While the coach rolled away from Windsor Palace, Rhoslyn was so torn among grief, fury, and fear that at first her mind could not fix on anything. She cursed Denoriel, hardly able to believe he had appeared at Windsor so early. He had been watched from afar for weeks while she worked on the changeling, and although he was known to visit Windsor at frequent if irregular intervals, he always arrived in the afternoon, sometimes quite late afternoon. Had he known she was there? How had he known?
There was something, something she should remember, some sense of faint magic, but not mortal magic—no, this had the delicate feeling of Sidhe magic. When had she felt it? While she was bespelling Norfolk? Had there been a flash of white at the same time?
But she could not hold the thought. Instead, she wept, muffling her sobs in the veils of her habit, grieving over her poor little changeling, so sweet, so good. It was not fair. It was not fair. Denoriel had destroyed it—
Yet she had always known it had to die. Once in the mortal world there would not be power enough to sustain it. It would have wasted away in a few weeks or at the most a few months, and it would have been tormented by stupid, ignorant mortal physicians. They would have been trying to cure it, but nothing could cure it as the power she had used to build it faded away.
She shivered and wept harder, hating herself for the fate she had known was in store for the child she had created. And then, hiccupping with grief, she comforted herself with the thought that it had probably never known pain or fear. Her sleep spell was strong and Denoriel would have sucked out its poor little store of life while it still slept. At least he would not have waked it; Denoriel took no pleasure in fear or pain.
Damn him! Damn him! Why was he in the wrong place at the wrong time? Let him be accursed by the Great Evil. Rhoslyn shivered again, now with fear. Wishing Denoriel to be in the hands of the Great Evil brought her own master to mind. Vidal Dhu would be furious. He would send her to the seventh plane of demons to be tortured for a thousand years.
No, Pasgen would not allow Vidal Dhu to do her real harm. But . . . she could not stop shivering . . . that would bring a confrontation between Pasgen and Vidal Dhu too soon, and she was in no condition to help her brother. She was depleted, depleted of some deep inner force by the strength she had expended to make her changeling. She had surface power enough, the power that one drank in from Underhill; she could cast sleep spells and obedience spells, but the deep, inner energy that was natural to her was fragile and worn.
She began to weep again for the false child's death, to curse Denoriel again, to swallow terror as she thought of Vidal Dhu's reaction to her failure, her thoughts going round and round from grief to rage to fear as the coach rumbled toward London. Somewhere in the back of her mind that other Rhoslyn, the one who had coldly cast the sleep spell on the simulacrum, who had come running to meet her with open arms, and carried him through the Gate to his eventual death, noted that this time, this little time, was all she would have to indulge herself. And she wept even harder for that other Rhoslyn who would all too soon choke off grief and tears.
Eventually Rhoslyn felt the coach slowing. She dried her tears, willed her eyes and nose and skin to show no sign of the weeping, and sat up straight. Here was where she must change places with the nun who had been sent to put the fear of God into FitzRoy if he dared think about replacing his legitimate sister. That so-called Bride of God had brought no pretty toy from a loving half-sister; if FitzRoy had truly encountered her, he would have been left in terror and tears. Rhoslyn hissed faintly between her teeth when she thought about the time, the effort, the elaborate planning that had been brought to naught by that demon-spawn Denoriel.
How had he known? Again the memory of a flash of white, a hint of Seleighe spirits . . . and then she knew. Air spirit! He had had an air spirit watching for her and had Gated to Windsor to intercept her attempt to take FitzRoy. Air spirit. Roslyn's teeth ground together. If she caught one, she would tear it to pieces with her bare hands and drink its agony with joy.
She drew back the leather curtain and peered out the window of the coach. Yes. This was the place. About halfway between Windsor and London, was a small inn and a large stable at which horses could be hired. Out beyond it, Pasgen had built a temporary Gate for her. Roslyn's jaw set in a new spurt of rage. Pasgen was no less depleted than she. A Gate was no easy thing to create and hold, but they had thought it would be necessary since she was to bring FitzRoy with her. She bit her lip. Now it was all for nothing.
