by Karleen Koen
“We’re to play,” Gracen called to Alice.
Women crowded around Princesse Henriette and Queen Catherine, begging to be allowed to be the first to play, and Alice left Fletcher, took her place among them. Last afternoon, she thought. Roses in the garden sent thin celadon-colored arms fat with blossoms upward to the sun. Their heady smell was as strong as perfume. Amid the music of violins in the orchestra, silver bells rang, high, clear, thin as the air that carried their single note. Chosen women took their places, their gowns melon and moonlight, apricot and old gold, apple and amber, Princesse Henriette like a beacon among them in white, the deep green of the grass, the azure of the sky, making every color, every hue, vibrant and alive. It was as if the bowling green had become a stage, and nymphs and sprites and fairies played to an enchanted audience.
His wig off, King Charles leaned back among the cushions and pillows on a rug and picked up his favorite spaniel, his eyes lingering on the French beauty Renée de Keroualle. Between glances, he examined the spaniel in his lap. “Will you look at this. Mimi has a sore patch on her back again. I wonder which of the other little devils is biting her?”
“Storm to the south.” His cousin Prince Rupert nodded to the edge of the green. King Charles saw that his mistress had not been included among the queen’s players. She was marching toward where they sat.
“I want to play.” Plump and sloe-eyed, the Duchess of Cleveland was sullen, and there was nothing subtle about her when she was sullen.
“And so you shall, in a little while when this game is over. Come now and sit beside me, and I’ll whisper the finer points of the game to you,” said King Charles.
“You just want to fondle me.”
“What else do I pay you for, sweet?”
She laughed and sat beside him. Queen Catherine bowled her turn, and a heavy lead bowl traveled solidly to settle near the king’s rug.
“You’ve got to try to hit the jack, my dear,” called King Charles, “not me.”
“She was aiming for the duchess,” said Prince Rupert.
“Ass,” Cleveland said to him.
“It wouldn’t have hurt you if it had hit you. It would take a cannonball, fired at close range.”
“Charles, make him stop.”
“Don’t quarrel, children. It makes the king fretful. Where are the rest of the dogs, Rupert? They all want to see the lovely ladies play, don’t they, Mimi?” King Charles stroked his spaniel’s head, while she, eyes on him, cocked her head to one side, alert and adoring. “Go and fetch my dogs, Rupert.”
“Why do you indulge him?” Cleveland asked once Prince Rupert walked away.
“Because he’s my cousin, because he fought like a Roman for my father and pirated the high seas for me when I was in exile. Because. Because. Because.”
Silenced, the Duchess of Cleveland looked around her. There was a great deal of laughter and much teasing and flirtation this afternoon, just as there had been all the visit. In his best of moods, Charles encouraged such frivolity. Servants had begun to walk among those watching, offering wine and roasted chicken and fresh oysters lying in their translucent shells. The air was soft, languid, as silky as a fine shawl. The smell of the sea was mixed with that of roses. It was a lazy, slow, pointless, delightful day, a perfect end to a perfect visit. The silver bells jangled gently, in tune with the laughter and squeals of the women. Birds chirped, bees droned, butterflies made dashing, quick feints at flowers and then sped away. She felt the softness of the afternoon in her bones, felt the distance between herself and this man whom she had enchanted for so long.
“We did love each other once upon a time, didn’t we?” She’d risen with impudence, reigned with impudence, and would go down with impudence.
Bright canine eyes regarded her. Cynical human eyes did the same. “That we did, pet. Do fetch me a chicken leg, won’t you.”
Cleveland gestured to a servant. As she did so, one of the patches she wore on her face, a dark half-moon thought pasted securely on one cheek, peeled off and fell on her bosom.
“Blast and damnation,” she cursed.
King Charles bit his lip not to laugh.
THE FAREWELL HAD none of the celebration of the arrival. The morning began with fog; the day itself was overcast, clouds low and gray, and there was rain, not hard, but a continuing drizzle that wet through clothing and sent people who had waited on the beach back into carriages. The French were dry-eyed, ready, already gossiping of this court compared with their own.
