Notes: Set in Elizabethan London, this story takes place shortly after the second story in the series, Knot of One. The School of Night is a historical group of thinkers and scholars who are featured in Shadow of Night, the second novel in the All Souls Trilogy.
"As night the life-inclining stars best shows,
So lives obscure the starriest souls disclose."
—George Chapman
London. February 1591.
The romance writers have it wrong. Sex isn't merely intense with a vampire. It's mind-blowing.
Diana's eyes drifted up to the bed canopy as her head relaxed into the pillow. Passion spent, Matthew lay beside her, gently tracing the curves of her breasts with one hand.
There was much she missed about her former life. Indoor plumbing, toothpaste, and hot showers were at the top of the list. But when they returned to their twenty-first-century lives, she wished she could take their bed with them. The Tudor bedframe with its carved uprights, canopy, and embroidered hangings invited romantic passion, and her vampire was more than willing to supply it.
Ever since Diana confessed to Matthew that American coeds often fantasized about being carried off by a vampire, he'd injected a new element of playfulness into their lovemaking. She was now living her own romance novel. Only hers was the realistic version. Why didn't anyone mention the difficulties of unlacing all the layers of pads and clothes which were now strewn around their bedchamber?
Ker-plunk . . . plunk . . . plunk . . . plunk . . .
A loud clatter quickly ensued, followed by peals of laughter. Several male voices blended with Jack's high-pitched shrieks could only mean one thing.
Matthew groaned. "Everyone was asleep when we came to bed."
"Clearly a false assumption," she said, chuckling. "I'm glad they waited. If this had happened a few minutes earlier, I might have wondered if we'd somehow caused the racket."
She and Matthew were lucky to have comparatively spacious lodgings on the upper floors at the Hart and Crown in London's crowded Blackfriars district, but noise traveled easily from the parlor to the bedchamber.
Matthew rolled over to the side of the bed. "I better see what they're up to before the tenants on the ground floor start to complain."
She propped herself on one elbow to watch as he stepped into a pair of breeches and tossed on a loose shirt of fine linen. He might grumble but she was enjoying the show. He looked straight off the cover of that romance novel.
"You shouldn't be angry," she cautioned, even as she realized that in her current state she didn't feel inclined to be upset with anyone. "With a name like the School of Night, what do you expect?"
Not that the boisterous company in the parlor knew that they'd later be known by that illustrious title. The legendary group of intellectual rebels simply liked hanging together. They didn't consider themselves a secret society. And for reasons not readily identified, they were particularly drawn to the ambiance of the Roydon hearth.
After the initial shock of discovering that not only was her husband a close friend of Walter Raleigh, Thomas Harriot, Christopher Marlowe, Lord Northumberland, and George Chapman, but he was also a member of the distinguished group, Diana had grown used to them dropping in at any hour of the day or night.
Matthew didn't bother putting on hose or shoes, but stomped out in his bare feet to give them a piece of his currently very irate mind. Diana tried to eavesdrop but their voices were pitched too low. She spent a few minutes attempting to guess what had made the peculiar noise. Lord Northumberland—his friends called him Henry Percy or Hal—was fascinated by scientific experiments of every description. One of the wealthiest men in England, he saw no need to restrain himself, even if it did mean the destruction of his friend's parlor.
#
When Matthew thrust open the parlor doors, the culprits were easy to spot. Hal was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Jack. They were both frantically stacking billiard balls into pyramids, apparently in some sort of race. Jack's was further along. Tom, George, and Walter were sprawled on the settles by the hearth, goblets of wine beside them.
Giving Matthew a lazy wave of his hand, Walter told George, "I'll wager you tuppence that Hal's will collapse first."
"Only a fool would accept that bet," George scoffed.
"You better take it," Matthew growled. Jack at least had the good sense to stop and eye him nervously, waiting for the certain reprimand. Everyone else ignored him. "Why has my parlor been turned into a gambling house in the middle of the night?" Matthew demanded of whoever would respond, increasing the level of his thunder.
