by Karleen Koen
“Not even Mistress Verney?”
A few moments later, Riggs ushered Alice into Balmoral’s closet. She wore her mask and short, hooded cloak, which told him at once that something had occurred.
“A moment only, Your Grace. It is of great importance.”
She sat in a chair whose arms and legs were twisting serpents of wood carved by Grinling Gibbons. At the ends of the arms, each serpent’s mouth held a small, darkly grained apple. If one looked closely, one could see that at the ends of the tails were tiny women, long hair flowing into more serpents. Alice untied her mask, let back the hood of her cloak. Her face was pale. “I’ve seen Henri Ange.”
“Our dark angel? Where?”
“Here. Last night, at the fete. He danced with me, but I did not know it was he. We’d not taken off our masks yet. Why did you not come to the fete, Your Grace? I was vain enough to think I might tempt you to one dance.”
He ignored the irrelevant. “What did he say to you?”
“Nothing of any importance. A hello, a good-bye.”
“My word, he has his gall.”
“He frightens me.”
“Let me summon the captain of the queen’s bodyguard. Will you have some refreshment, Mistress Verney? Some wine or a cordial? There’s a sherry from Portugal of which I am particularly fond.” He gestured toward the open doors of the cabinet, toward the beautiful decanter, its own kind of sweetest poison within.
She refused, and they waited in silence, she too upset and he too irritable for words, until there was a knock upon the door.
“Enter.”
Richard walked in, and Alice’s eyes widened. He bowed to her as she clapped her hands. “But this is delightful! Oh, you’ve made a wise choice, Your Grace. Lieutenant—I mean, Captain Saylor—showed such care in France. He—”
“He gave service before France and after. I believe myself quite capable of judging a soldier’s mettle, Mistress Verney.” He turned to Richard. “Mistress Verney saw an angel last night, Captain.”
“Henri Ange. He danced with me. I had no idea it was he. Then he spoke to me in French, and I knew. He wanted me to know.”
“He’s daring us to catch him. It’s a game,” said Richard.
“Captain, you will put the queen’s bodyguard on high alert. A taster is in place for both Their Majesties. They’ll take nothing, absolutely nothing, from anyone’s hand but his.”
“I will speak with the captains of Prince Rupert’s guard, His Majesty’s, York’s, Monmouth’s. Ask them to be alert to any strangers, any Frenchmen,” said Richard.
“He won’t be a Frenchman,” said Alice. “Last night he spoke as if he’d been found in a cradle in the rushes of the Thames.”
“Then an alert to any strangers—”
“And a description of him,” cut in Alice.
Balmoral watched them, their youth, something in them sparking off each other. Saylor had been tested in Tangier, hadn’t he? And done very well on his little missions in France. If the queen died, the young soldier would be ruined. A pity—but so be it. “I wish him captured alive, Captain. I will be satisfied with nothing else. You will report to me on a daily basis.”
“Yes, sir.”
Balmoral closed his eyes at a sudden dizziness and took a step backward, a half stagger. Richard caught him by the arm. “Your Grace!”
“It’s nothing. Call my man. And leave me.”
“Let me stay,” said Alice.
“Leave me.”
Richard waited with Alice in the bedchamber as she retied her mask, fingers fumbling, and pulled up the hood of her cloak. “I don’t want to leave him,” she said.
“Do you—have you feelings for His Grace?”
“Yes. Richard, please, let us work together on this. I will tell you anything I gather. Will you do the same for me? You may have all the glory of it. I just want to make certain Her Majesty survives.”
“As do I.” He held out his hand to her, and she shook it before hurrying away.
Alice and Balmoral, thought Richard. Well and well and well again.
CHAPTER 26
A court page walked across the open courtyard of Whitehall’s wood yard. Henri Ange, leaning against a wooden pillar, straightened.
“You there,” he called.
The page turned. “Sir?”
