.l.o.n.d.o.n.

She was beautiful, his mother. If he chose to tax his memory, he could just about remember her. The shimmer of the pearls lacing about her ivory throat as they caught the candlelight. The softness of her delicate noblewoman’s hands as she held him, tending to his little hurts and bruises. Her laughter as she chided him gently for his tears. “Come, love, you’ll face much worse someday… be a little man now, my boy.”

He looks up into the night sky, at the cold glow of stars in the heavens. He wonders where she is, now.

000

The Royal Library at Whitehall, lauded as Britannica's pride, was nearly empty at the tenth hour past noon. Those who were not dancing attendence upon the Queen were at Lady Dinsmore's and those who were not... well they were, in Elizabeth's words, 'old wartbags' who did not care to waste their evenings in flippant pursuits. They were at their beds or at their work of running the realm, good souls. She alone, of the Queen's maids, was homebound. Everyone - atleast of consequence - seemed to have been invited to Lady Dinsmore's 'petit ball', one of the most eagerly-anticipated private galas of the London winter. Susannah rather suspected that Katharine had begged her friend of old, Lady Dinsmore, not to invite her. She could just imagine what the artful girl would have said.

"You won't want the likes of her to spoil your evening, my dear. Fresh from the country she is, with naught of grace or art or charm to commend her, and a hoity-toity to boot! There's little to be said about her and that little ill. Why her own brothers - she's Lord Ackerman's stepdaughter, don't you? - won't have a word with her. Why, Lord Bradley - ah don't you think he's the handsomest creature alive? Only save for his brother, John, of course - was saying..."

Unconsciously, her immaculately-manicured nails rose to her hair. She patted her coiffured head to make sure the folds and loops of hair were in place, to make sure that she was lovely and desirable inspite of having to play the role of wallflower. She hadn't a mirror to check - she could hardly bring one to the library without being (rightfully) branded as impossibly vain - but she thought she looked well. Nobody had thought to invite her to Lady Dinsmore's 'petit ball' to which everyone and anyone of consequence seemed to have been asked to. That will change, Susannah had vowed to herself while Katharine and Deborah had preened at their looking glasses. One day I'll be asked to dozens of fetes, more so than I could possibly attend. I'll be the belle of the season and Katharine will be dust.

A maiden could dream.

"You sit by your taper of late."

Susannah started violently and her hand knocked against the dripping, molten wax of the candle. He winced but she frowned when he made a move towards her. Meticulously, she folded a corner of the Greek treatise she'd been perusing, marking it for when she would next take up the book, and wiped her hand against the linen handkerchief, embroidered with her initials, that she cared at all times. You never knew who you might need to gag.

"I do," Susannah said, her voice soft and even. Her lips parted in a smile as she looked up at Hector. "After your desecreation of the chapel, you have chosen the Queen's pet library as your new haunt. Or perhaps, my personal charms have compelled you, against your will, hitherwards."

He chuckled but the sound was soft, tentative as if he'd quite forgotten how to really laugh. "You called me, My Lady, if I may beg leave to remind you."

Susannah licked her lips. "You are well-acquainted with the ways of mediators. At my beck, the astral realms stirred and you answered." He said nothing. "Queen Catharine," Susannah said, getting straight down to business. "What know you of her?"

Hector's face drooped perceptibly. "She has been smitten by a heavy mace, poor, fair lady," he said.

Susannah's eyebrows arched. "For all that you have been long dead," she said, her voice tolerant and amused. "You are as easily stirred as any man of flesh by beauty. She is fair, therefore she is poor. Good King Harry's thornless rose! She caught herself in her own briar and 'tis atonement she be making for her sins, tis plain from her lengthened agony."

Hector sat down on the chair opposite her and tapped his fingers on the solid oaken table that stood between them. "You know not that, Lady Susannah. Was't her own briar?"

"Why, yes, certainly," Susannah countered. "From mine experience, this earth of ours though heaven or hell to mortals as they make of it, is the Purgatory of spirits. Thus says it in the Good Book."

