Blood Month

by Brian Herbert and Marie Landis

On the Anglo-Saxon calendar it was called “Blood Month,” November. It was the time of slaughter, when animals were butchered, smoked, and salted for the winter months. The first day of the month began with the feast of All Hallows, an ancient celebration expelling evil spirits from the dead. The Church called the day All Saints.

At the edge of town the predator watched the festivities and sniffed the odor of fresh blood and human sweat. The townspeople were simple folk who slaughtered and drank and fornicated and slept. Easy to catch, but not the game the predator sought. It turned its attention toward the great stone castle that towered a short distance from the town.

In the dark woods by the castle, the predator leaped to the branch of a tree and selected its intended prey. It waited for an opportunity to pounce, but the plump female animal was surrounded and protected by its herd. Perhaps the female would lag behind and could be trapped. Fangs glistening, saliva dripping, the predator saw that the female was neither ill nor wounded. It was best to retreat to the shadowed darkness. There were easier catches to be made.

O O O

From the window of the palace, bare-footed and still wearing the long white chemise she’d slept in during the night, the Catholic Queen watched her husband sail down the River Thames in his ship of state. She gripped a jeweled crucifix, sporadically squeezing it with a trembling hand. The gold chain attached to the crucifix slithered between her fingers like a metallic snake and made soft hissing sounds.

Bitter tears filled the Queen’s dark eyes. After only thirteen months of marriage her beloved husband was leaving. Would he ever return?

Philip’s reasons had sounded lofty enough, a professed need to be with his father, the King of Spain, who was considering abdication and wanted Philip to take his place. She suspected her husband’s true reason. He’d left because she couldn’t bear him a son.

“Why can’t I have a child?” she cried. “I’ve lived a life without sin, I’ve devoted myself to my husband and God. What have I done to displease them?”

A half dozen ladies-in-waiting and two handmaidens fluttered about her like a flock of small birds twittering their sympathy.

The Queen brushed them aside and paced back and forth.

It was August, 1555 and she, Mary, Queen of England, was nearly forty years old. It seemed to her that she’d married too late, past her time of childbearing. Even the lowliest peasant woman could bear children, in twos and threes like litters of puppies. Even a whore could give birth.

Once, she’d believed herself pregnant. Her stomach had swollen, her breasts had become distended. Shops in the town closed and prayers were said for a happy delivery. There were celebrations and parades. Then, Mary’s doctor told her she was not pregnant. She had dropsy, an accumulation of fluids in her body cavities.

Her desire to give Philip a son was all-consuming. He’d shown her the first affection she’d ever received from a man. Her father, King Henry VIII, had abandoned her, and now her husband was forsaking her too.

She spoke aloud of her loneliness, of her mistreatment by those she loved, of the lack of loyalty that her subjects displayed.

“My people betray me with their lack of faith when they reject my religious beliefs. Bishop Gardiner, my adviser, has told me that mercy to the country requires the execution of traitors.”

Her ladies-in-waiting listened and nodded their heads in agreement. They’d often heard the Queen weep and wail her frustrations.

“What is our Queen saying?” asked the youngest handmaiden, a girl of thirteen years.

The older handmaiden, Leanora, pulled the girl to one corner of the room and whispered an answer. “When the Queen was a child, the papacy refused to support King Henry’s divorce from her mother, Catharine of Aragon. The King snatched control from the Papacy, ended his marriage and banished Mary and her mother. He claimed Mary was a bastard, since he was no longer married to her mother. Since her ascension to the throne, our Queen has reinstated the old religion.”

The young handmaiden frowned. “How could King Henry do all those things to a church?”

“He was King. He could do anything he wished. He wanted a lively bitch for his wife, not a grim, pious woman like Catharine. This Queen is somewhat like her mother. Not much fun in bed, I suspect. The only quality she inherited from her father is his cruelty.”

“The Queen’s husband will return,” said the girl. “They are man and wife.”

“You are an innocent. If the Queen had married someone her own age, instead of a foreigner almost young enough to be her son, she might have held a husband.”

On the opposite side of the room, Mary continued to pace, like a caged animal.

