CHAPTER THIRTEEN

London, England

May 14, 1592

"God's foot, sir," Elizabeth Tudor greeted as she accepted Lord Baldevar's arm and stepped from her royal barge onto the river quay behind his handsome rose-brick mansion. "Who is this devilishly handsome Turk in place of my English hawk?"

Simon laughed, knowing the Turkish garb he'd chosen to wear for the masque suited him. In place of the gentleman's accepted doublet and hose, he wore white pantaloons with satin ankle strips embroidered in gold stripes. His shirt was ivory silk with a cloth of gold sash about his waist. The splendor of his white and gold outfit was topped off with a sleeveless cloth of gold robe and a gold turban that sported two white feathers and a large ruby aigrette.

"Madam," Simon said smoothly. "I pale next to your magnificence." The queen too was dressed in Turkish fashion, wearing a white gown designed to resemble the tunic dress of Turkish royal women. The overskirt was embroidered in sparkling pink and white diamonds, sapphires, and rubies while the underskirt was a dazzling mass of silver flounces embroidered with small diamonds and jets. On her head she wore a flame-red wig, the hair dressed in a coronet of braids with silver ribbons interspersed throughout the braids.

He turned to the dark, silent gentleman by her side and bowed deeply before greeting the sultan's ambassador to England in flawless Turkish. "Al-Caid Ahmed ben Adel, your presence does my home a great and undeserved honor. I can only pray my poor preparations do not displease you. Allow me to assure you that you may dine at my board knowing all the animals were slaughtered in accordance with Islamic tradition."

The imposing figure smiled. "I believe I remember you, Lord Baldevar. You are the English gentleman that gave my overlord a small token of appreciation before returning home. My lord Murad, shadow of Allah upon this earth, was most pleased."

Simon smiled broadly, not at all surprised to learn the sultan had been pleased with his gift—the harem of six delightful beauties Simon had amassed during his time in Istanbul.

"We appreciate your attempt to honor our new ambassador with this taste of his own home," the queen said, following Simon through the gardens to the ballroom that took up the entire second floor of his mansion. "We look forward to depending upon your aid in settling Master Adel at court."

"I am in all matters your loyal servant, madam," Simon replied, knowing he'd just been handed the duty of interpreting between the queen and her new ambassador. Before his troubles, such a position would have been a pleasing step forward in the hierarchy of the court. Now it was merely another imposition on his time, time he'd far prefer to spend developing the philosophers' stone before the pox could take him.

Displaying more vigor than some guests decades younger than she, the queen insisted on dancing the moment she arrived in the ballroom and Simon obliged her with a lively galliard. Pounding out the frenetic steps, Simon thought that, for all her age, Elizabeth was as quick and graceful a partner as he'd ever had.

"Look at the dandy," the Earl of Essex muttered jealously to Simon when Sir Walter Raleigh took Elizabeth from Simon's arms to dance the second dance with her. "I am blinded by that ostentatious outfit of his."

Simon said nothing, though he found no fault with Raleigh's garb. The clever courtier reminded everyone of his successful voyages in the New World by wearing a black doublet that glittered with Colombian emeralds and Mexican turquoise, and was trimmed lavishly in red fox fur.

The earl gave Lord Baldevar a sidelong glance. "What say you to giving me a spell to vanquish my enemies?"

"I know of no spell to clear an entire court," Simon said easily, dismissing the young earl's clumsy inquiry as to whether he was truly a sorcerer. "Besides, you have no need of the Dark Arts—someone has already cast a potent love spell on Walter Raleigh. What other explanation could there be for his conduct?"

"What conduct?" the earl replied, his black eyes alight at this hint of some gossip that would damage the man he considered his worst rival for the queen's affections.

"Sir Walter has married secretly," Simon informed the earl.

"Forsooth?" the earl said and then shrugged. "Her Majesty may be annoyed with him a short time but no doubt she'll forgive him as she forgave me when I eloped with Frances."

"Frances Walsingham was not Bess Throckmorton."

"Bess?" The earl's eyes nearly bulged out of his head and he gave a whoop of delight. "You tell me Raleigh has gone and married the queen's favorite maid of honor? The fool, the fool! How can you be certain it's not a rumor?"

