“Or as frightening as the time the firewitch tried to open you,” Catherine assured me, her fingers turning orange with fury.
“The moon will be full dark on Friday. Candlemas is but a few weeks away. And we are entering a period that is propitious for spells inclining children toward study,” Marjorie remarked, her face creased with concentration as she recalled the relevant information from her astonishing memory.
“I thought this was the week for snakebite charms?” Susanna said, drawing a small almanac out of her pocket.
While Marjorie and Susanna discussed the magical intricacies of the schedule, Goody Alsop, Elizabeth, and Catherine stared at me intently.
“I wonder . . .” Goody Alsop looked at me with open speculation and tapped a finger against her lips.
“Surely not,” Elizabeth said, voice hushed.
“We are not getting ahead of ourselves, remember?” Catherine said. “The goddess has blessed us enough.” As she said it, her brown eyes sparked green, gold, red, and black in rapid succession. “But perhaps . . .”
“Susanna’s almanac is all wrong. But we have decided it will be more auspicious if Diana weaves her forspell next Thursday, under the waxing crescent moon,” Marjorie said, clapping her hands with delight.
“Oof,” Goody Alsop said, poking her finger in her ear to shield it from the disturbance in the air. “Gently, Marjorie, gently.”
With my new obligations to the St. James Garlickhythe gathering and my ongoing interest in Mary’s alchemical experiments, I found myself spending more time outside the house while the Hart and Crown continued to serve as a center for the School of Night and the hub for Matthew’s work. Messengers came and went with reports and mail, George often stopped by for a free meal and to tell us about his latest futile efforts to find Ashmole 782, and Hancock and Gallowglass dropped off their laundry downstairs and whiled away the hours by my fire, scantily clad, until it was returned to them. Kit and Matthew had reached an uneasy truce after the business with Hubbard and John Chandler, which meant that I often found the playwright in the front parlor, staring moodily into the distance and then writing furiously. The fact that he helped himself to my supply of paper was an additional source of annoyance.
Then there were Annie and Jack. Integrating two children into the household was a full-time business. Jack, whom I supposed to be about seven or eight (he had no idea of his actual age), delighted in deviling the teenage girl. He followed her around and mimicked her speech. Annie would burst into tears and pelt upstairs to fling herself on her bed. When I chastised Jack for his behavior, he sulked. Desperate for a few quiet hours, I found a schoolmaster willing to teach them reading, writing, and reckoning, but the two of them quickly drove the recent Cambridge graduate away with their blank stares and studied innocence. Both preferred shopping with Fran?oise and running around London with Pierre to sitting quietly and doing their sums.
“If our child behaves like this, I’ll drown him,” I told Matthew, seeking a moment of respite in his study.
“She will behave like this, you can be certain of it. And you won’t drown her,” Matthew said, putting down his pen. We still disagreed about the baby’s sex.
“I’ve tried everything. I’ve reasoned, cajoled, pleaded—hell, I even bribed them.” Master Prior’s buns had only ratcheted up Jack’s energy level.
“Every parent makes those mistakes,” he said with a laugh. “You’re trying to be their friend. Treat Jack and Annie like pups. The occasional sharp nip on the nose will establish your authority better than a mince pie will.”
“Are you giving me parenting tips from the animal kingdom?” I was thinking of his early research into wolves.
“As a matter of fact, I am. If this racket continues, they’ll have me to contend with, and I don’t nip. I bite.” Matthew glowered at the door as a particularly loud crash echoed through our rooms, followed by an abject “Sorry, mistress.”
“Thanks, but I’m not desperate enough to resort to obedience training. Yet,” I said, backing out of the room.
Two days of using my teacher voice and administering time-outs instilled some degree of order, but the children required a great deal of activity to keep their exuberance in check. I abandoned my books and papers and took them on long walks down Cheapside and into the suburbs to the west. We went to the markets with Fran?oise and watched the boats unloading their cargo at the docks in the Vintry. There we imagined where the goods came from and speculated about the origins of the crews.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like a tourist and started feeling as though Elizabethan London was my home.
We were shopping Saturday morning at the Leadenhall Market, London’s premier emporium for fine groceries, when I saw a one-legged beggar. I was fishing a penny out of my bag for him when the children disappeared into a hatmaker’s shop. They could wreak havoc—expensive havoc—in such a place.
“Annie! Jack!” I called, dropping the penny in the man’s palm. “Keep your hands to yourselves!”
“You are far from home, Mistress Roydon,” a deep voice said. The skin on my back registered an icy stare, and I turned to find Andrew Hubbard.
“Father Hubbard,” I said. The beggar inched away.
Hubbard looked around. “Where is your woman?”
“If you are referring to Fran?oise, she is in the market,” I said tartly. “Annie is with me, too. I haven’t had a chance to thank you for sending her to us. She is a great help.”
“I understand you have met with Goody Alsop.”
I made no reply to this blatant fishing expedition.
“Since the Spanish came, she does not stir from her house unless there is good reason.”
Still I was silent. Hubbard smiled.
“I am not your enemy, mistress.”
“I didn’t say you were, Father Hubbard. But who I see and why is not your concern.”
“Yes. Your father-in-law—or do you think of him as your father?—made that quite clear in his letter. Philippe thanked me for assisting you, of course. With the head of the de Clermont family, the thanks always precede the threats. It is a refreshing change from your husband’s usual behavior.”
My eyes narrowed. “What is it that you want, Father Hubbard?”
“I suffer the presence of the de Clermonts because I must. But I am under no obligation to continue doing so if there is trouble.” Hubbard leaned toward me, his breath frosty. “And you are causing trouble. I can smell it. Taste it. Since you’ve come, the witches have been . . . difficult.”
“That’s an unfortunate coincidence,” I said, “but I’m not to blame. I’m so unschooled in the arts of magic that I can’t even crack an egg into a bowl.” Fran?oise came out of the market. I dropped Hubbard a curtsy and moved to step past him. His hand shot out and grabbed me around the wrist. I looked down at his cold fingers.
“It’s not just creatures who emit a scent, Mistress Roydon. Did you know that secrets have their own distinct odor?”
“No,” I said, drawing my wrist from his grasp.
“Witches can tell when someone lies. Wearhs can smell a secret like a hound can scent a deer. I will run your secret to ground, Mistress Roydon, no matter how you try to conceal it.”
“Are you ready, madame?” Fran?oise asked, frowning as she drew closer. Annie and Jack were with her, and when the girl spotted Hubbard, she blanched.
“Yes, Fran?oise,” I said, finally looking away from Hubbard’s uncanny, striated eyes. “Thank you for your counsel, Father Hubbard, and the information.”
“If the boy is too much for you, I would be happy to take care of him,” Hubbard murmured as I walked by. I turned and strode back to him.
“Keep your hands off what’s mine.” Our eyes locked, and this time it was Hubbard who looked away first. I returned to my huddle of vampire, witch, and human. Jack looked anxious and was now shifting from one foot to the other as if considering bolting. “Let’s go home and have some gingerbread,” I said, taking hold of his arm.
“Who is that man?” he whispered.