The coach came to a halt so that the hired horses, which had made the second half of the journey to Windsor, could be exchanged for the those which had drawn it from London and were now fed and rested. Rhoslyn alighted from the coach supposedly to use the jakes, to refresh herself with a plate of bread and cold meat and a cup of ale while the harness was transferred from one set of horses to the other.
There were other travelers in the inn, but after a word and a coin offered to the landlord, Rhoslyn took her bread and meat and ale through the public room to a private one in the back. She closed the door behind her, set her hand on the latch and whispered two words. Satisfied that no one could enter, Rhoslyn set the food on the table and walked to a far corner of the room, which was unnaturally dark.
As she approached, the corner brightened. By the time she reached it, she could see a woman with oddly cropped hair, wearing nothing but an undershift, who sat with closed eyes, supported by the walls on either side of her. Rhoslyn sighed and stripped off the nun's habit she was wearing, which she replaced with the sober but elegant gown resting beside the woman on the bench.
When she was dressed, except for the final lacing of her gown, she gestured for the ensorcelled woman to rise, finish lacing her gown, and don the nun's garb. Then Rhoslyn gathered her will, took a deep breath, bit her lip, leaned forward, and put her hand on the woman's forehead. Fortunately the false memories she had to impart were simple: the nun had to remember herself requesting permission from Norfolk to speak to Richmond and give him a gift—it was a prayer-book, not a toy, full of admonitions—delivering the lecture she had already fixed in her mind while walking with the boy to the coach, handing over the gift, and leaving.
The nun would report her interview with FitzRoy to Maria de Salinas, Queen Catherine's favorite maid of monor. Maria would be sadly disappointed in what the nun said, as would the queen, because the nun would have to admit that FitzRoy had not reacted at all to her urging that he refuse any precedence over his sister. Rhoslyn had no sympathy to waste on them. It was largely Catherine's fault that she had so underestimated the threat FitzRoy was to Princess Mary's inheritance of the throne.
The queen had publicly professed herself shocked and disgusted when her husband began to heap honors on his bastard son. She had protested to Henry and been soothed by his assurances that he was merely providing the proper status and income for a child of royal blood. From then on Catherine refused to hear anything about FitzRoy, which she never failed to call him, ignoring the titles that had been bestowed upon him.
Rhoslyn, who had established herself as a dear friend and advisor to Maria de Salinas, had assumed Catherine understood her husband and had accepted the queen's attitude toward FitzRoy. Once Rhoslyn had learned different, she had set about rectifying the queen's deliberate blindness. She had conveyed to Maria de Salinas a strong anxiety about the possibility that FitzRoy would be preferred over Princess Mary. King Henry was very prone to telling soothing lies. Maria conveyed the anxiety to Queen Catherine, and pointed out that it was dangerous to keep ignoring the boy.
Catherine was too proud and too stubborn to reverse her disapproval and recognize FitzRoy, but Maria de Salinas, via Rhoslyn, had an answer to that. It would be most natural for ten-year-old Princess Mary, a lonely only child, to be curious about her half-brother and to wish to be in contact with him. It would be kind of the princess—and would probably please King Henry—if Mary were to send FitzRoy a gift before she and FitzRoy were farther apart. Mary had chosen a prayer-book; Maria de Salinas had chosen the prayers, which Mary had copied into it in her own neat hand. The child was already so steeped in the gloomy Christianity of her mother's Spanish priests that she saw nothing out of the ordinary about a book of prayers begging frantically for God's forgiveness for unspecified (but presumably heinous) sins being sent to a child of six.
The conveyor of the gift would be a nun. Rhoslyn skillfully discouraged the idea of sending a priest by hinting that male visitors might be suspect after the attack on FitzRoy by members of the Spanish ambassador's retinue. The nun would bring Princess Mary's gift, explain to FitzRoy that his sister loved him and make clear his duty to that sister was to refuse to usurp her place. If he agreed, the nun would shower blessings on him; if he insisted on being his father's heir, he would be accursed of God.
