“No one ever said that having three masters—and a wife—was going to be easy,” Hancock declared sourly.
“So which devil will it be, Matthew?” asked Gallowglass.
“If Philippe doesn’t receive the coin embedded in the letter’s seal from my own hand, and soon, he’ll come looking for me,” Matthew said hollowly. “It’s a test of loyalty. My father loves tests.”
“Your father does not doubt you. This misunderstanding will be set to rights when you see each other,” Henry maintained. When Matthew didn’t respond, Henry moved to fill the silence. “You are always telling me that I must have a plan, or else be pulled into the designs of other men. Tell us what must be done, and we will see to it.”
Without speaking, Matthew picked through options, discarding one after the other. It would have taken any other man days to sift through the possible moves and countermoves. For Matthew it took only minutes. There was little sign of the struggle on his face, but the bunching of his shoulder muscles and the distracted pass of his hand through his hair told another story.
“I’ll go,” he said at last. “Diana will stay here, with Gallowglass and Hancock. Walter will have to put off the queen with some excuse. And I’ll handle the Congregation.”
“Diana can’t remain in Woodstock,” Gallowglass told him firmly. “Not now that Kit’s been at work in the village, spreading his lies and asking questions about her. Without your presence neither the queen nor the Congregation will have any incentive to keep your wife from the magistrate.”
“We can go to London, Matthew,” I urged. “Together. It’s a big city. There will be too many witches for anyone to notice me—witches who aren’t afraid of power like mine—and messengers to take word to France that you’re safe. You don’t have to go.”
You don’t have to see your father again.
“London!” Hancock scoffed. “You wouldn’t last three days there, madam. Gallowglass and I will take you into Wales. We’ll go to Abergavenny.”
“No.” My eyes were drawn by the crimson stain at Matthew’s neck. “If Matthew is going to France, I’m going with him.”
“Absolutely not. I’m not dragging you through a war.”
“The war has quieted with the coming of winter,” said Walter. “Taking Diana to SeptTours may be for the best. Few are brave enough to tangle with you, Matthew. None at all will cross your father.”
“You have a choice,” I told him fiercely. Matthew’s friends and family weren’t going to use me to force him to France.
“Yes. And I choose you.” He traced my lip with this thumb. My heart sank. He was going to go to SeptTours.
“Don’t do this,” I implored him. I didn’t trust myself to say more for fear of betraying the fact that in our own time Philippe was dead, and that it would be torture for Matthew to see him alive again.
“Philippe told me that mating was destiny. Once I found you, there would be nothing to do but accept fate’s decision. But that’s not how it works at all. In every moment, for the rest of my life, I will be choosing you—over my father, over my own self-interest, even over the de Clermont family.” Matthew’s lips pressed against mine, silencing my protests. There was no mistaking the conviction in his kiss.
“It’s decided, then,” Gallowglass said softly.
Matthew’s eyes held mine. He nodded. “Yes. Diana and I will go home. Together.”
“There’s work to do, arrangements to be made,” Walter said. “Leave it to us. Your wife looks exhausted, and the journey will be taxing. You both should rest.”
Neither of us made any move toward bed once the men had gone off to the parlor.
“Our time in 1590 isn’t turning out quite as I hoped,” Matthew admitted. “It was supposed to be straightforward.”
“How could it possibly be straightforward, with the Congregation, the trials in Berwick, the Elizabethan intelligence service, and the Knights of Lazarus all vying for your attention?”
“Being a member of the Congregation and serving as a spy should be helps—not hindrances.” Matthew stared out the window. “I thought we’d come to the Old Lodge, use the services of Widow Beaton, find the manuscript in Oxford, and be gone within a few weeks.”
I bit my lip to keep from pointing out the flaws in his strategy—Walter, Henry, and Gallowglass had already done so repeatedly this evening—but my expression gave me away.
“It was shortsighted of me,” he said with a sigh. “And it’s not just establishing your credibility that’s a problem, or avoiding the obvious traps like witch trials and wars. I’m overwhelmed, too. The broad canvas of what I did for Elizabeth and the Congregation—and the countermoves I made on behalf of my father—that’s clear, but all the details have faded. I know the date, but not the day of the week. That means I’m not sure which messenger is due to arrive and where the next delivery will be made. I could have sworn I’d parted ways with Gallowglass and Hancock before Halloween.”
“The devil is always in the details,” I murmured. I brushed at the sooty track of dried blood that marked the passage of his tear. There were specks of it near the corner of his eye, a thin trace down his cheek. “I should have realized your father might contact you.”
“It was only a matter of time before his letter came. Whenever Pierre brings the mail, I steel myself. But the courier had already been and gone today. His handwriting took me by surprise, that’s all,” he explained. “I’d forgotten how strong it once was. When we got him back from the Nazis in 1944, his body was so broken that not even vampire blood could mend it. Philippe couldn’t hold a pen. He loved to write, and all he could manage was an illegible scrawl.” I knew of Philippe’s capture and captivity in World War II, but few details of what he’d suffered at the hands of the Nazis who had wanted to determine just how much pain a vampire could endure. “Maybe the goddess wanted us back in 1590 for more than just my benefit. Seeing Philippe again may reopen these old wounds of yours—and heal them.”
“Not before making them worse.” Matthew’s head dipped. “But in the end it might make them better.” I smoothed his hair over
his hard, stubborn skull. “You still haven’t opened your father’s letter.”
“I know what it says.”
“Perhaps you should open it anyway.”
At last Matthew slid his finger under the seal and broke it. The coin tumbled out of the wax, and he caught it in his palm. When he unfolded the thick paper, it released a faint scent of laurel and rosemary. “Is that Greek?” I asked, looking over his shoulder at the single line of text and a swirling rendition of the letter phi below.
“Yes.” Matthew traced the letters, making his first tentative contact with his father. “He commands me to come home. Immediately.”
“Can you bear seeing him again?”
“No. Yes.” Matthew’s fingers crumpled the page into his fist. “I don’t know.”
I took the page away from him, flattening it back into its rectangle. The coin sparkled in Matthew’s palm. It was such a small sliver of metal to have caused so much trouble.
“You won’t face him alone.” Standing by his side when he saw his dead father wasn’t much, but it was all I could do to ease his grief.
“Each of us is alone with Philippe. Some think my father can see into one’s very soul,” Matthew murmured. “It worries me to take you there. With Ysabeau I could predict how she would react: coldness, anger, then acquiescence. When it comes to Philippe, I have no idea. No one understands the way Philippe’s mind works, what information he possesses, what traps he’s laid. If I am secretive, then my father is inscrutable. Not even the Congregation knows what he’s up to, and God knows they spend enough time trying to figure it out.”
“It will be fine,” I reassured him. Philippe would have to accept me into the family. Like Matthew’s mother and brother, he would have no choice.