But nearly everyone in the English court wept when Princesse Henriette was carried by her brother to the waiting rowboat. Now she was in the royal yacht with her brothers and a priest, and the yacht remained at anchor midway between beach and ship, as if the king and York were loath to allow her from their sight, while rowboats and wherries, crammed with French, waddled through a choppy sea to board the waiting ships.
“You’ll be back within six months, sooner if I have my way,” Sir Thomas said to Alice, who was hanging on his arm, unwilling to let go, never mind the rain, which was beginning to soak through her cloak. “And in the Duchess of Monmouth’s household, as a lady-in-waiting.”
“The queen’s.” They had been quarreling about this since last night, whose household she would return to serve in, and quarreling in general, each upset that she was leaving again. She was suspicious of her father’s pushing so hard toward the Monmouths. Fletcher told her a cabal was forming around Monmouth, to proclaim him the next heir, which was insulting to York, the heir as long as King Charles did not have children from the queen. Not only was it insulting, but it was dangerous. Monmouth was illegitimate. There could be a war over something like that. Buckingham’s fine hand was stirring the pot, said Fletcher. If Buckingham was behind it, it meant her father was, also. “Her Grace likes me not.”
“And you make certain you buy as close to the castle of Versailles as possible. I want to be fastened like a snail to a side garden.”
One of her tasks from him was to buy property in France. His peddler, as innate to him as his easy smile, had been summoned up after listening to the French brag of Paris, of the neighborhood called Marais, of their king’s rebuilding of a hunting château called Versailles. His greed, his insatiable lust for property, stirred.
“I’d like to return affianced, Father. Remember you’re to speak to Balmoral on my behalf.” A good night’s sleep had quieted her fear, waked her to fresh resolve to have him.
“But not too high. Find out what others have paid. Don’t be afraid to bargain. I will consider anything in the Marais, if the price is right—” He broke off and turned to see who made Alice’s face light up as if a candle were inside her, and here was Lord Colefax, with his uncle the Duke of Balmoral. Alice dropped into the lowest of curtsies on the sand and shell of the beach, and Balmoral reached out a hand to help her up. His face was almost hidden under the felt hat he wore.
“You should not have come out in this rain, not after just leaving your sickbed,” she told him.
“I could not have you leave without wishing you well, Mistress Verney.” Rain dripped from the brim of the hat he wore.
He could care for me, thought Alice, I know it. “Will my letters still be welcome?”
“Uncle, we must get you out of this rain,” Colefax interrupted.
“I will continue to look forward to them. Good-bye, my dear. Godspeed. Walk me to that useless quay, Cole. I had no idea such silt had built up in this harbor.” Balmoral bowed and allowed himself to be walked away by his nephew, talking all the while about the silted harbor and the state of England’s defenses. He was captain general of His Majesty’s army, as well as being on the privy council.
“Mistress Verney, we must leave.” It was a Life Guard, Richard, in fact.
Alice clutched her father’s sleeve.
“You’re not the beauty your mother was—” Her father reached out a hand to touch her hair, her cheeks, the corner of her lips, saying words Alice had heard too many times to have
much feeling for. “But I’ve been reminded this entire visit of my own mother, Alice. She had a style, a character to her, which I very much have seen in you.”
Touched, Alice took his hand and kissed it. Sir Thomas lifted her up and into the rowboat among maids of honor and ladies in waiting. In her ear, he whispered, “Keep your eye out for any sign there’s been a treaty signed.”
“Father,” Alice said in irritation.
“There are Jesuits along on this visit. Where there are Jesuits, there is intrigue.”
“Princesse Henriette is Catholic. Of course there are Jesuits.”
A grunt was her answer. Like many, her father believed the religious order of the Society of Jesus capable of greatest machinations. Waves splashed at the boat’s stern as Life Guards and sailors put their shoulders against its wood and began to push it backward. Sir Thomas walked into the waves alongside the boat. “Give me a kiss, Alice…. Another. Mistress Bragge, you keep an eye on this daughter of mine.”
