Dark Angels

by Karleen Koen

  “No, of course not. King Charles tells me what to say. He finds this most amusing.”

  In his anger was growing alarm. The dark shoals and eddies of court, as Alice described it, the intrigue beneath the intrigue. You cannot imagine it, Richard, she said, and you mustn’t doubt it. Was it possible Renée was a Trojan horse, a pretense of love by King Charles to throw off the French? That he was jealous of a diplomatic game? He kicked away the offending cloak, pulled the stool close, sat, took the onyx figure of some goddess from her hands, kissed them passionately, wondering in spite of himself if King Charles’s lips had been before him. “Come with me to Tamworth for Christmas, away from all this. My mother invites you.” Marry me in Tamworth, was on his lips.

  “Oh, that would be lovely.”

  “You’ll come, then?”

  “Well…there’s to be a Christmas Eve revel, Richard, and I have the major part. There are special costumes being made, and we’ve begun to practice our dancing and singing. And the day after, we’re going to Windsor Castle, and there’s to be a feast and lord of misrule. Such as there hasn’t been since the old days, I’m told. Everyone is so excited.”

  He touched the fat pearl drop at her ear. “You didn’t win these at cards, did you.” She didn’t answer, watched him carefully, something in her withdrawing; he could feel it, a guard against him going up, which brought anger back. “Does King Charles love you?”

  “He says he does.”

  “And do you love him? Answer with an honest heart, Renée. You owe me that.”

  She threw her arms around him. “Don’t abandon me! Don’t! So many want me to do their bidding. You can’t imagine it…I won’t be able to be strong if you abandon me! I need you, Richard!” She was crying. “Don’t be angry. Don’t hate me. I can’t bear to be hated. I’m not bad.”

  He rubbed away tears with his thumbs, in him a mix of tenderness and rage that was killing. You haven’t said you loved me, he was thinking as he studied her face, the beauty of it, the broad brow, the full mouth. He kissed that mouth once and twice and three times, but then anger overcame tenderness, and he stopped. There had been excitement when she’d said the king loved her, a tiny spark of pride. Deep inside him, sadness pooled: It was ending, perhaps had ended, that which had been between them. She simply hadn’t the courage to tell him. The softness he adored was their downfall, and perhaps greed, but he didn’t want to accuse her of that. “I let you free of our engagement.”

  “What are you saying, Richard?”

  “If you don’t go to Tamworth with me, I consider our engagement at an end.”

  “It’s winter! The roads will be awful! I will be cold in the coach! It’s too far. I am to perform in a masque for His Majesty, for pity’s sake—”

  He stood.

  “You’re being unreasonable. Why are you being so mean and unreasonable, Richard?”

  He leaned over her in the chair, his mouth close to hers, so that their breaths mingled. “I will not be second after the king.”

  “But he’s the king! What can I do?”

  “Choose.”

  “I warned you, didn’t I, months ago? He admires me, I said, and you said, Of course he does. You allowed it!”

  “Are you making it my fault that you encourage him onward? No and no again! His anger or mine! It’s your choice! I won’t be second, not in this!”

  She had her soft arms around his neck, and she smelled like lavender and musk, and it would be so easy to lose himself in her touches, her kisses, her tears, her need that he not be angry. He managed to pull away.

  “I won’t be angry if you choose the king.” He surprised himself. Who spoke? Some stupid, noble part of himself. He didn’t mean the words, was going to call them back, but her face changed as she took in what he’d said. Dear God, he thought, in shock. I’ve sealed my fate.

  “I’ll always love you,” she was saying. “You will always be my dear and perfect and most understanding friend.”

  Blindly, he strode away, not knowing where he was going. It was over.

  CHAPTER 34

  The Final Week of Advent

  Alice frowned. “Tell him,” she managed calmly enough, “that I called. Is he anywhere near to…” She didn’t know how to ask what she wanted to know, but she and Riggs had become allies in their care of Balmoral. At least she had achieved that, the taking of the major rook on the chessboard of his household.

  “I would say another day,” Riggs said.

  “Good enough.”

  “I’m sorry, Mistress Verney.”

