by Karleen Koen
“Killed? What are you talking about?” Tears were rolling down Barbara’s face. “Please, Alice. You’re too close. Don’t stand so close.”
Alice stepped back. “Tell me everything. Everything you remember.”
“I don’t remember anything!”
“You don’t remember the queen crying? You don’t remember gossip, rumors, talk of divorce?”
Barbara wiped at her face, but her tears continued. “Yes, of course I do.”
“When did they begin?”
“I’m not certain. Perhaps after the miscarriage—”
“Tell me of that.”
“Her little fox jumped on the bed, startling her, and she cried out, and we started to laugh, only she clutched at herself and began to say, ‘Oh, no,’ over and over. She was so happy, so sure this one would…Her face, Alice, I’ve never seen such sorrow. And no one but those who truly loved her came to comfort. Even the king was cold this time—”
“He was cold? Tell me precisely what those words imply.”
“He didn’t call to see how she did. She lay in bed for three days, and there was not a note from him. Nothing. Prince Rupert came, the Duke of York, the Duke of Monmouth, all called on her, but he didn’t. She was beside herself with fret and worry. There was nothing we could say to calm her.”
“So I would imagine. Were you with her when she called upon His Majesty?”
“How do you know she called upon him?”
“She would, wouldn’t she? Go to him if he did not come to her, even if she had to crawl?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“But what did you hear?”
“It was so long ago, Alice, two years now—”
“Damn it, Ra, think! There used to be plenty of wit in you. Has John Sidney taken it all?”
“Don’t curse at me.”
“Don’t be foolish, then.”
There was silence. Barbara sat in a chair by the fire and leaned her head back, eyes closed, tears steadily seeping down. Alice didn’t move, didn’t change the steadiness of her gaze.
Finally Barbara spoke. “We were at peace—”
“Of course we were. Otherwise I could not have gone to Madame’s court.”
“Please don’t interrupt me. We were at peace with France. It seems that he received her graciously—”
“Who said so?”
“I don’t remember now, Alice. I’m told he said something to the effect that his heart was too moved by the loss to visit her. At any rate, I remember she was fretted for his sake, for his sorrow. That was her concern. Oh, yes—”
“What?”
“The Duchess of Richmond was ill then, too, and the court had just learned she had smallpox, and so the king was busy with that, with his worry for her, and everyone was talking of his bravery and his regard there. And there was the Duke of York’s conversion—” Barbara stopped, clapped her hands over her mouth, but it was too late to call back the words.
“Conversion?”
“I shouldn’t have told you. You must keep this a secret!”
“You wrote me nothing of this?”
“Alice, if you weren’t so angry at this moment, and I so desperate to please you, I wouldn’t even be speaking of it. It is a secret. You must promise me, you must swear not to speak of it. You know how certain members of the privy council are, how your father is, not allowing even the slightest indulgence to us.”
“How do you know of it?”
“We know one another.” It was a simple statement.
“You of the true faith?” The question was sardonic.
Barbara lifted her chin. For the first time, there was an answering hardness in her face. “I would die for my faith, Alice. Do not mock it.”
“Tell me everything.”
“Well, there was that bill in the Lords, and there began to be talk of divorce. The queen told us not to worry, that they could not undo the hand of God, and so we didn’t. The Duke of York himself defended her in the Lords. He wouldn’t do so without the king’s permission. That’s what we all felt. That’s what she felt. And then there was his infatuation with Moll Davis, and then shortly after, Nell Gwynn had his eye.”
“You should have written it all to me.”
“I wrote you of Nell Gwynn. They can’t put the queen aside. It’s the law of the land and the law of God.”
“You are a ninny, Barbara. They can do anything they please. They tore this country apart for God, your God, their God. They destroyed lands, drew and quartered men and women for God—your God, their God. They made rules that no one might dance or play cards. Then they made rules we might. Which was God’s will? Does He really care whether we dance or not? Do you think they cannot make a rule to rid themselves of a queen if they so desire?”