Rhoslyn thought the idea ridiculous, but she certainly did not discourage Maria de Salinas; replacing the nun would be Rhoslyn's passport into Windsor, where she had to go to exchange FitzRoy for the simulacrum. Naturally, she had made no attempt to say anything about Princess Mary to FitzRoy, nor did she regret that she had not.
First of all, she had expected to take the FitzRoy with her; the changeling would die; and all threat to Mary's precedence would be removed. Secondly, even though the abduction had failed, Rhoslyn was sure that no remonstrance would have the smallest effect on Harry FitzRoy. No doubt Catherine and Maria de Salinas had conceived the silly notion because the lecture might have been effective with Mary, who had been imbued with a deep love and reverence for the Church. FitzRoy had not. Nor was it likely that he would be given any choice in his actions. It was Norfolk and the king to whom these remonstrances should be addressed, not the child, who would do as he was told by his keeper and his father. The women of Catherine's court were living in a dream-world in which men of ambition and greed would somehow be turned from their path by tears and prayers.
Those thoughts Rhoslyn shielded from the nun's mind. With a final suggestion that the woman eat and drink what was on the table and then complete her journey, Rhoslyn unspelled the door and slipped out of the room. Down a side corridor was a back door leading to the jakes in the yard. She hurried out, knowing no one would look at her or find the action noteworthy. Still, she made sure the yard was empty before she slid around the side of the privy into a tall hedge behind. An opening, visible only to eyes that could look through illusion, took her to the Gate.
The disorientation was terrible, worse than Rhoslyn had ever felt before. She had not realized how magically depleted, how physically exhausted, she was. Rage, grief, and fear had filled her completely. Now, facing the end, the necessary admission of total failure, even the negative emotions that had upheld her sank into a black depression. She staggered, went to her knees, her eyes closing.
A painful grip on her arm yanked her forward, out of the Gate area, pulled her upright. She stared around at Pasgen's windowless but brilliantly lit workroom. Because the Gate was only supposed to exist for less than a day, Pasgen had set it up in one of his workrooms. He been waiting for her, eager to collapse the Gate which was a constant drain on him. He shook her so that her teeth rattled, and shouted at her.
"Where is FitzRoy? I thought we had agreed that you would bring him here where there was the least chance of tracing him!" He shook her again, his voice rising with anger. "Where is he?"
Rhoslyn opened her eyes; it took as much effort as to climb a mountain. "The changeling is dead, and I don't have FitzRoy," she said flatly.
He snarled. "Dead! What in the lowest plane of demons ails you? How could you make a simulacrum that would not last at least a few hours?"
Anger gave Rhoslyn strength again, and enough energy to wrest her arm out of Pasgen's grip and stalk through the door of his workroom. It was a Gate, and nearly brought her to her knees again, but it left her in the short corridor between his bedroom and his living room. Steadying herself against the wall for a moment, she turned into the latter, and sank down on one of the uninviting looking but comfortable sofas.
"The changeling was murdered," she said to Pasgen, who appeared in the doorway moments later, face stormy with rage.
But that brought him up short. "Murdered?"
It was her turn to snarl. "Blast you, can't you do anything but repeat what I say? Go and shut down the Gate. There's no need for you to feed it. We won't be going back to Windsor again."
Pasgen's mouth dropped open. Rhoslyn could not tell whether it was surprise at her vicious tone or a prelude to shouting at her, but clearly he realized that first things should come first, and he went back out presumably to the Gate that would take him to his workroom so he could close down the Gate to Windsor. Rhoslyn closed her eyes again. She did not yield to her first impulse, which was to run away and cry until she slept; she did rest and draw in power from the ambience of Underhill.
