by Karleen Koen
“Look at her. The empress is happy tonight,” said Hugh.
“Who is he?” asked Walter.
“Her new love.”
“Feel here.” Nan put Walter’s hand on her middle, where there was a slight hardening. Nan was his best friend; she and her sisters washed the sheets and emptied chamber pots and cleaned the chimney of ashes and built the fire again. She wasn’t a whore, but one of Madame Neddie’s customers had done this to her, held her down and taken her, and now there was a child growing. “You know what this is?”
Walter nodded.
“I might as well throw myself off this roof.”
“It will be all right. I’ll take care of you.”
“Walter!” Madame Neddie called to him. When Walter came forward, she caressed his face. “You’re going to be a handsome lad. All the better. Go and fetch us another bottle, sweetling.”
Walter returned with the champagne. The cook and door porter were on the rooftop now, the last of the customers gone, except those too drunk to move. They lay snoring in beds Madame Neddie kept for just such occasions, clean sheets, pillows stuffed with feathers and lavender, the best.
“What’s that you was talking to her?” Walter asked the man with Madame Neddie.
“Italian,” Madame Neddie said. She leaned into the man’s shoulder and sighed.
“You Italian?” Walter asked.
“No,” the man said. “As English as you. It’s just a game I play. I speak in gibberish, and she thinks it’s Italian.”
Neddie slapped at his arm. “It is Italian.”
The man winked at Walter. “Sure it is, love.”
Walter went back to stand with Nan, put his hand on her arm. “Let’s go look at the fire.”
They ran down the stairs and out into the night, braving bully boys who prowled in gangs. The fire was down Fleet Street, close to the ditch that ran to the river, close to the prisons. Walter made out a line of guards around a burning building that had collapsed in on itself, saw Captain Saylor, without his coat, smears of soot on his face and shirt, shouting orders. Guards had formed a line, were passing buckets of water from the ditch to the fire.
“I know him,” Walter said to Nan. “He’s my friend. A soldier. Stay here.”
He ran to Richard. The fire was loud, cracking and roaring, like a demon eating bones. “Sir,” he said to Richard.
“Not now. Go away, Walter.”
“Yes, sir.”
RICHARD TROTTED HIS horse back to Whitehall, half the queen’s bodyguard marching behind him. So much for the first unexpected event. They hadn’t done badly, had obeyed orders, two of the three lieutenants even showing initiative. In front of the Horse Guards building, he said to them, “Assemble in one hour.” He handed his horse to his groom.
At the door of his chamber, he paused rather than throwing open the door, hit it hard a time or two with his fist. John opened it. Barbara sat on his narrow bed, fully dressed, feet tucked up under her. There on the table was a freshly baked loaf of bread and some cheese. John went to the fire, began to pour out some warmed ale from a pail in the ashes. Richard’s mouth watered at the smell of the bread. Barbara began to slice it, steam rising with each cut. “How did you manage this?” he asked her.
“One of the queen’s cooks has a fondness for Barbara,” answered John.
“Why am I not surprised?”
“And she fetched it herself moments ago.”
Richard stuffed his mouth with the bread and cheese. John brought the warmed ale, and they shared the tankard.
“Was there hurt?” asked Barbara.
“A house burned to the ground because they were French Catholic. There are perhaps four dead. Someone told me the apprentices were dancing around their fire earlier, shouting that Queen Catherine was a daughter of the pope. They threw pitched torches at the house. Those who died were French, but they’d been here twenty years.”
“I’m to be baptized in a week,” John said.
Richard drained the tankard, gave himself a moment. “Not the best of times.”
“Will you dance at our wedding?” asked Barbara.
He looked from one to the other. “What’s this?”
“It’s to be a private baptism and then a wedding.”
“You waste no time. Throw in a christening, and you can be done with it.”
Barbara blushed a fiery color.
“Wait about seven months,” said John.
Barbara put up her hands to cover her cheeks. “He’ll think me wanton, John.”
