Mistress by Magick Read online

  During the endless Purgatory of her exile, she’d taught herself not to brood over the woman who’d been the adored sovereign, friend, godmother and heroine of her childhood. She’d lionized Elizabeth Tudor until the day the wrathful Queen banished her.

  She’d loved her until the day Elizabeth savaged her—a girl of fifteen—for the charge of seducing the Queen’s own favorite, Lord Robert Dudley. The heartbroken Queen had brought the hammer of royal wrath crashing down on the frightened child who’d found herself pregnant with Dudley’s bastard and been fool enough to believe the shining knight of her dreams would wed her for it.

  If not for Dudley’s tepid intervention and her father’s womanish weeping—his sole contribution to the crisis—Elizabeth would have charged her with treason and left her to rot in the Tower. But her father was the Queen’s cousin, son of Anne Boleyn’s dead sister, so his daughter Jayne—the Queen’s cousin once removed—had been sentenced to a merciful exile.

  Ancient history now, the whole wretched mess, the death of her innocence and her honorable ideals. Jayne fixed her attention on the dangerous business at hand.

  “Si, Elizabeth Tudor is the Devil’s daughter!” Philip was raging, footfalls quick and agitated. “She beguiled me, led me along like a calf to slaughter, made me believe she returned my affection. I was a grieving husband, her sister’s lord—her own grieving brother!”

  “Some would call that incest,” Mordred murmured. A note of malicious amusement lurked in his tone as he prodded the Spanish lion. “Would not thine own Pope have branded it the sin of consanguinity, akin to wedding thine own sister?”

  “Bah! The Popes have always been stalwart allies. His Holiness would have granted a dispensation to permit it. But Elizabeth dared refuse me! Did I not extend my hand to her in friendship, time and again? And how did she repay my friendship?”

  The King’s words flew fast and furious as he numbered the grievances that had brought Spain and England to the brink of war.

  “Year after year, she sends her accursed pirates to the Spanish Main to raid my convoys and seize my treasure ships. She drains my coffers of New World gold and silver until I am reduced to begging my creditors to cover this empire’s expenses. She uses my own treasure—my own!—to finance this foul Protestant rebellion of my territories in the Netherlands.”

  “Disrespectful of her,” Mordred murmured.

  “She sends her own favorite—Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester—to stiffen the spines of the Dutch rebels. In France, she prods these God-cursed Huguenots to rebel against their rightful Catholic monarch, so the entire nation is overset. Last year, the worst of her pirates—the so-called Dragon, Sir Francis Drake—sailed his fleet into my very harbor at Cadiz and burned more priceless ships. An open act of war!”

  Philip drew an unsteady breath. “Señor, I tell you now—England and this English Queen are the greatest threat the Church has ever known. And they have become an open affront to Spain. Madre de Dios! These insults are not to be borne!”

  “So she’s singed thy beard and tweaked thy nose.”

  Jayne risked another peek around the sarcophagus to see Mordred’s powerful shoulders lift in a shrug. “Elizabeth has ruled unchallenged for thirty years and has no fear of thee. She has seen thou can do naught to punish her.”

  The Prince of Camelot seemed to be provoking the agitated King, to what purpose she could scarcely fathom. Philip made a visible effort to calm himself, gazing up at the crucified Christ.

  “Oh, can I not?” the King said quietly. “I am a patient man, but Elizabeth Tudor has overstepped at last. She herself, by her own decree, has established the precedent that will unseat her. When she ordered the shameful slaughter of Mary of Scots, a virtuous Catholic and anointed Queen, she overturned the divine right of kings. Now I shall do the same to her.”

  A wave of superstitious dread broke over Jayne. Despite the complex tangle of her feelings toward the Queen, Jayne had never truly wished her cousin ill. For better or worse, she was England’s Queen, adored by her people and unquestionably devoted to them. She’d raised England from the bloody ruin of Mary Tudor’s Inquisition to the golden years of its current glory.

  Jayne was a loyal Englishwoman to the marrow of her bones. She firmly believed there was no better country in the world than the one that had cast her out. If she must be separated from her son, she thanked God on bended knee Ryder was growing up a good Englishman, rooted in the honest soil of her homeland.