"Hal wanted a demonstration of my cannonball experiment," Tom explained, "and since you're the only one with billiard balls . . ." His words trailed off with a helpless shrug.
Matthew's servant Pierre, who'd been standing aside with a tolerant smile on his face, strode over. "They wanted me to fetch you, but as you were otherwise engaged, I thought it best to wait."
He got that right. "And what's your excuse, Jack? You were supposed to be in bed hours ago."
"Tom's been tutoring him in arithmetic," Hal explained, stepping in for the tongue-tied pup.
"In the middle of the night?" Matthew pointed at Jack. "You. Bed. Now!"
"Don't you want me to put away the balls first, Master Roydon?" he pleaded, at last finding his voice.
"So you can play even longer? I'm wise to your tricks. You'll clean everything up tomorrow."
"You want us to go to bed, too?" Walter said, leering suggestively. "Or has that already been taken care of?"
#
"They promised to leave as soon as they polished off the wine," Matthew said, entering their bedchamber and closing the door with a satisfying slam. "Pierre will make sure Jack stays in bed this time. The boy's under orders to put everything away tomorrow. Tom and George even offered to return to help, although I suspect they're more interested in the prospect of a free breakfast."
He stripped off his shirt and breeches then turned to face her. "Is Tom really tutoring Jack in arithmetic?"
As Diana scanned him appraisingly, her expression betrayed that wasn't the subject uppermost on her mind. "Privileged information like that will cost you."
With preternatural speed, in an instant he was next to her in bed. "Whatever mon coeur desires." He paused to savor her scent of honey, chamomile, and willow sap.
"We'll start with a back scratch." Diana positioned herself between his legs, facing away from him, and snuggled close enough to touch.
This conversation would be a short one.
"I wouldn't call it tutoring," Diana said, rubbing against him as he gently stroked the scars of the crescent moon and star on her back. "If you were to ask Jack, he'd call it a game. And it's not only Tom, but Hal and Walter too. Walter was the instigator. He quizzed Tom on how to calculate the trajectory taken by a projectile."
"Say no more," Matthew groaned. "Now I understand why I've been finding marbles embedded in the walls."
She chuckled. "I banned them from experimenting indoors, but Tom continued to work on the equations. Jack thought they were drawings and one thing led to another. Tom doesn't mind. He seems to relish Jack's interest."
"It could be helpful to him." All daemons had a streak of creative genius which could either lead to amazing success or madness. The mathematician was a prime example of the difficulties a daemon often encountered in obtaining success. "Tom flits from one project to another. Optics, astronomy, mathematics—his work on equations alone should have earned him fame, but he publishes almost nothing. Having to explain concepts to a child could enforce needed discipline."
She shrugged. "Or it may speed Jack up even more. He's already getting a jump-start to his education. It's tempting to believe Jack has a daemonic trace in him." She pressed her back against his hands. "The boy bounces from one extreme to another."
"Tom may recognize something of his own mercurial temperament in Jack." Daemons could be born from humans or other daemons. In the twenty-first century, Matthew's research team had identified the extra chromosome which was a marker for daemons, but in the Elizabethan era there was no test to confirm someone was a daemon. Most passed unrecognized. Only witches were able to sense them. "Have you detected anything about Jack?"
"That he's a daemon?" She reflected for a moment. "No, and I'm sure the witches I'm training with would have said if they'd noticed anything." She swiveled to face him. "Tom's single. We've become a second family to him. As for Jack, he's started to think of Hal, Tom, Walter, and George as if they were all his uncles."
"You didn't include Kit in your list," Matthew observed.
Her face darkened. "He hasn't earned it. Kit Marlowe may be a daemon like Tom, but he's the polar opposite in personality." Her lips tightened. "He's never said a kind word to either one of the children and after Jack overheard him talking about me, I warned Pierre to keep them apart."