“I think you dear. You could do nothing to mar my admiration of you. And I thank God something pushed you to put this man out of his misery, even if it had to be seduction.”
“You’re glad, then, Richard?” Barbara asked him.
“With all my heart.”
“I’ll tell your servant to fetch you water, and then I’ll walk my lady home,” said John. Barbara kissed Richard’s cheek, and they were out his door.
Richard sighed. He could wish his cousin something other than Catholic…. That thought brought him to Renée, who was Catholic, too, but Richard would never ask her to change her faith. He thought of various things they would do their marriage night…. It was a good thing the water his servant brought was ice cold. Richard whistled as he washed his face, pulled off his shirt, and found a clean one.
KING CHARLES AND Prince Rupert had finished their game of tennis and walked into St. James’s Park so the king’s dogs might relieve themselves. King Charles made his way to the long landscape canal he’d had built the first years of his reign, began feeding his ducks. Prince Rupert had gone to inspect the lime trees but quickly reappeared by the king’s side. “There’s a drill going on in the tilt yard!”
“You’ve dreamed it. Or it’s Cromwell’s ghost,” answered King Charles.
“No such thing. It’s young Saylor. He is actually drilling the queen’s bodyguards.”
“Mind the dogs,” King Charles told a page, and walked with Prince Rupert to the outside stairs that led them up and then across top floors of Holbein Gate. They climbed stairs until they could peer down into the tilt yard and watched as the queen’s bodyguard ran at wooden dummies with their pikes—long wooden weapons with a pointed steel head. The men formed small defensive squares, the sharp tips of their pikes pointed toward the imaginary cavalry charging. The tilt yard had once been the scene of many a Tudor tournament, when tournaments were the fashion.
“Stand still, my beating heart,” said Prince Rupert.
“You ought to join them,” said King Charles. “I might obtain a better game of tennis out of you.”
“At ease,” called a sergeant.
“Let them sleep until noon,” they heard Richard tell the lieutenant. “Then march them into London to relieve those guarding the house. And everyone is to be here tomorrow an hour after dawn.”
King Charles walked back down the stairs to a gate in the wall surrounding the yard. Once inside, he sauntered forward, and surprised soldiers at once formed a line to salute him.
“They told me in Tangier you ran the regiment for half a year,” he said.
“Colonel Dillion was quite ill,” answered Richard.
“Mad enough for Bedlam, you mean,” said Prince Rupert.
Richard was silent. He didn’t speak of those days ever.
“I don’t think I was told the half,” said King Charles, who had been watching Richard’s face.
“The Moors are fierce fighters,” said Richard.
“Was much burned in London?”
“One lodging, and some who lived there died in the fire. I thought we would stand guard until this evening, make certain nothing else catches.”
“It’s the damned embers,” said Prince Rupert. “Spread them thin and damp them with water. I thought the fire of ’66 would never die out.”
“I’m sorry for the deaths. You’ll make a full report to Balmoral, and we’ll see what we can do. How does your mother?” asked King Charles.
“Very well, sire.”
“When next you write her, pray send my regards.”
Richard bowed.
Prince Rupert and the king walked out of the tilt yard, crossing the wide expanse of street before the banqueting house. Servants and pages were scurrying with firewood or coals, with trays of food from various kitchens, as the palace awoke. This was the king’s favorite time of day, fresh, clean, the possibility that anything might happen still real, and the workers, the drones, as he liked to think of those up with him, about and buzzing.
“I like that lad,” said Prince Rupert.
“That’s a man, not a lad.”
“I heard there was a mutiny, hushed up.”
“His father had both legs broken at the battle of Worchester, made Wilmot prop him against a wall and gather up pistols so that he might pick off Roundheads while I escaped. I’ll never forget the sight of him singing a ballad as his manservant handed him primed pistols, Roundhead pikemen in front of him as far as the eye could see. He wouldn’t let us take him with us. They didn’t cut off his head because they hadn’t time; they were so close to capturing me. I’m told Jerusalem Saylor walked through the battlefield, turning over every body until she found his. She put him in a cart and carried him home to die, cursing any Roundhead patrol that tried to stop her. And he lived, God bless him.”
