by Karleen Koen
Ange was silent.
“I have it,” said Balmoral. “I’ll gather all your coins and your little turtledove and keep the coin in my purse and your love in the Tower, and if you come back, you can have them. If not…” He shrugged.
“I need time to think.”
“No.”
“Yes, then.”
Balmoral walked to the door, which opened at his tap upon it. Ange made a small movement, and the rope around his neck tightened fast enough to make him fall over. “Paper and pen,” Balmoral told the guard. He came back and sat down, regarding the man at his feet. “No one works a rope like Joshua. You might call him an artist.”
When the ink and paper were brought, Balmoral said, “You write your little sweetheart another letter. Tell him to bring all the coins and himself. The day I have him, I allow you France.”
Ange scratched out a note.
“Add, ‘For God’s sake, come to me, my darling.’”
Ange did so, his hand shaking slightly.
“Miguel holds letters accusing Buckingham.”
Ange looked at Balmoral with the first real fear he’d felt in his life.
“Tell our Miguel to bring those, too.”
Ange wrote the words.
“Give him one more taste,” said Balmoral, and Ange fainted when the rope tightened around his neck. Balmoral blew on the note and, when the ink was dry, folded it. He picked up all the copies of letters, stood, and the cell door clanged open. Two guardsmen entered with chains, began to lock them to Ange’s legs and arms.
“I want him taken to the White Tower, to a windowless cell like this one, chained to the wall, arms and legs. Food once a day, fed him by Joshua here. If a wax candle or Portuguese orange passes through the door to him, I’ll have the man who brings it killed. Make certain that word spreads. He isn’t to come out of those chains until I personally unlock them. Good day, my angel. Sleep well. Oh, he’s already asleep, isn’t he.”
CHAPTER 40
April
Rock-a-bye baby, thy cradle is green.
Thy father’s a nobleman, thy mother’s a queen….
Arms crossed, Alice sat up in her bed. She slept alone now, no Gracen, no Barbara, and no Renée to share with. She couldn’t sleep. It was becoming her habit at night, to sit and fret. This day, All Fools’ Day, the first of April, she’d spent with her aunt going through a trunk that held her mother’s clothing, gowns crusted with embroideries, lace collars and sleeves, abandoned when her mother ran away to marry her father, kept safe, lavender sprinkled in their folds. We can fashion a gown for your wedding, said her aunt. Then it will be as if your mother were there.
In a month, she would become the Duchess of Balmoral.
No, Balmoral said, I will not have my apartments redone. Yes, he said, you spend any amount on your bedchamber and closet and presence chamber. No, he said, I don’t wish to live at Whitehall all the year. Neither shall you. Yes, you may have as many visitors as you wish. No, I don’t like too much company. Yes, I feel well today. No, I hurt today. Dance until dawn, he urged. You burn your candle at both ends, he complained.
Someone knocked on the maids’ bedchamber. One of the servants lit a candle, and Alice saw in its dim light that Poll opened the door and whispered awhile.
“Captain Saylor is in the antechamber. He says to dress and come at once.”
A last April Fools’ joke? She, who was queen of the April Fool jest? “I’ll do no such thing. Tell him to go away.”
The next thing she knew, Richard stood over her. “Get dressed.”
“On whose orders?”
“Barbara is having her baby. We’re in the second day. She’s asking for you.”
“I can’t.”
“If I have to bundle you up and throw you across my saddle in your nightgown, you are coming with me.” He was stern and fierce, and he waited in the corridor while she dressed. Outside, her groom was holding the horses. Richard held his hands together for her foot. At the last second she hesitated, pride rearing its heavy head.
“Don’t be a fool,” Richard said.
“Do what he says, mistress,” pleaded Poppy.
Alice settled herself in the saddle. They rode past the royal mews to a row of houses on a quiet lane on the outskirts of the city. Fields and farms and meadows would be visible when the sun rose. The bulk of Leicester House would be visible, almost the only structure to the northeast, sitting by itself among its green fields and to the northwest a windmill that ground flour.