Matthew was dismayed but not surprised by her explanation. Kit was one of his closest friends, but his jealousy of Diana caused him to take unacceptable liberties. Matthew had thought his orders to cease and desist would be followed. "I'll speak to him," he promised.
"Don't," she urged. "You'll only frustrate him more. I'm the cause of his behavior. Once he accepts me, he'll ease off on his own."
Matthew wasn't as confident. Kit's irrational behavior had already been going on for months. "You said Jack overheard Kit. How did the pup react?" he asked warily.
Concern flashed across her face. Was she worried about his response? Matthew resolved to control the blood rage which was already beginning to lick at him. The sickness which he'd inherited from his mother made a vampire lose control when he was in the grips of strong emotion. It was if the wolf inside took over. The sickness had grown stronger after he mated with Diana. His instinct to protect her could be overwhelming. Through long centuries of discipline, he'd learned to keep that wolf on a leash.
She placed her hand on his chest and held it there as if she understood and was grounding him. "I gather Jack tried to defend me, and Kit slapped him so hard he fell to the floor. Henry was there and intervened before Kit could strike him again. I came in as Pierre was comforting Jack in the hallway. He wasn't injured. Pierre knows not to leave Jack alone with Kit. So far it hasn't been an issue. This happened a few days ago and Kit hasn't visited since."
"Thank you for telling me," he said, keeping his tone even. "Kit was within his rights. In his eyes, Jack and Annie are servants. For Jack to talk back to someone of Kit's status is a severe offense, no matter how just the cause." Although Kit was technically correct, in reality Jack and Annie were treated as members of their family. Hal, George, and Tom were aware of the situation. Kit probably was as well and simply chose to ignore it. The volatile poet was accustomed to giving free expression to whatever emotion consumed him at the moment. Diana was right that trying to reason with him might only exacerbate the issue. Matthew hoped that with time Kit would understand Matthew's heart belonged only to the woman who was even now stroking him to renewed passion. "How does ma lionne command me?" he murmured.
She smiled and relaxed back into the pillows, pulling him down on top of her.
#
The next morning, everyone except Matthew got a late start on the day. Diana told Pierre to let the junior member of the School of Night sleep in, too. Jack's punishment would come later when he'd have to stay home while she and Annie ran errands.
Matthew had already left for court by the time Tom and George arrived. They'd promised to help with the cleanup but Diana suspected the real inducement was the hearty breakfast she provided of ale, leftover meat pies, and figs. Jack and Annie joined them at the table. The balls were scattered about the floor in the same state of disarray they'd been in at the end of the evening. Annie had missed out on the fun then but she wouldn't now.
"We got a little carried away," George admitted, smiling ruefully. His eyes already looked tired as if he'd spent the entire night working on his translations. "Hal asked for a demonstration on how best to stack cannonballs and I hadn't seen it either."
Diana was familiar with the experiment. She'd given a lecture on Tom's contributions to science to her students at Yale, never dreaming that she'd later meet him in the flesh, let alone drink ale with him. All the members of the School of Night were around her age of thirty-three or younger. Kit Marlowe was the youngest—only in his twenties. The knowledge that he would be stabbed to death two years from now made his insolence easier to bear.
That is, if it still came to pass. Repercussions from Diana and Matthew's timewalk were inevitable. She and Matthew did their best to minimize the effects, but it was a constant challenge. The smallest action could provoke a ripple leading to unknown consequences. How would Kit's dislike of Diana affect Doctor Faustus, a drama he was presently writing? Had she modified his attitude toward women in the work?
Tom Harriot was a prime example of someone whose biography Diana wished she could tweak. Many of his ideas had gone unrecognized because he rarely published them. His experiments on the most efficient way to stack cannonballs led to his theory of the close-packing of spheres which in turn was a precursor to modern atomic theory. His research into optics, refraction, astronomy, and algebra was groundbreaking but virtually unknown in his own time. Proper recognition and appreciation were hundreds of years off.
