Marie Brennan - Midnight Never Come

HAMPTON COURT PALACE, RICHMOND: October 14, 1588

Deven rode into the spacious Base Court of the palace and dismounted almost before his bay gelding came to a halt. The October air had picked up a distinct chill since sunset, nipping at his cheeks, and his fingers were cold inside his gloves. There was a storm building, following in the aftermath of the day’s gentle autumn warmth. He tossed his reins to a servant and, chafing his hands together, headed for the archway that led deeper into the palace.

Stairs on his left inside the arch led upward to the old-style Great Hall. No longer the central gathering place of the monarch and nobles, at Hampton Court the archaic space was more given over to servants of the household, except on occasions that called for great pageantry. Deven passed through without pausing and headed for the chambers beyond, where he could find someone that might know the answer to his question.

The Queen was not using that set of rooms as her personal quarters, having removed to a different part of the sprawling palace, but despite the late hour, a number of minor courtiers were still congregated in what was sometimes used as the Queen’s watching chamber. From them, he learned that Elizabeth was having a wakeful night, as she often did since the recent death of her favorite, the Earl of Leicester. To distract herself, she had gone to a set of rooms on the southern side of the Fountain Court to listen to one of her ladies play the virginals.

The door was guarded, of course, and Deven was not in that elite rank of courtiers who could intrude on the Queen uninvited. He bowed to his two fellows from the Gentlemen Pensioners, then turned to the weary-eyed usher who was trying unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.

“My most sincere apologies for disturbing her Majesty, but I have been sent hither to bring her a message of some importance.” Deven brought the sealed parchment out and passed it over with another bow. “It was Sir James Croft’s most express wish that it be given to her Grace as soon as may be.”

The usher took it with a sigh. “What does the message concern?”

Deven bit back the acid response that was his first reflex, and said with ill-concealed irritation, “I do not know. ’Tis sealed, and I did not inquire.”

“Very well. Did Sir James wish a reply?”

“He did not say.”

“Wait here, then.” The usher opened the door and slipped inside. A desultory phrase from the virginals floated out, and a feminine laugh. Not the Queen’s.

When the usher reemerged, he had something in his hand. “No response to Sir James,” he said, “but her Majesty bids you carry these back to the Paradise Chamber.” He held out a pair of ivory flutes.

Deven took them hesitantly, trying to think of a way around embarrassing himself. He failed; the usher gave him a pitying smile and asked, “Do you know the way?”

“I do not,” he was forced to confess. Hampton Court had grown by stages; now it was a sprawling accretion of courtyards and galleries, surpassed in England only by Whitehall itself, which his fellows reassured him was even more confusing to explore.

“The quickest path would be through these chambers to the Long Gallery,” the usher said. “But as they are in use, go back to the Great Hall…”

It wasn’t as bad as he feared. A pair of galleries ran north to south through the back part of the palace, connecting to the Long Gallery of the south side, with the chambers where Elizabeth had chosen to reside for this visit. At the most southeasterly corner of the palace, and the far end of the Long Gallery, lay the Paradise Chamber.

Deven unlocked the door and nearly dropped the flutes. The candle he bore threw back a thousand glittering points of light; raising it, he saw that the dark chamber beyond was crammed to the walls with riches beyond words. Countless gems and trifles of gold or silver; tapestries sumptuously embroidered in colored silks; pearl-studded cushions; and, dominating one wall, an unused throne beneath a canopy of estate. The royal arms of England decorated the canopy, encircled by the Garter, and the diamond that hung from the end of the Garter could have set Deven up in style for the rest of his life.

He realized he had stopped breathing, and made himself start again. No, not the rest of his life. Ten years, maybe. And ten years’ fortune would not do him much good if he were executed for stealing it.

The entire contents of the room, though…

No wonder they called it Paradise.

He set the flutes on a table inlaid with mother-of-pearl and backed out again, locking the door on the blinding wealth within, before it could tempt him more. They would hardly miss one small piece, in all that clutter….

Perhaps it was his own guilty thoughts that made him so edgy. When Deven heard a sound, he whirled like an animal brought to bay, and saw someone standing not far from him.

After a moment, he relaxed a trifle. Rain had begun to deluge the world outside, obscuring the moon, and so the Long Gallery was lit only by his one candle, not enough to show him the figure clearly, but the silhouette lacked the robe or puffed clothing that would mark an old courtier or a young one. Nor, he reminded himself, did he have anything to feel guilty about; he had done nothing more than what he was ordered to, and no one, servant or otherwise, could hear the covetous thoughts in Deven’s mind.

But that recalled him to his duty. Though the Queen was not present, surely he also had a duty to defend that which was hers. “Stand fast,” he said, raising the candle, “and identify yourself.”

The stranger bolted.

Deven gave chase without thinking. The candle snuffed out before he had gone two strides; he abandoned it, letting taper and holder fall so he could lunge for the door through which the stranger had vanished. It stood just a short distance from the Paradise Chamber, and when he flung himself through it, he found himself on a staircase, with footsteps echoing above him.

The stranger was gone by the time he reached the third floor, but the steps continued upward in a secondary staircase, cramped and ending in a half-height door that was obviously used for maintenance. Deven yanked the door open and wedged himself through, into the cold, drenching rain.

He was on the roof. To his right, low crenellations guarded the drop-off to the lower Paradise Chamber. He looked left, across the pitched sheets of lead, and just made out the figure of the stranger, running along the roof.

Madness, to give chase on a rooftop, with his footing made uncertain by rain-slicked lead. But Deven had only an instant to decide his course of action, and his blood was up.

He pursued.

The rooftop was an alien land, all steep angles and crenellated edges, with turrets rising here and there like masts without sails. The path the stranger took was straight and level, though, unbroken by chambers, and that was what oriented Deven in his fragmentary map of Hampton Court: they were running along the roof of the Long Gallery, back the direction he had come.

In his head, he heard the usher say, The quickest path would be through these chambers…

The gallery led straight toward the room where Elizabeth sat with her ladies, whiling away her sleeplessness with music.

Deven redoubled his efforts, flinging caution to the wind, keeping to his feet mostly because his momentum carried him forward before he could fall. He was gaining on the stranger, not yet close enough to grab him, but nearly—

Lightning split the sky, half-blinding him, and as thunder followed hard on its heels Deven tried too late to stop.

Brick cracked him across the knees, halting his stride instantaneously. But his weight carried him forward, and he pitched over the top of the crenellations, hands flying out in desperation, until his left fingers seized on something and brought him around in a shoulder-wrenching arc. His right hand found brick just in time to keep him from losing his grip and falling a full story to the lower rooftop below.