“I can’t breathe in here, there’s no air in this room. I must go outside. Bring something for us to dine on.”

The handmaidens scurried to clothe their royal personage properly. They dressed her in a long-sleeved tunic of crimson silk, a fur-lined surcoat and a mantle fastened at her neck with a brooch of emeralds and pearls. They wrapped her waist with chains of gold and silver and slipped boots of soft leather onto her feet.

Then, in an obedient line, the ladies-in-waiting followed their Queen onto the grass that grew to the castle’s outer stone walls. The two handmaidens fetched almonds in honey and slices of cold peacock breast and a bucket of ale.

They seated themselves in a circle and listened to their Queen complain as they ate with their fingers. As was proper, the handmaidens sat away from the others.

“I hope she says her complaints quickly,” said Leanora from her safe distance. “Someday she’ll complain herself into eternity.”

O O O

From the top of an outer wall that surrounded the castle, the predator, concealed by its own unique camouflage, viewed its prey once more. The female had changed since the predator’s visit a year earlier. Despite the thick layer of clothing she wore, an odor of illness emanated from her, physical changes in her body. Nevertheless, he wanted her and meant to take her, at his pleasure. Sometime when the herd was not surrounding her.

For a brief moment the predator made himself visible to her.

Mary screamed. “I see the devil! On the wall. He’s looking directly at me with eyes of fire!”

She could not be consoled or cheered.

“My Queen, there is no one on the wall,” Leanora said. “Only shadows cast by trees.”

The Queen continued to scream. “Make him go away. He is trying to steal my soul!”

The youngest handmaiden knelt before her Queen. “My uncle has given me a new Bible.” She laid the book at the Queen’s feet. “He says it will save a soul.”

“Abomination!” answered the Queen. She rose from the grass and nudged the handmaiden’s gift to one side with her foot. “Wretched girl, remove yourself from my presence. You have given me the New Testament, the words of heretics!”

Leanora grasped the young handmaiden by the arm and tugged her back to the castle kitchen. “That was a foolish gift. What madness came over you?”

“I only wished to comfort her.”

“Our Queen is right, you are a wretched girl. And a stupid one, too. If you want to keep your life, leave your Protestant opinions to yourself. Do you know how many people our Queen has approved for execution, since she attained the throne two years ago?”

The girl hung her head.

“Over a hundred,” said Leanora. “Queen Mary and her advisers see enemies everywhere, particularly Protestant enemies. She began the terror before your arrival. And she’s not finished yet, I fear!”

“My uncle says the Bishop is responsible.”

“With the Queen’s approval. She started by executing four clergymen. You may know of them, since your Bible is the same one they use. John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester and John Rogers, the prestigious Vicar of St. Sepulchre’s in London. And there were two others whose names I do not recall.”

Leanora took the young girl’s hands in her own. “I dislike telling you this, but I say it for your own good. John Rogers was the first to die. They tied him to a metal stake and placed a bag of gunpowder between his legs so his death would be swift.”

Leanora paused and took a deep breath. “You consider gunpowder a gesture of kindness? His death was neither swift nor kind. John Rogers was burned until he was nothing but ashes, He left behind a wife and eleven children, the smallest still suckling its mother’s breast.”

The young handmaiden released her hands from Leanora’s and placed them over her eyes.

“Don’t hide from the truth, girl. Think what it must feel like to be a living torch! Next came John Hooper. This time the gunpowder didn’t ignite, and he suffered in agony for almost an hour. Do you want that kind of punishment? If you don’t, keep your tongue still.”

The girl shuddered.

Leanora, not certain she’d made a big enough impression, added, “Most of the Queen’s victims have been working people, like you and me. Their only crime is that they learned to read the Bible. The wrong version of the Bible. Do you understand? Like the one you gave the Queen.”

The girl whimpered. “I can’t read.”

“Religion!” spat Leanora. When she saw the despair on the young girl’s face, she softened her voice and put an arm around her. “Believe what you will, if it makes you happy.”

In the Queen’s chambers her ladies awaited dismissal. After they’d accompanied her back to the castle, the Queen had remained silent. Her face was expressionless, as blank as a doll’s, but her lips moved in prayer: “Keep me from the devil, I pray you keep me from the devil and all his legions.”

