by Karleen Koen
Sir John had opened the door. To Slane’s amusement, neither Gussy nor Rochester had time to move from their positions of obvious eavesdropping.
“Tim, come and take the Duchess away.”
The big footman was leaning down to lift up the Duchess, still in her cloak and headdress.
“You may not tell me what to do, John Ashford!” Her headdress was quivering as much as her voice.
“I want to see no more of you, no more! Good evening, madam!”
Sir John had made her cry. The footman was carrying her away, she crying. Sir John was cursing, a long string of curses—good ones, thought Slane, who knew how to curse in Spanish, French, and Italian. He opened the door, but the others didn’t see him.
“Impossible! She was always impossible. To act as if I am not a thief—”
“You are not a thief!” said Gussy.
“Of course, I am.” Sir John turned to Rochester. “I am humiliated that you had to see my shame, but you may as well know the worst about me.”
And just then, Rochester looked beyond Sir John and saw Slane.
Yes, thought Slane, you think the same as I. I wish I had known you when you were younger. Lion, they called you, you were the lion’s roar, just as Richard Saylor was the lion’s heart. Shall we, O Bishop of Rochester, gather the rosebuds while we may? Gather this old warhorse into our arms? We need a strong leader for our rising in the south.
“There is someone I want you to meet,” Rochester was saying. “Turn around, Sir John, and meet Laurence Slane, a friend and, you may as well know, a fellow conspirator.”
AT THE wedding, Diana stared at Charles, through him; he might never have existed.
It seemed to Charles that he could not keep his eyes from her, but when her glance locked with his, hers was indifferent. You are good, very, very good, thought Charles, but so am I. His wife, Mary—Tony’s sister—looked almost pretty tonight. Light lashes and brows were combed with lead to darken them, a trick her cousin Barbara had taught her. Everything Barbara had done in dress and style had been copied by the young women at court.
Suddenly, Charles was bored.
“Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?” the vicar was asking Tony.
In the candlelight, Charles saw a sheen of perspiration on Tony’s upper lip.
“I will,” said Tony.
Will you? Do any of us? wondered Charles.
Later, when they were back from the church, they gathered in Saylor House’s great parlor and hall. Musicians had been hired, and guests who had not been invited to the wedding ceremony were invited to this celebration afterward. The King was coming, as well as the Prince and Princess of Wales.
“The Duchess says she wants to go back to Tamworth tomorrow,” Harriet, the bride, was telling Mary. They were close friends. “She says she will go in spite of the weather and muddy roads. She says she wants to see the first robins in her gorse bushes.”
“What was the Princess speaking to you about for so long yesterday evening?”
Harriet looked around to see if anyone was close enough to hear.
“Marriage,” she whispered. “About men and women and the relations between them. The world is theirs, she says, and while you are young, they may, for a while, desire you. But always, another woman will come into their eyes, and like children who must have everything, they will have her, too, she says, because they can. She told me: ‘Be a good wife to Tamworth, enjoy the sport which can come between you in bed—’”
“She said that?”
“Yes. ‘But never, never take it to heart,’ she said, ‘for then your heart will be broken. Love other things—policy and intrigue if that is your bent, or your home, your children, your horses, your dogs—not only him. In fact, if you are wise, my little Harriet, you will not love him at all. I tell you this as my favorite maid of honor—’ I’m such a fool. I’ve made you cry.”
“No, no.” Mary wiped at her eyes and looked around, as Harriet had done, to see who might be watching. No one. They put their heads together again.
“Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said something nearly the same. ‘How I agonized,’ she said, ‘how I fretted, before eloping with the man I married. How I read and reread his letters to me and finally took on disgrace to have him’”—it was a great disgrace for a young woman of good birth and family to elope with a man—“‘only to discover my love was a pompous bore.’”
Mary laughed, and Harriet said, “That’s better. You need to laugh more, Mary. You used to laugh—”
“A dance, madam,” Charles interrupted their conversation abruptly.
“You have had too much wine, Charles.” Mary’s eyes were clear and gray, like her brother Tony’s.
Charles pulled her up and kissed her, letting his tongue just brush her mouth.