  She glanced at Riggs’s face, at the scar that made him seem sneering, yet he wasn’t. He felt pity for her. It was a shock to see that. She walked to the Stone Gallery, found a chair to curl up in. He’d had a fit only two weeks ago, a day or so after that madam died. It was too soon for another. Once a month she could manage, but twice or more? She looked down at her hands. When truth looks you in the face and says boo, pay attention, she told herself; if you marry him, this will be your life. Is a dukedom worth this? With the dignity and honors and pride of bearing his name will come this. Face it, she told herself, so there are no tears of self-pity later; but she guessed there would likely be tears anyway. Richard hadn’t given her a letter for Renée in over a week, hadn’t called to take Renée for a walk or tried to see her secretly. Was it ending? Had Richard ended it? Had Renée? She didn’t want his career hurt in this.

  Edward approached her. “Alice.”

  “Edward, my love. Sit down and tell me all the gossip.”

  “You look sad.”

  “Not me.”

  “There’s a new servant.”

  “Whose household?”

  “The queen’s.”

  “What does he look like?”

  “Wears a wig, yellow hair, strange looking.”

  That did not sound like Ange. “Let me slip on a mask, and I’ll go down to the open table and see.”

  “WE SAW A hanging,” Walter told Effriam as they walked over to the kitchen courtyard to eat. Tables were set up in the various kitchens of Whitehall for servants.

  “Tyburn Tree?”

  “Yes. Mr. and Mrs. Daniell and the whole family went. They wanted Nan to see it, to see this girl hanged for killing her baby.”

  Effriam thought about that awhile. There were things about the city that shocked him so that he couldn’t quite formulate thoughts about them. A girl at Tamworth had to sit shame in church several Sundays in a row for such a birth, but she’d also be taken in and cared for. “Nan doesn’t strike me as one who’d kill her child.”

  “Mrs. Daniell says girls get desperate toward the last. And the parish officers have been by. Who takes responsibility? they asked. Mr. Daniell said he would.”

  “He sounds like a decent man. Some fathers might throw their daughters to the streets.”

  They were at the kitchen court now, then down the stairs to the kitchens. Long plank tables sat end to end in the midst of a huge stone basement, and servants crowded at the benches drawn up to seat them. In the middle of the tables were trenchers filled with fresh-baked bread, and kitchen maids brought more right out of the fire on long wooden poles with a broad square on their end. Cauldrons of soup and stews bubbled, in pots big enough to hold Walter, at cavernous fireplaces. Servants were everywhere, eating, waiting to eat, or preparing trays to take to chambers in Whitehall.

  “This is a busy place,” Walter said.

  “It’s just one of the kitchens—Where are you heading off to?”

  “I forgot something. I’ll be back.”

  “We’ll get you a plate—”

  It was too late. Walter was out of sight, running up the stairs back to the kitchen courtyard. Effriam sighed. Servants had to bring their own plates and spoons and cups, but used ones were for sale or rent in a back room near the bakehouse, where he headed now. He hoped Walter found his way back. There was more than one kitchen, and rules were strict about who ate where. Some kitchens had open tables, meaning m
eals were part of pay, and some did not. Walter wouldn’t know that.

  Walter ran into the stall where Pharaoh was, the horse snorting at the sight at him, felt behind a pile of hay for the pail Richard had given him. Finding it, he dashed back down Whitehall Street in the direction of the kitchen, but there were several gates that opened to courtyards, and when he entered one he wasn’t sure it was the same courtyard he’d left. He walked toward arched porches, opened a door, and noise met his ears, mixed into the jumble and rattle of dishes and the smell of food. He ran down a set of stairs, disoriented—for this kitchen didn’t look as he remembered it—yet there was the same mix of milling people, the same huge fireplaces in the corners. He walked along the outside of the table, crowded with people, looking for Effriam. Had he eaten already? Gone back to the stables? Walter’s stomach growled. Everyone was eating a soup. It smelled so good. He saw where the big soup pot was, walked over, held out his pail.

  “I think not,” said a kitchen servant, looking him up and down. “Look at this one,” she said to servants around her. “He brought a pail. Who do you think you are? The Duke of York?”