“I’ve lost my way. I’ve come to see the queen dine in state.” Henri held up a coin. “That’s for any clever boy who can show me my way out of this place.” He nodded his head to the piles of stacked firewood and dark piles of charcoal under the porches on each side of him.
“She doesn’t dine in state today. On Sundays at three of the clock, sir. And you’ll need to go past the guards at the banqueting hall.”
“Do I need a ticket?”
“No. Just a clean coat.”
Henri nodded his head toward the colored sash around the boy’s waist. “Are you a queen’s page?”
“No, I belong to the Duke of Monmouth’s household. The queen’s pages wear green hose and ribbons.”
“Green. Very good. Thank you, boy.”
The page held up the coin. “Thank you.”
Henri smiled. “Where do you think I see a bear baiting?”
“On the south bank, sir. That’s where you’ll find them.”
“I’ve heard they’re fearful.”
“That’s what I hear, too.”
“Never seen one?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, seeing as I’ve never seen one and you’ve never seen one, and I’m new to this great city, what about you showing me my way about and the pair of us going?”
“You’d take me to a bear baiting?”
“Unless that’s wrong. I hadn’t thought of that. Am I wrong to offer it?”
“No.” The boy put out his hand. “John Howard.”
“Henry Jones.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mister Jones.”
That made two of them.
CHAPTER 27
November
Please to remember the fifth of November, the gunpowder treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot.
Queen Catherine sat at her embroidery stand, colored threads and boxes of beads jumbled in a cloth bag nearby. Maids of honor chatted and played cards. Afire roared in the fireplace. A page played a guitar. It was the month of rain, of fog, of branches bare, naked to leaden skies. It was the month of Guy Fawkes Day, Queen Elizabeth’s Ascension Day, St. Catherine’s Day. Needle poised, as it had been for some time, the queen stared down at the pattern, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. In her mind, she wrestled with what to do.
“Ma’am,” said Frances, her lady-in-waiting, “Lady Brey is here to speak privately with you and Mrs. Brownwell.”
“Send for Brownwell.”
Frances shooed the others from the chamber, ushered in Lady Brey. Queen Catherine put down the needle she couldn’t seem to pull through fabric and waited as Alice’s aunt marched toward her purposely, began speaking even as she curtsied.
“You will forgive me, ma’am, if I speak frankly, but I know no other way. I’m not pleased with the way my niece, Alice Verney, is being overseen. At Monmouth’s fete, I found her sprawled on the floor and, if I am not mistaken, drunk.”
Queen Catherine was silent.
“It is the duty of the mother of the maids to protect the reputation of the girls she oversees. Alice must make a proper marriage, and if her reputation is spoiled, that will not be possible. I am most upset, most displeased. I’ve half a mind to withdraw her from court.”
“We protect the maidens.”
Lady Brey made a dismissive sound. The king set the tone of the court, and everyone knew it, the king and a queen who had power. This one had none.
Dorothy Brownwell, out of breath, entered the privy chamber, hurrying to curtsy before the queen. “A thousand pardons, Your Majesty. Lady Brey, how do you do? I apologize for my tardiness.”
“L
ady Brey has no happy with care of the maids.” Queen Catherine was cold, tiny and frowning and cold.
“My concern is with one maid only, and that is my niece, Alice Verney. My sister died giving birth to her, so I feel a special responsibility, and of course she had to grow up like a gypsy before her father returned with her to England, and I quite fret for her. I encountered her drunk at Monmouth’s fete, and I am here to make certain that such does not happen again.”
“There must be some mistake,” said Dorothy. “Mistress Verney is decorous, I do assure you. Not that she doesn’t get into—what I mean to say is that she is quite lively, to be certain, but drunkenness is not one of her—”
“I know what I saw.”
“We protect the maidens,” Queen Catherine repeated stubbornly. “Good day, Lady Brey.”
Dismissed, Lady Brey curtsied abruptly and left the chamber. It was clear she was not pleased.
“Oh dear,” said Dorothy once the door was closed behind her.
“Perhaps you watch a little closer.”