“How very wifely of you to say so.”
He felt her tremble, saw out of the corner of his eye that Tony’s bride was taking it all in, and he looked up to see Diana, too, watching. He smiled, lazily, and then kissed his wife yet again, long and lingeringly.
“A dance, nephew-in-law.” Diana walked forward, drawling out the words. “Mary, allow an aging woman a dance with a young man, if you please.”
“This dance is promised,” said Charles, and he led his wife toward the dancers. But when he looked at Diana, she was smiling, a cat’s smile, and he felt his heart beating faster, and memories were in his mind that made him stumble.
He and Diana made love standing up in a corner down a dark hall. It was dark and bitter and too fast and better than any in his life. And this time, Charles did not call Barbara’s name.
Later, when he told Wart, not all of it, but the essence, Wart laughed so hard he nearly choked.
Chapter Twenty-five
FRANCIS MONTROSE AND CAESAR WHITE, BOTH OF WHOM HAD once served the Earl Devane, shivered in a drafty warehouse in London, which held the contents of the Devane estate—those contents Parliament had allowed the estate to keep after assessing penalties for Lord Devane’s part in the South Sea scandal. There were paintings, mirrors, gilded chairs, tables, marble statues, books piled atop one another, dishes from China to serve fifty, even a hundred, silver forks and goblets, silver bowls—the remnants of a man who might have achieved the reputation of a great collector, had he lived.
“It could be anywhere,” Montrose said. “The Duchess desires the impossible.”
“She always does,” said White, who was by now inured to the Duchess’s requests. “And we always oblige her. Here, I think I have found it.” He lifted a thick cover. “Yes.”
“Dear God,” said Montrose.
“This harpsichord isn’t going to bother that tobacco ship’s captain,” said White. “But I would give a shilling to see his face when he views the bees.”
Chapter Twenty-six
ODELL SMITH PULLED ON THE REINS OF HIS HORSE AND STOPPED a moment to watch the river, easily seen through the winter trees. It was not yet the placid, lazy curl of downriver. Here there were small islands in it, which the water flashed around, showing white, rough edges before joining it again. The astonishing roar of the river’s cascade could be heard. There were bluffs behind him, where the land rose up abruptly, punctuated by God’s design of falls, rapid, swirling through rocks and more islands. This was World’s End, except the world did not end. It did not precisely begin either, though there was more settlement than ten years ago. Colonel Byrd had a trading post and small plantation here. Past the falls, the Huguenots farmed in placid little quarters. A Randolph brother had the beginnings of a prime plantation.
The sky above was as hard a blue as he remembered Lady Devane’s eyes being. It might have been a summer day, but for the cold, the drifts of snow, the bitter brown of the trees. The woods were silent against the dull roar of the river’s cascade as he and his horse picked the way through them. Every now and again, he would see the t
racks of a hare in the snow, or the slow circling of a hawk above. The winter was long for him. On the Bolling quarter where he lived there was a cabin, as required by law, but not much else.
I will send slaves to you first thing in the spring, Colonel Bolling had said, fresh off the ship, fresh from the Ivory Coast. We can make a late tobacco crop and corn and wheat. Life was at its simplest, a round of chores, morning to dusk, a little hunting now and then in early morning or late evening to keep fresh meat, an evening pipe. Solitude had become hard to bear because of the news, heard from Tom Randolph, that the body of a slave boy had been found, a body thought to be that of Lady Devane’s boy.
Lately, Odell had had the same dream over and over: the sight of the boy running toward him; the way he had taken the boy by the shoulders and shaken him, pushing him again and again into the trunk of a tree; Klaus behind him, pulling at him, telling him to stop, only he couldn’t stop. I will handle it now, Klaus had said, snarling the words, as he, Odell, had stared down at the body. Go away. Now. And he had, glad to leave the scene, still stunned from the swift rush of violence that had risen up inside himself. That night he had slept deeply, with no dreams, waking the next morning to a queasy feeling inside. He’d gone to the second creek, but there was no sign of the sloop, or of the boy—save one, which he had taken care of. Then, not knowing had been good. Now, he had to know what had happened. Klaus had to tell him, so that the dream would stop.