Barbara was crying again. “It seemed as if it had gone away. I didn’t think—”
“No, you didn’t.” And then Alice was walking away, down the long gallery. There was only the sound of her heels clicking against the polished inlaid wood of the floor for a long time, and then there was nothing but the sound of the fire’s crackle.
Barbara put her face in her hands and wept.
After a time, someone touched her arm. Gracen knelt down so that her face was near her friend’s. Barbara’s eyes were red, her face swollen.
“Ra, my precious Ra, what is it?”
“I thought you might be Alice. Foolish me.”
“Is it the queen?”
Barbara didn’t answer.
“Is she terribly ill? Whitehall is buzzing with rumor. Some say she’s with child. Some say she has the plague.”
“She isn’t—she’s not very ill. And there is no child.”
“Why do you cry, dear friend?”
“Alice is angry with me.”
“Why?”
“I failed her.”
“I don’t like her when she’s angry.”
“She’s right to be angry. I’m not as clever as she. I don’t see things the way she does.”
“Ra, I can imagine little that you would do to make someone angry. Are you certain it isn’t just Alice being the way she can be?”
“I don’t know. Let’s not speak of it.”
Gracen sat on the edge of the chair in which Barbara sat, took her friend’s hand in hers, began to rub it. “Shall I be mean to her for you?” The question was light. The steady gray gaze was not.
Barbara shuddered. “I couldn’t bear it if there was more quarreling. She’d be even angrier.”
“She isn’t right about everything, Ra, she just thinks she is. I think she’s worse since she came back from France. More imperious. Pooh, is what I say.” Gracen snapped her fingers in dismissal of Alice.
“She says it’s because of John.”
“What?”
“She says I was too busy flirting, making a fool of myself, she implied.”
“She hates it that you love him as you do. She’ll never love anyone that way. She hasn’t enough heart.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why? Isn’t it true?”
Barbara was silent. After a time, she said, “She wants what is best for us, for her friends, that is all. John hasn’t an estate, nor have I. I can see the wisdom in her fret for that.”
“Is it best that you abandon John?”
“I couldn’t, not now.”
“Then marry and be damned to Alice.”
“I’m afraid to marry.”
“Why? Because of what happens between a man and a woman? I’m told it’s very pleasing.” Gracen smiled to herself. Any man passing at that moment would have been intrigued.
“It’s silly.”
“Tell me.”
Barbara was silent.
“Does Alice know?”
Barbara didn’t answer.
“She does. You and she and Caro were always like sisters. Sisters who had no secrets from one another. I used to hate you for it and yet want to be your sister, too.” She leaned her face against Bar
bara’s shoulder, wrapped slim, long arms around her. “Her going to France gave me a chance to grow in your regard. I love you, Ra. You are my sister. Don’t allow Alice so much. Is she more than your God?”
“Of course not.”
“Then ask Him what He thinks of John Sidney.”
Barbara laughed. “He loves him.”
“Then so may you.” Gracen reached up to kiss her lingeringly on the cheek. “You are the loveliest person I ever knew.” She leaned her head back against Barbara’s shoulder, and they sat for a long time in silence, arms wrapped around each other, Barbara shivering and sighing once in a while, until the logs in the fire broke apart and sent great sparks up the chimney.
CHAPTER 21
That very afternoon, they played cards in the queen’s withdrawing chamber. Queen Catherine remained in her closet, asking for no attendants. She’d sent her regrets to the king, her assurances that she had only a slight headache, that he was to come to her chambers whenever he wished, enjoy himself, which meant he could enter her chambers and flirt with Renée. He took her at her word.
He was in a high-spirited, jaunty mood this afternoon, laughing when his spaniels chased the queen’s little fox and overset a canary cage, amusing the maids of honor by telling their fortunes. At Alice’s and Renée’s turns, King Charles scooped up cards and reshuffled them. They moved like magic between his hands.