"Lynette overheard the newlyweds discussing the wedding." Lady Lynette Marline was one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting. She'd been Simon's mistress a few months before but he'd broken off relations with his highborn lovers since he found out he might have the pox. Now he confined his urges to low whores.

"This is wonderful!" the earl exulted. "I cannot wait to see Gloriana's expression when I tell her what that popinjay has done. She'll strip him of everything… banish him from court… oh, this is wonderful!"

Simon put a restraining hand on his friend's jewel-encrusted red doublet. "Don't be rash, Robin! Do not tell the queen yourself… she despises gossipmongers almost as much as couples that marry without her permission. Arrange for the information to come to her ears through other channels, and if I were you I'd wait until Raleigh's at sea on his latest piracy venture. Then, Elizabeth will be doubly angered—once for his wedding and once for going to sea without her permission."

"My lord." John Dee appeared in front of him, eyes grave as usual. "Might I speak with you privately?"

"Will you excuse me?" Simon said graciously to his friend.

The earl clasped Simon's hands in gratitude. "You are a good friend, my lord."

Simon guided the astrologist into a private salon, smirking over how easy it had been to use the rash young earl. Now Walter Raleigh's ships wouldn't pluck any of the galleons Simon's own fleet was targeting on the Spanish Main. Poor Robert Deveraux, unable to see when he was being used.

"My lord," Dr. Dee said without preamble once the door shut behind them. "We must continue the Great Work tonight."

"Why tonight?" Simon frowned. He had no desire to go down to his laboratory once all his guests were gone and begin the laborious machinations of alchemy. It would be three the next afternoon before he found his bed.

"The philosophers' stone is within your grasp. Your astrological chart has undergone a great change."

Simon bit his lip, not wanting to give in to the sudden joy that made him want to leap about the small room. They'd thought themselves near success before only to have their hopes brutally dashed at the last moment. This time he would remain calm until solid proof was before him. "What sort of change?"

"Your soror mystica has made an appearance."

Soror mystica? The heart mate of the alchemist, the woman so many of his texts insisted was necessary to achieve the philosophers' stone? "When do I encounter her?"

"Three hundred and fifty years hence," John Dee said calmly. "I cannot be certain of the precise date, but your meeting will fall under the sign of Taurus."

Simon sank into a cushioned chair, the gay party outside the closed doors all but forgotten. "Three hundred and fifty years, you say? Am I in another incarnation of my soul?"

"No," John Dee replied, a small glimmer of excitement in his eyes the only change in his serene demeanor. "There is great change in your chart, but you… your soul undergoes no rebirth. Everything else changes but you remain the same."

"So I must have discovered the secret to immortality," Simon mused.

"A discovery you may prefer not to make, my lord."

"How could I not want to vindicate our theories and labors of the past three years?" Simon demanded. "John, I know I was right when I told you the materia prima is not metal but blood. We must purify blood to achieve perfection of the soul."

"My lord, I think your discovery an important one but look at all our failed attempts. We've calcinated blood, sublimated it, and distilled it with all manner of herbs and metals, yet we've never created a potion that gave us immortality. Our quest to achieve the philosophers' stone does little else except bleed the whores and vagrants of London dry."

Simon smiled ruefully, thinking of the many destitutes he'd scoured the streets for, masked and caped so he couldn't be identified. Then he took them into his coach, blindfolded them, and led them into his house, where he cut them up and drew blood for his experiments.

John Dee was right though; he'd never been able to purify the blood, never come close to releasing from it all the vile humors that caused disease and death. But somehow Simon knew he was right, knew the secret to the philosophers' stone lay in transmutation not of gold but blood, the substance of life.

"You say I might wish to stop yet you wish me to continue the Great Work tonight. Forgive me, good friend, for saying you speak in riddles."

"Your chart shows a loss… a darkness I do not understand. I would offer you whatever protection I can from this threat not because you are my patron but my friend. You know my reputation was in tatters after I returned from the Prague. You and the queen alone stood behind me. In thanks for your support, I shall construct for you a powerful amulet and attempt to scry your future."

"Thank you, John," Simon said, holding this learned man in the same esteem he'd held his old mentor, Father Bain. He'd have felt the loss of the old priest when he passed away in his sleep over the past winter far more keenly if not for Dr. Dee. "Enter my lab now and begin the preparations, please. I shall join you later."

