I Was There When the High Queen Was Crowned

Come closer to the fire, and fill your cup before you settle in, for this is not one of those stories that should be hurried. You have heard the mortal histories, I suppose. You have read their careful dates scratched into books by scholars who were not there, and you have listened to priests and learned men argue over which account is the truth. They will tell you when Elizabeth Tudor became Queen. They will speak of Westminster, bishops, trumpets, nobles, gowns, crowns, and all the other things mortals use to convince themselves that history belongs to them. They are not entirely wrong. That is the dangerous thing about historians. They are often just truthful enough to hide the truth.

I know because I was there.

I stood in London in the late autumn of 1559 when Edward Tudor surrendered the throne of England to his sister Elizabeth. I watched a King step down. I watched a Queen rise. Before that day was finished, I watched something greater still, something no mortal chronicler could properly record even had he been allowed to witness it. I watched Avalon awaken and recognize its Queen.

Edward Tudor did not die to place Elizabeth upon the throne, whatever some histories might eventually claim. He lived, he ruled, and when his time upon the throne was finished, he chose to leave it. There was no assassin's dagger beneath his ribs, no poison hidden in his wine, and no rebel army battering down the gates of London. Edward looked upon the kingdom he had ruled and understood that another must carry its burden. His sister was ready, and perhaps more importantly, Avalon was ready for her.

I saw Edward before the ceremony. Do you know what a king looks like when he knows that before sunset he will be a king no longer? He looks lighter somehow, yet older at the same time. Edward had carried England through years in which the things hidden beneath the surface of the mortal world had begun moving openly among those who knew where to look. Kindred whispered in courts and beneath London streets. Garou howled in forests older than England. Changelings walked roads leading into places no mortal cartographer could ever place upon a map. Edward knew more of those things than any mortal king should have known, and perhaps that was why he understood that the Crown had reached the end of its journey with him.

He surrendered it willingly.

Then Elizabeth came through London.

Ah, you should have seen the city that day. Bells rang until I thought the towers themselves would shake apart. Banners hung from windows, children sat upon their fathers' shoulders, and apprentices climbed walls, barrels, carts, and anything else strong enough to bear their weight. Merchants abandoned their stalls. Nobles crowded balconies. Pickpockets discovered that a royal procession was a blessing almost equal to Christmas.

Elizabeth passed through it all beneath a canopy of estate, surrounded by velvet, gold, heralds, guards, musicians, nobles, and all the splendid mortal nonsense that accompanies a crown. She played her part beautifully, smiling when the people called her name and acknowledging those who bowed as she passed. Yet I was close enough to see her eyes, and they were looking beyond the crowds. She could feel what the mortals could not.

The Dreaming was watching her.

The ordinary people saw soldiers and courtiers surrounding their future Queen, but there were others among them. A Gangrel stood disguised among huntsmen. A Toreador watched from an upper window, still as a painted saint. Garou Kinfolk mingled with soldiers and country nobles. Changelings hid beneath mortal faces, some laughing and others strangely silent. There were Pooka in the crowds, naturally. You cannot gather that much wine, food, excitement, and potential catastrophe in one place without attracting Pooka. And there were Eshu as well.

There are always Eshu when history decides it would rather become a story.

I walked beside Elizabeth's procession for a time. Nobody stopped me. Never underestimate the usefulness of walking confidently and behaving as though everyone else has simply forgotten why you are supposed to be there. Elizabeth passed near enough that I could see her clearly. For the briefest moment I wondered whether she saw me as well. Perhaps she did. She was already becoming something difficult to fool.

Eventually she came to Westminster, and there the mortal ceremony proceeded with all the solemnity mortals could summon. There were oaths and prayers, sacred oils and promises, bishops and nobles, and enough ceremony to satisfy even the most humorless courtier. Elizabeth knelt, and the crown of England was raised above her.

I remember looking at it and thinking how very small it seemed.

All those wars. All that blood. Fathers against sons, cousins against cousins, brothers against brothers. Generations of mortals betraying, murdering, marrying, and conquering one another for possession of that little circle of metal.

Then it descended.

The crown settled upon Elizabeth Tudor's head, and she rose as Queen of England.

The mortals cheered. Trumpets sounded. Voices filled Westminster.

Had the story ended there, perhaps the historians would have gotten most of it right.

But that was merely the first coronation.

Certain doors were closed. Certain guards took their places. Certain mortals suddenly discovered that their presence was required somewhere else. Those few who remained but were never meant to understand what followed would later remember something far more ordinary. Memory, you see, is a wonderfully fragile thing when Glamour decides that truth should remain hidden.

The great chamber became quiet.

Not silent. There is a difference.

Silence is merely the absence of sound. This was the quiet of a forest when something ancient has opened its eyes.

Elizabeth stood before us, no longer merely Tudor and no longer merely a mortal Queen. She was Sidhe, and anyone touched by Glamour could see that there was more standing before them than the daughter of a royal house. Mortals inherit kingdoms through blood. The Fey inherit them through story.

Elizabeth carried both.

Representatives of the Fey came before her. Some approached proudly, others reluctantly. Some had waited generations for such a moment, while others wore expressions suggesting they would sooner have swallowed cold iron than bend their knee to another monarch. Yet they came. One after another, the courts and peoples of the Dreaming acknowledged Elizabeth Tudor as Queen of Avalon.

Then came the greater title.

