“But you do not choose that of others—and as long as your life entwines with those you love, you are not entirely free. You are the eldest, but you have the most to learn. Lessons of honour and loyalty and, yes, of choice. Not everything in this world is as it seems. You must learn to see gray, where before you have seen only black or white. There will be pain in the learning, and danger if you will not learn to bend.”
William snorted. “There will only be pain because Dom thinks too much and makes everything more serious than it needs to be.”
“That is your calling,” Dee said to Dominic. “You are, above all, loyal, and you speak always to the king’s conscience. Who will tell him the truth if you will not?”
A pause, verging on uncomfortable, until William spoke. “Tell Dom something pleasant—how many beautiful women in his future?”
An even longer pause, then: “Only one,” Dee said tersely. “There will only ever be the one.”
Tension entered the room, on such misty feet that Elizabeth could not say where it centered. William broke it with a laugh as he stood. “Well, that’s all right, then. All we need do is identify this one beautiful woman and Dom’s future is set.”
And just like that they were finished. William went so far as to clap John Dee on the shoulder. “My thanks for an interesting diversion, Doctor. I hope you shall find our court accommodating to your intellect and talents.”
Dee bowed. “The most glittering court in Christendom, Your Majesty.”
“Ha! I’d love to see Henri’s face when he finds that the English have captured what the French could not. You are most welcome at my court, Dr. Dee, if ever you should tire of Northumberland’s household.”
Then William spoke to the rest of them. “There is still music to be had this night. Dom, if you dance with Minuette first, then no one will find it odd when I come along and steal her from you.”
“Not odd at all.” Dominic’s voice was toneless. “Dr. Dee, if you don’t mind, I will stay until you have burned those charts.”
“Of course,” Dee answered, and emptied the folio. There were only the four pages; Dr. Dee had written down his calculations, not their interpretations. Those would stay locked in his own mind. One by one he fed the pages to the flames.
“Thank you,” Dominic said. He and Minuette followed William out the door.
Elizabeth hesitated, then confronted Dr. Dee, who straightened, meeting her on that precarious equal ground that made her both nervous and approving.
“Your Highness?” He made it a question, but she would have wagered he knew what she was going to ask.
“What did younotsay, Doctor?”
“Many things, Your Highness.”
“Why? What is so bad that it could not be told?”
“Why must it be bad? Even glorious futures do not come without cost. And as I believe I said before, this is not exact. God made the stars as he made men. Only He can read them perfectly.”
“What did you see?” Robert’s wife dead? Elizabeth married for love, as William meant to do? Civil war, as another Tudor king cast aside wisdom for desire? Elizabeth far from England for all the rest of her life as the wife of another royal? As she thought that, Elizabeth’s heart pierced with pain and she knew that would be the worst future for her of any—to leave England and never return.
Dr. Dee was silent. The hiss of the flames twisted like cords around her skin, and she had a sudden sense that there were ghosts in the room, pressing into this moment as though they’d been waiting. Her father and grandfather, of course, but even stronger was the sense of her grandmother: Elizabeth of York, whose Plantagenet blood had sealed Henry VII’s Tudor victory when they wed. What did that daughter and mother of kings want her namesake to know?
Unexpectedly, Dr. Dee took her right hand, letting her fingertips rest in his palm. “This is the hand of a woman, Your Highness. But it is also the hand of a ruler. The king, your father, spent much effort and pain to secure a worthy heir for England. If he had been able to see beyond your woman’s body, he would have found the heart of the heir he sought.”
He pinned her with his eyes, an urgency to his gaze as though there was more he could say but wouldn’t. Elizabeth could almost feel words forming along her skin where he touched her hand, and if she stayed here another moment she would know something she had never dreamed of …
She snatched her hand away. “Goodnight, Dr. Dee.”
CHAPTER TWO
How, Robert Dudley wondered, does George Boleyn nose out these insalubriously private areas of every royal palace?
He doubted it was the women George took to bed who told him how to find dank cellars and tunneled-out storage spaces—Rochford was liberal in his sexual activities, but also discriminating. His type of woman might not always be a lady, but she would never be a common whore. And Robert could not imagine any woman except a desperate one being caught dead in this particularly foul-smelling section of Greenwich.
Strictly speaking, the walled yard in which he paced wasn’t part of the palace itself. It belonged to a dilapidated stone outbuilding that held a jumble of gardening equipment, which on the night before Christmas was in little danger of being used. The stench came from the Thames, running fast and foul only yards away.
What am I doing? Robert asked himself uneasily. It was a question he’d begun to pose with distressing regularity the last six weeks. Working with Rochford had promised so much, but he was beginning to wonder if it was worth it. It wasn’t so much the Duke of Norfolk’s death in disgrace that bothered him, nor even the continued imprisonment of his grandson, the Earl of Surrey, for an almost wholly imaginary crime. Robert didn’t like the Howards and had no regrets about helping the proud Catholic family along their way to destruction.
What troubled him were particular faces and the memories attached to them: Elizabeth’s earnest faith when she’d asked him to go after Minuette for her friend’s safety; Dominic’s stubborn lies about Giles Howard’s death—also done in the interest of protecting Minuette. Her face troubled him as well, because he felt guilty for using her and he couldn’t pin her down, all of which was eminently frustrating.