"Ah, ye of the Reformed Faith," he sighed, looking disapproving. "I, for my part, am of the Old Faith and we were not taught, when we were little ones at our cathecism, to take such liberties of our gospels. Where says it so?"

"Do you expect me to reel off book and passage and verse number?" she asked indignantly. "Perhaps such is the occupation of maids of plain countenance, bluestockings who would never dare aspire to matrimony, but I for my part have spent my leisure hours in more profitable occupations than the study of the Bible."

"A fit answer for a daughter of the court," he said, one eyebrow arching. There was a thin white scar that ran down the length of his eyebrow, just visible in the candlelight. It was rather dashing and it made him - to Susannah's eyes - look like a buccaneer. How thrilling. "How indeed could the task of scouting for suitors compare to the perusal of the Bible? But..." he paused significantly. "I find you at your books now. If this be not the occupation of bluestockings then I am no gentleman."

"You are not," Susannah said crisply. "You are dead." It was a truthful, if somewhat unkind, observation. "And yes, to answer you, twas her own briar. I having more experience in this matters am better equipped to answer them than such as you." She picked up her book. "And I like to read. So does Her Majesty, and she be no bluestocking if I be a lady."

He said nothing but his tapping fingers were more restless than they had been a few moments ago. "I am a sinner, and this is my Purgatory," he murmured.

"Yes," she said, not looking up from her book. "Recant, demon, and thy soul, free of mortal restrains, shall hie to the realm of asphodel."

"Or those of fire and brimestone," he said.

"That cannot be helped," she said. "You ought to have thought 'afore you sinned, what your punishment would be." She put down her book, realizing that she wouldn't be able to read anymore. Clasping her hands before her, like a priest at a confessional, she prompted him. "So what was it? Lust? Avarice? Wrath?" When he looked puzzled she sighed. "The sin," she said dramatically, "which forces you to cleave to yon realm of the living and will not let you rescind to those more suitable considering your corporeal state."

"What is yours?" he asked mildly. He leaned against his chair and there was a look of vague distaste on his face.

"Mine?" she demanded, bewildered. "Beyond the mortal run of things, I assure you, I am quite er-" What was the phrase she wanted. "Petal-fresh." Petal-fresh. Really, I'm going to seed - if it was Queen Mary's day, such an expression would be appropriate but tis not, tis late in Queen Elizabeth's day.

"But you are a mediator."

"I am," she agreed. "And-?"

"But surely," he said sweetly, the words flowing lightly off his smooth, gilded tongue. "Surely tis a trial to you."

"Naturally," she said. "It be no easy work, as you might well garner."

He smiled. "God has seen fit to smite you with a heavy mace, Lady Susannah."

"She has been smitten by a heavy mace, poor, fair lady."

"For all that you have been long dead. You are as easily stirred as any man of flesh by beauty. She is fair, therefore she is poor. Good King Harry's thornless rose! She caught herself in her own briar and 'tis atonement she be making for her sins, tis plain from her lengthened agony."

She understood his trap all too well now. "You have a way with words," she said, tightlipped.

"The Santiago Inheritance, they said it of us," he said dryly. "The emissary's brand - we were all born with honeyed tongues." And the devil's beauty, Susannah thought, noting the way the golden lamplight seemed to flow over the long, clean line of his broad shoulders, the hardness of his muscles under his undyed tunic... The Queen would have made much of you had you been alive.

"Well," she said reproachfully. "Your words seem to imply that you consider me a-"

"Do unto others as you would do unto yourself," he intoned. "Think not the worse of me for all that I am dead. It might not be my fault."

But of course it is! Everything Susannah had been taught rebelled against his insistence that he was sinless. It couldn't be! Had she not been brought up by the Bible, was not her cathecism on rock-solid ground? Her own case - that she could actually see the unnatural sprites - well, that was different. Perhaps it was God's blessing, that she was one of his honored chosen. Perhaps it was atonement for past sins. She did what she could for those she could - surely bringing sinners into the light was pleasing in God's eyes.