As Alice dismounted, Richard took her by the arm. “It’s very serious, Alice.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I fear even the queen’s physician, who was here this afternoon, can do nothing. I’m riding to Tamworth to fetch my mother.” He was back in the saddle and gone before she could respond.
She stood a moment just inside the narrow hall. To her left was a chamber that was used as dining room, parlor, and everything else in between. Directly before her, a narrow stairway marched up to a landing; at the landing a door was visible that must lead to a bedchamber, positioned directly above the chamber to her left. She dropped her cloak near a sleeping servant girl, no more than ten, curled in a ball near the fireplace, in which embers from burned wood glowed. She put her foot on the stair, which creaked with her weight, and above, on the landing, John Sidney appeared, a candle in his hand.
“Alice, is that you? Oh, thank God you’ve come. Thank God.” He met her halfway on the stairs, words falling out almost faster than he could speak them. “I bless you for this. I do. Oh, Alice, it’s taking so long. There’s nothing I can do. Nothing—” His face contorted, but he took a breath, managed to get command of himself. “I don’t want her to hear me.” He wiped his face on the sleeve of his shirt. “Why is it taking so long? I fear for the child. I fear for her.”
“John.” Alice’s tone was clear, cold, calm. “Go outside and walk. Go on. You do not help her with your upset.”
“No, of course I don’t. I’m thinking only of myself, of what I would do if she should—But she’s not. We’re going to get through this. The physician was telling me this afternoon that sometimes it takes a few days. It’s just she is so tired. I don’t see how—”
“Go.”
There was the single door off the landing. Alice could hear groans and pants. Barbara. Barbara was behind this door having a child, and not easily. All her pride, all her righteousness, dissolved, and she felt shame, piercing and clear. Can I bear what’s on the other side? she thought. And then: I can, I will, I must.
She opened the door, took in the sight of Caro on her hands and knees, scrubbing something from the floor, took in the sight of an older woman who she assumed was John’s mother, took in the sight of Barbara’s faithful servant, with her all the time at Whitehall, on the bed behind Barbara propping her up, took in the sight of Barbara, her face twisted as she knelt, arching, groaning, her hands hanging on to a sheet twisted from the rafter that she could use to pull upon, took in the midwife saying, “That’s it, push, breathe out, push, my lady, breathe out.”
Caro stood. “Thank G-God you’ve c-come.”
“What can I do?”
“Rub her feet and l-legs if she stops pushing. I’ve r-rosewater, and it s-seems to soothe her.”
But Alice remained rooted a moment, unable to tear her eyes from Barbara heaving, groaning, arching again and again to push life from her. Dust to dust. In sorrow, thou shall bring forth. Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Purge me with hyssop. Make these bones thou has broken. Suffer the little children. Different verses from endless Lord’s Day sermons flew through her head, and none of them captured all that was in this moment. Barbara let go the twisted arms of the sheet, fell back, gasping, into the arms of her servant. “I can’t!” It was a wail.
“You can, and you will,” said the midwife. “Rest a bit. Time to rest.”
“Alice…” Barbara saw her. A smile lit her face. What is this inside me? thought
Alice, stepping forward to the bed. “Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you,” whispered Barbara.
Caro leaned across the bed to wipe Barbara’s face. She met Alice’s eyes, her expression blank.
It’s my pride breaking, thought Alice, into a thousand foolish, stupid, wicked pieces. “What can I do?”
“Help me. I must have this baby. He promised she would live, but I have to have her for that to be possible. It’s so hard, Alice. Oh, I’m so thirsty.”
Caro helped her to sip from a goblet. Spasms began. Barbara groaned, and a ripple of birth took her body. We are nothing, Alice thought, the strength of what was seizing Barbara’s body filling her with awe and with fear. Barbara struggled to kneel again. Alice and Caro helped, and her servant leaned once more into her back. “The sheet,” Caro said. “Grab the sheet.”
“A birthing chair,” Alice said to the midwife.
“Over there. We’ve tried it.”
A long groan from Barbara.
“Again,” commanded the midwife.
“Johnnnn?” It wasn’t quite a scream. And John was there, his eyes reddened, but his voice calm.