Prince Rupert crossed himself. “Did you ever see him again?”
“No. And then his three children showed up one day, every one of them with some version of that red gold hair of their mother’s—Norsemen’s blood somewhere there.” They were silent awhile, their footsteps echoing in the courtyard they now crossed.
“I hear the Vikings liked to cut their enemy’s heart from his chest and eat it raw.”
“Do you, now? Is that a warning?”
“Do you need warning?”
King Charles smiled and didn’t answer.
ALICE TOOK THE nosegay she’d requested from one of the king’s gardeners, marched across the privy garden, across Whitehall Street, down the alley that led to the part of the palace where the Duke of Balmoral had his apartments, Poll following.
“He is not receiving visitors,” a footman told her.
“I wish to see his majordomo.”
And when Will Riggs appeared: “I wish to give these to His Grace the Duke of Balmoral.”
“He isn’t receiving visitors.” The scar on Riggs’s face drew it up on one side.
“I am not a visitor. Take me at once to His Grace.”
“That isn’t possible, ma’am.”
Whom did he think he was talking to? A tradesman? “Don’t tell me what is possible. He may be more ill than anyone can imagine. I want to see him.”
“I have very strict orders—”
Alice moved around him and walked up the stairs.
“Please, Mistress Verney, he has asked that no one be allowed in. He has these fits often and never desires company.”
Alice turned around midstair, so that Riggs all but bumped right into her. As it was, they were nose to nose on the stairway. “Are you telling me that he has fits often and sees no one? He might die. He might be dead even as we speak.” She continued her march up the stairs.
Riggs moved around and ahead of her. “I cannot possibly allow this, ma’am. Do forgive me. Please. I will take him the nosegay myself, I vow it.”
Alice walked by him, through the presence chamber, the bedchamber, Riggs before and around her, hovering like an anxious, oversize hornet. At the door of the duke’s closet, she slapped her open palm against the door twice. “It’s Alice Verney, Your Grace. I’ve come to—”
The door opened.
With a triumphant glance at the majordomo, she stepped inside. Balmoral remained at the door, swaying as if there were a great wind. “Who is it?” he asked, his words slurred.
“Alice, Alice Verney. Are you all right? Shall we send for a physician?”
“Physician, heal thyself.” He stepped back and caught himself on the intricate marbled mantelpiece jutting out two feet from the wall. “Now I am a great boy. I’m fit to serve the king,” he sang a folk song, “I can handle a musket, and I can smoke a pipe, and I can kiss a pretty girl at twelve o’clock at night.”
Her sense of triumph withered. Alice met the eyes of Riggs, who had remained just inside the door. His Grace Edmund Colefax, the first Duke of Balmoral, was drunk to the point of not knowing what he did.
“I brought you flowers.” Alice put them down quietly upon a table. Papers were scattered on it and pots of ink. He’d been writing or trying to write. There was ink over the cambric shirt he wore. “I interrupted your writing.”
“Writing memories—no—that’s not right, memoirs, battle instructions, such-like, war, you know, fighting, war, blood everywhere, is this blood on my shirt, is that you, little Alice, sweet Alice, who is bleeding, you or me?”
Alice picked up one of the sheets of paper. It was indeed some kind of warrior’s memoir, but the ink was blotted and the handwriting wild and difficult to read. She placed the paper back on a random pile. “I will come and visit again, Your Grace,” she said softly.
He crumpled, half falling, half sliding down the side of the mantelpiece. Riggs knelt at once to see to him. Alice left the closet, and Riggs followed her into the bedchamber.
She turned on him, dark eyed, heartsick. “Are these his fits?”
“I am not at liberty to say, ma’am.”
“What if he falls and hits his head?”
“I stay with him, ma’am.”
“Until?”
“He goes to sleep, as he’s just done.”
“And when he wakes?”
Riggs shook his head, sighed.
“How often does he have these…fits?”