  Mordred of Camelot revolved to face the King. She caught a bare glimpse of his profile: the cruel raptor’s nose, the raw red scar raking across his brow, the cold gleam of a glacial eye. An unpleasant chill skittered like an insect down her spine.

  To her horror, that remorseless eye rolled toward her.

  Clammy sweat sprang out against her brow. Jayne ducked behind the sepulcher and huddled, hugging her knees and praying he hadn’t seen her.

  For the silent span of seconds, she waited for the word that would unmask her. When she heard nothing save the agitated strides of the pacing King, a crippling tide of relief flooded through her. Carefully she released her held breath.

  She’d seen cunning and ruthlessness stamped in those half-Fae features, utterly unleavened by any flicker of humanity. If Mordred of Camelot was Philip’s ally, then God save Elizabeth.

  If some dissident Faerie faction had risen against the Tudor Queen, Elizabeth must be warned. Jayne’s mind raced, calculating how quickly she could smuggle a coded message to Walsingham.

  “Forsooth,” Mordred said coldly, “I have begun to question thy resolve. I’ve just come from Lisbon, where the mighty Armada awaits thy command. The waters are dark with the monstrous floating castles of thy Spanish galleons. ’Twill be the largest fleet ever to sail—if it ever leaves port.”

  “Do you dare question my resolve?” Philip’s voice seethed with frustration. “Even the greatest fleet in history must have an admiral. Mine was the estimable Marqués de Santa Cruz, who crafted the invasion strategy. Alas, God has taken him from me, lost to illness weeks ago.”

  “He was one man,” Mordred said flatly. “Thousands more idle in thy harbor. Pick one.”

  “The Duque de Medina Sidonia has replaced him. But he has not Santa Cruz’s experience! He pens endless letters, pleading his poor health, his lack of resources, the general unreadiness of the fleet to sail. What good to launch the greatest fleet in history without provisions and ordnance?”

  The Prince of Camelot’s voice turned silky.

  “Perhaps thou should...incentivize him. Thou and thine Inquisition know well how to motivate a man.”

  Jayne closed her eyes and shuddered. Philip and his Inquisition ruled one quarter of the European continent. Her husband had been a fervent Catholic and Philip’s staunch ally, but Jayne herself merely pretended to conform. If Philip knew he sheltered a heretic beneath his roof, no doubt she herself would be swiftly motivated to spill her secrets.

  Philip’s tone was somber. “The weather has been unsettled all spring. Can my fleet sail into the very teeth of a tempest?”

  “Lord of Light, man! The sea is always unsettled. Do what thou dost best and pray for smooth passage.”

  To Jayne’s heightened senses, impatience and disgust simmered beneath the gray silk of the Fae’s voice. She found herself torn between hoping Mordred would push the unprepared fleet to sail prematurely to its doom, or praying he would be unable to persuade Philip to launch at all.

  She needed more time to reach Walsingham. Body of God, England needed more time!

  “I have prayed.” The King sighed. “My work is God’s work. Surely God Himself must protect this Enterprise. With the many troubles that have plagued this fleet, from Drake’s disastrous raid to my admiral’s death and this accursed weather, I find myself wondering if our guardian angels have deserted us.

  “Always, señor, we must ask ourselves, what is the will of God?”

  “Surely thou art asking the wrong man.”
/>   Irony shimmered in Mordred’s words. Jayne longed to see how Philip was taking it, but dared not risk it.

  Quietly she unhooked the filigreed mirror from her girdle. Holding it near the floor, she extended it a few cautious inches and angled it skillfully toward the altar.

  She caught a fractured glimpse of the King’s slender form kneeling once more on unyielding marble. The commanding figure in his black robes stood behind him, gazing down on the King’s unprotected head. A prickle of superstitious horror crawled over her scalp.

  According to legend, Mordred of Camelot had slain his own father with Arthur’s own sword, a stolen ceremonial blade called Clarent. Now he stood over another king with another blade—it could not possibly be the same one—strapped to his back.

  If Mordred’s goal was to launch the Armada, he needed Philip as his ally. Still, she wondered if the Spanish King had any notion how close he stood to death.