  “It’s all I got. You don’t have to fill it all the way.” But that’s what he was hoping. He was going to take food to the Daniells.

  “I won’t,” she answered.

  A dollop of soup slopped in his pail, and he found a place against a stone column, which held up the roof of this basement. He sat on his haunches like a dog to drink it. At the crowded table, someone got up, and Walter quickly sat in his place and reached out for the bread. Across from him was the man, the Frenchman, the Englishman who spoke Italian and Gibberish. It took a moment to register because he looked so very odd, no eyebrows and frizzy false hair, yellow colored. Quick as a flash, Walter was up and away from the table. He found a stone column to hide behind and looked back. The man was standing now, too, looking around. Had he seen Walter? Heart beating, Walter hid behind the column again.

  “Whose kitchens are these?” he asked a passing servant.

  “The queen’s.”

  “I’m an undergroom—”

  “Those that work in the royal mews eat elsewhere, boy.”

  “Where?”

  “Through that door and you’re outside. Ask for Scotland Yard kitchen.”

  Walter fled. He had to find Effriam. And they had to find Captain Saylor.

  “ALL RIGHT,” SAID Alice, cloaked, masked, half hiding behind the huge stone columns that held up the kitchen ceiling. “Which one is he?”

  “There in the middle.”

  “Which one?”

  “I’ll go and stand behind him.”

  Edward did so. Henri Ange turned so suddenly, he startled Edward. “Do I know you?”

  “You don’t. I was just waiting for a place.”

  “Well, don’t stand so close behind me. I don’t like it, boy.”

  “Edward…” A page with Monmouth’s colors was sitting across the way. “This is Henry Jones.”

  “Hello, Henry,” said Edward.

  “Henry’s a friend of mine. His eyebrows got burned off in a fire—”

  Ange threw a piece of bread at the page. “No one cares. Be silent, young wretch.”

  Edward scurried away to Alice. “Well?”

  “I’m not certain,” Alice said. “He could be him, but he looks so…All right, my little bloodhound, I’m off to find Captain Saylor. You keep track of this one.”

  Alice climbed up a back stairway, her mind running in different directions. She was almost certain it was Ange, but he looked so odd, so dangerous. She didn’t remember thinking, on first sight of him, that he was dangerous looking. Where was Richard?

  RICHARD WAS IN the small chamber, working on Balmoral’s memoirs. Every now and then he heard shouting from inside the duke’s closet. Balmoral was roaring drunk. Richard copied words: “Soldiers ought to go into the field to conquer and not to be killed.” He wasn’t sleeping well. He wasn’t eating. One moment he thought he’d go crawling to Renée on bended knee, take whatever crumbs she threw. Another moment he felt he’d call the king out in a duel, never mind that he’d be sent to the Tower immediately. Thoughts of making a scene, humiliating her and His Majesty, even if he was banished, walked in his waking mind like dark crows. If he closed his eyes to sleep, visions embraced him, skulls on a battlefield, Neddie’s sightless eyes, Renée dancing naked in a field of corpses. The only thing that steadied him was prayer. In that he could be patient. Wait beside the Christ child, the precious Babe in certain faith that all will be well in the end. It may not end the way you desired, but it will end, and it will be well, so he had been taught. Barbara and John thought his going to Tamworth was a good idea. His mother would have a potion that would allow him to sleep dreamless. He longed for sleep without dreams. His saddlebags were packed; he had permission from Balmoral to take a month’s leave. He wanted to be at Tamworth, to burrow in at Tamworth, never mind the woods would be too muddy to walk in, the creek’s edge rimed with frost, the trees bare and stark, the great hall too cold to sit in even with fires blazing. It was home. The sound of something crashing in the chamber next to him interrupted his thoughts. He stood, went to the door of the closet, knocked. “Is everything well?”

  He put his ear against the door. He could hear voices. Balmoral wasn’t alone. Yes, there must be a keeper. Of course.

  “Richard.” Alice stood in the doorway.

  He began to move papers so that she might sit down.

  “Richard, I think Henri Ange is here.”

  Everything in him went still. “Where?”