Alice held fiercely on to his hand until a swell tore their grip apart. A kiss for you, Father, and a blessing, she thought. Her eyes were on shore, on those under the canopy who waited in the drizzle, Queen Catherine, Fletcher, Edward, Gracen, Kit, and others, like John Sidney, who walked out into the wet and all the way to the edge of the water, waving. Barbara waved back.
The rowboat worked its way past the royal yacht, still at anchor, as Alice took Barbara’s hand. “Tell me you’re excited to be returning with me.”
“I’m excited and sad to be leaving those I love.”
Yes, thought Alice, me too.
“I see you found your earring,” said Richard. As satisfied as a young lion after feeding, he sat in the rowboat by Renée. To Alice’s surprise, he was returning to France with them. She felt respect for him to have maneuvered such a thing, then she felt a chill and shivered with it. An old folk saying came to mind, that someone had just walked over her grave. Her eyes sought and found the Duke of Balmoral back on the shore, walking with his nephew. God bless and keep you, sir, she thought. And bless and keep us in France.
She looked back to her father.
“Jesuits,” he mouthed silently.
CHAPTER 7
Princesse Henriette looked as if she were finally asleep. Alice paused in her reading aloud, stood, and then the ship groaned, and the princess opened her eyes, staring at something beyond Alice. They were already near Calais, on the French coast, would anchor soon and wait for the morning light to disembark. “How old are you, Verney?” she said.
“Twenty.”
“I remember twenty. Pull the curtains, so I may see the stars, then leave me. I’ll sleep soon.”
It was a lie; she hadn’t slept either night of this voyage, but Alice was tired. She went to one end of the cabin and pulled back the long draperies that hid the windows across the ship’s broad stern. She opened a casement to the breeze, and draperies fluttered out like white ghosts—the ghosts awaiting us in France, thought Alice—and on the bed, the princess stared out at the night somberly, unblinkingly, as if she thought the same, and Alice left her to her thoughts, slipping out the door, thinking to go out on deck, feel the air on her face.
Richard leaned against the wall in the galleyway outside Princesse Henriette’s cabin. He was taking his role of guardian seriously. “How is she?”
How did he think? She’d come on board sobbing, both her brothers weeping. King Charles had walked back to hug her three times before he could bring himself to leave the ship. It was wrenching for all the English who saw it. Alice shrugged, climbed up the stairs and onto the deck, went at once to the railing, leaned into the wind and spray. The droplets refreshed her, gave her hope. Perhaps there would be little quarreling tomorrow, a reconciliation, kindness. She stared up at stars, the same stars the princess was likely watching from her bed. Star bright, star light, first star I see tonight. Wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight. What did the princess wish for? The contrast between what they left and that toward which they sailed was staggering.
THE NEXT MORNING, they woke to the fact that the ship was anchored beside the quay at Calais, on the other side of the narrow channel of water that separated the two kingdoms. As Alice watched the princess’s ladies prepare her breakfast, select the gown and jewels she’d wear this day to be received by the king of France and his brother, her husband, she listened to complaints about England. “We waited for hours on board,” ladies around her whined. They were practicing what they’d say to the waiting court, thought Alice.
“We got wet landing on the beach.”
“The harbor was filled with silt and shingle.”
“Don’t the English repair their harbors? No wonder the Dutch trounced them in the last war.”
Those words were for Alice, but she ignored them. Alice saw the princess’s captain of the guard approach the chief lady-in-waiting. There was a long conversation between them, and then the pair left. Renée, who’d been on deck, hanging over the railing to see who of the French court might already be on the quay, found Alice, dragged her to a corner under stairs.
“The king isn’t here,” she whispered.
King Louis not in Calais? “Impossible.”
“Shhh. Don’t speak too loudly. He isn’t here, nor is Monsieur. There’s no one from court at Calais.”
