All Souls Trilogy, page 73
“Thank you, Matthew.” Sarah kissed the book and the note and threw them into the cavernous fireplace. She said the words to conjure a white-hot fire. The paper caught quickly, and the book’s edges began to curl.
Sarah watched the fire burn for a few moments. Then she walked out the front door, leaving it unlocked, and didn’t look back.
Once the door closed, a worn silver coffin shot down the chimney and landed on the burning paper. Two gobbets of blood and mercury, released from the hollow chambers inside the ampulla by the heat of the fire, chased each other around the surface of the book before falling into the grate. There they seeped into the soft old mortar of the fireplace and traveled into the heart of the house. When they reached it, the house sighed with relief and released a forgotten, forbidden scent.
Sarah drank in the cool night air as she climbed into the RV. Her senses were not sharp enough to catch the cinnamon and blackthorn, honeysuckle and chamomile dancing in the air.
“Okay?” Em asked, her voice serene.
Sarah leaned across the cat carrier that held Tabitha and squeezed Em’s knee. “Just fine.”
Faye turned the key in the ignition and pulled down the driveway and onto the county road that would take them to the interstate, chattering about where they could stop for breakfast.
The four witches were too far away to perceive the shift in atmosphere around the house as hundreds of night creatures detected the unusual aroma of commingled vampire and witch, or to see the pale green smudges of the two ghosts in the keeping-room window.
Bridget Bishop and Diana’s grandmother watched the vehicle’s departure.
What will we do now? Diana’s grandmother asked.
What we’ve always done, Joanna, Bridget replied. Remember the past—and await the future.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My greatest debt is to the friends and family who read this book, chapter by chapter, as it was written: Cara, Karen, Lisa, Margaret, and my mom, Olive. Peg and Lynn, as always, provided excellent meals, warm companionship, and wise counsel. And I am especially appreciative of the editorial work that Lisa Halttunen did to prepare the manuscript for submission.
Colleagues generously lent me their expertise as I wandered far from my own area of specialization. Philippa Levine, Andrés Reséndez, Vanessa Schwartz, and Patrick Wyman steered me in the right direction whenever I took a misstep. Any errors that remain are, of course, my own.
I will always be grateful that Sam Stoloff of the Frances Goldin Literary Agency took the news that I had written a novel, and not another work of history, with grace and good humor. He also read the early drafts with a keen eye. Additional thanks to the agency’s Ellen Geiger, for her inspired choice of dinner companions!
The team at Viking has become a second family to me. My editor, Car-ole DeSanti, represents what every author hopes for when they are writing a book: someone who will not only appreciate what you have put on the page but can envision what story those words could tell if they were tweaked just so. Maureen Sugden, copy editor extraordinaire, polished the book in record time. Thank you also to Clare Ferraro, Leigh Butler, Hal Fessenden, and the rights group; Nancy Sheppard, Carolyn Coleburn, and the marketing and sales team; Victoria Klose, Christopher Russell, and everyone who has helped transform this work from a stack of paper into a book.
Because this is a book about books, I consulted a substantial number of texts as I wrote. Curious readers can find some of them by consulting the Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible, Marie-Louise von Franz’s critical edition and translation of Aurora Consurgens (Pantheon Books, 1966), and Paul Eugene Memmo’s translation of Giordano Bruno’s Heroic Frenzies (University of North Carolina Press, 1964). Those readers who do go exploring should know that the translations here are my own and therefore have their idiosyncrasies. Anyone who wants to delve further into the mind of Charles Darwin has the ideal place to start in Janet Browne’s Charles Darwin: A Biography (2 vols., Alfred Knopf, 1995 and 2002). And for a lucid introduction to mtDNA and its application to the problems of human history consult Brian Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve (W. W. Norton, 2001).
Praise for Shadow of Night
“Fans of Harkness’s 2011 debut A Discovery of Witches will be delighted. . . . Harkness delivers enough romance and excitement to keep the pages turning. Readers will devour it.”
—People
“The joy that Harkness, herself a historian, takes in visiting the past is evident on every page. . . . A great spell, one that can enchant a reader and make a 600-page book fly through her fingertips, is cast. . . . Its enduring rewards are plenty.”
Entertainment Weekly
“Deborah Harkness takes us places we’ve never been before. . . . Readers time travel as precisely and precariously as Diana and Matthew do. . . . Shadow ends as Discovery did, with promises of more to come. Lucky for us.”
—USA Today
“A scholar of Elizabethan history, Harkness is an entertaining guide. . . . She weaves a tapestry of sixteenth-century European life that is as densely populated and colorful as a painting by Hieronymus Bosch.”
