The Armor of Light Read online

  THE ARMOR OF LIGHT

  By Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett

  A Mystique Press Historical Fantasy

  Mystique Press is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright 2013 / Melissa Scott & Lisa A. Barnett

  Copy-edited by: Darren Pulsford

  Cover design by: David Dodd

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Melissa Scott is from Little Rock, Arkansas, and studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University, where she earned her Ph.D .in the Comparative History program. She is the author of more than twenty science fiction and fantasy novels, and has won Lambda Literary Awards for Trouble and Her Friends, Shadow Man, and Point of Dreams, the last written with her late partner, Lisa A. Barnett. She has also won Spectrum Awards for Shadow Man and again in 2010 for the short story “The Rocky Side of the Sky” (Periphery, Lethe Press) as well as the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her most recent novel, Lost Things, written with Jo Graham, was published by Crossroad Press in 2012, and its sequel, Steel Blues, is scheduled for spring of 2013. She can be found on LiveJournal at mescott.livejournal.com.

  Book List

  A Choice of Destinies

  Burning Bright

  Dreamships

  Dreaming Metal

  Lost Things

  Mighty Good Road

  Night Sky Mine

  Point of Dreams (with Lisa A. Barnett)

  Point of Hoops (with Lisa A. Barnett)

  Shadow Man

  The Armor of Light (with Lisa A. Barnett)

  The Game Beyond

  The Jazz

  The Kindly Ones

  The Roads of Heaven Trilogy Bk 1: Five-Twelfths of Heaven

  The Roads of Heaven Trilogy Bk 2: Silence in Solitude

  The Roads of Heaven Trilogy Bk 3: The Empress of Earth

  The Shapes of Their Hearts

  Trouble and Her Friends

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  THE ARMOR OF LIGHT

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE

  Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England

  William Cecil, Lord Burleigh, chief minister to the queen

  John Dee, astronomer, mathematician, scholar, tutor to Sir Philip Sidney

  Robert Cecil, a secretary of state, son of Lord Burleigh

  Sir Philip Sidney, Queen’s Champion

  Sir Robert Sidney, governor of Flushing, Holland; brother to Sir Philip Sidney

  *Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, deceased, favorite of Elizabeth, uncle of Sir Philip Sidney

  *Hubert Languet, deceased; scholar, logician, philosopher, tutor to Sir Philip Sidney

  Francis Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, known as the Wizard Earl

  Jane Dee, wife to John Dee

  *Sir Henry Lee, formerly Queen’s Champion and instigator of the Accession of Day Tilts

  *Edward Kelly, deceased; secretary to and medium for John Dee

  Fynes Morrison, gentleman-traveler and writer, friend of Sir Philip Sidney

  George Chapman, poet, member of the School of Night

  William Shakespeare, player, playwright, and sometime poet

  Richard Burbage, player and chief sharer of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men

  Christopher Marlowe, poet, scholar, playwright, and sometime government agent

  Sir Walter Raleigh, explorer, scholar, founder of the School of Night

  Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, co-founder of the School of Night, also known as the Wizard Earl

  Walter Warner, mathematician, member of the School of Night

  Nathanial Hawker, boy

  Tomas Harriot, astronomer, member of the School of Night

  Robert Poley, government agent

  Mary-Martha, landlady to Christopher Marlowe

  Bess, her maid-of-all-work

  Edward Alleyn, player and chief sharer of the Lord Admiral’s Men

  Stephen Massey, known as Ganymede, player

  Philip Henslowe, manager and producer of the Lord Admiral’s Men, Edward Alleyn’s father-in-law

  Elizabeth Sidney, daughter of Sir Philip Sidney

  Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, sister of Sir Philip Sidney

  *Thomas Kyd, playwright and former roommate of Christopher Marlowe

  *Thomas Watson, deceased, poet, playwright, astrologer, friend of Christopher Marlowe

  Grifin Madox, steward of Sir Philip Sidney

  Goody Bourman, nurse to Elizabeth Sidney

  Frances Sidney, wife to Sir Philip Sidney, daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham

  *Sir Francis Walsingham, deceased, minister to Queen Elizabeth and head of her secret service

  Henry Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, patron of players, husband of Mary Herbert

  Fulke Greville, secretary of the principality of Wales, friend to Sir Philip Sidney

  Sir Edmund Tilney, Master of the Revels

  Thomas Walsingham, nephew of Sir Francis Walsingham, ex-patron of Christopher Marlowe

