by Karleen Koen
Too long a time, replied Rochester. Irascible. Impossible. Impatient. So Slane had been warned of Rochester before coming to England. The warnings were not wrong. In another life, Slane’s given name was Lucius. Keep him to me, Lucius, Jamie had said.
Beloved Blackbird, thought Slane, I miss you. I miss Italy. King James III had dark eyes, like a blackbird’s, and a brown complexion, like a Gypsy’s; he was called Blackbird by his closest friends. In another life, Slane was among those most trusted friends. Lucius, Viscount Duncannon, held vast estates in Ireland, estates he’d never seen, for his family had fled in the early 1690s, when old James II had tried to take back his throne by invasion through Ireland, and the English—victorious—retaliated by beggaring the island. So that, in truth, he was viscount of nothing.
Hordes of Irish and Scots soldiers, nobles, and relatives had descended upon Europe, upon the various courts, to make their way as well as they could, once it was clear that James II would do no more, that William of Orange had defeated him in battle and in spirit, and that they must wait upon his son, Jamie the Blackbird, to take the crown.
Barbara, thought Slane, why do they slander you? I don’t remember you as wicked. And now your cousin Tony may die over you. What havoc you wreak from so far away.
THE NEXT day, the second Duke of Tamworth, Anthony Richard Saylor—the middle name came from his famous grandfather and betrayed his mother’s ambitions—walked into White’s Coffeehouse. Opening the door was like stepping into haze, from the pipes smoked by the men who had been here all of the morning. Tony nodded to the woman who collected the fees for tea or coffee, and sat down at a table near the windows, which looked out onto the street. It was too late in the afternoon for many to be inside with him; now was the time when men who had spent morning and early afternoon in the coffeehouses that were everywhere in London, conversing, smoking pipes, reading the news sheets and letters of shipping news, the advertisements for elixirs, pills, snuff, and rejuvenating waters, posted on the walls, went home for an hour or two to their wives, and dinner.
Following dinner came a walk down the long double row of trees that was the Mall of St. James Park. The purpose of this stroll was to see and be seen. Then, as the sun set, a man went to a play or an opera, or to court if the King should be receiving guests. Or he began the inevitable evening round of taverns, to gamble and drink and talk once more, until late evening, when serious drinking and serious whoring began. The gambling never stopped. Tony had seen friends begin a morning game of cards at a coffeehouse and emerge only the following day. His cousin Harry had won a plantation in such a bout, the plantation where Barbara now was. Tony had been present when Harry had won it.
Tony touched the place on his temple that throbbed persistently. This whole summer had been a nightmare. He could not sleep. He could not eat. He could not think. He had had to look at Virginia upon a map of the world to try to make some sense of Barbara’s unexpected, secret departure. No word from Barbara to him, no letter to explain or ask his blessing or even to say farewell, just the heart-stopping, harsh fact—she was gone—staring him in the face at the end of a long journey to Tamworth.
First love, they said. Calf love. Least said, soonest mended. But what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Barbara was his soul. She had been since he was sixteen. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the table and stared out the window, waiting. He had the long legs of his father and grandfather and their fair hair, which he wore to his shoulders, like a woman’s, but held back with a ribbon, unfashionable in this era of shaved heads and wigs. As a duke, he was allowed this eccentricity; as a duke, he was allowed much—anything, in fact, that he wished. His face was ordinary, neither handsome nor plain. Adimple appeared in one cheek when he smiled, and the smile was grave, shy, so that people who knew him well found themselves watching for it, always surprised, always.
Tony’s brother-in-law, Charles, walked into the coffeehouse. For a moment, Tony could not breathe. Charles, his trusted friend, was his second in what was very likely to be a duel; Charles would have been to see his opponent.
Charles was dressed for a London evening, in satin coat, lace from the shirt underneath showing at the sleeves, a full periwig upon his head, and a black silk patch shaped like a circle on one even cheekbone. If you do not fight him, I will, Charles had said last night, the evenness gone then.