“Come, my love, I’m right here.” He was climbing into bed beside her servant, his hands on her back. “God be with us. And the Blessed Mother. God be with us, and the Blessed Mother…”
TWO HOURS LATER, Alice opened the bedchamber door, stumbled onto the landing, found a corner, and huddled into it, overwhelmed. How could this keep on? How would Barbara survive it? How would the child? In her mind, John was no more an enemy; he was beautiful, calm, and strong, whispering to his wife, kissing her, holding her hands, encouraging her always, not a tear from him. Strong for Barbara, who needed to cling to him, who needed him to be strong when she was so vulnerable. And yet he had to be full to the brim with tears, the way Alice was. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. All the ways she’d judged Barbara…If she survived, she would crawl to her on her knees, begging forgiveness. She would pay whatever penance there was. To see her suffer was so hard. And in that witnessing was the shard, that she loved her friend, always had, always would. Pride had covered it over, but it was unmasked now, its sharp edge glinting. Alice could not escape it: She had made pride more important than love.
She went downstairs, woke the serving girl, took coins from a pocket in her gown. Always have a coin or two about you. She always did. “There’ll be a cook shop open in another hour. Go to it and fetch bread, bacon, ale, wine. My groom is outside. Have him escort you.” John had to eat, his mother, so did Caro, the midwife, herself.
“She’s calling for you.” Caro was at the top of the stairs.
“I’ll be right up.”
Alice opened the front door, stepped out, looked up at the morning stars. Many a night she and Barbara and Caro had been up all night, confessing dreams, hopes, angers, giggling over men. Yesterday. A hundred years ago. All these months she’d wasted. Her groom stepped forward. “Accompany the girl to the cook shop when dawn breaks, Poppy. Spend every pence.”
“Mistress Barbara?”
Alice tried to speak and couldn’t.
BY MIDMORNING, JOHN had set up a prayer stand on the landing, and he and Caro and Alice and his mother took turns at it. People called, Edward for the queen, Fletcher, John’s Mister Pepys, His Majesty’s lord chamberlain, Richard’s sisters, the Duchess of Monmouth, Mulgrave, ladies-in-waiting, grooms of the king’s bedchamber, the queen’s bodyguards, others, the wits made somber by what was occurring, Sedley, Buckhurst, Rochester, Killigrew, the friends Barbara had made during all her years at court.
“My baby, my little girl, she has to be born, she has to be born….”
Barbara said the same thing over and over, but now she could not kneel in the bed. They had carried her to the birthing chair. The physician arrived. Alice felt sick to watch him examine Barbara, who screamed when he probed. The midwife frowned.
“One must be gentle,” she said to Alice.
The physician motioned for John and his mother to follow him out onto the landing. Alice did, too. “I can take the child. It may save her, but will surely kill it.”
John leaned into the wall, aghast, staggered at the decision he must make.
“Not yet,” he finally said.
Alice ran down the stairs. Dorothy, hollow eyed, her face haggard, already pounds lighter, was sitting in the downstairs chamber; so was one of the king’s gardeners. As Dorothy and Alice embraced, the gardener pointed to bunches of flowers standing upright in luminous porcelain vases. “From Their Majesties,” said the gardener, “and Prince Rupert, the Dukes of York and Monmouth.”
“I think she may die,” Alice whispered into Dorothy’s ear. Saying the words made her hurt in a way she hadn’t since she was a motherless girl. “Pray,” she told Dorothy and the gardener, “with all your heart.” They sank to their knees.
Outside, Walter walked forward, while Poppy slept in the shade of a tree near the tethered horses.
“It’s bad,” she told Walter. “Pray.”
Alice went back up the stairs. She’d never felt so clear and clean, for once in her life certain. I make myself a prayer, she told God. I make myself a prayer for my beloved friend, my beloved sister whom I have wronged. I make every breath a prayer to You, every moment, every blink of the eye. Bless us. Keep us, O Blessed Lord. I will be good forever if You spare her. I will give to the poor. I will never quarrel. I will be Your most faithful servant.
She walked into the bedchamber. The physician had taken forceps out of his bag. Alice blinked at the sight of them, then knelt at the foot of the bed so that Barbara could see her face.
