by Karen Kay
The Duke of Colchester removed the handkerchief from his pocket and applied the cloth to his lips, then to his forehead. He watched as the two young people stood at the door and did nothing more than gaze at one another. At last, he ventured to say, “The three dark gentlemen there, close to the door are the Indians you have come to meet. The girl, or rather the Lady there, the blond Indian, is not Indian, but she isn’t really white, well, she is white. What I mean to say is…she’s…” Here the Duke of Colchester leaned over to speak confidentially to his Majesty. “I think she is related to our family, Your Majesty. She looks exactly as my mother did, your sister. Grew up among the Indians, she did. Brought there by the Earl of Langsford and brought back by the same. She doesn’t know her heritage.”
“Ah, rightly so, rightly so,” the old monarch replied. “Well, bring her along, bring her along. Let me see her. Let me decide.”
And to His Majesty’s request, the Duke of Colchester said, “Yes, Your Majesty,” and with the assistance of a servant, the Duke went to collect Estrela.
“Your Majesty.” Estrela bent over in a curtsey while the three Indians stood behind her, arms folded over their chests.
“Well, come forward, child, come forward.” The King motioned her to him. “Here,” he said as she approached. “Come, put your little paw there in my own. There, you see,” he said, smiling at her as she took his hand, “that was not too difficult, was it? Not too difficult at all. My, but you’re a pretty thing.” The King squinted his eyes at her. “Come closer, now, come closer.” And when she did, the bubbly, old gentleman smiled, staring at Estrela for an indefinite moment. “Well,” he said at last, “I am not at all hard put to see the resemblance, not at all hard put. Do you remember anything of your mother at all?”
“No, Your Majesty,” Estrela replied.
“Your father?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
“And you say the Earl of Langsford took you to the Indians?”
Estrela hesitated. “He did not exactly take me to them. We were running away from trouble when the Indians rescued us.”
Here the King leaned over toward her. He studied her, looking at her in minute detail before he requested, “Bring me another chair, there.” He motioned to a servant. “Yes, there you go, bring me another chair. Now, here, young lady,” he instructed Estrela as the servant produced a chair and placed it beside the monarch. “Ah, here now, exactly so, exactly so. Now, come sit here next to me and tell me how you came to be rescued by Indians.”
Estrela sat while the King motioned to the Duke of Colchester to bring the Indians forward. “Must hear their side of it, too. Now, what do you say?”
Estrela hesitated before she began. “We left England,” she said after a moment, “when I was quite young. I do not remember much of this country at all. But we were chased, Your Majesty, that I do remember vividly.”
“Chased? I say. By whom?”
“I don’t know. The Earl never told me, if he even knew himself.”
“Ah, rightly so, rightly so. Please continue.”
“We escaped to the new world and even there, we could never rest long. I remember fleeing into the west. I remember avoiding towns, any sort of civilization. I remember starving. And then we were found, by the fathers of these three Indians you see here. We stopped running. From then on, as long as we remained with the Indians, we were safe.”
“Well,” the old King muttered. “That’s quite another thing, now, that’s quite another thing. And tell me.” He leaned toward her. “How did you come to be back in this country?”
Estrela gazed at the King, taking her time answering his question. As many as ten people from court stood around her, all listening avidly to her words. And though she was reluctant to tell it in front of them, there was little she could do, short of asking them to leave. And so, after a time, she answered, “The Earl returned to the Indian camp after being gone for several years and when he came back, he demanded I return with him to England.”
“Ah,” the King said. “And what did the Earl tell you?”
“He said that my grandfather had died and I was needed at home. He said I could stay with my father’s people if we were not welcomed back into this country at once.”
King William stared at her, squinting his eyes so that he might see her better. At last, he asked, “When was this?”
“Oh, it was several years ago,” Estrela answered. “Probably as many as six or seven years ago.”
Old King William rubbed his chin. He motioned one of his ministers forward. “Why,” he asked the man in question, “have I not been presented with this young lady before now?”
The dignitary gave the King a blank look and said, “Moment,” to confer with the Duke of Colchester and returning, bent back toward his King, and murmured, “The lady was presented a few months ago, Your Majesty. You were ill at the time and Queen Adelaide received the lady.”
The King nodded. He brushed the man away with the wave of his hand, then motioned him back. “Go awaken and bring to me at once Lord Chamberlain.”
“But, Your Majesty, he—”
“At once!”
The dignitary nodded and backing away, signaled two servants toward him.
And old King William patted the young lady’s hand, saying, “Sit right there now. You so closely resemble my dear niece, Charlotte, it is a pleasure to behold you. Here now, what was that? We will receive the Indians and then we shall talk some more.”
And when Estrela murmured, “Yes, Your Majesty,” the King simply smiled, muttering, “Exactly so, my dear, exactly so.”
A raven landed on the stone ledge just outside the darkened room. Its cawing grated on the nerves of the room’s only occupant, the man whose willowy figure shadowed the wall.
Damn nuisance is what they are, damned birds.
