Not a breeze or a crackle of flame disturbed the room when Goody Alsop finished. She took a deep breath.
“It is all one, you see. Death and birth. The tenth knot with no beginning and no ending, and the wearh’s snake. The full moon that shone earlier this week and the shadow Corra cast upon the Thames in a portent of your leaving. The old world and the new.” Goody Alsop’s smile wavered. “I was glad when you came to me, Diana Roydon. And when you go, as you must, my heart will be heavy.”
“Usually Matthew tells me when he is leaving my city.” Andrew Hubbard’s white hands rested on the carved arms of his chair in the church crypt. High above us someone prepared for an upcoming church service. “What brings you here, Mistress Roydon?”
“I came to talk to you about Annie and Jack.” Hubbard’s strange eyes studied me as I pulled a small leather purse from my pocket. It contained five years of wages for each of them.
“I’m leaving London. I would like you to have this, for their care.” I thrust the money in Hubbard’s direction. He made no move to take it.
“That isn’t necessary, mistress.”
“Please. I would take them with me if I could. Since they cannot go, I need to know that someone will be watching out for them.”
“And what will you give me in return?”
“Why . . . the money, of course.” I held the pouch out once more.
“I don’t want or need the money, Mistress Roydon.” Hubbard settled back in his chair, his eyes drifting closed.
“What do you—” I stopped. “No.”
“God does nothing in vain. There are no accidents in His plans. He wanted you to come here today, because He wants to be sure that no one of your blood will have anything to fear from me or mine.”
“I have protectors enough,” I protested.
“And can the same be said for your husband?” Hubbard glanced at my breast. “Your blood is stronger in his veins now than when you arrived. And there is the child to consider.”
My heart stuttered. When I took my Matthew back to our present, Andrew Hubbard would be one of the few people who would know his future—and that there was a witch in it.
“You wouldn’t use the knowledge of me against Matthew. Not after what he’s done—how he’s changed.”
“Wouldn’t I?” Hubbard’s tight smile told me he would do whatever it took to protect his flock. “There is a great deal of bad blood between us.”
“I’ll find another way to see them safe,” I said, deciding to go.
“Annie is my child already. She is a witch, and part of my family. I will see to her welfare. Jack Blackfriars is another matter. He is not a creature and will have to fend for himself.”
“He’s a child—a boy!”
“But not my child. Nor are you. I do not owe either of you anything. Good day, Mistress Roydon.” Hubbard turned away.
“And if I were one of your family, what then? Would you honor my request about Jack? Would you recognize Matthew as one of my blood and therefore under your protection?” It was the sixteenth-century Matthew that I was thinking of now. When we returned to the present, that other Matthew would still be here in the past.
“If you offer me your blood, neither Matthew nor Jack nor your unborn child has anything to fear from me or mine.” Hubbard imparted the information dispassionately, but his glance was touched with the avarice I’d seen in Rudolf’s eyes.
“And how much blood would you need?” Think. Stay alive.
“Very little—no more than a drop.” Hubbard’s attention was unwavering.
“I couldn’t let you take it directly from my body. Matthew would know—we are mates, after all,” I said. Hubbard’s eyes flickered to my breast.
“I always take my tribute directly from my children’s neck.”
“I’m sure you do, Father Hubbard. But you can understand why that isn’t possible—or even desirable—in this case.” I fell silent, hoping that Hubbard’s hunger—for power, for knowledge of Matthew and me, for something to hold over the de Clermonts if he ever needed it—would win. “I could use a cup.”
“No,” Hubbard said with a shake of his head. “Your blood would be tainted. It must be pure.”
“A silver cup, then,” I said, thinking of Chef’s lectures at Sept-Tours.
“You will open the vein in your wrist over my mouth and let the blood fall into it. We will not touch.” Hubbard scowled at me. “Otherwise I will doubt the sincerity of your offer.”
“Very well, Father Hubbard. I accept your terms.” I loosened the tie at my right cuff and pushed up the sleeve. While I did so, I whispered a silent request to Corra. “Where do you wish to do this? From what I saw before, your children kneel before you, but that will not work if I’m to drip the blood into your mouth.”
“It does not matter to God who kneels.” To my surprise, Hubbard dropped to the floor before me. He handed me a knife.
“I don’t need that.” I flicked my finger at the blue traceries on my wrist and murmured a simple unbinding charm. A line of crimson appeared. The blood welled. “Are you ready?”
Hubbard nodded and opened his mouth, his eyes on my face. He was waiting for me to renege, or cheat him somehow. But I would obey the letter of this agreement, though not its spirit. Thank you, Goody Alsop, I said, sending her a silent blessing for showing me how to handle the man.
I held my wrist over his mouth and clenched my fist. A drop of blood rolled over the edge of my arm and began to fall. Hubbard’s eyes flickered closed, as if he wanted to concentrate on what my blood would tell him.
“What is blood, if not fire and water?” I murmured. I called on the wind to slow the droplet’s fall. As the power of the air increased, it froze the falling bead of blood so that it was crystalline and sharp when it landed on Hubbard’s tongue. The vampire’s eyes shot open in confusion.
“No more than a drop.” The wind had dried the remaining blood against my skin in a maze of red streaks over the blue veins. “You are a man of God, a man of your word, are you not, Father Hubbard?”
Corra’s tail loosened from around my waist. She’d used it to block our baby from having any knowledge of this sordid transaction, but now she seemed to want to use it to beat Hubbard senseless.
Slowly I withdrew my arm. Hubbard thought about grabbing it back to his mouth. I saw the idea cross his mind as clearly as I had seen Edward Kelley contemplate clubbing me with his walking stick. But he thought better of it. I whispered another simple spell to close the wound, and turned wordlessly to leave.
“When you are next in London,” Hubbard said softly, “God will whisper it to me. And if He wills it, we shall meet again. But remember this. No matter where you go from now, even unto death, some small piece of you will live within me.”
I stopped and looked back at him. His words were menacing, but the expression on his face was thoughtful, even sad. My pace quickened as I left the church crypt, wanting to put as much distance as I could between me and Andrew Hubbard.
“Farewell, Diana Bishop,” he called after me.
I was halfway across town before I realized that no matter how little that single drop of blood might have revealed, Father Hubbard now knew my real name.
Walter and Matthew were shouting at each other when I returned to the Hart and Crown. Raleigh’s groom could hear them, too. He was in the courtyard, holding the reins of Walter’s black beast of a horse and listening to their argument through the open windows.
“It will mean my death—and hers, too! No one must know she is with child!” Oddly enough, it was Walter speaking.
“You cannot abandon the woman you love and your own child in an attempt to stay true to the queen, Walter. Elizabeth will find out that you have betrayed her, and Bess will be ruined forever.”
“What do you expect me to do? Marry her? If I do so without the queen’s permission, I’ll be arrested.”