House of Shadows Read Free

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 thegardens 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.
    Elizabeth shivered, clutching the edge of her cloak closer to ward off the cold. Below she could hear the sound of water now; when the well was full the overflow from the Bosbeek, the forest stream, flowed through an arched drain and out into the Hofvijver Lake. Tonight it sang softly as it ran. The music of the water was a good omen. Frederick would be pleased.
    Another step and she passed the guardroom on the left. Shadows shifted behind the half-open door. She held her breath and trod more softly still, down towards the sacred well.
    At the bottom of the spiral stair the space opened out into a room with a vaulted