Nicola Cornick - House Of Shadows - Discover the thrilling untold story of the Winter Queen

Alison Hay was on her knees now, scrabbling to catch the pearl before it rolled away and was lost down a drain or through a crack in the floor. James did not trouble to help. He did not want to touch it. The mirror lay where it had fallen, facing up, miraculously unbroken.

Alison grabbed the pearl and struggled to her feet, flushed, breathing hard. In one hand she had the box, the pearl safely back within it, glowing with innocent radiance. In the other she held the mirror. As James watched, she glanced down at its milky blue surface. Her eyes widened. Her lips parted. James snatched it from her, bundling it roughly face down into the box and snapping the lid shut.

‘Don’t look into it,’ he said. ‘Never look into it.’

It was too late. Her face was chalk white, eyes blank pools.

‘What did you see?’ James’ voice was harsh with emotion. Terror gripped him, visceral, setting his heart pounding. Then, as she did not reply: ‘Answer me!’

‘Fire,’ she said. She spoke flatly as if by rote, ‘Buildings eaten by flame. Gunpowder. Death. And a child in a cream-coloured gown with a crown of gold.’

‘Twaddle.’ James gripped the box as though he could crush the contents; crush the very idea of them. ‘Superstitious nonsense, all of it.’ Yet even he could hear the hollow ring of fear in his voice. Before magic, cold reason fled.

‘Lock them away,’ he said, pushing the box back into the nurse’s hands. ‘Keep them safe.’

‘Majesty.’ She dropped a curtsey.

It was done. From behind the closed door he heard the thin wail of a baby and the murmur of female voices joined in a soothing lullaby. James turned on his heel and walked away, heading for the courtyard and the fresh clean air of winter to chase away the shadow that stalked him. Yet even outside under a crystalline grey sky plump with snow he was not free of guilt. He had given the Sistrin and the mirror to his baby daughter, as the Queen of England had commanded, but it felt that in some terrible way he had cursed her with it.

Wassenaer Hof, The Hague, autumn 1631

There was a full moon and a cold easterly wind when the Knights of the Rosy Cross came. The wind came from the sea, crossing the wide sand dunes and whipping through the streets to curl about the corners of the Wassenaer Hof, seeking entry through cracks and crannies.

Elizabeth watched the knights’ arrival from her window high in the western wing of the palace. The moonlight dimmed the candles and fell pitilessly bright on the cobbles. In that white world the men were no more than dark cloaked shadows.

She had thought that such folly was over. The Fellowship of the Rosy Cross belonged to a time long ago. It had been a dream borne of their youth. She and her husband Frederick had been so passionate about it once. They had been possessed of a desire to change the world, to spread knowledge, science and wisdom. Their court at Heidelberg had been a refuge for scholars and philosophers.

Now she felt so very different, drained of faith, betrayed, as flimsy as the playing card for which she was named the Queen of Hearts.

She was a pale reflection; an echo fading into the dark. Men had called her union with Frederick the marriage of Thames and Rhine; a political match between a German prince and an English princess destined to strengthen the Protestant cause. She had not cared for such things. She had not been educated for politics then. It had been simple; one look at Frederick and she had fallen in love. They had wed in winter but she had felt blessed by light and fortune. Frederick’s ascent to the throne of Bohemia had been the final glory. The future had been so bright, but it had been a false dawn followed by nothing but grief and loss. Bohemia had been lost in battle after only a year, Frederick’s own lands overrun by his enemies. They had fled to The Hague to a makeshift court and a makeshift life.

Elizabeth rested one hand on her swollen belly. After eighteen years of marriage and twelve children, people spoke of her love for Frederick in terms of indulgence, never questioning her devotion. They knew nothing.

Tonight she was so angry. She knew why Frederick had summoned the knights. There was new hope, he said. Their long exile would soon be over. The Swedish King had smashed the army of the Holy Roman Emperor and was sweeping through Germany in triumph. Frederick wanted the Knights of the Rosy Cross to scry for him, to see whether Gustavus Adolphus’ victory would give him back his patrimony. He had taken both the Sistrin pearl and the crystal mirror with him to foretell the future; the knights demanded it. But the treasures were not Frederick’s to take; they were hers.

Elizabeth felt restless. Her rooms were noisy. They always were; her ladies chattered louder than her monkeys. She was never alone. Tonight though, she was in no mood for music or masques or cards. Suddenly the repetition of her life, the sameness, the tedium, the hopes raised and dashed time and again, made her so frustrated that she shook with fury.

‘Majesty?’ One of her ladies spoke timidly.

‘Fetch my cloak,’ Elizabeth said. ‘The plain black.’

They bustled around her like anxious hens. She should not go out. His Majesty would not like it. It was too cold. She was with child. She should be resting.

She ignored them all and closed the door on their clucking. Down the stairs, along the stone corridor, past the great hall with its gilded leather, where the servants were sweeping and tidying after supper, out into the courtyard, feeling the sting of the cold air. She passed the stables and as always the scent of horses, leather and hay comforted her. Riding – hunting – made her life of exile tolerable.

She looked back across the yard at the lights of the palace winking behind their brightly coloured leaded panes. She had never considered the Wassenaer Hof to be her home, even though she had lived in The Hague for over ten years now. They still called her the Queen of Bohemia, but in truth she reigned over nothing but this palace of red brick with its jostling gables and ridiculous little towers.

The building was swallowed in shadows. Here in the gardens there was the sharp scent of clipped box that always caught in her throat and the sweet smokiness of camomile. The gravel of the parterre crunched beneath her feet. She could never walk here without thinking of the gardens Frederick had designed for her at Heidelberg Castle, with their grottoes and cascades, their orange trees and their statuary. All had been on a grand scale that had matched Frederick’s ambition. All gone. She had heard that an artillery battery now stood on the site of her English Garden. As for Frederick’s ambition, she had believed that had been crushed too, struck down at the Battle of the White Mountain, buried under the losses that had bruised his honour and his fortune alike. But then, tonight, he had sent for the Knights of the Rosy Cross and brought them here, to the water tower, to tell him if his fortunes would rise again.

He had taken their son, too. Charles Louis was a mere thirteen years old, but Frederick had said it was time his heir should see what the future held for him. That had angered Elizabeth too. She had already lost one son and kept Charles Louis close. He was too precious to put in danger.

She drew the hood of the cloak more closely about her face. The scrape of the metal latch sounded loud in her ears; the wall sconce flared in the draught. She closed the door softly behind her and started to descend the stone steps to the well, taking care to make no noise. It was odd that for all that the old tower was dry and the stair well lit, she felt as though the water had seeped into the very stones and now lapped around her, inimical and cold. She had hated water ever since it had taken the life of her eldest son two years before. Even now, his drowning haunted her dreams. She could not shake the belief that in some way she and Frederick had brought the loss upon themselves through the misuse of the Sistrin pearl’s magic. Her father had warned her of its power and told her it should never be used for personal gain.