“Not often, now, ma’am.”
Now? “How often?”
“Once a month or so.”
“I will call upon him tomorrow.”
“He won’t receive you tomorrow.”
“I will call upon him tomorrow. You will tell him that I called upon him today and appreciated his kindness in receiving me.”
Riggs opened his mouth to protest, but Alice cut him off. “Not a word from you. Good day.”
Halfway down the stairs, she stopped, turned around, walked back up, found Riggs in the closet, lifting Balmoral in his arms. She stood to one side as he laid the duke on his canopied bed, propped pillows behind him so he was almost sitting. Balmoral was as limp as if he were dead. “How long have you served him?”
Riggs sighed, as if wondering why this particular plague were being visited upon his house at this particular time. “Years now. I was his body servant when he was a lieutenant colonel. But that was long ago.”
“Very good. Good day to you, Riggs. Don’t forget my message.”
He opened his mouth, shut it again. It was just as well. Alice was already out the door.
Downstairs, she walked past a formal chamber where there was a huge painting of His Grace on one wall. It drew her in. It was taller than her and half the width of the room. It had been painted years earlier; he stood in his battle armor, a sword in one hand, a helmet with plumes in the other, against bloodred draperies that floated behind him and partially obscured a distant scene of London, with its many church spires, its bridge across the Thames River. At his feet was a curling map of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, architect’s tools strewn near balanced scales of Justice. Her heart hurt. She put her hand against it and stared up at the painting’s face—he was a legend in the court, one of the architects of the Restoration, important enough to ride directly behind His Majesty during the entrance to London ten years ago, crowds cheering, women weeping, her father among the riders, and she in new clothes of silver lace and pearl buttons watching from a window. He was captain general of the army during the last Dutch war, and there’d been an inquiry into his conduct and decisions, because the Dutch had sailed down the Thames and set fire to any number of warships.
He and York had been questioned. Had he been drunk on the morning of the attack, this captain general, this great duke, the last of the old soldiers who’d once ruled this kingdom?
She’d sail in tomorrow in spite of his anger and the way his body would be feeling. She’d sail in as if she were expected, welcomed. She’d be kind, and sprightly, and not say a word of what she’d witnessed. If he could trust that she wouldn’t lecture or moralize, that she didn’t care, he would see she would keep his secrets, the way he kept hers. He would marry her.
What would she do when he touched her?
Bear it. Remember what once he’d been, something honorable and brave. Was still, except broken. She, too, was brave. She could bear anything to be a duchess, to be his duchess, to have the honor of bearing his name. Startled by wet upon her cheeks, she put a hand to her face. Who was this in her who wept? How strange. But no stranger than that a hero of the Restoration—His Majesty’s greatest general—should have come to this.
CHAPTER 29
Queen Elizabeth’s Ascension Day, St. Catherine’s Day,
November’s end
In a small chamber off the queen’s chapel at St. James’s Palace, Father Huddleston dipped his fingers in the holy water of the chancel, touched them to John Sidney’s forehead. “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, I do baptize you.”
Nearby, Barbara sobbed into a handkerchief, Gracen on one side, Renée standing on the other, Richard beside her. Queen Catherine was there, and the Duke and Duchess of York, Lord and Lady Arlington, and the king.
“Another drops like a fly,” King Charles leaned over to whisper to his brother. “You’re not apostatizing are you?”
York was stiff. “It’s the true faith and has its own lure. As you know so well.”
When did you and I stop laughing together? King Charles thought, watching his brother keep his eyes upon the baptism. He knew the answer—when Buckingham began to meddle. King Charles observed his brother blow his nose loudly into a huge kerchief and wipe surreptitiously at his eyes. Altar boys began to arrange Communion. Father Huddleston moved to the altar railing, and King Charles watched as his wife hushed Barbara, wiped her cheeks, kissed them, and presented her with a wedding bouquet of winter’s hothouse roses and rosemary. Then John and Barbara, with Gracen and Richard, Queen Catherine and York, moved to stand before Father Huddleston.