“Masham won’t apologize.” Charles pulled out a chair and sat, sprawling his legs out under the table. “He has chosen pistols. Do you own a pair of dueling pistols?”
“No—yes. My father—I have a pair of my father’s. When is it, exactly, Charles?”
“Four-thirty. Tomorrow morning. Hyde Park. By the two oaks near the road to Piccadilly.”
“HE IS still out there, I thought he was waiting for one of the orange girls or one of our actresses, but when Polly went out to him to see, he was not interested.”
“Perhaps he is ill,” said Slane. He put on his coat, then said impatiently, because he knew what Cibber was waiting for, “I will see about him.”
“Thank you, Slane. I don’t pay you enough, Slane,” said Cibber, following the actor past scenery, past the actresses pulling on their gowns behind stacks of furniture.
“There he is,” Cibber whispered.
The Duke of Tamworth had come for the afternoon play and remained where he was through the evening play. Now it was past nine, and still he sat, the only one left in what had been their audience.
Slane, compact, small, lithe, leaped nimbly off the end of the stage, took the lantern Cibber handed him, and walked into the darkness.
He was used to reading men, and in the flickering lantern’s light it was clear the young Duke was in a state of shock. Slane had seen it before, the blank, bereft expression of men on the battlefield after a battle, when they were wounded but not certain where or how badly. How old is he? thought Slane, his eyes moving over the extreme whiteness of Tony’s face. It was a good face, strong, offset by eyes the shade of summer sky. Twenty-and-two or so?
Though Slane himself was twenty-eight, he’d been in his first battle at the age of fourteen, fighting this man’s relatives—this man’s father and grandfather—in the French wars. And then, too, he had grown to manhood in exile, belonging to no one, to no place, to no home, his family estates in Ireland given to those who had chosen William of Orange over James II. Belonging nowhere brought out a man’s instincts for survival, and it made him old before his time.
He felt little but contempt for these young noblemen of George I’s, who had never fought a battle or done without anything. It was said that Robert Walpole, one of the King’s ministers, bragged that every man has his price. In this world, under this reign, it was true. The South Sea Bubble had proved it.
“Your Grace, the play is over,” Slane said. “We need to lock our doors and go home for the night.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Slane could see Cibber wringing his hands nervously, not wanting to offend so noble a patron, but wanting, like everyone else, to be out of the theater and into bed.
Tony stood up. He doesn’t even know where he is, Slane thought.
“Come with me, Your Grace, it’s time to leave,” Slane said cheerfully, thinking: The duel must be set.
It will end in a duel, that mincing hulk of a courtier Tommy Carlyle had said today. You mark my words, Slane.
This was likely the Duke’s first duel. There was in Slane’s mind the memory of his first battle. He had scarcely slept the night before it, and his hands had been shaking so before the cry of battle began that he had dropped his sword and nearly cut off his foot.
Once they were out on the street, Slane wished the Duke well, said good-bye, and, whistling, began the walk to his lodgings, which were near. He was thinking about Rochester’s glee over this quarrel. Young dogs, Rochester had said, impious and godless, just like this present reign.
Keep discontent stirred until I come: Those were his orders from
Jamie. The broadsheet Rochester was writing about this duel over a South Sea director’s widow would do that. But now Slane made a mistake; he looked back and saw that the Duke of Tamworth was still standing where he’d left him, with that same hushed, stunned expression on his face. Cursing himself even as he turned around—he had a weakness for hurt creatures, birds with broken wings, dogs whose ribs showed through their fur—he walked back.
“What day is it, Slane?”
“The seventh of October.” And then, when the Duke said nothing else: “My lodgings are near. You can rest there awhile.”
Slane stopped at the pie shop below his room and bought a meat pie and a jug of ale. Inside his chamber, he lit a candle and put down the food.
“Sit down.” He waved his hand toward the single chair that came with this lodging.
