of his suggestive mind.
“Why do I feel like you have been controlling me, Pan?” I asked the moment this feeling left me. He sneered down at me and took hold of the top of my arm, before digging his fingers into my flesh hard enough to make me wince.
“Now is not the time, now come, my Flittermouse,” he said, which was his pet name for me, and something he had heard his friend, Playwright, Ben Jonson say a time or two. Personally, it just made me grit my teeth and wonder why I ever used to find the term endearing. Actually, I was starting to think that there weren’t many endearing facts about Pan left.
After this he quickly commandeered another carriage, and I found myself moaning in exasperation at finding myself unable once more to have the opportunity to stretch my legs. I swear, any longer and I would forget how to use them all together!
“Are we going to your lodgings?”
“No, not until the job is done,” he answered, looking from beyond the curtain, as if eager to get to wherever it was we were heading now. But this was the moment that Percival started squeaking in my leather satchel, and Pan turned to look at me in shock.
“Really, Winifred, you kept one on your person?”
“But of course, he is my favourite and I have named him Percival.” I watched as he rolled his eyes in disgust but for once he refrained from saying anything, although I think that was most likely because we had arrived.
“Put that thing away and try not to embarrass me again!” he said before removing himself from the carriage, therefore missing the way I placed the tip of my thumb behind my front teeth and flicked it forward at him.
“Come on, Percival, let’s get this whiffle-whaffle over with,” I said, before tucking him back in the bag and giving him a little scratch behind the ear. Then I followed Pan out of the carriage and frowned up at the sight that met me.
“What are we doing here?” I asked, standing in front of the Church of St Peter upon Cornhill, which stood on the highest point of the City of London. One that currently looked to be in the middle of morning mass.
It also had to be said that for this demonic Imp, standing outside a church wouldn’t have been my first choice of places to be. But then, even when here as a foreigner, all good Protestants would of course attend their local parish church in London, just as they would at home.
Yawn.
I would much prefer to be eating marchpane or gingerbread for a pennyworth. But then, all my kind still had to take care when hiding our true selves, for if it was discovered you didn’t attend Church, then everyone would know, and news would get to the authorities in this self-policing society. England was, after all, still at war with Spain and the Pope. Which meant the authorities were still on the alert for Jesuit missionaries and Spanish agents. So basically, you didn’t dare go near the lodgings of the ambassador of a Catholic prince on Sunday, as it would have been assumed you were going to hear mass.
But like I said… yawn, yawn, yawn.
For I couldn’t think of a better cure to a sleepless time. Just like if there was an event of national importance to justify a special service led by the Queen, a mass of fools was always found trying to gain entry to St Paul’s Cathedral. The cathedral itself had never really recovered from being struck by lightning in 1561, and it needed a lot of work doing to it. And in regard to the Queen, well, then I doubted she would be attending again, for it was rumoured the Queen’s days were numbered. Which made me wonder if Pan’s next plot at causing mayhem had to anything to do with it. Because if she was as sickly as it sounded, then my chance at checking out the royal tiltyard on Accession Day jousts, in the Queen’s presence, wasn’t going to happen. But then it had been rumoured, the death of the Queenie’s dearest friend, had sent her into a severe depression.
Pan had sent a letter on to one of the ports he knew I would be travelling through, with instructs and news of what was happening back in England. In February 1603, there happened the death of Catherine Carey, the Countess of Nottingham, who was the niece