Simon strode back to the queen's side, offering her his arm. "Your Majesty? May I escort you to the gardens? I've planned a small musicale for your amusement."

"Hawk." The queen smiled. "I'd wondered where you vanished to." She left behind a glowering courtier to take Simon's arm.

Simon escorted her to the center of his gardens, a source of justifiable pride for him. He'd modified the traditional English garden with rare flowers from the East so deep blue Puschkinia flowers and yellow azaleas from the Bosporus mixed in with traditional long-stemmed roses to make his garden a riot of color and intoxicating perfume on this summer night.

For the masque, he'd had a small musicians' gallery painted with cavorting imps and fairies set up between two willow trees, and it was here that he seated the queen on a comfortable velvet-lined stool. "I thought a selection from the Hortus Deliciarum most appropriate for tonight. Minstrels, you may begin."

The queen listened to the music, stormy eyes glistening at a solo by the lute player, a handsome young man with inky jet curls and delicate, pale features. "He plays like an angel."

"Aye," Simon responded, feeling moved as always by the poignant music pouring forth from the musician's skillful fingers. "I am honored that he plays for me."

"Wherever did you discover him, Hawk?"

"He was Michael's music tutor," Simon said softly, and the queen gave his hand a brief squeeze.

"He has one eccentricity, Bess," Simon said to lighten the painful moment. "Though he charged a fair amount for lessons, Master Aermville insisted that he could only teach at night."

"Did you question him on this peculiarity?" the Earl of Essex asked.

"Question him yourself." Simon called the young minstrel over and he bowed before the queen but Simon noticed the boy's sapphire eyes never left him.

The intense stare made Simon uneasy, particularly when the lad caressed his wrist in the moment he extended his hand to thank him for performing that evening. Catamite, Simon thought in distaste and hastily removed his hand.

The queen gave the young man a small gold ring set with pearls and diamonds and he smiled shyly, speaking in a low, almost tremulous voice when he thanked her. Simon had never seen a man so obviously effeminate. Then he shrugged off his dislike, reminding himself that many minstrels had unnatural predilections.

"We would know what you do with your days," the earl said to Master Aermville.

"I sleep, my lord," the musician replied, and the assembled crowd tittered.

"All day?" the earl pressed, and Simon's eyes narrowed when he noticed the boy's creamy complexion go several shades paler. No doubt Master Aermville debauched himself all night and spent the days sleeping off his excesses. But why such embarrassed timidity? Such behavior was hardly unusual. Maybe the musician was made nervous because his betters were interrogating him.

"If it gives him the energy to play such superb music, let him have his rest," Simon said and gave the boy a grin, wishing he hadn't intervened when he saw blind adoration in the musician's gaze. Quickly, he dismissed the entertainer and spent the rest of the evening dancing with the queen and engaging in a raucous game of primero with the earl.

Simon gave Master Aermville no further thought so he was quite surprised when he stepped into the library after bidding good night to his last guest and found the musician standing by the windows, watching the impressive mass of barges roll by on the Thames.

"My majordomo has not given you your fee, Master Aermville?" Surely the boy was not foolish enough to make overtures to an earl? He'd have him horsewhipped.

"My lord, I beg but a moment of your time. Please, I must leave soon, for the dawn approaches."

"You should have left hours ago," Simon pointed out and moved to the sideboard, pouring himself a goblet of dark Gascony wine. He did not extend refreshments to the musician, finding himself more and more unnerved by the open longing in the boy's eyes. "I will thank you to leave now without another word."

"My lord," Master Aermville said in a rush, "I know you take the blood of beggars and attempt to transform it into a substance that will make you immortal."

Simon's hand went to his sword and he put his jeweled goblet down with a sharp thud. "If you wish to make accusations, go and file a complaint of witchcraft with the sheriff. Otherwise, leave my presence else the only blood I shall take is yours."

"My lord, no! I am not threatening you with exposure. I merely wish to say I can give you what you want. I am… immortal. I can prove myself, if you'll allow me to."

This could be amusing, Simon decided and relaxed his grip on the sword. "How will you prove yourself?"

Master Aermville disappeared. Simon blinked but before he could react, the musician was at Simon's side, grasping him with a strength he could not believe came from this slight boy. When Simon tried to bring his arm up to ward him away, the boy pinioned it to his side with a steel grip.