Matthew believed that Tom's difficulties were in part caused by his daemonic temperament, but George was a human and almost as bad. Despite being a successful dramatist, poet, and translator, he was beset by financial woes throughout his life.
Jack couldn't wait for the end of breakfast to begin collecting the balls. Diana suspected an ulterior motive but didn't comment. Soon both children were on the floor, building pyramids. By general consensus, cleanup would be postponed.
"Mistress Roydon, watch this!" shouted Jack. He'd built a magnificent structure, but just as he put the final ball in place, the entire stack collapsed with balls careening throughout the parlor as if a gigantic pinball machine had gone haywire. Some of the balls ricocheted off Annie's pyramid causing hers to collapse too. There was only one answer to a disaster of that magnitude—a rematch.
Diana brought over a small footstool to sit on. Much as she yearned to sit on the floor, the pads under her skirt made that nearly impossible. "Do you have any extra billiard balls? I'd like to have a go at it."
Jack's grin threatened to split his face in two. "You can have mine. I'll collect them for you."
"No need to sacrifice," said Tom, "Hal brought over a couple of extra boxes last night. We have plenty for everyone."
Soon all five of them were engaged in a race, although it really wasn't fair to let Tom participate.
Diana quickly discovered it was harder than it looked. Space the balls too far apart and they couldn't support the next layer. If they were too close, the pyramid was doomed to be a paltry hillock. Jack worked like a fiend at the task, the tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth. He also had the surest touch. Annie was much more careful, agonizing for minutes over the placement of each ball. George and Diana were about equally inept.
While they worked, Diana was startled to hear both George and Tom throw in the odd Latin phrase in their conversation whereupon Jack and Annie would reply in the same language.
"Who's teaching the children Latin?" Diana asked, taking her focus off her misshapen pyramid.
George shrugged, looking embarrassed. "I've been making a game of it. If Jack were in Grammar School, that's what he'd be learning. But it's not just me. Pierre speaks French with them. He said the language is required for anyone in your household."
Of course, he would say that. Both Pierre and Françoise had served the de Clermont family for ages in their ancestral home of Auvergne. Jack was such a magpie, he was bound to pick up languages quickly. Annie already had a little exposure, but she could benefit from greater training.
An idea began to take shape, and Diana liked it much better than the sorry excuse for a pyramid in front of her. She was convinced Jack's thievery was primarily because he liked the challenge. The bits of ribbon and pottery he stole were the prizes and had no intrinsic value. What he needed was something even more challenging. He idolized his "uncles," and they seemed happy to spend time with him.
Usually someone of Jack and Annie's station in life wouldn't even know how to read and write. Now Diana was contemplating hiring members of the School of Night to be their tutors. And she knew they'd welcome it. Both of them were poor. In the future, they'd have even more reason to take their main meals with the Roydon household at the inn.
But should she? As a historian, shouldn't her primary focus be on the impact it might cause to the future?
Tom and George both deserved to be much more famous for their accomplishments. A little additional money and support, even for the short time she and Matthew would be here, could impact their lives significantly. And there were other factors. If Matthew was right, Jack could provide the stability for Tom to focus on his work instead of flying off in a thousand directions.
As for Jack and Annie, who knows what they'd be able to make with their lives if they were given some encouragement? Latin was essential in Elizabethan society. George was also an expert in Greek. A bonus to her scheme would be that Diana could sit in on the Greek lessons with Jack and Annie.
Her mind took flight. This was England's golden age for music. Jack should be singing in a boys' choir, learning the recorder. Perhaps he'd learn the lute or the viol or both. He'd take part in consorts . . .
"Huzzah! I won!" Jack shouted gleefully and leaped onto Diana's lap.
"Yes, you did," she said, giving him a hug. But if my plan works, we'll all win. "And here's your reward." She turned to look at Tom and George. "Gentlemen, I have a proposition for you."
