Corra’s tail loosened from around my waist. She’d used it to block our baby from having any knowledge of this sordid transaction, but now she seemed to want to use it to beat Hubbard senseless.
Slowly I withdrew my arm. Hubbard thought about grabbing it back to his mouth. I saw the idea cross his mind as clearly as I had seen Edward Kelley contemplate clubbing me with his walking stick. But he thought better of it. I whispered another simple spell to close the wound, and turned wordlessly to leave.
“When you are next in London,” Hubbard said softly, “God will whisper it to me. And if He wills it, we shall meet again. But remember this. No matter where you go from now, even unto death, some small piece of you will live within me.”
I stopped and looked back at him. His words were menacing, but the expression on his face was thoughtful, even sad. My pace quickened as I left the church crypt, wanting to put as much distance as I could between me and Andrew Hubbard.
“Farewell, Diana Bishop,” he called after me.
I was halfway across town before I realized that no matter how little that single drop of blood might have revealed, Father Hubbard now knew my real name.
Walter and Matthew were shouting at each other when I returned to the Hart and Crown. Raleigh’s groom could hear them, too. He was in the courtyard, holding the reins of Walter’s black beast of a horse and listening to their argument through the open windows.
“It will mean my death—and hers, too! No one must know she is with child!” Oddly enough, it was Walter speaking.
“You cannot abandon the woman you love and your own child in an attempt to stay true to the queen, Walter. Elizabeth will find out that you have betrayed her, and Bess will be ruined forever.”
“What do you expect me to do? Marry her? If I do so without the queen’s permission, I’ll be arrested.”
“You’ll survive no matter what happens,” Matthew said flatly. “If you leave Bess without your protection, she will not.”
“How can you pretend concern for marital honesty after all the lies you’ve told about Diana? Some days you insisted you were married but made us swear to deny it should any strange witches or wearhs come sniffing around asking questions.” Walter’s voice dropped, but the ferocity remained. “Do you expect me to believe you’re going to return whence you came and acknowledge her as your wife?”
I slipped into the room unnoticed.
Matthew hesitated.
“I thought not,” Walter said. He was pulling on his gloves.
“Is this how you two want to say your farewells?” I asked.
“Diana,” Walter said warily.
“Hello, Walter. Your groom is downstairs with the horse.”
He started toward the door, stopped. “Be sensible, Matthew. I cannot lose all credit at court. Bess understands the dangers of the queen’s anger better than anyone. At the court of Elizabeth, fortune is fleeting, but disgrace endures forever.”
Matthew watched his friend thud down the stairs. “God forgive me. The first time I heard this plan, I told him it was wise. Poor Bess.”
“What will happen to her when we are gone?” I asked.
“Come autumn, Bess’s pregnancy will begin to show. They will marry in secret. When the queen questions their relationship, Walter will deny it. Repeatedly. Bess’s reputation will be ruined, her husband will be found out to be a liar, and they will both be arrested.”
“And the child?” I whispered.
“Will be born in March and dead the following autumn.” Matthew sat down at the table, his head in his hands. “I will write to my father and make sure that Bess receives his protection. Perhaps Susanna Norman will see to her during the pregnancy.”
“Neither your father nor Susanna can shield her from the blow of Raleigh’s denial.” I, too, had felt the stabs of doubt months before. “And will you deny that we are married when we return?”
“It’s not that simple,” Matthew said, looking at me with haunted eyes.
“That’s what Walter said. You told him he was wrong.” I remembered Goody Alsop’s prophecy. “‘Old worlds die, and new be born.’ The time is coming when you will have to choose between the safety of the past and the promise of the future, Matthew.”
“And the past cannot be cured, no matter how hard I try,” he said. “It’s something I’m always telling the queen when she agonizes over a bad decision. Hoist by my own petard again, as Gallowglass would be quick to point out.”