The bells tolled, sending that familiar, excited shiver through her spine. It was a grand sound and though some of the girls complained that it was dreadful waking up to their pealing, she rather liked it. One two three, four five six, seven, eight, nine ten eleven. She shut the book. He looked closely at it and smiled. "I liked it."

"Passable," Susannah said. "Strange to say I've always been partial to Greek, though they say Latin is what British tongues wrap around quicker."

His eyes crinkled up and his smile was genuine, warm and sincere now. "So have I."

She rose, taking her taper. She saw his eyes on her and he nodded his approval. "I commend your taste," he said, waving towards the black taffeta, slashed to reveal a layered white satin petticoat. It was woven by threads of silver silk in a fantastical design - she'd embroidered it herself. She flushed at the masculine approbation - it was good to be admired.

"Thank you," she said and then, impulsively, "Good night." She was almost about to add, Sleep well, but then she remembered, just in time. It would have been unkind on her part. Flushing she merely mumbled, "Good night," again.

He was looking at her closely, his eyes boring into hers. She dropped hers, unwilling to meet his stare. All of a certain she seemed to realize how tall he was, how handsome and strong. "Sleep well, Lady Susannah," he finally said.

000

"Oh twas a terrific bore at Dinsmore's," Bess said. The two Elizabeths - Bess and Liza, as they'd insisted she call them - and Susannah were on an excursion into the city to pick up 'odds and ends' as the other two had put it. They'd insisted that as Susannah hadn't yet been exposed to the delights of the splendidest city in the world, there was little time to be lost. Their itinerary included shopping, having a 'quick bite' at one of the many eating houses - 'just like common folk' as Liza gaily put it -, a new play at the Globe and would culminate in a trip to the Tower's menagerie - typical London sightseeing for a country girl.

Liza yawned for effect.

"But it was a party," Susannah couldn't help but point out. "No matter how dull. Flowers and dancing and dressing-up and gaiety - really, I don't understand you, Bess."

"Poor country girl," Liza said sympathetically. "You're so wretchedly young and naive you wring my heart."

Susannah didn't take care to be spoken of thus, but she felt that her position deemed it appropriate that she keep her silence. Which she did, with utmost dignity.

"Ah don't you be taking Liza's words to heart," Bess said, wrapping an arm around Susannah's waist. For a moment she sounded like the Yorkshire girl she'd been, raised to thriving in a house teeming with rough-and-tumble boys, among the gorse and heather of the wild, beautiful, purple moor. "What she meant was that you being so new to court things twould only be natural for you to-"

"Be unable to part with my illusions?" Susannah suggested.

Bess nodded. "They be frightful bores, Lady Dinsmore's things, for all they're said to be so grand."

"They're only grand because she's clever enough to have a good cook," Liza said, and for a moment her eyes misted over. "Her meat pies are Heaven."

Susannah shifted uneasily. She didn't like Heaven to be spoken so belittingly. What right had these fine court ladies to trifle with things of divinity, of the utmost, sacred importance? It was so... well, so unseemly. Heaven and Hell were not matters of jest - ah how well she knew - and it boded ill with her that they were spoken of so flippantly. Being compared to meat pies - well, there was a limit.

"-And the guests all so indifferently dressed," Liza finished. She had apparently been listing the chief defects of Lady Dinsmore's party.

"You oughtn't say much," Susannah said simply.

Liza's eyebrows shot up and her voice was a trifle cool as she said, "Pray why?"

Without warning, Susannah seized the other girl's cloak. "Rose taupe lined with ash," she said. "With your complexion. And you say 'indifferently dressed' of others - you ought to consider that proverb about glass houses."

"My complexion is well enough," Liza said stiffly and indeed she was, like all of the Queen's ladies, a great beauty. Her complexion was flawless and as white as they came. But the cloak nearly undid the beauty of her exquisitely-molded, classical features.