"I will not hurt you," Master Aermville said, and Simon could only gape at the gleaming ivory fangs that descended from his mouth. The boy closed his eyes and leaned forward. For one horrified moment, Simon thought the boy meant to kiss him but in the next moment he felt a ripping, vicious pain in his neck.

Simon gritted his teeth, not wanting to cry out in terror like some child, and thought he could only pray this creature kept its promise not to harm him. He heard a noise and felt a pulling at the wound. He's drinking my blood, Simon realized, suckling at my neck as if I were a mother feeding some monstrous babe.

Simon's vision blurred and he felt a not unwelcome lassitude go through his body as the creature bent his supine body into his arms but Simon came back to immediate, outraged life when he felt Master Aermville's hand on his codpiece.

"Sodomite!" he roared, not caring that the creature could destroy him. This time he got his arm up and shoved the degenerate musician from him.

Simon drew his sword, not certain if the weapon would provide any protection but feeling better at having it in his hand. "Master Aermville, you have proven yourself inhuman, possessed of powers such as I have never encountered, but I warn you I will fight to the death if you lay hands upon my person again."

The creature staggered to its feet, the strange teeth still dangling from its mouth, now covered in blood. "I offer you my deepest apologies, my lord. All I can say is you… tempt me. I love you."

Simon fell into a chair by the fireplace, his paralyzed wits beginning to work again. Master Aermville could break him in two yet the creature groveled before him, a curious mixture of evil and weakness. It was as Simon always thought—love, though he privately thought the boy's emotion mere lust, could make the greatest of men weak fools prey to exploitation.

"You are a hard man, my lord," Master Aermville said. "I offer you my heart and you seek ways to use it for your own gain."

Simon kept his face impassive. "You are also gifted in seeing the thoughts of others?"

"Aye."

"Please sit with me," Simon said and extended the chair on the other side of the ornate stone fireplace.

"I find myself in need of a restorative. Do you take food and drink?"

"I like whiskey, my lord."

Simon turned from the sideboard, curiosity reflected in his gold stare. "Why do you address me as though I were your superior? Surely my noble title is something a creature like you scoffs at."

"I do not scoff at humans, my lord. I respect the manners of your world and my place in it. I am merely a musician while you are an earl."

"What are you called?" Simon asked, handing his strange guest the peat whiskey while he drank a large portion from his own goblet.

"Vampire, my lord."

Simon frowned—where had he heard that strange but somehow compelling word before? He cudgeled his memory and recalled his lovely Caucasian slave girl, Katya. She once told him a story of such creatures—vampyr, they were called in her mountain village. Supposedly, they flew into homes after midnight and drank the blood of sleeping children, so frightened peasant mothers wrapped amulets of garlic and holy water around their infants' necks to keep them safe.

"I do not drink from children."

Simon reseated himself, ready to seize the upper hand in this bizarre encounter. "Master Aermville, you tell me that you respect my world but you seem to have little respect for me if you would glance at my mind so impudently. I cannot converse with anyone that does not respect my right to keep my own counsel."

The creature flushed and bowed its head. "My lord, you are entirely in the right. My master would be most disappointed if he knew I attempted to break the privacy of your thoughts. Henceforth, I shall not pry."

"This is a power you can extinguish at will, Master Aermville?"

"Please call me Nicholas." He gave Simon a wan smile. "I must extinguish the power to hear thoughts else become unhinged. Tonight alone… would you wish to have a hundred thoughts rushing at you?"

Callow sodomite, Simon thought with all his will, and Nicholas did not even blink. Either he was keeping his vow not to look at Simon's mind or he was deceiving him by not reacting. Simon decided the prudent course was to think as little as possible in the presence of this creature.

"May I inquire as to how you came by this marvelous power, Nicholas?"

"It is not marvelous," Nicholas cried and once again his eyes glistened with tears. "It is horrible! I am an outcast… a wretched, lonely thing that must constantly observe the world yet never participate fully."

Simon had to work hard to suppress his disgust at seeing this man (or something that resembled a man) weep like a young maiden. "Why are you outcast? Are there not others of your kind you could align yourself with? You just mentioned a master."

"My master is in the New World," Nicholas explained and accepted the linen cloth Simon gave him to clean his face. "His kin, they are… kind but their life is one of piety and prayer. I still seek worldly delights like music and fetes and… love."