“Hello, darling,” he said to the finch in the birdcage on the table that also came with this lodging. “Did you miss me?” He opened the door of the cage. The finch hopped out, and Slane crumbled some of the crust from the pie for her; she hopped over to eat it.
“Her wing was broken.” He stroked the finch’s tiny back with a finger. “I got her for nothing at the Sunday market nearby.”
Slane whistled and held out his hand, and the finch hopped up on it. He raised his hand, and at another whistle the finch flew to his shoulder. “Brave girl,” Slane said. “I love you.” After a moment, as if secure with Slane’s shoulder as a launching post, the finch took flight and flew around and around the chamber, finally perching atop a post of the bed, cocking her head to one side, and singing. Tony smiled then, a grave smile, the smile like an unexpected good deed, and at the sight of it, Slane found he had to stand up abruptly, move to the opened window, and sit in it, to be anywhere but somewhere where he could see this man’s face, and thus his pain.
“From my window, Your Grace, I’ve looked down more than once to wave at thieves and highwaymen on their way to Tyburn gallows. The carts pass from Wych Street into Drury Lane on their way to Tyburn Road. There’s a whore’s parade out here at dusk, but I regret to say you’ve missed it. Have some of the pie, Your Grace. Here is a knife; just cut yourself a small piece and eat. Now, have a swallow from that jug. Good. You’ll feel more yourself with your belly full.”
One leg swinging out easily, Slane began to talk of the theater—of Cibber and his miserliness; of the actress who had come in drunk this afternoon, so that all of them had had to act around her, and how she had fallen asleep in the midst of saying her most important line. He talked easily, yet all the while he was thinking of Rochester. This reign does not control the passions of its young men, said Rochester, and it does its best to break the back of the Church of England. It’s why I became Jacobite, Slane, because I saw that George of Hanover is no friend to the Mother Church, but buys our bishops and prelates the same way he buys the loyalty of the Whigs. The authority of the Church is besmirched, compromised time after time. Everything is for sale these days, Slane, even God.
As he spoke, Slane noticed a child holding a candle in the street below. She set the candle into the mud of the street and ran off, her form just visible for a moment in the light. The candle was a signal to him. Thank God, Slane thought.
“Your Grace, I must take my leave of you. I have a lady whom I’ve promised to see this evening, and I mustn’t make her angry by keeping her waiting. Stay here as long as you like.”
The candle signaled that there was a letter in from France, or possibly Italy, an important letter that only he and a few others would see. Let it be the plan for invasion, he thought, moving to stare at himself before a piece of chipped mirror, as if he did, indeed, go to see a ladylove. In a way he did—though Rochester would blanch at being called such. But the Bishop was certainly someone Slane must keep wooed.
The face in the mirror was a face a woman would look at twice, and many did. There were dark brows above widely spaced and equally dark eyes. The nose was broad, as was the mouth. Handsome, people called him. Lady Shrewsborough had said, You’re the handsomest thing I have laid eyes upon in many a day. She was an ancient relative to the Duke, who sat right now in Slane’s only chair. If your manners match your face, she’d said, come call upon me, and we’ll play a game of cards. I can tell much about a person by the way he plays cards.
And now, thanks to her, Slane was becoming as fashionable in the drawing rooms of London as he was upon the stage. All to the good. The deeper he burrowed into the heart of this court, the more he could aid Jamie.
The Bishop of Rochester was impatient. Slane saw Rochester rather than himself in the mirror. Where is our invasion plan? the Bishop would ask. Upon its way, Slane would assure him. He would talk to Rochester for hours, settling him the way one settled a restive hawk: We invade in the spring, as you advised; during the election, as you advised.
Rochester would rub his hands together. Seven years, he’d say, as he always did. It has been seven years since there was an election of men to the House of Commons. All of England will be quarreling over votes. More than one man will be thinking to himself of the old days when there was a Stuart upon the throne, rather than this foreigner.