#
Diana had high hopes for her project to become a daylight extension of the School of Night. That same day, George began tutoring Jack and Annie. The syllabus he and Diana had agreed upon covered grammar, Latin, French, and Greek. George was currently preparing his translation of the Iliad. He could work on his opus while Annie and Jack studied. Diana would attend as many of the tutoring sessions as her schedule would permit. Who wouldn't seize the chance to learn from a renowned poet?
When Matthew returned to find the children studying in the parlor, he was pleased with the arrangement. His study was once more his private sanctum. Diana was free to pursue her lessons on witchcraft with the witches of the St. James Garlickhythe gathering. The household quickly settled into a harmonious routine.
But she should have realized that in one respect she was doomed to failure. With the predictability of water seeking the lowest level, the School of Night was not to be denied. The lessons might start in the daytime, but the evening was their natural domain.
Tom's lessons in arithmetic continued to be in the form of games. The billiard balls were in constant use, either as math aids or to illustrate the constellations. As lanterns, fires, and candles were extinguished, London became dark and the night sky took center stage.
A week into the start of the tutoring experiment, on an evening when there was no moon to dim the brilliance of the stars, everyone had moved outside. Jack and Annie were sitting next to Tom while he pointed out the stars in Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. He was working in tandem with George, who was explaining the various myths concerning the two celestial bears. Diana's favorite version was that Zeus had immortalized two bears after they saved him from his father Cronus.
Off in a cluster near the stargazers, Walter and Hal were debating the historical accuracy of Kit's play, Edward the Second. It was perhaps for the best that the dramatist wasn't here to defend it in person.
She and Matthew sat back from the others. The night was mild. She was wrapped warmly in furs with hot mulled wine to chase away any chill. Diana had to concede that for everyone, herself included, a school by night was much more magical than anything conducted in daylight.
"Is this the way you're going to be with our own children?" Matthew's voice was a low rumble in her ear.
"Of course not," she murmured back. "I'll be far worse—practicing the violin with them, learning kung fu, going camping in remote areas so that the stars will be as bright as they are tonight. You better prepare yourself."
"Then I should take advantage of this moment for just the two of us." He tightened his hold around her waist.
Matthew had been clean-shaven in the twenty-first century. When his Elizabethan friends caught their first glimpse of him, they assumed his lack of hair growth indicated he'd been ill. The beard was now back, neatly trimmed in the latest fashion. It gave him a darker, more dangerous look. His eyes were now blazing at her with equally dark intensity. What would those romance authors make of a vampire who was also a pirate? She knew what her response was.
There were fringe benefits to the School of Night being a flock of night owls. Thanks to them, she and Matthew could now play hooky in their bedchamber where quiet reigned once more.
Notes: In Shadow of Night, the second novel in the All Souls Trilogy, Jack is friends with most of the members of the School of Night. Jack and Tom formed a particularly close bond, which I intend to develop in future stories. Not all of Jack's early adventures are so lighthearted. My next story, Shadow's Dream, describes what happens when Stidolph, the leader of a gang of thieves where Jack formerly worked, discovers where he's living. I plan to post the story on November 28.
Did Christopher Marlowe's feelings about Diana leak into Dr. Faustus? In that work, Helen of Troy is depicted as having been raised by devils and capable of corrupting men who lust for her. It's tempting to think that Kit was using the play to vent some of his frustration about Diana.
Thanks for reading and hugs to all of you who review or favorite the story! Special thanks to Penna Nomen for outstanding beta support.
Blog: Penna Nomen & Silbrith Conversation. See the Six-Crossed Knot page for background information on the series and an introduction to the world of All Souls Trilogy. A link to the blog is in my profile.
Story visuals are on the Six-Crossed Knot board of my Pinterest website: Silbrith's Stories.
Disclaimers: This story is for fun. The world of All Souls Trilogy and its characters are not mine. I'm grateful to Deborah Harkness for allowing fanfic writers to play in her captivating sandbox.