The Dragon saw them. “Get dressed immediately.” In their cabin, the other maids of honor were buzzing with talk. No one knew precisely what had happened, but everyone knew something had. As soon as she was dressed, Alice went on deck, went to the railing herself to see. There was a carriage there, an expensive lacquered vehicle with six black horses at its front.
“Colbert’s,” said Richard, coming up behind her. “He’s waiting for the princess to be ready to receive him.”
Colbert was King Louis’s most important minister.
“Has there been a death in the royal family?” asked Alice.
“No.”
“Then what’s happening?”
“I don’t know yet.”
And Richard left her, walking down the gangplank of the ship over to the carriage, engaging the grooms in conversation. Alice saw that d’Effiat and his little group were clustered near the foresail, talking among themselves. She also saw that Henri Ange, the mysterious messenger from Monsieur’s lover, stood in the midst of them. Well, she said to herself, here was at least one person who’d traveled from Paris to greet the princess. She didn’t like it.
“Who is that?” Henri Ange asked, his eyes on Richard. It was hard not to notice the straight-backed, icy-eyed Englishman.
“An interfering fool they’ve sent back with Madame,” answered d’Effiat.
“Fools seldom are.”
“Alice, come at once. We’re to go to our cabin, stay there.” It was Renée, sent to fetch her.
Alice waited impatiently with Renée and Barbara and the others. It seemed an hour or more; she put her head out the door any number of times to see what might be happening or to grab a passerby and question him or her, so she knew Monsieur Colbert was on board speaking with the princess. Finally, the Dragon came to tell them to assemble themselves on the main deck. Chattering and curious, they climbed the stairs to find everyone on the ship was on the deck, going down the gangplank, assembling on the quay.
“What’s that smell?” d’Effiat said when Alice passed near him. “I do believe it’s the stench of England.” He made a face and waved the hand fan he carried, but in another moment he was stumbling forward as if he’d been pushed from behind.
“I beg your pardon,” Richard said. “I didn’t see you.”
D’Effiat’s nostrils pinched in. “You, you—”
“Peasant, fool, lout?”
The tension between the two was dangerous. It had been so since Richard stepped on board and d’Effiat saw him.
“He means no harm,” Alice said to d’Effiat.
“He can speak for himself,” said Richard. “Amusing, is it not, that a m
an who mocks his Christ with behavior that is reprehensible might have any comment on my character, or any man’s, for that matter?”
D’Effiat turned white. “I will kill you.”
Richard bowed. “We understand each other, then.” His tone was pleasant.
Henri Ange interposed himself between the two, said to d’Effiat, “This is ill timed.”
D’Effiat bowed stiffly to Richard and walked away. Alice was surprised that d’Effiat would obey anyone, much less Henri Ange.
Henri, his face open and friendly, bowed to Richard. “Allow me to make apologies for him. He is not himself.”
“I disagree.”
The other man smiled, didn’t answer, moved away.
“I thought you returned with us to tutor the princess in English, not to fight duels.” Alice looked up into his cold eyes, chunks of ice dipped in paint, she thought. “D’Effiat will make trouble for you now.”
“Well, that will keep me awake at night.”
“It should. He has the ear of the prince, Lieutenant Saylor. Monsieur could forbid you the household.”
“I am here by King Charles’s order. How may Monsieur stop it?”
“We’re not in England anymore, Lieutenant. You must be more discreet, for Madame’s sake.” She found Barbara, made her way down the gangplank. Richard followed, staying near Renée.
“I wish I knew what was happening,” Alice said once they were on the quay.
“We are to travel to Paris on our own,” Richard answered. “We will be received at the palace of Saint Germain en Laye, where the king and his brother are. The word is Monsieur is unable to travel. Apparently, Colbert was sent by the king to give Madame the news.”
Alice felt stunned. It was a staggering insult, as if Monsieur had publicly slapped his wife. The princess’s progress toward Calais had been a daily pageant, everyone in court along, as King Louis both escorted the princess toward her destination and showed off to his court the territories his army had conquered in a recent war. Another war—a small one, between husband and wife—continues, thought Alice. The princess was right to be unable to sleep as they sailed back.