The Swedes would supply troops, or the Spanish. There would be risings here, among all those who would have risen in 1715, who had been waiting. Slane and Rochester had cut England into military districts, setting loyal Jacobites back into place, setting them to plot again, to secretly collect arms and coins.
I can feel the fever, Slane, Rochester said. Can you? It’s our fever still racking us from the South Sea Bubble, for the way King George and his ministers tricked us. The hue and cry over final fines given to South Sea directors remained. No one thought the fines were high enough. So many had lost fortunes in speculation in South Sea stock that there was no fine, no punishment large enough to repair the sense of outrage and damage. People had lost trust in King George, saw his ministers as greedy and corrupt, as benefiting when South Sea stock had been rising but refusing to do what must be done once it began to fall. One of the King’s ministers, Robert Walpole, had been burned in effigy in August. It was said he would be dismissed because people hated him so.
Slane could see the Duke of Tamworth’s stillness reflected in the mirror, and while a part of him had sympathy for the man, there was another part that was cold, remote. Tony was the enemy, a man who could be hated in particular on account of his grandfather, Richard Saylor, if for nothing else. Saylor had supported William of Orange. King James II had said of him, a famous soldier, famous in every court for his tactical skill and his handsome manners, “He has the courage of a lion and the kindness of a saint.” Lionheart, Richard Saylor had been called, after another famous warrior of English history. And so Slane could look at his grandson Tony and feel both sympathy and scorn.
Once, he would have felt only scorn. Have I not the edge I should? he wondered. The years of intrigue were telling on him, years of going from court to court, of begging arms and money for Jamie, of seeing plans fail, one after another, to invade here and conquer. It wore on him to deal with an irascible man like the Bishop of Rochester, who would as soon curse a man as bless him; it wore on him to hear Rochester’s doubts and fears echo his own. God save me, thought Slane; God save the Blackbird and me.
Farewell, young Duke. You’re off to duel and perhaps die, and I’m off to plot, and perhaps die for that, too, in the end. We have more in common than you imagine. If your grandfather had stayed loyal to James II, the pair of us might be here together, plotting. Or we might never have had to plot at all, for we would have won if your grandfather, and others like him, had stayed loyal.
Outside, in the dark, Slane thought of Barbara. He must use this duel to his own ends, and besmirch her name. He did not like it. He thought of Charles, Lord Russel, who had been her lover, and that made the doing of it easier. He did not like Charles, his temper and pride. If it were not for Charles, the young man sitting in Slane’s chair might not be facing death. Would Barbara grieve if her cou
sin Tony died? He loved her, but did she love him?
Once upon a time—in Italy, and as Viscount Duncannon—Slane had courted Barbara for a brief moment. She had been capricious, charming, estranged from her husband, and oddly—and to Slane’s mind, very sweetly—chaste. She was teasing, but was never won; she was not what people imagined at all. It seemed she had eventually abandoned chastity. I would have been better for her than Charles, he reflected.
When he accepted this mission to London he’d thought she would be here, and that since she knew him he’d have to stay burrowed out of sight, far behind the scenes of the action, the danger, the cleverness and daring that would be necessary intriguing to him. What was it his mother had accused him of? That he needed danger to feel alive. There had been a kiss between Barbara and him, a kiss they’d begun, once upon a time, in a garden; he was Viscount Duncannon, and she was, well, Barbara, Lady Devane, sister to Harry, a committed Jacobite. Now there was irony all around: One of Richard Saylor’s grandsons, Harry, had been a Jacobite. The wrong grandson died, thought Slane, but perhaps that is going to be rectified in the next few hours.
Then all of Richard Saylor’s grandsons would be, at last, dead.
DARK. IT was so dark in the street that Tony stumbled over nothing from the sheer blackness of it. He held out his hands before him and woke, not knowing where he was for a second. There were some candles burning. In their light, he saw a birdcage, its door open, a finch in it. So. He was in Laurence Slane’s lodging, and he was to fight a duel. The darkness was no dream; he was living it.