though Malantha used the term brother, her voice was laced with the sexual flirtation he knew so well. "And how is life in the night-dark city, Cavillex?" she enquired.
"Here they call us the Unseelie Court," the voice came back drolly.
"Unseelie?"
"Unholy," the voice explained.
Her laughter filled his senses and it all slipped away from him once again.
A dream, nothing more.
CHAPTER 8
hese are dark times." Still drunk, Mayhew stared out of the carriage window with a dazed expression that revealed a depth of troubles. The White Tower was silhouetted against the rosy sky, the first rays of the sun gleaming across the rooftops as London slowly stirred.
"Take charge of your tongue, Master Mayhew," Will cautioned. "A man in his cups says the strangest things."
Mayhew flashed Will an apologetic look for speaking out of turn with Nathaniel in the carriage.
"Worry not about me," Nat said tartly. "I have no interest in the affairs of Lord Walsingham's great men."
Returning his gaze to the waking street, Mayhew sniffed, and said, "You should watch your servant. A sharp tongue and an independent mind are dangerous flaws."
"Nat keeps me honest, Matthew, and I will hear no word against him," Will replied. He watched the first market traders spill onto the street, blearyeyed and yawning. Soon there would be a deafening throng heading for Cheapside, the broadest of the capital's streets, where the market sprawled along the centre from the Carfax to Saint Paul's. There, it was possible to buy produce from all over London and the rapidly expanding villages just beyond the city walls: pudding pies from Pimlico and bread from Holloway or Stratford, root vegetables and sweet cakes, horses and hunting dogs, and peacocks and apes from the foreign traders.
The danger was apparent with each face Will saw. London was the boom town of Europe. The population had more than doubled since Elizabeth came to the throne, and the city elders struggled to cope with the problems caused by the influx: the overcrowding, the crime, the beggars, the filth, the disease. Larger now than the great cities of Bristol and Norwich, London bloated beyond the city walls, eating up all the villages that lay beyond. In that thick, seething mass of life, an emboldened Enemy could bring death on a grand scale.
What was the nature of the missing weapon? Was it truly as dangerous as Walsingham feared?
"You have your directions?" he asked Mayhew.
"I will wait among the rabble on Cheapside for the others to join me while you attend your secret assignation. We question the market traders about the gangs who prey on the innocent near the Tower, and meet again at noon to exchange what we have learned."
"Very good, Master Mayhew. I like a man whose brain stays sharp even after wine."
Mayhew didn't attempt to hide his displeasure. As Will stretched an arm out of the window and banged a hand on the roof of the carriage, the driver brought the horses to a halt with a loud, "Hey, and steady there!"
Half stumbling, Mayhew clambered out of the carriage without a backward glance and weaved his way towards the shade at the side of the street.
"Master Mayhew has a choleric disposition," Nathaniel noted. "And he likes his wine more than you do."
"Life is a constant struggle between virtue and vice, Nat. We cannot all be as worthy as you. Master Mayhew has served the queen well across the years, but what has been asked of him has taken its toll. Do not judge him harshly."
Will banged the carriage roof again and the wheels lurched into motion. After a pause, Nathaniel enquired with an air of studied disinterest, "This business is truly pressing?"
"You know I cannot say more."
"Yes. Better I remain in ignorance than be dragged into duplicitous affairs that could cost me my sanity or my life. The view from the poles above the gatehouse tower at London Bridge is not one to which I aspire." He paused. "But still. An assistant's work is better carried out with a little light."