His horse snorted and shook its head, cold. He slapped his reins smartly on his horse’s haunch, and the creature fought him, rearing suddenly—stubborn, purposefully stupid, the way a horse can be. The action caught him by surprise. Before he knew what was happening he was falling backward. He held the reins in one hand only; there was no time to harden his thighs to control and calm the horse. It was not the first time he had fallen from a horse. It was not the first time he had been thrown. Everything would have been fine, except that as he fell backward, a leg bent under him.
His body met ground, the leg between. He heard the snap of bone even as a pain dark and red throbbed enough to make him cry out, make him almost faint. His other foot hadn’t come quite clear of the stirrup. His horse shied and danced, upset, to drag him a few unbearable inches, grinding the leg into agony before somehow, he was loosed.
He lay on the ground like a fish pulled out of water, gasping for air. In the distance, he could hear his horse. The ground he lay on was as cold as the grave must be. Into his gasping came a shivering that shook him ruthlessly. He fought it, fought the pain, fought the weakness, willed himself to think clearly. Carefully, he lifted himself up to his elbows. Pain made him light-headed. He was bruised all over, but it was the leg, the leg…
He saw his horse, watching. Odell breathed in and out for a while, until finally he had summoned the stamina to push past pain and make the small, clucking sounds that would lure his mount to him. Sure enough, the animal came, nosing at him a little.
“Bastard,” he said, but whispering, careful not to frighten. He lunged and caught a stirrup. The movement shifted the leg bent under him. For a moment, he thought he was going to faint dead away, going to lose the stirrup and fall back. But he didn’t. He waited until the pain lessened enough for him to think through it. He knew what he had to do. Grunting, he pulled himself up along the length of the girth. It was a slow thing; the pain in his leg radiated whitely, hot enough to make his body shiver. His horse sensed it and moved restlessly, bringing fresh bouts of agony.
“Bastard, bastard, bastard,” he sang softly to his horse.
His strong fingers dug into the leather; his hands, powerful, seasoned with years of work, locked themselves around the soft hump of the pommel.
“Be good,” he told his horse, hoarsely, breathlessly. “Let old Odell rest awhile. Be still, boy.”
He had pulled himself up enough so that he was standing on his good leg. The other leg was useless. Leaning on his horse, he thought out the next moves carefully. He would put his weight onto the muscles of his arms and shoulders and lift the good leg in the stirrup, letting his thigh push him up and into the saddle. Somehow, he had to get the other leg over. It was going to be hell. He might faint and fall right off the horse. All right, he could face that. He must do it quickly, not ruminate upon it.
He counted off to himself, one, two, three. His muscles bunched. His leg was in the stirrup, but that effort frightened his foolish horse. The beast whinnied and trotted off. He couldn’t hold himself on. He tried, grimacing, panting, praying, cursing. But in spite of his efforts, his hands were coming loose from the pommel. No…not again…
He fell back, into a soft drift of snow and the baleful branches of some shrub.
For a while there was just the pain. He did not fight it. He had not the strength. Then he became aware of cold upon his face. He opened his eyes, looking through branches to sky. Snow was melting on his face, snow that had dropped from the branches of the shrub he fell into. Snow was all around him, like a soft pad, like the beginnings of a white shroud, the drift into which he was sunk. The cold burned. He heard his horse in the distance, restless, impatient, fretful without him. Sometimes he thought that day at the second creek was a dream he had dreamed. Maybe, this, too, was a dream. He saw, far above, a hawk circling in the sky, that sky the color of Lady Devane’s eyes.
In his mind were words the slaves sang, a song he’d never understood, only now he did. The dead are not dead, they sang. They are not under the earth. They are in the rustling trees. They are in the groaning wood. They are in the moaning rocks. The dead are not dead.
The boy had his revenge.