“I kept myself from going mad once by playing cards with the subjects of my kingdom. A tavern keeper had the best skill. Cromwell’s soldiers were about, searching for me, and playing cards passed many a long hour while I waited until it was safe to move on.” He talked to them as if he were a page at court, as artlessly as a boy. It was quite flattering.
“When was this?” asked Alice.
“After the battle of Worchester. I was twenty, as tall as I am now but gawky, awkward, running into things.” He spoke directly to Renée, as if he wanted her to envision the awkward lad he’d been. But he hadn’t been awkward ever, only large. “I traveled for days in disguise as a servant, wore shoes that were too small, had my cavalier’s lovelocks shorn most roughly, I do tell you, slept in priests’ hiding holes. Many people risked their lives for me, many of them Catholics, which my archbishops don’t like me to remember.” He smiled. “Once I hid in a tree while Cromwell’s soldiers searched for me. An acorn had only to drop for them to look up and see me. I was to sail to France, you see, to raise armies with which to return and help my father. But first I had to cross the countryside. We reached the coast, but it was the very devil to hire a boat—once we had it hired, the captain’s wife persuaded him not to endanger himself—and so I was some days at a tavern, hiding in the attic, soldiers all about the town, looking for me, while those with me worked to convince the captain otherwise. The tavern keeper recognized me. My height, I would imagine, my dark hair, not to mention this.” He passed a hand over his long face. “Even though there was a price on my head, my weight in gold, he said not a word, only quietly kissed my hand when it was time to depart and asked God to watch over me. It was the last true loyalty I was to see for many a year. But I digress. I was to tell fortunes, wasn’t I?” Swiftly, he dealt cards before Renée and Alice, then turned them over.
“You shall be mistress of the robes someday,” he said to Alice, tapping a finger on an ace and a queen nearby. He turned over a card in front of Renée. It was the king of spades. He said nothing, turned over another card quickly. It was the queen of hearts. He laughed, his whole face lighting up. “Your palm, mademoiselle,” he commanded.
Renée held out a hand. He stared into her palm, then ran his finger lightly down a line. “You’ll be mistress, too. It’s in the cards and in your hand.”
He leaned forward and quickly, boyishly, with just a hint of a beguiling and unkingly shyness, kissed Renée’s palm. “Not of the robes, however. Unless you wish it. Then I’ll snatch it from Verney in a moment.”
Various courtiers in the chamber looked at one another, having noted every gesture he made.
Renée pulled her hand away. “With your permission, sir.” She stood, curtsied, walked out of the chamber.
King Charles gathered up the cards, shuffled them slowly, his face rueful. “I can read cards. It’s like touching for the king’s evil, a second sight that Jemmy calls devilish. You will be mistress of the robes someday.” He pulled the king of spades from the deck with a deft movement of his fingers. “That is me. When my father was alive, it was my father, and I was the jack. But now I am king. So, Verney, does she hate me? My portraits show an ugly fellow, but I am told I have some charm.”
“I—That is…”
“You dismay me. You are never at a loss for words. And yet you sit before me like a cow poleaxed before butchering.”
“Lovely comparison, sire.”
“That’s more like it. I’ll ask again. Does she dislike me?” Cards tripped from one hand to the other, lightning fast. Alice tried to forestall him.
“What did the cards tell you, Your Majesty?”
“You’re playing for time, Verney. Answer me.”
“I have no answer.”
“Does she talk of me?”
“No.”
He made a sound, gathered up the cards, and then spread out a few before him. He tapped a jack. “That’s Buckingham.” He tapped the queen of spades. “That’s Her Majesty. Interesting they should show up together. Have I brought her all this way for naught?” It was as if he were talking to himself. He turned over another card, then another. Then he looked directly at Alice. She felt pinned by the acute intelligence of his stare. “What’s a king to do, Verney?”
