"Sweep thy faint strings, Musician,
With thy long lean hand;
Downward the starry tapers burn,
Sinks soft the waning sand;
The old hound whimpers couched in sleep,
The embers smoulder low;
Across the walls the shadows
Come, and go.

The Song of Shadows, Walter de la Mare

.p. r. o. l. o. u. g. e.

Moonlight dances on the ripples. Roses, red by day, gilt silver by night, dance in the breeze. It is very still, very quiet. Her feet are bare and she can feel the dampness of mossy stone against them as she scampers down the bank. Won't Mistress Meade scald me with her tongue if she hears, she thinks, not without satisfaction. The breeze lifts the hem of her nightgown as she steps into the water. The crescent moon is very beautiful in the night sky.

Soft as the rustle of autumn leaves when they fall, she hears a sound behind her. She looks down into the mirror-smooth water. Like silver broidery on black, a woman's outline is traced there. She turns around.

She screams.

000

"You will be good, won't you?"

The pleading note in her mother's voice frustrates her. I am a better daughter to you than you will ever know, she thinks, remembering the antics of the cherub-faced village lasses her mother was so fond of, with their swains.

"Of course," she murmurs, leaning over from her palfrey to hold her mother's hand. She takes comfort in the reassuring squeeze that Lady Helen offers her and the faint smile. "What harm do you think I could possibly come to, under our Lady Queen's sharp watch?"

Her mother said nothing but her eyes were wary. What came of that drab Vavasour girl and the Earl of Oxford? A maiden's virtue is like a dove in hand, slacken your grip once and away it flies. Susannah turned to her mother with a smile that said, mockingly, sincerely, I shall arm my virtue in a plate of mail if you so will it, Lady Mother. And eyes that her mother could not read but which said, So long as men die and my body hold, you shall have no fear of my bestowing my virtue without your consent on men of flesh and blood.

Lady Helen turned to her husband – her second husband, the one who'd bestowed her a barony and the surname, Ackerman, such a short time before. Her face took on the look Susannah could only describe as 'dovecotish' and her eyes were fairly radiant with love – or perhaps a certain more earthly emotion. It wasn't only Lord Ackerman's barony that had drawn Lady Helen, whose ethereal beauty was equaled only by her eruditeness in Latin, to him. There must have been some tinge of carnal lust in it as well. A shockingly plebian reason for an alliance, but there you had it.

"Rest assured, my love, she will be safe at Court," he smiled. "With my lads to watch over her-"

Susannah wrinkled her nose – after making sure her mother wasn't looking at her. She rather knew that it would have to be her who'd do the looking after in this case. Her newly-acquired – and heartily-disapproved-of – stepbrothers, Bradley and John, could only be described as knaves. What a contrast to little David! She was rather sad to be leaving him… what a pity that he was but a child yet.

"-She shall be happy." Lord Ackerman smiled confidently. And within a year or two, she's sure to make a brilliant match.

"Adieu," Susannah said, trying to be jaunty as she bent to kiss her mother's soft cheek.

Lady Helen grasped her face with both hands, holding tightly for a moment as though for dear life. "Look after yourself," she whispered in good, hearty English, looking perilously close to tears.

She spurred her palfrey on. I always have. Bitterness tinged the thought as her mother's shape grew smaller and smaller, finally receding into a speck in the distance. I've never needed anyone to look after me.

000

In the Year of Our Lord, 15-

November 20

It was a vain wish that I made, quite at odds with my circumstances, when I prayed they would leave me alone. I have recanted already. For such Satan's spawn as I, there may be no peace and even at the gates of Heaven they shall hound me.

Oh dear, I sound like Mistress Meade.

The bells had pealed twelve times when Lady Susannah Simon, newest of the Queen's Maids of Honor, rose from her cot and threw a cloak over her shoulders. It was twelve but the tapers still flickered as brightly as ever in the Maidens' Chambers and the voices of the maidens themselves rose and fell in sportive whispers. Their eyes flickered as they saw her, waxen taper clutched tightly, her cloak billowing about her. Verily, she could feel the breath of scandal blowing about her like the darts of judgment piercing her.

"Lord Ackerman's stepdaughter? Marry, I'd have never thought her the type to…"

"Hussy! Haven't we enough of them, what with Deborah n'er in her bed and even Her Majesty casting those wary glances at Katharine?"

But they said nothing. She passed without censure – for tonight at least.

The chapel was dark and quiet when she reached it. A strip of moonlight slanted, like polished silver, over the flagstones. She smiled darkly as she thought of the devil in this place of good and calm, in this house of God. Thou sprite come hither, she thought, walking toward the altar. There would be no need to say anything, she'd learnt from experience. The devil would sense her presence and would come, sooner or later. She stifled a yawn and fervently hoped that it would be sooner though you never could tell with demons, and even less with Londoners. A demon in Whitehall Castle was therefore doubly an uncertainty.

And there it was, its outline etched as though with fine silver thread against the dark backdrop of the altar. It glowed softly. At close quarters, Susannah was able to observe what she had not seen before, in the cacophony of the noontide service when she'd first observed it. It was tall and young and even to her eyes, already accustomed to the dashing court gallants, far from uncomely even though it had the look of the Spaniard rather than the Englishman about it. Very comely, indeed.

"The devil doth come in all shapes, my child…"

She steeled herself before whispering, "Good day, sir."

And then it looked straight at her.

A/N: As this is set in Elizabethan times, Susannah is probably going to be pretty different from Suze. Her thought process, the way she looks at the world, how she thinks of her 'gift'. Same and different, at the same time. XD Stay with me on this!