  “At the queen’s open table. Oh, Richard, he’s shaved off his eyebrows, and he looks odd…evil. He has a bad yellow wig…. I don’t know, it may not even be him—”

  “Summon the queen’s bodyguard, Alice. At least five men and a lieutenant.” He strapped on his sword. “Tell them to meet me there. And alert the Life Guard not to leave Their Majesties unguarded for even a moment. Hurry now!”

  He raced down the alley and out into the street, running under Holbein Gate and out into Whitehall Street. He ran through the palace gate and across the courtyard and into the kitchen buildings, into the queen’s kitchen, to the basement space where the open table was. Quietly, he moved behind a brick column. He faced a servant talking with several pages, Edward among them. Richard took a long look. Was that Ange? Impossible, and yet…He stepped from behind the column and walked forward. The man who might be Henri Ange looked up, and Richard looked into his eyes and knew it was he.

  “Henri Ange, I arrest you in the name of His Majesty King Charles.”

  A page or two gaped up at Richard. Edward at once moved away. Ange stood.

  “Who is this Henri?” he said in a flat English accent.

  “I arrest you in the name of the king. Come forward, please.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Walter and Effriam were running into the kitchen. In that split second, Ange was on his feet and heading to the stairs that led upward to the courtyard. Walter stepped in front of him, and Ange pushed him hard to the ground and ran past him. In the next second, Richard was running after him.

  Outside, Ange ran toward what was called Scotland Yard, the huge courtyard where the practical business of Whitehall was carried out, where the buttery was located and the charcoal house and the wharf for landing supplies, where the fish larder was and the poulterers, surveyors, porters, glaziers, masons, where officials and lesser courtiers had tiny ground- and first-floor chambers and were glad of them.

  In the queen’s kitchen, there was confusion and shouting. The guards Richard had summoned had arrived, but Richard was not to be seen.

  “Which way?” asked a lieutenant.

  “I’ll show you!” shouted Edward. He set off at a run, followed by the small troop of guards, followed by Walter and Effriam, and now by Alice, too.

  Ange ran out onto Whitehall Street, ran among carriages and sedan chairs, back toward King Street on the other side of Hol
bein Gate. He’ll lose me in Devil’s Acre, thought Richard. Devil’s Acre was a nest of hovels and houses and alleys near the great abbey. There was a ferry that crossed the river farther down.

  Richard took a deep breath and redoubled his effort. And as fast as Ange was, Richard was faster. He ran straight into Ange, sent him sprawling into curious bystanders. Ange leaped up, tore himself loose from Richard’s grasp, and ran through Holbein Gate, snatching a sword from a bemused watcher who’d unsheathed one to help. By now, the small troop of bodyguards was close behind, and guards from other troops—the Life Guards, Prince Rupert’s guard, Monmouth’s, York’s, off duty and on—had joined in. Two guardsmen had stationed themselves at the end of King Street, pikes crossed. Ange would have to get by them to gain the warren of hovels or the ferry. He stopped, looking back toward Richard and forward to the pikemen. Richard slowed, wary, not trusting him. Ange had lost his wig in the chase, and he looked like something that wasn’t quite human; but he smiled, and the old charm was there.

  “Give me the sword,” Richard said to him.

  “We never fought, did we?”

  “It was d’Effiat I wanted to kill.”

  “First blood? Either way”—Ange motioned to the guards around them—“you win.”

  Why not, thought Richard, a formidable rage in him, compounded by the memory of Madame’s death, this man’s arrogance, grief and anger at Renée, at King Charles, at the simple treacheries that were as common as clover here. “First blood. Stand back,” Richard called to the soldiers. “Open the garden gate. We’ll fight there.”

  “What are you doing?” asked the lieutenant in his bodyguard.

  “Settling a score.” Richard followed Henri into the privy garden, and men crowded in behind him, Alice among them.

  “First blood drawn, and the duel is over,” Richard called out. “First blood, and we end it. He goes to the Tower no matter what. Is that clear?”

  “They’re dueling,” said Edward excitedly to the group of pages who had run along with the soldiers and would not have missed this for the world. “The king will be angry.” King Charles enforced laws against dueling, trying to keep his young, hot-blooded, pleasure-seeking court alive.