  *Ingram Frizer, steward to Thomas Walsingham

  Barbara Sidney, wife of Sir Robert Sidney

  Jan-Maarten van der Droeghe, head groom to Sir Philip Sidney

  Peter Covell, a groom

  Peterkin, his son

  Ralph Heywood, valet to Fulke Greville

  Sir. Edward, a recusant

  Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, present favorite of Queen Elizabeth Fischer, a groom

  John Pyk, also known as Pig, apprentice to Edward Alleyn

  Joan Alleyn, also known as Mouse, wife to Edward Alleyn

  Thomas Downton, player, member of the Lord Admiral’s Men

  William Bird, player, member of the Lord Admiral’s Men

  Thomas Towne, player, member of the Lord Admiral’s Men

  Humphry Jeffes, player, member of the Lord Admiral’s Men

  Martin Slater, player, member of the Lord Admiral’s Men

  Richard Jones, also known as Black Dick, player, member of the Lord Admiral’s Men

  Augustine Phillips, player, member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men

  Will Kempe, player and comedian, member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men

  John Erskine, Earl of Mar, member of the court of James VI, of the king’s party

  Lord John Hamilton, also of the king’s party

  Barton, Sir Philip Sidney’s valet

  James VI Stuart, King of Scots

  Anne of Denmark, his wife

  Prince Henry of Scotland, their son

  Alexander Master of Ruthven, of the king’s bedchamber

  Nicholas Skeres, English agent

  John Gordon, of Clan Gordon

  Andrew Melville, Presbyter and preacher

  Lord Malcolm Seton, of the king’s party

  Cohn Nuscatt, preacher

  Lillias Gordon, accused witch

  Patrick Kennedy, Earl of Cassius, of the king’s party

  Lord Linton, of the king’s party

  Andrew, p
age to James VI

  John Graham, Earl of Montrose, lord treasurer of Scotland

  John Lowin, player, member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men

  John Heminges, player, member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men

  Henry Condell, player, member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men

  Patrick Adamson, Archbishop of St. Andrew’s

  William Forbes, of the Ultra-Protestant party

  Lady Katherine Gordon, agent of the Earl of Huntley, of the Catholic party

  Mephistophilis

  Henry Fletcher, Englishman, Catholic, former member of the Pleiade

  Henriette, his wife

  Besje, her sister

  Nicholas, player’s apprentice, member of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men

  John Lord Graham, son of the Earl of Montrose, of the Ultra-Protestant party

  Rollo of Duncruib, member of the court of James VI

  Matthias Campbell of Crinan, member of the court of James VI

  John Ruthven, Earl of Gowrie, older brother of the Master of Ruthven, of the Ultra-Protestant party

  Master Baffle, consort-master

  *Persons who do not appear in the book.

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  The trivial prophecy, which I heard when I was a child and Queen Elizabeth was in the flower of her years, was

  When hempe is sponne

  England’s donne:

  whereby it was generally conceived that after the princes had reigned which had the principial letters of that word hempe (which were Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth) England should come to utter confusion....

  Francis Bacon, Of Prophecies

  She had put away mirrors some years before, preferring to see herself reflected in the words of the young men who still thronged her court. Even now, she paused in the doorway, giving the two old men who waited for her time to see and admire and frame their compliments. The cool morning light that streamed through the diamond-paned windows would not flatter, and a part of her knew it and rejected it, even as she sailed forward to accept their homage.

  “Spirit,” she said, with real fondness, and one old man—he was seventy-five this spring, had seen three quarters of a century—bowed stiffly back. He was bundled in his

  Scott and Barnett robes of office, fur-lined gown pulled close about his throat beneath the narrow ruff, long jerkin buttoned close, the flaps of his wool coif pulled over his ears even in springtime. The woman, resplendent in white figured satin that showed a vast expanse of white-powdered bosom, rejoiced that she had not succumbed to that frailty of old age. “Dr. Dee.” Despite herself, her voice sharpened on the name, as she stared at the second old man in his scholar’s black. There was something of the crow about him, something of the ravens that haunted the Tower, despite his protestations that he used only white magic, and never more so than today. Perhaps he sensed her unease, for his bow was very deep, and he blinked weak eyes nervously at her as he straightened.

  “Your Majesty.” It was Burleigh who spoke first, secure in his monarch’s favor—the only man now living who could make that boast. “I am very grateful that your grace has agreed to this interview.”

  That was more of a barb than most men were allowed, considering how strenuously the queen had resisted seeing her court wizard of late. Elizabeth’s thin lips tightened further, wrinkles showing momentarily in the thick paint, and then she had smoothed her expression, seating herself carefully in her chair of state. The immense white skirt, sewn with silver and pearls and scattered with blood-red roses, pooled around her ankles, hiding her embroidered slippers; she rested her beautiful long hands on the arms of the chair, displaying them in a pose so practiced it had become natural. The rising sun shone through the upper coils of her immense red wig, glinted from the crown set precariously atop that pearl-strewn edifice. Her face, as she had intended, was in shadow.