First her fear faded. It was clear that Pasgen would not abandon her. Despite her assurances to herself, she had always wondered whether, if she made a serious enough blunder, he would walk away and leave her to her fate. Then her rage settled from a boiling hot turmoil into a kind of hard determination to repay Denoriel—with usurious interest—for what he had done to her. That determination, like hardened lava, covered her grief, although somewhere deep inside she was bruised and torn.
"What do you mean the changeling was murdered? Is a changeling enough alive to be murdered?"
Rhoslyn's eyes snapped open; she sat straighter on the sofa. "Mine was!" she spat. "He was as much a child as any mortal living, and he would have passed as Harry FitzRoy for however long he lived . . . but Denoriel sucked out the power that gave him life and cast the husk away."
"Denoriel?" Pasgen cleared his throat as he realized he had again repeated what Rhoslyn said. "Denoriel was not supposed to be there. It cost me five servants to watch for his movements. Having them pass as human ate their energy so fast I could not always save them."
"I will make you more," she promised wearily.
Pasgen shrugged, as if her offer was of no account. "Denoriel never came to Windsor before two of the clock and often not until four or five. Twice—no, three times he came secretly in the night, or it might have been another Sidhe—the servants do not see as well as we do at night. Whoever it was entered through a magicked door and climbed the castle wall to enter through a magicked window. Denoriel never came to Windsor in the morning. That muscle-bound sword swinger had not brains enough—"
She interrupted him with a snort. "That muscle-bound sword-swinger outthought us from the moment he took on the care of FitzRoy. I was wrong about him. He is more, much more. Even if Denoriel had not been there to interfere, my plans were in ruins." She thrust out her right hand which was still reddened and slightly puffy. "I could never have touched the boy to change his clothes with the simulacrum. I do not know whether I could even have cast a sleep spell that would hold him. FitzRoy was wearing cold iron in a form that was deadly! And he had been wearing it on his flesh for a long time."
"Cold iron? But then how could Denoriel . . ."
Once again she interrupted him. "Pasgen, we have always underestimated him. Do not, I pray you, do so any longer. I have discovered to my sorrow that he is more than a simple-minded warrior. He is cleverer than I would have believed. He saw the boat in the coach and must have guessed I left it there to induce the child to climb in. He went to get it, saw my poor little changeling . . ."
Her mouth trembled and she steadied it with an effort and continued, "And he is strong! He bent over FitzRoy as if the aura of cold iron did not exist. I had to walk at arms' length and I could barely keep my gorge from rising or resist the pangs in my arms and legs. He stood right beside FitzRoy and handed the boat to the child. I think their fingers touched and he did not even wince."
Pasgen stared at her, then said quietly, "Let us not go overboard the other way and start to believe Denoriel invincible. He has a resistance to the devil metal . . . I had heard that. I think mother told me. And of course he knew the child was carrying it so it did not take him by surprise, as it took you. What troubles me much more than any strength Denoriel has is that he thought to arm FitzRoy with cold iron . . . and that he somehow knew you were in the palace that morning."
Rhoslyn sighed. "I think I know the answer to how he knew I was in the palace. A very strict watch is kept over FitzRoy since those stupid Spaniards attacked him. No one is allowed to approach him at all, so I had to get permission from the duke of Norfolk to speak to the boy. And I wanted him called out of his schoolroom before Denoriel could possibly arrive. While I was . . . ah . . . convincing Norfolk to call the child from his lessons to go with me I . . . I sensed something of a Seleighe spirit and . . . and there was—I did not see it with my eyes but there was a flash of white."
"There and then gone?"
"Yes."
Pasgen's lips thinned. "An air spirit set to watch. But for what? For you? For me?"
She thought about that, thought about the limited thinking ability of an air spirit. "I would say for any Sidhe. That tells us that Denoriel was the only one who was attending to FitzRoy, but that is of no benefit to know now. FitzRoy is leaving for Yorkshire tomorrow, and Denoriel is riding with the cortege."