Spring
…now I know in part
Chapter Twenty-seven
SLANE SAT UP, HIS WHOLE BODY ALERT. HE LIT A CANDLE AND stared at the flame. He was on the last leg of his journey, near Tamworth, plotting the rising with Sir John. He’d been all over the south of London this last month, talking with Jacobites, ascertaining support, priming them for Jamie. He was exhausted. But he was glad he’d left the intrigue of London and gone to the country, where love for Jamie was still clear and clean in people’s hearts, where without a second thought, women sold family jewelry to give to the cause, and saw their men ready to march to London.
Something was wrong. What was the time? Not dawn for several hours. He tried to slow his breathing, so that his mind would be clear. Was Rochester ill? Dead? Was it Jamie? What made the flesh on his arms tingle this way?
He pulled the blanket from the bed, sat down at the chair by the window, and stared out, closing his eyes, willing his mind to quiet.
It was a false quiet. Before light had done more than etch the horizon, he was in the stable, saddling his horse, coins left in his chamber for the innkeeper. The day was misty and cold, and the March sleet yesterday had turned to ice in places. There was a saying here: “March damp and warm doth the farmer much harm.” What about March damp and cold? His horse picked its way through the muddy, churned paths, pulling its hooves out at every step, and Slane pulled his collar up, flattened his hat down. Italy was in his mind—the thought of the sun shining down on a bay dotted with fishing vessels, himself swimming in water that was warm and tasted of salt.
His horse stumbled. Slane patted a haunch. With the paths this muddy, it would be two days before he was in London. He heard a bird singing and looked up, his hands slack on the reins. The horse stumbled again, falling almost to its knees, and he was thrown out of the saddle, falling headfirst over the horse’s neck. Shock kept him still a moment, then he got to his hands and knees. I didn’t break my neck, he thought, but I’m bleeding like a slaughtered pig.
There was a fallen log. He lay back against it, face skyward, and picked up a handful of snow and held it to his brow to stop the bleeding. The snow burned, and he felt sick. When I stop bleeding, he thought, I’ll remount. But the bleeding didn’t stop.
TRYING TO decipher the spidery handwriting of some Tamworth housewife from long ago, Jane bent over the old leath
er-bound books in the Duchess of Tamworth’s stillroom. She loved this room, its jars of preserves and dried flowers, its wooden and marble bowls. It was a refuge, a place of memory, of solace, of girlhood. In the autumn there were apples on shelves, and the last of the roses for the Duchess’s potpourri, just as there had been for as long as Jane could remember. In the spring, flower after flower lay upon shelves, drying. Barbara had used to sneak away the jars of jellies for them to eat in the apple orchard. She and Barbara had used to hide in here and play for hours in the cool and shadows.
Last night she had dreamed of green gloves and the pale green eyes of the Gypsy woman who’d been made to sit before the church three Sundays in a row, her distended abdomen the evidence of her crime. The woman’s eyes had been downcast, her face pale, while above her, from the wooden pulpit, which was built so that it seemed suspended in air, Vicar Latchrod had thundered about wicked women and sins of the flesh. I could not do it, thought Jane, watching the woman. I would weep or go mad at the shame. Perhaps Gypsies don’t feel shame. Later, parish officials had walked the woman to the boundary of the parish, told her to be gone.
Every time Jane walked the woods, she thought of the woman. Where could she go? How would she survive? It’s the law, said her father, irritable the way he was when he didn’t quite agree with the law. We in the parish don’t need a strange mouth to feed. We have enough of our own. If the baby was born in the parish, her father and others would have to be responsible for it. She’ll find other Gypsies and be fine, said her father. You think too much on it, Jane.
I think Gussy loves you very much, said Laurence Slane.
Last night her mother had locked Amelia in the cellar for badness. You are too easy on that child, her mother said. You have been since Jeremy died. She is out of hand. Amelia was in a little sobbing heap at the top of the cellar stairs when Jane opened the door. She had wrapped her arms and legs about Jane like a burr. Dark, Amelia had said through her sobs. Be good, Jane whispered, be good tonight and I will take you with me to the Duchess’s tomorrow. Spare the rod and spoil the child, said her mother. You think too much upon it. Jeremy’s death, her mother meant. It is time to let it go. You have other children. Grief has its own progress, said the Duchess. It cannot be hurried. I saw Gussy weep for Jeremy, or perhaps it was for you, Slane said.