  “Philip,” Mordred said at last, “if thou art having a crisis of faith, I am the last man to hearten thee. But consider this. Thy God has brought thee to me, rightful heir to the throne of Camelot. My Hagas will wage war upon the English Fae at thy command. Thou hast the full strength of my magick and theirs to aid thee.

  “When we are triumphant, thou shalt rule England from Spain and save these mortal souls. And I shall overthrow my ever-loving mother, the Faerie Queene Morrigan, and rule in Camelot as thine ally. Can thou not see thy God’s design in this?”

  Senses reeling, Jayne bowed her head against her knees. Here was the clearest statement yet of Mordred’s role and his purpose. He planned to overthrow his own mother—and why not, when he’d slain his own father?

  Then Elizabeth would have Camelot’s powerful magick to contend with. Somehow she must be warned.

  Philip’s voice rang out, fired with fresh resolve.

  “Your very words are a sign of God’s greatness, for He uses even you as His mouthpiece. Si, my new admiral has delayed us, but only briefly. In truth, I have found the perfect vehicle to speed my Enterprise on its way.”

  Jayne’s breath hitched in her throat. She leaned forward and listened fiercely.

  “The real cause of my admiral’s reluctance is this. He is terrified of encountering El Draque—the English Dragon—on the open sea. Francis Drake may be a brilliant seaman, but he’s also a rogue and a pirate. So I’ve found my own rogue—a seaman every bit as clever, a pirate every bit as ruthless—to slip my Armada into English waters. This Spaniard knows every rock and shoal of the English coast like the boards of his own ship. Indeed, the man is half English, on his mother’s side. But his loyalty is all Spain’s.”

  “Indeed?” A trace of wariness shaded Mordred’s tone. “Who is this marvel among men?”

  “They call him Lord Calyx.” The King’s voice crackled with satisfaction. “The Scourge of the Spanish Main. He’s a grandee who bears his father’s title. But he ignores his estates in Castile and makes his living raiding the ocean sea. Legally, of course, for he bears my letter of marque and pours his spoils into my coffers. He even sails an English ship, one of their new designs—the first we’ve captured, and entirely due to Calyx. He calls it the Arcángel.”

  “The Archangel,” Mordred mused. “This mongrel pirate seems well suited to thy venture.”

  “At times, I have my fears he is not a godly man. Once he was my godchild, before the...tragedies that changed him. Beyond the sea, he has odd interests—science and astrology and mechanical things. But he is also, strangely, one of Europe’s foremost scholars on a matter of divinity.”

  “What matter is that?” Mordred sounded impatient, no doubt eager to be gone.

  “Angels, señor,” Philip said simply. “Carlos Alejandro Angelo de Zamorra—this Lord Calyx who commands the Arcángel—has a positive passion for the study of angels. Surely such a man is marked by God to lead my Armada past El Draque and wreak holy vengeance on England’s heretic shores.”

  Silence followed this revelation. Mordred said nothing for so long Jayne wondered what had befallen him. Yet her instincts were prickling with an alertness she’d grown to trust during the dangerous years of her secret service. She leaned her cheek against the sarcophagus and waited.

  “Curious,” the Prince of Camelot said at last. “Tell me more of this holy pirate. Is he a great warrior?”

  Heartened by the thought of this trump card in his deck, Philip sounded almost cheerful.

  “On sea or land, he’s deadly with a blade, possessed of uncommon strength and stamina and an impressive physical presence. But he’s an adventurer, first and foremost, with a reputation for luck. They say he sails under a lucky star, and men vie to join his crews. I say his own guardian angels watch over him. Now they shall watch over us.”

  Stillness filled the echoing mausoleum.

  “Lord Calyx,” Mordred said softly. “Captain of the Archangel. I shall look for him when I return to Lisbon. If, that is to say, there is a reason to return.”

  “Si, my impatient new ally, the best of reasons.” Philip’s voice rang with conviction. “I am cleansed of my doubts. My faith in God’s will is restored. I shall command the Admiral of the Ocean Sea to launch the Armada at once.”

  Chapter One

  The Arcángel

  Lisbon, Portugal

  May 1588

  “I tell you, capitán, no other commander in the fleet could have done it.” Diego Domingo, first lieutenant of the Arcángel, gazed about the lantern-lit deck with a blend of amusement and awe. “Dios! How did you manage to convert this looming fiasco into a brothel?”