"And the cloak is ill enough," Susannah said serenely. She couldn't just stand aside and let Liza continue in the path of catastrophe that she seemed bent to follow. It just wasn't fair. She fingered her own cloak. It was forest-green and darkened her green eyes to emerald, and pinned at her throat by a weathered bronze brooch of rugged craftsmanship. The effect was deliciously becoming - as she well knew from the sneer of envy that had darkened Deborah's face when she'd seen her, fully-dressed. Liza and Bess had squealed over how cultivated her taste was.

Suddenly Liza laughed, understanding. "Periwinkle," Susannah said, without pausing. "To match those pretty, dancing eyes of yours. Not too pale lest you look insipid."

"We'll sit together when you're going over those swathes of fabric for the cloakmaker," Liza said warmly. "I'll be much beholden to you for your guidance."

"And me?" Bess said, looking plaintive. "Would you please help with my spring wardrobe? I'm such a goose when it comes to colors, so I never stray from black and white. Even charcoal never seems to work for me."

"Nay but how could it?" Susannah demanded. "You're as fine-boned and bitsy as a bird - you'll look positively like a widow in charcoal or black. White - white becomes you. Virginal is your color."

"You're a wonder, you are," Liza laughed. "Now won't we stir our Katharine's spirits when we come attired all in our finery for the masque!"

"The masque?" Susannah said, bewildered.

"Come, child, surely you know," Bess said. When Susannah shook her head, she gave a crow of laughter. "Oh you'll be the death of me, darling! The Yuletide masque, of course, and it's one of the most anticipated events of the season-"

"Like Lady Dinsmore's galas," Susannah said dryly.

"No no tisn't like Dinsmore's at all," Bess said, as blithely as a bird's. Her eyes shone. "It's just- oh you'll love it! And that, my love, is why we've come out, all in the sleet, to get our costumes."

"Why there won't be enough time to make them!" Susannah cried. "You could have told me."

But Bess laughed. "You've never been to Mistress Webb's have you? No, silly me, of course not. Well, you'll see when we get there. You'll see."

And Susannah did.

000

"Mistress Webb's Establishment" proclaimed the peeling gold letters on the small shabby door at the small, shabby house. It was squeezed in between two narrow, nearly identical townhouses in one of London's sparser quarters. Dung caked the cobblestones, the lamps were lit low and sullen-faced women in stained gowns and tattered lace caps scuttled about. The place made Susannah shiver. Bess took her hand out of her ermine muff and squeezed Susannah's fingers.

Liza rapped on the chipped, griffin-shaped brass knocker. There was a pause and then she could hear shuffling feet at the other end and a murmur of, "Come in, come in" even before the door was quite opened. A woman opened the door.

In the dimness of the poorly-lit hallway her silvery hair shone like a halo around her head. Her skin was so white that it was almost lustrous and her eyes - why they're like that maid's I saw! The one Bradley was toying with - that Cicely creature. Lord in Heaven, Susannah thought, almost reeling back. Bess gripped her elbow and hissed, "Hold your peace" into her ears. She almost added 'Scaredy-cat' but restrained herself.

"Elizabeth, Elizabeth," Mistress Webb - for it was she, Susannah garnered - cooed at the two Elizabeth's. "And you've brought a friend. How lovely."

"Susannah Simon," Liza said for her.

Webb blinked and smiled. "How lovely," she repeated and stood aside to let the ladies sweep in.

"We've come for the masque," Liza said, gliding down the corridor as though she were at Whitehall. It was an effortless and easy grace, something that had practically been beaten into her since childhood.

"Of course," Webb said. "My crystal ball told me to expect visitors."

Susannah started violently, but once again she felt Bess's hand at her elbow and a hiss "I'll explain later - do as you're told now".

"Or perhaps it was the season," Bess said mildly. "Yuletide brings strange visitors to unfamiliar hearths."

"I've had stranger ones, if you'll excuse me, Lady Elizabeth," Webb chuckled. "Stranger by far."