He paced over to the window and, throwing it suddenly open, knocked the bird from its perch.
A cawing protest was heard in response and then nothing.
The man chuckled, but the laugh didn’t sound in the least infectious, there being a deep, menacing quality in it.
Foiled. Stopped at every turn. Damned Indian. If it weren’t for the Indian, the girl would have been dead long ago.
The man drew a deep breath. Oh, what he did for England, for his precious Dutch Netherlands.
Was there anyone as patriotic as he?
And what had he seen tonight?
The girl talking with the King?
The man paced back to the table where he stopped to pull on his gloves. Then, he began the chore of meticulously measuring out the white substance it had taken him so long to concoct, being careful not to spill any of the powder on himself. Finished at last, he emptied the whole thing into the small earthenware bottle, where he shook it with wine, smiling to himself as he sat back, admiring his work.
He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t thought of it until recently.
This was so much simpler.
It would be easy.
It would be effective.
And no one, not this simple slip of a girl, nor her Indian friends, could interfere with him. At long last, he need never worry about the merger of Belgian and English forces again.
The man laughed, only this time there was no raven remaining outside to echo the sound. Not a caw, not even the sound of flapping wings. Nothing.
The raven had fled.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Black Bear came to her.
The hour was late, the party having lasted well into the night.
He stood in the shadows of the room, hidden from view, watching her as she went about her nightly toiletry. He stared and he stared. Dare he believe it? Was she truly his at last? He shut his eyes, then opened them wide. Yes, what was between them was good.
She looked beautiful in her white, flannel gown, which flowed out behind her as she moved. Her pale hair shone as though with its own light in the darkened room, the candlelight from her bedside table accentua
ting the silvery strands of it. She bent now to unbraid that hair, and Black Bear swallowed, the action sounding loud to his own ears. Yes, their love was good.
He took a heavy breath.
He had spent the remainder of the evening with her, together with the King. That man had talked to Waste Ho endlessly while Black Bear had stood off to the side, listening.
The King had tried to speak with the Indians, but after a few words, with little between them in common, the King had once again turned to Waste Ho, and the two of them had talked endlessly about her early life, about her life with the Indians, about the long, lost Earl, whom the King had known personally.
The evening had gone quickly.
His attention was pulled back to the present as she stepped across the room. She flounced into bed, lying still for a moment until she straightened up and grabbed a fluffy pillow. “Well,” she said, speaking toward the shadows, “are you just going to stand there and watch or are you coming to bed with me?”
Black Bear didn’t respond.
“Black Bear, I—”
“M’lady.” It was Anna at her door. “Please excuse the late hour. The royal physician is here to see you.”
“Physician? I didn’t ask for a physician.”
“I know, M’lady. He is here to give you medicine to sleep. The King has ordered it.”
“The King has ordered…I see,” Estrela said. “Well, as you can tell, I am not fit to receive anyone at the moment. Please ask him to give you the medicine with instructions and let him understand that I will be happy to take his medicine before I retire.”
Anna nodded. “Very well, M’lady.”
Estrela watched the door close and then stared at the entryway for a moment.
And Black Bear, too, stood and stared.
Odd.
He was just about to emerge from the shadows when the maiden, Anna, returned. “M’lady?” she asked.
“Yes?”
“M’lady, the physician says he must see you tonight. He is attending to everyone this evening. There has been some stomach upset and he has been asked to relieve it.”
Estrela stared at her maid. She paused, then said, “Anna, tell him that I have no such upset and that I—”
The physician suddenly burst into the room.
He limped.
“Forgive the intrusion, M’lady,” the white-haired gentleman said. “I have so many people to attend to and I…”
Estrela didn’t respond and so the physician didn’t finish.
But Black Bear watched from the shadows, he listened. He stared at the man’s boots.
He started to step forward, but pulled back when he heard the noise dimly in the background; a sound, somewhere outside the window, a bird, cawing, then silence; sound again, silence, then the flapping of wings.
A raven.
Black Bear nodded. He hadn’t needed the raven to know the danger. Black Bear would have recognized the man immediately from his boots, from his walk.
But Black Bear was not prepared to fight. He silently cursed himself. He had grown lazy in the English environment. He had come here tonight with nothing, no weapons, an oversight he had never made before.
Damn!
With one last look into the room, watching the willowy figure of the physician bending over Waste Ho, Black Bear saw the man place something onto the table next to the bed. An earthenware bottle. The same one from his dream.
Black Bear knew what he had to do. Hurriedly, while the physician strode away to a far wall, there to wash his hands, Black Bear stepped out of the shadows and into the room. Estrela looked the other way, allowing Black Bear to creep to the table and, taking the object there, he stole silently away to retrieve a weapon—any weapon.
Quickly.
Estrela had recognized the doctor when he strode into the room. He had attended her once before, just after the parade earlier in the year when she had suffered the minor gunshot wound.
She smiled at the older gentleman now, saying to him, “Ah, I remember you.”
The doctor returned her grin, but there was something about the gesture that made Estrela nervous. Something about it wasn’t right; something about this man wasn’t right.
