Walter gauged Matthew’s mood and nodded. “Very well, Matthew. We will follow your wishes. Take Diana and the children home. Leave everything else to Hancock and me.”
“I told him there was nothing to worry about. The baby is fine.” I lowered my smock. We’d come straight home, but Matthew had sent Pierre to fetch Susanna and Goody Alsop anyway. Now the house was full to bursting with angry vampires and witches. “Maybe you can convince him of it.”
Susanna rinsed her hands in the basin of hot, soapy water. “If your husband will not believe his own eyes, nothing I can do or say will persuade him.” She called for Matthew. Gallowglass came with him, the two of them filling the doorway.
“Are you all right, in truth?” Gallowglass’s face was ashen. “I had a broken finger and a cracked rib. I could have gotten them falling on the stairs. Thanks to Susanna, my finger is completely healed.” I stretched my hand. It was still swollen, and I had to wear Ysabeau’s ring on my other hand, but I could move the fingers without pain. The gash in my side would take more time. Matthew had refused to use vampire blood to heal it, so Susanna had resorted to a few magical stitches and a poultice instead.
“There are many good reasons to hate Louisa at this moment,” Matthew said grimly, “but here is something to be thankful for: She did not wish to kill you. Louisa’s aim is impeccable. Had she wanted to put her lance through your heart, you would be dead.”
“Louisa was too preoccupied with the prophecy that Gerbert shared with Ysabeau.”
Gallowglass and Matthew exchanged looks.
“It’s nothing,” Matthew said dismissively, “just some idiotic thing he dreamed up to excite Maman.”
“It was Meridiana’s prophecy, wasn’t it?” I had known it in my bones ever since Louisa mentioned it. The words brought back memories of Gerbert’s touch at La Pierre. And they had made the air around Louisa snap with electricity, as though she were Pandora and had taken the lid off a trove of long-forgotten magic.
“Meridiana wanted to frighten Gerbert about the future. She did.” Matthew shook his head. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“Your father is the lion. You are the wolf.” Ice pooled in the pit of my stomach. It told me something was wrong with me, inside where the light could never quite reach. I looked at my husband, one of the children of the night mentioned in the prophecy. Our first child had already died. I shuttered my thoughts, not wanting to hold them in my heart or my head long enough to make an impression. But it did no good. There was too much honesty between us now to hide from Matthew—or myself.
“You have nothing to fear,” Matthew said, brushing his lips over mine. “You are too full of life to be a harbinger of destruction.”
I let him reassure me, but my sixth sense ignored him. Somehow, somewhere, something was wrong. Something dangerous and deadly had been unleashed. Even now I could feel its threads tightening, drawing me toward the darkness.
Chapter Thirty Six
I was waiting under the sign of the Golden Gosling for Annie to pick up some stew for tonight’s supper when the steady regard of a vampire drove the hint of summer from the air.
“Father Hubbard,” I said, turning in the direction of the coldness.
The vampire’s eyes flickered over my rib cage. “I am surprised your husband allows you to walk about the city unaccompanied, given what happened at Greenwich—and that you are carrying his child.”
My firedrake, who had become fiercely protective since the incident in the tiltyard, coiled her tail around my hips.
“Everybody knows that wearhs can’t father children on warmblooded women,” I said dismissively.
“It seems that the impossible holds little sway with a witch such as you.” Hubbard’s grim countenance tightened further. “Most creatures believe that Matthew’s contempt for witches is unchangeable, for example. Few would entertain the notion that it was he who made it possible for Barbara Napier to escape the pyre in Scotland.” The events in Berwick continued to occupy Matthew’s time as well as creature and human gossip in London.
“Matthew was nowhere near Scotland at the time.”
“He didn’t need to be. Hancock was in Edinburgh, posing as one of Napier’s ‘friends.’ It was he who brought the matter of her pregnancy to the court’s attention.” Hubbard’s breath was cold and smelled of the forest.
“The witch was innocent of the charges against her,” I said brusquely, drawing my shawl around my shoulders. “The jury acquitted her.”
“Of a single charge.” Hubbard held my gaze. “She was found guilty of many more. And, given your recent return, perhaps you have not heard: King James found a way to reverse the jury’s decision in Napier’s case.”
“Reverse it?” I’d never heard of such a thing.
“The king of Scots is not greatly enamored of the Congregation these days, no small thanks to your husband. Matthew’s slippery sense of the covenant and his interference in Scottish politics have inspired His Majesty to find his own legal loopholes. James is putting the jurors who acquitted the witch on trial themselves. They are charged with miscarrying the king’s justice. Intimidating the jurors will better ensure the outcome of future trials.”
“That wasn’t Matthew’s plan,” I said, my mind reeling.
“It sounds sufficiently devious for Matthew de Clermont. Napier and her babe may live, but dozens more innocent creatures will die because of it.” Hubbard’s expression was deadly. “Isn’t that what the de Clermonts want? To win at any cost?”
“How dare you!”
“I have the—” Annie stepped out onto the street and nearly dropped her pot. I reached out and hooked her into my arm.
“Thank you, Annie.”
“Do you know where your husband is this fine May morning, Mistress Roydon?”
“He is out on business.” Matthew had made sure I ate my breakfast, kissed me, and left the house with Pierre. Jack had been inconsolable when Matthew told him he must stay behind with Harriot. I felt a flicker of unease. It wasn’t like Matthew to refuse Jack a trip into town.
“No,” Hubbard said softly, “he is in Bedlam with his sister and Christopher Marlowe.”
Bedlam was an oubliette in all but name—a place for forgetting, where the insane were locked up with those interred by their own families on some trumped-up charge simply to be rid of them. With nothing but straw for bedding, no regular supply of food, not a shred of kindness from the jailers, and no treatment of any sort, most inmates never escaped. If they did, they rarely recovered from the experience.
“Not content with altering the judgment in Scotland, Matthew now seeks to mete out his own justice here in London,” Hubbard continued. “He went to question them this morning. I understand he is still there.”
It was past noon.
“I have seen Matthew de Clermont kill quickly, when he is enraged. It is terrible to behold. To see him do so slowly, painstakingly, would make the most resolute atheist believe in the devil.”
Kit. Louisa was a vampire and shared Ysabeau’s blood. She could fend for herself. But a daemon . . .
“Go to Goody Alsop, Annie. Tell her I’ve gone to Bedlam to look after Master Marlowe and Master Roydon’s sister.” I turned the girl in the proper direction and released her, putting my own body squarely between her and the vampire.
“I must stay with you,” Annie said, her eyes huge. “Master Roydon made me promise!”
“Someone must know where I’ve gone, Annie. Tell Goody Alsop what you heard here. I can find my way to Bedlam.” In truth I had only a vague notion of the notorious asylum’s location, but I had other means of discovering Matthew’s whereabouts. I wrapped imaginary fingers around the chain within me and got ready to pull it.
“Wait.” Hubbard’s hand closed around my wrist. I jumped. He called to someone in the shadows. It was the angular young man Matthew referred to by the strangely fitting name Amen Corner. “My son will take you.”