—The Washington Post
“Enchanting, engrossing, and as impossible to put down as its predecessor, Shadow of Night is a perfect blend of fantasy, history, and romance. . . . If you’ve already read and enjoyed A Discovery of Witches, picking up Shadow of Night is an absolute requirement. Otherwise, pick up both and consider your summer reading list complete.”
—The Miami Herald
“Shadow of Night pretty much defines excellence. . . . Adults who’ve sorely missed the wizardry, romance, and adventure of the Harry Potter books or love The Hunger Games will find much to adore here, along with the addition of impeccably researched history.”
—The Dallas Morning News
“Fascinating . . . Harkness immerses the reader in the historical and political milieu of late sixteenth-century London and Prague, where the search for the alchemical philosopher’s stone consumes royalty and commoners alike. . . . Shadow of Night is compelling as it explores an unconventional couple trying to maintain authentic intimacy despite their opposing natures and other forces attempting to pull them apart. . . . . Also engrossing are descriptions of Diana’s training as she learns to release and use her powers, which come in handy against creatures threatening her family.”
—Los Angeles Times
“This novel is as much a love story about a bygone era as it is about Matthew and Diana. It overflows with a colorful cast of characters, many of whom Harkness has plucked straight from the history books, and Harkness renders the late 1500s in exquisite detail. . . . The writing is so rich, the characters so compelling . . . and best of all, Harkness manages to execute with aplomb the act of answering old questions while posing new ones that will intensify anticipation for the final installment. Readers who have been counting down the days, take heart: The wait was most assuredly worth it.”
—BookPage
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China
penguin.com
A Penguin Random House Company
First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC 2012
Published in Penguin Books 2013
Copyright © Deborah Harkness, 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this product may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
Harkness, Deborah E.
Shadow of night / Deborah Harkness.
p. cm. — (All souls trilogy ; bk. 2)
ISBN 978-1-101-57893-3
1. Witches—Fiction. 2. Vampires—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3608.A7436S53 2012
813’.6—dc23 2012005843
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
To Lacey Baldwin Smith, master storyteller and historian,
who suggested some time ago that I should think about writing a novel.
The past cannot be cured.
—ELIZABETH I, QUEEN OF ENGLAND
Contents
Cover
Praise for Shadow of Night
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Woodstock: The Old Lodge
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Sept-Tours and the Village of Saint-Lucien
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
London: The Blackfriars
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
The Empire: Prague
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
London: The Blackfriars
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
New World, Old World
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Libri Personæ: The People of the Book
Acknowledgments
PART I
Woodstock:
The Old Lodge
1
We arrived in an undignified heap of witch and vampire. Matthew was underneath me, his long limbs bent into an uncharacteristically awkward position. A large book was squashed between us, and the force of our landing sent the small silver figurine clutched in my hand sailing across the floor.
“Are we in the right place?” My eyes were screwed shut in case we were still in Sarah’s hop barn in twenty-first-century New York, and not in sixteenth-century Oxfordshire. Even so, the unfamiliar scents told me I was not in my own time or place. Among them was something grassy and sweet, along with a waxen smell that reminded me of summer. There was a tang of wood smoke, too, and I heard the crackle of a fire.
“Open your eyes, Diana, and see for yourself.” A feather-light touch of cool lips brushed my cheek, followed by a soft chuckle. Eyes the color of a stormy sea looked into mine from a face so pale it could only belong to a vampire. Matthew’s hands traveled from neck to shoulders. “Are you all right?”
After journeying so far into Matthew’s past, my body felt as though it might come apart with a puff of wind. I hadn’t felt anything like it after our brief timewalking sessions at my aunts’ house.
“I’m fine. What about you?” I kept my attention fixed on Matthew rather than daring a look around.
“Relieved to be home.” Matthew’s head fell back on the wooden floorboards with a gentle thunk, releasing more of the summery aroma from the rushes and lavender scattered there. Even in 1590 the Old Lodge was familiar to him.
My eyes adjusted to the dim light. A substantial bed, a small table, narrow benches, and a single chair came into focus. Through the carved uprights supporting the bed’s canopy, I spied a doorway that connected this chamber to another room. Light spilled from it onto the coverlet and floor, forming a misshapen golden rectangle. The room’s walls had the same fine, linenfold paneling that I remembered from the few times I’d visited Matthew’s home in present-day Woodstock. Tipping my head back, I saw the ceiling—thickly plastered, coffered into squares, with a splashy red-and-white Tudor rose picked out in gilt in each recess.