Perhaps he was nervous.
“My maid tells me,” Estrela said, “that there has been a rash of stomach aches since the meal tonight. How kind of the King to send you along, but you must be tired yourself.” Estrela grinned at the gentleman. “If you would kindly leave me the medicine, I will take it and you can then attend to your other patients. I’m truly sorry you have to be up at this hour ministering to others instead of indulging yourself in sleep.” She sat back against the pillows. “Did you enjoy the party tonight?”
The doctor looked at her before he replied, “Well enough.”
Again, that grin. It set Estrela to shivering.
“The medicine will help you to sleep,” he stated. “Have you a cup?”
“Surely,” Estrela returned. “In the corner of my room.” She pointed it out to him.
“Pray, excuse me a moment.”
Estrela nodded and watched the doctor. He fetched the cup and returned to the bed.
“I trust that you will forgive the inconvenience tonight, M’lady,” the physician said, reaching for the earthenware bottle.
An odd look came over the man’s face.
“Did you see the bottle?” he asked, his eyes flashing with panic before turning his attention to the nightstand.
“Pray, I—”
“What have you done with it?”
“What?”
“The bottle.”
Estrela gave the man an incredulous look. “I daresay, my good man,” she said, “I have done nothing with the bottle. But I believe our conversation is at an end.” She waved her hand. “You may go.”
The physician stood up beside the bed. “No.” It was all he murmured.
“I beg your pardon?”
The doctor drew himself up, standing straight, until he loomed over Estrela. A look of resignation crossed his face before he sighed and said, “No, I will not leave. I did not want to do it this way. I sought to save you anguish. But I see I cannot. I will not allow you to escape me this time.”
Estrela turned wide eyes to him. “What do you mean?”
“Poison.”
“Poison?”
“Yes,” he said. “I had hoped to spare you the anguish of knowing you will die. But the poison is gone. What you did with it, I do not know, however—”
“You!” Estrela looked wildly around her. Where was Black Bear? He no longer stood in the shadows. Where had he gone? She turned back to the doctor and gulped. “You! You are the one who—”
“Yes, my dear.” The doctor extracted a pistol from his bag, placing the cold metal at her temple.
Estrela stared up at him, oddly calm. “Why?” It was all she asked.
The man sighed. “Why?” he repeated. “Why?” He shook his head. “Because, my dear, I am the only one who can save all of England from a disastrous decision. Does no one else see what must be done? Is it always to rest on my shoulders, this burden of responsibility? It is nothing personal, you understand, Your Highness,” he said. “It is only that you must not rule England. You with your Belgian influence. Such would be a disaster for my own country. Now, don’t worry, my dear. It will be painless. It will be over in a matter of—”
Estrela screamed.
It startled the doctor.
He fell toward the bed, throwing a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. She screamed again and bit his hand, his bellow echoing her own.
He was struggling off balance and Estrela took advantage, heaving her arms upward over her head, pushing the pistol away from her, grabbing for his arm so that he pointed the gun elsewhere. She screamed again.
And the doctor reacted. The pistol fired.
But the weapon blasted harmlessly into the air. It had only the one bullet.
Cursing, the doctor threw the weapon aw
ay. He lunged at Estrela.
Estrela screamed and rolled in a somersault over the bed, but he caught a slender foot and using it as leverage, he pulled her back onto the bed.
“Damned nuisance!” he cried. “Look at the trouble you’ve caused me. But no more.”
She beat at him, pummeling him with her hands, her arms, a pillow.
“Augh!” he grabbed the pillow away from her. He crushed it down over her face. But it lasted no more than a second.
“Hiya!” A war cry split the air.
The doctor froze, the pillow falling from his hands.
Black Bear, leaping across the room, knocked the doctor to the floor, jumping onto him at the same time.
The two men rolled over and over. Black Bear, the winner, remained on top.
Black Bear pulled his knife, the only weapon he’d been able to find, but the doctor had one also and he slashed out at the Indian.
Nothing. Black Bear merely dodged. Another stab. Another. But it was useless. The doctor was no match for the Indian. Black Bear easily knocked the knife out of the doctor’s hands, but he didn’t slash at the doctor or even make a stab. Instead he pressed his knife at the doctor’s neck, just drawing blood.
“Now,” Black Bear said, his teeth bared. “If you wish to see another day, you tell me why you try to kill Waste Ho, Estrela.”
The physician tried to laugh, but the effect was lost. He only choked.
Black Bear sent the knife deeper into the man’s neck. “Do you think I will hesitate?”
“You stupid Indian. You damned Indian. Don’t you know that by harming me, you harm all of England?”
Black Bear smiled, and taking hold of the man’s hair, he banged the doctor’s head against the hardwood floor.
“You misunderstand. You think that I care.” Black Bear howled, then, raising his knife—
“She should be Queen,” was the rush of words.
Black Bear only laughed, banging the man’s head again. “Why have you tried to kill her?”
The man didn’t answer.