When the Queen did not dismiss them, the ladies-in-waiting lifted the edges of their tunics and curtsied to indicate departure. Quietly, they closed the door behind them and scurried down the corridors toward their own quarters.

“Is she ill?” asked one.

“I think she’s gone mad,” answered another.

“I wonder what … what the devil looks like,” said another.

Alone, the Queen continued to stare at the walls of her room. The demon was there, she was sure, inside the thick layers of stone and wood and mud, hiding in the darkness. She could almost see the outline of his body in the oak that paneled the walls, something etched there in the grain of the wood.

There was a sudden thump and the sound of voices outside. As though she’d just wakened from a long sleep, the Queen leaped to her feet and rushed to the window.

“Who’s there?” she called. “What are you doing out there? I command you to go away!”

Something large and dark flew through her window and splattered on the wooden floor. Queen Mary stared down at the obscenity that lay at her feet, the body of a large dog, its head shaved like a monk’s scalp, and a thick rope tightly wrapped around its neck. Its swollen tongue lolled from its mouth. The animal had been hung or strangled some time ago, and its stench was overpowering. It was a symbol, a crude, rotting effigy of a monk. Her enemies wanted her to know what they thought of her beliefs.

She put her head out the window and looked about. But no one was there.

“Monsters!” screamed the Queen. “Heretic monsters!”

O O O

It watched three men scurry away from the castle after hurling the dead beast. The predator had its own agenda for Queen Mary, a game that could last for a long time, depending on the nature of the prey. But it was best to remember the timing of a kill. If the game went on too long and wore the prey down, the prey might weaken and die before it was meant to. And that was not the purpose of the game.

O O O

On the last November of her life, the Queen woke from another nightmare and lay shivering in bed. For a long time she’d suffered a variety of ailments that left her drenched with sweat and filled with foreboding. She had dismissed all of her handmaidens and only a soldier stood guard outside her bedroom. Since the day in the courtyard when she’d first seen him, the devil or one of his demons continued to haunt her. What good were guards against an evil spirit?

Sometimes she saw the devil’s image in the depths of her closets or along a dark corridor, a small glimpse of something tall and muscular and evil. Sometimes it appeared at her chamber window, long-toothed and ravenous, grinning at her as if it knew all her secrets.

And no matter what potions she took, she still saw its face in her dreams. Her religion was her only solace, her only lover.

The Queen was caught by a fit of coughing and spit black bile into her handkerchief. She slipped from her bed and walked on bare feet down the castle hallways, ghostlike in her nightdress. And after a while she sat on the cold floor and rocked back and forth like a small child afraid of the dark.

Her handmaiden, Leanora, brought her back to her chambers and covered her with soft blankets and pulled the curtains that hung from her four-poster bed.

“Sleep well, my Queen,” said Leanora.

“The devil has brought this sickness upon me,” answered Mary.

“No, no,” comforted Leanora. “It is the ague fever.”

“They call me Bloody Queen Mary behind my back,” said the distraught woman. “Did you know that?”

“You are the Queen,” said Leanora. “You must rise above name-calling.”

After Leanora left the chambers, Mary pulled the covers over her face and prayed. Alone. She clutched the jeweled crucifix tightly against her breast, her eyes closed against an evil world.

“Have you deserted me, God, because I have not yet destroyed all the heretics?” she asked. “I’m not a difficult woman. I have compassion for the poor. On Maundy Thursday I washed and kissed the feet of forty-one elderly women and gave them alms. But who has ever done anything for me? I am abandoned. Please send a sign that you forgive me, O God.”

“I forgive you,” said a voice as soft as velvet.

She opened her eyes. In the darkness of her room a great light blazed, and within it stood a figure so beautiful and radiant that she almost closed her eyes against its glory. The figure wore a white robe and its skin was the color of milk. Its golden hair hung in ringlets across broad, winged shoulders, and its brilliant blue eyes revealed purity of heart. Her prayers were answered.

An angel!

“Let me hold you,” said the angel, and without further words he put his arms around her. She fell asleep immediately, like a babe against its mother’s breast.