  “Well, Doctor Dee,” she said, and heard herself sharp and shrewish, “what news have you brought me?” The old scholar—he was only six years older than she, though she chose to forget it—blinked rheumy eyes at her again, and she frowned. “Does the daylight trouble you, master wizard? We will have the shutters closed.”

  Burleigh frowned, the thickets of his eyebrows drawing down toward his beard. Dee said, stammering slightly, “I beg your Majesty’s pardon. It’s not the light but your Majesty’s presence that dazzles me.”

  “We could withdraw that as well,” Elizabeth said, but her expression softened slightly. It was a feeble compliment, and delivered without courtly graces, but, she thought, sincere enough. She leaned back in the high chair, easing bones that woke tired now after a night’s dancing. “Come, sir, my dear Spirit says your news is both urgent and alarming. Let’s hear it—it may not be so fearsome in the sunlight.”

  The wizard bowed again, and thrust his gnarled hands into the furred sleeves of his gown to hide their shaking. The room was chill, one of the long windows opened to let in the cool spring air, but it was not only the cold that made him tremble. “As your Majesty—and his lordship—know,” he began, “at the new year I cast your Majesty’s horoscope for England, and share those tidings with your Majesty alone.”

  The queen’s eyes slid toward Burleigh, and were answered by an infinitesimal nod: a royal horoscope was more than a matter for private concern; could become, in the wrong hands, a matter of state. Dee was well guarded while he served the queen, in part to protect him from the mob who feared him and had once burned his library, but those guards were also there to assure that no state secrets, however obtained, made their way into the hands of Elizabeth’s enemies. If Dee saw the movements, he gave no sign of it, but continued in his soft, stammering voice, “At this new year, as my lord Burleigh has doubtless told you, the heavens were troubled, the portents strange, and I could read no certainty of anything in stars or glass. In such a case, the best remedy is delay, and I did delay, until the—storm—seemed past.” He glanced up, anxiously, but could read nothing in the queen’s shadowed face. Burleigh stroked his beard, weighing every word.

  Dee bowed his head again. “Then, at your Majesty’s express command, I cast the horoscope. The portents were —well, ominous, your Majesty.”

  There was a long silence, and then Elizabeth said, “Ominous, Doctor Dee? Could you perhaps be more specific in your terms?”

  Recognizing the tone, Dee gave Burleigh a swift glance of appeal. The secretary of state said, slowly, “Yes, your Majesty. The signs concern what will befall England after your death.”

  The words seemed to hang in the air. Elizabeth’s frown deepened. “Have you seen my death, then, Doctor Dee?”

  “Oh, no, your Majesty.” Dee’s hands fluttered in the sunlight, shaping vaguely placating gestures. “I cast my horoscope for one year only, and no longer. I did not see your death in it, I swear it.” He took a deep breath, calming himself. “But this year is a time of—of decision, your Majesty. And what happens now will shape what is to come for England a hundred years from now.’

  Elizabeth did not move. “What is this decision?”

  “Your Majesty, I do not know.” Dee spread his hands. “I cast your horoscope, and the stars told me of a coming conflict between the powers of light and the powers of darkness. It will occur elsewhere and concern others, but your Majesty is its center, about whom all revolve. More than that—the powers of darkness are already on the move, and the rest of the meaning was obscured.” The wizard took another deep breath. “Which is why, your Majesty, I begged Lord Burleigh to secure me an audience. Your Majesty is a prince, anointed by God with the power of your office. And the matter concerns both yourself and your kingdom most nearly. If your Majesty will permit it, I wish to perform a ritual in your presence, which will allow me to see more clearly the nature of this decision.”

  There was another, longer silence. Burleigh frowned even more deeply than before, looking from Dee to the queen and back again. Elizabeth sat unmoving, staring blindly into space. She had faced
threats—and threats of witchcraft—before, but no one had ever offered to invoke such powers in her presence, nor had anyone had the effrontery to claim that her presence was in fact necessary to such an operation. She said at last, “When did you cast this horoscope, Doctor Dee?”

  “Fourteen days after the new year, your Majesty,” the wizard answered.

  “And today is the third day of April,” the queen said, almost to herself. “That was a fortnight ago, master wizard. Why such a delay?”

  Dee bowed again. “I sought to find out more, your Majesty, and failed.”