“Play the game slow, sir.” It was all she could think to say.
“I thought I was. Slower still? I thought there was an understanding of my interest, that her journey here was an acquiescence to hear my suit. Have I been misled?”
“I don’t know. I knew little or nothing—perhaps she, too—” The words came jerking out, making no sense, as it occurred to her how much she’d been duped, and by whom.
“Ah well, so little in life is straightforward, I’ve found, and people do prefer to lie to kings. It makes their life easier, truth being a disordered bitch. Speaking of which—” He whistled. “Come along, girls.”
Two ladies-in-waiting stopped their talk and glanced in his direction.
He smiled at them. “I refer to my dogs, of course.” He stood, as did the spaniels lying at his feet and around his chair. Alice hurried to stand, too, then dropped into a curtsy. Courtiers and spaniels followed him from the chamber.
Alice sat down the moment his back was turned. The little fox pawed and whined from behind the door that hid her, and Edward let her in. She ran to Alice and curled herself on her feet. My father, thought Alice. Up to his neck in this and telling me nothing. I will flay him alive. And then something else occurred to her. If Richard and Renée were not to marry…She shivered, and the queen’s little fox jumped up from her feet and ran to Edward, who was playing dice in a corner with another of the pages. She went to stare at herself in a pier glass. Her curls were thick and glossy, dark, just like her eyes. But she was no beauty. Richard could never prefer her in place of Renée….
And it didn’t matter anyway.
She would have Balmoral, no one else.
Her father always took the easier route, even if it meant betraying her. Why should her eyes fill with tears for that old truth? Because she was tired. Because she was running now on court air. Because Cleveland stalked her, and the queen had been treated treacherously, and she’d quarreled with Barbara.
This day was not done. There was a letter in her pocket that must be dealt with. And the queen’s note spoken of—but only to he whom she trusted. She thought again of Richard. Her mouth trembled. Tired, that’s all. Tiredness made things seem more important than they were. She couldn’t appear before Balmoral in hysterics, and they were there, crouched all low and tensed in her chest, in her throat. Made a fool of by her own f
ather. It wasn’t the first time, was it? She’d find a napping place, a hidden corner in this labyrinth of a palace she called home, and nap. Then she’d go to Balmoral.
“HE’S IN HIS closet with someone,” Edward whispered. “But I gave your coins to his majordomo, and he says he’ll make certain you have an interview.”
Alice wore a mask and a short cloak that came only to her shoulders; the hood framed her face and hid her hair. Rested now, her hysteria quieted, she looked mysterious and fashionable. She put a coin in Edward’s hand, and true to form, he took it.
“Shall I wait for you?” he asked. He had good instincts and knew something was brewing. She shook her head. He pointed to a man adding wood to the fire in this antechamber, where several others besides Alice were waiting. It was Riggs, the servant from His Grace’s country estate. “I gave him the coin. He’s the one who will inform the duke that you are waiting.”
“Thank you, Edward.”
Balmoral was standing at long windows that looked out onto St. James’s Park when Riggs ushered Alice inside. Every inch of the wall in this chamber was filled with paintings by Verrio or Holbein or Titian. Interspersed among them were ceremonial swords in ornate scabbards. Jade figurines stood atop cabinets. There was an elaborate and huge chimneypiece that took an entire wall, a suit of armor in a corner, such as a warrior of another century might have worn, but strange to Alice’s eyes, its helmet oddly formed, with horns coming out of it like a devil, the color of the armor a dull red, and the armor itself rounded, skirted, floating out at the shoulders. Balmoral gestured toward one high-backed stiff armchair, then sat in the other. She pushed back the hood, untied the mask.
He smiled at her. “Do you fear for your reputation?”
“I’d be honored to have my name linked with yours.” He pursed his lips, and Alice hurried on. “I wanted no one to know that I was visiting you. I come on a matter of great importance.” She handed him the letter.