"Love?" Simon questioned, remembering the musician's adoring gaze at the party. "Is that why you come to me?"

"You are a comely man, my lord. I know you enjoy the attentions of many beautiful women and I know my suit repulses your natural inclinations. But I thought if I gave you that which you most desire—an escape from the miserable death of the pox—you might consider accepting me."

"I am aware that I am well favored," Simon said dryly. "But I cannot believe you would give me immortality on the basis of my handsome face."

"It is your character that fascinates me," Nicholas said softly. Simon saw the musician looking at his hands, seeming to want to take one and hold it as a lover, but Nicholas wisely held back. "I've seen much of you… most no doubt things you'd never want anyone to know but I cannot help thoughts flowing to me. When I used to tutor your stepson, you'd come and listen to me play, remember? Many times, your thoughts would come to me. I know of your wife, that you forced her into marriage once your brother was dead. I know of what you do downstairs and I know nothing stands in the way of your ambition."

"And these are all things you admire?"

"No!" Nicholas cried, seeming horrified by the thought. "I feel that under the hard shell you've encased yourself in there is a man capable of great tenderness. I saw how you held young Michael on your lap and tonight your grief for him pierced me. The calm you felt as I played? That too is part of my gift… I can bring comfort to tormented minds. I know that although you play sordid games with whores and beat your wife frequently, you've displayed kindness to your noble mistresses. I think if you had my gift, in time you would let go of your hateful side and come to be a man of vast gentleness."

Only by a fierce effort was Simon able to keep his mind blank at the flowery, sentimental speech. "Allow me to see if I understand you. We shall become lovers and in return you will give me your gifts for my own?"

"Yes. It is called transformation, my lord." Transformation—Simon reflected that the word wasn't far apart from transmutation, the alchemical process he'd been performing so diligently over the past few years.

Simon poured more whiskey, refilling Nicholas's cup also. "I would ask more questions before committing myself."

"Of course. Ask me anything, my lord."

"Explain this transformation to me. Tell me how you came to these great gifts… I do not care that you see them as a curse. To me they are a great boon."

"You are a wise man, my lord. You were not wrong to focus on blood when you chased the philosophers' stone. Blood is the secret to us. We do not know how but at some point beings like us came into existence… creatures that carried a special humor to their blood. We make others of our kind by draining them of their mortal blood and infusing them with the blood from our veins."

"So I would drink your blood as you must have done to some creature?"

"I was transformed in 1410," Nicholas explained. "I encountered another minstrel in my travels and he made me as I appear before you. He drank of me for some nights and then, when I felt myself near death, he put his wrist to my mouth and I drank. I will not dissemble, my lord. It is… you have never known such suffering. I will say no more but if you decide to join me I shall do all I can to keep you comfortable during your transformation. Also, after you transform, you'll have a ferocious need to drink and I'll make sure mortals are available to you. Of course, you must not kill them."

Simon frowned. "I am to let them live so they tell everyone they meet of the evil earl with unnatural teeth? It can only be a matter of time before I'm dragged to the stake."

"God has endowed us with gifts to allow us to feed and not harm. You will find that you merely have to think a command and it is obeyed. You will tell anyone you drink from to forget the experience and before they turn from you it will be as you command." Nicholas glanced at the lightening sky. "My lord, I must depart."

"Yes," Simon ruminated. "I'd forgotten you avoid the day. Why is that?"

"For all you gain in return—life everlasting in the beautiful body you have now, abilities to make the deadliest sorcerer tremble before you—there is one thing you must give up and that is the sun. You must make sure you are thoroughly shielded from the sun during the day as the smallest spark of sunlight can cause great damage to you. If your body were exposed to the sun at its zenith, you would be consumed in flames. Now, I must take leave. May I return after sunset this evening and ask if you are ready to receive my gift?"

From the lovesick expression in the creature's eyes, Simon had an idea the gift wouldn't be the only thing he received but he smiled and said, "I shall welcome you into my home. You say you must beat the sun home? Do you need my carriage to get you to your dark place?"

"You remember when I vanished? I may do that and reappear in any spot within thirty miles. Good day to you, my lord." Before Simon could say anything, Nicholas leaned over to kiss him full on the lips and then disappeared from sight.