Dorothy blinked with surprise.
“Not so much time with Lord Knollys, heh?”
Dorothy caught her breath.
“Someone, they tell me, not one, but more times. Whisperers of court, they look for bad. The reputation of a woman, she is all she has. Go.”
Dorothy left the chamber, eyes blinking with tears, a fury working itself up into something fierce. How dare Her Majesty fuss at her! She could do nothing! The king moved among the maids as if they were his personal harem. A proper queen would stop it. For her to criticize—she did the best she could in impossible circumstances!—well, it was too much, really it was. What were they saying about her and Knollys? That she ran after him, that she made a fool of herself over him? A woman became lonely. A woman became afraid. A woman became older. Oh, why didn’t his wife just die so she could leave this position where she was clearly unappreciated? Watch a little closer. Was she just to sashay up to the king and say, No, go away, sir? It’s a maid of honor, sir, mustn’t touch, sir? Respect, sir, you do remember what that means? Oh, that would be pretty. Before Renée it had been Frances, and before Frances it had been Winifred, and before Winifred it had been…she couldn’t even remember the name. Running after Knollys!
She slammed the door to her chambers shut with a bang, sat down in a chair, and cried until she could cry no more, then found the last bit of cake in her cupboard and ate every crumb.
BARBARA SLIPPED AWAY with Gracen and a maidservant to visit the famed astrologer Ashmole. They walked down streets where boys and apprentices piled lumber and hay into high mounds that would be burned this night, the night of Guy Fawkes, along with effigies of the pope. When they found Ashmole’s lodging, his servant said to Gracen, “If the young lady would be so kind as to wait here.”
“I’ll join mademoiselle.” Gracen was as imperious as a queen.
“No, I’ll be fine, indeed I will,” said Barbara.
Elias Ashmole bowed to her and opened a door to a more private, smaller chamber, and Barbara went inside. Gracen made a face at the maidservant who’d accompanied them and began to prowl the place she was left in, several chairs, a table covered with a Turkey carpet, a bed with fine hangings, stars and moons embroidered upon them. She went to a cabinet, made of wood stained ebony, and tried to open one of its doors, but it was locked. She sighed, went back to the table. There was a pack of cards. She sat down and began to play solitaire.
In the other chamber, Barbara shivered inside her cloak and drew it closer. Ashmole’s eyes didn’t miss the movement. She gave him nothing else to draw upon. Her cloak covered her clothing, and a mask covered her face from forehead to chin. Her voice, however, was young. He continued to shuffle the cards, biding his time. They sat in a chamber that had been tinted a blue just verging on black. Planets and stars were painted upon the walls. Even the windows were painted over. The only light was the branch of candles on the table between them. The air was close. Bathing seemed to have no part in Ashmole’s telling of fortunes.
“You told my fortune at All Hallows’,” Barbara said. Don’t tell too much, advised Gracen. Make him work for his coins.
“I told many fortunes that night,” Ashmole answered smoothly, watching her.
“I’d hear mine again.”
He was silent, shuffling the cards. At last he began to place them upon the cloth of the table. He put seven down, turned one over. “Fortunate in love.”
She made no movement, but he could feel her smile. He turned over two more, said nothing, turned over the rest. Quickly he picked up the cards, reshuffled them, and dealt out seven again. He turned three of them over. Now he knew exactly who she was—the laughing lovely who would die soon.
“Mademoiselle has a wonderful life ahead,” he said, pulling the cards back into the deck. “She will live a long life, surrounded by children and then grandchildren, and her husband will prosper. It’s in the cards.”
“They say I’ll die, don’t they?”
He never answered questions like that, no matter what the cards said. “No such thing. They promise—”
“How much for truth? I’ve brought guineas, gold guineas. How many of them will it take for you to tell me the truth?”
“What is truth, mademoiselle? An imp, a wisp, changing from moment to moment, ephemeral, hard to grasp.”