It was older than Tudor, older than Plantagenet, older than Norman or Saxon, and perhaps older than England itself.

High Queen of the Fey.

I watched her receive it.

And the Dreaming answered.

Do not ask whether thunder shook Westminster or whether fire descended from Heaven. No dragon tore through the roof, though I admit that would have improved the tale considerably. What happened was quieter and far more powerful. For one heartbeat, every Changeling within that place felt the same thing.

Home.

Not a castle. Not a Freehold. Not England.

Avalon.

The true Avalon—the realm beneath maps and beyond mortal seas, where memory and dream touched one another.

For a single heartbeat it seemed very near, and Elizabeth stood at its center.

Beside her stood the man who would become her husband, and here we reach the part of the story that has made Kindred uncomfortable every time I have told it.

Once, he had been one of them.

He had been Kindred of the line of Mithras, tied by blood to one of the oldest powers ever to claim dominion over the night in Avalon. That was no insignificant lineage. Mithras had cast his shadow across the island for centuries, his name whispered in Roman temples and Kindred courts long after mortal Rome itself had become ruins.

Yet the creature standing beside Elizabeth was no Vampire.

Not anymore.

The Curse of Caine had released him, or been torn away from him, or perhaps something stranger had happened still. I have heard a dozen explanations since that day. I will tell you only what I saw.

I saw Glamour around him.

I saw the Dreaming reflected within him. I saw a set of wings on fire of the House of the Phoenix.

I looked upon him with my own eyes, and I tell you that the Vampire was gone.

What stood beside Elizabeth Tudor was Sidhe.

Imagine what that meant to the Kindred who witnessed him. Some looked upon him with wonder. Some with fear. Others with an emotion they desperately tried to hide.

Envy.

Vampires spend eternity telling themselves that their curse is a gift. Show them a man who escaped it, and suddenly eternity begins to look rather like a prison.

Elizabeth took this former child of the line of Mithras as her husband, and before the assembled court she named him Prince of Avalon.

Prince, mind you. Not King.

That distinction matters.

He would stand beside Elizabeth, share her court, counsel her, and defend Avalon with her, but the sovereign crown belonged to Elizabeth. She was Queen of England and Queen of Avalon, and among the Fey she stood higher still as their High Queen.

I looked around the chamber afterward and saw three very different peoples contemplating what had just happened.

The Kindred whispered among themselves. Vampires always whisper when something happens that they cannot control. A Changeling upon England's throne was troublesome enough. A High Queen who understood that Kindred existed was considerably worse. But a High Queen whose husband had once carried the blood of Mithras? That was something else entirely. He knew their customs, their courts, their bargains, their games, and perhaps most dangerously their lies.

The Shifters watched differently. They had seen kings come and go. Their memories reached back beyond Tudor, beyond Norman, beyond Saxon, and even beyond Rome. A mortal crown impressed many of them very little. Avalon, however, was another matter. Ancient blood, sacred places, old promises, and the protection of the land were things they understood.

Then there were the Fey.

Some laughed. Some wept. Some knelt. A few managed all three.

I did none of those things.

I watched.

That is what an Eshu does when a story is being born. Someone must remember what truly happened after everyone else begins improving upon it.

At last Elizabeth emerged again before the people of London. They saw their Queen and shouted her name until it rolled through the streets like thunder.

"Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Elizabeth!"

They saw the Tudor crown upon her head.

We saw another crown.

London celebrated long into the night. Bonfires burned in the streets. Taverns overflowed. Church bells rang. Musicians played until their fingers ached. Wine disappeared by the barrel, and I have little doubt that somewhere in London at least one unfortunate fellow awoke the following morning without his trousers and with absolutely no idea how he had lost them.

But beneath the celebration, the world had changed.

Edward Tudor had stepped aside. Elizabeth Tudor had risen. The Queen of England was Fey. The Queen of Avalon was Sidhe. Her husband, once Vampire of the line of Mithras, now stood beside her as a Changeling and Prince of Avalon.

And for the first time in an age, the hidden peoples of the island understood that there was again a throne powerful enough to call itself the throne of Avalon.

I have traveled many roads since that night. I have told this tale in castles and taverns, beside hearth fires and beneath stars whose names have changed since I first learned them. Each generation eventually asks me the same question.

"Is it true?"

The mortals will write their histories. The Kindred will hide their records in vaults beneath cities. The Garou will carry their memories through blood, pack, and legend.

But we are Eshu.

We carry truth differently.

We turn it into a story strong enough to survive the people who would rather forget it.

So when some scholar tells you Elizabeth Tudor was merely another Queen of England, smile politely and let him finish. Then tell him you once heard an old Eshu speak of what truly happened in the late autumn of 1559. Tell him Edward Tudor willingly surrendered the throne to his sister. Tell him Elizabeth Tudor was crowned Queen of England and Avalon. Tell him that a former Vampire of the bloodline of Mithras stood beside her, reborn as Sidhe, and was named Prince of Avalon.

Most of all, tell him that the Fey came before Elizabeth Tudor and acknowledged her as their High Queen.

And should he laugh and ask how you could possibly know such a thing, tell him exactly what I told you.

I was there.

I saw the King surrender his crown.

I saw Elizabeth rise.

I felt Avalon awaken.

And I watched the Dreaming recognize its High Queen.

Now fill my cup again.

For that is the end of this story, and another drink might remind me of the next one.