“You can do this,” she said, some power, some assurance, some command, some fierceness from she knew not where, in her voice. “I’ll do it with you. Push, my darling, push, and I will push with you.” Barbara took a breath, knelt, John standing behind her to hold her up. She grabbed the sheets, let out a groan, and Alice groaned with her, matching her sound for sound, pushing inside herself at an invisible child.
“Ohhhh…”
“Ahhh…”
Over and over, they moaned together.
“It’s coming,” cried the midwife.
Barbara smiled. Her face was in that moment as beautiful as Alice had ever seen it.
“Push! Our child is here!” said John. And Barbara gave a primal groan, arched herself upward in a long movement, and at the end of the sound, Alice saw something drop between her legs. Barbara fell forward. The midwife snatched up the child and began to fold a blanket around it.
Why isn’t it crying? thought Alice. Shouldn’t there be crying?
She and Caro followed the midwife out into the hall. The woman sat on the top stair, the blanket open, her hands moving over the tiny body. Again and again, she put her mouth to the child’s mouth, blew; she bent it over her arm and stroked its back; she stroked the small chest, the head, the legs. Then she sighed and began to cover the child with the blanket.
“Let me see,” commanded Alice. The midwife pulled back the coverlet. Tiny sweet, thought Alice. Tiny darling, whom my Barbara wanted with all her heart. God bless you and keep you. Her heart felt broken for Barbara.
“I’ll clean her and wrap her in swaddling,” the midwife said.
“I b-brought a l-little g-gown….” Caro was crying.
Alice went back into the bedchamber. Barbara lay on her back, cradled in John’s arms, John’s mother smoothing back her hair, murmuring to her, calling her “darling daughter,” “precious girl.” The physician packed away his forceps and his saw.
“The baby…” Barbara hadn’t much strength, could only mouth the words.
“Being cleaned as we speak.” Alice was bright, clear, decisive. “She looks just like you.”
“I don’t hear her.” Alice had to put her ear on Barbara’s mouth and make her repeat the words.
“She’s mewing like a very small kitten,” Alice answered.
Barbara closed her eye
s.
Alice followed the physician out to the landing. “Will she live?”
“She’s lost much strength. I’ll be back in the morning.”
Alice went downstairs to Dorothy, who opened her arms to enfold her, and Alice allowed the indulgence of being held. Her body hurt. Her throat felt stripped from groaning. Warm water, she thought. Barbara must be bathed, and all the bedclothes changed. “Find a fresh nightgown for your mistress,” she told the little servant girl. “Are there more sheets for the bed?”
“They all be upstairs in a cupboard, lady.”
“Good. Get them. And fetch water. We’re going to be doing some cleaning.” She wanted Barbara resting in clean sheets, in a clean gown. Let me lose myself in action lest I wither in despair. The quote floated up and back down, as did a glimpse of some despair in her, deep as a river.
BY MIDNIGHT, THERE was a rash on Barbara’s legs and abdomen, and she was feverish. She kept asking for her child, as she’d done all night. “I can’t tell her,” said John. They all agreed they wouldn’t tell her yet.
“Nursing,” Alice told her. “Latched to a wet nurse.”
“Sleeping,” Alice said the next time. “I dare not wake her.”
When he visited early the next morning, the physician shook his head as he pulled the blanket back up over Barbara’s legs. Outside on the landing, he said to John the words every man who has ever loved a woman dreaded: “Childbed fever.”
John closed his eyes.
“What does that mean?” Alice demanded, but neither man answered her, so she followed the physician down the stairs. Balmoral was sitting in the parlor, but Alice wouldn’t have cared if it were King Charles himself; she was intent on the physician, on finding out what she had to know. “Is she dying?” Alice said to him.
“Yes.”
She put her hand on his arm. “How long?”
“It can go as long as a week.”
Alice sat on the bottom step, trembling. A week? How could that be possible? A fortnight ago, she had been refusing Barbara’s friendship. What had happened between now and then? How had time become so cockeyed? How could she have cared what her pride said? How could she be the great, huge fool that she was and live?