In the morning he was gone, and she was pleasantly lethargic. It was a dream, she thought sadly, just a lovely dream.

A few nights later the angel reappeared, and this time she was awake enough to realize she had not imagined him.

“Will you hold me again?” she asked. “May I make my confession to you?”

“I’ll hold you and listen,” the angel answered.

“A demon haunts me,” she told him. “It haunts me because I’ve been too merciful and forgiven people I ought to have condemned. It grieves me that so many of my subjects are opposed to the one and true religion that Philip and I have attempted to reintroduce to the nation.”

She took a breath. “There are dozens of illegal sects rising like poisonous toadstools, publishing their literature, spouting their creeds. Religious revolt means political revolt. Those who oppose me suggest my actions are motivated by revenge against my father, who changed his religious beliefs and England’s as well. I have attempted to undo the harm he did. But I do not hate him or his memory.”

“And you believe your motives are pure?”

“I know in my heart that I carry the banner of my beliefs for the proper reasons. I am performing God’s work. Even if some Catholics object to my methods or feel shamed because of them, I will continue to do what is right.”

“Killing those who oppose you?”

“Only those who do not believe in the true religion. If they are heretics, their blood must be spilled in the name of God.”

A beatific smile came to the angel’s face, a smile that surrounded and warmed her, as she had not been warmed in years.

“I need absolution,” she said. “My illness takes a bit of me each day. Will you give me absolution before I die?”

The angel stared at her with brilliant blue eyes. “Not here, not in this castle. But if you come to me tomorrow at dusk, to the south edge of the town, I’ll give you what you need.”

The following evening, the Queen dressed in silks and fine woolens. Her surcoat was lined with ermine and her mantle with soft beaver. She asked Leanora to arrange for a carriage. When the time came to leave, Leanora dressed Mary and combed her dark hair. Mary knew she was not physically attractive, but appreciated the way her handmaiden always tried to make her feel otherwise.

“Will I accompany you?” asked Leanora.

“Not tonight,” answered the Queen. “I am meeting with an important person. I need only the driver to take me there.”

The ornate carriage rolled forward with the Queen inside. On top of the coach, the driver was bundled in a long, black coat.

Clouds scudded across the evening sky, and a veil of darkness fell over the earth. Wind blew and rain cascaded down upon the horses and carriage, large drops that turned to nuggets of ice. The horses galloped faster as they were pelted with hail. Mary peered from her carriage, into the storm.

Something ahead on the road? An animal, a person?

She put her trembling hands in the fold of her surcoat and held them still. The town was only a short distance away. They’d be there soon. Everything would be fine.

Suddenly there was a shout followed by a groan, a long, painful sound that grew fainter and fainter. The wagon careened sharply to the left and then to the right, and Mary realized with sudden fear that the driver was no longer in control. He might no longer be in his seat atop the carriage.

Where was he? Had he fallen from his perch up there?

She wrapped her arms about herself and began to mouth the prayers that would protect her. Someone would come, sooner or later, to save her from the cold storm and the night.

“I am here,” said a velvet, angelic voice. “As I promised. To give you what you need.”

And the angel leaned over her and placed his mouth against her cheek and ran sharp teeth across it.

She pushed him away and stared into his beautiful, terrible face that was filled, not with light, but with a funnel of darkness.

“You are the devil!” she cried.

“I am your savior,” answered the creature.

The Queen began to pray again, asking her God for protection.

“Useless words,” said the creature. “Hell is your destination, not Heaven.” He pushed his face against her neck and bit deeply. Blood filled his mouth and he drained her slowly, with great pleasure. She struggled for a short time, then grew passive.

“I am giving you something better than Hell,” he said. “I will give you centuries of existence. And that is more than you did for my Sire.”

Her question was no more than a whisper. “Your Sire?”

“He was among those you sent to the fire. But he was not a Bible reader, only a hungry visitor caught by accident with the ones you condemned. He was leader of our clan, and because of your behavior he’s dead and our numbers have been reduced.”

She moaned, but did not pull away.

“This is Blood Month,” said the predator. “A fine festival for slaughter and bloodletting. I am vampire, and so shall ye become … to replace the one we have lost.”