They walked past dim little rooms into which Susannah had flashing glimpses - a boar's head on a placard here, a table piled with herbs there. Dust motes fluttering in the air, and braided rugs patterning the floorboards. A stray sunbeam catching against a mirror, an iridiscent line drawn against the glass.

Liza finally walked into a room, Webb, Bess and Susannah trailing along in her wake. It was as small and shabby as any of the others, but there was a fire in the rusty little hearth and it seemed clean enough. Perhaps that was as much as she could expect. "You certainly know your way," Susannah said stiffly.

Liza tilted her head back and smiled warmly at her. "Ah but how could I not? I was raised at court, wasn't I? And London has always been my home."

"Her mother brought her here when she was but a toddling little thing," Webb said, a quiet chuckle reverberating in her voice.

"And then she met me and brought me," Bess chimed.

"And now me." Susannah's voice was soft, deceptively polite. She didn't know what to think.

"Tis an act of faith, to be sure," Webb said. "Ye must be ripping good friends."

The common expression - really it was almost vulgar - made Susannah wrinkle her nose. She rather knew that Mother wouldn't approve of her present company, but then what was she to do? One had to make concessions when one was with friends.

"Well what would you like?" Webb scuttled over to the table. There were scraps and bits of cloth and books with patterned covers, scissors and a sewing box on it. Like a dressmaker's table. "Now last year my Lady Liza was an Arabi houri-"

"Arabian," Liza corrected her.

"Arabi, Arabian tis all the same," Webb said indifferently. "Moor-skinned, they be all, and not t'wall decent to my way of thinking, but then what have you? Young girls nowadays be so- ah, but tis an ill wind bodes none good. And Lady Elizabeth was a-"

"Shepherdess," Bess said.

"You'll be excusing an old woman's fading memory," Webb returned. "So what will ye have this year?"

While the girls discussed this matter of all-consuming interest, Susannah drifted to a little table that had been tucked into a dark recess. There was something big and white on it, shaped rather like a-

"Why it's a human skull!" she cried, jumping back. She wondered why she had been so startled. Surely she'd been in enough cemetries to be acquainted with skulls and bones and thuslike? It was just the element of surprise, she supposed, and it served only to confirm her worst suspicions against Mistress Webb.

The woman was clearly a necromancer.

Really what were girls coming to these days, associating with such horrors? It wasn't decent and she was pretty sure it wasn't at all Christian. At least, she doubted, the chaplain at their manor would hardly approve.

"Yes," Bess said indifferently, turning back. "Why so it is. What would you like to dress up as, Susannah?"

"But-but," Susannah spluttered.

Webb wove towards her and gently clamped her hand around Susannah's wrist. "Won't do you a bit of good, Ladyship, to be standing thuslike. No, no - you're ill at ease, I see and tis natural, you being a lady you ain't a-used to such. Would you like a pint? I could fix you a-"

"That won't be necessary," Susannah said, weakly slumping into the stool a scowling Bess pushed out for her. She put her hand on her breast, where she could feel her heart thumping against her ribcage as though she'd run a race. She tried to smile. "I'll be fine - just a little, er too much excitement."

"I'd rather like to be a harlequin," Bess announced. She was toying with a tattered tarot card. "Black and white and a hint of red, and bells for my jester's cap. Will that be too much, Mistress Webb?"

"But of course not, dear lady," Webb said. "And you, my Lady Liza?"

"A faerie," she said, half-absently. "Something wild and aerial and- oh I don't know how to put it. Periwinkles and pale blues and-"

"Lavendar," Susannah said, rapidly assessing her. She opened one of the books on Webb's table and found that it was indeed full of swathes of fabrics. She selected a color. "The very, very palest - but no greens, not even a dash. You look quite at sea in green."

Liza smiled. "And you, Susannah of the green, green eyes? What will you be?"

"I will be," Susannah paused for a moment and then her eyes gleamed like a cat's in the dark. "A phantomess."