  Carlos Alejandro Angelo de Zamorra, the Scourge of the Spanish Main, lounged against the forecastle gunwale of his stolen English galleon and grinned with lazy satisfaction.

  “It’s easy to start a brothel, amigo, when you know the right whores.”

  Diego threw back his head and laughed. His laughter mingled with eddies of animated conversation from the glittering throng of aristocratic guests swirling across the gun deck below. From the quarterdeck above, the lilting strains of a galliard floated over the balmy night.

  Calyx inhaled deeply from his cigarro and savored the biting sweetness of New World tobacco curling around his tongue. It was his latest vice, acquired while he patrolled the warm turquoise waters of the Spanish Main.

  “Besides, Diego,” he murmured, “the señoras are my gift to the good people of Lisbon for hosting the floating disaster of this Armada in their harbor these many months. For them, the women come free of charge tonight. So we can hardly call the Arcángel a brothel, si?”

  “Si, capitán, as you say.” His primero crossed himself with a pious air. “After all, we are one of the foremost galleons of this holy Enterprise.”

  The irreverent knave broke into another merry peal of laughter. Calyx grinned around his cigarro. Through a cloud of fragrant smoke, he scanned the crowded expanse of decks, masts, rigging and artillery before him.

  He barely noticed the bevy of dusky-skinned beauties in their colorful gowns—the most expensive whores in Portugal—their indolent fans wafting in the warm spring air.

  Instead, Calyx assessed the armed men stationed discreetly on the fighting deck, the sentries he’d posted near the lethal demi-culverin cannons and the hatch where powder and ordnance were stored.

  No English spy would slip aboard on his watch to work mischief on his ship.

  At least not yet.

  Even the company of his fellow officers—noble captains from the assorted galleons, galleys, galleasses and hulks cobbled together for this Armada—only heightened his vigilance. Calyx was too keenly aware of their simmering resentment over his leading role in the coming venture. Their pride chafed at being forced to defer to a half-English pirate. These men would never thank him for leading the powerful armored crescent of the Spanish fleet through England’s tricky coastal waters to her vulnerable shores.

  To the contrary, he knew a few Spanish dons who would cheerfully kill for the honor.

 
; And every man, woman and child in Lisbon knew the mighty Armada would finally launch tomorrow. For a saboteur, tonight would be the night to strike.

  If not for the king’s ransom in Spanish gold he’d been offered for the coming slaughter—to say nothing of his own hidden agenda—Calyx would have gladly given up the Arcángel’s place in this ill-omened venture. He’d cast the horoscope of this Armada. He hadn’t seen planets aligned so disastrously in his lifetime.

  But he could hardly share his arcane knowledge with his pious godfather, the man who relied upon divine intervention to fill the gaping holes in his invasion strategy. Philip would have them sail at once, and their dithering new Admiral of the Ocean Sea had finally issued the orders.

  Frowning, Calyx scanned the tide of chaos below, where a wave of late-arriving guests disembarked from the longboat. Men in jewel-studded doublets and formal uniforms scaled the ladder to the deck. The ladies in their billowing skirts and farthingales were winched aboard giggling in the chair.

  As his watchful gaze skimmed the process, a vivid splash of crimson snared his eye. A solitary lady had spurned the protracted nonsense of the chair to scale the ladder under her own steam.

  Undaunted by billowing yards of ruby damask and the frothing layers of petticoats beneath, she’d deftly flipped up the encumbrance of her wheel-shaped farthingale to climb unimpeded. She shimmied up the ladder in a flurry of petticoats lavishly trimmed with gold damask.

  As he stared, the lady slid a shapely leg sheathed in silk stocking and gartered in scarlet ribbon over the gunwale, then scrambled nimbly onto the gun deck. There she stood, unconcerned, gracefully settling the superstructure of farthingale, petticoats, gown and overskirt around her. The costly sea of crimson-and-gold settled demurely into place over neat vermilion slippers.

  Calyx was riveted.

  Along with every other red-blooded male on deck.

  As a sea of heads turned toward her, the lady in red shook open an elegant fan of Venetian lace. The fashionable accessory obscured her features—a subterfuge that both frustrated and enticed. Her entire bearing proclaimed her utter indifference for the sensation she’d created.