She put a guinea on the table. Even her hands were gloved. But he knew who she was. It was rare to see a woman who had so marked a fate. She and the young man were deep in love. Time would never mar that. There would be no opportunity. So her beloved would always remember her with blazing love. She was fortunate in that, at least. He took the guinea and smiled, showing missing teeth, reshuffled cards, laid them out. “I see long life, happiness, oh, perhaps a quarrel or two, but a—”
Barbara touched the Death card with the tip of a gloved finger. “It shows every time. It did the same before. I saw your surprise. You shuffled the deck three times before you would talk with me. You did that with no one else.”
“Because your future is so handsome, I had to do it over to believe it. Travels, your husband will travel in his life, but you—”
“Tell me this, at least. Will my child live?”
“Oh, you’ll have many children. And that husband, he’ll travel to faraway places, the empire of China, the mountains of India…” On and on he went, describing the full life she would have, telling her how many boys, how many girls she would birth, telling her whatever came into his head, telling her everything but what she came to hear. Her silence was a presence, rebuking him, but he ignored it. At last she stood, dignity in her movements. At the door, words came from him that he would later ponder. Perhaps the dignity forced them. “She will live.”
She opened the door and closed it silently behind her.
He sat where he was. What had made him speak? There was so much that was unseen by most. The child wouldn’t live, nor would her beautiful mother, who had always known this. He’d seen it the other night in her eyes, staring at him through her pretty mask, felt it from the spirits, which hovered over her and showed themselves to him. There was much sorrow in this life, his fate to see it, but not necessarily to tell.
“YOU’VE NOT SPOKEN a single word since you came out of his chamber. What did he say?”
Barbara didn’t answer, just kept walking, head down, as Gracen and the servant hurried to keep up with her. When they finally entered the maids of honor’s apartments, she took off her cloak, untied her mask, found her rosary beads, and said sharply to Gracen, “When Alice comes, send her to me, please.”
“Where will you be?”
“In the queen’s oratory.”
Gracen stretched out a hand. “Let me—”
“Do as I say.”
Gracen pulled back her hand, her face mutinous, but also sad.
RICHARD WALKED DOWN Whitehall until he was at the mews, the vast royal stables that were just on the other side of Charing Cross, the interse
ction where Whitehall, Strand, and Cockspur streets met. Grooms and stable boys, street vendors and sedan men, liked to loiter about the base of the statue of the king’s father at the center of the intersection. He walked into the stable yard, into a barn of horse stalls, down the alley between the stalls, opened one, and his horse snorted at him, nudged his shoulder as he walked closer. “Hey, old man, I got here as soon as I could. I’m busy these days.” He found a brush, began to curry the horse’s coat, even though it was gleaming, began to whistle.
“Is that your horse?”
Richard saw the boy from Madame Neddie’s standing on the other side of the stall door. He seemed thinner than Richard remembered, more awkward and young. “How’d you find me?”
“Soldiers like yourself have horses. Horses have to be stabled. I waited at the statue until I saw you.”
Richard slapped Pharaoh’s rump. “Do you hear that? He tracked us down. You have the makings of a spy, Etienne, isn’t it?”
“It’s really Walter.”
Richard brushed Pharaoh’s neck a stroke or two. “Outside the door, down a bit, is a barrel of dried apples. Get one,” Richard told him, and when Walter was back, “Walk slowly toward the horse, holding out the apple so he can smell it…Let him have it…Now pet his nose. Pharaoh, meet really Walter. Really Walter, this is Pharaoh, the strongest horse in His Majesty’s stables, won the King’s Cup at Newmarket this summer. Here, make yourself useful. Brush his mane. Have you ever brushed a horse? Steady and firm. Pharaoh likes it if you pat him once in a while and talk to him. I tell him my troubles.”
“What does he answer?”
“To stop whining and brush him properly and then take him for a gallop. You have to mind not stepping behind him because he’ll kick you. Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“What time must you return?”
“Before dark.”
“Good enough. We’ll get you back before dark. Get on with it. I’m hungry. Have you seen that man about?”