“The roses were obligatory when the house was built,” Matthew commented drily. “I can’t stand them. We’ll paint them all white at the first opportunity.”
The gold-and-blue flames in a stand of candles flared in a sudden draft, illuminating the corner of a richly colored tapestry and the dark, glossy stitches that outlined a pattern of leaves and fruit on the pale counterpane. Modern textiles didn’t have that luster.
I smiled with sudden excitement. “I really did it. I didn’t mess it up or take us somewhere else, like Monticello or—”
“No,” he said with an answering smile, “you did beautifully. Welcome to Elizabeth’s England.”
For the first time in my life, I was absolutely delighted to be a witch. As a historian I studied the past. Because I was a witch, I could actually visit it. We had come to 1590 to school me in the lost arts of magic, yet there was so much more that I could learn here. I bent my head for a celebratory kiss, but the sound of an opening door stopped me.
Matthew pressed a finger to my lips. His head turned slightly, and his nostrils flared. The tension left him when he recognized who was in the next room, where I could hear a faint rustling. Matthew lifted the book and me in one clean move. Taking my hand, he led me to the door.
In the next room, a man with tousled brown hair stood at a table littered with correspondence. He was of average height, with a neat build and expensive, tailored clothes. The tune he hummed was unfamiliar, punctuated now and again with words too low for me to hear.
Shock passed over Matthew’s face before his lips curved into an affectionate smile.
“Where are you in truth, my own sweet Matt?” The man held a page up to the light. In a flash, Matthew’s eyes narrowed, indulgence replaced by displeasure.
“Looking for something, Kit?” At Matthew’s words the young man dropped the paper to the table and pivoted, joy lighting his face. I’d seen that face before, on my paperback copy of Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta.
“Matt! Pierre said you were in Chester and might not make it home. But I knew you would not miss our annual gathering.” The words were familiar enough but coated in a strange cadence that required me to focus on what he was saying in order to understand them. Elizabethan English was neither as unlike modern English as I had been taught nor as easily understandable as I’d hoped, based on my familiarity with Shakespeare’s plays.
“Why no beard? Have you been ill?” Marlowe’s eyes flickered when they spotted me, nudging me with the insistent pressure that marked him unmistakably as a daemon.
I suppressed an urge to rush at one of England’s greatest playwrights and shake his hand before peppering him with questions. What little information I once knew about him flew from my mind now that he was standing before me. Had any of his plays been performed in 1590? How old was he? Younger than Matthew and I, certainly. Marlowe couldn’t yet be thirty. I smiled at him warmly.
“Wherever did you find that?” Marlowe pointed, his voice dripping with contempt. I looked over my shoulder, expecting to see some hideous work of art. There was nothing but empty space.
He meant me. My smile faltered.
“Gently, Kit,” Matthew said with a scowl.
Marlowe shrugged off the rebuke. “It is no matter. Take your fill of her before the others arrive, if you must. George has been here for some time, of course, eating your food and reading your books. He is still without a patron and hasn’t a farthing to his name.”
“George is welcome to whatever I have, Kit.” Matthew kept his eyes on the young man, his face expressionless as he drew our intertwined fingers to his mouth. “Diana, this is my dear friend Christopher Marlowe.”
Matthew’s introduction provided Marlowe with an opportunity to inspect me more openly. His attention crawled from my toes to the top of my head. The young man’s scorn was evident, his jealousy better hidden. Marlowe was indeed in love with my husband. I had suspected it back in Madison when my fingers had traveled over his inscription in Matthew’s copy of Doctor Faustus.
“I had no idea there was a brothel in Woodstock that specialized in overtall women. Most of your whores are more delicate and appealing, Matthew. This one is a positive Amazon,” Kit sniffed, looking over his shoulder at the disordered drifts of paper that covered the surface of the table. “According to the Old Fox’s latest, it was business rather than lust that took you to the north. Wherever did you find the time to secure her services?”
“It is remarkable, Kit, how easily you squander affection,” Matthew drawled, though there was a note of warning in his tone. Marlowe, seemingly intent on the correspondence, failed to recognize it and smirked. Matthew’s fingers tightened on mine.
“Is Diana her real name, or was it adopted to enhance her allure among customers? Perhaps a baring of her right breast, or a bow and arrow, is in order,” Marlowe suggested, picking up a sheet of paper. “Remember when Blackfriars Bess demanded we call her Aphrodite before she would let us—”
“Diana is my wife.” Matthew was gone from my side, his hand no longer wrapped around mine but twisted in Marlowe’s collar.