"And the air spirit, too, which means that if we approach the cortege, Denoriel will be warned." He frowned. "Still, air spirits are notably inconstant. I can think of more than one device that would confuse it or draw it away. And there should be some easy way to distract Denoriel. Along the roads the cortege will travel in a long drawn-out party. Surely we should be able to separate FitzRoy from the others."
Rhoslyn had begun shaking her head as soon as Pasgen mentioned the air spirit and distracting Denoriel. "You will not draw away or distract this air spirit. I suspect Aleneil's fine hand is on the creature. Doubtless she has bound it in some way to its task. And nothing will distract Denoriel. Any threat to the cortege would clamp him to FitzRoy's side like a stickfast. Not to mention the boy's own guards, who remember clearly what happened to those whose failure of attention permitted the attempt to drown him. Don't even think of it, unless you mean to call out the whole Wild Hunt."
Pasgen shook his head. "Not that, nor to do anything else that might call Vidal Dhu's attention."
She shuddered at that reminder. "I doubt I will need to call his attention after I tell him—"
But Pasgen cut her off. "You will tell him nothing. He did not know when we intended to make this attempt. There is no reason for him to know that we failed."
"I failed, not you," she said despairingly.
"I as much for not thinking and planning better." Pasgen's face contorted into a grimace of irritation and dissatisfaction. "It is too bad that the changeling was lost, but it will matter much less in the wilds of Yorkshire. We may need to wait a few months, but I believe that our first plan was too complicated. I will have to discover where Denoriel has his Gate placed, then I will create one for us. Sooner or later it will be possible for us to herd FitzRoy through that Gate, and never mind substituting anything. Why should we have bothered with creating a substitute at all? He will simply be lost, and they will not know where, and when he is gone, the future that Lord Vidal wanted will come to pass."
Rhoslyn sat up straighter and her eyes brightened. "But first we need to be rid of that accursed air spirit. I can bind a few minor Unseleighe creatures to follow and watch the cortege. Inside Windsor using hobgoblins and the like was impossible, but their auras will be less apparent out in the countryside and Denoriel may not associate them with himself or FitzRoy if I use a different one each day. As soon as they discover what form the air spirit has taken for watching FitzRoy, I will devise some constructs whose single purpose will be to kill it."
Pasgen shrugged. "That would be a waste of time and effort. It will be replaced quickly and to repeat the killing will betray us. Anyway, do not have it killed on the journey to Yorkshire. That will tell Denoriel too much. Let him try to guess what we intend to do and wear himself out watching. And, despite Vidal's hysteria, it will be years in the future before we need worry about the boy usurping Princess Mary's place. A month more or less—a year—more—it would not matter. We have time to watch and wait until after the Gates are set. Then we can take him."
Rhoslyn said nothing, afraid that Pasgen would read in her words how much her arms ached to curve around a small, warm body, to hold a child that wriggled and laughed and cuddled against her for comfort. She made herself shrug in response to Pasgen's reasoning, but inside she reaffirmed her determination to have FitzRoy. She would rub Denoriel's nose in the foul mess of defeat. And she would tell no one, not even Pasgen, that she had the child. He would be hers, all hers, for as long as she wanted him.
This new place in Yorkshire to which FitzRoy was going was far more rural than Windsor. It was far from the court in London, from the Spanish embassy, and from the minions of the Emperor Charles. The vigilance around FitzRoy would soon relax. Denoriel could not live with the boy, and he too would often be absent keeping up with his friends in Henry VIII's court.
Another idea occurred to her. Pasgen had a fine hand with Gates. Surely he could do something that would make Denoriel's personal Gates answer her. Or if he could not do that, perhaps he could repattern the Gate so that it would dump Denoriel into Vidal's Court or just lose him completely in the Unformed chaos lands. And if Denoriel was out of the way, she might not have to wait so long before she had FitzRoy in her arms. This time she would leave no changeling behind with half her heart. She would snatch FitzRoy and let the blame fall where it would.